Silflay Hraka

In conjunction with Blog Critics, Carnival of the Vanities will go up tomorrow. If you have something you want posted, get it to me tonight. Yes, I know it’s two days early, but it will be posted to Blog Critics as well as here, which should produce some more traffic.

Moral Imperialism

Paul Krugman smells a “definite whiff of imperial ambition in the air once again.” Of course, to Paul that’s a bad smell, worse than a fart in the elevator, and certainly as rude.

Of course the new Bush doctrine, in which the United States will seek “regime change” in nations that we judge might be future threats, is driven by high moral purpose. But McKinley-era imperialists also thought they were morally justified. The war with Spain ? which ruled its colonies with great brutality, but posed no threat to us ? was justified by an apparent act of terror, the sinking of the battleship Maine, even though no evidence ever linked that attack to Spain. And the purpose of our conquest of the Philippines was, McKinley declared, “to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

It’s probably sarcasm, though if so it’s certainly well concealed, but does it strike anyone else as odd that the first thing Mr. Krugman says about the new Bush Doctrine is that it is “driven by high moral purpose”? Of course, that’s not enough. The fact that Spain was a brutal oppressor was not enough because Spain did not threaten us. All Spain was doing was killing little brown people, so what’s the problem? Forgive me, but when did a high moral purpose cease to be sufficient as a cause for action in the Left? If a high moral purpose forces us as a nation to feed the starving and heal the sick citizens of the world, then it certainly suffices as a reason for action against despotic regimes. Without a high moral purpose behind the British Empire, suttee and thuggee would not be eliminated in India, and the caste system plaguing that country would be even stronger. The fact that it took the explosion of the Maine to propel us into war with Spain is our eternal shame, but not for the reason Krugman thinks it is.

If our purpose in the Philippines was to educate, uplift, civilize and Christianize, then we did a bang up job.There was one other major island in Spanish hands, if you recall. Cuba. The Philippines today is a functioning democracy. Cuba is not. The Philippines has a per Capita GDP of $3,500. Cuba has a per Capita GDP of $1560. What happened in Cuba was that we failed in our Imperial responsibility to the people of that nation after we removed a despot. We did somewhat better in the Philippines. Yes, lots of civilians died, but not at the hands of The United States Army. They died due to starvation and disease, conditions endemic in that country due to its previous rule by Spain, not because of the removal of that rule.

Let’s see a show of hands;

How many of you would trade the life of one sadistic thug to end clitorectomies?
How about two thugs. Is it ok to kill two male oppressors so that little girls can avoid having their clitoris dug out with a piece of heated steel?
Ten?
As many as it takes?

You can sign me up for the last one, because I’m not a cultural relativist, despite my anthropology major. Some things deserve to be extinct, and if you can look evil in the eye and then tell me that it is not evil then you are best an apologist for it. At worst, you are its quisling. If the argument that Saddam is evil is not enough for you, then no argument will be. The idea that he must first demonstrate that evil, not simply on other human beings, which he has already done, but on Americans and with incontrovertible evidence, before we can take action against him, is racist, cowardly and despicable. How’s that for a trifecta, Paul? If a person still insists on that chain of events, then they should be willing to admit that the murder of 6 million Jews would have troubled them not a whit in the 1940’s, and that the Cambodian genocide would have engendered a similar lack of feeling.

If genocide is only a problem to you when it kills white people, or Americans, then you have no right to call yourself a moral being. America is not perfect, but to insist that we must be before proceeding on any course of action is to provide aid and comfort to those demonstrably evil, to give yourself a false curtain of morality to hide behind. Yours is not the hand that holds the knife at the throat of an innocent, yours is the hand that holds the gun that could kill the owner of the knife hand. But you refuse to fire it, because you’re not perfect. I’ve got news for you. You’ll be even less perfect after the throat is slit.

Wormholes to Another World

I have a source close to the Navy, who from this point forward will be referred to as “Prairie Dog” or PD for short, who has uncovered some interesting information regarding passageways to other dimensions. PD promises that more “confidential material” will be forthcoming, but this is his first installment.

The article he sent me brings up the idea that tunnels between different dimensions (referred to as “wormholes”) of reality are located near the Bermuda triangle, thus giving of magnetic field anomalies that are consistently reported in that area. They are thought to be mini-black holes that appear and then disappear with amazing speed.

One of the speculations (of those paranoid about this phenomenon) is that the naval base located on Andros Island is becoming the new Area 51. A number of reports of UFO’s and other “things” have been consistently reported. Is something out there? Perhaps Mulder should look to the Bahamas for the answer. PD has promised more will follow, assuming he doesn’t lose his security clearance………….stay tuned.

