Yes We Can

My guy Obama is on the grind lately. I was on the fence with the candidates for a long time, but after the last few rounds of debates and what-not, I find myself wanting this dude to be my Prez. I do think this “Yes We Can” vid is kind of wacky though. Thoughts?  

Bill Clinton at UBS

For anyone who is interested, former President Bill Clinton will be doing a book signing at the University Book Store on University Way in the Udistrict next Thursday, November 1st. Times and details have yet to be confirmed because it was just announced today, but you can find more info as it becomes available at the UBS blog, The Shelf Life.

You can die for our country, but you can’t blog…

Came across an article on Wired.com and was appauled to learn that the U.S. Military is ordering soldiers to stop blogging and sending personal e-mail without first having all of them checked over by a superior officer. The directive includes blogs, e-mails, posting comments on message boards, resumes and even letters home. You can read a pdf of the directive via Wired.com here.

I can understand, for security purposes, why you might not want people slipping up and writing about priviledged information– or even writing anything that could indicate locations or plans. But when I read that the directive also applies to civilians working for the military, PMCs (private military contractors) and also some military families I can’t help but be suspicious. Something just doesn’t sit well with me, when some of the only people with firsthand information about the war in Iraq are being silenced. Soldiers are already being asked to sacrifice so much for this war, do they also have to sacrifice their right to free speech? Read the full article here and about recent developments here.

Greens Peace

Ironically enough my last undergraduate collegiate course is my hands down hardest. It’s about International Conflict and despite the fact that it’s kicking my ass it’s actually quite interesting. This week between reading about Realism & Democratic Peace Theory, our professor included this hilarious article by David Plotz called “Greens Peace: A Controversial New Theory about the True Causes of War & Peace– in 18 Holes or Less.” I’ve included the article in this post, but you can also read the New York Times Magazine article here. I might be one of the skeptical tennis fans, but this Plotz guy might be on to something- what do you think?

 

ince the rise of the nation-state, scholars and politicians have been struggling to answer the critical question of geopolitics: Why do some countries fight wars and others remain at peace? Yet to date, they have made little progress. Some contemporary thinkers, alarmed by Kosovo and Rwanda, predict that ethnic conflict will be the prime cause of war in the 21st century. Environmental scholars argue that scarce water and land will drive nations to battle. Students of the theory of interdemocratic peace contend that the structure of national government will be the driving factor. But policy makers should discard these dry, unsatisfying academic formulations and start paying attention to a much more powerful explanatory tool: golf.

Countries where golf is popular never fight other golfing nations — and don’t fight much at all — while countries without golf are strikingly belligerent. Have you ever met an Afghan who golfs? Are there any Serbs on the P. G.A. tour?

I can hear the skeptical tennis fans out there asking, Where’s the proof? Years of rigorous data collection and analysis — or at least days of casual data massaging — confirm the theory of greens peace. I consulted experts at the National Golf Foundation and Golf Digest and scoured the records of PlayGolfNow.com to determine which countries take their golf seriously and which are mere duffers. Because the only remotely reliable international golf statistic is the number of courses, I estimated golf’s popularity in each country by calculating the ratio of golf courses to people. Using well-established scientific and astrological methods, I determined that a country needs one course per million people to count as a golf nation. (Fewer than one course per million suggests that golf is confined to rich folks and tourists.)

About 50 countries meet the one-per-million standard. Golf-mad New Zealand leads the world with 136 courses per million. The United States has about 60; France, 11; and Singapore, 6. Sri Lanka, by contrast, has 0.1; Peru 0.08; China 0.05.

David Plotz is the Washington editor of Slate.com.

I compared the golf stats with a list of the 300-odd major conflicts since World War II, and the evidence is irrefutable. Golfing nations haven’t fought one another in 50-odd years, and they aren’t very likely to fight one another today. Of the 27 current major armed conflicts, none match golfing nations. Take a quick spin around the globe. Every peaceful European country loves golf. But Russia, at war in Chechnya, doesn’t hit the links. Non-golf Greece and non-golf Turkey have long warred over non-golf Cyprus. The former Yugoslavia has fragmented into five states. Only peaceful Slovenia swings the sticks.

United Arab Emirates. Photograph by David Cannon/Allsport.

