Eric's Learning Curve

Army Private Chen and Marines Lance Corporal Lew

2012-01-10T18:47:00.009-05:00

The story of the October 11 suicide of Chinatown NYC Army infantryman Danny Chen in Afghanistan concerns me in several ways, as a Taiwanese American and an enlisted Army veteran. Chen's suicide came in the wake of the April 2011 suicide in Afghanistan of Californian Marines Lance Corporal Harry Lew. The angry reactions to both suicides in the Chinese American community has been expected and understandable. Read this insightful reaction by West Point graduate and former Army infantry captain Tim Hsia.

More personal reaction later.

Eric

New: Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense

2012-01-05T13:06:00.006-05:00

President Obama and the Defense Department have released their latest strategic vision, which takes budget cuts and future contingencies into account. The paper should be useful for Ivy ROTC advocates in that a smaller force with fewer resources and a broader range of possible missions will have to rely more on the intellectual agility of its leaders. However, the argument only works if Ivy ROTC can be differentiated programmatically from other ROTC programs via an innovative outlay of advanced Ivy League resources for ROTC+ programming. The argument that the new strategy raises the value of Ivy ROTC doesn't work if it's based on a claim of an intrinsic difference between Ivy League students and non-Ivy students. The distinguishing trait should be the quality of the Ivy League ROTC program.

See the DoD press release with link to the defense strategic guidance paper. One news analysis.

Eric

Jeremy Lin a Knick!

2011-12-27T15:51:00.005-05:00

Knicks picked up Taiwanese American guard Jeremy Lin today. In all likelihood, Lin will fill in for injured rookie guard Iman Shumpert for now and be released before the February 10 deadline for non-guaranteed contracts to become guaranteed for the remainder of the season.

1/6/12 update: Oof. On New Year's Eve, Lin played 4 minutes to end the game and was awful against the Sacramento Kings back-up rookie point guard, 2011 60th pick Isaiah Thomas. Lin looked rushed, struggled mightily bringing the ball up against Thomas's pressure, got picked, after which he couldn't get rid of the ball fast enough after crossing the half-court line, and couldn't defend Thomas on the other end. Lin hasn't played since the Kings game and now Shumpert is back.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Who is that hot ad girl?

2011-12-26T00:59:00.002-05:00

Ever wonder the name of an eye-catching yet non-celebrity girl featured in a television ad? If you have, this website might have your answer.

Eric

New York City says Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T23:59:00.004-05:00

As seen from my window and the street below my window, the Empire State Building displays Hannukah and Christmas colors on Christmas Day, 2011:

Eric

Broadway show Anything Goes is racist

2011-12-22T13:58:00.016-05:00

Yesterday, I caught the matinee performance of Anything Goes now playing at the Stephen Sondheim (formerly Henry Miller) theater. The Sondheim theater, refurbished and modernized in 2005, is a sleek, comfortable venue. The 2011 Tony Award-winning revival is a richly crafted production, and the leads and supporting cast delivered polished performances. Sutton Foster, playing Reno Sweeney, justified her reputation as a top Broadway star. Foster impressed as a musical theater actress at the top of her game with a demanding display of her acting, singing, and dancing triple-threat abilities.

And oh, by the way, Anything Goes is racist. Andrew Cao and Raymond J. Lee portray a pair of newly Christian-converted Chinese gamblers named "Luke" and "John" ("Ching" and "Ling" in the original 1934 production). Luke and John are early-20th-century Chinese caricatures with stereotyped garb, speech, and behavior, and serve as comic foils for the non-Asian main characters. In Luke and John's final scene, they are duped into giving their Chinese clothes to cellmates Moonface Martin and Billy Crocker, so they in turn can act out the final racist wedding scene. Raymond J. Lee's John, in particular, is a painful display of yellow face (our version of black face).

It's bad enough when non-Asians or non-American Asians perpetuate anti-Asian racism in American popular culture, but it's disgusting when our Asian American brothers and sisters actively participate in betraying their own. I don't understand how Raymond J. Lee can look himself in the mirror after his nightly betrayal of Asian men. Maybe he's paid a lot. Maybe Asian actors are grateful for any stage role, no matter how demeaning, that's set aside for Asian actors. Maybe Lee can't afford to turn down a job on a top Broadway show. Maybe Lee, who is Korean, rationalizes that he's insulting Chinese men every day rather than Korean men.

Eric

Kim Jong Il has died

2011-12-19T00:04:00.012-05:00

Big news. His successor is his 20-something-year-old son, Kim Jong Un. I imagine every S2 in Korea is working on a brief right now.

Now what for north Korea?
A. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
B. north Korea seeks rapprochement and a soft landing with South Korea.
C. Something new that's characteristically aggressive of a 20-something-year-old dictator.
D. New leader loses control and north Korea implodes and collapses.

Eric

Army Captain Travis Patriquin "remember the name"

2011-12-18T23:08:00.003-05:00

CBS News's David Martin gives an American soldier his due: "The first glimmerings of the awakening can be traced to one American soldier. Army Capt. Travis Patriquin. Remember the name."

I read about CPT Patriquin and his famous Powerpoint presentation on the mil-blogs when he was killed. CPT Patriquin's friend (now) MAJ Chad Pillai wrote a tribute at Small Wars Journal. Another tribute by (now) LT David Pyle. I should check out this book about him.

Eric

Abandoning allies in Iraq

2011-12-16T21:58:00.004-05:00

Upsetting. Can I do anything about it? I should ask them.

Eric

Modular concept of Columbia ROTC+

2011-12-09T21:40:00.183-05:00

What will the new Columbia Navy ROTC program look like?

The agreement signed by Columbia President Lee Bollinger and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has not been released to the public. All our information about the form of the new Columbia NROTC program is from official accounts of the 26MAY11 signing ceremony:

Under the agreement, first announced on April 21, the NROTC program will have an office on Columbia’s campus and active duty Navy and Marine Corps officers will meet with Columbia NROTC midshipmen during routinely scheduled office hours. Navy and Marine Corps-option midshipmen will participate in NROTC through a unit hosted at SUNY Maritime College in Throgs Neck, NY.

Here are transcripts of President Bollinger's speech and Secretary Mabus's speech from the signing ceremony.

The basic premise of the modular concept is that delegating the required NROTC training to SUNY Maritime allows the ROTC components on the Columbia campus to be customized to Columbia ROTC+. The modular concept builds on my suggestions for Columbia ROTC designers and builders. Also see Blueprint for Columbia ROTC.

The long-term goal is ROTC programs fully manifested on the Columbia campus. Establishing a complete ROTC program on campus is the practical way for the program to develop a Columbia identity, interact with the University community, and most importantly, build up Columbia ROTC student numbers. I had hoped the provisional Columbia NROTC program would use an extension model (training on campus - headquarters at SUNY Maritime) to maximize presence on campus and access for students. However, indications are pointing to a less visible, less accessible commuter model (office on campus - training at SUNY Maritime). My modular formulation of Columbia ROTC is based on the principle of making lemonade from lemons or, in this case, making the most out of a crosstown commuter arrangement with SUNY Maritime NROTC with an NROTC-staffed office on the Columbia campus. Under the circumstances, a unified hybrid Columbia ROTC+ program entirely located on the Columbia campus may not be realistic at start-up, whereas a loosely interlocking modular approach can reasonably be achieved with a crosstown commuter arrangement at start-up.

In the short term, the modular concept is actually helped by a physical separation between the Columbia campus and the NROTC foster-parent unit at SUNY Maritime. What's needed is just enough formal ROTC presence on campus to provide focus and direction, and stake out the ROTC space on campus, without defining or filling the ROTC space. We also need the NROTC officers at Columbia to be entrepeneurs willing to facilitate filling the ROTC space on campus with Columbia-defined programming or, at least, Columbia-modified NROTC programming.

The modular concept of Columbia ROTC+ has 3 parts:

Part 1 (off campus). Mandatory NROTC training. Ease the cross-campus demands on students for training at SUNY Maritime as much as possible; the more NROTC requirements students can fulfill at Columbia the better. The bulk of non-adjustable NROTC training will likely remain at SUNY Maritime. I suspect there isn't much tolerance for local experimentation in the mandated NROTC components because Columbia Naval and Marines officers must graduate with the same basic training as all Naval and Marines officers. In order to lessen the cross-campus burden on students, heighten ROTC presence on the Columbia campus, and persistently expose students to ROTC, I recommend replacing the non-mandatory NROTC programming at SUNY Maritime with ROTC+ programming on Columbia's campus.

Part 2 (on campus). Alexander Hamilton's Hearts of Oak. On my suggestions page, I suggest a user-driven creative laboratory space for Columbia ROTC students within the available space allowed by formal ROTC and school commitments. For science fiction fans, I analogized this lab space to Ender Wiggins's launchie practices in Battle School (see Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game). More aptly, the tradition I want to revive with CU ROTC+ is that of Alexander Hamilton and his King's College classmates taking ownership of their military development with Hearts of Oak, innovating their own approach to soldiering, and looking ahead by adopting the most sophisticated and strategic weapon of their day - the king of battle, artillery. While I trust French and Indian War veterans, such as George Washington, and European veterans polished his conventional soldiering skills once he joined the regular army (analogous to the required training at SUNY Maritime), Alexander Hamilton the Army officer was first formed as a self-actualizing Hearts of Oak man.

If we truly believe Columbia ROTC students have unparalleled potential and exceptional collective intelligence, then let's give them the lab space to create, experiment, and look ahead, by their own faculties. I want Columbia ROTC graduates to stand out as leaders who have taken ownership of their profession and rebel thinkers who have been innovating as Alexander Hamilton's intellectual heirs since they were students. When future geopolitical challenges catch other military leaders by surprise, Columbia ROTC graduates should be ready to give new answers for new questions.

Part 3 (on campus). ROTC+. We have barely explored the potential of mobilizing the 21st century Ivy League university to prepare officers for an era in which an agile versatile military is as important as a disciplined technically proficient military. Columbia also provides an ideal setting for students to explore the ethos of American military leadership. With the NROTC foster-parent unit headquartered on a remote campus, what innovative ROTC+ programming can Columbia professors develop for ROTC students under their own domain? Freed of the mandated ROTC curriculum, what ROTC+ programming can campus NROTC officers create collaboratively with Columbia professors? Academic course credit can be used as an objective standard for campus ROTC+ programming.

In the modular concept, campus NROTC officers provide just enough focus and direction to stake out ROTC space on campus, then facilitate Part 2 (Hearts of Oak) and Part 3 (ROTC+) filling and defining the ROTC space. A benefit of separating the NROTC foster-parent unit from the campus is that Columbia Army and Air Force cadets could then join with Columbia Navy midshipmen on campus in Columbia-defined Part 2 and Part 3, which the cadets could be dissuaded from doing if all ROTC activity on campus was contained within a formal NROTC program.

Secondary benefits:

4. Educating the campus. Columbia ROTC advocates have stressed the engagement and educational roles of ROTC. However, while conventional ROTC (as opposed to theoretical ROTC+) indeed has campus engagement and educational features, its primary mission is training, not reaching out to the campus community. I believe the combination of a structurally sufficient yet not overbearing formal ROTC presence on campus, Columbia ROTC student-driven experimentation, and professor-driven innovation can produce uniquely customized engagement and educational opportunities for the University community that are characterized by Columbia entities rather than the military.

5. Pipeline. The future of war and peace and global leadership for America is highly uncertain right now. We know, however, that the Columbia graduates serving in the Navy and Marines will be tasked to manage whatever geopolitical crises arise. Columbia's Army and Air Force officers will be on call, too. We should aim to produce the best mentally prepared officers, but even that may not be enough to manage unanticipated complex situations. If Part 2 and Part 3 become robust on campus, Columbia officers on the ground who are stumped and need solutions quickly will then have the option of reaching back to Columbia with real-world based "scenarios", either whole or in part depending on security need. Columbia ROTC students could then pool their intellects and team with interested professors, graduate-student officers, milvets, and even alumni to rapidly work on the scenarios and upload solutions to the Columbia officers anxiously waiting on the ground. Such a pipeline would boost the professional development of Columbia ROTC students, add value to ROTC+, strengthen the bonds of the Columbia military community, and assist Columbia officers in their real-world work.

As the Provost's NROTC advisory committee fleshes out the new program, it matters for Columbia ROTC advocates to have already envisioned what the Columbia NROTC program should look like. Once we have that picture in mind, we'll know how to advise the formation process. The proper direction is a steady increase of ROTC presence on campus with eventually full ROTC programs at Columbia. A full ROTC program on campus is preferable to an extension ROTC program on campus, and an extension ROTC program on campus is preferable to a crosstown commuter arrangement. Until Columbia acquires ROTC programs fully manifested on campus, I believe the modular concept of Columbia ROTC+ can work with a crosstown commuter arrangement.

Eric

Cool website of the day: reddit

2011-12-08T16:32:00.004-05:00

Reddit looks like a working, infinitely expandable, high traffic, no frills, user driven, content based, on-line community - a revolution in communication, as I say on my blog description.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2011-12-05T19:05:00.070-05:00

I really need to be studying for finals, but the closer I get to my JD, the less certain I am that I want to be a practicing attorney. Some parts of the profession appeal to me. Other parts of it very much turn me off.

I often tack stray thoughts of the day onto my last Thoughts of the day post, which in this case was in June. When I found myself tacking four thoughts today onto a June post, I figured it was time to start a new Thoughts of the day. My last post about zombie dreams and black swans could have been included in this post, but since that post began life as a free-standing post about Wretchard's comments about Nassim Taleeb's recent CFR article, I kept it as its own post. I should think about signing on to Twitter seeing as these accreting thoughts of the day posts are basically a poor man's twitter feed.

I'm featured in a 2-part Spec article (here and here) on the MilVets origin story. There are several factual detail inaccuracies, which I may correct someday on my blog, but the gist of the story is right.

Summary of what I was as a CU student activist: visionary, activist, recruiter, planner, organizer, operations chief, communicator, facilitator, writer. Guided by intuition. Ideas from inspiration. My DNA was in the movement and my fingerprints were on it. Conflict resolver when I wasn't a party to the conflict. Self-conscious leader. Capable administrator. Averse to bureaucracy. Ambivalent socializer. Weak politician.

Game on: The Columbia Provost's NROTC implementation committee has formally begun its work. My blueprint for Columbia ROTC, with much of its content taken from the Harvard ROTC blueprint, has stood up well since its writing. I hope it's useful for the program designers. I'm considering putting up my suggestions and modular approach on SN, too.

Observation about declining Italian demographics applies to CU ROTC student headcount, too: The Catholic Church asserts, Bagnasco said, that “demographic balance is not only necessary for the physical survival of a community – which without children has no future – but is also a condition for that alliance between generations that is essential for a normal democratic dialectic.”

