Entries from March 2007 ↓

Yes, it exists. (Charles Paul Freund used to write about it for Reason. I miss reading him.) Not only that, but it’s really popular in the Middle East. And tonight there was a very emotional win on the show Star Academy (an American Idol knockoff, formerly called SuperStar).

For some in battered Baghdad, it’s a reason to celebrate. Local favorite Shadha Hassoun has taken first prize in the Arab version of “American Idol.”

Dubbed the “Daughter of Mesopotamia” by fans, the young woman wrapped herself with the white, red and black flag of Iraq and broke into tears as fans swarmed the stage. The show is broadcast live throughout the Middle East from Beirut.

Iraqis have been glued to their TVs each Friday since December, eagerly monitoring her progress in the “Star Academy” contest.

Here’s what one observer wrote a year ago:

We’ll know the region is a truly different place when we see an Iraqi Idol being crowned, but in the meantime the success of SuperStar, the Arab world’s answer to American Idol on Lebanese satellite channel Future TV, is a pulsating arrow pointing in the right direction.

For where a silly, shallow, modern singing contest can thrive, with aspirants seeking so temporal and decadent a thing as stardom and an audience of over 30 million going nuts over the process, there is hope against the deadening strictures of political and dogmatic religious oppression. It is also extremely significant that the results on the show are in the voting hands of the viewers, and the influence of this normative expression of unfettered democracy on the greater culture should not be underestimated.

All that is true, but unfortunately the region isn’t a different place even though an Iraqi Idol was crowned tonight. But CNN has been covering the story:

Iraqis are uniting to vote for Shada Hassoon, pictured here on the Web site of “Star Academy.”

There are two amazing things about this: 1) Hassoun is secular, and is being celebrated as a pop star: note her uncovered head; and 2) despite (or because of?) this, Iraqis have lost (momentarily at least) their sectarian and confessional fervor:

“You deserve it, you are the star,” one fan wrote to Hassoon in a comment on the Al-Arabiya network’s Web site.

“I wish upon all Iraqis abroad and inside Iraq to vote for Shada, and I wish that all of them unite, and I would like to say one word to the Arabs and the entire world that Iraqis are brethren no matter what sect or confession they belong to,” the writer added.

Hassoon has mixed national heritage. She was born in Morocco to an Iraqi father and a Moroccan mother.

But she is regarded as an Iraqi because nationality is based on her father’s country.

She identifies herself as an Iraqi national and says her dream since childhood has been “to represent my country, Iraq, in arts.”

“We voted for Shada without asking if she were a Shiite or a Sunni,” Hicham Mahmoud Alaazami said on the Al-Arabiya Web site. “We voted for her just because she is an Iraqi.”

One small step for mankind.

(or, ahem, JibJab does Infotainment Rules)

How many tennis fans does it take for the bidding to get absurd for the as-yet-unwritten memoir of Andre Agassi?

I dunno how many threw their hats into the ring, but Knopf’s Sonny Mehta won the final face-off. His opponent was HarperCollins’s David Hirshey.

I like tennis as much as any “tennis orphan” can love the game—that is to say, I hated it when my father tried to get me to take up his passion, but I will never forget Borg vs. McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1980 or McEnroe vs. Connors at the U.S. Open late that same summer. I appreciate Agassi’s stick-to-it-iveness, but I will always be a McEnroe fan, because his game had an unequaled inherent drama (driven by his unpredictable emotions—and I don’t mean the “temper tantrums”; I mean the pre-volcanic rumbles deep beneath the surface) and because of his masterful touch.

That said … whoever wrote the proposal for the Agassi book is aiming to give Bono a run for his money in the Most Honorable Celebrity in the World Sweepstakes, ’cause you’re there at the creation of a new myth—excuse me: I mean, narrative—about Andre Agassi.

[[See Joshua Gamson's book Claims to Fame and this post about Angelina Jolie, and this one, if you want to understand where I'm coming from with my celebrity obsession. It's the scholarly approach, ha ha. And see how Gawker calls out Glenn Greenwald for getting on his high horse about The Politico. And see why gossip is good for us. Also: read Scorpion Tongues, by Gail Collins, former editorial-page editor of the New York Times, on how gossip has always been a weapon of the powerless against the privileged. And watch this space to see if I get it together to write up a more graceful version of my neat little theory about why infotainment rules.]]

Back to that Agassi image-in-the-making:

“I recently had the privilege of meeting with top executives and editors from eight publishing houses,” Agassi said in a statement released Wednesday by Knopf. “Everyone was very impressive, but in the end, I felt the strongest connection with (Knopf head) Sonny Mehta and his colleagues at Knopf.”

“Andre Agassi is one of the world’s most popular and admired figures,” Mehta said in a statement. “He has lived an extraordinary life, and he has a great story to tell — an inspiring story of determination, competition, and what it takes to become one of the greatest athletes of our time. Additionally, he is someone who has chosen to use his success as an instrument for change in the world.”

Galley Cat’s Ron Hogan got there way before me, but: Advantage, Agassi.

On Google News at the moment are these two headlines, both from Reuters:

Arab leaders urge Israel, world to take peace offer Reuters Canada

Abbas warns of violence if “hand of peace” rejected
Reuters AlertNet 

If you follow the links, they tell essentially the same story—indeed, they are the same story—but they are told differently, starting from the first paragraph.

The Reuters Canada version starts on a positive note, with Arab leaders “urging” (a verb that carries the connotation of reasonableness):

RIYADH (Reuters) - Arab leaders urged world powers on Thursday to use an Arab peace plan to relaunch efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Palestinian president warned of more violence if the “hand of peace” was rejected.

Speaking on the final day of an Arab summit in Riyadh, Mahmoud Abbas called on Israel not waste the chance for peace, and called for a committee led by Saudi Arabia to pursue it.