Do India or Pakistan golf? Of course not. Algerians shoot one another; Moroccans next door shoot par. Peaceful Thailand is a regular at the range, but belligerent Myanmar isn’t. Golf is sadly absent from Sierra Leone, Congo and Eritrea. The Middle East has hardly any courses; Iraqis still think a bunker is something you want to be in. Colombia and Peru have guerrilla wars but little golf. Venezuela has lots of golf but no war. Malaysia is crazy about the game, but Indonesia has been too busy brutalizing East Timor to pick it up. Taiwan loves golf; China doesn’t — which one of them invaded Tibet and India? Germany and Japan have become golf junkies since the Second World War ended; South Korea took up the game after the Korean War. Is it any accident they’ve remained at peace?

And the more golf you play, the more peaceful you are. Sweet-tempered nations like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Canada play the most golf. Of the 10 countries where golf is most popular, only the United States and Great Britain have a recent history of autonomous belligerence. But the United States has dispatched troops only against anti-golf tyrants: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Panama’s Manuel Noriega, Somalia’s Mohammed Aideed.

Two British conflicts do mar the record. The U.K. and Argentina warred over the Falkland Islands in 1982. (Argentina barely meets the one-per-million cutoff today, and I suspect that it wouldn’t have had enough courses to qualify in 1982.) And Northern Ireland’s Troubles set the golfing Irish against the golfing English. Apartheid-era South Africa also tarnishes the theory, with the white golfing minority violently oppressing the black, non-golfing majority.

hilosophers and social scientists will undoubtedly puzzle for decades over the association of golf and peace, but I have a few preliminary theories. Golf teaches players to be gentlemen. It relies on an honor system in which golfers police themselves. Golf has no physical violence, unlike basketball, soccer, football, rugby and so on. (Soccer fans riot, and at least one soccer match ignited a war. Have you ever heard of a golf riot?) Golf is not zero-sum. Your performance is independent of your opponent’s, and nothing you can do to your opponent can improve your score. War, which is founded on violence, cheating and crushing your rival, is golf’s antithesis.

Japan. Photograph by Michael S. Yamashita/Corbis. Angola. Photograph by Anthony Suau/Liason International.

Some cynics may complain that I have it backward: golf doesn’t cause peace, peace causes golf. Golf, they may say, presumes a stable economic and political system. Golfers have to be relatively prosperous people with leisure time. They live in countries that can afford to set aside valuable land and water for golf courses. People who have the time and peace of mind to play golf aren’t worrying about whether rioters are looting their stores or barbarians are swarming across the borders. (This argument parallels Thomas L. Friedman’s “golden arches theory of conflict prevention,” which holds that countries with McDonald’s are too prosperous and complacent to wage war with one another.)

But the far-sighted people of South Korea, who know firsthand the benefits of golf, are conducting a perfect experiment to prove that it can pacify even the most benighted nation. According to recent news reports, South Korea’s first significant capital investment in North Korea will include a multimillion-dollar resort with several golf courses to be built by the Hyundai Group. These will be North Korea’s first courses, and they may be the best investment South Korea ever makes. What better way to end 50 years of strife than to teach North Koreans to make par, not war?

That’s how the cookie crumbles…

Came across this Op-Ed in the NYTimes.com today called “The Rich Are More Oblivious Than You And Me.” It’s a really interesting (and quite funny) piece that explores the idea that as one gets richer, they become more “disinhibited” and therefore less sensitive to those around them and less cautious in general. It basically seeks to answer the question “Why do rich people do such stupid things and why are they always acting like idiots?” The article seems to have been sparked by the recent crash of a red $1.5 million dollar Ferrari Enzo by actor Eddie Griffin at a charity event. Other stupid rich people moments highlighted in this article? Steve Wynn elbowing a $139 million Picasso painting, and Mel Gibson’s Anti-Semetic tirade back in July 2006.

My favorite part of the article is a test used to explore the notion that power makes people “stupid and insensitive.” It’s what Richard Conniff calls the “Cookie Monster Experiment.” “Researchers led by the psychologist Dacher Keltner took groups of three ordinary volunteers and randomly put one of them in charge. Each trio had a half-hour to work through a boring social survey. Then a researcher came in and left a plateful of precisely five cookies. Care to guess which volunteer typically grabbed an extra cookie? The volunteer who had randomly been assigned the power role was also more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table.” It’s interesting to think about whether or not power and money breed an attitude of entitlement? I guess the “cookie monster’s” mothers never taught them to ask if anyone else wanted the last item on the plate, before devouring it themselves. Makes me think it would be a good follow up study to explore whether or not money and power make you lose your manners and “good home trainin’!”

It’s an interesting article, and delves a little deeper into this subject. Check it out above, or right here.

