WhirledView

Life in the Age of Bush

by Cheryl Rofer

Newsweek started it, according to Kevin Drum. And Jamie has added his tuppence. The San Diego Union-Tribune has contributed its view (via Bouphonia, which is more worth reading).

As Kevin puts it, “Newsweek asked its cultural critics to pick the ‘one work in their field that they believe exemplifies what it was like to be alive in the age of George W. Bush.’" I’m going to do something that I tend to criticize in others, like the Union-Tribune: way overinterpret some literature that probably doesn’t deserve it. But what the heck.

I’ll put forward a genre that I believe exemplifies some aspects of life in the age of Bush: action novels about the Templars and other religion-related mysteries that originated in the high middle ages. Since that’s one of my favorite periods of history, I’ve particularly noticed this trend. I haven’t read all of them by a long shot, but I was in the middle of one of them when the challenge surfaced, The Templar Legacy, by Steve Berry.

War of What Ideas? Whose Ideas? What War?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

As anyone who knows me realizes, I have never been a fan of the Bush administration's misnamed "war on terror." For the record, I am likewise no fan of the "war of ideas." In fact, the administration's overuse of military jargon as an excuse through which to approach the world makes me ill. Not only is it wrong, but it's also a fantastic way to create enemies who never previously existed. Just brand their views as ideas that we need to eradicate: that'll do it.

If we're lucky, the responses might rate the hurling of relatively innocuous shoes over overly fortified American Embassy walls. If not, the reactions could be far worse.

John Brown in his post "Thoughts on the 'War of Ideas'"also questions the appropriateness of the phrase. So does Donna Oglesby in a comment on Matt Armstrong's post in which he advocates James Glassman's continuation as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy until a new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy is confirmed - but after W's administration has finally limped out the exit.

Meanwhile, I'm not entirely sure what and whose ideas Glassman wants to wage war upon.

Presumably he's talking about militant Islam although he does not say so explicitly. But is ideological warfare painted with a broad brush the best way to deal with a richly endowed band of anti-American terrorists headquartered somewhere in the Pakistani hinterlands? I doubt it. Hasn't worked over the past six years so what's to say a US government sponsored Internet campaign will change things now. Besides, anti-American terrorism does not just come from radical Islamic groups. Terrorism is foremost a weapon of the weak against the strong. I'm sure you've heard that one before. Besides, in my experience, it's true.

Science is Back! - Updated 12/20/08

by Cheryl Rofer

It has been a joy to see that Barack Obama is making intelligence and experience the primary qualifications for his Cabinet and other high-level appointments. I keep breathing sighs of relief.

I sighed a great sigh of relief on reading that Steven Chu, a Nobel Laureate, is nominated for Secretary of Energy. And I sigh again to read that John Holdren has been chosen as presidential science adviser and Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Both are highly respected for their capability and integrity. What a change!

We won't be hearing from this government that schools should teach "both sides" of a nonexistent controversy over evolution. We also won't be hearing the nonsense that nobody really knows whether global warming is caused by human-produced carbon dioxide. (Well, at least not from the government.) We will not have to ponder whether a zygote has a soul. It looks like policy will be decided on facts, rather than someone's gut. Sigh of relief.

The news coverage has emphasized the global warming aspect of all three of these nominations. But there's a lot more to it than that. I've written about some of the challenges facing Steven Chu. Scientists are pleased that all three of these nominees are, well, scientists. But they're more than that. Holdren has held a number of organizational posts, including the chair of the Executive Committee of the Pugwash Council and the presidency of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the organization all us scientists belong to and publisher of Science magazine.

Holdren has been active in nuclear nonproliferation, as indicated by his involvement in the Pugwash Council. He was also co-chair of a joint project between the US and Russian academies of science on nonproliferation. I don't agree with his proposal of a nonproliferation "czar," but the fact of this sort of experience suggests a different approach to the Russians than the bear-poking that's been the standard under George Bush. Another big sigh.

Holdren has also done many energy systems studies of the kind that don't seem to be done any more. So he will be able to keep Obama informed on many fronts and will be able to present the alternatives intelligently.

We haven't heard about a replacement for the NASA head, who is further down the ladder. NASA has had a great deal of trouble keeping costs in line. We can hope that Obama's science team understands that this can be a political cudgel to keep the pointy-heads in line, but that it can also be a symptom of being too close to the contractors, and so it needs a smart solution, not just rhetoric and one-size-fits-all demands.

More about Steven Chu here. (Thanks to Frank Munger!)

Update (12/20/08): Here's Barack Obama's Saturday speech on his science team.

A Twofer by the Market Fundamentalists – Jobs and Safety Both Destroyed - Updated 12/20/08

by Cheryl Rofer

Just a quick thought that came to me while I listened to a news story on China’s tainted heparin the other night.

This is the way our economy has been set up to work. The free-enterprise fundamentalists tell us that manufacturing companies must move out of the United States because within the United States there is too much regulation. So heparin manufacturing moves to China, where regulation is not so strict.

