I think that i’m supposed to be comforted by his “surge” of federal air marshals. What is it with this guy and surges? See that problem, a surge will fix it. Hell, only a surge will fix it. I feel the same way about hammers, but i don’t act on it.

There’s also a time for duck tape and plumber’s strap. And as fun and challenging as doing a job with the wrong tools is, if money’s no object it’s stupid. Buy a router, a set of fine chisels or even one of those 1000-tool Dremel sets.

Nope, hammer it is. We don’t have time for anything but a hammer – fuck, man, we’re in a “race against time” itself. Do you know how many billions live in hovels on this planet? Every one of them is a possible suicide bomber heading into the pipeline. They’re coming to get us, those damned tired and poor huddled masses are after us…yearning to make us eat halal!

Our only hope is to covertly militarize civilian air travel.

This is the “judgment” we got. Just what are these air marshals going to do in the event that another underwear bomber strikes, or there’s an irritated man of Middle-Eastern descent complaining in row 27? Start shooting in crowded airplane? Go all Chuck Norris on some bitches? Wait, i’ve got it. They’ll be armed with box cutters. Everybody knows that a few hundred people in an airplane are no match for a couple of guys with razor blades.

Let’s take stock of Obama’s first big test in the War on Terror^®:

Hapless, depressed Nigerian attempts to blow off his own legs in the hopes that it will kill the few people around him and maybe pop a hole in the side of a plane. Media and power players have a collective freak out. President plays it cool. Media and power players throw a collective tantrum. President freaks out. We must have new regulations to prevent another “systemic failure.” We must black-list certain nationals. We need undercover gunslingers.

Christ, what would happen if al Qaeda actually scored a hit? Oh yeah, they did. They killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan. Double crossed the masters of deception, walked right up to ‘em and and boom. Maybe the President needs to send a surge of air marshals to protect American lives in Afghanistan. Frankly, the Afghan event looks far more dangerous to our prospects in the War on Terror^® than the burnt weeny terror plot.

In that we have a double agent who had built his credibility with several pieces of actionable intelligence. Drone targets. Theoretically, this guy gave up al Qaeda baddies, which probably amounts to settling Afghan scores on the CIA’s dime. I wonder if he ever sent the drones to a wedding party? From the sound of it — though it might just be institutional pit fighting — the CIA doesn’t really know what’s going on in Afghanistan; ergo the agency probably relies on local sources. Exactly how reliable are these local sources and “allies”?

I’m trying not to worry, because our man of sound judgment has a surge for that, too.

Maybe we’ll have better luck in Yemen, but until then we need to do everything we can to stop another near-tragedy. There are innocent lives at stake that can only be protected by agents of the Commander-in-Chief (who reserves the right to indefinitely detain and torture whomsoever he pleases). Thank god we’ve got a guy with good judgment keeping us safe. Yessir, a steady hand at the wheel…at least until a bunch of cowardly Republican pundits and politicians start yelling. Then he screams and runs like a little girl.

Why doesn’t the Big Mac drop a surge on the Republicans?

Let’s be honest, the TSA personnel who deal with passengers are pretty much the same just-enough-above-minimum-wage-to-justify-wearing-the-uniform rent-a-cops that the airlines used to hire before “the day that everything changed.” The only difference is that now they have the full weight of federal law enforcement behind their badges and some sort of conviction that they’re keeping the world safe from evil. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some of them can barely read; no protocol is going to be effective when implemented by the incompetent.

But that’s just my disgruntled, i now hate airports, self bitching. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing anyone…not even super-genius, secret government agents with perfect teeth and a lovely December tan…can do to make us perfectly secure. So it really doesn’t matter who’s manning the TSA checkpoints; at least those folks have a semi-decent, if rotten, job. Hopefully they can pay the bills.

What i don’t understand is the idea that Americans are entitled to perfect security. Here we are (and for the record, all the troops stationed everywhere in the world are you and i) crashing around the globe and blowing shit up, yet those of us in God’s country should face no threat. And for the most part, we don’t face any threat. Nobody’s bombed any of the weddings i’ve been to over the last few years. I’ve never thought, “I don’t think i should go downtown, because somebody might suicide bomb where i shop.” I’m convinced that the Canadians will launch their plan for world domination any day, by invading the social and evolutionary cul-de-sac of America where i live. But as of yet i have not had to contend with RCAF close air support in the neighborhood.

Still here we are, gripped by fear and willing to submit to whatever the organs say is necessary to protect us. Hunter Thompson used to say that we’re a nation of pigs. I disagree. (Unless he was being Orwellian.) The comparison is unfair to that noble and intelligent, barnyard beast. We’re a nation of five year-olds whose parents don’t say, “No, no, there’s no bogeyman in the closet because there’s no such thing as the bogeyman.” Our parents keep telling us that the bogeyman is real and he’s out to get us. He could be in any, or every, closet. In fact, he probably is in every closet!

True, it is a good way to keep us out of the porn collection and drug paraphernalia.

I’m not being glib nor am i underplaying all those “very real dangers” that we face in the post-9/11 world. I’m saying that if we don’t want to live with the dangers then we might want to stop provoking them. I’m saying that there is no such thing as perfect safety and security; you are going to die someday and you probably won’t go to heaven. And i’m saying that our government consistently overplays any actual threats (and their probability) in order to control us through fear.

I know i’m right because any terrorist organization worth its holy book would have stopped trying to blow up airplanes in flight. They would have started walking into the ticketing areas of American airports and blowing themselves up right there. There’s no fancy security to get to check-in. There are plenty of people to kill, dramatically so. And such an act would be more effective at terrorizing the American people than some guy lighting himself on fire above Detroit.

You remember that story, don’t you? Was all over the press in July 2012? Oh, wait, that hasn’t happened yet. Still to come, so to say. Let me get my thoughts arranged.

It was in 2009 that airport security added the new full-body x-ray scanners to their arsenal of devices to humiliate and traumatise travellers. Sarah Barrett, head of customer experience at Manchester airport, says, “This scanner completely takes away the hassle of needing to undress.” Because we’ll do it for you.

Now, before you tell me that the images could hardly be described as pornographic, let me direct you to Two Girls One Cup. If this is sufficient to cause some people to immediately discombobulate themselves in their trousers, I’m fairly sure that security camera images will be hot-stuff. Plus, imagine the job advert:

“Wanted: mature individuals to look at images of naked strangers of all shapes, sizes and ages for hours at a time while alone in a secluded booth; don’t worry, it’s not child porn if you do it for security reasons.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I fully appreciate the security difficulties faced by the world’s major transit authorities. There really are people out there who are out to kill us. But there are lots of ways to cause mayhem in a public place without resorting to actually getting on a plane.

And, we live in the information age. If the image exists then the image is public. Telling us, as Sarah Barrett does, that, “The images are not erotic or pornographic and they cannot be stored or captured in any way,” is just so much bullshit. Give that security guard a camera-phone; oh, wait, he has one already.

Yes, the technology is possible. No, this is not an acceptable use of that technology. Find another way.

If beating terrorists involves giving away all the privacy, confidentiality, liberty and respect for the individual that we are supposedly fighting so hard for, then we’re not really beating the terrorists.

Maybe it’s just that this technology is lazy. These images should be digitised, processed and then only random bits shown to security for final analysis. There are ways to ensure that this is entirely depersonalised. Otherwise profiling is likely; age, gender, even cultural origin are likely to be visible in these images.

Leave the embarrassing personal pictures to teenagers posting on Facebook. The rest of us are just travelling, nothing to see. And nothing we want you to see.

Click here to view the embedded video.

William Forstchen’s brilliantly disturbing book, One Second After, takes place in a post-apocalyptic America. The country has been brought to its knees by three nuclear missiles launched by unknown foes. The power of the attack comes not from the blasts themselves but from the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) it emits.

An EMP, Forstchen points out, could completely knock out America’s electrical infrastructure. Miles and miles of high-tension wires would absorb the power of the EMP, magnifying it beyond the ability of virtually any circuit-breaker to stop. Electrical systems would overload. Anything with delicate electrical circuitry—like cars, computers, and even calculators—would be fried.

And in Forstchen’s world, America without power would be hell on earth.

“We’re back a hundred and fifty years,” one character says.

“No, not a hundred and fifty years,” says another. “Make it more like five hundred. People alive in 1860, they knew how to live in that time; they had the infrastructure. We don’t. Turn off the lights, stop the toilets from getting water to flush, empty the pharmacy, turn off the television to tell us what to do…. We were like sheep for slaughter then.”

One Second After is not a cheerful novel, nor should it be. Forstchen wrote the novel as a cautionary tale against the threat of an EMP attack. Nearly every desperate situation a reader could imagine—and many that readers couldn’t imagine—unfolds in the book.

Forstchen unveils one small horror after another. How do you keep the water in your swimming pool potable? What do you do with the family dog when you’ve run out of food to eat? What do you do with the thief you’ve shot dead in the middle of the kitchen? What do you do for your diabetic daughter when all the insulin is gone?

What do you do when the strong begin to prey on the weak? How do you maintain law and order when civilization becomes uncivilized?

Although many readers would like to think the better angels of our natures would shine through in a time of national crisis, Forstchen draws from past historical situations—like the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad in World War Two—to show just how low mankind will sink in times of desperation.

The story never goes “Mad Max.” Forstchen wisely keeps events plausible, no matter how terrible they seem. He does create a nagging feeling, though, that things could get even worse than his story suggests.

The entire time, Forstchen beats the same drum: America is virtually unprepared to defend itself against an EMP attack. Communities are unprepared. Individuals are unprepared. Unprepared. Unprepared. Unprepared.

Although the book may be a warning first, it’s a compelling piece of fiction in its own right. The characters are well-crafted and add dramatic weight to the story. The novel’s protagonist, John Matherson, is a college history professor who works at a small, Christian liberal arts school in the western North Carolina mountains. He’s a fictionalized Forstchen who provides context and insights into events as they unfold, and he also serves as the moral foundation for the story, too.

Forstchen writes what he knows, so the entire community of Black Mountain, N.C., feels at once homey and heartbroken. He populates the community with people who could all be out of a Norman Rockwell painting—except Rod Serling starts to tinker with them as the story progresses.

The grim reality Forstchen shows in One Second After demonstrates the high cost of unpreparedness. He wants to spook readers into doing something—anything—whether they start stockpiling supplies just in case or they write to ask their Congressman to take an interest in the issue.

“This is an issue that doesn’t have a constituency,” Forstchen said. “What I hope I’ve done is put a voice to it.”

One Second After makes that voice, and that message, worth listening to.

