I've said it before, I'll say it again

Here's to the new year; may it be a damn sight better than the last. (It would take some doing to be worse than 2016.)

This feels apropos

I'll be darned if I can put my finger on why, though.

"It'll be FINE! Just give him a chance!"

"Well, golly. Folks sure do seem to have a bee in their bonnet about the new president. He hasn't even taken office yet -- what could they possibly be protesting?"

You could just write them off as sore losers... but you'd be badly mistaken. Maybe it's people reacting in horror that enough people were OK with voting for a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot that a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot got elected president. News flash: Voting for a racist who openly advocates racist policies makes you complicit in racism, no matter how noble you believe your intentions to be. And if being called out for enabling racism makes you angry or uncomfortable, maybe take a moment and consider the effect your actions have had on those whose lives have become exponentially more difficult thanks to what you've enabled.

What now?

So, that happened. Now what?

I'm seeing calls to "unite", to "heal", to "come together as a nation" under the new president. Fuck that, and fuck anyone who thinks shrugging their shoulders and going with the flow will make things better. I refuse to "unite" behind a man who got himself elected on a campaign of attacking Mexicans, Muslims, women, LGBT people, the handicapped, people of color, immigrants, and others. I will not passively sign on to the aims of a government that seeks to roll back the Affordable Care Act, repeal the Obergefell decision and Roe v Wade, and make the United States a hostile environment for women and non-whites.

Odds are not all Trump voters are racist, sexist, xenophobic bigots -- some of them, I assume, are good people. But if their actions help a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot become the leader of the country, the result is the same. Actions matter, not words or intentions. Half the country voted in favor of fear, hatred, and white supremacy. I count women, Muslims, LGBT individuals, African-Americans, Latinx, and other minorities among my friends -- am I supposed to just stand by and watch as the new regime takes over and starts eliminating the rights and protections they fought so hard to secure? Do I just go about my merry way, under the assumption that I -- a white, heterosexual American male -- will not be inconvenienced by my country's government?

Confession of a reluctant Hilldawg

I'll make this short and sweet, because there's already an overwhelming amount of election coverage online. I have voted -- by mail, so there's no sticker to prove it, but the Nebraska Secretary of State's website says they've received and accepted my ballot. It's just that I was asked several times today, so I figured I'd go ahead and reveal my vote.

I voted for Hillary Clinton for president. No, I'm not particularly pleased with how everything has gone. Preserving the status quo is part of why American democracy feels so sclerotic right now, and Clinton is nothing if not the personification of business as usual (the whole "being a woman" thing aside). She is far too hawkish for my liking, and there is a long record of behavior that suggests that even if she does not consider herself above the law, she certainly acts thusly. There are real concerns that her close ties to Wall Street will hamstring any meaningful financial reform. Clinton is a very flawed candidate, and in any run-of-the-mill election she'd be well behind a generic Republican (step forward, Tim Pawlenty).

That said, the alternatives this year are worse. Gary Johnson and the Libertarians have some good policy ideas, but on balance I can't support them or a candidate who seemingly can't even take himself seriously. The Greens? I donated to, and volunteered for, the Green Party once upon a time. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 (albeit in Nebraska, where there was no danger of swinging the election). But Jill Stein? Wi-Fi fearing, conspiracy-mongering, more-progressive-than-thou Jill Stein? Nein, danke. My kingdom for a Green Party that can put forward serious candidates on a consistent basis and not just pop up for attention grabs every four years.

"How come you don't drink?"

Of all the questions I've been asked during my adult life, the one about why I don't drink is either at or near the top (though 日本語を話せますか [Nihongo o hanasemasuka, or "Do you speak Japanese?"] is closing quickly). I'm not put off by it as, in general, it's asked more out of curiosity than malice. It does make me something of a odd duck -- not only am I among the 15 percent of American males who report never having consumed alcohol, but my not drinking flies in the face of the stereotype of an expat journalist. My people are commonly associated with heavy drinking and smoking, occasional drug use, and general irascibility, none behaviors in which I partake.

How am I doing?

Read this, all the way through.

Then watch this, all the way through.



