News Flash: Anna Nicole Smith Still Dead!

Yesterday, I tried to take the high road in looking at the sad life and death of Anna Nicole Smith. Today, I'm fed up with the whole thing.

The story of this quasi-celebrity has been the lead item on CNN and most other national news outlets ever since her sudden death on Thursday, and with each breathless new rehashing of the story more titillating and tawdry details have come out. The latest, as of this morning, is that a third man - a prince, no less, the husband of actress Zsa-Zsa Gabor - has come forward claiming to be the father of her child. And just to complicate the whole paternity kabuki dance a bit more, Smith's sister says the father could also have been Smith's deceased husband, via artificial insemination with frozen sperm.

I'm sorry, but I have to say it: this is beyond stupid. Anna Nicole Smith isn't worth all this attention. She's dead. Get over it. The only part of this bizarre story that's important is the future of her five-month old daughter, who is now the focus of multiple paternity suits by men who don't care about her, only about the vast fortune to which she is now the probable heiress. Everything else about Anna Nicole Smith's vague celebrity and made-for-tabloids life isn't worth the paper it's written on or the electrons that are manipulated to spread the story across the Internet. People are dying in Darfur. American soldiers are fighting for their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. AIDS is still ravaging Africa. Anna Nicole Smith is still dead.

Get over it.

Have a good day. Rest assured I will never again waste your time writing anything else about Anna Nicole Smith.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Death of Anna Nicole Smith

It's probably a sad commentary on our society and interests when, at a time when Americans are dying in Iraq, the larger Mideast is in turmoil, and thousands are dying every day in Darfur, the lead story on the national news is about the death of a single, sad, quasi-celebrity.

Anna Nicole Smith passed away yesterday from causes yet to be clarified. The 39-year old former topless dancer, Playboy model, reality TV 'star,' and society gadfly leaves behind a five-month old daughter of uncertain parentage and joins in death her 20-year-old son.

Ms Smith will be missed by her family, friends, and fans, but the unfortunate end to her turbulent life calls into question her lifestyle and the way in which we create and devour our celebrities. She leaves behind a squalid custody and paternity dispute over her daughter, a still-unsettled lawsuit over her claim to the vast fortune of her late billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall, and an empty space in vacuous 'reality television' that some other 'celebrity' will surely soon emerge to fill.

I don't understand what people saw in this lady. I didn't think she was especially attractive (you can read previous posts in this blog for my thoughts on feminine beauty and desirability), and if you ever saw any episodes of her TV show or her interviews on CNN's Larry King Live, you could see she wasn't a particularly talented or articulate young woman. She was a creation of her free-wheeling lifestyle and of our general worship of over-the-top celebrities. In a world populated with beautiful, intelligent and articulate women like my wife and many of my coworkers and dance friends, I have to wonder what people could see in a shallow and plastic artificial celebrity like Anna Nicole Smith.

But I don't mean to speak ill of the dead. Her sudden and unexpected death at the end of a short and strange life is a tragedy, and on a human level she has left a gap the lives of her family and friends that only time will fill. As John Donne wrote in his work Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee."

Let's share in the real grief that accompanies Ms Smith's death, while we look at her life as a cautionary tale for ourselves and our children.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

363 Tons of Cash

Can you imagine having so much money that you couldn't count it...so much money that you had to weigh it?

According to testimony in Congress on Tuesday as reported by CNN, between December 12th, 2003 and June 25th, 2004, the United States government shipped more than $5 billion (yes, that's billion, with a b) in cash to Iraq to finance the initial days of Iraqi sovereignty. $5 billion in cash weighs approximately 363 tons, and must be shipped on pallets in Air Force transport planes. It was, according to one member of Congress, the largest payout of U.S. currency in the history of the Federal Reserve.

Three hundred sixty-three tons of dollars. Seven hundred twenty-six thousand pounds of greenbacks. And in a January, 2005 report, the Special Inspector for Iraqi Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said that nearly $9 billion was unaccounted for after being transferred to Iraqi ministries.

