Image Attempt

I've had poor luck with images in the past... so I'm going to try again. Tell me if you can see the Watergate.

Illegal, But Who Cares

The International Court of Justice in the Hague will issue an advisory opinion on the illegality of the placement of the barrier Israel has been erecting. Because Israel did not submit to the court's jurisdiction, it's an empty opinion, not a real case, but at least it is well established - by a 14 to 1 decision in the most highly regarded international legal body in the world.

The opinion will be released tomorrow at 4pm Eurotime, but InstantReplay has reliable sources who obtained an early copy, which reads:

"The Court is not convinced that the specific course Israel has chosen for the wall was necessary to attain its security objectives... The wall, along the route chosen, and its associated regime, gravely infringe a number of rights of Palestinians residing in the territory occupied by Israel, and the infringements resulting from that route cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order."

This one is up to the U.S. Only you, Uncle Sam, can prevent human rights abuses and war in the Middle East. But with even the American judge, Thomas Buerghenthal, on the Court selling out to political pressure, it's unlikely that any administration in the next 4 years will give the Palestinians a fair shake at the rights to life, liberty, speech, and property.

Lunch Hour

History becomes less interesting when it is less historical. The development of the atomic bomb, garden chemicals, the pill, plastic, and the other scientific advancements that constitute my socio-cultural world are too recent and familiar to be fascinating. They lack the novelty of antiquity, so to speak. In any case, got through the midsection of the "Science in American Life" display. I guess kids growing up now have never seen a Tonka truck or a black & white television.

Oh, and if the Democrats think this administration is scaring us, they should watch some of the reels from Truman through Johnson - that's some scary stuff! "Little Jimmy knows the atomic bomb could explode any time...so when he sees the flash, he ducks and covers". I honestly don't think lying down in the street can save you from getting nuked, but it can almost certainly make you more acquiescent to the demands of your own government. Like the Democrats, I despise the Bush administration's use of fear in gettig Americans to cede their civil liberties; however, I definitely don't trust the Johns on the Left to give us those back. If anything, a John-John administration is going to be more controlling and more fear-mongering, though in a more self-righteously indiscriminate manner.

Crossfire

Woot for Meagan Healy! Her group got tickets to tonight's Crossfire from someone's boss, and they had an extra, so off I go to meet them. More on it tomorrow...

Lunch Hour

Started the "Science in American Life" exhibit at American History today. Pretty good, and thankfully not too indepth. The 1920-1940 room - the last one I saw - ended with a quote by a scientist-turned-politician from the 80's, saying that science has become so complex that most 'civilians' just tune it out, and thus the scientific establishment needs to do a better job communicating their work to the populace. He's right: I almost skipped the exhibit.

Some interesting things...
> The first scientific laboratory was founded at Johns Hopkins in 1876. How does the first lab end up with the name "Laboratory C"?
> Coal is life. You can eat it, take paint off with it, blow it (and everything around it) up, or develop photographs with it, all depending on how many nitrates and such you attach to it. Scary.
> William Jennings Bryan, the greatest American statesman never to be president, was the prosecuting attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial, famous for lines such as "I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than in the age of rocks", was called by his opponent (Clarence Darrow) as a witness for the defense.

Good Books

I polished off a few good books this weekend. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King is Lost on a Mountain in Maine meets Joe Castiglione meets, well, Stephen King. All around a good read (for a Sox fan), and the scariness isn't all that scary.

On the scholarly side, For Cause and Country is one of the best books on the Civil War I've ever encountered. It's a quick read - 200 pages - and is basically a study of 1,000+ diaries and papers of Civil War combatants, written during their service. The question is, Why did they fight? The answer is of course mixed, but author Stephen Ambrose finds that most soldiers joined, stayed, and gave it all in combat because they truly believed in the causes they fought for and had strong loyalty to their comrades. Unlike later American wars, discipline and training were not strong, and officers were not automatically respected. Worth the time to read this one; it sheds light on a different view of manhood from a time and culture not far removed from our own.

2005: The Victory Tour

OK, so it's a job and not a band's touring schedule. Nonetheless, I will be touring the U.S. this coming year for work, and I wanted to let all you groupies know where I'll be ahead of time so you can follow me on the road.

