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Last entry in the two-column table format! I still ended up with a table on the new system, but at least it looks significantly changed from my journal format over the past ... hm ... two-plus years.

why did i start this? i can't remember. i guess other people were doing it and it seemed like fun.

Yes, that was it. I wanted to play too. The main way I approach web journalling is as a way of keeping up with my friends. I keep an eye on them, they keep an eye on me, or at least we keep eyes on our public selves. Of course, it only goes so far, since several of my closest friends don't self-exhibit this way.

In the beginning of my freshman year at university, the dorm had a resident computer coordinator. In one of our freshman orientations, he explained that we each could sign up for this thing called e-mail in the dorm computer cluster. We could type messages over the computer to other people with e-mail accounts. "cool," we said, and sent flurries of emails to each other from opposite sides of the computer cluster, giggling madly. A few people had siblings or friends with email accounts at other schools, and could actually put email to practical use.

Over the four years, things changed. By my senior year, the freshmen were coming in all "where's our email? woohoo!" And during one of my newsgroup sessions on a dorm computer, I noticed this thing called "Mosaic" that someone had installed. I looked at it. There didn't seem to be much there; I wasn't sure what it was supposed to do. I didn't give it a lot of thought.

ramble alert! ahem. My point is, I went through college just before the Web got started. It's thanks to library school that I have any HTML skills to speak of. So I guess I could have done worse than a two-column table for 2+ years. Bit by bit, I pick things up.

now metamorphosing into the new layout. i've been creating new directories and moving things around and fixing non-relative links, so there's possibly something(s) broken in there somewhere. feel free to let me know if you happen across it/them. april page is not officially live until foolsday though.

haven't been able to finish the other thing to my satisfaction so i hid it. maybe later. i'll put this usual page back up while i figure out the new spring fashion format. goal is to have this page looking all differenty by april 1.

meanwhile, this is the sort of thing i've been trying to say. aside from the local british politics which i'm not informed about.

i feel like bilbo in the battle of five armies, who preferred on the whole to defend the elvenking. i'll go stand over there, with blair.

even old abe did a little suspending of the habeas corpus, and was criticized for it at the time. but abe, he saw the big picture. that's what i mean when i wish we had someone like him in charge right about now.

which boils down to: i think we're doing the right thing, wrongly. so what does that make me? an anti-pro? an amateur? no denying that.

if i'm only an amateur, i can go ahead and say something like: i think bush, chirac, and putin are all self-interested weenies. where's an abraham lincoln when you need him, to remind everybody about better angels of our nature? not telegenic enough probably. sigh.

In all my writing and editing and deleting and bracketing yesterday, the following bit got dumped, but I want to put it back because it did make a strong impression on me:

Despite our tendency to act like a careless elephant abroad, we are not entirely alone in this, and some of those with us are former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. I heard a Romanian official saying on the radio [yesterday] morning that the Romanian people identify Hussein with their own past dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu, and therefore want to help topple Hussein, remembering their own suffering.

I can't remember for sure what it was they said Romania was contributing -- some biochem decontamination facilities, maybe.

Another reason I'm putting it back in here: France has a right to object to our words and actions, but Chirac was out of line to tell our Eastern European supporters that they should keep their mouths shut.

in other news, I seem to be a Blairite.

grr argh.

Dammit, I choose pro. I think we're making a hash of our public/international relations when we didn't have to, and I don't relish siding with the overeager oildrillers, but it comes down to this: Saddam Hussein is a dangerous, sadistic sociopath who has repeatedly violated the terms of the 1991 peace agreement, which means that war will now resume. I choose to be optimistic about the effect this will have on the Iraqi people overall -- frankly I don't see how there's anywhere to go but up for them. We have the power to help them, and possibly to help ourselves at the same time, though naturally that will never be known for certain.

We have power beyond any other country. We are choosing to use it against not just any small oil-rich country, but the one most notable for terrorizing its neighbors and its own people.

This is making me tired.

I want us to use our power for good. No one would believe us for a while, because it's not a familiar historical model. But a republic of our size and strength has never existed before, either. Ever. In history. Just stop to think for a moment how new the idea of widespread democracy is, in the history of civilization. Up to a few hundred years ago, aside from a few city-states and small regions, scattered here and there in space and time, all governments were variations in styles of dictatorship. Maybe we could push the trend along. Nothing is ever inevitable, even if hindsight makes it look that way. If we don't use our power for good, are we not then a vague, apathetic sort of bad? If we kept consistently acting honestly and fairly for good and democracy, and against bullies and dictators, maybe others would join with us more readily. and someday the world could live as one, except for the genocidal sociopaths, whom we would lock up.

I don't know if we are going in for the same reasons I want to, and I don't entirely trust the Bushies to act for the good as I see it, but I can hope for the same results in the end. always hope.

.......

aha. here. Thomas Friedman once again says it better.

