(As Michele said)
All posts by Steve Stern
“even Jimmy Carter would have given that order”
Obama is using the anniversary of SEAL Team Six killing Osama bin Laden in a campaign ad and it seems to be driving the Republicans nuts. They say he shouldn’t be politicizing it. I can understand that argument although bragging about one’s successes seems to be fairly standard political fare. Romney, in trying to discount President Obama’s call on ordering Team Six into Pakistan said “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order” as if it were nothing.
I am not a big Jimmy Carter fan, I don’t think he had the right personality to be president – certainly not at that time – but Romney’s offhanded, even casual, slur against Carter pisses me off. Carter has more military expearance – ten years as a officer on Nuclear subs – than Romney’s whole family – about ten years more – and a much better idea of the risks involved. Cater’s call was gutsy and failed – it was close to working according to Mark Bowden in The Desert One Debacle – ruining Carter’s chances of reelection.
Romney will say anything in his effort to get elected. What an asshole.
Spring is springing
After rain, cold rain, warm rain,late rain, and then a hot week, our garden is alive. When I go for a walk in the woods – that seems a little pretentious and wildness seems way too pretentious, but both are more or less true – behind our lot, everything is growing but not much is blooming. But, in the garden, everything seems to be blooming. I am not sure why there is a disparity between the two although most of the stuff in the garden has been picked because it blooms.
When Michele’s dad died, twelve years ago, she bought a dogwood that was blooming so that – each year – it would be a a memorial and this year, our Fremontia – Fremontodendron californicum, a California native – joined it in a big way.
Along with some native irises ( Iris douglasiana) .
And lots of rhoddies whose tags have been lost and their names forgotten.
Spring is my favorite time of year and nothing says death and rebirth as much as a garden.
Christopher Hitchens (R.I.P.) on overrated pleasures
He actually died last December, but somebody put together a public memorial for him last week. Hitchens was the kind of public intellectual that only France is supposed to have and I will miss reading him and thinking Well that’s crazy, well, maybe only sort of half crazy. He was an atheist but wanted to be know as an antitheist because he didn’t want there to be a god. Apparently, the memorial was crawling with other British ex-pats and one of them, Stephen Fry, said “Hitch thought the four most overrated things in the world were champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.”
That list appeals to me and I have thought about it – off and on – all week. I can’t think of a better list or anything I would take out – although I would add Lever House – it is just so out of left field and so true.
1. Bahrain Grand Prix – a thought on morality
In my post on my spiffy Big Bamboo hat, I had a footnote tag after Bahrain Grand Prix and then forgot to put in the footnote. That is probably a good thing because it would have been the tail wagging the dog anyway.
This weekend is the Bahrain Grand Prix and I don’t think the F11 circus should be there. It helps legitimize a regime that shouldn’t be legitimized. A regime that called in the Saudi army to help it put down peaceful protests. A minority Sunni regime that suppresses its Shiite majority and, by its own admission, has killed and tortured its own citizens when they protested. It seems to be a case of Bahrain’s desire for national prestige and its willingness to pay for that prestige trumping morality.
As much as I want to think otherwise, that is what Grand Prix racing is all about: money and national prestige. It is an incredibly expensive sport. The top teams pay about a half a billion dollars a year to play. The top drivers are some of the highest paid athletes in the world.2
It brings up the question of, as a fan, how much do I want to support a sport that is amoral at best and probably really – by a lot of reasonable standards – immoral. And, yet, I love cars and so enjoy seeing the best cars in the world race. I have been critical of Giants fans who supported Barry Bonds and I still support Fernando Alonso who once cheated and then tried to blackmail his team owner in an effort to get an advantage. But, man, is he a good driver.
What my mini moral dilemma boils down to is this: I don’t want Formula One to race at Bahrain, but, because they are, I will watch it. It seems that I want somebody else to govern my moral behavior. I don’t think that puts me on the level of a child abuser, but I am also pretty sure that the Buddha would not approve.
1 F1 stands for Formula One, the highest class of racing cars specified by the FIA – Federation Internationale de L’Automobile, the governing body of international auto racing – that race in twenty races a year, each race in a different country.
2 Michael Schumacher is the most successful and highest paid driver, so far making over one billion dollars in his career.