Death of a Lady

Arabella Spencer-Churchill died last Thursday of pancreatic cancer. Her passing was little noticed in the American press. She is portrayed as a granddaughter of Winston Churchill, who began life in the troubled household of Sir Winston's only son,Randolph. The reports say she rebelled against her class in the 1960s and lived out a life of eccentricity and hippie escapism in the west of England. This summation of Ms. Spencer-Churchill's life is not only incomplete, it leaves the impression that her life was a cautionary tale of rebellion and dishonor. Nothing could be further from truth. Her life exemplified many of the traits of courtly love and she deserves to be remembered as a Lady who honored her country and family.

Ms. Spencer-Churchill first gained attention in England as a debutante in 1967 but she gained notoriety for refusing to attend a 1971 NATO event in the US because of her opposition to the Vietnam war. Later, she wrote to the organizers:

My grandfather used the phrase 'The Iron Curtain,.' It seems to be that what is facing us all now is the final curtain. The defense systems of the great powers are mutually infectious.

Later, she moved to Glastonbury, reputedly the home of the Arthurian legend. She helped organize the famous rock festival that still continues today. The festival is somewhat comparable to the tournaments of medieval times. That she was steadfast in living her counter-culture lifestyle should not be a surprise from the granddaughter of the man who almost single-handedly saved Britain from fascist rule. I, for one, respect her for exemplifying honesty, grace and persistence. May she rest in peace.

Orange revolution rocks!

After seeing this photo of Yulia Tymoshenko (the lower photo), I'd support the Orange Revolution too.

(Source: BBC) Ukraine's parliament has narrowly voted in favour of making Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, prime minister for the second time.

Ms Tymoshenko was elected by 226 votes in a 450-seat parliament. The opposition boycotted the vote. She was backed by her Orange Revolution ally, President Viktor Yushchenko, who had sacked her during her earlier tenure as prime minister. Ukraine has been without a government since a general election in September.

Speaking before Tuesday's vote, Ms Tymoshenko insisted her alliance with Mr Yushchenko was firm. "You have two patriots in politics who will hold this flag up high and never drop it. "Today's vote is a moment of truth for the democratic coalition," she said.

Perhaps the Russians will someday realize that appearances DO matter. The KGB guy, Victor Yanukovych, is pictured above Ms. Tymoshenko. While Mr. Yanukovych is certainly less attractive than Ms. Tymoshenko, he appears to be indicating, in his photo, that the "throw weight of his missile launcher" is bigger than hers. The Schadenfreude Post is still attempting to substantiate that claim.

Intel and military services savage Bush's Iran plan

The National Intelligence Estimate analysis of Iran's alleged nuclear nuclear program has placed a huge wrench in the Administration's effort to take military action against the theocratic regime. Chris Hedges, a writer for truthdig.com, writes in the Philadelphia Enquirer that the NIE is push-back from the intelligence community and Pentagon for being hijacked by the Cheney-led pols who helped shape America's aggressive foreign policy in the wake of 9/11.

President Bush, seven years after assuming power, may finally be halted in his tracks - not by a resurgent Democratic opposition, sagging opinion polls, or an organized antiwar movement, but by the entrenched power structure in Washington he set out to emasculate. The tug-of-war between those within the administration who advocate as many as 1,000 air strikes on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities and those who oppose an attack will be the most dramatic battle of the final Bush years.

Director of Central Intelligence Gen. Michael V. Hayden and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have turned out to be formidable foes to the Bush agenda of preemptive war in the Middle East. Gates, along with Adm. William Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. George Casey, the Army's new chief of staff, are openly opposed to a war with Iran. And they will not, unlike their predecessors, permit the Bush White House to use cooked and fabricated intelligence to whip the country into war frenzy.

This development buttresses my argument that various political forces attempt to game the system when it comes to the manipulation of policy (by intimidating the civil servants who must implement policy) in a number of areas. Further, this NIE shows that a strong bureaucratic class in a country can be a decent leveler of potential extreme policy shifts. The story of America's success as a democracy can, at least partially, be explained in the negative; we are free to be protected from extremism. Thank goodness.

