(The) Godfather Sunday

Another fantastic film, although I'm somewhat disappointed with my VCD copy of it at home (all the English translation subtitles that appear on the American version are missing; I'm going to have to upgrade to the DVD). What has surprised me since I read Mario Puzo's original novel is how this relatively thin novel had more than enough material to produce two major movies plus leave a few chapters out (those primarily dealing with the characters Johnny Fontane and Lucy Mancini, both of whom had more substantial roles in the novel). When it comes to The Godfather, I'm somewhat happy I don't live in the U.S. anymore: those weekends when the TV stations play The Godfather, I and II back to back, I always found it very difficult to pull myself away from the TV. :)

You don't understand. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him, it'll make him a big star, and I'm gonna run him out of the business - and let me tell you why: Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International's most valuable proteges. For three years we had her under contract - singing lessons, dancing lessons, acting lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was gonna make her a big star. And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, and that it's not all dollars and cents: She was beautiful; she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I've ever had, and I've had it all over the world. And then Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive oil voice and guinea charm, and she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous! And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous! Now you get the hell out of here. And you tell that gumba that if he wants to try any rough stuff that I ain't no band leader. Yeah, I heard that story.

(Note: "...[R]right before Mike turns to English, instead of saying: "do you want to play" in Sicilian, he's actually saying: "but i want that" or "ma voggiu ca" instead of "ma vu giucar". Notice that he says in English: "what i want".)

Leave the gun, take the canole.

Something Good Out of Something Bad

Some Islamophobic morons recently came across a Boy Scout webpage that lists the requirements for Muslim Scouts working toward their "Duty to God" award:

With that out of the way, since when did the Boy Scouts become a training ground for Imans and Islamists? This could be the curriculum at a madrassa, not the friggen Boy Scouts. Also, if Muslims in America are trying to integrate into our society this surely is not the way to do it......

What the morons don't seem to realize is that the Boy Scouts encourage kids of all religions to do their duty to God (Allah), regardless of their religion. This is the full list of all the religions who present to "Duty to God" religious emblem under the Boy Scouts:

Armenian Church of America (Eastern Diocese)

Armenian Church of America (Western Prelacy)

Association of Unity Churches

Bahá'í

Baptist

Buddhist

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Churches of Christ

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)

Eastern Orthodox

Eastern Rite Catholic

Episcopal

First Church of Christ, Scientist

General Church of the New Jerusalem

Hindu

Islamic

Jewish

Lutheran

Meher Baba

Moravian

Polish National Catholic

Presbyterian Church (USA)

Protestant (General)

Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Roman Catholic

Salvation Army

Unitarian Universalist

United Church of Christ

United Methodist

Zoroastrian

But, you know, the morons would have you believe that the Boy Scouts are solely a Christian organization, no Muslims allowed here! And far from being not the way to integrate into society, this is actually one of the best ways for Muslim boys to integrate, where non-Muslim and Muslim boys can learn together about each other. Fortunately, the Boy Scouts don't listen to the likes of the morons.

The "something good out of something bad" is that despite having come across the morons' post, they provided a link and good information about the requirements for Muslim boys earning the Duty to God award. Even if your kids aren't involved in Scouting, the information can serve as a checklist for teaching (and reinforcing) the basic essentials of Islam to children, both boys and girls.

YOUTH EMBLEMS:

TIGER CUBS None
CUB SCOUTS Bismillah
WEBELOS SCOUTS Bismillah
BOY SCOUTS In the Name of God
SCOUTS/VENTURERS (14 & OLDER) In the Name of God
ADULT AWARDS: Allaho Akber


ABOUT THE EMBLEMS:

Bismillah: The Bismillah Emblem may be earned by Cub Scouts in grades 2 through 5. The requirements include a study of:

1. The Holy Books, including naming the Holy Books and identifying which one was the final revelation.

2. The Great Prophets, including naming the three greatest and writing an essay on Muhammed (PBUH)

3. Prayers and pilgrimage, including learning about Kaaba and The Pilgrimage.

4. Religious Holidays, including describing four major Muslim holidays, the names of Islamic months and writing an account of the importance of Eidul Adha.

5. The Mosque or Islamic Center, including attendance of religious services and drawing a picture of Masjid Aqsa and explaining its importance to Muslims.

6. Muslim Heroes, telling the story of the Scout's favorite Muslim hero and writing an essay on Hazret Bilal, the first Moazzin of Islam.

7. American Heritage, writing a report on a great American Muslim.

In the Name of God: The In the Name of God Emblem may be earned by Boy Scouts and older Scouts. The requirements for this award include:

1. Questions and projects including the study of monotheism, the name of the faith, the ways God has presented religion to the world, the "Absolute Justice of God", and characteristics of "God's Prophets", and a talk or essay on the Islamic way of life.

2. Questions and projects including the study of how a prayer becomes invalid, the five daily prayers, what governs the time of fasting, the significance of giving to the poor, the requirements and mechanics of making The Pilgrimage, and when you can go for haj, leading a congregational prayer, and participating in fasting.

3. Performing two projects of Religious Service to the Scout's Community. Projects may include a recommended project or a substitute authorized by the Scout's religious scholar.

4. Successfully Pass a Summary Examination on a range of topics including: naming the five major Prophets, explaining Ka'ba (what it is, its location and its origin), what God means to the Scout as a Muslim, what a person should do, if he arrives late to a congregational prayer, angels and their function in Islam, the five pillars of Islam, how a Muslim compensates, if he doesn't fast during the month of Ramadan, the proper method of slaughtering animals, and what Jehad means to the Scout.

For more information, see this page.

Hey, Where Are All The White Women At?

You remember Bernard "Bernie" Kerik, right? Former NYPD Commissioner, nominee for Secretary as Homeland Security, federal indictee (conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and lying to the IRS, plus a whole bunch of other crimes at other levels)? Yeah, that guy. Turns out that his time spent in Iraq as "Interim Minister of the Interior" back in 2003 wasn't too successful. Surprised? Not really.

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq took aim at Bernard Kerik in an exclusive interview with the Daily News Sunday, calling his efforts to train Iraqi police in 2003 "a waste of time and effort."

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military leader in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, blasted the former police commissioner for failing to produce results while Kerik was the interim minister of interior in 2003.

"I would be hard-pressed to identify a major national-level success that his organization accomplished in that time," ... "He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident - overconfident to an extent - and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job," Sanchez said. "His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort."

Sanchez, who was in charge during Saddam Hussein's capture and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, said Kerik put U.S. soldiers in danger many times by not telling the Army about his police operations.

"I went to see Kerik and asked him to knock it off," Sanchez writes. "'You're going to wind up in a firefight with our soldiers,' I said. 'We've got troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and if they see a group of unknown armed Iraqis show up, they're going to engage.'"

Sanchez said Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis.

"They'd get tips and they'd go and actually raid a whorehouse," Sanchez told The News. "Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police."

Sanchez said Kerik resisted communicating with Army leaders because of "a territorial issue."

...

Kerik disputed the allegations about his performance in Iraq - and said Sanchez was part of the problem.

