It's About Adaptation, Stupid

Yet another report finds that some of the most grave effects of climate change are likely unavoidable anytime over the next 1000 years. Even if other greenhouse gases are seriously reduced, carbon dioxide - which amounts to about half of anthropogenic GhGs - remains much longer in the atmosphere.

"I think you have to think about this stuff as more like nuclear waste than acid rain: The more we add, the worse off we'll be," NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon told reporters in a conference call. "The more time that we take to make decisions about carbon dioxide, the more irreversible climate change we'll be locked into."

At the moment, carbon concentrations in the atmosphere stand at 385 parts per million. Many climate scientists and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have set a goal of stabilizing atmospheric carbon at 450 ppm, but current projections put the world on track to hit 550 ppm by 2035, rising after that point by 4.5 percent a year.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, projects that if carbon dioxide concentrations peak at 600 ppm, several regions of the world -- including southwestern North America, the Mediterranean and southern Africa -- will face major droughts as bad or worse than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Global sea levels will rise by about three feet by the year 3000, a projection that does not factor in melting glaciers and polar ice sheets that would probably result in significant additional sea level rises.

Even if the world managed to halt the carbon dioxide buildup at 450 ppm, the researchers concluded, the subtropics would experience a 10 percent decrease in precipitation, compared with the 15 percent decrease they would see at 600 ppm. That level is still akin to mega-droughts such as the Dust Bowl. The already parched U.S. Southwest would probably see a 5 percent drop in precipitation during its dry season.

Look, emissions credit trading is fine in my view as a stopgap measure, as are carbon taxes. But neither present a real answer to climate change, as I've been saying over the past few years (see here, and more here, here, here, and here). Much of the international negotiations over climate change are, however, based on the extent of trading regimes, taxes, etc. I'm not saying that this is not important. Mitigation is crucial, and these mitigation policy options are crucial, but a wise overall climate policy will view them as part of a larger basket of diverse policy efforts.

If we're truly serious about climate change, however, we have to be more serious about adaptation. Many are, including the grand environmental institutions like the UNFCCC (1992), it's offshoot the Kyoto Protocol (1997), and much of post-Kyoto thinking (for instance, the not uncontroversial Clean Development Mechanism of the Protocol is designed to extend assistance to poor countries).

It's pretty basic. The negative effects of climate change- such as desertification and drought, flooding in other areas, changing vegetation, etc. - are already and will increasingly be felt by human beings. Those who will bear the brunt of the negative effects live in developing or least developed countries and are usually the poorest of these people. Poor people have the least capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change precisely because they are poor. But they also have the least to do with creating the problem. The wealthy industrial countries (and increasingly the rapidly developing countries of China, India, etc.) are the most responsible for both historical and current emissions. In this sense, the exacerbation of already difficult conditions for the global poor are largely the cause of the wealthy nations.

The responsibility is clear. The discourse and rhetoric, as much as climate policy, need to reflect this responsibility.

Good Reads

Photo: Reuters / Santiago Ferrero

Cheryl Rofer at Whirled View has an outstanding piece on NATO supply routes into Afghanistan. It's most fascinating for the overlapping, shifting politics of pretty much every country in the region. A definite must-read.

More conservative self-castigation, this time by Reid Buckley in AmCon Mag (via Wolcott). A little bit more self-reflection might allow Reid to not stereotype and trivialize environmentalism coming from the left (or wherever else lumped into "The Left" because it's apparently not conservative). He's on the right path, but he still doesn't get the reality-based community.

The Editors hand out the Golden Winger awards with guest-hosts GW Bush and Harry Reid.

The NY Review of Books (via Changing Society) publishes a translation of China's Charter 08, signed by 2000+ Chinese, which lays out the basic principles of legal and political reform in the country.

A fine piece from a couple of weeks ago by Tony Karon on Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Like Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitan has become essential reading on the Middle East, particularly Israel/Palestine.

A final shout-out to France from Bush. SuperFrenchie explains: "With only hours to go (finally!), and 6 years after it reached the height of international stupidity with the freedom fries name change, the Bush administration has decided to get into one more food fight by imposing a 300% tariff on… Roquefort!"

The Wege returns. And - I'm late on this - so does Michael Berubé. Welcome back, both.

Scott Horton's savvy take on Obama's inauguration speech. Agreed.

And, finally, an interesting photo essay at the Big Picture on African immigration to Europe (photo above from there).

A Good Step on Emissions

President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

The presidential orders will require automobile manufacturers to begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule. The auto companies had lobbied hard against the regulations and challenged them in court...

Beyond the California waiver, officials said, Mr. Obama will announce that he is moving forward with nationwide regulations requiring the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency standards, rules that the Bush administration decided at the last minute not to issue. He will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements in his economic plan intended to create new jobs around renewable energy.

Taliban Grows in Pakistan

This isn't good.

