Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Christopher Hitchens Interview

Salon.com has an in-depth interview with Christopher Hitchens. Here's my Letter to the Editor in response:
I followed closely the writing in The Nation following Sept. 11th. I was dumbstruck by several things:

1.) The willingness of most columnists (probably based on the parochial experiences of their own lifetimes) to assume the responses of the U.S. government to Sept. 11th had close parallels with the U.S. experience in Vietnam. In my mind, Pearl Harbor was a far closer analogy. As a result, we read a lot of ignorant bile about the dangers of military quagmire in Afghanistan. This from the segment of society that probably knows the least about how the military works (whatever they learned from Vietnam has been forgotten). Any random person from Fargo can give better analyses of the military situation in Afghanistan than these folks could, because, duh! - they know more!

2.) We also had to endure Katha Pollitt's column, where she wrote, in unintentional hilarious detail, how she was having to persuade her daughter not to hang a U.S. flag from her bedroom window, because patriotism had been misused in the Vietnam years (even though Vietnam was 30 years ago, even though her own city had been attacked, even though bin Laden had long made clear that Americans were being targeted just because they were Americans, and even though a patriotic response in the U.S. was all-but-inevitable). Talk about clueless!

3.) These folks write columns - they apparently don't read history, or even talk to their neighbors. And that's what worried me the most. Even though many of the writers are from NYC, they didn't seem all that concerned that some of their neighbors had been killed in such a cruel way. Jonathan Schell yammered on about the great void left by the collapsed towers, as if the void in the sky was there by some kind of natural calamity, not by purposeful intent. These folks will go to great lengths to complain about the Bush Administration, but don't ask them to go to a funeral.

4.) The only exception at The Nation was Christopher Hitchens, who gave brilliant and scathing analysis. But he was very, very alone there.

I had started my subscription to The Nation several years ago because I thought, with anti-globalization efforts, the Left was finally beginning to stir. How wrong, wrong, wrong I was! This form of the Left is dead, finished, and deservedly so, by their own hand. It's up to us to reinvent the Left, so it actually does speak for the oppressed of the world, which includes (paradoxically) people like the bond traders caught in the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Better days ahead, Christopher Hitchens! Vanity Fair is a more subversive magazine than The Nation anyway!

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Is Osama Back Home?

There is an interesting story in Debka alleging that Osama bin Laden has returned to Saudi Arabia, and now lives near the Yemeni border (some of the driest and hence most forbidding terrain in the world). I think the idea that Bin Laden is back on home turf makes a lot of sense (whether the story is correct or not, who knows). He has a lot of support in the tribal areas along the indistinct border with Yemen - some of those villages sound like they are rife with Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. In addition, Yemen is the ancestral homeland of the very-rich bin Laden family. There are a lot of very rich people in Saudi Arabia, and some no doubt would aid Osama (there was a news story saying the FBI has tracked most of Al Qaeda's support to the finances of 12 people - 12 people who remain very much alive and very rich). The longtime U.S.-Saudi special relationship guarantees that the U.S. will not interfere in the area, no matter what, no matter how many Americans get slaughtered in New York, Washington, or elsewhere, or in the upcoming campaigns. The Saudis don't have much to lose by sheltering bin Laden - remember, Saudi Arabia has the oil and that means Saudi Arabia calls the shots, in particular whether and where the U.S. deploys its forces.

I don't think Iraq will link up with Al Qaeda - it would mean Saddam would have to concede some authority to bin Laden, and he won't want to do that.

Here's a comment from John:
Interesting idea, but I find it improbable. First, any nation that would allow Bin Laden entry--even unwittingly--knows it would face a ruinous onslaught by the US military. Saudi Arabia has everything to lose and little to gain by overlooking his presence. Iraq remains a wild card with Saddam willing to unleash any level of destruction on the rest of the world as he perishes in flames. Still, I find an alliance between him and Al Qaida on a large scale unlikely. Al Qaida wants to continue as a viable terrorist organization and its leaders must recognize that Saddam is a dead man and that any support of him at this point would be suicidal. I guess we'll know for certain in a few months...

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Pictures from "The Secret Garden"



The magic moment when the portrait of Lily comes alive! Pheonix Vaughn (Lily Craven) and Kyle Cherry (Colin Craven):




Mary Lennox starts her temper tantrum. Jason Stevens (Dr. Neville Craven), Julie Kulmann (Head Mistress), Erin Carpenter (Mary Lennox)




Colin Craven starts to walk!

"The Secret Garden" Closes at Varsity Theater in Davis/ Elly Awards

Here's an update on musical theater goings-on in Sacramento. It's been a busy couple of months.