You'll get a pretty accurate picture of my current state.

Citius, altius, brutus

It's an even-numbered year, so we must have an Olympics on our hands. The quadrennial orgy of sun, fun, and infrastructure spending that is the Summer Games is taking place in Rio de Janeiro and blessedly drawing some attention away from the ongoing conflagration that is the United States election cycle.

The Olympics were designed to celebrate excellence in athletics -- hence the motto "citius, altius, fortius", or "faster, higher, stronger". While the best and brightest eventually get their due when they reach the business end of their events, for me that's only part of the allure. I also enjoy hearing the stories of people such as Siri Budcharern Arun, a 14-year-old swimmer from Laos.

Laos has one Olympic-sized swimming pool, but it is rarely used and too far from the capital for the athletes to reach regularly.

Instead, Siri Arun trains five times a week in the public, city-centre pool, without any lanes reserved for professional swimmers and sometimes under the monsoon deluges that hammer Laos.

While she tries to hone her rhythm and technique, kids clown around and launch themselves off diving boards nearby.

So far she has got her personal best down to 33.71 seconds, a good 10 seconds shy of the world record and a time that is unlikely to see her progress beyond the early heats.

But she keeps coming back, hoping to give herself the best possible chance in Rio.

In addition to athletes who qualify based on their performances, Olympic organizers also provide competing nations a small number of wild-card entries to make sure all 204 member nations have representatives at the Games. This Olympics also features the first team comprised of refugees fleeing conflict in their home countries. This isn't merely an exercise in handing out participation ribbons; it's about spreading the message of the Olympic movement and providing further inspiration for athletes from developing nations. Without this kind of outreach, the Olympics would quickly resemble cricket or European soccer, a closed shop accessible only by those with the best resources.

In proper doses, inspiration and patriotism can do great things. It is all too easy to overdose on them, though, and the Olympics is no exception.

Oh, Nebraska

My home state doesn't make the national news very often. We Nebraskans tend to be staid, good-natured but somewhat vanilla folk. That unremarkable nature can be annoying. When my old junior high was evacuated in 1998 because of a foul, unknown odor, several national news reports gave the city as Grand Island, New York. (Thankfully, when a stray accordion case caused a similar evacuation earlier this year, there was no such confusion.)

When Nebraska does make the news, though, it tends to be entertaining. Take for example the story that broke this week of state Sen. Bill Kintner being asked to resign over allegedly having an explicit sex video starring himself on his state computer. Kintner, of Papillion, is a Tea Party-backed politician with a track record of deriding gays, women, minorities, and the poor. From Joe My God:

Kintner has loudly opposed same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and transgender rights. He has also publicly declared that Christians should let gays know their business isn’t wanted by providing them with bad service.

The good senator appears to have a keen eye for other people's splinters. Pity he can't turn that hawk-like gaze on his own actions.

As I said, Nebraska rarely makes the headlines, but I've managed to compile a fun, if modest, set of stories over the past year or two. Some of my favorites are below the fold.

Your long read for the weekend

A reading recommendation for those with a bit of time on their hands -- check out this deep dive from the New York Times, "When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers". It's the first in their "Bottom Line Nation" series on the growing influence of private equity firms in daily public life.

The business of driving ambulances and operating fire brigades represents just one facet of a profound shift on Wall Street and Main Street alike, a New York Times investigation has found. Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms, the “corporate raiders” of an earlier era, have increasingly taken over a wide array of civic and financial services that are central to American life.

Today, people interact with private equity when they dial 911, pay their mortgage, play a round of golf or turn on the kitchen tap for a glass of water.

Private equity put a unique stamp on these businesses. Unlike other for-profit companies, which often have years of experience making a product or offering a service, private equity is primarily skilled in making money. And in many of these businesses, The Times found, private equity firms applied a sophisticated moneymaking playbook: a mix of cost cuts, price increases, lobbying and litigation.

In emergency care and firefighting, this approach creates a fundamental tension: the push to turn a profit while caring for people in their most vulnerable moments.

