RoBoTNiK

So the author of this blog I sometimes read had a poll as to what she should write about next. And I was amused to see that "remembering 9/11" got exactly zero votes - it was trounced by "why I'm afraid of research," "why I hate Katie Couric" (that one got my vote), and even "how to get better technical support." I suspect that lack of interest in one more 9/11 reminiscence is fairly widespread. So I'll spare you my ruminations on that 9/11 picture from yesterday, except to kinda sorta answer that_cad and freeparking:



Well, the picture wasn't faked. And I know I didn't really say anything about why I thought the picture was remarkable. But I didn't think it was an interesting picture because I couldn't believe that people would be so callous as to smile on 9/11/2001, omg the dirty unpatriotic sobs why do they hate America? Almost the opposite, in fact. The picture's not unbelievable to me, it's the most believable representation of 9-11 I think I've seen. I also think it was interesting that the photographer suppressed this picture for four years because he thought it was too disturbing: not because it's graphic, but because it doesn't look anything like An Official 9-11 Photo^TM is supposed to look like. There's no firefighter in silhouette, no backlit flag to get choked up about, no George W Bush doing his gimlet-eyed grimly-determined monkey look. And finally, I think it's interesting because (this is the gist of the Frank Rich column) it suggests a path not taken, one where Americans exercised their formidable national powers of Getting Over It, where 9-11 was a horrible, tragic crime but not a Defining Moment that deranged and derailed an entire nation, plunging us all forever and irrevocably into The War on Terror and The Post 9-11 World.

Speaking of airports, we just booked tickets for a trip to Boston! papersource, polka_roo, and I will be in town the week after Labor Day, from Wednesday Sept. 6 to Sunday Sept. 10. Our socializing abilities may be curtailed a little bit by You Know Who but we hope to see a bunch of you and introduce you to our little friend.

Kind of cries out for a caption, doesn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Travel safe, and wish us luck traveling to DC. Be thankful and well.

[cross-posted to Rob MacDougall.org, which you would know if you were subscribed to the robotnikblog RSS feed, so why aren't you?]

[Canada Guy image stolen from the great and terrible calamityjon. Visit his site!]



I just got back from Upper Canada, where it was -30° C in the daytime, and the following bit of video from the time of George Bush's Ottawa visit was making the rounds. It's Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson taking a few cheap shots at Canadians while some gormless backbencher clucks feebly in the Dominion's defense. I must warn you, the clip does neither country any credit. And it's not nearly as satisfying as the justly famous video of Jon Stewart schooling Tucker on Crossfire. But you can go watch it now, in Quicktime or Windows Media. I'll wait.

Are you back? OK. Yes. I know. Well, don't say I didn't warn you.

( Read more... )

I'm sorry, Mike, but everybody gets at least one dejected post-election post.

I am not surprised by the outcome. This is pretty much exactly what I've been expecting since Howard Dean screamed in Iowa, if not before. Which is not to say "I told you so", because a) who needs that shit? and b) I tried to make a point of not telling anyone so. But no, I'm not surprised by the outcome.

I am surprised by how much it hurt. At some point in the last four years, without really realizing it, I must have started thinking of the United States as my country too. At some point, American politics became my own deal, and not just a zany Hollywood blockbuster action spectacle mounted for my wry amusement. "To the thinking man, life is a comedy; to the feeling man, life is a tragedy." I envy my fellow Canadians back home that cozy Hudson's Bay blanket of ironic detachment I misplaced somewhere along the way.

Yesterday was our weekly luncheon with various fellows of the Academy. Of course, we talked about the election. I note in retrospect that all the Academy postdocs (who are smart liberal 30-year-olds) were, at noon yesterday, pretty optimistic for a Kerry victory, thanks to exit polls and Zogby and "bryant promised!" But all the Academy fellows (who are smart liberal 80-year-olds) were decidedly not. There's something to be learned there.

Ah, well. We find solace where we can: The long view (a historian's best friend), silly role-playing games, and John Harvard's tonight at 6pm. Be there!

Edit: God bless Jim Carroll, who just made me feel a little better. And I changed the wording above because it sounded like I wasn't Canadian any more. I still am. More than ever.

Belated Fourth of July post, courtesy of jadasc and Henry Louis Kick Ass Mencken:

WHEN THINGS get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.

All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else.

—The Declaration of Independence in American, H.L. Mencken, 1921

Today's Boston Phoenix has an article about a Harvard biological anthropologist (aka chimp-studying guy) who reports that, in the last two or three years, the chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale Forest have made what he says is a wholly unprecedented technological advancement: they have learned to bludgeon one another with sticks.

"This is the first time any animal other than humans has been seen to pick up clubs as weapons and use them against others of their own species," explains Richard Wrangham, a 54-year-old professor of biological anthropology and world-renowned authority on chimpanzees. "This is the first repeated hitting. This is picking up a stick and wham-wham-wham-wham!"

In 1999, a male chimp named Imoso was seen using a stick to beat a female chimp named Outamba. Since then, Wrangham and his researchers have observed several incidents of weapons use by chimps. The pound-and-pound-on-your-neighbor-with-a-stick meme is spreading. If all this is true—and when it comes to biological anthropology I can only assume the Phoenix is an unimpeachable source—it's a technological leap worthy of black monoliths and Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The article (which contains a helpful photo of "a stick") continues with some yabber jabber about biological predispositions to violence and tries incoherently to tie it all in to September 11th and war with Iraq, but I think the real message here is grim, and the danger is all too clear:

The Chimps have the Stick. I repeat, the Chimpanzees have The Stick.