Turkophilia

Posted on October 10, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

The Armenian genocide resolution (H.Res. 106) is due for a committee vote today. Last week the Turkish government took out a full-page ad in section A of the Washington Post in an attempt to throw sand in everyone’s eyes, and today the Post again dished out its Realpolitik garbage in support of its good friend Turkey.

I left these rambling comments at the Post:

It’s ironic that, given the amount of aid we send to Turkey (millions and millions of dollars), U.S. citizens are in effect subsidizing Turkish meddling in our own democratic processes. As for the objections of the former secretaries of state: these are the same “wise old men” who basically sat on their thumbs during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the greatest foreign policy disaster of our time. They are so used to being blackmailed by Turkey, I think they might actually enjoy it by now. Putting the Armenian genocide in scare quotes—talking about it as if it is merely an “accusation”—is disgusting. The death marches and massacres happened; they were ordered by the central government of Turkey; they culminated decades of abuse against the Armenian population by the Turkish government. Year after year nonbinding resolutions are passed about the Holocaust, without a peep from the Post. Why? What makes them not “frivolous”? What makes them so special? Turkey needs to face its own past honestly (and the Post needs to stop enabling it to avoid that). It can’t help but lead to better things in the present.

Thomas Nephew rips the Post a new one—he has more patience (and a stronger stomach) than I do.

Addendum—8:30 pm: The Foreign Affairs Committee approved H.Res. 106 by a 27–21 bipartisan vote. The pressure is bound to increase as the measure heads to a vote by the full House. Slate has a nice roundup of blogger reaction to the Administration’s efforts to squelch the resolution. One link of particular interest goes to Joey Kurtzman’s post at Jewcy: “Denying the Armenian Genocide should be the last atrocity perpetrated by the ADL chief [Abe Foxman].” One of the comments (defending Foxman) notes that Israel’s only military airbase outside Israel is in … Turkey. However, the story is old (July). In August, the ADL decided to acknowledge the Armenian genocide as genocide (sort of). And, for good measure, here’s an article from October 2006 by the inestimable Robert Fisk.

Addendum: 2007.10.19: Finally, after letting the despicable Washington Post dominate the discussion for weeks with a steady stream of slipshod, slippery, and downright slimy op-eds and articles, the New York Times publishes a piece that makes the case for why American Jews need to support the Armenian genocide resolution—how it is a moral imperative for them, as victims of a genocide, to recognize genocide when it involves others, regardless of the short-term consequences, real or imagined.

Posted in Agora | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fleshification

Posted on September 28, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

Every time I watch The Simpsons, I think: “This stuff is brilliant!” And yet I don’t watch the show religiously. I figure I’ll see every episode eventually. Why rush things?

The writing is fantastically good. It captures so much of the America of the 90s and 00s it’s uncanny. But the voices—unforgettable. So what a treat it was to stumble upon this YouTube clip of Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer gabbing with Conan O’Brien (who wrote for the show once upon a time) in which—it almost seems as if they’re breaking some unwritten rule for voice-over talent—they go into the various voices live and in person. It culminates in a bit of improvisation (not “brilliant,” IMHO, but rather the result of years and years of living with the characters, hence “solid” and “satisfying”).

Anyway, watch it yourself: the embodied voices of some of the Simpsons gang. If you ever thought you were more inclined to work in radio than TV (as I have—yes, over the years I have pictured myself in professions other than editor, translator, webslave …), this is for you especially. Watch how Castellaneta drops his chin toward his chest to do Homer, just like the interviewer said.

[h/t to Отдел обогащения]

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Overheard

Posted on September 21, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

A website I don’t visit often enough is Подслушано в России [Overheard in Russia]. A number of such “Overheard in …” sites exist, actually. They remind me of the Metropolitan Diary in the New York Times, where readers share conversations, exclamations, exhortations, or other utterances they happened to experience by chance in New York City (and sometimes even mute encounters or wordless acts, which can be even more eloquent). Maybe that’s where the idea for these websites came from.

Part of the attraction of Подслушано for me is the unvarnished colloquial quality of most of the entries. But I also enjoy catching a glimpse of a life that is foreign yet familiar, firmly rooted in time yet timeless.

