Why I love the View

I think Barbara Walters is secretly a genius. Let's review.

Star Jones. 'nuff said.
Rosie's Trump feuds and loud radical lesbo-feminist crassness.
Barry Manilow hating Elisabeth Haselbeck (yup, he's definitely gay)
Whoopi Goldberg saying Michael Vick should be excused because black culture doesn't care about dogs.
And now, Barbara Walters has finished the latest version of the view cast.....Sherri Shepherd.

It inspires speechlessness.

And then she tries to make me feel bad for daring to think such airy thoughts as 'why does the sun rise in the east but set in the west' while she slaves away providing for her children? That's rich.

Freedom for the Burmese

I have been following with great interest and hope the ongoing events in Burma, and I still don't know what to make of it. Generally speaking, revolutions require a uniting of disparate lesser power sources with the common people. This generally involves something like radicals and moderates finding common cause (see French, Russian, or Iranian revolutions), or previously neutral parties joining in (Turkish or maybe Burmese with the monks?). There is an important distinction, however, from many overthrows of corrupt tottering regimes and superpower client states like the revolving door of Pakistani/Bangladeshi governments, the Afghanistan cold war saga, or even the Indonesian 1998 revolutions.



This is a totalitarian state. Burma isn't some carefully sown together balance of power between conflicting factions like ethnic groups (see Lebanon), sectarian parties (see Iraq), ancient political families (see Bangladesh/Indonesia), or any of the other traditional pedestrian power centers that must be carefully managed in many traditional governments. This is hard-core, orthodox totalitarianism. Kickin'-it Stalin style, if you will. Belarus and the old N Korea are close competitors for truly worst places on earth. In a vacuum, they would simply not exist, but would collapse under the weight of their own oppression. They only exist as client states of major powers-ironically more useful the more oppressive they are-because they are more annoying to the open democratic societies of the world.



In this kind of state, revolutions aren't quite simply a matter of aligning domestic power interests, but removing the external sources of power. Without Russia, Belarus would not exist the way it does today, without China, their would only be one Korea and no Myanmar-Burma. Pressure on China is the key, but where can this come from? Considering how important image is to China these days, maybe simply public pressure from its customers (us) can bring the pressure? Sign this petition.

Harmonious societies

China's current domestic social policy is oriented towards the construction of a 'harmonious society', very nice buzzwords of which even Karl Rove would likely approve ('surge' anyone?). Check out this delicious anecdote:

My neighbor Feng, a postal worker with a lazy eye and unerring sense of
humor, had consumed an inharmonious amount of baijiu, the official firebrew of
China. Late into the evening he stood up and announced: "The Beijing government
is always talking about building a harmonious society, but we already have a
harmonious society right here in this courtyard!" The assembled guests roared
their approval. A few minutes later Feng puked in the corner, and our
celebration of harmony was over for the night.

Slumping

This is one of my favorite pieces of architecture that I've seen in a while.

Feels to me like the silver parts of the building are slumping up against the brick, like an idle laborer smoking a cigarette, or someone waiting on the streetcorner to meet a friend. Nice. From a nice Slate slideshow.

Apple Evilness

So I was wondering what exactly was going on with Apple of late...what with the iPhone tanking, and then this weird pricing thing. Well...my favorite sports columnist (who isn't a sports columnist, but an academic who writes one for fun) has hit the nail on the head: the New Apple is becoming the Old Microsoft:

Last week, many owners of the iPhone, whose value is falling faster than
American housing -- "iPhones now on sale for 20 cents," a mall announcer said in
the background of the latest "Simpsons" episode -- were dismayed to realize that
downloading the latest software update from Apple permanently disabled their
phones. Apple planned it that way! It seems iPhone buyers had been using patches
and switch resetting to circumvent the electronic lock intended to prevent the
phone from working with any carrier other than AT&T. This people-oriented
approach seems like exactly what the Old Apple would have encouraged. But the
New Apple seems to want to become the Old Microsoft, so the company decided to
punish its own customers. When Apple offered a software update for the iPhone,
buried in the disclaimer was a warning that if you had unlocked your iPhone to
dial in a service other than AT&T, the software update would permanently
ruin the phone. No one would ever click "I Accept" if aware that clicking "I
Accept" would destroy his or her property! Apparently, Apple not only assumed
that no one ever actually reads corporate disclaimers but was hoping no one
would actually read the disclaimer.