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Catching up quickly UPDATED & CORRECTED!
Clamboring toward and through the airport for the long flight "home" to Beijing -- whose own airport has the delightfully old-school identifier PEK -- two items leap out at me from quick exposure to headlines of the past week.
1) The Chinese government has closed down Time Out Beijing. (According to the Times of London, via Paul Karl Lukas.)
What???? As I was discussing ever so recently, the security agencies in the Chinese government have chosen the run-up to the Olympics as the moment to crack down on citizens and foreigners in the most ham-handed of ways. Like its familiar Time Out counterparts in other major cities, TOB is a frothy but very useful entertainment-and-lifestyle guide. And even this is an intolerable menace? As the Times account said:
The decision seems to have been taken not because of any racy or politically incorrect content. Time Out Beijing has fallen victim to the accelerating imposition of restrictions on any aspect of life in the capital deemed to pose a potential threat to a smooth Olympics.
UPDATE: It appears that this episode is a little more complicated than it appeared at an in-airport glance. Perhaps it involved Olympic-crackdown matters; perhaps it was largely a question of following business-licensing laws. Overview of the snarls here, at China Law Blog, with many subsequent links including to Shanghaiist and Beijing Boyce. In the meantime, this will teach me about catching up too quickly or passing on tips I haven't checked out myself. More later.
2) According to Steve Lohr of the NYT, even Intel has decided not to "upgrade" its own computers to Windows Vista? Wow and wow. Out of a sense of sportsmanship and a dim awareness that if I've said something 99 times I may not need to say it the 100th*, I've kept to myself recent illustrations of the ponderous nightmare that the Vista Experience has meant for me. But this, from the other half of the Microsoft-Intel partnership that for years has ruled the PC world, has got to sting.
And it of course is a fitting complement to a related, bonus half-item: the now-widely-circulated and wonderfully expressive and human email from Bill Gates about his own frustrations in using Windows XP. I would really like to see what he said when trying to make Vista work.**
I think I hear the boarding call.
_____
Continue reading "Catching up quickly UPDATED & CORRECTED!" »
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This will teach me to be wry... ("Friend of China" dept)
Just before going offline, which I more or less still am, I talked about the many and mysterious ways in which Chinese officialdom is doing its best to screw up the Beijing Olympics. There is a minor risk to the Games as an athletic contest, since officials waited until the very last minute to deal with hyper-polluted air (ie, air still getting worse as of the time I left Beijing six days ago). There is a major possibility that the event will be a general embarrassment to China, because of the crude and increasing efforts to "control" every aspect of their presentation -- which in practice means scrutinizing reporters more carefully, making it harder for foreigners of any sort to get into the country, etc. Detail in original post.
In introducing the point I said something sincere -- really, it will be better for everyone if the Chinese public feels good about the games -- and something a little less direct. Namely that I was a "Friend of the Chinese People." In light of many alarmed and huffy emails that have piled up, mainly from people unfamiliar with China, I apparently need to spell out the intended wryness:
- For any foreigner who has operated here, "Friend of China" is a very familiar and loaded agitprop term. John Pomfret of the Washington Post elaborates on its connotations here. When Chinese government officials apply it, they really mean something like "stooge" -- an outsider who will go along with whatever they say or do. This is why Kevin Rudd, the Mandarin-speaking new Prime Minister of Australia, was careful in a major speech in Beijing to call himself a "true friend" of China, using the Chinese term zhengyou, versus pengyou for friend in the ordinary sense. The implication of "true friend" is someone who cares enough to tell unpleasant truths and point out possible errors. Ie, the kind of friend that China, America, and every other entity and person needs.
- In saying I was a "Friend of the Chinese People," I meant to pay mocking respect to the official parlance but say something different. In specific, this was a reference (and link) to a preceding post about dealing with ordinary people in China. Despite my many aggravations with Chinese policies and practices, despite my wonderment at the self-defeating idiocy of the government's approach to the Olympics, my experience with the varied and teeming humanity of China has been surprisingly positive. When it comes to their own country, Americans have no trouble with the concept that someone could dislike its governmental policies but still like the culture and folkways and individual people. Lots of times, that's how I feel about America myself! The same distinction is, if anything, more important to remember about China, precisely because its individual people are less familiar to most members of the outside world.
So, if you're warming up for an email or blog post about the self-censorship involved in someone professing to be a "Friend of China," save it for someone who actually uses that term! I am happy to be counted as a pengyou of many individuals within China, but as a zhengyou of many institutions here. We criticize because we care! (Note to the wry-impaired: preceding sentence should not be taken 100% at face value.)