...

Kerik denied arresting any prostitutes in Iraq and said the Army always knew about his operations.

"If we didn't notify them it's because they were involved in the operation," he said.

HT: TPM Muckraker: Sanchez: Kerik Was Focused on Busting Baghdad Whorehouses

Weather Man vs. the Roach

This guy is hysterical. And he screams like a girl, too. ;) Obviously a TV station that doesn't have any Raid on hand. :)

Answering George on Low Birth Rates in the West

George Carty has (once again) asked an interesting question, this time in response to my Straight Talk About Islam post:

About the birth rates thing - do you think that environmentalist propaganda about "overpopulation" has anything to do with low birth rates in the West?

For a number of years, I've argued that declining birth rates more often had to do with increasing standards of living. The higher the standard of living, the lower the birth rate. I had argued that this could be seen as far back as the era of Augustus, with his introduction of laws such as the Lex Papia Poppaea, which penalized the celibate and childless, especially among Rome's patrician class.

Caesar Augustus encouraged marriage and having children. He assessed heavier taxes on unmarried men and women and, by contrast, offered rewards for marriage and child bearing. Since there were more males than females among the nobility, he permitted that anyone who wished (except for senators) to marry freedwomen could do so, and decreed the children of these marriages to be legitimate, (Suetonius). (Source)

And so I did a quick-and-dirty analysis using data from the CIA World Factbook to see just how true this proposal might be. Using GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis as a proxy to measure the standard of living, I compared that statistic against total fertility rates for a total of 221 countries. A graph of the data points can be seen below:


On the X-axis we have the total fertility rates with a minimum of 1.00 (Hong Kong) and a maximum of 7.34 (Mali). On the Y-axis we have GDP per capita. If my idea is correct we should expect to find the numbers running from the top-left to the bottom-right. We do see this somewhat, although with a lot of data points in the lower left corner (low total fertility rates and low GDP per capita). If my original idea was correct, the correlation coefficient, which measures the strength and direction of two sets of related data, would be close to negative 1, which indicates a perfectly negative relationship between the two data sets (in other words, the higher one set of data is, the lower the other data set is). Here, the correlation coefficient is negative 0.4854. So there is a negative relationship, but of middling strength.

I also remembered seeing some statistics before showing that countries with low life expectancies often had high birth rates. (If you know that you're likely to die at a young age, you're not likely to wait around until your thirties or forties before having kids, like in Western cultures.) So I took the total fertility rates and compared it against the life expectancies at birth, also for 221 countries. The graph can be seen below:


Now here is a more negative relationship that's much more clearly defined. The correlation coefficient confirms this, being at negative 0.7678, which is much stronger than the correlation coefficient for GDP. In other words, the longer people live, the less likely they are to have children. This is perhaps more of a reflection of a country's ability to provide better health care to their citizens: the better a country's health care, the lower the country's population growth rate. However, there are exceptions to this rule as well. For example, some of the countries with higher life expectancies and total fertility rates tend to be Muslim countries, like Oman (73.91 years; 5.62 babies/woman) and the Gaza Strip (72.34 years; 5.51 babies/woman). Likewise, there are some countries who have both low birth rates and low life expectancies. But, overall, life expectancy seems to be a better explanation why Western cultures have lower birth rates, at least in comparison to standard of living. (There are a couple of other analyses that could be done as well; e.g., life expectancy of men vs. women, and multiple regression analysis of GDP per capita and life expectancy vs. total fertility rates, but I'll save those for the future, insha'allah.)

And, obviously, to answer George's original question, no, I don't think overpopulation has much to do with Western birth rates, although that could be an analysis for another day.

The Economist: Bernanke's Bind

An important article in this week's Economist. As I had first pointed out a couple weeks ago on my new blog, part of the reason for the rising inflation in commodity prices, such as oil and rice has been due to the combination of dollar-denominated commodity prices and a weakening U.S. dollar; i.e., as the dollar weakens against other currencies, this causes the prices for commodities to rise in order to maintain value. (For you non-Econogeeks out there, this is what is known as "purchasing power parity." A McDonald's Big Mac here in Singapore is the same as a Big Mac in the U.S., and the exchange rate between the Singapore and U.S. dollars should be such that you would pay the same amount for the same product (the Big Mac) regardless of what currency you're using.)

The other major problem is that, as interest rates keep going down (as they did again last week), the real value of the interest rate goes into negative territory. The real interest rate is (essentially) the nominal interest rate minus the rate of inflation. With this negative real interest rate, commodity producers such as farmers, miners, oilers, etc., have more incentive not to sell their products, even though this hurts them in the short-term by not bringing in revenue. As a a result, the amount of supply is lowered, which, in turn, raises prices.

There is another problem mentioned in the final paragraph below; however, the primary argument remains that the Federal Reserve must take some share of the blame for rising commodity prices, whether it's oil or agricultural products, due to their continued lowering of interest rates. This argument suggests, then, that commodity prices might not begin to drop until the U.S. dollar starts to strengthen.

An excerpt from the article:

But oil—and other commodities—are the crux of the problem. In the past, economic weakness in America has usually pushed the price of oil and other commodities down. That relationship has weakened thanks to demand growth in big commodity-intensive emerging economies. But the recent surprise is that commodity prices have soared even as America’s economy has stalled and forecasts for global growth have been trimmed as well. Supply shocks are clearly part of the problem. But the fact that prices have soared across so many commodities suggests a common cause.

Could the culprit be the Fed? Advocates of this idea point to two channels. First, by slashing real interest rates, the Fed has encouraged speculation in commodities by reducing the cost of holding inventories. Second, by pushing down the dollar, Fed looseness is pushing up the price of dollar-denominated commodities.

Jeff Frankel, a Harvard economist, has long argued that low real interest rates lead to higher commodity prices. When real rates fall, he points out, commodity producers have more incentive to keep their asset—whether crude oil, gold or grain—in the ground or in a silo, than to sell today. Speculators, in turn, have more incentive to shift into commodities. There is no doubt that commodities have become an increasingly popular investment category—in fact they bear many of the hallmarks of a speculative bubble. But inventories for many commodities, particularly grains, are unusually low.

What about the dollar link? Chakib Khelil, president of the Organisation of Petroleum - Exporting Countries, argued this week that oil could reach $200 a barrel largely because the market was being driven by the dollar’s slide. Movements in the euro/dollar exchange rate and the price of oil have become extremely close (see chart). An analysis by Jens Nordvig and Jeffrey Currie of Goldman Sachs shows that the correlation between weekly changes in the oil price and the euro/dollar exchange rate has risen from 1% between 1999 and 2004 to 52% in the past six months.

That link is partly a matter of accounting. If the dollar falls, the dollar price of a commodity must rise for its overall price—in terms of a basket of global currencies—to remain stable. But commodity prices have risen even when priced in non-dollar currencies. And the correlation between changes in the price of oil and the euro/dollar exchange rate has risen even when oil is priced in a basket of currencies, such as the IMF’s special drawing rights.