What on earth are we doing? More important, what are the Iraqis doing? When there's so much money available that it's counted by weight, the temptations are obvious. Three former Army Reserve officers and two civilians stand accused of rigging bids to steal about $8.6 million in Iraqi reconstruction funds, but this is clearly the very smallest tip of the iceberg.

According to the Cost of the Iraq War website operated by the National Priorities Project (http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=61), the cost of the war as of February 6th is approximately $378 billion, of which the share for the state of Virginia is $10.2 billion. And what do we have to show for it? Iraq is a bloody shambles, billions of dollars have been squandered, more than 3,000 American service men and women are dead, we still don't know exactly who we're fighting, and our hopes are pinned on a surge in forces that might have helped a few years ago but is of questionable value now.

What could we have purchased at home for $378 billion? How many failing schools could have been improved? How much crumbling infrastructure repaired? How many improvements in our health care system? Instead, we have graft, corruption, and violence on a scale difficult to imagine.

363 tons of cash, with $9 billion unaccounted for. As I write this, I'm looking at the blue plastic folder that contains my tax preparation records for this year. If I make a hundred-dollar mistake on my taxes, the Internal Revenue Service will come down on me like the proverbial ton of bricks with draconian interest and penalty charges, and the threat of going to jail for cheating Uncle Sam, even accidentally. But who is going to go to jail over the loss of $9 billion in Iraq? Who's responsible? L. Paul Bremer says he's not. Military commanders were busy fighting a war. The Iraqis are busy murdering each other. So far, only five low-level scam artists stand accused...and were I a betting man, I'd say they'll probably end up being acquitted.

Where is the outrage? I'm furious beyond words at what my grandchildren won't have because my government squandered so much cash that it had to be measured by the ton, and no one is accountable.

363 tons of cash. Think about it. And be outraged.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Last Harry Potter Story

Scots author J. K. Rowling announced last week that she had completed the seventh and final book of her wildly popular Harry Potter series, and that the book would be published on July 21st. Needless to say, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shot almost immediately to the #1 position on Amazon.com as a result of pre-publication orders.

Why are these stories so popular with readers of all ages? I think there are several reasons. First of all, they're spectacularly well-written; Ms Rowling's use of the language recalls the brilliance of Charles Dickens. The major characters - Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and the evil Draco Malfoy - are all characters to whom we can relate (who hasn't lived through the high-school agonies of studies, young love, tense relationships with friends, and problems with bullies that plague Harry Potter?). In addition, the stories are masterfully plotted; although they are complex and contain numerous running subplots, everything moves ahead and holds our interest...we keep turning the pages.

These are great stories for both adults and children, although one must admit that as the series develops the plot gets darker and less suitable for the youngest readers; indeed, the last half of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has moments of sheer horror that equal anything ever written by Stephen King. But the glorious beauty of Ms Rowling's writing, her masterful manipulation of the language and delightful use of plot and imagery, make the Harry Potter stories not just marvelous entertainment for all readers, but good examples of the finest in modern written English.

Sadly though, there are some die-hard religious conservatives in America that would keep these wonderful books out of school libraries and away from young readers. These persons believe the books are "satanic" because they "celebrate" witchcraft rather than belief in God. These modern-day Puritans recall, on a somewhat smaller scale, the most severe religious excesses of the ultra-conservative Wahabis of Islam, who would strip life of joy and happiness in the expectation of some imagined future paradise. They don't appreciate the stories for their value as entertainment, they hate them for their exploration of themes with which they don't agree.

Don't let such persons do your thinking for you. If you've not read the Harry Potter stories, read them now. Read them for their plots, their glorious attention to detail, the masterful use of the language, and their wonderful depiction of characters to whom we can all relate.

Go, Harry! You can find me in my local bookstore on July 21st...and after that, don't bother me for about a week - I'll be busy!

Have a good day. Read something that other people don't want you to read.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Color of War

Writing in the February 3rd issue of National Journal, Sydney Freedberg, Jr, looks at current data to determine whether ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the American military. The conventional wisdom states that the military is heavily populated with rural, lower-income blacks and whites who have no other economic opportunities open to them, and that by enlisting in larger numbers than more affluent whites, they suffer a disproportionate number of deaths. The results of Mr Freedberg's study will probably surprise you.