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Off line for a while
Returning in early July. Looking forward to a blue-sky Beijing when I get back! Will report one way or the other then.
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Getting this off my chest about the Olympics
This is very long, but for-the-record:
First, a reminder: I think that it will be best for China, the world, the athletes, the spectators, and the Olympic Movement itself if the Beijing games come off as a big success. No one will benefit if China feels disappointed or under-appreciated about how these years of work ultimately pay off.
Also: as I can’t say often enough, I am a Friend of the Chinese People!
And: I’ll be here in August. I want to have a good time when the Games begin.
But I am getting a bad feeling about the buildup to these events. It’s not just the air— I do still believe that last-minute measures will make it acceptable by Games time. (Reasoning and quotes in this article. Also, I'm out of Beijing till the start of July -- giving it a chance!) And it’s not about a lot of the transportation infrastructure, although crucial subway lines that are supposed to be running before visitors arrive still have mounds of fresh construction dirt around some entryways. I am confident that they will handling passengers by the time they're needed for the Games.
Rather I’m puzzled by a series of deliberate and inadvertent decisions that, if you didn’t know better, you might think were designed to turn the whole spectacle into a source of friction rather than pride for China. None of these steps is news on its own. Collectively the pattern is discouraging, and puzzling too.
Some are clearly inadvertent.
Continue reading "Getting this off my chest about the Olympics" »
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Response from Mozilla on a rumored security concern
A few days ago I got a note from a technically-minded friend who also has worked in the military/security field. He wrote with a warning about a problem with the newly-released official version of Firefox 3.
He said, “Browsing history can no longer be readily cleared upon exit as with previous versions (like release 2). It is now stored in an encrypted file that, any turkey with half a brain, can readily decrypt, or if they have physical access / web access to your machine, can download / copy at will.” This person travels frequently in China and said he considered this too serious a risk if he had to leave his machine unattended. “I think this is not the browser that I would want to travel around many places and work with.”
Worse, he said, when he went back to Mozilla to find the Firefox 2 install files so he could return to a system he found more comfortable, the files were no longer there.
I was about to post his comments and say that while this person was more security-conscious than I was, the point was worth knowing about in illustrating how much more digital information about ourselves we leave at every turn. Then I thought: why not ask Mozilla?
It turns out that, according to Mozilla, these concerns are unfounded. I heard back quickly from John Lilly, Mozilla’s CEO, and Mike Beltzner, the program lead for FF3, about where these apparently-missing features could be found. If anyone has harbored concerns like my friend’s, responses (tied to this screenshot) come after the jump.
______
Continue reading "Response from Mozilla on a rumored security concern" »
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Comic strips about the earthquake
Not ha-ha funny comics, but graphic novel-type earnest renderings of some of the earthquake scenes now becoming famous in China. They are by the Chinese artist/illustrator Coco Wang and are here, with captions in English. Check the index on the right side of the page -- "Strip 2: The Boy Who Lived," etc -- to see each of the several-panel installments.
The current installment tells of the rescue of pandas from the Wolong center -- including the fact that the staff was instructed to rescue the foreign visitors first, then the pandas. The images are copyrighted, so here is just one atypically jokey frame from the panda sequence:
Most of the other stories are in far more heroic/tragic mode. The strips are interesting in themselves and are a little window on the imagery and tone with which the earthquake is entering public imagination here. (Thanks to Brian Wagner.)
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Update on The Ribbon
It appears that I am indeed the last person in the world to figure out how to conceal the large Ribbon at the top of Office2007 apps -- Word, Excel, etc. Good to find this out! And extra tips:
1) Ctl-F1 is the easiest way to get the job done, toggling the Ribbon on and off;
2) Double-clicking on one of the headings at the top of the screen "View," "Insert" etc also works as a toggle. This I knew.
3) Something I didn't know, and that is quite elegant for the keyboard-centric like me. If you have minimized the Ribbon, you can then hold down the Alt key -- and guides to the keyboard shortcuts for various commands appear. (Actually, this Alt-key trick works if the Ribbon is full-sized too.) There are many of us who have spent years learning the sequence of keys to get a job done without going to the mouse. Most of them still work, and this Alt-key trick provides clues. Picture below shows effect of Alt key with normal sized Ribbon -- for instance, Alt-A-L to align copy to the left.
Thanks to Erik Love, Steve Endow, and a cast of thousands.