“I reiterate the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending the hand of peace to the Israeli people … We should not waste more chances in the history of this long and painful cause,” he told the closing ceremony.

“The entire region will be under renewed threats of war, explosions, as well as regional and international confrontations, as a result of the absence of a solution or the impossibility of implementing one,” Abbas added.

The Reuters AlertNet version starts rather differently—with a “warning” (i.e., a threat):

RIYADH, March 29 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Thursday of violence if Israel rejected a Palestinian “hand of peace”, and called for an international conference on achieving peace.

“I reiterate the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending the hand of peace to the Israeli people … we should not waste more chances in the history of this long and painful cause,” he told the closing ceremony of an Arab summit. “The entire region will be under renewed threats of war, explosions, as well as regional and international confrontations, as a result of the absence of a solution or the impossibility of implementing one,” Abbas added.

What is the reason for these two versions of the same story from Reuters—one that leads with a not so subtle threat and another that communicates some optimism?

I don’t know the reason. I would like to understand it, however, because I I know that these different headlines serve the forces of chaos, misunderstanding, antagonism, and distrust rather than the truth.

Michael Ware of CNN needs some more home leave or another vacation.

Yesterday evening, talking to Wolf “Here’s What’s Happening NOW” Blitzer, he went off on John McCain in a particularly hysterical-sounding rant [e.a.]:

BLITZER: CNN’s Michael Ware is standing by — Michael, you’ve been there, what, for four years. You’re walking around Baghdad on a daily basis.

 

Has there been this improvement that Senator McCain is speaking about?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I’d certainly like to bring Senator McCain up to speed, if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now, Wolf, that’s because of the helicopter circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing just a few blocks down the road.

Is Baghdad any safer?

Sectarian violence — one particular type of violence — is down. But none of the American generals here on the ground have anything like Senator McCain’s confidence.

I mean, Senator McCain’s credibility now on Iraq, which has been so solid to this point, has now been left out hanging to dry.

To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. …

I don’t know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.

Ware was slightly less, um, edgy this morning when talking to substitute anchor John Roberts on CNN’s American Morning:

CNN’s Michael Ware joins us now to do a little reality check on what the senator is saying. Michael, you’ve watched and you’ve monitored what the senator has been saying over the past few days. Generally, what is your take on it?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, overall, in the broad thrust, the senator is correct to say that the current strategy being employed, headed by the new American commander of the war, General David Petraeus, is, indeed, having an impact on the levels of violence in Baghdad, the capita of Iraq, particularly in terms of sectarian violence. Basically, the civil war. And in many ways, Senator McCain’s Iraq policies have been amongst the strongest in a political sphere in D.C.

Nonetheless, the senator went deep overboard when he suggested fantastically that Americans could now dare to stroll the streets of certain parts of Baghdad and, indeed, that the top American commander, General Petraeus, drives about the capital in a Humvee that does not have weapons. So, he really put his credibility on the line there. And we see this morning with you, John, the senator backing away with that, putting his campaign vehicle into high gear reverse.

However, Ware, CNN’s reporter on the ground in Iraq, couldn’t resist inserting himself into both the policy debate and American politics by claiming substantiation for his position by citing a report written by someone who is also not on the ground in Iraq [e.a.]

ROBERTS: What do you think about that, Michael, that we’re not passing along to the American people the fact that there is some progress in terms of the number of deaths on the streets of Baghdad?

WARE: Well, in terms of the number of deaths from a particularly kind of violence in Baghdad, that’s true. But even American commanders on the ground distance themselves from what Senator McCain has said about the broad-term implications of this.

Everybody knows that the insurgents and militias are lying low. Yes, the military is putting stress on them right now. But time and time again, they bounce back. They displace, they move their violence everywhere.

At the end of the day, nothing has really changed. The fundamental dynamics of the war aren’t being addressed.

And we see today, with the release of a report for West Point by retired General Barry McCaffrey, where he spells out that Iraq is ripped by a low-grade civil war. Three million Iraqis are displaced, they don’t trust their own prime minister. The government isn’t functioning.

The police are feared. The army, the Iraqi army, is too small and underequipped.

U.S. support for the war has evaporated and will not return. Current deployment of U.S. forces is not sustainable.

He says, however, that the current strategy could work, that it’s still possible to achieve a stable Iraq that doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction and doesn’t harbor terrorists. But there’s nothing about democracy.

And correct me if I’m wrong. Wasn’t that the central strategy of the Bush administration plan for this country, to be a shining beacon for the rest of the Middle East?

Then CNN’s anchor helpfully gets Ware out of his jam:

ROBERTS: And Michael, McCaffrey backs you up as well, saying you can’t go out in the neighborhood in Baghdad without an armed escort, as well.

Michael Ware, as always, from Baghdad, thanks.

I have a great deal of respect for journalists, and particularly for war reporters. There was a particularly moving segment on Frontline last night, called Requiem, about those brave journalists who risk their lives to cover the stories and suffering people across the globe that others—particularly Americans, but not only Americans— want to forget about:

At a time when fair and accurate news coverage is more essential than ever, 2006 marked one of the deadliest years on record for journalists. Surprisingly, despite the fierce fighting in Iraq, most of the slain journalists did not die in combat. They were deliberately targeted, hunted down, and murdered for investigating corruption, crime, or human rights abuses in countries around the world. In Requiem, FRONTLINE/World essayist Sheila Coronel looks at the dangers journalists confront as they try to tell their stories and pays special tribute to reporters working in the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, China and Iraq who have been killed, jailed, or exiled for daring to speak truth to power.

Watch it. You won’t be sorry.

Meanwhile: beware journalists and war correspondents like Michael Ware who “go native” and consider it their purview to lecture their TV audience about policy and politics.

A quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger about “climate change” in today’s New York Times (in Thomas Friedman’s behind-the-pay-wall column) caught my eye:

What is “amazing for someone that does not come from a political background like myself,” said Governor Schwarzenegger, is that “this line is being drawn” between Democrats and Republicans on climate change. “You say to yourself: ‘How can it be drawn on the environment?’ But it is.

[[Ostensibly, Schwarzenegger was saying that climate change is a suprapartisan issue, which is true. To the extent that climate change is happening---and it certainly seems to be happening; the question is how quickly and what we can or should do about it---it certainly affects everyone on the planet---but not equally. However, to say that “the debate is over,” which Schwarzenegger also says to Friedman, is a crafty, cunning classic triangulation political maneuver. See Frank Luntz on this matter.]]

Back to the matter at hand, however, which is the politicization of everything in our country and our culture and our national conversation—a horrible path that we should resist, not encourage.

Unfortunately, things do not seem to be going in that direction. Today, for example, Andrew Sullivan suggests that America’s finest writers and thinkers—in this case, Emerson and Thoreau and Emily Dickinson—ought to be used as cudgels in a propaganda war against those who would deny ”climate change.”

In America, in particular, love of the land has long been a part of patriotism. And where religious faith appears, it isn’t necessarily a paean to Gaia. “America, The Beautiful” is an environmentalist hymn. America’s greatest poets, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, are intoxicated with the natural beauty of this continent. Part of their intoxication is their sense of the divine saturating the natural. Read Thoreau or Emerson and the same American interaction with nature is palpable. Americans, after all, forged a relationship with wilderness more recently than any Europeans. And there is, therefore, a deeply patriotic form of green thought in America that has been overly neglected by environmentalists and that can and should be reclaimed by political leaders, especially on the right.

There is also, it seems to me, an authentically religious approach to the environment that is completely orthodox and defensible.

This is the essence of demagogy, helpfully defined by Wikipedia thus:

Demagogy (Demagoguery) (from Greek demos, “people”, and agogos, “leading”) refers to a political strategy for obtaining and gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalistic or populist themes. 

Sullivan’s deplorable and grotesque suggestion that we should plunder America’s national treasure—its glorious art and literature—for political purposes is disgusting enough in itself.

That anyone would take Andrew Sullivan, entertaining and popular as he is, seriously on anything having to do with politics is a sad commentary on how far we, as a country and a culture, seem to have fallen.

Going back on their word (what a surprise), the Iranians are parading their British hostages on television (via Sky News):

Footage of the 15 British sailors and marines being held in Iran has been aired by Iranian TV.

The pictures show the group being arrested, eating food in captivity and carries an interview with Faye Turney.

Turney is seen looking worried, wearing Iranian clothes and smoking.

She says the group “trespassed” into Iranian waters.

“I was arrested on March 23 and obviously we tresspassed into their waters,” she says.

“They were very friendly and very hospitable and nice people and explained to us why we were being arrested,” she said.

“There was no hurt or no harm.”

Here is her “confession”:

The BBC describes Britain’s step-by-step approach (which the Beeb refers to as “ridiculing” the Iranians) to the latest Iranian hostage crisis:

The British decision to go public with what they had previously presented to the Iranians in private came after the 15 captured sailors and marines remained in Iranian captivity. …

The first tactic was to offer Iran an easy way out. The Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett gave the co-ordinates of the British sailors to the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and suggested that there might have been a “mistake”. …

Iran at first offered a different co-ordinate and then, when it was pointed out that even this was in Iraqi waters, another reading was given, this time on the Iranian side. …

However the initial quiet and discreet effort led nowhere, so a decision to escalate the issue was taken.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons on Wednesday that it was “now time to ratchet up the diplomatic and international pressure” to show the Iranians that they were isolated.

Reports as of an hour ago suggest that this tactic may allow Iran to climb down and that it may work.

Iran to Release Female Sailor

Iran said a female British sailor seized with 14 other crew members would be released Wednesday or Thursday, softening Tehran’s position by suggesting their boats’ alleged entry into Iranian waters may have been a mistake.

Iranian state TV also said it would soon broadcast video showing the 15 British sailors and marines who were captured last week. British diplomats said Iran had previously promised not to parade the captives in front of television cameras.

 

Taking talmudicization to new, ahem, heights, Israelis are conducting a debate about whether hemp—and thus by extension its cousin marijuana—is kosher for Passover:

Hemp has increasingly been spotted on the list of kitniyot, or legumes, that Ashkenazi Jews abstain from eating during Pessah, according to several influential rabbinical Web sites, including kashrut.com. But not everyone agrees that hemp qualifies for the ban, and the debate has led many to question the definition of kitniyot.

While hemp isn’t a kitchen staple for most people, hemp oil can be found in a number of hygiene products and in some alternative baked goods. But it’s hemp’s more notorious cousin, commonly known as marijuana, that has set the sparks flying. As debate over the kitniyot tradition has gathered steam among rabbinic circles, many are looking at hemp as a case in point of why the practice of abstention needs to be reexamined.

Israel’s Green Leaf Party (which urges legalization of cannabis because it’s mentioned in the Bible [!]) is telling its members to hold off on consumption until the debate is settled.

Dude! How long do you expect us to wait?

No matter how cynical you are about the media (and this blog is, if nothing else, an expression of my deep cynicism), its behavior continues to astonish.

The international media has been reporting Iran’s kidnapping of fifteen British sailors and marines as if there were a legitimate dispute and Iran might actually have a case.

This is a lie.

Iran’s intense provocation was not only planned—it was announced ahead of time. And Iran’s threats were published in The Times (London) on March 18 [e.a.], five days before the Brits were seized in Iraqi waters:

in an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard’s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” he said. “Iran has enough people who can reach the heart of Europe and kidnap Americans and Israelis.”

