FOOTFALLS

FOOTFALLS

it is 10:00 on a sunday morning. i can hear my neighbor above me walking around her apartment in her bare feet. her steps are more forceful than morning's first, tentative, reluctant steps. she's been up awhile, thinking of and preparing for the day's activities.

i think that my neighbor is young and beautiful. there is one such woman in my building and i was in an elevator, diffused with her perfume, with her one time and when i got off on my floor she continued riding it up. but i am on the 4th floor of an 8-story building. i remember my high school french teacher imagining the beautiful woman behind the beautiful voice on the radio and the woman turning out to be kate smith.

so i prefer my imagination.

i imagine my neighbor still wearing her night clothes, panties and a little tee shirt. women are so wonderful. so charming, so fascinating. the most charming and fascinating of them are those that have little awareness of the effect on men of their unselfconscious actions.

were i able to observe my neighbor now, i would be aroused by the flesh and the undress but also, really, my soul would be touched and my curiosity enlivened by her grace, her lack of self-awareness, her charm--in all, by the allure and mystery of her femininity.

i hear different footfalls from my neighbor on saturday nights. her soft bare-foot step is transformed into the familiar click-clack of high heels. i hear the outer metal screen security door on her apartment shutting behind her and i hear her footfalls no more.


-benjamin harris

speaking of underdogs...

CONGRATULATIONS to erika ebbel for winning the miss massachusetts title. ms. ebbel will compete in the miss america pageant in september.

why an underdog? ms. ebbel just graduated from mit. yes, MIT, as in the massachusetts institute of technology, where you're as likely to find a miss america contestant as in the women's jail.

-benjamin harris

UNDERDOG SUPPORTERS

UNDERDOG SUPPORTERS

about a year ago the annoying-voiced npr sports commentator frank deford did a piece in which he professed his favoritism of "second" universities, those institutions that are forever damned to live in the shadow of their larger "university of" brethren and which are identified as second-rate in academics, sports performance and fan support by their "state" suffix. thus mississippi state to the university of mississippi, and so on.

the "state" label is not always fail-proof in identifying "second" universities, ohio state and penn state being the preeminent examples. but more often than not it is.

deford's point struck home with me, an inveterate supporter of the underdog. i am after all one who, while floundering about for a soccer team to support after my mls favorite went under, latched onto none other than manchester city, the east end rival to one of the most famous and most wealthy soccer clubs in the world, manchester united.

the psychology behind such volitional masochism i leave to another day, but widespread it undeniably is to support the underdog in competition.

and so, carrying deford's standard forward into battle, i hereby offer this list of underdogs that i, and i urge all readers of this page to, pledge undying loyalty to, especially when they play the hoi-poloi "universities of..."

in random order they are:

1. WASHINGTON STATE. the apple bowl trophy belongs in pullman.

2. OREGON STATE. their nickname is the beavers.

3. MISSISSIPPI STATE. one of my favorites. a real cow college whose fans ring real cow-bells. upon winning the egg bowl their black players should be allowed to take liberties with the southern belle cheerleaders of "ole miss."

4. IOWA STATE. i really like iowa. the hawkeyes, a long downtrodden program revived by hayden fry but the cyclones are clearly second-fiddle in the state and their uniforms are like something out of the xfl.

5. MICHIGAN STATE. nick saben left because he said he didn't want to continually beat his head against a wall recruiting against a "university of..." u.m. has the big house, a real grass field, a glorious fight song and great helmets. m.s.u's dominant color is green and their helments are adorned with a white "S."

6. UTAH STATE. hell, these guys are THIRD-class citizens in the land of 10,000 virgins behind b.y.u. and the university of. what the hell's their nickname, the utes? or is that the university of?

7. FRESNO STATE. when u.s.c. deigned to play the bulldogs in some third tier bowl a few years ago, their fans carried signs saying "my maid went to fresno state." postscript: the maids beat the trojans.

8. NEW MEXICO STATE. same thing as with utah state. are they the lobos or is that the university of? it is this kind of anonymity that makes for a true underdog.

9. IDAHO STATE. in a small state, like new mexico, utah, mississippi, or idaho, it must be particularly punishing to go to the state school.

10. KANSAS STATE. the only controversial choice on this list. bill snyder transformed this worst-program-in-the-history-of-college-tackle-football into a perrenial powerhouse topped off by last year's quinella of wins over nebraska and then, shockingly, oklahoma in the big 12, sorry big XII, championship game.

further, the university of SUCKS in tackle football. almost always has. never mind. underdogs can win sometimes and it's said that recruiting a blue-chipper to go to manhattan, kansas is as hard as it gets.

u.k. has got one of the storied basketball programs in the sport, james naismith, and they get the best and the brightest of the state. "rock-chalk jayhawk!" stick it in your ear.

11. NORTH CAROLINA STATE. this is almost the identical situation as in michigan with u.m. and m.s.u. u.n.c. has got cool powder blue unis and the greatest facilities that tobacco road's drug money can buy. n.c. state's got red helmets with and "S" on them.

12. EAST CAROLINA. like the station occupied by utah state, the pirates are third fiddle in the state, have a terrible academic reputation and hideous purple and gold uniforms. GO PIRATES!

13. UTEP. they have inherited the mantle of worst program in history since kansas state's resurrection. they are every team's choice for homecoming opponent. but, when they were texas western, they knocked off adolph rupp's kentucky wildcats to win the national championship in basketball. did it with an all black team against all white u.k.

14. OKLAHOMA STATE. the 'boys have had flirtations with greatness. thurman thomas, barry sanders. but they are continually outrecruited and blasted by their betters in norman. last year their coach said before the big game, "there's going to be a great football team and a very good football team playing on saturday and we're going to find out which is which. " o.u. won by something like 63-14

15. COLORADO STATE. sonny lubick is a fine coach and he has made this a respectable program. plus they give as good as they get in their games against the c.u. rapists.

that's all folks. let's all get on these schools websites and order their tee shirts.

-benjamin harris,
president, united underdogs of america

FUTBOL IN AMERICA

chelsea and a.s. roma drew 25,000 in pittsburgh last night.
manchester united and glasgow celtic drew 55,000 in philly.

i have a modest proposal for major league soccer.

include some of the top european and south american teams in the mls playoffs and get one or two of the best mls teams invited to participate in the champions league.

"harris, you're nuts! NUTS! NUTS! why would the european teams do it and risk their prestige? why would mls risk being unmasked by 6-0 outcomes?"

think about it for a minute.

(1) there IS, and always has been, a market for top flight soccer in the u.s.: the cosmos, rowdies, the u.s. women's team's win over china, etc., etc. people just ain't gonna turn out for the equivalent of triple a or double a ball just 'cause it has fifa's imprimatur as "first division."

(2) mls is in a sisyphean rut of mediocrity. they are not taken seriously, they never WILL be taken seriously until they prove themselves in REAL matches--not friendlies--against the top world teams.

(a) mls is literally building in this mediocrity with this mindless craze for soccer-specific stadia. it started in columbus and then l.a. dallas has one in the works as do the metro stars and the fire and colorado just got one approved.

what's the matter with that?

they all seat 20,000-25,000. mls wants to build in "intimacy," "tradition;" what they're building in is the financial impossibility of ever becoming truly big league.

(3) european soccer teams aren't the girlie-men that sports teams are in the u.s., afraid of taking on an inferior opponent and risking a loss of prestige, a la the university of florida refusing to play florida state until the legislature intervened, same thing with the university of kentucky and louisville, etc.

in england the fa cup is open to every pro soccer team in the country, like the old indiana high school basketball tournament. so you get arsenal playing matches that count against podunk united and the like. they ain't skaed.

(4) not that man-u and real madrid need the cash but capitalism is all 'bout "expanding markets." man-u has already signed a joint promotional arrangement with the yankees. america is almost as lucrative an untapped soccer market as china was for coca-cola and marlboro.

(5) mls WILL suffer some embarassing results. so did the afl in super bowls I and II. but just as that was the only way for the afl to gain credibility, this is the only way for mls.

mls does have some real world-class talent. the u.s. national team, heavily stocked with mls players, has been consistently ranked around 10th in the world. last time i checked they were
(and have often been recently) one spot ahead of the english!

this is all about "upside." there WILL be some upsets, just as there are every year in the ncaa basketball tournament. some 15 seed knocks off some 2. happens every year.

IMAGINE if the galaxy beat real madrid!!! forget the "intimacy" of the home depot center. they'd have to hold the galacians next match in the rose bowl to accomodate the crowd.

...

and now, back to more realistic things, like "the war is with islam."


-benjamin harris

TRUE CRIME STORIES

TRUE CRIME STORIES

in court yesterday waiting for the end of calendar and the start of my trial, a wretched combination of boredom and anxiety.  arraignments, miscellaneous reports on the status of cases, my mind drifting from the banal chatter of the calendar call to my trial.

former judge tom johnson addressing the court on the status of one of his clients.  "...and then two DUDES jump in my client's car and when everything's said and done, there are a bunch of stolen checks, money orders and bags of marijuana..."

tom delivers his factual proffer absolutely straight-faced, his client standing next to him doing his best impersonation of the wrongfully-accused. i laugh inside but almost audibly, a smile crosses judge miranda's face.

i step out for a second to get a drink of water or something.  i return a minute later,  "...so as you can see judge, arthur here was the victim of circumstances..."