I'd be interested to know more about the draw of the Taliban since we have a rather two-dimensional view in the US. How does such an entity - particularly the Taliban - grow and spread ideologically? What is the attraction? Is poverty the main driver? Any good books or articles worth reading?

For that matter, why do people follow this guy?

Blood Orange

Heck of a Job, Ehud

Juan Cole summarizes the results of the recent Israeli assault on Gaza.

According to UNICEF, their preliminary estimate of the damage done by the Israeli military to Gaza infrastructure is $1.9 billion. Note that this is Gaza infrastructure, not Hamas infrastructure.

So at least the war weakened Hamas's political control of Gaza, right? Not so much.

So then, the Israeli military boasted that it destroyed 60% of the tunnels whereby Gazans smuggle food, medicine and other goods into Gaza (the Israelis say they bring in explosives for rocket-making as well; but since rockets can be made from simple materials and petroleum products, and since the rockets are so primitive, they can't be bringing in very good explosives). So at least, the Israeli war on the people of Gaza permanently reduced the capacity of those tunnels, right? Naw, the Gazans are working Caterpillar backhoes to rebuild the tunnels, already!

If the goal was to stop the rockets, so the ceasefire last June stopped the rockets from Hamas for 4 months until Israel broke the truce. Negotiation had been proven to work. Henry Siegman has decided that the Israeli narrative of the lead-up to the Gaza War was just lies, which American media largely bought, hook, line and sinker. He outlines what really happened.

How unpopular Israel made itself in Europe with this war was still visible nearly a week after it ended, when 20,000 protesters marched in Paris on Saturday, still protesting the war.

This is from the Siegman link in Juan's text.

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’

The truce, which began in June last year and was due for renewal in December, required both parties to refrain from violent action against the other. Hamas had to cease its rocket assaults and prevent the firing of rockets by other groups such as Islamic Jihad (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness), and Israel had to put a stop to its targeted assassinations and military incursions. This understanding was seriously violated on 4 November, when the IDF entered Gaza and killed six members of Hamas. Hamas responded by launching Qassam rockets and Grad missiles. Even so, it offered to extend the truce, but only on condition that Israel ended its blockade. Israel refused. It could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try. It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population....

It's a truism that bears repeating - the US needs an overhaul of its policy towards Israel and Palestine. Perhaps especially now that Israel is headed into elections that look likely to re-elect Netanyahu as Prime Minister.

Marx and Math

I did not know this. A book in French (Manuscrits mathématiques de Marx by Alain Alcouffe) from 1985 discusses Marx's contributions to mathematics. Excerpts here.

January 20th, 2009

Photo: Helmut

Closing Guantánamo and CIA Black Sites

I'd like to point you to one particular passage of this extremely important interview from mid-December at Subtopia (which Andrew Sullivan also commented on briefly).

You know, Obama closing Guantánamo is indeed a good thing. And the symbolism is important because Guantánamo is so high-profile. But I fear that the closing of Guantánamo will relieve political pressure as torture recedes back into its darker corners. The public knows a lot less about rendition and "black sites," for example, than it does about Guantánamo. In this sense, I worry that torture could just revert to a well-concealed practice used by a liberal state when it's supposedly in its interests. And it would also be a profound mistake simply to deal with all this as a matter of international PR-management for the US. In the wake of Bush administration torture, there's an opportunity to do so much more than engage in symbolic acts. I hope we can muster the political imagination.

It's thus really nice to see the first orders from Obama regarding not only Guantánamo but also the CIA black sites.

...And the orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.

Shutting down the black site operations is less about satisfying the anti-torture public and international opinion than it is about sticking to basic moral principles whether they're expressed in a high-profile way or not. I think this approach is also reflected in who Obama is picking for less high-profile positions at DOJ and perhaps particularly the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ. For one, the tireless Marty Lederman, formerly of Balkinization.

Deep Pragmatism

"We believe the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday. Yet the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of the abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath a second time."

Durian

President Obama's First Steps on Transparency and Accountability

"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

Via TPM:

• Over a hundred senior staffers making over $100,000 per year will have their pay frozen at current levels.

• There will be a two-year waiting period for any former lobbyists to work on issues for which they had previously done lobbying work.

• Extra openness will be practiced with any information that the Administration might want to keep secret.

The Cod Fish Ball

A Hopeful Celebration

I live in Washington, DC. It's not the town I'm originally from (a long story), but it's now my hometown after eight years here. And this town is filling up rapidly for the celebration that began last night and will continue through Wednesday.

Note the eight years. My time here has overlapped entirely with the Bush presidency. It has been a time in which many people here - thousands and thousands of whom are genuinely committed to good government - have had to swallow their hope in the potential of the US government. These eight years have been a time of cronyism and incompetence throughout the administration, bloated security everywhere in the city, and a sense of futility and shame in a leadership no one trusts except perhaps those who have benefited so handsomely from the outgoing administration.

