Tuesday, January 28th, 2003
NO BLOGGING LATELY. Why? I could say that I’ve been incredibly busy at my day job — true — and that I’ve been busy personally too, as I get ready to move in with uber-sweetie Trina — also true. But that would ignore the fact that several times in the past week and a half I have stayed up past midnight playing Splinter Cell, much to the detriment of my normal sleep/wake cycle. But what’s really been going on is my inability to process last week’s news, namely, the State of the Union address. I typed copious contemporaneous notes (the computer is by the TV, at least for the next couple of days) on both the style and substance of the address. My notes deteriorated in quality as the beer took effect, true. I was left with a lot of notes and a simple inability to process them in a coherent way. Then, after my head cleared, it was hard to go back to the SOTU because it was no longer fresh. Then, a couple of days later, it was hard to blog at all just because I had let it go so long. This is the procrastinator’s pathology–eventually you put off doing something so long that the damage is done, the task cannot be completed, and you’re a failure now, so why do anything further? (This is exactly what led me to fail to turn in 34 homework assignments, and thereby earn a D, in Blossom Woods’ pre-algebra class in seventh grade.)
But part of growing up is facing up to procrastination, even if your final effort is too little, too late. Here are my thoughts on the SOTU:
1. I always look for sound use of classic rhetorical devices. Bush blew his first opportunity in the first stanza , as he had an opportunity for both the rule of three and parallel structure, with his “we have duty, we have opportunity…we will work for, we will answer” framework. It was clunky. But he got it right in the next stanza, with a series of three “to be” constructions.
2. There was some cleverness. For example, in talking about medical “reform,” he blamed the lack of control that doctors and nurses have over medicine on “bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and HMOs.” Linking trial lawyers with their mortal enemies HMOs — deft.
3. The only surprise was the pledge of $15B for AIDS relief in Africa. Complex reaction here at MALT. (a.i) $15B is good money, but not nearly enough when you have double-digit HIV infection rates. (a.ii) On the other hand, $15B goes a lot further in Uganda than it does in the Hamptons; see the insightful piece in the Feb. 3 New Yorker, analyzing the conflict between the immediate need for new treatment and vaccines in Africa with the resistance of Western academic medical ethicists. (b.i) The hidden surprise in this pledge is that it supposedly will include condom distribution and genericized drugs, things this administration and its allies in the religious right and multinational pharmaceutical corporations have always opposed. (b.ii) But there was a growing international push for condemnation of the multinationals’ intellectual property to make generic anti-HIV drugs anyway, so this is conceding the inevitable and claiming the high ground simultaneously. (b.iii) Even Jesse Helms realized in his twilight years that the moral battle over HIV was mistaken. (b.iv) And it sounds like the drugs that will be provided to Africa are ones that are losing their potency against American strains of HIV, as there is growing incidence of US infectees who had attained a zero viral load for years through religious use of protease inhibitors finding the virus resurgent in their systems again.
4. Another deft touch was the bid for development of hydrogen-powered cars. It’s gadgety, which is sure to grab attention from the real problem, which is the American suburban, Suburban lifestyle. A bold and necessary initiative would have required dealing with the mess that is CAFE standards, and cowboy Bush is spineless on that issue. What Big Oil wants, Big Oil gets from this administration, and what Big Oil wanted was bread and circuses. Enjoy.
5. It was naturally filled with horrible and cynical domestic policy and horrible, cynical, and dangerous foreign policy. On the domestic front, we have more tax cuts for rich folks, more privatization of Social Security (that’s “ownership of retirement accounts” to you and me), logging to prevent forest fires (what ain’t there can’t burn), more faith-based crap, and bloating deficits. The transition issue from domestic fiasco to foreign policy fiasco is the deficit and the funding of the Sergio Leone-style showdown between Bush and Saddam Hussein. Transition accomplished, we move on to foreign policy shambles: more Star Wars, “project bioshield,” and borders closed to swarthy types. He uses a wax-off maneuver on North Korea–he acknowledges the total hash he has made of north Korean nukes only by way of pointing out that we cannot allow Saddam to develop into another Kim Il Sung.
6. Scary point when he talks about the assassination of those suspected of terrorism: “Let’s put it this way–they are no longer a problem to us or our friends and allies.” “The terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.” Well, those of us who work in the American justice system may have thought that “American justice” was all about due process of law–but it turns out that it’s about summary executions by CIA-trained militias. Which reminds me of a great story from law school orientation about the syndicated TV show “Dark Justice,” a story I won’t relate here.
7. Splinter Cell rules! That’s the meaning of American justice!
[note–this was actually written Thursday, Feb. 6, nothwithstanding the datemark.]