 
-benjamin harris

 

started again to read john bunyan's "pilgrim's progress." don't know why it's considered such a classic of literature. it is neither a classic nor literature in my opinion.

the first time i started reading it, a few months ago, i got bored with its religious theme, and depressed that it seemed so like sayed qutb's "in the shade of the koran."

even on two adderal yesterday i found it the same in this second attempt at reading only more so.

then i read in the introduction that it had been widely read in some islamic circles. ugh.

the koran, "shade" and pilgrim's progress really do have a lot of similarities, very allegorical/metaphorical, very "fundamentalist," very intolerant of "unbelievers," totally accepting of the infallibality of "the book," very totalitarian.

bunyan says, as does the koran, that it is better to leave one's wife and children in their unbelief and pursue the path of holiness than stay with them and live in error.

like muhammad, bunyan was persecuted, jailed, and has the (some) victims rage against his persecutors, all cloaked in what is meant to be the soothing light of divine wisdom.

like muhammad, bunyan seems to me likely to be diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic grandiose-type and anti-social personality by today's psychiatrists.

made me think: how many women have written books like this?

is it only men who have seen themselves as the offspring of god, chosen by Him personally to deliver His message to the world?

pilgrim's progress also was a splash of cold water in the face for my view of the relative benignty of christianity. we have become so pluralistic, so ecumenical in the west that few of the even the hardest line religious hard liners would write something like pilgrim's progress today.

reinforced my disgust with religion generally also. the most murderous thought disorder in human history.

most of the time i honestly respect people of non-intrusive religious faith. "faith" itself, in general, is a good thing i think. i accept kierkegaard's point of the limits of human cognition and the necessity to take the "leap of faith" that SOMETHING must/might be beyond its ken.

but then i read stuff like the koran, "shade" and "pilgrim's progress" and i just get so disgusted and angry.

man, i'm really in trouble if there really is a god.


-benjamin harris

"...i only thought to make
i knew not what; nor did i undertake
thereby to please my neighbour; no, not i,
i did it my own self to gratify.
neither did i but vacant seasons spend
in this my scribble; nor did i intend
but to divert myself in doing this,
from worser thoughts, which make me do amiss."

-john bunyan, "the pilgrims's progress."

ON, "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS," II i registered my objections to what little doctrine or prescription there was in CLASH in "clash I." that was accepting the usefulness of huntington's civilizational map-redrawing. i don't accept that either. samuel huntington has long been an eminent scholar and was a foreign policy advisor in jimmy carter's administration. he is a serious man. he thinks big thoughts. he has what yogi berra would call "deep depth." there is little if any of this on view in the descriptive portion of CLASH which makes up eleven of the book's twelve chapters. the book is one of those dark malthusian works in which subtlety and complexity are beaten into submission to fit "the model." it's in the vein of paul kennedy's RISE AND FALL OF THE GREAT POWERS of the '80's which predicted the end of american economic supremacy and the ascendancy of the japanese. it is a high-brow version of those MEGATREND books by whoever that knucklehead was, john naismith, james naismith, whatever. it also reveals more about huntington himself, the way he thinks, what his prejudices are, what his world view is, than it does about how the world is actually is. descriptively, CLASH is simple, brilliant but simple. if you read the original FOREIGN AFFAIRS article or even if you've talked to someone who has for 15 minutes you get the point. i think the book fits well in describing america's relationship to islam. i think we are in a clash there but huntington divides the whole world up into different civilizations. for the record these are: -the west -orthodoxy (russia, et al) -the sinic -the japanese -the latin american -the islamic -the hindu -the buddhist -the african (maybe) it is a fair summary of the book to say that huntington views these as clashing civilizations also. huntingtonists would assert that that is a distortion, and obviously not all the civilizations are at present--nor may they be in the future--in conflict with one another, but the clear point is that these civilizations and their interests are so different that they will inevitably clash with each other at some time over something. this does not necessarily mean civilizational war but clashes at least. these clashes are made all the more intractable because as huntington wrote in the original CLASH article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist today can become a capitalist tomorrow, but an armenian can never become a turk." world history certainly suggests that this may be correct. humanity indeed has a very bloody history but huntington's world view is very dark indeed, darker i think, than it is useful to view it as. in the first chapter, under the pretense of surveying the different ways in which the post-cold war world has been viewed by OTHERS, huntington quotes from a novel called DEAD LAGOON by michael dibdin: "there can be no true friends without true enemies. unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are." that is shocking, and huntingtonists would say "he's not saying that's what his view is, in fact he specifically introduces the paragraph from which that excerpt is taken by saying 'one grim weltanschauung for this new era was well expressed by the venetian nationalist demogogue' in dibdin's book." that is apologia however, not truth, because on the next page huntington does not quote from a book of fiction, he states as his own view: "we know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against." huntington's entire world view as expressed in CLASH is of a world in conflict. fukuyama i challenge the most basic civilizational categorization by huntington. i have argued here previously and do so now again, that there is no "western civilization" that has geopolitical or doctrinal meaning. huntington conflates europe and the united states and their interests. i separate them. his argument and mine are easy to defend. his is that america is the product of european thought, settled by european peoples. mine is that although that is true, america broke away from europe demonstrably, we fought two wars against england itself, our "mother country" for heavens's sake, we have fought two world wars with european states, wars which huntington classifies as essentially "western civil wars." from the perspective of the other side of the atlantic, the european union was not conceived as a proto-alliance with the united states but as a counterweight to it. our culture rankles europe in the same way, although not with as much violence, as it does islam. it is tempting to say in the post-cold war era that the atlanticist military alliance of nato should be perpetuated into this new era. in fact that is what huntington says. in fact, as mentioned in "clash I" he argues for expanding it to other western countries in europe. i think he is dead wrong, wrong, wrong about that and have argued it previously. nato was a military alliance for the cold war. it made sense then to obligate each alliance member to the defense of the other if attacked by the other half of that bi-polar world. an attack on germany--or france or england--would have and should have resulted in a combined response by the other nato member states. in like manner the united states had military treaties with south korea against aggression from the north, with taiwan against aggression from the prc. the problem is WE STILL HAVE THOSE TREATIES! we are still treaty-bound to defend those countries if attacked even though the raison d'etre for the treaties, the threat from the soviet union and from communist china, DON'T EXIST ANYMORE! what the hell sense does that make? further, huntington would EXTEND these treaties to, as he says on page 312, "the western states of central europe...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia." and in fact we've done that. we are now obligated to defend poland against attack FROM ANYONE. does the american public realize any of this? huntington, completely contrary to american foreign policy history, common sense, and present realities, would extend our foreign policy obligations far beyond our shores and our national security interests. all this because we are "kin" with these other states in the civilization of "the west." BULLshit. huntington says that the western civilization is unique, not universal but unique. in fact it is the AMERICAN civilization that is unique, although i agree with him that it should not be presumed to be universal (it may be though). huntington urges a rigid construct and responses by "the west" in response to clashes with other civilizations. in fact, it is precisely because america has never been caught in rigid, ossified constructs of any kind, much less in foreign affairs, that we have survived and flourished. our federalist system grounded us philosophically in non-involvement in others affairs, our "rugged individualist" psychology did the same, our geographic isolation has helped us avoid the "entangling alliances" that woodrow wilson warned against. for these reasons and more, america has retained a diplomatic nimbleness that has allowed us to: -become the closest of allies with the england, the country we separated from and fought two wars against. -become the closest of allies with germany who we fought two wars against. -become the closest of allies with japan who we dropped atomic bombs on. -waited out the collapse of our cold war mortal enemy, the soviet union, and have become friends, if not the closest allies with its successor, russia -waited out the less dangerous standoff with the prc. the prc has not ceased to exist as has the soviet union but it is no longer the communist state that it was under mao and our relations with it have reflected that change. just these examples illustrate (1) the fallacy of huntington's "western civilization" fantasy (2) the fallacy that we can not form alliances with states from other civilizations (russia, japan, china)and (3)the disastrous policy consequences to accepting huntington's dark division of the world. in huntingtonia, we will always be in some civilizational opposition to russia. never mind that the soviet union has ceased to exist, never mind that russia has at times been an important american ally since 1989, never mind that it is now part of the g-8, never mind that, with whatever difficulty, it is trying really hard to become democratic and market-oriented economically. for huntington this is all pap. russia can never become western. it will always be orthodox. biology is not destiny, culture is destiny. culture, a creation of man, can never be undone. once created it is forever. similarly, he opposes the expansion of the european union to include turkey because it is a state from another civilization and hence it can never be made to fit. the world is not like that as the examples of germany, japan, russia, china, etc. show. people, countries, civilizations can change if only to be less rigid and more tolerant of others. the world is also too complex for one state, much less the most powerful state, to be forever locked into a rigid construct of "civilizational" alliance. as argued here in "international federalism," the united states should maintain shifting alliances as our national security requires: with israel and perhaps england in the middle east, with russia in its own clash with islam, with all of the nuclear powers in all the civilizations to reduce nuclear stockpiles and enforce non-proliferation. and etc. huntington's prescription is not for how to deal with conflict if it occurs. structurally, he BUILDS IN conflict. he divides the world up into eight, maybe nine, clashing civilizations, he urges alliances whose only purpose is to set up an us vs. them posture, he wishes to expand those alliances which will heighten the chance of conflict, he would re-do the u.n. security council so that all the major civilizations would be represented, thus again building in conflict in the one world organization that is to prevent, not just manage, conflict. it is not to "our western heritage" that america should return in meeting the challenges of the post-cold war world. it is to our own uniquely american heritage, of federalist acceptance of diversity and tolerance, non-involvement in the affairs of others, intellectual modesty over the applicability of our experience elsewhere, realpolitik realization of the dangerousness of entangling alliances, and generosity, both of spirit and of treasure. it is the american--not the western or the singaporean (!?)--experiment in all these matters that gives hope that there may be a "thin" connective tissue among civilizations that allows mankind to transcend differences and avoid clashes. -benjamin harris