William Forstchen has a bad dream—a really bad dream—that goes something like this:

A cataclysmic attack throws the United States back to the dark ages, with no electricity, no communication or transportation networks, and no medicines. The most vulnerable members of society—the very young and the very old—begin to die off first, but soon hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, begin dying. Rogue bands of lawless predators, living by rule of force rather than by rule of law, prey on weakened communities. The government, crippled, can’t come to anyone’s rescue.

And all it takes is a single bomb detonated high in the atmosphere, two hundred miles above the continent.

“Welcome to my nightmare,” Forstchen says with the kind of grim chuckle usually reserved for gallows humor.

But this is no joke. “It sounds like it’s science fiction, Mayan-prophecy, end-of-the-world stuff,” Forstchen admits, “but it’s dead-on real.”

Forstchen is a professor of history at Montreat College, a small liberal arts school in the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. He’s written some forty books, including a series of successful “alternative history” novels with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

His most recent novel, One Second After, outlines his nightmare in chilling detail.

At first thought, it might seem far-fetched to imagine a single bomb wiping out the entire country. But it wouldn’t be the power of the explosion, per se, that would cause the problem. Instead, the real problem would be the electro-magnetic pulse—the EMP—generated by the explosion.

Traveling at the speed of light, the EMP would act like an enormous ripple in the earth’s electromagnetic field. As that ripple hits electrical systems, it would get amplified way beyond anything a typical circuit breaker could handle.

“This energy surge will destroy all delicate electronics in your home, even as it destroys all the major components all the way back to the power company’s generators and the phone company’s main relays,” Forstchen writes. “In far less than a millisecond, the entire power grid of the United States, and all that it supports will be destroyed.”

And if the power goes, everything goes.

“Everyone remembers the aftermath of Katrina,” Forstchen says. “It covered fifty-thousand square miles, but it was basically a local event. An EMP would be a nation-wide Katrina-like event.”

Some experts predict the resulting casualty rate could be as high as ninety percent by the end of the first year.

“This will raise a lot of moral questions, too,” Forstchen says. “Are we going to let people out of maximum security prisons? Do we triage off the elderly?”

The scenarios Forstchen envisions in the book aren’t necessarily fictional, either. “I didn’t want to turn this into some kind of Mad Max thing,” he explains.

Forstchen drew on his background as a historian to look for scenarios of desolation and desperation that would fit his post-EMP world. The WWII sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad provided a terrible bounty of examples: tiered rationing, bread with sawdust baked into it to make it more filling, vicious bands of murderous thugs, communal graves.

His visit to the cemetery outside of Leningrad proved especially haunting. “There were six-hundred-thousand dead after the siege,” Forstchen says. “And the Russian have a tradition of putting laminated photos of the deceased on their tombstones. I will never be able to shake that.” That trauma, he says, is still on the Russian soul.

And, the novel argues, America would suffer trauma even worse if an EMP strike hit us.

“I imagined my daughter being in that (post-EMP) world,” says Forstchen, a single parent. “I imagined my daughter being ill in that world.”

As a result, he says, “it got really bad for me” writing novel. “I will never be able to shake that.” Other parents who’ve read the book have had similar reactions. “’I saw my kids in the middle of this,’ they’ve told me,” Forstchen says. “Any parent who reads this, it’s going to hit hard.”

But for most people, the threat of an EMP attack is so abstract and remote, it’s hard to get them to take an interest. “Some people look at it and think it’s too big: ‘I don’t want to think about it,’” Forstchen says. “Well, we have to think about it.”

Forstchen has worked with Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Denny Thompson (D-Miss) to educate other lawmakers about the potential threat of EMPs, but he admits the going has been tough. Even the House Armed Services subcommittee that was studying EMPs was disbanded. “Unfortunately, this is an issue that doesn’t have a constituency,” Forstchen says.

One reason he wrote One Second After, he says, was to “put a voice” to the issue. So far, the strategy seems to be working. The book peaked at number eleven on the New York Times bestseller list and is being developed by Warner Brothers into a film.

“I’m more optimistic than I was six months or even a year ago, when I was working on the book,” Forstchen says. “Lawmakers are starting to get the word again.” In late June, Forstchen met with a group that included members of Congress and intellectuals from various political think tanks to again press his argument, which suddenly has new urgency because of missile testing in North Korea.

“Look at North Korea and Iran,” Forstchen says. “Why are they so interested in building small-scale nuclear missiles? Only one model fits.” It’s the fact that the U.S. is so vulnerable that our enemies are even contemplating such an attack, he adds.

But even beyond the national defense reasons, Forstchen points out that there are significant environmental reasons for protecting ourselves against EMPs. The biggest reason, he says, hangs high above us in the sky every day.

In late August of 1859, a series of solar flares erupted from the sun with such magnitude that they burned out telegraphy grids across Europe and North America. Similar solar storms have taken place in 1921 and 1960. According the Forstchen, research suggests that we’re heading into a period that could see another, similar upswing in solar activity.

“We built this delicate, elaborate infrastructure without thinking about how vulnerable it is,” Forstchen says. “We need to get off the stick and do something about our infrastructure.”

Just one percent of the money allocated in the recent bailout package could be enough to create a survival infrastructure, Forstchen says. “It wouldn’t save the entire system, but it could be used to create nodes of infrastructure that could be quickly built upon. Otherwise, what good is a bailout of there’s no country to bail out?”

Most importantly, Forstchen says, individuals should learn to prepare and protect themselves. “What’s the big lesson from Katrina: Don’t wait for the feds,” he says. His website offers a variety of simple, precautionary things people can do. It also offers tips on how to recognize an EMP should one occur.

“People need to think on three levels: on the level of citizens of America/citizens of the world, the personal level, and the community level,” Forstchen says. “Eight, ten, fifteen people thinking together can do a lot. We have to learn how to think together.”

Forstchen realizes he may sound like “a crazy old crank” for sounding alarmist. (During his first-ever radio interview on the book, the first caller rang it to accuse him of being a paranoid right-wing survivalist.) “I just want to see bipartisan action on this,” he says. “I don’t care who gets the credit. We’re all Americans. We need to get by the partisan bickering, at least on this. Otherwise, we’re all going to be on the same sinking boat the next day.”

Forstchen urges people to contact their congressmen about EMPs. “If enough people do, suddenly the issue has legs, and something can get done about it,” he says.

And that, Forstchen says, will definitely help him sleep easier.

S&R will feature a review of Forstchen’s book, One Second After, on Tuesday.

I can assemble with others to complain about the government. I can petition the government for redress of grievances. I can practice a religion free of government interference. Most importantly, I have the right to speak my mind. I can say whatever I want about the government short of advocating violence against it. I am free to speak or write critically about the actions or inactions of my government.

I can be a critic of my government because for hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of Americans before me fought and died for my right to do that.

In this young century, however, Americans have suffered increased assaults on their rights — especially privacy — by their own government, all in the name of the proclaimed need for “national security.” Because of fear, government continues to attempt to foreclose on constitutional protections.

Government may erode constitutional guarantees in the absence of the watchful eye of the governed. Rights not exercised may become rights lost. It is an obligation of citizenship for Americans that they continually critique and comment on the actions of their government. That is how we shape our government. Failure to do so allows government to shape us and our rights instead.

At the moment, America has a slew of problems confronting it — record unemployment, a shrinking economy, two foreign wars, a two-party system run amok, and an enormous fiscal deficit, just to name a few.

As we toss the steak on the barbecue and watch the fireworks today, let’s keep in mind the rights and riches we do have, the historical cost of attaining them, and the future risk of losing them if we fail to speak up when government displeases us.

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer — and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don’t insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are — and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this — but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did.

The assassins themselves are ratting you out. They’re telling us, straight up, that they were inspired to act by the hate radio talkers that you empowered — one of whom is now the de facto head of the Republican party. They got it from media outlets owned by your biggest donors. They got it from bloggers who receive daily talking points faxed in from the GOP. They got it from activists representing causes that would have never become causes in the first place if the issues hadn’t been politically expedient for you.

Beyond that: You’ve already admitted your own complicity. When the Department of Homeland Security expressed their worries about right- wing extremist violence last April, practically every conservative pundit in the country went into a righteous fit. DHS never named anyone directly, so it was astonishing how many of you on the right were so quick to step up and claim that that memo was slandering you, personally and collectively. Since you were so eager to claim that that memo was all about you, now that the violence has come to pass, we’re well justified in holding you to that.

And please don’t insult our intelligence by saying that these acts are the work of lone wolves, and that you don’t have anything to do with this, and that it’s all the fault of the left. It’s true that there have always been crazies in our midst. But by choosing to gain power through a politics that only motivates through hate and fear, you’ve recruited a good-sized army of those crazies, armed them up, and turned them into paranoid monsters that are now running loose on the American landscape.

We know you have absolute and utter contempt for the intelligence of the average American, but trying to blame the left for creating this situation is a fabrication so vast that it tells us you don’t even have so much as a shred of respect for yourselves. Even you seem to know that your word is worth nothing to most Americans now — and you don’t seem to care.

You don’t seem to give a damn about the future of this country, either. You’re just in it to win the next election, increase profits for the next quarter, or boost your ratings in the next book. As long as selling hate accomplishes any of these goals, you’ll do it — without regard for the cultural sewage you’re creating, without regard for the way you’ve polluted the political landscape, and now apparently without even a moment’s regard for the innocent lives that are being lost because you seem bent on destroying every shred of trust required for our democracy to function.

But the bodies are piling up. We are demanding an accounting from you. We are demanding that you take responsibility for the situation you’ve created. We are looking you straight in the eyes and demanding a straight answer:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

If your answer is yes, then stop this cowardly half-assed screwing around. You speak the language of war and honor; but the honor code of the warriors you pretend to revere demands that you declare your intentions. If you really believe that the only way to get the America you want is to negate a fair election, shred the Constitution, and violently cleanse the country of everyone who doesn’t agree with you, then man up and get on with it. If it’s a shooting war you want, do not doubt that there are plenty of progressives who will oblige you. If this goal is so important that you’re really willing to kill for it, please don’t forget that you will also need to be willing to die for it. Because, like martyrs Greg McKendry and Steven Johns proved, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to stop you.

If your answer is no, then you have just one other choice. Knock off the tantrums, grow up, rebuild your party, come back to the table, and sit down and govern with us. (We know this will be a stretch, but we think some of you are capable of it.) You will need to learn, many of you for the first time, to get your way as adults do — without fear- based politics, polarizing rhetoric, on-air threats against those who disagree with you, and repeating outrageous lies in the face of stone facts and irrefutable evidence.