The folks at Davis Musical Theater Company (DMTC) closed "The Secret Garden" on Sunday, Sept. 29. I was the Stage Manager for the show, the first time I've ever done such a thing. Stage Manager is much different than being an actor. An actor is trying to make just as big an impression as they can on the audience, but the Stage Manager instead tries to become utterly invisible. Only when you've reached the absolute nadir of obscurity, when no one knows you are there, and when the show clicks along like a well-oiled machine, have you succeeded at being Stage Manager. In general, it's hard stage-managing at the Varsity Theater in Davis, because the wings are so shallow, and furniture and set pieces must be moved immediately if they are no longer of use. "The Secret Garden" was a relatively easy show to manage - a good starter show - but still, I was totally paranoid every second that the thing would spin apart.

In other news, the 20th annual Elly Awards were held at the Crest Theater in Sacramento, also on Sunday evening, Sept. 29. It's always a fun get-together, seeing all the other theater folks in one place - usually they are so busy, they often lose contact with one another. As always, the nominations were inscrutable game of roulette - excellent shows like DMTC's "Sweeney Todd" were largely overlooked, whereas other shows, maybe less-deserving, won favor. For some reason, two of the local area's three different versions of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" this season were nominated (one done by DMTC, the other by Natomas Charter School). I don't know why "Joseph..." won such favor, except that it is youthful energetic fun, and just about everybody likes it (even if Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is often derivative and pitched at the lowest common denominator).

This year, as last year, Solano Community College near Fairfield swept the awards with "Jekyll and Hyde". As one knowledgeable observer said: "It's hard for local community theater groups to compete against an institution with a budget ten times as large, where Equity (i.e., professional) actors can take big roles, where the San Francisco Symphony is sometimes utilized to play taped music, and where numerous skilled students are assigned to build sets" (do I hear sour grapes?). One of DMTC's young performers (Jocelyn Price) won for young performer's theater best supporting actor (child, female) for 'Anne of Green Gables', and Lori Jones from DMTC won best choreographer for "Joseph...", which was great, but I wish the DMTC trophy total had been greater. Towards the end of the evening, those of us still remaining in town from the cast of "Joseph..." (which closed 5 months ago) danced the 'Go, Go, Go, Joseph!' dance number on the Crest Theater's big, dark stage.

As we waited to go on-stage for 'Go, Go, Go, Joseph!', the head of Woodland Opera House (WOH) came up to me and started conversing in a somewhat arch and skeptical way. "So, it's an interesting time to be on the Board of DMTC! (I'm now treasurer) You'll have to raise a lot of money to build your new theater, and Davis has been sucked dry!" (the $61 million Mondavi Theater just opened at UC Davis, and he was referring to the ensuing poverty of the local deep-pocketed contributors). I assured him we had the services of a good volunteer fundraiser, and we were drawing from a different pool of people (besides, our new theater wouldn't be nearly so costly - maybe $1 million at most). The WOH director then stated that after all this time, DMTC deserved a new theater, but I'm sure he's worried about whether DMTC will gain an edge and pull away his audience too. Life in the theater trenches - opportunity in crisis and crisis in opportunity!

There But For The Grace Of God Go I!

An interesting, ominous article about the dangers of spending too many hours at a keyboard. It's a real mystery, that's for sure. It makes you wonder if something weird happens to the brain, some neural pathways taken far beyond exhaustion. You would think you would have an epileptic fit, or something, then sleep it off, but who knows?

I've never spent as much as 10 hours at video games, although I've binged as much as 15 - 18 hours in casinos, and the effect is probably similar (probably unlike the Korean man, I had some breaks). Weird and unhinged I became. Weird and unhinged I was before I went in, I suppose. I read somewhere (Science, I think) that scientists who monitor brain activity with positron emission tomography can't distinguished gambling and cocaine from one another. I bet video games fall in there too.

I remember playing with a very crude (even by the standard of the time) Pac-Man game on my black-and-white television, around 1982 or so. The Pac-Man and the Monsters jumped around in jerky motions. Even though I played for only an hour or so, when I turned away to rest, and started to read a book, all the characters on the page started jerking around like crazed cockroaches. Freaked me out for sure!

War with Iraq

The main trouble with determining the proper course of action is our considerable ignorance concerning Iraq's capabilities. I'm greatly troubled by the Bush administration's enthusiasm for war with Iraq - there is plenty of principled ground from which to object to Bush's push to war. On 9/23, on C-SPAN, I saw most of Gore's speech to the Commonwealth Club, plus the follow-up program, testimony to the House of Representatives regarding the status of Iraq's nuclear program. I agreed with about 90% of what Gore had to say, which is summarized (by Salon.com) below:

Gore blasted Bush for failing to stabilize Afghanistan, nine months after routing the Taliban from power. He accused Bush and the Republicans of cynically using Iraq as a political issue in the weeks leading up to November's midterm elections. He charged that Bush's stated policy of unilateral action is turning even allies against the United States. And he warned that the new doctrine announced last week by the administration, asserting the right of the United States to take unilateral, preemptive action against any country perceived as a threat, would set a precedent encouraging other countries to take preemptive action, creating a global "reign of fear."

