Chinese Cyberspies

 John Cascone sent out the information that follows, and he did it just as I was becoming indignant about the Chinese hacking into American agencies and businesses. About 15 miles north of the Beltway, the NSA (National Security Agency) operates out of a 6 million square foot block of buildings. Its task is to hack into electronic data generated by terrorists, other enemies and some of our friends. When the President reads his daily intelligence briefing, about 75 % of the information comes from America's cyberspies.  Now the Chinese do the same thing. Who do they think they are?

War of the Sects

As everyone knows, Sen. John McCain this week slipped into Syria and posed for pictures with some difficult to identify young Sunni rebels. Like all of us McCain is unhappy with the brutality of Syria's civil war--Sunnis vs. Shias--but unlike some of us, the bellicose senator demands that we send heavy arms to the Sunni side. That is his solution. Sen. Rand Paul has pointed out that if we ship in heavy weapons, we might be handing over surface-to-air missiles to Al Qaeda. For some reason Sen. Paul does not want to arm Al Qaeda.  Paul does not trust them not to attack passenger planes filled with civilians and so forth. Here is my problem. I'm on the same side as Rand Paul.

Drone War Clarifies Issues

Kiel Brennan-Marquez  has written a progressive's defense of drone warfare. I hope you can google the whole essay. The essay's key point is as follows. War is hell, but in traditional warfare all sorts of myths fog up Gen. Sherman's truth, including myths about your own war heroes, the sacred dead and so forth. But if you use only drones, your side has no heroes, just killers.  Few will admire a pilot sitting safely in an air-conditioned room in Florida while butchering people in Yemen. The ugliness of war suddenly becomes starkly clear. Drone war, Brennan-Marquez argues, will encourage people to rethink their stance toward wars and consider restraint. (There is at least a hint of this process evident in the speech made by the President yesterday.)

The Vanishing Swing Voters

There's a political insight going around that makes sense to me: "There are almost no swing voters left in this nation." That explains why the Republican leadership isn't talking to swing voters. It talks only to the base part of its base. 

The two parties are so starkly different in the positions they take that the Golden Gate Bridge couldn't link them together.  Elected representatives who occupied the middle 20 years ago have been primaried back into civilian life. Today election victory depends on (1) gerrymandering and (2) voter turnout. That is why, while under attack by the teabaggers on four fake scandals, President Obama's popularity poll has ticked up a point. 

Those who voted for Obama see the teabaggers as dangerously nuts--teafolk have little credibility except within their own faithful. The more wildly they attack, the smaller their party will shrink.

the company I keep

 Shonnie Brown sent out a notice on the death of Susan Armstrong yesterday:

"Susan Armstrong, a long-time friend of the Healdsburg Peace Project, died last Wednesday, May 15, in her home in Healdsburg. Susan was an active member of HPP for many years. She died of metastatic breast cancer––quickly and peacefully, surrounded by her two loving adult children, Harvest and Atticus, and her two dear friends, Betsi Lewitter and Shonnie Brown."

 

Susan's sardonic wit delighted me many times at Peace Project activities. This news is sad, but it makes me proud of The Company I Keep. 

A Job in India

This month HARPER'S published some excerpts from India's official National Classification of Occupations.  You might think there is no job in the world that Rand Paul can do, but in India they are still looking for buffoons and firewood gatherers. Paul Ryan might find success as a glass bubble cooler.  Eliot Spitzer could work as a wood impregnator or a hand fluffer. If, like George W. Bush, you lack a developed talent, you can seek work as a peon.

The Mammy State

On Sunday the Republicans went on the talk shows denouncing "the nanny state." I asked my ancient Republican buddy, Milgrim Icywalker, the Presidential candidate, why he disliked the nanny state, and he agreed to be quoted. "Did you like your nanny?" he  asked. "Of course not--that's why everyone despises women and the nanny state." When Icywalker says "everyone," he means the ones who matter,  ancient white males who went to Old Miss.

"I never had a nanny," I admitted, "only a mother, and she worked as a receptionist."

"All you need to know, Goss, is that nannies told us what to do.  They made us wash behind our ears before going to bed at the wrong time. They were hired to oppress young men. Women are fine people, of course, and someone has be school teachers,  but they're weak, timid and smelly by nature and bossy. A state run by women?--talk about the world turned upside down!"

"Nanny sounds a lot like mammy, doesn't it?"

"To be honest you might as well call it the mammy state," he told me. "I plan to run that by the voters in 2014."

Hillbillies vs. Rednecks

I watched a program on American idioms and learned more about the Scotch-Irish (which the grammatically tender program insisted on calling "Scots-Irish," which was not their name in the States or in Canada). Anyway, one of my grandfathers was Scotch-Irish, although he mostly referred to himself as Irish, as was apparently the custom. He put on an orange shirt on St. Patrick's day. You name any country singer (Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton) and he or she will turn out to be of Scotch-Irish descent. I learned new stuff. For example, "y'all" is a contraction of the English plural "ye" and "all" and it dates back to the old country. Two other terms surprised me by dating back to Scotland and Ireland. "Hillbillies" is a term for the hill people of Scotland who backed King William; "redneck" began as a name for Scottish Presbyterians, who wore red scarves around their necks to show allegiance to their cause. My mother's family was mostly Catholic Irish, so I remain divided.

The Myth of Privacy

When I first went on the Internet in the mid-1970s, I assumed that anything I sent out would be public. I decided to avoid messages that looked sexist, racist or homophobic, and I hesitated to publish photographs of my private parts, something political leaders are still doing 40 years later. Today our Internet providers share what they know about us with merchants who want to sell us things, and most of us have signed agreements authorizing this. Many "free" Internet providers require it. 

From the start, many government agencies have been peering at some of our email. Now they plan to store and sift through even more of our junk. Who do they think they are, L. L. Bean? I would join with the talking heads on TV in opposing this invasion of my privacy except for one thing: everything on the Internet is public. Seeking privacy on the Internet is like seeking dryness while body surfing at Waikiki.