Random thought on paper

When I was growing up, our elementary school classes would consistently ram down our throats the importance of the environment and how we needed to protect it. I'm grateful for them doing this, I think it helped to create a generation of more eco-conscious citizens. After reading this story , however, I wonder if one part of what we were taught may no longer be relevant. As everything in school is typed instead of handwritten, as newspapers and magazines are shifting to the Internet, and as even books are now available online, it seems that people have less and less need for paper. I have no clue if this phenomenon is great enough to have an effect just yet but it seems to me if we don't us paper anymore, that whole debate about over logging may go away.

Facebook

I just saw an ad for something on TV here, not sure what it was, I think an album, I missed the commercial, but the ending promoted the product's Facebook site. I used to joke that in Egypt, not having a Facebook profile was like not having a phone number. The thing was, there was some real truth to that. I wonder if having a Facebook page is going to a standard feature of any organization in the future.

Lack of updates...

So there's been a lot going on in the region that I really should be writing about. Unfortunately my life has been too chaotic the last few days to really have time to blog. For the record, yes Obama did an interview on Al Arabyia and yes I think that's a good thing.

How bad of shape are we really in?

I've been hearing a lot about the critical state of journalism recently. Don't get me wrong, I believe all of it, and as someone who things it's a pretty important profession, am genuinely worried. I do realize however that I might be hearing so much about it because I usually read stuff written by journalists. I know there are many reasons beyond the recession that can be attributed to the current climate, but it makes me wonder how many other industries out there feel like they're in just as much trouble, only we never hear about it?

Newspapers for example, are finding themselves in an unsustainable business model because they're producing something that others are doing online for free. But the same can be increasingly said for movies and music. The last two are supposedly inelastic commodities, but the reality is people nowadays expect to have access to more things for free. I have no idea what the answers are to these things but it's worth thinking about.

Mike Ricter may run for Congress

For those of us who care about both hockey and politics, I find this rather exciting. Okay it's not really that exciting, but worth posting anyway. With Kirsten Gillibrand's accession into the Senate, rumors are floating that the former New York Ranger's goalie, Mike Richter may make a run for her seat. It is always nice to see an American hockey play get publicity, especially since our program has been lacking of late. This does bring up the question of celebrity candidates however. We only seem to raise the issue when it's a Senate seat in question, but why don't we ever do it for House seats? Yes I know that there are more of them, and an individual congressperson isn't, on average, as important as a Senator, but ideally, both would require a serious legislator. If one were to closely examine the list of currently serving congresspersons however, you would find a great deal who are either unqualified or just plain crazy. This is pretty easily explained by gerrymandered districts vs. entire states, but it still seems odd that we expect so little out of the lower house.

Nkunda captured in Rwanda

In the world of obscure news that actually affects more people's lives than the stuff we hear about on MSNBC, milita leader Laurent Nkunda has been arrested after crossing the Congolise border into Rwanda. This is signifigant because Nkunda has been widely believed to be a proxy leader for Rwanda. This probably means that the Congo and Rwanda are getting serious about a real peace deal, which is really good news.

How we got here

I just finished watching the inauguration at an upscale coffee shop here in Cairo. It was a great speech – a surprisingly liberal speech – that spoke to what I wanted to hear. I remember watching the inauguration in 2000, still bitter about the disputed election outcome. It was fortunate I didn't yet know what the next eight years would bring; it would have made it that much more unbearable.

Of course we don't know how this new President will fare, but that doesn't take anything away from what this moment means. Even if four or eight years from now, we look back at the Obama Administration as a failure, I will always take pride in this moment. That's because whatever happens from here on out, nobody can ever take away what our country did to get here. It's not just the obvious of electing an African American to be president, it's why we did it and how.