ON "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS," I

ah, man. just finished CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (the book). what a disappointment.

i have repeatedly held up the "clash" model as the one through which we should view our conflict with the islamic world. i still hold up "clash" as that model but as to so much else in the book...

first, we need a new DOCTRINE to replace george kennan's "containment" that guided us through the cold war. a doctrine guides future action. it is not so much descriptive as prescriptive. at least it's both.

it is interesting and perhaps telling that while huntington writes of the cold war world view he never mentions the containment doctrine and never once even mentions kennan!

huntington's self-described task in the book is to provide "an interpretation of the evolution of global politics after the cold war. it aspires to present a framework, a paradigm..."

the word "paradigm" is loaded and he makes the reference specifically, to thomas kuhn's "classic" (his word) THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.

STRUCTURE however was not a doctrine, it was not prescriptive. it was descriptive. a friend in the field of physics said kuhn essentially invented the history of science. STRUCTURE shows how scientific thought--it's hard to think of the right verb here to be accurate to kuhn--"went" for example from newtonian physics to einsteinian physics. it did not show how to create an einstein.

now, of course huntington does intend the book as he says to "show us what paths we should take to achieve our goals," but that's not the focus of the book.

eleven of the book's twelve chapters are support for his redrawing of the world map along civilizational lines. the twelveth chapter, the only one that can be called prescriptive, occupies only 20 of the books 321 pages.

maybe it'll be impossible to do this but since what i'm most interested in is doctrine i'm going to try to talk about huntington's "doctrinal" views first, in isolation of whether his proposed new civilizational "structure" of the world is useful.

on page 312 he lists the components of his doctrine:

1.to achieve a greater commonality of interests between the u.s. and europe.
2.to expand the western military and economic alliances to the rest of "the west," "central europe,...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia."
3. to encourage the westernization of latin america and it's close alignment with the west.
4.to restrain the conventional and unconventional military capability of the islamic and sinic civilizations.
5."to slow the drift of japan away from the west and toward accomodation with china."
6. "to accept russia as the core state of orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders."
7. "to maintain western technological and military superiority over other civilizations."
8. "and, most important, to recognize that western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source" of world instability.

there are some things here that are very exciting to me. the whole "philosophy" behind "international federalism" was to apply american federalism's principles of non-intervention in the affairs of its constituent states in the international context.

we should not nation build.

we should only militarily intervene when it's necessary for our national security.

we should not presume that the american way--or the "western" way--is universal.

we need to recognize the disruptive effects of our culture on others and somehow lessen their projection into other cultures by our corporations and business interests. this is a very difficult thing to do and even in the abstract puts our business interest in opening new markets in conflict with local sensitivities.

i have explicitly written on this page of the need to maintain at all costs, including preemptive military strikes, american (note, not "western") military supremacy over every other country and civilization in the world combined.

however, i have written of my vehement disagreement with those who conflate the u.s. and europe as one "interest group," as one civilization as huntington would have it.

because i see america and europe as having different and sometimes conflicting interests i have also vehemently opposed expanding nato as huntington prescribes.

his two "recruitment" strategies, to coopt latin america and "contain" japan from flying off into the chinese orbit are simply at odds with the descriptive features of "clash," that is with viewing the world as a group of seven or eight civilizations that are fundamentally different. as i believe huntington himself explained it in the "clash" article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist can become a capitalist, but an armenian can never become a turk."

huntington or huntingtonists can certainly point to this page or that paragraph of the book and say "no, no, no you're not understanding," or "you're taking this out of context," or "you're oversimplifying"--huntington is no fool--,you can point to this subtlety or that nuance but there is just no denying that the paradigm that he argues and supports in 300 pages is a world in which the different civilizations are as immutable as the personal characteristics of their individual citizens. that is, in fact, what makes "clash" such a brilliant work, it gives us a new, compelling way of looking.

so it is simply inconsistent with his descriptive paradigm to argue as a component of doctrine that we should try to peel away as much of latin america as we can, and prevent the sinification of japan.

huntington urges on page 317 that each major civilization should be given a permanent seat on a revamped u.n. security council. in my view this is patent nonsense and carries to a logical if wrong-headed conclusion a specific policy proposal that would follow from the civilizational redrawing of the world map.

to me the most interesting, fruitful doctrinal recommendations that he makes are on the final four pages of the book, in a subchapter titled "the commonalities of civilization."

here he borrows from michael walzer who brilliantly distinguishes between the "thick" normative rules of specific cultures and the "thin" morality that links all civilizations: "...truth and justice" and "'...negative injunctions [like'rules against murder, deceit, torture, oppression, and tyranny.'"

as huntington puts it "instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. in a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities."

wonderful! that's very positive stuff if a bit "thin" itself. i'll have to read walzer's book.

but isn't that the united states? don't we take peoples from different civilizations and "demand a search [from them] for what is common" between their old world and our new world? isn't the whole idea of america that? isn't our federal system in fact one explicitly "accepts diversity" so that we can have "fifty social laboratories" and "seek commonalities" on certainly a "thicker" level than we could among civilizations but still with generous allowance for local initiative and responsibility?

no, says huntington.

at least he doesn't offer american federalism as an example of a nation that has the characteristics that he would like to see in inter-civilizational relations.

SINGAPORE! singapore? FRIGGIN' SINGAPORE!

there, huntington says the government, while wishing to promote traditional "confucian values" (you mean like, for example, american conservatives desire to promote "traditional [judeo-christian] values") there was recognition that these were giving way to western individualism, etc.

"it is necessary, [president wee kim wee]argued, to identify the core values which singapore's different ethnic and religious communities had in common and 'which capture the essence of being singaporean.'"

and what are these instructive singaporean core values that beckon like a beacon from the east:

-"placing society above self"
-"upholding the family as the basic building block of society"
-"resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention"
-"stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony"

wow. real original stuff there. makes ya want to slap yourself on the forehead and say "why didn't i think of that!," huh?

what the fuck is he talking about. THAT IS AMERICA! THOSE ARE AMERICAN VALUES! THAT IS THE AMERICAN GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT, OUR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL MODESTY. WE DON'T HAVE TO LOOK TO SINGAPORE FOR A MODEL!

jesus christ.


-benjamin harris

i'm going to try to start a mini-revival of james fennimore cooper. one of the first truly american novelists he took up writing later in life in a typically pugnacious cooperian way.

disgusted with the quality of an english novel that his wife was reading he threw it down and said "i could write better than that."

he was an imitator of walter scott, not just an admirer. he is famous for "the leatherstocking tales" of which the most famous are "the deerslayer" and "the last of the mohicans."

the writing style of the time was the intricate plot that slowly unfolds with a few well-placed "OHH!" moments when the reader makes the connections followed by a dramatic, deus ex machina ending.

it's the same style as dickens.

in this style the strained deus moments sometimes produce groans in the reader rather than pleasure. "deerslayer" particularly ended on such a note.

mark twain growled rather than groaned. he wrote an article called "the literary offenses of fennimore cooper." i have not read it but can only imagine.

anyway, the LEAST read of the leather-stocking tales, "the pioneers" is one of the most charming, enjoyable books i've ever read. it was also the first in the series that cooper wrote.

a roman a clef, it tells the story of the settling of "templeton" (cooperstown), new york by cooper's family and the many endearing personalities that comprised that family.

the characters are vividly portrayed and cooper has frissons of descriptive greatness, as in the oft-sited passage of two girls awaking on a sunny winter's morning in the wilderness, the sun glinting off the snow crystals on the trees, off the icecycles, off the lake. it is a truly wonderful scene.

too bad "pioneers" never got much of an audience. it is a wonderful little book. i will never forget it.


