Hello World

Did anyone see Matt and Katie this morning with the segment on young women who have plastic surgery to acquire the looks of particular movie stars? This was to promote a documentary on MTV about the same subject. Two women in their twenties were profiled. Both had breast augmentation surgery. The first subject wanted to look not just like Julia Roberts but Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich. As you may recall Julia Roberts herself had to wear a special push 'em up bra to approximate Ms. Brockovich's assets. So really what the young lady wanted was to look like Julia Roberts looking like Erin Brockovich. Maybe Ms. Brockovich's fame doesn't reach the proportions that merit emulation. So you have someone who seeks not to look like Erin but Julia looking like Erin. The other woman who was in her late twenties makes her living as a Britany Spears impersonator. In order to achieve a greater resemblance to Ms. Spears, the subject had her breasts enlarged so that she could more closely resemble an entertainer who is probably not at all what she seems. Gets a bit complicated doesn't it?

But that is not really the point. The real story are the lengths to which a morning network show will go to somehow cash in on American fascination with celebrity. Two young women having breast implants is hardly news but the idea that they would have this done in order to look like a star is somehow newsworthy. Thats not news! We all know women who have had BA surgery. Or at the very least we suspect that we know women who have had BA. Almost any woman who has not had it will cheerfully point them out for you.

News would be a twenty something female having facial reconstruction to look like Sandra Bullock. Or some wimpy mail clerk having his face redone to more closely resemble Val Kilmer. More along the lines of the movie Face/Off from a few years ago. I don't think that the morning TV shows are trying nearly hard enough to bring us the real deal.

BTW, the young lady who wanted to look like Julia/Erin had her surgery reversed. She claimed that her saline implants has caused Connective-Tissue Disease and terrible joint pain throughout her body. This is the first time that I've heard that this disorder is caused by saline implants. In fact, virtually all of the responsible research shows no linkage between silicone implants and Connective-Tissue Disease but that's for another day

On one side of the debate surrounding the public testimony of Condi Rice before the 9/11 commission is the need for the American public to know more about what the Bush Administration knew and did regarding the terrorist threat to the United States and the horrific attacks on September 11. The Bush administration position on this matter is that if Condi Rice publicly appeared before the 9/11 Commission it would compromise the separations of powers doctrine, which is the right of each branch of the federal government to be free from interference from the others. It is unclear why she can appear before this panel in private yet a public appearance would be improper. However, there is a larger inconsistency with this administration on the issue of constitutional rights.

This debate, like most, is not without context. The 9/11 Commission is investigating the worst terrorist attacks suffered by the United States. The precedent of these attacks has cause a re-examination of some fundamental liberties and freedoms enjoyed by Americans. In particular, to assist in the battle against terrorism the Patriot Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush less than two months after the attacks. Moreover, the Bush administration has drafted for congressional consideration further measures to battle terrorism, dubbed Patriot Act II. Even by its most ardent supports' estimations, the Patriot Act (and Patriot Act II if made law) erodes civil liberties heretofore guaranteed to citizens of this great country. But, in exchange for the loss of some basis rights of its citizens, the government, we are told, is better equipped to meet the terrorist threat and protect these same citizens.

Yet, this same government that tells us that the cost of our safety is a measure of our liberties, places itself above offering a public explanation under oath by Condi Rice of its knowledge and actions prior to the 9/11 attacks. Ironically, they cite the rights of the President (and his close advisors) to be free from Congressional investigation. We must remember that the government ultimately serves to protect the rights of its citizens. Therefore, the rights enjoyed by the government, such a separation of powers, needs to be viewed through the lens of extraordinary circumstances that we now live in- just as they did when examining the loss of civil liberties of the citizens with the enactment of the Patriot Act. The People have a right to hear Dr. Rice tell publicly and under oath what she knew and what action she did or did not take and why. Interestingly, one civil right left untouched by the Patriot Act is the right to not self-incriminate. Maybe this the right actually being asserted by the President.

