Un Chien Andalusia

It's been a long time since I've been to a proper show. OK, saw a little thing in Seattle before we moved back to New York, but it was a band I didn't know, just kind of something to do.

So the Pixies. Certainly my favorite band, arguably one of the most influential of the last 20 years of non-hip hop, non-top 40 ensembles; NOT seeing them when I was in college and actually attending concerts regularly was one of my biggest regrets.

When Kara surprised me with the announcement that she planned to buy tickets to the Pixie's Doolittle tour, a one-month gig in honor of the 20th anniversary of their first major-label album, I don't know if even she realized what it would mean to me. I have never been so excited to see a concert, period.

I should start by saying that my expectations were exceeded in every way.

That being said, a brief review: The concert was organized around the album Doolittle itself. The show started before the band came on stage with a montage of clips from the Dali-Bunuel film Un Chien Andalou, a fairly well-known surrealist short movie that features, among other scenes, the slicing of an eyeball, a hand pierced with stigmata crawling with ants, and a bizarre series of clips of a man and a woman interacting in strange ways (the most bizarre being the man yoked to a grand piano with a donkey carcass on top and pulling it slowly across an apartment living room).

Of course, the film was the inspiration for the lead track to the album, "Debaser." ("Got me a movie, I want you to know, slicing an eyeball, I want to you know, girl is so groovy, I want you to know, don't know about you, but I am un chien andalusia"). I have to admit something: I never made the connection between the old film and the song until then (and neither did this guy standing next to me who turns to his girlfriend to impress her, saying, and I quote, "That's what the song Debaser is about." Duh.)

After a few minutes of surreal weirdness, the band came out. It was amazing. Black Francis was a bit on the heavy side, Joey Santiago and David Lovering looked like they were watching their weight, but Kim Deal (the only member of the band I had ever actually seen live before -- as the front for the Breeders back in 1993) was unrecognizable. Her hair was cropped fairly short (actually, kind of a "pixie" haircut, now that I think about it), and she was actually quite round. It was fantastic. I can't say how great it was to see my favorite band look so much like, well, me. And not to digress, but that was one of the most delicious things about the show overall: Kara and I, two nerds by any measure, were completely representative in age, dress and demeanor, of 2/3 of the audience. I can honestly say it was the first time I ever went to a concert and didn't feel anxiety for how un-cool I was.

OK, enough about that: the show started with Kim Deal saying: "The b-sides." And then music. The band was incredible. They were tight; throughout the entire show, it was as though they could read each other's minds on every cut (which, after this long, the probably can). The music was just transcendent. And once the four or five b-sides associated with Doolittle were done, without a word Kim Deal started the classic baseline to "Debaser." The crowd exploded. Someday, I would love to know, if only for a minute how it must feel to be a musician experiencing the sheer joy of having a crowd melt with a few notes.

After that, every cut from the album, one after the other. Songs that stood out: "Tame," (cathartic but controlled screaming, outstanding); "Here comes your man" (a little pop-y for me normally, but it was a winner, especially with the screen montage of the close-ups of the band's faces projected behind them -- see my pic for this post -- and hey, it's Kara's fave); "Mr. Grieves" (loud); and my favorite song of the album, the final cut "Gouge Away" (I have to post on that song one of these days -- simply brilliant).

The encores: almost all winners. Kim Deal did a very loud, long version of "Into the White," (in fact, the encores were heavier on Deal songs -- "Gigantic" sticks out). The only off-note of the whole show was when the band started playing "My Veloria," and it seemed as though Francis' voice was just worn out; they stopped about 30 seconds in, and restarted (after a little back-and-forth between Francis and Deal) with "Bone Machine" (which was fine by me; I like the earlier stuff the best).

As far as cliches go, "I didn't want the evening to end" must be a pretty basic one, but that was actually how I felt. Trying to sum up why I felt so emotionally, intellectual and musically fulfilled by this concert, I'm really at a loss. On the basic level, it was a great concert by a band I have loved for years.

But on a deeper level, perhaps the best way I can get at the show's meaning was to say that it was one of those exceedingly rare moments (at least for me) of the perfect nexus of private memory, aesthetic accomplishment, and the enthusiasm of an experience shared with a large crowd. It was what art, I think, is supposed to accomplish.

Mr. Fox -- Fantastic!