July 29-August 1: Boston & New Hampshire (personal visit)
November 11-13: Northeast Regional Model Arab League (Boston)
Novemberish: Kuwait Studies Program Escort
January 27-28: Atlanta High School MAL
February 17-19: Rocky Mountain MAL (Salt Lake City)
February 24-26: Michigan MAL (Grand Rapids)
March 10-11: Boston High School MAL
March 19: Colorado High School MAL (Denver)
March 30-April 2: National University MAL (D.C.)
April 7-9: Northwest MAL (Portland)
April 14-16: Southwest MAL (Waco, TX)
April 29-30: National High School MAL (D.C.)

So it'll be really busy for a couple months there! I plan to make the most of my trips... my skis are definitely going with me to Salt Lake City and Denver. Michigan in February isn't my idea of a vacation, but Kuwait in November is, so it all works out. A trip to Belgium will get in there somewhere too (maybe over the holidays?), and I'll most likely go on another study abroad trip in the spring or summer next year.

Darfur Info

For any of you interested in learning more about the crisis in Darfur, a new website was launched just recently dedicated to providing reliable factual information.

You Might Be A Nerd If

You visit the U.S. Dept of Agriculture's poultry and egg offices, and ask them which came first.

Dead Sox

If they write an autopsy on the Red Sox this year, I'm not going to read it. Watching the slow and tortured death of this monstrosity has been painful enough as it is.

So Theo, since I know you read InstantReplay regularly, here's my advice: see what the team can do in the next few weeks. Eight and a half games does not a grave make, but we're well on our way, as you know. Let the All-Star Break pass, and if they Yankees falter or we pick up serious steam, then go for it. But if at any time between now and July 30th we fall more than 12 games out, you need - we all need - an exit strategy. Say it's July 16th, and we've just dropped our third straight to fall to 13 games back. Don't mortgage the farm (as has been done every year since 1998) to try and catch up to the Yankees. They're going to get twice what we get at the trade deadline; there's no way around it. Rather, go the opposite way: trade veterans for young talent. There are plenty of close races in the League, and you should be able to get some serious minor league or young major league quality for Nomar, Pedro, and Lowe. Get some young arms, get some prospects, and jettison some salary. Save money - have a war chest for 2005 or 2006 that can put us over the top. We don't have to pretend we're in it every year. If we do make an ill-fated run this year (which it will be if we're already 13 back in July), the negativity will just increase to a crescendo that will drive Nomar and Pedro out of town faster than a New York Yankee stealing second, no matter what you offer them. It's not time to throw in the towel yet, but it will be, and we can't wait until September to admit it.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I saw the movie. You should (but only if you can find it for less than $10). Moore did a good job at keeping it factually ironclad; there's very little that conservatives will be able to say against it. Obviously it's a partisan piece, but most of his criticisms of the administration are legitimate, including the lies they told us to go to war, the cozy relationship with some specific business interests, etc. Every administration in history has had some level of corruption, and it's independent, opposition media like Moore that keep this country as good as it is. Bush needs Moore and his ilk to call him to account, critically examine his policies, and provide Americans with an alternative. You don't have to agree with Moore to see the need for him.

Moore, of course, would do no better in office. Many of his propositions sound like a policy wishlist. Who could be against better-staffed State Police, more intelligent airline security, or more jobs? However, if Moore really had a U.S. budget in front of him, he'd have to make some tough decisions between good policies. Of course, that's something that Bush is exempt from: he (apparently) can slash revenues and increase spending at the same time - and get away with it!

Will this help John Kerry? No, except inasmuch as it hurts Bush. Kerry isn't mentioned once, and the Senate Democrats are portrayed accurately as a group of do-nothing acquiescers "collaborating" (in the words of a recent cartoon) "on their own irrelevancy".

