Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Propaganda in Action If you need a textbook example of war propaganda disguised as news, you've got it here: a inspiring profile of an African-American man, inspired by the World-War-II Tuskegee Airman, who goes on to be a Navy fighter pilot and maybe a future leader, ready to do his duty and blow the crap out of Iraq. But what really caught my eye in the middle of this hagiography was this 'graf, which followed one describing the complexity and danger of flying missions: "The margin for error is pretty darned small," said Cmdr. Jeffrey Penfield, top officer of the squadron, which has dedicated its deployment to a firehouse in Midtown Manhattan, home to Ladder Company 4 and other units, which lost 15 men when the World Trade Center was destroyed. Each of the squadron's 12 jets, the first Super Hornets deployed for combat by the Navy, has painted on it the name of a victim of the attacks. The squadron's pilots, including Lieutenant Barnes, have patches that bear the firehouse slogan: "Pride of Midtown. Never Missed a Performance." Now, that bit of information, in addition to being sloppy writing (my English 1A instructor would have dinged me for employing such a clumsy transition to shoehorn in this factoid), is either pointless or misleading: Iraq, despite the best efforts of the Bush administration to gin up a connection, had nothing to do with the terrorist attack of 9/11. The Bush administration has done its level best to confuse the situation, to the point that a disturbingly high percentage of Americans, according to polls, believe that there were Iraqis on the planes that hit the WTC: there were none. So either the Times's reporter, like the Bush Administration, is trying to hand-wavingly imply a connection between Al Quada and Iraq, or she is just as confused and ignorant as the American public. In either case, she's wittingly or unwittingly serving as a propagandist, and in my book is either deceitful or unsufficiently informed to be trusted. Realizing Dreams of Flight, Inspired by Historic Crew. Lt. Dewaine Barnes, who became a pilot after learning about the Tuskegee Airmen, is aiming to lead a team in combat in Iraq. By Lynette Clemetson. [New York Times: International] 12:59:59 PM    Comment on this post! [] My House in the Hills I should say a little bit more about where I'm house-sitting: it's a small house (a HOUSE!) in the hills on the outskirts of Kamakura, once the ancient capital of Japan but now a tourist attraction/spiffy residence (like Carmel, but not as extreme, given Japan's relatively egalitarian income levels). Kamakura has a beach pathetically small and dirty by American standards (or so I'm told, as I've never laid eyes on it), boutiques, and, of course, numerous old temples, shrines, and ancient monuments, including the famous Daibutsu (the large seated Buddha that is, for most Americans, the iconic image of him and of Japan). My temporary residence is on the other side of town from the Daibutsu, but it's practically next door to Hokokuji temple, a Zen temple founded in 1334 and known as the "bamboo temple" because of the growth around it. The house I'm staying in is up a hill, requiring a walk up a couple of flights of steps to reach from the street, and has a small backyard that is back against a brush-covered bluff. The yard itself has a small, mossy fishpond and a couple of stone lanterns, and has been left to fend for itself, giving the place a pleasingly wild look. The occupants are Americans from the Bay Area, so this Japanese house is decorated with touches of California, giving it a oddly familiar yet subtly different atmosphere: tatami floors, Japanese-style closets for the futons, and Japanese prints on the walls, along with a decent-sized kitchen with actual appliances and lots of books. The occupants are big readers, and have a few hundred books on their shelves. One of them has a particular interest in consciousness and biology, so there are several feet of books on those subjects, books by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Pinker, E.O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, William Calvin, Robert Wright, Matt Ridley, etc. I picked out one, and found it particularly educational: Andrew Brown's "The Darwin Wars," an overview of the battlefield between nature vs. nuture camps in evolutionary biology. Wandering in and out of the place (mostly in, really) are the occupants's four cats, whose reaction to me range from clingy to wary: a one-and-a-half year-old Siamese insists on following me (especially into the kitchen) and squeaking at me, while the thirteen-year-old Siamese spends most of her time under the living room chair and watching me cautiously. The remaining two cats (middle-aged Burmese and black-and-white Japanese mix) don't like each other much, and spend too much time glaring and growling at one another. 12:35:17 PM    Comment on this post! []