Without regulation, heparin can be made more cheaply in China. Without regulation, heparin made in China can have oversulfated chondroitin sulfate added to it. Some people to whom that contaminated heparin was given had allergic reactions to the contaminant and died.

Nobody seems yet to have investigated whether the oversulfated chondroitin sulfate was added deliberately, as melamine was to protein meal, to increase profits. This contaminant looks like heparin to the tests, just as melamine looks like protein to tests for nitrogen content. I suspect that this contaminant is an undesired side product from production of chondroitin sulfate joint remedy – the kind that you see advertised on television and available in health food stores, or perhaps it is the same and much less expensive than heparin.

Dealing with History

By: Bill Stewart

The arrest of Illinois Gov Rod Blagojevich, and the jaw-dropping charges against him, have rightly grabbed the headlines. The attempted sale of Barack Obama’s Senate seat is stunning in concept, never mind its attempted execution. Political corruption in the Land of Lincoln is an old story, but Blagojevich has raised it to a new level. The governor’s grandiosity approaches the delusional, calling into question his overall stability. This story is far from over.

Yet there are greater issues for the world and President Elect Barack Obama. Shocking as the charges are against Blagojevich, all of us must deal with a potential bailout of the automobile industry, which teeters on the brink of collapse. The economy is already in the tank. No matter how much we may feel Detroit should pay for its egregious mistakes, would a failed auto industry push us into an outright depression? This is a matter far more important than the personal corruption of Gov (and Mrs.?)Blagojevich, and the stories, both titillating and appalling, that surround them.

Beyond the economy, there are formidable challenges overseas. Some, like Iraq, were created by President George Bush and his administration, which have had their own problems with grandiosity. It will be up to a new President Obama to bring this sorry chapter to a close. But others have historical roots that affect the course of events even today, especially in the Middle East and South Asia. They offer Obama a unique chance to reset the course of history. He has the intelligence, the judgment, and the stamina to profoundly alter the course of events in the Middle East and South Asia, if he chooses to do so.

Think Spamalot

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

It’s obvious that the biggest thing Caroline Kennedy has going for her is the name and the spurious mystique, one of the greatest PR coups/hoaxes in American history. The myth of Camelot, I mean. What sustains the myth is the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Assassination is always tragic, in personal terms. Worse, it’s not good for any political system to have too many people thinking they can bump off leaders.

The Kennedys have traded very effectively on the myth of extraordinary promise unfulfilled. In American presidential politics, there’s nothing like a full term, or two, in office to take the bloom off the rose. John Kennedy didn't govern long enough for the usual disillusionment to be confirmed. It’s a shame that Caroline’s father and uncle got killed during an unusually turbulent period of American history, and it’s too bad that her other uncle is gravely ill, but American politics has long since emerged from the period when a dramatically vacated Senate seat, for instance, was automatically replaced by his grieving widow, qualified or not.

It Was Obvious

What was in the works leaped out at me the moment she appeared on the podium, with the now practically sainted Senator Edward Kennedy, to endorse Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. Caroline Kennedy was going into politics. When, during the Democratic convention, she was tapped to introduce Edward Kennedy’s heart-stopping appearance, given his very recent operation for brain cancer, and she then went on to deliver not an introduction but a serious address, it seemed absolutely incontrovertible to me: Caroline Kennedy’s love of the private life had palled.

Had Barack Obama, about to become the Democratic nominee for president, already assured her that, if elected, he would make appointments in such a way that Senator Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat would be up for grabs? Or had Caroline indicated she would be satisfied with a Cabinet appointment? Uncle Bobbie’s old post of Attorney General, perhaps? I have no idea. But once the election was over, it was clear that Obama owed her a big one. She’d helped him snag the youth vote by reviving the Camelot myth to give a golden glint to the emotional appeal of his mantra of hope and change.

Yes, I know that Caroline Kennedy is a lawyer and that she has written books on constitutional law and human rights. (Would they have got published in the first place or sold so well if she weren’t a Kennedy?) Like lots of rich working mothers, she has a record of community service, too. It might be said, then, that she is sufficiently qualified for the position to which she is now very actively aspiring.

Not Quite a Dime a Dozen

But New York is the second most populous state in the U.S. New York City is hardly a provincial capital. All of which is to say that the number of people (the number of women even) who are equally qualified, as lawyers, as writers on pertinent topics, as community leaders, must number in the hundreds, if not thousands. There is only one thing that distinguishes Caroline and that is her last name. Kennedy.

It seems to me, Governor Paterson, that it would give much more hope to alienated young people and it would revive the democratic faith of multitudes of disillusioned people in this country, if the appointment you need to make went to someone equally or more qualified who does not spring from a political dynasty, who made it on his or her own. Frankly, I felt much the same way several years ago when I learned that Hillary Clinton planned to seek a Senate seat from New York. There must be lifelong New Yorkers, I thought, with an equal or better claim to the seat. But at least Hillary went on to win her place in the Senate the hard way, by campaigning, by selling her suitability, vote by vote, to upstate New Yorkers who had greeted her candidacy very skeptically.

