Finding bad news in the good

Lighten up, guys! Of course, we all know that Tuesday's election doesn't solve all our problems, but ferkryssakes, it was a victory! And even a small victory is better than a defeat. The point is not that one marginally less corrupt gang of politicians replaced a more corrupt gang, as this sourpuss wants us to believe: Election 2006: Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

First of all, "corruption" is a process that can affect any living organism, not a congenital defect peculiar to politicians. That's why we have the cleverly designed institutions in our U.S. Constitution, the checks and balances, to control or limit the opportunities for corruption. Politicians, or probably any of us, can submit to influence, unless they or we are suicidally fanatic. A congress made up of incorruptible men and women would mean a chaos of people who absolutely refuse to waver from previously held positions. The closest thing I can remember from history was the early sessions of the French revolution, where nobody was willing to give ground to anybody. And we know where that led: la Terreur (including the invention of Dr. Guillotin), counterterror, and then Napoleon and what was in reality (though not called that) the first world war. Not a pretty picture.

Second, the real victory in this election was not the replacing of one set of politicians with another (though that is not insignificant), but what that process implies in a democracy: a massive public education about our responsibilities and our rights, about what aggression abroad is costing, and so on. These election results confirm once again Lincoln's dictum: You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can even fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. As a result of this latest electoral campaign more of the American people are a little more savvy, and it's going to be harder to fool all or even most of them (us) even some of the time.

Photo of Abraham Lincoln from For Counsel

Small change

BBC NEWS | Business | Baghdad's 'missing' billions

Ted Rall: New dangers from old foes?

Lest Tuesday's Democratic and democratic triumph appear too sweet, Ted Rall offers us a dash of bitters. uExpress.com: Ted Rall by Ted Rall -- (11/07/2006) RALL 11/7/06.

And another comment by Tony Auth.

Still, the triumph was sweet!

Capture the flag

Our warmest congratulations to all of us who worked hard to overcome the ceaseless propaganda, prevarication and vote-manipulation of the Bush-Cheney cabal to regain our U.S. Congress for the U.S. people. Now let's hold the Democrats to higher standards, to prove a real check on presidential power, eliminate torture as national policy, and restore an American politics of optimism in place of the politics of fear!

Venice album, cont.

Two views from atop the Campanile, and finally, farewell from the dock before boarding the Allilaguna ferry for the airport.

Venice album, 1

From our last day in the city. Canal, St. Mark's Place and the Basilica, and the Basilica again with the Campanile.

Horses

These are the real, original bronze ones, stolen from Constantinople by the Venetians when they conquered the city in 1204. They were probably taken from the Hippodrome in Constantinople (there's some doubt, though, as to where they had been placed). The Venetians put them up on their Basilica. Napoleon stole them again, but after Napoleon's downfall the Venetians (not the Constantinopolitans) recovered them. But they were suffering from the elements in their perch on the Basilica, and now they are kept inside the Basilica museum.


Just a few paces away from the originals are these copies, placed where the Venetians displayed them in the days of their vast commercial empire. (Ignore the guy in dark glasses who looks like he's about to be clobbered by a hoof.)

Vittorio and the Venice monster

Vittorio il gondoliere is worried. As he poled us along the back canals, he got excited and voluble in response to Susana's questions, delighted to have found a passenger who could understand his rapid Italian and was interested in his problems. He like most Venetians was torn by the debate over the huge flood-gate project, the modulo sperimentale elettromeccanico or MoSE, and its likely ecological consequences. Mostly though, he was worried about spills from the petroleum tankers that are, unpardonably in his view, allowed into the Venetian lagoon.

Anybody visiting Venice knows that the city is sinking. On one day last week, the narrow pedestrian "streets" to the places we wanted to visit were flooded up to our knees. We saw other tourists sloshing along in gaudy, flimsy plastic knee-high boots (€12 a pair from your nearest edicola) or sturdier rubber boots (€25), but we chose to sit out the wait till low-tide in a little restaurant. By about 3 p.m., the paths were dry enough for walking. This kind of thing, the flooding of St. Mark's Square and other low areas of the city, is now occurring as many as 250 times a year, according to a big sign at the edge of the Grand Canal explaining the problem. Several times we passed store-front offices of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (still using the hammer and sickle emblem on a red background) with posters denouncing the MoSE Monster eating up Venice. It's a complicated issue, not only technically and environmentally but also politically, as are many big projects in Italy. Here's the clearest explanation I've found: Flood barriers | Saving Venice | Economist.com

From my balcony

This morning in Carboneras, Almería, Spain. Photo: Susana Torre

Poetecstasy: Communally hated!

Here's a poet who can help us feel the anger of those our leaders Bush and Blair are trying to "democratize". Poetecstasy: Communally hated! See also this same writer's comments on The Amitava Kumar - Salman Rushdie Controversy. This John Matthew is a thoughtful man, with a refreshingly open (possibly naive?) faith in the power of the word.