Did Britain think it was immune to these threats, because they were made against Americans and Israelis?

Eminem is still allowed to trash Kim when he performs, but the twice divorced couple have agreed to cool it on the insult-hurling for the sake of their daughter, Hailie. Awww.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who are scandalized by him, but try as I might, I cannot help but like Em. Ten years ago, when my daughter was 12, I wouldn’t let her go see him perform at an underground show here in New York. (She was 12, for god’s sake!) Then, a few years later, I was listening to him myself. (Mr. Hepzeeba got hooked first, then yours truly.)

Barbra Streisand echoed my feelings when she said this:

“this kid Eminem is really interesting. I can relate to the truth, and I can relate to emotion, and I can relate to him in some strange way.

And this moved me in February 2001:

[[update: I had to delete the performance video; YouTube screwed up my theme]]

Happy birthday, Elton.

And good luck to you, Em, in your efforts to overcome your … demons.

Americans (and others) who watch the TV show 24 *** are being reintroduced to this arcane concept, which, acccording to rumor, was once vaguely understood by Americans (and others).

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrings her hands over it here.

Kevin Drum wonders whether the show (and thus the idea of moral ambiguity) is conservative or iberal. liberal.

Andrew Sullivan knows where he stands.

Well, Arthur Schlesinger, who died a couple of weeks ago, had something to say about the strange amnesia that seems to have infected even those folks (writers and intellectuals) who should know better [e.a.]:

Why, in an age of religiosity, has [Reinhold] Niebuhr, the supreme American theologian of the 20th century, dropped out of 21st-century religious discourse? Maybe issues have taken more urgent forms since Niebuhr’s death - terrorism, torture, abortion, same-sex marriage, Genesis versus Darwin, embryonic stem-cell research. But maybe Niebuhr has fallen out of fashion because 9/11 has revived the myth of our national innocence. Lamentations about “the end of innocence” became favorite clichés at the time.

Niebuhr was a critic of national innocence, which he regarded as a delusion. After all, whites coming to these shores were reared in the Calvinist doctrine of sinful humanity, and they killed red men, enslaved black men and later on imported yellow men for peon labor - not much of a background for national innocence. “Nations, as individuals, who are completely innocent in their own esteem,” Niebuhr wrote, “are insufferable in their human contacts.” The self-righteous delusion of innocence encouraged a kind of Manichaeism dividing the world between good (us) and evil (our critics).

Back to your regularly scheduled morally ambiguous programming. And may there be more where that came from.

————–

*** Not me. But I watched one season of MI-5.

I mean real reptiles. See these crocodiles?

A woman was caught with three crocodiles strapped to her waist [under her loose robe] at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked “strangely fat,” Officials said Monday.

True story. Read all about it here. This is my favorite part:

“The policewoman screamed and ran out of the room, and then women began screaming and panicking when they heard,” Telleria said. But when the hysteria died down, she said, ” everybody was admiring a woman who is able to tie crocodiles to her body.”

The International Herald Tribune—paper of record for Americans abroad—bridges the Atlantic and publishes an earth-shattering document:

Chronology of Anna Nicole Smith death

A timeline of events in the days leading up to the death of Anna Nicole Smith, provided by the Broward County Medical Examiner.

Feb. 5

_10 a.m. In the Bahamas, Smith has a morning dance lesson to prepare for both a music video and an event for the diet supplement TrimSpa. That afternoon, she flies to Miami and then to Fort Lauderdale with her companion, Howard K. Stern, and “psychiatrist/friend” Dr. Khristine Erosovich.

_4:30 p.m. Smith complains of pain in her left buttock from a recent injection of either human growth hormone, vitamin B12 or immunoglobulin. She then complains of chills and feeling cold on the limo ride to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

_7:30 p.m. Smith goes to bed. She has a temperature of 105 degrees (40.5 Celsius), but refuses to go to the hospital. She is prescribed antibiotics and Tamiflu and given an ice bath, which drops her temperature to 97 degrees (36 Celsius). She takes two tablespoons of chloral hydrate and goes to sleep.

Feb. 6

_Smith spends much of day watching television and drinking chamomile tea, water and Pedialyte, a rehydration drink. Later that day she feels ill, is sweating and has a pungent odor but feels better after a bath. Smith takes more chloral hydrate, sleeps some, then awakens and is given four drugs in addition to another dose of chloral hydrate.

Feb. 7

_12 p.m. Smith eats an egg-white omelette with spinach and watches TV in bed.

_Afternoon. Smith is found naked sitting in a dry bathtub in her room.

_Evening. Smith eats two crab cakes and shrimp for dinner. She watches TV again until the early morning hours, then takes another dose of chloral hydrate.

Feb. 8

_ 10 a.m. Stern wakes up and finds Smith also awake, complaining only of tiredness. Stern helps her to the bathroom and then puts her back in bed. Stern says he did not see Smith take any medications. Stern leaves to finish up the purchase of a yacht.

_12:30-1 p.m. Smith is found unresponsive and “blue” by Tasma Brighthaupt, wife of Smith bodyguard Maurice “Big Mo” Brighthaupt, who is out helping his brother move furniture. Tasma Brighthaupt, a registered nurse, begins CPR efforts and immediately calls her husband.

_1:40 p.m. Maurice Brighthaupt calls emergency personnel after arriving back at the hotel.

_1:46 p.m. Paramedics arrive.

_2:43 p.m. The ambulance carrying Smith arrives at a hospital emergency room.

_2:49 p.m. Smith is pronounced dead.