Throughout the campaign, I was nervous that so many tactics and talking points of the right – ones that have worked in the past – would work again. To me Sarah Palin was the epitome of this line of thinking, the one that held that rural Americans are more authentic than those who happen to live in an urban environment, that the further inland you lived, the more you loved your country. The notion that higher education was a sign of being out of touch, and being ignorant made you more like the average American. Indeed, even the notion that we should want someone who was "average" was a never challenged idea that Republicans shoved down our collective throats. The problem with this line of thinking was it appealed to the lower nature of Americans. It wasn't just the right who allowed this to happen, the mainstream media sheepishly followed along, with commentators making issues out of which beer was the most middle class.

The conservative movement, once led by respectable leaders, turned into the equivalent of a boy in high school. Being smart isn't a virtue for a young boy, being tough is. If you did do well in school, you'd better not let people know. Beating up the biggest kid in class however, well that would earn you instant respect. That's what the authority voice in America was, and that's what we became. We admired the wrong things, sometimes just because we thought everybody else did.

What Obama did for us was make being smart cool again. While John Kerry and Al Gore, were both mocked for their ability to speak French or use fuzzy math, Barack Obama was never phased by that line of attack. He never had to don a hunting suit and shoot quail to show he cared about central Pennsylvania. Part of this can be attributed to his being such a remarkable candidate, but I think the true change was that our country grew up.

In 2004 Democrats choose John Kerry as their nominee. An accomplished and admirable man, his choice (which I supported) showed Democrats were more insecure than anything else. Scared of being called unpatriotic, we picked the tallest, most deep-voiced man we could find. The fact that he killed at least 20 Vietnamese for a war he didn't even believe in was only so much better. His choice of a running mate, John Edwards, completed our insecurity. Because we believed the notion that 90% of American's had southern accents, we had to have one of those on our ticket as well. But despite these efforts, it didn't work. Easily disproven attacks, none of which had anything to do with policy, sunk the Kerry campaign, leaving Democrats wondering how they would ever talk to White, Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking American's again.

In 2008 none of that mattered. We picked a skinny black guy over a war hero. We chose the guy who didn't wear an American flag lapel pin everywhere he went. We did it because we realized it didn't matter. We weren't kids in high school anymore – we had grown up. Now we had to deal with real issues like health care and balancing a budget. We realized being tough didn't matter if you couldn't pay your bills, or put your kids in a good school. We did it because we realized the most important part about your President isn't if he shares your faith or background, but if he can govern.

None of this guarantees anything about the next four years, but if it wasn't true, the next four could only be so much different than the previous. Obama is just one man; we need an entire country to be serious about doing what's right. Here's hoping that will last.

Photo of the day...week...year

Media wars are important - in some ways the most important part of modern warfare. Perceptions of who wins wars can be more important than on the ground results. That's how Egypt won and Israel lost the Yom Kippur War. I've written how Israel has been looking to redeem itself after the demoralizing results in Lebanon. I think this picture on CNN.com shows that whatever diplomatic blowback Israel will get - it has reestablished its goal of restoring the supremacy of its military capabilities.



The caption below reads: An Israeli soldier holds up an Israeli flag after leaving Gaza on Sunday.


You can't fake pictures like this, no matter how good your PR efforts are. Israel is leaving this conflict confident. Before I felt that Hamas would be able to claim victory no matter what happened; now I'm not so sure. This was clearly not a replay of 2006.


Whether or not this will actually have a postive effect on the Middle East probably depends on what your definition of postive is. I don't see how this victory fits into a long-term postive for Israel.

The American Center and Israel

Ezra Klein has a new column in Haaretz about American support for Israel. I'll just say its worth a read, as is his blog over at the American Prospect. Klein has written some of the most honest, original thoughts during this operation; his blog is now one of the first things I read every day.

Health Care Debate

Over at the New Republic, Jonathan Cohn has a new blog about health care in the United States. Cohn has been one of the best advocates of a single-payer system around, so it's nice he's been given his own forum. (Also anything that distracts us from Marty Peretz's delusional rantings about the Middle East is a plus).