Popular Mechanics (link from reddit) describes the "error chain" of the 2009 Air France 447 crash as mostly due to extreme pilot error. A crew of highly trained professional pilots flying a functioning state-of-the-art Airbus330 in moderately challenging but ordinary circumstances disintegrated into psychological chaos and made baffling errors that resulted in 228 deaths. It's astonishing that basic human panic overwhelmed the most advanced systemic and technological safeguards to crash that plane. More from the author about the psychology of the doomed pilots, particularly Pierre-Cédric Bonin. On last night's Top Chef: Texas, experienced professional chef Whitney Otawka was eliminated for serving undercooked, even raw, potato gratin to the judges, a surprisingly elementary cooking error. In a TV Guide interview today, Otawka gave some telling insights about her state of mind: You know when you're in those situations under so much pressure that your brain doesn't think linearly? [Laughs] My thought process was off. . . . You have to imagine that you're not in your own kitchen, so you're totally not acclimated to everything around you. And then there are 13 of us running into each other. There's so much stress that it carries over into how you're cooking and I go back to that non-linear thought process. Your brain is just bouncing around in a million directions. You look back and you're like, "Oh my gosh! What was I doing?" It takes an exceptional mind to immediately master chaos and make correct decisions when a situation has gone off pattern, alien or unexpected inputs are bombarding the senses, and instant decisions are required with serious consequences. A normal response is panicked brain freeze. These accounts make me feel a little better about my choke job in the Baker final that possibly cost my team the win, but it's no less disconcerting that experienced, respected, skilled professionals also make disastrous mistakes under stress.

American Horror Story is captivatingly good in its 1st season. Showrunner Ryan Murphy, however, has a history of new shows that grab and excite audiences by pushing the envelope with richly crafted, aggressively imaginative stories but then lose their way in their 2nd seasons. See Glee and Nip/Tuck, and think of a souffle made with the best ingredients that puffs up impressively, then collapses. Supposedly, American Horror Story will try to solve the 1-season-hit problem by starting over with a new cast and storyline in Season 2. Freeze Season 1 at its peak of ripeness and begin a new journey. If that's true, 1 year blocks are an innovative, not inelegant, and self-aware compromise by someone who understands the sustainable limits of his process but seeks to preserve the special strengths of his creative bursts. 1/2/2012 add: Entertainment Weekly Popwatch offers solid 'post-mortem' thoughts and information.

MTV's Beavis and Butthead is must-watch stuff, smart, sarcastic, and bitingly incisive. It would have been cool to have watched the show in its first go-around. Interesting how Mike Judge's other famous show, King of the Hill, is so different in tone from Beavis and Butthead.

Look beyond positions. Look at interests, leverage, and incentives.

Zenpundit posts some interesting thoughts on strategic thinking.

Having the power to open Pandora's box doesn't always mean you have the power to close it. But you can quit and leave the mess for others.

Dick Proenneke of the awe-inspiring Alone in the Wilderness films was The Man.

New Red Sox and ex-Mets manager Bobby Valentine reminds me of me.

Interesting observational "slashes" by a conservative Finnish blogger, translated.

Good point about irony and detachment becoming valued over sincerity and conviction in popular culture.

Nice guys do finish last. But I knew that already.

Oh boy. I've done this.

True: "A friendly, non-shit testing 7 with a slender figure is like the holy grail to 70% of the world’s men."

Interesting blog by a pro-feminine (not pro-feminist) wife who takes issue with The Surrendered Wife, which she says goes too far in the opposite extreme from militant feminism.

Play Shaggy's It Wasn't Me as a backdrop while reading these depressing caught-my-SO-cheating testimonials on Reddit.

Project Runway designer babes: Season 3's Alison Kelly, Season 5's Kenley Collins (returning in the 2012 "all-star" season). In their seasons, Alison was sweet and Kenley was brassy.

Antoni Gramcsi is credited with a compelling poli sci theory.

Eric

Zombies and black swans

2011-12-05T10:08:00.015-05:00

I have vivid dreams when I'm anxious and depressed. It's like my brain uses dreams to burn up whatever excessive neuro-chemicals are producing - or are a product of - my anxiety and depression. Almost all my dreams are dramatic stories that relate to whatever is triggering my anxiety. I very rarely have frightening dreams. But occasionally, I have scary nightmares with a particular theme: being closely chased by zombies.

I want a "comfy and cosy" life where I can assume comfort, familiarity, certainty, stability, and security. I avoid conflict. I dislike change. I can deal with a boring life. At minimum, I need somewhere to hide, a cave where I can escape the world. I believe the zombie nightmares express my fear of my safe world stripped away and replaced by a dangerous existence with no safe zone and nowhere to hide, where I'm targeted and chased by angry things actively seeking to harm me, and my only choices are fight or flight.

Last night, I dreamt about a zombie apocalypse. I tried to hide from the growing danger in an apartment by closing the shades and hoping to be overlooked. I didn't know how long I could hold out because I wasn't supplied - the apartment was not a fortified self-sufficient castle. I thought I could at least be safe for the moment. However, the emergency response authorities opened the shades and revealed me to the zombies before the authorities lost control of the situation. The zombies easily broke into the apartment and I was forced to run.

I may be particularly sensitive and anxious, but I'm not unique in my wants and fears. Increasing centralization and government regulation have been human reactions intended to assure constituencies that the risks and uncertainties of the world have been minimized. That's fine if they work. According to an interesting Belmont Club post commenting on CFR article The Black Swan of Cairo, however, our national sense of security is actually a thin fragile veneer on the breaking point. The sweeping centralized social measures of the 20th century have actually increased the threat by making false promises of security, increased fragility by displacing granular resilience, and hidden growing threats until they explode. Upcoming book America 3.0 also speaks about the failure of America 2.0's 20th century institutions and advocates for a technologically networked decentralized 21st century society more reminiscent of America 1.0 to replace them.

If zombies are the stuff of my sleeping nightmares, then black swans scare me while I'm awake.

Eric

Dutch General Peter van Uhm on warriors for peace

2011-11-26T17:36:00.004-05:00

At TEDxAmsterdam on November 25, 2011, General Peter van Uhm, the Chief of Defence The Netherlands, spoke about guns as instruments of peace in the hands of Western soldiers.

His son Dennis, a Dutch lieutenant, was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2008.

CWCID: link from Neptunus Lex.

Eric

A boy named Eric

2011-11-25T20:10:00.013-05:00

The title is a riff on the classic cartoon, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown is an all-time beloved comic strip character, a decent but anxious boy who is considered by his peers to be an affable loser. He unexpectedly volunteers for the class spelling bee and surprises everyone by winning, then surprises them again by winning the school spelling bee. Charlie Brown is satisfied with his achievement and basking in his peers' praise, but then discovers to his growing dismay that he has qualified for the national spelling bee and its heightened expectations. The further Charlie Brown advances in the spelling bee, the more his hopes for himself grow, but so do his fears of letting everyone down and making a fool of himself on the biggest stage. Will Charlie Brown rise in the moment or will he crumble under the pressure? [Spoiler: He makes it to the final two, then chokes on "beagle".]

"It's Sydney or the bush for Charlie Brown." I know how he feels.

Eric

Mike McQueary failed test of manhood

2011-11-10T13:56:00.055-05:00

Mike McQueary, now the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator for the Penn State football team, is the unnamed graduate assistant in the "Victim 2" part of the Grand Jury presentment of the Jerry Sandusky case. McQueary was 28 years old when, planning only to pick up some recruiting tapes and place a pair of shoes in his locker in the Lasch football building on a quiet March night, he stumbled upon retired coach Jerry Sandusky raping a boy in the shower room. How did the surprised McQueary react? The Grand Jury presentment is damning:

He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.

Mike McQueary was instantly challenged to be an honorable man and stop the rape. He reacted as a selfish coward and fled, instead. What did the child victim feel when he watched a grown man abandon him to rape rather than try to save him?

McQueary called his father, John, after he ran from the shower room. His father told him to leave the athletic facility and go home. The father is damned, too, if his son still had time to intervene, but the presentment doesn't provide a timeline. It's possible McQueary's chance to make a difference was lost by the time he called his father. Even assuming the opportunity to intervene was lost, it's nonetheless chilling that neither father nor son chose to call the police. Mike and John McQueary waited until the following day to act, and only then to talk to Joe Paterno.

Craven. Pathetic. Disgusting.

I can't be self-righteous about McQueary's failure because I've also failed the test of manhood. In my case, the test was a gang-up bullying of a classmate by classmates in a classroom on a day the teacher was absent. It started off as light teasing but it became something darker. I stayed in my seat and put my head down because I felt too weak to stand up to the bullies and was afraid I would become grouped with the victim if I intervened. To my continuing shame, I acted like a scared, self-preserving prey animal that day rather than a man. The bullying was finally stopped by a classmate who left the room to summon a teacher. Poignantly, the classmate who did something was socially awkward and disrespected, yet he was the only one of us who acted on the spot and in the moment. He proved himself to be a better man than I.

What does it mean to be a man? I define manhood by the Army values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage. Mike McQueary failed at least five of the values when he abandoned the boy to Sandusky's rape. With my fearful decision to go along to get along, I failed all seven values. Would I have taken a personal risk if I had tried to stop the bullying? Yes. Would McQueary have taken a personal risk if he had tried to stop the rape? Yes. In the real world, men suffer to earn their honor. The essence of manhood is the challenge to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

All that said, I am confident I would have reacted differently than McQueary. There is a limit to the stopping power of insecurity when a 10-year-old child is being raped in front of you. I can only wish for McQueary what I hope for myself: a chance for redemption, the awareness to recognize the test, and the character to pass it as an honorable man. Mike McQueary just has a much higher bar for redemption than I do.

Of course, the whole Sandusky controversy reaches beyond McQueary's failure of manhood on the spot and in the moment. The Penn State leaders who declined to notify law enforcement in 2002 may have protected Sandusky despite knowing of the 1998 criminal investigation and possibly other incidents. (Read this detailed summary.) After the 2002 incident, leaders at Penn State, including McQueary as he progressed from graduate assistant to assistant coach, and possibly The Second Mile apparently stood passive despite knowing Sandusky continued to interact with young boys. If Penn State leaders in 2002 responded to McQueary's eyewitness report in the context of past incidents, then they may have felt compelled to cover up past cover-ups as much as the new crime, reminiscent of traitors who are blackmailed into deeper espionage than they first intended. Jerry Sandusky founded The Second Mile in 1977, coached at Penn State until 1999, and stayed affiliated with the university until he was arrested last week . . . how much has he done that was covered up?

Joe Paterno's motto was "Success with Honor" and the public believed he led Penn State football, indeed the university, virtuously. I have in mind a future post about the spectacular disillusionments of the last few years and the higher standard of responsibility versus accountability.

Eric

Basic Training and West Point certificates

2011-10-15T02:04:00.017-04:00

In the spirit of my Columbia diploma, here are my Basic Training completion and West Point admission certificates. The bonus is my Beast Barracks certificate of completion. I don't recall right now whether I have an AIT certificate, but I should have a gaudy USMAPS graduation certificate somewhere.

Graduating from Basic is still my proudest accomplishment.

Bonus:

Eric

Today's readings: Jobs council report, All the single ladies

2011-10-13T01:00:00.007-04:00

The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness's interim report: Taking Action, Building Confidence.

All the Single Ladies by Kate Bolick and a follow-up e-mail interview with the author.

Eric

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-09T12:41:00.044-04:00

I went down and checked it out. It's your basic, as Eric Cartman would call it, hippie jam fest. The people involved and disparate, even contradictory, lefty demands represented look like the composite radical protests I witnessed during college. The only prescriptive position I found belonged to a couple who called themselves socialists but whose views were mostly libertarian, though granted, I didn't stay to listen to every soapbox speech.

Common views at the protest: Wealth redistribution is good (whether through big estate tax or uncovering the corporations' secret trillions), President Obama is reviled as an exposed Manchurian candidate corporate stooge, and the belief that big money (400 richest families and corporations!) and big government are closely allied in advancing plutocracy against the populist interest. Anti-corporate is a common label at the protest but different protestors define the label differently. On one end, some are calling for campaign finance reform and barring corporations from political campaign funding, very much in line with the opposing view in the Citizens United case. On the other end, there are ideological calls for an end to capitalism, destruction of the current political economic system, and radically redistributive class warfare (99% overthrow of the 1%). I don't agree with many of the various views at the protest, but I have some common ground with a few of the more reasonable protests. I agree with the critique of nominally American but actually global corporations that their primary loyalty, indeed their legally mandated fiduciary duty, is not to America and Americans, but to their own corporate profits. which may be maximized by investing and employing outside of the US. I also am concerned that legal personhood has been extended too far for corporations, which was a commercial legal concept that imbued a specific business model with a specific legal character and rights in order to serve a specific risk-mitigating business purpose, not to actually become a fully endowed legal person. Generally, I agree that a critical reassessment needs to take place of our relative global economic standing, and our system and assumptions. Perhaps most troubling is the dire job market for the college educated, many of whom committed their youthful prime and took the risk of non-dischargeable student loan debt based on the promise that higher education was the path to financial security. That promise has been broken and people who followed the rules are stuck. We need a sophisticated sober conversation among the American people and leaders about the economy; it remains to be seen whether actions like Occupy Wall Street will spark or hinder this needed conversation.

There's no substantial difference from similar yet marginalized protests that have taken place in the last 10-20 years, except the current protest fits neatly with the widespread angst over the current financial and jobs situations. The lack of coherent agenda helps the protest by allowing others to impute their concerns and anxiety on the story. The media helps the protest because the media is in the business of telling simplified memetic stories. When enough dramatic ingredients are present, the media's professional story-tellers will fill in the blanks with their own narrative.

The Occupy Wall Street protest on its own merits is less than advertised, but the public angst amplified by the media coverage of the protest is real. However, the lack of reasonable options by the protestors may indicate the most powerful threat of the movement: emotion-driven oppositional force with a 1000 faces that can only attack and cannot compromise because it has no reasonable negotiable positions with which to compromise; in that light, Occupy Wall Street is an anarchist movement.

10/21/11 add: Lexington Green has a detailed account of his visit to OccupyChicago. He doesn't believe the Occupy Wall Street protest will lead to the sober national conversation we need. He believes the movement will more likely follow the destructive 60s template of tantrumic lashing out by mobs. (He points to an emphasis on nonviolence, but I didn't see that in my visit to OWS. I saw plenty of violent rhetoric in the composite viewpoints. As well, the 60s protest history that Green believes is being repeated featured peaceful protests displaced by violent protests.) He saw some worthwhile points in the protest but no prescriptive movement. Can I find a prescription? Can the Ivy civil-military movement evolve into the sober, prescriptive, problem-solving movement our nation needs?

