November 4, 2007 archive

I often find discussions about Cuba frustratingly polemic. On one side are the demonizers, who see everything the Cuban government does as evil, even if it’s providing free healthcare, education, or inculcating equality as a value in Cuban society that is not going to be erased by any infusion of capital.

On the other side are the romanticizers, who  have such tight blinders on that they cannot see anything wrong with anything the Cuban government does. They refuse to admit that the central management system in Cuba suffers from severe bureaucratism, and they rationalize away the human rights abuses that certainly do take place on the island with a Bush-like excuse of, “we’ll they’re under constant threat, so they have to take tough security measures.” What, so it’s OK to torture somebody if you’re a Cuban government official but not if you’re a Bush Administration one?

Really, the only way we’re going to get a better perspective on any of this is to get rid of the idiotic embargo and restore full diplomatic relations between the two countries. That’s when the dirty laundry will also come out. Like Cuba’s relationship with the Stasi.

On Speaking of Faith this morning, there was a powerful interview with Ingrid Jordt about Buddhism and what’s going on in Burma.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Bad Moon Rising

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Just got back, wow!  10 amazing guitarists from around the globe and Fripp heading the band.  There was an atmosphere of ritual and discipline as the 10 took to the stage.  All dressed in black, all carrying Ovation guitars, Fripp appeared to have a Gibson SG but I could be mistaken.  Fripp had his stack of devices placed between him and the audience.  He sat at his stool and worked the effects peddles and often would reach up mid-riff to tweak a setting or two.

Before the show began he had all of the guitarists read a message from him to the audience in their own tongue, the message was about respecting the performance and not taking pictures or making recordings.  Then they all walked up to the mic and read their individual statements at the same time and it sounded like an over-packed stadium, which I believe was the point.  Well someone must not of understood and tried to take a photo.  Mr. Fripp stopped the performance, went up and talked to the man and had his camera taken away, then he signaled to the others that they should walk off stage and they did.

In an article in Salon.com on September 19, Steven Clemons describes a debate at a recent Washington dinner party attended by eighteen people at which “Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft squared off across the table over whether President Bush will bomb Iran”.

Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor to President Carter, Clemons writes, said he believed Bush’s team had laid a track leading to a single course of action: a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Scowcroft, who was National Security Adviser to Presidents Ford and the first Bush, held out hope that the current President Bush would hold fire, and not make an already disastrous situation for the U.S. in the Middle East even worse.

The 18 people at the party, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, then voted with a show of hands for either Brzezinski’s or Scowcroft’s position. Scowcroft got only two votes, including his own. Everyone else at the table shared Brzezinski’s fear that a U.S. strike against Iran is around the corner.