So here is the worst-case scenario I've been dreading. I am a lifelong and registered Democrat, a self-described liberal in the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) tradition. And this coming Tuesday my state of residence, Connecticut, is holding its primary on Super Tuesday. I've now got what I consider to be a distasteful choice between two candidates, neither of whom was my first (Bill Richardson) or even my second (John Edwards) preference.
Preferably, I'd like to wait now until the conventions to see who I'll support. But I have what I feel is a duty and obligation to vote this Tuesday for someone. I'd like to stay undecided, but I've now got to work through my misgivings and make a choice. If you get the sense that I am stalling, it is because I am using this writing exercise to work it out in my own mind.
What we are left with in the Democratic race are two weak candidates who will potentially get creamed in a national election, particularly if John McCain wins the Republican nomination (not yet a sure thing). For Barack Obama, the question "Where's the beef?" is certainly valid. For Hilary Clinton, the soap-opera drama of her candidacy (past scandals, the baggage of First Laddy, etc.) cannot be wiped away by good intentions. Obama is an untested and inexperienced Harvard lawyer whose campaign is now an amorphous "movement" of inchoate hope; Clinton is a triangulating Yale lawyer who is running a bitter and divisive old-style campaign of disngenuousness. I think neither is electable -- either separately or together, they will probably go down to defeat in a national election. I still believe that foreign affairs is the crucial issue for the upcoming 4 years. I can't imagine world adversaries or our military submitting to the leadership of either Democratic candidate.
I for one will certainly vote for the Democratic ticket in the national election -- if only because of potential Supreme Court openings which will certainly emerge in the coming 4 years. But I must admit that McCain on the top of a national ticket looks tempting -- but not if Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney is his running mate (a likely move to unify the GOP behind McCain).
I have publicly and vocally announced more than a few times that I will never support Hilary Clinton. Politically, I despise her (though I do not feel the same way towards First Laddy). To quote my favorite morning radio host, "Hilary is still Satan." But I cannot vote for a vague, inexperienced 1st-term senator, however energizing the symbolism of his candidacy might be. Four years ago, he was nothing more than an Illinois State Senator who voted "present" more than a hundred times on legislation, a few times which required a leader to take a stand. He was a US Senator for less than a year before he launched his campaign. There is simply nothing there, other than a symbol of youthfulness and racial amity. That for me is not enough.
So I guess I've worked it out, at least for today. Call me undecided, leaning towards Clinton. I can't believe what I just wrote....
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, December 20, 2007
OK, I'm giving up -- Oy vey Vista
I tried. Lord knows, I've tried. I took a perfectly decent Windows XP Professional set up and applied an "upgrade" using Vista Home Premium Academic Upgrade. Ever since that moment, sometime in spring 2007, my very decent Core 2 Duo, RAID0 arrayed, HP digital media desktop has given me nothing but heartache.
But I like the challenge, that's why I do these things. You see, I fancy myself a bit of the techy wonk. I'm the guy people call -- offering the requisite bottle of single malt in exchange for an actual paycheck -- to come over and fix their computer problems. (One time I actually was able to "fix" someone's lack of connection to the internet by placing her Ethernet wire in the ethernet jack, because she had loosely inerted the wire in the phone jack on the modem card).
To put it simply, I know how to troubleshoot.
Sometimes I will discover a recently applied update to Vista will cause something to misbehave. No problem -- I've been using System Restore for years without any serious problems. Just to make sure, I recently bought a USB hard drive and Norton Ghost 12.0 (even though I despise Norton products) to make certain I've got a backup in case everything catastrophically fails.
Well, yesterday afternoon, in a cascade of minor compounding stumbles, everything catastrophically failed. It all started when I noticed that my system font seemed "funny." I rebooted. Same weird font appearance. Then I looked at the recently applied updates (I learned about a month ago to quit automatically upgrading Vista -- now I look at the pushed files one at a time and only selectively update my installation). I decide to use System Restore to bring my computer back to the state it was in 4 days ago. And then all hell broke loose. When the time travel "restoration" was finished, my user account files (with my administrator level password) were gone; there was no way to enter my operating system and no way to turn the clock back. I was cooked. Thank God, said I to myself, I had started using Ghost!
