Speaking of Naomi Klein, here's her report of China's surveillance culture, "The Golden Shield".

Here's a strong criticism of the limits of a work I admire greatly: Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine.

Stripping down politics to the profit motive will get you a long way in this world. It can be an especially useful corrective when the “crusade against communism” and “battling terrorism” are constantly invoked as noble motives, and when nothing so crass as economic interests are ever admitted. But, needless to say, the move is reductionist.

Klein’s depiction of a monolithic class of politico-corporate elites is not tailored for every political situation. It is not particularly helpful for recognizing and exploiting the differences between Clintonian “free traders,” Republican realists, and neocon fundamentalists. It provides little guidance for understanding what to make of it when the Weekly Standard opposes permanent normal trade relations with China, a key goal of corporate globalists, on human rights grounds. Nor does it allow for distinctions between different sectors of capital—recognizing, for example, that the interests of the vast tourism industry (which is currently furious about how Bush’s War on Terror has adversely affected its business) may not be the same as those of Halliburton. Finally, it denies out of hand that religious conviction or nationalism, independent of commerce, might be forces in influencing Bush administration policy.

the devil's in the details

The global warming expert, Tim Flannery, thinks we are approaching a time when cutting greenhouse gas emissions, closing down coal-burning plants, and replacing them with alternate sources of energy, are not enough in themselves. We need to do something more drastic. Injecting the atmosphere with sulphur, therefore changing the colour of our blue skies, may be as necessary as anything if we hope to survive, says Flannery. This global dimming plan would effectively shield us where our ozone could no longer. Yet, tellingly, Flannery admits "The consequences of doing that are unknown". They're probably more than just unknown, I think. They would probably be disasterous, since you can't make radical changes, especially in the environment, and expect all other variables to remain the same. The changes would be pronounced and harsh. Any other ideas?

Our waters will rise, with global warming melting polar ice sheets and higher temperatures causing our seas to expand. People will lose their lives, their livelihoods and homes through dislocation. What are we to do? Build barriers and wait it out.

Bowman and collaborator Douglas Hill have spent seven years shopping around a proposal to build enormous retractable storm surge barriers in three locations around New York, including one straddling the Verrazano Narrows, and another at Throgs Neck, where Long Island Sound meets the East River. Such barriers, rising fifteen metres above sea level, would effectively wall off New York Harbor if a major hurricane sent tsunami-like waves toward the city. “This would be one of the biggest engineering projects in the history of the United States,” Bowman states.

And yet:

given the alarming but ultimately unpredictable acceleration of climate change, there’s no telling how long a given barrier would afford the necessary protection (even if it were properly maintained), and therefore such structures create a false sense of security and a heightened risk for those who depend on them.

Is this not just a feeble attempt to appear hard at work on the environment, its protection, and ours in the event it fails? There are better avenues: more efficient use of energy (in our homes, for one), better public transportation, alternative fuels (cellulosic ethanol seems a worthy candidate)...etc. Barriers should, at best, be considered a sort of last-ditch effort.

smile

I feel these two characters make up the internal landscape of the bipolar, at least in part. A sense of despair in the face of impossible goals lends itself to courage and hope, the feeling that it can be done.

Here's a very interesting article on fame, charisma, and the divide between the public image and the "true" selves of some of the talented folks.

Foreign Policy Magazine's top 100 public intellectuals.

I think most of us have heard the reports on the havoc wrecked by cyclone Nargis in Burma. The official death count is now at 22,464. But, with 41,054 missing and large areas, usually the hardest hit, yet to be researched and accounted for, some estimate 100,000 may have lost their lives. Over 1 million people will be profoundly affected by this disaster, their sources of food disappearing with the coastline. As survivors mingle with the bodies floating in the now murky villages and towns, water sanitation and disease are becoming real threats on the lives of many more people. To make matters worse, the military dictatorship of Burma (to the junta it's Myanmar) has closed their borders to most foreign aid agencies and foreign governments looking to lend a hand.

From the New Yorker: The junta wants the money and supplies, but it doesn’t want the foreigners with their helicopters and expertise, for the same reason that it doesn’t allow journalists to enter Burma: the regime survives by smothering the truth, from its own people and from the outside world. Its sense of threat from the population is so great that the military is refusing to allow monks to shelter refugees in monasteries, fearing a repetition of last September’s peaceful demonstrations.

Some have invoked the UN "responsibility to protect" mandate, which justifies what we might call a humanitarian intervention in the event the local government is either unwilling to defend the basic rights of their citizens, or is the cause of its violation. This, however, is being met by criticism from countries close to Burma, like China (obviously, because if it allows the precedent of humanitarian intervention, it would have to answer for its own abuses) and Indonesia.

One course of action is suggested at the end of the New Yorker article I cited:

Both the Burmese government restrictions and U.S. economic sanctions make it very difficult to give money to local N.G.O.s directly, but it is possible to support their work by donating to the international groups that have longstanding partnerships with local N.G.O.s and community-based organizations (including churches and monasteries).

The expatriate’s list of organizations includes ADRA, CARE, Project HOPE, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Concern, and World Vision.

Beatles in my feet

As a Beatles fanatic since 2002 I thought I'd direct you, whoever that is, to this interesting article on them, written by a professor of psychology and music, Daniel J Levitin.

Paul McCartney may be the closest thing our generation has produced to Schubert - a master of melody, writing songs that seem to have been there all along. Most people don't realize that the well-known tunes Ave Maria and Serenade were written by Schubert (or that his Moment Musical in F so resembles Martha My Dear). McCartney writes with similar universality. His Yesterday has been recorded by more musicians than any other song in history. Its stepwise melody is deceptively complex, drawing from outside the diatonic scale so smoothly that anyone can sing it, yet few can explain what it is that McCartney has done. (And the odd seven-bar phrases hark back to an old Haydn trick of asymmetric phrases in his minuets.)

Obama in the world

Barack Obama's internationalist foreign policy inspires hope in a better future when compared to Bush's shoot-'em-up approach to the world abroad. Obama seems to genuinely want a more cooperative international order.

From the NY Times:
A post-post-9/11 strategy must harness the forces of globalization while honestly addressing the growing “perception of unfairness” around the world; must actively promote, not just democracy, but “a world of liberty under law”; and must renew multilateral instruments like the United Nations. In mainstream foreign-policy circles, Barack Obama is seen as the true bearer of this vision. “There are maybe 200 people on the Democratic side who think about foreign policy for a living,” as one such figure, himself unaffiliated with a campaign, estimates. “The vast majority have thrown in their lot with Obama.”

Yet, there are still conceivable problems with Obama's foreign policy which should be addressed. Read here to see how Obama may still believe in something like America's moral superiority - an untrue and unpragmatic belief.