Does Bush know what he's talking about....

Ignorance is bliss?

....because Miss Eagle sure doesn't.

Miss Eagle doesn't talk about Bush much. Why bother? Coming home from work to-day I heard a sound clip from a White House press conference. The gist of the thing was about weapons in Iraq. Miss Eagle picked up that much. And Dubya was talking about IUDs. That's cute, Miss E thought to herself. Intra-Uterine Devices as weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! Ooo-wah!

In case no one has guessed yet, Miss Eagle is curious. She is the original curiosity killed the cat but information brought it back girl. So home to the 'puter to check it out. So she went to the White House site and came up with the press conference. Now Miss E's hearing might not have been too good but then Miss E doesn't think too much of Dubya's diction - considering he is a graduate of an Ivy League university. Turns out that Dubya was talking about IEDs.

Now Miss Eagle is not an expert on armaments and - she is a committed peace lover - has no ambition to become one. Therefore she hadn't a clue about IEDs. So she did what any good blogger does, she Googled it: with this result. So good so far or so far so good.

She then decided to explore the other conundrum from the Press Conference. What on earth is a Qud. This was a bit trickier. Google Quds and you will see what Miss E means. However, she thinks this might be the critter. Anyway, she thinks it has a lot to do with this lot.

Miss Eagle has now come to the conclusion that there are two types of armaments. There are peaceful, democratic armaments (like the ones that the USA and the coalitions forces employ) and there are destructive armaments (like the ones that Iran is alleged to have deployed). Mmmmmm......Miss Eagle thinks.

Now perhaps Miss Eagle could be convinced that Dubya knows what he is talking about if........

• She didn't remember all that guff about peace, democracy, and regime change while watching a handful of men (definitely no women) being a choreographed support group for the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue.


• She didn't remember the looting of hospitals in Baghdad without let or hindrance from the United States armed forces.


• She didn't remember the looting of the artifacts and antiquities of the earliest years of human civilisation without intervention by the United States armed forces.


• She didn't remember how US corruption, bumbling, self-interest, and military and political self-congratulation have set up post-Saddam Iraq to fail.

Nah! Dubya hasn't a clue about that of which he speaks.

An historic letter?

Davo over at Wombat's Waffles has published THE letter from Iran. You can read it there or here. Now there can be all sorts of views on the letter. Who are the Iranians to tell others what to do? Do the Iranians understand how the Americans think? Are the Iranians being sincere but naive?

Now turn that around, shall we? Who are the Americans to tell others what to do? Do the Americans understand how the Iranians think? Are the Americans being sincere but naive?

Now for the answers:

• Both Iran and the U.S. indulge in state-sponsored violence and incursions on the sovereignty of other nations.
• Both Iran and the U.S. need to have a greater objectivity about their history and their place in the world and among the nations. As Robert Burns said: O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
• Americans have some self-seeking and self-agrrandizing national myths which do not serve them well internationally. Perhaps, Iran does too. National myths without the objectivity of broad and deep knowledge can not only breed naivete when placed in a wider context but, without such objectivity, other dangers come: ignorance, bigotry, national superiority, notions about racial, ethnic, typological superiority.

George W. Bush professes Christ. Significant sectors of the American polity do too. It therefore behoves the President and all Americans to have a look at the theology of The Letter from Iran. There is much to think about. Equally, the Iranian President will need to be held to his spiritual ideals expressed in The Letter.

The Abrahamic religions do have common ground. The Abrahamaic heritage of the One God. A sense of justice. A sense of compassion. A demand for an ethical life. The facts are that so often governments operating within this heritage do not live out the ideals and demands of the heritage. We are not ignorant. Yet we build faultlines of bigotry, racism, and prejudice out of a common heritage. And then we complain when, into our self-built difficulties, comes another with a capacity to build the ultimate weapon of the current technology.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has outlined the basis for a closer relationship and for a common understanding. Whether the U.S. likes it or not and whether the Iranian President is genuine or using empty grandstanding rhetoric, the path has been shown which could lead to a bridge. Miss Eagle is reminded of what Maya Angelou once said that God sends pebbles into our lives. If we ignore them, he then sends a rock.

