My generation ...

My generation doesn't feel like a "generation."

The Wire and random thoughts ...

Want to say I LOVE the HBO show The Wire. I've been renting the DVD's and am through season one and part way through season two. But I want to say, I still can't get over the killing of Wallace at the end of the first season. I often wake up thinking about it, as if he were a real person. Anyway, what a great show.

I had been wondering what was up with the insurgents in Iraq using power drills and nails to torture people. It turns out that they were favored by Saddam's torturers. Still, what is up with that? What does it say? God damn, can you imagine? Drilling into living people?

Also, I was just remembering that Bush wanted Bernard Kerik to head the Dept. of Homeland Security. It was a "gut" decision. I wonder, is there anything, anything that could happen that would make Bush second-guess his "gut"?

Also, Quinn Cummings has a blog. What a great writer.

Last shred of honor and decency ...

George Packer with what is really the only moral thing for America to do in Iraq at this point:

Withdrawal means that the United States will have to watch Iraqis die in ever greater numbers without doing much of anything to prevent it, because the welfare of Iraqis will no longer be among our central concerns. Those Iraqis who have had anything to do with the occupation and its promises of democracy will be among the first to be killed: the translators, the government officials, the embassy employees, the journalists, the organizers of women's and human rights groups. As it is, they are being killed one by one. (I personally know at least half a dozen of them who have been murdered.) Without the protection of the Green Zone, U.S. bases, or the inhibiting effect on the Sunni and Shia militias of 150,000 U.S. troops, they will be killed in much greater numbers. To me, the relevant historical analogy is not the helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, leaving thousands of Vietnamese to the reeducation camps. It is the systematic slaughter by the Khmer Rouge of every Cambodian who appeared to have had anything to do with the West.

If the United States leaves Iraq, our last shred of honor and decency will require us to save as many of these Iraqis as possible. In June, a U.S. Embassy cable about the lives of the Iraqi staff was leaked to The Washington Post. Among many disturbing examples of intimidation and fear was this sentence: "In March, a few staff approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate." The cable gave no answer. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad does not issue visas. Iraqis who want to come to the United States must make their way across dangerous territory to a neighboring country that has a U.S. Embassy with a consular section. Iran and Syria do not; Jordan has recently begun to bar entry to Iraqi men under the age of 35. For a military translator to have a chance at coming to the United States, he must be able to prove that he worked for at least a year with U.S. forces and have the recommendation of a general officer--nearly impossible in most cases. Our current approach essentially traps Iraqis inside their country, where they will have to choose, like Osman, between jihadists and death squads.

We should start issuing visas in Baghdad, as well as in the regional embassies in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla, and Basra. We should issue them liberally, which means that we should vastly increase our quota for Iraqi refugees. (Last year, it was fewer than 200.) We should prepare contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts. We should be ready for desperate and angry crowds at the gates of the Green Zone and U.S. bases. We should not allow wishful thinking to put off these decisions until it's too late. We should not compound our betrayals of Iraqis who put their hopes in our hands.

A Matter of Interpretation

“The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.”

- National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958[i]

“We interpret the right to use space for peaceful purposes to include military uses of space to promote peace in the world.”

- Defense Department Official 1983[ii]

I'm writing a paper on rhetoric and law. Mainly, I am suggesting that studying rhetoric (ancient and modern) is a good idea for lawyers for two reasons. First, it will make them better advocates. Second, it will make the legal system better, which has obvious ramifications for our society. I also think it offers a way out for legal theorists on the left, many of whom have adopted versions of law and economics to conceptualize and teach law after the apparent demise of critical legal studies and legal realism.

In any case, the above juxtaposition comes from a really fascinating book by literary critic Steven Mailloux called Rhetorical Power. I couldn't figure out a way to use it in my current paper, so I thought, shit, I'll just post it on the blog.

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[i] National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, 42 USCS § 2451(a) (LEXIS through 10/13/2006 ).

[ii] Robert Cooper, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (as quoted in Frank Greve, Pentagon Research Retains Vision of 'Winning' N-war, Miami Herald, March 27, 1983, § D, at 4).

Gettysburg Address as Power Point

LINK

The Revelers' Reunion Show

We're coming out

[Blues Brothers. While standing at the entrance to the Triple Rock church watching the service with much dancing and Hallelujah choruses, a heavenly light shines down on Jake and he has an epiphany]

Jake: The band... the band...
Reverend Cleophus James: DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Jake: THE BAND!
Reverend Cleophus James: DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Elwood: What light?
Reverend Cleophus James: HAVE YOU SEEEEN THE LIGHT?
Jake: YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!