Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Extra extra: the Daily Show does…NOT scoop anything

Tom Brokaw is interviewed on the Daily Show tonight.
Tom Brokaw reveals that he was surprised by the popular vote.
Jon Stewart misses an opportunity. Brokaw is about to give his opinion on the candidates and Stewart cuts in to tell a lame joke. Dang!

Tom Brokaw mentions bloggers.

Tom Brokaw says to Stewart: You were absolutely right to say what you did (on Crossfire).

I would so rather Rather were leaving network news than Brokaw. Life is not fair.
And it is, I suppose, unfair that I love Stewart anyway, even if he did miss an opening for a Brokaw political revelation.

If it wasn't so funny, it would be scary: I am a New Yorker. At least to an extent.

Thanks to that screaming New Yorker in our building (TB), I found myself taking the "Are you a real New Yorker" quiz on the Time Out NY website (here).

I have only one comment: you indeed have NY in your blood (whether you've been there, lived there, rotted there, or bypassed it altogether) if you can check this one off:

[] You find this quiz hilariously funny for no good reason and you recommend it to all your friends.

I applaud Hardee’s for having the guts to market a silent killer to indulge our penchant for slow death

I’m so glad I had the news on tonight. I would not have otherwise known that corporate ingenuity would steer a company to create something that would pander to the most vile cravings harbored by man, woman and child.

Why else introduce the “monster thick-burger," with slabs of bacon, cheese and mayo, all worth a hefty 1420 calories (basically my needed daily intake if I am having a slow-moving day, or, as is reported
here, enough calories to feed a family of three in many countries) and that’s before the soda and fries. One person commented that what we have is quintessential food porn. The SUV of burgers.

All we need now is to pack it up and ship it off to Europe (along with our SUVs). Maybe offer it as a food snack in high school cafeterias in France?

Make new friends ... keep the old ... one is silver ... other is gold

I could use a couple like that: friends that could be trusted to say "you are so cooooool, Nina! Yeah! you know those chumps who call you a lazy bum? What do they know? You want to stay in bed all day and skip class? Go for it! You want to kick ass and call your neighbors pigs? Yeah!" no matter what I did, they'd be there breaking champagne bottles over my chosen path, no matter what, no matter when. Mmmmmm... old friends. Friends that can be counted on to never question my superior knowledge of the world and my fanciful behavior. Gonzalez-type friends. Rice-type friends.

Half-listening to NBC news, I hear the usual about Condoleezza Rice’s nomination to the position of Secretary of State (all emphases in post are my own):

[She is] America’s face to the world. … Chosen to serve the president. …
She is charged with cleaning out the moderates … [She has] a chance to build on what [Bush has] already done…

And then on the Lehrer News hour I hear her shower GWB with praise. Did you know that under his leadership, "we have widen[ed] the circle of prosperity in every corner of the world" ?

Meanwhile, I read (here) this letter posted by her former colleague at Stanford back in 2002 (he received no response):

Dear Condi,
I'm 99.99% sure that my writing this letter will have no effect, but my conscience tells me to write it anyway. Danziger's cartoon has pushed me out of my lethargy.
[His cartoon shows her banging on a grand piano, saying "War! War! War!"]

When I knew you at Stanford I had the greatest admiration for your abilities and good sense. (And I was disappointed that we never were able to get together to play four-hands music.) But now I cannot help but express to you my chagrin that the warm feelings I once had have basically evaporated. I hope you can pause to try to understand why this might be the case.

Fundamentally I don't see how the government of my country has done anything whatsoever to address and correct the root causes of international terrorism. Quite the contrary; every action I can see seems almost designed to have the opposite effect --- as if orchestrated to maximize the finances of those who make armaments, by maximizing the number of people who now hate me personally for actions that I do not personally condone.

...
And worst of all, I find that my leaders, including you, are calling for war against a sovereign nation that we suspect to be corrupt, thereby (even if our suspicions are correct) undermining all precedents against unilateral action by other countries who might in future decide that our own policies are wrong. If we peremptorily strike country X, why shouldn't country X have a right to do the same to us, and to our children and grandchildren in future years?

On my trips to Europe all I can do is hope that my friends there can help their governments try to make somebody in my own government act responsibly.

Sincerely,

Don Knuth

P.S. This is the second time in my life that I have written a letter to a U.S. government official. The first time was during the Vietnam war.

Now Knuth, notable and respected author that he is (eg. The Art of Computer Programming) -- he's no friend. He's more like my band of friends, ready to speak up whenever I misbehave. What fun is that??

My shoulders are sagging

I was a senior in high school in Poland in 1968, a mere 23 years after the end of World War II. The history teacher who taught us the Nuremberg Trials that year had her own personal accounts of the war to insert into the lesson. I wonder if I can express how it feels to have the following appear on the Net (via HS -- thank you), circulating now, 36 years later, to demonstrate historic parallels between then and now:

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." Hermann Goering, Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe (the second man in the Third Reich), at the Nuremberg Trials.

For better or for worse, my generation ofPoles has always lived in the shadow of the war. After all, it was a war that ransacked our families and destroyed more than 90% of the city where I was born. "Never Again," I heard it over and over again during my Warsaw years.

There was still rubble in the Warsaw of my childhood, but there were no war planes threatening our safety. My generation was taught to listen: we would be the keepers of history, we needed to hear what had happened moments before we were born. And we were good listeners. We remember it all: every last story, every last reason offered for the horror that swept over the European continent and especially Poland.

And so I really cannot emphasize enough how shaken we are -- we the keepers of history, because I think we did not properly recount that which was taught to us. We did not link the past into a future for our children. Instead, we became members of a voting public that did not hear us, but instead, through a democratic process, elected a leader who chose to go to war, without apology, without reconsideration, without remorse.

Coincidentally, also today, I received an email from another friend. She is reading William James (on the subject of the Spanish-American War) and finds that he has this to say:

"The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly, by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and by preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks. Such nations have no need of wars to save them."

Shake a few trees and out flies local talent

I went to eat dinner at Crescent City Grill with Chef O from l’Etoile and a bunch of summer L’Etoilers to celebrate the end of the most successful season ever (on a ripe summer Saturday, they would sell 1700 croissants and I may have lugged 1700 lbs of fruit, though the latter is probably only in my perception of things).

We chatted with the Crescent City chef afterwards and I have to put in a plug for the place. You can go there on a Monday and get a degustation menu (the chef serves you whatever he damn pleases) of many fantastic courses for a price that would make a New Yorker gawk in amazement. And the food is far from ho-hum boring or conventional. Forget good manners: run your finger through some of the sauces on your plate (or on the plate of your neighbor) and give it a good lick: sensational! The preparations are cool and creative. [You think that's just standard food talk? I don't think so. 99% of eateries around here are anything but creative. Tasty? Sure. Creative? Not so much] And, just to keep my favorite descriptors in place -- it's all so fresh and honest.

I also talked to someone (Gail) who has been paying her bills as a L’Etoile baker (yes, a familiar pattern), but who has recently opened a chocolate shop of her own – the realization of a life-long dream. You absolutely must visit her website and/or her small little retail outlet and buy the stuff now, before the limos from distant places pull up and beat you to it. Her chocolates are like no other chocolates you’ll find on this side of the Mississippi. Sophisticated and clever, the Ambrosius will (I am certain of this) eventually knock the socks off the other (Seattle-based) chocolatier of choice (Fran’s). Someone did you a favor lately? Send them a small box from GailAmbrosius.com You’ll be forever their hero.