We went to Mashiko tonight.
Hajime did his usual jazz-like improv sushi. The two you’ll-never-see-this-anywhere-else dishes tonight:
* Octopus, in a cucumber salad, with peppercorns.
* Slightly seared squid, with avocado and masago, wrapped in a thinly sliced cucumber (rather than seaweed).
Yum.
No, not me. {this time.}
I meant John Ashcroft.
Seems he had a press conference yesterday, introducing a report to Congress intended to establish how vital the Patriot Act is to violating his oath to defend the constitution to successfully prosecuting the “war on terror”
Instead, to a trained eye, it makes him look like a rube.
Here’s the key quote:
“The report says that in the period starting with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and ending May 5, terrorism investigations by the Justice Department resulted in charges against 310 people, with 179 convictions or guilty pleas. The Patriot Act, it says, was instrumental in these cases.”
What that means is that Ashcroft’s Justice Department is getting a conviction rate of 57.7% on the terrorism cases cited.
This is abysmal.
Most prosecutors think that if they’re not getting a conviction rate of 90% or higher, they’ll never get re-elected as District Attorney.
To put this in perspective, consider: A conviction rate of 50% means you might was well toss a coin to determine the guilt or innocence of whom you’re trying.
But it gets better. Consider the basic argument Ashcroft is making: Without the benefit of the Patriot Act, he and his bozos would be doing even worse. That’s right, without the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft thinks a coin toss would do a better job than he can at convicting terrorists.
No wonder he wanted to keep these stats secret.
Not only does this support my long-running idea that most “national security secrets” are really just cover-one’s-ass moves. But the fact you’re hearing about this angle to the story from me and not in prime time and/or above the fold in a newspaper shows just how cowed the So-Called-Liberal-Media are.
Thanks to darkmane, to whom I originally commented when he flagged this story.
Two pieces in the New York Times I want to call attention to today:
Barbara Ehrenreich has a column, “Let Them Eat Wedding Cake”, which has a finely satirical take on the hypocrisy between the Administration’s marriage policies regarding poor women versus their policies regarding gays.
But just as interesting, and more revealing of its sub-culture, is A.O. (Tony) Scott’s piece, “A New Market for Bravehearts?” Some quotes:
*^*^*
“For an R-rated political documentary to make $100 million would be a show business anomaly, surpassed in strangeness only by an R-rated scripture-based foreign-language film making three times that much. It is unlikely that either picture signals the beginning of a trend, since the success of each was leveraged by the stardom of its maker. But Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibson did not succeed simply through their fame or their knack for using the news media as an engine of publicity. It was clear long before anyone had seen a frame of either Passion or Fahrenheit that what audiences would witness was the uncompromised, unfiltered vision of a strong-willed, stubborn and bloody-minded director.”
–
“Perhaps more than ever before, the movie studios are ruled by timidity, anxiously tailoring their releases to avoid giving offense… Above all, the local multiplex follows the code of an old-line country club, in which religion and politics are not to be discussed.
The justification for this kind of bland cowardice is economic, and follows a marketing logic that is hard to refute. Why risk alienating potential customers? But the movie-going public can be alienated as much by boredom as by distaste, and it may be that the studios should be more afraid of our indifference than of our anger. At the moment, we are in a state of spiritual and political agitation, and while we may still be looking for entertainment to distract us or calm us down, we also clearly have an appetite for entertainment that does the opposite, that focuses our attention and raises our blood pressure. We worry about the health of the body politic and the state of our immortal souls and, at least some of the time, we want a culture that responds to these concerns. In other words, we are willing to pay good money to be provoked, enraged, exalted and challenged.”
–
“(I)t is also proper, and healthy, for audiences to overrule (film critics’) anxious, qualified judgments, and to respond to movies like these with more heat and more passion. The basic critical function of consumer advice, in any case, is overridden when movies become part of a larger debate, which may also be hard for critics to deal with, since it threatens our authority.
Which is, all in all, a very good thing. Movies are a democratic art form, and democracy, at its most vigorous, can ride roughshod over polite opinion, responsible judgment and cool appraisal. When that happens, we should relish our discomfort, and gratefully acknowledge that, sometimes, hotter heads prevail.”
*^*^*
Which provides yet another piece of evidence to the O’Brien view that the problem with most companies in the US is that they don’t want to make money enough. That they’re far more invested in control. Or in feeling good about themselves. Self-image, above all.
(no, not the movie from M. Night Shyamalan)
From David Sucher (I’m reliably informed he pronounces his last name like “suture”) comes this great sign in a park. Be sure to read it all the way through.
Mr. Sucher also blogs to good effect. You should scan through to read both commentary and links to what others say about the much discussed new Seattle Central Library, but he also writes thoughtfully on design, architecture, and urban planning in general.
This post Mr. Sucher points to, written by Keith Pleas, is probably my favorite commentary so far on the Seattle Central Library’s apparent dysfunctions… Though I’m reserving my own comments until I visit the place myself, and besides, one can’t really comment on how successful a new building of this size is for about 2-5 years or so anyway. It just plain takes that long for people to settle in. (Cf. Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn.)
