Right Wing Nut House

Thinking about my poor attitude toward the study of history when I was in high school and college and then realizing how much I love the subject today, I marvel at the fact that it was a handful of books on the subject that caused me to change my mind and make the independent study of American history my most consistent avocation during the last 30 years.

Without a doubt, the one historian who opened my mind to the fascinating and sometimes maddening examination of America’s past more than any other was Bruce Catton. His trilogy of the Union’s Army of the Potomac culminating in the 1954 Pulitzer Prize winning A Stillness at Appomattox along with his other great trilogy A Centennial History of the Civil War (called the best short history of the Civil War ever written), displayed not only a careful and considered historian’s eye for important details but a writing style that brought history to life in a way that few historians have been able to do before or since.

One reviewer wrote ” If every historian wrote like Bruce Catton, no one would read fiction” - a sentiment that I agree with wholeheartedly. The man who succeeded him as editor of American Heritage magazine Oliver Jensen wrote of Catton, “There is a near-magic power of imagination in Catton’s work that seemed to project him physically into the battlefields, along the dusty roads and to the campfires of another age.”

And that is what drove my interest in history; this almost surreal ability of some historians to take the reader back in time, to bring to life long dead and forgotten heroes and not only show you how they lived but actually place the reader in the shoes of the giants in order to get a feel for why they made the decisions they did. If nothing else, good history is not the study of when or how or what; the best histories answer the question why and allows the reader then to draw their own conclusions about the characters and their times.

The fact that narrative histories like Catton’s are frowned on by the Academy largely because they are sometimes poorly or incompletely sourced as well as failing to illuminate history in a scholarly manner (most academic historians not favoring such a linear approach to the study of history) does nothing to lessen my enjoyment in reading them. And while I respect the academics for their tireless and learned contributions to our national narrative, I believe that at bottom, there is much to be said for viewing history as a storytelling experience. It makes America’s past seem more accessible, more available to we, the consumers of knowledge.

I’m sure each of us has their favorite historians. There are so many good ones (with both left and right “takes” on America’s past) that any list I attempt to compile here would be incomplete. But for myself, the inheritor of Bruce Catton’s mantle of favorite narrative historian has to go to David Hackett Fischer.

Fischer’s books on early America are brilliantly written labors of love. It is clear that Professor Fischer has a deep and abiding respect for our ancestors whose toil and sacrifice made the United States what it is today. Two of his books had a profound affect on me: Paul Revere’s Ride (1994) and Washington’s Crossing (2004), the latter winning the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for history.

I believe what Bruce Catton was as an historian to the Civil War, Fischer is to early America. With a prose style that is achingly beautiful and a storyteller’s ear for gleaning what would be of most interest to his audience, Fischer has an uncanny ability to draw the reader into the story so that at times, you feel as if you were either a fly on the wall (such as when Washington was holding one of his councils of war with his officers) or, in the case of Revere, riding on the back of his horse as he rode through the night sounding his immortal alarm.

In the March, 2006 on-line edition of The American Enterprise - the monthly publication of The American Enterprise Institute - TAE interviews the historian about a variety of subjects including, how growing up in Baltimore colored his appreciation of history:

A lot of history had happened around Baltimore. I had an aunt who was blind and in her 90s. She told a story to my cousins and my brother and me—it was a big sprawling family—about a July day when from her home on a farm north of Baltimore there was a sound like the wind in the trees. She went outside and there was no wind. She looked up the road and saw a line of wagons as far as she could see. They were the wounded from Gettysburg.

That was told to us when we were very small, and I think that’s the recipe for making a historian. It was the immediacy of those events—the sense that they were happening to us in some way.

Indeed, Catton tells a similar tale of what ignited his passion for history. Being much older (the historian was born in 1899), Catton can recall sitting in front of the general store of his rural Michigan home town and listening to the old veterans of the Civil War talk about their adventures. His quest to tell their story also brings to mind the labors of Stephen Ambrose whose series of books on the men who fought World War II were written with those aging veterans in mind.

Fischer pulls no punches regarding his disdain for some historians on the left who have taken to “moralizing” about America’s past:

I quoted in that book a British historian who said that what British readers want to know about Napoleon is whether he was a good or a bad man. People want that sort of simple answer to a complex question. These people you speak of were very complicated, and we are increasingly getting simple answers to complex judgments of people in the past.

Professor Fischer sees this attitude changing:

Yes, things are changing very rapidly in academe. I think it was partly a generational phenomenon. The generation that came of age in the 1960s is now approaching retirement in the universities, and their children and grandchildren are very different in the way they think about the world. The excesses of these movements always build in their own corrections.

Fischer speaks to the question of the changing nature of how we are looking at America’s founding:

During the 1970s and ’80s, the history sections moved to the back of the bookstore, and other disciplines in the universities cultivated non-historical or even anti-historical ways of thinking: They looked for timeless abstractions in the social sciences, or theoretical models in economics that transcended era and place. Then in the ’90s a sudden change appeared. Econometric history began to flourish. We got new historical movements in literature departments. My colleagues in literature are increasingly writing historically about their subjects. In philosophy, the history of ideas is what’s growing. The most rapidly expanding field in political science is called Politics in History.

I scratch my head about this. Why is it happening? Did people suddenly discover that history was happening to them, via the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or was it a revulsion against those timeless abstractions, those models like Marx and Freud, that didn’t seem to work very well as the world changed? Whatever it was, it’s a thought revolution of profound importance.

Then there’s the special case of the popularity of the Revolution and the early Republic. We’ve been through other periods of popularity of certain fields: World War II in the 1990s and the Civil War in the 1960s. They were driven by anniversaries. The Revolution and early Republic booms are not anniversary-connected.

In the interview, Fischer also reveals several aspects of his personal politics as well as some fascinating thoughts on America today as it relates to America of 300 years ago.

I have yet to read Professor Fischer’s newest effort Liberty and Freedom which deals with those concepts and what they’ve meant to America since her founding. If it is anything like his other works I’ve read, I’m sure to look forward to a few sleepless nights as I take another journey with a master storyteller whose writing whisks us back in time so that we can live the lives of our ancestors and see the world through their eyes.

Even a casual visitor to this site knows how much I love films. While I have an affinity for older films (pre 1960) there is much to be said for movies from every era, every genre.

I’m not much for romantic films although a good mystery/romance like Bogart’s The Big Sleep are among the best films ever made. And I enjoy a good comedy now and again if the script is good and the story interesting. I usually find that the director of a comedy is as important if not more so than the actors. A George Cukor or Ivan Reitman can make me laugh almost anytime.

But I love action films. And sci-fi as long as it has decent FX. But any horror film made after Alfred Hitchcock died is a waste of time as far as I’m concerned (with 3 or 4 notable exceptions). In short, I would rather watch a movie than almost anything else. Exceptions to the rule include the White Sox and My Beloved Bears. Beyond that, I have yet to see a complete episode of Seinfeld, or Friends, or Everyone Loves Raymond or any other sit-com since M*A*S*H* went off the air. And the number of dramatic series I’ve watched could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The point is Zsu-Zsu and I are getting antsy. It is becoming harder and harder to find a recently released movie to watch that we haven’t seen already. In desperation, we hit the video store the other night and rented 5 films; only one of them a new release (The Legend of Zorro) and the other four movies from the 1970’s-90’s. With the Comcast On Demand option (and the Digital Platinum package that gives us 50+ movie channels) we have rarely had to go to Blockbuster for movies to satisfy us both. In fact, since we get almost all non-new release movies for free, we rarely need to shell out extra money to feed our addiction.

And that’s what has me worried. In the last two years, we have been to the video store a total of 4 times. In addition, I found it much too easy to count up the number of films we were willing to shell out $3.99 to watch on a pay-per-view basis instead of waiting until it came to one of our subscription movie channels. There were exactly 7 films since April of 2004 that we’ve paid to see outside of our subscribed movie networks.

The problem is that I can remember in years past renting 7 new releases in a month. It is not a stretch to say that something has happened in Hollywood that has affected both the quality and quantity of films. Forget the dearth of family films or Hollywood’s left wing slant. The sad fact is that the product that Hollywood is putting on the street just plain sucks. And the reason has less to do with money and more to do with a lack of dedication to the art of moviemaking.