They missed one:

March 26: the International Herald Tribune resurrects Anna Nicole Smith

I started this series of posts in order to follow the fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza two weeks ago today. There  is nothing new to report. Google News offers this bloc of headlines today:

Two weeks since BBC man missing
BBC News, UK - 2 hours ago
Events are planned in London and Gaza to mark two weeks since BBC reporter Alan Johnston went missing in Gaza. The BBC is planning a satellite linkup …
Gaza rally for BBC reporter News24
Palestinian Journalists Protest as BBC Reporter Remains Hostage in … International Middle East Media Center
Gaza journalists on strike for BBC reporter PRESS TV
Guardian Unlimited - BBC News
all 16 news articles »

There is nothing new to report on this story. Johnston’s kidnapping has been completely overshadowed by a much bigger hostage-taking that affects Britain: Iran’s kidnapping of 15 of its sailors and marines.

The Scotsman reports the response of Britain’s prime minister to this latest outrage: Iran’s actions are “unjustified and wrong.”

The Prime Minister’s forthright comments - his first public statement on the incident - were in stark contrast to the earlier moderate tone coming from British diplomats, anxious not to antagonise the volatile protagonists in Tehran.

If this is the extent of Blair’s “forthright comments,” I think it is only logical to conclude that the West has been enmeshed in the monkeys’ chess game. (No, I am not saying that Iranians are  monkeys or that Muslims are monkeys. I am alluding to this quote from the New York Times, which I also posted in December: [e.a.]

Azar Nafisi, the author of ”Reading Lolita in Tehran,” quoted a former colleague in Tehran who compared dealing with the Islamic Republic to playing chess with a monkey. ”In the middle of the game, the monkey picks up your queen and swallows it,” she said. ”Then what are you going to do? You are dealing with a country that is not going to follow your rules.”

In today’s New York Sun, Benny Avni details Iran’s history of using terror as a tool of diplomacy:

In 2004, Iran similarly kidnapped eight British seamen, only to release them quietly after three days. The equipment seized was proudly displayed by Iran and used for bragging rights. A documentary film on the 2004 kidnapping is frequently screened to Revolutionary Guards as an educational and motivational tool.

Mr. Mottaki yesterday described at length the perceived injustice dealt to Iran by the Security Council during the eight-year 1980s Iran-Iraq War. In Lebanon at that time, Iranian proxies kidnapped anyone Western enough to negotiate over. Deals were then made for the release of hostages in return for Western supplies of weapons to Iran.

That pattern is still in use today. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah famously kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev last summer, launching a war with Israel. Rather than negotiating, Hezbollah so far has demanded a huge price in return for any sign that the two soldiers are alive. While Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Syrian-backed terrorists in Gaza, is known to be alive, his fate too is being used as a cruel bargaining chip in Palestinian Arab “peace process” diplomacy.

The resolution passed by the Security Council on Saturday may lead to further internal questioning in Iran of the wisdom of the path taken by Mr. Mottaki’s regime – which may explain why he resorted to the language of veiled threats against London. For Iran, terrorism has always served as a diplomatic tool.

To sharpen that tool, Hezbollah was created in the 1980s by Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese-born Mr. Mugniyah. Now Mr. Mugniyah and his handlers in Iran are wanted by Interpol and Argentina.

Will Tehran turn them over?

Evidently not. What the West will do about this remains to be seen.

Of course, everything happening in the Middle East (as seen through photo ops and statements released to the press) is a mirage, as Youssef Ibrahim notes (also in the Sun, which is a must-read for those who follow international events).

There is a new American plan and great hope for peace among Arabs and Jews. I have read all about it and heard it on TV all day yesterday. …

The platitudes of this new search are so many, so old, and so repetitive. Go back and check the late 1970s or the heyday of the Oslo accord fever of 1993, and you will encounter the same stuff: last chance, critical moment, now or never, the area is ready, etc.

Here is what is not new. The Arab Quartet is about as useless and toothless as the Arab League itself, none of whose members are prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist unconditionally. The Israelis are not about to pull out of the West Bank or the Golan Heights of Syria unconditionally, if at all.

Hamas and the other Islamic Palestinian Arab fanatics will continue to lob rockets into Israel. Hezbollah is preparing for the next round in Lebanon of fighting Israelis and Lebanese. The Palestinians will remain at each other throats in Gaza and the West Bank, regardless. Saudi Arabia is scared silly about Iran and the sectarian wars between Shiites and Sunnis on its borders, which is just about the only thing that matters in Riyadh. Egypt is steadily descending into a failed state where the succession to the post of 78-year-old dictator Hosni Mubarak promises to be messy. Jordan has virtually no role to play anywhere and no weight to speak of ever since it lost its West Bank to Israel. And the United Arab Emirates has never had any weight to begin with.

The most startling non-news is that new magical American solution. One newspaper writer asserted Sunday that Secretary Rice ‘’has opened the door to the possibility” she might offer her “own proposals to bridge the divide.” Wow. We can hardly wait.

Indeed.

Also: I will no longer be “following the abduction story.” Sadly, there is no story. There is only the abyss.

Elvis Costello once made fun of the absent German sense of humor. Apparently, he was wrong, because there’s evidence of it in response to a German judge’s ruling that it’s okay for a German Muslim woman to be beaten by her husband … because the Koran says so.

Oh, it’s a custom from the old country?! Why didn’t you say so!

(via Charles Johnson at LFG)

In related news, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso (a Maoist in his youth, and now a “centre-right” politician, says that political correctness is killing Europe’s freedoms.

Ya think?

Nothing new.

Not only that, but despite the fact that she says Johnston’s kidnapping is “the last straw,” there’s a tone of resignation about all of it—the lawlessness in Gaza and the kidnappings and the factional strife—in this piece (”A Hostage to Misfortune“) by Johnston’s journalist colleague Laila El-Haddad:

This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to come for him, of course, but the first time they’ve been successful. As a precaution, his office removed the “BBC” sign by their multi-lock door in Gaza.

In better times, we used to joke about the day he would finally get kidnapped: what kind of biscuits his captors would serve him, and how he would take his tea - a reference to the experiences of former captives, conversations that seem ominous and not-so-funny in hindsight.