And guess what? Norton Ghost 12.0 doesn't restore my computer. I've reached a point now where -- having decided, a la the funny Mac commercials, to downgrade back to Windows XP -- I can't even install Windows XP. The nice polite on-line support guy at Norton (named David -- is that an Anglicization for Devdas?) told me to essentially wipe out my partition table. Sounded reasonable. Now I can't even format my hard drives. I think my Master Boot Record is a goner. Essentially, I've now got a 35-pound fan with little lights. OK, I do have all my data on the USB hard drive, which I'm starting to move over to my laptop (ironically pre-loaded with Vista). But the experiment with Vista is now officially over.
Avi, you were right.
Update (Dec. 26): I had a set of system restoration DVDs which brought me back to the pristine Windows XP Media Center system I got when I bought my desktop. It took a few days, and it turned out the Norton Ghost files were very useful, but I am now running everything just fine under XP. There is no doubt in my mind that Vista is a disaster, akin to the unspeakable piece of crap that was Windows ME. Lesson learned: never try upgrading to Vista. I guess if it comes pre-installed it might not be that bad (as in my new laptop) -- and I do miss the much better Search Files function and Widgets in Vista -- but I'll do without, just happy to be back in business.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
OSO
You've got to see the new Bollywood block-party Om Shanti Om, starring SRK/King Khan in a role that plays to his comic side perfectly. OSO is a love poem and parody of Bollywood in the late `70s, with a ridiculous set of plot contrivances and an only mediocre musical score. But, oh! the dancing, the "special appearances," the send up of the first-day shooting ceremony, the Filmfare Awards event (making fun of Abishek, Hrithik, and DDLJ), the CD release party! So filmi!
I just received from eBay via India a perfectly preserved humongous Hindi film poster of my all-time favorite SRK extravaganza, Veer-Zaara. I can't wait to have it framed -- it will be the dominant hanging in the living room.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Mike Zoss Pharmacy
I finally got a chance to see the much-heralded No Country for Old Men yesterday. Expertly crafted, it had just a bit too much home-spun meandering for my tastes, probably because Texan is a foreign language to me. But in the theater I immediately perked up when a scene took place in front of a drugstore (supposedly deep in Texas) with the sign "Mike Zoss Pharmacy." For those of us who grew up in a certain part of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Mike Zoss Drugs was an amazing drugstore, situated just down a strip mall called Texa-Tonka Shopping Center, and not far from Penny's Grocery Store where my mom shopped (The picture shows the ethnic restaurant that now is situated where Mike Zoss Drugs once stood). Zoss Drugs was nothing like the chain drugstores of our modern times. Can you imagine today buying plastic model airplanes and battleships (and all the requisite paints, thinners, and brushes) at a CVS?
Those Coen brothers are always dropping little things into their movies from St. Louis Park. And now they are slated to make a new movie, their first full-scale return to Minnesota since Fargo (1996), currently entitled "A Serious Man," to be set in Jewish St. Louis Park in the summer of 1967 -- no frigid snow swept long shots in this movie. The movie is set to shoot beginning April, 2008. Reports the Minneapolis StarTribune: "Their film concerns a university professor in midlife crisis seeking answers from a succession of rabbis. 'He's going through problems with his kids, his wife and his marital relations' as a sunbathing neighbor attracts his eye,' Joel said. 'The character and the story are completely made up, but it's drawn directly from experience' from the local Hebrew school the brothers attended as kids to the mid-century office buildings and neighborhoods along Hwy. 12."
