Pravda-Upon-Hudson Menagerie


There's no real way to tie these three stories together, other than I came across all on them in the "newspaper of record," and, to be honest, they actually aren't terrible.

First, it ain't the humidity, it's the lack thereof. Sheesh, even when forced to remind the whining wankers of wingnuttia that New Orleans ISN'T the only place on earth where, yes, there are (calculated) risks associated with residency, I often forget that the west, including Los Angeles, isn't just earthquake alley, but is also a science fiction plot...but in real life: take millions of people, and put them in a region where the only source of water is a LONG way away...oh, and there's not enough of it.

Lends a whole new meaning to Shake and Bake, I guess.

Then there's this review of tonight's HBO feature, The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib:

The problem with the Fox thriller “24” is not that it justifies torture but that it fosters the illusion that the American government is good at it.The practices of Abu Ghraib suggest the opposite. The mystery of that shameful episode was not the cruelty of American troops assigned there. After the initial disbelief over the obscene snapshots, their smile-for-the-camera barbarity turned out to be another painful reminder that the banality of evil has no borders...

Military intelligence interrogators relied on untrained troops filling in as prison guards to soften up suspects. “ ‘This guy needs to have a bad night,’ ” Mr. Davis says he was told. “ ‘Use your imagination.’ ”

But it’s hard not to see a method to the madness of sexual degradation.

“Is there any chance that these people were self-actuated, that they were, that they just came up with this as their own idea?” asks Scott Horton, chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Law. “No, there’s no chance of that whatsoever, zero chance. What they are doing are very precisely described techniques that were developed for use on Arab men in the global war on terror, were implemented at Guantánamo and were then brought to and used at Abu Ghraib.” Though the administration might dispute such a characterization of Guantánamo, many critics and analysts agree.

And how could something like this happen? Well, when those at the top of the slag heap base their ideological assumptions on this giant turd of a volume, it's not surprising that the policy outcome will reek to high heaven.

Finally, courtesy of First Draft, here's the "miracle" of the private sector:

Volunteer Group Lags in Replacing Gulf Houses

Scout Prime: Don't get me wrong. I applaud what charities have done but they have been asked to do more than what they are capable of doing. That much of the Gulf Coast still lies in ruins a year and a half later is testament to the failure of the conservative idea that the private sector, business and charities, could replace good government. Of course Bush would no more admit that stark reality than he would admit the failure of his Iraq policy.

Scout's conclusion is similar to my own mantra of late: if they can't--or won't--fix New Orleans, forget ANYTHING they claim to be able of accomplishing in Iraq. Not...gonna...happen.

Side note: the last Pravda article has a picture of Ricardo Crespio--it's good to see he's got a house in Musician's Village. Ricardo was always pleasant to myself and/or my sister when we'd see him play over by the Pirate's Alley bar in the French Quarter. Best of luck, Ricardo.