This is about to change, and maybe the main reason it's about to change is because the new President Obama has explicitly devoted himself to democratic accountability. We'll have to hold him to that. Over the past eight years a presidency antithetical to democratic accountability has bored holes in our hope for decent government. Obama's giving us a chance to repair ourselves.

This may not be the greatest presidency if you're an ideologue. We progressives can hope for a lot more than we've had over the past decade or two or three, but we'll have to do so as pragmatic progressives in the sense in which I discussed Obama and philosophical pragmatism earlier. I'm not a pollyannish guy, but I think we can be genuinely hopeful that our thought and work and decency can be met by a receptive government and real policy change. From my perspective here in DC, you can sense this here apart from Obama himself. The right people are coming into office from the top on down, and the lights have gone back on in the minds and souls of many of DC's career public servants. It really does feel like Bush's Middle Ages to Obama's Renaissance.

This is a very real opportunity for all of us and, for this long weekend, a cause for celebration. Cheers.

Arne Naess

Arne Naess, father of deep ecology, passed away on Monday at the age of 96. The Norwegian philosopher was a decent man who lived a long and adventurous life; an influential thinker, one of the most important environmental philosophers ever; and a cautiously hopeful voice of environmental concerns. Thousands of people will miss him deeply.

Governance

Klein (via Sullivan):

I spent the day at the Clinton confirmation hearings and came away impressed, as always, with the woman's sheer ability to process information. Not a missed beat, not an "I'll have to get back to you on that..." It was several hours into the hearing that the full force of the new Administration hit me. Clinton was being asked by Senator Benjamin Cardin whether we could exert our influence on mineral-rich countries to share their wealth with their people. The Secretary of State-designate immediately brought up Botswana's "excellent work" in this area, the education and infrastructure programs that had been funded. And I thought: Botswana? Wow. We've got people who are really interested in governing--who really love public service, who understand that foreign policy means more than simply issuing threats--coming back to your nation's capital! Enthusiasm and care don't always result in wise policy-making, but we've seen how fecklessness and carelessness works.

Virgin Less Easy Under New Vatican Rules

Virgin Mary sightings will henceforth be subject to examination and certification by secular psychiatrists, according to a story in the Independent, who need not be Catholic and may include "atheists" as well. Exorcists too will be asked to sign off before claimants will be credited with a sighting. It's become too frequent that somebody says they've seen the virgin when they haven't.

Duh

Does this surprise anyone?

Federal prosecutions of immigration crimes nearly doubled in the last fiscal year, reaching more than 70,000 immigration cases in the 2008 fiscal year, according to federal data compiled by a Syracuse University research group. The emphasis, many federal judges and prosecutors say, has siphoned resources from other crimes, eroded morale among federal lawyers and overloaded the federal court system. Many of those other crimes, including gun trafficking, organized crime and the increasingly violent drug trade, are now routinely referred to state and county officials, who say they often lack the finances or authority to prosecute them effectively.

Rockets

Israeli rocket:

Photo: REUTERS/Nikola Solic

Palestinian rocket:

Photo: AP Photo/Bernat Armangue

More photos here.

Rambutan

Public Reasoning

The most recent (recycled) posting at AskPhilosophers is a variation on the classic question all philosophers get regarding the practical utility of philosophy. (And this is a constant since the ancient Greeks - you'd think we might have better responses by now). In this particular case, it's about logic. And, as usual, the philosopher's answer is rather inadequate. That's the problem philosophers face - you have to have spent some serious time with philosophy in order to understand its importance. And we ought to do that. But even then you still might not get it nor be able to use much of it at all.

Q: ...No political columnist ever cites logical validity or fallacies to support their view or dismiss the views of others - it is all opinion and anecdote (even if they did, few would get their point) - so how does logic work outside of the rarefied realm of philosophy?

A: Well, I happen to think that it would be better if political columnists DID point out logical mistakes in the arguments made by public officials. There is no shortage of mistakes to point out. Of course, to point out mistakes in the arguments made by politicians, there would have to be arguments to begin with, and they too are in perilously short supply. Perhaps more attention to logic would encourage participants in public debates to offer arguments instead of appeals to emotion, innuendo, name-calling, and sanctimonious prattle....

Sure. It is not the case that this is the case, but it ought to be the case that this is the case. But for this kind of response - a standard one among philosophers - to be compelling, it has to at least add some element of self interest for the interlocutor. It's silly to demand that public officials ought to be honest all the time and be rigorously held to a standard of reasoned argumentation in public discourse - that is, silly if the expectation is that this will become reality. And it's silly to respond simply that we ought to hold public officials accountable - that is, for the sake of accountability.

