Friday, August 17, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
NFL 2007 Preview: NFC South
While it didn’t happen “tomorrow” as I’d hoped, here is the penultimate divisional preview for the 2007 season. The major stories in the NFL over the past two years have come out of the NFC North, though it’s too bad the current one is an off-the-field issue. This division is full of potentially good teams, but they’re all just shaky enough to make the group exciting.
ATLANTA FALCONS (6-10)
OFFENSE: With Michael Vick off the depth charts, it’s amazing to see just how poor the Falcons look. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Joey Harrington, a laughing stock once again, could really use a receiver like Ashley Lelie on the squad. It’s not like he isn’t a total failure, but as Joe Horn is now the only receiver worth mentioning, it doesn’t seem like there’ll be a lot of targets for the former Duck. There are still Crumpler and Dunn, I guess, but they’re both aged and overrated. This may be the last chance for Harrington; I wish I could say he’d take advantage of it.
DEFENSE: Given the level of their offense, the Falcons should be happy that their defense is less tattered. In fact, despite some age and depth problems, they have one of the better defenses right now in the NFC. The inclusion of Lawyer Milloy will always help and DeAngelo Hall makes an intimidating secondary. Veteran linebacker Keith Brooking and up-and-coming defensive tackle Jonathon Babineaux make a tough front seven.
The only reason this joke of an offense will eke six wins out is because of their defense, but they aren’t good enough or deep enough to carry Harrington into anywhere near a winning season. Look for wholesale changes to the organization after this miserable year.
CAROLINA PANTHERS (10-6)
OFFENSE: There’s no denying that a team with the likes of Steve Smith is a constant scoring threat. Jake Delhomme has been a consistently underrated quarterback since coming into this starting position, but always seems to manage a successful team. DeShaun Foster should continue to do well in the backfield and, with Smith taking most of the good coverage, Keary Colbert should have the opportunity to contribute a lot of yards.
DEFENSE: One of this defense’s best attributes is their lack of notoriety. Julius Peppers is a star, and an excellent lineman, but that’s about it. They work as a team and, while they aren’t the premier defense in the league, they can make the stops when it counts and, like years passed, they will do enough to give the offense time to work.
Overall, I’d say the Panthers are the most underrated team of the last decade. Consistently shunned at the beginning of each season, the surprise that they do well by the end is getting a little old. I don’t think they’ll be barnburners this year, but Delhomme is going to lead them, once again, into a wildcard slot.
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (11-5)
OFFENSE: Drew Brees did more last year than anyone thought he had a right to, but he’s a lot better than anyone gave him credit for. Reggie Bush is a decent receiving back thus far, but has proved to be of little value from the backfield. It’s a good thing Deuce is still around. Between McAllister, Brees, and one of the best O-Lines in the game, they keep the team afloat. They need work at receiver for continued success, but they should build on what they started last year.
DEFENSE: The Saints defense appeared to overachieve last year, but I think they’ll build off their success as well. Sean Payton has proven himself to be a good defensive coach, and good young players like Scott Fujita will help this team recapture their NFC South title.
Though nobody cares about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina anymore, and the Saints can’t ride the wave of public support to the NFC championship game, they will still be able to do well with the tools they have. They are well coached and well led at quarterback, even though they also have one of the most overrated players in the game today.
TAMPA BAY BUCCANNEERS (5-11)
OFFENSE: So, we’re back at the top of the Jeff Garcia sine wave. The guy gets set up as a backup in a good program and, somehow, gets to play. He does very well and his team, realizing his age and relatively low superstar ability, trades him to a bad team who needs a QB. He starts, fails and everyone decries him as terrible. Then, he loses his job, is picked up on a good team, and the cycle continues anew. It’s like the seasons and this will be the winter of Garcia’s career. You can’t play on a team that has held Joey Galloway as the number one guy for multiple years and expect that they know what they’re doing.