So is the weaker dollar driving oil prices up or are high oil prices driving the dollar down? The Goldman analysts argue the latter because oil exporters import more from Europe than America and hold less of their oil revenues in dollars. A second factor lies with central banks. Because the Fed focuses on “core” inflation (which excludes food and fuel), whereas the ECB targets overall inflation, America’s central bank runs a looser policy in response to higher oil prices, thus pushing the dollar down.

Another reason to suspect that the Fed is more than a bit player is that American interest-rate decisions have a disproportionate effect on global monetary conditions. Some emerging economies still peg their currencies to the dollar; many others have been reluctant to let their exchange rates rise enough to make up for the dollar’s decline. As a result, monetary conditions in many emerging markets remain too loose. This fuels domestic demand, pushing up pressure on prices, particularly of commodities. All of which suggests that the Fed’s decisions are propagated widely through the dollar.

Strictly Ballroom Sunday

This is one of my favorite movies of all time, although Milady groans (very loudly) if I want to watch it. I happened to catch this at the dollar theater a few months after it originally came out (1992) and was completely captivated by it. On my way home the first night I saw it, I stopped by the grocery store where a friend worked and I told him about this wonderful dance movie I had just seen, and he just couldn't get over it. "You went to see a dance movie?" :) Strictly Ballroom works for me on many levels. It's got beautiful music (I love Latin music), beautiful dancing, a lot of humor and a tight plot (it was a stage play in the mid 80s prior to being filmed).

The first video is of Scott and Fran dancing behind the stage curtains to Doris Day's "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps." The second video is of the final competitive dance between Scott and Fran (filmed at an actual dance competition during the real competition's lunch hour).

Liz: What do I want? I'll tell you what I want! I want Ken Railings to walk in here right now, and say 'Pam Short's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with YOU!'
[the door flies open. It's Ken]
Ken: Pam Short's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with you.
Kylie: That was unexpected.

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

Straight Talk About Islam

This blog post was somewhat inspired by Rob Wagner's post, Muslims in Danger of Losing Their Voice, in which Rob argued that non-Muslims and Muslim apostates are calling themselves "experts" on Islam, and that the media and the non-Muslim populace are being taken in by these frauds because, in their minds, the "Insta-Experts™" have "credibility." The potential problem from Rob's perspective is that we Muslims may lose our voice because no one will listen to us, preferring the frauds instead.

I had originally written as a comment to Rob's post:

It's not that Muslims are "losing our voice," per se; it's that you have an extremely gullible non-Muslim populace that's so ignorant about the subject of Islam that: (1) they can't tell which voices are authentic and which voices are not, and (2) they won't accept anything that doesn't pander to their prejudices. The con men, either going under a "progressive" Muslim banner or out-and-out declaring themselves to be apostates, gladly sell their souls for a miserable price. The shame of it all is that this sort of problem has arisen when the masses have lost their ability to think critically. In the meantime, there are plenty of Muslims, individually and collectively, who do speak out and try to mitigate the damage. But until the ignorant masses begin to make an effort to open their minds and seek real understanding about Islam, they will remain the greater fools.

Since I wrote that, back on April 25th, I've actually been rather angry at a number of groups of people and this blog post (and others, insha'allah, in the future) are going to be addressed to them. People claim to like straight talk and this is what I'm going to do, provide some straight talk about Islam. I intend to be blunt, and if you don't like it, too bad. But I do hope that this bluntness will be enough to get it through your skull that Islam and Muslims aren't what you think they are or want them to be, and that most of what you think you know are nothing but lies in the first place.

So, to start off, let's get back to Rob's post:

You're being lied to. If you're a non-Muslim and think that the only "moderate" Muslim voices are the likes of Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tarek Fatah, Ed Hussein, Wafa Sultan or any other "progressive" Muslim or apostate, then you're a greater fool than I thought. Let me clue you in: these people do not speak for Muslims. They have zero credibility among the Muslim community. These people do not understand Islam and cannot accept Islam as it is. What they want is Islam Lite. Chrislam. Call it whatever you will, it's not ISLAM. It's religion according to their own nafs, their own ego, which is exactly what many people do when they create their own cafeteria religion, picking and choosing what they like and rejecting anything that doesn't fit into their own preconceived notions. If you want to follow your own cafeteria religion, fine, be my guest. But don't expect Muslims to do the same. Which leads to me to my next point.

Islam will never go through a "reformation." Islam doesn't need a reformation. Islam is perfect. Frankly, I don't care what non-Muslims or the "progressive" Muslims and apostates think about Islam. We practice Islam as it is meant to be practiced, not as how non-Muslims or "progressive" Muslims think it should be practiced. Don't like it? Too bad. Think Islam needs to be reformed? Too bad. Until you know and understand Islam as well as we do, we're not going to pay any attention to your criticisms or calls for "reform." Just like the progressives and apostates, you don't have any credibility among us either. You'll impress us more if you try to learn about Islam from an unbiased source. And by the time you get to the point where we think you're knowledgeable enough, you'll probably be agreeing that Islam doesn't need "reforming" as well, insha'allah.

We're not going away. We're not going home to our own countries. For many of us, we are in our own country. Nor can you stick your heads in the sand and pretend that Muslim countries don't exist by stopping all trade and contact with them, as some wingnuts have suggested. Muslims make up 20% of the world's population, and we'll keep on growing, insha'allah. We're not trying to take over the world, as many idiots claim, but we will if non-Muslims don't have babies. That's not our fault; it's yours. We're going to continue having babies whether you like it or not, insha'allah. So deal with us! Get rational, rub those brain cells of yours together, and accept a society with Muslims and Islam in it. If you can't, then you're just a bunch of cowards.

To be continued, insha'allah.

Update: I've put this blog post onto Daily Kos, where it created a mild stir among the people there, primarily due to the fact that the blunt tone of this post made some people upset (and perhaps rightfully so; Kossacks tend to be more sympathetic to Islam than at other websites, so they may have felt that I was attacking them, which was not my intent). However, the good news is that this blog post generated 46 comments there (so far), so you may want to see what the others had to say.

Update #2 (May 22): If you haven't read Marc Manley's post, The Trouble with Muslim Pundits Today, in which he went to a talk by Irshad Manji at the University of Pennsylvania, you should click on that link right now. I've written two comments there as well, but I thought the content of the second one bears repeating here. Manji, Ayaan, and the others whom I criticized in the first section ("You're being lied to"), strike me as being exactly whom the Qur'an talks about in the following ayat:

“To the Hypocrites give the glad tidings that there is for them (but) a grievous penalty;- Yea, to those who take for friends unbelievers rather than believers: is it honor they seek among them? Nay,- all honor is with God.” (4:138-9)

Manji and the others like her criticize Islam not because they have "'the love and desire for the best for her community' that marks genuine reformers," as Dawud noted in his comment (#9), but because they have other, less noble motivations (to put it charitably). They are not so concerned with the Muslim community (except to denigrate it), but to suck up to the non-Muslims, whom they think they will receive "honor" from for being the non-Muslims' useful fool. Truly, all honor is with Allah (swt), and let the liars answer to Him, insha'allah.

