Wednesday, April 13, 2005
My first thought on reading about this study was "More of our tax dollars at work!"
But then when I started reading about it, I got intrigued. Especially with the map at right (click for a larger view). Of course I was immediately curious about what the "other" responses were. They're all listed; my favorite was "bellywasher"
Read the whole study (it's very short) to learn more than you ever wanted to know on the topic...
Chrenkoff, as usual, has an interesting and thought-provoking post on the younger generation of Russians yearning for the days when Russia was a super-power:
For over seven decades - most of the twentieth century - the Soviet Union was variously respected, feared, hated and admired around the world. She was an integral part of the international system; what Moscow thought and did really mattered. Contrast it with the sorry state today: Russia is still beset by a myriad of problems like she was under communism but without any grandiose consolations: instead she's either ridiculed or ignored by the outside world. No one looks to Russia for inspiration and hardly anyone fears her. It doesn't matter anymore what Kremlin thinks about the liberation of Iraq or some other issue of international importance; the former satellites, meanwhile, peel away one by one, choosing a different, Westernized future.
The young generation, of course, has no personal memories of the "good old days", but they know that it did not used to be like it is today. It's humiliating, because no one likes to be a part of the losing team.
As many of you know, I work with engineering teams in Tallinn, Estonia and in St. Petersburg, Russia. Almost all of the folks I work with are ethnic Russians. Some are old enough to remember Soviet times personally, but many are not. Of those who will talk to me freely about such things, the St. Petersburg Russians overwhelmingly have opinions and mindsets much as Chrenkoff describes: they are patriotic, a bit in denial about the current state of Russia (which, to be fair to them, may simply be a reflection of the fact that in general they haven't had much exposure to the world outside Russia)), they support Putin, and they are bitter about the imbalance of power between Russia and the world, most especially the U.S.
For some reason this is a less predominant attitude amongst the ethnic Russians I know in Estonia. Some of the Russians I know there, especially the younger ones, have much different mindsets. Even more especially, the Russian Jews I know who are from Estonia have much more pro-Western, pro-U.S. positions. I'm not at all sure why this is so; it may just be more and longer exposure to the West has 'corrupted' them (as some of my Russian friends would have it)...
Stumbled across this page just this morning, and what a pleasant surprise. Tastier even, for some reason, for the fact that it came from a local paper. Can't get much different than the San Diego Union-Tribute! Hat's off to these fine reporters and photographers.
Whatever you do, don't miss the audio slideshow on the page above. Simply outstanding!
A taste of the article:
It was their day.
At the polling stations — mostly schools that the Marines had rebuilt and painted bright green and blue against the city's dingy beige — volunteer Iraqi election workers guided voters through paces most had only dreamed about.
"This is a new birth for Iraqis," said Najaf resident Kasim Kadum Saagban, 45, after workers helped him and his wife vote in the bullet-ridden Medina section of the Old City.
Just a few blocks away stood the revered Imam Ali Mosque, which was the epicenter of a fierce battle between Marines and local militia just six months before. In the interlude, the Marines and locals had joined hands to start rebuilding damaged quarters of the city, paid thousands of residents injured in the fighting, and were holding together a fragile working peace that allowed the elections to happen without bloodshed.
With his forearm taut and sure, Saaban proudly held up his finger, stained with purple ink, in a pose that has become synonymous with the election.
"Iraq is changed forever," he said, eyes wide and voice shaking with intensity.
But despite such euphoria and confidence, Najaf's rise from a city mired in violence to an emerging beacon of peace could still be as fragile as a house of cards.
"If we're not careful," warned Col. Anthony Haslam, the Marines' top commander, "it can all go away, just like that."
'America doesn't get to see this side'
In Najaf, where the Marines seemed to have more friends than enemies, the calm on election day and stability in the days that followed signaled a victory of sorts. The 2,200 Camp Pendleton Marines stationed in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf could say they were leaving Najaf better than they found it.
After two other assignments covering the Marines in Iraq — first during the 2003 invasion two years ago and then again during the first siege of Fallujah last spring — no experience was as surprising as our third and most recent trip to Najaf and its surrounding region, where the American effort seemed to be working.
Arriving in Najaf in mid-January, North County Times photographer Hayne Palmour and I found a city marked more by peace, cooperation and bustling reconstruction than by war.
While a bloody, pivotal battle in August left parts of the city in ruins and many residents maimed or killed, the Marines' legacy in Najaf also included dozens of new schools, a functioning local government, and enough local police that the governor generally asked the American troops to stay out of sight.
"It's funny that America doesn't get to see this side," said one young Marine lieutenant when a group of Iraqi men waved and cheered at his patrol of Marine Humvees passing a cafe along the banks of the jade-colored Euphrates River.
The progress in Najaf could be an anomaly, one that will be difficult or impossible to duplicate in other regions of the country. Or it could be a good example of what could happen in Iraq when the enemy fades, and when peace presents a new set of challenges and opportunities.
As the power base for the Shiite coalition that will dominate the new government and write Iraq's next constitution and as a relative success story for the U.S. occupation, all eyes are on Najaf to see if the peaceful gains the Marines and local residents made there will hold.
"That's key terrain down there," Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Baghdad, told the Army commanders who replaced the Marines there in February.
"Don't lose it," he said.
The question isn't actually about cannibalism, it's about moral absolutes vs. the notion that any behavior that causes no harm to others is ok. This moral issue was raised by the recent case in Germany of a man who advertised on the Internet for someone who wanted to be eaten, and had a victim volunteer.
Moral question: is cannibalism wrong if it is the desire of both the eater and the eaten?
Roger Kimball of Armavirumque answers:
So, was Herr Meiwes within his rights when he made a meal of his new friend? If Mill was right that "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection," then I think we have to pass Herr Meiwes the salt and pepper and wish him bon appetit.
But was Mill right? In this latitudinarian age it is tantamount to heresy to suggest otherwise, but I believe that the sorry spectacle of Meiwes sautéing bits of Herr Brandes shows that, yes, Mill's "one very simple principle" was not merely simplistic but wrong, indeed preposterous.
It is not without irony that Mill's libertarian doctrine, which demands that we free ourselves from prejudice and convention, should have become enshrined as the dominant moral prejudice of the age. It is simply taken for granted these days that one "has a right" to do whatever one wants so long as one doesn't harm others.
Read the whole thing; it's a bit of a long slog for a blog post, but worth it for the thought-provoking questions. I don't have any certainty myself on this question. The problem I keep bumping into this that if you concede there are moral absolutes ("moral facts", as Mr. Kimball puts them), then someone has to decide what those moral absolutes are. And every attempt I know of to set moral absolutes has resulted in disaster of one kind or another. And yet, as Mr. Kimball illustrates, there are many reasons to be uncomfortable about a world without moral absolutes. Tough one...