And most of all: you need to stop feeding the crazies. You need to disavow them in every way possible — sincerely, emphatically, and with full awareness that every time one of these people acts, it destroys the credibility of “conservatives,” “Republicans,” and “the right wing” in the eyes of the country. You cannot assassinate your way back to power. And don’t doubt for a moment that the majority of Americans — even those who agree with your ideas — will abandon your cause forever once it realizes that’s what you’re trying to do.

Since you’re the ones funding the violent radicals on your flank, you need to stop sending them money. Since you know far more about their activities than any one else, you need to be the ones who turn them in. Since you’re the ones who make heroes and martyrs out of them, you need to be the ones who call them out as criminals. Until you do this
– consistently, wholeheartedly, and responsibly — we can only conclude that these assassins are operating with your support and approval, and that you are intentionally trying to start an armed revolution in America.

That’s your choice. Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war? Or are you willing to work for real civility, and return to your seat at the table, ready to help us choose the country’s future?

Yes or No. Right now. The window is closing fast behind you. And once it closes, none of us — not you, not us, not anyone — will have the choice to avoid the catastrophe that will follow. It’s your decision. And you need to make it now.

Sara Robinson is one of the few trained social futurists in North America, and will complete her MS in Futures Studies from the University of Houston in 2009. Her skill set includes trend analysis, scenario development, futures research, social change theories, systems thinking, and strategic planning. She is a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future.

The 14 questions were, with the help of several science organizations, culled from 3400 questions submitted by scientists and engineers representing nearly every American science organization, Nobel laureates, and over 100 universities. I’ve excerpted the questions and answers below in an attempt to understand and explain why the questions, and the candidates answers to each, matter. If you want to read the complete questionnaire and the actual answers to each instead of my summaries, check out this link.

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Question 1: What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?

Obama believes that our place as the world leader in innovation is threatened because of a lack of federal investment and insufficient interest by young people in the science and engineering fields. His response is to fund high risk/high payoff research, more grants for new scientists, more emphasis on quality teaching of both mathematics and science, and more grants and fellowships for science and engineering students in college.

McCain believes that his experience on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation makes him uniquely qualified to address the problem of innovation, and that lower taxes and deregulation will make companies more innovative. His specific recommendations are to appoint a science and technology adviser, improve government management and promote fiscal responsibility within the government’s science and technology departments, reallocate wasted earmark money to science and technology, reform science and math education, and develop the federal agenda with the aid of business and academic leaders.

Question 2: What is your position on the following measures that have been proposed to address global climate change—a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, increased fuel-economy standards, or research? Are there other policies you would support?

McCain believes that global heating is real and must be addressed. He wants to institute a cap-and-trade system that incentivizes emissions reductions for companies and that returns to 2005 carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels by 2012, 1990 levels by 2020, and 60% below 1990 levels by 2050. He wants to increase CAFE standards and make the financial penalties for not meeting them stronger. McCain wants to spend $2 billion per year on “clean coal” technology development, $5,000 in tax credits for every family that buys a zero-emission vehicle, and a $300 million prize for a radically more advanced battery technology.

Obama also believes that global heating must be addressed, although his ultimate cap-and-trade CO₂ emissions target is 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 and to 1990 levels by 2020, although he wants to auction all cap-and-trade permits. Obama also says that he’ll not only work with the UN and the G8+5 energy consuming/CO₂ emitting nations to create a global energy forum, and he says he’ll develop a mechanism to export clean coal, advanced automobile, and green building technologies to the developing world.

Ed. Note: The IPCC estimates that, in order to achieve a stabilization target of 490 ppm CO₂, emissions must peak no later than 2015 and must be 50% or more below 1990 levels by 2050 in order to keep the peak below 450 ppm and global heating below 2 °C. More recent modeling puts the target much lower – total decarbonization (0 tons of emitted CO₂) by 2050 at the latest.

Question 3: What policies would you support to meet demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future?

Obama has proposed $150 billion over 10 years in new research into alternative fuels and chemicals, green buildings, fuel efficiency improvements, energy storage, a smart electricity transmission grid, carbon capture and sequestration, and a new generation of nuclear power plants. He gives specific targets as well: reduce the energy intensity of the economy by 50% by 2030, improve new building efficiency by 50% and old building efficiency by 25%, boost fuel efficiency by 4% per year, institute a renewable electricity standard that requires 10% of the nation’s electricity be produced from renewables by 2012 and 25% by 2025. And Obama says he wants encourage the development of sustainable communities and mass transit nationwide.

McCain wants sustainable energy as a way to improve the environment, the economy, and national security. He wants 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, but that’s the only specific target McCain gives. Instead, McCain proposes a permanent renewable power tax credit, that government ensure a level playing field for all renewable energy sources, and to make the United States the world leader in innovative green technologies. He believes that research and carbon reductions will spur revolutionary innovations that will, as a result, lower energy costs and boost economic growth.

Question 4: What role do you think the federal government should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology driven 21st Century?

McCain believes that a well trained workforce is vital to growing an innovative economy. He also feels that the country needs to do more to retrain workers who find their jobs downsized or outsourced in addition to graduating more students in science and technology fields. Further, McCain believes not only that the U.S. is facing a critical shortage of scientists and engineers, but that we should leverage the creativity of corporations to help us train those new scientists and engineers. He wants to dedicate 35% of Title II funds directly to schools and the principles who know their school’s needs 60% of Title II funds to performance incentives for teachers who teach in difficult schools or who teach difficult subjects such as mathematics and science, and for performance bonuses to teachers who can boost test scores, raise student achievement, or qualify as high performance according to peer evaluations. And he’ll provide $250 million for the development of online learning.

Obama believes that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is a vital tool for all Americans, and so he’ll support cutting edge educational and assessment programs and the creation of several sub-departments and offices dedicated to STEM education. He wants to attract the best educators to education in STEM fields via scholarships, residency programs, and carreer ladders. Obama wants all students to be ready to learn when they enter school by engaging the federal government with community leaders and parents, and he wants to provide $4,000 in the form of a tax credit to every student who wants to go to college.

Question 5: What is your view of how science and technology can best be used to ensure national security and where should we put our focus?

Obama believes that the U.S. is facing a Sputnik moment as it deals with asymmetric warfare, cyber attacks, and biological and nuclear terror. He wants to boost basic defense research in order to deal with the new threats, and he wants to connect the researchers more closely to the soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines whose lives will rely on the new technologies. Obama believes that the Department of Homeland Security needs better management at all levels, and he considers reduced oil consumption to be a national security issue. Finally, Obama wants to boost domestic manufacturing so that the U.S. doesn’t lose any more of its manufacturing strength.

McCain says that he has been a strong advocate for the military in the past and will continue to be one in the future as well. He wants to ensure that the military has all the tools it needs to deter conflict or, if not successful in deterrence, to win any conflict the military is forced to fight. McCain will also strengthen our alliances and boost homeland security. In order to ensure the nation is protected, McCain will boost military R&D funding.

Question 6: What steps should the United States take to protect our population from global pandemics or deliberate biological attacks?

McCain wants to keep the government focused on preparing for a global pandemic, either from the H5N1 bird flu virus or some other virus. He lays out the steps that the government needs to take in order to limit the spread of a pandemic, with a focus on preparedness, communication, detection, and the actual response. In the event of bioterror attack, however, while all the preparations and steps for a pandemic stilly apply, McCain believes that the best defense is to prevent the attack in the first place, and that means boosted intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities. McCain also feels that there are several key technologies that should be researched, namely fast means of detecting the presence of automated pathogen detectors and new medicines and vaccines.

Obama also believes that intelligence and law enforcement on the international level is vital to protecting our country from bioterror attacks, and he wants bioterror to be declared as a crime against humanity. He will also invest in the development of new broad-based medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic technologies, and he believes that the development of these things will create new high paying jobs. Obama also plans to give hospitals tools with which they can better coordinate their response to a pandemic or bioterror attack collectively. Obama wants to work with state and local governments to streamline the combined federal, state, and local responses with better communcations and fewer expensive, redundant programs.

Question 7: What is the right policy balance between the benefits of genetic advances and their potential risks?

Obama recognizes the importance of genetic research and advances in medicine and food crops, but also recognizes that there are dangers when the risks of those advances are not well understood. He supports the analyses and recommendations of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and the creation of genetically engineered crops, albeit with stronger regulatory oversight and strict environmental and health testing than has occurred in the past. And Obama believes that genetic testing for disease risk should not be used by insurance companies to discriminate.

McCain also feels that genetic medical information must be protected and kept private. He considers the scientific and ethical concerns surrounding genetics to be complex enough that he will seek out expert advice. McCain also believes that genetic engineering could lead to a new Green Revolution, with special focus on feeding Africa with high-yield crops.

Question 8: What is your position on government regulation and funding of stem cell research?

McCain supports embryonic stem cell research and hopes that adult stem cell research will render moot any need for embryonic stem cells. He opposes “fetal farming” and any creation of embryos for research purposes.

Obama also supports embryonic stem cell research with strong oversight and will reverse the Bush Administration ban on federal money being used for embryonic stem cell research on post-April 9, 2001 stem cell lines. He believes that the hundreds of thousands stored in fertility clinics that will not be used for reproduction should be made available for research, and while he hopes that adult stem cells will continue to show promise, he believes that the promise of adult stem cells should not detract from research on embryonic stem cells, especially when overseen by the National Research Council.

Question 9: What steps, if any, should the United States take during your presidency to protect ocean health?

Obama wants to develop a strong, integrated, and well managed ocean stewardship program with cross-department organization. He believes that addressing climate change via CO₂ emission reductions will help protect ocean health. He supports the international Law of the Sea Convention and will work with other countries to protect the health of the ocean. Obama also will work to protect marine sanctuaries and other federal acts that presently protect the ocean.

McCain considers managing the oceans, and by extension the Great Lakes, one of the more complex management tasks of the federal government because of how susceptible the oceans are to effects that originate hundreds or thousands of miles away. He believes that, in order to manage the oceans effectively, the management offices must get buy-in to the changes from lots of different interested parties. McCain supports more research into the carbon cycle and how it applies to the oceans, and he belives that ocean science and engineering in general need more attention. And he belives that he’s best qualified due to his time in the U.S. Navy.

Question 10: What policies would you support to meet demand for water resources?

McCain understand that water is the lifeblood of the country, and especially the West, and he believes that conflicts over water rights are best handled out of the courts. McCain believes that all levels of government need to work together to develop, manage, and use the limited water supplies that the nation has. He believes that the best approach to managing water is within existing agreements and compacts.