The Alan Parsons Effect

As you can see on the baby ticker to the right, Milady and I are expecting a baby in a little over three months from now (the expected due date is in early August). In the morning, if we have time, I will talk to the baby, reciting both the English and Arabic alphabets, the numbers through ten, and then singing the scale (do re mi...). This morning, Milady and I had a little extra time, so I pulled out my handphone, which has about thirty albums on its memory chip. The first song I played for the baby is Alan Parsons' "Ignorance is Bliss," which is about as close a song that band has to a lullaby:

A shelter from the storm
A room without a view
A place where you belong
And like a mother's kiss
That carries you to sleep
The ignorance is bliss
-- Ignorance is Bliss, Alan Parsons

"The baby was kicking harder when the song was louder and more distinct, like the saxophone and piano solos. Try something more upbeat." OK, how about some Billy Joel?



Hmmm, maybe we should play more kids' songs. How about from The Jungle Book?





"Play some of the Qur'an for the baby."







And by this time, she had gone back to sleep.

Why, Yes, We Are Hypocrites...

...why do you ask?

HT: Advertising is Good for You

McCain Declares New Orleans "Safe"

I wonder if he found Nawlins to be "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime?"*


HT: I Was Just Wondering; original photo located at Mock, Paper, Scissors

* Yeah, I know Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said it originally.

Chalmers Johnson: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke

An excellent (but long) essay by Chalmers Johnson (originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique) on how American military spending has helped to deplete American savings while, simultaneously, eroding away American commercial competitiveness. Some excerpts:

There are three broad aspects to the U.S. debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relation to the national security of the U.S. We are also keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segment of the population at strikingly low levels.

Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures -- "military Keynesianism" (which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic). By that, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of the U.S. These are what economists call opportunity costs, things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs, an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing.

...

They agree that the Department of Defense requested $481.4bn for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment. They also agree on a figure of $141.7bn for the "supplemental" budget to fight the global war on terrorism -- that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4bn to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional "allowance" (a new term in defense budget documents) of $50bn to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This makes a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5bn.

But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the U.S. military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4bn for the Department of Energy goes towards developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3bn in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt and Pakistan). Another $1.03bn outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and re-enlistment incentives for the overstretched U.S. military, up from a mere $174m in 2003, when the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7bn, 50% of it for the long-term care of the most seriously injured among the 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4bn goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

Missing from this compilation is $1.9bn to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the FBI; $38.5bn to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6bn for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200bn in interest for past debt-financed defense outlays. This brings U.S. spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year, conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion.

...

In order for Japan to manufacture anything, it must import all required raw materials. Even after this incredible expense is met, it still has an $88bn per year trade surplus with the U.S. and enjoys the world's second highest current account balance (China is number one). The U.S. is number 163 -- last on the list, worse than countries such as Australia and the U.K. that also have large trade deficits. Its 2006 current account deficit was $811.5bn; second worst was Spain at $106.4bn. This is unsustainable.

It's not just that our tastes for foreign goods, including imported oil, vastly exceed our ability to pay for them. We are financing them through massive borrowing. On 7 November 2007, the U.S. Treasury announced that the national debt had breached $9 trillion for the first time. This was just five weeks after Congress raised the "debt ceiling" to $9.815 trillion. If you begin in 1789, at the moment the constitution became the supreme law of the land, the debt accumulated by the federal government did not top $1 trillion until 1981. When George Bush became president in January 2001, it stood at approximately $5.7 trillion. Since then, it has increased by 45%. This huge debt can be largely explained by our defense expenditures.

...

In an important exegesis on Melman's relevance to the current American economic situation, Thomas Woods writes: "According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during the four decades from 1947 through 1987 it used (in 1982 dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation's plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion ... The amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock."

The fact that we did not modernize or replace our capital assets is one of the main reasons why, by the turn of the 21st century, our manufacturing base had all but evaporated. Machine tools, an industry on which Melman was an authority, are a particularly important symptom. In November 1968, a five-year inventory disclosed "that 64% of the metalworking machine tools used in U.S. industry were 10 years old or older. The age of this industrial equipment (drills, lathes, etc.) marks the United States' machine tool stock as the oldest among all major industrial nations, and it marks the continuation of a deterioration process that began with the end of the second world war. This deterioration at the base of the industrial system certifies to the continuous debilitating and depleting effect that the military use of capital and research and development talent has had on American industry."

Nothing has been done since 1968 to reverse these trends and it shows today in our massive imports of equipment -- from medical machines like proton accelerators for radiological therapy (made primarily in Belgium, Germany, and Japan) to cars and trucks.

Our short tenure as the world's lone superpower has come to an end. As Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman has written: "Again and again it has always been the world's leading lending country that has been the premier country in terms of political influence, diplomatic influence and cultural influence. It's no accident that we took over the role from the British at the same time that we took over the job of being the world's leading lending country. Today we are no longer the world's leading lending country. In fact we are now the world's biggest debtor country, and we are continuing to wield influence on the basis of military prowess alone."

Some of the damage can never be rectified. There are, however, some steps that the U.S. urgently needs to take. These include reversing Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy, beginning to liquidate our global empire of over 800 military bases, cutting from the defense budget all projects that bear no relationship to national security and ceasing to use the defense budget as a Keynesian jobs program.

If we do these things we have a chance of squeaking by. If we don't, we face probable national insolvency and a long depression.

HT: Grande Strategy

Update: I just read that Chalmers Johnson passed away this past weekend; he was 79. See R.I.P. Chalmers Johnson - 1931-2010.

Pulp Fiction Sunday

This was such a funny movie in so many ways. Of course, most of the humor is very dark, but I like those movies a lot. Even something as simple as Butch (Bruce Willis) choosing his weapon when he decides to confront Zed and Maynard is funny (the progression from the small sledge hammer to the baseball bat to the small chain saw until, finally, the samurai sword). These clips are part one and two of the fight between Butch and Marsellus (Ving Rhames), and their capture and escape from Zed, Maynard and "The Gimp."

What now? Let me tell you what now. I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' niggers, who'll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass.

Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.

Rice Inflation: When Did It Start?

The global food crisis has been getting a lot of well deserved press recently, and while several different crops have experienced varying levels of inflation, I thought I'd look at rice in particular. Although rice isn't a staple crop in America the way wheat and corn are, it's very much a staple crop here in Asia. Asian reactions to the price increases for rice have varied dramatically. Singapore, for example, has tried to reassure the public that there is plenty of rice while keeping price controls off and allowing companies to bring in additional supplies above and beyond what's normally imported to hedge against any future supply shocks. On the other hand, some other countries in this region (e.g., Vietnam, India and China) have temporarily banned the export of rice.

For this analysis, I used the price data for milled rice provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. This particular file has price information on a monthly basis since August 2005 for several types of rice in the United States, Thailand (the world's largest exporter of rice), and Vietnam (the second largest rice exporter). For my analysis, I've chosen two American varieties, Southern long-grain milled (LGM) and California medium-grained milled (MGM), and one Thai variety, 100% Grade B. (I've done some analysis on the Vietnamese data; however, the data set is incomplete so I'm not as trusting on that information as I am for the other three sets.)