I admit with some sheepishness that I am a Wes Anderson fan. Or rather, I should say, I have a love-frustration relationship with his work. On the one hand, I find the style, taste, subjects, characters and preoccupations of his films to be uncomfortably close to my own. So much so, that (and this is where the frustration comes in), I tend to see right through the artifice of his movies, to detect that lack of real substance behind the artistry. I've seen each one, all with the exception of Bottle Rocket in the order they were made, and almost every time I've walked away almost mad. Mad that there isn't something...more, but more mad at myself because I know deep down inside that if I could have a world view and film it, it would look a helluva lot like a Wes Anderson film.

So enter The Fantastic Mr. Fox. In the jerky, stop-action punctiliousness of this amazing movie, Anderson has finally come home. To me, this is the movie he has been practicing to make since Bottle Rocket. Every film, from Rushmore to Royal Tenenbaums to Darjeeling Limited, has been so perfect yet ultimately so unsatisfying, and now I realize why. In each of these movies, it is the plasticity of Anderson's filmed world, completely hermetic and constructed but with actors, "real" places and situations, it was as though the reality of the living, breathing actors had the effect of limiting the imaginative completeness of the movie taking flight.

Here, in a movie that was not just a constructed set, but literally an entire world that is made, to the smallest detail, in the service of Anderson's vision. And it is utterly delightful. It is as though only with literal puppets is the story that Anderson has always been trying to tell finally able to come fully to life.

Everything, and I mean everything about the movie was just about pitch-perfect. The voices, the characters, the sets, the soundtrack -- a collection of tunes and genres, from Ives to the Rolling Stones (and especially, to Toby's and my delight, the Beach Boys) that seemed to be waiting to be collected and put to this film.

I know I'm gushing, but I simply loved this movie. See it.

9/11/09

New Blog, Sister Visit

My sister's just left us...in town for a few days with her new(ish) boyfriend, Jimmy. I'm happy to say Jimmy's a great guy, and we had a great time hanging out with them while they were here (although the time was far too short).

Beruria and Toby especially seemed taken with Jimmy. I've discovered to my dismay that my little girl is a shameless flirt. Sitting in Pongol (our fave Indian restuarant on 28th and Lex), she actually sat across from him singing a little ditty that went (clearing my throat): "Dimmy dimmy dimmy dimmy [flirtatious smile] dimmy dimmy dimmy!" ("Dimmy" trans: "Jimmy"). Yeah. Huh.

Went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for the first time. The statue is fascinating, I have to admit. Interesting piece of belle epoch overstatement...I couldn't help but wonder whether it was widely regarded, aside from its monumental size, as a good piece of artwork - which is, in the end, what it is? I actually don't know; perhaps it's worth a few minutes in the library looking up. There must be some contemporary periodical literature on it...

Ellis Island. As a historian, I expected it to be the most interesting site of the day (I was wrong: actually, walking on Pearl from the Battery to John Street, which included passing Fraunces' Tavern, and several other fascinating 18th and 19th century buildings I didn't know existed - as it turns out, Pearl was along the 1609 waterline of Manhattan Island). Sadly, a great amount of the structure at Ellis Island has been restored in your typical modern museum chic. Luckily, they did have the foresight to keep the main reception hall largely intact. That, I admit, was fascinating (see photo). Found an Ole Olson on the placards outside the building -- I've decided to adopt him as my official "Olson" ancestor. To my reckoning, it is probable that my grandfather John Olson and his family were the ancestors most likely to have passed through Ellis Island. Kara's ancestors all came too early, and mine seem to have, for the most part, come either too early or from points not likely to have passed through New York.

A stormy sky moved in around 4 pm. Made for some rather dramatic images of the city skyline -- and, as always, the most striking absence is the Twin Towers. Their absence, I'm rather surprised to say, is still fresh when I see the skyline.

Sue, my mother-in-law, has begun a blog of her and Carl's journey east from Seattle to their new homestead in Vermont. It's worth checking out...very nice posts and images from their trip (my favorite is the Corn Palace).

Toby's B-day party

Today we had Toby's birthday party -- abeit six weeks late (the yearly problem of Toby being born near the beginning of the Three Weeks...I am worried about the therapy bills down the road).

It being the last week in August, just about every kid in Toby's class was on vacation. So, it was a small party. Kara did a brilliant job organizing -- the theme was "Jedi Training," and thus we played "Jedi baseball," "Jedi waterballoon toss" and "Jedi watching of Star Wars Episode I." (I should say that Kara's wording was much cooler than I'm letting on.)