Obama believes too that all levels of government need to work together. He feels that water pricing structures need to be updated to promote conservation and efficiency, and that aid may be necessary to get citizens and businesses to transition away from high water usage landscaping and technologies to lower water options. And Obama feels that the research and development of technologies to aid in the reduction of water use should be a federal priority.

Question 11: How would you prioritize space in your administration?

Obama wants NASA to not only run the human and robotic space flight missions, but also to be in the forefront of research addressing climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research. He’ll reestablish the National Aeronautics and Space Council in order to organize all of the United States’ interests in space – military, intelligence, scientific, civilian, or commercial – and ensure that they are all working in tandem wherever possible.

McCain believes that the U.S. relies more on our space-based assets than ever before, from communications and intelligence satellites to satellite-based weather radar and scientific instruments. He credits the space race as one of the engines of the last forty years of U.S. technological dominance. With a number of other countries competing with the U.S. in space exploration, McCain believes that we need to continue to invest in space not only for the technological advances it will bring us, but also for the national prestige our human spaceflight program accords the U.S. McCain plans to keep the space shuttle program going until Ares/Orion are available, to maintain existing space facilities, and to divert money from other sources to help keep the U.S. space program(s) running.

Question 12: Is it acceptable for elected officials to hold back or alter scientific reports if they conflict with their own views, and how will you balance scientific information with politics and personal beliefs in your decision-making?

McCain believes that good politics depends on good policy, which in turn depends on sound science. He wants to bring the Office of Science and Technology Policy back into the White House and to hire the most qualified scientists and engineers for all technical positions within the federal government. And McCain believes that integrity, as opposed to denial of facts, is critical to sound science.

Obama wants to return to a government that makes decisions based on the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence instead of on ideology. He believes that open scientific debate is the best way to formulate those decisions. Obama will also appoint people with science and technology backgrounds to those administrative positions that need an understanding of science and technology. He will establish a new Chief Technology Officer for the United States, make the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology advisory to the President, and issue an Executive Order requiring transparency in the release of all government publications.

Question 13: Given that the next Congress will likely face spending constraints, what priority would you give to investment in basic research in upcoming budgets?

Obama believes that basic and fundamental research into many areas of science is essential to the continued well-being of the United States, and he plans to double basic research funding over the next 10 years. And Obama believes that the basic research will help address the “grand challenges” facing the United States: energy, health, food and water, national security, information technology, and manufacturing.

McCain wants to ensure that basic research is not slighted in a world of constrained spending and also wants to make sure that the highest quality research wins the money. He will continue to support increased funding for the departments and labs that perform basic research, but he wants to be sure that all the research supports the needs of the country.

Question 14: How do you see science, research and technology contributing to improved health and quality of life?

McCain believes that new medical research and technologies will lower the costs of health care, and he believes that developing new treatment models will also help lower health care costs.

Obama believes that we should be proud of the medical advances that our doctors, scientists, and companies have produced, but that we need a health care system that serves everyone and doesn’t cost unreasonable amounts of money like the current system does. He believes that our health care system shouldn’t benefit drug companies and insurers at the cost of the patient, and that efficiency improvements, biomedical research, and some form of universal health care should be the cornerstones of the U.S. health care system.

———-

A brief editorial comment

It’s more than just unfortunate that John McCain and Barak Obama will not be involved in a science debate – it’s tragic. Science and engineering have built the foundation of American progress for decades if not centuries, and yet the public continues to view scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and other similar intellectuals and experts as fundamentally less important than ministers, jocks, celebrities, et al. The fact that this debate did not occur only reinforces this anti-intellectual perception in the public mind. Indeed, if the presidential candidates don’t care enough about science and technology to debate it publicly, why should the public care?

I am hopeful that greater understanding of science and technology, and of the people involved in those endeavors and fields, will become more mainstream in the culture over the next few years. While there was no science debate this election cycle, both candidates still felt obligated to answer these 14 questions, and their answers illustrate that both candidates believe that science and technology development and education are vitally important to America’s future. After eight years of government by ideology and loyalty instead of by science and ability, both McCain and Obama would be necessary breaths of fresh air.

That said, however, I believe that the answers above make it it clear that one of these two candidates would be better than the other. In too many cases, John McCain’s answers will filled with buzzwords (bingo!) instead of clear answers. The financial realities of the next few years will be such that his favored spending reductions will ultimately lead not to stronger scientific research and technology development, but instead to weaker education, less basic research, and less innovation. After all, John McCain who said that basic research should be targeted and who suggested that medical technology would enable reductions in heath care expenses. He apparently failed to realize that basic research is, by definition, not targeted at specific developments – it’s research done for the sake of acquiring a better understanding of reality, and the targeting into specific areas comes later when the engineers get a hold of the research. And McCain also failed to recognize that one of the main reasons that U.S. health care costs so much is the overemphasis on medical technology by our doctors, insurance companies, hospitals, and yes, even the patients.

Finally, a request – send the link to the answers of the 14 Science Debate 2008 questions around to anyone you believe would benefit from knowing these things. Knowing how the candidates view science and technology may be enough to push a voter toward one candidate or the other. And having all the information necessary to make an informed decision about which candidate would make the better President is always a good thing.

Park for a minute and tell us something. After you’re elected president, what are you gonna do with those buffoons running the Minerals Management Service that collects each year oil and gas royalties of $10 billion from oil companies? The Interior Department’s inspector general says top officials there have been involved in “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.”

And while you’re at it, what about Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You plan to let her keep on defending “trips she took that were paid for by the industries that her agency regulates“? You gonna let her keep on telling Congress that her agency does not need a larger budget to police the the industries that produce the nation’s consumer goods?

You know, toxic goods like “the 518,028 tubes of toothpaste [falsely labeled as Colgate] worth an estimated $730,419 that were shipped into the country and distributed to bargain retail stores in several states last year”? Or the 21 million toys recalled because of excessive levels of lead paint?

And what are you gonna do about flip-flopper Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who says “yes” until the White House, critics say, tells him to say “no”? Mr. Johnson initially told California it could limit tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles at higher-than-federal standards — but, critics say, reversed himself after a nudge from the Bush administration. Yes, he’s the guy who heads an agency that during the Bush administration once produced an annual federal report on air pollution with no section on global warming.

Yes, he was the guy in charge when the EPA — to save industry about $6 million in paperwork costs — instituted a “newly revised Toxics Release Inventory rule [that] will also make it possible for hundreds of large corporations to avoid reporting specific amounts of toxic chemicals they release into the air, land, or water, environmentalists warn.” [emphasis added]

And while you’re at it, do you plan to appoint someone as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission just ’cause he was a special assistant to the president, or a member of your transition team, or the general counsel to your campaign? You know, like President Bush did for current chair Kevin J. Martin?

You remember Mr. Martin, don’t you, the guy who faced “a congressional inquiry into the FCC’s procedures and allegations of flawed research studies, suppressing data, ignoring public input and holding hearings with minimal notice”? Yes, that guy, the one who told Congress that there’s no need to make rules to prevent an Internet service provider, like, say, Comcast, from creating “a ‘fast lane‘ for certain Internet content and applications” that would, in effect, create favored tiers of access for some commercial users over others.

And what are you gonna do about Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who ducked any responsibility for the scandal rattling the $85 billion student loan industry with a bland statement that “We monitor these programs vigorously” and that the system was “crying out for reform”? And what about her work with No Child Left Behind, the 2001 law requiring schools to track the progress of students in math and English? Given that the government never fully provided the states with funding to appropriately enact the law, has it worked? How hard did she actually push for full funding? Should she stay? Go?

And there are so many others. Do you plan to examine the performance of the head honchoes in the Securities and Exchange Commission? Where were the regulators when financial institutions were tossing out subprime loans like candy? Did the SEC act with sufficient alacrity “to examine the role of the rating agencies in lending practices by the mortgage industry”?

You plan to retain Christopher Cox as chairman of an agency that’s supposed to regulate industry? Do you believe him when he says he’s “actively on the lookout for possible securities fraud?” You know, of course, that as a congressman he pushed a bill that would restrict investors’ ability to sue industry? And that as chair, critics fear he’s still pushing to protect industry, not regulate it? Is that the kind of SEC you want?

What about those fine folks at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, led by John Dugan? His bio says Mr. Dugan is the “administrator of national banks and chief officer of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC supervises about 1,700 federally chartered commercial banks and about 50 federal branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States, comprising nearly two-thirds of the assets of the commercial banking system.” Hmmm. Big banks are tumbling fast and furious. You gonna keep him?

What about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? It will become more on the spot as the nuclear power industry gears up to do its self-promoted part in ending our reliance on foreign energy sources. What about those agencies with lots of words in their names that deal with transportation safety in the air, on land and over the water? ‘Cause you know, of course, that the nation’s infrastructure is screwed up beyond belief. Who’s gonna fix it for you? And are you gonna keep on selling off interstate highways and other infrastructures to private investors instead of refurbishing them?

And was creating the Department of Homeland Security really a good idea? Who’s gonna untangle that debacle? And, sheesh, who are you gonna name to run FEMA?

C’mon, Barack. ‘Fess up, John. You are fully aware that as president you determine through your constitutional appointment authority how your administration functions through the roughly 2,000 people you name to administer federal departments and agencies.

So back off those lame, endlessly repetitive stump speeches. If you continue to claim the federal government is a) inefficient, b) too large), c) too small, d) ineffective or e) all of the above, talk turkey. Name names. Tell voters precisely the credentials and qualifications you’ll be checking off on folks who apply to work in your administration.

You’ve been lucky so far. The big-time media “analysts” and “commentators” and “contributers” and “anchors” have let you off the hook. You get to divert our attention from the core of governmental chaos by talking only about gay marriage (good? bad?), Iraq (in? out?), Supreme Court appointments (no litmus test?), elitism (him, not me!), education, (more teachers now, please), crime (more police now, please), illegal immigration (it’s really bad, of course!). You get to avoid most of what really counts.

So give us the real red meat. Who’s really gonna run the government? Tell us.

And we know you’re not going to be personally sifting through a gazillion résumés to fill thousands of government posts. So who’s gonna do that?

Your “transition team,” of course. Why don’t you tell us now instead of after the election whom you’ll appoint to that team? The makeup of your transition team will tell us much about the qualifications you’ll be looking for in your administrative appointments.

But, of course, you won’t talk about this. Presidential candidates rarely do. And our wonderful media, far more interested in personalities, horse races and conflict (because conflict is what really sells papers and pumps up TV ratings), will harrumph, harrumph mightily and ask more stupid questions that you pretend to be offended by.

You’ve really got it easy, don’t you?