As you can see on the above chart, rice prices had been relatively stable since August 2005, especially for Thai rice. The current upswings in prices began last summer, in July 2007 for both the Southern and California rices, and in September 2007 for the Thai rice. (For Vietnam, it appears that the upswing began in May 2007; however, there is three months' worth of data missing for October-December 2007, and it's conceivable that prices could have dropped in that time period.) Since that time, prices have risen at a compound monthly growth rate of 7.65% for the Southern LGM, 2.80% for the California MGM, 14.47% for the Thai rice, and 8.32% for the Vietnamese rice. Moreover, as the graph currently shows, there's no indication on the part of any of the varieties that prices are likely to change direction soon.

From my perspective, the inflation for rice is mostly of the cost-push variety, with oil and fertilizer costs as primary culprits. The discussion of the inflation being driven by demand-pull is nonsense, in my opinion. Demographic changes are far too slow to account for such a rapid increase inside of one year's time, and there's not been any sudden desire for people to eat more rice or that rice has become a substitute in place of another grain.

When might we expect to see rice prices declining? Based on current futures prices for rough rice at the Chicago Board of Trade, the May 2008 futures are selling at a price of $23.80 (as of this time). Futures peak with the July 2008 contracts ($24.18), before falling slightly to this year's low of $21.78 (November 2008). For 2009, prices are expected to increase slightly ($22.38 in May 2009), before falling to a low of $18.25 for November's contracts. In other words, prices are expected to drop by almost a quarter, but only in another year and a half's time.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos and J2TM.

Update: This post was mentioned on the Daily Kos Eco-Diary Rescue 4.26. Thanks Meteor Blades!

SG Acrnyms

Pop quiz, hot shot! Think you know all the Singapore acronyms? (We're an abbreviated society here. ;) ) Here's a small sampling of the various three-, four- and five-letter acronyms that are commonly seen in Singapore. (I'm skipping the two-letter acronyms altogether.) Name the following:

ACM
AMK
AYE
BKE
CBD
CCA
CNB
COE
CPF
CTE
ECP
ERP
HDB
KJE
LTA
MAS
MOE
MOM
MRT
NKF
NLB
NTU
NUS
PAP
PCK
PIE
ROM
SAF
SBS
SGX
SIA
SPG

ACJC
CAAS
CHIJ
MUIS
NETS
NTUC
ROMM
PSLE
SMRT
TIBS

SAFFC
SINDA

Bonus Question: Name the 5 C's.

Now, before you get your knickers in a twist, here are some hints:
* Most acronyms are the same number of words as there are letters, but not always.
* Many of the acronyms ending in "E" are "expressways," but not always.
* Most of these acronyms are serious (e.g., government departments, businesses, educational institutions, etc.), but a few are cultural acronyms.
* Finally, almost all of these are or can be used in everyday conversations.

Answers can be found in the comments, or you can cheat and click on the Wikipedia link above.

Tower Mas Extra Hot Chili Sauce

This second set of ads (see here and here for the other two in the series) is also getting some attention, albeit for the wrong reason: everyone's focusing on the, er, lack of genitalia on the "chili pepper." "WOW! penisless angry, jumping, high kicking ketchup! very dangerous shit!" as one commenter put it on Ads of the World. Still, probably a chili sauce Milady would be interested in trying, if it's halal.


Agency: Leo Burnett Singapore; HT: Advertising is Good for You

Canon EOS: Vision First

Two sets of ads I thought I'd share. This first set, "Vision First" for Canon Eos, was confusing a lot of the commenters over at Ads of the World. At first glance, without knowing what company the ads are for or the tag line, the ads are confusing. But, knowing that the ads are for a camera, the highlighting of the womens' eyes with the niqab and the ninja outfit makes a lot more sense. As photographers we rely so very much on our vision, both literally and artistically, to make a great photo. Vision, then, comes first, thus the highlighting of the eyes.



Agency: Dentsu, Beijing, China

Good Fathers Read to Their Sons

One of my sisters mailed me a copy of Jim Trelease's book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, originally published in 1979 and now in its sixth edition. Trelease's thesis is that by having parents -- including fathers -- read stories or books aloud to their children, that the child's reading comprehension and academic achievement will increase dramatically. The book is well researched (the following passage alone contained five footnotes, which I've omitted), but many of the facts presented are eye-opening -- and disturbing -- to say the least. The problem is that many American families have placed the burden of the parent reading aloud to their children on the mother. Not that this is completely surprising; after all, mothers are the primary care givers to children under five, regardless of whether she works or not, and he almost always is the primary bread-winner. But that doesn't mean that he can abdicate all responsibility toward his child's intellectual development. There are ways a father can encourage his child or children to read. One of my brothers-in-law, the husband of my sister who mailed me this book, takes his four children to the library once a week, every week. My own father was another bookworm who often read for pleasure, whether it was fiction or non-fiction. As a child, I remember my mom telling us kids (on numerous occasions) that dad wasn't going to wake up soon because he had been reading until two a.m. And, of course, my sisters and I were always encouraged to read. (As a teenager, I often read from our World Book encyclopedia or its various yearbooks for pleasure. Yeah, I know, I was a strange kid, but I've never lost while playing Trivial Pursuit either, so there! ;) )

The following passage comes from a section entitled, How do I convince my husband he should be doing this with our children? (pp. xxii-xxiv of the Introduction). What's surprising and scary is how much American boys have slipped behind girls academically since 1970. For years, we've read articles about how the number of female students has grown in American universities, but usually within the context of a single department or degree program (e.g., law school, medical school, etc.). But apparently the problem is much more widespread. Even looking at my own university's data (Fall 2006 statistics), female students outnumber male students for both undergraduates (53%-47%) and graduates (54%-46%). (For the Honors College, the gender ratio is the same as the graduate students' ratio, 54%-46% in favor of females.) So if you parents want your sons (and daughters) to do well at school, start reading to them now... even if they're teenagers.

The second change is a huge gender gap among American schoolchildren. Since 1970, there's been a steady gain in female achievement, accompanied by a steep drop in male performance. ... In 1970, male enrollment in college was 59 percent, female 41 percent. Three decades later, it's almost completely reversed -- 57 percent female, 43 percent male.

The top 10 percent of high school classes is 56 percent female, 44 percent male; among high school graduates who maintain an A average, 62 percent are female, 38 percent male. Three out of five high school National Honor Society members are girls, and they outnumber boys 124 to 100 in Advanced Placement (AP) classes. As recently as 1987, boys had outnumbered girls in those classes. ...

We know what caused the rise in the girls' scores -- their mothers' value systems about education changed thirty years ago. Mothers now expect more of their daughters intellectually. But how do we explain the nosedive on the part of the boys since 1970? Is it a coincidence that in that same year, 1970, we saw the birth of a national TV phenomenon called Monday Night Football? Prior to that, Madison Avenue pretty much thought it was a waste of time trying to advertise to men late at night -- they were all asleep in their La-Z-Boys. Then along comes MNF and they've got millions of guys doing high fives on their chairs at 11 p.m. It didn't take long for the networks to catch on that sports at night could bring in a boatload of advertising dollars and thus was born ESPN, then ESPN2, followed by channels for golf, rodeo, NASCAR, wrestling, extreme sports -- you name it, all sports, all the time, 24/7.