If you're like me, you believe health care is one of the most pressing issues our country faces. You may also believe like myself, that it's crucial to pass a real reform bill this year, as the public's appetite for such massive spending might not be so high in 2010. This is a debate that can't be ignored, it needs to be pushed relentlessly until something happens. Check out the blog, it's worth your time.

Crashing Planes

How come every time some event like this recent plan crash happens, we have to endure talk about God's role in everything? I don't even have access to cable news here in Egypt, yet I've still heard plenty of voices from mainstream outlets about how the survival of all the crew is proof of "a miracle from God." I would think a more efficient deity could simply pull off the same end result (people not dying) by simply not having let the plane crash in the first place. That would also have the added benefit of not putting people through the horror of experiencing the crash, added to the long term trauma that many of them may have to endure. Of course there is no real evidence that whenever a plane doesn't crash, it's only because God willed it - just like there's no evidence that this was a miracle either.

Update: No one wants to give credit to Unions

Palutube Takes the Media War to Another Platform

In yet another example of how free media can have an potential impact across the world. Israel and Hamas are now battling each other through viral videos.

While the IDF has made use of Youtube, Palestinian activists have recently launched Palutube, apparently based out of Russia. It's easy to get carried away with the significance of this in regards to uncensored media (with the exception of Fatah throwing up roadblocks to the creation of Hamas' terrestrial station, The Palestinian Territories has always had a freer press than the rest of the Arab World.) Overall however, increased traffic to sites like this can only make it easier for similar channels being created in other parts of the region.

The story of Arab and Egyptian bloggers has gotten a lot of play in the past year, with their actual significance still unproven. We really haven't seen viral videos however play much of a role in Arab citizen journalism. It has happened, and has had quite an effect. Several years ago a police officer was taped beating and raping a man. The video, posted on Youtube, forced the Egyptian government to prosecute the case. These incidents may be few and far between, but viral video has proven itself as a potential very useful tool in citizen journalism.

Note: I find some of the material on this site disturbing, and am not endorsing any message from the site.

- Also, how come blogger's spell check doesn't recognize the words "bloggers" or "Youtube?" The last one is owned by Google!

Democrats and Isreal

Pew Research has a new poll out measuring American's opinions of the current situation in Gaza. Not surprisingly of course, most of us support Israel by pretty solid numbers. What did strike me however was the partisan gap in support:

By nearly three-to-one (55% to 20%), Republicans approve of the military action Israel has taken in the Gaza Strip. Independents, by a smaller margin (44% to29%), also approve of Israel’s actions. However, a plurality of Democrats(45%)
disapproves of Israel’s military campaign, while just 29% express a positive opinion...

Then there was this:

There has been a wide partisan gap in Mideast sympathies in recent years. Currently, 69% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel in the Middle East conflict, compared with 47% of independents and 42% of Democrats. Partisan differences in basic Mideast sympathies have been about that large since 2006. Nearly one-in-five Democrats (18%) and 10% of independents currently say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than Israel in their dispute; just 5% of Republicans say they sympathize more with the Palestinians.

This may seem pretty obvious to some, but I see it as containing both potentially worrying and positive information for Israel. The Jewish State's support has historically come from the Democratic Party, with the GOP only jumping on with the rise of the religious right. And while I don't think unwavering Democratic support for Israel has always been in its best interest, I think unwavering Republican support will be only worse. After all, at least the Democratic Party has American Jews who are aware that the settlements are a threat to Israel's long-term existence. Sarah Palin thought she was adequately prepared to defend Israel because she had an Israeli flag on her desk. I don't mean to paint some vague stereotype that Republicans are stupid and Democrats are smart -that's not true at all. But the base of GOP support comes from people who aren't terribly concerned with learning a lot about the region. The reason conservatives support Israel vs. the reasons liberals do is entirely different, and the motives are important.

Right now Israel needs an honest friend who is willing to support it, but challenge it when it screws up. If you believe it's your Christian duty to support Israeli expansion, or think it can do no wrong because its supposedly the only democracy in the Middle East, then you're probably not going to do that.

