DSK - my opinion

This is not one of the major crises facing the world, although it did command a chunk of the media attention: ie, the alleged rape of the housekeeper by former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Now the criminal case against him has been dismissed, because of the prosecutor's assessment that winning the case would depend on whether the jury will believe her or him, and she has already proved herself unreliable by lying to the police and to immigration officials about other matters. Note: this does not mean that DSK was acquitted; he may very well have committed rape. That has not been decided. But the criminal case has been dismissed. There is still a civil suit pending.

DSK has now given an interview, in which he claims that it was both "an error" and "a moral failing" on his part, and he regrets it "infinitely." Small wonder he regrets it, given the result that he had to resign from one of the world's prestigious jobs and lost his probably realistic ambition to be elected President of France.

He admits to having sex with the house-keeper, but claims that it didn't involve violence, constraint, or aggression. He also dismissed the separate claim of a French writer that he had tried to rape her during a 2003 interview, again saying that "no act of aggression, no violence" took place between them.

Which all leads me to wonder and suggest this: Perhaps Monsieur Strauss-Kahn does not understand what constitutes aggression and violence in a sexual encounter between a man and a woman: Does it have to involve ropes to tie her up, and knives or guns to threaten her, or fists and whips to beat her into submission? Or is simple over-powering strength and persistence, in the face of physical and verbal resistance, enough to constitute rape?

Perhaps DSK actually thinks he's not aggressive -- just God's gift to women (or that women are God's gift to him, his for the taking). Several other women have now come forward to talk about being hit on by him, both at parties and in work situations, in ways that seem inappropriate even in the particular setting. He sounds like the kind of narcissistic, powerful man who feels entitled to command sex from any woman he wants, whether she wants it or not.

Has anyone asked him for his definition of aggression?

Ralph

DADT is dead #21 -- officially and at last !!

Today, Tuesday, September 20, 2011 marks the official end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Astonishingly, some Republicans in Congress are still demagogue-ing the issue, claiming that it will undermine military effectiveness, blah blah blah.

Not so. Pentagon Press Secretary Georgie Little issued this statement concerning military preparedness for the end of DADT:

"No one should be left with the impression that we are unprepared. We are prepared for repeal." He added that 97% of military personnel have completed the training program for accepting and integrating gay men and women into their military units.

Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, is to hold a new conference about it on Tuesday.

At the stroke of midnight, U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gary Ross married his partner in a wedding ceremony in Vermont.

The end of DADT has been a long time coming . . . but BLTN.*

Ralph

*Better late than never.

Tea Party debate

Last Monday night was one of the most disgusting spectacles in recent political history -- and that's a hard contest to win, when you consider any time Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich is on camera. They have now been displaced by Rick Perry's swagger and smirk. He is Dubya on steroids.

But the CNN-Tea Party sponsored debate comes out ahead in evoking disgust. Concerning the candidates: The level of ignorance displayed as virtue, the knee-jerk anti-Obama stance on anything, the degree of pandering to base greed and the indifference to hardship, and the championing of the privileged over the disadvantaged -- all were so rank and so pervasive that it almost made me puke.

And it wasn't just the candidates. You could almost excuse them, because some of them must be cringing inside that they have to play this game in order to have any hope of winning this nomination. No, the audience was even worse, and they had no excuse. Two examples:

#1. Rick Perry was being questioned about the 234 executions carried out during his terms as governor. He had famously boasted earlier that he never lost sleep worrying that an innocent person might be executed. Here again, he reiterated his confidence in the Texas appeals system and assured the audience that he does not worry that an innocent person might die. This, despite strong evidence that a man executed in 2004 -- during Perry's term -- might very well be innocent. An outside investigative report points to flawed expert witness testimony and prosecutorial comments that would likely have inflamed the prejudices of the jury in the sentencing phase.