Why not simply respond to the questioner that he/she, or any other citizen, is a fool if he/she does not study and demand reasoned arguments, transparency, accountability, and honesty in both public officials and those who help develop and relay their messages? After all, many decisions (or ongoing decision-making) by public officials shape the lives of citizens in both the minute details and in the bigger picture of life aspirations. And one would hope to have some control over the shape of one's life, right? And then you could add that public officials often have a real leg up on you because some know how to manipulate logic and rhetoric for their own ends. Precisely because they are public officials, they thus have the ability to shape your world according to their understanding of it. Jonathan Schwarz directs us to this recent exchange:

What should one do in public debate when confronted with an ad hominem attack? Martin Indyk, US ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration, conducted a master class on this subject on yesterday's Democracy Now!

The disgusting smears began with Norman Finkelstein's endless litany of personal insults toward Indyk:

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I think we should talk about [Indyk's] book. In fact, I stayed up ’til 1:30 a.m. to complete the book, made sure I read up to page 415, read every word of the book...

According to Mr. Indyk’s account of the negotiations that culminated in the Camp David and Taba meetings, he says it was the Palestinians that were blocking a settlement. What does the record show? The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions...

The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza...

Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They were willing to allow Israel to keep 60 percent of the settlements, 80 percent of the settlers. They were willing to compromise on Jerusalem. They were willing to give up basically on the right of return. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions...

To his credit, Mr. Indyk kept his cool in the face of this onslaught. At the same time, he insisted on naming Finkelstein's appalling tactics for what they were:

MARTIN INDYK: I told you, Amy, I’m not here to debate Norman Finkelstein...I’m not going to respond to his ad hominem attacks.

Even more impressive, Mr. Indyk then showed the ability to rise above his opponent's ugly behavior, and demonstrate by example what reasoned political discussion should look like:

MARTIN INDYK: Well, why don’t we focus on some other issues, like the American role in this or something that can get us out of this ridiculous debate, in which he’s just a propaganda spokesman for Hamas, you know.

One Good Thing...

Or one of three good things (hint: number two is Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument)...

Photos by Enric Sala, National Geographic and Washington Post

That is, the preservation of 195,280 square miles in the Pacific Ocean, including Rose Atoll in American Samoa; seven of the Line Islands; and the three northern islands of the Marianas Islands and the Mariana Trench itself.

But apart from that, war criminal....

Best Music of 2008

It is the time of year when children and grown-ups alike are struck with the urge to take an accounting of numerical time. Thusly....

I’m just going to do some rough categories this year of some of the music I listen to most (see also the Best of 2007 here).

I had an odd year in music, filled with a lot of older Asian music – Thai pop; Indonesian gamelan-inflected psychedelic and prog (long live the great Guruh Gypsy’s 1974 masterpiece!); a revisiting of the legendary Cambodian Rocks and new discoveries in wartime garage psych from Cambodia and Vietnam and even Laos; some new Dylanesque folk coming out of China; Nepalese punk; old Chinese show tunes; and Korean and Japanese blues. Reiko Kudo, of the Japanese group Maher Shalal Hash Baz, produced some nice goodies on her own.

The great discovery of the year for me is nearly 40 years old: the Icelandic psych/prog group Óðmenn and their album of the same name from 1970. Awesome.

Latin. There was abundant Latin music on the plate exploring new ways of taking up traditional musical forms. There was the wave of old and new cumbia that washed over the more experimental outskirts of Latin music (check out Chicha Libre’s Sonido Amazonico, and Chancha Vía Circuito’s Rodante). But it came from all over Latin America: the Mexican punk band, Ratas del Vaticano (Mocosos Patéticos); the Venezuelan folk pop of Domingo en Llamas (Fledermaus); the new tango of Natalia Mallo and the Gato Negro Quinteto (Tango EP); the tejano cumbia of Grupo Fantasma (Sonidos Gold); Bronx River Parkway’s latin funk (San Sebastian 152); Banda de Turistas from Argentina (Mágico Corazón Radiofónico); and once again the Argentinean mashup artist Villa Diamante. Un Día by Juana Molina makes the main list – she’s likely to be on the list every year she makes a record. Oh, and the tune "Fala Tanto" by Open Foraina and Jack Quiñónez (from their 7") is one hot dance number - throw this one on and watch what everyone in the room does.

Brazilian. I adore Brazilian music as far back in time as recordings go, but it does seem collectively to go through creative phases. Although I don’t think we’re currently in a waxing phase, there were bits and pieces this year worth exploring further: Marcelo Camelo (Sou); Eddie’s Carnaval No Inferno is one of the best from the country; Márcio Local’s samba soul (Samba Sem Nenhum Problema); Rogério Skylab’s Brazilian rock (Skylab 8); DJ Tudo’s hip hop/house (Garrafada); the indie rockers, Júlia Says (self-titled EP); and the off-center psych-funk instrumentalists, Burro Morto (Varadouro).

