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Seth Godin: Ideas that spread, win

I'm working up a long-form piece for the media blog and it required going back and transcribing portions of Seth Godin's 2003 talk at TED. His topic: Sliced Bread and Other Marketing Delights. It should say something that a 17-minute, 5-year-old lecture still comes across as fresh -- if not radical -- but that's kind of Godin's point. Sliced bread wasn't popular for the first 15 years after it was introduced.

I've included a partial transcript after the jump...

Iran, I-exaggerate?

I have to admit: My reactions when I saw the headline-alert Tweet announcing the "Iranian naval showdown" story were not pleasant. My first thought was that our government was hyping whatever happened for political reasons.  My second thought was that the News Lords were going to uncritically pound that hype right into the national consciousness.

I don't like either thought, but that's where I find myself today. The federal government says something, and I have to discipline my reaction to make sure that I at least give it the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't this way before 2004, but that where I am now, and it's based on experience, not ideology. The Bush  administration certainly didn't invent politicized bullshit (Gulf of Tonkin, anyone?), it's just that ... great Gawd, there's just so much of it, and the skeptical reporting is just so slow to catch up that it's practically irrelevant.

Lunch hour report: Hersh on Iran NIE

(Editor's note) Say what you want about reporter Sy Hersh, but remember this: History gets the last word. His coverage of the Bush Administration's wars just keeps on getting confirmed -- months, even years later, yes, but that's the way things go in the world.

So what does Hersh have to say about the NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities? Here's a transcript of what he had to say to Wolf Blitzer on CNN last night (-dc)...

Being Number One at Peace

Last Tuesday night, my cousin invited me up to the beautiful Earlham College campus to attend a talk by Arn Chorn-Pond, a human rights leader and musician.  Chorn-Pond, the subject of the documentary The Flute Player, was speaking as part of a lecture series sponsored in part by a lecture series endowed by my cousin in honor of his mother.  I attended out of family obligation, then, but I left with a sense of humility and a need for reflection. 

Chorn-Pond, whom I am embarrassed to admit I did not know of prior to the lecture, is a Cambodian who, as a child, was separated from his family and put in a work camp with hundreds of other children.  After having been forced to take part in a number of killings (including those of family members), Arn was chosen, along with six other children, to learn to play revolutionary songs on the flute.  The Khmer Rouge soldiers brought in an older musician to teach the children; after one week, they determined that the children had learned enough, so they killed the old man and some of the other students.  Arn learned enough to play for the soldiers and, as a result, was one of fifty children to have survived the work camp.

Arn later escaped the soldiers and found his way to a refugee camp.  He was eventually adopted by an American family, and moved to the United States.  As an adult, he became a crusader for world peace and children's rights.   In addition, upon returning to Cambodia, he discovered that 90% of the "traditional" musicians of his generation had been killed, and he began a project to gather and record the remaining musicians.

Reading William Gibson: Terrorism

"A nation," he heard himself say, "consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation." He opened his eyes and confirmed Brown there, his partially disassembled pistol in his hand. The cleaning, lubrication, and examination of the gun's inner workings was ritual, conducted every few nights, though as far as Milgrim knew, Brown hadn't fired the gun since they'd been together.

"What did you say?"

"Are you really so scared of terrorists that you'll dismantle the structures that made America what it is?" Milgrim heard himself ask this with a sense of deep wonder. He was saying these things without consciously having thought them, or at least not in such succinct terms, and they seemed inarguable.

"The fuck --"

"If you are, you let the terrorist win. Because that is exactly, specificially, his goal, his only goal: to frighten you into surrendering the rule of law. That's why they call him 'terrorist.' He uses terrifying threats to induce you to degrade your own society."

Brown opened his mouth. Closed it.

"It's based on the same glitch in human psychology that allows people to believe they can win the lottery. Statistically, almost nobody ever wins the lottery. Statistically, terrorist attacks almost never happen."

There was a look on Brown's face that Milgrim hadn't seen there before. Now Brown tossed a fresh bubble-pack down on the bedspread.

"Good night," Milgrim heard himself say, still insulated by the silver membrane.

Brown turned, walking silently back into his own room in his stocking feet, the partial pistol in his hand.