Lunch Hour

Visited a temporary exhibit at American History on the school desegregation battle. It's a pretty emotional place, and they do a good job at mixing facts, text, pictures, and artifacts. White contributors to the struggle get short play, but a few interesting facts I found were:

- Thurgood Marshall argued against one of the top lawyers in the U.S., named Davis, before the Supreme Court, a lawyer whom he'd skipped class to see as a law student at Howard.
- South Carolina spent over $11 million on education in 1930, and (despite almost equal numbers of students) just $1.4 million of that went to black schools.
- Massachusetts was the first state to outlaw segregation (by law in 1855) after an 1840's court case found that segregation was not unconstitutional.
- Howard University, which was the engine behind the legal struggle for civil rights, was founded in 1867 and named for a less-than-successful Union General, O. O. Howard, who commanded the ill-fated 11th Corps at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. His position at the head of the Freedman's Bureau in the Johnson administration (the first pro-civil rights Johnson administration) apparently was enough to overcome his wartime reputation for Howard University's founders.

The lesson of the segregated school struggle is that no matter what politicians say, separate is never equal. Even if equality is attained in spending or output, true equality won't be realized apart from unity. Today, both blacks and whites need to embrace that truth and step outside of comfort zones in the areas of life where our habits and fears keep us apart - leisure, music, travel, and above all church.

Red Sox

I'm listening to the Red Sox get dismantled by the New York Yankees. Not auspicious for my first game of the month.

Apparently, around the time I left Boston, the Red Sox switched souls with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Now quite fully bedeviled, the Sox defense is the 2004 reincarnation of the Maginot Line, and haven't gotten any more effective through rebirth.

I just wish I rooted for a team with good defense... oh wait, I do... BRING ON THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS!

Pats countdown: 72 days. I guess I'll have to listen to some more baseball in the meantime.

Heresy

Mac points out an article on a new, heretical "translation" of the Bible. Rather than translate the Greek simply into a less intellectual dialect of English, the "author" of this heresy takes quite a bit of liberty, interpreting Greek words with the meaning he wants them to have rather than presenting God's word as He wrote it. This type of evil has the potential to do great damage to popular theology - especially since it's endorsed by the spineless Archbishop of Canterbury.

Some of his concepts are clever - like translating "Petrus" as "Rocky" instead of "Peter". Honestly, I think he might be onto something there. However, other "familiarizations" aren't nearly so benign:

In other passages the translator John Henson, a retired Baptist minister, renders “demon possession” as “mental illness” and “Son of Man”, the phrase used frequently to refer to Jesus, as “the Complete Person”... The passage “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from the heaven saying, Thou are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”, becomes: As he was climbing up the bank again, the sun shone through a gap in the clouds. At the same time a pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God’s spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, ‘That’s my boy! You’re doing fine!’ ” space."

Truth has been under attack for a while. I guess a Postmodern "Bible" is as much a product of the worldliness of our times as the Crusades were a product of the worldliness of the Middle Ages.

The Streaker

This is too funny not to post: the Englishman who stripped off his referee costume (and got flattened by at last year's Super Bowl has been fined $1000. That's not much, but he'd be out a small fortune if they charged him the same amount for the other 380+ times he's crossed a sports field nudily. (You can see his website, but don't blame me for your visit to TheStreaker.org.uk)

Lunch Hour

Back to the American History Museum today, this time for a small exhibit called "Bon Appetit", entirely on Julia Child and her kitchen. Her famous room was relocated from Cambridge, Mass, to the museum a few years ago with almost everything in it - the pots, the pans, the Greater Boston YellowBook, everything but the kitchen sink. Oh wait, the sink was there too, never mind.

The exhibit showed film from Julia's television features, and showed how she tried to move American cookery toward the French gourmet attitude. Her promotion of table wines and "European drinking" seem to have had an impact on post-prohibitian America, while her hope that Americans would see cooking as a leisure activity and spend more time making fine meals is, I think, unrealized, as meals continue to move down the less-time, less-cost, more-healthy-faddish route. Somehow I don't think Julia worried much about the carb content in her proudly home-baked French baguette.

Smart Move

Kudos to the professionals in the U.S. administration who put safety before pomp in handing over power this morning to the Iraqi Transitional Government. Besides possibly averting more handover-related violence, this move simultaneously shows that America is in the driver's seat but is not trying to hold onto every vestige of power as long as possible. When Bush set the June 30th deadline, many thought it would be difficult to realize. The rapidity, however, with which Iraqis have taken over the government in June enabled today's ceremony to take real meaning.