He notes first of all that while blacks have for more than 30 years made up a larger proportion of the Army than their overall proportion of the population, that proportion has declined since 2001: in that year, blacks made up 24% of the Army; today, they comprise approximately 14%. In terms of casualties, at the end of 2003 (the first year of the war) 71% of the service members who had died since 9/11 were white and 14% were black; at the end of 2006, the cumulative toll was 75% white and only 9% black. An analysis of military personnel by home Zip Code at the time of enlistment compared to the average income of the neighborhood doesn't provide much illumination. According to University of Maryland sociologist David Segal, who studied the data, about the best conclusion that can be drawn is that "both the richest 25% and the poorest 25% of American society are underrepresented in the military, and the middle 50% of society is overrepresented."

Like all statistics, these are open to many interpretations. Mr Freedberg notes that there are many complex social, economic, and patriotic factors which propel men and women to enlist in the military, those factors vary by race, religion, income level, and geography, and the distribution of casualties is affected by individual military specialties (infantrymen are far more likely to be killed or wounded than, for instance, cooks). But the overall conclusion is inescapable: the old chestnut that Iraq is a poor man's war is not quite accurate.

As a retired career military officer, I understand the sacrifices made by those who wear the uniform. I have seen the great advantages of a military career for improving relations among persons of various races and religions, and for growing shallow young people into strong, self-confident adults. That some of those people will die is a sad and inescapable fact. But we do all of them a disservice when we reduce their sacrifice to a simple question of black versus white, rich versus poor. They're all Americans, and they deserve our support even when we may object to the policies they are called upon to carry out.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Immigration Reform, 1917

And you thought immigration reform was a new topic...

On this date in 1917, with a majority of more than two-thirds, Congress overrode President Wilson's veto and passed the Immigration Act, which required a literacy test for immigrants and barred Asiatic laborers, except for those from countries with special treaties or agreements with the United States, such as the Philippines. Advocates of immigration reform had petitioned the U.S. government as early as 1894 to legislate that immigrants be required to demonstrate literacy in some language before being accepted, hoping to limit the number of lower-class immigrants flooding in from Southern and Eastern Europe. Congress passed a literacy bill in 1897, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it. In early 1917, with America's entrance into World War I three months away, xenophobia was at a new high, and the bill restricting immigration was passed over President Wilson's veto.

This provides an interesting historical perspective on the immigration issue. In 1917, the immigrants everyone worried most about were Eastern Europeans and Asians - not Hispanics or Africans. Then as now, the concern was with the potential effect on the US economy and society of large numbers of undereducated immigrants. But a critical difference between 1917 and today is that in 1917, the Immigration Act sought to limit legal immigration; today, we look for ways to keep out people who simply ignore the law and flood illegally into the country in search of work and social benefits.

My paternal grandparents came to the US from Hungary - legally - in the early years of the last century, and I brought my wife to the US from Germany - legally - nearly 25 years ago. While the US is a nation built by immigrants, it's also a nation of laws. When we pick and choose which laws we will obey based on abstract concepts of perceived social and economic justice, we lose one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the world...one of the reasons, in fact, that so many people try to come here, legally or illegally.

After all, how many people do you see risking arrest and deportation to break into social paradises like Mexico, or Saudi Arabia, or Bangladesh? I think you get the point.

I haven't fulminated about illegal immigration in this space for a while, but today seemed like a good day, given the anniversary of the 1917 Immigration Act. While that legislation was ill-conceived and probably could never get through Congress today, in 1917 it seemed like a good idea. Immigration reform is still desperately needed, and it's too bad we'll likely never see comprehensive legislation: the conservatives only want punitive measures, the liberals only want to follow their ideas of social responsibility, and no one is willing to compromise. If you read back far enough in this blog, you can find my proposal for a comprehensive reform of our immigration policy. I sent it to my senators, my representative, and the White House...and received very nice form letters telling me how seriously each recipient took the problem and how hard they're working to solve it.

