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Fences

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You may have noticed that I invoked the hallowed (or is it hollow, or is it Hollywood) spirit of Ronald Reagan in my little invocation to Ariel Sharon. Well, let's discuss why.

You'll remember that during the baseball season the White Sox had some incidents with rowdy fans running onto the field, attacking umpires, coaches, players, whomever. A radio personality jokingly suggested that roadblocks be set up to prevent fans from certain areas, such as the southwest suburbs, from coming into the city to attend Sox games.

Let's say that such a plan is implemented, but there are still fans who show up at the park and run on the field, etc. So, Mayor Daley, in all his eloquent wisdom, decides to build a fence around the city to make it more "secure."

The ostensible purpose of the fence is to keep rowdy fans out of the city by forcing everyone from the suburbs to enter the city only through a handful of heavily guarded roads. (For example, closing the Stevenson except for one or two exits, closing 294 to keep people from sneaking in through the far South Side).

People living in North Shore areas start to complain about potentially being cut off from the city where they work, shop, send their kids to school and go to the doctor. So the Mayor extends the fence to include parts of the North Shore (effectively annexing Winnetka and Kenilworth and expanding Chicago's border) while cutting off Bolingbrook, Alsip, etc.

What would happen to those suburbs cut off from the city? What would happen to the people there?
This is a lot like what's happening in Israel.

From: Ha'aretz
Jerusalem's Borders are Being Redrawn

"The [separation] fence will completely change the lives of
more than 100,000 people who live in northeast
Jerusalem.

The fence planners invested a lot of thought and
creativity into drawing a winding line for the
fence that has no urban logic, cutting off the
Arab neighborhoods and the refugee camps from
the center of their lives in Jerusalem.

In effect, the city's municipal boundaries will
change because of the fence..."

If Ronald Reagan were alive today, would he say to Ariel Sharon what he once said to Mikhail Gorbachev?

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Dubliners

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My present sentiments reside thoroughly in the category of wanting to see live theater (That's an odd sentence, isn't it?), which I have not done in a considerable length of time. But, my opportunities to do so are narrow. I would like to seeJames Joyce's The Dead at The Court Theater and I would prefer to try to see it on a weekday, which leaves only this very week as a viable possibility.

Accordingly, I am extending to anyone in view of my hypertext an invitation to join me on Thursday night at The Court Theater for a performance of The Dead. If it is the case that you, the community, wish to attend but would prefer a Saturday or Sunday, I may alter my intentions, but for the moment I will pursue my theatrical caprices. Comment or email or both.

In other news, I hadn't realized how wonderful it would be to have a significant portion of my CD collection in my iTunes library. I had only converted a handful of albums until this weekend when I finally endeavored to archive about 15-20 more. It's so exciting to hear the player go from Radiohead to Prince to Iris Dement to Outkast.

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Proslogion

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Ok, so I lied. I actually spent Thanksgiving in Baghdad with the troops.
I caught up on some news last week and there's a lot to say. Far more in fact than is contained in this rambling polemical post.

Hey, how can November be the "bloodiest" period in the war when the war's been over for six months? I suppose we can create a timeline of the war and its subsequent occupation around key Presidential photo ops: Landing on an aircraft carrier to announce that major combat operations are over, Secretly flying into Baghdad to reassure everyone that it ain't over till its over.

I like how all of the administration's arguments justifying the war since its "conclusion" are ontological. This is what I call the Bush Prosologion. The Bush team regularly employs two argumentative strategies with great success:

One is the fait accompli: the Bush presidency? Inevitable. The War with Iraq? Inevitable. Tax Cuts? Inevitable.

The other is ontology: The fact that terrorism exists justifies going to war. The character, causes, sources of this terrorism are irrelevant. The fact that Iraq has a dangerous and threatening climate today justifies the actions of yesterday.

It's an outstanding argumentative trick because the logical flaws are in the presuppositions, not in the argument itself where people know to look for them. And what would you do about it anyway? Roll back the treads of time? Drop everything and leave the project incomplete and the country in chaos?

A lot of people have been stumbling on acb with the google search: chomsky charlie rose which are words that have never before appeared here together. But, I may have found what they came for, so I linked it to the left.

And finally, I leave you with this quote from a column in Ha'aretz about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon:

"For Sharon religion is simple: Bush is God and Condoleeza Rice is his prophet."

Yes, I'm sure we all feel that way.