Posts Tagged ‘history’

Signs of the “New Russian USSR”

Posted: March 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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One of the sure signs of dictatorship is an attempt to re-write history. It loves like the soviets Russia is again moving in that direction:

Mr Shoigu also issued a veiled threat to leaders in eastern and central Europe. Most of them regard the advance of Soviet forces into German- occupied Europe as a second occupation, and Estonia sparked outrage in Russia a few years ago when it relocated a statue of a Soviet soldier from the centre of the capital, Tallinn, an event not lost on Mr Shoigu.

“Our parliament should pass a law that would envisage liability for the denial of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War (the Second World War],” the minister said.

“The presidents of several countries who deny this would not be able to come to our country and remain unpunished, and the mayors of several towns would think twice before they dismantle monuments to Soviet warriors.”

Some clarification is necessary here. There is no question that the Soviets did defeat the Nazi’s and pushed them back to Berlin etc, the problem here is the inconvenient fact that the advancing army replaced one conquering dictatorship with another that oppressed them for decades.

Mr Shoigu’s suggestion, which has popular support in the Russian parliament, has added to concerns that Russia is promoting a version of history that has changed little since it emerged from the Stalinist propaganda machine as a means of bolstering support for Mr Putin and his government.

Russia inferiority complex is centuries old and it looks like it hasn’t gotten over it yet. The Obama retreat in foreign policy is nasty sign to eastern Europe that we aren’t going to be helping. It’s still early and this can change just like Iraq but when you retreat someone else advances. If we make a power vacuum someone else is going to step into it.

Nordlinger on Rush

Posted: March 5, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Jay Nordlinger does what he almost always does. Has the best commentary on the issue of the day. That issue being Rush. He starts with Colin Powell:

After November’s election, Colin Powell said that Republicans have to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. Since when have they ever listened to Rush? For president, the Republicans nominated probably Rush’s least favorite politician (in the GOP, that is). And I’m sure most Rush fans voted for him, because they thought he was a lot better than the alternative, which he was.

Whom did Powell support, by the way? Barack Obama, the Democrat, and the most left-wing president we have ever elected, possibly. I’m not sure that Powell Republicanism is the Republicanism the GOP should want.

And let me say a further word about John McCain — whom I admire, and whom I voted for enthusiastically. He was almost perfect for the GOP moderate types, you would have thought. He was anti-Christian Right. He was Mr. Campaign Finance Reform. He was Mr. Amnesty. He was Mr. Global Warming. He was Mr. Reach Across the Aisle.

Except for being against abortion and for free trade, he was well-nigh perfect.

And if McCain isn’t good enough for the Powell brigades — who ever would be?

He gets to the bottom line in a hurry:

For eight years, we heard nothing but “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Those who did the most to block or undermine President Bush were exalted as the Great Americans, and People. But dare oppose The One (i.e., our 44th president) — and you’re one of the lowest life forms.

Well, nuts to that.

There are many things wrong with the Republican party today, and Rush Limbaugh, in my opinion, is not one of them. Donald Rumsfeld (another pet bogey) used to say, “America is not what’s wrong with the world.” That is true. And Rush Limbaugh is not what is wrong with the Republican party.

Frankly, Secretary Powell is more like what’s wrong: If he can’t discern the superiority of John McCain to Barack Obama, where the presidency is concerned, who needs him?

The whole column should be required reading for Republicans. If republicans aren’t willing to figure this out then we deserve all that we get.

Welcome to Western Civ Mr. Plotz

Posted: March 3, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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David Plotz blogged the entire bible and wrote a book on the experience. This column describes what he discovered:

Maybe it doesn’t make sense for most of us to read the whole Bible. After all, there are so many difficult, repellent, confusing, and boring passages. Why not skip them and cherry-pick the best bits? After spending a year with the good book, I’ve become a full-on Bible thumper. Everyone should read it—all of it! In fact, the less you believe, the more you should read.

He notices how much of our language and culture comes from it:

You can’t get through a chapter of the Bible, even in the most obscure book, without encountering a phrase, a name, a character, or an idea that has come down to us 3,000 years later. The Bible is the first source of everything from the smallest plot twists (the dummy David’s wife places in the bed to fool assassins) to the most fundamental ideas about morality (the Levitical prohibition of homosexuality that still shapes our politics, for example) to our grandest notions of law and justice. It was a joyful shock to me when I opened the Book of Amos and read the words that crowned Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Just as an exercise, I thought for a few minutes about the cultural markers in Daniel, a late, short, and not hugely important book. What footprints has it left on our world? First, Daniel is thrown in the “lions’ den” and King Belshazzar sees “the writing on the wall.” These are two metaphors we can’t live without. The “fiery furnace” that Daniel’s friends are tossed into is the inspiration for the Fiery Furnaces, a band I listen to. The king rolls a stone in front of the lions’ den, sealing in a holy man who won’t stay sealed—foreshadowing the stone rolled in front of the tomb of Jesus. Daniel inspired the novel The Book of Daniel and the TV show The Book of Daniel. It’s even a touchstone for one of my favorite good-bad movies, A Knight’s Tale. That movie’s villain belittles hero Heath Ledger by declaring, “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting”—which is what the writing on the wall told Belshazzar.

When you read the whole thing you find that it hasn’t helped his faith, mostly because he finds himself not wanting to believe in the God he finds but he does find that to have a solid base in the history of the west, you need to know what the Bible says.

And of course if you are a person of faith, you can’t understand that faith without scripture. It is scripture and tradition. We need to know both.

The Tube court

Posted: March 3, 2009 by datechguy in tech
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The NY Times note another change is how things are done:

The Supreme Court is entering the YouTube era.

The first citation in a petition filed with the court last month, for instance, was not to an affidavit or a legal precedent but rather to a YouTube video link. The video shows what is either appalling police brutality or a measured response to an arrested man’s intransigence — you be the judge.

Such evidence vérité has the potential to unsettle the way appellate judges do their work, according to a new study in The Harvard Law Review. If Supreme Court justices can see for themselves what happened in a case, the study suggests, they may be less inclined to defer to the factual findings of jurors and to the conclusions of lower-court judges.

Like every other change of this nature, when it first happens it is interesting, the time will come with it is the norm, but its worth noting.

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