Bill's Notes

Wrote the perfect headline for a story, except it's too tabloid:

Lehman Brothers
Caught, Pants Down,
With Hands In Cookie Jar

Too bad I can't use it.

And then it hit me while reading on Misha's site about various troubles with trolls ... a predecessor to blogs was the various discussions written on the bathroom stall walls in college libraries. You know, before they made them stainless steel. You used to have an opinion written by someone, and then comments that followed from there.

I recall one such wall. It contained picture of a submarine. Underneath, someone else wrote an amusing Freudian analysis on what the picture meant. Which led to a rebuttal. Then a rebuttal to the rebuttal. Then threats. Then counter-threats. Then other people chimed in here and there. Now, what's the remind you of? A blog entry and a comment thread that goes awry.

Blogging in cyber-space: Bringing bathroom walls to your living room since 2000.

Michele'spicked a bunch of songs as the worst ones ever. I won't list their names here for fear of attracting hits.

You know what's funny? When I found out that Blender Magazine had their survey on the worst songs ever, my first thought was their No. 1 song, too: We Built This City by Jefferson Starship. Glad I wasn't the only one. Jeez that song sucked. I thought Jack and Diane is up there, too, for its mindless stupidity. Note I wasn't include any songs by bands that never had a good song. That's just picking on the weak.

But music isn't my expertise. Writing is. And who is currently the worst writer in North America? No, it's not Mark Morford, but that's close. Morford is not the worst because Morford is always bad in exactly the same way. He only writes one column, over and over again. Besides, Morford's talent level isn't terribly high.

No, the worst writer in North American for the past eight years or so is Gary Kamiya of Salon.com. Kamiya has real talent. But he has one fatal flaws as a writer: He's a horse's ass.

Example One. He wrote this:

"I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings."--Gary Kamiya

That was a year ago. Maybe he and all his morally sensitive people are happy now that things aren't going so well in Iraq.

I'm currently writing the third straight story on fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance. Did all the judges go to a seminar and now it's all, presumption of reliance? Very exciting stuff.

Of course, there are worse jobs. See title, above.

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BTW, a friend of mine had a good line when talking about John Kerry's Purple Hearts: "There's nothing particularly difficult about getting shot in a combat zone. You just stand up. Not getting shot, now that's something."

I've been an occasional fan of country music. When it's good, it's great. Folsom Prison Blues. North Country Girl. And when it's not, it's bathetic, maudlin, jes folks manipulation trying to exploit people's best emotions. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of this kind of stuff on the radio. Seems country music, at least as far as radio, is experiencing what happened to rock music in the 80s: The marketing executives completely took over and began "engineering" hits.

What's wrong with marketing? Nothing in principle. Marketing, however, is an analytical act, that is, a process of abstracting concepts from a work and determining how they work together. Thus, marketing execs will abstract (see generalize) the kind of things that make a successful country song. And then they'll come up with a template — a successful song has x, y, z and a little bit of g. Then they'll determine whether new songs fit the template. Successful recording musicians — that is, those that get the contracts, will follow that template. The result, after a while, is not wonderful music, but derivative, manipulative but sometimes well-crafted music. Sometimes, it's called cynicism.

BTW, marketing execs do this in any artistic field, including publishing novels and business newsletters and women's magazines to every genre of music to of course films to anything else that has traditionally been the province of artists. So I'm not just picking on country music.

Which leads me to the much-maligned concept of the tortured artist. It seems to me that there are two kinds of suffering — suffering for the kingdom and suffering from violating natural law. Well, maybe converging art and religion like this will cause problems later on in the argument ... but I'll leave it for now. Maybe the issue isn't suffering, but commitment, and the right kind of commitment can cause suffering.

It seems to me that anything what is authentic art (crikes I'm a modernist with the use of the word authentic [determining the authentic is left as an exercise for the reader — good luck]) ... anyway, it seems to me even after all our postmodern talk, that an artist has to suffer for his art. That is, when one speaks, whether in song, dance, words or visuals, that person has to have more than technique. Technique is a given. You have to have craftsmanship. But beyond craftsmanship, there is an exposure of something real. Exposure itself isn't enough — this can be mere exhibitionism. The exposure has to be artful [determining artful is an exercise for the reader].

Let me see if I can explain. I was reading filmmaker Sydney Lumet's description of how Marlon Brando used to play mind games with directors early in the process. When shooting the first day or two on the set, Brando would give one authentic take, one where he made a full artistic commitment to emotions and requirements of the scene. Perhaps the Hindu concept prana would be useful here — the breath of life. Apparently, for actors, it's very tiring to actually expose yourself this way. Anyway, Brando would give one authentic take, and then "technique" the rest of them. Then he'd see which take the director would choose from the day's rushes. If the director selected anything but the authentic take, he'd technique the whole movie and make no commitment at all. The director wouldn't even know what was wrong, except that Brando was "being difficult." But if the director selected the right take, Brando would work with him.