11/26/11 add: Matt Continetti, who as a student wrote about ROTC return for the Columbia Political Review, analyzes the Occupy Wall Street movement. He sums it up thus: "The idea is utopian socialism. The method is revolutionary anarchism."

Eric

Harvard Pyramid

2011-10-05T20:50:00.006-04:00

Healthy eating, according to the Harvard School of Public Health:

Eric

Columbia University Science Fiction Society

2011-10-04T14:19:00.003-04:00

CUSFS is cool. I would like to have been involved with the club more as a student, but I'm still on their mailing list.

Eric

Dear Human

2011-10-02T13:51:00.001-04:00

Funny stuff. (cwcid tigerhawk)

Eric

Snapshot of my 2003-04 views on the War on Terror

2011-10-01T23:00:00.018-04:00

In the years following 9/11, I vigorously debated in varied settings about the War on Terror and American global leadership. My most extensive unvarnished contemporary arguments are preserved on-line in pseudonymous posts on BasketballBoards.net (now BasketballForum.com). In fact, the Perspective on and Contextualizing the argument over Operation Iraqi Freedom posts on this blog grew out of my BBB.net posts. A few days ago, due to a laptop breakdown, I powered up my old desktop computer for the first time in years and rediscovered a .txt file where I had saved a selection of my BBB.net posts from 7/30/03 to 6/5/04. I'm posting the compilation as I found it with no adds, cuts, or editing - a historical snapshot.

Given that I joined BBB.net to talk NBA basketball, why did I become involved in intensive 9/11-related debates there? My 8/31/03 post explained:

The main reason I've written so much in this thread and it's predecessor thread (War in Iraq poll) is a comment one poster made that irked me. He said something to the effect that people who support the US mission in Iraq or the Bush admin's foreign policy in general were ignorant Americans who were easily duped, and even claimed that anybody with even a rudimentary college education would oppose the Bush admin's actions. You know, too many of our guys and gals - better people than any of us - are working overtime, hurting and dying in Iraq right now, doing the right thing, for me to let comments like that go, even on BBB.net. In terms of morale, it is very important to our soldiers as they endure many hardships in Iraq and Afghanistan that they know the American people back them and support their mission. My goal with my posts, along with fellow posters, is to show that there is an informed, intelligent basis for Americans to be patriotic and/or to support post-9/11 US-led missions, without abandoning critical faculties.

My engagement in BBB.net was also a self-conscious experiment in nuanced contextual discourse. In 2003-04, people were still paying attention to the hotly debated global controversy with room to listen because the partisan poles, though quickly taking form, weren't yet immutably hardened. BBB.net's Everything But Basketball forum was an ideal setting for democratic dialogue because the BBB.net community was diverse and not politically self-selected as it would have been on a political website. Internet discussion boards in general allow participants to focus on the words without the distractions inherent in other media, digest the content at their own pace, and deliberately respond on a level playing field. But in the end, despite all the conducive features of the setting, my attempt at nuanced contextual discourse was frustrating and ultimately disillusioning. (You can see the frustration in my changing tone in the posts.) I failed to beat the pull of the partisan echo chamber.

The compilation is mostly in chronological order, and where the dates skip shouldn't cause any confusion. However, due to the loss of formatting from pasting into a .txt file, it's not always clear where my responses divide from where I quote other posters. It's a ranging, rather exhaustively long read, so I split the file into 4 manageable chunks.

Enjoy: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Eric

Anwar al-Awlaki killed

2011-10-01T13:36:00.021-04:00

Good news if confirmed . . . and a deserved congratulations to President Obama and the Team America he commands. Part of winning hearts and minds is living up to the dichotomous principle "No better friend - no worse enemy".

Read John Yoo's rebuttal of the claim that the killing of al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was illegal. Make sure to read the comments. Professor Yoo states a 2-prong test for whether a killing is a legal war act: "What is important is not whether someone is an alien or a citizen, but whether they are a member of an enemy conducting hostilities against the United States". In other words, did al-Awlaki qualify as a "member of an enemy" (against the US)? And did his conduct qualify as "hostilities" (against the US)? Keep in mind that historical precedents are necessarily imperfect when applied to a "new type of war".

To President Obama's critics who are reluctant to give credit where credit is due, Walt Harrington reminds that "[President Bush's] only remark about Barack Obama was, as I recall it, “No matter who wins, when he hears what I hear every morning, it will change him.”"

Eric

Selfless service: Alwyn Cashe and Burhanuddin Rabbani

2011-09-28T16:06:00.031-04:00

The 7 Army values are, of course, Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage.

Read about two heroes of the War on Terror who embodied Selfless Service, Army SFC Alwyn Cashe (thanks to blackfive) and assassinated Afghanistan peace-broker Burhanuddin Rabbani.

SFC Cashe deserves the Medal of Honor. His case should become a case study for a Medal of Honor upgrade, if the folks championing the cause can push it through the bureaucracy. SFC Cashe's actions as Platoon Sergeant to save his men by sacrificing himself exemplified the essence of everything we learned about leading soldiers and honored the Army NCO Creed: My two basic responsibilities will always be uppermost in my mind—accomplishment of my mission and the welfare of my soldiers. . . . All soldiers are entitled to outstanding leadership; I will provide that leadership. I know my soldiers and I will always place their needs above my own. The short version taught to me was 'Mission First, Soldiers Always'.

In the 'Why We Fight', I was struck especially by these excerpts from Camelia Entekhabifard's NY Times column about her former neighbor:

By deciding to try to broker peace between Mr. Karzai’s government and the Taliban, Mr. Rabbani acted against the wishes of his political enemies, as well as many of his friends and colleagues. A number of influential spiritual leaders and political heavyweights who tried to guard Afghanistan’s young democracy in the post-Taliban period had already been murdered.
. . .
Though Mr. Rabbani often criticized the Karzai administration, he remained hopeful that the Afghan people would take advantage of the world’s interest in their country to achieve peace before it was too late. “We must act before international donors stop caring whether or not we achieve democracy or a higher standard of living,” he told me. “One day, the world will no longer care and we will lose our support.”

Emphasis added. Mr. Rabbani and the enemy who killed him understood the stakes. Do we?

10/2/11 add: The assassination of Mr. Rabbani reminds of the Jan 2011 assassination of Pakistani governor and liberal reformer Saleem Taseer.

Eric

2 cool things: Mount Fuji climbing instructions and Bermuda bus map

2011-09-24T11:13:00.014-04:00

From when I climbed Mount Fuji, July 2000:

Pocari Sweat!

From my visit to Bermuda, June 2011, the Bermuda buses plus the ferry are the most convenient and cheapest way to travel the length of Bermuda:

Eric

Walt Harrington's Dubya and Me

2011-09-23T14:40:00.012-04:00

Read it. (tip from neo) I too believe history will judge President Bush more kindly than his contemporary detractors. I didn't vote for President Bush in 2000; I voted for President Bush in 2004 and am proud that I did. Though I can quibble and disagree with him in places, I believe Bush made the right big decisions in historic, perhaps epochal, moments that demanded them. I can't help but favorably compare Harrington's depiction of President Bush with Nassir Ghaemi's poor assessment of Bush, despite that the premise from which Ghaemi's unthoughtful partisan hit on Bush followed is favorable towards me. Harrington's piece reminds me of Tom Junod's The Case for George W. Bush.

Eric

Thoughts on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11

2011-09-12T21:59:00.151-04:00

I visited Columbia for the 10th anniversary commemoration of 9/11. Organized by the Chaplain's office, the morning memorial was a solemn but also modest and low-key affair on Low plaza. My sense is that this year's 9/11 commemorations will be the last. With Osama bin Laden killed, years of vitriolic partisan clash and conspiracy-mongering sapping our collective will to fight (see Mao's guidance on psy-ops in guerrilla warfare), and our imperiled economy the proximate concern, most Americans believe a decade on is the appropriate time to relegate 9/11 to history. By now, most 9/11 remembrances are sanitized of determined resolve and more akin to recalling a unique disaster (like a plane accident or hurricane) than an ongoing contest. Republican and Democrat politicians both want to move on from the war. The problem is that the mission that we undertook after 9/11, what we knew then would be a Long War, is not finished. The enemy continues to compete. I'm glad YAF put out its "Never Forget" memorial on College Walk . . . Ron Lewenberg was right - in hindsight, Students United for Victory should have stayed focused on student support for the war effort. Students United for America's broadened mission of critical solutions for the nation's challenges was important, too, as shown by the political gridlock and compounding problems we're dealing with today. But the primary focus on the whole slate of issues could have been left to other student groups, whereas SU4V's founding purpose was unique on campus. The leadership decision wasn't that simple, but in hindsight, I believe we could have held onto SU4V's mission and done the other things, too. My call . . . my mistake.

The War on Terror is like fighting cancer and quitting the treatment halfway guarantees a weakened body left to the mercy of an evolutionarily toughened disease. Certainly, the economic cost of the war is a key consideration. Economic power is a prerequisite of military power and America's economic standing is shaky right now. Assuming we don't abandon the struggle, the question is how we adapt to keep up the fight at a sustainable - and a winnable - level. It could be that we actually will compete more agilely against the terrorists when we're forced to adapt and innovate with less funding and resources. Coupled with a defter footprint, less media attention could mean more creative room for our operators, too.

I agree with Richard Landes. Too many leaders, political and cultural, responded to 9/11 with nearsighted partisanship rather than patriotism, and retrenched in their preferred beliefs rather than a sober assessment of what we need to do to solve very complex problems and defeat a focused, aggressive enemy whose competitive advantage is powered with those same problems. A few celebrities at home have even sought to actively undermine our war effort as barbaric, a monstrous conspiracy, and a purposeful distraction from social priorities. Before 9/11, global critics - not only competitors, but some beneficiaries of Pax Americana - maligned American world leadership as a dangerous "hyperpower" that must be reigned in and controlled. Since 9/11, many others have accused America of being the root cause of the world's problems, even as we're struggling against truly toxic entities and championing liberal reform. Their narrow perspective implicitly excuses anyone opposing us - even terrorists - as righteously standing up to American hegemony while also, tragically, implicitly dismissing anyone who cooperates with America - even courageous liberal reformers - as illegitimate, a lackey at best or traitor at worst. The commitment to blame America is so extreme for some, they've even blamed the body count from the terrorists' assassinations, mass murders, and other depravities on the US. Early in the 9/11 debates, I described this enabling outlook as 'terrorist-as-proxy', meaning people opposed America in the War on Terror not because they necessarily shared the terrorists' cause, but because they ascribed their various grievances against America to the terrorists' struggle. The terrorists have learned to use this self-destructive Western mindset by tailoring their propaganda to the blame-America-first narrative.

Our choices in the War on Terror on 9/11 were to try harder with our limited pre-9/11 strategy, full isolationist withdrawal, a killing war, or armed intervention with fundamental liberal reform (as opposed to simple democracy). We chose to fight for a liberal peace and reform of a dysfunctionally crippled, conspiracy-addled part of the world. Radical political Islam seems to be a zealous religious version of Communism that promises a similarly centralized systemic antidote for the evils of class, individualism, and capitalism, and shares Communism's killing hatred of liberalism. In the 3-way contest between Islamists, old-school dictators (and would-be dictators), and liberal reformers, the liberal reformers don't have a chance without our intervention. In that part of the world, liberal reformers are by far the weakest group and opposed by killers. If we abandon the liberal reformers, they're dead.

The enemy is 4GW, resilient, adaptable, thinking, and manipulative. He thinks pragmatically in the big picture and long view, while partisans in the West often seem deliberately obtuse. For the 9/11 attacks, the terrorists didn't need prodigious resources, merely the will to win by any means necessary and masterful use of our vulnerabilities, preferences, and beliefs against us. Meanwhile, the enemy protects himself by embedding in the black-market areas (eg, narcotics, smuggling, failed states) outside of the normal authority of our world order. The dictators are within our reach; the Islamists are not.

Our goal of liberal reform in the War on Terror is bottom-up and must begin with change at the granular personal level. The changes we need to happen have a much better chance of taking root in Iraq than in Afghanistan, but New York Times article Many Iraqis Have Second Thoughts as U.S. Exit Nears by Michael S. Schmidt hints at the psychological obstacles to liberal reform there. With great sacrifice battling vicious illiberal forces on Iraq's behalf and enormous investment into the new Iraq, America has given Iraq the opportunity for liberal reform, but if Iraqis are unable to overcome their modes of thinking, we can't make them do so. The article shows Iraqis sensing the opportunity for a better future slipping away, but their handicapped thinking is sabotaging their ability to seize the opportunity. (It's only human of them; as Richard Landes explained above, Westerners are equally suspectible to trapping themselves with handicapped thinking.) The situation reminds me of the subjects on the A&E show Intervention: with the reality of the American military's departure facing them, now may be the moment where Iraqis are finally ready to change with the proper assistance from us. The competitive illiberal forces inside and surrounding Iraq have not been neutralized. We should continue to play an active role assisting Iraq, though our future guidance may not be predominantly military in character. America's Iraq mission should adapt, not end.

On a personal level, 9/11 knocked me off my plan to find my life path at Columbia. Contemplating the ash cloud downtown that was the World Trade Center, aware of the notorious history of American college students in the Vietnam War, I felt a powerful responsibility to support America, especially our soldiers going to war, as a new student and recent soldier on campus. I became a campus activist and vigorously debated about the War on Terror and American hegemony and leadership. I learned what naive passionate activists often learn: doing your best to make a difference may only result in a disappearing difference in the long run, no matter how promisingly flashy the immediate returns. My classmates who claimed the best way they could respond to 9/11 was to succeed in their chosen niche were right after all. Student activists who give up their self interest for the cause do so at the risk of becoming less than they could have been, which means they'll have less to bring to the table in the long run, for themselves, their future family, and society-at-large. Lesson for student activists: think of yourself as the goose that lays the golden eggs. If you give into the temptation to sacrifice yourself in the now, then you may have too little to give in the future. (That's not to say all my activist efforts were wasted.) For all that I did do in reaction to 9/11, though, I feel as though I still have unfinished business - that I have not done my part. But what can I do? Perhaps as others move on, they'll leave room for me to work that otherwise would not have been open. Maybe the folks who stay behind will be able to do more. Or maybe bureaucrats will occupy all the available opportunities to make a difference and squander them.

Eric

Paragon Sports warehouse sale

2011-09-10T15:05:00.004-04:00

Paragon Sports is holding its annual warehouse sale from 9/8/11 to 9/18/11. The merchandise on sale is mostly shoes and clothing and various athletic gear. A salesman explained to me that as the bins and racks empty, they're being refilled from boxes of mixed items, which means something you can't find today could be brought out later. Or not - you just have to come back and find out.