DEFENSE: The once great Tampa 2 defense is now a far cry from where it was a few years ago. The only player left from the good ol’ days is Ronde Barber, who is getting up in years and down in skills. They were able to pick Cato June up from the Colts, but this won’t go all that far toward fixing the problems that have been festering since Gruden came along.
Indeed, I think they will be worse than the Falcons, and I think this will be Gruden’s last year. I never think it’s good to celebrate somebody losing his or her job but, in this case, it’s fantastic. I’ve never forgiven that organization for what they did with Tony Dungy to bring stupid John Gruden in. Good riddance.
Last, and possibly least, we have the NFC West. Will the Cardinals’ organization give Ken Whisenhunt, the 34th coach of this team, enough losses to get a program together, or will there be another Dennis Green-type debacle? Will the ‘Niners rise above the station the fates have given them to win more than eight games? Here’s to hoping not….
Mine Safety
The near-certain deaths of the Utah miners plus the deaths of the 3 construction workers at the Indiana mine last week reminds us that coal mining is about the worst profession in the world. China has become one of the world's leading producers and far and away the world's leader in worker fatalities. Mike Hall at the AFL-CIO blog notes that concerns about the safety at the Utah mine were raised five months ago. Why were they not taken care of? Probably because owners have virtually no incentive to keep up safety conditions under the Bush administration. Bush has cuddled with the coal industry from day one. In a time when we should be eliminating coal from our energy supplies, Bush has pushed for increased production. This despite the clear connections between coal and climate change.
Many decades ago, United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis remarked that in an ideal world, no one would have to make their living mining coal. It's a terrible job and has been for centuries. We could prevent any more workers from dying underground if we cared at all to find alternative energy sources. Yet we don't and no doubt more American workers will die soon as a result.
A great drummer, despite Wynton Marsalis's adoration
Jazz lost one of its great percussionists in Max Roach today. He may not have been the greatest jazz drummer, or my favorite (probably Rasheid Ali), but his importance cannot be understated. Just listen to Parker's or Miles's albums in the 50s, and you'll see Roach's importance to jazz. While not surprising (he was 83), it is nonetheless a sad loss.
Guilt by Assertion
Reporting from Iraq, Michael Totten writes about how Muqtada al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi have infiltrated the Iraqi security services. Totten makes some interesting observations, talks to some Iraqis, but then gives us this:
The Mahdi Army is Iran’s major proxy in Iraq. It is, in effect, the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah.
The Iranians know what they’re doing. Lebanon was their proving ground. The Revolutionary Guards built Hezbollah from scratch along the border with Israel and in the suburbs south of Beirut during the chaos of civil war and Israeli occupation. In Iraq they’re simply repeating the formula, only this time more violently.
I've seen it repeatedly asserted that Sadr is an Iranian tool, usually by right-of-center types who are trying to gin up a war with Iran, but have never seen any evidence for it, and Totten offers none. Most of the reporting I've seen from Iraq doesn't support that contention, and my own research on Sadr and his movement strongly argues against Sadr's being an Iranian agent.
The problem here is that Totten throws his assertion into the middle of some actual reportage, and then Powerline parrots it, and on up the food chain until it's simply an article of faith among conservatives, just like the Saddam-al Qaeda connection and the WMDs to Syria nonsense, to be folded into the larger argument for war with whomever, all the time. (In one of those delightful examples of unintentional irony that continually crop up like leafy spurge amid the defiant know-nothingism of rightwing blogdom, a later Powerline post is entitled "Never let the facts stand in the way of a meme." Heh, indeed.)
I don't think it's correct that the Pasdaran (Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) built Hezbollah from scratch. The Pasdaran trained and indoctrinated several breakaway extremist Lebanese Shia factions which became Hizb 'Allah ("Party of God.") The claim is even less true of the Mahdi Army, which developed, like Muqtada's entire movement, out of the clerical activism of Muqtada's father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr. A central element of the elder Sadr's program, and now Muqtada's, is opposition to Iranian influence. While his pro-Arab nativist rhetoric has alienated Muqtada from a significant portion of Iraq's Shia clerical hierarchy, many of whom, including Grand Ayatollah Sistani, are of Persian origin, it has endeared him to Iraq's Arab Shia underclass, which is where he finds his greatest support.
