Hiatus

Hi all.

Suffering an intense bout of grading.  Will return soon.

J

Agreeing with Idiots

If you ask me whether I think the United States should bomb Syria in sympathetic retaliation for the Assad regime's alleged gassing of its own civilians (not that the gassing is alleged--just that we can't be 100% sure that the Syrian government was behind it), I would have to say, "No."  Sure the world would probably be a much better place without Bashar al-Assad in it, but I can't see that the U.S. has a legitimate stake in this conflict: Assad directly attacked neither the United States nor any of its allies--he seems, frankly, too smart to do any such thing.  And unless and until the entire international community decides to take action, I see no reason for America to take upon itself yet another Middle Eastern firefight.

That being said, I was troubled by an article in today's Times that described the attitudes of the residents of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, the overwhelmingly majority of whom share my distaste for military action.  Some people, of course, rightly point out that the conflict in Syria is properly understood as a civil war, and the U.S. has no pressing national security interest in its outcome--or at least no clear understanding of what a desirable outcome would be from a domestic security standpoint.  Others, though, expressed opinions like this:

“[Obama's] having trouble keeping his popularity up; this war on guns has made him unpopular. And this is his way of getting back up.”  (Jennifer Taylor, bartender)

Um. . . Well, except that his liberal supporters LIKE his "war on guns" (such as it is), and they DON'T like the thought of bombing Syria--and even most conservatives (at least of the Tea Party stripe) have never cottoned to the idea of international entanglements.  So who is Obama appealing to with this.  No, you see--

"[Taylor's] customer, Mr. Tripp, suggested that the use of chemical weapons was actually a plot by Al Qaeda to lure the United States into toppling the Syrian government, and that Mr. Obama was falling for it. Terrorists will rush into the vacuum once Mr. Assad is gone, he warned."

Well, I mean, OK, Al Qaeda is certainly not above such devious tactics.  It does seem a rather roundabout way of accomplishing its objectives.  Besides, if Al Qaeda got its hands on sarin gas warheads, I would suspect they'd be more likely to launch them at Israel or Washington.  Still, interesting points.  Now, if we could just focus on--

"'It’s going to be a "Red Dawn" situation,' Ms. [Malinda] Dulaney said, referring to a film about a Russian takeover of the United States. 'You see that movie? They’re going to come over here, on boats, on planes, and take over. Who’s going to defend us? We’re sending them all overseas.'"

Riiiight.  Because when we launch missiles at Syria, we'll be so distracted. . .watching the missiles. . . that a group of. . . uh. . . .Islamic militiamen will be able to sneak over and storm the . . . beaches? . . .of Washington, DC?  And. . . And I guess this time around, we won't even have Patrick Swayze to protect us. . . .

Guys, I'm seriously trying to be on your side.  You're not making it easy.

Wolverines!

A Couple of Random "Breaking Bad" Thoughts for Your Thursday

I was using my hat--a black porkpie--to illustrate the concept of a noun phrase in class.  One student asked what kind of a hat it was, and another student answered, "That's a Heisenberg hat, Man."  That second student has officially passed the class.

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Flipping through channels the other day, I stumbled upon the original "Saw"--the one where Cary Elwes spends the whole movie chained to a steampipe in a dungeon before finally deciding that his only chance for survival is to hacksaw through his own leg to free himself.  It occurred to me that if Walter White were in Elwes' place, the movie would be over in five minutes, as Walter would not only have figured out a way to free himself, but he would also have managed (semi-inadvertently) to kill Jigsaw in the most gruesome manner possible and then gone on to a lucrative career designing custom-made torture-traps of his own.  In other words, it would have been a vast improvement.

Great Moments in Not Listening

Students have an excuse: They're students!  So I don't get overly worked up when, for example, a student, trying to turn in a draft of an essay electronically, keeps sending me a link to Google Docs, even though I keep writing back to him explaining that I am unable to open the link properly.  I at least give him points for effort--and deduct points for an apparent lack of reading comprehension skills, but those will come, Gol' durn it!  Teachers, on the other hand, should be held to a higher standard.

