Rugby in DC

A high school in DC.

Congolese Army

Congolese Army's 18th Integrated Commando Brigade.

"Why I Blog"

Andrew Sullivan's essay "Why I Blog" makes the blog circuit.

A response by a blogger that Andrew then responds to on his own blog and which I now post.

I think blogging is not only calling into question some fundamental questions of norms and knowledge but also of time. Can a blog live forever in a way that traditional publishing techniques do not? Two reasons they might--ease of access and ease of updatability (is that word?).

Best of Craigslist

I greatly appreciate Best of Craigslist...

You were being shoved into a Dallas Police car. - m4w

We live together

Al-Jazeera Reports on a Sarah Palin Rally

Al-Jazeera reports from a Sarah Palin rally in Ohio.

I offer this not because of the content of the report, but because I think it's useful to get a different media view of the United States. I would not argue that Al-Jazeera is any more objective than our mainstream news outlets, but I do think they carry a different kind of subjectivity. The argument being, if there is no such thing as true objectivity, then looking at something from multiple types of subjectivity might be the most informative approach (which is not the same as looking at something from the perspective of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News).

Officer Training, Virtual Style

The Army wants a video game that can train officers what to expect in State Department committee meetings. Wow. Fascinating. It'll fly off the shelf. Actually, I think they already invented a video game to replicate upper-level bureaucracy...

It's called Pong.



[H/t to Andrew Sullivan]

Bandit Tourism

In western India.

"Learned Helplessness" as a form of torture?

Scott Horton via Andrew Sullivan:

[Jane Mayer] traces the development of the torture techniques to the work of two contractors, Mitchell and Jessen, and disclosed the specific techniques they developed. She notes that the techniques rely heavily on a theory called "Learned Helplessness" developed by a Penn psychologist Martin Seligman, who assisted them in the process. All of this was done under the thin pretext of being a part of the SERE program. Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association. This helps explain why the APA alone among professional healthcare provider organizations failed to unequivocally condemn torture and mandate that its members not associate themselves with the Bush Administration techniques.

Chess-Boxing

Awesome.

Iraqis' "learned helplessness"

This is why many US military personnel get so frustrated working with Iraqis. Military personnel tend to have a particular state of mind that is truly "mind over matter" in that a person can do anything he or she wants to do. You will almost never hear "I don't think I can do that" or "I can't do that" from a military person, even though this can lead to many problems from failed strategies to the unwillingness to get help for PTSD.

"Learned helplessness" is a psychological condition that nearly many Iraqis experienced from living under 40-some-odd years of Saddam Hussein that few American military person working with Iraqis could really understand. I experienced it in Iraq and I understood what was going on, but I didn't have a name for it. As Iraq changes and as individual Iraqis experience how they are not helpless, this societal condition is beginning to change. American military personnel can get frustrated with this because they live by the phrase "just do it" which is based on the fundamental belief that the individual is fully capable of altering his or her existence, which is the complete antithesis of learned helplessness.

I recommend watching this set of interviews from BBC with five Iraqis who are talking about current conditions in Iraq. I picked up the "learned helplessness" diagnosis from the interview with psychiatrist Dr. Ali Mohammed, the first interview.

Are Blitzer and O'Reilly out of a job?

Probably not yet. But according to this article that is/was on Yahoo! news, more Americans are using the internet to research political candidates (and probably looking at blogs, too!).

I think it's great. The thing that always bugs me about political pundits is that they continually report that "people want to hear about the issues," but then go back to talking about everything else except the candidates stances on the issues. However, I will grant that the CNN Election Center has an excellent (summarized) break down of the candidates stances on numerous issues including abortion, Cuba, taxes, stem-cell research, guns, housing, and health care.

Getting to work--should you get paid for it?

I started a job a couple of weeks ago, one of those where you get there in the morning and leave in the early evening. Having been in the academic world for the past few years and in the military before that, I've had a very skewed experience of the "work routine" that most people experience.

As I was riding the Metro last week, though, I thought to myself, "should be people be compensated for the time that they spend going to and from work?" It's not as if you'd be riding the Metro at 7 or 8 am in the morning if you didn't have the job. I could see an argument that you shouldn't get compensated for the time you spend eating breakfast because you'd probably eat breakfast, anyway. The traditionalists will argue, "you should be happy to have that job, and getting there is just part of it!!!" I won't try to start this whole argument, which calls into question many political, economic, and philosophical issues of the way we understand "work" in this country.

My basic question is--why aren't you compensated for this part of the job which is the part you spend getting to and from your place of work? Let's say you had to go to a meeting at 11am at another office or firm after you have officially arrived at work. If it takes you twenty minutes to get to the meeting, do you then subtract that from your total amount of time worked that week? Why not, and why is it different from the time you spend getting to work?

I read an article that I will try and find to post, but it was saying how Americans are more stressed and have more physical problems than Europeans. Obviously there are a number of contributing factors, but having had just a bit of experience with the European system of "work," I would think this is at least part of it.

Elian Gonzalez

I always wondered what happened to this kid.

"I'm Still a Guy"

Brad Paisley performed a song with this name at the Country Music Awards last month. Along with Hank Williams Jr., they sang about not getting manicures, punching people, and going fishing. Granted, I have no problem with this. All three sound fun.

I've always liked country music. It's sappy. It's over the top. It sings about love and relationships in ways that are extremely idealistic. Though untested, I think that people who grew up listening to grunge and rock probably had a more realistic view on relationships, because at least in that music "sometimes, relationships suck." Country music is all about perfect relationships and anyone who heard the news about Sara Evans last year during Dancing With the Stars knows that country singers are like most people and often have far from perfect relationships. Regardless, country music is about "ideal states"--relationships, America, "being a guy." Max Weber would probably have liked country music.

Anyway, the thing I noted when I was watching Brad singing was that he was wearing a pair of designer jeans that probably cost at least a couple hundred bucks, a shirt of the same cut, and some faux-dog tag with a shiny black center on a silver chain. I guess it's in case he gets shot, the medics will know that his blood type is "lookin' good!"

John McCain

It's difficult to come to terms with the idea that people are good and bad. I remember as a kid having this idea that people were all good or all bad and that such an expectation of others as well as myself was totally realistic. But, life isn't really like that. When it comes down to it, it's a matter of being able to answer to yourself.

I respect John McCain. In this article from Slate magazine, I see a man who answers to himself.