French. Although there will be disagreement from the club crowd and from Filles Sourires, France had a slow year overall. The standouts, however, made the main list. Cherbourgienne Françoiz Breut can do no wrong and A l’Aveuglette once again proves it. The equally lovely Marianne Dissard, expatriatedly of Tucson, also produced fine work in L’Entredeux. Barbara Carlotti’s L’Ideal also did it for me. And one of the best-of-the-best is Mathieu Boogaerts’ I Love You.

Classics. Some of the older crowd came up with terrific, fresh work. The Pretenders (listen to the knockdown “Almost Perfect”), for example, as well as The Legendary Pink Dots, the great Al Green, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, and Alejandro Escovedo. And I’m really glad to see the tragic French powerhouse Noir Désir back with a new single and apparently an album to come in 2009.

Pop. Pop was a mixed bag this year and, for me, most of the indie stuff runs together into a murky slosh of musical conformism, however much the music earnestly tries to say otherwise. But… Deerhoof made another fine album with Offend Maggie and they make it onto the list, up near the top in fact. I also agree with the cool kids that Shearwater’s Rook is indeed a great record. Lykke Li made the catchiest pop album of the year in Youth Novels. I even like the much-ballyhooed Santogold and her self-titled record. A number of lesser-known bands show great promise for the coming years: Rocket Surgery; Tame Impala from Australia; Zoo Animal (try the stripped-down “My Lord"); Scotland's Eagleowl; Snake Flower II; the psych folk of Finland's Lau Nau; Spain's Cuchillo; and Colourmusic. On the electronic side of pop, Portugal’s Gala Drop and the Egyptian-Italian breaks of Mutamassik demand serious headphone time.
Miscellaneous. And then for oddities, try Thiaz Itch's stuff (get it free here). Or Ergo Phizmiz's neo-Dadaist Handmade in the Monasteries of Nepal /Eloise My Dolly. And, of course, the masterpiece: the digital 7" via WFMU, People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz' Music to Run Fast By, which sounds exactly like the title (more freebies here). That'll take care of you.

Alas, I’m babbling. Time to commit to the best. These are in no particular order since I have no idea how to rank them numerically, and I also can't say that many of the above albums shouldn't also be on this list. Nonetheless, here’s my stab at...

The Best of 2008

This unassuming fellow made one of the best records of the year:

* This is Joose Keskitalo from Finland. The album, which I highly recommend, is Joose Keskitalo ja Kolmas Maailmanpalo, a simple work of gorgeous little folk pop melodies. They're in Suomi. I hope he’s not singing about axe murderers or cheez whiz. Good luck finding the record outside of Finland.

* James Hunter, The Hard Way. The song that has stayed with me much of the year is the Englishman ’s lovely “Carina." I’ve hummed this beautiful piece of northern soul since July and have never once wanted it out of my head. Cheers, James.

* Mathieu Boogaerts, I Love You. Mentioned above, this is a fine work of French pop with a modestly experimental side. Really enjoyable, constantly interesting, and non-coying, despite his goofy imagery.

* Françoiz Breut, A l’Aveuglette. I think it is now clear that Françoiz is the true musical heiress of the beauty and brilliance of Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Fontaine. Françoiz will be touring in the US in 2009 with Marianne Dissard opening. The best of France right there.

* Juana Molina, Un Día. Perhaps an acquired taste, but to acquire it is to adore it. The labels applied to her music don't do it justice. Pop unfolding wintry psychedelic trances.

* Larkin Grimm, Parplar. Anarchist folk, somehow crossing into "a Tolkienian spaghetti western." Maybe. One of the most interesting voices of 2008.

* Pierre Bastien, Visions of Doing. Can we call these jazz compositions? The French composer and his electronic robots create a musical world detached from the known universe. Brilliant and strange. For more, see here.

* Dungen, 4. The Swedish garage-psych rockers create a more melodic album than their previous records. I think it works just fine. It was always going to be difficult to top Ta Det Lugnt, but I've really enjoyed 4.

* Daniel Melingo, Maldito Tango. I'm not big on tango, but when I heard Melingo's skewed Tom Waits-ian take on the tradition, I was ready for long, malbec-fueled dinners with the artist and whoever makes up his inner circle. This is life-grabbing music that adores life-grabbing music.

* Deerhoof, Offend Maggie. One of these days, we might just call Deerhoof one of the great rock bands of our times. Oh, maybe not. But who else would it be?

* Shearwater, Rook. The Austin-based folkish rock indie dabblers something or another (spun off from the band Okkervil River) - toss in an ornithologist - are justifiably praised for this perhaps unintentionally symphonic record.

* Toumani Diabaté, The Mandé Variations. The aging Malian kora player makes another beautiful record, a history of African music and hommage to his peers built into each song. This is Grammy-nominated, which might normally imply that this is insipid "world music." It's not. A nice review from Audiversity here.