Films are different than any other art form because making them is an artistic “process” rather than a singular burst of creative energy. There are so many layers of production on a Hollywood movie as to almost defy belief. It takes literally thousands of talented people to take the raw film and turn it into the polished, finished product we see in theaters or on DVD. There are several different edits that must be performed. There’s sound of course and music but there are other aspects of sound production not readily recognizable that fill in the background of the film and in many ways give it extra richness and heft.

Even the simplest films have FX of some kind today. And then there’s continuity edits to make sure there are no jarring anomalies that take us out of the world created by the film makers. And then there’s all the pre-production work such as script writing (which has always resembled mud wrestling as the director, producer, and writer clash on what works and what doesn’t), production designers, lighting, props, set construction, and on and on.

This army has always been a part of moviemaking. But the process itself was usually controlled by someone with either the good sense to get out of a talented director’s way or someone who really knew the artistic side of moviemaking. This was the producer, someone who had a finger in all the production pies and who was intimately familiar with the project and the director’s overall vision of what the finished product would look like.

The problem today is that Hollywood in many respects is a victim of its own success. The public demand for bigger, better, faster translates into ruinously expensive projects that cost more than the gross domestic products of some countries. No studio is going to give that kind of money to anyone without having a hand in the production. This is why so many “blockbusters” turn out instead to be simply “busters.” The interference of studio bean counters in the creative process has ruined the big budget film (Spielberg and LOTR director Peter Jackson are big enough they can make their own turkeys with very little help).

But what about the smaller films?

First, there aren’t as many of them. And even “small” films can cost around $80 million dollars to make and promote. For example, the comedy Cheaper By the Dozen released in late 2003 cost $70 million dollars to produce and promote. While it was a hit, making $190 million at the box office, the fact is most films of that size are flops, grossing less than $50 million.

And when we talk about losing twenty or thirty million dollars, we’re not talking about government money. Twenty million means almost as much to a studio as it does to you and me.

It isn’t just fewer movies coming out. It’s the kind of movies that are produced today. Have you noticed how many movies are sequels, or remakes of successful films in the past? And can you believe all the movies they’ve been making out of comic book characters and old TV shows?

Films are no longer as much a creative endeavor as they are a way to separate you from your money in return for 2 hours of boredom killing. Guess who gets the raw end of that deal. While we make fun of a movie like Brokeback Mountain there are people like me who can’t wait to see it for the simple reason that it’s different! The formulaic way in which Hollywood approaches movie making today is so tiresome that they are losing avid film buffs like me who refuse to spend money on either horrid remakes of good films or movies about TV shows that I never watched when they were on in the first place.

The anti-Americanism of an Oliver Stone or a Sean Penn also makes it difficult for people to connect with films. Clooney’s Syriana may very well be a good film despite it’s anti-Bush take. But Americans generally are so sick of the left’s attempt to smear our motives and efforts that getting past the blatantly anti-government tone in these films becomes impossible. It’s not that Hollywood generally hates America so much as it hates the movie-going public. It’s arrogance and snobbishness about middle America and its values and beliefs is on display in so many movies that people would rather stay at home and watch re-runs of apolitical sit coms than spend $6 being preached to about how stupid they are.

I will not be watching the Oscars this year. I have no desire to watch people congratulating themselves for ruining an industry that used to be known as “The Dream Factory.”

Now, it’s just a factory. And the products it’s turning out are unsafe, smelly, and bad for your health.

One of my favorite movies is The Caine Mutiny which stars Humphrey Bogart as the Captain of a World War II destroyer whose maniacal obsession with Navy regulations as well as a strange, disquieting habit of rolling three ball bearings around and around in his hand whenever he was under pressure earned Bogey an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (losing that year to Brando’s On the Waterfront).

The film is well worth seeing if only to enjoy Fred McMurray’s performance as the spineless heel who first advocates mutiny against the tyrannical Captain Queeg but in the end, fails to back up the mutineers at the trial. And the hugely underrated Jose Ferrer (see his Cyrano de Bergerac for proof) as the defense attorney, whose cross examination of the Captain is at once both devastating and sad, also makes viewing the film a must see.

A major point in the film that reveals Captain Queeg’s mental imbalance occurs when he begins a ship-wide search for some strawberries that have gone “missing.” Queeg is reliving what he considers one of his career highlights when, as a junior officer, he led a successful search for some missing cheese. The hunt for the strawberries takes on a surreal quality as the ship is turned upside down in an effort to find the fruit that, we are eventually told, was eaten by two mess mates who are terrified of Queeg’s wrath.

Queeg never finds the strawberries. But reading the reports in the MSM over the last two days about the “new” information contained in the Katrina tapes, I am happy to say that the media has taken up Captain Queeg’s quest and has indeed, solved the mystery of the missing strawberries; they were in the White House all along:

Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.

The release of a pre-storm video showing officials warning Bush during a conference call that the hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast posed a dire threat to the city and its levees has revived a dispute the White House had hoped to put behind it: Was the president misinformed, misspoken or misleading?

The video leaves little doubt that key people in government did anticipate that the levees might not hold. To critics, especially Democrats but even some Republicans, it reinforces the conclusion that the government at its highest levels failed to respond aggressively enough to the danger bearing down on New Orleans. To Bush aides, the seeming conflict between Bush’s public statements and the private deliberations captured on tape reflects little more than an inartful statement opponents are exploiting for political purposes.

The metaphor of the missing strawberries is apt for more than just the obvious reason that this is the biggest non-story of the year to date. As I mentioned yesterday, both the substance and thrust of these pre-Katrina meetings had been widely disseminated months ago. The real Queeg-like comparison is a raging triumphalism regarding what the left sees as another chance to accomplish what the first go around with the strawberries/federal Katrina response failed to do; outrage the American public.

Ginning up public disgust with the Bush Administration has been a hard slog for the media. They have evinced so much desperation in trying to manipulate public perceptions of the President they have gone so far as to try and make an impeachable offense out of giving a Republican shill, who masqueraded as a gay prostitute by night, press room credentials so that he could toss softball questions at Press Secretary McClellan. The Gannon-Guckert “scandal” showed how far the left was willing to go to find those elusive strawberries.

Other strawberry hunting excursions included the Downing Street memos (no missing fruit in England), Bush “lied” about WMD (strawberries don’t grow in the desert), we could have prevented the attacks on 9/11 (New York strawberries are too expensive), and we “outsourced” the capture of Osama (no good trying to compare strawberries with blueberries). There have been a half a dozen more efforts to pin the theft of the strawberries on Bush, each one more laughable than the next. In the end, the public has been troubled by Bush but have yet to abandon him entirely. Recent polls have been all over the lot (thanks to some incredibly strange methodology) which usually reveals a volatility in public perceptions which go up and down according to the news of the day.

This is why the Katrina response has been resurrected at this time. Apparently, most of the tapes now being shown were in the film vaults of the news nets all along. Howard Kurtz:

In fact, we’ve already had transcripts of the meeting, so all this did was provide television with some much-needed pictures. (In fact, all the networks had the FEMA video in their archives but didn’t realize the news value.)

NBC’s Lisa Myers yesterday obtained a videotape of another meeting in which Brownie–who’s been blaming just about everything on the White House and Chertoff–said Bush was “really engaged” and “asking a lot of good questions.” On that tape, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco reports that the New Orleans levees had not been breached.

If the nets had the FEMA video all along, why make a big issue of it now? Sometimes you have to trod over old ground when searching for missing strawberries lest they escape down the rabbit hole.

That triumphalism mentioned above finds no better voice than in the impeachment rants of leftist dreamers. This comment was left on my Katrina post yesterday:

On and on goes the great liar, not to be confused with the great communicator, daily deceiving the lemmings in the republican party who are in for a very rude awakening this November. He will thankfully be removed from office next year along with the other members of the cabal of evil. Oh what a glorious day that will be.

Sounds like Captain Queeg is alive and well.