If any group can be said to have been created by the Pasdaran "from scratch," it is the Badr Brigade, the militia wing of SIIC (formerly SCIRI), formed in Iran out of Iraqi exiles and defectors, and POWs from the Iran-Iraq War. It is the Badr Brigade that continues to serve as "Iran's major proxy" in Iraq, constantly battling the Mahdi Army for control of Shia neighborhoods in southern Iraq. However, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of SIIC (and former commander of the Badr), is now George W. Bush's friend , so it won't do to point this out.
This isn't to say that Sadr receives no Iranian support, he certainly does, as do various groups in Iraq, directly and through proxies. After their offers to help stabilize Iraq were rebuffed by the Bush administration, elements in the Iranian government clearly foresaw the coming chaos, and starting hedging their bets, getting their fingers into different pies, betting on various horses to win, and mixing every possible metaphor, as a way to produce the best possible outcome for Iran. It is true that Sadr admires and emulates Hezbollah. Like them, he has fashioned a political identity that combines sometimes contradictory elements of populism, nationalism, pro-Arabism, and pan-Shiism. The tendency of some to elide these elements in favor of a "Iranian tool" narrative indicates a failure to appreciate some of the complexities of Iraqi-Shia identity, and, of course, an attempt to gin up a war with Iran.
There is one thing Sadr and Iran undoubtedly do share, however. The U.S. has effectively done for Sadr in Iraq what we've done for Iran in the wider Gulf region: Pursued a series of policies which seem to have been designed in a lab to facilitate his becoming the dominant actor.
Update: Eric Martin has some other observations.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Peruvians in Iraq
Yesterday I heard a remarkable story on the PRI program The World. They reported on Peruvians who have served in Iraq as security forces for the US. They are employed by private contractors. Peru has a relatively large military and wages are low so it is a good labor source.
Of course, these Peruvians have no idea what they are getting into. They didn't expect to be shot up. The story focused on their experiences in Iraq and the terrible difficulty they have being taken care of after they are wounded. They are returned to Peru and are supposedly covered by a US insurance company. How well does that work? As you can imagine, not so great. These men are simply not receiving the medical care they need, despite their service to the United States. You can listen to the story here.
What got my ear though was the wages they make. For their service in Iraq, these men are paid $33 a day.
Yes, that's right. They are putting their bodies on the line and getting shot in order to protect US soldiers and personnel for the grand total of $33 a day.
I know that's a pretty good wage for Peru. But given that we are spending billions of dollars in Iraq, would it be that hard to pay these men the US minimum wage. If that's an 8 hour shift they work, they would make over $50 a day. That's still a terrible wage, but a significant improvement.
It's really disgusting how the US has treated its allies in Iraq, be they Iraqi translators or Peruvian security forces. It cuts straight to the heart of the immorality of this war.
The Southern Strategy's Last Days
In 1964, upon signing the Civil Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson famously said that he was handing the South to the Republican Party for the next generation. While this has become something of a cliché, the backlash to civil rights did significantly further the Republican dominance in American politics over the last 35 years. Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy proved incredibly successful. Many racist whites left the Democratic Party and it has been hard for Democrats to win nationally since.
This is changing. The Southern Strategy is dead as an effective political tool. It's death knell began even before it started. When Lyndon Johnson reopened America's borders with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Asians and Latinos began entering the country. While the Asian flow slowed by the early 1990s, migration from Latin America has continued unabated, as you all know. The political muscles of Latinos began to be flexed in California, when the backlash to Pete Wilson's racist regime turned California into a Democratic bastion.
Of course, Republicans, still trying to capitalize on the racism that served them so well since 1968, have ignored the lessons of California. As Paul Waldman writes at TAPPED, Republicans are going to have to answer for their anti-immigrant race baiting in the general election. Waldman notes how Latinos are already voting predominantly for Democrats. Is there any doubt this will continue in 2008. Republicans can run all the adds in Spanish they want to, but any one who follows politics at all knows where the Republicans stand on Latinos. They don't want them here. They think the United States is a white man's country, and they intend to keep it that way.