This is nothing new, of course. The US has a... colorful history with private fire departments, for example. Still, the effects of turning vital public services over to private firms driven by a profit motive are worth remembering when we hear certain people extolling the virtues of deregulation and privatization as a panacea against the evils of "inefficiency".

In which I disown some former homes

Not having been in the country for a while, I'm out of practice when it comes to celebrating Halloween -- or at least marking the occasion with more than watching a horror movie or two. Nevertheless, I was still interested when I saw the results of a recent poll of each state's favorite Halloween candy.

All the usual caveats about online surveys apply, obviously -- questions about a self-selecting user base, representative samples, what questions were asked and in which order, etc. Even so, it makes for a quick, fun read. Some of the main takeaways are:

Feathering one's nest

Hang around the UAE long enough and you start noticing some trends. First and foremost, the whole "at least it's a dry heat" thing doesn't fly here -- being so close to the ocean means you get all the heat and humidity you can stand. The local soccer league has kicked off games with temperatures in the mid- to high 90s and 70 percent humidity. Not surprisingly, attendances are even lower than usual.

Another thing is how often words such as "exclusive", "ambition" and "prestige" are thrown around, especially in the retail and financial sectors. There's one level of basic service for the hoi polloi but, if you're willing and able to pay a bit extra, you suddenly get upgraded from Number To Be Served to a Valued Priority Customer. I got a snootful of this on Day 1 here -- there was a long line for the medical exams you have to undergo before receiving a residence visa, but because I and another white Westerner each stumped up 200 dirhams (about $50), we were ushered to the front of the line. As one who considers himself Not That Special as a matter of policy, being plopped in front of a queue of South Asian-looking men who were already there waiting patiently was absolutely mortifying. (To their credit, if this sudden display of #WPR put them off, they didn't show it outwardly.)

This two-tier system appears to be the way of the future. There's the high-end market, who want and can afford the best, and then there's everyone else. With the American middle class increasingly being hollowed out by job losses and economic shifts, it seems as though there isn't much of a middle ground on which to stand anymore. It's Dollar Store or Dolce & Gabbana, Shopko or Chanel. Just look at the airline industry for an example. Economy-class passengers are packed in like sardines, treated almost like nuisances by the airlines and told to be grateful for what service they do receive. Step up to business or first class, though, and suddenly the airlines can't do enough for you. A drink before take-off, served by your Personal Food and Beverage Consultant? But of course. Chauffeur service to and from the airport? Happy to assist. A luxury lounge with free food, drinks and wi-fi? Right this way, valued customer. Membership clearly has its privileges, as I can personally attest, but it's hard not to feel uneasy about being waited on hand and foot while others are treated like those who rode steerage on the Titanic.

Sports and politics, joined at the hip

Make no mistake – for all the rhetoric about how they should never interfere with one another, sports and politics are inextricably linked. Even former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch admits as much. Whether for good or ill, there will always be political entities who prioritize promoting their worldview or policies over competition, fair play, and other Corinthian values. People mewling about how sporting events and political protests don't mix clearly have no sense of history, whether out of ignorance or willful blindness.

A man must have a code

So there you are, sitting in front of your laptop and watching from another continent as the events unfold in Baltimore. The incident is new, the story all too familiar – another black man dead at the hands of the police. After more than a week, the Baltimore PD either do not know or do not care to say how Freddie Gray's spine got 80 percent severed at the neck and his larynx nearly crushed while in police custody.

You're seeing a trend, right? Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, John Crawford – and those are just the cases we know of. As someone who values social justice and equality, you feel like you have to speak up, what with silence implying consent and all. At the same time, though, you've never been to Baltimore and everything you know about the city comes from "The Wire", so it's not as though you have anything compelling or insightful to add. The last thing you want to do is be yet another privileged white person lecturing the oppressed on appropriate ways to express their displeasure with the status quo. What to do?

One idea would be to listen to those who know what's going on, both in terms of the city and its racial politics. For example, Ta-Nehisi Coates, a former Baltimore resident and one of America's leading voices on race. Coates is rightly dubious about people in positions of power and privilege calling for non-violence after the bell has rung.

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the rioters themselves.

Meanwhile, there are plenty more examples of what not to do.