-benjamin harris

REASSESSING II

were i president i would be satisfied that the definition of our enemy should be expanded beyond, what in shorthand i have referred to as "al qaeda incorported," to include other people/groups based on (1)the "quantity" of their activities (2)the "quality" of their activities (3) the extent of their influence and (4) if they have practiced violence, even if not against us and (5) the risk in not attacking them, e.g. if they seek wmd.

i would view the madrid and bali bombers as part of a.q.i., so they would be part of the first category of our enemy, not this second, expanded, category of militant islam.

i am thinking out loud here, but having considered the example of hezbollah in "reassessing I", my inclination would be not to include hezbollah but rather to assasinate those thinkers/leaders/clerics who preach the same thing that was taught to obl.

that sounds bizarre, but until shown to my satisfaction otherwise, i would view hezbollah as "an israeli problem." i am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that hezbollah at present does not pose a direct threat to the national security of the united states.

those who teach/write/think/preach however--even if they don't act--i would include in the definition of our enemy because they are what directly inspired al qaeda.

having promised myself in "reassessing I" that i would always stop and think when i took another step, i acknowledge that including propogandists, for the lack of a better description, in my definition of the enemy, is a radical step which will effect all that follows.

we americans don't often punish speech. that prohibition is ingrained in our constitution and our common sense ("sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me," etc.).

still, not all speech is protected. we do not have the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, and like famous examples.

i have inveighed about the teachings of islam many times in this blog. to just remind myself of some that come to mind:

(1) the article written about 1 1/2 years ago in the times magazine on what is taught in pakistani schools.
(2)the al jazeera interview of a 3 1/2 year old girl who when asked her opinion of jews said "i hate them." when asked why, she said "because they're pigs and snakes; when asked where she learned that, "from the koran."
(3) the cleric, so respected that he was part of the saudi delegation that visited president bush in crawford who had just a few months before preached a sermon calling for the enslavement of jewish women for the pleasure of muslim men.
(4)my own reading of the koran
(5) my own reading of "in the shade of the koran."
(6) public opinion polls in different arab societies showing support for obl
(7)the censored video of palestinians celebrating in the streets at the news of the 9/11 attacks.

i am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the current mainstream teachings of islam are THE PROBLEM in our war, just as mein kamph was, as william shirer wrote, the blueprint for the nazism.

there is an old islamic saying that "the first person to reason by analogy was the devil." the point is a sound one. i see many similarities between nazism and islam, including the centrality of a basic text. but i know that our war with our current enemy is different and will be fought differently than was wwII.

shirer wrote in "the rise and fall of the third reich" that what amazed him was how closely nazi policy hew to mein kamph and how mein kamph was ignored or explained away or rationalized when, if it had been taken seriously, the west should have taken the threat much more seriously.

"a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing" is another of those bits of fortune-cookie philosophy that i have to keep in mind, and i do. i aware of my "incomplete" education on the issue of islam and the koran's teachings. but i have been overwhelmed by the consistent message i have gained from the koran itself, commentary on it, articles in the popular press, and the anecdotes i've related above.

as president i would want this question addressed exhaustively by my advisors, but on what i know now, i'm convinced.

the next level we must think about for an expanded definition of our enemy under the concept of "militant islam" is the state level.

we have already expanded it to that level. we have warred against afghanistan with world approval.

we have also, more controversially, warred against iraq.

further, president bush included two other countries, north korea and iran as part of the axis of evil that he defined as our enemies.

i reject the inclusion of north korea for reasons stated previously on this website and i believe that that is consistent with the thinking of most serious people.

but what of iran and other states?

iran is certainly a militantly islamic state and one that is believed to possess or trying to possess wmd.

what of libya, which did directly attack the united states, in the panam 103 bombing?

syria? a long-standing member of the u.s. government's list of states who sponsor terrorism.

pakistan? a nuclear power, a country in which the u.s., with the cooperation of the pakistani authorities, captured the number two man in a.q. and in which obl himself is widely believed to be hiding.

saudi arabia? the home of 13 of the 19 9/11 hijackers and the base for wahiddism, the most radical, violent sect of islam.


-benjamin harris

REASSESSING I


if i were suddenly made president, what would i do about this war?

the first thing i'd want to be certain about is the definition of our enemy.

the second thing is, what is our enemy's objective?

third would be what our objectives are

fourth would be what i would do to attain those objectives.

in trying to answer both of these questions (which of course have a lot of subparts) i'd want to be clear about my bases for answering them:

(1)what are the facts?
(2)i would want to be exceptionally satisfied in identifying any underlying assumptions and equally certain on the reasonableness or unreasonableness of those assumptions.
(3)besides hard facts, i'd want to know what i know, or believe to be true beyond a reasonable doubt.
(4) besides those, i'd want factors i could be reasonably correct and reasonably incorrect about
(5)in rumsfeldian terms, i'd want to know what the "known unknowns" are.
(6) and what the "unknown unknowns" are.

WHO IS OUR ENEMY

the dictionary does not help us define, for our purposes, what "enemy" means so i will take it to mean in this context as that group that i as president will mobilize my military to defeat

first let's be satisfied with who our enemy is not.

again, for our purposes here, it is not "terrorism." that's too general. we are not at war with all terrorists everywhere.

I. is it with al qaeda and/or with al qaeda-related or inspired groups?
clearly it is that, but is that all that it is? is that the
extent of our enemy?

II. is it with "militant islam" as some are now saying, and if so,
what is "militant islam?"

III. is it with islam, as i (and almost noone else) have said?

what are the facts on this question of who our enemy is?

I. is our enemy al qaeda and related groups alone?

the fact is we have not been attacked by anyone other than al qaeda, before or after 9/11. that's a strong rebuttable presumption that our enemy should be so properly limited.

the fact also is that al qaeda appears to have metastasized, as in the madrid train bombings but noone has attacked us since 9/11.

what are the assumptions behind our belief that our enemy should be limited only to al qaeda "incorporated?"

one would be that we would expect not to be attacked again once al qaeda is destroyed.

by definition, an expectation can not be known beyond a reasonable doubt. most thinkers and decision-makers believe that destroying al qaeda inc. would not completely end the problem. one can reasonably believe or not believe that. i believe it.

something else we must consider is to what extent we believe that al qaeda is synonomous with osama bin laden. in other words, if we killed/captured obl, would that in itself end al qaeda.

again, a point on which reasonable people can disagree. most informed people believe that that would certainly cripple/retard al qaeda but that there are too many followers out there who have been trained in his philosophy and methods to think that al qaeda would be destroyed if obl were.

one hopeful sign in this regard though is the success that israel has had in stopping/reducing the number of attacks from hamas by assasinating hamas' leaders. EVERYONE agrees that at least in the short term that has worked.

when we get to the second question of what i would do as president to defeat our enemy, might assasination be a tool?


II. is our enemy with "militant islam?"

let's take this as a definition of "militant islam": those who argue for and support al qaeda inc. though they have no participation in its attacks.

in considering expanding the definition beyond a.q.i. we must be aware of a danger that our minds fall into, the slippery slope.

as you move away from facts into things not facts but which you believe beyond a reasonable doubt and from there to things that it is reasonable to believe but also not to believe you get farther and farther away from certainty, a legitimate concern when you're talking about what to kill and be killed for.

equally important though must be the realization that few policy decisions are ever based only on certainty, that it is not only unrealistic to set the bar for action that high but that there can be adverse consequences also.

most sensible people would not want to wait for a direct attack before we responded. this can be but is not intended at this point as an argument for "preemption." it is just to caution about reality.

for example,although there were certainly legitimate grounds for deciding not to assasinate adolph hitler before he got the wehrmacht running on all gears, there are, especially in hindsight, equally legitimate grounds for believing that that would have been the best thing to do, and those "america firsters" who argued that we should not get involved in the european war, have long been relegated to the proverbial dust bin of history.

so expanding the definition of our enemy beyond a.q.i. is frought with difficulty and requires the absolute best set of available facts and the shrewdest judgment in which at every step we must ask ourselves: am i getting too far out on the limb of speculation and conversely am i sticking my head in the sand?

so what are the facts?

there are lots of muslim clerics, political leaders and groups who preach and urge "jihad" on america and the west and have done so for a generation or more.

it is also a fact that obl was directly motivated by these teachings to create al qaeda and to officially and publicly declare war on the united states.

therefore i am exceptionally satisfied that the definition of our enemy should be expanded to include at least some of these persons/groups. but who?

those persons/groups that specifically taught obl? yes in my opinion.

all people who that person/group taught? they would be high on the list.

should we then include different people/groups that preach the same thing to others that he/those preached to obl? probably.

we would be reasonably expanding the conceptual definition of our enemy but at some loss of individualized clarity. who are these people? can they be reasonably identified for attack?

there are going to be some, maybe a lot of people/groups that fall into a gray area: is one speech/sermon/writing enough? probably not.

how many then? dunno. we could reasonably rank them on a scale that would take into account both "quality" (what they say), "quantity" (how often they say it), how extensive their influence is, and whether they practice the violence that they preach.

it would be sort of like the deck of cards on the iraqi leadership, or like nfl draft day. every player gets ranked somewhere between 1-300 and we start at the top.

let's take the concrete example of hezbollah some respected people are saying our enemy should be expanded to include them. they have been taught and teach the same things as al qaeda. they are organized and have carried out deadly attacks against israel, but not against us.

are there any hard facts that hezbollah is going to attack us, join with or actively assist al qaeda, inc. not that i know of.

is it equally reasonable to believe and not believe that hezbollah is going to attack us, join with, or actively assist aqi? at this point based on what i know and don't know i'd have to say it is unreasonable to believe that.

are those things capable of being known? I don't know them, but i do believe that the cognescenti do and i think that if there was evidence that hezbollah was so involved that they would tell us, meaning the american people.

but hezbollah would seem to be at "face card" level in our war, would we really exclude them based on the fact that they haven't attacked us and we know of no support they have given to a.q.i.? are we turning a blind eye? a very difficult problem.

same thing with the madrid bombers.

one of the fudge factors that we would have to employ in making reasonable judgments about things is the risk involved. do we err on the side of caution for our safety with a group like hezbollah and attack them or do we not?

what are the means of attack available to them? do they have or are they seeking wmd? from what i know, a.q. is. is hezbollah? if they are then in my judgment the risk, given the other substantial common ground that they have with a.q. would make me include them in the definition of our enemy.

making judgments about risk, we must also take into account factors such as ease or difficulty in defeating them, the ramifications on other concerns like support at home and abroad for our war, the psychological effect on others who are enemies (i'm thinking here of the effect that our invasion of iraq had on muamar qadaffi), etc.


