Friday, July 25, 2003
[posted by jaed at 8:00 AM]...there is not much more harm that the warden can inflict on me for speaking out...
In the NYT, Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, who was one of Fidel Castro's companions in the movement to overthrow Batista (and was jailed with him), compares and contrasts their treatment at the hands of Batista with Cuban dissidents' treatment at Castro's hands:
Prisoner Castro, a lawyer, had three months between his arrest and his October 1953 trial to prepare his own defense (later adapted into his famous "History Will Absolve Me" speech). Warden Castro allowed today's dissidents their first glimpses of their lawyers minutes before their trials, if at all.The traditional exhortation: read the whole thing.
Their quarters do not resemble Inmate Castro's bright and spacious hospital room of 1953: most are in cells full of rats and mosquitoes; in many, the tap for drinking water juts from the wall just above the hole in the floor the prisoners are to use as a toilet. When they have family visits, every three months, they come out in handcuffs, some in shackles.
Friday, July 18, 2003
[posted by jaed at 12:57 PM]Behold the power of <cheesy echo effect> the blog!!!
Ron Rosenbaum, in the middle of a disquisition on Sullivan, Hitchens, and the Orwell influence, commits to print this insight on why blogging can be so influential:
What gives him [Sullivan] an edge in impact and reach over Mr. Hitchens (and just about everyone else) is the way he�s turned his political Web site (Web zine, Web log, online diary�whatever you want to call andrewsullivan.com) into a powerful weapon of nonstop, 24/7, omnipresent total-surveillance panopticon punditry. Using his political Web zine (a form pioneered by Mickey Kaus in his witty Kausfiles.com), he�s done more than just frame the debate; he�s dominated it, smothered it with an overwhelming energy and forcefulness that allows him to riddle his opponents with ceaseless real-time hectoring and invective and polemic.Nicely put. When discussing blogs, most commentators focus on their populist appeal - the fact that anyone with opinions can be heard (even if they aren't, perish the thought, "professional journalists"), and anyone who expresses those opinions well will be listened to - and on the possibilities for fact-checking and thorough coverage that are inherent in rich linkage between blogs.
But this comment brings out another facet: the sheer unrelenting depth possible when using a publication medium that you can update as often as you think of something to say, with no publication cycle or limited newshole to worry about.
(Yes, I am aware of the irony of pointing to a comment like this when I've been so remiss lately in updating this blog....)
Thursday, July 17, 2003
[posted by jaed at 11:51 PM]Baghdad Museum Roundup
This article from the WSJ (written for ARTnews, it says here) is the most thorough discussion I've seen of the events surrounding the looting at the National Museum of Antiquities.
(I think the author is a little too easy on Donny George - there's no mention of the allegations against him by museum staff, nor of the fact that for weeks he insisted that the museum's entire collection was gone when he must have known that that wasn't true - but nonetheless, the coverage is complete and careful, relying on interviews with museum staff, American forces, and residents of the area who witnessed the looting.)