One of my earliest memories of television is of watching Omnibus on Sundays. I believe that I saw the first edition of the show when I was no more than nine or ten years old and was quite taken with the urbane Englishman who hosted it, Alistair Cooke. I later caught up with him when he hosted the first edition of Masterpiece Theatre. His introductions of the plays and weekly updates before airing the next episode added greatly to the enjoyment of the classics. I well recall watching during that first season The Six Wives of Henery VIII, Elizabeth R and The Last of the Mohicans. His weekly updates reminded me of the old radio serials when the baritone announcer would preface the show with "As you will recall at the end of last week's episode, Jack Armstrong had been locked in a trunk and cast off of a cliff into the pounding surf of the Bay of Fundy." Once Alistair Cooke had refreshed our memories from last week, the excitement and tension was immediately restored and we were ready for the next scene. Alistair Cooke was 95 years old.

Peter Ustinov led the sort of life that one can only dream of: actor, author, playwrite, director, producer but above all else, raconteur. He seemed to be having fun at every thing he did. He has been lightly criticized over the years for playing his roles over the top and winking at the audience. This I loved most of all about him. He always let us in on the joke. His appearances on late night television were a joy. He was endlessly interesting with all sorts of stories about his service in the British Army and his early days in movies and television. In his 1977 memoir Dear Me, Ustinov wrote that "Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like the best, they are merely the people who got there first."

Both of these characters had a great influence on me in my youth and probably made a substantial contribution to my lifelong anglophilia as well as my conviction that life could indeed be a bowl of cherries.

In the current issue of the London Review of Books a Stanford Philosophy Professor, Richard Rorty, has written a thought provoking essay on what is scarier than another terrorist attack on US soil. His argument runs thus: If Congress was willing to hastily enact the Patriot Act after 9/11, what would they do should a terrorist attack of say a small nuclear device in Manhattan were to kill 100,000? If fact, it is hard to believe that the government doesn't already have contingency plans for this sort of catastrophic occurrence.

It would appear that not much forethought had been given to the Patriot Act save going to security agencies and asking them to list the restrictions that they found most inconvenient. It is unlikely that a majority of the members of Congress who voted for the Patriot Act had a clear idea of what it contained...
Though I regard John Ashcroft as throughly sinister figure, I don't think that the Bush administration is filled with power-hungry crypto-facists. Neither is the German or Spanish or British government. But I do think that the end of the rule of law could come about inadvertently, in both the US and Europe, through the sheer momentum of the institional changes that are likely to be made in the name of the war on terrorism. If there were a dozen succesful terrorist attacks on European capitals, and if some of them used nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the military and national security bureaucracies in all European contries would be granted powers that they had not previously wielded. The public will find this fitting and proper. Local police forces will probably start working on instructions from the national capital. Any criticism by the media will be seen by the government as a souce of aid and comfort to terrorism. European ministers of justice will echo Ashcroft's reply to critics of the Patriot Act.
"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty" said Ashcroft, "my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

Professor Rorty's point being that should such a terrible disaster befall us, the rush to improve security would be so great as to threaten our democracy. A panicked electorate and a Congress under unprecedented pressure would acquiesce in almost anything proposed with enough authority. Once forfeit how long would it take libertarians to claw back rights currently taken for granted. Wouldn't it be far better to have such a debate now while rational discussion is still possible? We should decide in the absence of an attack how much of our decision making we would be willing to cede temporarily to an executive authority, what are the time limits of such a grant and how would we return to the level of democracy we now enjoy. At the very least we should demand to know what sort of contingency plans for governing us in a time of spectacular crises are currently in three ring binders awaiting the unthinkable. It took the western democracies 200 years to get where we are today. Without proper planning now, it could be gone in six weeks. The taking of 100,000 lives could negate that for which millions have died to save.

I am not by nature an alarmist but I think Mr. Rorty may have point here. I only wish that the Rorty essay were on line so that you could see it in its entirety. The London Review of Books is available but that particular essay is available to subscribers only.

Not in public, not under oath doesn't quite completely describe the stipulations placed on Condi Rice's appearance before the 9/11 Commission. According to this morning's New York Times, the White House insisted that her private testimony could not even be recorded. While members of the commission were permitted to take notes there is no transcript of her testimony. So it is not even a matter of the commission eventually releasing her testimony. They can't release her testimony. There is none. Sure the White House might take a hit on this but they have clearly made the calculation that whatever criticism they might have to endure would be far outweighed by possible damage from the testimony itself.