I've gone each day hoping to find a cheap pair of Vibrams, but no luck. There have been Vibrams in the bins, just not in my size. The closest I found was a Euro 47 (roughly US 13) pair for about $45. The sale prices are advertised as 50% to 80% off the retail price. Winter and ski/snowboard outer wear are an additional 20% off the sales price.

I've bought a pair of Crocs Classics ($9, retail $30) and New Balance CT1004 tennis shoes ($56, retail $115) for walking, a Bonfire Radiant snowboarding jacket ($80, retail $200) for everyday winter wear, and a Marmot Whitehorse down parka ($80, retail $375). I don't know how much use I'll get out of the Marmot parka, because it rarely gets cold enough in NYC for a parka designed for bitter winter weather, but almost-80% off the retail price was just too good a deal to pass up for a well-regarded product I might use.

Eric

Hurricane Irene thoughts

2011-08-29T11:04:00.029-04:00

My thoughts on Hurricane Irene are limited to NYC and the NYC media and government.

The effect of Irene on NYC was anticlimatically mild after all the hype. There was a windy rainstorm on Saturday night, but certainly nothing close to a hurricane. I made it a point to walk past the mayor-ordered evacuation Zone A and out onto the end of a Hudson River pier during the windiest and hardest rain of the storm, about 1-2 am Sunday. When it was announced that Irene's eye had arrived in NYC at 9 am Sunday, the rain by that time had actually lightened to a drizzle with a mild breeze. While the wind picked up later on Sunday, though still nothing near hurricane levels, the rain stopped altogether. Sunday - the day Hurricane Irene was supposed to rampage through NYC - dawned in fact as a beautiful day in the city with blue skies, cleansed air, and a welcome brisk breeze.

The NYC media did report the facts on Irene, but they also sensationalized their coverage with the direst spin of Katrina-esque flooding and windborne destruction. Even as the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm, the media acted as though the danger remained as high as for a hurricane. Even as it became apparent on Sunday that the impact of Irene on NYC was normal for a hard rainstorm, television reporters seemed to go out of their way to seek out low-lying areas and dips that normally flood during rainstorms to serve as backdrops for their continued breathless reporting. The television news, deployed throughout the weekend in 24-hour crisis mode, seemed invested in the idea of an epic natural disaster befalling NYC, and in the absence of an actual disaster, selectively spot-lighted and exaggerated whatever photogenic storm effects they could find. Local politicians, angling for relief funds from the state and fed, dutifully played along in interviews. As it became obvious the storm danger was over, the on-scene reporters looked increasingly foolish as they exclaimed incredulously about motorists driving through waterlogged intersections, pedestrians out strolling, and even beach-goers enjoying the water.

I don't fault the media for warning New Yorkers earlier in the week. Harsh weather can become dangerous if you're caught in it unprepared. It's not a bad thing for people to be more conscientious about emergencies and generally resilient. Predicted weather can change unpredictably, for better or worse. I'm reminded of when the weather office in my last unit forecasted a typhoon (an Asian hurricane). Weather is serious business in an aviation unit, so I thought of Traci's dad (RIP), who was scheduled to drive on a long business trip. I called her to warn him, which she did, but Traci's dad ignored my warning. That predicted typhoon turned out to be a normal rainstorm, too, and I felt foolish and embarassed afterwards. It happens. Where the NYC media beclowned themselves was sticking stubbornly to their disaster reporting even as it became obvious to their audience that there was no disaster.

As for the government response, I don't understand why the subways, trains, and buses were shut down entirely and shut down so earlier (noon Saturday). Shutting down the public transportation system shuts down the city. It was an unprecedented drastic preemptive action that seemed disproportionate ahead of the event and unnecessary in hindsight. Rainstorms are not rare in NYC; I can only imagine their fear was of massive flooding of the subway system by a storm surge of corrosive seawater, not rain flooding. But even in the case of a storm surge, the MTA should have been able to run limited service with a shutdown of the entire system held back as a last resort.

My guess is that the drastic preemptive actions, including the evacuation, ordered by the city were a reaction to the criticism of the city's response to the 2010 "blizzard". Having grown up in Queens and witnessed the city's response to previous heavy snowstorms, I thought the city's response to the heavy snowstorm last winter was normal. Only the harsh media criticism and subsequent politicization were new. Predictably, the consequence of punishing a normal response is the elicitation of an abnormal response in the future.

Eric

Class in America

2011-08-12T09:38:00.002-04:00

In 2009, Sandra Tsing Loh (whose name is familiar but I can't remember why) wrote a disturbing and depressing 25 year retrospective on Paul Fussell's book Class for her Atlantic column.

Eric

WSJ: Depression in Command

2011-07-30T13:08:00.029-04:00

Psychiatrist links depression with activist crisis leadership while stable minds are better suited for caretaker status quo management, or Winston Churchill versus Neville Chamberlain. About: Dr. Ghaemi is a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center. This essay is adapted from his new book, "A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness."

Excerpt:

Great crisis leaders are not like the rest of us; nor are they like mentally healthy leaders. When society is happy, they toil in sadness, seeking help from friends and family and doctors as they cope with an illness that can be debilitating, even deadly. Sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down, but they are never quite well.

When traditional approaches begin to fail, however, great crisis leaders see new opportunities. When the past no longer guides the future, they invent a new future. When old questions are unanswerable and new questions unrecognized, they create new solutions. They are realistic enough to see painful truths, and when calamity occurs, they can lift up the rest of us.

9/4/11 up to page 110 thoughts: I've read about GEN Sherman, Lincoln, Ghandi, Churchill, and MLK. Unfortunately, the book is flawed by an unthoughtful anti-Bush, anti-GWOT prejudice; I view the GWOT as fitting the qualities the author describes. It seems these great empathic crisis leaders, who are rare, rely on being fellow travelers with both the objects of their resistance and their own normal followers. When it works, their movements are cohesive due more to effectively shared rational (political and/or economic) goals than a universal empathic journey toward agape. (The empathy v rationality theme reminds me of the conflict in Stephen King's The Stand.) For normal people who value more tangible goals, the values held so dear and articulated so carefully by empathic leaders amount to only so much pretty rhetoric. After their erstwhile followers eventually, and perhaps inevitably, diverge on their normal course, many of these empathic crisis leaders, although revered by their communities for their successes, come to view themselves as ultimate failures. These leaders aren't pacifist ideologues: nonviolent resistance is the preferred way to resist injustice, but not the only way; violent resistance is preferred to acquiescence. Ghandi and MLK, one a London-educated lawyer and the other a classically educated Christian American minister, were able to succeed with nonviolent resistance by defining their movements with intimate appeals to their objects' Western liberal values and altering their objects' political-economic calculations. Empathic crisis leaders succeed with deeply held convictions, their determination, empathy and realism. But what if the empathic crisis leader is resisting an object who is determined to resist back by whatever means necessary, with an incompatible perspective that views the crisis leader's justice as injustice for the object, and is less vulnerable to political-economic calculations? Then the empathic leader who prefers nonviolent resistance but refuses acquiescence takes on the violent resistance of the Civil War, World War II, or the War on Terror. What happens if the crisis leader's followers, who only pay lip service to their leader's values, decide that their rational interests are better served by decamping the resistance movement?

I finished reading the book quick reaction: The author compellingly supports the validity of his hypothesis and gives me needed hope and insight about my mental pathology and food for thought. His point is novel but simple once explained: certain mental pathologies, when applied the right way, enhance crisis leadership as much as they have been popularly known to enhance the arts. The idea rings true from personal experience. Crisis leadership, as a field of innovation, and interactive and expressive human endeavor, is much like an art form. Unfortunately, perhaps to fill a book with an idea that could have been explained more simply and concisely in a short paper, his presentation weakens when it departs from his basic descriptive methodology and attempts suspiciously simplistic, neat antithetical contrasts. The antithesis, as such, is less convincing than the thesis. When the book veers from the basic premise, Ghaemi seems less than rigorous, and right/wrong judgemental at times, and is possibly selective in his presentation (a no-no in scientific study). Already thinly veiled in other sections, Ghaemi's political bias overwhelms his work in the antithetical section devoted to "homoclite" Bush and Blair and the bad/wrong/lie Operation Iraqi Freedom and the War on Terror. His attempt there to claim he wrote as an honest broker weakens his credibility. The author has a follow-up article. Lots of reviews on-line, which I'd like to read. It seems Ghaemi's thesis has struck a chord ... or a nerve. Again, while an imperfect work, Ghaemi successfully supported his hypothesis, enough to give me hope. For the record, using the definitions laid out in the book, I qualify as empathic, depressive realist (too much so), and creative, but I'm not resilient. I'm more dysthymic and not hyperthymic, and become more cyclothymic when plugged into a cause.

Eric

14-year-old's 19-year-old babysitter

2011-07-14T17:01:00.030-04:00

News report and humorous discussion. Odd that a 14-year-old would even have a babysitter.

Loni Bouchard looks like she could be Zooey and Emily Deschanel's little sister. A six-month illicit affair is a decent run for a teenager. The young man should be empowered from passing a critical rite of passage early in his formative sexual development. For the mom who presumably hired Bouchard to babysit her son in the first place, and then called the cops on her, all I can say is, one hand giveth, the other taketh away. I wonder where the dad is in this affair and what he might think of the situation?

Add: some news vid of Bouchard and more babysitter love.

Eric

Simple homemade mouse trap

2011-07-11T15:02:00.048-04:00

Check out this simple homemade mouse trap. It works:

Mice have entered my mom's apartment through (presumably) pipes in the central heating system. It's not a regular problem but it's happened several times now. There's a heating unit in each bedroom and the living room, and we've taped over the floor-level openings of the units since discovering they serve as mouse portals. But tape adhesive loosens with age and we don't check them constantly. We haven't used poison in my mom's apartment because we don't want poison spread around the apartment nor any hidden decomposing mouse corpses. Traditional snap traps, humane box traps, and smaller mouse-sized glue traps have been ineffective. The larger rat-sized glue traps have proven to be my most effective tool for catching mice.

I caught the 1st mouse in a 20-pound rice bag. The rice bag was stored upright, in a plastic bag and box, on the floor of the kitchen, with the bag opening on top folded down. Yet we heard the mouse rustling inside the bag and saw mouse poop on the rice within the bag. Placing snap, humane, and glue traps around the rice bag didn't work - the mouse avoided the traps and got into the rice. After several days, I placed a large glue trap within the bag, on the rice, and folded down the top of the bag as usual. That night, the mouse was caught on the glue trap in the bag. We now use a large black blinder clip to seal the rice bags.

I caught the 2nd mouse in the opening of the heating unit in my mom's bedroom. I heard suspicious noises coming from the heating unit and guessed mice were using it to enter and leave the room. I placed glue traps on the floor where I estimated mice would drop from the unit. It worked. A mouse was caught either coming or going, but my guess is it dropped onto the trap. After that, we sealed the openings on the bedroom heating units.

I caught the 3rd mouse in the living room next to the television. Mice will sprint across a room to go from point A to point B, but typically travel along the walls. The TV is against the wall next to the heating unit, which creates a blind turn. A mouse-sized glue trap at the elbow of the turn failed to catch the mouse, but I knew the mouse was using that path. After a few days, I placed a larger rat-sized glue trap next to the smaller trap around the blind turn and against the front of the heating unit. I actually witnessed the mouse peek out from behind the TV, streak over the smaller glue trap, and get caught in the middle of the larger glue trap.

Last night, I caught the 4th mouse in a bucket modified into a sort of camouflaged punji stick pit. The mouse had entered from the living room heating unit where the tape over the opening had loosened. I set out glue traps, baited with chocolate, rice, cashews, or chicken meat, in the living room and kitchen, including a repeat of the TV-heating unit elbow trap, without success. I found the linked mouse trap instructions on google yesterday. I modified the trap because my mom doesn't have the 20-inch-plus high container that the blog recommends, only a 10-inch high bucket. I decided to place glue traps at the bottom of the bucket so an acrobatic mouse couldn't climb or jump out. I trimmed the plastic borders so they would fit together better in the bucket and form a more-or-less contiguous glue surface. Rather than an unbalanced toilet paper roll, I covered the bucket with a paper towel sheet. The paper towel hid the glue traps from the mouse. I taped one edge to the bucket so the sheet wouldn't fall in with the mouse and possibly save it from the glue traps. I taped two thin plastic strips to the bucket on the opposite side to barely hold up the trap side of the paper towel. I baited the trap with a piece of cooked pork on the center of the paper towel because mice like meat (see youtube videos of cannibal mice), which I hoped is rare enough in a typical mouse's diet to overcome this mouse's hitherto trap-avoiding judgement. My mom had spotted the mouse in the kitchen so I placed the bucket in the same location of the rice bag. The 1st mouse I caught had entered through the top of the taller rice bag so I thought this mouse would find a way onto the shorter bucket. A few hours later, I noticed one corner of the paper towel was down, though the paper towel was still up and the pork was untouched. The mouse pictured above was caught.

7/14/11 update: There's at least one more mouse in the apartment, and it's not falling for the bucket trap. Smart. 12/22/11 update: For about a month, the mouse ran around the apartment with seeming impunity, too often in plain sight. Tried a growing number of multiple types of homemade traps of increasing complexity and different baits with placements spread around the apartment; all failed. Finally spotted the mouse running behind a plastic bag of magazines that was against a wall and recalled seeing the mouse around that general area more than other places. Placed a simple glue trap at juncture of wall and bag. The mouse ran onto the trap and was caught. Turns out the mouse had gotten inside the plastic bag, shredded the magazines, and made itself a den. For all the mouse's cunning and my creativity making traps and placing them, the mouse was finally caught with a simple trap placed inside his pattern of travel. The key was identifying the mouse's habit. The lesson learned is that there is a point on a mouse's route to safe harbor (escape or den) where habit, with perhaps an irresistable sense of imminent safety, overwhelms its sense of caution.

Lessons learned:

Mice, at least savvy NYC mice, will avoid traps they can see and possibly touch, regardless of the bait. Simply placing traps on the mouse's known routes of travel doesn't work. If a mouse can directly associate bait with a trap, it won't take the bait. The trap has to be camouflaged somehow. Mice don't seem to sniff out visually hidden traps, though.

Use larger rat-sized glue traps. Traditional snap traps, humane box traps, and smaller mouse-sized glue traps are largely useless for catching mice, at least when they're used in the open.

The keys to catching a mouse are knowing the mouse's behavior to use against it and deception. Mice, while cautious, will develop patterns. The 1st two mice were caught because I identified where they were dropping blind and placed glue traps on their landing spots. The 3rd mouse was caught because it knew it could go over the smaller glue trap it saw, but was tricked by the adjoining larger glue trap the mouse didn't know was around the blind turn. The 4th mouse was the only one I induced to go someplace different than its pattern, although I drew upon a previous mouse's pattern in order to catch it.

