The Republic of Dissent

Paucis verbis

Passing and short remark: I'm enjoying my boring vacation. It forces me to realize how fast and often unnecessarily loud, things are in New York. This kind of boredom feels great for I know that it shall pass and because it reinvigorates my brain.

In short, ennui can be fruitful.

Football as the road to serfdom

Quote of the day from Arnold Kling:

I have my doubts about the case for giving the better team a high probability of losing due to bad luck just for the sake of making the games more interesting. That seems to me like wanting to tax rich people because you don't like people to be too successful. It sounds to me like soccer is the road to serfdom.

Futile theater

I'm watching the Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings. I'm appalled by their uselessness for it is obvious that everybody is playing to the cameras and that this pathetic spectacle has been so rehearsed that the end is known and that no important questions will be answered. So what is the point of it all? It seems that it may be time for Congress and the political establishment to do everybody a favor and save us from this lamentable theater, which just reminds those of us who care about the US Supreme Court that this exercise has stopped to be useful because the fear of the unknown and of the political embarrassment, has led all the participants to agree to make a process, that needed to be somewhat authentic to be fertile, predictable and sterile.

Who am I?

I was unapologetically for the US yesterday in their match at the World Cup against Ghana. Somebody asked me how I couldn't support the Ghanaians and I have to admit that I was puzzled by the question because the assumption was that identity is 'racial' and I had to identify with Ghana rather than with the US because I share the color of their skin. My answer was that I have never been to Ghana while I love the US and that I am too cultured and too well read to make the stupid assumption that race skin color trumps everything else including experience. I am proud to say that I wanted the Americans to win against Ghana yesterday and that it broke my heart that they didn;t win. Their loss hurt me because I 'identify' with the American players, because I know America more than I know Ghana and because I love America not in the shallow way people from afar do but in a Tocqueville way: I admire its strength and acknowledging its ills.

In a time, when people are drunk with the disturbing sacrality of race while forgetting conveniently that for everybody, even those with a darker skin color, existence precedes essence, I refuse to follow the majority and to let the past or whatever else define who I am or rather whom I should be.  To quote once more time Hannah Arendt quoting René Char: notre histoire n’est précédé d’aucun testament.

Gitmo and Obama forever

The quote of the day is from Glenn Greenwald:

Guantanamo -- the closing of which was one of Obama's central campaign promises -- will still be open as of 2013, by which point many of the detainees will have been imprisoned for more than a decade without charges of any kind and without any real prospect for either due process or release, at least four of those years under a President who was elected on a commitment to close that camp and restore the rule of law. None of this is news to anyone even casually watching what's been going on, but there are several aspects of this article which are so noteworthy for illustrating how this administration works.  Let's begin with this:  Obama officials -- cowardly hiding behind anonymity as usual -- raise the typical excuse which they and their defenders perpetually invoke for their "failures" to fulfill their campaign positions:  it's all Congress' fault ("They blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame," Savage writes)

Return to earth

I'm back from nointernetland. I spend a week in a little corner with no internet, which explains my long absence. Stupidly, I had assume that even in my own surreal Macondo, I would be able to blog. That assumption should show  how passionate I am with blogging that I often fail to take into account practical things such as internet access.

I'm back and  I will write as much as I can while enjoying my vacation.

The art of bad referring

It's difficult not to write about the referring at the World Cup for it was so bad today that it affected the outcome of two games with the expulsion of a German player, Miroslav Klose in his team's match against Serbia and the refusal of a valid goal in the US game against Slovenia. It seems that this type of events happen every World Cup because football refuses to allow video by using the argument that it would dehumanize the beautiful game. That is, of course, a bogus argument for the truth of the matter is that to some, particularly those in charge of it in Europe, football is about traditions and conserving them at any cost for modernity is viewed as the enemy and that there is a sense that it is capital is to preserve an authenticity that is illusory at any cost necessary.

In any case, the World Cup is getting better, I just hope that it isn't going to become unfair.

Vuvuzela and monotony

Deaf from all the sound of the Vuvuzela while I'm watching all the world cup game. That said I'm addicted to that painful noise and believe that I'm going to miss it after it is going even though I suspect that it is bad for my health.

I can't believe that Spain lost, but I'm grateful that it was to my new favorite country, Federeland Switzerland. I'm hoping that this world cup will get better. So far, the games have been forgettable. Can somebody please beat Italy, Brazil, and all of  those teams who have won it all so that we have so some exciting novelty or something other than monotonous continuity?The problem is that in football, very few things are offered to you, you need to take them or die with regrets.

Left, left, left, neoliberalism, Obama....