An abbreviated Carnival this week thanks to my laziness and and general blog ennui which has gotten in the way of promoting the event properly. For that, I apologize to my regular submitters. Also, it would probably help if I got back to a set day for the Carnival and then stick to it. However, this would necessitate a level of ambition and energy that, at the moment, is lacking. In short, I’ve developed a simple formula for my life as it is right now; if it gets in the way of nappy time, faggettabouit!

Since I’ve already nominated myself once for Cluebat of the Week, doing so again would prove the old adage “trying too hard for a laugh” although goodness knows I deserve it. And surprisingly, the list of usual cluebats who could be counted on for some total outrageousness were busy doing other things this week. This proves that the Hall of Famers now have to work extra hard to get noticed by our sharp-eyed cadre of bloggers who scour the internet to bring you the best of the worst in clueless behavior.

While we generally frown on group awards for the Carnival, this week we’ll make an exception in awarding the coveted Cluebat of the Week to the Mainstream Press. Glenn Reyonolds wrote today “Katrina taught the media that if they all swarmed Bush at once they could do harm even if — as turned out to be the case — much of what they reported was outright false.” Truer words have rarely been uttered by the Blogfadda. It’s the worst I’ve seen since Nixon. Within the past week, we’ve seen the MSM wrap up their coverage of one of the biggest non-events in American history with the story of Dick Cheney’s hunting accident trailing off into nothingness (a sure sign there was nothing there in the first place.) No grand wrap ups. No penetrating think pieces on “What it all Means.” The press simply stopped, almost as if on cue, in covering a story they couldn’t get enough of for two weeks.

Then there was the Iraq Civil War that wasn’t. Clearly there was serious sectarian violence following the destruction of the Samarra Shrine. But the breathless reporting from the media - very little of it first hand and, as I pointed out here, some of it surely driven by al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda cadres fanning out and spreading rumors - was so over the top as to approach the comedic. On the very day that most of the authorities in Iraq declared the worst of the violence over and lifted the curfew, a New York Times editorial warned of the probability of civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims. There appeared to be a concerted effort to make the event Bush’s “Tet Offensive” which refers to the slaughter of Viet Cong irregulars during the 1968 Vietnamese New Year attacks on every province in the South. The American army dealt the Cong a blow from which it never recovered but the media twisted it into a defeat. It appeared something similar was happening with the destruction of the Shrine.

Then, if you woke up and looked at what the number one story in the MSM was today you could be forgiven if you believed you had fallen asleep last September and failed to arise until this morning because the story was exactly the same. Bush was briefed about the severity of Katrina prior to landfall. We knew this. The response by the federal government was slow and ineffective. We knew this. Bush was told the levees would probably be overtopped causing massive flooding. We knew this. Bush said on September 1, two days after the hurricane, that no one expected the levees to be breached. We knew this. There is a difference between “overtopping” and “breaching” a levee. We knew this.

The only “news” about every single aspect of this story is that it was caught on tape. That, plus the media obviously didn’t think the American people were sufficiently outraged at the time they first reported all of this. So by treating this as positively new information, the media believes they can get additional mileage out of the destruction of a major American city by an Act of God. As I said today, no word on similar briefings given even earlier to the disaster tag team of Blanco-Nagin by the same Director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Mayfield who begged them to evacuate New Orleans on Saturday.

With Bush’s poll numbers plummeting - even among Republicans - it is pretty clear that the media smells blood in the water and will, from here until the mid terms, make it their personal quest to see that Democrats take over the Congress so that the expected impeachment hearings against the President can start almost immediately.

For this surreal kind of cluelessness, the MSM is the winner of the Carnival’s Cluebat of the Week. Check out the rest of the entries for our usual jaw dropping idiocy brought to you by some of the best and brightest on the web. Ladies and Gentlemen: Start your Clicking!

“Stupidity is without anxiety.”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Yo Johann! Does that mean all those Hollywood liberals aren’t sweating the Oscars?
(Me)

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Fausta has the latest from Hugo Chavez who is so clueless that if he didn’t exist as the perfect Castro clone, someone would have to invent him. Check out the formerly bad hair one’s new digs - looks very nice and not a split end to be found.

Fred Fry gives us an interesting lesson in port etiquette, pointing out it is impolite to diss the UAE while we have the Saudis guest hosting ports out west. My beef over this always had much less to do with security and much more to do with the pinheads in the White House who dumped this on the party, the Congress, and the American people causing needless damage to their political street cred.

Our favorite hippie chick Peace Moonbeam had an interesting dinner date with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. I don’t want to give anything away but what happened after the lights went out was reminiscent of some scenes from Brokeback Mountain. Read it all for some out loud laughs.

On a much more serious note, Cao of Cao’s Blog is one of the only people on the web who covered the Afghan prison riots. Cluelessness abounds here from the Afghan authorities all the way to the US State Department. This is the first installment. Here’s the second update. And here’s the an interview with American patriot Jack Idema being held in the prison and under constant threat of death.

The Finnish Canadian blogger at Sixteen Volts has a fascinating post looking at past newstories to glean perspective on the present.

Jack Cluth has a picture of the world’s fattest cat and it’s clueless slave who apparently doesn’t realize that the obese feline will probably die before its time.

The much more svelte and smarter cat Ferdy sends us this piece about my home state governor whose name no one can pronounce and whose ideas about how to create jobs no one can fathom.

The lovely Pamela takes us to the surreal Islamic paradise of Iran where executions are carried out by the fine art of hanging.

Kender is rappin’ some ‘toons and jivin’ the MSM for their cowardly lion act regarding the publishing of the Mohamed-ahmed-ding-dongs.

Beth takes apart another blogger who shall remain nameless since she apparently has the litigation bug if you cross her. Well…Beth crosses her. And slices her. And dices her. And puts her in a blender and makes a Pina Colada out of her. Classic takedown of the clueless.

Josh Cohen has been eating at Taco Bell for ten years (and he’s still alive?). The kind of cluelessness he found at the drive through should make all of us check our orders before we drive away.

Adam wonders what the Democrats are complaining about in the statehouse in Idaho. They whine about being “bullied” by Republicans - who control a whopping 80% of the seats. Maybe they should be complaining about being too closely identified with Hillary Clinton.

Those Pixie-like Pachyderms from Elephants in Academia are tiptoeing through Kofi Anans disastrous Sudan leadership that has failed miserably in the Security Council. Get. A. Clue.

DL at Bacon Bits has an eyebrow raiser about the effect of trees on the environment and how that seems to have thrown a monkey wrench into the plans of the eco-theists (tree huggers).

Pat Curley, who has been all over the comparison between donations made to Republicans and Democrats to sleazeball Abramoff (to the point that he got a nice mention in NRO) has some more Democratic cluelessness on the issue.

Orac has the jaw dropper of the day: FLASH! From Iran, we get the news that the lovable cartoon characters of Tom and Jerry are not the innocent, fun loving cat and mouse we’ve always been led to believe. Instead, they are a dark, menacing plot of the Joooos.

Mark Coffey does an admirable job taking down one of the “rising stars of the lefty blogosphere” (Hotline Blogometer) Glenn Greenwald’s whose shallow, incoherent screeds against Bush and the Republicans have become easy targets of late.

Bill Teach has more on the ports imbroglio with “Republicans Gone Wild.” There may be nothing more nauseating than clueless politicians pontificating on stuff they know absolutely nothing about.

What’s going on in Canada? If you ask Wonder Woman, not much that is good. She points us to this frightening story of someone being denied medical care in Quebec because they couldn’t speak French.

This was to be expected:

Some of the most notable missions on NASA’s scientific agenda would be postponed indefinitely or canceled under the agency’s new budget, despite its administrator’s vow to Congress six months ago that not “one thin dime” would be taken from space science to pay for President Bush’s plan to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

The cuts come to $3 billion over the next five years, even as NASA’s overall spending grows by 3.2 percent this year, to $16.8 billion. They come against a backdrop of criticism over efforts by White House appointees to mute public statements by NASA’s climate scientists.

Among the casualties of the budget cuts are attempts to look for habitable planets and perhaps life elsewhere in the galaxy, an investigation of the dark energy that seems to be ripping the universe apart, bringing a sample of Mars back home to Earth, and exploring for life under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa — as well as numerous smaller programs and individual research projects that astronomers say are the wellsprings of new science and new scientists.