There is a point on a mouse's route to safe harbor (escape or den) where habit overwhelms its sense of caution. That's the point where a mouse finds the sense of imminent safety irresistable and is prone to make a straight line break for safe harbor. Place a trap at the spot on the mouse's path to safe harbor where a smart mouse gets stupid and abandons caution.

A blurry sprinting mouse looks bigger than its actual size. I thought the above pictured mouse was twice as big as it turned out to be.

Mice will run across rooms occupied by people during the day or lit at night.

A caught mouse will empty its bowels and struggle hard to free itself.

Mice can squeeze through small openings. Maintenance nailed a chicken wire barrier over the living room heating unit opening, but chicken wire warps and bends. I recommend using tape instead. Use strong tape such as duct tape. But even strong tape loosens eventually and needs to be rechecked.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2011-06-25T00:23:00.083-04:00

The typical NYC pedestrian face is tense, drawn tight, with a furrowed brow. Long term, do I want to live in a city that makes its residents look like that?

The baddest-ass TV character line ever: "Don't try and threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die." Cigarette Smoking Man to Mulder, X-Files, season 2, episode One Breath. Here's the audio clip of the scene; the closest I could find on youtube is a clip from the same scene following the quote.

Black Swan and Nina (Natalie Portman) remind me a lot of The Machinist and Trevor Reznick (Christian Bale). An all-time creepy movie scene from The Machinist: Route 666.

I have a mixed reaction to the new High Line. The elevated park is a status symbol with plenty of modern design and novel and hip in a trendy gentrifying neighborhood. But its dimensions are too narrow to serve comfortably as a park and the decision to preserve the foliage on the tracks shrank the pedestrian space even further. The High Line is really a walkway that doesn't need many people to become crowded. Even when uncrowded, its location wedged among buildings makes for a cramped closed-in feel. The elevated tracks were there and a decision had to be made either to develop the space or tear down the tracks, so the decision to repurpose the space as a park is justifiable. But the elevated tracks wouldn't have been constructed, where they're located, in order to build a park. There is also growing concern in the neighborhood about overdevelopment, which the High Line is enabling. 9/29/11 add: AM NY story about the High Line effect harming neighborhood businesses despite initial hopes of boosting them.

From the movie Glory, the campfire prayer scene the night before the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner. Matthew Broderick's Army Colonel Robert Shaw, the commander of the 54th, is a study in officership.

President Obama's 33K troop drawdown timeline for the Afghanistan mission makes sense. 33K (out of 100+K troops) by end of next year is reasonable. Afghanistan is not Iraq, either in nature or significance to the War on Terror (Iraq - long view of environmental reform; Afghanistan - immediate need to exterminate terrorists), and the expectations and goals should not be the same for both missions. That said, reducing the Afghanistan mission means also pulling the liberal peace-building threads of the mission. Hopefully, the troop drawdown accounts for the consequences to peace-building.

Liberal, peace-building COIN is expensive, murky and drawn out, and often not apparently effective, but in a Long War that is absent a definitive defeat in which the enemy takes total control of the space and populace (eg, Vietnam War), COIN may be necessary to secure the long-term political component in the broader strategic picture, even without sufficient tangible returns on investment.

My reaction at Professor Nacos's blog to the revelation from the raid intel that bin Laden believed al Qaeda was losing the War on Terror.

Know what it is as well as what it isn't. What it does as well as it what it doesn't. Creation can be a mess.

All That Jazz, the semi-autobiographical movie by Bob Fosse, should be watched by teenage boys as a learning piece about girls and relationships. The 1979 classic movie reinforces a by-now familiar dismaying lesson that is repeated in article 12 Reasons Women Can't Stand Nice Guys (see the youtube interview with the author, a self-defined "cougar"). xsplat offers sensible advice: Go through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, DABDA (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), to clear-eyed acceptance of the death of romantic ideals (aka Utopian vision, indie film in your head), then learn to deal with girls clear-headed about self and them.

Kate Mulvey talks about her feminist life while bemoaning her belated recognition of the destructive lie of feminism. A later article by Mulvey sporting a different take. Links from here.

Taken In Hand is about wives who want their husbands to be the boss of their marriage as a traditional dominant Man. Interesting perspective because my relationship model has been equal partners in a team. I could be wrong. Atlantic article A Wifely Duty is an apt companion piece.

Interesting article by a Columbia J-school prof on the effect of DNA testing on legal paternity and legal paternal obligation. What's best for the child? What's best for the cuckolded not-biological father? What is the legal obligation of the biological father? How is choice factored? What about the individual wish of the child and father? Can the questions of custody and financial upkeep be considered separately? A complicated issue, a key one in men's rights.

It's a hard decision and a life decision - a fork in the road. Break down in order to free myself to become and build my life as an awakened man, the free realized me. But if I expunge my idealism, then what's left? Who am I, and what purpose, direction, and meaning do I have? Neo chose the red pill, but Cypher regretted taking it, and Quaid rejected it. Reminder: Neo chose the red pill from Morpheus in order to escape the Matrix, over the blue pill to stay as Thomas A. Anderson in the Matrix; I keep forgetting which pill is which, like I keep forgetting the 82nd Airborne is All American and the 101st Airborne is the Screaming Eagles. Neo took the red pill and won Trinity's love and found himself as revered, uniquely important, god-like powerful The One. Cypher took the red pill and became irrelevant and menial, his love rejected by Trinity, and bitterly watched her choose newcomer Neo, thus learning the Matrix was better for him. Quaid rejected the red pill and killed the pill bearer in Total Recall in order to stay as rebel Quaid rather than become ordinary Quaid or company-man Hauser. Don Quixote, knowing reality, deliberately chose to live as a dream. What's better and right for me?

Congratulations, Judy. I'm not surprised you're going into psychiatry.

18-year-old swimsuit model Kate Upton does the Dougie.

Best Gen-X rom-coms - 1996 Jerry Maguire and 1989 When Harry Met Sally? Dorothy Boyd (27-year-old Renee Zellwegger) and Sally Albright (28-year-old Meg Ryan).

Somewhat 'eh', but worth noting: How to Beat Negative Thoughts. The hypo of a mean-girls co-worker happened to me.

Eric

Ender's Game quotes

2011-06-21T17:36:00.009-04:00

Ender's Game Chapter 8, page 102: Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey, the more power they have over you.

Ender's Game Chapter 9, page 149: Isolation is - the optimum environment for creativity.

Ender's Game Chapter 11, page 185-186: Partly because of Ender's influence, they were the most flexible of armies, responding relatively quickly to new situations. Phoenix Army would be the best able to cope with Ender's fluid, unpatterned attack. . . . Petra was not Carn Carby; she had more flexible patterns and responded much more quickly to Ender's darting, improvised, unpredictable attack.

Ender's Game Chapter 11, page 198: I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.

* Ender's Game Chapter 14, page 275: Ender watched as all his squadrons moved at once, each responding to its own situation, all guided by Ender's overall command, but daring, improvising, feinting, attacking with an independence no bugger fleet had ever shown.

Ender's Game Chapter 14, page 277: Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it. So, Ender, I hope you do not bore me during your training with complaints that you are not having fun. Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, but your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.

Ender's Game Chapter 15, page 309: Ender took part in the work, as much as they would let him; it did not occur to them that this twelve-year-old boy might be as gifted at peace as he was at war. But he was patient with their tendency to ignore him, and learned to make his proposals and suggest his plans through the few adults who listened to him, and let them present them as their own. He was concerned, not about getting credit, but about getting the job done.

* Ender in Exile Chapter 2, page 29: He realized that Han Tzu would take his training and turn himself into the perfect father. And much of what he had learned in Battle School and here in Command School would probably serve him well. Patience, absolute self-control, learning the capabilities of those under you so you can make up for their deficits through training. What was I trained for? I am Tribal Man, thought Ender. The chief. They can trust me utterly to do exactly what's right for the tribe.

Eric

Suggestions for Columbia ROTC

2011-06-20T20:36:00.292-04:00

** Preface: I'll update this page if/when I can think of more. Make sure to open and read the links. My suggestions assume there is in place a baseline with an official ROTC presence located on campus and a comprehensive recruiting strategy for sophisticated public relations, tailored outreach, interaction with the campus community, and ROTC student retention. An independent campus vehicle controlled by ROTC students, such as Hamilton Society, is likely necessary to implement some of my suggestions. Organized alumni involvement is certainly necessary. **

Here are my suggestions for the designers and builders of Columbia ROTC (latest addition 19OCT11):

Make a resilient tribe.

Create a distinguished Columbia military brand. I recommend the brand be based on a distinctive preparation of Columbia ROTC students for nation building, statesmanship, and military leadership in the forward-thinking multi-talented tradition of alumnus Alexander Hamilton. Conscientiously orient CU ROTC students to military and civil leadership. Columbia ROTC should be viewed as innovative, even entrepeneurial, and creatively leveraging the resources of a large world-class university and a world capital city. Columbia ROTC graduates should understand war and the military in the context of the political (and everything else) and strategic, adaptive use of the military as a means to political ends. __ Read this Grantland article that discusses how the University of Oregon teamed with Nike to build its football program into a national leader, despite the absence of the assets relied upon by the traditionally top college football programs. Nike and the Oregon Ducks instead used modern branding and marketing techniques within the modern attention economy to construct a championship infrastructure and attract top 18-year-old football prospects (analogous to top 18-year-old officer prospects) to what had been an obscure, perenially losing program (analogous to ROTC at Columbia since the Vietnam War). That said, while Columbia ROTC is effectively a new program with clean-slate creative opportunities, the university also owns a proud military tradition reaching back to the nation's founding. The new Columbia ROTC should be both characterized by heritage and built up with innovation.

Beware of dead-end compromises that stunt the long-term growth of the program. Take heed of cautionary tales of ROTC programs that have been handicapped at peer schools, such as Dartmouth Army ROTC and Princeton Army ROTC, due to short-sighted decisions that weakened them at the foundation. Visionary leadership, careful guardianship, and zealous advocacy of Columbia ROTC are absolutely critical at the foundational beginning and should be constant over the life of the program (which should be equal to the life of the university).

Enable independent ROTC student experimentation. Within the available space allowed by formal ROTC and school commitments, ROTC on campus should enable a user-driven creative laboratory space for Columbia ROTC students. Students should control and shape that space with minimum uninvited interference: think Ender Wiggins's launchie practices and Bean's special-squad experimentation in Ender's Game. The mandated military training for CU ROTC students, and even post-ROTC military training for alumni, may fall short of teaching all the skills and perspectives that Columbians can foresee as possibly useful for the current or next generation of military leaders. CU ROTC students can regularly brainstorm with professors, milvet classmates, serving alumni, and grad-student officers about what they should innovate, teach themselves, and pull from greater CUMilComm, university, and city resources, to augment their academics and formal military training.

Keep track of important developments, influential military thinkers, and the military's own leading vision and goals, and orient Columbia ROTC accordingly. For example, see CNAS's Keeping the Edge: Revitalizing America's Military Officers Corps, AEI's UNDERSERVED A Case Study of ROTC in New York City, and Navy's A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.

Contemplate the essence of military leadership. Columbia ROTC students should utilize Columbia's intellectual setting to glean the spirit and aesthetic of military service and officership. I don't mean a rote adoption of military ways or parroting an "Army Strong", "Navy: A Global Force for Good", "The Few, the Proud, the Marines", or "Aim High" recruiting pitch. Rather, I mean CU ROTC students should explore the deeper meaning of military leadership, similar to how other emerging practitioners delve into the deeper meaning of academia, performing arts, medicine, or the law. Service academies like West Point formally institutionalize - and heavy-handedly indoctrinate - their heritage education. In contrast, CU ROTC students have the freedom and opportunity to learn for themselves, informally, what it means to lead soldiers in the selfless (often frustrating, and at times misunderstood, thankless, and sacrificial) service of the American people and nation. They will be able to consult with milvet classmates, retired and serving military alumni, and professors with insight on the subject. As comparison, I based my design of the original MilVets logo in part on the notion of recent veterans reflecting at Columbia on the essential things from our military experiences that we would keep for our post-military lives. Beyond producing young officers who 'get it', benefits include distinguishing CU ROTC from other ROTC programs in a way that is distinct to Columbia, a better meshing of CU ROTC with Columbia's intellectual character, and shrinking the civil-military gap of social-cultural differences by building an understanding based on essential values.

Train with Parkour. The pragmatic reason is that the military ought to adopt Parkour given that we can expect future operations will continue to require maneuver in urban and other difficult built-up terrain. (Go on Youtube and check out the videos of heavily laden soldiers laboring through dense Iraqi cities and fortified compounds in the Afghan mountains that amount to cruel obstacle courses.) The training should make sense to future military leaders, be mentally and physically satisfying, and can be a shared bonding experience for all Columbia military students, especially those attending off-campus programs. Further, since it wouldn't be strictly ROTC training, the activity can also serve as gateway exposure for vigorous general-body Columbia students who may be good candidates for ROTC. NYC has a Parkour club. Columbia also has its own Parkour club (Columbia University Parkour), which was started in Fall 2010: see Spec article, Facebook page, Google group page.

Miscellaneous: Study how Peace Corps and Teach for America recruit. Enlist Columbia professors and deans who are on record supporting civics/moral/ethical education at Columbia with ROTC and work with them on concrete ideas for realizing their vision.

In general, push the Columbia ROTC experience to be more challenging and stimulating for Columbia ROTC students in sensible intelligent ways. Establish a program of special quality that can inspire respect for ROTC on campus, push CU ROTC students to learn more, and earn a better official status (e.g., academic credit) and other benefits (e.g., funding, network resources). Build up value-added ROTC+ features around the campus program. Trust that the innate quality of Columbia students will rise to the challenge, and at the same time, a reasonably challenging and stimulating program with an effective brand will attract more Columbia students to ROTC. I want student demand (ROTC applications and student interest in a military career) eventually to overwhelm the ROTC supply (available CU ROTC slots), which should further heighten student interest in ROTC and bolster the program's reputation (exclusive club effect), and pressure the military and university to increase the supply (added slots, additional ROTC programs on campus, improved access to off-campus officer programs) to meet student demand. I want the military to come to view Columbia as an active and supportive community partner, a rich vein of entrepeneurial highest-quality officer prospects, and a powerful university investing diverse resources into ROTC as unique added values.

Eric

Sunday breakfast at the K

2011-06-19T12:27:00.111-04:00

Sunday breakfast at the K-16 d-fac was a cherished ritual.

During my tour, a new large dining facility (aka chow hall) was completed in anticipation of the entire 17th Aviation Brigade moving to the K, but that was scheduled for after my DEROS. For us, the new d-fac was extra roomy and well-appointed by Army standards. Our cooks were friendly and the experienced Korean nationals who augmented the Army cooks added Korean flavors to the standard d-fac fare.