Quote of the day from A.Jay Adler:

To anyone anywhere actually on the Left, the description of Obama as governing from the far Left is preposterous. Here it is like staring from the earth at a star three light years in the distance and another ten. From the earth, the Right, they seem very much the same distance away in the sky. The actual far Left is critical of Obama on multiple fronts, from his continuation of so many of Bush imperialistic war policies, to his significant retreats from far Left aims in health care reform, to his cooperative relationship with big banks and advocates of neoliberal economics and his excessive realism, in far Left eyes, on human rights issues. To anyone anywhere on the Left, Obama’s policies are mainstream liberal, with a foreign policy more hawkish than many mainstream liberals would prefer.

Obama's speeches

Obama is going to give yet again another major speech. I have to admit that it was one of the reasons why I couldn't support him: his belief that words could replace deeds and overcome a worrisome lack of experience, which would necessary affect competence. Obama's love for the symbolic reminds of Sarkozy's love for action: they both hide the fact that these lilliputian leaders lack an unshakable ideological backbone and that their election was based on a misunderstanding. The Americans thought that they were getting the Michael Jordan of politics who would fix everything without requiring them to do much more than believe and to hope. The French thought that they were getting Hercules, a fearless and fierce leader who would move mountain and change France without reneging its traditions and transforming into America or Britain. In both cases, the choice was about hop and  childlike optimism rather than on reality and the acceptance that politicians are not super-people.

The most disappointing thing about Obama's latest attempt to fix a perception problem with a speech is that he is acknowledging that he is powerless and incapable of taking political risks when he knows that they might improve America, but not his political future. The current BP crisis is not Obama's fault. However, it shows that Obama doesn't deal well with uncertainty  and instability especially when he knows that he can't win and that his options are limited.  So? Well, the speech is going to be Obama good, but useless. What matters is what Obama believes about America and about himself and whether he has the courage for once to be himself when that self doesn't please the pundits and the ones who just wants him to remain a shallow commercial product that only bugs the usual suspects that is the Tea Partiers and the enamored left (who is going to remain faithful to him as an 'African woman' to use a Fela Kuti's term I despise because it believe that he is the shit, excuse my French).

In short, what is happening now is fluff. I will start paying attention to Obama after the mid-term elections of November to see what he does if his party suffers big losses or whether it is able to avoid the worst.

The use of Children

Te quote of the day is from Theodore Dalrymple:

In democratic countries, for example, politicians often parade their children on platforms, as if the freshness and innocence of the children were somehow evidence of their own freshness and innocence.How many vile dictators have had themselves portrayed as the friends of children? We all know the pictures of Hitler receiving flowers from pretty little girls, who cannot possibly know the nature of the man they are giving them to. Indeed, the juxtaposition of child and politician is much more likely to be a sign of utter lack of scruple and of ruthlessness than it is of the reverse.
Whenever, then, I see a demonstration, even in a cause to which I might otherwise be sympathetic, in which demonstrators have children on their shoulders, I am appalled. My objection is not just at the emotional kitschiness of it, but at the lack of serious moral reflection by those who do it.

Still R&R

I'm taking full advantage of my vacation and watching the World Cup in a surreal atmosphere. I feel as though I'm in in another time for life goes by so slowly here that I'm always have to resist the urge to rush it along and to get caught up in the modern notion that time is money.

To talk about serious matters, football that is, I'm happy the US tied England, that Ghana (which is the most down to earth team, I've seen so far) won, and I'm expecting France with a somewhat heavy heart to lose to Mexico. 

To put things simply, I'm having a good time and trying to take things easy while working on pleasurable things. Sometimes, the unexamined life can be delicious.

Slow mo

I've started my vacation slowly and I'm enjoying it even though it's hot as hell.

I'm watching Argentina play Nigeria and I have the feeling that the Argentine cannot win the World Cup, but I wouldn't bet on it because they have the talent to overcome the limits of their coach, Diego Armando Maradona.

I had a great time in my brief stop in Zurich. I bought some Cuban Rum, and realized how nice the Swiss are.

For now, I'm relaxing. I love being away from New York... I'm taking it easy, while getting myself ready to work differently.

Working vacation

I'm starting my vacation today, well not really for I'm going to spend the afternoon and most of the day tomorrow in airports and planes. I will be a few hours in Federerland then go to a destination that is almost as disturbing as it can be exhilarating. In any case, although I won't write tomorrow and more than likely Friday, I will resume blogging this weekend and if everything goes well, my blogging won't be light as it has been for the last two weeks.

Thus, my location changes, but I will keep on blogging wit the same frequency as I usually do. My goal is to rest mentally while doing what I love to do.