Bill O’Reilly is Lame

I watch a lot of cable news shows- probably TOO many. I try to watch as many on Fox News as I do on MSNBC, as I do on CNN and Comedy Central, but I have reached a point where I’ve absolutely had enough of this “bully the guests we don’t agree with, by not allowing them to speak and talking louder than them” culture that’s emerged thanks to the likes of Sean Hannity, Lars Larson, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh and the mac-daddy Bill O’Reilly. The implications of this type of political interaction on the American Democratic system is frightening. People already have a hard enough time removing themselves from their politics to have civil conversations, and now it seems the dominant model for how to “talk politics” in this country is to revert back to childhood when covering your ears and singing “la la la la, I can’t hear you” was the standard form of argumentative rebutal. Free speech sure seems to be in trouble where Bill O’Reilly is concerned . This guy is just too much some times. Here’s a clip of O’Reilly pulling his normal shenanagins on a 29 year Military Colonel where he proceeds to “cut her mic” when she won’t give in to his spin games. In fact, when she says “I served 29 years, Bill. How many did you serve?” seemed to be the conduit that finally pushed him to cut her mic. This guy is a schmuck and anyone who relies on Bill O’Reilly for their bonafide news needs to wake up and smell the coffee. And stop drinking the kool-aid out of their “Factor: No Spin Zone” coffee mugs. Lame, Bill O’Reilly, Lame.

For once in my life, I think Snoop Dogg makes a lot of sense… (Warning: video contains language not suitable for children-or my mother. Sorry mom.

M.C. Rove

This clip is just ridiculous. It blew up last week and I thought it deserved at least a little more airtime. You’d think someone like Karl Rove, whose spent his whole career carefully crafting other people’s images, would have a little more sense about him than to act like this in public. These guys are so out of touch it’s unbelievable. Love the guys from Whose Line, though.

I remember watching an episode of Frontline (easily one of the best shows on TV) awhile back about Rove called The Architect. It was pretty disturbing. Here’s the link to watch it online.

Army Recruiters Get Creative

(Disclaimer: This blogpost is very political in nature. I didn’t necessarily intend it to be, but that’s the way it turned out. I understand that it’s very difficult for some to seperate themselves from their politics, and so I encourage you to read this with caution and/or skip over this post if you feel it might be something that will be personally offensive. I’d hope, however, that you’d feel compelled to read and if you have something to say in response- post a comment. Dialogue, contrary to the belief of some in this country, is actually a healthy thing. This is really nothing more than a personal rant)

On my way out the door the other day I heard a little lead-in on CNN to a story about Army Recruiting. Now, to be honest, I don’t have a very high opinion of the way the military in this country conducts its recruiting to begin with. I know I’ll probably piss some people off by writing about it, but I think the military are schmucks when it comes to looking out for their soldiers. I don’t believe for one second that when the military is recruiting soldiers their actual goal is to help American citizens better themselves- be it through education, vocational training, or by providing a way to give back and serve. This is the message we all receive from their ad campaigns, right? Be an Army of One, or whatever their taglines are. I think it’s a big load of garbage. Perhaps my views are tainted because we’re in wartime, and our situation in Iraq is such a mess. Maybe during peace times the military really is looking for ways to help empoverished, overlooked and neglected young men and women to obtain the American dream- these seem to be the only people they target their campaigns towards. I don’t know, but it’s really hard for me to have respect for a military that subjects young soldiers to horrific conditions in Iraq, sometimes up to 3 consecutive terms, ripping them from their loved ones and providing them little to no support once they return. It’s even more difficult for me to believe that that same military is only looking to improve the lives of the many men and women they are targeting by implimenting a new “ground-breaking” recruitment technique of hanging out in/around paintball fields.

In one of my classes I can remember reading about how the military was souping up Hummers with spinners and tinted windows, and driving them through poor urban neighborhoods bumping hip-hop and rap to attract attention. It’s no secret (at least to most) that the U.S. military targets those from lower socio-economic groups as a way to provide these Americans with a “ticket out of the ghetto” so-to-speak. It seems to me, that military service has become less about SERVICE, and more about what a military life can do for the individual soldier. I think this is dangerous because even though it might be a powerful tool to get people to enlist, it has a very polarizing result. Let’s be honest, in today’s world the military doesn’t have much to offer someone who already has a ticket into college, or is on the fast track to a 6-figure salary. So if the military is all about what the individual can receive who do we see choosing the military path? And who do we see dodging it? This reminds me of the part in Fahrenheit 9/11 where we discover that only one U.S. congressperson has a son or daughter serving in the military. Again, perhaps if I felt the military actually had the best interest of it’s soldiers in mind, I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about how they conduct themselves regarding recruitment.