-benjamin harris

A HUMBLE BLOGGER

why do i blog?

one reason is because, as i found out, writing is hard. it is good brain exercise. even as a prosecutor i do it; i write out everything, my voir dire,opening, directs and crosses of witnesses, my closing.

i don't so much outline police reports as i copy them over in my own words.

i do all this, including blogging, because it forces me to slow down and to think.

it also helps improve my vocabulary.

but, so why not just keep a diary or make this blog non-public? because i would not have the discipline to keep at it in those forms.

every medium of communication has it's own particular psychological effect. we talk in a completely different way than we write.

we email in a different way than the pre-internet equivalent, letter-writing.

when i first started this blog i realized that only by making it public would i be able to keep at it because just knowing that the POSSIBILITY existed that someone might read it (1) made me want to keep it current and (2) made me a little more thoughtful in what i wrote.

for every war-post that i actually publish, for example, i leave another or more in draft.

but god, publishing a public blog makes you humble.

i have now been at it 2+ years so i have a body of "work" to look back on and read over.

i feel so, so passionately about the post-9/11 world and i have tried so hard to think deeply about these issues and write thoughtfully.

but when i go back in my archives and read what i've written i get humble. depressed. sick to my stomach. because i've not written well or persuasively, i've come up with no original thoughts; noone is going to read what i've written and think "god, this blogger, this amateur, is really onto something here!"

i've just finished reading WAR AND PEACE, one of the central conclusions of which is that, human events, even individual histories are determined by a larger something so that events are (1) not determined by anything that we intend, and (2) we cannot even understand them; in fact when we do try to understand evemts with our puny tools like science and logic, we get it all wrong.

i have written passionately, bitterly and angrily about the post-9/11 world. i am a middle aged white male. i am therefore the "angry white male" of stereotype. do i have these views inevitably as a consequence of my demographics?

by all measures, i am a reasonably bright, well-educated individual. i am also viewed as more intelligent than most others by most others. why then, despite all my efforts, and some reading to brace my thoughts, have i been able to come up with nothing--forget original--that even convinces my friends?

am i a modern day babbit, locked in genetic mediocrity, destined by demographics to hold the views that i hold, determined by psychological makeup to feel the necessity of inflicting these views on others?

am i living proof of tocueville's warnings about giving voice to those of such modest gifts that all would be better off if they were left voiceless?

i know that one of the pathognomonic signs of schizophrenia grandiose-type is believing that one is correct and the rest of the world is wrong.

the words of john kenneth galbraith that i read 25 years ago in THE NEW REPUBLIC--a critique of whom i do not remember, that "he has the certainty, not of one who knows, but of one who doesn't know that he doesn't know,"--those words often recur to me.

am i the village idiot with only the idiot's hope that sometimes the village idiot is right?

as epileptic fits are sometimes brought on suddenly when the sufferer hears a particular noise, this bilious catharsis was caused by having read my post on "international federalism" that i posted on june 30, 2002.

i worked weeks on that. i see a doctrinal gap in american foreign policy that i consider dangerous. i tried to provide a new doctrine, something like george kennan's famous "mr. x" article that made containment the doctrine of the cold war.

i've felt so strongly about the need for a new doctrinethat i've emailed real thinkers about it, people like david brooks, richard perle, maureen dowd, charles krauthammer. got no response of course.

i've felt so strongly that i've considered advertising my blog, to get someone to read it--not necessarily "international federalism" but my yell that we need a new doctrine-- in the hopes they'd see what i see or at least be stimulated to do something on their own.

but when i re-read "international federalism" it struck me as just vacuous pretension. i would have been embarassed if i had advertised public occurrences and smart people had read it. re-reading it, i am glad that this blog's readership consists only of lost wayfarers on the information highway.

maybe in the future i can point to the current post when the men in white coats come after me with a butterfly net as proof to them that i "am too!" aware of the nature of my mental illness and am not in need of involuntary hospitalization.

but maybe not.


-benjamin harris

gosh dang, just finished reading WAR AND PEACE.

it's hard to even begin a reaction to it, which is common according to john bayley who wrote the intro to the signet edition that i read.

i remember on one of THE TEACHING COMPANY'S tapes, the lecturer, michael sugrue i think, told of a scene in one of woody allen's movies. someone asks, "what is WAR AND PEACE about? and allen's character pauses and says "it's about russia."

it is about russia; and france, and war, and peace, man and woman, marriage, man and god, life, death, and god.

a "wonderful mass of life" is how henry james described it, intended as a put-down according to bayley, because it seemed so shapeless and didn't fit into any standard western literary category.

tolstoy himself categorically denied that it was a novel. it "is what the author wished and was able to express in the form in which it is expressed," is how he described it.

in that sense of being difficult to categorize, of being not quite western and not quite eastern, it is like russia itself.

it is also about BEING russian, about being fatalistic and about suffering, about living in a cold climate and as a consequence of all of these, having a certain coldness about oneself.

but it is not about being pessimistic although there is much that happens in the book that could cause pessimism.

it was surpisingly humane to me and life-affirming. tolstoy's message is that life is good and in life in all of it's forms one can find god.

it is a profoundly spiritual work and is utterly dismissive of attempts to understand events as other than the mysterious work of an unseen almighty.

whether history or logic or science, any attempt by man to explain things comes under withering, contemptuous assault by tolstoy.

the book's setting is the war of 1812 between russia and napoleonic france. the french invasion and the early routs of the russian army are not due to napoleon's greatness or russia's political and military ineptitude. they occurred because they were meant to be and could not have been otherwise under those precise circumstances.

moscow's abandonment by its citizens and the city's burning were not the result of the muscovites cowardice or of their wily strategy. it was what they did and only what they could do.

that the burning of moscow and it's sacking by napoleon's troops turned out to be their denouement, that it resulted, after five weeks of occupation, in their simply leaving the city and beginning the march home, the same: it could not have been otherwise.

there is so much duality in WAR AND PEACE, so many contradictions all to make the point of the meaninglessness of human will and direction and of the purposelessness, as seen from the human perspective, of nation and world-changing events:

-napoleon's triumph in "capturing" moscow was neither a capture nor a triumph but the beginning of the end for him.

-count pierre bezukhov's imprisonment as a p.o.w. is the time in his life when he is, and feels himself to be, the most free.

-only on his deathbed does prince andrei bolkonsky first begin truly to live.

-the lassitude of the russian commander in chief, general kutuzov, becomes the "quality" that lets events of the war run their course and results in the destruction of napoleon's army and the liberation of russia.

-there is compassion shown by captors toward their captives, but in the context of course of war, where thousands are killed and where the captives will eventually die either of starvation, exposure, or exhaustion but also by being mercilessly executed by those who in a different setting had shown them such humanity.

all of this is very zen-like, very consistent with those eastern philosophies that hold that the surest way of never reaching one's goals is to pursue them. and vice versa.

it is only by faith that we can come to understand. in this way tolstoy is very much like soren kierkegaard, utilizing human intellectual constructs like science and logic and all the rest but believing that their utility is confined to circumscribed areas of the human experience.

like WAR AND PEACE, human existence is what god wished and was able to express in the form in which it is expressed.