Ever since the Bush Administration charged the space agency with getting back to the moon by 2020, scientists have been waiting for the other budget shoe to drop. While going to the moon and establishing some kind of permanent presence there is a noble goal, if we’re not willing to fund other, equally ambitious unmanned projects, NASA’s reason for being in existence in the first place evaporates.

It used to be that major breakthroughs in science could be accomplished by the lone researcher, plodding away for years in his basement lab using makeshift tools with only his brain and the powers of reason that God gave him as his guide. His “funding” would come from rich friends or perhaps the researcher himself was independently wealthy.

Even the spectacular breakthroughs in uncovering the secrets of the atom by Ernest Rutherford at the beginning of the 20th century were accomplished in an old, drafty manor house in the English countryside with most of his funds coming from private donors and grants from the Royal Society. Rutherford’s secret weapon was the cadre of some of the most brilliant young scientific minds in history who helped him build the first complete atomic model but whose methods of experimentation were remarkably simply and inexpensive.

No more. Today, in order to unlock the secrets of the universe - both the very large and very small - governments must contribute billions of dollars to fund the enormous projects that drive scientific inquiry. The $12 billion dollar fusion reactor called Iter which could produce the long-sought clean energy created by atomic fusion is funded by a consortium of a dozen countries. And the cost of the Webb Space Telescope (replacing the Hubble) has already almost doubled from its original estimate of $2.8 billion to its current bloat of $4.5 billion. Private industry couldn’t possibly come up with this kind of money nor would they want to. These kinds of projects are pure science with little or no immediate commercial value. Only governments can lay out these kind of expenditures.

But by funding the $104 billion dollar Return to the Moon program, NASA is finding that the high profile mission is sucking up precious funds, causing the cancellation or delay of some of the most exciting and worthwhile exploration programs on the boards. The James Webb Space Telescope that would have to be delayed if we go ahead with the moon mission (and necessitate another Shuttle repair mission to the Hubble costing $300 million or more), is being designed to blot out the light from stars with planets circling them so that we would actually be able to see if the extrasolar bodies were capable of sustaining life. And the mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa may have been the most ambitious and interesting space effort in history.

Plans called for an unmanned probe to land on Europa’s surface where many scientists are convinced a vast ocean lies underneath a 1-2 mile icecap. The probe would have released a heat generating, sensor-filled wire extension which could have melted through the ice and explored the ocean underneath to search for possible signs of life.

Other delayed or cancelled missions include a Mars Sampling mission and a cancellation of a plethora of smaller missions that come under the rubric of “The Explorer” program:

Much of the concern among scientists is for the fate of smaller projects like the low-budget spacecraft called Explorers. Designed to provide relatively cheap and fast access to space, they are usually developed and managed by university groups. Dr. Lamb referred to them as “the crown jewels in NASA’s science program.”

In recent years, one such mission, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, produced exquisite baby pictures of the Big Bang, while another, the Swift satellite, has help solve the a 30-year-old mystery, linking distant explosions called gamma-ray bursts to the formation of black holes.

Explorers, Dr. Lamb said, are where graduate students and young professors get their first taste of space science. Until recently about one mission was launched per year, but under the new plan, there will be none at all from 2009 to 2012. In a letter to Dr. Cleave last fall, 16 present and former Explorer scientists said, “Such a lengthy suspension would be a devastating blow to the program and the science community.”

Where do you suppose our scientific leaders are going to come from in the future? Not from the Explorer program.

One would think that NASA would get input from those most affected by these cuts before announcing them. Guess again:

Dr. Griffin and his colleagues, the scientists agree, haves tough choices to make, but the so far, the space scientists complain, the choices have been made in a vacuum, without input from the community most affected, namely them. Last year NASA dismantled a longstanding network of scientific advisory committees, and while a new network of committees is in the works, it is not yet in place.

As a result, Dr. Beichman said, “Scientists feel very much left out of this process. You could have involved the community and said “here’s what we have to do.”

He added, “In the end, even scientists can be responsible.”

If scientists can be responsible, why not the bureaucratic Scrooges at NASA?

There have been some pretty puzzling efforts to skewer the President over the last few years by the media and the left but this most recent campaign using videotape of pre-Katrina discussions (the substance if which has been widely disseminated by both the media and the left previously) is a real head scratcher.

Have they forgotten that they already used the transcripts and reports of other, similar meetings to bash the President once already for exactly the same thing?

No fair getting another bite at the rotten apple. Except, in the surreal world of hate inhabited by both the media and the left, the “news” is whatever they say it is - even if Administration discussions about Katrina preparedness have already been analyzed by dozens of bloggers and newspapers.

If this is so, why try the same thing again? The answer is simple; in their initial haste to make a political issue of the Katrina response, the media and their allies on the left forgot the number one rule of attack journalism; make sure that you can dominate the coverage.

And since their first go-around in September occurred when dead bodies were still floating in the floodwaters and tens of thousands of people were still in need of assistance, the attention of the American people was insufficiently focused on who the left was instructing them to blame.

The pre-Katrina briefing of the President by Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, was revealed within days of the disaster by Mayfield himself. I wonder why Mayfield’s calls to the homes of the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana on Saturday night - two days before the hurricane made landfall - begging them to evacuate the city of New Orleans has somehow not made it into all of these stories today?

I noticed that Mayor Nagin found the video “troubling.” He would. Running for re-election, it is probably best that people not be reminded of his briefings by Director Mayfield prior to the hurricane. Nor should they be reminded of his hesitancy in ordering a mandatory evacuation due to concerns that the city would be sued by hotels and restaurants if the hurricane wasn’t as serious as Director Mayfield had already told him it would be.

But let’s leave the disaster tag team of Blanco-Nagin out of this. What does the Washington Post have to say about this “news:”

Congressional investigators previously released transcripts of the daily meetings, and their substance and other warnings of the danger to New Orleans have been widely reported.

The fresh footage, however, was prominently aired on evening television news broadcasts and threatened to renew public scrutiny of the Bush administration, which issued a report last week containing 125 recommendations to improve U.S. disaster readiness but little focus on the action of senior presidential aides.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said yesterday the footage showed that Bush was heavily engaged while leaving “battlefield” decisions to his commanders.

“The president had multiple conversations, phone calls and briefings both big and small throughout this process, and his whole priority was making sure that the federal assets were brought to bear to help the people of New Orleans,” Duffy said.

The New York Times adds:

The transcript offers new details but does not significantly alter the picture as it has been put together by investigators as to how officials prepared for the hurricane and responded in the first critical days.

The transcript also shows that on that day the same federal and state officials who would soon be trading recriminations were broad in praising one another’s performance.

“Threatened to renew public scrutiny” is, of course, exactly the point of this entire pointless exercise. Besides, everyone knows a picture is worth a thousand words which makes the video something the public can focus on - unlike in the immediate aftermath of the disaster when people’s attention was on the plight of their fellow citizens.

One other curious note about the video. It actually destroys one of the left’s favorite myths about the lead up to the hurricane; that the President was disengaged and more interested in lounging about his ranch on vacation than in helping the people of New Orleans. It shows Bush assuring the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana that the feds would do whatever they could to help:

“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm,” Bush said, gesturing with both hands for emphasis on the digital recording. Neither Bush nor Hagin asked questions, however.

The fact that there were millions of tons of FEMA supplies in a vast semi-circle surrounding the city by Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the hurricane had passed the city shows at the very least that the President was making those remarks in good faith. But the additional fact that horse show impresario Brown and Blanco-Nagin failed to work together - with the somnolent Brown inescapably derelict in urging the feds to take charge - negated anything the President was saying 24 hours prior to the hurricane making landfall.

This is the biggest non-story of the year so far. And given the penchant of the left for repeating news, what do you suppose the next repeat headline will be; “No WMD Found in Iraq?” Or how about “Bush Lied, People Died?”

UPDATE

Interesting information from the Times article:

In the videoconference held at noon on Monday, Aug. 29, Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reported that he had spoken with President Bush twice in the morning and that the president was asking about reports that the levees had been breached.

