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The Ronald Reagan Effect?The Ronald Reagan Effect?The Ronald Reagan Effect? 06/19/2004 10:30 AM The Ronald Reagan Effec t? .. these results .. Harris Poll biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040618/nyf080_1.html This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)The Ronald Reagan Effect?Grok Headline matches for The Ronald Reagan Effect?Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan 06/07/2004 06:03 AM forgotten awfulness .. Reagan .. each .. up rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/ronald-reagan "Ronald Reagan""Ronald Reagan" 06/06/2004 09:59 PM Ronald Reagan (I)Ronald Reagan (I) 06/06/2004 12:04 AM Ronald Reagan .. acteur .. actuer imdb.com/name/nm0001654 What Ronald Reagan UnderstoodWhat Ronald Reagan Understood 06/13/2004 05:43 AM "What Ronald Reagan Understood." .. David Gelernter weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/217
kkfas.asp Did You Know? Ronald Reagan EditionDid You Know? Ronald Reagan Edition 06/16/2004 10:02 AM Admit it. You thought Ronald Reagan was just another dead white male. But the truth is he’s actually a rich… Whiskey Bar: Ronald ReaganWhiskey Bar: Ronald Reagan 06/07/2004 06:03 AM Whiskey Bar: Ronald Reagan .. Requiem for Reagan .. Billmon eulogizes billmon.org/archives/001511.html Why I Want To Fuck Ronald ReaganWhy I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan 06/07/2004 10:22 PM The best, most appropriate, and mysteriously prescient comment about the late Ronald Reagan was made by J.G. Ballard -- in 1967. Outside the Beltway: Ronald Reagan,
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...For the media and Reagan's hagiographers to give the 40th president all the credit is like saying a late-inning relief pitcher had "won" a baseball game without mentioning the starting pitcher, the closer or the teammates who scored the runs that gave the team its lead. Historians abhor the idea of attributing a vast, complex phenomenon to a single cause. No one person brought down the Soviet Union, but if I had to choose the one who mattered most, that person would not be Reagan, most of whose policies fit comfortably in the Cold War tradition of containment followed dutifully by presidents from Truman to Carter. Rather, the historical wild card was Mikhail Gorbachev... |
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While down in Chile, I read a biography of Che Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson, the New Yorker magazine writer. I recommend this book highly not only because it is so well-researched and written but also because Che was so far ahead of his time, which is possibly why he remains a hero for so many millions of people today.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born in 1928 to a socially prominent Argentine family. He was good-looking, averse to bathing, and suffered badly from asthma. Anderson recounts dozens if not hundreds of sexual liaisons in the first 200 pages. Che and his dreams of social justice were irresistible to rich girls: "One night, she and a friend, Blanca Mendez, the daughter of Guatemala's director of petroleum reserves, tossed a coin to see which of them would 'get' Ernesto." (pg 131) Sadly for the U.S., Che was rejected by his one great love, a 15-year-old old rich Argentine girl who might have forced him to go straight.
Although Che graduated from medical school he never completed a medical internship and almost never had anything that looked like standard employment. Until he become an official in Castro's dictatorship of Cuba, Che lived off women with jobs: "A nurse named Julia Mejia had arranged a house at Lake Amatitlan where Ernesto could go and spend the weekends" (pg 138); "In March, ... Hilda paid off part of his pension bill" (pg 139); "With some jewelry Hilda gave him for the purpose, he paid off part of his pension bill" (pg 141); "Ernesto now needed Hilda again for the occasional loan" and, as he had written in his diary, to satisfy his 'urgent need for a woman who will fuck'." (pg 166).
Che was afflicted by wanderlust from an early age though generally his travels involved some suffering for others. From his cousin Mario he stole three new silk shirts and sold them for travel expenses. Che was a difficult house guest: "Staying for a night in the barn of an Austrian family, Ernesto awoke to hear scratching... he aimed the Smith & Wesson ... and fired a single shot. The noises stopped, and he went back to sleep. But in the morning he and Alberto awoke to discover that Ernesto had bagged not a puma, but their hosts' beloved Alsatian dog, Bobby." [This was the first lethal gunshot fired by Che Guevara.] Some of his travel diaries and experiences show how little South America has changed: "The bloodshed [in Colombia] was called simply 'La Violencia,' the euphemism for what had become a national plague, and in 1952 there was no still no end in sight" (pg 91).