Meet Alberto G. – one of the shining stars of Moron.com’s Professional Development Program. In the eleven months since his entirely voluntary resignation, Alberto has completed the following courses, custom-designed by Moron.com to fit his professional and personal needs.

• War Crime Confidential: Plausible Deniability Beyond “I Don’t Recall”
• Toadying in the New Millennium
• Fire Away! No, Wait, Don’t
• Bobbing and Weaving 101

and most recently:

• This is Mr. Briefcase, This is Mr. Shredder: National Security and You

Congratulations, Alberto – and we know your star will continue to shine.

Hurricane Gustav has solved all that.  Today, Bush and Cheney announced that they will not appear at the convention in order to remain at the White House, ostensibly to provide assistance should it be needed, but probably to lounge around the Oval Office playing zoom zorch.

Regardless, they will not appear at the convention, which is what the GOP wanted all along and didn’t know how to effect.  Gustav is bad news for the Gulf Coast, but great news for the Republicans.

This represents the final bodies from Katrina, the last unknown victim of Katrina. This represents the pain and suffering.

— New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune reported that “[s]even people who died during Hurricane Katrina were interred Friday morning in one of six mausoleums created to hold the remains of those who were not identified after the storm or whose families did not claim them; Aug. 29.

People are bringing five or six suitcases. We want to carry more people and less luggage.

— St. Charles Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Tab Troxler as residents of New Orleans and surrounding parishes begin evacuation of the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav approaches; Aug. 30.

We’re well positioned and we’ve got a good set of plans and now we’re waiting to put them into motion.

—Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, adding that more than 1,000 buses were ready to facilitate evacuation of New Orleans; Aug. 29.

If we seek to understand American foreign policy in terms of a rational engagement with international problems, or even as an effective means of projecting power, we are looking in the wrong place. The government’s interests have always been provincial. It seeks to appease lobbyists, shift public opinion at crucial stages of the political cycle, accommodate crazy Christian fantasies and pander to television companies run by eccentric billionaires. The US does not really have a foreign policy. It has a series of domestic policies which it projects beyond its borders.

— George Monbiotin his Guardian commentary, “The US missile defence system is the magic pudding that will never run out”; Aug,. 19.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about 50 or 100 years from now — and there should be preserved the kinescopes of one week of all three networks — they will there find, recorded in black and white and in color, evidence of decadence, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.

Our mass media reflect this.

But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television, and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

— from Edward R. Murrow’s address to the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation as depicted in the movie “Good Night and Good Luck.”

Bringing back the brooch

Before the Democratic National Convention, a plethora of questions swirled around the blogosphere. Would Barack Obama finally win over Hillary Clinton’s most loyal supporters? Would Bill Clinton’s speech come off as sincere or forced? And most important of all, what would Michelle Obama wear?

Apparently, Mrs. Obama put considerable thought into that last question, and it really paid off. Her simple blue dress received rave reviews from giddy commenters on this website, and with her jeweled pin, she may have single-handedly brought back the brooch. Grandmas, guard your jewelry boxes.

— teaser copy by Stephanie Lysaght of the Los Angeles Times prefacing a poll asking where Michelle Obama’s convention dress was “too frumpy,” “too matronly,” “flawless first lady,” or “too sexy”; Aug. 29.

During a get-out-the-vote drive, you don’t want to get out the wrong vote.

— Diane Rinaldo, political advertising director at Yahoo, which has worked with both the Obama and McCain campaigns; Washington Post writer Peter Whoriskey reported “Although both the Obama and John McCain campaigns are reluctant to discuss details, the ability to identify sympathetic voters based on their Internet habits, and then to target them with ads as they move across the Web, is one of the defining aspects of the 2008 presidential campaign. Digital advertising networks and large Web companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft are using Web behavior — which news articles people read, which blogs they visit or what search terms they enter — to target voters who may be sympathetic to a certain cause. Using a method known as ’sentiment detection,’ some companies even boast that they can tell whether the blog you go to is for or against the Iraq war”; Aug. 30.

The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone’s freedom is at risk. … The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.

— from an address by Sen. Ted Kennedy at Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University) in Lynchburg, Va.; Oct. 3, 1983.

At noon on Tuesday, two young men walked onto the podium at the Democratic National Convention carrying four women’s suit jackets — red, orange, light blue and teal — and holding each one up to the lights to see which would look best in the hall. It was Hillary Clinton’s night, and nothing was being left to chance.

— from a commentary by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post; Aug. 27.

So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation. A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President and we say to him — use these powers wisely and as a last resort.

— from the floor speech of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, “A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq”; Oct. 10, 2002.

I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops …

— from a speech on Iraq by Sen. Hillary Clinton at at The George Washingon University; March 17.

[A] democracy requires a certain amount of common ground. I don’t believe you can solve complex questions like this at the grass-roots level or at the national level or anywhere in between if you have too much extremism of rhetoric and excessive partisanship. Times are changing too fast. We need to keep our eyes open. We need to keep our ears open. We need to be flexible. We need to have new solutions based on old values. We can’t get there unless we can establish some common ground. And that seems to me to impose certain specific responsibilities on citizens and on political leaders.

— from a speech by President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University; July 6, 1995.

Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

— President Bill Clinton, challenging Sen. Barack Obama’s claim that the senator had always opposed the Iraq war; Jan. 11.

Pro-and anti-Democrat protesters yesterday besieged the streets of Denver, Colorado, United States (US), venue of the Democratic National Convention. They made their voices heard on issues ranging from the Iraqi war, abortion rights, gay marriage and rights for swingers (a club of people who swap wives, husbands or partners). … Policemen swarmed every block in the city on horses, motorcycles and vans. Helmet wearing cops, armed to the teeth with guns, clubs and combat style outfits patrolled the area.

— from a story by Constance Ikokwu for the Nigerian newspaper This Day; Aug. 26.

Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain at rally. [AP photo]

Here’s what I’m worried about. McCain had to protect his reputation as an opponent of status quo Washington. He had to pick someone with the shortest Washington résumé. He did that. He picked someone the right wing is going to be happy about. But it’s a gamble. The question is, what does it do to the argument that Obama’s not ready?

— Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist and former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, discussing the selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain’s running mate; Aug. 29.

She really doesn’t have the experience for this job.

— councilwoman Dianne Woodruff of Wasilla, where Gov. Sarah Palin served as mayor, on her performance as governor; Aug. 29.

Go, Sarah. We’re pumped over here. We’re really, really excited. My kids went to school with her. Todd buys his guns here.

— McCain supporter Roy Wallis, owner of Chimo Guns in downtown Wasilla; Aug. 29.

The President is looking forward to the honor of speaking at the Republican Convention on Monday night. The speech expresses gratitude. The President will thank his family, his administration, and most of all, the friends, supporters and volunteers in the convention hall who have supported him and the Republican agenda for these past eight years.

The speech reviews the major issues facing the country, from terrorism and war to the economy and the direction of our culture. Above all, the speech reflects on the role of the presidency and the qualities that are demanded by the job, and makes the case that John McCain is the best qualified to be our next leader and commander-in-chief. In particular, it highlights McCain’s unique judgment, perspective, and experience to deal with the unexpected, to stand firm on his convictions, put the country above himself, and make hard decisions necessary to protect the American people.

— White House press secretary Dana Perino at a press briefing; Aug. 29.

The American workforce continues to be the marvel of the world. Yet many working families have been weathering tough economic times. There are families across our country struggling to make ends meet. There is an understandable concern about the high price of gas and food. And many Americans are worried about the health of our housing and job markets. I share these concerns about our economy.

— President Bush, in his weekly radio address; Aug. 30.

photo credits:

• Edward R. Murrow: The Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy at Tufts University
• Michelle Obama and her daughters, Malia and Sasha: Rodolfo Gonzalez, Associated Press
• Sen. Ted Kennedy: Susan Walsh, Associated Press
• Sen. Hillary Clinton: Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images

Quotabull is a weekly feature of Scholars & Rogues.

All links go to photos.

Our little outfit was issued one hall pass and one perimeter pass at the beginning of the convention. Our esteemed leader Sam was able to fandangle an extra hall pass for Thursday and we heard that our perimeter pass was now upgraded to an arena pass.

It was getting close to 1 pm so I took the perimeter pass and planned to meet up with the rest of the crew there. I took my usual route to the Pepsi Center since I heard there will be a shuttle there to Mile High. Sure enough, there were a hundred people from the press lined up to get on. Then there is an announcement saying that the perimeter passes can no longer get you into the stadium at the request of the Secret Service. So, no shuttle for me.

The distance between the two was less than a mile so I figure I’d hike there to see if I could get in. As soon as I got to the road a mini-bus with a hand-written sign saying Press Shuttle pulled up and let some guy on. I hustled over, flashed my street cred and they let me in.

Good thing. It didn’t take long before we saw the end of the line. It turned out to be about a mile long. The cop who was riding with us said that there were no port-a-potties along the route and he had no idea how the crowd will hold out. It didn’t look like it was moving at all. Somehow, there was still parking here, although it would set you back $40.

Our bus was able to bypass security where other vehicles were having their trunks sniffed by dogs and mirrors passed under their carriage.

The security checkpoint tent we had to go through was identical to the one at the Pepsi Center, except that there was no line at all. It was just for press.

Inside I decided to get lost, since it worked so well for me on Monday. I first tried to get inside the stadium to see what would happen and the lady in the red shirt said nope, that’s the only one that won’t get you in. Well, at least they didn’t try to kick me out.

Since I was here early enough, I was able to find an unguarded entrance to the arena and get inside. Again, like all of the other stagecraft produced by the DNC, it is impressive.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After asking around, I found the press elevator that brought me up to the fourth floor which was just for press. You can get a different view of the “pedestrian” halls from here. Again, dipping into that endless reservoir of blogging content called Get Yourself Lost, I started walking in the direction no one else was going.

I’ve got to tell ya, the press has a sweet deal going here. Air conditioned and everyone has a perfect view. Each seat is assigned to a press outlet; I saw Glamour seated between The Nation and Harper’s. Everyone has their own power outlets, high-speed LAN (that’s 2855 Kb/s down, 1323 Kb/s up with a latency of 69ms) and phone (ours aren’t plugged in). (Some lucky crew has a bank of large LCDs to work from.)

After a while I found the press organizers room and they pointed me all the way back to the other side of the stadium to the mini-blogger lounge. Don’t know why but they have given us the best viewing area for the press; we are right in front of the podium. Good thing they specified mini-bloggers because they are packing us in here like sardines (I’m squeezed between Under The Dome and Talking Points Memo). Still, it’s overflowing and we are going to start rotating. We get 30 minutes in the seat and then we are kicked out to roam around for an hour before they allow us back in.