Globalization: dark and democratic?

Nothing comes without a price, says Paul Sheehan on globalization. And he outlines the price quite clearly:

• erosion of working conditions,
• a rising gap between haves and have-nots,
• a looting of community assets by fee-gouging financial brigands,
• a siphoning of corporate profits by overpaid executive bedouins, and
• the loss of entire industries shipped offshore, mostly to China.

His final question puts the English-speaking world in its place.

Are you any more deserving than a young Chinese worker desperate to get out of poverty?

...and bloggity blog at FT.com

I think trying to have an objective view of current blogging is a bit like viewing a marathon race somewhere just after the half way mark. The runners tend, by this stage, to be well established in packs or groups. There is the lead pack. Then there are other packs staggered back through the field. Occasionally, a runner will break out of a pack and race to position themselves in the pack ahead. The NYM articles give a predominantly U.S. view of the blogging field. Over at FT.com, there is a view from the outside - a European view. Only thing is - it's written by an American, Trevor Butterworth. Butterworth's piece is a good read coming after the NYM stuff. I'm not saying the NYM stuff is unbalanced. It's not. But Butterworth's piece gives a counter-balancing perspective, a reality check. The blogosphere is not the b-all and end-all. The professionals still dominate in set-up, writing style and hits and the good writers have found blogging a stepping stone to another life and leave professional blogging behind. I love this part:

blogging in the US is not reflective of the kind of deep social and
political change that lay behind the alternative press in the 1960s. Instead,
its dependency on old media for its material brings to mind Swift’s fleas
sucking upon other fleas “ad infinitum”: somewhere there has to be a host for
feeding to begin. That blogs will one day rule the media world is a triumph of
optimism over parasitism.

and this:

Blogging will no doubt always have a place as an underground medium in
closed societies; but for those in the west trying to blog their way into viable
businesses, the economics are daunting.

The marathon of the blogs continues. The winner/s of the race is/are not yet clear. Will enthusiastic amateurs, even those earning a reasonable income, remain ephemeral also-rans? Will the race go the swift, the powerful, the well-connected, and the talented as remains the case for the mainstream media? Will the blogosphere become a true democracy, a talented meritocracy of lifestyle and opinion? Is good grassroots blog writing sustainable in a commercialised, globalised democracy or can it only be sustained in censorious nations like China and Iran? The finishing line is a long way off.

Leunig unloved? - 2

Michael Leunig, one of Australia's favourite cartoonists, has been the victim of a cruel fraud. Recently published cartoons originating in Denmark, which have drawn the ire of Islamic communities, were initiated to test freedom of speech issues. In return, an Iranian newspaper is now calling for cartoons denigrating the holocaust to test freedom of speech issues in Western nations. Someone fraudulently posted a cartoon purporting to be by Leunig. It is now reported that this cartoon has been withdrawn. Needless, to say Leunig is upset about this 'set-up' and is feeling rather wounded. Some people say they don't get Leunig, don't understand some of his stuff. Clearly, there are people who do - and don't like it and can't stand him, to put it mildly. I can't help wondering if the fraud is some sort of fall out from the Jewish hatred of Leunig expressed recently which I posted about here.

Some one(s) clearly has/have a vested interest in discrediting Leunig. What better way to do it? Clearly, those who wield the pen are not necessarily sissies but frequently exhibit a great strength. They have the ability to affect the minds and opinions of people. To his great credit, Michael Leunig does just this. Even his own newspaper, The Age, finds him a bit much at times. Leunig discussed this last year at Writers at Como. As he pointed out then, there are those who take bulldozers to mow down ancient forests. He uses a pen to express thoughts and ideas and they think he's a bit much! Leunig is clearly effective. His humanitarian, peaceful, spiritual, and anti-war, anti-consumerism stance is hated and unwelcome in some very powerful quarters. This sort of treatment has always been meted out to the prophets.