Have Intercourse With Our Friends and Beat the Crap Out of Our Neighbors
At least, that's how this George W quote from a speech in Britain is bound to get picked up:
"It really is about time we started to realize who are allies are, who our enemies are, stick with the one and fight the other."
It must have sounded good in his head at the time.
Aside from when he really gets his mind set on something, Bush tends to be much more a grayscale thinker than he expresses himself to be. This has been part of his PR problem since... well, since forever. I imagine him seeing this kind of statement as grand and heroic rhetoric, a head coach in the locker room at halftime about to stage the biggest come-from-behind victory the world has ever seen. After the show, he gives Condoleeza Rice a high five and like college buddies they point out the kick-ass-ed-ness of the sound bite.
I sincerely doubt Bush literally meant we're going to send the armed forces of all allied nations to massacre all non-allied nations. But you can't use global struggle as a metaphor when global struggle is what you're addressing.
On a related note, it's times like these that we should read British papers like The Guardian. It allows us to see how the people being addressed are viewing how they're being addressed. Reading them to get the most honest outlook (which I know many who do) is just as immature as trusting mainstream US media as the end-all be-all. More on that later (if I can get myself riled up about it).
Input by Mike at 11:38 AM
Eat, Drink
Last Saturday, Kristi, some friends and I went downtown to eat at Lalo's, one of the River North food machines that caters with huge atmosphere and overpriced dinner plates. Reservations for 9pm unwittingly turned into 9:45 and then 10:30 and could have become later if it weren't for the diligent pestering of Kris and Ben.
In a restaurant whose overall floor area is half-devoted to the bar, it is no wonder that reservations get bumped to a later spot. Drinks from bars are already grossly inflated but tourist-gobbling enterprises like Lalo's jack it up another notch; so why not pocket a few extra dollars for a nudge of the reservation time? In their defense, resaurants also don't want tables left open because of reservations where the diners are late and justifiably have to cushion what would be a loss. But praying to the gods of chaos eventually incurs their arrival.
Not that Lalo's (or any busy restaraunt) really loses any money when things go awry. For our wait, we were negotiated free drinks and some free appetizers, which have a high menu value but extremely low real cost. The only person affected is the tangentially related waiter/ress whose guests might not tip for the menu value of the free items (we did).
So, I guess what I'm saying is to not specifically fear Lalo's but to hold a general wariness for any dinner factory and most restaurants. The food, though, was just okay, so my feelings won't be hurt if you decide to never go there... except you'll be missing out on a fantastic paintings of boats sailing by a cross against a clouded map sky.
Input by Mike at
11:20 AM
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Respect for Amnesty International
I would probably join the American Civil Liberties Union if it were not for a few pet issues which I feel have become politically motivated and are counter-productive to the key principles of the organization. In conversation with people on the behaviors of the ACLU, I have often cited Amnesty International as having the kind of ideal apolitical atmosphere the ACLU should be striving for. That said, I find this Salon interview with Amnesty's US executive director William Schulz to be very interesting. Salon has chosen to sauce the tease (a term I made up and hope to use more frequently) to fire up its audience, but at its root the interview addresses the non-stance Amnesty International has taken on what the organization interprets to be political decisions. Some interesting implication of the ethics involved in such decisions raise some debatable questions; for instance, should Amnesty International take a lesser-of-two-evils approach in certain cases? Of course, the edges are glittered up with sparkles to get the "antiwar left" dazzled in one way or another.
Input by Mike at
11:46 PM