But it was the audience reaction: Even before Perry said a word, in the middle of Wolf Blitzer posing his question and referring to the 234 executions during Perry's term, the audience broke in with applause and cheers -- as though this was some badge of honor. Perry didn't bother to calm the crowd by saying something like: this brings me no pleasure, but it is a duty of the governor to faithfully carry out the laws.

Even John McCain did something like that when a woman asking a question at a rally called Obama a Muslim. McCain interrupted her to say, "No, ma'am; you're misinformed. Mr. Obama is a Christian." But, no, Perry just basked in the applause and smirked his smirk. And swaggered, if you can swagger standing still. Somehow, he seems to be able to do that.

#2. Ron Paul was being questioned about his views on health care reform, specifically mandatory insurance coverage. Wolf Blitzer posed the hypothetical: a young man without health insurance becomes quite ill requiring a long hospital stay and then dies, leaving behind unpaid charges of $400,000. Who should pay?

Paul's response, reflecting his libertarian stance of minimal government, was all about people's freedom to make choices and having to live with the consequences.

Wolf kept pushing back, asking a second time: "But are you saying we should just let him die?" At least two loud voices shouted from the audience: "YEAH !!!!" YEAH!!!! And there was general, loud and sustained applause.

This is what the Tea Party is bringing -- and forcing, it seems, the other Republicans to climb on board in order to win this nomination.

In fairness to Paul, he did not imply that the man should be allowed to die; he offered the mealy-mouthed defense that in the past people's friends and their churches have always stepped in to take care of people in need. Wolf pointed out that today's medical costs are beyond the means of most churches. Paul just shrugged at this point. How realistic is that answer? What church has a Pastor's Fund that could be tapped for $400,000 for one individual?

But nobody -- none of the other debaters nor the moderator -- took up what to me was the other big point here. This man did receive the care he needed, and the hospital was left with the unpaid bill. This happens all the time. So what do they do? They just raise the charges for everyone else across the board to absorb such unpaid bills.

And THAT is one of the unrecognized causes of the skyrocketing costs of medical care -- one that would be reversed by having universal health insurance. Either we need mandatory universal coverage, so that premiums are paid for everyone (whether by government or the individual is immaterial for this argument), which makes the cost less per person covered. Or else we have to adopt the callous attitude of those who say: Let him die. We can't keep going like this, passing along the unpaid charges by raising the charges on everyone else, driving up the supposed costs of health care.

Would these same people argue that department stores should not expect the police (a government agency) to arrest shop-lifters, and instead simply pass on the loss to their other customers by raising prices? I don't think so. But what's the difference in having government sponsored police forces, or public schools, or health insurance?

Now you can argue, as some do, that the Tea Party represents a minority position in the Republican Party and that their influence is being exaggerated. In numbers, yes. But look what they've accomplished in the House of Representatives. Deadlock on issues that would have had bipartisan support in the past, or at least reasonable negotiations and compromises. Now they just say NO. And Boehner caves, because he doesn't have the votes in his caucus. And Obama either caves or gets no bill at all. Because he doesn't have the required super-majority of 60 votes to get controversial bills through the Senate. So now Obama is losing the support of his base, because he's caving in to Republicans.

Beyond all that, though. What have we come to as a nation of people? Among the most heated audience affirmations of any issue of the night seemed, well, downright blood-thirsty or at the least vindictive: (1) lauding the governor for executing 234 people without a single worry and (2) "let the man die" if he can't afford medical care.

This is a sorry state of humanity we have sunk to, folks. We're better than this. Even most Republicans are better than this. Heck, even most Texans are better than this (Both Perry and Paul are Texans.)

Ralph

At last, Obama draws a line in the sand

Now we're seeing Obama do what he should have done much earlier -- drive a harder bargain.

In the past few days, he has augmented his jobs bill by proposing a minimum tax for millionaires, one that is over and above his plan to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire at the end of this year (because many of them get most of their earnings from capital gains, which are taxed at a low rate, with no payroll taxes on those earnings either; and so some pay almost no taxes).