Thesis, Antithesis

The Carnival of the Vanities seems to have to, if not struck a nerve, at least scraped a neuron. The Safety Valve likes it, as does Bill Quick, who has threatened to steal the sucker wholesale. While that is immensely complimentary to the idea itself, my first reaction was to screech But if he does, then I won’t have any traffic! in my most spoiled little girl voice. Not that I could handle a tenth of the posts coming in from the blogosphere as a whole if the idea really caught on. The second thing I thought was how easy it would be for a unscrupulous blogger (ok, me) to game the resultant system if multiple versions of the Carnival happened to spring up. I decided not to worry about it until it happened. Besides, I’ll need time to review my game plan.

Dave, of the greeblie blog, has decided that at least a possible solution to the matter would be a Emergency Blogcasting Link Solicitation System. It’s a notification system, used to make sure that when his genius spills out onto the page, other bloggers can be called in to help spread the brain juice around before the stain sets and the wife gets home. I think other bloggers have tried this, with at least mixed results. I know the Captain doesn’t care for them;

Please take me off of all broadcast mailing lists you may use to announce the latest post on your blog.

I don’t think I’d care to debate him on the matter.

Laurence, a man almost as disgusting as me, Meryl, not the other way around, knows that’s it’s not easy, being green.

I’ve for the most part gotten over that feeling and just occasionally have pangs of envy when someone posts crap and everybody applauds and I think I’ve shat diamonds and I’m told not to squat on the carpet.

I get the same feeling, but it’s usually about other stuff that I’ve written on the blog. One of the Peanuts characters once said something like “True art takes at least 15 minutes.” and I can’t think how many times something I just tossed off as filler garnered most of the traffic for the day, while I made frantic gestures towards the “Art” that was being ignored.

His idea is that the blogs that don’t mind people e-mailing them posts to have an announcement to that effect on the site.

Maybe there should e a graphic that designated “ALL FEEDBACK WELCOME” or “WE DO NOT MIND SOLICITATIONS FOR LINKS.”

And he’ll link you, as well. I see more than one thing on his site today that was emailed to me as well. But…there’s a downside as well. Blogs with lots of posts lessen the effect of any one post. There’s a good number of hits associated with being at the top of the file13 list, but the top there is ever-changing. When Laurence is running hot, that top post could last less than 10 minutes, and vanish below 10 or 11 others in an hour or two. The farther down it goes, the less traffic there is.

Not that I think posting a lot is a bad thing. I wish to God I could post more. I don’t have the time, and it really annoys me. It’s one of the reasons this is a team blog. NOT THAT YOU’D NOTICE!

Ahem. Excuse me

What I’m hoping for with the Carnival is kind of an hourglass effect, where one post pulls in a large number of visitors, and sends them right back out to through the links within it. I think it’ll work, but it might not, and if it doesn’t then it’s at least sparked a couple of other ideas on how to find the quality in the blogosphere.

Now that I’ve worked my way around to it, Silflay has gotten a good number of posts to start off with for the Carnival. We can always use more, and in point of fact, we need more. The first one is this Friday, and I’ll try to post it just after midnight Thursday, so it can run as long as possible. If you’ve got a quality post that could use some more attention, e-mail to me.

Come one, come all. See the freaks on the display for the low, low price of absolutely nothing!

What’s the best bait to use when you’re fishing for perverts? Jailbait!

So there’s this guy, let’s call him….Israel, lived in the same area all his life, the same place his parents lived in, and his grandparents. They’ve recently come up in the world, enough so that Israel was able to move into the old Balfour house at the edge of town. It’s a small town, got no police to speak of, and only one bar, the Dew-drop Inn. Like it or not, when Is wants a beer that’s where he goes. It’s not what you’d call a fancy place, and the clientele is kinda rough. They tried to kick Is around when he first started coming in after work. Is ain’t real big, but he’s wiry, and he took up boxing lessons a while back. After he bloodied a few noses, they mostly left him to drink in peace, and every now and them a couple of them might even nod when he came in.

There is this one old drunk, Yasser, that just hates the sight of Is though. He used to live on part of the Balfour property, till the court awarded it to Is. He didn’t fuss much at the time. When you live in a shack, drink all your money and beat the wife regular, what does it matter where the shack is? Now, though, that’s a different story. He spends most of his time down at the Dew-drop, drinking down at the end of the bar with a couple of his cronies, staring into his whiskey. Every now and then he tries to tell some of the other regulars what a great man he’d a been if the courts hadn’t screwed him, how rich he’d be otherwise. They’ve heard it all before, so they mostly ignore him.

People figure Yas is on disability from some government job; he gets a regular check from somewhere, that’s for sure. Not that he spends it on anything useful. Drinks for himself and his posse, such as it is. Every now and then he gets a fancy new car and runs it around town. It never lasts, he just doesn’t take care of it. Doesn’t spend any of that check on his wife and kids, either, and he’s got a passel of them, too, running around snot-nosed and shoeless, eating whatever scraps they can buy with the money they bum from tourists. Some of them go to work for Israel and his family; you can bet that burns Yas’s ass something fierce.