Che did a bit of glider flying with his uncle and the book includes a photo of him, the "oddball uncle", and a sailplane with a tail number of "LV-DAY". Che appreciated fine optics: "he tried out a new toy he had bought himself with half of his remaining funds--a 35mm Zeiss camera" (pg 162). At his death, "several Rolex watches [were] found in Che's possession" (pg 741). Che kept programmer hours: "Stories abounded in Havana of foreign dignitaries who, after being granted interviews with Che at three o'clock, showed up at his offices at that hour of the afternoon, only to be informed by Manresa that their appointment was for 3:00 am." (pg 446)
Africa defied Che's efforts. "Che was stunned by the number of cases of venereal disease among the rebels... 'Almost nobody had the least idea of what a firearm was,' Che recalled. 'They shot themselves by playing with them, or by carelessness.' The rebels also drank a local corn- and yucca-based brew called pombe, and the spectacle of reeling men having fights or disobeying orders was distressingly commonplace." (pg 642). "In a ludicrous sideshow, the boat captain had also brought over forty new Congolese rebel 'graduates,' fresh from a training course in the Soviet Union. LIke their Bulgarian- and Chinese-trained predecessors, they immediately requested two weeks of vacation, while also complaining that they had nowhere to put their luggage." (pg 666)
Richard Nixon, Vice President at the time, comes off as perhaps the only intelligent American in the book. His own CIA was supporting Castro because they thought that he was anti-Communist. Nixon met with Castro, however, and reported to Eisenhower that Castro was in fact a Communist (pg 416).
Fidel Castro earns his status as modern hero in this book. On page 295, Castro, out in the sierra with a small army, responds to a call for compromise with U.S. and bourgeois interests: "These are our conditions... If they are rejected, then we will continue the struggle on our own... To die with dignity does not require company.". One of the first things that Castro's regime did was introduce affirmative action to the university: "Che told the gathered faculty and students [at University of Las Villas] that the days when education was a privilege of the white middle class had ended. 'The University,' he said, 'must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant.' If it didn't, he warned, the people would break down its doors 'and paint the University the colors they like.'" (pg 449) Castro ended up being somewhat at odds with Che. At the beginning of the struggle Castro doesn't care what form of government Cuba ends up with as long as he and his brother are in charge. After Castro has secured power he realizes that retaining lifetime ownership of Cuba will require Soviet support. This leads to a rift between Castro and Che. Che wants to foment violent revolution in other Latin American countries. The Soviets want to avoid military confrontation with the U.S. and Castro is willing to do anything the Soviets say as long as he can keep his job.
American military adventures abroad and foreigners' response to them have changed little. "In 1951, both [Fidel Castro] and his brother Raul (echoing Ernesto Guevara's own stance in distant Argentina) had vocally opposed the Prio government's intention of sending Cuban troops to find in the 'American war' in Korea." In the summer of 1956 Che picks up his infant daughter and says "My dear little daughter, my little Mao, you don't know what a difficult world you're going to have to live in. When you grow up this whole continent, and maybe the whole world, will be fighting against the great enemy, Yankee imperialism. You too will have to fight. I may not be here anymore, but the struggle will inflame the continent." (pg 202)
When Che left Cuba for Africa he left behind a "Message to the Tricontinental" that demonstrates his faith in any kind of violence against the U.S., an anticipation of Osama bin-Laden:
In it he appealed to revolutionaries everywhere to create "two, three, many Vietnams" as part of an international war against imperialism. Che ... demanded a "long and cruel" global confrontation to bring about the "destruction" of imperialism in order to bring about a "Socialist revolution" as the new world order."
And in a litany of the qualities that would be required for this battle, he cited: "Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us above and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to... a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy."
It would be a "total war," to be carried out against the Yankees first in their imperial outposts and eventually in their own territory. The war had to be waged in "his home," his "centers of entertainment"; he should be made to feel like a "cornered beast," until his "moral fiber begins to decline," ... He urged men everywhere to take up their brothers' just causes, as part of a global war against the U.S.
"Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the peoples' unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle car, may have reached some receptive ears and another hand may be extended to wield our weapon and other men may be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns." (pg 719)
The "fight first, decide on what to do once power has been attained" strategy had worked well in Cuba and Fidel Castro's continued ownership of that country is testament to Che's success. But it didn't work in Bolivia where Che spent his last couple of years trying to convince bewildered peasants to take up arms against the U.S. Che was taken prison by the Bolivian army in October 1967 and the U.S. government tried to drag him back to Panama for interrogation. But the Bolivians were angry and President Barrientos ordered Guevara executed in the field where he was being held.
Reading this book in Chile inspired some reflection. No Latin American country has rejected Che Guevara's philosophy more definitively than Chile. While their neighbors put energy into bemoaning and trying to escape American commercial domination, the Chileans quietly go to university, accept American investments, build farms, mines, and factories, and load goods onto ships for export. Chile, along with Costa Rica, probably best represents the opposite of Castro's Cuba. Have any of our readers been to both Chile and Cuba? How do they compare? The Chileans are certainly richer but I wonder if the Cubans are happier (their music is certainly happier).