I admit I was stressed. We live in a community where most of Toby's friends are pretty comfortably well-off. While I tend to err on the side of being proud of our more laid-back, rough-and-tumble ways, I can't help but worry sometimes that our kids are going to take flack for being, inevitably, more or less the "poor kids." Don't get me wrong, I feel that we are immensely privileged; Kara and I both have great jobs, are able to give our kids everything we need, really know no wants, at the same time, it's hard sometimes to look around Westchester and not be a bit self-conscious. And like most anxious parents, it is often with our children that our insecurities are given free rein.

So, when only four of Toby's friends could actually make it, and the baseball didn't go so great, and I didn't really manage the balloon toss so well, and one of Toby's friends got hurt feelings and I had to try to fix things, I was pretty worried that Toby would not be having the best time. To eat, we had pizza bagels (Toby's request) and ice cream cake. And, of course, we watched (most of) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. While the boys (and Beruria, who has discovered her inner five-year-old boy as a 2 1/2 year old girl) seemed to have a good time, I was not convinced that the party wasn't a complete dud.

I don't know exactly why Kara and I are so lucky, but when I was tucking Toby in to bed tonight, I asked him, casually, hopefully covering up my insecurities, whether he had a good time.

"Abba," he says, "you already know that this was the best birthday party EVER. Why are you asking me that?"

What a great kid.

Super-sized Musings

Kara and I watched the documentary Supersize Me last night. For those who don't know, the director of the film decides to take the assertion made by McDonald's -- that their food is not harmful and perhaps even has health benefits -- seriously, and eat a diet composed only of McDonald's food for a full month.

To be honest, his experiment is a bit broader: in fact what he's doing is constructing a sort of "typical" American lifestyle in toto -- reducing excersize, eating fast food for most of his nurtition, etc.

The results are shocking: his health almost collapses before your eyes; he goes from an extremely healthy 6'2" 185 lbs to I think somewhere around 210 lbs, all his physical stats in full-bore disintegration. Although the experiment is contrived and extreme, the point is clear.

All this is interesting in and of itself, but what was most interesting to me was a conversation with his girlfriend, an expert in organic foods and a vegan, who upbraids him at one point not for his radical diet experimentation (although she does do this at other points), but for the fact that he consumes meat at all. "You eat it because you like how it tastes," she asserts, "I'll bet heroin is really, really great. But that doesn't mean I put it in my body," is her overwrought analogy.

Which led me to muse: aside from the generally shrill obnoxiousness that I've found to be somewhat symptomatic among vegitarians (especially vegans), is she right? Is eating meat just a choice made for the pleasure of it, damn the ethical and moral consequences?

Accepting this opinion would make my life a lot easier. Here I am, literally learning how to kill a chicken myself so that I can continue to consume meat produced in a way I believe is ethical; Kara and I have just arranged for milk delivery from a local family farm in order to get milk products produced by cows that are treated well; we're looking at dropping our consumption of red meat to a very low level so that we can afford to subscribe to an organic, grass-fed operation, Mitzvah Meat, that just about doubles the cost of (already very expensive) kosher red meat.

With the exception of the last point -- I'm still not convinced that we need beef or lamb that much -- I don't really hesistate to make the sacrifices in convenience entailed by this stuff. Should I? Is meat -- even meat that is acquired outside the industrial food system -- just a frivolous and murderous luxury?

I am resistant to this conclusion. I think that eating meat, in a fundamental way, is a part of who we are as people. We are ominvorous, we derive important nutrients from other animals. More than that, though (and this may sound a bit...I dunno, strange) -- the idea that when we eat by taking the life of another sentient creature we are engaged in an act that is of deep meaning culturally, historically, and emotionally, has profound existential importance. It is a stark symbol of the unanswerable questions of life, death and meaning. In fact, just writing this makes me even more uncomfortable with my conclusions...

But in the end , it is this significance of meat consumption that makes me even more appalled at the way most meat is brought to the table these days...ESPECIALLY in my community. In observing the laws of kashrut, we are literally endowing the taking of animal life a sanctity that underscores the gravity of the act. Or at least we are supposed to be -- in fact, the kosher meat processing, coupled with the growing affluence of Orthodox Jews in general (enabling us to buy and eat more meat than ever), has made kosher meat consumption as banal and profane as anything else.