In terms of recruiting at paintball fields, I find myself terribly torn over the topic. On one hand I feel like it’s really slimey of the military to be so segmented with who they market to- it feels exploitive and unethical. But on the other hand, why should I expect them to do anything different? It feels like everything in this consumer-based world is oriented towards identifying and isolating your target market, and I guess a bunch of people running around playing with semi-automatic weaponry (be it real or paintball) would qualify as a target market for the military. So in this regard, I have to admit it’s pretty smart of them. In an article from kdka.com, Army recruiter Levie Conway said they receive about 50 leads each visit from frequenting paintball fields- each visit! So far, in Illinois alone, they’ve enlisted 13 new soldiers by marketing at paintball fields. Below is a link to a news segment about this new technique. Perhaps the most alarming quote from this interview was from the owner of the CPX paintball facility. He says “I think that they may be looking for somebody who might be interested in taking it to the next level.” The next level?! So once paintballing gets boring, people should aspire to shoot insurgents in Iraq? Is the next step after laser tag, deployment to Afghanistan? I think this is a very dangerous linkage being made between SPORT and war. It’s scary, and it freaks me out.

Here’s the link to the interview clip; http://kdka.com/video/?id=30785@wbbm.dayport.com. You decide. I feel like I should end with some big conclusion, or summation of what I’ve written but really it just feels good to write about something that had sparked my interest in last week’s news. So this really wasn’t much more than a personal rant.

They Rule

Awhile back I took a Concepts of New Media class, and really loved it. Our prof, Philip Howard, was stellar and the content of the class kept me, well, coming to class. Our first assignment was to find a piece of “old, new media” and smash it apart to try to figure out how it works- then using our findings try to come up with a definition for new media. Our final assignment was to make our own mash-up and in the past Howard’s had his classes make maps of wi-fi hotspots around Seattle- which were later used by the City of Seattle. Pretty cool. Anyhow, during class one day Prof Howard pulled up the website “theyrule”. I thought it was so cool, I quickly jotted it down in my moleskine as something I wanted to explore further (something I did often in this class). Well life happened, and I got so busy I completely forgot about it until today. Remembering it was like getting a Christmas present. Theyrule.net is a website that allows you to make visual maps of how companies (specifically board members of these companies) are connected to other companies. It’s absolutely amazing to see how many people sit on multiple boards, proving they really do “rule”. Here’s an example of a map I made. I stuck with the Seattle theme, and started with all the major companies based out of Seattle. One cool part about this website is that icons representing board members get fatter depending on how many other boards they sit on. Classic. It’s pretty fun to play around with, which keeps your mind off of the fact that what you’re seeing/creating is extremely depressing and scary. Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, with major power consolidation. Here’s a map I found with 7 of the most powerful people around;

1984

This remix of the classic 1984 Apple Commercial has been blowing up on the internet lately- and getting lots of mainstream press. I’m not sure I’m so “wowed” by it, but I suppose it’s interesting enough. Barack’s camp has said they did not produce the commercial but I think I would’ve been more intrigued if they had. If Barack is so revolutionary, and breaks the mold in so many ways (a la 1984) , you’d think he’d be all over “the internets” figuring out ways to start a real conversation with constituents and getting his messages across. Don’t get me wrong, I think Barack has some very compelling attributes and is refreshing in many ways, but it’s still SO early. I’d like to see where the candidates go with this campaign. There are too many issues left to talk about so I reserve the right to wait before making up my mind on this one. I also think that President Bush’s face would fit much better in this rendition than Hillary’s. I understand Barack fans see her as the direct threat to his campaign, but if we’re going for the whole “Vote Different” theme- don’t you think it would mean so much more to juxtapose Barack against George W? Isn’t that what people need to be “rescued” from? I guess the person behind this commercial just wanted to get people talking and has therefore succeeded. It is kind of a cool reminder that each of us can play an active role in the larger conversation- if we wanted to and were creative enough. Just some thoughts. But enough of that, check out the vid;

Banksy

Found this video (from an old episode of the BBC’s Culture Show) on the ever elusive and mysterious artist Banksy. If you’re not familiar with his work, he’s the man behind the big Paris Hilton CD debauchery, as well as many other infamous public works. This video delves a little deeper into the life and work of this perpetually mysterious artist, and even includes an audio interview with the man himself (if you call e-mailed questions with responses mashed-up and scrambled a personal interview) where he talks about his influences and motivations. If you know Banksy’s work this should be a nice augmentation to your knowledge, and if you’re new to the world of Banksy this should be a nice introduction. Enjoy!