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How did I go so long without knowing this? (First in a million-part series)
Microsoft's two big releases of 2007 were Vista and Office2007. At least I liked one of them! The new Office07 products -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc -- have a number of small refinements that I appreciate. They look much nicer than their predecessors, at least to my eye, and they're technically improved, including with a new file format that takes only half the storage space of previous versions. Some of the commands are annoyingly different from the ones my fingers had been used to for years. But, conveniently, in most cases the programs will still recognize what you're trying to do if you hit the old sequence of keys.
What I don't like is "The Ribbon." This is the big banner at the top of each Word, Excel, etc display that takes up an awful lot of screen space with its new menu of commands.
Two reasons I object to The Ribbon: it's big, intrusive, and busy, getting in the way of the actual material I'm supposed to be thinking about. And, it reflects the same questionable design trade-off as Microsoft's previous and dreaded Clippy feature -- "You seem to be writing a letter!", that Clippy. These quasi-tutorial aids are possibly useful the very first time or two or ten you use the program and are still figuring it out. The next million times you use it, after you've learned how it works, these "assistants" just get in the way. Or, again, that's how Clippy and The Ribbon are for me.
Am I the last person on earth to figure out that you can make The Ribbon go away in Office 2007 programs? It is easy, though underpublicized. I came across it by accidental keystroke. You right-click at the top of the screen, in the command bar or the big fat Ribbon zone; you chose "Minimize the Ribbon," and it is gone! Five or six more usable lines of screen real-estate immediately come into view. (Depends on the specific program, font size and zoom factor, etc.) And if you need to see ribbon commands at any point, you just click on "View" at the top of the screen and it toggles on and off.
If anyone else had been in the dark: well, now, let there be light.
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Forty-nine days and counting (updated)
A little variety in perspective: an outdoor view, 9am June 20, looking toward the nearly-completed CCTV tower in Beijing's Central Business District. Distance to the tower is roughly half a mile, less than one kilometer, in this shot.
I was joking when saying earlier that maybe the factories are running 30 hours a day, 10 days a week, to meet output targets before the expected mandatory pre-Olympic shutdown next month. Now I'm not so sure it's a joke.
Either there is some unusual output surge underway, making the air for the last few weeks the worst I've seen in a year. I have not seen the sun or anything resembling blue in days and days. Or some catastrophic underlying change has occurred, making it all the more challenging to bring the air to acceptable levels in the next 49 days.
Whichever it is, I now get the point and will spend as many of those remaining days out of Beijing as possible. See you at the Games!
Update: CCTV from a nearby but different angle last November, when the building was much further from completion and a strong north wind had just swept through town.
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An account of Mao Mao the Panda's funeral in Wolong
I mentioned earlier that the remains of Mao Mao, a 9-year-old mother panda, had been found in the rubble of the Wolong Panda Reserve a month after the devastating Sichuan earthquake. The current home page of Pandas International features an account by PI's Suzanne Braden about the search for Mao Mao, who had been missing since the earthquake, and what happened thereafter.
It has photos of the search for Mao Mao, an explanation of the "quake lake" phenomenon (which is what did Mao Mao in), and an update on the panda reserve. Strangely moving, including the part about how Mao Mao must have been trapped by rising quake-lake water when the wall finally came down on her. It takes nothing away from respect for the enormous human cost of this event to recognize the other costs too.
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Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself *
I said recently that I would stop bellyaching about the air in Beijing until the beginning of next month.
Then I woke up and looked out the window this morning. Here we are at 10am, June 19, 2008, fifty days before the Olympic Games are to begin:
I guess I had not imagined how "just in time" the air-cleanup plan for the Olympic Games was going to be. I mean, is anyone from the International Olympic Committee getting the slightest bit nervous?
*Note for the kiddies: Title is of course from the Atlantic's own 19th-century contributor Walt Whitman. A recent noir-novel allusion to Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" may have skipped past me, but not this one! Naturally I think of Whitman's next line, "(I am large, I contain multitudes)", after multi-course banquets in the hinterland featuring items whose provenance I can't guess.
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For nerds and Sinologists alike: the Firefox 3 snarl
As mentioned two days ago, the Mozilla organization, creator of Firefox, has been trying to gin up a world-wide effort to get as many people as possible to download the official version of Firefox 3 on its release day, June 17. And if users around the world hit the servers all at once, they could set a Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour span. Great!
So of course when the fun began about 12 hours ago, as the release files went up and users everywhere logged in -- the Mozilla servers promptly froze and crashed.
Let's see. You're a leading internet company, and you're drumming up action from all around the world for what you hope will be a simultaneous assault on your servers, maybe you should be prepared for... a huge surge in traffic?? Just a thought.
