Strawberry Fields, Crocodile Dundee and the Rockettes

We're in NYC for a few days of vacation. For the past few days we've been up & down 5th Avenue a few times and spent more time in stores than I generally care to do. But my daughter likes to shop.

I got up early and went over to Rockefeller Center to watch the production of the Today Show with all the groupies and hangers-on and star-struck. I saw all the people on the show and shook some guy's hand and spoke with a couple of the "stars." I have no idea who they are. I thought it was intriguing to see that I was in the background on a couple of the shots. My wife & daughter saw me on TV back at the hotel. However, what was really interesting to me was watching how they put the show together - the technical roles, the directing & management, the organization, the professionalism, and the really really great gear - cameras, lighting, cabling, monitors, sound gear, etc. were all top of the line stuff and they had extra stuff waiting just in case something broke. Great stuff.

After that we grabbed a quick bite at a pastry shop and then went up to Central Park to look at The Dakota (where John Lennon lived and died) and to see Strawberry Fields in Central Park where there is a tile mosaic monument with the word "Imagine" in the middle. We walked through quite a bit of the park and took photos of Bethesda Fountain and a guy playing the sax and ice skaters and a bridge and I don't know what else.....

Later we went to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. The show was pretty good. The Rockettes can dance and there were two organists that were really good. They did the best living nativity scene that I've ever seen. I was sitting there with 3,000 people in the dark and it really provoked an emotional response from me. I don't know about the other 3,000 folks.

And we went to Macy's this evening. There must have been 300,000 people in that store. It is big, but my goodness, it was crowded.

Two thoughts have recurred since we've been here. First, I wonder just what the massive orgy of shopping and partying and lights and more have to do with the birth of a baby in a faraway village in a faraway time. The second thought came to me today. In one of the Crocodile Dundee movies, Crocodile Dundee made a comment that New York must be the friendliest place in the world - why else would so many people want to live so close to each other.

I'm not sure that humans make much sense. I'm pretty sure that all these people are not here because they want to be friends and I'm also not certain that all of this hullabaloo really has much connection with the birth of a poverty-stricken baby in Bethlehem. But it is kind of fun and interesting to watch and experience NYC during this season.

What's Gonna Happen in Iraq?

I've read a few books and I watch the talking heads on the idiot box (TV) and I have a store of thoughts of my own. So with this limited information, what do I think is going to happen in Iraq?

The simple answer to that question is chaos.

Will we send in more troops? Maybe, but it might take another 300,000 soldiers to truly shut down lawlessness and sectarian fighting. (Geez - sounds like Johnson and Nixon escalating the Vietnam war to finally achieve "victory.") There are some real challenges for a plan of that magnitude. First, an occupying force of that magnitude requres reinstating the draft. It also requires a massive increase in defense spending. It probably means that we have to walk away from other obligations around the world - Asia, Europe, you pick. And even with a huge increase in the occupying force there is a strong chance that shortly after we leave (in 10 or 20 years) the chaos will return. And while we are deployed in this fashion we will be loathed by the rest of the Islamic world.

Should Iraq be split into pieces? If so, I'm not sure there is really a homeland for the Sunnis. And without a Sunni homeland, the Saudis will be very unhappy. An unhappy Saudi royal family is a big problem. The question assumes some sort of right or wrong choice and I'm not sure it's going to matter. It looks to me like Iraq may split into pieces regardless how the question is answered.

What should we do? My first thought is that we probably ought to apologize to Israel, the Iraqi people and the rest of the world for starting down this path without having a clue as to what we were doing and for making such massive and stupid decisions that contributed to this mess. We probably ought to apologize to the United Nations for standing in front of them and telling them we were going to disarm a mad man, but then having no plan for the aftermath. After that, I think we ought to plan a 6 to 10 month exit for our military forces. And we ought to put our diplomatic corps to work trying to find political solutions to the numerous problems that will surely follow our withdrawal.

What will happen in Iraq? Most likely chaos. The real question is what should happen after the chaos. It's time to start concentrating on what a partitioned Iraq will look like. If we don't, we will effectively cede all influence to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, sub-national groups (ala Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon) and pan-national groups (think Al Qaeda).

We will soon have a worse and more intractable problem than that of the Palestinians.

The more academic question is what might have happened?

