Goatee Entries May 2004

I'm off-line for most of the summer, so no updates nor email responses for a while!

°2004.05.31.mo | Canoe

We paddled out to the head of the canal yesterday; next step ... along the Brooklyn coast of the East River.

°2004.05.27.th | Deceit Redux

The New York Times has apologized for not being more critical of the misinformation fed to them to justify the invastion of Iraq. As Salon reports:

The editors conceded what intelligence sources had told me and numerous other reporters: that Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi was feeding bad information to journalists and the White House and had set up a situation with Iraqi exiles where all of the influential institutions were shouting into the same garbage can, hearing the same echo.

I noted this over a year ago:

Iraq, 2002: The Bush Administration's continued "floating" of unsubstantiated allegations contribute to a warped perception of events by the public. Bush claimed proof of terrorists meeting with Saddam Hussein prior to September 11, that an International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] report concluded that Iraq was six months away from developing nuclear weapons, and that Iraq has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapon production. All of these allegations were false.

And we should've learned that exiles aren't all that reliable from the first Gulf War:

Iraq, 1990: The Pentagon insisted that Hussein's troops were poised on the border of Saudi Arabia and President Bush repeatedly mentioned the allegations that Iraqi troops were taking Kuwaiti babies from incubators and leaving them on the floor to die. Both claims were false. The first claim was never substantiated and was shown to be false by the subsequent release of Russian satellite photographs of the area [Peterson]. The second claim was based on a media campaign by the Hill & Knowlton PR firm and perjured reports of a supposed "eyewitness" who was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US [Stauber].

°2004.05.26.we | Funny Tunes

In the tradition of the Dead Milkmen, Aquabats, and, my favorite, King Missile, Wally Pleasant is making me laught while tapping my feet.

One of my little observations of myself is that I am "dumb enough" to be useful, in the sort of way I hinted at last year. This past year I've often thought that people expected or mistook me for smart, when I'm just really enthusiastic about interesting things. While I wouldn't consider myself an aspie, I feel an affinity with their "perseverative interests."

°2004.05.17.mo | Art

I love these cut-out poster/stencils in Gowanus and Red Hook; I wonder who does them? [Update, Marc at the Wooster Collective says its Swoon.]

°2004.05.16.su | Joy

We rode the hours of evening in anticipation of the gathering storm. Out to Valentino Pier to watch the contested skies above the torch of Lady Liberty. I turn to Nora to point out the first star but within a few seconds it was swept under the cover of cloud. The river and sky are now one platinum field with the horizon marked only but shimmering lights of the distant Jersey shore.

Back to our bikes we ride through the empty streets, swerving wildly in and out around lines, cracks, and glass. I point out the sunken ship, the abandoned building, a hidden passage. These are my secrets and it is as if I am a proud child, as if they are part of me. We stop at a quiet Redhook bar and sit on the patio/garden where a group of friends gather around a barbecue.

Eventually we find ourselves by the new home-supply superstore and wander the aisles hand-in-hand pretending what sort of faucets we would buy if we were rich.

Afterwards, flashes dance on the horizon and we ride to the wooden Carroll Street bridge to watch the lightning over the Brooklyn skyline. Raindrops. We pedal home just as a torrential downpour begins and I give a whoop of chill and joy.

This morning the light streams down through the skylights and the sky is an impossible blue. I stand at the window and a fresh breeze blows. My heart swells. Shivers and goose-bumps play across my skin... I shed a tear for simple pleasures.

°2004.05.15.sa | Cycles of Suffering

In response to the torture scandal, the Neo-Cons are making odd sorts of moral claims that our torture is still preferable to that of Saddam Hussein's; or, they ask, "What about the people in the World Trade Center?" What about them? What does the suffering of two unrelated groups of people have to do with each other? Do two wrongs make a right? One of my favorite responses to this sort of logic is from Martin Luther King:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.

Also, yesterday I read this almost prescient excerpt:

"When we try to overcome evil with evil, we are not working for peace. If you say, 'Saddam Hussein is evil. We have to prevent him from continuing to be evil,' and if you then use the same means he has been using, you are exactly like him. Trying to overcome evil with evil is not the way to make peace." Thich Nhat Hanh's, Living Buddha, Living Christ, 1995:75.

°2004.05.11.tu | Spunk: Spirited Punk

I've recently read two "punk" perspectives on Buddhist practice, Dharma Punx, by Noah Levine, and and Hardcore Zen, by Brad Warner, (both reviewed by Sven Davisson). I liked the narrative/story of Punx, and the substantive content of Zen — though I also found Warner's cursing/slang more stupid than punk, but I often say the same thing of punk itself. Noah Levine also had a piece in Blue Jean Buddha: Voices of Young Buddhists, which was very engaging. Two of these books are published by Wisdom Publications in Somerville, MA. I've actually used the bathroom pictured on the cover of Zen, at the Someday Cafe in Davis Sq.

Next on my pop-Buddhist reading list is the manga Buddha, Kapilavastu.

°2004.05.07.fr | The Economy

I received the first head-hunter recruitment call today that I've received in about 18th months — much of it in a period during which I'm hidden away in the library instead of giving talks at conferences. During the heyday of the dot-com bubble, I received a couple a week! (Actual people tracking you down, not employment spam.)

I suppose the economy is picking up.

°2004.05.06.th | Broadway and Houston

On the curb young men sell graffiti baseball caps and watch the women pass. People jostle and bump as they stream through the steel scaffolding and around the fruit stand. An older man sits in an expensive dark sedan listening to Latin fusion and shaking two maracas in his right hand.

°2004.05.04.tu | Abu Ghraib

I'm horrified though not surprised by the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, a place infamous under the Hussein regime and now ours. In war there is as much danger to the morality of the occupiers as the liberty of the occupied.

°2004.05.01.sa | hippies

"We used to laugh alot but only because we thought that everything good always would remain, ain't nothing gonna change there's no need to complain" - Jack Johnson,

I swear, I'm becoming a hippie. It's not as if I had anything against them, really. Even during my combat-boot and trench-coat phase I had hippie friends. I just knew that that seemingly doe-eyed, weak-willed, and philosophically muddled approach to life wasn't for me. I was more sympathetic to the "fascist bastard" approach of Rick than the "don't bring me down" response of Neil.

But when I began to travel and felt alone in a foreign city, I realized I always had a home with the hippies: good veggie food, bike art, and dancing to drums around a fire. Good stuff.

But now, given the Buddhist readings, yoga, and Jack Johnson's surf-folk playing in the background, I really begin to wonder what's happening to me.

[April Archive]