This morning, a teacher was using the computer lab where I work.  This lab is extremely busy, especially in the early days of a semester: We are continually providing orientation sessions to new students, one class after another, hour after hour after hour. . . and Yours Truly has to provide many of these orientations.  Which perhaps explains my current level of general intolerance--I felt the urge to throw a rock at the flashing traffic sign that was admonishing me for going all of 32 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone.  I mean, come ON, Department of Transportation, don't you know that speed limits kill more people than they save?!?

Where was I?

Oh, yes, so this teacher was using the lab.  I had to go off to teach.  I knew, however, that immediately after my class, I had to rush back to the lab to do one of these orientations, so, before I left, I asked the teacher--who had just thanked me profusely for helping her gain access to the lab on short notice, by the way--to make sure she just left all the computers ON when she was done. . . .

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, this is an educated person.  And she had one job!

Maybe next time I'll ask my student to send this teacher instructions.  Before she figures out how to open Google Docs, I'll be back and can prevent her from turning off the computers.

In Case You Missed It: A Brief Post

From the "Could be worse.  Could be a melting car" file: A glass-covered building under construction in London is shaped in such a way that, for about two hours each summer day, the building becomes a giant concave mirror and focuses the sun's rays intensely enough to fry eggs, burn carpets, and, yes, melt cars across the street.  If only the Brits had had this technology during the London Blitz!  Just lure a few Messerchmitts into the path of ol "Walkie Scorchie," and the war would've been over in a few blissful summer days.

Laborious Day

I've been recruited--perhaps "dragooned" is a better word--to edit a massive report for my college.  I suppose I should feel honored: This must mean that the administration has a certain faith in my writerly skills.  At the same time, though, it could just mean I was the most easily cajoled.  Anyway, I spent most of today tapping through the first draft--some 220 pages--trying to massage the prose of various authors into a coherent "voice."  Not fun.  Even less fun is the fact that the report is written in response to a set of questions--questions which essentially necessitate the same responses over and over and over again.  For over 200 pages!

So you get the idea of what my Labor Day day off was like.  I'm off to bed now.

Punting

Overall, you've got to figure that President Obama made the right choice: deferring any military action against Syria unless and until he receives congressional approval.  Of course, people will howl that he has damaged America's credibility by refusing to order the immediate cratering of Bashar al-Assad's presidential palace or something equally punitive in retaliation for the Syrian military's apparent gas attack on helpless civilians.  Then again, these would probably be many of the same people who would have howled that Emperor Obama was disdaining the Constitution had he gone ahead with a military strike without seeking Congress' blessing.  So we all might be wise to ignore most of the howling.

Personally, I'm torn about the whole situation.  If Assad actually ordered a poison-gas attack that killed scores of civilians, including numerous children, then he certainly deserves a special place in Hell.  I can't help but wonder, though, why it always seems to fall to the United States to administer such punishments.  True, the US possesses the world's strongest military, and this country has, at least in its rhetoric, always expressed a commitment to universal rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  But there are other countries with powerful militaries (at any rate, militaries that are more than capable of dealing damage to a regime like Syria's), and plenty of other nations that have expressed equal or greater outrage at the sight of dead Syrian children.  Why is everyone sitting around waiting for America to act?

This sort of situation, of course, is exactly what the United Nations was created for.  That organization, though, is hamstrung by the fact that Russia continues to support the Syrian government and also holds veto power over any proposed interventions.  So if Assad is to be punished, it will have to fall to other countries.

At any rate, Obama made the right move.  If Congress authorizes force, the President can order military strikes without, at least, worrying about domestic charges of unconstitutional overreach.  If Congress denies him such authorization, then the United States can at least for the moment avoid yet another military entanglement in the Middle East.

And maybe in the long run a slight loss of American credibility might not be such a bad thing: If the rest of the world--especially other liberal democracies with a strong commitment to human rights--realizes that America won't always take matters into its own hands, then maybe there can be a greater sharing of humanity's burdens.