This is what you get...

....for being a woman with opinions on important topics such as video games -- rape threats, death threats, and some of the Internet's most despicable characters doing their best to ruin you, up to and including terrorism. Even pointing out the fact you receive abuse is apparently reason enough for these Brave Heroes to continue the abuse.

Is any of this worth it? Is there a kernel of truth among the steady stream of hatred vomited toward Anita Sarkeesian? Don't take their -- or my -- word for it. Watch the videos and form your own opinion.

Of course, if you come to the conclusion any of this behavior toward Ms. Sarkeesian is justified, do us both a favor and don't come around here no more. You won't be missed.

Spot the difference

Sigh.

So this happened. In a dance as old as time, sportsball fans got liquored up, set fires and broke shit because their sportsball team out-sportsballed the other sportsball team in The Big Game. It's not the outcome of the game that makes me sigh, though -- as I've stated before, I have fallen out of love with college football (if not football in general) and the damage to the relationship appears irreparable.

No, this is altogether more sociological. Look at the headline in that first link:

Fans get a little rowdy over Ohio State national championship win

"Get a little rowdy"? Setting 89 fires, vandalizing property and causing police to use tear gas and pepper spray to disperse crowds is "rowdy"? It seems more than a bit curious that when white people riot -- for whatever the reason, great or small -- they're described as "rowdy", "overexuberant" or "disruptive" and that things just got out of hand. Yet when African Americans protest in the name of social justice, they're derided as "savages", dismissed as "hoodlums" and written off as lawless "thugs" who are destroying their own community.

Respect is earned, not given

Once again, people purporting to defend The Religion of Peace (TM) have decided the best way to express their disagreement over editorial cartoons is to kill those who draw them.

Two gunmen in balaclavas and bullet-proof vests, armed with a pump-action shotgun and an automatic rifle, stormed into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo at about 11.30am as about 15 journalists had gathered for the weekly editorial conference. They called for the editor by name and then murdered him before spraying the room with gunfire, killing nine more and wounding others. Laurent Léger, a Charlie Hebdo writer, managed to sound the alarm, calling a friend and telling him: “Call the police. It’s carnage, a bloodbath. Everyone is dead.”

As they made their getaway, the gunmen shot dead two policemen, including one who they shot in the head at close range as he lay injured on the pavement. ...

The attack was the bloody culmination of a long-simmering struggle between France’s libertarian traditions of free speech and an increasingly extreme strand of Islamism. Witnesses described hearing the attackers shout “Allahu Akbar” as well as “We have avenged the Prophet.” Two eyewitnesses said they claimed to be from al-Qaida. One of them specified al-Qaida in Yemen, a group also known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Charlie Hebdo, a feisty and irreverent publication with a 44-year history, had been at the very frontline of that battle since 2006, when it first reprinted cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad originally published by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after it published another cartoon of the Muslim prophet.

Let's make a couple things clear up front. Anyone asking "where are the moderate Muslims denouncing this savagery?" clearly can't be bothered to search for themselves, so here. Also, I ask of anyone claiming these murderers aren't "true" Muslims -- just what is a "true" Muslim? I don't know, and I highly doubt you do, either.

Here, in a nutshell

Living in a country largely unknown to Westerners has its good points and bad points. One of the good points is that the location lends itself to conversation fodder. There's always some tidbit of knowledge or travel story that can fill the gaps between updates on various family members' conditions.

One of the bad points is having to repeat the same basic information about the country every time you speak to someone new. No, this is not a theocracy; yes, they let Western infidels like me have a bank account and everything; no, I'm not dodging suicide bombers on my way to work; yes, living here is actually fairly pleasant, if a little on the dull side.

As a service for those curious about the UAE, here are links to some of the biggest stories around the country in the past few months. Some of this is big-picture stuff, some more spot-newsy. For starters:

In the UAE, the United States has a quiet, potent ally nicknamed 'Little Sparta' – Washington Post

“The UAE has gone all-in,” said Anthony Zinni, a former commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East. As U.S. ties with long-standing allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia have frayed, and Egypt and Jordan contend with domestic challenges, the UAE now occupies a unique position in the region. “It’s the strongest relationship that the United States has in the Arab world today,” Zinni said.