Now, tonight, his aides have announced that he will veto any Super Committee proposal that cuts Medicare without including tax increases for the wealthy and big corporations.

In the liberals' lamenting about the Super Committee, I don't think anyone talked about the possibility that Congress could pass their plan, and then Obama could veto it -- which presumably would kick in the same trigger cuts that both sides want to avoid.

So maybe the administration had this ace up their sleeve -- actually had a bit more power than anyone was talking about.

Now . . . if he will just stick to it.

Ralph

And yet . . . there was politics

It's true: I did not take a computer with me on vacation, so I had no email or internet access. I thought I would leave politics behind too.

First, I found the daily New York Times for sale at the Starbucks down the road. I've discovered in visits to other smaller cities (Santa Fe, for example) that you can always find the NYT at Starbucks.

Then . . the condo had cable TV, and I discovered MSNBC and almost became addicted to a line-up that is the liberal's answer to Fox News.

Starting in the late afternoon, you can watch straight through hour-long programs each hosted by: Chris Matthews, Al Sharpton, Laurence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Daryl Rattigan, and Ed Schultz on The Ed Show. Meanwhile, I could flip back and forth and watch Anderson Cooper on CNN and, later, Charlie Rose on PBS. Not just liberal, in contrast to Fox and most of the rest of TV as well, but intelligent discussion. Six hours in a row !!!

Rachel Maddow was already my favorite, from watching clips of her programs on the internet. But Al Sharpton? I was unprepared for the quality of his show. I remember the skeptical comments, when MSNBC announced it was giving a talk show to Sharpton. But the Reverend Al turns out to be quite a lucid and focused interviewer and news analyst. He does not in any way come across as a radical screamer, as he has often seemed in the media when defending some victimized individual. I came to look forward to his pithy characterizations, as well as his clear thinking and hard-hitting challenges to the Republicans.

The big problem was -- which show would I choose to miss in order to go out for dinner?

All this intelligent, reasonable discussion was intoxicating after the vast morass of the Monday night CNN-Tea Party sponsored GOP debate (more later about that) and just about anything else on the tube, including those pestering commercials.

I briefly flirted with the idea of coming home and getting cable TV. But in the end I opted out. It was ok to spend four or five hours watching TV on vacation; but not as a regular diet back home.

I broke myself of the TV habit long ago, and I don't want to get addicted again. After all, I can barely support (time-wise) my addiction to the internet.

Ralph

My opinion

This is not one of the major crises facing the world, although it did command a chunk of the media attention: ie, the alleged rape of the housekeeper by former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Now the criminal case against him has been dismissed, because of the prosecutor's assessment that winning the case would depend on whether the jury will believe her or him, and she has already proved herself unreliable by lying to the police and to immigration officials about other matters. Note: this does not mean that DSK was acquitted; he may very well have committed rape. That has not been decided. But the criminal case has been dismissed. There is still a civil suit pending.

DSK has now given an interview, in which he claims that it was both "an error" and "a moral failing" on his part, and he regrets it "infinitely." Small wonder he regrets it, given the result that he had to resign from one of the world's prestigious jobs and lost his probably realistic ambition to be elected President of France.

He admits to having sex with the house-keeper, but claims that it didn't involve violence, constraint, or aggression. He also dismissed the separate claim of a French writer that he had tried to rape her during a 2003 interview, again saying that "no act of aggression, no violence" took place between them.

Which all leads me to wonder and suggest this: Perhaps Monsieur Strauss-Kahn does not understand what constitutes aggression and violence in a sexual encounter between a man and a woman: Does it have to involve ropes to tie her up, and knives or guns to threaten her, or fists and whips to beat her into submission? Or is simple over-powering strength and persistence, in the face of physical and verbal resistance, enough to constitute rape?