And, hmmm, why does this make me think of the Olympics?
Continue reading "For nerds and Sinologists alike: the Firefox 3 snarl" »
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Gore endorses Obama
Three quick points:
1) The sizzle and pomp that build around a presidential candidate, which Gore was plunged back into for this one night, remind us yet again of what Gore lost, or had taken from him, eight years ago. It must be about the billionth reminder for Gore. That he has gone on at all in these circumstances, let alone achieved what he has, surpasses my understanding. Of course he let out a little sign of it with his not-fully-joking "take it from me" line about the importance of elections.
2) A very powerful and heartfelt speech on behalf of Obama. But the contrast between his "hot" approach and Obama's cool was a dramatic demonstration of how much political time has passed in eight years.
3) Gore's well-crafted rhetorical sequence of reasons why "elections matter," after the jump, had one off-key element. Supreme Court appointments -- fine. War and peace? Of course. Wounded veterans, yes -- and Katrina, and impending recession, and the mortgage crisis. The environment? We were waiting for Gore to say it. But lead-tainted toys from China, and pet food?? Those items built toward the nice line about even dogs and cats knowing that elections matter. But they're out of scale with the rest of the list. And willing as I am to blame George Bush for just about anything, it's much more of a stretch to connect a mis-managed Mattel factory in Guangdong Province with White House policies than is the case with the other, graver problems Gore mentioned. So, the dog-and-cat line is nice, but the logic behind it can use some work. Peace, prosperity, accountable government, saving the planet -- those should be enough.
Continue reading "Gore endorses Obama" »
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A simple point about being a foreigner in China
I have been complaining about Beijing's bad air, and soon I will complain about some other aspects of China's preparations for the Olympics. So it seemed a good time to make a point that has finally occurred to me in clearer form than before. I think I now can explain why, despite the pollution and congestion and overall ceaseless hassle of big-city life in China, I always tell friends or visitors that I "like" Chinese people in general.
The reason is that, most of the time, people in China treat me as ... a person.
Not always and in every circumstance as a foreigner, though I obviously am that. I hear the Chinese words for "look, a foreigner!" and feel the general ripple of outsiderness much less often than I hear or sense the counterparts in (richer and more sophisticated) Japan. In some rural areas, my wife and I have been the first foreigners that locals had ever seen in person. They were interested but got over it.
Not as a walking bag of money to be taken advantage of, except in the markets, where any potential customer can be treated that way.
Continue reading "A simple point about being a foreigner in China" »
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Father's Day evening tribute to my own dad
A month ago I made a crazed out-and-back trip from Beijing to the U.S. East Coast, stopping in LA, to fulfill an obligation many years in the making. This was to give a commencement speech at Ursinus College, outside Philadelphia. I mention it, on this Father's Day, because it directly concerned my father, and because some of the homilies involved were rounded up in today's NYT selection of "the future lies ahead"-ish thoughts from Commencement speeches. Pensees of mine are nestled in there between those of Clarence Thomas and Jessica Lange.
Here is a transcript of the whole thing, in its 11-minute entirety. Happy Father's Day!
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Why isn't Bireli Lagrene a household name?
I know, it's a cliche: cranky Boomer-era guy thinks kids today should like jazz better. Still, as a Father's Day indulgence I'll express my surprise that more people in the US don't know about the French/Gypsy jazz guitar phenom Bireli Lagrene.
He's a star in Europe, but I don't see that he has really entered the US consciousness or appeared on any of the main interview or talk shows. (Fresh Air bookers???) Maybe he doesn't speak English? He can sing with a completely convincing American accent -- Frank Sinatra's accent, to be specific -- but everyone sounds American when singing. If language actually is the barrier, he could fake it, with the ever-appealing French accent. Or just play.
A search on YouTube for Bireli Lagrene will turn up a rich assortment of his concerts in Europe, in such different styles as this in the cool, slow mode and this with warp-speed virtuoso fingering and much in between. And here, via the Amazon listing for his wonderful Blue Eyes CD of Sinatra songs, is a minute-long sample in Windows Media format of I've Got You Under My Skin. For me, all of these are slow to load, but I think that a China problem.
This is the kind of thing you like or you don't. My theory is: you should. But that brings us back to the first line of this post.
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Nerds only: Firefox Download Day
This is fundamentally silly -- people pledging online to set a world record for software downloads in a single day. Fortunately, the software in question, the official release of Firefox 3, is highly worthwhile. Beta and Release Candidates have been available for several months and are great. Download day for the official version is this coming Tuesday. Windows, Mac, Linux.
