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Author: Bryant

The Russian judge

May 24, 2003
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I finally got around to breaking down the IOC members by coalition/non-coalition. Of the main Committee, 79 members come from non-coalition countries, not counting Mohamad Hasan from Indonesia, because he’s been suspended. Hm, make that 74 — there are five Swiss members and we’ll count them as neutral. 45 come from coalition countries, counting Taiwan as a coalition country even though the US didn’t list ‘em as part of the coalition. I kind of suspect that had more to do with mainland China than anything else.

The President of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, is from Belgium — non-coalition. Of the four Vice Presidents, two are from coalition countries and two are not. The other ten members of the Executive Board are mostly non-coalition: 6 non-coalition, 3 coalition, and 1 Swiss.

Conclusion: in the unlikely event that all the members agree with the politics of their countries, and assuming people still care a lot about this when the final selection is made, New York, London, and Madrid are not gonna be getting the Olympics. Paris is the probable victor, since Moscow is rather a troubled city. (This doesn’t take into account any additional negative effect from the USOC corruption issue.)

This kind of sucks as a possibility. New York could really use the estimated $11.3 billion, after all.

Bruce and Jessica

May 23, 2003
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Bruce R. is just destroying the initial responses to the Jessica Lynch story over on Flit. It’s the kind of impressively completist work that makes blogs look good. Start at the top and work down. Best quote so far, from Rumsfeld:

“We are certainly grateful for the brilliant and courageous rescue of Sergeant, correction PFC Jessica Lynch who was being held by Iraqi forces in, in what they called a ‘hospital.’”

Odd that they’d call it that, considering that’s what it was. Again: when conservatives say “You’re only against this because Bush/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft is doing it,” the appropriate response is often “Exactly.” The trust level is not exactly high here.

Bruce also demolishes various anti-Bush claims about the Lynch rescue, most notably the claim that the entire thing was staged and that the soldiers carried blanks.

Walking man

May 23, 2003
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I now own two walking sticks. They have sharp metal spikes at the bottom, and nice curved handles. One of them — the one my great-grandfather used as he hiked across Germany — has “Interlochen” carved into the shaft. I don’t know if he did that, during sunsets and sunrises, or if it came that way when he purchased it.

Both of them, both my great-grandfather’s walking stick and my grandmother’s walking stick, have little metal badges attached to the shaft every inch or so. He apparently hiked more places than my grandmother, because he has more badges. Each badge is a new town, or a new sight on the horizon. If I took the time, which I will, I could trace their paths from the top of the stick to the bottom through the mountains of Europe.

As my parents age, I receive more and more of such memorabilia — the diaper pins, Jarvis Wood’s yearly Special Delivery, and so on. I have a lot of objects in my life, but I’ve had very few that I felt protective of until now. Now I own objects that I couldn’t just let go of if need be. Not a bad feeling. But different.

The round table

May 22, 2003
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The UN Security Council will approve a resolution lifting sanctions on Iraq today. This resolution is the result of a fair bit of negotiation and back and forth; it’s not the resolution the US wanted, and it’s not the resolution France, Germany, and Russia want. But everyone’s fairly happy with it. Lo, the art of compromise.

It gives the UN more of a voice in the post-war reconstruction, and extends the food for oil program for six months. Probably most importantly, from a practical standpoint, it doesn’t give Iraq permanent immunity from claims by creditors, which means that Russia and France have some leverage to encourage Iraq to enforce the pre-war contracts.

In other diplomatic news, NATO will be helping Poland run part of Iraq. The agreement was unanimous; a lot of symbolism there. I’m glad Poland was able to bridge the gap between the coalition and the Franco/German group.

Read his lips

May 22, 2003
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Then:

“I don?t think there is any role for the U.N. in the short term in searching for, or identifying, or securing weapons of mass destruction, but we do not necessarily rule out some kind of U.N. role down the road.” That’d be U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton.

Today, things are different:

“The United States has started discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency to make arrangements for IAEA teams to return to Iraq to determine what may have been stolen from nuclear sites, a State Department official said yesterday.”

I note this not so much because I don’t think it’s OK to change your mind. I do that all the time. It’s more because I keep seeing people talking about how this Presidency is a straight-shooting Presidency that means what it says. Also because when I point out that a political stance is untenable, and then that political stance changes, I like to crow about how I’m right.

Warning signs

May 22, 2003
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Explosion at Yale. It was in a mail room at the law school; Bush was in Connecticut today to speak at the US Coast Guard Academy graduation, but that’s a fair ways away.

This has been your alarmist news post of the day. I’m just edgy because the DPS says Boston’s a target over the weekend.

The envelope, please

May 21, 2003
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The 2012 Olympics has turned into quite the little microcosm of the political split over the war on Iraq. Paris just tossed its hat into the ring. The other cities bidding are New York, London, Leipzig, Madrid, and Moscow. The choice isn’t made until July of 2005, so plenty can change between now and then, but it’s still a significant group of cities.

Oh, OK. Cuba is bidding too.

I can’t see New York winning, not so much because of the political issues but because of the corruption scandals wracking the USOC. Leipzig is really too small. Cuba isn’t seriously likely. The other four… well, the IOC always says there’s no political aspect to the selection, but I still think it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Wrongthink

May 21, 2003
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You know, it might be dangerous to let kids play violent videogames. In this case, Washington State just made it illegal to sell videogames to teenagers if they contain violence against police. Good work, y’all! Now let’s take care of those icky books that tell stories in which there’s violence against policemen. Nasty things.

Spring in New England

May 20, 2003
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It really is different out here. Not unique, I’m sure, but different.

I didn’t realize until recently how much I’d missed being a sports fan in New England. Recently? Until I settled down in Fenway Park the other day and watched Wakefield handcuff the Royals. Yeah, I think that was just about exactly the time.

The thing was, the day after the game I could talk about it with just about any native New Englander at work. The Canadians, not so much, but the people who grew up here knew what had happened and who had won and why. I can strike up a conversation about why Vin Baker is the worst thing that ever happened to the Celtics with my insurance agent. We know this crap. We, as a region, care about it.

And it’s not about success. We’re not LA. We love our crappy teams more than we love our successes. Joe Thornton gets a free ride when he gets arrested because he plays well for a really bad team. The failure of the Red Sox is mythology, and for over eight decades we have come back ready to believe once again. The Patriots, on the other hand, made the error of winning a Super Bowl. That’s a recipe for controversy.

I think we just love stories about ordinary people working hard. You win the hearts of Boston fans by being ordinary. Bird, Nomah, Williams, Borque. We didn’t love the aloof Russell, although we should have. See how it goes?

Now it’s spring. The Bruins and Celtics just made their exits from the playoffs, while the Red Sox are playing strongly enough so that we can lie to ourselves a little while longer. In a few months, our hearts will be broken on the baseball diamond and we’ll be scarred from a summer of bad personnel changes on the hardwood. Fall is the brutal months of football, when almost every game is critical. Then it’ll be spring again.

Gotta love Boston.

Pair by pair

May 19, 2003
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I had a nice time this weekend ingesting the first season of Coupling, which is a pleasant little BBC comedy. Think Friends, but with more sex and cleverer writing, sort of like Sports Night but without Jeremy. (Hey, that metaphor crashed and burned. Don’t point, it’s rude.)

Alas, in England “season” means “six episodes.” Still enjoyable, and it gives me a proper base from which to mock the NBC remake. Man, that’s gonna suck.

Anyhow, it’s not terribly deep but it’s fairly witty and it’s got Jack Davenport who was so good in Ultraviolet. As the viewpoint protagonist, he’s got a fairly tough job being the straight man, and he does a good job centering the show.