POSTSCRIPT: Before the opening of the Central Library, Seattle already had one magnificent temple to the book — the Suzzallo Reading Room, on the UW campus. So this city has no fewer than one, and as many as two, fine structures for reading, depending on one’s opinion of the new one. 
During the kerfluffle on LJ a while back about the dismal new commercial on the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush campaign web site — the one so bad some folks were speculating whether it was a parody — a news item from the campaign caught my eye. “Kerry Support Most Negative in History”.
What they meant was, a bigger percentage of Kerry voters support him because he isn’t George W, Bush than because they actively support John Kerry than prior candidates, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
I generally don’t put much stock in political polling. Participation rates are abysmal, and there’s no way to verify people are telling you what they really think, or what they want you to think they think.
But that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was they provided a link to the nitty-gritty results of the poll. Why was that strange? A couple of things:
The poll includes data from the past. What that means is, if you look down at Questions 8 & 9, you can see that in 2000, about 14% of voters voted for Gore because they were anti-Bush, while 12% voted for Bush because they were anti-Gore. As of last month (when the poll was taken), the numbers had switched to 27% of voters favoring Kerry being anti-Bush, while 11% favor Bush because they’re anti-Kerry. The Bush/Cheney campaign’s point is that there are a heck of a lot of people provisionally opting for Kerry because they dislike Bush so much. What they’re either not noticing, or not telling you, is that Bush has been so bloody awful he’s doubled the proportion of the electorate opposed to him — which is, as they point out, unpecedented. {cough}
But the other odd thing is this: We’ve been told by the press, in a constant drumbeat, how “likable” Bush is, and how “cold and aloof” Kerry is. Myself, I don’t see it. Bush has always struck me as about as likable as a down-on-his-luck used car dealer. Kerry comes across to me as a professorial type — which is cool by me, I like academia.
Here’s the interesting thing, though: Buried down in Questions 45/47 of the Pew poll, they ask everyone what qualities or characteristics voters like about each candidate. There’s a category called, “Personality/Attitude/Communication”, and another one called “General character”. There’s also one called, “Normal guy”, which I mention because one of the things the press also keeps hammering on is how much more Bush conects with “reg’lar people” than Kerry does.
Ready for the results?
Bush:
7% Personality/Attitude/Communication (ranked 4th of his qualities) 5% General character (5th) 2% Normal guy (7th)
Kerry:
9% Personality/Attitude/Communication (ranked 2nd among his qualities) 4% General character (6th) 1% Normal guy (8th)
Do you see those huge gaps in how “likable” each one is?
No?
Hmm… Neither do I.
Nick Kristof has a column in the NYT today about about Kerry’s pick of John Edwards.
But the real nugget comes toward the end, and is about Jorge:
“Mr. Bush lost his first political battle, for Congress in 1978, when his opponent, Kent Hance, portrayed him as an overeducated elitist carpetbagger who didn’t know Texas. Mr. Hance later told me that for Mr. Bush, the lesson was that “he wasn’t going to be out-Christianed or out-good-old-boyed again.”"
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. The scales fall from my eyes.
Of course, Mr. Hance is just as right now as he was then. But, as Kristof adds, “Just wait: Mr. Edwards has the same populist charm as Mr. Hance, and I’d bet that Mr. Bush is about to be out-good-old-boyed again.”
America can but hope.
Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times today (NB: req registration) leads off with a fascinating piece of info:
“Since it opened, Fahrenheit 9/11 has been a hit in both blue and red America, even at theaters close to military bases. Last Saturday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his Nascar crew to see it. The film’s appeal to working-class Americans, who are the true victims of George Bush’s policies, should give pause to its critics, especially the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore.
Here’s a hint: If you’re a Republican president pretending to be from the South, it’s bad news when NASCAR drivers and their crews go watch a two-hour movie about how you’re a chump.
Just sayin’.
I’m not 100% sure why there’s all the fuss over Dick Cheney telling Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, “Go fuck yourself.” After all, as I’ve said before, and said again, this Administration’s motto is, “Fuck you!”
Sure, there’s the irony of a senior member of my former party — the party of “civilized Christian restraint” — telling the world that insulting a Senator unimaginatively made himself, “feel better.” Put all of that aside.
David Weinberger, one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto (a book equally about politics as it is about business, if one thinks about it), points to an interview with Ron Reagan in the New York Times. In addition to being humane and funny throughout, here’s Ron’s take on Cheney, up close and personal from the funeral of his father:
How did your mother feel about being ushered to her seat by President Bush?
Well, he did a better job than Dick Cheney did when he came to the rotunda. I felt so bad. Cheney brought my mother up to the casket, so she could pay her respects. She is in her 80′s, and she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don’t think he’s a mindful human being. That’s probably the nicest way I can put it.
Yes. One certainly gets that impression.
“Etymological Dirge”
by Heather McHugh
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear…’
Calm comes from burning. Tall comes from fast. Comely doesn't come from come. Person comes from mask. The kin of charity is whore, the root of charity is dear. Incentive has its source in song and winning in the sufferer. Afford yourself what you can carry out. A coward and a coda share a word. We get our ugliness from fear. We get our danger from the lord.
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[from The American Scholar, Spring 1998]