The Download Day Map lets you say where you'll be when you download. If I'd thought about it, before answering honestly (China) I would have chosen some place where I've actually been but that is underrepresented in the count -- say, the Falkland Islands or Liberia. Not that I'm in favor of giving misleading answers to polls. The map of pledged downloads actually is quite interesting: as of now, 263 Firefox users are (reportedly) signed up from North Korea!
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New entry for the lexicon of disorders: PAD
When I lived in Seattle, I used to hear about Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, the moodiness that would set in when people went weeks without seeing the sun.
I wonder if there is a place for Pollutional Affective Disorder, PAD? Here is what I see out the window at 11am China time, June 14, with 55 days till the Olympics begin. To be fair, it rained hard last night, and the roads are wet, and some of what's out there could be an ochre-tinted fog. Still. It's looked this way for days, when the city was bone dry.
No more in this vein until early July, when some new Beijing subway lines will have opened; the moratorium on construction will be in place; the shutdown order for surrounding factories will take hold; and some actual officials, broadcasters, coaches, and perhaps even athletes will begin drifting in.
Update: as promised, no pic, but the view the next day is exactly the same.
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Tim Russert
It is of course precisely the vitality and at-the-center-ness of Tim Russert that makes his sudden death so shocking. I am very sorry for his family.
Like many other people in political journalism, I have had differences with him over the years about his particular concept of "tough" questioning and the effect it had, because of his great influence, on politicians and the DC journalistic culture. Such issues are for another day.
What I liked and admired most about him as a journalist and human being was his sense of permanent child-like wonder, which is in fact the essence of this business. Reporters never quite think of themselves as grownups, because they're always so excited about the next thing they get to see or the next puzzle they get to figure out. Rather, if people don't feel this way, they find some other line of work.
Even he ascended past the level where he would routinely be called a "reporter," Tim Russert always retained that sense of openness and curiosity about what he'd learn in the next interview or see at the next event. In turn this made him seem un-stuffy to people who knew him only from TV, and approachable when you dealt with him in person. I am sorry that his weekly CNBC/MSNBC interview show was not as well-known as Meet the Press, because it showed more of his open, omni-interested nature than some of the Sunday morning inquisitions did. Still, the overwhelming reaction to his death shows that his essential character came through. This is sad news.
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Mao Mao the panda laid to rest
Mao Mao, a nine-year old panda who had given birth to five cubs, had not been seen at the Wolong Panda Reserve since the Sichuan earthquake on May 12. On Monday of this week, her body was found under the ruins of her stone enclosure.
The current home page of the (Washington DC) National Zoo's panda page reports her death and says, "Mao Mao was a valuable member of the panda community and will be missed." An AP story on Mao Mao points out the larger peril the earthquake has posed for the Wolong panda breeding program, since many of the females were in the "falling in love" season and were newly impregnated. Also, much of the panda sperm stored in freezers at the reserve, to maximize genetic diversity, may have been lost.
Her keeper, He Changgui, mourns at her grave. According to the AP, "he had cared for the panda since she was 3, speaking to her in the local Sichuan dialect as he worked.
"It's like you could say something and she would understand," he said. "If you were happy, she was happy too."
I do love the idea that Mao Mao spoke not just Chinese but the Sichuan dialect. After all, it was her native region.
(Thanks to Margot Griffith.)
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I dunno, maybe I am getting depressed?
Another summer morning, 9 am. You get only so many summer days in life. The good news is, just 56 days to the Olympics, so very soon now things will be great.
Continue reading "I dunno, maybe I am getting depressed?" »
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Pandas on TV
Word from Pandas International is that an NBC-TV crew has recently been to the Wolong Panda Reserve, heavily damaged in the recent Sichuan earthquake. Reports are scheduled to run on both the Today show and the Nightly News with Brian Williams tomorrow, Friday, June 13.
"Are scheduled to" is not the same as "will." But for the heck of it, why not tune in? I would if I could.
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My email spam is sometimes interesting here
Nigerian bank-fraud offers? Discount drugs? Male enhancers? Sure, info about all of this still pours in. But every day in China I get messages like the one below, which I don't remember getting anywhere else. Charming, in a "workhouse of the world" way. This is cut-and-pasted exactly as it arrived, except for the XXXd out name of the company in Shenzhen that sent it -- a real company, by the way:
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Good day.
We has started doing research on spiral lead acid battery since 2003.
We are the fourth manufacturer after OPTIMA, CYLON and EXIDE, who can produce spiral lead acid batteries in series.And we are the only one in China up to now.Our products range from 2V, 2.5AH to 12V, 75AH.We adopt automatic production, and got certificate of UL, CE, ect.