-benjamin harris

there some pertty, pertty pitchers in this month's vogue.

nicole kidman by irving penn is stupendo. the cover photo is stunning, some of those inside, even more so.

on the cover and on page 263 kidman is wearing this christian lecroix oyster satin gown that is called a "sheath." whatever it's called it's sensational fashion.

the lighting in both photographs is a dramatic background that fades from light-brown/gray to black from right to left.

each of the photos discretely focus on one fashion segment--hair, front of sheath, back of sheath--and the lighting really enhances what's being focused on. in the cover photo it is the incredible huge, jewel-brooched black bow that is the coup de grace of the back of the gown.

the photo on page 262 focuses on the upper back and kidman's hair-do. her back is so strong in that soft, feminine way and her stawberry hair is in a bun that is itself a fashion segment. it looks like a strawberry colored bird's nest. maybe that doesn't sound so beautiful but it really is. great job by the stylist

that same photo also has this cool little hidden gem in it. kidman's face is in barely 1/4 profile from the rear. you see her fine chin but most strikingly, you see on close inspection that her right eyelashes show that she is looking down in demure femininity. wonder if penn told her to look down or it just turned out that way?

you can best see how special the lecroix gown is in the photo on page 263. it is cut so perfectly that it drapes like the fabric is made to look in those ancient greek statues. it seems more substantial than mere fabric, like it was sculpted.

satin also does such wonderful things with light. the folds look buttery or like a waterfall. a sculpted buttery waterfall. or something like that.

on page 260 is a black and white photo with lighting similar to that in the colors and kidman is in a karl lagerfeld outfit consisting of a mannish coat and a flapper-style skirt.

the focus in this photo though is this incredible hat she's wearing. it's by leah c. couture millinery and is bowler-like with feathers drooping over the face. it has a little of the effect of a veil. kidman's eyes look to her right, adding mystery-by-indirection to the mini-veiled effect.

i bet also this is kidman's favorite photo because the black and white and the lighting softly but clearly define the planes and angles of her face so that that face could not look more beautiful.


finally the photograph on p. 259, with the same background lighting in the others, shows the face direct and head-on. you see her stunning blue eyes for the first time and her hair is all teased out so that it looks like flames. what amazing hair. and then her whole head, the eyes, the hair, the face is dramatically framed by a massive, velvety black collar that is part of a valentino cape. jeezus crimminy.

best pitchers in vogue in a long, long time. i bet this issue is gonna be saved by fashion-photog types.


-benjamin harris

Books: War & Peace

Books: War & Peace

the most meaningful description of the death experience that i have ever read i have read just now in WAR AND PEACE of the death of prince andrei.

it is the leave-taking of the soul from the body and the manifestations of that leave-taking on the physical and on those of the loved ones, here, natasha, prince andrei's lover and princess marya, his sister.

tolstoy's description begins with natasha explaining to marya the course of prince andrie's condition and its ups and downs:

"'but two days ago...THIS suddenly happened.
i don't know why but you will see what i
mean.'" (original emphasis)

it was not a new physical ailment like pneuonia or gangrene that had set in, it was the physical manifestation of the soul's leave-taking.

this is how it looked to princess marya:

"when natasha opened the door...and let
princess marya enter the room...[marya]
understood what natasha meant by the words:
'two days ago THIS suddenly happened.' she
took it to mean that he had suddenly softened
and that this softness and susceptibility were
signs of approaching death."

"'how are you, marie? how did you manage to
get here?' he said in a voice as even and
aloof as his gaze."

"if he had uttered a desperate shriek, that
cry would have been less horrifying to
princess marya than the tone of his voice."

"'and have you nikolushka [his son]'? he
asked in the same deliberate, even tone
and with an obvious effort to remember."

"'how are you now?'" asked princess marya.."

"'that, my dear, you must ask the doctor,"
he replied, and with a manifest effort to
be gracious, and speaking with his lips
only (his mind was clearly not on what he
was saying)..."

"she understood the change that had come
over him two days ago. in his words,
his tone, and above all in his almost
hostile look, could be felt that alienation
from all things earthly that is so terrible
to one who is alive. evidently it was difficult
for him to understand anything living; YET IT
SEEMED THAT HE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND NOT BECAUSE
HE HAD LOST THE POWER TO DO SO, BUT BECAUSE HE
UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING ELSE--SOMETHING THE LIVING
DID NOT AND COULD NOT UNDERSTAND AND WHICH
WHOLLY ABSORBED HIM." [emphasis added]

when my mother was dying there was a similar affect. i would say something to her or ask her something and she would say "what?" in an almost annoyed way.

at first i thought she was not hearing. but after awhile i realized that she was not all there, not in the sense that the drugs had made her goofy but in the way tolstoy describes it, that her soul was leaving and she was absorbed in other thoughts.

tolstoy continues on this point:

"...he was indifferent to everything,
indifferent because something of
far greater importance had been
revealed to him."

"the conversation was cold, desultory,
and continually broken off."

"'andrei, would you like...would you like
to see nikolushka? [marya asked]."

"for the first time there was a barely
perceptible smile on prince andrei's face,
but princess marya, who knew his face so
well, saw with horror that it was not
a smile of pleasure or of affection for his
son, but of gentle irony at his sister's
using what she believed to be the ultimate
means of awakening his feelings."

after seeing nikolushka briefly marya began crying in andrei's presence. now tolstoy describes what andrei is thinking and experiencing:

"when princess marya began to cry he
understood that she was crying at
the thought of nikolushka being left
without a father. he made a great effort
to come back to life and see things from
their point of view."

"'yes, to them it must seem sad,'" he thought.
'"but how simple it is!'"

..."'they don't understand that all these feelings
they set such store by--all our feelings,
all those ideas that seem so important to us
DO NOT MATTER. we cannot understand one
another,'" [emphasis in original]

tolstoy continues the description from andrei's perspective:

"[he]...knew...that he was already half
dead. he was conscious of an alienation
from everything earthly, and of a strange
and joyous lightness of being."

"during the hours of solitude, suffering,
and partial delirium that he spent after
he was wounded, the more deeply he reflected
on the principle of eternal love that had
been newly revealed to him, the more he
unconsciously renounced earthly life. to
love everyone and everything, always to
sacrifice oneself for love, meant not to
love any one person, and not to live this
earthly life."

before my mother died she had a presentiment of her death. for many years she had had a recurring dream in which she was standing on the edge of a field and on the opposite end was her father, long dead.

in her dream, her father smiled at her and said "come on, honey; come on, dear." and mum had not gone. she said "daddy, i'm not ready." she told meher father "had put his head down and turned away with the saddest look on his face."

mum always said that she knew that if she had gone to her dad that she would have died. "so you see benjamin, i know that when it's my time, my dad will come for me."

a week before her death, after a couple of days of noticably declining health she had the dream again. she awoke that morning and told my brother, "tim, my dad was here last night." tim asked what she meant and she said "my dad was here, he was in the bed with me all night."

tolstoy describes prince andrei's epiphany:

"...what natasha referred to when she
said: "THIS suddenly happened" had
occurred two days before princess
marya's arrival. it was the final
spiritual struggle between life and
death..."

"it happened in the evening." he fell asleep:

"he dreamed he was lying in the room
he actually was in but that he had not
been wounded and was well. a great many
people...appear before him. he talks to
them...they are preparing to go away...
gradually,imperceptibly, all these persons
begin to disappear, and are supplanted by
a single problem: the closed door."

"he gets up and goes to the door to bolt
and lock it, EVERYTHING depends on whether
he succeeds in locking it in time."

"he starts toward it... but his legs will
not move...IT stands behind the door....
that ominous something is alreay pressing
against it and forcing its way in. something
inhuman--death--is breaking in and must be
stopped..."

"his efforts are feeble and ineffectual...
once more IT pushed from outside...IT
entered, and it was DEATH. and prince
andrei died."

as with my mother's epiphany though, that was just THE SIGN. neither my mother nor tolstoy's character actually physically died at that moment although both were aware that IT was now irrevocable:

"but at the very moment he died,
prince andrei remembered that he
was asleep, and at that very moment,
having exerted himself, awoke."

"'yes, that was death. i died--and i awoke.
yes, death is an awakening!"

"and his soul was suddenly sufused with
light..and from then on that strange
lightness did not leave him again."

"this is what happened to him two days
before princess marya's arrival."

"with his awakening from sleep that day,
there began for prince andrei an awakening
FROM life." [emphasis added]

my mother went quietly at about 6 am on april 5, which had been my father's birthday. lucy, our hospice nurse, called tim and told him she thought he should come over because mum had stopped breathing.

tolstoy:

"when he was in the last throes and the
spirit left the body, princess marya and
natasha were present."

"'is it over?'" asked princess marya after
the body had lain motionless for some moments,
growing cold before their eyes."

"natasha went up to it, looked into the dead
man's eyes and quickly closed them."

i was not present when my mother died but i had been present for the events after THE SIGN, had flown back home and then came back up the day she died.

i got to her house a little before dusk. i entered the house, empty except for her cocker spaniel.

buddy greeted me in his usual friendly way. i went through the kitchen and stood at the entrance to the hallway that led down to mum's bedroom.

buddy had scampered ahead of me and was standing at the entrance to the bedroom, looking into the room where mum had so recently lain, and then looking at me,looking into the empty room and then back at me.

i wept as i walked down the hallway and when i entered the bedroom and saw her hospice bed gone but the imprints on the carpet that the legs of the bed had left were still there.

i smelled her smell still in the room and saw her clothes. i wept when i went into her bathroom and saw everything just as it had been a few days before and yet with everything irrevocably different now.

mum was 85, had survived skin cancer, two episodes of breast cancer, bladder cancer and had finally succumbed to liver cancer.

i wept of course because she was my mother and because i missed her and felt the loss so much. but i also wept because of the strange, awesome death process that i had witnessed. it was like as tolstoy describes the feelings of natasha and princess marya:

"[they]also wept now, but not because
of their personal grief; they wept
out of a reverent emotion that filled
their souls before the solemn mystery
of a death that had been consummated
in their presence."