That is a losing political strategy. The Republicans are more discredited each and every day. Their foreign policy is a joke. Their economic strategies are questionable at best and are being exposed by the sub-prime mortgage collapse. And their racism is impossible to deny.
The Republicans can continue trying to be the white man's party all they want to. That's great. Given that this nation becomes less white every day, it sounds like the recipe for Democratic dominance to me.
Be Very Afraid
Rob Farley takes a first look at Norman Podhoretz's...err, Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy manifesto in Foreign Affairs.
[The] piece offers a pretty faithful recitation of what I'll call the Neoconservative Romance. According to this narrative, the United States began the Cold War with a vigorous challenge to the Soviet Union that was made all the more pure by virtue of American beliefs in the evangelical power of "liberty." (The key elements to the romance would include, for example, the Truman Doctrine or the Berlin Airlift.) Over time, however, true believers watched as the nation's leaders fell into apostasy, drawing the nation farther from its Original Purpose; rather than challenging the Soviets directly, the US reigned itself to an unacceptable status quo that stifled the aspirations of half the planet. At the darkest hour, Ronald Reagan ascended to the presidency and retrieved history from the drainpipe.
It goes without saying that, in the neocon fairy tale of Good King Ronnie, the rescue of History Itself was not the culmination of decades of diplomacy, engagement, containment, negotiation, and occasional confrontation (And don't even think of suggesting that it had anything to do with the inherent weaknesses of the Soviet system. What are you, some kind of historian?) Reagan's single-handed victory over the Evil Empire represented the repudiation of anything other than confrontation, and thus justifies the confrontation of all subsequent Evil Empires.
It's obvious why Rudy is embracing the very kinds of policies which have proven so disastrous in the last years: "Toughness" is all he has to run on, especially in the primary. It speaks volumes about the Big Strong Daddy issues of the evangelical Republican base that a thrice-married, occasionally cross-dressing, pro-choice New Yorker even has a chance, let alone is one of the top contenders.
The Vilification of Language
Last week I read this story about Debbie Almontaser, the principal of a new Arabic-language school in NYC, who, after having the bad form to discuss in public the actual meaning of the word "intifada," was mau-maued into first apologizing, and then resigning:
The principal of a new Arabic-themed public school in Brooklyn resigned under pressure, days after she was quoted defending the use of the word “intifada” as a T-shirt slogan.
Debbie Almontaser, a veteran public school teacher, was hired to lead the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a middle school that was scheduled to open this fall. An immediate replacement was not announced, and Ms. Almontaser’s abrupt exit left the future of the school in question.
[...]
The remarks that made her the focus of criticism were in response to questions from The New York Post over the phrase “Intifada NYC,” which was printed on T-shirts sold by Arab Women Active in Art and Media...
Here is The Post’s account of Ms. Almontaser’s comments:
“The word [intifada] basically means ’shaking off.’ That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic,” she said.
“I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don’t believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City.
“I think it’s pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society … and shaking off oppression.”
Ms. Almontaser issued an apology the next day, saying that she regretted her remarks. “By minimizing the word’s historical associations, I implied that I condone violence and threats of violence,” she said in a statement.
But the apology was followed by criticism from Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. Ms. Weingarten stopped short of calling for Ms. Almontaser’s resignation, but called the word intifada “something that ought to be denounced, not explained away.”
The Palestinian intifadas, which encompassed actions both violent (front page of the NY Times) and non-violent (tucked deep inside, if reported at all, as student boycotts and general strikes just don't sell papers like exploding pizzerias do), were uprisings against, the attempt to "shake off," what is widely recognized (everywhere but in the U.S., anyway) as an illegal, dehumanizing, and brutal Israeli military occupation. As with the term "jihad," right-wing elements have sought to define "intifada" solely in terms of its association with terrorist violence. Debbie Almontaser had the temerity to challenge these misrepresentations and misunderstandings, and to defend the term's proper use in the context of social activism. The fact that she has now had to resign over this, indeed that she felt she needed to apologize at all, indicates the almost complete dominance of the Israeli narrative in American media, and the ability of hardline pro-Israel and anti-Muslim activists to manipulate the ignorance and fear of Americans about Islam and Arabs to quell discussion and debate, and to make verboten the expression of certain ideas and opinions.