Another reflection that occurred to me is how much less hope there is in today's world. Quite a few Latin Americans in the 1950s felt that if they could only overthrow their governments they would enter some sort of paradise of freedom and prosperity. Women would yield their bodies if a man only hinted at dreams of a brave new world with a different government. It seems as though these hopes have been dashed by the failure of the Soviet Union and the Starbuckification of China. Now it seems that there is only one form of government from which to choose. It will be more or less corrupt. It will be more or less efficient. It will be more or less tolerant of opposition. But basically the path to prosperity involves investment and hard boring work rather than a moment of glorious political change. How depressing is that?
The prose is glorious and even drunken in places: clearly this is a labour of love, years-long opus penned by someone who loves and is intimate with London -- even if the city is, as he says, so large that no person could hope to walk its every street in a lifetime. I can't remember the last time I smiled so much while reading a book, nor when I made so many notes of things to look up and do later.
The thing I liked best about Ackroyd's vision is the idea of continuity, which speaks directly to an idea I've been having lately: that books are a practice, not a product. Here's what I mean: the Bible was a book even before it was bound between covers; the fact that it was scroll-shaped didn't make it any less bookish. By the same token, one of my novels, represented as a text-file, is also a book -- even if it doesn't look anything like a bound volume -- even if it doesn't look like anything, period. A scroll, a bound volume, a CD of audio, a text-file: they're all "books" even if they're all different.
What a book is, is a collection of literary, manufacturing, commercial, and technological practices. And what all these different kinds of books have in common with one another is that their practices are continuous with one another. A Torah in scroll is related to a bound edition because the latter couldn't exist without the former: the latter rises up from the former, perhaps inevitably. The "book" is the continuous practice of writing, reading, marketing, distributing and publishing that dates back thousands of years.
We're continuous, too. The "me" who wrote my most recent novel -- which I'm very happy with, indeed! -- is not the "me" who wrote the one before that. The new one is informed with the lessons from the last one, and the intervening living. The me who wrote the last book could not have written the next one -- but the me I became could. And those two mes are continuous with one another: one gave rise to the next.
London is continuous. It's not a place -- its borders have shifted and shifted again over thousands of years. It's not a race of people -- its inhabitants have changed in individual identity and culture so many times that the culture and ethnicity of London 2004 is nearly completely different from London 0000. It's not a collection of architecture, or a map of roads, or a political system, for all of these have changed and changed and changed. London isn't even its name: London's had many names over the years.
London is a practice: London is what Londoners are doing right now, which is informed by, midwifed by, descended from what Londoners were doing yesterday. London is what Londoners do.
I'd suspected this, and Ackroyd nailed it up and down for me. He shows how the currents of London are fraught with eddies, whirlpools of continuity, so the 1960s movement to wipe London clean of its Victorian fooforaw and build modern high-rises echoes the 1860s destruction of 14 churches under the Union of Benefices Act, which, in turn, echoes the 1760s demolition of the gates to the city walls because they "obstructed the free current of air."
I've been buttonholing Londoners all month with intelligences gleaned from Ackroyd's book -- a triumph nearly on the scale of Trafalgar Square or the discovery of the physics of the arch or the rebuilding after the Fire. I'll be chewing it over for years.
Peter's Hill and Upper Thames Street were laid out in the twelfth century. Other street-surfaces and frontages have a similar history, with property divisions remaining intact for many hundreds of years. Even the devastation of the Great Fire could not erase the ancient lanes and boundaries. In a similar pattern of continuity those streets which were newly laid out after the Fire showed tenacity of purpose. Ironmonger Lane, for instance, ahs had the same width for almost 355 years. That width was and is 14 feet, originally sufficient to allow two carts to pass each other without hindrance or blockage. It is another aspect of this continuous London history that its structure can accommodate itself to quite different modes of transport.Link
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"Controversy surrounded Stanley Milgram for much of his professional life as a result of a series of experiments on obedience to authority which he conducted at Yale University in 1961-1962. He found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, and this fact was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. But, during the experiment itself, the experience was a powerfully real and gripping one for most participants.