It still seems to me that if the American people had been:

1) told the truth from the start that we wanted to export democracy, that such an effort would require time, treasure, and some of our youth;
2) led by someone that would unite the country behind a strong common vision - a person that could have convinced the American people of wisdom and need for investing ourselves in this effort; and
3) represented in key offices in Washington and Iraq by men and women that were not blinded by pure inbred ideology;

there might have been a chance for success in Iraq. Unfortunately, none of those things are true. And what is worse large-scale national efforts rarely rise above their initial strategic vision. Our initial vision and strategy was not well explained and allowed many different visions to grow up around the effort - get Sadam, get WMD, spread democracy, get the oil, threaten Iran, respond to Islamic terrorism, respond to 911, establish the principles of unilateralism and preemption. When you build a vision the same way you build an election year political coalition, you run a very big chance of having that vision fall apart if major elements of the vision prove false or begin to conflict with one another. For that reason, visions need to be much better understood and much more coherent.

Christmas Time is Drawing Near

Well...... I've been a bit swamped the past week or so.

Last week I was immersed in Waco Christmas Celebration (WCC). WCC is an annual Christmas pageant produced by our church, Columbus Avenue Baptist Church. This year I headed up stage crew for stage left. It's a lot of work, but I think it is a lot of fun. Seeing the kids in their costumes and working in a small group within a larger context brings some camaraderie, sense of purpose, and annual tradition (or ritual) to life. That's all good.

I haven't had as much time to read this past week, but I have read little snippets of the Carter book and little bits of the Brock book that I've been working on for awhile. I'll make some more progress in the next week.

Next week our family is going to New York for a Christmas-time vacation. We've never done anything like this at this time of year so we're looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll do all the "touristy" things - tours, pictures, shows, shopping, etc. I sent a note to Comedy Central to see if we could sit in while they produced the Daily Show, but we've never heard back from them. That's a little disappointing. Still the trip ought to be fun.

Well, we're off to dinner tonight and then maybe I'll help get the Christmas cards finished up. If I procrastinate on that long enough, my wife will get them all done.....

If I don't get back to the blog in the next week or so because of vacation and whatnot, everyone have a Merry Christmas!

The State of the World Today

So, it looks like Gates will be confirmed as the new SecDef incredibly fast. I've been watching the talking heads discuss and report on the confirmation hearings and such. They drag out the Iran contra thing every so often. They talk about all kinds of stuff about him. I guess they have to fill the time. In reality, why is this guy going to get confirmed so fast? He is not Don Rumsfeld. It's that simple. Congress would confirm Robert McNamara, Jack in the Box, or Snow White at this point.

Job Posting - Secretary of Defense Qualifications - Not Don Rumsfeld and not named Bush (Everyone else welcome.)

Carter's book that I mentioned earlier is pretty interesting so far. Lots of good background on the Palestinian v Israeli situation and Carter always seems to say what he has to say in a pretty straightforward way. Good stuff. I know the country hated him when he was president, but we sure could use someone like Carter right now.... smart, dedicated to peace, a mediator, willing to talk to anyone in order to learn and find common ground, willing to say what he thinks, not running for anything.

I'm pretty sick of hearing about Russian spies and assassins and whatever.... The Tsars, Romanovs, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and on and on now to the current regime..... Russias leaders have tended to be ruthless and despotic and their secret police don't really change much from one era to another. It's bad stuff, but none of it is all that surprising. I don't know the etymology of sanguinary, but it definitely won't be a surprise if it is Russian.

The US budget deficit right now is a disgrace. If we were really paying to fight a global war on terror or cure poverty or really fight aids or really trying to find an alternative fuel source, it might be understandable. Or if we even fully funded the No Child Left Behind initiatieves, that might be more understandable. Unfortunately, we seem to be just puttering around with that stuff and dumping tons of money into military and security in Iraq, a gigantic prescription drug giveaway program that is nothing but corporate welfare, and massive growth in other medical costs along with gigantic amounts of pork that are used to get anything passed. I don't know why we don't use the traditional terms for this pork - baksheesh, fragrant grease, or bribery?

And former President George H W Bush broke down and cried in a speech about his son (the governor) yesterday. You're kidding me. This is news? Who cares? And the attempts to tie this to Baker trying to help out the son (the president) or some kind of description of how similar or different the father is from the sons or the sons from one another. Bush fatigue resulting in Bush the senior crying. Geez. Bad reality TV this stuff.... time to change the channel.

Nancy Grace? Worthless. About 15 seconds is all I can take.

I've been watching TV for a lot of the last 48 hours. I've been home nursing allergies. And wow, this stuff is bad. I did see an old movie about Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens. That was pretty good. But most of the rest of it... and the news may be the worst - not slanted - not prejudiced - just a case of never has so much been spent to say so much and accomplish so little. There are bits and pieces of worthwhile reporting, but Comedy Central may have the best stuff out there. The "mainstream" news is hard to take seriously when you see some of this junk on TV. I need to go back to reading books again.