v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Settler induced grief

An interview in The American Prospect with Rashid Khalidi who holds the Edward Said Chair at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs:

Your book is about the failure of the Palestinians to establish a state in 1948 and ever since. Briefly highlight key points in the history.

The important turning points were the rise of the Nazis and the 1936-1939 [Arab] revolt, and after that, it was pretty much over for the Palestinians. I don't think that you can blame the Palestinians that much after 1939, because they have taken an enormous hit due to British repression -- a huge percentage were killed or imprisoned by the British or, like my uncle, [who was] in the top leadership, sent off to the Seychelles or Malta or Uganda.

Another turning point comes in the 1970s and 1980s, when there is a clear understanding on the part of the PLO leadership that the entire international environment has changed, that the Arab environment has changed, that the whole way that Palestinian aspirations are pitched is out of sync with everything else in the universe -- and they change … I think they probably could have done more to build themselves up as a credible state actor, a para-state actor.

As I say in the book, I think that a huge opportunity was missed in the early 1990s in the wake of the first Gulf War and in the wake of [former Secretary of State James] Baker's opening up the first and only conference [in Madrid] bringing all the parties to the table -- a unique diplomatic achievement in the entire history of the conflict. The Palestinians actually had much more leverage than they realized they had. They were weak due to disastrous, foolish decisions made by Arafat, in terms of aligning the PLO with the Iraqis explicitly or implicitly, and they were weakened in various ways in consequence. But in looking back … Oslo was one of the worst things that they could have done in several respects, in terms of permitting with Palestinian assent the doubling of the settler population in the decade of the 1990s, and in terms of consecrating a much higher level of control over the Palestinian population in the territories.

Is that because the settlements were not put on the table immediately?

Partly … Dennis Ross [a Middle East advisor in the first Bush White House] saw to it and Baker backed him up, and it continued through Clinton. The Palestinians weren't allowed to talk about anything important -- Jerusalem, refugees, settlements water, borders … sovereignty, statehood. Those were made final status issues, in the never-never land of the future, which turned out to be a take-it-or-leave-it offer by the Americans on behalf of [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Barak in the summer of 2000. These issues were briefly discussed, and then what happened, happened. This actually had to do not only with what you suggest -- the architecture, structure [framework] of Oslo negotiations -- but also with the Americans' failure to live up to their letter of assurance to the Palestinians, which had been that during the negotiations nothing that predetermined or prejudged the outcome was to be allowed … If that stuff is not stopped in 1992, there is no point in negotiating. What are we negotiating about?

More. . .

The Anti War March

Vallejo Nocturno 2007 - A Day's Worth of Protest

Bucharest

by Andrei AIR @ Flickr

So after a week in Bucharest and only two photographs to show for it due to 14 hour meetings and a focus on people and situations, I was determined to view the city as if I did not have a camera as we whisked from office to restaurant and restaurant to hotel. Rather than describe the city in many words, all I can say is that to get from the airport to the hotel required a passage through the entire city during the afternoon rush hour (any time after early morning or before late at night becomes a rush-hour like time). Lumbering from a generation under backwards rule the city is beginning to taste the fruits of free enterprise and like a college student learning to drink is feasting on its freedoms. I return shortly in three weeks at which time I will let my mature vision rest on the appropriate images.

Michael Massaia

Michael Massaia-9th Avenue Looking North hand manipulated Polaroid  SX-70 photograph
enlarged on Fujiflex Crystal Archive paper, edition #15, 30" x 30"

Oil Theft

From The Independent, how Iraq's oil will end up in Western hands:

raq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.                                         

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Government of destruction

From Robert Farley in The American Prospect:

Before the war and near the beginning of the occupation, it was commonly argued that the reconstruction of Iraq could follow the pattern set by the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan after World War II. The United States had created good government institutions in the former Axis powers, so building such institutions in Iraq should be no problem. This story ignored two facts about the New Deal-era civil servants who helped rebuild Germany and Japan: they had experience with the construction and maintenance of the institutions of one of the most activist governments that the United States has ever known; and they were motivated by an ideology that believed that good government could make a positive difference in people's lives -- could be a solution as well as a problem. Since the Reagan administration, the Republican Party has been dedicated to attacking both of these pillars. The idea of an apolitical civil service possessed of the expertise necessary to run government is anathema to conservatives, who view the civil service as both bloated and incompetent. More importantly, Republican ideology of the last twenty-five years is simply not well-equipped to understanding government as a solution and not a problem.

As Rajiv Chadrasekaran details in his new book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, the Republican position on governance and civil service expertise served to undermine the reconstruction of Iraq. Cronyism, the preference for political hacks over experts, and the exclusion of anyone not loyal to the Republican Party helped turn the reconstruction into a complete disaster. The construction of a democratic, stable Iraq may have been impossible anyway, but the Republican Party pursued the project in the manner least likely to produce success. The story of Bernie Kerik's tenure in Iraq is particularly telling. Because of his personal connections with Rudy Giuliani and by extension the president, Kerik became chief of Iraq's Interior Ministry. Although he lacked any managerial capacity, he could boast of loyalty, charisma, media savvy, and the will to ignore expert advice in favor of his gut. Predictably, his tenure was short and disastrous, as he spent more time engaging in flashy night raids than in running the ministry.

More...

Combate

The Answer

Vallejo Nocturno 2007 -  Shades

Sex science

From Wired, an interview with the contemporary authors and scientists of The Science of Orgasm:

Komisaruk: Orgasms have been described as being elicitable from any part of the body -- the mouth, the nipples, the anus, the hand. It leads us to think that there is a general orgasmic principle of building up excitation from different parts of the body leading to a climax and a resolution -- not necessarily ending in ejaculation, but a feeling of an orgasmic experience.

Whipple: We have documented in our laboratory that women can have orgasms from imagery alone without touching their body. The point is that women can experience orgasms and sexual pleasure from many forms of stimuli. It does have not have to be through genital stimulation.

WN: What are we learning about these non-genital orgasms?

Whipple: That they're real. We may have to reconsider what people define as orgasms, and not just have it defined in the genitals. We find that certain of the same brain areas are activated during orgasms experienced by imagery only (as during genital orgasms).

Komisaruk: It broadens our perspective on the potentialities of the body and brain. If we understand better how we can generate such pleasure from all different parts of our bodies, that increases our potential for sensory experience.

WN: Do you think there might come a time when orgasms really get detached from the genitals?

Komisaruk: It's happening right now. People have described orgasms through imagery, nose orgasms, knee orgasms. Although it sounds strange, the reports are believable. Now, people can show our book to someone who doubts it, and it can serve as a validation. Time will tell how prevalent non-genital orgasms are.

WN: You've found that even women with no feeling below the waist can have genital orgasms through genital stimulation.

Whipple: We've documented through our research that women who have complete transection -- interruption of the spinal cord -- can experience orgasms.

Komisaruk: The nerve pathway for that is via the vagus nerve, which can go directly from the cervix and uterus to the brain, passing outside the spinal cord. Women with spinal cord injuries told us that their doctors told them it was impossible to experience genital sensation, it was impossible to experience genital pleasure. They thought something was wrong with them when they experienced it, and they were troubled by it.

More . . .

The Future

Vallejo Nocturno 2007 - Tomorrow