My objections to Gore's speech are on the following points:
1.) Given the sorry history of outside involvement in Afghanistan's politics, it may be wise not to try to stabilize Afghanistan by ourselves. We provide Karzai's bodyguards, and assistance to the central regime. If Karzai gets enough help from us, he can work out a modus vivendi with the rest of the warlords. We don't need to 'nation-build' in Afghanistan, but we do have to prevent it from becoming a terror base ever again. And, please, the U.S. has not abandoned Afghanistan! Our guys are still there!

2.) As Niccolo Machiavelli would no doubt urge, it's an excellent idea for the U.S. to create a "reign of fear" in the Middle East. Al Qaeda was able to get such lavish funding from many Saudis precisely because the Saudis were not fearful enough of the U.S. - they figured their oil contacts made them immune to our anger. And they have been right in their calculation - for now. By spoiling the convivial atmosphere between nations, however, the U.S. reminds everyone that it is not a helpless giant, and that severe consequences may follow from irresponsible actions.

3.) Gore elevated the "rule of law" to lofty heights, ignoring the hard reality that nations are sovereign entities and are not bound by law, but by traditions. At the international level, only might, and traditions influencing the use of might, are respected. Law by itself is a weak reed.

I think Gore is sincere in his concerns - I don't think his main concern was political opportunism - but as a lawyer, he is saddled by too much respect for the ways of law. Had he been President, he would have been an easy mark on the international scene. The Republicans will eviscerate him, as they should. Democrats need to do the same.

I was impressed by the testimony of Dr. Hamza on C-SPAN regarding his experiences as an engineer in the Iraqi nuclear program. Based on what he said, and the amount of time that has elapsed since Iraq started on its efforts to get nuclear weapons, it seems to me quite likely Saddam and the Baath party of Iraq already have an undetermined number of nuclear weapons. It seems to me odd that we are then making such a show of going to war, because that just gives Iraq time to prepare a nuclear attack. The U.S. government then is either trying to get Iraq to move its forces around, and then reveal their locations, or the U.S. government thinks they haven't yet put bombs together. Pretty risky stuff, especially if the U.S. government is wrong! I don't think Iraq is going to give nuclear weapons to a terrorist group like Al Qaeda, because the weapons could be turned on his own regime, or lost, or compromised, or used in a way that a control-freak like Saddam would disapprove of.

Dr. Hamza also pointed out that much of the Iraqi nuclear infrastructure is of German design. I find it odd then that Bush doesn't use that information to slam the Germans and prevent Gerhard Schroeder from taking the moral high ground, as he did in his recent re-election campaign. Perhaps Bush is a political klutz (no particular surprise there), or maybe U.S. industries too are similiarly compromised. Still, it's a mystery....

Dr. Hamza also points out that removing Saddam is not enough. The will to go nuclear comes from the entire Baath party, and that huge edifice would have to be removed in post-invasion Iraq if we are to sleep well at night.

In my mind, it's likely that Iraq will go nuclear against U.S. troops participating in an invasion, and maybe against Israel too. In turn, we'll go nuclear too. In some sense, the current debate may already be too late.

Nevertheless, the whole debate is hobbled by lack of information. Does Iraq have nuclear weapons? The lack of a hard answer causes no end of trouble.

To me, an invasion is justified only in the event that Iraq has nuclear weapons (not the much-less-dangerous chemical and biological weapons), or is about to get them, and will use them shortly. And we have to be clever about how we do it, or..., well..., there is Pandora's Box! Everything about the way Bush is going about this business, however, from the slimeball election timing, to the efforts to evade the need for Congressional approval, to the contempt shown for the (often-contemptible) Europeans, to the failure to better-prosecute the War on Al Qaeda, demonstrates that he's in way, way beyond his skill level.

Wednesday, October 16, 2002

First Entry

This is my first entry to the 'Marc Valdez Weblog', which will feature an eclectic array of subjects of interest. Topics likely to be covered in this Weblog are:

1.) Political Opinions - generally liberal, generally just left-of-center, but not always;
2.) Local musical theater and dance - Sacramento, CA and area;
3.) Sciences - especially those relating to atmospheric sciences;
4.) Southwest USA history & natural history - NM, AZ, CA, UT, NV, even CO & TX;
5.) Eccentric humor.