We've come a long way in the last 50 years towards letting professionals weigh in on tactical decisions like this one. If only the people at the strategic decision-making level in this administration could show this type of intelligent professionalism!

Rwanda Story Part II

This is the second piece of the story that my friend Gaudin has emailed to me. His account as a young boy during the war and genocide of 1994 begins below in the post "Darfur and Rwanda". To follow up on that post, the Republican Senators' appeal seems to have borne fruit already, as Colin Powell is now planning a visit to the Sudan, where he will hopefully be able to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

Here is Gaudin's letter:

Dear friend, morning, are u ok? thanks alot, the yesterday i told you about my life in short and today i am going to tell you about the day on that i started the suffering for the first time. As i did tell you before, it was on sunday the day of prayers, on my way home, i saw many people being beaten by the soldiers me too i was told to sit down to be beaten, so i did as i was told they did this by telling me that i have to agree that i smoke the hemp. This was their way to find the cause of leading us to the commune office telling that we are bad people. So i denied then i was beaten very much and if you really remember i showed you the scars in my arms because i was very tied. Then i passed the night tied and being beaten on monday morning i was led to the dungeon to put me into the cell in 1995. For this reason i could not to eat any thing. My mother knew that i went to pray, but she didn't know what happened to me. I passed about one week without taking any thing. i was about to die, so after my mother knew where i was put she came and at the first sight she wept and because i could not hold any thing like the food she saw how i was beaten. She returned home and the second time she came with butter to smear on my body as a cure, for i could not find any means to go to the hospital. The Red Cross workers used to enter our jail but the soldiers hid me so as not to be seen by those Red Cross workers in order to report. So i passed 4 months in this bad stuation. in this time I was very suffered. Many people with me there were killed but God almighty kept me safe. Then after these 4 months I was led to another prison in Nyanza, the ancient royal palace, where i passed 4 years without beind asked why i am jailed. Then i was shown bad things there they used to give me the thoad to put in my teeth as torture saying i am still young i can beget so remember i am minor indeed but the law doesn't permit the young boys in this age to be put to jail, but they did, so i was put to the bowls to breathe the smell of urine and excrement so as to be harmed. Ok my dear friend, i passed many days without anything to eat as it was far from home. It was very difficult to find what to eat. You know in jail there are many sodomites who sodomise young people some times they have sex with them by force and by bribing them with food. In these bad days so not to eat and not to be. In this day in order to find something to eat it was very difficult but God was around because i entered the jail as a Christian. God helped so much i did not break his law by the stomach, remember DANIEL IN BABYLONIAN EMPIRE (Daniel chapter 2). So after this bad situation where i slept with a corpse, that is to say dead people, so as to make me suffer, i was asked by the living people saying i killed them. This is to make file so it was lie but because i was child who the law defends UNICEF said they have to set us free. They said we have to show the cards in church to justify that we are children i gave it that says i was under 14 years. Then they gave me transfer from Nyanza to Butare again. know you visited it last time. OK arriving there they did not set me free, but they went with me on my village to look for people to charge me. They found nothing then they did not set me free but after this time the file was in vain so after 3 years they set me free. From 1995 until 2003 (in this year i met you) i was set free by the president's communique! So i was put in jail being innocent and under 14 years so i will tell you about my life after my liberation and abouy the truth of the war, ok? MY LIBERATION, OK CIAO BROTHER BE CARE AND COOL .

Note: I think Gaudin was freed through the new "Gachacha" Court system. The Rwandese government realized in 2002 or so that they had a 200 year backlog of cases, and needed to speed it up. So they introduced a new system, by which lower-level suspects, like Gaudin, could be quickly dealt with. They were taken to their home villages, and villagers who knew them could accuse them of crimes. Before this they were asked to confess what they had done, and knowing they would be confronted by those who had been there was an added incentive to confess. If they confessed to minor crimes, and those were confirmed (and nothing more uncovered) by the Gachacha village court, then the villagers would have the chance to forgive the suspect and let him come back into society. This is the #1 most civilized, socially advanced, godly, and redemptive legal system I think I've ever seen. We're counting on this measure and similar ones to knit Rwanda back together.