Milgrim raised his right arm toward the ceiling, straight up, index finger extended and thumb cocked. He brought the thumb down, firing an imaginary shot, then lowered his arm, having no idea at all what to make of whatever it was that had just happened.

-- Drug addict and hostage Milgrim lectures his captor during a rare moment of semi-lucidity in Chapter 29 of author William Gibson's latest novel, Spook Country.

National Service: A Brief Proposal

As I read yet another report this weekend about the difficulty the U.S. military is experiencing in finding fresh troops to deploy to Iraq (and the ways in which this means that some existing deployments are being extended while others are beginning early than expected—or desired), I attempted a mental exercise.  While there is a part of me that secretly—and slightly shamefully—enjoys the fact that recruitment is becoming do difficult, I wondered how I would feel if the military actions in Iraq were ones I supported.  That is, given that I certainly believe that there are times in which military intervention is necessary, and given that I no longer have the fantasy I had as a teenager that conflict would disappear if everyone simply refused to fight, what would I think should happen if this was an action I supported?  The only solution I could come to is certainly not novel—I would want to see a draft of some sort reinstated.  The more I mulled over this issue, the more I’ve begun to believe that we should seriously begin to consider either a military draft or some system of obligatory duty.

Walter Reed: It gets worse

Why is it everything our executive branch does smells like the moldy cesspools left behind by Hurricane Katrina?

Found via Francis X. Archibald: this piece from today's WaPo on the Army's decision to replace Maj. Gen. Weightman with Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley (commander of Walter Reed from 2002-2004):

Here's where the story stops making sense. Much of The Post's article detailed the abuse by omission that Gen. Kiley, not Gen. Weightman, committed, first as head of Walter Reed, then in his current post as Army surgeon general. Gen. Weightman, who very well might deserve his disgrace, has commanded Walter Reed for only half a year, while Gen. Kiley, now back in charge of Walter Reed, headed the hospital and its outpatient facilities for two years and has led the Army's medical command since...

(T)he evidence compiled so far suggests that Gen. Kiley has been more complicit in the scandalous neglect of Walter Reed's outpatient facilities for longer than Gen. Weightman has been. It also indicates that the Army's reshuffle is really about projecting the appearance of accountability, not punishing those most responsible.

So, to recap. First they punished sergeants and said there wasn't a problem besides, you know, the liberal media. Then they fired the facility's commander and replaced him with someone who was apparently an even bigger asshole. And when that didn't placate the people (damn those upstart journalists!), they forced their political appointee (Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey) to resign.

A visibly angry Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced the resignation in a brief statement this afternoon, saying he was "disappointed" by the Army's response to disclosures of inadequate outpatient care at Walter Reed and bureaucratic inertia in dealing with wounded soldiers.

Well, it's nice to know that Gates has a pulse on this one. But how does getting rid of Harvey deal with the Kiley problem? Apparently Kiley was Harvey's choice, which alone should have been a firing offense, but Kiley's still there. And are we to believe that Harvey didn't discuss the Kiley option with Gates before he made the appointment?

At least Gates isn't happy with Kiley as a replacement:

Appearing before reporters at the Pentagon, Gates indicated that he was dissatisfied with Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the Army surgeon general, who was named by Harvey as a temporary replacement for Weightman.

"I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates said. "Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems."

Does that mean he'll be replaced? Here's the WaPo, again:

Shortly after Gates spoke today, the Army announced that Maj. Gen. Eric R. Schoomaker, currently the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, Md., would become the new commander of Walter Reed and of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command.

Sounds like it, in an indirect way. Which is the only way anything good every happens with this administration. This bunch is provisionally adequate only when cornered like a rat in a trap.

Bush, by the way, has called for a "comprehensive review" of care for our war wounded. Well rah-rah. Way to get out in front, Mr. President. It only took him a week. Thank God he's so principled, eh?

The 101st Fightin' Chickenhawks
By the way, I just went to check Harvey's military experience. Anybody want to guess?

His official biography (which includes this line: "Secretary Harvey's number one priority is the well being of Soldiers and their families") makes no mention of him ever serving in uniform.   So what background inspired President Bush to appoint this man in 2004, in the middle of a ground war in the Middle East?