And it doesn't take a lot of effort to see how far that's gone.

Have a good day. Support legal immigration - it's what made this country the envy of the world.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Peace Be Upon Whom, Again?

The Quran, the holy book of Islam, begins with the words, "In the Name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful." A standard expression in the Islamic world, when referring to Mohammed or other major religious figures, is "Peace be upon Him" (so frequently used that it's often simply abbreviated "PBUH" in English translations).

For a religion which places such emphasis on the graciousness and mercy of God, and on the wish of peace upon people, graciousness, mercy and peace continue to be in miserably short supply across the Middle East, and particularly in Iraq. Yesterday, an enormous truck bomb killed more than 100 people and injured more than 200 in a crowded Baghdad market. Sunni and Shi'ite militants continue to murder each other at a horrifying rate - an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said that more than a thousand people have been killed in the last week alone in various acts of sectarian violence.

As I asked in my post on January 25th: where are the voices? Where are the Muslim religious leaders with the courage and humanity to condemn the staggering violence committed in the name of their religion? Why is the Council on American-Islamic Relations so concerned with filing lawsuits about alleged discrimination against Muslims in this country instead of taking a stand - loudly, publicly, in the Middle East, and in Arabic - against the horrific actions that turn much of the Western world against Islam?

In short, where is the graciousness?

Where is the mercy?

Where is the peace?

It's long past time for Muslims to stand up and be heard for something other than self-righteous prosteletyzing and hectoring denunciation of those who don't believe as they do. It's time for them to get their own house in order, to show each other - and the rest of the world - that Islam is what they claim it to be: a religion of graciousness, mercy, and peace.

But, as always, I'm not holding my breath.

Today is Sunday, the Christian day of rest and worship. In the Catholic Mass, worshipers are exchanging a sign of peace with one another. While that's going on, Muslims in Iraq and Gaza and elsewhere are exchanging bombs and bullets.

Peace be upon whom, again?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Face of Impending Doom

Got your attention with that title, didn't I?

Actually, it comes from a young lady who dances with us on Friday evenings. The "Face of Impending Doom" is the deer-in-the-headlights look of sheer terror she wears when she suddenly realizes she'll be asked for a dance by some partner she knows will zip her around the floor, dragging her through patterns she doesn't know. The "Happy Face," on the other hand, is the thin-lipped, clenched-teeth smile that says, "Oh, well, it's only a three-minute dance, so I may as well make the best of it!"

But there's another set of meanings we can apply to the Two Faces of Katy, and they relate to the ongoing debate over global climate change. Yesterday's release of the long-awaited scientific report which concludes that human activity is "very likely" the cause of global warming highlights the two faces of the climate change argument: The Face of Impending Doom is worn by those who see climatic catastrophe in our future if we don't mend our ways now; the Happy Face is worn by those who maintain that current global warming is only a phase of normal global climate variations which are measured in thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. The Face of Impending Doom points to the cautionary movie The Day After Tomorrow; the Happy Face says things are really okay, and warns of the economic collapse of life as we know it if actions necessary to fight global warming are taken now.

Who's right? Were I a betting man, I'd put my money on the hard science behind yesterday's report. Even without scientific analysis, I think it beggars the imagination to think that the activities of billions of humans don't affect the environment. It's true: living is bad for your long-term health.

I'm reminded of a joke by the great Jewish comedian Myron Cohen, who told of a frail, skinny fellow who showed up at a lumber camp looking for a job. The head lumberjack just laughed at him and told him to go away, that he was obviously too weak for such a manly job. The man asked for a chance to prove himself, so the boss told him to take an axe and cut down a one-inch sapling. Slice, the man cut it with hardly an effort. The boss then told him to cut down a three-inch tree. Slice, and the tree was down. A six-inch tree. In seconds, the little man had it on the ground in pieces. Now the lumberjack took the man to a mighty, towering oak and told him to cut it down. The axe flew, and in minutes the huge tree was nothing more than stacked firewood. The lumberjack was amazed, and asked the little man where he had learned such skill with an axe. "In the Sahara Forest," the man replied. "You mean, the Sahara Desert," corrected the lumberjack. "Sure, now," said the man.