The impact on the young male of seeing his dad worshiping daily and nightly at the altar of ESPN, has to have played a damaging role in male attitudes about school. Girls read and write; guys hit, throw, catch, shoot, and fish. By 2000, moms were "taking their daughters to work," but dads were still taking their sons to the stadium.

The father who can find his way only to ball games with his kids is a "boy-man," whereas the father who can find his way to a ball game and to the library can be called a "grown man." Unfortunately, we have a growing shortage of grown men in America today. Once I asked members of an audience in Decatur, Georgia, if they thought they'd ever hear a president of the United States make a statement like that to the American people, and a woman replied, "Yes -- as soon as she's elected!"

The strange thing is that this "dumbing of Daddy" seems to affect families at all education levels. In a study comparing poverty-level families and university-educated families, fathers in both groups read to the children only 15 percent of the time, mothers 76 percent, and others 9 percent. That could change if we publicized studies like one conducted in Modesto, California, which showed that (1) boys who were read to by their fathers scored significantly higher in reading achievement, and (2) when fathers read recreationally, their sons read more and scored higher than did boys whose fathers did little or no recreational reading. When the dads were surveyed, only 10 percent reported having fathers who read to them when they were children.

Blade Runner Sunday

Two music videos to share this afternoon from the movie Blade Runner. The first video is a compilation of two of the three musical themes from the soundtrack; the second is a full version of the movie's love theme.

Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shores... burning with the fires of Orc.

[Original verse from the poem, "America, A Prophecy," by William Blake.]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

ShaikR is Back!

ShaikR is back! For those of you who may not be familiar with Shaik Abdul Khafid, he's a local (Singaporean) Muslim blogger who's known both for his former blog, Spiritual Tendencies, and his artistic talents. The latter was primarily manifested through his banners, such as the "Muslims Against Terrorism" and "Islamized Blogs" series, which can be found on a number of Muslim blogs (see the sidebar to the right).

In the past few days, the Shaik has released a new series of "Muslims Against Terrorism" banners, plus a few new ones; I love the "I Laff @ Islamophobes." All of the banners can be found on his graphics page.

The Shaik has also drawn a number of comics that skewer both Islamophobes and a certain breed of Muslims.

Check it out!

The Economist: Just What Do They Dislike, and Why?

An article in this week's The Economist about the new book by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks For Islam? The article's primary criticism about the book is that the data was taken from the annual Gallup World Poll and that, at a cost of $28,500 for the full results of that poll, "...it's hard for ordinary folk to judge exactly how fair the authors have been in mining their own data." Otherwise, the results are generally positive:

The authors rehearse several arguments that make sense to anybody who knows the Muslim world. Rather than despising Western freedom, many Muslims admire it, but they scoff at Western claims to be promoting democracy. Muslim women want greater equality, but they are attached to their faith and culture, and hackles can rise when Westerners set out to "liberate" them. The minority of Muslims (7%) who fully approve the September 2001 attacks are not much more pious than average; so religiosity doesn't seem to be what makes them violent. In one survey, over two-thirds of Muslim respondents called America aggressive, while the proportion who took a similar view of France or Germany was under 10%. So democracy as such isn't a Muslim bugbear.

The article also reports on another poll which had was released this past week:

The results of a more narrowly focused survey, by another American pollster, were released this week. They are a troubling read for the Bush administration. A poll by Zogby International of 4,000 people in six Arab countries—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—found rising numbers had a "very unfavorable" view of America. And compared with a similar poll in 2006, an increasing number (67% versus 61%) thought Iran had every right to pursue its nuclear activities. Whatever one believes about the Muslim soul, Mr Bush's efforts to court the Sunni world, ahead of a possible showdown with Iran, seem not to have impressed the Arab street.

The History of the Humble Olive

There's an interesting diary on "the history of the humble olive" over at Daily Kos, of all places, that was rather interesting. Be sure to check it out. Personally, I love olives and olive oil, and I can easily go through a bottle of olives while eating cottage cheese (another favorite food), using the olives as a garnish. Tasty! Here's a brief quotation from the diary:

The Olive was a native to Asia Minor and spread from Iran, Syria and Palestine to the rest of the Mediterranean basin around 6,000 years ago. It is among the oldest known cultivated trees in the world (being grown before the written language was invented). It was being grown on Crete by 3,000 BC and may have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan kingdom. The Phoenicians spread the olive to the Mediterranean shores of Africa and Southern Europe. Olives have been found in Egyptian tombs from 2000 years BC. The olive culture was spread to the early Greeks then Romans. As the Romans extended their domain they brought the olive with them (but not the olive branch! They were fond of conquering). A little known fact is this: 1400 years ago the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, advised his followers to apply olive oil to their bodies, and himself used oil on his head.

The Economist: Gender Gulf

The April 10th edition of The Economist has an article about the problems Muslim women in the Middle East and the banking/financial services industries have in meeting each other. Much of this problem is due to gender segregation, but another problem is that many of these companies haven't thought about the benefits of targeting their marketing toward women and the practical ramifications of being able to market directly to these women; for example, hiring women who are able to meet clients and customers without needing a husband or other male relative to chaperone. I also like how the one company mentioned in the article, Forsa, avoid the "pink-ribboning." Unfortunately, this type of cosmetic change to a company's marketing scheme is all too common and is very superficial. "Oh, look! My credit card has a picture of a rose on it. I'll bank with you." Yeah, right.

But many women still avoid face-to-face meetings with unrelated men. That makes the male-dominated world of banking particularly hard to penetrate.

There are ways of getting round the problem. Saudi retail banks have set up segregated branches that only women can enter. “Ladies' banks” are also cropping up in the UAE. Segregation is a controversial issue, but the facilities at least allow women to manage their finances independently of prying fathers, brothers or husbands. Rising divorce rates give added motivation for women to hide away some money, skeptical of the help they will get from mostly male judges.

Increasingly, wealth managers are also realizing that women in the Gulf region are sitting on fortunes in cash, land and even jewelery. According to Amanda McCrystal of Bramdiva, a London-based wealth-consultation service for women, a few years ago there was a boom in online share-trading by women in the Gulf, since they could do it from the privacy of home. Many were singed by a regional crash in 2006. Some will not return; many of those who do may seek professional advice.

Sandy Shaw, who heads Middle Eastern operations at Coutts, a private bank based in London, says about a quarter of her clients are female, and are keen to keep control of their affairs, especially to ensure that their estates will pass to their children when they die. Aware of this, a small number of Western female bankers now travel regularly to the Gulf to hold meetings with female clients. Again, one of the attractions is privacy; they can visit a Saudi woman at home without her husband present, which a male banker normally could not do. Women may require different products from men, too. In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for example, they have more of an appetite for lower-risk, capital-protected investments. But this is likely to change as they become more experienced investors, says Ms Shaw.