We are now looking for strategic cooperator, no matter homeland or overseas, only if you have wished to do business on spiral lead acid batteries, pls feel free to contact with us!
Attached some spec and pictures, pls check it. We are looking forward for your prompt reply.
Thnanks and best regards.
XXXX BATTERY CO.,LTD
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Noirest of noir
The new "Hard Case" crime-fiction series is justly celebrated. This is a combination of "classic" pulp fiction from the post-WW II era and new noir novels. The covers are the initial selling point -- loving modern recreations of a lurid 50s-retro style. The one below is among the more violent looking; after the jump, samples of the more typical hot-dame type of luridness.
The few books I've read in the series have been very good, and Grifter's Game, above, is remarkable in two ways.
One, it's a kind of time capsule, showing what's changed, and hasn't, in U.S. pop culture. It came out in 1961, and some aspects seem positively antique. The protagonist needs to go from NYC to Cleveland -- so he takes the train. (Yes, it may come to that again.) TV broadcasts shut off after midnight. All prices need to be adjusted by a factor of ten or more. Newspapers cost a nickel, a good meal costs $2.50, a dollar bill is a huge tip.
Continue reading "Noirest of noir" »
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Jim Webb as "Confederate"
I am on record as liking and admiring Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, and also hoping that he stays in the Senate rather than joins the Obama ticket as VP.
But I am underwhelmed by the latest "revelation" about him: that he has expressed sympathy and respect for Confederate soldiers, including many of his forbears. (FWIW: Such of my relatives as were then in America lived in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and fought on the Union side. Many were killed.)
First, this is hardly a secret or news. The dignity of ordinary Confederate troops and their battlefield leaders, as opposed to the evil of the southern slaveholding system, was a major theme in Webb's widely-noted and generally-praised book Born Fighting, published four years ago.
In addition to that book, the main documentary proof of Webb's "problem" is a speech at the Confederate war memorial in 1990. That memorial, by the way, is in Arlington National Cemetery -- not in Richmond, Charleston, Natchez, etc. His speech contained a passage addressed to white descendants of the Confederate army that is hard to imagine coming from, say, David Duke:
The last twenty five years in this country have shown again and again that, despite the regrettable and well-publicized turmoil of the Civil Rights years, those Americans of African ancestry are the people with whom our [Southern whites'] history in this country most closely intertwines, whose struggles in an odd but compelling way most resemble our own, and whose rights as full citizens we above all should celebrate and insist upon....
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Are we going to war with Iran?
That is what the latest rash of stories seems to suggest. "Latest" because there have been many previous waves of attack-is-imminent warnings. For instance:
- one of several by the estimable Seymour Hersh, in April 2006;
- a blog entry, "Bush is About to Attack Iran: Why Can't Americans See It?" from January, 2007;
- from the BBC in February 2007;
- in Time in August 2007;
- countless other warnings during the build-up to the 2006 mid-term elections, arguing that the Bush-Cheney team would naturally order an attack as an "October surprise" to thwart a likely Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress.
Such reports were becoming common enough four years ago that the Atlantic then conducted a "war game" to examine the consequences of an attack, which led to this article arguing that an attack would be a strategic, tactical, and diplomatic disaster for the United States.
There is virtually no enthusiasm in the uniformed military for a strike on Iran -- among other problems, it would instantly make US troops in Iraq ten times more vulnerable than they are now. Indeed one recent report contends that uniformed and civilian officials in the Pentagon derailed an attempt by Dick Cheney to instigate a strike last year, by insisting that no decision be made "without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian retaliation for such an attack." What a concept!
Continue reading "Are we going to war with Iran?" »
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Mac nerds only: becoming a believer on the battery front
I mentioned earlier that I was using a pricey (~$300) battery extender, from QuickerTek, to make up for one of the MacBook Air's biggest limitations: that you can't swap its battery out. The device in question is the square thing on the left in the photo below. And, yes, that's the Windows XP welcome screen, running very nicely on the Mac under VMware Fusion. If you squint, you can even see the icons for Zoot and Brainstorm, my trusty PC programs. Outlook and X1 are in there too.
Latest data point: during travel yesterday I used the MB Air away from an electric plug, but with this battery extender, for ten straight hours and was nowhere close to using up the power. Details after the jump, but my experience is: for a price, this is a way to eliminate all questions about whether you can get enough working time out of the MBA.