Like this little exchange:

Natural selection of tomatoes
18 September 2007, 11:03 am, Moscow

Customer: How much for the tomatoes?
Seller (phlegmatically): Thirty and ten.
Customer: Which are “thirty” and which are “ten”?
Seller (nodding toward customers rummaging in one of the bins): The ones they take are thirty. The rest are ten.

[Overheard at the market on Signal Street]

Естественный отбор помидоров
18 сентября 2007 в 11:03, Москва

Покупательница: А почем помидоры?
Продавец (флегматично): Тридцать и десять.
Покупательница: А какие “тридцать” и какие “десять”?
Продавец (кивая на покупателей, копающихся в одном из лотков): А вот какие берут, те тридцать. Остальные – десять.

Где подслушано: рынок на Сигнальном проезде

* * * * *

Here are two others I picked out a while back and never posted.

And because of this they erected a statue of him at every McDonald’s
21 March 2007, 8:50 pm, Moscow

Old lady with checkered bag (nodding): Yes, St. Patrick’s Day!
Another old lady (nodding in response): Aaah, right! American. Everyone puts on scary clothes, the scarier the better.*
Old lady with checkered bag: Aha! So that’s how St. Patrick made everyone laugh.

[Overheard in the Belorusskaya metro station]
__________
*This is tricky. Страшно literally means “frightening,” leading one to think the women are talking about Halloween. But it could also mean “awful” or “terrible” (though it seems to me ужасно would be more idiomatic), hence the reference by the person posting to Ronald McDonald. (Or is it the “wearin’ o’ the green” that’s awful? Help!) I wish I could straddle the fence, but sometimes a translator just has to commit. I rather like the mash-up of American secular holy days as it stands above.

И за это его статуи устанавливают у каждого Макдональдса
21 марта 2007 в 20:50, Москва

Бабушка с клетчатой сумкой (кивая): Да, день Святого Патрика!
Вторая бабушка (кивая в ответ): А-а, вот-вот, точно! Американский! Поэтому все и страшно одеваются, чем страшнее, тем лучше!
Бабушка с клетчатой сумкой: Ага, вот Святой Патрик так всех и смешил!

Где подслушано: ст.метро “Белорусская”

* * * * *

In the morning the teacher read “Tales of Power” [Castaneda] to us and after that I don’t remember anything
22 March 2007, 10:20 am, Samara

Mother to a child of about six (tired): So were you able to eat supper?
Kid (aloof, looking to the side): What?
Mother (mildly irritated): Did you have something to eat?
Kid (in the same tone): When?
Mother (irritated): Well, did Galina Petrovna come by?
Kid: (in the same tone): Who?
Mother (losing it): So where were you all day? At the nursery school?
Kid: (heaving a deep sigh): That’s what I’d like to know.

[Overheard on the No. 24 bus]

Утром воспитательница рассказала нам “Сказку о силе”, и больше я ничего не помню
22 марта 2007 в 10:20, Самара

Мама мальчугану лет шести (устало): Ты хоть поужинать успел?
Мальчуган (отрешенно, глядя в сторону): Что?
Мама (с легким раздражением): Ну поесть успел?
Мальчуган (не меняя тона): Когда?
Мама (раздраженно): А Галина Петровна к вам заходила хоть?
Мальчуган (не меняя тона): Кто?
Мама (теряя терпение): Ты вообще где сегодня целый день был? В саду?
Мальчуган (глубоко вздыхая, сокрушенно): Вот и я хотел бы знать.

Где подслушано: маршрутка №24

Posted in Russia | Tagged , | Leave a comment

:-)

Posted on September 19, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

How could I not take note of the fact that the smiley turned 25 today?

[Carnegie Mellon professor Scott E.] Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.

“I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-),” wrote Fahlman. “Read it sideways.”

And it caught on like wildfire. Remarkable that we can trace it back to this point. (Or maybe this story will roust a prior inventor out of obscurity.)

