'Tis Time

Windows on Train Gateway to the New World

Ellis Island again

Gather While Ye May

Grass & Leaves in Late Summer in Liberty Park

By the Hudson in Late Summer

Soviet Man Spoke Russian

Not much has changed. I see that many people even in the American media are wont to refer to Ossetians and Abkhazians as "Russians." Of course, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians are not ethnic Russians. Stalin tended to deport people in order to do away with nationalist sentiments. Today Russia just reclassifies people; it gives them passports and calls them "Russians." (And if that doesn't work, the Russians like to obliterate the towns and the countryside that the offending populations inhabit. See, e.g., Grozny, Chechnya. Afterwards a democratic referendum is held [the dead do not have a vote] and peace is proclaimed.)

The Europeans have the right approach: let Czechoslavakia break into two countries and then invite both to join a truly transnational union. Of course, even the EU is not fully consistent. Witness its member states' treatment of, say, Basque nationalist sentiments. 

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Sixth Circle of Hades

As punishment for the attack on Georgia, Russia will be condemned, though not to the most nether regions of Hades, but at least to the near-nether regions:

...NATO foreign ministers were discussing possibly scaling back high-level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if it does not abandon crucial positions across Georgia.

Paul Ames, "NATO mulls closer ties with Georgia" (AP), The Guardian online

I imagine Putin will lose many sleepless nights over this terrible ignominy. No contact with the League of Nations! ... er ... NATO. How awful.

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What Is NATO Worth?

Never mind Georgia or Ukraine. Would NATO defend Poland or the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- against a Russian military attack?

There is good reason to wonder.

The only real protection against Russian military aggression may be to live in the U.S.A. -- or in another country with its own "nuclear shield" -- or in a country such as Afghanistan. (China, for many reasons, is almost surely immune to Russian military aggression.)

Irredentism, it seems, is an ever-recurring human disease.

Is the life expectancy of a Russian male at birth still approximately 57 years? Ah, Russian imperial glory. Well, at least Russia still leads Zimbabwe in this respect. Or so one hopes.

But there is a bright lining to every dark cloud: the reconquest of Georgia would provide more real estate for dachas for Russian apparatchiks -- and, who knows?, it might lead to the birth of a new (Georgian? non-Georgian?) Stalin.

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Cityscape

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Woes of the World: Estimated Five Million "Easily"-Preventable Deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the Last Decade

Sometimes massive human catastrophes are largely ignored by the world. See this BBC Story about the continuing human catastrophe in the DRC.




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The KGB in the 21st Century

What is the meaning of the KGB in the 21st century?

The KGB is crude, dirty, and violent.

Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent.

Perhaps Putin still is a KGB agent -- at least in spirit. But, if so, this KGB man wraps himself in religion.

The Russian state is Putin's god.

God (the real one) help us all!

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Summer in the City

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The (Grisly) Soviet Story

See The Soviet Story

&&&

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Summer Reflections, Jersey City 2008

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Summer 4

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Summer 3

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Summer 2

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Summer 1

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mccain quiddities

favors immigration reform, but opposes it

favors human rights, opposes torture, but opposes judicial protection of human rights

favors religious zealotry, but opposes it

opposes tax cuts, favors tax cuts

he's a man of principle, a maverick (he's from arizona, the land of mavericks, don't you know)

ah, yes, the steadfast principles of presidential aspirants




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obama babble

change, sure ... but ... money talks

i take your money to drive out money, to drive out monied special interests

trust me: i do it only for you (the people)

the people's money is pure, don't you know


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npr babble

npr living on earth bruce gellerman burble green burble biodiversity invasive species babble burble green ocean burble flood burble global warming burble too much rain floods global warming green desertification global warming cedar rapids burble ocean carbon consumption burble too hot babble too cold in iowa burble babble efficiency not nuclear burble buy local treat foreign peasant farmers fairly living on earth bruce gellerman burble babble



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Water and Buildings

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Einstein's Wisdom

Einstein reportedly said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible--but not simpler."

That Einstein fellah really was a genius.

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The Tragedy in Sichuan Province

A few years ago I spent a week in Chengdu at Sichuan University. My hosts there were generous and gracious. So I have a personal motivation for grieving over the massive destruction inflicted by the earthquake in Sichuan Province. The rescue efforts there by the Chinese are genuinely inspiring.

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Clinton, Obama, and Bob Barr

Clinton's overwhelming victory in West Virginia seems to bode ill for Obama in November. But Bob Barr's entry into the race may draw 5% or so of the votes in the general election and may doom McCain's chances of victory in states such as Texas.

It will be an interesting election.

I admire Barr's commitment to civil liberties, including the right of privacy and the Fourth Amendment. (But I couldn't vote for him; during his career he has taken some very unpleasant positions.)




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Underlawyered?

There was a fascinating article in the Japan Times online about the reason for having or not having many lawyers. See Colin P.A. Jones, "Law Schools Come under Friendly Fire," Japan Times online (Jan. 28, 2008). Among the points made by the protagonists in the debate (which takes the form of a debate about the number of persons who ought to be allowed to pass the annual bar exam) are the following:

The number of people allowed to pass the annual bar exam is fixed at an absolute number.

Japan's Justice Minister Hatoyama is challenging the current plan to increase the number of annual admittees from 1,500 to 3,000 by 2010.

My research shows that the current population of Japan is roughly 127,000,000.

Colin Jones, the author of the article, asserts that regional bar associations have joined the justice minister in questioning the planned increase in the number of planned admittees. He writes:

Unfortunately, in addition to these very valid criticisms, at least some of the bar association comments veer off into self-interest and self-importance, both justified by an alternative form of logic that only applies to protected industries. The Kanazawa Bar Association, for example, argues that more lawyers will result in (gasp!) greater competition. Facing increased competition, goes the logic, lawyers will have to focus increasingly on the grubby task of making money, losing the leisure that is apparently necessary to engage in advocacy for the public good (which is of course one of the mandates of lawyers everywhere). As a result, the number of immoral lawyers will increase as they take on bad, even hopeless, cases just to earn a living.

The pass rate on the annual bar exam was once 2-3%.

The author of the article -- a professor at Doshisha University Law School in Kyoto -- opines: "That the number of lawyers generated by the new law schools has become an issue already, when the impact so far is a relatively modest increase, reflects one of the core problems with the whole system — that it was apparently set up without a serious inquiry into what the average person actually needs out of Japan's legal system. Indeed, one fascinating aspect of the whole debate over the number of lawyers in Japan is that it misses a simple, basic fact — that the average Japanese person may not regard the legal system as a useful tool for solving problems. If you are arrested and prosecuted for a crime you will be found guilty over 99 percent of the time. If you get divorced and lose contact with your children, going to court probably won't change a thing. Lawsuits against the national government are shown to be losing propositions almost daily in the news. Small wonder then that Japanese people are averse to litigation, when it is so often proven to be futile."





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Spring 2

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Spring 1

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Canadian Robot Demands Respect

See here

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