Now whenever Is stops in after work for a beer, Yas starts muttering to his cronies, and they start drinking on his tab, ordering all kinds of fancy drinks, tossing them back. Kamikazes, mostly. And the muttering gets louder, and Yas and his boys get madder, and sloppier. Whenever Is gets up to leave, they follow him outside, all full of booze and spleen. They yell at Is until he turns the corner, then they go back inside and tell each other how they showed him.

Course, now and again they do more than talk. Sometimes they fling a bottle at Is, too. They’re drunker than skunks, so mostly they miss, but occasionally they get lucky and one breaks near Is. On one or two rare occasions they’ve hit Is on the head, almost knocked him out.

And without fail, every time they throw a bottle, whether they miss or not, Is turns around, walks back up the street, and beats the everloving shit out of Yasser. Now the way Is figures it, it don’t matter who actually threw the bottle. Yas paid for it, so it was Yas’s bottle what flew by his ear, or smacked him in the temple. It’s gotten to be a pretty regular thing. Yas or one of his boys flings a bottle at Israel, and Israel turns around, walks back up to Yas, who is too drunk to even run, by god, and beats on him until Yas is lying in the gutter, bleeding like a stuck pig, with his eyes rolled back in his head. Then everything is kinda peaceful for a while, until Yas heals up and pays for another round.

People used to watch a good bit. It was pretty entertaining, placing bets on where the bottle would land, or how long it would take Israel to smack Yasser into unconsciousness. Not so many do any more. It’s gotten too predictable. Beside’s, they’re both about as dumb as stumps, when you get right down to it.

Yasser…well hell, ain’t it obvious? Man get’s the shit beat out of him all the time, yet he keeps on flinging. Israel? Pretty much everybody agrees that if he’s tired of all them bottles, he needs to take Yasser down once and for all. Yea, some people might screech, but it’s a clear case of self-defense. There’s not a jury in the land that’d convict him. He’d get some bad press, but he’s used to that. The editor of the local rag found out real quick that bashing Is sells papers. But Israel just beats Yas up, and goes home. And that’s stupid because Yas ain’t gonna stop throwing. One day he might even wise up and throw a full bottle. All he needs to do is knock Is unconscious, and he’s home free. Damn near everybody in that bar what was beat up by Israel will come looking for payback on that day, and it won’t be pretty. Probably trash the whole damn town, come to think of it.

People are starting to ask him. “Is, what’s it gonna be? You gonna let this little shit keep taking potshots at you until he really hurts you? Until he destroys everything you worked for? Or are you going to take him out, once and for all?

Is doesn’t say a thing. He looks them with his haunted eyes and keeps on walking. And Yasser? Yasser keeps on drinking.

The sainted wife is making me watch the Emmys. Highlight of the night so far? Marg Helgenberger’s nipples on live TV.

For months now, since Ngnat started walking, every Saturday the sainted wife has paused at some point in the day, looked at me and said, “We ought to go to church tomorrow.”

And I have said “Of course, dear.”, safe in the knowledge that this essentially shy woman will get cold feet come Sunday morning and not make me go.

Today she had her foot warmers on, so off we went. I don’t mind, too much. We know several other married with tots couples that attend the same church, so it wasn’t like we’d be complete strangers. We both grew up Methodist, so there’s no friction in picking a denomination. That’s good, because I consider Methodism the cowpox of religions. Once you’ve been exposed to it, you’re more or less immune to the others.

In my youth, I made up a chart of religious thought, probably while I was supposed to be listening to the sermon.

At the top, under the label Mostly Harmless: Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Jews, Anglicans

Slightly Suspect: Some Baptists and Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Mennonites, The various Orthodox churches

Think For Me Please: Most Baptists and Catholics

Raving Lunatics: Everyone else

I still consider it pretty accurate, though more as a description of the various sects and denominations as a whole than of specific individuals, unless it’s a specific individual that has knocked on my front door asking me to be saved or to read their pamphlets. I apologize if your particular belief system didn’t make the list. Actually, it probably did make the list, just at the bottom. I wasn’t trying to be comprehensive at the time.

The above is mostly a roundabout way of explaining that I knew we’d eventually have to go to church, if only to expose Ngnat to the Methodist meme. It’s just my bad luck that it requires a weekly booster shot for about 18 years to be effective.

Not going to church runs the risk that Ngnat would eventually encounter one of the more virulent religious memes, like Scientology or Islam, and succumb to them, having no internal religious database to draw on in order to counter their arguments. Not every child of agnostics or atheists becomes a John Walker Lindh, but I think one good way to prevent your child from seeking out crazed value systems later in life is to provide them with one of your own choosing when they’re young. That way, when they need to rebel against something later on in life, there’s something to push against. JW Lindh couldn’t find any traction in his parent’s world, so he provided some of his own. We all know how well that turned out. If by going to church for a hour every week prevents that from happening to Ngnat, great. If it prevents her from becoming a fundie Southern Baptist, that’s even better.

Basketball is ok, but what it really needs is more trampolines.

There’s a new career in the Army of One: muleskinner.