And to leave you on a happy note, they have just put on the big screens the emergency evacuation plan. You know, just in case.

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/08/28/the-power-of-the-press-pass/feed/ 2 http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/08/26/lanyards-and-riot-gear-must-have-accesories-for-downtown-denver/ http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/08/26/lanyards-and-riot-gear-must-have-accesories-for-downtown-denver/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:37:51 +0000 Djerrid http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/?p=3203

ITEM! 16th Street Mall is fashion central for everyone who is anyone in the Democratic Party. If you are coming for the convention, there is no escaping the 16th Street Mall. It’s the place to see and be seen. First off, you’ll need to get your bling. Buttons, T-shirts, signs, chants and fliers. But remember you are never fully dressed without a lanyard. You can have your press passes, IDs and credentials. But it’s the convention hall pass that completes the outfit.

What is that? You are not even planning on going to the convention today? Well, don’t you make the fashion faux pas and take that little badge of belonging off. You must wear it proudly and always. But don’t worry. You won’t be alone. A quick walk up and down the Mall and you’ll see fully 20% of the population showing that they can get into a certain arena any time they wish.

But they’re not the only one showing off their street cred. The fuzz is out in full force and walking around like they own the place. And they’ve got so much stuff, they don’t even have room for a lanyard. They’ve got the cute little plastic bracelets that they hand out to any and all bold enough to ask for one. There’s the lovely gas mask and riot helmet matching set. Hanging along side is extra large can of whoop-ass, I mean pepper spray. And don’t forget the cute little semi-automatic. It looks like Officer Krupke is all grown up!

And their dashing ensembles won’t go unnoticed since they always seem to hang around in groups of six or eleven. And they seemed like they were everywhere! Like every fifty feet! So I actually walked the whole mall and counted each and every one of our boys in blue! (Actually, most were dressed in riot black, but some were blue and there were even a few brownies.) So, the total tally came out to 81! With 60 of them riot cops, four on motorcycles, six on horseback and just one guy on a Segway!

I ducked out a few minutes ago to grab a gelato over at Gelazzi on Larimer Square and didn’t realize, as I tried to walk in, that it was reserved temporarily for a private party. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, retreating. But when the woman at the door saw my press pass, she invited me right in. I figured that whoever was hosting, I could take the press packet handed to me in exchange for a cup of chocolate-chocolate chip and coffee Italian-style ice cream.

Turns out it was a gathering to establish a U.S. Department of Peace. That’s the goal of The Peace Alliance, a D.C.-based organization whose mission with such a project is
“to reduce and prevent violence domestically and internationally.”

It sounded a little gimmicky at first. But as I thumbed through the press kit, I started to wonder, why not? We have cabinet entities dedicated to all kinds of essential aims: education, health and human services, diplomatic relations, security abroad and at home, taking care of public lands, even the prosaic task of getting ourselves from place to place.

We no longer have a War Department – it’s been the Department of Defense since 1949, in a post-WWII effort to downplay the suggestion that military preparedness is inherently geared to foment war – but the DOD’s concerns are not generally with finding nonviolent ways to foster peace.

I was reminded, as I contemplated the proposed name – the U.S. Department of Peace – that what we assume to be normal or acceptable is very much a social construction. Why does the official pursuit of peace seem like such an odd notion? As a journalism student, I remember one professor asking students why we thought newspapers had business sections, but no labor sections. Most of us had never stopped to think about it. We were ensconced within the ‘taken-for-grantedness’ that permeates the way we look at and understand the world.

Imagine how differently a Department of Peace would engage with global conflict, versus the Department of Defense. Its stance would be proactive, rather than reactive. It would be focused collectively, rather than just internally. It would seek to understand and correct the roots of violence, rather than merely protect against it. A Peace Department wouldn’t deny the necessity odefense, but its agenda would be larger.

The press kit, which I skimmed in good faith in exchange for my gelato, says, “We live in a world in which military solutions alone are entirely insufficient to ensure national security.” There seems to be plenty of evidence for that, especially if we draw a broad definition of what “national security” means. The World Health Organization estimates that we spend $300 billion annually just on violence and its consequences that occur within our own country – let alone our staggering expenses for the war in Iraq.

Makes me wonder what a Department of Peace might be able to accomplish, for genuine homeland security and as the policy complement The Peace Alliance envisions for our military. They’re not mutually exclusive, proponents contend, who suggest funding it with two percent of the current Defense Department budget — less than we spend in a month on military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Alliance. Heck, they could get a great start with a one-fifth of one percent of the DOD budget, which, based on the Alliance’s numbers, would be a paltry billion dollars. I’d say that’s worth looking into – and not just because I got a free gelato.

An unknown candidate, a gathering of Minutemen, Bob Barr (or maybe not), and immigration.  Do progressives have anything in common with these people on this topic?   Well, maybe.  Just a bit.

In China, size matters. People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.

— Zhang Linsen, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company in Songjiang, China; he owns a black Hummer H2; July 28; emphasis added.

It’s a cultural thing. When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.

— Herve Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso, quoted in the Washington Post Foreign Service’s Kevin Sullivan story about the impacts of the African food crisis on women and children; July 20.

Sports clubs are part of grass-roots democracy in the U.S. This structure simply does not exist in China at the moment. I think without government support there will not be high-level sports in China today.

— Susan Brownell, a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who is spending the year researching China and the Olympics at Beijing Sport University, arguing that the Chinese school sport system is an inevitable outgrowth of the communist state; Ariana Eunjung Cha of the Washington Post Foreign Service reports: “Modeled after those in the former Soviet Union, China’s sports schools aim to train, push and discipline more than 250,000 pupils into superstar athletes. They have produced nearly all of the Chinese Olympians who will compete this month”; Aug. 3.

It was the art historian Anne Hollander who noted that, even naked, the body is subject to fashion and that the body beautiful differs according to an era’s prevailing mores and tastes. Because the Greek word gymnasium translates as something more or less like “nuditorium,” it seems clear that few events offer a richer opportunity to see how physical beauty is currently constructed than the Beijing Games.

— from a commentary by New York Times fashion writer Guy Trebay, headlined “When Action Figures Come Out to Play”; Aug. 13.

I never imagined I could suffer such a tragedy.

— Liu Yan, 26, considered one of the China’s top classical dancers, after an accidental fall during a rehearsal 12 days before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics that may have left her paralyzed; David Barboza of The New York Times reports: “The organizers of the opening ceremony initially asked witnesses and friends not to disclose the accident ahead of the Olympic Games on Aug. 8, according to people who have visited Liu in the hospital”; Aug. 14.

This report makes clear that too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States.

— Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., on a Government Accounting Office report (pdf) that reveals, according to Lynnley Browning of The New York Times, that “[t]wo out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005″; Aug. 13.

The culture, the custom of the Cajun people, it’s gone. It’s another one of the rights that big government has taken away from the people.

— Chris Daughdrill, who breeds fighting roosters in Loranger, La.; Louisiana today becomes the last state to outlaw cockfights; the Associated Press says cockfighting remains legal in Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Guam; Aug. 10.

I think that Denver officials would be well-advised not to believe everything that the FBI warns them about. That’s how things can get out of hand, due to fabricated, exaggerated projections about violence or protest. They don’t learn. What you saw in 2000 was the claim that 75,000 anarchists were descending, the secret funding of permanent police equipment, the denial of permits for protesters. You saw the same thing in 2004. You will see the same thing in 2008. … They’ve learned nothing from 1968.

— 1968 Chicago convention protester Tom Hayden, discussing security planning for the 2008 Democratic convention: Rocky Mountain News‘ M.E. Sprengelmeyer wrote: “He thinks Big Brother posturing helps scare away peaceful protesters, gives the community a false sense of security and can, in some cases, provoke confrontations at demonstrations that would otherwise be routine and mostly peaceful”; Aug. 11.

We will have all of the standard precautions and services in place that we would at any other show, including stagehands, ushers, ticket takers, venue security, police, fire, paramedics, etc. Every event booked into the building must also meet our insurance requirements, and this show will be no exception. From our perspective, this will really be no different than any other event we book into any of our facilities.

— Jenny Schiavone of Denver’s Theaters and Arenas, on preparations for a free protest concert by Rage Against The Machine at the 10,500-seat Denver Coliseum; “Tent State University” organizers say they expect 50,000 protesters; Aug. 15.

Today, I joined my Republicans colleagues on the floor of Congress to protest against Speaker Pelosi’s decision to adjourn Congress for the rest of the summer without a vote on a comprehensive energy bill to lower gas prices and increase American-made energy. What began 10 days ago as a spontaneous uprising on the floor of the U.S. House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent Congress home for a five-week break without allowing a vote on the American Energy Act, has become an unprecedented nationwide protest.

Today, I am proudly standing with my Republican colleagues, staffers, and tourists visiting the Capitol to demand action on the ‘all of the above’ energy plan that I support. I will stand with every American who expects more out of Congress and demands action now. And although the microphones and camera are turned off, our message will be heard and we will not rest until Speaker Pelosi has allowed an up-or-down vote on the American Energy Act.

— from a post titled “Blogging from the floor of the House” on the blog of Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl, R-N.Y., in support of the American Energy Act; Aug. 11; emphasis added.

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn, on the occasion of Class Day Afternoon Exercises at Harvard University; June 8, 1978.

MS. PERINO: Well, I would tell you that the administration at all levels has been in contact with counterparts in Georgia and Russia, including Secretary Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. So we have ongoing conversations. I’m not at liberty to describe them, but the President — what I can tell you is President Bush has worked very hard over the years to develop good relationships with other leaders in which he can have frank and candid discussions and be very blunt about our concerns.

Q: But how does that play out — the infrastructure, if you will, that he’s built, how is that playing out now? Because he comes out in the Rose Garden and it is a strong statement of support for Georgia and some condemnation of what Russia is doing. And so did he — did the Russians know this was coming?

MS. PERINO: The public statements reflect the private conversations.

— exchange between reporter and press secretary during White House press briefing; Aug. 13; emphasis added.

[W]e must support young democracies in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. In countries like Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, people continue to live under oppressive regimes, and we will work for the day when all these nations are free. By opposing these despots and helping young democracies grow, we will lay the foundation of peace and prosperity for generations to come. Throughout Captive Nations Week, we renew our pledge that as people across the world find their own paths to freedom, they will also find a friend in the United States of America.

— from a proclamation declaring Captive Nations Week by President Bush; July 18.

With its actions in recent days, Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.

— President Bush on the conflict between Georgia and Russia; Aug. 15; emphasis added.

All departments and agencies have a responsibility to prepare and to provide intelligence in a manner that allows the full and free exchange of information, consistent with applicable law and presidential guidance.