But asked about the levees by Joe Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said, “We have not breached the levee at this point in time.” She said “that could change” and noted that the floodwaters in some areas in and around New Orleans were 8 to 10 feet deep. Later that night, FEMA notified the White House that the levees had been breached.

The NOTP reports that the first levee breach occurred at around 11:00 AM at 17th and Canal Streets:

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new “hurricane proof” Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.

Horse Show Promoter Brown did not reach the city until around noon so the report direct from the horse’s ass (Blanco) that no levees had been breached is an interesting footnote to an otherwise redundant story.

UPDATE II

John Aravosis has a breathless screed today entitled “New Video Shows Bush was warned levees could breach BEFORE Katrina…”

Only problem is John already reported this story once. Maybe he should read his own blog once and a while…

Saturday, September 03, 2005

And Bush had no idea it would get this bad

Four days before Bush canceled his galavanting vacation, this hit the Weather Service wires Sunday at 5pm Eastern (you can see another version of this release here, it’s just as bad if not worse, compares Katrina to Camille, and this is from Sunday MORNING!):

IMPORTANT UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE

The wheels of justice can grind the victims of crime to powder almost as easily as the criminal. And once they start moving, they can be a fearsome thing to behold.

There is no more emotionally wrenching ordeal for the victim of a crime than having to testify against a criminal who has physically violated them. By being forced to relive the attack, all of the fear and psychic pain caused during the ordeal is brought to the surface and the process of victimization reaches perhaps it zenith as memories of the violation are recounted in excruciating detail.

For the victim of rape, the experience is not only painful, but usually embarrassing as well. We are told by psychiatrists that the rape victim is full of self loathing as well as fear, humiliation, anger, guilt/shame and feelings of degradation and powerlessness. By being forced to relive details of the rape in open court, the woman also is forced to relive the actual event - all the sensations and feelings she experienced during the attack are resurrected in all their horrifying detail.

Is it any wonder that so many rapes go unreported?

But the justice system is based on the Constitution. And the Constitution gives the accused the absolute right to face their accuser. With lawyers taking an oath to do their utmost to defend their client, the adversarial process almost guarantees that the defense in rape cases will seek to “blame the victim” for the attack. There really is little else a defense lawyer can do in many cases. The law has changed over the years so that some things like the victims past sexual history and other factors cannot be brought up during the trial. But that is usually cold comfort to the victim of a rape who must endure the assault of a defense attorney who seeks to make it appear that the attack was in fact consensual sex.

In Illinois, a woman has been told by a judge that she must answer a defense lawyer’s questions while watching a videotape of her own rape or face jail for contempt:

The woman was 16 years old when she allegedly was assaulted and videotaped four years ago at a party in the Burr Ridge home of Adrian Missbrenner, 20. He was one of four men charged in connection with the incident, and his trial on charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and child pornography began Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court in Bridgeview. He faces 6 to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The woman answered questions from prosecution and defense attorneys for about an hour. But when Missbrenner’s attorney, Patrick Campanelli, placed a video monitor in front of her and said he was going to play segments of the 20-minute videotape as he questioned her, she stated emphatically “I don’t want to see it.”

After the judge warned the woman that she was expected to testify Wednesday, Campanelli quickly asked that the criminal case against Missbrenner be dismissed.

“Your honor, my client has a constitutional right to confrontation of a witness,” he said.

Assistant State’s Atty. Michael Deno argued against dismissal. “This witness has testified to every other question, and she has testified that she doesn’t have any recollection or memory of the videotape incident at all,” he said.

The judge has refused to rule on the motion to dismiss until today when he will once again ask the woman to view the tape while the defense attorney peppers her with questions. The defense contends that the sex was consensual despite the fact that she appears to be unconscious during the attack.

Three other men have been charged in connection with the case. One was acquitted, while another pled guilty to making the tape itself and was sentenced to boot camp for child pornography. One other man fled the country and has not returned.

One might question whether it is necessary for the tape to be shown to the woman who has refused to view it in the past. Chicago columnist Eric Zorn points out the obvious:

Defense attorneys argue that the tape impeaches the woman’s account.

And that may be. I certainly haven’t seen it.

But surely it speaks for itself. Surely the jury in the case can compare what they see on the tape to the woman’s testimony and decide for themselves if she consented to having sex.

Surely, surely nothing can justify re-traumatizing — re-victimizing, if you will — this woman on the grounds that the defendant has the right to “confront” his accuser.

She accuses him of nothing during the time the videotape was shot. She says she has no memory of that time whatsoever. If the jury in the Bridgeview courthouse thinks she’s lying when she says she can’t answer questions about it, let them come to that conclusion and rule accordingly.

Zorn downplays the notion that the tape may be exculpatory which could be true. The fact that the defense feels it necessary means that in our system, there would have to be a pretty good reason for the accused to be denied the opportunity to confront the witness with the evidence.

As horrifying as this ordeal is for the woman, this is how the system works (or continues to victimize depending on your point of view). We make it hard to convict someone of rape because of of the possibility that the victim isn’t a victim at all but a spurned lover or a regretful one. Here’s the defense attorney:

Campanelli argued that the sex was consensual.

“One-night stands happen all the time, and in the morning you regret it,” he said, adding that he thinks the witness’ answers to questions while viewing the videotape would “strongly help Adrian’s case.”

[...]

Campanelli said Missbrenner was concerned the girl was going to claim that the sex was not consensual so he gave the tape to the friend to save, if needed, to support his claim.

Reading a newspaper account of this outrages us. We feel for the victim and have nothing but contempt for the defense attorney. But do we have all the facts? Do we know what the defense attorney is going to point to on that tape that may place reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury when they see the woman’s response?

We don’t know which is why sensational stories like this should be viewed in context.

One thing we know for sure; the story will make it less likely that more women will come forward and report attacks which means that rapists will be free to rape again. Until some solution in the law is found that will protect the victim while allowing the accused a fair trial with an impartial judge and a determination made by a jury of his peers based on evidence fairly presented - including the right of the accused to confront all of his accusers - we will continue to be outraged by forcing victims to relive their worst nightmares.

UPDATE

Shakespear’s Sister is outraged:

This is just utter bulls**t. If the woman has testified she doesn’t remember anything about the incident, then the video should be allowed to speak for itself—whether that hurts her or helps her. Why is the case predicated on her willingness to relive her attack and be asked questions about it she can’t possibly answer in front of a courtroom full of people? And, more importantly, why is she being threatened by having charges against the defendant dismissed and being put in jail herself if she doesn’t watch the tape? Does her reluctance to watch the tape somehow change what’s actually on the tape? If the tape shows men having sex with her while she’s unconscious, spitting on her, and writing on her body, her impressions of the tape matter a hell of a lot less than the jury’s.

Good points. I would like to point out that not knowing what exactly the videotape shows, the victim’s contention that she doesn’t remember anything cannot be verified. And I suppose that’s the reason why the judge might - might - feel it necessary for her to view it while the defense is questioning her.

Would the defense be hamstrung if they were only allowed to show the video to the jury without being able to question the victim about its specifics? The judge must think so which is why one must conclude either the judge is acting improperly or the law stinks.

I wouldn’t be surprised in the end if it turned out to be a little of both.

And Scott Lemieaux weighs in with some definitive legal opinions:

Sixth Amendment rights are not absolute–defendants are legally prevented from presenting types of evidence in any number of ways. While it is in the self-interest of the defense to grasp at every conceivable straw, it’s the judge’s role to consider the other rights and interests at stake as well. And in this case, I just can’t agree that the balance of interests is even particularly close. The defense has been allowed to confront the witness–the only question is the very narrow one of whether she should be compelled to watch the tape, and I just can’t see what value this would have that would outweigh the obvious intention to intimidate the victim.

Okay then. It may not even be a close call in which case the judge is a cretin and the defense attorney, scum. That is, unless there are factors that Scott is not privy to from a newspaper story, something that is possible but perhaps not likely.

UPDATE II: JUDGE RELENTS

The judge in the case relented today and agreed that the rape victim would not have to view the videotape:

After a brief hearing on the issue in the Bridgeview branch of Cook County Circuit Court, Judge Kerry Kennedy backed off the threat he made Tuesday to jail the woman if she continued to refuse to watch the tape.