I'd love to tell the Coen brothers a story or two from the summer of 1967. My Bar Mitzvah was June 10, 1967, and it was the practice of my Rabbi to insist that Bar Mitzvah boys would attend morning services the week preceding their grand event in order to learn how to properly put on tefillin. So on the morning of June 5, I awoke early to the local CBS radio affiliate, the powerhouse WCCO, to listen to the price of hog belly futures at the St. Paul Stockyards interspersed with garbled reports of distant Israeli attacks in the Sinai's Mitla Pass. At the time, I had no idea how important those far-away mispronounced Middle Eastern geographical terms would become in my life, but I will never forget the bizarre juxtaposition of farm reports and battle descriptions. It changed my life. My subsequent obsession with all things Minnesotan and all things Israeli (which has been represented throughout my blog) was probably unconsciously fixed that week in June 1967.
So here it is: an open offer --
Dear Joel and Ethan,
Joel, I'm the same age as you. We went to school together. I went to the Talmud Torah, just like you. I hung out at Zoss Drugs, and Texa-Tonka Lanes, just like you. And before the grocery store at Texa-Tonka Shopping Center became a Red Owl, it was a Penny's. My Bar Mitzvah occurred in the summer of 1967. I'm now a professor of Jewish Studies, specializing in Kabbalah. (I hear you already have a scene involving a dybbuk -- I worked briefly with Tony Kushner as technical advisor to the Hartford premiere of his re-working of Ansky's The Dybbuk). I've got the summer free. I've got funny stories to tell, including stories galore about the local rabbis. Do you need a technical advisor? I'm available.
Sincerely,
BingoProf
Those Coen brothers are always dropping little things into their movies from St. Louis Park. And now they are slated to make a new movie, their first full-scale return to Minnesota since Fargo (1996), currently entitled "A Serious Man," to be set in Jewish St. Louis Park in the summer of 1967 -- no frigid snow swept long shots in this movie. The movie is set to shoot beginning April, 2008. Reports the Minneapolis StarTribune: "Their film concerns a university professor in midlife crisis seeking answers from a succession of rabbis. 'He's going through problems with his kids, his wife and his marital relations' as a sunbathing neighbor attracts his eye,' Joel said. 'The character and the story are completely made up, but it's drawn directly from experience' from the local Hebrew school the brothers attended as kids to the mid-century office buildings and neighborhoods along Hwy. 12."
I'd love to tell the Coen brothers a story or two from the summer of 1967. My Bar Mitzvah was June 10, 1967, and it was the practice of my Rabbi to insist that Bar Mitzvah boys would attend morning services the week preceding their grand event in order to learn how to properly put on tefillin. So on the morning of June 5, I awoke early to the local CBS radio affiliate, the powerhouse WCCO, to listen to the price of hog belly futures at the St. Paul Stockyards interspersed with garbled reports of distant Israeli attacks in the Sinai's Mitla Pass. At the time, I had no idea how important those far-away mispronounced Middle Eastern geographical terms would become in my life, but I will never forget the bizarre juxtaposition of farm reports and battle descriptions. It changed my life. My subsequent obsession with all things Minnesotan and all things Israeli (which has been represented throughout my blog) was probably unconsciously fixed that week in June 1967.
So here it is: an open offer --
Dear Joel and Ethan,
Joel, I'm the same age as you. We went to school together. I went to the Talmud Torah, just like you. I hung out at Zoss Drugs, and Texa-Tonka Lanes, just like you. And before the grocery store at Texa-Tonka Shopping Center became a Red Owl, it was a Penny's. My Bar Mitzvah occurred in the summer of 1967. I'm now a professor of Jewish Studies, specializing in Kabbalah. (I hear you already have a scene involving a dybbuk -- I worked briefly with Tony Kushner as technical advisor to the Hartford premiere of his re-working of Ansky's The Dybbuk). I've got the summer free. I've got funny stories to tell, including stories galore about the local rabbis. Do you need a technical advisor? I'm available.