I realize Democrats haven't always been stellar on this point as well, but at least there is a possibility. The J-Street Project is a great example of pragmatic, non-ideological bound people who are looking to challenge the status quo thinking on Mid-East policy. That's where the the positive news from this poll comes out. If Democrats were to remain the party of Israel, than the increased diversity in opinions could benefit them. If the GOP manages to take that mantle away however, I it would be harder be optimistic about real progress in the region.

Department of the Obvious

Am I the only one who finds it a bit odd that Osama bin Laden has called for a jihad against Israel? Hasn't there been a jihad against Israel for some time now? I half expected the actual message to say: "I call on you to fight Israel…which you actually should have already been doing anyway, because you know…it's Israel. I know we got distracted with Iraq, India, and the NFL playoffs, but come on, let's keep our eye on the ball people."

Also, he's a little late to the game on this one isn't he? Nasrallah has been calling for resistance since well over a week ago. Look Osama, you've missed a lot of news cycles where you could have been getting good coverage. You need to get a new PR guy or find a way to send your videotapes to Al-Jazeera quicker. Something tells me his status in the Arab World isn't what it used to be.

Won't somebody please think of the fish!

PETA has a new campaign to make people aware of the horrors of fishing. Their strategy? Openly rebrand fish as "seakittens." The theory being that while people don't think fish with their cold alien-like stares are cute, kittens are simply adorable. And if you find an animal adorable, well, you would be less likely to want to eat it – a theory easily disproven by the existence of veal.

I care about animals as much as the next person with too much spare time, and do want to see them treated humanely, but there is something intellectually dishonest about this campaign. People don't just want to eat kittens because they're cuter; they also have a far higher conscious level than fish.

Aside from that, this seems to break every rule of what a successful campaign should be. When you try to re-label something, you don't openly admit you’re re-labeling it. Could you imagine if big tobacco started a website that said: "Look we have a problem, people don't like us and know our product kills you, so we're going to make some pretty intensive efforts to change words that currently have a negative connotation into ones that will sound better to you!" No, they wouldn't. Instead, they would start some third party group dedicated to overturning the ban on the selling of cigarettes in public schools and call it "Young Consumers for Choice." Of course, big tobacco is run by people who know how to achieve their goals instead of making themselves look like absolute idiots. Here's hoping that one day the actually important issue of animal rights is represented by competent individuals.

Update: A fellow animal-loving but PETA-disgusted friend emails me suggesting I place our cat underwater, take a photo and send it to PETA with the note: "I tried this to see if your campaign works in reverse. It did: I feel slightly more inclined to eat a kitten when it is dressed as a fish."

Motivations Behind Israel's Gaza Raids

Of all the criticisms direct at the Olmert government one of the most important has been the question of what does Israel hope to achieve by all of this? It goes without saying this is an important question, but so far Olmert's government has not really answered it.

If the goal was to permanently destroy Hamas as a threat to Israel, I assume that this operation would have more support from those of us who don’t wish for the Jewish State to be destroyed, just get upset about its daily actions. No one in Jerusalem however is talking about this as a realistic goal, because everybody knows it isn't. As long as one Hamas member is left standing, they're going to declare victory. Maybe Israel feels that if it can get a new treaty; one that allows it to manage the southern border. Then it can effectively cut off any new supply of weapons that may come in. This would be a victory in one sense, but it's not just the rockets that are the problem with Gaza. A whole host of other issues loom large over what to do with the Hamas run territory.

Two of the most common theories as to why the strike took place have to do with elections, both in the U.S. and Israel. The first is that Israel knew it would have to get this strike out of the way while Bush was still in office, as an Obama administration wouldn't be so tolerant. That's probably true, but Israel has demonstrated a willingness before to skirt the United States approval if it feels it needs to do something.

The theory that this was done because of the upcoming Israeli elections seems far more probable – and far more egregious. It did look like Netanyahu would have won fairly handily, and to be sure this would have been disastrous for the region, but I don't know if it can all be attributed to that. This move does put Likud in a box. After all, Netanyahu can't move to the right by claiming he would have unleashed a bigger military campaign. It takes a pretty cold person to start an operation like this just to stay in power however. Of course you could always argue that less Palestinians will be killed this way than whatever would happen with a Likud government. That's pretty hypothetical however.

