Welcome to Daily Contentions... Born in February 2003, DC is a daily-updated weblog covering a wide variety of issues, contemporary and timeless-- always with a unique perspective and open attitude.
When communism fell in the former Soviet Union, many proclaimed the end of the Cold War. And why not? Democracy arose in Russia and other former Soviet republics, and America had become economically dominant.
But though communism suffered a defeat, it was not--and is not--dead.
No. It lives on. Reborn into different variants of pseudo-fascism in China, North Korea, Cuba, and yes Russia. I'd say that it has completely changed, but that's not true. Communism as implemented in actual political systems rarely even came close to resembling Marx's pie-in-the-sky political philosophy. This of course shows the flaw in Marx's theory: it cannot be implemented without resorting to some level of totalitarianism.
Don't believe me about the nature of China and Russia's governments? Well take a hard look at them and test the definition of fascism. Many of the elements are met. And we have more to learn about them. Will Putin relinquish power or will he stay on as some sort of overlord as many fear? Will China use military force or the threat of military force to take over Taiwan?
Let's face it: the Party of Lincoln has developed an image problem. Despite George W. Bush's rhetoric and philosophy of "compassionate conservatism" and the party's historical beginnings, the GOP is seen as supporting the rights and interests of the white majority and the Democratic party is seen as supporting blacks and other minority groups. I think this image is largely undeserved, but certain things unfortunately tend to reinforce it.
One of those is the party's stance on immigration. Many Republican pundits and conservatives in the grassroots take their hard line on immigration beyond arguments based on legality and social services and border on outright xenophobia. I cringe when I overhear somebody say something like "I can't stand it. Why do I have to listen to them speaking Spanish or whatever it is." This kindof attitude, if too widely adopted, will alienate Republicans among Hispanic voters in a hurry.
Another problem are pundits of hate such as Michael Savage. Check out this video of his rabid fans spewing hate at CSPAN (as bland and even-handed a network as they come):
Now that Apple has released Safari for Windows (version 3.0 beta), the browser war is legitimately a 3-way race between it, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. Having used all three browsers, but only on a limited basis with IE7, I can say the race is close and that the competition is making all of the browsers better.
Before IE 7 came out, IE was clearly bringing up the rear. It did not support many web standards, was not all that quick, and had a bloated interface lacking in key features such as tabs.
Firefox has been excellent since it first came out and has only gotten better. It sports great support for web standards, works pretty much identically on both PC's and Macs, and is extremely extensible. I adopted it over Safari soon after it was released and key features such as movable tabs and the ability to preserve the browser's state to easily recall multiple open webpages kept me with it.
With Safari 3, I have gone back to Apple's side, at least initially to test it compared to Firefox. It now has both movable tabs and the recall ability, so those roadblocks are out of the way. Also, it seems to be faster--both interface and page loading--than FF. I hear that this is the case on Windoze as well, with Safari outpacing FF and IE also.
Safari has other advantages as well. These include support for higher color graphics and photos and resizable text entry boxes. This is a nice feature to use with Blogger and with GMail. Safari's big disadvantage compared to FF is its relative lack of extensibility.
So far Safari is getting both positive and negative reviews by Windows testers. Many question why Apple has even ported its browsers to the dark side platform. The answer, I think, is to leverage with the iPhone, which has Safari on it.
Blockbuster has chosen Blu-ray over HD-DVD as the disc of choice for its stores. It says that Blue-ray was outselling HD-DVD by about 7 to 3. No doubt about it, this is a major victory for Blu-ray, but it won't decide the war. Both Blockbuster and Netflix will still sell both formats in their online rental services. But I'll say it again, by the time this format war winds down, it may be moot. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and others are entering the downloadable movie sector in force.
I first learned that Paul McCartney had a new album coming out when I saw him featured in an iTunes commercial playing the album's first single, "Dance Tonight." I then read Josh's post on ITA speaking highly of the album and decided to purchase it for myself.
The album, I have to admit, is pretty impressive. Like most of McCartney's post-Beatles work, its general tone is fun-loving and care-free. It's also damn catchy--I found myself humming a couple of its tunes later in the day after I listened to the album completely in the morning. "Dance Tonight," with the sole string instrument being the mandolin, exemplifies this tone more than any other. It'll put a smile on your face no matter your current mood.
Personally, I've also enjoyed Paul's sadder songs more than his happy ones. Think: "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" with the Beatles. On this album "You Tell Me" and "House of Wax" really stand out in this regard, with the latter having a sound that is almost haunting.
The best song on the album, in my opinion, is "Mr. Bellamy." The song is the most eclectic on the album, slightly reminiscent of a late Beatles tune, but also undeniably modern.