Different Takes on the Same Appearance
The TV morning shows are treating Condi's appearance last night on 60 Minutes as a she won't testify in public story. The New York Times has a little different take on the story. They lead with her confirmation of the president's immediate insistence on knowing if Iraq was involved in 9/11. Through most of last week the White tried to imply that the confrontational meeting of Bush, Clarke et al never occurred. The President doesn't recall such a meeting and "We have no record that such a meeting ever happened" were the White House reactions to the Clarke assertion that the President had insisted on any shred of evidence that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks. When will these guys learn that sooner or later the truth is going to come out so why not blunt the potential criticism by coming clean in the first place?

Just Can't Help Themselves
While there no law against it, most news outlets avoid identifying jurors while deliberations are still under way. In the trial of Tyco executive Dennis Koslowski NBC has opted to honor that tradition while still managing to titillate. This morning's story had the familiar courtroom drawing. But this time the drawing was of the jury replete with one juror giving the "OK" sign of the index finger and the thumb forming an "O". However, in order to maintain the "highest standards," a fuzzy circle was placed over the juror's faces. Now what is this all about? Why go to the effort to have a drawing made only to obscure the only identifying features in the drawing?

I understand that TV has to have pictures. But pictures that can't be shown? "In order to better inform our viewers we have made a drawing of unidentifiable individuals." Oh well, its only morning TV.

Fuzzy Pictures
While we're on the subject, about a week ago on CNN Headline News I saw a piece about a new toy on the market. It seems that someone has made Justin and Janet dolls dressed in the costumes they wore for the Super Bowl Half Time show. The accuracy is complete with the Janet doll's right breast exposed. When the clip showed the actual dolls in the plastic packaging, CNN placed a fuzzy circle over the doll's exposed breast. Thank God! Imagine. Viewers running amok in the streets crazed by the sight of a doll tit. Ever since John Ashcroft draped the semi-nude statues in the Justice Department, voyeurs just can't catch a break.

It appears that Condi is going to talk to the Commission again, but as with her first appearance- this next meeting will be a private session. The justification is that if she appeared in public hearings before the bipartisan Commission this would violate the separations of powers doctrine. As an advisor to the president, so this justification goes, her public appearance would set a bad precedent for future Presidents and advisors, who need to have independence from Congress. Yet, she seems to be able to meet with reporters mere moments after someone else has offered public testimony and faced tough questioning before the Commission looking into the terrorist attacks of 9/11. She has also recently granted exclusive interviews on these subjects to the fair and balanced Fox News and CNN. She has clearly shown a willingness and ability to discuss these matters and do so publicly, but just not in front of the bipartisan Commission- much to their chagrin. Might I suggest that she meet publicly with the 9/11 victims' family members, who traveled to Washington to hear public testimony, and answer their questions regarding her role and actions prior to 9/11. But then again maybe a public appearance before the bipartisan 9/11 Commission wouldn't be so bad after all.

I'm still "at work", but not really. I work on the second floor of a college library. I'm done with my office activities for the day and have drifted downstairs to the beautiful library study area to relax until my wife completes her day at work. I've grabbed some magazines and cracked open the laptop to begin some casual reading and writing.

This post is made possilbe, by the way, because our campus is Wi-Fi enabled, end to end. Technology. Mmm. Mmm. Good.

Moving on...(there's a story here, I promise) I picked up a copy of Utne Magazine (which I must admit I have never read but was interested in the cover story) and began flipping through it until I came across a segment called "The Daily Me."

It is with this article that I have my "meta-serendipity" experience: A serendipitous experience revolving around the topic of serendipity. What is incredibly ironic about the whole experience is that coming across the article in the magazine happened in almost the same fashion as the author's experience with finding an unexpected article as well.

Oh...just read the article...you'll understand. My wife just called. I need to text message her my Target shopping list from the library. Technology. Yummy. As for the article, it's pretty good. Gets you thinking about how we may over "filter" our information and experiences...which may lead to missing out on experiences like the one I just had...

"HelloWorld is a unique software application with a fresh, visual approach to connecting people, online messaging, search and transfer operations, and personal publishing, in a decentralized network environment that is owned and operated by the network community."

Interesting visual interface, particularly the map concept. Launching sometime this month.