Sincerely,
BingoProf
Monday, November 26, 2007
Udi & Mudi's Excellent Adventure
I'm not sure if Mahmoud Abbas has the nickname "Mudi," but it made for a nice alliterative blog entry title.
So now comes the long-anticipated Annapolis peace gathering (downgraded from "conference" a few weeks ago). With the Arab League now formally on board, and with delegations coming at the very least at the Foreign Minister level (except for the Israelis and Palestinians, who are being represented by weak heads-of-state, and the Syrians, who are coming with merely a deputy FM), the stage is set for a one-day gathering, where it is hoped that the Israelis and Palestinians will issue a joint statement ensuring the commencement of a negotiating modality for 2008. Even that limited outcome is in doubt, with the probability of no more than separate statements -- either result will mean hard slogging for the year to come. If a joint statement can be reached, call the gathering a stunning -- if incremental -- victory.
It is hard to imagine that this gathering will produce any breakthroughs, unless the American team puts forth some compromise "creative ideas" to broach the gulf which separates the two sides. The Israelis are arriving with a slightly split delegation, with Ehud Olmert ("Udi") issuing rosy proclamations of settling the problem by the end of 2008, and with FM Tzipi Livny and Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressing a less enthusiastic approach. The Arab League delegates come armed with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 (a relative non-starter), and the Americans cling to the dilapidated Quartet Roadmap of 2003. The West Bank Palestinians arrive asking for a discussion of "the core issues" (Settlements, Jerusalem, and Right of Return), and the Israelis come to the table with no specific proposal but rather with a list of prior unfulfilled demands concerning their security, and simultaneously crippled by a pending decision from the Israeli police over ongoing corruption investigations against Olmert. Hamas in Gaza is not invited and so issues defiant rhetoric (and short range rockets upon Israel), necessitating a security clampdown in Jerusalem and the occupied territories.
Somewhat reminiscent of the 3-day Madrid peace conference sponsored jointly by US and Russia back in September, 1991, the Annapolis gathering cannot possibly result in a breakthrough, but it can conceivably lay the groundwork for future diplomacy, and for further under-the-radar improvements in Israel's diplomatic standing with moderate Arab Gulf states. After all, the Madrid conference (after the Israeli team was shuffled from Likud to Labor) indirectly led to an almost successful resolution of the Syrian-Israeli dispute, and to the ultimately failed Oslo peace process.
In the case of Annapolis, we must hope for a similar reshuffling of the deck. Olmert and West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas are both sitting upon shaky seats, and neither can deliver their constituency for broad compromises. The incompetence of the Bush administration in the Middle East is now legendary. Last week's Economist hopes that Mr. Bush will issue a kind of clarion call which will indicate a willingness to break the logjam; but domestic politics (in the form of presidential primaries just 6 weeks away) plays a factor in just how far Mr. Bush can go without crippling a tough-as-nails Republican front runner.
So with an important meeting of donor countries set for December, the Palestinians must appear willing (and they are) to sit and listen. The Israelis for their part can hardly ignore an invitation issued by Washington, though they can subsequently resist pressure from a crippled lame-duck American administration. The modest surprise in all this is the participation of the Arab League states. My bet? Look years from now at this gathering in Maryland as a catalyst for Syrian-Israeli negotiations -- but do not expect a similar retrospective result for the Israeli-Palestinian track. Too many variables -- not the least the fractured nature of the respective Israeli, Palestinian and American ruling elites -- make true progress possible. Until the rift between Gaza and the West Bank is resolved one way or the other (and no doubt, the Annapolis meeting is designed to strengthen the West Bankers over the Gazans), and until new leaders are installed in Israel and the US, the chances for resolution in 2008 seem dim indeed.
Update, Nov. 29: Nothing truly important happened. We will have to credit a victory to George Bush and Condoleeza Rice for actually producing a joint statement from the Israelis and Palestinians (though Abbas refused to sign on until only 8 minutes before the triumvirate went onstage before cameras). Other than that, my pre-summit predictions penned above still stands.