I say “finally” because catch-and-release kidnappings have become so frequent in Gaza in recent years as to become banal. The pattern is predictable: a foreign aid worker or journalist (or someone mistaken for a foreigner) is abducted; certain, often juvenile, demands are made, and the captive is released unharmed - though shaken up - a few days (and often hours, later). Alan’s abduction is only unusual in its length. Aside from Gilad Shalit, the longest incident of captivity in Gaza was that of two Fox News reporters, held for nearly two weeks.

According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Human Rights Centre, 28 kidnappings, with a total of 55 foreigners including journalists and international workers, have taken place in Gaza over the past three years, every hostage being released unharmed.

Over the same period, nobody has ever claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.

That seems to be true. At the same time, El-Haddad claims that everyone knows who the kidnappers are and that nobody does anything about it.

The last thing Gazans want to do is to drive away the few remaining foreigners - often aid workers - from the lonely open-air prison they call home. Or to further tarnish their image abroad, they say.

But their more immediate concern is their feeling that the Palestinian government and accompanying security forces have been too soft on kidnappers. More often than not, they argue, the security apparatus must know the location and identity of the captors, but instead of tracking them down, they fumble with security procedures and protocol, clan feuds and threats of revenge, and in the end, opt to negotiate and give in to some of their demands in return for the safe release of the hostages. These demands usually come in the form of pay raises, job promotions, or simply employment.

Now, of course, this little story of one journalist trying to do good in Gaza and kidnapped for his pains has been overshadowed.

The latest story is of 15 British sailors and marines who were abducted at gunpoint by Iranian military personnel. Daily Pundit says we will do nothing about it:

That is an act of war. And what will we do about it? Nothing. They could hang these men on live TV (let’s hope they don’t) and still we would do little except bluster ineffectually.

The Iranians are feeling their oats, and with good reason. The extent to which they are supporting the Shia terrorists in Iraq, and fomenting unrest generally, should by now have had very serious consequences for them.

You can call it a “war on terrorism”  or the “terrorists’ war on us” (the Giuliani formulation). You can claim that America (and the West) can and should fight these pesky problems as if they were criminal matters. I don’t care one way or the other.

The thing is, though, this behavior has to be stopped. The world’s bad actors must be labeled as bad actors, and they must be stopped. And punished. Their bad actions need to have consequences. Or they will be followed by worse actions. And actions even worse than those.

MIT is holding a contest, called “Just Jerusalem,” whose goal is to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

MIT officials are inviting individuals or teams from any country to participate in its “Just Jerusalem” competition. The contest aims to find a way to make Jerusalem just, peaceful and sustainable by 2050 so that Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in a city both consider their capital. …
Winners of the four categories on the rebuilding of Jerusalem, from renovating buildings to revamping its economy, and a fifth floating category will each receive a $50,000 MIT fellowship.

Hurry—you’ve got only 9 months. Entries are due by December 31.

From Google News at 8 a.m.:

‘All efforts’ in hunt for BBC man
BBC News, UK - 1 hour ago
Every possible effort is being made to secure the release of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, a Palestinian presidential aide has said. …
Reporters without borders calls for speedy release of BBC journalist Indian Muslims
Captors to free abducted BBC reporter soon: sources People’s Daily Online
PA police may have helped snatch BBC reporter Jerusalem Post
IFEX - Post Chronicle
all 44 news articles »

I missed this, but a couple of days ago, CNN’s Ben Wedemen posted a “behind the scenes” column. He’s “chilled” by the kidnapping of his professional colleague Johnston. He also says that kidnapping has become a way of life in Gaza:

On more than one occasion [Johnston and Wedeman] talked about the danger of kidnapping. Alan’s attitude, and mine, was usually to treat the phenomenon as an unfortunate inconvenience, as a potential danger, but something that was becoming a fact of life there. Both of us saw Gaza as an intriguing, tragic place, where we were often met with generosity and openness from people who, given their circumstances, might have been expected to be hostile. …

I am hoping Alan emerges from this nightmare without too many psychological scars. He is a very easy-going, soft-spoken, good-humored, amiable person — someone who takes his job seriously and takes the time to listen to every point of view. If anyone is well-equipped to endure, it’s Alan.

Wedeman also describes reality on the ground—as he sees it—in Gaza:

Gaza is a small, cramped and crowded place where it’s hard to keep a secret from anyone, where everybody knows everybody. Most Gazans are aghast every time a kidnapping takes place, and few will make excuses for the kidnappers. Kidnapping goes completely contrary to traditional Arab values of generosity and kindness to strangers. But it’s become a fact of life. In recent trips, my Gazan friends have insisted that they accompany me back to my hotel after work or after a get-together. They say it’s out of courtesy, but I’ve always suspected it’s really out of concern. [e.a.]

Obviously, that traditional Arab value of kindness to strangers doesn’t apply to Israelis. There are currently three Israeli kidnap victims being held for ransom by Arabs, which Ben Wedeman shamefully fails to mention:

Gilad Shalit

Ehud Goldwasser

Eldad Regev

From the Pew poll of Americans’ political and social views over the last 20 years (via Ankush, at Penguins on the Equator), here (buried deep in the summary) is the reason why the politics of resentment (class, income, or otherwise) doesn’t catch fire with Republicans and why it will continue to be popular with the Democratic base. (It also answers Thomas Frank’s extraordinarily condescending question “What’s the Matter with Kansas?“):

Republicans and Democrats remain far apart in their fundamental attitudes toward government, national security, social values, and even in evaluations of personal finances. Three-in-four (74%) Republicans with annual incomes of less than $50,000 say they are “pretty well satisfied” with their financial conditions compared with 40% of Democrats and 39% of independents with similar incomes.