The second-to-last track "The End of the End" seems a fitting end to the album, contrasting a cheerful tone with somber lyrics, but as is typical of McCartney, he throws a song in at the very end of the album that contrasts and seems apart from the rest of the album. In past albums, he used this song to go extremely soft, but in this album he goes as hard--harder than any other McCartney song I've heard in fact. Hopefully this is a sign that this album is not actually the end of the end for McCartney.
Okay, so I'm done with any pleasure reading until after July 24 and the Indiana Bar Exam. Here are my super-duper brief impressions of the last 2 books I've read.
Slaughterhouse V, by Kurt Vonnegut
I actually was underwhelmed by Vonnegut's most-prominent work. Initially, after the first couple chapters, I was impressed by his style. It was quick, care-free, clever, and self-aware. In telling the story, Vonnegut explained why and how he came to be telling the story! However, by the end of the novel, I was exhausted. The plot never came together in a coherent or meaningful way. Rather, I felt subjected to little more than insane rumblings. If the story had any moral at all, it certainly confounded me.
Even worse, Vonnegut simply got his facts wrong regarding the firebombing of Dresden. He refers to casualty numbers two to three times higher than the highest historically accepted figures.
American General, by Gen. Tommy Franks
Whereas Vonnegut disappointed me, I was pleasantly surprised by American General. Retired 4-star General Tommy Franks takes the reader from his days as a kid growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, through his enlistment in the Army and tour of duty in Vietnam, all the way to his command of the U.S. forces in the recent Iraq war.
Unsurprisingly, the General's writing was clear and extremely organized. But Franks did a great job showing how he remembered morals and lessons learned from earlier in life and applied those lessons to his present challenges. He also lets the events and facts do the talking, not opining on the Iraq war until the book's last chapter.
Finally, Franks does a good job interspersing bits of warmth and humor into a book which rightfully focuses on the tactics and strategy of war. Franks' love for his wife Cathy and for the troopers under his command comes through loud and clear.
With the Indiana Bar Exam coming up in a little over a month, I found this math guru's post on tough exams to be pertinent, although not particularly confidence-inspiring. But his argument is pretty solid, I think. His thesis is this: the more difficult an exam is designed to be, the less accurate the test is in reporting the examinees' knowledge. In short, he says this is the case because harder tests require more guessing, and that this guessing distorts the results of the exam. More guessing = less recording of actual knowledge.
Alumni (and students) making power grab in America's universities
By Luke
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting and short editorial on a power shift under way in many of America's universities. Make no mistake, this shift is small and not necessarily all that broad. Nevertheless it is significant. Alumni, and students to a lesser degree--collectively referred to as "stakeholders" of a school--are taking a stronger hand in influencing the governance of their institution. Dartmouth is the most prominent example, but the editorial mentions others too. I'm inclined, but not certain, to think this development a good thing. Perhaps more interesting is that the WSJ thinks these schools opened the door to this shift:
Does it seem uncouth that students and alumni are pouring their criticisms into press releases? It shouldn't. Colleges and universities have largely brought this stakeholder activism on themselves--when they decided to become instruments of fashionable politics instead of repositories of knowledge.
Time for a little brazen cross-promotion... But let point out that Kelly Green is up on a new address (http://www.ndkgreen.com) and with a brand new design. Check it out.
Sometimes I find it helpful to establish a dialectic with conflicting perspectives on a common question. This logical process certainly may be applied to U.S. strategy in the Middle East and in the wider effort against terrorism. The fundamental strategies available to the U.S. seem to be three-fold:
1. Do nothing other than bolstering domestic police and security measures. 2. In addition to domestic measures, use precision weapons and special forces troops to target known or suspected terrorist installations. 3. In addition to the measures in #1 and #2, use significant military force to effect regime changes and political reform in the Middle East.
Before 9/11 our national policy seemed to waiver between strategies 1 and 2. After 9/11, President Bush obviously moved the policy to the third strategy. Thus the fundamental question underlying the dialectic is whether this new strategy will ultimately benefit or harm our nation's security. I now briefly present 2 conflicting views:
The "conventional" view
By changing regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as pushing political reform in Palestine and Lebanon, the U.S. has created power vacuums and has increased the influence and activities of Islamic militant groups. Civil wars and civil conflicts in several nations in the Middle East will increase animosity towards the United States and militant groups will be able to recruit numerous more terrorists to attack us. Thus our national security is and will be harmed.
The "contrarian" view
Prior to U.S. intervention in the Middle East, terrorists enjoyed safe haven in Afghanistan and fascist Baathists enjoyed power in Iraq, where they could focus their energies against U.S. interests abroad and at home. Even though we have opened the door to civil wars and civil strife in the Middle East, this has had the effect of starting the war for the heart of Islam. Moderates are battling extremists in Palestine (Fatah versus Hamas and even Hamas versus Hamas), in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. With global support, the moderates will win this war, leading to a long-term reduction in terrorism. Thus the U.S.'s national security is bolstered.