Anyway, now I'm getting preachy.

Till later.

Souter's New Digs

I have to say it: I'm disappointed to read in today's Times that former SCJ David Souter is ditching the ol' farmstead for what seems to be a McMansion in the next town.

Here I thought Souter was an old school New Englanda curmudgeon. Turns out he wants the ancient dream of all retired government employees: a Martha Stewart-approved paint scheme.

Reminds me of an old poem by a certain late Northeastern bard:

Stopping by the Road on my Way Home from Yoga

Whose house this is, I think I know

It should be in Chappaqua village though;

Where Martha and Hillary summer every year

'Cause, what else do you do with all that dough?

My Lexus stopped, it seems so queer

To pause without a Starbucks near;

By beauty bark and gardener's jeep

(Did they fire Jose this year?)

The Beamer behind gives his horn a beep,

(What is this guy, some finance creep?)

Middle finger aloft, the gas is pressed

And away he drives, his ire deep.

The driveway is long; the leafblowers gassed

A Range Rover with nanny and children just passed

But on to Balducci's -- the arugula won't last.

But on to Balducci's -- the arugula won't last.

Starbucks, we hardly knew ye

My intrepid sister-in-law Stefanie recently posted on an issue that is truly close to my heart: the long and tragic decline of what has been, for most of my adult life, perhaps my dearest refuge: Starbucks.

Apparently, she notes, the brand is now attempting to cash in on those people who drink coffee but assiduously avoid the ubiquitous green mermaid by opening unbranded stores presumably designed to look like independent cafes.

Time was, I would defend Starbucks. After all, I probably owe to the friendly staff at the University Village Starbucks in Seattle thanks for, among other things, the completion of my doctoral dissertation (yes, I did literally write about 75% of it there).

But my experiences of late have led me to the inevitable conclusion that Starbucks as the company I once knew is no more. Gone is the friendly service (I remember a time when a mistake in your drink order was always, without question, remedied with a heartfelt apology and a free drink coupon), the clean and pleasant atmosphere (now more likely to be dirty and disgusting, the tables unwiped, the condiment bar empty of milk and covered in garbage) and the nod, even if ever-so-slight, towards corporate responsibility.

On that last point, a vignette: when I first started frequenting Starbucks, it was de rigour that not only was it company policy to encourage sustainable behavior by its customers by offering a $0.10 discount if you brought your own mug, but to supply THEIR mugs and still give the discount. Well, these days, you can forget about them having a mug, and the other day, when I dropped in to my local store and handed my own mug to the clerk (I won't diminish the term "barista" by calling her one), she stared at the mug with distaste and sneered as loudly as she could, "Oh, look who's saving the planet!" I managed, somehow, to suppress the profanity that would have been my preferred response.

Now it could be that this is just New York, and the default of most in customer service here is that the customer is always there to make your life unpleasant, but I think her attitude was telling of so many things about where the brand has gone.

So Starbucks is now adding cynicism to cynicism, attempting to cash in on those poor dupes who want to support local business.

I can't say I'm surprised. But, if one customer still counts, it has been a while since I've bought coffee beans that carry the Starbucks label, and I can see a day coming soon when I'll forgo the place altogether.

Article by Andy Kastner

Ran across this article by Andy Kastner. I've heard him give a similar account as a Shabbat drasha, and I think it is quite powerful.

It is his sense of obligation towards not just fidelity to halakha but to the animal itself -- respect for the fact that the entire idea of kosher consumption is to elevate ourselves and the food we consume -- that I find most compelling.

Do-it-yourself Shchita

So I'm serious now. Readers may come to their own conclusions regarding my sanity, but I've decided that one real solution to my frustration regarding the state of kosher meat production and consumption is to learn shchita myself.

I'm not taking anything other than poultry...specifically, chickens (and perhaps the odd duck or turkey). Having visited a local sustainable farm, Hemlock Hills in Croton Manor, NY, and having discovered that there are precious few trained in shchita who are concerned enough about the source of food to actually be able to successfully get someone else to do it, I think the best way to deal with this is to acquire the skill myself. 