Marketing executives forget that what resonates with people is a kind of authenticity — and that while it can be faked for a while, it can't be faked forever. And right now, country music, at least on the radio, is trying to fake it. Hank Williams died. Your Cheatin' Heart, as goofy as it sounds, has the sense of the real about it because it is real. George Jones, Johnny Cash ... these guys did some cynical stuff, yes, but they also at times rose about their craftsmanship to do something of lasting value. And what's lasting ... sells. Ulysses has sold 20,000 copies a year for something like 40 years now.

This is not a plea for greater sincerity, for suffering, or for self-indulgence, or for something as stupid as Kurt Cobain's killing himself. Cobain got confused ... he lost sight of the role of suffering as it impacts his music — he forgot (or didn't know) that destruction is not proof of authenticity. Hey, Sid Vicious died under a sink. He wasn't an artist. It's more an insistence that the artist, whether an ironist, a postmodernist or not, has to have a real, emotional personal stake for a work not to become cynical. And even then, it may not work. That's why artists talk about being naked. That's why it's a risk. That's why it hurts. Because most times you expose yourself and that's all you do. But other times you expose, I don't know, the music of the spheres. Perhaps that's grace.

Obviously I am not really in favor of preempting attacking Vietnam simply to settle old scores. Especially since Vietnam been asking us to come back since 1985. Yup. Did you know that? The Vietcommies, short of cash, asked if we wanted the Cam Ranh Bay Navy Base back.

To them, it looked like a win-win. We would receive a Navy base, already built by us, all ready to go. We would haveh an option in case the Philippines went all squirrely in Subic Bay (which they did in 1992.) And Vietnam would get all those cool American bucks. So they made overtures. And the Reagan Administration told them to screw off.

Still, one has to appreciate the irony. A nation spends 12 years fighting us to leave, and gets what it wants. Then after another 10 years, they invite us back. Was the whole problem in Vietnam a question of not getting the proper introductions? These Asian cultures have very specific procedures about things like these.

Anyway, his is supposed to be about analogies. I've rejected the Iraq-as-Vietnam-analogy for several reasons, most of which have been propounded endlessly on the pro-war side of the blogosphere. I won't reiterate them here. Instead, let me talk about what could make the Vietnam analogy hold:

1. Lack of political will in the United States. Execution of the war in a way to win was politically untenable at the time. LBJ pursued a flawed strategy (Americanization) and Nixon's reversal (Vietnamization) worked somewhat. But in both cases the politicians were hamstrung by domestic discontent and by larger geopolitical issues.

This is something could be repeated in the situation in Iraq. The anti-war left, the Europeans, the United Nations, and the media have done their best to make this war as politically costly and untenable as possible. Don't underestimate them: They may succeed in hamstringing the military campaign to the point where our politicians will not allow our military to do what they need to do to win the war.

2. A corrupt, untrustworthy local regime incapable of managing its own affairs but capable of betraying us to our enemies. It turned out after the Vietnam War that something like the No. 3 or No. 4 man in the South Vietnamese government was an enemy spy. While some South Vietnamese fought well and got their act together militarily, the government itself was corrupt, prone to betraying our intelligence, and in many cases, the people didn't demonstrate by their behavior that they wanted to buy what we were selling. Only later did they realize that we couldn't sustain them forever, and what the costs of North Vietnamese rule were.

In Iraq, we're starting to see some signs of this kind of crap. The Iraqi police set up the contract workers who were lynched and burned in Fallejuh. I don't know if the situation on the ground is similar — but make no mistake, if the Iraqis don't step up and grab this opportunity, our mission will fail. And guess what? This aspect — the Iraqis' decision to cooperate with us — is entirely within their control. We can influence it. But we can't demand it, we can't buy it, and we can't force it. They need to decide. If they decide, as the South Vietnamese did, that it's better to pocket the American dollars and then save their hides by betaying us to our enemies, then our Iraq mission will fail.

3. Enemy support by outside nations. Obviously, Vietnam was supported by the Soviets. Without the Soviets, the Vietnamese lose to the French, and we never enter Vietnam. Meanwhile, in Iraq, if Syria and Iran are supporting rebellion, we have a problem. We need to address it, or we risk the same situation we faced in Vietnam.

I'm not saying that Iraq is a Vietnam. Far from it. But the potential is there. We can't help people who can't help themselves, or can't see beyond their own immediate self-interest. We can't maintain political support unless the Administration does a better job of communicating the necessity of the war. And we can't win unless the military is willing to interdict military and terrorist support from outside sources.