You Might Be A Nerd If...

You have a business card that looks like a baseball card, including your photo with a batting helmet on and notes saying, "Bats Right" and "Programs Right".

Lunch Hour

Got free smoothies at a "grand opening" event today... tasty!

Also finished up the "Information Age" exhibit. Not particularly fascinating, unless you're into vacuum-tube-era computers. They did have a cool feature on Garry Kasparov v. Deep Blue, which the computer won in 1997. They even had a looped video showing the progress of the decisive 6th game, in which Kasparov made an early mistake and lost in just 19 moves! The most exciting thing about chess is that it's not "hard" in the execution sense: I could have made exactly the same set of moves that Kasparov made (of course, it would have been by accident). There's nothing that separates the novice from the International Grandmaster except the ability to make better decisions on each turn. Does that make any sense?

Darfur and Rwanda

Kudos to Republican Senators Mike DeWine and John McCain for bringing the snowballing Darfur crisis to Americans' attention in their co-authored Washington Post story today. They correctly cite the Rwandese genocide as a precedent, and their call for international action should be heeded, both in Washington and in New York.

I recently asked a friend I met in Rwanda to email me some of his stories from the genocide. He had told me some things in person, things that would turn your stomach. His name is Gaudin and he is a Hutu. He was in prison for 7 years on charges of genocide, and was released recently as part of a new (and very well-conceived) justice system the government began employing in 2002. Here is his first letter, edited to make it readable:

Dear Salim, I am very happy to take this time to tell you all that you asked me to make you know, but I want to start by telling u all of my history because is the first thing in the world that made me to tell you the firsts things that happened in my life. But i want to apologize because my history contains many bad things then i beg your pardon. I was born in 1980, the 21st of September. I come from a poor family with 6 children. I am the 4th child. At age 2 i went to my grandparents to be brought up by them, but meanwhile there was not any relationship between my father and mother. Then my mother made up her mind to go away from my father. Then I stayed alone and she went away with her 4 children, 1 stayed with my father, and me i was still at grandfather's. Then after my grandparents' death I was still a child indeed. Then the life was very difficult to me. To find a place to live is another thing. My father was strict that he would not support me. I missed a place to live. I had an uncle here in Kigali but he did not want to take me at his home. Then as I was in primary 2 I dropped out. I went to live in a neighborhood. I reealy remember some times I used to beg what to eat then I survived like this, my brother. I had another aunt near my home then she felt shame and she came and told me to come to her home. She had begotten 4 children (all boys) but only one lived at home, the others in town. Then I had to do all the work; the work of girls and boys like to sweep; to chop the trees down and so on... But although it was like this she put me in class again. It was a great thing to me. Then I continued my studies without knowing where my mother was. Sometimes i had nostaligia of her but in vain. After that time my father who did not take care of me died. This made my mother come back with the 4 childen whom i have not known for they went while i was still young at my grandparents. It was a great day for us though it was the day that my father died. For me to see my mother and brothers it was funny indeed. So after one year being together the war started. I was at the age of 13 and 5 months. It was very difficult to see it as a child of this age, my friend. In this war I was very fightened. My mother made up her mind to move from home to our neighbourhood. The killers came and robbed our house saying that we hid those wanted in that war but it was their manner to steal. Then this war killed my uncle that i said before who lived in Kigali and his wife and children, my cousins and all of my friends of my age. Dear Salim, to say about war is another thing but the truth is this the war is bad all in all. In this time i saw the houses burn, many people in the mountains killing others without a shame, so let me tell you today about my life and the war I will tell it after. OK, the time had came for us to flee from our houses this the war of R.P.F. to take the country so many people died and others fled to the D.R. Congo where my 4 brothers died and after 7 months we turned back to our homes but there was nothing. Everything lost. I came with my mother and my younger sister but one of my brothers was in Kigali before then. I started a new life to live with people whose hearts were broken and who missed their relatives indeed. It was very difficult. After 7 months, on July the 5th, 1995, on sunday in my way home from the church I was arrested by soldiers with a great heap in their hands. Then I saw many people sitting and being beaten and they compelled me to say that I smoke a hemp, never in my life even the cigar then they told me to sit down and be beaten too. THE FIRST DAY OF MY SUFFERING . SEE LATER . OK MY DEAR I WILL CONTINUE OK CIAO.