Continue reading "Mac nerds only: becoming a believer on the battery front" »
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Two months to opening day
The opening ceremony for the Olympics will be at 8:08 pm on August 8. The first full day of competition will August 9, two months from today.
June 9, 10am, standard southern view from our apartment in Guomao area of Beijing.
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The lines in today's NYT most likely to raise Bill Clinton's blood pressure
From Bob Kerrey, former governor and senator from Nebraska, as part of the "What went wrong" panel on the Hillary Clinton campaign:
I am a supporter of Hillary Clinton with an unusual perspective: I was defeated by her husband in the Democratic presidential race of 1992...
No doubt she’s feeling the disappointment that all of us who have lost races feel...
She shouldn’t be too hard on herself. If Barack Obama had been born 10 years earlier and had been a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1992, neither I nor Bill Clinton would have defeated him.
This last sentence takes us into "thinking the unthinkable" territory, as Kerrey certainly knew when writing it. Once I interviewed Bill Clinton at a public event shortly after the Atlantic had published a cover story by me that had nothing to do with Clinton himself. But it did have a throwaway line about how Clinton might not have won in 1992 without the disruptive presence of Ross Perot in the race. Charmingly, but pointedly and with a lot, lot of detail, Clinton revealed to me the many aspects of my error before the interview began. I would pay to be there when he straightens Kerrey out.
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Coming a day late to Hillary Clinton's speech...
... I have to say, I agree with the conventional wisdom that it was magnificent. Having complained about some of her recent performances, I felt it fair to register in this modest way a "public" thumbs-up vote.
For her campaign it was a distinct weakness that she could present such different faces day by day. But it certainly is a strength for Barack Obama and for the Democrats that this is the face she now wears. (After the jump, my favorite passages.) There is no point wondering where this eloquence and delivery were before. That she mustered them yesterday is to her great credit
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Not about politics! More on file-sync
I mentioned yesterday that I was trying, and liking, the (blush) "Magic Briefcase" feature of the program SugarSync. It's an easy way to work on the same set of files, on different computers, and always have the current version on hand wherever you work.
As one, the blog-reading public has risen up to remind me that in any discussion of sync programs, it's important to include a familiar contender, Microsoft's FolderShare, which I have used in the past and will try again; and a newer (to me) entrant, AutoSync from Memeo.
I will give them both a try and report results. What are computers for, if not to fritter*? In the meantime, be advised of these sync possibilities too.
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* My friend Stephen Manes, novelist and tech writer, has lifetime copyright to the term "fritterware" to describe activity of this sort.
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Worst moment of TV commentary (that I can think of at the moment)
Gloria Borger just now on CNN, reading credulously from a Hillary-supporter email saying that this "needed to be her night" and thus it was OK for her to perform the way she did.
Best moment: Jeffrey Toobin's instant, unscripted, "What are you TALKING ABOUT???" response, saying that except for the "deranged narcissism of the Clintons" the point would be that she had lost and Obama had won and it was time for her to step aside. That was "hard" on her, but elections are hard. It was no picnic for Bob Dole or George HW Bush or Paul Tsongas or Jerry Brown when Bill Clinton beat them, either, but that is life and they didn't try to stay on stage. This last part is me talking, but it's what Toobin implied.
Of course, CNN is the only source of real-time U.S. commentary available here, so my pool of possible worst-remark candidates is restricted.
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Way to unify the party, HRC!
You HAVE LOST the nomination. There are NO MORE primaries. And you're urging your supporters to nurse their bitter feelings on your web site, and keep selling their bikes to give you money that you'll spend on... what? The unseemliness -- and, yes, destructiveness -- of this is too obvious to mention, though perhaps not obvious enough to have occurred to you.
This is a new low.
Update: Having an (intended?) effect already. Maybe he'll get going, but first 10 minutes of Obama's speech seem oddly off-his-stride and not looking as sunnily victorious as he should at this moment. Likely hypothesis: what he just heard in Clinton's speech.
Update-update: Recovers somewhat from minute 15 on, finishes very strong. Still, it seems undeniable that he spent his first few minutes looking like something other than the man-who-has-just-clinched thanks in part to the slap he had just received from HRC.
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While waiting for political news, three nice things to say
1) If you're looking for a file-sync program it's worth checking out the widely-praised SugarSync. The name gives me the creeps, and I'm almost embarrassed to use its "Magic Briefcase" feature. But these people have figured out something important: an easy way to keep files synchronized among a bunch of computers.