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The first parallel listed above is where the blogosphere comes in. Make no mistake: Perception can become reality. The media, unchecked, could turn Iraq into a Vietnam-like situation. The right side of the blogosphere needs to derail the Vietnam storyline whenever possible, but still keep an eye on the parallels.

Here at Industrial Blog, we have a flexible policy regarding blog entries. All entries are considered "unfinished" unless there is an actual debate going in the comments. If there are no comments or just a couple of general comments, I reserve the right to edit entries and even remove entries as I consider appropriate.

Reason: Much of this stuff is dashed-off, and I am neither an accurate typist nor a flawless first-draft writer. I also have an annoying tendency to drop words -- usually key words such as "not" so a sentence has the exact opposite meaning I intend. More recently, for first time in my life, I have started to make errors with homonyms -- and often it comical ways. I once used "hole" for "whole". And sometimes when I see something on the screen, I realize that the entry is off-base or sucks so bad it shouldn't be printed, even here. So I pull it.

That said, if someone comments on an entry, I will try to respect the context of the comments and stop editing my own work. No one who comments on an entry that is pulled will be made to look stupid for commenting on something that isn't there. Even if it's critical.

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I understand that some in the blogosphere, such as Steve Den Beste, consider their work "finished." Even if a piece has known errors, they consider a matter of integrity to keep the item preserved as it was published. Then they footnote (of sorts) the errors.

I respect that decision. I just don't work that way ... to me, printed is printed on paper. Fixed. Unchangable until the next edition. In cyberspace, those revised editions just get moved up. Instead of 10 days, maybe it's 10 minutes.

*****

So what's with the title. There are some debates on which I lean in one direction but ultimately I'm an agnostic -- death penalty and the designated hitter are two of them. I think the death penalty should be left to the states. But I don't think I have the correct answer -- the death penalty is a judgment call, and my best guess is it's okay with specific safeguards. But if you banned it tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep over it.

The designated hitter is another "agnostic" issue. I think the problem with the designated hitter is it is an inelegant solution. Baseball is based on multiples of three -- three strikes, three outs, three bases, nine players, nine innings. The DH adds a 10th player, and that screws up the aesthetics. I mean, what the hell is a DH? He only plays half the innings in the game. Plus, simple fairness. If the pitcher gets to throw the balls close to batters, he ought to face the same music, so to speak. Finally, DH removes strategy from the game. Nonetheless, I don't pretend these are convincing arguments. They're based more on an aesthetic sense; they are questions of taste. And I've long since stopped arguing about taste, even though in my heart, I believe there is such a thing as good taste and bad taste, and that it's practically impossible to communicate it, though most of us know it when we see it. (See Michael Polanyi.)

If you're trolling here, consider any comment you leave on double secret probation. If you enter an unusable e-mail in the appropriate boxes, unless your comment is particularly articulate and intelligent, I'll delete it. And possibly ban you.

If you want to leave a critical comment, that's fine. Just leave a usable e-mail or a link to your blog so I can respond appropriately.

Clear?

Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. Everything is ALWAYS the Nam. You know what I mean? Yadda yadda yadda. Here
Here is Charles Krauthammer despairing over the "Vietnam Syndrome," saying we'll fine a cure for human greed first before the United States gets over Vietnam. OK, not quite. Here's what he says:

WASHINGTON — The first George Bush once said he thought the Gulf War would cure America of the Vietnam syndrome. He was wrong. There is no cure for the Vietnam syndrome. It will only go away when the baby-boom generation does, dying off like the Israelites in the desert, allowing a new generation, cleansed of the memories and the guilt, to look at the world clearly once again.

Problem: We're fighting the War on Terror now ... and in Iraq, if the Baby Boomers go all wobbly and force us to lose politically what we've won militarily — again — the results will be devastating. Not only in the war on terror. The military spent a lot of effort trying to figure out how to avoid getting stuck in a no-win situation, and if it happens again ... (and I'm serious here) you'll see a much more severe alienation of the military from the political class in the country. The military will be even more reluctant to be used for anything other than national defense.

So how can be get rid of this "everything is Vietnam" syndrome once and for all?

Isn't it obvious?

Vietnam is still a country. It's still communist. It no longer has state sponsors. Hmm....

Yeah, we invade Vietnam. Massively. We launch a full-scale invasion of the North, bomb Hanoi into little pieces, defoilate the countryside, and kill everyone who doesn't unconditionally surrender.

Then, any time anyone says, "Vietnam," we can say, "Eff You. They surrendered. Or all died. I can't remember which."

Just a modest proposal :)

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We here at Industrial Blog have a trollish comment from comcast.net in the comments. We deleted his stupidity once, but he came back. That's our first troll in a while. We must be moving on up.