Speaking of ignorance and fear, here's Daniel Pipes:
Almontaser's departure, however welcome, does not change the rest of the problematic school's personnel, much less address the more basic problems implicit in an Arabic-language school: the tendency to Islamist and Arabist content and proselytizing.
To reiterate my initial assessment in March, the KGIA is in principle a great idea, for the United States needs more Arabic-speakers. In practice, however, Arabic-language instruction needs special scrutiny.
Bigotry rarely comes so blatant as this. Offering no evidence, because, of course, his audience requires none, Pipes simply asserts that an Arabic language school would obviously tend toward Islamist and Arabist proselytizing. This "madrassa," a term he employs as a pejorative, must be monitored for righthink. (I'm picturing Pipes sitting in a tiny little chair in a kindergarten classroom, pad and pen in hand, perpetual scowl on his face, as children learn the Arabic alphabet.) Yes, Pipes supports, in principle, the learning of Arabic language and culture (after all, we need spies, don't we?) provided there is nothing taught which might deviate from the Likud Party platform.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Surge
It's sure good to see that surge working so well. Glad to see security provided to both Iraqis and US soldiers.
Standing Athwart the Center Wicket, Yelling Stop!
I'm troubled by this article, which describes the Xtreme-ization of the noble and wonderful game of croquet.
For the last two years, Jim Grupe has tried to stir up local interest in his favorite extreme sport. It’s not something you’ll come across while watching skateboarders or cyclists fall from the sky during the ongoing X Games.
Grupe’s game of choice, actually, is among the last you’d think would be suited to the sort of extremism that’s taking over so many established pastimes.
It’s croquet.
“I was looking for something new,” he says, “and this is what I found.”
Grupe, 60, is the founder and force behind the DC/MD/VA Extreme Croquet Club. Once a month, he invites folks to his home in Brookeville, Md., to take a whack at the new version of the old lawn game. His 17-acre spread has all the fixin’s that separate an extreme croquet course from that of its genteel predecessor, including a pond, a stream, lots of trees, lots of mud, and various livestock.
In my opinion, physical exertion (like, say, walking around on 17 acres) is anathema to the very spirit of croquet. No croquet field should be so big that you are ever, at any time, more than ten steps away from the makeshift bar or the cooler filled with beer. The beauty of croquet is that you can play it, and play it well, without spilling your drink. If polo is the sport of kings, croquet is the sport of kings' lazy, good-for-nothing brothers. Like vegetarian barbecue and smooth jazz, extreme croquet completely misses the point.
On the Beach
The battle over modern Muslim identity is being fought on the shores of the Mediterranean. This article in today’s International Herald Tribune about beaches in Egypt and the increasing pressure on women to dress more coservatively reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who lives in Turkey. He told me that many Turkish resorts are going Islamist, putting up curtains to divide the beach between men's and women's sides, or else simply requiring the head-to-toe burquini. These resorts aren't being forced into this, they're simply responding to the market, catering to an increasingly wealthy, and increasingly devout, Turkish middle class. As in Egypt, the number of beaches where women and women and men can swim together, and where women can wear Western-style bathing suits without fear of harassment, is growing smaller.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Link of the Day: Joycelyn Elders
Bradley at Incertus has a very nice post remembering Joycelyn Elders. She's rarely mentioned these days it seems. That's a shame because she did a lot of good and was unjustly forced out by sex-hating (at least talking about it) Republicans.
Best News in a Long Time
The CNN Headline announcing Karl Rove's resignation at this moment? "Rove quitting White House, going hunting"
Maybe he'll set a few hunting dates with Dick Cheney.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
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