Choosing the Next Round of American Ambassadors

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Morton Abramowitz’s Washington Post Op Ed “Envoys for Change” has much of it right. Wouldn’t it be novel to have a requirement that all Americans appointed as US Chiefs of Mission abroad must be uniquely qualified for their jobs?

Here’s Abramowitz’ operative recommendation:

“Obama can publicly declare that he will not appoint ambassadors who have in effect secured their posts through financial contributions and who have little background to merit any such appointment. Indeed, he can further state that he will permit the appointment of non-career ambassadors -- usually 30 to 40 percent of our ambassadors -- only if they are uniquely appropriate for the job. Otherwise, ambassadorial positions will be reserved for experienced, capable career officials.”

In my view, basic qualifications should include familiarity with the country to which the person is assigned as well as the ability to communicate in its official language or languages. The appointee must also be able to run – or preside over - an Embassy and perhaps most importantly understand the contours and nuances of US foreign policy as well as explain, discuss and be an advocate for those same policies - agree with them or not.

Those also – in my experience – would be novel requirements for most political appointees.

Abramowitz was careful to distance himself from the American Foreign Service Association’s call for a specific percentage limitation of political Ambassadorial appointees and he also pointed out that there have been a number of highly competent political appointees in administrations gone by and listed three.

What unique qualifications?

Yet he failed to state what he thought the unique qualifications for an Ambassador should be. This to me is the op ed’s glaring weakness.

But can the career Foreign Service – in its currently decrepit state – be relied upon to fill additional Ambassadorial positions with career staff who possess the appropriate language and cultural competencies, managerial skills and knowledge of US foreign policy or is this why Abramowitz failed to list unique qualifications at all?

And if the Foreign Service can no longer do so, why not? Or has the Foreign Service been so weakened since the Cold War that the Department can no longer be counted upon to fill in those blanks? Or doesn't Abramowitz think that these basic diplomatic skills are needed for successful Ambassadors? It's hard for me to tell.

I have to wonder. The up-or-out promotion system that sent so many competent foreign language and culture specialists packing before their time especially during the 1990s because of the way promotions and downsizing were handled - may well now prove to become a major obstacle in finding enough skilled professionals for too many senior levels positions overseas. And then what?

Tuesday Bits and Pieces

by Cheryl Rofer

They predicted a few showers for yesterday. The snow was pretty much continuous all day. As I post this, the clouds are dissolving into a light snow from an almost-blue sky.

Followup: I received an e-mail from Deborah Howell (or someone who answers the ombudsman e-mail at the Washington Post) saying she had read my blog post, and not much more.

Another Followup: The American Association of Petroleum Geologists held a symposium on the Lusi mud volcano in Indonesia. (My most recent post here.) In an unusual move for a scientific meeting, the moderator asked for a vote of those attending as to whether the cause of the eruption was the nearby petroleum drilling or an earthquake. Of 74 scientists, 42 voted for the drilling, 3 for the earthquake, 13 for both factors, and the rest found the evidence inconclusive. The moderator reports here.

Chicago Boyz will be hosting a Clausewitz Roundtable in the new year. Contributors are listed here. I intend to read along and perhaps comment. The format will be commentary on one chapter of Clausewitz at a time. I would love to do the whole thing, but the way the fall has gone for me convinced me that I can’t commit to such a rigorous requirement. But it should be interesting.

Let’s hope that President Obama will put an end to the long-distance air strikes that cause so many civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is appalling. Such practices may be accepted (or not disapproved of) by the medical research community, but they are unacceptable anywhere I’ve worked. I also find the broad-brush tarring of science, as a response to the article, appalling. My career was not in academia; I recognize that some professors take more credit than they may be due for their graduate students’ and postdocs’ work. But I don’t like the casual assumption that of course this is the way scientists do business, unlike the high-minded humanities people. Come to think of it, I recall a history-major friend in graduate school complaining about how his professors were stealing his work…

The same Science magazine (14 November) in which I found a report on the Lusi mud volcano also gave a link to the Linnean Society’s fish collection. I went to the site and found that they also have a herbarium and insect collection on line. The photos are wonderful, but they are arranged by scientific name. It would be lovely to be able to browse the photos, but a random set of clicks among the names brings up something worth seeing. And if you know what you’re looking for, so much the better. This one is Papilio agamemnon. You can get an enlargement at the site via a Flashplayer arrangement.

Science magazine now has a blog on science policy. I’m not crazy about blogs from people who already write to deadlines for a living. It seems like an extra burden on them, and I keep wondering why they would put anything good on the blog, when the motivation seems more to put it in their “official” writing. I don’t see anything striking here, but I’ll check it out for a while.

The News Hour has a web feature called "World View." Every time they mention it on the tv show, I think they're talking about us.