Today at kiddush I spoke with Andy Kastner (for readers of the New York Times magazine, you may recall an article about him a few months ago: it was one that featured a full-page pic of him in a kippah and a lab coat holding a dead chicken), who happens to be a friend and rabbinic intern at our shul (Hebrew Institute of White Plains). Andy, for those who don't know him, as a rabbinic student at YCT decided that he needed to learn shchita to be able to bring sustainably raised poultry to his table (that was the subject of the article).  I told him of my plan, and he pointed me to a sefer, Simla hadasha, which is a digest of hilchot shchita. As luck would have it, we had an impromptu Shabbat lunch with friends of ours, Avi and Adina Orlow-Friedman...and while browsing Avi's shelf, I discovered -- you guessed it -- Simla hadasha. He was kind enough to loan it to me.

So having begun the process of acquiring the requisite halakhic knowledge of shchita, my main concern at this point is the difficulty of the act itself. Is it possible to take enough control over one's consumption of meat to be able to bring it to the table personally? In the abstract, it seems do-able; after all, we are none of us that far from a time when picking out a living bird and bringing it to the shochet -- then plucking, salting and cooking it was part of the Thursday afternoon routine. 

So, to that end, I've made tentative plans with Andy to observe the process itself. We'll see how it goes. 

Read Robert Reich!

I know that I put Robert Reich's blog on my list, but I feel the need to make a specific pitch for the three readers of my blog to have a look. So far as I can tell, the man gets it profoundly right. And it's not just because I find his voice strangely soothing.

We are entering a rather disturbing phase in the history of American capitalism. A New York Times article on Monday observes that the disturbing 9.5% official unemployment rate is actually closer to 20% when one takes into account -- well, UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE.

I've read the Grapes of Wrath. I'm increasingly discomforted that Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon seemingly haven't.

Just a little reality check, c. 1932:

# of unemployed: 13,000,000

% Unemployment: 23.6%-24.1%

On Hoovervilles: "Below Riverside Drive in New York City, an encampment of squatters lined the shore of the Hudson from 72nd St. to 110th St. In Brooklyn's Red Hook section, jobless men bivouacked in the city dump in shed made of junked Fords and old barrels." William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal

Call me scared.

Sotomayor, Toby's Birthday, Bunk Beds (not in that order)

This past Sunday, as most readers of Planet Jekatobru know, was Toby's 6th birthday. I've often heard parents say "I feel old" at the passing of one or another landmark in their child's life, and now I know what that means.

Toby's a great sport: even though we're putting off his party until after the regular summer festivities of the Three Weeks, he hasn't really batted an eye at the delay. On the menu for the post-Tisha b'Av party: Cake, baseball in the park across the street, watching Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and then, Toby insists, re-enactments of key scenes in said film. Looks like it's gonna be a marathon.

Toby and Beruria's new bunk beds have arrived...and it's pretty cool. Toby LOVES being on the top bunk. I keep trying to convince Beruria how cool it is to be in the bottom bunk ("It's like your own little fortress, Bru!") but I don't think she buys it. Sadly we have to usually resort to simply telling her "It's too high, you're too small, and you will fall out." Not surprisingly, such logic doesn't really persuade the two year old mind.

Finally: the confirmation of Sotomayor. One day and I'm already sick of it. Tell me, and I know I'm not the only person to ask this: if she's a shoo in, why do we need to go through this theater of the absurd? What I've learned thus far: a) Vermont is pretty cool to have a senator like Leahy; b) Jeff Sessions is an intensely irritating little man; c) it is never a good idea to cut loose and talk about identity politics in Berkeley if you are angling for higher office. Good thing I only did it in Palo Alto...I'm sure no one was paying attention.

Now could we please just get on with it?

Robert Reich: Sobering.

That is the best word I can come up with, reading Robert Reich's latest blog post. Have a look:

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-will-recovery-begin-never.html.

McNamara, a follow-up

In yesterday's Times, an interesting op-ed regarding McNamara by a nephew of Lyndon Johnson http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/opinion/08bobbitt.html?scp=5&sq=mcnamara&st=Search.

It's worth a read, and raises a rather subtle, but crucial question about McNamara and morality in general. The author asserts (and, given the author's examples, it is hard to argue) that in fact what drove McNamara -- even in his worst errors -- was an abiding compassion, which led him to a catastrophic blindness when it came to Vietnam.

Which led me to muse: can we really call a technocratic drive (which, everyone agrees, was McNamara's stock-in-trade) to "fix" the world -- be it the Pentagon or Souteast Asia (or Iraq?) -- seemingly without regard to the human cost "compassionate"? To me that bespeaks a frightening logic, and one which we have seen before. It is the apotheosis of the enlightenment canard that the human cerebrum, if employed in good faith, will inevitably lead the rational agent to act in the way that is "right." And, most disturbing, it is the mindset that is the least likely to admit the possiblity of being "wrong."