* Don Cavalli, Cryland. The Parisian gardener makes a stunning little record of swamp blues filtered through tilted Parisian pop. Oh, happiness.

* Flying Lotus, Los Angeles. This is what post-hip hop looks like. And it turns out to be a fascinatingly complex piece of experimental electronica.

Support and enjoy. Happy New Year.

Israel's Gaza Bombings

Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip has killed twelve Israelis over the past two years (four in the past day in the wake of the first round of Israeli bombings). Israel has killed nearly 360 Palestinians over the past three days. Although the numbers game is pointless, and Palestinian rockets basically suicidal, isn't Israel's assault on Gaza genocidal?

Juan Cole has more on the reactions throughout the Middle East.

Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard died yesterday. The recordings I think are worth seeking out are his early Blue Note bop sessions, rather than his later fusion works with CTI (for which he's probably most famous). Hubbard played with most of the great jazz musicians on some of their most important records of the late 1950s and 1960s (John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, etc.). But Open Sesame (1960), Reddie for Freddie (1961), and Hubtones (1962), all on Blue Note, are great records as a leader. I'm fond of one of his rarer records, 1969's The Hub of Hubbard, originally only a German pressing (MPS Records). It's a fine piece of retro-bop through the lens of the free jazz experimentation of the 1960s. Accessible and wise at the same time.

Respect.

The Philosophy of Bar Identity

Photo: David Goldman, NY Times

If a familiar bar moves to a new location, does it retain any of its identity from its prior incarnation? The NY Times asks a philosophical question this morning.

But if drinking and dining have always been a moveable feast in New York, is charisma cartable? Can the character of everything from venerable pubs to palatial eateries migrate with their names and owners? This portability issue has gained new urgency in a season of economic disarray, when property owners are less willing to extend the leases of even the most beloved old-timers.

Setting aside the important cultural ramifications to the current economy, I think it's a set of questions with a fairly clear answer. A bar or pub is not solely its food and drink menu, its ownership and employees, and its clientele. It's also the place itself. Good bars become habituated and build a history of this habituation over time - that's their talent. Much of this history is physically manifested. Right? It seems that, once the basic requirements of food and drink are taken care of, it's the physical place itself and how its habitués have worn into the place over time that matters most to bar identity.

But, on the other hand, if a friendly and familiar bar, while remaining in the same physical place, suddenly took on a completely different clientele - say, shifting from a clientele of academics and artists and musicians to a clientele of club kids, or from long-term locals to the latest wave of hipsters - would we still say that it has retained its identity?

Maybe it's that the physical place must also have a relatively non-transitory clientele, at least in part, and that this combination of place and regularity gives the bar the core of its identity?

Guantánamo Detainees

Brookings does something interesting. Two researchers attempt to document and describe the individual detainees at Guantánamo.

21st Century Slavery

This quick piece in Foreign Policy about contemporary slavery is really worth a read.

Human rights activists may call $1-an-hour sweatshop laborers slaves, regardless of the fact that they are paid and can often walk away from the job. But the reality of slavery is far different. Slavery exists today on an unprecedented scale. In Africa, tens of thousands are chattel slaves, seized in war or tucked away for generations. Across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, traffickers have forced as many as 2 million into prostitution or labor. In South Asia, which has the highest concentration of slaves on the planet, nearly 10 million languish in bondage, unable to leave their captors until they pay off “debts,” legal fictions that in many cases are generations old.

One Man, One Wolfman

The Onion:

SACRAMENTO, CA—Activists on both sides of the gay marriage debate were shocked this November, when a typographical error in California's Proposition 8 changed the state constitution to restrict marriage to a union between "one man and one wolfman," instantly nullifying every marriage except those comprised of an adult male and his lycanthrope partner. "The people of California made their voices heard today, and reaffirmed our age-old belief that the only union sanctioned in God's eyes is the union between a man and another man possessed by an ungodly lupine curse," state Sen. Tim McClintock said at a hastily organized rally celebrating passage of the new law. But opponents, including Bakersfield resident Patricia Millard—who is now legally banned from marrying her boyfriend, a human, non-wolfman male—claim it infringes on their civil liberties. "I love James just as much as a wolfman loves his husband," Millard said. "We deserve the same rights as any horrifying mythical abomination." On the heels of the historic typo, voters in Utah passed a similar referendum a week later, defining marriage as between one man and 23 wolfmen.

Surinam Cherries

Your Papers, Please

Send me all of your papers. Now. I have a new status and that is paper grader into infinity. If you send me your paper now, I can probably grade it by October 2010. Don't bother to spell-check or proofread or anything like that.

Bruce Lee plays ping pong with a nunchuk

Via T.S. at All Intensive Purposes

Infernal Return

Karl Rove, who refused to answer questions for years on the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA official, criticized Barack Obama on Monday for not being more forthcoming in the Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) scandal.