On Sunday mornings, the K was downright drowsy. I would dress comfortably, pick up a copy of Stars & Stripes, and saunter over to the d-fac around 10-10:30, toward the end of the scheduled breakfast. The place was nearly empty on weekends which allowed our cooks to be more relaxed. My standard Sunday breakfast included glasses of juice, a bowl of Total with 2% milk and banana chunks, a bowl of sweetened thick oatmeal, a toasted bagel with cream cheese or butter, and a mug of hot chocolate with soft-serve vanilla ice cream in place of whipped cream. I might add yogurt or fruit. The centerpiece of my Sunday breakfast was my own concoction of white rice with chopped sausage patty, omelet fixings (tomato, onion, peppers, mushrooms) the cooks were nice enough to sizzle on the griddle for me, eggs over easy, soy sauce, and a red spicy-sweet Korean sauce. Gloriously indulgent.

During the work week, I was on the Army's clock and had no time for a lavish breakfast; I ate normal meals with a soldier's speed. On Sunday, I would leisurely savor my breakfast and carefully read the newspaper front to back. An hour, hour and a half, relaxing in the d-fac was normal - I made it a point not to check the time. Only when I was satisfied I was done would I put up my tray and sated, stroll back to the barracks.

After I came home, I tried replicating my Sunday breakfast at the K. Once. It wasn't the same. Enjoy pleasure where you can find it.

Eric

Sasuke (Ninja Warrior) and Parkour/Freerunning

2011-06-17T21:25:00.089-04:00

Last night, SyFy aired all 10 episodes of last year's Season 2 of G4 show American Ninja Warrior, in which 10 Americans qualify to compete in Midoriyama, Japan in the popular televised competition, Sasuke (Sahs-kay) or Ninja Warrior. (Aside: It's a shame that Patrick Cusic competed in Japan instead of Richard King.) Unlike American Ninja Warrior, Sasuke isn't a knock-out tournament; rather, Sasuke competitors qualify to advance in each of 4 stages of an intense obstacle course. As with any good obstacle course, Sasuke challenges stamina, power, different areas of the body, coordination, speed, agility, and technique. The course's difficulty has been upgraded to keep pace ahead of the improvement of the competitors. There is no limit on the number of competitors allowed to qualify to advance in each stage, but in 26 seasons, only 3 competitors, all Japanese, have completed the entire obstacle course. Americans have reached as far as the Cliffhanger obstacle in the 3rd stage.

The top American Sasuke competitors are experts in Parkour/Freerunning (Freerunning is the creative version of Parkour, or Parkour is the efficient version of Freerunning), which blends acrobatics and gymnastics to sprint through obstacle courses that mimic built-up environments. Sasuke competitors add free-climbing training for fingertip and upper-body power. The most advanced Parkour practicioners, called traceurs, make full use of actual urban landscapes as their obstacle courses. As valuable as the impressive range of physical training in the sport, the mental training of the sport is just as valuable in transmuting the presumed incontrovertible restrictions of the physical environment into puzzles to master, similar in that aspect to the Army's leadership reaction courses. A great deal of flowing strategy and coordination of body and environment is involved in Parkour; it's how I imagine Batman gets around Gotham City on patrol.

I believe Parkour is a fun, challenging, healthy, and practical sport that should be widely taught to kids, in a safely padded gym of course. In addition to its multi-dimensional physical and mental rigor, the sport teaches commitment and self-discipline, self-reliance and empowerment, domain-mastery and freedom. If Parkour were to become an American national past-time, it would revolutionize our country in both body and mind.

Military basic training and PT should fully adopt Parkour, especially as we can expect for military operations to continue to take place in urban and other equally challenging terrains (see the vids of heavily laden soldiers moving around the obstacle courses that are dense Iraqi cities and steep Afghan mountains); better yet, the military should adopt Parkour with the enhanced rigor of Sasuke training.

Eric

US military and socialism

2011-06-16T10:44:00.048-04:00

Nicholas Kristof, in his op-ed Our Lefty Military, makes an observation that has long been known by politically astute veterans: the US military is socialist. We even highlighted that aspect of the military in our civil-military advocacy at Columbia.

Kristof, however, leaves out four key features of the military that deter the military's socialist model from scaling up effectively to the entire nation. One, the military is a (socio-culturally) homogenous, hierarchical, even insular, tribal community, which America as a whole is not. Two (and related to one), the military is strictly bounded by membership standards, population caps, and regulations. Three (and related to two and three), military values are ascetic, austere, and selfless, unlike the drive to prosperity and other self-centered values that characterize civilian life. And four, the military performs necessary services for the nation, but one fundamental thing the military does not do is generate direct economic value in that the military does not pay for itself. A nation must be able to pay for itself.

I agree with Kristof (and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the Daily Kos) generally that the military embodies important values and provides positive examples for society. I believe the Heinlein Starship Troopers notion that veterans have a great deal to offer as leaders to shepherd America in uncertain times. But I don't agree with a wholesale application of the military's socialist model to all persons and parts of the nation. The costs and benefits calculation of socialism for and within the military is not the same as the costs and benefits calculation of socialism for the entire nation.

Moreover, applying a militaristic socialist template has been tried on a mass scale already. Mao Ze-Dong, likely motivated by the same admiration for the military, attempted to remake China with a militaristic socialist template. It didn't work.

Military service is right for men. Veterans who've internalized military values and lead using, live by, and teach those values are good for society. But - big but - imposing a militaristic socialist template onto all of a large diverse nation, while an attractive idea for many progressives, hasn't worked.

Eric

Cat puppy video

2011-06-14T23:54:00.039-04:00

Patient-cat-with-rambunctious-puppy videos are addictively cute, but this one ends on a not-so-cute cliffhanger:

The video's cuteness is maxed out by the cat acting exceptionally patient and gentle with the puppy - at first. The cat even appears to lick the puppy's face affectionately after first pushing the puppy away. But what happened after the video? The cat's bite looks to be bearing down on the puppy's throat and the puppy's whining and scuffling seems to show real distress. Did the cat follow up the throat bite like a mother disciplining her naughty beloved kitten or an instinctive feline predator with the life-blood and breath of helpless prey in her jaws?

By the way, the music playing in the background is "Teardrop" by Massive Attack.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2011-06-13T13:43:00.048-04:00

On my mind: Malthusian collapse. The concept, based on evolutionary and economic principles, makes sense. Are we now locked into an economic (and competitive, ethical, security, population, cultural, and environmental) collapse of our nation and way of life? Can we still make cruel and unpopular decisions - and actions - in order to fix the problems? Is it already too late for us? My advocacy at Columbia was based on values, philosophical, ethical reform, and while I still believe a national spiritual change is necessary, I think it barely scratches the surface of what's needed of us. I just reread Ender's Game. By nature, groups are tribal and chauvinistic, and from that basis, they are competitive. If America fails to be competitive in fact and spirit, our tribe will lose. As a soldier, I conceived our country as a walled village with different rules and responsibilities inside and outside those walls. Loyal patriotic dutiful soldiers are willing to do what's necessary outside the walls for People and nation, but what about when radical changes are needed inside the walls? Real leadership must be clear-visioned, selfless, and willing to be brutal and self-sacrificial. . . . All that said, what can I really do to fix the big picture and should I care? As a freshman on 9/11, I set aside the notion of selfishness, but maybe the most positive contribution I can give to the greater good is to "do me" and seek out my own place rather than try to save the world.

Congratulations to the 2010-11 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, especially their older veterans who collectively redeemed many lost play-off runs. At the start of the play-offs, I tagged the Mavs as a higher seed likely to be knocked out in the first round, by the young-veteran Trailblazers with their talented front line. Instead, the Mavs earned the championship with cool-headed savvy veterans and a smart coach and proved to be a versatile, resilient, tough team. They have a really cool owner, too. After Brendan Heywood's hip injury knocked him out early and Peja Stojakovic proved ineffective in the Finals, the Mavs only had two quality bench players with Barea/Stephenson and Terry, and somehow got by with Mahinmi and Cardinal in the front court, against the Heat. The Mavs adjusted beautifully throughout the play-offs; Rick Carlisle thoroughly outcoached Erik Spoelstra in the Finals. The Mavs far outplayed the Heat in the fourth quarters. Throughout the play-offs, the Heat relied on two team strengths, A, a strong defense to keep games close enough for, B, their superstars James and Wade to take over in the end. But the Mavs adjusted their gameplan so that by Games 5 and 6, the Mavs had completely figured out the Heat's (according to Nowitzki) "almost suffocating" defense. Against the Mavs defense, the Heat failed to counter-adjust when the Mavs defense adjusted to contain the Heat superstars. Of long-term concern for the Heat, James seems to be developing a mental block in highest-pressure situations with the same scared tight look and frozen behavior of fellow superstar athlete Sasha Cohen entering her long programs. James turned himself into a poor man's version of the current Jason Kidd. Wade added to his track record and reputation as a strong clutch finisher. The Mavs as a team, led by Nowitzki, were clutch. J.J. Barea proved he's ready to take over a team as a starting point guard, but it needs to be the right team - Mike D'Antoni's system would fit him well. This Heat team isn't a finished product yet and achieved a lot by reaching the Finals in their first season; I look forward to watching their second year of development. It's more likely the Heat will be back in the Finals next year than the Mavs. The Heat is my pick to win the championship next season. The Heat's biggest need: a true and preferably veteran point guard.

I'm not a fan of the mean Sarah Palin treatment that Lebron James is being subjected to right now by the media. The media's treatment of Lebron James since last off-season's free agent dramatics reminds that the media is in the business of entertainment and mostly stays within a familiar range of simple one or two dimensional themes to sell stories. The media's chief motivation is not fact-finding and explanation, but rather drama - the more common-denominator and prurient the better - that holds their customers' attention. In making real-life celebrities into dramatic characters, the media mimics pro westling's storylines of faces (good guys) turned heels (bad guys) turned faces. The transformation narrative sells. The media, as they are doing to Lebron James, will manufacture a hero, then bring the hero low, then tell a story of heroic redemption in the celebrity's 3rd act.

On Bill Simmons's new pop-culture and sports page Grantland, the thorough multiple-first-hand account of short-lived national sports newspaper The National provides an interesting case study of the failure of an ambitious project despite many promising factors in the project's favor, including up-front funding, a ready audience, and the participation of the best and brightest. These best and brightest people underestimated, overlooked, and then were overwhelmed by compounding flaws that tripped up the project. ESPN.com seems to have picked up and succeeded on-line where the print The National failed.

Hm: "Women tend to have a very safe “starter” boyfriend to help them ease into sexual maturity with the men they really want. The first stage of this is the Justin Beiber fascination–that is, an early teen gal’s hormonal interest in a feminine boy who presents absolutely zero risk of sexual demand. The next stage is an awkward proto-boyfriend in junior high/high school, perhaps even into early college. Once the philly is ready for mounting, however, the nerds, nice boys, geeks and such are left behind in favor of a stallion." The "proto-boyfriend" stage is critical information for junior high and HS boys in the early stage of their sexual development. Kids, if you like-like a girl, it is critical that you go for it in order to keep up with life - it only gets harder from the proto-boyfriend stage. The peer-group/public humiliation risk seems important at that age, but it's a small price for acquiring necessary life experience. And really, your peers will admire your courage in attempting what they desire to do, too. Fail and succeed - learn and develop, and don't be left behind, stuck and lost. Reference: A Father's Question.

Young actress to watch: Elle Fanning, Dakota Fanning's little sister. She stood out in the otherwise underwhelming Super 8. Although I was a fan of Dakota when she was a brilliant, intuitively nuanced actress as a young girl, I doubt she'll have as much success as a young-adult actress. Dakota's most recent performances have disappointed, reminding of Shirley Temple's stiffly affected final performances. Temple was also a transcendent actress as a young girl who lost her 'it' as a teenager; moreover, unlike the sexy teenage Temple, Dakota's looks as a young woman have become ordinary. Elle is already prettier than her sister and exhibited range and aplomb in her Super 8 performance that Dakota no longer seems to possess. Based on Super 8, my guess is that Elle will have a better teenage and young-adult film career than Dakota.

Speaking of film actresses, Meg Tilly, whose HAPA looks I referred to with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, has an interesting blog. She seems cool. The flak she got for looking older is unfair; Meg Tilly is an attractive older woman. Her daughter Emily Zinnemann is a cute girl who looks like her mom and aunts. Here are an interesting clip and clip of Meg as Emily's mom. They're attempting a mother/daughter-relationship-themed co-blog at Huffington Post Canada.

Breaking the seal (need a better term). Dread. Off the grid. Escape. Freedom. Duty.

Distinct modes and stages of thinking. Learning and acquisition. Intuition and vision. Assessment and problem-solving. My preferred mode is intuition, which is powerful in the right conditions such as creating a vision. But the problem is, I apply that mode to other stages. An effective mind can change gears.

Judging a course of action requires judging the alternatives and consequences, too. Assessing an argument requires understanding its premises and context, which can be bundled as perspective. Achieving important goals requires navigating true to the long-term, big-picture vision and fulfilling short-term, up-front needs, including when the vision and the needs conflict.

For relatively cheap if also riskier dental care in the city, check out CUNY City Tech Dental Hygiene and NYU College of Dentistry patient services.

Eric

Harsh vitriol against stay-at-home girlfriend

2011-06-02T15:08:00.006-04:00

Comments cobra-spit hate, shaming, and silencing at Brooklyn woman who describes her "domestic thing" as a stay-at-home girlfriend. Disturbing.

Eric

Exceptional AMC movie line-up today

2011-06-01T15:57:00.004-04:00

On AMC today (June 1, 2011):

2 am: Dusk to Dawn (1996)
4 am: Summer School (1987)
6-9 am: paid ad programs
9 am: The Kingdom (2007)
11:30 am: Manchurian Candidate (2004)
2:30 pm: Reindeer Games (2000)
5 pm: Die Hard (1988)
8 pm: Conan the Barbarian (1982)
11 pm: Conan the Destroyer (1984)

Guy movies.

Eric

Babe of the day: Mary Elizabeth Winstead

2011-05-28T03:13:00.049-04:00

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, born in 1984, began her acting career as Jessica Bennett on NBC soap opera Passions. Her twitter.

There are several well-maintained on-line galleries of Winstead, like this and this. This pic of Winstead with her husband Riley Stearns appears to be from or close to the time they first met (2002-03, when she was 18 - he looks to be the same age).

While I haven't read anywhere that she's mixed-race, Winstead has a strikingly Meg Tilly-esque HAPA look. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned she has Chinese blood.

Speaking of HAPAs, I suspect Winstead will age as well as Phoebe Cates.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Cracked.com

2011-05-21T19:08:00.006-04:00

Cracked.com is a humor website that, despite some college-snarkish lefty and nihilistic tendencies, is surprisingly educational.