Back to thinking about chickens. Or Nathan Birnbaum. Something.

New Books

I almost forgot: two of my three new books on eating arrived today. Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, and Lappe & Terry, Grub.

What I really need now, though, is advice on urban-apartment-dwelling fruit and vegetable preservation. My goal: full-on seasonal eating. I want to purchase my food only locally and in the season it is produced, and preserve it for the non productive seasons.

Crazy? We'll see.

Oh..that and somehow convincing our co-op board to let us raise chickens on the roof of the building. Kara thinks we need to wait ten years for a generational shift.

Again, we'll see.

Bikes

Today is the second day in a row that I've been able to ride. This summer I had hoped to get up to my pre-New York levels of cycling, but it seems having a job really puts a damper on your amateur bicycle career. Yesterday rode to Bronxville, today to Kensico Dam (and rode my bike to the farmers market in downtown White Plains to do the produce shopping)...not the Lake Washington Loop, but it's a start.

Last night watched a bit of the Tour. I've noticed a lot of the big name sponsors are missing (not surprisingly). Here are my brief thoughts:

1) Professional cycle racing gives the beauty of the sport a bad name, but at the same time it is one of the most beautiful things to watch. A tight pace line is pretty amazing to watch.

2) I am thoroughly tired of Lance Armstrong. For some reason his on-again, off-again, now I'm retired, now I'm not schtick I find more irritating than even Michael Jordan's. I think he needs to do the honorable thing and decide: are you a cyclist or are you a Page 6-Greenwitch-Village-dwelling celeb-dating ponce?

3) I like Levi Leipheimer, if only for his name and his perpetual habit of never quite coming in first.

'Till later!

McNamara v. Rumsfeld: the dark side of Sec Def chic

An interesting column by Bob Herbert in today's Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Which led me to muse: Rumsfeld v. McNamara. The comparisons are obvious. Whether one picks policy positions, relationship to industry, hair or eyeglasses -- one looks at Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld and could be forgiven for thinking that the make-or-break qualification for Sec Def is to have tiny glasses, slicked-back hair and a smirk. If there is such a thing as "I'm smarter than you and I know it" chic, they embody it.

More serious, though, is the question of their relative legacies. I'm going to make a wild prediction and assert that both men will be judged by history, more than anything else, for their decisions to execute the Vietnam, Afganistan and Iraq wars. And this is fair, I think; both men shared during the height of each conflict a nearly identical affliction of hubris and did not mind -- in fact, demanded -- that they be held to account for the results.

So let's take a look at the numbers: McNamara, if one is to take him at his word in the early '60s, asserted that he was proud to be associated with the Vietnam War. So how many lives is he responsible for? According to the National Archives, there were 58,209 service men and women killed in the war, 303,635 wounded in action, and 1,948 MIA.

As for Rumsfeld, if we count both the Afganistan and Iraq theaters of combat, the current statistics (c. 6/24/09) are: in Iraq, 4, 316 dead and approximately 31,000 wounded American servicemen and women; in Afganistan, the number of coalition dead are over 1,200 (I had some difficulty coming up with an accurate number), and over 3,000 wounded.

Note that neither of these counts include the casualties of the "enemy," nor of the toll of these conflicts on the civilian populations in which they unfolded.

This is a crude way of analyzing the conflicts, admittedly. So what about a more theoretical comparison? I frankly am not interested in getting into a discussion of the "value" of each conflict, but I will make this assertion: each of these wars were undertaken based upon the presumption that the use of the American military -- whether its members were volunteers or draftees -- was the best possible solution for the political issues at hand. Translated: the architects of each conflict accepted the premise that the inevitable deaths of thousands of Americans -- and hundreds of thousands of others -- was an acceptable exchange for the political goals that would be accomplished by the success of the venture.

And there's the rub. Vietnam, most (sane) people would agree, was an unmitigated disaster. Wrong in its founding assumptions, wrong in its execution, wrong in its conclusion. It arguably brought down a president, and without doubt plunged the US into a morass of domestic strife from which we still have not fully recovered.