It is also the least well known. Although there are about 3,500 U.S. military personnel stationed at Dhafra, and it is the only overseas base with F-22s, the facility has never been identified by the U.S. Air Force in publicly available materials because the UAE government had been concerned that touting the extent of its cooperation with the United States could antagonize some of its citizens.

But UAE officials relaxed those rules during a recent visit by a Washington Post reporter because of growing concern at senior levels of the Emirati government that keeping mum has led to an underappreciation of the country’s contributions beyond what is known in a handful of offices in the Pentagon and at the State Department, particularly as this nation seeks to convince the Obama administration to sell it more advanced fighter jets and adopt a tougher line on Iran.

“We’re different from our neighbors,” said Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador in Washington, who noted that his country has participated in every major U.S.-led coalition since the 1991 Persian Gulf War — save for the 2003 invasion of Iraq — joining Americans in Somalia, Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan in addition to the ongoing air campaign against the Islamic State. “We’re your best friends in this part of the world,” he said.

More below the fold.

Sticking to sports

I was going to rant about these people who believe athletes should stick to playing sports, that they're too dumb to hold court on matters outside of their job or have no business exercising their Constitutional right to free speech. I was going to point out how protesting and sports have always mixed, and that the history of such mixing in the United States goes back to at least the 1960s, if not earlier. I was going to mention how such protests are hardly limited to US sports, and that authorities have been surprisingly reasonable in allowing athletes to publicly express their support for the families of those caught up in the recent tragedies.

But then, in a scant five minutes, Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns gave a rebuttal to those meatheads and chauvinists that was so eloquent, so poignant and so heartfelt that it scarcely requires further comment.

You did WHAT in my name?

For so long, we've been told that Team USA is the good guys, that we're fighting for freedom and democracy, that we respect the rule of law and hold firm to the values that make us great as a nation.

Yeah, well, talk is cheap. Team USA's actions speak much louder and paint a very different picture.

The CIA’s post-9/11 embrace of torture was brutal and ineffective – and the agency repeatedly lied and misled the White House, Congress and the public about its usefulness, a milestone report by the Senate intelligence committee released on Tuesday concludes.

The methods of torture carried out by the CIA were even more extreme than what it portrayed to the George W Bush administration and went beyond techniques already made public through a decade of leaks and lawsuits, which had revealed that agency interrogators subjected detainees to the quasi-drowning known as waterboarding, staged mock executions and revved power drills near their heads.

At least 39 detainees experienced techniques like “cold water dousing”, which the Justice Department never approved, the committee found. It also found cases of “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding” – the “lunch tray” for one detainee, which contained hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins, “was ‘pureed’ and rectally infused”, the report says – which in some instances led to anal fissures and rectal prolapse. Investigators also documented death threats made to detainees. And CIA interrogators, the committee charged, told detainees they would hurt detainees’ children and “sexually assault” or “cut a [detainee’s] mother’s throat”.

In case anyone had forgotten, 1) Yes, torture is still illegal under US law; 2) Yes, the United States ratified the UN Convention Against Torture back in 1994; 3) No, torture is not an effective method of acquiring reliable intelligence; 4) That tale spun by "Zero Dark Thirty", that torture produced the information that led to Osama bin Laden's capture, was, like most things coming out of Hollywood, utter fiction; and 5) Yes, false information extracted under torture was used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

This is how the "good guys" behave? It's difficult to read the list of abuses performed by the CIA and pretend the United States still has anything resembling the moral high ground. The United States isn't cutting off people's heads, yes, but that doesn't make what the CIA did or the mental, moral and legal gymnastics of the US government to justify that behavior not evil. How far has the country fallen when not matching Islamic fundamentalists atrocity for atrocity is considered the baseline for "good"? Successive governments knew human rights abuses that could pass muster as war crimes were taking place at secret prisons overseas at the behest of the United States, yet they did nothing to stop it and seem determined to continue doing nothing. That's not evil? And this doesn't even include the CIA exploiting detainees for their own purposes.