Perhaps DSK actually thinks he's not aggressive -- just God's gift to women (or that women are God's gift to him, his for the taking). Several other women have now come forward to talk about being hit on by him, both at parties and in work situations, in ways that seem inappropriate even in the particular setting. He sounds like the kind of narcissistic, powerful man who feels entitled to command sex from any woman he wants, whether she wants it or not.

Has anyone asked him for his definition of aggression?

Ralph

Back home

I just spent a relaxing week doing nothing much, at least nothing that I had to do. Lots of reading, lots of sitting on the balcony watching and listening to the waves lapping the white sands of Santa Rosa Beach, and lots of time not doing emails, not reading political blogs, and not writing one myself.

What did I read? Besides catching up on back copies of the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, I read one of Virginia Woolf's second-tier novels, Between the Acts; a highly praised, just published, first novel by Justin Torres, We the Animals; and most impressive of all, the 2009 highly readable Destiny Distrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary.

If I were not already a devoted Virginia Woolf fan from her two great novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, along with her less-popular, experimental novel, The Waves, as well as the insights in her reviews and essays, and the window into the people of Bloomsbury in her diaries and journals, I would not be inclined to return to her work. But I will, because of the greatness that is there in the better parts.

We the Animals has some beautiful writing and tells a compelling story of a boy's coming-of-age in a family life described in the dust jacket as "fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. . . . It leaves us reminded that our madness is both caused by, and alleviated by, our families . . ." Michael Cunningham called it "a dark jewel of a book. It's heartbreaking. It's beautiful. . . Justin Torres [is] a brilliant, ferocious new voice." Marilynn Robinson called it's language "brilliant, poised, and pure."

It's really a novella at 125 pages, or actually it feels more like the first half of a two stage novel. We definitely want the rest of this young man's story. However, his editor says, "were it a few pages longer it might not be as perfect." The author is only 31, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. This is his debut novel, following a highly discussed short story in The New Yorker last month. So we will definitely hear more from him.

Destiny Disrupted is that rare book of history that encompasses a vast amount of information and is yet so readily accessible and interestingly written that I looked forward to reading the next chapter. The author often ends a chapter with a cliff-hanger: "And then the catastrophes began." Or a quirky hook: "In 1600 . . . a visitor from Mars might well have supposed that the human world was on the verge of becoming Muslin. The Martian would have been mistaken, of course: the course of history had already tipped, because of developments in Europe since the Crusades."

But these are matters of style that make for interesting reading. The substance of this book is what is so compelling. I am certainly one Westerner who has been abominably ignorant about the history of the Islamic world and its culture. There is so much misunderstanding, so much ignorance, and so much prejudice, hatred, and fear in our world about that world. Constantly, as I read, I thought "What must they think of us?" when our rabid right-wingers foment about "the Muslims."

One small example: During what we think of as the Dark Ages in Europe, when civilization (ie, the civilization known to Westerners) had been largely halted, if not completely reversed, few people could read; books existed only in monasteries. And yet at the same time, the Muslim world was flourishing in culture, knowledge, philosophy, poetry and enlightenment. They thought of Europe as "a more or less primeval forest inhabited by men so primitive they still ate pig flesh. . . . They knew that an advanced civilization had once flourished further west . . . [but] was now little more than a memory."

The other strong impression is that, yes, extremists of Islam resort to violence, as they do in our world (were the atrocities of the Crusades, done in the name of Christianity, any less barbarous than slaughter done in the name of Islam?). Let us not judge a world religion on the basis of the worst that its extremists do, but in its effect of the lives of its typical adherents. For Islam, that is a deeply-rooted, gentle acceptance and kindness toward their fellow humans, giving to the poor, taking care of the sick, and educating their children.

One main difference: Christianity emphasizes the personal salvation of the isolated soul; Islam emphasizes the construction of the perfect community.

For anyone who wants to understand Islam and the history of the world, including a major portion of history that has been left out of, or distorted, in our own history books, I recommend this highly readable book.

Ralph