— from an executive order by President Bush titled “Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities”; July 31.

As low as I set the price, you’re the first person to call.

— Michael Kohan, owner of an SUV, to Times reporter Nick Bunkley, after Mr. Kohan had listed his V8-powered 2006 Land Rover LR3 (book value $31,000) with “a navigation system, xenon lights, parking assist sensors, heated leather seats and three sunroofs” for only $18,000 on eBay and Craigslist; Aug. 12

It was decided not to report the story in our news summary on the grounds that Edwards is not a candidate for public office, and not on any short list for Vice President or any other public office, so it struck us as a problem for him and his family, not the American public.

— Linda Winslow, executive producer of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, explaining to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler why NewHour did not report former Sen. John Edwards’ admission of an affair on the day the rest of the mainstream media did; Mr. Getler wrote that the “the decision not to report the Edwards confirmation story struck me as both patronizing to people who depend on PBS for news, and journalistically mind-boggling”; Aug. 13.

The film is a platform to create indelible interactions between the long-haul trucking community and the brand and elevate the conversation beyond products and product specs.

— Mark Leger, managing director at the Chicago office of Fathom Communications, an agency that specializes in branded entertainment, online advertising and direct marketing, on a documentary called “Drive and Deliver” about long-haul trucking; The Times‘ Stuart Elliot revealed in his advertising column that the 45-minute film’s $2-million budget was underwritten by truck manufacturer Navistar to promote a new big-rig model, the LoneStar, stickered at $120,000 to $140,000; Aug. 12.

The tax on cars with engine capacities of 3 to 4 liters will rise to 25 percent from 15 percent, with the rate for engines of more than 4 liters doubling to 40 percent. The rate on cars with engines that are 1 liter or less will fall from 3 percent to 1 percent.

— from a Xinhua news story; according to a joint statement by two Chinese agencies, “We hope the new policy will help restrain the production and sales of high-emission vehicles while promoting the development of low-emission cars”; Aug. 13.

The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence. And they’ll tell you if you ask.

— Isaac Hayes, from an interview in the 1990s; Mr. Hayes died last week at 65; Aug. 10.

Most of Wearing’s work over the last decade has revolved around the experience of the individual, whether alone or in the context of family. She approaches this theme with clearheaded sensitivity and compassion, often using the work to create neutral if tightly controlled spaces in which to allow her subjects to speak for themselves.

Such is the case in the two series on view here. “Pin Ups” consists of seven roughly poster-sized paintings, each depicting a single scantily clad (or in one case nude) model in an alluring posture. Wearing found these models — two men and five women, all nonprofessionals — through an ad she placed on the Internet.

— from a Los Angeles Times review by Holly Myers of an exhibit of the work of Gillian Wearing; Aug. 15; emphasis added.

photo credits:

• Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson: Lluis Gene, AFP/Getty Images
• Tom Hayden and John Froines: University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
• Navistar’s LoneStar: Popular Mechanics
• Isaac Hayes: Norman Seeff, Cycle Media
• Gillian Wearing’s “Rowena”: Joshua White, Regen Projects

Quotabull is a weekly feature of Scholars & Rogues.

by Connor O’Steen

[Ed. note:  Connor returned to Kabul from Bamyan and the Jawzareen Valley, as noted in installment 6.  The Red Crescent is the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.]

When we got back to Kabul, we were immediately greeted by an unpleasant surprise. The head of the Afghan Red Crescent had decided that he was tired of the stray dogs that walked through Marastoon, dogs which did nothing more than bark, ask you for food, and follow you around. He put out poisoned meat, which didn’t kill any of the strays, who are accustomed to these kinds of things, but did manage to kill Faisal’s dog. Faisal is the head of security in our compound, and I remember him very well from my first day in Afghanistan. Marnie was leading me around the compound, introducing me to various people, and I met him when we reached the front gate. We greeted each other, and he smiled broadly telling Marnie that, “Since he has no father here in Afghanistan, I will be his father while he is here.” Now, as I pass him at the front gate and say hello, he just looks sad and waves to me distractedly. As a protest against what happened, he and his staff refused to come to work for three days. During this period the gate was opened and closed by a stoned-looking 13-year-old.

I think that the way a person treats animals is an indicator of how that person treats human beings. From what I’ve seen here, the boys who beat dogs or whip donkeys are the same ones who will hurt those they deem weaker than themselves. They may do it out of enjoyment, anger, or displacement, but that’s their method of coping with the world around them — violence. The fact that the head of a humanitarian organization would poison dogs is unbelievable to me, and I can only think that someone made a horrible mistake putting him in that position. I would never work with a man like that.

A few days later, it happened again. This time a dog that I knew well, Brownie, died. Brownie was a stray, but only in the nominal sense of the word. We all gave her food and lots of attention, she never had the desperation of other strays in Kabul. Brownie was stupid, but we loved her anyway. She liked to jump on you and she often ran through puddles; the combination would leave your clothes splattered with muddy pawprints. When I worked in the office at night and walked back to the house in the dark she would greet me enthusiastically and dash ahead and then back to me. Her excited breathing made the road seem a little clearer in the pitch black. Now it just seems lonely.

On a lighter note, I’ve been doing a lot of work at the orphanage this week, both starting a pen pal program with students in the US (I’ll talk more about this when I get a stronger grasp on it) and playing with boys there in the evening. When we first get there, Reese and I start by playing basketball or soccer with our class. Because the program we’re running isn’t fully funded, at Allahouddin, we work with 25 boys and 25 girls out of about a total of 250 at the orphanage. We hope our flagship class will convince donors to expand the operation to the whole orphanage. This kind of “test run” for programs is actually extremely common for humanitarian NGO’s that operate outside of the enormous funding umbrellas of USAID or UNDP. It can also lead to extremely frustrating situations where donors back out of previously promised funding. But that story is for another time.

Playing basketball with Afghan boys is a singular experience. We’ve taught them the rudiments of dribbling, shooting, passing, and all the rest, but we can’t seem to communicate the concepts of teamwork or fouling. Every time one boy gets the ball, he becomes the target not only for the opposite team but for his own teammates as well. Ultimately it turns into a kind of, “hold onto the ball” scrimmage where every man is for himself. I’m not going to spin this into some larger claim about Afghan society or the state of the Afghan psyche. It would be irresponsible to do that from my observation of games at one orphanage. What I can say though is that boys in Allahouddin are taught that the only way to interact with each other is through competition. The way they play, the way they learn, the way they talk is all individually oriented and aggressive. I find it exhausting to work with them, even for two or three hours; I’m constantly assailed by requests to thumb wrestle, arm wrestle, just plain wrestle, box, play soccer, and so on. One boy punches me in the ribs every time he sees me, not because he’s angry, just because he wants to see what will happen. I can’t imagine living in that kind of environment, where your worth is measured through your ability to best others.

When we’re done with basketball, I always make sure to do something that involves the entire orphanage, so that the other boys don’t get jealous of the ones who get to play basketball. I realized quickly that the best activity is one that doesn’t need to be taught, and involves skills that everyone has naturally. So, as the sun sets on Kabul, I gather all of the kids around me and I lead them through the buildings of the orphanage. We duck and weave through the doorways and thread our way around potholes and piles of building materials until they all fall behind me, apparently exhausted. Then I draw them into a clump and we do jumping jacks and push-ups. I call out the Dari numbers in my best pseudo-drill sergeant bluster and they all give me delighted smiles.

And I think that’s what they really need. These kids are so cramped in the grounds of the orphanage that they get keyed up easily. A little exercise goes a long way, and when we’re done, I have a vanguard of orphans who escort me back to the car and wish me a safe trip home. Manda na bashi, may you not be tired.

The other altogether unpleasant change in Kabul is scorpions. Lots and lots of scorpions. I’m not sure why they make their full scale assaults on houses this time of year — I had actually expected them to venture indoors for the winter — but here they are none the less. To take proper precautions I spent the good portion of a day online looking up types of scorpions in Afghanistan and proper first aid for how to treat stings. I even talked to a friend with EMS training and did my best to locate anti-venom solutions for species here.

So, as absolute proof that fate has a sense of humor, that very night I felt a pinch on my leg. A little prick that was no worse than a bee sting, but even when I was in denial I knew, I knew that was what it had to be. I got up quickly, flicked on the light, and gave my blanket a good shake. In the dim light, a black shape about three inches long flew out and scuttled away. I yelled a four letter word about five or six times in rapid succession, and then started to get dressed. About five minutes later I was sitting in the kitchen, my leg propped on a stool and weighed down with an ice pack. When we realized that the leg wasn’t swelling up, and I wasn’t suffering any neurological effects from the venom, it was time to get back to sleep. This time, we dragged blankets and a thin air mattress to the kitchen table and I slept there.

The pain of the sting was much worse, then, and surprisingly variable. I sat there (very much awake) in the dark and observed it: at times it felt like a needle that was being jiggled around, and at times it took on a distinct crawlingsensation, like something was moving over it, or inside of it. My mind wandered to stories of parasitic insects that plant their larvae in humans, an old traumatizing fear from childhood, and I lost the ability to think rationally for about half a minute. I calmed down eventually and realized that these sensations weren’t serious, just the result of localized poisoning. I woke up in the morning with a headache, some nausea, and a painful throat; probably the result of an earlier incoming illness rather than the sting. When Asif, an employee of PARSA that helps us with the day-to-day functioning of the house, was told that I was stung he turned very pale. “If it was siya guznashta. You no live,” he said.

I thought he might have been exaggerating until I ran across a description of Hemiscorpius lepturus online, a species that isn’t uncommon in Afghanistan. This scorpion has a sting very similar to a brown recluse spider, with a cytotoxic venom that causes hemolysis and cellular necrosis. Most notably, there are no known anti-venoms — meaning it’s untreatable. You either live through it or it kills you.

Lucky me, then.

Today, after we’d found another scorpion scuttling across the floor, we started getting ready for chemical bombs that will, I hope, eradicate all trace of insect life from our rooms. That morning, as I reached into my backpack for a pair of socks, a stinger flashed by my hand and I recoiled right before it had a chance to get me. This one was yellow, about three inches long with a thick tail and thin pincers. It seems that it had hidden in my socks for quite a while waiting for the perfect opportunity. I’m not sure who I offended in the scorpion community, but I think it’s clear now that they have it in for me.

I am, to say the least, very tired of things that crawl around and try to hurt me.

Ed. note:  You can read more about Connor O’Steen’s experiences in Afghanistan in his prior installments, linked below.  Also, check out Russ Wellen’s take on educating engineers instead of terrorists.]