Rove, a former top White House adviser to President Bush, said on Fox News, “[Obama] should have, right from the beginning, been more forthcoming.”

(Via Balloon Juice)

Half-way House Reality TV

Somebody has probably suggested something like this in the form of a joke, but I'm not sure it isn't a good idea: Half-way House Reality TV. Or Reality WebTV with ads. This would be capitalism-meets-voyeurism-meets-exhibitionism being used to recruit and pay for group-therapy-meets-drama-therapy-meets-self-help as an alternative social assistance program. Not to mention the community building, public education and prevention that might come out of it. What's not to like?

Mp3 Discovery of the Day

Maus Haus produces a fun, unique combination of punk, psychedelic, and electro operating at the fringes of what counts as pop. That is, they almost make you want to dance, but not really (or you can't without looking like Elaine Benes). Pick up a couple of mp3s at RCRDLBL from their new album, Lark Marvels. The SF Weekly describes them nutshellfully,

Everything feels unhinged on Lark Marvels; there's a jokey nonchalance to the vocals, and the percussion often manifests as a confined clatter. This is pop bent through the surreal lens of krautrock and cosmic psych.

Report on Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody

Here's the link to the Report on Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, released on Thursday. It's not much, really, in the larger scheme of things. It's rather late. And it was released at the end of a week not far from the holidays. For now, perhaps the report's most significant message is this,

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, GTMO and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples. Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable. The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees.

But this is only really significant if we assume that context in which some rather uncomfortable actors - much of the media, Congress, and the Bush administration - all agree to pretend that we're getting to the bottom of some difficult topic where we first have to figure out (deliberately - we'll get to the bottom of this!) the terms of debate and the language of investigation. Again, those terms are not really in dispute at all in the real world. Just for reminders, here's Mary Ellen O’Connell in an interview with Scott Horton, discussing the real context:

The prohibition on torture is absolute in all circumstances—it is a jus cogens or peremptory norm of international law. There are no exceptions to the prohibition. This is clear in the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and the International Civil and Political Rights Covenant. The United States is a party to all three. It is true that Israel’s Supreme Court in a very powerful decision upholding the prohibition on torture and cruel treatment did suggest that an individual interrogator might be able to mount a defense of necessity, but this part of the decision is against the clear weight of authority. It clashes with the fundamental reason for drafting the 1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT)–at that time no one doubted that torture as sport or cruelty was prohibited. The CAT was intended to clear away any last doubts that governments had the right to use torture or cruel measures to seek information for national security or to combat crime.

Gore Wins!

The Onion:

In an unexpected judicial turnaround, the Supreme Court this week reversed its 2000 ruling in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore, stripping George W. Bush of his earlier political victory, and declaring Albert Arnold Gore the 43rd president of the United States of America.

The court, which called its original decision to halt manual recounts in Florida "a ruling made in haste," voted unanimously on Wednesday in favor of the 2000 Democratic nominee.

Gore will serve as commander in chief from Dec. 10 to Jan. 20.

"Allowing this flaw in judgment to stand would set an unworkable precedent for future elections and cause irreparable harm to the impartiality of this court," said Chief Justice John G. Roberts in his majority opinion. "Furthermore, let me be the first to personally congratulate President Gore on his remarkable come-from-behind victory. May he guide us wisely into this new millennium."

Added Roberts, "The system works."

Water Berries

Australians say Christmas belongs around summer, not winter solstice

SYDNEY , Dec. 9 (UPI) -- An Australian astronomer says the Christmas star that led the three Wise Men to Jesus appeared in June, not December.

Dave Reneke, former chief lecturer at the Port Macquarie Observatory in New South Wales who now is news editor of Sky and Space magazine, said complex computer software was used to map the night sky as it would have appeared over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.The research pinpoints the date of Christ's birth as June 17 rather than Dec. 25, The Times of London reported Tuesday.

"Venus and Jupiter became very close in the the year 2 B.C. and they would have appeared to be one bright beacon of light," he said. "We are not saying this was definitely the Christmas star -- but it is the strongest explanation for it of any I have seen so far."

Probably we should wait for the equatorial astronomers weigh in on this one.

Common Descent of All World Nukes

All nuclear explosives owe their origins to know-how and materials passed down from the multinational effort that was the Manhattan Project, according to two new books reviewed in Tuesday's Science Times section of the NY Times. William J Broad relates a few of the eye-widening tidbits that the authors reveal about how the current distribution of nuclear technology came to pass, and about who and what really ought to worry you. A.Q. Khan? The man's a "used-car dealer"--clients of his will be lucky to make it around the block with what he gives them. Former Soviet scientists? No wanderlust. Wait until you hear about the Afrikaners. But have you been kept awake by the likelihood of some Boy Scout in Yemen working out how to make an H-bomb from materials at hand? For you this looks to be soothing reading.