In this post, Andrew Sullivan made fun of the MySpace page of Tagg Romney, one of Mitt's sons. I followed the link to Tagg's MySpace and then followed the link to his brother Craig Romney's page... And what did I notice? The song which comes up on his page is "Burning" by the group The Whitest Boy Alive.
For those of you who subscribe to my blog via RSS (the number is actually a lot higher than I expected, which is good), I realized that my RSS was not up-to-date following the server change. I have now corrected the error, and the subscription should remain current.
Apple, Inc. has got 4 new iPhone commercials out. I think they are pretty effective. Check the one I embedded here, and then check back during the week for some pretty funny iPhone parody skits I've found...
I really really really tried to stay away from the whole tabloid-ish Paris Hilton jail story, but then I came across this photo and just could not help myself:
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Screaming and crying, Paris Hilton was escorted out of a courtroom and back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that she must serve out her entire 45-day sentence behind bars rather than in her Hollywood Hills home.
"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Hilton, who violated her parole in a reckless driving case. "Mom!" she called out to her mother in the audience.
Wow. Without spoiled, immature celebrities who are completely out of touch with reality, life sure would be a lot less entertaining.
But I can only laugh so much, because deep down this kindof thing is quite sad.
Yes, the company who brought us the Walkman, the Discman, and the Playstation, might be in trouble. Early reports have Nintendo's Wii outselling the Playstation 3 in the U.S., and the concrete numbers from Japan have the Wii outselling it fivefold.
You might be skeptical and think that a company of Sony's size could not possibly be this weak. But look at it this way: if Sony loses this chapter of the gaming market to Nintendo and Microsoft, that will be a massive revenue stream hit against them. They are already hurting in their traditional markets, especially flatscreen TVs where the competition is diverse and intense right now.
Sony's PC business has never been that large for it. So that only leaves its media business. On that front, its pushing the next-gen Blu-ray DVD format. But here it is locked into a format war with HD-DVD, in a battle that may be made moot sooner rather than later by downloadable video services such as iTunes and Amazon.
Sony's problem is that it looks more like a dinosaur than an industry leader these days.
Sometimes The Onion just can't compete with reality
By Luke
Rapid City, SD alderman, Tom Johnson was pulled over one early morning this week. He was in the shotgun seat. In the driver's seat?? An 18-year old guy dressed as a woman...who was drunk. Johnson, who unsuccessfully ran for the city's major earlier this year called the guy "she" and didn't know it was actually a man. Suuure.
Say you go to Google Maps and ask it to give you driving directions from Indianapolis to London. It's easy, says Google. Just take the yada-yada toll road, turn onto exit blah blah blah, swim across the Atlantic, then...ummm... Yeah, check out step number 18 in the directions:
I've long touted Sean's ND football blog, Kelly Green, as one of the best going. Well, myself and a few others are joining KG as writers, and the site has some feature upgrades planned. So now's a better time than ever to bookmark KG to meet your ND football cravings.
Therefore, I'll be doing my ND writing on KG from now on. I'll post links or reproduce those posts here from time to time.
Another site to bookmark is Robot Charlie, a site I've mentioned before that focuses on ND football as well as ND in general. It's run by a few current Domers, so its got a great perspective.
Okay, the transition to the new server is complete and was seamless. I'm using NearlyFreeSpeech.Net (gotta love the pun) to host the page. It seems very friendly and its pricing is flexible and very reasonable. Plus, unlike IU, it will allow my site to be indexed by Google, which should increase traffic a bit.
If you have any bookmarks or links to DC using the old mypage.iu.edu address, make sure and switch it to www.dailycontentions.com, which will always work.
Due to the massive outpouring of concern and support evidenced by the comments under the preceding post ;-) I have decided to keep DC up and going.
Well okay, the post didn't get any comments, but I have been urged to keep it up, and I'd like to reinvigorate it. I found a good webhosting service to replace the crappy IU web server, and I'll be transitioning it to that very soon. Should be seemless. More to come.
There comes a time for many blogs where the author contemplates the future of the site. This is such a time for Daily Contentions. My blogging output has not be stellar over the last year and to be honest, my passion for the site has waned a bit.
The reasons for this are multiple. First, law school has sapped much of my time and energy. Second, I have observed a negative impact of hyper-saturation of media in this country. At some point, words upon words upon words obscure the Truth rather than clarifying it. Third, I lacked focus in writing for DC. I liked to write about so many topics, that no one topic got the attention and quality it deserved. And finally, fourth, the blog's readership steadily declined, even as I did keep up the number of posts. Many of my friends stopped reading it for various reasons, and I lacked the time to market it. It's hard to be motivated to post, when your blog only gets a little over 200 hits a week.
I'm not saying that I'm killing DC off, but rather that I'm just contemplating my next move for it. I either will make changes to it and rededicate myself to it, or I will stop doing it altogether. Of course, ideas and suggestions are welcome.
