Molly Ivins, R.I.P.

Molly Ivins was one the great columnists of our time. Read about her life here. There's no lefty like a Texas lefty, as she and Jim Hightower proved for years.

Right-wing lies

Prof. Robert Turner of the University of Virginia suggested that Congress had made itself responsible for the deaths of the 1.7 million Cambodians estimated to have been slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge, by denying funds for President Nixon to wage war inside Cambodia. Similarly, he said Congress bore responsibility for the deaths of 241 marines killed by a suicide bomber in Lebanon in 1983 because it raised the question of forcing a withdrawal there.

From an article in today's edition of The New York Times

I suppose that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger bear no responsibility for the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge? Secretly bombing Cambodia had nothing to do with this?

War memorials

There was a thoughtful column in The Guardian yesterday about war memorials. It is a sobering assessment of contemporary memorials to tragedies. As the author says:

The rage for memorials betrays a truth about our culture: deep down, we were eager for the depth and gravitas of great events. And we got them.

Is it St. Crispin's day?

The Guardian reported today that in 1956 the prime minister of France visited London to discuss the possibility of France and Britain uniting as a single country with the British Queen as head of state. Let that sink in for a moment...

This is the strangest news story on European politics that I have read in quite some time. Had Anthony Eden been more amenable to the idea, the entire history of European unity would have been quite different. Instead of Britain trying to gain entry to the Common Market in the 1960s, perhaps it would have been Germany and Italy trying to gain entry to the Anglo-French Empire.

This recently declassified information should give the writers of "alternative history" some interesting material to work with.

Mr. Beckham comes to America

My favorite item in the saturation coverage of David Beckham's impending move to Los Angeles has been this quote from him on the BBC web site (especially the text in bold):

I was on the phone to him (Tom Cruise) for about an hour last night and an hour the night before. Obviously I asked him for his advice because he is a very wise man and a very good friend of mine.

Becks may be a great footballer, but he is as dumb as paint.

We have not declared war on anyone for the past 65 years

Syndicated columnist Richard Reeves has written another excellent screed about our country's leaders and the willing dupes in the U.S. who keep electing these criminals. As he says:

We're pathetic, letting presidents lie us into war again and again and again.

Read the rest of the column here.

Mobile telephones are a pox on civilization.

Exercises in panic

There's an incisive essay by Slavoj Žižek in today's New York Times. One excellent point he makes is this:

The violent outbursts of the recent Bush politics are thus not exercises in power, but rather exercises in panic.

Recall the old story about the factory worker suspected of stealing: every evening, when he was leaving work, the wheelbarrow he rolled in front of him was carefully inspected, but the guards could not find anything, it was always empty. Finally, they got the point: what the worker was stealing were the wheelbarrows themselves.

This is the trick being attempted by those who claim today, “But the world is nonetheless better off without Saddam!” They forget to factor into the account the effects of the very military intervention against him. Yes, the world is better without Saddam Hussein —but is it better if we include into the overall picture the ideological and political effects of this very occupation?