My theory is that after the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Israel has been planning for anther war in which it could redeem itself, especially its air force. Although Israel made some strategic victories in Lebanon, the general perception was that Hezbollah won the day. The fact that the group is now stronger than ever only reinforces the notion that Israel is in fact beatable. I think Israel wants to erase that memory by making the most recent one of an overwhelming victory. The Israeli media effort has been more impressive from the start. They've downplay any notion of wiping out Hamas, giving them more room to declare victory.

What Egypt Can Do

I try not to make a habit out of announcing my sympathy for the Egyptian government, but right now is one of those times. Egypt has been criticized by many influential voices in the Arab World for its relations with Israel as well as its role in sealing the Gaza border.

Critics accuse Egypt of being complicit Israel's operation, citing such evidence that Olmert met with Mubarak about a week before the first bombs hit. Rumors have been flying that Olmert told Mubarak in advance of the strike, something that is entirely believable. Jordan's King Hussien warned Golda Meir about Egypt and Syria's coming strike in the days before the Yum Kippur 73 war.

What I don't understand is what people think Egypt could really have done about this. It seems that all the anger over the Arab World's historic inactivity when it comes to actually helping the Palestinian people is being directed at Cairo.

I think the blockade of Gaza is a travesty, the conditions for residents in the territory are deplorable and it is completely immoral for Israel to have instituted this policy. It would seem like the next logical step would be to hold Egypt equally culpable for its role in sealing off the southern border. In reality however, I don't feel Egypt has a choice in the matter. While other voices may argue that Egypt should open the gates, I don't think it's realistic to expect Cairo to take such an action. Voicing solidarity with your fellow Arabs is one thing, but I can understand why a government would not feel letting 1.5 million refugees flood into its country is in its national interest. It's easy for Nassrallah to tell Egypt what to do, but he's not the one who would have to manage the situation that would result form lifting the blockage. I would like to see Egypt bring more supplies into Gaza, but seeing as the government can't even feed and take care of its own people, I wouldn't expect it to go out of its way to help others.

Pressure is on Egypt and Jordan to break their ties to Israel, I think this might be the reason why the emergency meeting of the Arab League was pushed back several days. Maybe Cairo thought that a few days to cool off would lessen the calls for them to sever their links.

Surprisingly, I've found that many Egyptians actually agree with my position. Don't get me wrong – people are pretty upset over Israel here, but they always were. The same goes for Mubarak's regime. I've just got the sense that the average person really doesn't want to have to deal with the entanglements of their neighbors. I was curious as to whether the small conversations that I had reflected at all what the general population thought, when I came across this article in the Egypt Daily News, describing the diversity in opinion about the conflict in Gaza. Surprisingly, many people seem pretty open about their opposition to Hamas. This is a far cry from 2006 when Hezbollah was widely praised by the population. This quote from the article seemed to sum up a sense that I've noticed:

"Hamas is acting against the Palestinians," said Mohamed Kamal, also a central Cairo shopkeeper, and one of a dozen Cairo residents interviewed by Reuters this week. "There is no reason for firing rockets. What are they hitting anyway?" he said.

The Western media likes to portray the "Arab Street" as a sort of monolithic bloc of angry peasants, who are constantly at war with their own governments. The Arab media with all of its slants and biases doesn't do much to counter this. Despite this however, public opinion can be very fractured, with significant portions of the population holding views that we don't think they would. I keep reading in the Western media about massive protests throughout the Arab World, and in other countries that may be true, but in Cairo, there's no "angry street" or massive mobs. Yes there were some large protests organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, but that’s to be expected. For most Egyptians, it's been a perfunctory comment against Israel, and then a sigh as if they just feel like giving up on ever seeing anything change. I know how they feel.