Archive for July, 2006

A Doves Eyes Opened

Lance on Jul 27 2006 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lance's Page

(Listening notes: Dedicated to cussed Irish beekeepers everywhere: The Pogues, The Specials, The Fall, U2, and The Chieftains)

Over at Captains Quarters I noticed this:

Every time war footage from Lebanon flickers across the flat screen television in my apartment on the 30th floor of a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, I am overwhelmed by a deep feeling of sadness. When I scan through the news on the Internet each morning, I’m overtaken by anger. The result is confusion: I go to sleep at night thinking I am a dove and wake up in the morning to find out I am a hawk.

It’s gotten so bad that I have even started missing Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel who has been lying in a coma for the past six months. I find myself writing screenplays in my mind: Sharon wakes up, stares at the TV screen, and sees Israel invading Lebanon. Sharon, I think, would presume he has landed in hell where he is damned to relive the most dreadful moments of his political career.

The very fact that I am reminiscing about Sharon is shocking — many people of my generation can’t stand him. The man led Israel into its traumatic “optional war” of 1982 when we invaded Lebanon — an experience that left behind numerous scars on the Israeli population, both physical and psychological. The soldiers who fought in southern Lebanon then did not understand why they where there; why they lost their friends, their youth and their innocence; why they had to fight against an unknown enemy and patrol the streets of Lebanese cities — passing by civilians who were drinking coffee and playing backgammon in the cafes.

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My Eyes Opened

Lance on Jul 25 2006 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Lance's Page

(listening notes; Dinosaur Jr., The Volcano Suns, The Minutemen, The Dixie Chicks, Hank Williams Sr., The Rolling Stones)

Late in the eighties I was taking a course in American history after 1945. One of my fellow students was a bright, interesting Palestinian. We had become acquaintances and spent a fair amount of time after class discussing various topics. He was not in my mind anyone much different than other students. He was a good guy. While he was a Muslim, and a believer he wasn’t what I would call devout and certainly not radical. Needless to say eventually the topic of the class turned to the Arab Israeli conflict and the professor gave an entire class period over to this young man to give a presentation. It was quite good, if one sided, at showing the conditions in the refugee camps, various atrocities committed by the Israeli’s and Israel’s refusal to negotiate in good faith. He was quite effective at arousing the sympathies of the class, including mine. The discussion after that turned into a chance for the more left leaning members of the class to give monologues about their deep sympathy for the Palestinian people and the brutality of the Israeli’s.

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The real thing

Lance on Jul 25 2006 | Filed under: Culture, Lance's Page

(Listening notes: Dr. John, The Clash, The Neutral Milk Hotel, Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” performed by Johnny Cash, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, The Saints, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Over the Rainbow”)

I had a friend over this evening, and he said something that hit me. He asked what I had to drink. Needless to say I had beer, but that wasn’t the thing for him, so I offered Diet Coke, which he initially accepted. Upon spying a Sprite he said, “I’ll take a Sprite instead.” I remarked about his love of Caffeine and he said, utterly devoid of irony:

Diet Coke? Without the rich full taste of real Coke it just isn’t the same.

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Me, Greg, Andrew and the two Glenn’s

Lance on Jul 25 2006 | Filed under: Lance's Page, Uncategorized

(Listening notes: Magnetic Fields, Husker Du, Queen, Soft Cell, Indigo Girls, The Smith’s, REM, Pet Shop Boys, B-52’s, Scissor Sisters. A homage to Andrew Sullivan of sorts.)

I am here to step into the breach and defend Glenn Reynolds from two people I admire a lot. This week I visited Belgravia Dispatch and came upon this:

I don’t think of Reynolds as a political animal. He has independent integrity. But when push came to shove, Reynolds never challenged in any serious way the abuses of power in this administration nor the extremism of the Malkinesque blogosphere. When a libertarian finds any excuses to ignore or minimize government-sponsored illegality and torture, then he has truly ceased to be a libertarian in any profound sense. If my opinion weren’t so high of his abilities, my disappointment wouldn’t be so deep.

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