the calypso caper

It is difficult to discern what the involuntary consortium of Western powers, be they the UN, the US, NATO or some mandate or protectorate, are trying to accomplish in the Levant. They act against the vocal and tacit advice of many, including regional powers’ limited approval. To estimate the situation in Libya the same as other recent revolutions, with names spicy and colourful, may be over-simplifying and unflattering to call it imitation. America, feigning reluctance, is pushing forward and, I believe, clearing following a tragically predictable playbook. I wonder where is this war’s Curveball, the Iraq informant and agitator who fed the intelligence agencies and hawkish minds exactly what they wanted to hear. Or is there no such figure this time around, only the irresistible siren song of battle and Balkanization by dividing the region?

new metrics or libya the tattooed lady

Continuing incidents in this lead up to Spring have proved to be incommensurate with the conventional public systems of measurement and we are all being educated with new units of dread and hope and ways to gauge the appropriateness or irrationality of one's reactions. In addition to the millisievert, the gray, and the rad, conditions are described in terms of chest x-rays per hour or airport naked body scanner-equivalency. It is like speaking of budget short-falls and economic hobbling in terms of trillions of whatever denomination one chooses, as inflation's impossibly big numbers is a great equalizer--or telescoping figures of personal loss and devastation across whole regions.

At odds with these metrics, impoverished ambitions, beggaring their neighbours and sending mixed messages about thrift, restraint and dissolute decadence though money can always be found for making war, each tomahawk missile launched is equal to the average annual salaries of twelve civil servants. Such abstract connections are held up to the spectre of a forced-furlough and US government shut-down--like the low-hanging austerities threatening other nations. Given the level of control over each situation and the real risk associated with it, the response seems inverted: there is no panic and whirlwind of blame and litigiousness despite the dire conditions--the Japanese remain civil, continue to recycle their trash and in some areas what utilities remain are powered by wind-mills that weathered the earthquake and tsunami intact. In contrast, there is delineated anarchy over Tripoli with no nation wanting to take the leadership role and arguments about strategy and goals. However much divergence there is between causes and corollary, it seems that both have root in human miserliness and greed and growing demand for cheap energy.

unwater or solvent green

Holidays by fiat are something different than awareness months. Designating a day, setting it aside, can generate understanding as well as giving one the chance to focus on a certain theme, with some needed pressure to set summits and not to allow it to be elided over. It's the same kind of tinge of regret for missing "Talk like a Pirate Day" or Pi-Approximation Day or committing some environmental heresy on Earth Day or buying festive candy when it goes on sale the day afterwards--because after all, one has been in training all year for such things. Avast ye there, aarg! The United Nations has declared a whole calendar of special days for social, cultural and environmental issues and celebrations.

This year's observance of World Water Day brings attention to urban resource management.  Nothing else is quite so plastic, varied but also forgiving and abused, profligate as a universal solvent, diluting all of our poisons and what we'd like to hide away--not to mention the floodgate, magic carpet, weather and landscape and landscaper. Eventually what we are hoping to become so rarified and impalpable does, soapy or irradiated, however, become part of the rain and the beach.

trojan sunset

Trojan sunset, which sounds like some exotic and potent cocktail, or Delta Dawn (what’s that flower you have on, could it be a faded rose from days gone-by?) or whatever it is being called is some inscrutable name for an operation—that has been renamed the military forces of the various players (the French Opération Harmattan, the English Operation Ellamy) and called a crusade by the antagonists, and I doubt there’s even appreciable irony in it, much less some symbolic or allegorical meaning behind it. Many argue that the debates at the United Nation, on whether to violate the sovereignty of one of its members by imposing a no-fly-zone, was glacial and infuriating. Inaction, times before, allowed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the genocide in Rwanda. It is decision that is not without sympathy and an unenvious debate, since whatever coalition, backed with whatever support, has to proceed with extreme caution.  Hopefully, the motivation is framed by a genuine desire to want to protect fledgling reform movements in the region and protect citizens potentially in harm’s way, and not bemoaning lack of engagement or invitation to participate in those emboldening rebellions. Or just another excuse to make war and raise armies, which has dangerous and scary parallels—nearly word for word, with the aggression in Iraq, which has not yet ended well, and began with enforcement, albeit more autocratically but with the eventual endorsement of the global community, to unseat a madman from power, who was also a danger to his own citizens and the broader region. It is not an easy task to surgically dissect the way dissent is playing out here, and disaffectedness is either not so well studied and established or seemingly not as universal as in the other uprisings. After leadership was tolerated or made the confidant of Western powers for so many years, distrust and aversion are not so lightly earned without suspicion. Because or despite of this intervention, however it may escalate, one hopes that peace and prosperity can return and that the conduits for dialogue and diplomacy are not shut off.

iod

Boing Boing science maven, Maggie Koerth-Baker, has a very praiseworthy article, really outstanding reporting, on the panic over radiation, which is no doubt spreading much faster than the trade-winds could carry it and is not growing more diffuse, answering questions about what precautions could be taken and what's counterproductive. In the face of all this alarm, run on salt, and nonsensical pledges to stop all emanations at the border, this quality of journalism and reflection is very refreshing and informed.