Installment 1: Dogs, generals and orphans

Installment 2: The hard-working orphans of Chaghcharan

Installment 3: Nasim’s story: making and unmaking terrorists

Installment 4:  Afghanistan, Ghowr Province: an opium village

Installment 5:  Replying to questions and local democracy in Jawzareen

Installment 6:  Having visions with Mohammed

What to do — blow myself up or study engineering at Caltech?

[Ed. note: Connor O'Steen writes of going to an opium village in Afghanistan's Ghowr province to do the necessary research to admit Nasim to the orphanage in Chaghcharan.]

First the roads. They were dirt the entire way and I was expecting this, but I had also figured that they would have been purposefully made, smoothed over even to facilitate the transfer of people from point A to point B. Silly me. The roads were the natural result of cars following the same path over and over. We drove in the ruts that had been imprinted by heavier trucks and, from time to time, our car’s tires scraped against the sides of the ruts, bouncing us from side to side. At first I imagined it was like being on a particularly cloying rollercoaster. Then I imagined it was like being inside a pinata. Then I stopped imagining things.

I sat in the back seat, sandwiched between the principal of the [Chaghcharan] orphanage and Reese, Marnie’s son. Somehow, in a way I’ll never be able to fathom, Reese managed to doze through the unrelenting turbulence, waking only briefly when the bumps in the road knocked his head hard against my shoulder. The principal just looked carsick, and stared out the window. In the trunk was Nasim, who had decided to come along to see his family and village for what was almost surely the last time.

I was impressed by the scenery. Just like in the airplane ride over, I got the sense that the hills around us were an endless expanse. Cresting each ridge showed more of the same, and the further east we went, the steeper the slopes became, until off in the distance they blended into proper rock-faced, dry, barren looking mountains. There was an unsettling sense of deja vu as we drove on. The landscape was so unchanging that time bent. Two hours could have been five, or it could have been 30 minutes. Whenever I looked at my watch, I forgot what time it had been before.

As we got close, the road got narrower until our car could barely squeeze along the track cut out of a steep, inclined slope. In front of us on the road, men and boys drove donkeys out of our way, whipping them roughly with thin canes and staring at us like we were in an armored convoy rather than a beat up SUV. Whenever we slowed down, the cloud of dust that we kicked up in our wake surrounded the car and streamed through the open windows. We wrapped the scarves we wore around our faces, and by the time we got there we looked like we’d showered in dust.

Now the village. I stretched my legs, rarely having been happier to get out of a car, and looked around at the houses. Some of them lay in the valley below, where a thin river snaked its way west, but the majority were mud houses built into the side of the hill–seemingly held there by additional mud that provided a ledge underneath. There was a breeze. It was nice. The weather and vegetation reminded me of home.

Then the people. A man and his son approached us, and I was struck by his features. He had light brown hair, stubble instead of a beard, a square jaw and very white teeth. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in the United States or (I imagine) Spain or Italy. He greeted Nasim like he hadn’t been gone for a year, but had just stepped out for an afternoon. Yasin and the principal of the orphanage stopped and talked with him, and it was then that I started to feel uneasy. I’m still not sure what was said, exactly. Yasin translated bits and pieces for us reluctantly, but I was shocked to find how, even in a situation where I couldn’t understand what was being said, I could still feel that something was–very deeply, very fundamentally–wrong. It was the way the man with the white teeth reacted–there was something superficial about his movements, his smile was strange and the way he looked at all of us was like he was just staring, like there was no seeing or recognition involved. We sat for a while in the shade of the trees. Yasin would say something, receive an answer, shrug, and look out at the river.

Before long we were ushered into a low room that had a carpeted floor, walls, and ceiling. It was on the way there that we saw the dried poppies, and it was the first and only time I’ve felt afraid on this trip. It wasn’t a panicked fear, or a strong one, just a gnawing feeling that sat in my gut and made me go over the worst scenarios again and again. We were isolated, I didn’t think our phone was working, these people almost certainly knew what they were growing was illegal. And here we were, sitting in a room lousy with flies, stuffy with heat, and listening to these poppy farmers tell lying versions of Nasim’s story. Again, I got the unshakeable sense that something was very profoundly flawed in these people. The way they laughed, the way they acted normally when telling Nasim’s ordeal, the glazed over way they looked at us, and the way Yasin responded in turn showed their disconnect from reality. I was struck with the conviction that these people were acting, that they had somehow lost any kind of emotional direction and simply spoke out of custom, out of habit rather than thought, rather than empathy. The more they talked, the more I thought that, inside, they had rotted away.

Yasin was the first to express what we all felt, he turned to us saying, “I feel sick here.” And it was true. During the rough ride I’d felt tired but fine; here I felt nauseous and claustrophobic. I realized gradually that the claustrophobia wasn’t just the room, it was socially suffocating. These people, shorn of any kind of deeper reality, made me physically ill.

We sat there for at least an hour. There was a window facing west and I stared through it and tried to imagine myself zooming home across oceans and mountains. I tried to picture the oak tree at my house, the sunroom and screen door, the mailbox, but the tide of nausea made it too hard to concentrate. Finally word came that Nasim’s mother and father wouldn’t see us. We could take Nasim and officially put him in the orphanage.

We got out as fast as we could (which wasn’t that fast, because turning the car around on that narrow track was difficult) and drove west, chasing a bright afternoon sun. I looked out the window at the rolling hills, and smelled the air. I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved to leave somewhere.

[Ed. note:  You can read more about Nasim and Connor O'Steen's experiences in Afghanistan in his prior installments, linked below.  Also, check out Russ Wellen's take on educating engineers instead of terrorists.]

Installment 1: Dogs, generals and orphans

Installment 2: The hard-working orphans of Chaghcharan

Installment 3: Nasim’s story: making and unmaking terrorists

What to do — blow myself up or study engineering at Caltech?

Editor’s note: Our guest is currently in Afghanistan working for PARSA, a non-governmental organization (NGO) specializing in microeconomic development with an emphasis on women and children. He’s often in rural areas far from Kabul where most other journalists cannot, or will not, go. You’re unlikely to find his insights in the mainstream media. Often, he has no access to the Internet, so excerpts will be sporadic, at best. His correspondence to us is edited for context and to remove information that might put him or his coworkers in danger.

The hard-working orphans of Chaghcharan

Chaghcharan is the largest–essentially only–city in Ghowr province. I use the term “city” lightly, because the “city” part of Chaghcharan is the intersection of two roads around which a number of buildings are clustered. In the plane ride over, (we flew in an aircraft that was roughly three times smaller than any I’d ever ridden in before. There were six seats. Our luggage was piled behind us and held at bay by a shaky canvas netting. It also looked disconcertingly like a toy airplane made proportionally larger) I was shocked by the sheer magnitude of the landscape. I’m not unused to seeing mountains, but they rolled away literally as far as the eye could see. The entire country from Kabul to Chaghcharan was one enormous mountain range, a never ending swell of ridges and draws. Just looking out the window of our comically small plane, it was hard to imagine that anyone had ever decided it would be a good idea to walk over that purgatory of raised stone; it was hard to think that anyone could have truly thought there was something worthwhile on the other side. To say, then, that Chaghcharan is in the middle of nowhere is an understatement. Yassin (the in-country director of PARSA) who has done the 200-mile drive from Bamyan to Chaghcharan, says it took him 15 hours. It wasn’t that the roads were bad; it was that there were no roads.

But enough of that.

Chaghcharan was pleasant and unpleasant in a few very noticeable ways. For one, it’s about 9,000-10,000 feet which makes the weather about 10 degrees cooler, something that I appreciate, although my lower altitude-residing companions have had a harder go of it here and in Kabul because of the elevation. Furthermore, because it lacks the industry and the traffic of Kabul, the air is fresher and the water is cleaner. On the first day we got here, we went to the river some ways out of the city and swam around the wonderfully cool water and I gave myself a terrible sunburn (I also jumped off a 35 foot cliff, and have pictures to prove it). The unpleasant things: most mornings we woke to the smell of burning plastic and garbage, the result of less-than-perfect environmental controls on factories, and the fuel for fires of the desperately poor. More unpleasant than this is the attention you receive from some people here.

In Kabul, while most foreigners do not leave their compounds, it’s not unheard of to see some of them in the more affluent parts of town. In Chaghcharan, we were the only foreigners in town. Period. The five of us represented, in its entirety, the international community. This means that we were the center of attention for every single person on the street: every age from 4 to 90 would stop in their tracks and stare until you had passed. This was unsettling enough, to be watched constantly, but what made it worse than Kabul (where the stares, at worse, were of indifference) was that at times there was a distinct impression that we were not welcome. The looks were not always polite; the salaams were not always returned. Chaghcharan is a border town in the full sense of the word. The streets are shared by government supporters and Taliban supporters in roughly equal number, and the protests are frequent and sometimes deadly. At the orphanage, there’s a genuine fight for hearts and minds between a cruel and angry form of Islam and foreigners like us. It’s not too dramatic to say that we are on the front lines of diplomacy, showing by our actions what kind of people we are, rather than the kafirs we’ve been made out to be.

Despite these heavy issues, our time there was great. The orphans in Chaghcharan are tremendously set on learning and improving themselves, despite the difficulties involved. For one thing, few of them are fully orphaned, meaning that in most cases their mothers or disabled fathers are still alive…but unable or unwilling to support them, and in some cases actively abusive to their offspring. Because of this, a number of them walk back to their villages to earn money for their family in the morning (a walk that takes up to three hours one way), and walk back to the orphanage to be supported themselves in the afternoon and evening. These orphans realize how lucky they are–they’re motivated to work, because they know there’s a waiting list for the program, and someone will work to succeed where they stopped trying. To an even greater degree than Kabul, the potential and the motivation is there, it just has to be complemented with opportunities for success.

PARSA has been working hard to get the teachers of the orphanage out of the habit of beating the children and into the habit of caring for them. After a few tense meetings, we made some progress in that direction.

Being back in Kabul is pleasant, although we aren’t currently allowed to leave Marastoon (the headquarters of PARSA and the Afghan Red Crescent) because of the recent bombing of the Indian Embassy. Just driving back from the airport, I could feel the tension in the air…bombs don’t generally come in ones, they usually come in threes, so Kabul might not be done yet with this round of attacks.

In short, it’s probably a good thing I’m going to [destination excised].

Connor O’Steen is the former editor-in-chief of the Shady Dealer, the humor magazine of the University of Chicago, is a Fellow of the International House, and is currently awaiting publication of his policy white paper on the inherent dangers of the Pakistani military’s ownership of private sector companies. He has language skills in Dari, Urdu, and Arabic.