-benjamin harris

"What a Wonderful World" Department

"What a Wonderful World" Department

Dave johnson's horse racing calls. I was coming home from work last Saturday, turned on sportsradio and it happened just about to be post-time at the preakness.

The start was delayed and then delayed again and again. Then they had trouble getting some horse in the gate. I was already home by now but just drove around the block in circles so I wouldn't miss Johnson's call.

Finally the race started. Johnson not only has a signature phrase but he also calls a very good race. You can see the race through your radio. Very articulate too. No stumbles, no mispronunciations. And then,

"DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!...."

Gave me a tingle down my spine. Always does.


-Benjamin Harris

was just spending my 15 minutes a day channel surfing and reminding myself how exasperating tv is when i happened onto clinton's speech at the university of kansas today on c-span.

what an amazing, amazing man he is. his ability to communicate and connect is just incredible.

he thinks "big thoughts," like at his renaissance weekends, and even though his communication skills were, of course, evident during his presidency, you don't often have the luxury of giving big thought speeches when you have to deal with mundane matters like the budget and getting your ass impeached.

today at ku, with no portfolio, with no election to think about, with none of the minutia of the capitol to occupy his time, he just talked, it appeared without notes.

i just saw the last maybe 15 minutes of his speech but the general topic was apparently how he thought we could best deal with terrorism. i'm sure he touched all the common military issues but his larger point was that we had to change the way we think.

as he said, "this is going to sound a little flaky, but i believe it." he recounted a white house evening with bennet cerf and some harvard biologist/geneticist. what a pairing, and he said that of all the interesting things that were said that night, the most striking for him was that the biologist said that all human beings are 99.99% genetically identical.

ok, it is a little twee and his point is obvious. we have to come up with ways to identify with others based on that 99.99% commonality and not let the .01% blind us. "the next time you want to demonize somebody, think of that," he said.

i don't know, maybe it's just because i'm so sick of hearing bush and the contrast in intellectual depth was so stark, (and maybe because i was on adderal) but the esp-like connection he always made with people just came right through the tv screen. for the people watching and hearing him in person, it was always said he was even more "connective."

such a complex man psychologically. the inclusiveness theme obvious to a first year psych student as the product of trying to keep a family with an alcoholic, abusive father together. the bizarre, near death-wish risk taking that he engaged in.

but man, how gifted and how brilliant. he was an incredible politician and a great president. i miss him.


-benjamin harris

why does the new york times continue to give a forum to william safire?

his hiring was widely believed to be the result of an affirmative action program for conservatives, to put a voice from the right on the op-ed page to counter right-wing charges of liberal bias.

even at the time i thought the choice an odd one. safire was a political hack, a nixon lackey, the author of spiro agnew's rants against the "nattering nabobs of negativism," and such like. there was really noone better?

alliterative political red-meat is not the same thing as astute commentary or good writing and safire has little in the way of either of those.

above all, he is a writer who lacks intellectual honesty. he is incapable of admitting that he is, or ever has been, wrong.

he defends to this day nixon and his association with him, agnew and his association with him.

after 9/11 he was nattering nabob number one in publicizing a czech intelligence report that one of the 9/11 operatives, i believe mohammad atta, had met with an iraqi diplomat in prague.

the reported meeting did, as it should have, generate much follow-up investigation by czech and u.s. intel officials.

when these investigations began to raise doubts that the meeting occurred, safire continued to make the assertion and started hinting at a coverup and conspiracy.

when the story was finally discredited safire persisted, raising the volume of his voice to compensate for its lack of substance and now bitterly complained of a coverup (and HE should know cover-up).

the safire m.o. is to build an argument on sketchy facts or half-truths and then to respond with attacks of incompetence or duplicity on anyone who disagrees with the argument or who questions the underlying facts.

today he's at it again, this time on the news that an artillery shell found in iraq may contain the nerve agent sarin. this column is safire at his shrill, conspiratorial, insinuating, ad hominem, denying, worst.

knowing the factual insufficiency of his argument he starts with the attack:

"you probably missed the news because it
didn't get much play..."

so right off the bat we're conditioned that something fishy is going on here. there is "news" and "it didn't get much play." the implication is that a REVELATION is forthcoming and that others in the media didn't give it the attention it deserved because of incompetency or worse.

in the same sentence he then begins to lay out his "case":

"...a small, crude weapon of mass destruction
may have been used by saddam's terrorists
in iraq this week."

well the FACT (which you may have missed because he doesn't give it much play) is that an artillery shell was ACCIDENTALLY DETONATED by AMERICAN SOLDIERS and that the powder inside was a BINARY compound that included small amounts of sarin.

lest the evil be missed the next paragraph makes it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: sarin was first developed by the nazis and was used by japanese terrorists in the subway attack of a few years ago.


to label this ONE shell as a "weapon of mass destruction" is irresponsible and typical of safire's method. take a small fact and exaggerate it into a larger evil.

and those who point this out, those who say "one or two poison-gas bombs USED SO FAR does not a 'stockpile' make"? they are "our lionized apostles of defeat."

that is just outrageous. first, the ONE found so far was not "USED." WE, U.S. soldiers ACCIDENTALLY DETONATED IT!. and second those who disagree are subjected to an ad hominem attack.

"you never saw such a rush to dismiss this
as not news," noting that usatoday saw fit to bury the story on page ten as a "brushoff."

he then writes:

"u.n. weapons inspectors whose reputations
rest on denial of saddam's wmb pooh-poohed
the report. 'it doesn't strike me as a big
deal,' said david kay."

so anyone who disagrees that this is big news is dismissed as trying to save his reputation.

but there may be something more malicious in that paragraph. wasn't david kay the U.S. weapons inspector? wasn't he OUR, the U.S.'s, the bush administration's, weapons inspector?

if i'm wrong, if kay was a u.n. guy, then safire is still attacking those who disagree with him for being more concerned with their careers than the truth but if kay was, as i remember, a U.S. inspector then that entire sentence is so malicious and so misleading that it should never have made it past the editors of any respectable newspaper, much less those of the new york times.

more attacks: "even the defense department," "on the defensive, STRAINED not to appear alarmist, saying confirmation was needed for the field tests." so waiting until confirmatory tests are done before telling the world that a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION has been found is "straining," it's the result of a defenive, timid dod. rummy has been accused of a lot of things, timidity has never been one of them.

he then lists "the Four noes" of "the defeatists' platform, the first one of which is that no wmd were found in iraq. to that he says bizarrely that even at this late date it is a rush to judgement if "the absence of evidence is taken to be evidence of absense," and that "when the pendulum has swung" and today's "cut-and-runners" are shown to be wrong there will be books written about this and "these MAY WELL reveal the successful concealment of wmd, as well as prewar shipments...to syria..."

further, "in a sovereign and free iraq, when...scientists are fearful of being tried as prewar criminals their impetus will be to sing--and point to caches of anthrax and other mass killers."

what can you say about that? the guy is in denial, he is intellectually dishonest, his argument is now being based, not even on half-truths, but on speculation into the future. opinionist or not, he should have no right to write such rubbish in a respectable newspaper.

maybe the times is getting tired of his irrational act. in an unusual move, it issued an editorial to accompany safire's irresponsible screed. after giving a fairer treatment of the facts it refers to "the dwindling band of die-hards who remain convinced that mr. hussein squirreled away stockpiles of illicit weapons..."

members of that irresponsible, dwindling band should not be given a forum in the "gray lady."


-benjamin harris

those most basic principles show iraq, and brooks' commentary on iraq in a new light. the muddled thinking and writing on iraq are part of a larger muddle on foreign policy doctrine.

in 1989 the cold war ended but america's thinkers did not replace george kennan's cold war doctrine of containment with a new doctrine to meet the new world. we responded reactively and tentatively, sometimes with trial ballons of a new world order, but mostly with keeping on keeping on. bob dole said after the implosion of the soviet union, "this is no time to be cutting military spending." oh,why not? we never had a debate on that.

we maintained, and still maintain, cold war structures and alliances fifteen years after their raison d'etre ended. nato has been expanded rather than disbanded. we have kept our treaty obligations to defend taiwan and south korea even though an attack on either, horrendous though it would be, certainly does not have the meaning that would have had during the cold war.

we went along piecemeal in our responses to world crises. we intervened in bosnia and in haiti, two ultimately bloodless forays but without any overarching answer to the question "why?"