Eric

Babe of the day: Kiira Korpi

2011-05-20T21:53:00.025-04:00

Kiira Korpi, born in September 1988, is a Finnish figure skater nicknamed the "Ice Princess" due to her youthful Grace Kelly-like natural beauty. The documentary was filmed in 2006 following the 2005-2006 season, which places her at 18.

See Korpi at 16 (interview Jan 2005), 20 (interview January 2009), and 22 (interview February 2011). The pictures she's chosen for the gallery on her website and her comments in the documentary imply that she prefers the heavily made-up and stylized "dramatic" shots and is less than comfortable with her "princess" image. That's too bad because the "dramatic" pictures tend to obscure her beauty while the staid "princess" imagery better reveals her natural beauty. Stunning transcendent feminine beauty like Korpi owns now is a preciously rare and ephemeral gift. It ought to be celebrated, and drunk deeply when it can be found, while it lasts.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Khan Academy

2011-05-20T19:13:00.002-04:00

About Khan Academy:

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere. The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Looks interesting. I should spend some of the time I usually waste on mindlessly browsing the internet in the Khan Academy instead. Link via Mad Minerva.

Eric

President Obama on Iraq

2011-05-20T01:27:00.005-04:00

From Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa on May 19, 2011:

After years of war in Iraq, we’ve removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there. . . .

As I said when the United States joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to try to impose regime change by force -– no matter how well-intentioned it may be. . . .

Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.

Thomas Barnett comments on Obama's speech.

Eric

CDC issues zombie apocalypse survival guide

2011-05-20T00:05:00.005-04:00

Really (and not really). The serious educational purpose of the CDC's zombie apocalypse survival guide is general emergency preparation advice. No sincere zombie survival guide would be missing guidance on creative zombie killing.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Adweek's Adfreak

2011-05-18T11:37:00.006-04:00

Adfreak, on industry website Adweek, features cool and wacky ads. The Halo 3 "Believe" series is pretty awesome. Link from Mad Minerva, who blogged Adfreak's 25 most epic ads list.

Eric

P.S. 500th post!

Fotog FAIL on Taj Gibson put-back dunk

2011-05-16T18:51:00.008-04:00

Inside the last minute of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, garbage time of the Bulls 20-point blow-out win over the Heat, Taj Gibson executed a perfect put-back dunk. The Heat left Gibson an open lane from the left side of the paint to move to the perfect position and body orientation in front of the rim. The ball skipped off the rim perfectly from C.J. Watson's 3-point shot from the top of the arc for Gibson to reach back with the full extension of his 7'4" reach to catch the ball with one hand and dunk it in one motion. Really cool.

The funny part of the dunk is the photographer in the gray shirt getting up and leaving while the play is unfolding. He's about even with the 1st row of seats, walking away with his back to the court when Gibson dunks. The replay ends just as the fotog looks over his shoulder in reaction to the crowd erupting. Too late, guy. The fotog sat under the basket presumably the entire game taking photos. His job is to take 100s of pictures at every basketball game in hopes of capturing special shots like the Gibson dunk. He was sitting in the perfect spot to take a head-on shot of Gibson's dunk, too, but decided to leave the game just a few seconds and one play too early. There's a life lesson in there somewhere. I wonder what his boss thinks?

Eric

Cautionary tales from peers for Columbia ROTC

2011-05-16T18:13:00.008-04:00

As some Columbia ROTC advocates immediately understood, while the Columbia endorsement of ROTC opened the way for an ROTC program fully based on campus, the Columbia-Navy ROTC agreement announced on April 22, a crosstown agreement for students to participate via SUNY Maritime NROTC in distant Throgs Neck, Bronx, falls short of a Columbia ROTC program fully based on campus.

We are now at the beginning and a critical moment where Columbia NROTC will be designed for the long term. While Columbia and the Navy decide on the actual form of the manifest program at Columbia, Dartmouth AROTC and Princeton AROTC offer Columbia cautionary tales about compromised Ivy ROTC programs that have fallen short of their potential with start-up design flaws. While it's necessary to move from Point A to Point B, also beware of fool's gold and dead-end compromises.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2011-05-14T13:45:00.021-04:00

For future Columbia ROTC cadets and midshipmen, what is the definition of leather? If the fresh skin of an animal, cleaned and divested of all hair, fat, and other extraneous matter, be immersed in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues; the gelatinous tissue of the skin is converted into a nonputrescible substance, impervious to and insoluble in water; this is leather.

More about future Columbia midshipmen (and cadets). CNAS's Keeping the Edge: Revitalizing America's Military Officers Corps, AEI's UNDERSERVED A Case Study of ROTC in New York City, and Navy's A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. Maybe look up this guy, a Columbia grad.

Killing Osama bin Laden and the lawfare of outlaws. Lawfare is an application of Saul Alinsky's guidance to radicals to "make the enemy live up to its own book of rules" with the implicit understanding the enemy's rules don't constrain the radicals. The claim by Omar bin Laden that the U.S. broke international law when we killed his dad, Osama, is an interesting challenge for International Law. Omar advances the frame that his father was an alleged criminal who should have been protected by criminal justice standards, and arrested for trial rather than killed. He calls on the United Nations to hold the United States accountable for murder. The American position is that bin Laden was an illegal combatant who was killed lawfully during a military, not a law enforcement, operation. The fundamental tension in International Law is the exigency of sovereign politics versus the pursuit of a world order where every international legal person (nation, organization, or individual) is subject to international law without exception. National or municipal law is tempered by real considerations whereas international law is theoretical and ideological. Customary international law has steadily encroached on the formerly inviolable ground of sovereignty and I'm sure many international lawyers with dreams of becoming the litigator who definitively established the supremacy of a "just world order" based on international law over national sovereignty are enthusiastically willing to take on bin Laden's case. The bin Laden killing is the ultimate test case to make the ultimate sovereign nation submit to international law for the "extrajudicial" killing of the ultimate person-who-deserved-to-die. I predict this story won't die quietly; in a legal culture that cares more about holding no one above the law than stopping the threats that operate outside the law, the U.S. could lose the case if bin Laden's legal personality is determined to be criminal rather than combatant. My take: As Judge Higgins told us last summer, what is legal doesn't always seem right and what seems right is not always legal. I'm with John Yoo and John Bolton on this issue. If it comes down to it, I would love to volunteer for the legal team that defends the U.S. from the UN's legal myopia and the lawfare of bin Laden's heirs.

Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island of Saturday Night Live fame are pretty good. They're not as funny as short-lived MTV parody hip-hop act Scratch & Burn but are perhaps more technically proficient. Check out "Lazy Sunday" which was partly filmed in my neighborhood.

Recent TV commercials with emasculating portrayals of Asian males. The socially retarded Asian guy treated like an immature child by the hip spokesgirl in the T Mobile 4G commercial and the Asian guy toiling anonymously in the background while a pregnant Asian woman with her white husband speak with Flo in the foreground of the Progressive commercial.

What a stupid trade by Danny Ainge. The trade shocked NBA observers when it happened and the mortal damage Ainge caused to his team was obvious. Bill Simmons explained the harmful effect of the Perkins-Green trade on the Celtics' special team chemistry and post-season chances. Before the trade, the team relied heavily on their continuity. Celtics players and coaches knew exactly who they were, how they fit together, how long this particular team had to compete for the championship, and the meaning of this season. Danny Ainge collapsed the Celtics' 2010-11 season by overthinking himself into a trade that ripped the soul out of the team and proved to be a complete failure in the post-season.

After Dwyane Wade busted Rondo's arm, Rajon Rondo impressed with his toughness like Glen Davis did last year and kept playing, but predictably, the Heat went after Rondo's injured arm and eventually knocked him out of the elimination game. Without Rondo at his best, the Celtics didn't have a chance to beat the Heat. The Heat proved their championship mettle by proving they understand that champions must be able and willing to play dirty when talent, skill, and execution aren't enough to win.

Bill Simmons says good-bye to Phil Jackson with Simmons's typical intuitive insight. Yes, if he had clairvoyant foresight, Phil Jackson could have left coaching last year on the high of winning his 11th championship. But when it comes to doing something you love, I support leaving on the downslide, like Michael Jordan on the Wizards. We only get one life. It's better to leave knowing for sure you're done rather than wonder if you could have squeezed out one more opportunity to do what you love. A second-round series sweep with a 36-point blow-out loss in the elimination game, and two of his players taking cheap shots to finish the game can't tarnish the unequaled legacy Jackson earned in his career as an NBA coach.

Kevin Durant has an offensive game that can lead the NBA in scoring in the regular season, but lacks the power, moves, and toughness needed to reliably lead his team as the alpha dog in the post-season. He doesn't get separation from defenders which results in a lot of foul shots in the regular season, but turn into many rushed off-balance shots against superior defenses and more permissive officiating in the post-season. Durant's offensive game reminds me a lot of a young Dirk Nowitizki - elite mid-range and 3-point shooter, superior off-the-dribble skills for their size, but lack of strength and poor post-up game that allows smaller defenders to take away their shooting space. When the team leader, the player the team is built around and relies upon, can't deliver reliably in the post-season, he caps the competitive potential of the team. Durant is like Vince Carter in that regard. Durant's strong regular season but weak post-season makes Russell Westbrook's job extra difficult. Westbrook is a strong post-season scorer but as the Thunder point guard, he gets blamed for Durant's weak post-season performance. Either Durant needs to figure out how to be a post-season leader or the Thunder need to fully transfer the alpha-dog scorer role to Westbrook in the post-season. If the Thunder can do neither, I'd recommend for Westbrook to leave the team or else he'll continue to take blame for Durant's post-season shortcomings. Another option is to give control of the ball to James Harden, who emerged in these play-offs as the next-generation Manu Ginobili (unlike Ginobili pretenders Rudy Fernandez and Marco Belinelli). The younger Nowitzki improved on the weaknesses that the play-offs exposed - it remains to been whether Durant will follow the same championship path.

Reminiscing blog post by a Stuy 92 grad.

The Village Voice updates the tragic story of a Stuy 98 grad, Eric Bellucci, who killed his parents. It appears that Kendra's Law failed Eric and his family.

I wonder if I should start using the label/tag function to help searches.

Maximalist. Apocalyptic. Millennial. Any others?

El Tango de Roxanne from 2001's Moulin Rouge, featuring Jacek Koman as The Narcoleptic Argentinean. The movie musical really needs to be adapted into a stage musical and performed on Broadway.

Eric

Wesley Yang speaks for Asian American men

2011-05-13T22:33:00.013-04:00

Read Wesley Yang's article in New York magazine, "Paper Tigers: What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?".

Yang is not alone. Yang brings to light discussions we've been having among ourselves for a long time. We both belong to a generation of Asian American men who are dissatisfied with our identity in American society and culture, and resolved to push back and define our own identity. We've played well by the rules and discovered, as Yang explains, the game is stacked against us. So we'll change the game. We've earned the right. Yang falters in his conclusion but that only reflects the lack of conclusion in our discussions. We're identifying the problem, but we haven't solved it yet. We will, though. We're getting our shit together.

Yang is doing his part to move the ball forward and that's good. Good for Asian American men and good for America. When we've claimed our rightful place, we'll save our country. We're coming, America.

Eric

P.S. I purposely made the decision not to hyphenate "Asian American" in this post, though I usually spell the term with a hyphen. When the hyphen is removed, "Asian" becomes an adjective and no longer a qualifier for "American" - it's a subtle difference but one I think that matters when defining our identity.

Untwining the threads in Afghanistan

2011-05-07T20:02:00.023-04:00

For humanitarian liberals, there is an interesting post at SWJ about the Afghanistan mission from an aid perspective after the death of Osama bin Laden. The aid mission has been intertwined with the hunt for bin Laden along with other threads to compose the entire Afghanistan mission. What happens to the other threads of our mission in Afghanistan when a - perhaps 'the' - major thread is removed? Does the rest of the mission then unravel?

The cost, open-ended uncertainty, and difficulty of our liberal strategy in the War on Terror have come under relentless attack by highly respected foreign policy 'realists' who dismiss the value of the aid mission. Under that kind of sustained pressure, even Bush administration officials have subtly revised their memories. From the Wall Street Journal: "To Mr. Wolfowitz, that is a straw man: "We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States." Once they were overthrown, what else were we going to do? "No one argues that we should have imposed a dictatorship in Afghanistan having liberated the country. Similarly, we weren't about to impose a dictatorship in Iraq having liberated the country.""

Mr. Wolfowitz makes an inarguable basic point about the post-war in a regime change. At the same time, while it's true that our baseline impetus for regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq was their threat, not to spread liberal democracy, Wolfowitz also minimizes the liberal perspective designed into the war strategy. From the outset after 9/11, President Bush announced a liberal outlook and global scope and warned of a long war when he officially declared America's entry into the War on Terror on September 20, 2001:

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. . . . But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. . . . This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. . . . As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.

Now that we've killed Osama bin Laden, will the rest of the Afghanistan mission fall apart? It remains to be seen.

Eric

Columbia and Navy agree on Columbia Navy ROTC

2011-05-03T21:45:00.024-04:00

Catching many advocates by surprise, Columbia quickly breezed through the outreach and offer/acceptance negotiation stage for an ROTC program. Only three weeks after the University Senate approved ROTC at Columbia, Columbia and Navy announced an agreement for Columbia students to participate in Navy ROTC through SUNY Maritime Navy ROTC. Read the official announcements from Columbia and Navy. According to the Columbia Spectator, Navy reached out to Columbia over a year ago, thus preempting the mystery of whether any branch would be interested in ROTC at Columbia. A crosstown agreement with the nearest NROTC program appears to be the standard package deal that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has offered to all the Ivy League schools (Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Brown) that have deliberated ROTC since DADT was repealed. I'm grateful to Secretary Mabus for his foresight to resolve my concern last Spring that Columbia and military leaders would each be dissuaded from initiating Columbia ROTC by the other side's disinterest. Someone had to send the first clear signal of interest across the civil-military gap and Mabus did that, thus empowering the Columbia leadership with the crucial assurance that there would be a real reward should they risk pursuing a University Senate endorsement of ROTC. Thank you, Secretary Mabus for fulfilling the prerequirement. Should we ever meet in person, remind me that I owe you a drink.

Skipping ahead doesn't mean the job is finished. Each stage presents distinct challenges. In the current stage, the details of the Columbia program will be decided. It's a daunting task: the devil is in the details. The Columbia committee to implement the Navy ROTC program will be led by Provost Claude Steele, who has a background teaching at state universities and, therefore, should have some familiarity with campus ROTC programs.