As far as Iraq is concerned, I would say the jury's still out on whether the political goals (depending on how you define them) are moving towards success. Being a pessimist, I sense that only time will tell what the result was, but at best it will never be unambiguous, and the worst (but, I'm afraid, more likely) case scenario is that no stable, self-sustaining democracy will emerge out of the rubble. I very much doubt that even if one does, it will be a democracy that is very friendly to our interests. I certainly hope I'm wrong about this.

Afganistan is an even greater problem. The idea of a sustainable democracy there is, to be quite brutal, neither possible nor, given the ability of the various, rather dubious parties to assert their will over an often frightened public, necessarily desirable.

So thus unfolds the ethics of high-level decision making: by their own standards, both Rumsfeld and McNamara failed -- in both cases, spectacularly. And to take this a step further, the failures of both have profoundly changed not just the geopolitical reality of the regions of their adventures, but American culture in general. (Ironically, it was McNamara's failure in Vietnam that, arguably, allowed for the possibility of Rumsfeld's from a domestic perspective: had McNamara not so discredited the military in the eyes of the American population, we might still well have a draft. Rumsfeld's hand in dispatching a "volunteer army" might not have been so free were he accountable to a public forced to send its sons and daughters to Iraq.)

In the end, though, I think the most complex legacy of both is their own response to failure. McNamara, famously, repudiated his decisions. That might have been admirable if he had done so in a truly contrite way, but instead, staying true to his "I know more than you do" form, he did so in a best-selling apologetic, laying the blame on everyone he could, ultimately ending in a preachy diatribe. One senses he STILL thought he could do a better job as SecDef, if given another chance.

Rumsfeld, on the other hand, has never admitted in any way that any decision he made might have even been a little off the mark, save disastrous. Should we expect an "In Retrospect" version 2.1 down the road? I'm not holding my breath.

Say what you will, but I don't even think contrition, even the most sincere, could ever make up for one fundamental quality missing from each man's character. I'm not sure what to call it -- empathy? modesty? -- but I do know its antonym: hubris.

What I wouldn't give for a leader, at these crucial moments, who took a moment to reflect on the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he ISN'T the smartest guy in the room -- tiny glasses notwithstanding.

The Trevails of Apartment Ownership

I don't remember it being like this. Really. I remember the thrill of home ownership being so exciting that the little inconveniences, irritations, incompletnesses didn't bother me (or at least they've been occluded in my memory).

My day today: waiting for the Verizon guy to (again!) try to get our service set up. It seems the last guy (who took a total of 12-14 hours last week to -- incorrectly, it seems -- hook up our computer-internet-phone) didn't bother to correctly set up the system to allow us to actually buzz people in! So, today we learn that in order to have this modern convenience, they are going to have to re-wire the entire project.

Next, our carpet delivery: we thought we'd found the perfect solution to replace the (disgusting!) carpets in the two bedrooms. Empire Carpets (you know, "588-2300 -- Empire!") came to visit us on Friday, brought samples, and assured us that we would have new carpets on Monday. At a MUCH cheaper price than elsewhere. Great!

Then they show up. At 3 pm (we have to have work done during business hours). And get started...only to tell me, halfway through the job, that the carpet for the kids' room is torn in three places. And it was...badly. So, they'll be coming back tomorrow...and I get to wait for them!

What does one do? You can't blame the workers...they're just trying (usually) to make the best of the situation they find themselves in. Every job is different. But there must be a better way!

Oh well. Stay tuned.

The Great Rock Music List: Take 3

My quest to identify and listen repeatedly (at least 10x/album) to the top/most influential/whatever rock albums of all time continues. Here is the list thus far, in no particular order:

The Beatles, Revolver

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico

Led Zeppelin, IV

Bob Dylan, Bringing it all Back Home

Beach Boys, Pet Sounds

Cream, Disraeli Gears

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced?

The Clash, London Calling

Public Enemy, Takes a Nation of Millions

Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks

Michael Jackson, Thriller

Nirvana, Nevermind

Planet Jekatobru, take 2

OK: so, at long last, I will be sparing my very patient immediate family my rants on the state of literature and the arts, the deficienciesof New Yorkers, the flaws of Sarah Palin and the horrors of industrial foods by putting it on the family blog. Thanks, Stef, for the suggested name (I would imagine it isn't terribly opaque). Stay tuned!

(Although, let's be honest, probably Kara will be doing much more of the blogging than I.)

And yes, this is the SECOND attempt. Stef pointed out that the correct title of the blog should be "Jekatobru."