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Expertise

Posted on September 18, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

We have a low retaining wall made from railroad ties in our front yard that is deteriorating and needs replacing. We’re thinking of stonework this time, and I’m thinking we’ll want to find some Incas to do it for us. I mean, look at the work they do:

Inca stonework in Cuzco (Qosqo), Peru
Photo by Alexander Fiebrandt at Wikipedia

They may not have discovered the wheel (and for good reasons), but their building skills astounded the city slickers from Europe:

At the heart of the new [ca. 1463] Qosqo was the plaza of Awkaypata, 625 feet by 550 feet, carpeted almost in its entirety with white sand carried in from the Pacific and raked daily by the city’s army of workers. Monumental villas and temples surrounded the space on three sides, their walls made from immense blocks of stone so precisely cut and fit that Pizarro’s younger cousin Pedro, who accompanied the conqueror as a page, reported “that the point of a pin could not have been inserted in one of the joints.” —Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 79.

By the way, 1491 is a wonderful, eye-popping read. It will change the way you think about the “New World” and everything you learned in school about virtually empty continents waiting to be populated and developed.

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Marching

Posted on September 16, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

The Iraq war protest on Saturday was much smaller than in January, and there were more counterprotesters lining a section of the route to engage in colloquy (ahem) with the antiwar folk. The most common preprinted prowar signs said “PEACE THRU STRENGTH” and “BETTER THERE THAN HERE.” But one hand-drawn sign said it all, really, representing the epitome of rational discourse and bringing closure to the whole war debate: “HIPPIES SMELL.” Where on earth this guy found a hippie to sniff is beyond me.

So, despite the gorgeous weather, it was pretty depressing. But now, with a day of rumination (and a good night’s sleep) behind me, I figure it’s not as bad as it seems. Anyone can see that the “debate” about the war is essentially over. The public is fed up with it, and has been for some time. We’re starting to detect movement among the Republicans—you need a microscope to see it, unfortunately. And also unfortunately, the vast majority seems content to hunker down and suffer for another—let me check my countdown clock—492 days, 12 hours, 38 minutes, and 19 seconds. Some antiwar groups are planning more aggressive protests in the weeks to come. I’m guessing they’ll succeed in pissing Washingtonians off—boy, do they hate having their commute (or their sprint to the nearest Starbucks) disrupted.

On the plus side, I ran into a friend who was there with his college-age son, and we had a nice time catching up. I also took a few photos. Here’s one for my friend Thomas, Tub Thumper Extraordinaire for the Big I:

Impeachment Pie sign at Iraq war protest

In a recent post, Thomas says, “Progress is just another word for nothing left to kill,” and analyzes why killing in Baghdad may be down slightly (as reported by Gen. Petraeus): most of the Sunni–Shia ethnic cleansing has been accomplished. Baghdad is well on its way to becoming a fully segregated city. Not a pacified city—a city with “neighborhoods” separated by walls (and worse). Continue reading →

Posted in Agora | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Truth

Posted on September 4, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

Yes, a moment of truth.

(Sheesh. What some people will do for a shot at a free iPod. And I don’t even like iPods. I’m perfectly happy with my crummy old Zen Xtra, “with Its Large, Blue Backlit LCD Screen.” Really, I am.)

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Tormentee

Posted on September 4, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

The association where I work has just published a book for those who wish to be “mentors” in science education. That’s all well and good. The problem is that the persons at the receiving end of this guidance are called “mentees.” This is so grating to my eyes and ears that I came here to vent a bit. I find it barbaric, frankly. When you honor someone, that person is an honoree. If you’re nominated for something, you’re a nominee. There is no verb “to ment.” Nor is there a verb “to mentate.” You don’t get mentated. Someone isn’t mented. Demented, yes. Mented, no.

The idea of “mentoring” came, of course, from the mythic Greek figure Mentor. I grew up in a town called Mentor, so I suppose I have a personal interest in this matter. But even if I didn’t, I’d be nauseated by the back-formation mentee. Mentoree is awkward, but it’s English. Mentee is … crap. (I think James A. Garfield, scholar and president, pride of Mentor, would have agreed.)

Months before this book went into production, I was tangentially involved in a website devoted to so-called e-mentoring. The education professionals behind this were talking about mentors and mentees, and I tried to get them to accept an alternative: the mentored, or mentorees, or beginners, or simply new teachers.* I would have loved to have them introduce the term tyro, because a mentor–tyro relationship is exactly what they’re talking about, but that was hoping for too much. I lost. And, I fear, the English language has lost. Mentee is worse than crap. It is poison. It teaches you that you can do whatever you want to English and no one will care.