If I polled everyone I know, I wonder how many people would say that they’d be “pretty well satisfied” with an income of less than $50,000 a year.

Here’s my (semi-educated) guess: no one in New York City, and a lot of people in the rural hamlet in Red America where I go to escape all the strivers.

There’s lots of other interesting stuff in the poll, too. (Pew claims it makes the territory favorable to Democrats.)  Check it out.

an excellent novel:

Then We Came to the End,  by Joshua Ferris

My heartfelt best wishes to these two adults:

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth share a moment as they discuss Elizabeth’s recurrence of cancer during a news conference in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday, March 22, 2007. Edwards will continue his campaign for the presidency. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Just as Democratic operatives and partisans crank up their anti-Fox guilt-by-association campaign, Fox and NBC (which is a “leftist” channel according to Fox’s very own Bill O’Reilly), announce a huge joint venture.

The creative-destruction gods are smiling.

This edition of “following the abduction story” is dedicated to those Palestinian journalists and their followers/fellow travelers in Gaza who are taking public notice of missing BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped ten days ago. (Sad to say: They are pretty much the only ones.)

Palestinian journalists organized on Thursday a march in the West Bank city of Ramallah to protest against the kidnapping of the British Broadcast Corporation’s reporter, Allan Johnston, in Gaza Strip.

I also note, via the BBC, that Bassam Nasser, director of the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, wrote an anguished open letter to his friend Alan Johnston and his captors:

I hesitated many times before writing these sentences. I scribbled word after word before ripping them up. …

[A]ll the demonstrations from your journalistic colleagues - Palestinian and foreign - has not moved your kidnappers to release you.

You have not been affected by the spirit of unity and hopeful atmosphere that has permeated Palestinian society (following the announcement of a national unity government). …

You know that there are those that deserve respect in Gaza, in spite of your harsh experience here.

The people of Palestine were raised to appreciate and respect all their guests - but you still deserve a very big apology.

As we stand today, you, my friend, are not around. We ask ourselves: Are we responsible for what happened to you?

Educated Palestinians have talked about kidnappings since the first incident. We were sure it would not go on like this. But we say today that we were wrong.

And he addresses Johnston’s kidnappers:

To your kidnappers, my discussion will not be long. I will not say to you that Alan does not deserve to be kidnapped because he is a journalist who reports the news of Palestine. He does not deserve to be kidnapped because first and foremost he is a human being.

Your actions are no way to treat human beings, no matter who they are, no matter what race, occupation, age, gender, affiliation, or religion they are.

I ask you treat Alan with the same respect that he has shown to every Palestinian throughout his time in Palestine. Look upon him with fondness, the same way he did with every Palestinian he ever met.

I hope that you know - and no matter how big you believe your grievance to be - that what you have done is harsh on all your people and to your cause.

Whatever you have achieved by this kidnapping you are the losers in the end - and forever.

Khalil Hamra

Palestinian journalists hold posters of kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston during a protest calling for his release in front of the parliament building in Gaza City, Tuesday, March 20, 2007. Johnston was kidnapped last week in Gaza City and no group has yet claimed responsibility.

The photo above accompanies a depressing piece about the internal strife in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, now that Arafat-era “strongman” Mohammed Dahlan has been put in the driver’s seat to oversee security. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Even more depressing, there is nothing new to report on the Alan Johnston story.

I was glad to see that ETP’s Glynnis MacNicol picked up on the story in a long post. Too bad she got her facts wrong about “Gilead” (much, much more frequently known as Gilad) Shalit. If you’re going to go “deep in the weeds,” *** you gotta know what you’re talking about.

It was not the kidnapping of Shalit that “ostensibly launched last summer’s Israeli attack on Lebanon.” [!]

The kidnapping of Shalit (and murder of two other soldiers), on top of continual Hamas-sponsored rockets lobbed into Israel, was what sparked an Israeli offensive into Gaza (which is to the south of Israel) in June 2006.

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah, the terrorist organization dug in on its northern border, in Lebanon, started in mid-July 2006, three weeks later, after Hezbollah kidnapped two other Israeli soldiers (and killed three ) in a cross-border raid that violated Israel’s sovereignty. That was the casus belli of that conflict, which today was given its offical name: the Second Lebanon War. (I don’t much like the sound of that. Whenever they start counting wars, knowing it’s only one of a series—of indefinite length—it makes me nervous.)

————

*** I read that expression on Matt Yglesias’s blog today—twice in once post—and googled it, because I’d never heard it before. What I dug up was really interesting—with more than enough meat for another post. But who knows when I’ll ever get to that, so here’s the short version.

Googling “deep in the weeds” led me to Language Log (which I haven’t visited in waaaaaay too long)

Do six uses of a phrase in two years [May 2004 to May 2006 --ed.] count as “quintessential”? Well, I’ve observed before that a word or phrase may only need to be repeated a couple of times in order to seem characteristic of a writer or speaker, if the use in context is striking enough. In this case, five of the six TPM uses of “deep in the weeds” are used to introduce a post, as part of a ritualized warning to the reader that the content will involve a level of detail that some may find excessive.

In comparison, the phrase “deep in the weeds” has never been used on Language Log, on Language Hat, on the Volokh Conspiracy, on Crooked Timber, etc., although these blogs are more often deep in (what some might consider) the intellectual weeds than not

TPM, where Josh Marshall has used it a lot, is where Yglesias (who used to write under the TPM Cafe banner) must have picked it up.

We’re all Professor Donald Foster wannabes now. (He unmasked Joe Klein as “Anonymous,” the author of Primary Colors, the highly unflattering insiderish 1996 roman a clef about the Clintons. Foster has also gotten some wrong.)

update: welcome, ETP readers! Enjoy Cathy Seipp’s piece below. And then do go here to read Matt Welch’s most excellent farewell to her.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I used to read her Hollywoodland columns in Salon.

