Monday, October 07, 2002

The Real Reason Just read Eric Boehlert's piece in Salon (premium, sorry...) this morning, comparing the administration's ever-shifting justifications for the Iraq war to their previous strategy of ramming the tax cut down the nation's throat by whatever means necessary. All this shifty and obvious prevarication reminds me of the scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life, where two men are caught in the African bush disguised as a tiger ("A tiger? In Africa?") that bit off the leg of one of the officers. The hunting party questions them suspiciously and they keep changing their story until the audience finally wonders what could be a convincing explanation for this bizarre scenario, and why even bother asking? That's all to say that when the rationale for official policy keeps shifting, it doesn't reduce the policy to absurdity - it reduces the concept of searching for a rationale to absurdity. Such a strategy, whether intentional or not, admirably serves the purposes of an administration that seems uncomfortable with the need to ever explain or justify itself, provide proof of its claims (if indeed it understands any distinction between "proof" and "evidence" or mere allegations) or answer a direct question from the public it claims to represent. Everyone suspects that the "real reason" behind the Iraq policy is something shabby and unprincipled, like oil or revenge for the assassination attempt on Bush Senior. I'm beginning to think the real reason we're after Iraq is because the President Wishes It So, so just sit down and shut up if you don't like it. 9:41:48 AM    Emphasize This! []

Wither ALD? The following notice appeared this morning when I clicked over for my Monday morning fix at the wonderful Arts and Letters Daily site: The magazine Lingua Franca and its parent company University Business LLC filed for bankruptcy earlier this year (Trustee, Robert L. Geltzer, of Tendler, Biggins & Geltzer, 1556 Third Avenue, Suite 505, New York, NY 101128). We understand that the assets of University Business, including this Website, are to be auctioned in New York City on October 24, 2002. For further information, we suggest contacting the Trustee. Since the filing, Arts & Letters Daily has been kept afloat by the goodwill of its editors, Tran Huu Dung and Denis Dutton, and it is now time for them to move on. They will continue to supply content on other similar sites with which they are associated: SciTech Daily Review; Denis Dutton’s Philosophy & Literature site; Business Daily Review. Human Nature Review has fine science reporting, Arts Journal is our favorite for arts news, and Google News is invaluable for newspapers and magazines. Of these, Dutton's P&L site preserves most of the ALD flavor, though they all look pretty good. Still, I will miss the wide-ranging scope of ALD, their hobby-horse issues (Darwin vs. "Intelligent Design", censorship, European authors), the exhausitve list of media links and the way that the site managed to bring the warm, bookish charm of an elite literary journal to the arctic cool of the Web. OK, I'm sick of writing obituaries. On to new topics now... 9:09:03 AM    Emphasize This! []