Remember H.M.

In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation...only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed.

...

For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend...it was as if for the first time.

And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science.

- NY Times

Life Photos

Photo: Bernard Hoffman, 1948

Very cool images from Life Magazine now online, courtesy of Google. WFMU links.

Nigeria and India

(Via Blattman) Kate Cronin-Furman notes that local conflict in Nigeria killed 400 people last week, and nobody in the West noticed.

...preliminary election results in Plateau State, Nigeria led to clashes on Friday between Muslim and Christian communities in and around the provincial capital, Jos. The city sits in Nigeria's "middle belt" at the point of contact between the Muslim north and the Christian / animist south. It had apparently been doing a good job living up to its nickname "the Home of Peace of Tourism" for the last few years, following riots in 2001 during which over 1000 people were killed. (Guess they'll have to reset the "Jos: 2630 days without religious violence" counter...)

Last week's rioting began after rumors spread that the largely Christian-backed People's Democratic Party had defeated the Muslim-supported All Nigeria People's Party in state elections. Several hundred people, some of whom were probably even the parents of young children, were killed and several thousand were displaced in the ensuing violence.

The gangs also burned down homes, schools, and religious buildings, demonstrating once again the universal truth that angry mobs - no matter their race, religion, or creed - love to set shit on fire. Isn't it nice to know that deep down we ARE all the same?

The Magic of Money

Chris Blattman and commenters discuss why some African countries do not accept US currency from certain dates (and certain denominations). It's actually a bit of a mystery, and an interesting one since it seems to be partially a matter of rumors hypostatized in the form of bills. That's pretty much what we do with money anyway, as Marx pointed out, lending profound social significance to what is essentially paper or metal with some images and numbers on them.

How far is Pune from Mumbai?

Our household is preparing for a move next year to Pune, India -- in Maharashtra state, about 90 miles from Mumbai (I'm working on the Hindi for "barba de chiva"). Naturally, we've talked to many friends, family members, and colleagues about the Mumbai attacks last week. That many of them knew that the lady de chiva had been at the Taj Palace -- albeit not as a guest -- just a week or so before the attacks only added to their concern. I keep answering the same questions: aren't you afraid, now? Don't you all regret the decision to move to India? No, no.

But above all, people have repeatedly asked -- and people I love and respect, so I mean no criticism in making a trope of the question -- "How far is Pune from Mumbai?" It's about 90 miles, a three-to-four-hour drive, I say. I say "four hour drive," making it clear that an inflatable dinghy probably wouldn't quite cut it. But that question -- how far will you be from the site of these attacks -- doesn't fit the problem. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I've been reading the excellent recent translation of War and Peace, but the "how far" hasn't been the right question for a long time. I mean, it mattered how far Smolensk was from Moscow. Such things mattered to so many people for so long that the question probably comes to us from some Jungian depth. But a small group of trained attackers exploiting security holes one could find practically anywhere in the world is not an invading army. Mumbai is not itself a hot zone of ethnic or religious conflict; it's pretty much the opposite of that. It's just a great big city on the edge of a great big country.

So, over the past few days, what I have been saying is that what matters, what we're watching closely as we pack our things, is how India decides to address what happened: clearly, the attackers and their sponsors dislike the growing cooperation and commitment to dialogue between India and Pakistan. Will this attack derail that? Worse still, will it manage to provoke India into a state vs. state response against Pakistan? Can the Congress Party avoid taking "a tough stance" in the face of BJP criticism with elections approaching? Can India prove that it knows -- unlike the Bush administration -- that this is the twenty first century? These are the questions I'm preoccupied with now.

So I was pleased when a friend this morning passed along a link to the Juan Cole piece in Outlook India, as he, as usual, gets quickly to the heart of the matter:

The Bush administration took its eye off al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and instead put most of its resources into confronting Iraq. But Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Eventually this American fickleness allowed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup.

Likewise, India should not allow itself to be distracted by implausible conspiracy theories about high Pakistani officials wanting to destroy the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. (Does that even make any sense?) Focusing on a conventional state threat alone will leave the country unprepared to meet further asymmetrical, guerrilla-style attacks.

Now I'm worried by the obvious: Juan Cole and many others made these same points after 9/11. Will India hear them?

Salak

Interesting...

Sorry about the lapse in posting. These are an unusually busy couple of months. Here are a few things I've been meaning to post. Some are a bit old in blog years, but they're all worth a peek.

• Obama's plans for probing Bush torture
• Last Secrets of the Bush Administration
• An Inside Look at Islamic Militants
• Are Pirates the Problem of the Solution?
• The Live Piracy Map (extra cool)
  
• No Nukes as a Renewed Policy Idea
• Bracing for Environmental "Midnight Rules" from Bush
• Can Democracies Deal with Climate Change?
• My friend Oscar Reyes on the recent regional and local elections in Venezuela