Prior to becoming the Secretary, Dr. Harvey spent much of his career with corporations that provided products and services to the federal government, particularly the Department of Defense. He has been involved in over 20 major defense programs and was a member of the Army Science Board in the late 1990s.

Which corporations?

Prior to his appointment as the Secretary of the Army, Harvey held various professional, management and executive positions within the Westinghouse Corporation from 1969 to 1997, including President of the Electronics Systems Group, President of the Government and Environmental Services Company, and Chief Operating Officer of the multi billion dollar Industries and Technology Group. Most recently Harvey was a Director and Vice Chairman of Duratek, a company specializing in treating radioactive, hazardous, and other wastes, as well as a member of the board of several other corporations.

Yeah, I'll just bet that a career technocrat from the defense industry made improving the lives of soldiers his top priority.

One last thing: The emerging storyline appears to be about privatization. Expect Democrats in the House to explore with subpoenas the Army's aggressive campaign to privatize care at Reed by farming the job out to big private contractors... such as IAP World Wide Services ("one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina"), which received a $120 million contract for facilities management.

It's the same story, over and over. Only the names and the scandals change. We are being led by lying incompetents whose first instinct is always something underhanded, whose true allegiance isn't to the country, or to the field officers who sacrifice for honor, or for the enlisted men and women who form the backbone of the force.  There is a name for such people:

Carpetbaggers.

I say again: FILE CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST THESE PEOPLE.

Torture: Pragmatism and politics

The GOP's current intra-party revolt against the Bush administration -- led by presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain and his supporters in the Senate --  is telling us quite a bit about the next two years.

Bush, overburdened with global responsibilities and deprived of maneuver room, has decided that his new strategy for the Nov. 7 mid-term Congressional elections will be to sell his old ideas more forcefully. If he succeeds and the GOP retains its control of both chambers of Congress, then he is virtually assured of completing his second term without facing hard questions about his administration's conduct.

That sounds like a win to some conservatives, but to Bush's critics within the GOP, it's a temporary -- and ultimately destructive -- victory. From their perspective, retaining the House and Senate on the President's terms only delays an inevitable accounting for the mistakes of the past four years. And that could turn 2008 -- a presidential year -- into a debacle for the Republican Party.

If you're McCain, standing on a stack of favorable polling results and gazing ahead at the Presidential horizon, getting that unpleasant accounting started in January just makes sense. So while some see this as nothing more complex than a principled stand, it also adds up to an aggressively smart political move.  Like an early break-away in a critical stage of the Tour de France, McCain is out to win the 2008 nomination right now, a move that could fundamentally change a lot of assumptions within the political class.

Presidents in their final years often slump into lame duck status, but this week's defiance by McCain and three other members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee threatens to turn Bush into a potted plant. Not only is McCain positioning himself to run against Bush's record, his defiance is forcing Republican incumbents toward  a tough choice:  cast their lot with their party's leader-in-waiting, or support Bush and make ready to defend that decision to angry voters.

More responsible rhetoric

"Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them." -- George Bush, Sept. 5

One nice thing I can say about the President's 9/11 speech (which I read, but did not watch): He didn't mention Hitler, or Germany, or the Nazis once. There were World War II references, but Bush didn't specifically cast the situation as a repeat of 1939. That doesn't undo the administration's recent rhetorical excesses, but it's a step in the right direction.

The current situation is complex and demanding. It requires hard choices and creative thinking, and our political leaders do us a disservice when they frame our most important decisions in misleading ways. I disagree with President Bush when he refers to the fight against Islamic terrorists as "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century," but I don't think he's wrong -- I just think he's overstating the case. And in politics, that's a touch-foul.

Now if we could just get Lindsey Graham to update his understanding of history a bit...

Missile Defense

My friend Jennifer Lena sent me the attached file, claiming it to be an "authentic"  recording from the Missile Defense Agency explaining Missile Launch Technology.   Gotta believe it is because it's too funny-because-so-mundane-and-confusing to be anything else. 

My thoughts on the surgery and the storms to you lowcountry xarkers.

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