This is Cathy Seipp (”Standing Room Only at the Mad-at-Me Section“, from 1997!):

Anyway, I wish American media types would follow the example of British media types and not take being trashed in print so personally. I was touched and extremely satisfied a few years ago when Tina Brown, who was then departing Vanity Fair for the New Yorker, graciously introduced her replacement, Graydon Carter, to the Vanity Fair staff — in spite of the fact that Carter had regularly insulted Brown in the pages of the old Spy.

Perhaps I inherited a Commonwealth version of this attitude from my deeply sarcastic Canadian family. At least, that’s what occurred to me recently when a woman at a party approached to say, “You wouldn’t write the way you do if you weren’t Canadian.” Since she was Canadian, I’ll assume she meant this as a compliment. But it did bring back a rather vivid childhood memory.

There I was, age 6, with my entire expatriate Canadian clan (aunts, uncles, parents, sister, cousins, grandparents — all of whom were now living in the same Southern California subdivision). We were cozily sitting in Grandma’s TV room watching a documentary about brain damage. Suddenly, my aunt, age 11, shifted on the sofa. “Oh, look, Cathy,” she announced coolly. “That boy can tie his shoes with only half a brain. Interesting, because you still can’t tie your shoes with a whole brain.”

Even as I heard my mouth shriek the outraged, tearful, “MUMMY! Did you hear what she SAID??? Make her say SORRY!!!” I also felt another thought silently filling my mind: “Wow, that was a good one.” My aunt and I have a siblinglike closeness built on years of insults, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

So if I insult you in print, please remember, it’s only because I care.

You never insulted me in print, Cathy, but you gave me great insight, gutsy honesty, and deep pleasure as a reader. Thank you.

—————-*** Back when Salon was a great. Today I can’t even link to it without forcing you to watch an ad, so I won’t link. The excellent critic Charles Taylor was my other Salon fave. One of the most depressing stories I have ever read was in this interview with Taylor, where he describes how Salon changed.

Charles Taylor was dismissed from his duties as a Salon critic in February, 2005. At the time, Salon editor Joan Walsh chalked up the decision to simple economics: their publication had just 22 editorial employees and could not justify employing three film critics. This was disappointing news for regular Salon subscribers and a harbinger of declining standards. Although Taylor’s colleagues Stephanie Zacharek and Andrew O’Hehir continue to offer insightful cultural analysis and film criticism, a casual perusal of Salon post-Taylor reveals feature articles that are elaborately disguised press releases pandering to the studios. Gossip, box office reports and hype don’t address whether a film has merit as art or entertainment. The latter was Taylor’s specialty; he called it like he saw it, often employing the sorts of provocative turns of phrase that spark arguments in parking lots.

The World Zionist Organization jumps into the viral war of words between Ahmadinejad and the Jews.

Click here for details.

This one tells the story (in the background, which is also where the eye falls first upon seeing this carefully composed photograph) of once-upon-a-time best friends Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat.

And it seems to have helped Mahmoud, because in a recent poll, Mahmoud (Fatah) Abbas was beating his new best friend Ismail (Hamas) Haniyeh by 9%, according to the AP.

The poll, conducted by the Ramallah-based independent polling company Neareast Consulting, was conducted by telephone among 759 Palestinians and quoted a margin of error of 3.56 percentage points.

“People have probably felt that (Abbas) did more to bring this unity government together than others,” said Jamil Rabah, who heads the polling firm.

Rabah said most Palestinians saw the unity deal as primarily a tool to put internal Palestinian affairs in order, with only 4 percent of respondents saying that making peace with Israel was a priority. The majority saw that ending chaos and infighting between Palestinians as the top priority of the new government.

This is drilling down into obscure details for most of my readers, but those of you who have been following along may remember that Hamas rose to power—and belligerently stated at every opportunity—on the platform of resistance (see this post for more details).

Here’s what one Hamas official told Spiegel magazine in the June 2006:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Now Hamas is no longer only a terrorist group or a resistance group, but also a governing party. Do you think — given all the chaos since the election success — that Hamas has carried out this transformation successfully?

Abu Marzook: Our task was not to change. The Palestinian people live under occupation, so we are still a resistance movement. The people elected us because they did not get the feeling that all the negotiations by Fatah had brought them closer to having their own state. We respect their choice, but we did not seek to be in the government.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But now that Hamas is in the government: Should it not handle its conflicts with negotiations rather than attacks?

Abu Marzook: Of course. On the other hand, we are not a government like any other independent state. We are a government under occupation. And the task of such a government is to carry out resistance, in every possible way. I think that every single Palestinian should resist, and should keep it up until there is an independent Palestinian state. [e.a.]

There is every reason to believe that the Palestinian people are more interested in the improvement in the conditions of their daily lives than in heroic resistance against Israel—except when they’re indoctrinated to believe that the only cause of all of their problems is the dirty Jews next door (along with the dirty Jews who rule the world in order to make everyone’s life miserable).

Let’s wait and see what happens. It’s all we can do. (Except for Dr. Rice, that is—and who knows what the hell her game is. It is almost certain that she herself has no clue.)

Rice is set to leave for the Middle East on Friday and will see both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well as Abbas to try and get both sides to move closer to reviving stagnant peace initiatives.

 

She conceded the new Palestinian unity government, which was sworn in last weekend, “has provided something of a challenge.” But Rice said it was important for the United States to be stay engaged.

 

She reiterated a new U.S. policy that the administration would have contacts with members of the new government committed to recognizing Israel, agreeing to past Israeli-Palestinian accords and who renounced violence.

And how will this be determined? Do they pass muster if they’re “cosmopolitan” (see this post, which links to a piece in the NYT that refers to “cosmopolitan figures with whom the West is used to dealing.)