I've been putting off writing about the war because I find it hard to completely decide myself what I think about it. But I want to say SOMETHING decisive before it starts. So I'll be adding and editing throughout the day, since I don't have time to write a big screed all at once, here.

Some root-level statements of belief:
1. War is a bad, ugly, horrible thing, to be avoided whenever possible.
2. There are a certain number of people within any group who will use any means available to advance their own power.
3. Complete pacifism, while admirable in the abstract, is unrealistic and a bad survival strategy, given (2).

hmm.

4. Most, possibly all, nations continue to behave among themselves like unsupervised teenagers, though with less actual sex (except among those uninhibited euros). Any undersized members caught alone in the locker room by the bullies are liable to have their shoes stolen, or worse.

Dude, I just had this whole vision of the UN as Sunnydale High. Kofi Annan would have to be the principal, and the USA would be Buffy. UK would be Giles, of course.

heh. enough of that.

Cordelia = France! Of course, many people think the USA actually = Faith. OK, stopping now.

Here are what I understand to be each side's valid points. I believe both sides have some, which is why I'm having such trouble making up my mind.

Pro-war: Iraq never fulfilled the terms of its 1991 surrender. If Saddam Hussein really wanted to disarm, he could have done it any time in the last 12 years without all this bother, instead of continuing to build himself palaces with his people's medicine money, and sneak around trying to get away with as much as he could. He is a proven danger to his neighbors, and a potential danger to farther-away countries if he were to supply terrorists with weapons. He has been able to hide weapons programs from inspectors in the past. We went to the UN first, but key countries with economic interests in Iraq's status quo refuse to authorize war, despite obvious breaches of previous resolutions. Something must be done, therefore we shall do it, on the authority of both previous UN resolutions and the 1991 war treaty.

Anti-war: Despite Hussein's obvious untrustworthiness, inspections cramp his style sufficiently to neutralize his danger to others. The USA has economic interests in eliminating Hussein, and world anti-American cynicism will thus be exacerbated by our invading Iraq, even if we do not intend it in a traditionally imperialist way. Intentions do not guarantee the results we desire, and perceptions can be as or more important than reality. Even though the end of Hussein would be a good thing, as much for his people as anyone else, we shouldn't do it without the UN, because we're trying to achieve a world where countries don't invade other countries just because they want to, anymore. Meanwhile, that kooky leader of North Korea is taking advantage of our preoccupation to kick his nuclear program back into gear, hello.

Pro-war: At some point, Hussein must face a deadline that means something, else similar bullies will in future follow his lead in de facto ignoring the UN. If the UN is going to work, its members have to have the guts to step up and enforce its resolutions.

Anti-war: It is unlikely that he has been able to rebuild his nuclear program. So what's wrong with being content to harass him with inspectors? Why do we have to stomp him NOW?

Pro-war: ...come to think of it, ignoring the UN has been kinda common, historically. The Soviets didn't ask permission to invade Afghanistan.

Anti-war: We probably didn't ask it what it thought of Vietnam, or Chile, or Guatemala, either. Those turned out so well, too. And I wouldn't bring up Afghanistan if I were you. If we had Marshall-planned Afghanistan after the Soviets left, instead of bailing out ourselves and leaving it entirely up to the warlords and radicals, who knows how history might have been different? We'd better not pull a half-assed job like that AGAIN.

Pro-war: Our job, our responsibility, is to do what we think is best to protect our country, not to win popularity contests. We may be wrong, ...

Anti-war: "may"?

Pro-war: ... but we honestly think this is what we have to do. And by the way, who says we're not going to pull an Israeli-air-force on that North Korean nuclear plant?

Anti-war: We don't trust you, but even if you're right, you could use a bit more tact, you arrogant tree-killers.

(to be continued)

another rainstorm involving thunder. i just wish i could see some lightning. but not TOO close.

Sign of spring #28: local birds are pecking away at our patio roof, working loose fiberglass fibers for nesting material.

I heard about this on the radio this morning. Apparently Colin Powell was at a press conference and an Iraqi reporter asked (snidely, one must presume) whether it was true that only 13% of Americans could find Iraq on a map.

"That may be true," replied Powell, "but, unfortunately for you, all of those 13% are Marines."

---

oh darn. it's in Snopes. I thought it sounded a little too good. Still funny, though. Which is to be expected since it seems the original source was really a Doonesbury cartoon. Vive Garry Trudeau!

"Currently, we see Adm. George W. Bush, with his apparent disdain for the Prime Directive and also the Federation (United Nations) itself, in orbit around planet Iraq, preparing to beam down a heavily armed away team. Bush probably thinks himself more Kirk than Picard, but he's mistaken: He simply doesn't have the same pathos. Or the twinkly eyes." --Mark Simpson, Salon.com

(article is dated Feb 26 but I only found it today, so 'tis quote of to-day.)

hee!

back issues: ( 2001 ) ( 2002 ) ( january ) ( february ) ( april and everything after )

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