With little elaboration, Kennedy agreed with prosecutors’ arguments that the Constitution grants special treatment to rape victims.

Before making his decision, the judge today asked the woman, visibly shaken, if she would view the video. She declined, as she had Tuesday, the first day of testimony in the jury trial of the 20-year-old Burr Ridge man charged in the crime. Today, however, Kennedy acquiesced.

“I am not going to force her to watch the video during cross-examination,” Kennedy said. “I don’t believe Adrian Missbrenner’s case is being injured.”

Was the judge influenced by the outpouring of rage and disgust against him?

If he was, it wouldn’t be surprising but at the same time, it would be troubling. The law must be beyond anything that the “passions of the people” can influence. I realize the judge is only human and that he is basing his decision on solid legal principles. But one wonders what would have happened if this story had remained buried.

For the last couple of years, I’ve struggled to come to grips with the disconnect between having a conservative President and a conservative Congress on the one hand and a style of governance that is decidedly unconservative on the other. Record deficits - partly a result of 9/11 and funding the War on Terror but nevertheless a source of distress and puzzlement - along with a series of failures in both formulating policy and passing legislation have made it clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that conservatives have taken to their role as stewards of the republic.

It’s easy to say that conservatives in government have lost their way, that they’ve forgotten the principles that got them elected in the first place. This may be true. It’s also easy to say that many in Congress have succumbed to the siren song of political expediency and corruptive power where members pump the spigot of federal spending to maintain their position and influence. This may also be true.

But what very few on the right are talking about is that after 12 years of conservative governance, we are no closer to realizing the single most important goal modern conservatives set for themselves more than a quarter of a century ago when it became clear that the welfare state was failing the very people it was supposed to be helping and instead, was dragging the nation toward the soul-deadening, spirit killing folly of socialism.

We have failed to shrink the size of government.

In fact, by any measurement one would care to use, government has grown astronomically under conservative governance. Taking the most obvious example, the federal budget has nearly doubled since 1995 with spending going from $1.56 trillion in FY 1995 to the current proposed 2007 budget of nearly $2.8 trillion. Even under the Bush Administration, budget outlays have increased by $800 billion. Pages in the Federal Reigster (the compilation of federal regulations) have grown more than 17% over the same period from 68,000 to more than 80,000.

I don’t want to hear about how the budget is less a percentage of the gross domestic product or how, adjusting for inflation, it grew more under Democrats. The inescapable fact is that it is much larger since conservatives came to power and no amount of fancy rhetorical footwork is going to obscure that fact.

Government is more intrusive. It has insinuated itself more into our daily lives in demonstrably quantitative ways. In our schools, our work, our medical decisions - the very fabric of our society now feels government’s tentacles intertwined so tightly, that peeling them away will require not just determination and herculean efforts, but perhaps a profound revolution in the way that the American people see the government itself.

For at bottom, it is the American people - us - who have failed. While many more people identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, the fact is there is a chasm between what we say about government and what we want from it. Most everyone thinks the government spends too much or taxes too much, or regulates too much, or is just plain too big. But when it comes to their own lives, their own choices, it is just as clear that people believe the government isn’t doing enough. We hold government responsible for the state of the economy, for the cost of food and medical care, for the condition of our schools, our roads, our bridges, rush hour traffic, the drug problem, crime, homelessness, the poor, the almost-poor, the safety and security of our transportation system…shall I go on?

In short, it is impossible to preach “small government” when the people demand that we have a large one.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News is what I would call a good conservative, consistently supporting the principles of conservatism on a wide variety of issues. But reading Mr. Hawkins response to a liberal who wanted to know why we spend so much money on defense gave me the feeling that I had entered a time machine and been transported back before conservatives came to power:

We believe that the role of the government is to protect us from foreign threats, enforce the rule of law, and keep taxes and regulations to minimum so that people can solve their own problems. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that many of the problems we have as a society are directly caused the government’s bungled attempts to “help”.

Since that’s the case, I’m a big believer that the government is far too big and spends far too much. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that except when it comes to border security and illegal immigration enforcement, there’s no program the Federal government is involved with that should have its funding increased. To the contrary, a significant across the board cut of funding for almost every program would be perfectly acceptable to me.

Of course, I realize that probably horrifies you Angela. But, you have to understand that the conservative view is that all government programs are rife with endemic waste, red tape, corruption, and incompetence that is impossible to fix. Put another way, you may be able to starve, shrink, or perhaps even slightly improve the behavior of the beast, but you will never change it’s nature. That’s why it’s usually a good idea to choose small government over big government and private industry, the market, and individual choice over government involvement at all.

I don’t want to pick on Mr. Hawkins but his definition of conservative governance is so divorced from the reality of what conservatives are doing in Congress and the White House that if I didn’t know better, I would question whether or not we both live in the same country.

Does this mean that all of these Republicans who ran as conservatives - including George Bush - aren’t really people of the right but actually liberals in disguise? Not if you listen to their rhetoric. And this, dear readers, is the crux of the problem.

I am absolutely convinced that when conservatives in Congress use rhetoric identical to what John Hawkins used in his response to that reader they believe it wholeheartedly. And to complete the disconnect that all of us recognize and are disgusted by, those very same Republicans will go to the floor of the Congress and proceed to vote for bigger government. Are they all hypocrites? Are they just a bunch of cynical politicians who think they can put one over on the voters? What is going on?

What is clear to me is that conservative rhetoric no longer addresses the world as it really is, that there is a profound difference between critiquing government and actually running it. What Mr. Hawkins synthesized into a couple of well written paragraphs has been a staple of conservative politicians since before the time of Ronald Reagan. What happened? Where has conservatism gone off the rails?

Somewhere between being a minority party criticizing the welfare state and offering concrete solutions to the nation’s problems and the current state of affairs on Capitol Hill, the rhetorical justification for conservative governance has disappeared. It has been subsumed by the realities of governing a liberal (dictionary definition), industrialized, 21st century democracy in the Age of Terror. For all the intellectual energy being expended in our think tanks, universities, journals, magazines, newspaper columns, and even here in the blogosphere, the undeniable fact is that the prescriptions to the problem of shrinking the size and scope of government have either failed or haven’t been tried due to their political inviability.

Eliminate the Department of Energy? Or Education? How? Federal responsibilities in these areas are growing, not shrinking because people demand it. How do you cut OSHA without endangering lives? Or the FDA? These aren’t agencies that one can simply take a red pen to and cut willy-nilly. In fact, the totality of good that these agencies do to protect our food, drugs, and workplace overwhelms any generalized conservative critique of their functions. Changes to these and other regulatory bodies must be made with extraordinary care lest their legitimate activities be affected negatively.

And what about that great conservative bugaboo the EPA? Can one legitimately claim that corporations both large and small will do the right thing and not pollute our water and air if left to their own devices? Many would but who would want to live near those who wouldn’t?

How about the Consumer Product Safety Commission? Now here’s a ripe target for conservatives. But even a cursory look at the history of that agency will show that while they have been as intrusive and as capricious as any government agency in existence, they have also saved countless thousands of lives by forcing companies to make their products safer.

The libertarian argument against both the EPA and CPSC - that people won’t buy products from companies that kill people ergo the marketplace will regulate their behavior - falls rather flat when one considers that it might be me or you whose life is lost as result of environmental negligence or some product that was unsafe. I daresay that most Americans wouldn’t accept the risks that many libertarians and conservatives are willing to take on simply to shrink the size of government. That is why those agencies were created in the first place.

If conservative rhetoric can no longer be wedded to the reality of governing, what is to be done? The answer lies in where the ideas that gave birth to that rhetoric came from in the first place.

The list of 20th century conservative intellectuals whose thoughts on government and freedom energized both activists and politicians is a long and distinguished one. Hayek, Nash, Kristol, Friedman, Buckley, and a host of others gave an intellectual underpinning to the distillation of ideas that was turned into the rhetoric of political combat. And in the marketplace of ideas where that combat was joined, conservative rhetoric resonated (as it does today) with a majority of Americans and led to our current majorities in Congress and holding the White House 26 out of the last 38 years.