So now comes the long-anticipated Annapolis peace gathering (downgraded from "conference" a few weeks ago). With the Arab League now formally on board, and with delegations coming at the very least at the Foreign Minister level (except for the Israelis and Palestinians, who are being represented by weak heads-of-state, and the Syrians, who are coming with merely a deputy FM), the stage is set for a one-day gathering, where it is hoped that the Israelis and Palestinians will issue a joint statement ensuring the commencement of a negotiating modality for 2008. Even that limited outcome is in doubt, with the probability of no more than separate statements -- either result will mean hard slogging for the year to come. If a joint statement can be reached, call the gathering a stunning -- if incremental -- victory.
It is hard to imagine that this gathering will produce any breakthroughs, unless the American team puts forth some compromise "creative ideas" to broach the gulf which separates the two sides. The Israelis are arriving with a slightly split delegation, with Ehud Olmert ("Udi") issuing rosy proclamations of settling the problem by the end of 2008, and with FM Tzipi Livny and Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressing a less enthusiastic approach. The Arab League delegates come armed with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 (a relative non-starter), and the Americans cling to the dilapidated Quartet Roadmap of 2003. The West Bank Palestinians arrive asking for a discussion of "the core issues" (Settlements, Jerusalem, and Right of Return), and the Israelis come to the table with no specific proposal but rather with a list of prior unfulfilled demands concerning their security, and simultaneously crippled by a pending decision from the Israeli police over ongoing corruption investigations against Olmert. Hamas in Gaza is not invited and so issues defiant rhetoric (and short range rockets upon Israel), necessitating a security clampdown in Jerusalem and the occupied territories.
Somewhat reminiscent of the 3-day Madrid peace conference sponsored jointly by US and Russia back in September, 1991, the Annapolis gathering cannot possibly result in a breakthrough, but it can conceivably lay the groundwork for future diplomacy, and for further under-the-radar improvements in Israel's diplomatic standing with moderate Arab Gulf states. After all, the Madrid conference (after the Israeli team was shuffled from Likud to Labor) indirectly led to an almost successful resolution of the Syrian-Israeli dispute, and to the ultimately failed Oslo peace process.
In the case of Annapolis, we must hope for a similar reshuffling of the deck. Olmert and West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas are both sitting upon shaky seats, and neither can deliver their constituency for broad compromises. The incompetence of the Bush administration in the Middle East is now legendary. Last week's Economist hopes that Mr. Bush will issue a kind of clarion call which will indicate a willingness to break the logjam; but domestic politics (in the form of presidential primaries just 6 weeks away) plays a factor in just how far Mr. Bush can go without crippling a tough-as-nails Republican front runner.
So with an important meeting of donor countries set for December, the Palestinians must appear willing (and they are) to sit and listen. The Israelis for their part can hardly ignore an invitation issued by Washington, though they can subsequently resist pressure from a crippled lame-duck American administration. The modest surprise in all this is the participation of the Arab League states. My bet? Look years from now at this gathering in Maryland as a catalyst for Syrian-Israeli negotiations -- but do not expect a similar retrospective result for the Israeli-Palestinian track. Too many variables -- not the least the fractured nature of the respective Israeli, Palestinian and American ruling elites -- make true progress possible. Until the rift between Gaza and the West Bank is resolved one way or the other (and no doubt, the Annapolis meeting is designed to strengthen the West Bankers over the Gazans), and until new leaders are installed in Israel and the US, the chances for resolution in 2008 seem dim indeed.
Update, Nov. 29: Nothing truly important happened. We will have to credit a victory to George Bush and Condoleeza Rice for actually producing a joint statement from the Israelis and Palestinians (though Abbas refused to sign on until only 8 minutes before the triumvirate went onstage before cameras). Other than that, my pre-summit predictions penned above still stands.
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