In the UAE, Dubai World, a government holding company, has set up Forsa, an investment company run by women for women. Its staff scorn what they call “pink-ribboning”: superficial changes to market products to women, like making a credit card pink. Across the region, more such firms would be helpful. This is not only because women need opportunities to work. The finance industry needs them, too: it is growing so fast that it is struggling to recruit and retain staff.

The message has sunk in in Bahrain, where a third of finance-sector employees are female, and in Kuwait, where, including property, the figure rises to 40%. Some employers there say they find female bankers work harder than men. Yet in Saudi Arabia, official statistics indicate that just 5% of Saudis working in finance and property are female. And across the region, it remains hard for female businesswomen to get loans, especially if they are not from prominent families. Even in Bahrain, where nearly one-third of businesses are registered by women, “sometimes women can only get a business license in their husband's name, especially if they have less capital,” says Aamina Awan, who is researching female entrepreneurship in the region.

Cross-posted at J2TM.

Dick's Got a Firm Grip On His Pole

Get real, people. That is not a naked woman reflected in Vice President Dick Cheney's sunglasses. Although it kind of appears to be. If you blow up the picture, you can see it is Cheney's hand gripping the handle of a fishing rod.

The picture was posted on the White House Web site as one in a series of photos of Cheney outdoors.
-- Naked Woman in Cheney Glasses? No!

HT: WTF Is It Now?!?

Life Lessons of Drum Corps

I just came across this old article of mine that I had published in the May 2000 edition of Drum Corps World, and thought I would repost it here:

In the mid-70s, I marched in the baritone line of the Mark Twain Cadets.  The Cadets were a mid-sized corps from Elmira Heights, NY that competed primarily in upstate New York and Pennsylvania.  Like other corps, then and now, we had our share of volunteers.  Most of those volunteers were parents of fellow corps members.  "S," for example, was the father of "D," a fellow baritone player, and "K," a guard member.  S was a large, muscular man who drove Bus 6.  His was a familiar face to all the corps members.  While there was a constant turnover of drivers for Bus 5 (the bus I rode), S was the bus driver for Bus 6.  Week in and week out, for at least the five years I was involved with the corps, S helped get us to where we needed to go.

While S was accepted and respected by the corps members, "Z" was not.  Z was our equipment truck driver, and she received her malicious nickname because of her weight.  Despite the fact that she put in as much time as S (perhaps even more), she wasn't respected by the corps members.  One year, the corps started asking for dues.  The amount was nominal, being only one dollar per week.  When some of the corps members realized that it would be Z who would collect the money, they told others to bring their dues in pennies.  By this, they wanted to make Z's collection bag to weigh as much as possible.  Had everyone in the corps done that, the weight of all the pennies would have been considerable.

One day, my dad overheard me make some disparaging remarks about Z.  (Back then, I talked and acted just as stupidly as any other teenager in the corps.)  That day, my dad drove home an important lesson:  Z wasn't working for the corps because she had to, but because she wanted to.  That lesson was reinforced in the summer of 1978.  By this time, the Mark Twain Cadets had merged with the Grenadiers of Broome County, NY to form the Empire State Express.  The night of July 27, we traveled from the southern tier of New York to Lynn, Massachusetts to compete in the World Open.  We were the very first corps to perform that morning, in the Open Class prelims, so there wasn't any opportunity for us to prepare for the show, other than to get into our  uniforms and warm up.  (Despite this disadvantage -- or perhaps because of it -- the Express scored high enough to be in the Open Class finals that night.)  After our prelim performance, I was struck by the sight of Z, putting our equipment back into the truck.  There she was, working very early on a Friday morning, after driving several hundred miles in the dead of night.  She didn't have to be there.  She could have been home, sleeping in her bed, back in Elmira.  It was then that I truly realized her dedication to the corps.  She had sacrificed her sleep, her time with her family, her vacation time, and her money to be with us on tour.  How many other parents were working with her to help the corps?  Damn few.  And yet we treated her with a lack of respect few other adults would have put up with.

I would hope that the corps members of today already realize the need to respect and accept others as they are.  I can see where it would be easy, while attending camp or during the grind of tour, to take the non-marching personnel of the corps for granted or to treat them with less respect than they deserve.  For the non-marching personnel of each corps, whether they be the corps management, the instructional staff, or any of the volunteers, are just as important to the corps as the marching members are - and maybe even more so.

I haven't seen Z since 1978, and I have no idea if she's still involved with the drum corps activity.  However, should she read this article and recognize herself in it, I hope she will forgive me for any pain I may have caused her when I was an immature teenager who should have known better.

CAN

I came across this video the other day on a blog I had never read before. A couple thoughts came to mind:

If you don't shed a single tear (at the very least) while watching this video, you aren't human.

The father is truly amazing; I don't even know this guy's name, but he's one of my heroes now. How much more of a competitor can he be? There's no question he's not racing to win, but he shows a strength and determination that I doubt few of the other competitors have. And the love they both show for each other during the race... Kul wahad!

And yet I fear for the son. The son looks like he has cerebral palsy (?). What will happen to him when his father dies?

Schism

A Saudi blogger, Raed AlSaeed, has come up with a response to Geert Wilder's hate film, Fitna. Visually, Schism is divided into three parts: numerous American soldiers beating up a couple of Iraqi men (to the growing excitement of a warped American GI who was filming the scene from above), various clips from the movie Jesus Camp, and CNN coverage of Baghdad being bombed by the US Air Force at the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Interspersed are various quotations taken from the Bible (primarily the Old Testament) that, without context, make Judaism and Christianity seem particularly bloodthirsty.

However, Raed's purpose for making Schism is not to attack either Judaism or Christianity, but to show how and why a film like Fitna makes an intellectually dishonest argument. At the end of the movie, Raed wrote:

It is easy to take parts of any Holy book that are out of content [sic; he means "context"] and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written. This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology. To create schism.

HT: Rob Wagner: 13 Martyrs

The New Auburn Purple Lancers

My very good friend VKGARRY sent me an e-mail today to let me know that the Purple Lancers of Auburn, NY is being reborn. That's excellent news. For those of you not as well versed in your drum corps history ;) , the Purple Lancers started out as a senior corps in 1949 (as most corps of that era did), with the senior corps eventually folding in 1957. However, in 1960, the Purple Lancers were revived as a junior corps and became very prominent among the many, many New York State corps of the late 60s and early 70s, winning the state's American Legion championship in 1974 (which was a very big deal in those days) and placing tenth in the DCI Open Class finals that year. The Purple Lancers were and still are the only New York State drum corps to have ever placed in the 35 years of DCI's Open Class/Div. I finals. (Those were the days when making the DCI finals was truly an achievement, where you had 56 other corps to compete against in the 1974 prelims to make 12 spots, compared to the measly 22 corps competing in 2007 for the same 12 spots.) And then the corps collapsed that winter, and all of us in New York drum corps were stunned.