9/11 came along and showed that that question and its answer were not just academic. we had/we have, no doctrine for understanding and framing a response to 9/11.

president bush said immediately thereafter that our war was not with islam. why not? we never had a debate on that either.

so we hit afghanistan, a no-brainer as the home of the taliban which housed al qaeda. but from the beginning the president defined the war broader, as a war on terrorism and rumsfeld immediately wanted to strike somewhere else. why? the only reason was that he didn't want all of our eggs to be in one basket, he didn't want the success of our initial response to be defined by what we did in a place where the word "quagmire" had been accurately used to describe the soviet's venture.

so he asked if 9/11 hadn't given us the "opportunity" to hit iraq. that was the extent of the thinking that went into it. we needed to diversify our portfolio. let's take a swing at hussein. we've been there and done that, we can do it again.

i do not fault the administration for invading iraq. i supported the war and i believe that we are marginally better off today than we were with hussein in power but the lack of doctrine has led to confused thinking about how success of that mission should be defined, of why we really did it, of what we really accomplished, and what we should do next.

bush has, justifiably taken hits for basing the war on hussein's non-existent possession of weapons of mass destruction.

other conservative thinkers wanted to ground the war in a higher moral purpose, the liberation of iraq, on establishing a "shining city on the hill" as a model for arab democracy.

the president took up the cudgel. when baghdad fell his father called him to congratulate. "it's a great day for america," said bush41. "it's a great day for the people of iraq," said bush43.

the raison d'etre for the war had shifted or had been augmented by liberation thinking, which is exactly the kind of "nation-building" that bush and the conservatives had dismissed liberals as proposing.

without wmd though they were left with a pale horse indeed to ride strategically and so reacted ad hoc, as american foreign policy had been doing since 1989.

so you have the startling situation of neocons like brooks and protocons like william safire both proclaiming that success in iraq will be defined by the establishment of a democracy there.

where did the conserative focus on national security at all costs--of real politik, of the difference between authoritarin regimes and totalitarian regimes, of the difference between "our" dictators and "their" dictators--where did all of that go?

it went out the window in 1989 and wasn't replaced by any new doctrine.

david brooks is "crushingly depressed" over the events of the last few weeks and of the situation in post-war iraq generally.

william safire attempts to lift the spirits of hawks like him and brooks, "those...who believe in the nobility of exporting freedom," under the headline "hold fast, idealists."

maureen dowd unloads on "the administration's demented quest to conquer arab hearts and minds," with their fixation on "making the middle east look more like america..."

it is disturbing to read brooks writing squishy things like "we were blinded by idealism," "we can't do good without losing our innocence," and there's still a chance, if elections are held that "we will have succeeded in doing what we set out to do."

it is shocking to read an old manicheanistic hardliner like safire buy into these terms of debate by chasting brooks and his old weekly standard crowd by reassuring them that "hope for iraqi freedom is in the wings. wait and see."

it is crushingly depressing to be in agreement with maureen dowd (whose email address, b.t.w., is "liberties@nytimes.com").

let's be clear about what should be and then proceed from there.

america should not involve itself militarily in another country, much less wage war, unless its national security is threatened. period.

america won the war in iraq. our military goal was to affect regime change and to capture or kill saddam hussein. we accomplished that.

that should have been the definition of success that all hawks should have accepted.

however, there is no post-9/11 conservative foreign policy doctrine any more than there is a liberal doctrine.

that is what has changed most alarmingly since sept. 11. before that, or i would argue, before 1989, the conservatives had a foreign policy doctrine, a resolute containment of communism first articulated by george kennan.

through the pressures of the sixties and seventies they persevered while the democrats floundered about, lurching from neo-isolationism to nation-building as a justification for military intervention.

since 1989 however, conservatives have kept working within the cold war structures, as by say, expanding nato when the entire justification for the alliance ceased to exist, without changing doctrine to fit a new world and by acting, and reacting, after 9/11 without any doctrinal superstructure.

the point is not just an intellectual one any more than capitalism was just an economic theory or das kapital just a political science book. doctrine dictates policy which dictates strategy which dictates tactics.

The Night Vigil, Shen Zhou

The Night Vigil, Shen Zhou

"On a cold night sleep is very sweet. I woke in the middle of the night, my mind clear and untroubled, and as I was unable to go to sleep again, I put on my clothes and sat facing my flickering lamp. On the table were a few folders of books. I chose a volume at random and began to read, but tiring I put down the book and sat calmly doing nothing. A long rain had newly cleared, and a pale moon was shining through the window. All around was silence."

"Then after a long time absorbing the fresh brightness, I gradually became aware of sounds. Listening to the rustling of the wind stirring the bamboo gave one the feeling of going bravely and unwaveringly onward. Hearing the harsh snarling of dogs gave feelings of barring out evil, of opposing marauders. Hearing the sound of drums, large and small--the small ones thin, and the far ones clear and deep and uninterrupted--stirred restless thoughts that were lonely and sad. The official drum was very close, from three beats, to four and then five, gradually faster, hastening the dawn. Suddenly in the northeast the sound of a bell, a bell pure and clean through rain-cleared air, and hearing it, came thoughts of waiting for the dawn, rising and doing. It was inevitable."

"My nature is such as to enjoy sitting in the night. So I often spread a book under the lamp going back and forth over it, usually stopping at the second watch. Man's clamor is not at rest, and yet the mind is bent on learning. Seldom does he find the outside calm and the inner world at peace."

"Now tonight all sounds and shapes bring this stability and calm. Thus can one purify the mind and spirit and realize one's will. But one should remember that it is not that at other times these sounds and shapes do not exist like this, nor that they do not reach the eye and ear of man, but that appearance is the servant of a thing, and yet hastens to follow it."

"True perception through hearing lies concealed in sound like that of a drum and bell, whereas perception through seeing is hidden in any pattern. Thus things usually harm rather help men. Often is it like tonight's sounds and shapes, for they are really no different from other times, and yet striking the ear and eye they become so firmly and wonderfully a part of me. And so this existence of sounds and patterns is not what prevents me from gaining wisdom; for things are not enough to enslave men."

"When sound is broken and shape shattered and the will rises free, what is this will? Is it within? Or is it without? Or is it in a thing? Or does it cause the thing to be? Is there not a way of defining the difference? Most certainly, and I perceive the difference."

"How great is the strength to be gained sitting in the night. Thus, cleansing the mind, waiting alone through the long watches by the light of the candle becomes the basis of an inner peace and of an understanding of things. This, surely, I will attain."

-Shen Zhou, the calligraphy he put on his painting "The Night Vigil" (1492; in The Three Perfections by Michael Sullivan.

manchester city should fire manager kevin keegan.

this will be considered sacrilege because city has just clinched a third straight season in the premiership but this "underachieving, sorry" team, in the words of espn's soccernet, should never have been in the position of having to fight for survival, perhaps literally, down to the 36th game of the season.

this is "king kev's" third year at the helm of the blues and he has two years left on his contract. immediately after being promoted from the nationwide league two years ago, city was thought to be so talented and so well-coached that some predicted qualifying for the champion's league. they finished 9th last year--and that only after a late season flourish--and 17th this year.

this despite the proverbial carte blanche that was given keegan to get the talent he desired, and the fact that city moved into a brand new facility this year, guaranteeing a substantial increase in revenue. keegan spent widely and often, buying steve mcmanaman, david seamen, claudia reyna, paulo wanchope, and most notoriously robbie fowler. stealing from some wag, the city board gave keegan an unlimited budget and he exceeded it. if city had been relegated this year it might well have meant the bankruptcy of the team, so great were its wage debts, combined with its mortgage payments. as my criminal law professor used to say, "i could have lost that case for a lot less money."

keegan made his reputation as a master motivator at newcastle united where he took the magpies to second place in the premiership. he then was honored with the coaching position of england's national team but that foray ended with the infamous, ignoble 1-0 defeat to germany.

if motivation is keegan's coin of the realm that currency has been seriously devalued by his performance at city. there is far too much talent on this team for them to have finished 9th last year, much less 17th this year. the team has been maddeningly inconsistent, winning the manchester derby last year, drawing this year, but inexcusably losing at home to vastly inferior squads both years. the low point was its 3-1 debacle against southhamptom at eastlands late this season, a match of supreme importance to the blues. the supreme motivator's team looked scared and tentative, not only in that match but for much of the season. as of this writing, city has as many wins at eastlands as on the road. inexcusable.

the turning point was his signing of robbie fowler from cash-strapped leeds late last season. fowler played for keegan's english national team and at one time was a superstar in the making, a dangerous and prolific goal scorer. city won a big match right before the signing, in fact when it looked like the deal would fall through, but right after getting fowler, city began its late season swoon and the underachievement and inconsistency just continued this season.

keegan has always put a premium on scoring--which was the reason for the fowler signing--to the detriment of defense and that deficiency has shown itself this year especially. at times city has been a sieve. and fowler has not near made up for the defensive deficiencies by goal scoring. he has been near invisible and has been benched both seasons. his signing has been an unmitigated failure and keegan, naturally, has stood by his man, reluctant to admit failure.

fowler was also subtraction by addition because it resulted in the replacement and eventual release of city legend shaun goater, who was the hero of last season's victory over manchester united.

the city board should step in now, for the immediate and long-term survival of the club in the premiership. selling off fowler and wanthrope and replacing them with hungry "muckers" as they would be called in hockey not only makes financial but football sense. that will not happen however as long as "the boss" is in charge, which means king kev should be the first one to get the axe.

seventeenth place? i could have coached them to that, and for a lot less money


-benjamin harris