“Oh, but there’s a logic to it,” someone will say. Of course there’s a logic to it! It was coined by “science types.” It’s not a matter of logic. The lunatic asylums are full of impeccable logic. It’s a matter of history. It has to do with remembering where things came from and where we came from. Some of the smartest people I work with don’t care much for history—don’t care much about history. They are obsessed with novelty, and so with neologisms. Just like the rankest marketer. Sad, but true. I hope you’re accustomed to being a marketee by now.

To help me keep my sanity when I’m at the office, I hereby resolve to refer to recipients of sage guidance as manatees.

Manatee

Manatees being mentored at the bottom of the ocean.

__________
*Or how about “protege”? Today (2007.09.15) I discovered a thread at the Volokh Conspiracy, predating mine by a fortnight or so, that revolved around using this word in pairings with “mentor” (as a viable, at-hand alternative to “mentee”).

Posted in Agora | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Август

Posted on September 1, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

Well, we made it through the doldrums of August. In an apparent attempt to inject some drama into this perennially languid month, a Russian journalist, Roman Trunov, tried to paint August in Russia as fraught with history-altering events. Four of his five examples occurred in the 1990s—admittedly a tumultuous time in that country. Two of them stand out:

August 19, 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev is ousted as President of the USSR and a short-lived State Emergency Committee is put in charge.

August 9, 1999: Boris Yeltsin appoints Vladimir Putin acting prime minister (the appointment is confirmed seven days later by the legislature); the significance of this becomes clearer later in the year, when Yeltsin resigns (on December 31) and Putin becomes the acting president.

Seeking support for his hypothesis, Trunov posed two questions to three Russian political scientists in early August 2007:

  1. Might something happen this August that will fundamentally change the direction of politics in Russia?
  2. Is it a historical law or merely a coincidence that many pivotal moments in Russian history have occurred in August?

Short answers:

  1. Unlikely.
  2. August is an slow month, politically and generally. Those who try to take advantage of it fail, by and large.

That said, August 2007 brought a pleasant surprise: the Prosecutor General of Russia, Yuri Chaika, announced that ten persons were arrested in connection with the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and will soon be charged. (That number changed slightly a few days later.) Among those implicated are a Chechen crime boss and current or former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Federal Security Service (FSB), who allegedly tracked the journalist and provided other intelligence to whoever ordered and perpetrated the murder. In this regard, Chaika cast suspicion on “people and structures that aim to destabilize the situation in the country, change the constitutional order [and] create a crisis in Russia” (as quoted in the New York Times). Commentators assume Chaika is referring to exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Alexei Simonov of the Glasnost Defense Foundation said the staff of Novaya Gazeta (Politkovskaya’s newspaper) feared the authorities would try “to steer the case in the direction of London” and blame Politkovskaya’s killing on Berezovsky.

Simonov is apparently a bona fide home-grown gadfly, and I tip my hat to him. But am I the only person west of Pskov who does not find it implausible that Berezovsky was behind not only this murder but others as well? And who continues to believe it is not in Vladimir Putin’s political interest (and certainly not worth the risk) to bump off noisy opponents? Those who are suspicious of Putin will point to the participation of MVD and FSB personnel and say, “Aha!” But for anyone conversant in US history, the phrase “rogue elements” will not sound foreign. And the bottom line is, the Putin government is prosecuting these people. Maybe, just maybe, Putin’s hands are clean in this matter. Or is it probably?

Certain elements in the US have a lot to fear in the person of Vladimir Putin. But their handwringing over how he treats his own people strikes one as disingenuous. Their real worry is that Putin is starting to rebuild a Russian counterpoise to US power—that their dream of a unipolar world is being disturbed.

Posted in Russia | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Gynekalomorphology

Posted on August 18, 2007 by WorldWideWeber

I’ve been sitting on my copy of photo morphing software* for over a year now. Thankfully someone has actually done something interesting with theirs:

A YouTube user has supplied a helpful guide to the art used in the video.

[h/t to Laureeg]
__________
*There are undoubtedly better ones out there. This one was quite free and therefore very appealing.

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | 3 Comments