Milgram's career also produced many other creative, though less controversial, experiments; such as, the small-world method (the source of 'Six Degrees of Separation'), the lost-letter technique, and an experiment testing the effects of televised antisocial behavior which, though conducted 30 years ago, remains unique to the present day." Link
BIOS biography enters final chapter
BIOS biography enters final chapter 12/30/2003 01:37 PM
ZDNet Dec 30 2003 12:22PM ETJohn von Neumann: Genius of Man and
Machine - a Biography
John von Neumann: Genius of Man and
Machine - a Biography 12/29/2003 06:06 AM
Happy Birthday, John Von Neumann .. von .. 10rit.edu/~drk4633/vonNeumann
track this site | 3 links"a preview of the shocking revelations
from the new biography of Our Fearless
Leader"
"a preview of the shocking revelations
from the new biography of Our Fearless
Leader" 09/09/2004 03:56 AMPaul "Ghost Host" Frees official
biography
Paul "Ghost Host" Frees official
biography 01/28/2004 02:34 PM
"Welcome, Foolish Mortals" is the forthcoming authorized biography of Paul Frees, the voice of the Haunted Mansion's "Ghost Host" narrator, Buff the Buffalo from the Country Bear Jamboree, and numerous other classic bits of voice-over. Link (Thanks, Gavin!)David Brooks reviews Ron Chernow's new
Hamilton biography
David Brooks reviews Ron Chernow's new
Hamilton biography 04/26/2004 06:50 PMnytimes.com/2004/04/25/books/review/25BROOKST.html?pagewanted=all&p osition=
track this site | 3 linksWitches Join Prime Ministers in
Biography Rollcall (Reuters)
Witches Join Prime Ministers in
Biography Rollcall (Reuters) 09/23/2004 10:39 AM
Reuters - A 20th century witch, a black murder victim, a punk icon and Queen Victoria have all found their place in a major publication chronicling the lives of people who have left their mark on British society."John Kerry's Own Biography Claims He
Had Seen No Combat Even After He Won His
First Purple Heart"
"John Kerry's Own Biography Claims He
Had Seen No Combat Even After He Won His
First Purple Heart" 08/19/2004 02:32 AMPhrase typed into search engine brings
up biography of president
Phrase typed into search engine brings
up biography of president 12/07/2003 07:32 PM
Dec 5, 2003 ... technique called Google bombing. A Weblog enthusiast said he spontaneously joined in the prank in late October. "I thought it was ...CNN.com - Television network admits it
lied about unauthorized biography - Jul
17, 2004
CNN.com - Television network admits it
lied about unauthorized biography - Jul
17, 2004 07/20/2004 09:29 AM
The Sci Fi Channel admitted that it lied last month in claiming it was at odds with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and was making an unauthorized biography about his "buried secret." .. turns out to be true .. According to CNNcnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/17/biography.hoax.ap/index.html
track this site | 3 linksNot Life After Death -- Email After
Death
Not Life After Death -- Email After
Death 09/25/2004 09:08 PMa death
a death 12/31/2003 07:23 PM
Elliot Smith : Murdered. Some may say.PC Mag Says Death to 802.11b (Almost)
PC Mag Says Death to 802.11b (Almost) 04/29/2004 04:15 PM
PC Magazine rounds up several 802.11g routers, and says they're cheap enough, they're good enough: 802.11b no longer enjoys a large enough (or any) price differential for quality Wi-Fi gateways that include WPA encryption support, PC Mag says. So while you can still find 802.11b devices on the market, they recommend new gear have 802.11g built in. The overall package of reviews and related stories in the issue starts here; use the table of contents at the right of that story to navigate through their guide to 802.11g, advice for buying, and reviews of individual routers. The Linksys WRT54G gets top marks for 802.11g with a score of 4.5 out of 5 points; but six other gateways received 4 of 5 points, showing how the entire Wi-Fi world has matured into more usability....Web Zen: Zen of Death
Web Zen: Zen of Death 08/31/2004 01:55 PM
Xeni Jardin:streatham cemetary
death masks
blog of death
celebrity death beeper
dead or alive
who's alive who's dead
a strange ghost
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death clock
Image: The death mask of English poet John Keats. web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).Death of a dot-com
Death of a dot-com 09/24/2004 05:16 AM
USA Today Sep 24 2004 9:07AM GMTto the death!
to the death! 07/02/2004 07:50 PM
battle for the sudan - some friday flash fun for your playing pleasure. this is a fun game, but it takes a little practice to figure out the strategy. i recommend playing the computer until you can always beat it before playing other people. also, try out the suggested starting positions before trying to make your own.Another death
Another death 03/31/2005 12:10 PM
Mitch Hedberg is said to have died of an apparent heroin overdose (Howard Stern confirms). Mitch was a fantastic comedian, and it's sad to think that he won't get the attention he deserved because he shares a death day with someone else. You can hear clips from his CDs Mitch All Together and Strate gic Grill Locations on Amazon. (Previous MeFi thread on Mr. Hedberg)Being towards death
Being towards death 06/25/2004 10:37 AM
Being towards death Hanan Cohen intertwines the mortality of blogs with our own mortality: We think that we will live forever. We think that the files we have stored on machines powered by electricity will also live forever. Our files have no other purpose than to be online. We think that if our files are not available to the web, they are dead. In a way, thinking about the death of our files is like thinking about our own death. Meanwhile, over at Ereignis, the English-language Heidegger site, there's a link to Christopher Ellis' article that argues that Heidegger's ideas..."Solar death ray"
"Solar death ray" 03/25/2005 11:36 AM
The Ronald Reagan Effect?
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