By the way, have I said how much I love Switzerland? It is a country that is too eccentrically good just to be enjoyed by the Swiss and the well-to -do.

World Cup fever

I've finally caught World Cup fever. It took a long time, but I have it. The best thing for me about this World Cup is that I'm not going to watch it in the US for the first time in 16 years !!! It's a pain when you are a soccer football fan to watch the World Cup in the US because Americans don't care and  have other worries while the rest of the world is following religiously what it considers to be the most important sporting event. Thus, even though I'm going to have a working vacation, I can't complain and I'm actually looking forward to the summer: Rafa Nadal is back and I won't have to watch the beautiful game on ESPN, everything is perfect in my small universe.

Choosing food over democracy

The quote of the morning is from Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president running from reelection among increasing scrutiny over his autocratic instincts:

Democracy is good music but you need somebody with ears to listen to that music. It doesn't matter how much you talk about democracy or human rights. Tell me about a family who spend the whole night looking at one another and wondering whether they will have something to eat. Are they thinking about anything else? They are just not listening.

The bad side of fluff

Sugary excerpt of the best review I have read of Sex and the City 2 written by Lynne Miles  (h/t), which I hope convinces the right people to stop beating a dead and decomposed horse:

(...) it hasn’t gone unnoticed that SATC has never been great on race issues. Women of colour have been noticeably absent from the series, something which the first film tried to correct with the inclusion of Jennifer Hudson (not especially well). But SATC2 is breathtaking in its attitude towards the Middle East, and to Muslim women in general. The treatment of Abu Dhabi as a kind of Arabian-nights style theme park raises an eyebrow. The cultural appropriation is cringe-worthy. The portrayal of anyone brown there as either Qu’ran-wielding fundamentalist, cowering wife, or a some sort of ‘poor but wise’ character to allow Carrie to demonstrate her benevolence made me wince. By the time the four Manhattanites are staring at a Muslim women wearing a niquab, first slack-jawed then openly sniggering as she eats a plate of fries, I had my head in my hands with mortification.

Rough transition

I'm preparing my summer. It explains the fact that I haven't posted as much as I wanted to for the last few days. I'm going away for the summer for a working vacation next Wednesday; I have so many things to do before I leave and I'm disorganized because my perfectionism is paralyzing me. Nevertheless, everything will should back to normal after next weekend when I will be in my new and more 'exotic' environment. So please be patient with me and forgive the lack of post. I will post relentlessly this summer, but right now life is just too chaotic for me to write for I have neither the time nor the mental energy to think.

By the way, I'm going to spend a few hours in Switzerland and for some reasons, that excites me more than it should even though the short stay will be expensive. But I love the Swiss especially when they speak Romansh, German, or Italian.

An obsession with sleaze

Mick Hume over at Spiked! sums up perfectly the Laws scandal (about Britain's Chief Secretary to the Secretary David Laws resigning for paying the rent of his secret gay lover):

This is the end point of the process that some of us have warned about from the start, when the elite obsession with sleaze becomes a substitute for political debate.

British politics suffers from the same disease that is inflecting American politics ( which has contaminated the rest of the world) and paralyzing essential debates due to an incessant focus on the trivial and the titillating, but insignificant.

Payback

The quote of the day is from John McWhorter:

The old idea was that black people should work twice as hard to prove themselves. That wasn’t fair – but today’s tacit idea is too often that black people should not have to work as hard as everyone else, as a kind of payback.

Blinders

Provocative proposal from David Bernstein:

(...)if Turkey is so concerned with the welfare of Gazans, why not let Turkey run the place.

It is  possible to be on the right side and to be stubbornly and often dangerously blind.

The euro and salvation

Interesting assertions from Václav Klaus, the Czech president in an Oped in the Wall Street Journal:

It is evident that the euro—the European single currency—and the currently proposed measures to save the euro do not represent any "salvation" for the European economy. In the long run, it can be saved only by a radical restructuring of the European economic and social system. My country had a velvet revolution and made a radical transformation of its political, economic and social structures. Fifteen years ago, I sometimes joked that after entering the EU we should start a velvet revolution there as well. Unfortunately, this ceases to be a joke now.
The Czech Republic has not made a mistake by avoiding the membership in the euro zone.

Klaus's view about the euro not being a salvation is going to become the predominant view for European countries, which are yet to join the euro (and those whose economy will have to go through austerity measures) and will now take into account the Greek example. I'm just wondering how long this trend is going to last. My guess is that it doesn't depend on the EU, but on the health of other currencies, particularly the dollar

Own goal

The statement of the day from Gideon Rachman:

It would be a classic Israeli own goal, if their assault on the Gaza ships sank the choices of a new resolution on Iran.