Bobby Fischer: "I was tortured in the Pasadena jailhouse!

"I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE!" This is the title line of a 1982 diatribe by former chess champion Bobby Fischer to rail against the police of my new hometown. Oh, what history. After his byline, he modestly described himself as "THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPION."

Bank Robbery...
About 2:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, May 26, 1981, as I was peacefully and lawfully walking towards Lake Street in Pasadena across from the Kaiser Permanente medical offices, a policeman in a car suddenly pulled up alongside the curb and said he wanted to talk to me because I fitted perfectly the description of a man who had just committed a bank robbery. I politely told him he had the wrong man and I hadn't committed any bank robbery, and that I didn't know anything about it whatsoever.
The policeman then proceeded to ask me a number of questions regarding my name, residence, age, etc. I answered all of these questions politely and truthfully. He then began to repeat the questions over and over again. I answered them over and over again. He asked for my identification and I showed it to him. He asked how long I'd lived in the area, and where I was from originally. I told him. He asked what I did for a living and I told him.
Suddenly a second police car pulled alongside and I was soon surrounded by at least three or four policemen. On at least three or more separate occasions I was asked where I lived, and I told them I didn't have the exact street address but since it was only a block or two away I would show them where it was. They showed no interest whatsoever in this reasonable suggestion. The policeman who had just arrived in the second car began to repeat the same questions that the policeman in the first car had asked. I told him I'd already answered those questions. I was asked for my driver's license and I told them I didn't drive.
The policemen became extremely hostile and threatening in their manner. They began to say among themselves, "He's probably wanted out of state." - "You think we should arrest him?" - "Yeah, I think so, let's take him down to headquarters," etc.

Once he was taken to the "jailhouse," Mr. Fischer describes being choked and harassed by Pasadena Police Officers. Incidently, Mr. Fischer was living in Pasadena during the early 1980s. I wonder if his residing in Pasadena actually caused him to lose his sanity and denounce Jews (he was Jewish) to follow the teachings of Herbert Armstrong, the leader of a British Israelism cult right here in little old Pasadena.

Ironically, Armstrong's organization, the Worldwide Church of God believed that Brits and their progeny are the lost tribes of Israel and are God's new favored people. Therefore, Fischer rejected his ethnicity to join an organization that excluded him as one of the chosen ones. The Schadenfreude Post can only speculate at the reasoning Mr. Fischer used to make his decision. However, TSP suspects that he was yet another casualty of the Cold War; a war in which countless individuals of both sides of the conflict were sacrificed for the greater good of their governments. Mr. Fischer was a great genius and a troubled man. Perhaps he was also a pawn in a game that transcended even his vast reach.

The Battle of Algiers: Lessons lost

I watched Gillo Pontecovo's classic 1966 film about the Algerian War of Independence today for a second time and was in awe of the aesthetic construct of the movie. Pontecovo's use of multiple characters in place of a single protagonist, cinéma vérité and obvious sympathy of the FLN resistance fighters made the original release very controversial but breathtaking.

More importantly, I see many of the elements of America's current problems in Iraq embodied in the film as well as Israel's overextension in the Occupied Territories. The film dramatizes the problems faced by a foreign elite who try to pacify a restive native population while implementing a two-tiered society and acting as a colonial power.

The film demonstrates the un-virtuous circle that begins with the mundane humiliations of the natives, who occasionally explode in anger at unjust rule. The colonials, in this case the pied-noirs, counter attack the resistance with ever more brutal tactics, which only strengthens the resistance. In the film, Colonal Mathieu, a paratrooper composite of several real French officers, asks the press whether France should be in Algeria. If the answer was yes, Mathieu exclaimed, than all the unpleasantness (e.g., torture, extra-judicial killings) was appropriate.

The same question should be asked of the American occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately, for both the United States and Israel, the general population and elites choose to obfuscate their reasons for being an occupying power. Pretending that such occupations are humanitarian or just is absurd. Call a spade a spade. Do you want to be in Iraq or the Occupied Territories? If the answer is yes... (See above). If the answer is no, then get the hell out.