But rhetoric that worked well while conservatives were a minority has failed to translate into effective governance. And the reason is that for all the intellectual spine supplied by conservative thinkers to conservative ideas, they all grew up and were shaped by a liberal world. Hence, while writers like Hayek and Friedman especially employed an attractive positivism in their critiques of liberalism, they nevertheless by necessity made government the number one antagonist in their proscription against modern society.

And here is where the rhetorical rubber may never meet the real-world road for conservatives. It is one thing for Hayek to hector against statism. It is quite another to look a 14 year old pregnant black girl in the eye and tell her she’s better off on her own. For in the end, “small government” means one thing to conservatives and quite another to people who need government to survive.

Does this mean that conservatism is dead, that the idea of “small government” is a pipe dream? Hopefully, conservatism means more than simply trying to define the size of government. If that were not the case, Republicans would go the way of the Federalists, the Whigs, the Bull Moose, and other political parties whose ideas were superseded by events on the ground in America. Perhaps what is necessary is a new language of reform that conservatives can create to address the kinds of problems with government that speak to ordinary people. Certainly a commitment to a realistic kind of federalism would help. Beyond that, bringing efficiency, honesty, and integrity to government would be in keeping with conservative values.

Perhaps it is time to stop talking about “small government” and begin speaking of “good government.” In this modern society we live in, it would seem that the latter reflects more realistically on what the American people believe and what they want out of their government.

The origins of humanity is a subject that has fascinated me since I was a child. And ever since I started to try and keep up with the dizzying pace of discoveries about who our ancestors were and other mysteries of our species, I have been interested in reading about the great debates that have roiled the scientific community regarding how we got to be who we are; tool making hominids who can think, reason, plan for the future, and create wondrous pieces of art that represent the pinnacle of evolutionary achievement on this planet.

But how did we get from a point that evolutionary biologists believe could have been 8 million years ago when our species separated from other apes and where we began the long, tortuous journey to who we are today?

One of the major milestones in that journey occurred when for some mysterious reason, our ancestors stood up and took the first tentative steps that freed their hands to do other things. This was an extraordinary long process that could have begun as long as 5 million years ago. The reasons why have been the source of some of the most fascinating speculation in science. Did the climate change the landscape from a tree-choked jungle to grassy Savannah which would have forced our ancestors to move quickly across the vast expanses of grassland in our search for the fruit and fodder that made up our diet at the time? An upright walker would have had an advantage because the broiling sun and searing heat (it was much warmer back then) would have been much harder on a creature that walked on all fours. Less of the body is exposed when walking upright thus allowing for more efficient cooling.

Or perhaps it was a combination of environment and mutation with evolution gradually favoring creatures whose pelvic structure allowed for longer and longer periods of upright walking. Over several thousand generations, it is conceivable that these barely noticeable changes would have added up to an ancestor who could walk as we do.

It is extremely unlikely that our distant ancestors just got up and started to walk one day. The radical differences between human locomotion and how chimps and other Great Apes move prove that there must have been several interim means of getting around - not quite walking the way we do but not moving about on all fours.

What we’re sure of is that by 3.2 million years ago, that evolutionary change led to a 3 foot tall female hominid whose pelvic structure and leg bones allowed for what we would most certainly recognize today as walking upright. Her name is Lucy. She was discovered in Ethiopia by a team of archeologists led by Dr. Donald Johanson. Other ancient hominids have been found in an ancient river bed near an open wound in the earth’s crust known as Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. The gorge has been a godsend to archaeologists because some long ago cataclysmic earthquake split the ground in such a way as to reveal how the earth looked millions of years ago. Walking around the gorge is like walking in the footprints of our earliest ancestors.

The discovery of Lucy back in the early 1970’s ignited a debate that rages to this day; what kind of a “walker” was she?

Dan Gebo believes that if we could go back millions of years and see hominids, the early, small-brained humans from which modern humans inherited the ability to move around on two legs, we would see some pretty peculiar styles of walking.

The hominid nicknamed “Lucy,” a 3 1/2-foot-tall adult female who lived in what is now Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago, tired easily and would have had to run at a dead trot to keep up with a strolling modern human. And Australopithecus robustus, a toothy, dim, broad-faced early human that went extinct 1.4 million years ago, was hopelessly knock-kneed.

But these walks, however imperfect, were the most important steps ever taken for humankind, said Gebo, a Northern Illinois University anthropologist and co-author of a new study of the biomechanics of early human locomotion.

A. Robustus was an interesting fellow in that he lived during a time of enormous environmental stress on the hominid population. The habitat for our ancestors was probably changing into near desert conditions and Robustus - a little larger than we are with a much smaller brain - was nevertheless able to survive by eating extraordinarily tough roots and probably equally hard to chew tubers. He was able to do this with a jaw twice as massive as our own and molars the size of quarters.

But what about Lucy?

Current thinking is that the first hominids to use two legs had feet similar to those of modern humans and therefore walked in the same way. Gebo and Schwartz say hominids’ foot anatomy evolved in subtle but significant ways over millions of years before they walked like modern humans.

The duo came to their conclusions, which some of their colleagues do not entirely accept, after reassessing the hominid fossil record, comparing them to modern humans and apes.

“I study how animals move,” said Gebo. “I want to know the exact sequence of changes leading to bipedalism. What happens first? Do we lose the graspable big toe of apes, or do we get long legs or a different pelvic structure first?”

Gebo is convinced that Lucy would have had a hard time keeping up with modern humans:

Australopithecus afarensis, a fossil nicknamed Lucy when 40 percent of her skeleton was found intact in Ethiopia in 1974, in life was a wimp compared to humans in terms of standing for long periods or walking long distances, said Gebo.

She had the same bones in her feet as modern humans. The difference is that many of the human foot bones are fused, but not Lucy’s. She had to rely on muscle to stabilize the bones for efficient walking and standing, causing her fatigue humans don’t experience.

“Lucy had a sort of kiddie-stride, because her legs were so short,” said Gebo. “It’s like comparing the horse versus the pig stride. Pigs can move just as fast, but they have to move their legs much faster. Horses are great long-distance runners, but pigs are not.”

Other scientists have pointed out that Lucy may also have been much more unsteady on her feet given that her sense of balance was probably not quite as developed as ours. Her inner ear mechanism could have been vastly inferior to our own thus causing her to walk with her legs much farther apart to maintain balance over long distances.

So if Lucy was able to stand up, why wasn’t she capable of making tools? This is one of the biggest mysteries of all because as it turns out, there are other factors that speak to tool making not the least of which is the old adage “necessity is the mother of invention.”

As long as we were berry eaters, there was no real need for tools. But when environmental factors put pressures on our food supply, it is possible that we became hunters but more likely scavengers, eating the dead carcasses of other animals. This increase in protein in the diet has been the subject of fierce debate because some scientists believe that eating more meat meant growing a bigger brain. The bigger the brain the larger the head. The larger the head, the bigger the female pelvis would have to be to allow for babies to be born. And the larger pelvis led to more efficient walking. The better walkers would become good runners which increased our skills as scavenger/hunters. Leading to more protein in the diet and the circle continues.

Controversial, but fascinating.

The work being done by Dr. Gebo and others in this field is revealing in that for the first time in our history, we are looking at some of the deepest mysteries as to how we evolved to become modern humans. The answers will not come in our lifetimes. Nor will the end of the questions for that matter. But it is the process of discovery itself that contributes to our understanding of what makes us human.

And that’s a quest I’m sure to enjoy for as long as I’m alive.

“I’ll live to see you - all of you - hung from the highest yardarm in the British fleet.”
(Captain William Bligh from the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty)

It’s mutiny I tell you, mutiny!

With Curtis doing his best imitation of Fletcher Christian, the gang at CTU does what it has to do to prevent the assassination of the Suburovs and the President’s wife.

But were they right?

The thing about mutinies - whether they be on the high seas or in the offices of a government counter-terrorism unit - is that there are two sides to every insurrection. There is much to be said against usurping the authority of the person in charge in a crisis situation just as there is a good case to be made that the Fat Hobbit cracked under the stress of the moment. In the case of the HMS Bounty, the British Navy sent a frigate to fetch back the mutineers in Tahiti where they had settled after making a new home for themselves. Most of the crew who took part in the revolt got away but 10 crewmen were hauled back to England, tried in an Admiralty Court, and three were found guilty and hung. Bligh himself was court martialed (after returning to England following an heroic 1500 mile voyage with 18 crewmen in a raft) and was eventually acquitted.

