More on Uzbekistan

John Quiggin31 Comments

The NYT has survivors’ accounts of the massacre in Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, on last night’s ABC News, I saw the commander of the US base in Uzbekistan interviewed. He said something like “The host country military are doing a wonderful job protecting the base and we have had no trouble from the disturbances”. That’s the same host country military that was murdering hundreds of its own people a few days earlier. I can’t find a link to this on Google news, so I’d be grateful to anyone who can point me to a transcript.

Bush’s friendly relations with the Uzbek dictator Karimov have been unshaken by this, and any stated opposition to Karimov’s use of torture and murder is meaningless: it’s an open secret that a good deal of it is being done on behalf of the Administration, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition.

The blogospheric right has mostly been either silent or supportive, along with much of the pro-war left. But some cracks are emerging. Here’s a piece by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol from the Weekly Standard. And on the pro-war left, there are some good pieces from Eric the Unread and Harry’s Place.

Update JF Beck offers a defence of the Karimov dictatorship, ending rather lamely with the weasel words “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting the Karimov government or its actions. I’m simply pointing out that the “wanton murder” scenario being pitched by the left is open to question”. For Beck, and the rest of the RWDB crew, the important thing is to support Bush and attack the left on every possible occasion, even if it means giving someone like Karimov the benefit of the doubt.

What I’ve been reading and watching

John Quiggin6 Comments

I’ve just bought the new Nick Hornby novel, “A Long Way Down” first person narrative from four people who meet on a rooftop, each planning suicide. It looks promising so far – the implication is that all survive, but for all I know they may end up back on the rooftop, or may be speaking from the next world[1]. No spoilers, please.

I went with my son to Revenge of the Sith, which was certainly better than Episodes 1 and 2. My big complaint is that we’ve been waiting since 1978 or thereabouts to find out how Princess Leia comes to be fleeing from Darth Vader at the end of episode 4, and now we find that episode 3 ends with her in nappies. If Lucas meant to make a hommage to 1950s serials he hasn’t done a great job in this respect.

Better news is that I’ve got something to watch on Saturday nights again, with the arrival of a new series of Dr Who. Apart from the occasional Lions game (and they haven’t been too rewarding lately), I haven’t had any options since I abandoned The Bill a couple of years ago.

fn1. This device, effective in “The Lovely Bones” (Alice Sebold)The Lovely Bones seems to be getting hackneyed

The NYT goes cash for comment

John Quiggin6 Comments

ViaTimothy Noah at Slate, I learn that the NYT is going to start charging for access to its opinion columns. It’s not clear whether, and how, bloggers will be exempted from this – the NYT provides blog access to the archives (otherwise pay-per-view) through its RSS feeds

Speaking as a reader, I wouldn’t want to pay for the NYT Op-Ed page. The Editorials are worthy, but not very exciting. Of the columnists, only Krugman is consistently excellent, and most of his columns consist of necessary repetition of important truths well-informed readers are aware of, but most commentators are unwilling to harp on for fear of being called “shrill”. Kristof, like the little girl in the rhyme, is very, very good when he’s good, but that’s not always. And Herbert is steadily good, if sometimes overly earnest. After that, there’s a long tail, with columns more often useful for mockery than for endorsement.

As a blogger, there’s no point in paying for something if you can’t link to it. That’s why the WSJ is so thoroughly marginalised in the blog world. So unless the NYT finds a way around this, they’ll be cutting themselves off from the most active part of the public debate, and presumably missing out on quite a few potential readers.

Weekend reflections

John Quiggin14 Comments

This regular feature is back again. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.

Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.

Reinventing the wheel

John Quiggin16 Comments

Over at Crooked Timber, Eszter has a post on physicists doing social network theory , which raises the issue of ‘reinventing the wheel’. In this case, the physicists are breathlessly announcing results that sociologists have known about for years.

That’s obviously silly, but I don’t think reinventing the wheel is entirely a bad thing. Whenever I start on a new research topic, I like to spend a bit of time thinking about the issues on the basis of first principles, before I start reading the literature to see what others have done. The benefit of this is not that you’re likely to discover anything fundamentally new, but that it makes it easier to see what is central to the literature and what’s merely the accidental result of its development history (Professor X, the founder of the field, stressed assumption A, so all subsequent writers pay homage to it, and so on). Of course, this is only useful if you can subsequently engage with the existing literature.

My short summary “By all means have a go at reinventing the wheel, but don’t try to patent it[1]”

fn1. Apart from anything else, this guy has already done it

Update As James Farrell reminds me, I’m reinventing my own wheel here.

Kingdom of Heaven

John Quiggin58 Comments

Today’s Fin ReView section (alas, subscription only) has a great article by Peter Manning, reviewing Ridley Scott’s film Kingdom of Heaven but also spelling out what a terrible crime the Crusades were, and how they are still affecting both the West and the Islamic world after nearly a thousand years. Manning is particularly good on the issue of just war doctrine, and the relationship between jihad and crusade.

Among the few good things to come out of our current trials is the fact that the word “crusade” is finally getting the evil connotations it deserves. A few years ago, George Bush was using the term “crusade” to describe the struggle against terrorism, and the US was about to build an artillery system called the Crusader. Now, just about the only time you hear the term is pejoratively, from bin Laden and like-minded jihadists.

Whether you call it crusade or jihad (or, for that matter, revolutionary communism), holy war is the worst of evils.

A good result

John Quiggin4 Comments

As I mentioned a couple of posts down, I’ve become pretty blase about letters from journals, at least to the extent that getting a rejection doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But I still get excited about the results from my annual karate grading, and I’m happy to say the news is good. I was hoping to be promoted to 7th kyu, which would have given me a black tip for my blue belt. Since our Kancho (founder) doesn’t encourage you to grade unless he thinks you’re ready, I was reasonably confident, but still nervous[1]. But when the results were announced, I’d reached 6th kyu and a yellow belt. Standards in our style are pretty high, and I can’t imagine ever getting a black belt. But a year ago, I would have thought a yellow belt was unattainable.

If you live in Brisbane or the Gold Coast and would like to learn karate in a rigorous traditional style, but with a friendly and non-threatening, mixed-age and mixed gender group, give Seiyushin a try.

fn1. Another successful grading meant I won a bet, in which my forfeit would have been watching a Dragonball Z movie marathon. Deliverance!

Life in Brisbane

John Quiggin12 Comments

I happened to notice a story in the local suburban newspaper about the midnight opening of Revenge of the Sith which begins “Hundreds of fanatics will brave the cool to be among the first to see …”