Yes, humans can drive climate change. It's happening. And the way to resolve it isn't by putting on either the Face of Impending Doom or the Happy Face...it's by putting on the Face of Resolve and doing what needs to be done.

Have a good weekend. Resolve to educate yourself about global climate change. And Katy, thanks for the use of your faces.

Bilbo

Too Many Boys

Yesterday my friend Jake sent me a very interesting essay by Herbert Meyer titled What In the World Is Going On? A Global Intelligence Briefing for CEOs. The article addresses four major transformations the author believes are shaping political, economic, and world events, each of which he contends has "profound implications for American business owners, our culture, and our way of life." The four transformations are The War in Iraq, The Emergence of China, Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization, and Restructuring of American Business. Today, I'd like to look at the shifting demographics issue.

It's no secret that the American population is getting older as the birthrate falls and the existing population ages. The same is true in Western Europe and, to a far greater extent, Japan. This has profound implications for the social fabric and the economies of these regions, as fewer young workers will be earning the money and paying the taxes to support an ever-increasing elderly population which requires a wide range of social and medical services. But another problem, which has been quietly noted for some time, is the growing surplus of boys, particularly in Asia.

Many families in Asia prefer to have boys, who can go to work and help support the family, rather than girls, who are viewed as less valuable. This preference, coupled with technologies which allow the sex of an unborn child to be determined during pregnancy, has greatly skewed the proportion of male to female births across Asia. In an article in the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Policy magazine titled The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration, Martin Walker analyzed the birthrates in various Asian countries. What he found was shocking: while Nature's general ratio is 105 male births to every 100 females, in China and parts of India that ratio is 120 to 100; in Taiwan it is 119/100, in South Korea it's 112/100, and in Singapore it's 118/100. In some regions of China, the disparity is even greater - as much as 136/100.

What does this mean? Essentially, that Asia will have an enormous surplus of young men who reach sexual maturity and are unable to find wives. And what will all these sexually frustrated young men do?

That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. In his book The Lucifer Principle, Howard Bloom theorizes that women have historically selected mates on the basis of a capacity for violence that will protect them and their children. Is that true in a modern, industrialized society? Probably not, at least in general. But as more men contend for the favors of fewer women, things could probably change. Think about two drunks in a bar slugging it out over the privilege of wooing the same woman...and multiply it by millions. It's a scary thought.

So if you needed something else to worry about besides global warming and intolerant radical Islam, here it is. The face-off between an aging West and a young, overly male, and sexually frustrated East just might be the biggest problem our coming generations will face.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

America's Ballroom Challenge

Although there are a lot of topics out there that require serious commentary and thought, this morning I want to write a few words about some great television we watched last night: the first installment of "America's Ballroom Challenge."

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm an avid amateur ballroom dancer, my wife is a dance teacher, and we participate in ballroom competitions as a Pro-Am couple. In my opinion, there's not a better sport for keeping you healthy, socially connected, and mentally alert. In last night's program, six couples competed for the American Smooth championship - and the dancing was just as great as you would think it should be at that competitive level. The head-to-head group dance competition was great, but the show dance routines were truly amazing. In particular, Mazen Hamza and Irina Sarukhanyan's show dance, which combined a powerful tango with a complex karate kata, was fantastic and took a well-deserved first place in that part of the competition. This was the incredible climax of their routine:

I encourage you to watch the show for the fun and excitement of an elegant and powerful sport. You can find the schedule and more information at the PBS website for the show (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ballroomchallenge/). And once you've watched it, why not give ballroom dancing a try yourself? If you need a sport to help keep you in shape, you can go to the gym and lift weights with a bunch of sweaty show-offs, or you can run a few miles ... or you can take a beautiful lady in your arms for a fast Quickstep or Viennese Waltz.

It's the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

Have a good day. Take some dancing lessons...you won't regret it!

Bilbo