The only thing needed for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

The Webmaster is in

I began the webmastery part of my job today, updating the front page at www.NCUSAR.org. Please check it over if you have a few minutes (as well as subordinate pages) and tell me how they look on your browser (also tell me what browser version and what screen resolution you're using). If you don't know what any of that means, just see if there's anything that looks out of date. Thanks!

Lunch Hour

I visited my first Smithsonian museum today, American History. There's also Natural History, Air and Space, Postal, and a bevy of art galleries, plus the non-Smithsonian Holocaust Museum and National Galleries of Art. I'm not sure how long each one will take me - at least a month a piece, I'd guess - but you'll know way more than you ever wanted to before I'm done.

Today's exhibit: The Information Age. The beginning of the exhibit follows the development of data processing and information systems through 1939. Interesting material, lots of artifacts, and well displayed - you could even hear audio of a sermon from 1858 marking the occasion of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Interestingly, British and American telegraph users had major differences. In Britain, they developed technology to automatically transcribe the telegraphs, printing out the words as they arrived. In the U.S., it was generally cheaper to train and employ armies of experts who could transcribe telegraphs from Morse Code as fast as the machines could print. The result: American telegraphs arrived handwritten, British ones typewritten.

Lunch Hour

Actually went out to lunch today, with fellow blogger and all-around cool guy Paulo. Got a sandwich and two drinks free at Chipotle...never let anyone tell you that there's no benefit to arriving during a hectic lunch hour when the cashiers are too rushed to re-enter an order.

Not much else to say except check out this site that Paulo mentioned: johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com. The content is as confusingly verbose as the name, and indeed as the candidate himself.

Lunch Hour

There is no promise on this becoming a regular feature, but if it does, this is the first of the series. The idea is that if I continue to visit D.C. museums during my lunchtimes, I will convey some of what I see and learn to my readers. I welcome your feedback and input on the contents and format of this feature as it is in its formative stages.

Today, I walked a block down to the National Geographic building. I've already exhausted the "Dogs" exhibit in their mini-museum, so I moved on through the courtyard to the lobby art exhibit in their main building. World Refugee Day is June 20th, and in honor of that event, National Geographic let the UN High Commission on Refugees set up a small exhibit outside, consisting of two frame tents, each filled with the rudimentary supplies given to new refugee families. Heavy plastic sheeting and a few blankets protect them from the elements, and a bag of water, a can of vegetable oil, a sack of grain, and a handful C-rations complete the package.

The art exhibit itself was excellent. It featured mononymous Afghan photographer Zalmai, who fled his home with the first wave of refugees in 1980. The photographs were not a plotless documentary, but a story, in which the main characters are the photographer and his nation. He wrote in a short introduction that this was his third tour as a photographer for a Western newspaper in Afghanistan. In 1996 and 2000 (I think) he did shoots first of the civil war and then of the refugee camps under the Taliban. As always he used black and white film. However, when he covered the liberated country in 2001 and 2002, he used for the first time color film to capture the hope and life returning to the people. You can view a selection of the shots online.

In another wing, the UNHCR exhibited photos from a school-kid contest on the theme "A Place to Call Home". Most of the photos were what you would expect of elementary, middle, and high-schoolers, though obviously far above average. One artist - a 12th grader named Tania Ku - stood out noticeably. She could become a professional if she keeps up the quality of work she showed there: an oil painting of four overlapping scenes, with excellent coloring and exceptional detail.

Why I Agree With Arik

It's rare that I agree with Ariel Sharon. He's a war criminal found guilty by his own country, he's a nationalist with serious antipathy towards other races, and he's a fat bastard who owns a huge sheep farm on land that he took without paying for. There's not much we agree on, Arik and I.

In the comments to the last post Parker challenged my views on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, known as the Occupied Territories or "OT's". I answered his allegations about legality in the comment; that's all pretty abstrusive stuff. However, the bigger political question is, What is good for Israel? This is important because the Palestinians are powerless, so asking, What is good for everyone? is a purely academic/moral question. What is good for Israel? is a vital political question, because Israel holds all the cards and will act in her own perceived best interest. Arik - ever the realist - and I agree on all of that, I suspect.