So I'm very happy to see one of the venerable names of drum corps revived, and I wish them all the best of luck. (Note to the Purple Lancer management: Don't worry so much about getting the corps onto the field so quickly, but do get yourself a guard and drum unit up and running in WGI competitions; this will help to get your name out and establish yourself as a serious, competitive unit. This is the Voice of Experience speaking; BTDT.)

The Shallow Mind of the Islamophobe

One of the things that strikes me about Islamophobic people is how shallow their minds are. In fact, they follow a remarkably consistent pattern, on a par with lather, rinse, repeat. To illustrate this point, I'll take the recent case of the Muslim bus driver, Arunas Raulynaitis, who allegedly had ordered all of the passengers on his bus to get off so that he could do salat, one of the five daily prayers we Muslims do. At least that was the original story as told by The Sun.

Stage 1: Show a swift knee-jerk outrage without bothering to wait till you've heard all of the story. Don't stop to think! You must foam at the mouth so that all your dhimmi friends will be convinced of your sincerity and conviction to the cause.

Yes, it's ubelievable [sic] --unbelievable that zealous Muslims are so keen to prove that Islam is intolerant, uncharitable, regressive, and in-you-face supremacist. "Kuffar to the back of the tram! Don't you people know your place?" [Original emphasis.]
-- Comment at Dhimmi Watch: U.K.: Muslim bus driver halts bus to pray

Stage 2: Read the real news.

London United Busways say they have carried out a full investigation after driver Arunas Raulynaitis rolled out his prayer mat to perform his daily prayers, facing Mecca on the number 81 bus in Langley.

Bosses have analysed evidence, including CCTV footage, and say the driver was actually on his 10-minute break when the incident took place at around 1.30pm on Thursday.

They added that the control room had in fact radioed Mr Raulynaitis to terminate the bus outside Langley Fire Station in London Road because it was running late due to road works. Passengers were asked to leave the vehicle while they waited for another bus to pick them up to complete their journey.

Steffan Evans, spokesman for London United Busways, said: “The bus was delayed and by the time it had reached Langley the next bus on the route had caught up.

“At this point the bus service controller decided that in order to maintain the frequency of the buses he would curtail the late bus, and therefore instructed the driver to transfer his passengers in order that they could continue their journey without any further delay.”
-- Slough & Windsor Observer: Bosses defend Muslim bus driver who stopped bus to pray

Stage 3: Ignore the real news, and renew your frothing hatred toward Islam and Muslims. Facts can never get in the way of the "truth."

A bizarre example of insane genuflection in order to deflect attention from Islam and the Muslims who spread and practice it. The notion that another bus is sent to continue a route which the Muslim brought to a halt in order to "pray" (read "demonstrate his utter contempt for those "infidel" passengers while showing them who's the real boss") is a gotesque [sic] parody.

Attempts by apolgists [sic] for fascist Islam appear more and more desperate with each new Jihad transgression they attempt to sanitize.
-- Comment at Dhimmi Watch: Bosses defend Muslim bus driver who stopped bus to pray

Stage 4: Wait for the latest breaking story about Islam and Muslims in the media so that you can once again show off your ignorance and dedication to the cause. Don't bother to learn any lessons from having been wrong the last time. Besides, Mom doesn't care as long as you sweep the basement floor clean of all your Cheetoz™ crumbs.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

HT: Islamophobia Watch

Big Yellow Taxi

Milady needed some material to write one of her tests, and she asked me to look up the lyrics and information to the song Big Yellow Taxi. While I'm familiar with the song (who isn't?), I had no idea that it was originally written by Joni Mitchell. The inspiration to write the song came from a bad experience Joni had in Hawaii:

Living in Los Angeles, smog-choked L.A. is bad enough but the last straw came when I visited Hawaii for the first time. It was night time when we got there, so I didn't get my first view of the scenery until I got up the next morning. The hotel room was quite high up so in the distance I could see the blue Pacific Ocean. I walked over to the balcony and there was the picture book scenery, palm tree swaying in the breeze and all. Then I looked down and there was this ugly concrete car park in the hotel grounds. I thought "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," and that's how the song "Big Yellow Taxi" was born.

The first video is of Joni singing live in front of a small audience in 1970; the second video is of the Counting Crows cover.

Put Some ICE in Your Hand Phones!

This is a very good idea, one that makes you say, "Why didn't I think of that?" "ICE," by the way, stands for "In Case of Emergency."

Here’s the idea:

1. put several ICE listings in your cell directory ICE-1, ICE-2, etc.
2. under each of them put the phone # of another family member or a friend who you’d want called in case of emergency.

If there is an emergency and you’re unable to communicate, first responders will (we hope: the concept is voluntary, so part of your homework, boys and girls, is to let your local officials know about it, so they can make certain police, fire and EMTs know to check the listings) check your ICE listings and then until they’re able to reach one of your emergency contacts, tell them about where you are and your condition, and ask whether you have any particular chronic conditions and/or medications that should be considered in caring for you.

HT: David Stephenson, via Crooks & Liars

How to Write a Song: The Three H's

The New York Times has a new blog called "Measure for Measure," which is about the creative process of writing songs. I love music and have been involved with a number of groups since I was a child (primarily drum corps), but I've also found that the art of song writing is both interesting and difficult. (I've created one song so far, Pterosaurocity1, which I didn't think came out very well.) The following quotation comes from songwriter Darrell Brown, who explains that a good song must have three "H's": honesty, humanity, and hooks.

We then proceed to vent and hash out our thoughts and feelings, our anger and frustrations, our longings and hopes and try to gently coax them into the shape of a song. And that song must have the three H’s in it: Honesty. Humanity. And hooks.

First, honesty, because I believe that people will only put up with a lie for so long and I want my songs to last forever. For me, finding out if a song is honest or not is a gut thing. An honest song will show innocence, vulnerability and strength all at the same time: “I Can’t Make You Love Me” sung by Bonnie Raitt and written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” or “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Songs that rise above the songwriter and performer and have a life of their own.

Then, it has to be full of humanity, and by that I mean the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual sides of humanity. The big themes — the brokenness and the triumph of it all. So people can relate to what I am writing and singing about.

Then, finally — and this is extremely important to a song — it has to be filled with hooks, basically because I don’t want to bore people to death with all the honesty and humanity I am parading about. Hooks, as most of you know, are an absolute staple of pop music, bits and pieces of rhyming syllables or words, rhythmic chords and melodies chiming in and out and strung together in some fresh way so they never leave your brain, so you can’t stop thinking about or humming that song wherever you go. No hooks? Then it is not a great song and never will be.

Examples of great hooks? There are so many, but here are a few that come to mind. The chorus of Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears (“Take a good look at my face….”). The refrain of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” (“I can’t get no…”). The very first line of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” or of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” sung by (but not written by) Roberta Flack.

I also know this from experience: Not all of the songs I write will be good ones. Actually, a lot of them will be ridiculously bad (experience has also taught me not to show those songs to anyone for obvious reasons). But when an honest, four-dimensional, hook-filled piece of humanity is finally born, there is a clue to recognizing it’s timelessness.