Thoughts on Torture, from Alberto Mora

In WaPo:

Whatever the ultimate historical judgment, it is established fact that documents justifying and authorizing the abusive treatment of detainees during interrogation were approved and distributed. These authorizations rested on three beliefs: that no law prohibited the application of cruelty; that no law should be adopted that would do so; and that our government could choose to apply the cruelty -- or not -- as a matter of policy depending on the dictates of perceived military necessity.

The fact that we adopted this policy demonstrates that this war has tested more than our nation's ability to defend itself. It has tested our response to our fears and the measure of our courage. It has tested our commitment to our most fundamental values and our constitutional principles.

[...]

We should care because the issues raised by a policy of cruelty are too fundamental to be left unaddressed, unanswered or ambiguous. We should care because a tolerance of cruelty will corrode our values and our rights and degrade the world in which we live. It will corrupt our heritage, cheapen the valor of the soldiers upon whose past and present sacrifices our freedoms depend, and debase the legacy we will leave to our sons and daughters. We should care because it is intolerable to us that anyone should believe for a second that our nation is tolerant of cruelty. And we should care because each of us knows that this issue has not gone away.

For those of you who don't know, Mora was kicking and screaming about the OLC's legal opinions long, long before Sy Hersh knew anything about Abu Ghraib. The man is the genuine article.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! May it find you (and me! - oh wait, too late for me) puke-free.

Kunstler is a crank, but he's often dead-on

On the onset of peak oil woes (more specifically, higher gasoline prices).

"They will discover that a luxurious private realm, with more bathrooms per inhabitant than any other society, will not compensate for a public realm that has been reduced and impoverished into a universal automobile slum." [link]

Precisely. Decades of public underinvestment (with the exception of our highway system) have left us in a state of profound public impoverishment, despite private affluence. Those billions that the French spent, to keep their fantastic rail system running, and that the Spanish spent, to build a modern public transport infrastructure from a creaky, inferior one, don't seem so stupid, do they? (Despite articles in The Economist decrying overdevelopment of the state. The British Thatcherite model for public investment -- i.e., none -- has not worked out well in the long run.)

Popular entertainment and the irredeemability of it all

One of Amy's recurring themes is the idea that we share a rejection of current popular culture with the Christian fundamentalists. Yes, it's true, but we wouldn't make the same recommendations for its replacement. If anything, I prefer the debauched commercial dreck we are supposed to consume now to the brainwashed religious dreck the fundies would prefer our kids were exposed to.

But my preference is sometimes only slight. On NPR this morning, they were talking about high expectations for DreamWorks SKG's latest juggernaut, the animated film Over the Hedge, and how it's got tough competition in Sony's The Da Vinci Code. Now, set aside the fact that I think it's absurd that films are considered commercial failures unless they make dozens of millions of dollars in their first weekend, and are generally not allowed an opportunity to grow an audience over weeks or months. What really bothered me was the remark that DreamWorks had a tough year in 2005 because they had financed Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which "although it won an Oscar, was a flop at the box office. Apparently Americans couldn't connect to it."

Huh? Were-Rabbit, like the Wallace & Gromit shorts, is a brilliantly constructed bit of entertainment, a delight for adults as well as for children. It never condescends to children's intelligence -- something that makes me send any child entertainment right to /dev/null -- and contains sophisticated, subtle jokes that appeal to grownups. That American audiences should prefer middlebrow entertainments where they can only laugh at references to reality television, sports, and junk food, makes me think we're irredeemable.

I really am becoming too much of a crank, at the ripe old age of 38. (OK, not 38 just yet, but I'm rounding up.)

Immigration and the reactionaries

I have been a bit perplexed by the big to-do -- on both sides -- about immigration. I don't really feel strongly about it myself, except to think that all immigrants, legal and non-, should be treated humanely, and also that I am not particularly enthusiastic about people with third-world resource consumption coming to fulfill the American dream and consume fossil fuels at a first-world level. I want fewer nonrenewables being consumed, not more.

The thing that baffled me the most was all of the American fascists' sudden rage at the Bush administration for being too lenient about immigration controls. Then somebody -- I think it was Digby -- pointed it out, and it all seemed suddenly so clear. The neocon interventionist wing of the Republican Party has failed catastrophically, and so the reactionary/racist/fascist wing of the party now needs to return to that old American fallback state, that of nativist isolation. There are no remotely cogent arguments that having illegal Mexican immigration endangers US national security.

everything you never wanted to know about morning sickness

Dear Internets: Sorry I haven't written lately, but as you have probably suspected, I have been vomiting. Actually, I don't vomit that much. I just exist in a haze of nausea, interrupted by frequent gagging and retching and occasional full-scale puking, and accompanied by dizziness, exhaustion, and malaise. Max brews coffee in the kitchen, and I am overcome by the fumes. A babysitter shows up wearing hand lotion, and I feel as though I've been dropped into a bottle of perfume. Cooking smells permeate the building and disgust me. BJ's Wholesale Club sends me an email advertisement, and my mind fills with the vile smell of the store - factory farmed chicken and aisles of Hot Pockets. Noise, being touched, moving, smelling anything, looking at food, thinking about food, talking too much, being alive: all of these are too much for me. I lie in bed and read Larry Niven novels that I've read already. Babysitters and family members play with my child while I nap and nauseate. And it goes on. And on. And on. And I think "why don't I have cancer so it can be chemotherapy that's doing this to me, and I can just roll a big joint and smoke my pukes away?" And then I think "Oh god, don't babies with something horribly wrong with them sometimes make their moms especially pukey? What if I lose this one, and have to do this whole thing again?" And "Why the hell did I want another child anyway?" And "Oh god, where's the toilet?"

Oh, and don't you rush out to buy me some of those seasickness acupressure bands, Internets! I know you just want me to feel better, but they don't work - I've tried them already, several times. Along with pretty much every other home remedy in this universe, and five alternate ones I've contacted using Ari's talking alphabet puzzle/Ouija board.

Oh, I know I'm lucky, comparatively. I'm eating and drinking enough, so I won't end up in the hospital with a tube down my nose. (Would I get to pick the color, do you think?). No Hyperemesis Gravidarum for me. Nothing any sane doctor or midwife would give me any meds for, in other words. Which is fine, I guess, since I'm already pressing my luck in that regard.

The thing about nausea, though, is there's no getting away from it. If evolution was looking for a way to put a pregnant chick completely out of commission, it couldn't do much better than nausea. No gathering roots and berries for me, thanks. I'll stay back at the camp with the old folks. I suppose you could lose an arm when you got pregnant, instead, but then you'd have to grow it back, which would be kind of a pain.

So here I sit, pukey, sweaty, sickly, bored, and bitter. What do you think? Can I be on the cover of the next edition of "What to Expect when you're expecting"? Or perhaps I should just hire myself out as a poster child for abstinence-only sex ed. Oh wait, I hate those people.

Oh well, I guess I'll just find some wallpaper to stare at until I lose my mind.

Hope things are going great for you, Internets. Write soon. Love, Amy