More importantly, we agree on what should be done about Gaza. Sharon owns the largest farm in Israel, or so they say, and it's located in the Gaza Strip. He's willing to give that up - not only that but all of Israel's footholds in Gaza plus four West Bank settlements - in exchange for nothing. His cabinet isn't so sure, and the far right has jumped ship, but Labor is propping up Sharon's minority government long enough to see the plan through.

Why is Sharon risking his political life for this plan? Obviously not for personal gain - he's being investigated for shady business deals elsewhere, but he's not gaining power or money by supporting this plan. I doubt that the goal is to curry favor with Arabs at home or abroad - they hate him more than you and I can know. Why then? Because it's the undoubted best thing for Israel.

Sharon knows that the Arab states around him pose no threat anymore, save through the deployment of WMD's, should they ever begin to catch up to Israel in that department. And precisely because Israel has nukes, few Arab rulers would ever risk their own destruction by deploying those conventionally. More likely, a terrorist group would shadily acquire them from outside the Arab world, and deploy them as they might any other suicide bomb, but with far worse consequences. Israel has no reason to fear its neighbors; but fearing terrorism is all they've done for 15 years.

Sharon knows, and we should all admit, that there are just two ways to end terrorism. First is to commit genocide, and even the Butcher of Beirut can't bring himself to authorize that. Second is to physically separate the terrorists from their target. The disengagement plan would cut off Gaza, the prime source of terrorism, from Israel, and force it back into Egypt's court. Egypt probably isn't too excited about this, but that's neither here nor there. By pulling out of four West Bank settlements, Sharon can consolidate his position there as well, making the border less porous and presenting fewer targets. Now, I think Israel would finally realized peace by going the whole nine yards and getting out of the West Bank, but Gaza is at least a start.

If you are a Zionist, you have to ask yourself what you want: an Israeli state, safe for Jews and tourists, or Israeli expansion, at the cost of safety. Sharon has admitted after a third of a century in politics that he can't have his cake and eat it too. Can you admit that, Parker, or is it going to take you a third of a century as well?

Theft

Israel has a right to build a fence/wall/security barrier or whatever you want to call it, around her own borders; let there be no doubt about that. It's not the most positive step to take, but if it can successfully disengage the parties then it's a necessary evil.

However, as work on the wall has continued, the Sharon government's expansionist policies have shone through clearer and clearer. Now they are considering sending the barrier into the heart of the West Bank to the large, illegal Ariel settlement, effectively splitting the West Bank into thirds (the southern third is already split off by Jerusalem, Maale Adummim, and the Jericho highway).

What's more, Palestinians have been peacefully protesting the construction - and getting zero publicity. If we want to see terrorism end, perhaps we should make it a policy to pay attention to those who protest injustice nonviolently! Not only should the U.S. government (as well as the Israelis) give nonviolent Palestinians a voice, but U.S. networks should make a point to give coverage to them, instead of only to the violent and horrific.

The Internet Works!

I just did a touchdown dance all the way through the office (yes, I'm serious)! Our internet connection is connecting, and The Computer Guy Named Rick is the man of the hour. My exile has been ended, and I've got plenty of email to plow through now.

I finished up the "Dogs" exhibit at the National Geographic Museum today. They've got some touching stuff about people and dogs, and some cool features about dogs senses and how they differ from ours, but it's still short on content. I'm considering making a daily feature out of my museum visits, at least if I keep visiting these freebies.

In other news, I've moved into my new digs in Clarendon, and my roommates are cool, laid back, and helpful. The room looks a lot better now that it's full of my stuff. Now I just need to go shopping for food.

Congratulations to Steve and Rebekah McHugh, now enjoying the Cayman Islands, among other things, together. Their wedding was a huge success, and everyone had a blast. After seeing how well it went, I've decided that I'm definitely going to elope when the time comes, because there's no way I can follow that act.

My new address is 2608 12th St. N, Arlington, Virginia, 22201. Also, if you don't have my new cell number, drop me an email and I'll send it to you. Since I don't have email access at home, phone works better than email.