In CTU’s case, McGill’s abrasiveness and his myopia that prevented him from seeing the threat to the motorcade was exacerbated by his recognition that several members of his staff were doing something behind his back. It could be argued that he brought the conspiracy on himself by ordering Jack back to CTU headquarters but remember, he was acting under President Jellyfish’s orders. In short, the CTU conspiracy was probably necessary but I doubt a jury would see it that way. The gang should have swallowed their doubts and played ball with the Hobbit. He was the only one with the big picture and for all they knew, was doing the right thing. At the very least, they never gave him the benefit of that doubt which made their effort to overthrow him seem more about personality than it actually was.

If I were Audrey, Fat Geek Edgar, Chloe, and Curtis, I’d get myself a crackerjack lawyer and be prepared for the worst. Unless they can prove that the Fat Hobbit was as loony as a June bug when they relieved him, they may live to regret their little re-enactment of Mutiny on the Bounty.

SUMMARY

When last we left the quivering mass of jello who passes himself off as President of the United States, he was making a deal with the terrorists not to release the nerve gas on American soil in exchange for passing along the route of the Russian President’s motorcade. Being enormously pleased with himself at his cave in to the jihadists, Jellyfish speculates how they can turn the assassination of the Russian President into a political plus.

That is, until he finds out that Nutzo Martha took it upon herself to try and make her husband do the right thing by climbing into the limo with the Suburovs. Furious, he calls his wife and orders her out of the car. Martha, despite her fear, hangs in there, still believing that somewhere in that pusillanimous pile of dog crap and silly putty, a President is aching to get out.

Can’t wait for their first face to face moment when she gets back to the ranch. I feel another “Chief Brody moment” coming on. Only this time, I hope she closes her fist when she hits him.

Back at CTU, Audrey widens the conspiracy against the Hobbit by pulling Fat Geek Edgar into it. While Audrey and Chloe try to hack Omicron’s mainframe in order to insert a cover story for Jack so he can see Henderson, the lovestruck Edgar returns to his station to cover for Chloe.

The Hobbit, in the meantime, continues his descent into Mount Doom, breathing fire and snorting like an oliphant. He fires a cute girl who was just doing her job (and who also may be another mole) and threatens to sack Edgar because he sticks up for her. Noticing the absence of Chloe, he starts his search for the missing strawberries .

Jack enters Omicron using his fake identity expertly inserted by Chloe who employs some of her renowned geek magic. He is there to see an old friend, Chris Henderson. I’m informed by one of my expert commenters JPD that Henderson was a character in Season 1 who was accused by Jack of selling secrets to defense contractors. We know from past experience that once a bad guy, always a bad guy so we’re prepared to hate Henderson even if he is played by one of the greatest characters ever invented, Buckaroo Banzai. A scientist, rockstar, and humanitarian Banzai (played by Peter Weller) was also the star of his own comic book and had a fan club “The Blue Blazer Irregulars.”

Gotta love him.

Jack makes it into Omicron and, after getting Audrey to help him get rid of Henderson’s receptionist (whose shirt was just a little too tight, don’t ya think? ) creeps into the office only to have Buckaroo Banzai taser him into unconsciousness.

How did Buckeroo know that it was Jack coming to see him? By Jove, someone must have called and told him! Indeed, after doing a song and dance with Jack, pretending to help him, Mr. Banzai locks Jack in a bunker with a very large bomb. As he is leaving the bunker, he is on the phone with a female whose voice is slightly distorted so that we can’t ID her? Is it Kerri, the woman fired by the Hobbit? Is it - dare I say it - Audrey? Please recall that the chip Nathanson gave to Jack before he died was formatted to be read only by DoD hardrives. And who works for DoD?

The daughter of the Secretary of Defense, Jack’s former lover, and the woman with the ugliest nose in Christendom, Audrey Raines.

The Hobbit’s troubles start to mount as Fat Geek Edgar illegally wiretaps the terrorists and discovers that they’re about to attack the motorcade. (The terrorists are in this country and have every right to an expectation of privacy. Intercepting their plans to kill 35 people and start an international incident that might lead to a world war takes second place to protecting their constitutional rights, even if they are foreigners. Do I make myself clear?)

Dismissing the report in his maniacal focus on finding the nerve gas, the Hobbit starts to worry Curtis. And the CTU agent, being a man of action, starts to look at Lynn not as a cute, chubby little Shireling but more like a cave troll who is out of control.

Waylaying Curtis in the hallway, Audrey starts a typical watercooler conversation with the burly agent…you know, let’s overthrow the tyrant Lynn and bring back Bill who is still languishing in exile in the holding room. Curtis promises to think about “Section 112″ (which all Star Trek fans are familiar with as the club that Enterprise doctors hold over their captains when they start to go off the rails) while Audrey goes to plot the denouement to the conspiracy - hacking the Fat Hobbit’s computer account to warn the Secret Service about the imminent attack on the motorcade.

Back at the ranch, Jellyfish has finally dissolved after accepting the fact that Martha is probably toast. And in a scene straight out of Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days which tells the story of the last hours of the Nixon Presidency, Logan asks Novik to kneel with him and pray. Nixon did the same thing with Kissinger when he was trying to find the strength to leave the White House. In the case of Jellyfish, the moment came off stilted and out of character, especially for Mike.

At CTU, the unfolding drama of the coup d’etat reaches a peak as the Hobbit finds out what Audrey, Chloe, and Fat Geek Edgar are trying to do behind his back. His triumph in finding the strawberries is shortlived. Arresting the two CTU employees and ordering Audrey out of the building, Lynn suddenly finds his authority evaporating faster than a brace of conies at dinner time when Curtis refuses to comply:

HOBBIT: (To the guards) Why are you hesitating? I gave you and order. NOW DO IT!

GUARD: (Looks at Lynn. Looks at Curtis. Back at Lynn.)

GUARD: (To Curtis) What would you like me to do Mr. Manning?

HOBBIT: What?

CURTIS: Lynn McGill, I’m relieving you under the Capacity Clause of Section 112.

HOBBIT: You will do no such thing.

CURTIS: Take him away.

HOBBIT: You can’t do that! (To guard) He can’t do that. Don’t touch me! This is an unjustifiable usurpation of my authority, you hear me? We’re in the middle of a crisis. (Being led away) There are going to be repercussions! Everyone involved is going to face prosecution!

Being released from custody, Bill takes charge immediately. After reinstating the possible mole Kerri, he informs the Secret Service and the President of the plot on the motorcade. Just in time, Agent Pierce gets the word and orders the motorcade to turn around. Too late! The terrorists attack and despite a direct hit by an RPG, anti-tank missile, the limo and its occupants survive. With Aaron’s help, the attack is thwarted but only just barely. One wonders what Martha and the Suburovs are thinking at this point. Look for the Russian President to put two and two together and blame Jellyfish anyway.

After leaving Jack to die in the bunker, Buckaroo stupidly forgot to lock up the root cellar. What’s that? No root cellar in a top secret, secured bunker? When has that ever stopped our hero?

Of course Jack survives which is very bad news for Henderson who soon will feel the extent of Jack’s wrath.

And Bierko the terrorist calls Jellyfish and tells him once again, that America is on the terrorist’s clock. And time is ticking away.

BODY COUNT

Jack was shut out this week but, good news! I counted 10 dead at the mall but Jack was kind enough to inform us that the actual death toll was 11 so add one more there. Plus, the terrorists took out 2 cops and 2 SS men while Aaron shot one terrorist and immolated the other.

JACK: 12

SHOW: 61

UPDATE

More good news! When what commenter Chris informs us was an anti-tank missile (not an RPG) hits the limo, the Secret Service driver disintegrates! Add one more to the show’s body count.

Also, check out Bogs for Bauer for their brand new Carnival of Bauer featuring the best 24 posts from around the blogosphere.