I actually do use three computers almost interchangeably: a ThinkPad PC laptop, a MacAir notebook, and a MacMini desktop. I always taking notes or checking off items on files I want to keep current among all the machines. (Word files; Excel files; my oddball Zoot and Brainstorm files; and others.) I've generally transferred these from machine to machine with a USB stick, or emailed them back and forth. Overall, this is a pain, plus it can be hard to remember which file on which machine is the current version. With the "magic briefcase" feature, which I won't explain, changes in the files on one machine are instantly available on all the others.
SugarSync is initially available on free trial and then costs about $30 a year, which I'll probably pay. It makes me reflect on how computer spending has changed. I very rarely spend money for actual software any more. But I'm paying more and more for services -- $40 a year for a VPN, $25 or so for photo storage, $40 or so for online backup service, more than I want to think for internet service and international cell phone and data service, and about ten others I can't think of now. I guess I'll think of it as part of the evolution toward a "service" economy.
2) Beijing guidebooks -- this is the one to get:
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Praising a neocon! (updated)
I am limited, to put it mildly, in my admiration for neocons and the blessings they have brought to America and the world.
But to give credit where it is due: just now on BBC's HARDtalk program, Robert Kagan -- he of the "Mars vs. Venus" description of virile America versus weakling Europe -- did an admirable job of handling the interviewer Stephen Sackur. Sackur's specialty has become the haughty-sounding "Surely it's preposterous to suggest.." school of bullying interrogation. Often this involves hopping around from theme to theme, the continuity provided mainly by the superior tone.
Kagan, who is now a McCain advisor, dealt with this act as well as I've seen done, calling Sackur out on each of the logical jumps. Bonus point to him for admitting (in roughly these words) that the war in Iraq had "hurt America's image, largely deservedly." The BBC's internet video of the show, here, gave me an error message saying it's not available in China. (I saw it on actual TV.) If it works where you are and you'd like to see someone stand his ground, check it out.
UPDATE: Word from the US is that this clip is available only in the UK. Sorry! But surely it's preposterous to suggest that the BBC can indefinitely bottle up its shows. Will pass on any word I get about other sources.
BETTER UPDATE: Gavin Sheridan points out that while the BBC's own iPlayer is UK-only, a number of shows, including the one I'm talking about, are available on its normal web site. So here it is, Mars, Venus, HARDtalk, and all.
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How Hillary lives with herself (one hypothesis)
From a coldly logical perspective, the last few months of Hillary Clinton's campaign approach are self-destructive at worst, puzzling at best. Doesn't she realize the damage she's causing the party by encouraging divisions like those in the Michigan-Florida flap? Does she have any idea of what this has done to her reputation, and her husband's? Do they really not care whether they help John McCain win?
I offer no psychological speculation, about the campaign or any other aspect of her life. I do have this political observation, which is consistent with John Heilemann's thorough and convincing exploration of the topic and which is based on contacts with Clinton partisans over the years.
The Clinton team doesn't worry about hurting Obama's prospects of winning in the fall, because they assess those prospects at zero. Always have. Obama might not win if he leads a bitterly divided party, but (in this view) he was never going to win. Not a chance. He would be smashed like an armadillo in the road* by the Republican campaign machine, and he would be just about as ready as the armadillo for what was coming.
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Charlie Moskos
I was surprised and saddened to get an email message a few hours ago saying that Charles Moskos had just died, at 74.
The email from his wife of 41 years, Ilca, began: "Charles C. Moskos, of Santa Monica, Calif, formerly of Evanston, Ill, draftee of U.S. Army, died peacefully in his sleep after a valiant struggle with cancer." That sentence is a kind poetry, evoking whole aspects of his life in a few words.
"Formerly of Evanston" recalls his four decades as a popular and dedicated professor at Northwestern. See this article from the campus paper when a diagnosis of prostate cancer forced him to drop his classes two years ago.
"Draftee of U.S. Army" alludes to the great passion of Moskos's intellectual and public life: restoring the bond between the armed forces and the general public that was the best side effect of the conscript military into which he was drafted after graduating from Princeton in 1956. Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army the following year -- that was a sign of how broadly the armed forces drew from society through the Fifties and early Sixties. Moskos was tireless in conducting studies and devising policies about improving the civic-military bond. His efforts included two articles in the Atlantic, in 1986 and 1990.
That he died "peacefully" is a relief; that he struggled "valiantly" is consistent with everything else about his life. He had a very generous spirit and was always ready to laugh at himself. The one subject, in my experience, that he considered No Laughing Matter was the excellence of Greek-Americans, as compared with any other subset of humanity. As Ilca Hohn Moskos said in her message, "He was an academic, but not pretentious, funny, but not silly." A very good man.
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