The first big question is whether Columbia NROTC will follow the Harvard/MIT NROTC (commuter) model, where the headquarters and majority of NROTC activity for Harvard midshipmen are at MIT, or the Dartmouth/Norwich AROTC (extension) model, where the majority of AROTC activity is at Dartmouth but the program headquarters is at Norwich University. Because SUNY Maritime is much farther from Columbia than MIT is from Harvard, and would require an impractical commute for Columbia midshipmen to a remote location, the most practical way to organize the Columbia NROTC program under the current Columbia-Navy agreement is as an extension program on Columbia's campus.

As advocates, we want NROTC to be integrated on campus as much as possible. Our goal is NROTC activity and cadre located on Columbia's campus for the convenience of our midshipmen, as the necessary base to develop the Columbia military character of and campus-centered support network for the program, and to capture for Columbia the broader interactive and educational functions of ROTC.

Finally, as I stated in the Blueprint for Columbia ROTC ("The devil is in the details" section), I believe the way to build up Columbia ROTC student numbers, the primary metric for program success, is a program manifested on campus, whether as an extension program or a program fully based on campus:

The damaged status of ROTC at Columbia after 1969, alienation from poor exposure, distance and poor access in urban terms, and lack of institutional assistance likely deter most Columbia students from seriously considering ROTC. It’s simply unfair to judge Columbia students for not joining an ROTC program that isn’t there. We first have to plant the seed in order to grow the tree – building up ROTC student numbers at Columbia first requires ROTC on campus. Then, as Columbia ROTC is nurtured into a fully integrated and supported part of the university, Columbia ROTC student numbers will grow over time. That’s just common sense. Roughly one-fourth of the undergraduate population is renewed every year. After ROTC is established on campus and properly advertised, eventually every student applying to Columbia will know about the ROTC program on campus.

Eric

Osama bin Laden killed

2011-05-01T23:49:00.036-04:00

President Obama just announced that U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a firefight in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I envy the American soldiers who killed bin Laden. The controversial intelligence methods allowed by Presidents Bush and Obama were vindicated. As President Obama emphasized tonight, the war goes on. But today is a victory.

9/11 changed my life - I captured my contemporary reaction in an opinion for my school newspaper. The kids attending college now were 9-12 years old when it happened, just old enough to understand the difference between the world on 9/10 and the world after 9/11. 9/11 defined their generation.

P.S. Team America - Fuck Yeah! Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. Have You Forgotten? (The answer is we didn't forget.)

P.P.S. Professor Nacos reacts to the news.

P.P.P.S. Jon Stewart nails the propriety of celebrating bin Laden's death. My take:

As trite as it sounds to anyone who hasn’t served, our soldiers really do put their lives on the line with the American people and American nation in their hearts. Celebrate our first responders and military. As long as we don’t do any Terry Jones bullshit, I promise you they’ll appreciate it. They deserve to see the American people celebrating.

Let the President be dignified. For the American people, keep it real. Show the world that we the American people are not ashamed nor apologetic of ourselves, our nation, and our place in the world. We are not the meek and chastened people that our nationalistic, chauvinistic competitors and frenemies would prefer to supplant in the world order. Show the world that the American people retain the same competitive fighting spirit, the same fire in the belly, that built our nation by conquering great challenges and celebrating victory over our enemies.

Do it for our soldiers who are ‘over there’ competing for you. Celebrate loud enough for our soldiers to hear us in Afghanistan and everywhere else they’re serving in the world. Many of them are our age. They’ve earned hearing and seeing the members of their generation celebrate them as heroes.

P.P.P.P.S. From the Bush White House's September 2001 archive, remember when President Bush officially declared the War on Terror.

Eric

In victory, a warning to Columbia ROTC advocates

2011-04-08T13:45:00.020-04:00

Columbia anti-military activists have begun to push back against the Columbia University Senate endorsement of ROTC.

Professors Gans and Morris remind us that the wheel keeps turning and what goes around comes around. The historical engine of change stops for no one, and as the Poet teaches, "As the present now will later be past, the order is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a-changin'." True activists are persistent and don't quit their cause. Activists are empowered by defeat because it restores them to their natural militant anti-establishment role. Their defeat in the University Senate gave Columbia anti-military activists a cause on which to build a new campus anti-military movement.

Columbia ROTC advocates are fairly warned: As we continue to work joyfully after the senate vote to help establish ROTC on campus, we must also account for the opposition and defend our gains from invigorated anti-military activists. What we did to their victory can be done to our victory.

For generations, Columbia anti-military activists had held the duty of guarding the crown jewel of the near-mythic 'Spirit of 68' legacy. They should have had every advantage to stop the campus ROTC movement in its infancy. Yet they failed because their hubris prevented them from respecting the insurgent threat until it was too late. We should take care not to repeat the mistake they made when they allowed us to win.

Eric

Victory

2011-04-02T17:42:00.033-04:00

On Friday 01 April 2011, the Columbia University Senate passed a resolution with a vote of 51-17 that military relations "enrich the Columbia community" and . . .

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED

That Columbia University welcomes the opportunity to explore mutually beneficial relationships with the Armed Forces of the United States, including participation in the programs of the Reserve Officers Training Corps.

The Columbia Spectator has solid reporting of the senate vote while the New York Times provides the cultural-historical context. The Columbia Political Union wonders what the ROTC decision means for Columbia's identity.

Friday's victory is not the end of the Columbia ROTC movement. Rather, it is the commencement of the next stage, university-military negotiation. President Bollinger will first consult Columbia's deans, most of whom are already on record supporting ROTC, the senate executive committee, and other relevant Columbia officials (likely to include Columbia's legal counsel, given the contractual nature). Then he will meet with the Trustees, who are believed to support ROTC and rarely veto senate resolutions regardless, for their approval of the senate resolution. Once the Trustees give their approval, which is expected to happen by the end of the semester, Bollinger and his team will be authorized to negotiate with their military counterparts.

I say again with relish, A Vote for ROTC is a Vote for the Heroes of our Generation, while Columbia U. Senate Votes Against Return of R.O.T.C. slips into the dustbin of history.

The victory is personal for me and a long time in coming. I organized the Columbia ROTC movement's inaugural event 9 years ago. It's my baby. By now it has many strong fathers whom I trust love it as much as I do, but it will ever only have one mother: me. I envisioned, then conceived it. I gave birth to it. In the desert of the first days, I nurtured and protected it. I fed it what it needed to grow - I gave it of myself and of others. I fought for its life when, if I had chosen not to, it would have died. Then the 2005 senate vote nearly killed it, and I fought for its life again. Before I graduated, I made sure to give it what it needed to become stronger than it was. I won that fight.

This explains only why the cause is personal for me. In terms of credit, as I said, the movement has many fathers. Many of my fellow advocates have given the movement important and necessary things that I couldn't. I've been known to be inappropriately overbearing with my fellow advocates at times. The reason is that the movement is still imprinted in my mind as a fragile vulnerable baby - my baby - in the desert.

Eric

Chappelle show classic: black white supremacist

2011-03-25T20:55:00.004-04:00

Clayton Bigsby: "If you have hate in your heart, let it out."

Bonus: "The negus ruled Ethiopia until the coup of 1974" from the national spelling bee and the teacher that Boondocks spoofed.

Eric

Boy/Girl Scouts with guns

2011-03-18T20:03:00.006-04:00

Our military's non-warfighting activities are sometimes characterized as "Peace Corps with guns", admiringly by some (like me), derisively by others who understandably value the military's combat role above all else and view "operations other than war" as distractions.

I believe the better characterization of the military is Boy/Girl Scouts with guns. I served with a number of former boy scouts. I often thought that the Boy Scouts provided them exceptional preparation as young future soldiers, from the practical skills training to the uniformed heirarchical organization to the social values propagated. Only second to the practical skills training, the community service aspect of the Boy Scouts is similar to the military's community service focus.

Their disaster relief actions are underreported by the media, but our military stationed in Japan are in action helping our ally and their neighbors following the earthquake and tsunami. See the Fox News story and "Operation Tomodachi" updates from the Marines in Okinawa and Air Force at Yokota Air Base.

Eric

Rest in peace, Ms. Schmitt

2011-03-16T22:22:00.009-04:00

I found out from the March 2011 Stuy alumni magazine that "Debra Schmitt, who taught English at Stuyvesant in the 1990s, died in January in California. She is survived by a former husband and a child." I was in her class during freshman year at Stuy. The sight of a slinky attractive teacher stretching herself out on her desk during her lesson was fairly exciting for a teenage boy.

The official determination is that Ms. Schmitt committed suicide. R.I.P..

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2011-03-12T22:57:00.026-05:00

On Friday in Japan, an 8.9 earthquake and a tsunami hit northeast Japan. That's the most powerful earthquake I can recall. The tsunami was devastating, but Japan seems to have withstood the earthquake exceptionally well except for a failing nuclear power plant that may be steadily developing into a Chernobyl-level disaster. There's little that can be done to protect against a tsunami, but the failure of the nuclear power plant to prepare for the earthquake is a surprise. When even a nation as exceptionally well-organized and prepared for specifically this disaster as Japan misses something so crucial, it shows our helplessness to human fallibility. When the 1 flaw in an otherwise strong structure finally cracks, the 1 disaster that happens overshadows the 999 disasters that were avoided.

I like new Sunday Fox cartoon Bob's Burgers. It's endearing. The show stars H. Jon Benjamin's voice (Coach McGuirk in Home Movies, Ben in Dr. Katz, Carl in Family Guy) as husband, father, and burger restaurant owner Bob. I like that Bob is a hard worker doing his best to care for his quirky family. They're not strangers to each other - the family is close and everyone is invested in the family business. The show pokes fun at its namesake but reaffirms the family bond and retains a good heart, the kind of heart that Simpsons and Family Guy started with. The older Fox cartoons are still funny but they've turned cynical and mean with family members who are separated from each other in the Married ... with Children vein.

The cute State Farm agent in the new-boyfriend/girlfriend commercial is actual State Farm agent Yvonne Solis. The peppy cute office girl in the USPS flate rate box commercial is actress Benita Robledo.

R nails it again. I want him to be wrong, but when he gets right the things I can verify, denial is difficult. Related: Escape from Friend Zone game - amusing, but near as I can figure, you can't win. I guess the lesson is play a different game. Related chilling (or depressing) thought: 'court' = game. She said she didn't know I was engaged in a "court". When she said that, the utter dismissal of my soulful investment in her angered me. I didn't believe her. That's how far off the mark I was. I don't know for sure whether her concept of 'court' was game, but I know what I did was not a 'court' in her mind. The problem is nothing I remember argues against her equating 'court' with game, whereas my actions and her reactions are well-accounted for by game proponents, 'friend zone' included. Funny but true.

A discount bus returning to Chinatown from the Mohegan Sun casino had a Final Destination type crash at 5:30 AM. The bus slid on its side into a highway sign stanchion at the window level, at which the stanchion sliced through the front to rear of the bus. 14 passengers died and all the other passengers and driver were injured, many badly injured with severe head trauma and/or traumatic amputations. I've taken a discount Chinatown bus to/from the Mohegan Sun, though I don't recall if I used a World Wide Tours bus. The bus driver blames the accident on a tractor trailer clipping his bus. The police are investigating. I wonder, though, if at 5:30 in the morning, the bus driver has any contributory negligence such as falling asleep at the wheel, speeding, and drifting.

The 1st half of 2003's Man on Fire is one of the best love stories ever portrayed on film by two excellent actors, Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, playing off each other with nuance. It's not a romantic sexual love story, but theirs is a love story nonetheless. Their carefully developed love story is used to explain the 1-dimensional revenge story in the 2nd half of the film that may as well be a different movie.

Eric

David Brooks: The New Humanism

2011-03-08T18:14:00.001-05:00

Looks like an interesting article. I should read it more carefully later.

Eric

The American Dream Film

2011-02-27T19:15:00.004-05:00

Check out the entertaining, slickly crafted, very libertarian cartoon polemic The American Dream Film about the financial collapse. The film weaves in pop references as skillfully as South Park and educates on the libertarian view of current events. It exalts Thomas Jefferson while excoriating Alexander Hamilton.

Eric

Apollo: This is it man!

2011-02-25T15:11:00.000-05:00

Farewell to a likeable Knicks team

2011-02-22T01:20:00.018-05:00

In a trade at the 2010-11 NBA trade deadline, SF Carmelo Anthony is a Knick along with PG Chauncey Billups and a few spare parts. In return, the Knicks gave Denver F Danilo Gallinari, G/F Wilson Chandler, C Timofey Mozgov, and PG Raymond Felton, plus draft picks.

It's sad. True, the Knicks were barely above .500 at 28-26 and were losing to too many bad teams, but this year's Knicks were a likeable team with solid team chemistry. They were cohesive and had D'Antoni's offensive system figured out. When the system was working, the Knicks kept the ball and bodies moving with quick-hitting triple-threat players sharing the floor. It was fun to watch the improving Knicks. I would have liked to follow the team as it was into the play-offs where they had a decent chance of pulling an upset. Now they're a new team.

Gallinari and Chandler were having their best seasons and fit the system. They were triple threats who moved the ball. They will be missed, but they also played the same position as Anthony. Mozgov had intriguing potential as an improving, fluidly athletic 7-footer with some skills, albeit with poor hands.

The toughest loss is Raymond Felton. The most important cog in Mike D'Antoni's system is a skilled floor general and orchestrator, which has been missing from the team since D'Antoni came to New York. Felton filled the role admirably and endeared himself to New York as a tough, professional leader with unexpected athleticism and advanced point guard skills. Felton was as responsible for the Knicks' improvement as Amare Stoudemire. His steady personality had a lot to do with the solid character of the team. Most importantly, he proved he had the point guard chops to run D'Antoni's system. It remains to be seen whether Billups will be able to pick it up.

The season is essentially starting over with two stars rather than one star and complementary players who fit the coach's system. The Knicks traded three solid team players in Felton, Gallinari, and Chandler for a prima donna in Anthony. If the team hadn't lost too many games against losing teams, maybe the Knicks would have kept the team together for the rest of the season. The Knicks have more star power with the Stoudemire-Anthony pairing but seem like a less likeable team now. D'Antoni's quick-hitting flowing offensive system takes time to pick up so it'll be uneven going for a while. Hopefully, Chauncey Billups is up to making the system work from the PG position.

Eric

The Egyptian protests and the Egyptian military

2011-02-11T16:39:00.003-05:00

Delayed effect of President Bush's Freedom Agenda?

On Feb 1, Andrew Exum said:

One of the things that has come up in several conversations today has been the professionalism of the Egyptian military. It is worth noting, too, that even though the United States is getting a lot of blame from protesters on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria for our support for the Mubarak Regime through the years, the United States will likely be able to retain a great deal of influence in Egypt even in a post-Mubarak political landscape because of the way in which the U.S. military has kept up such close relations with its Egyptian counterparts. Egyptian officers have been coming to the United States for training for three decades now, so most high-ranking Egyptian officers have close friends in the U.S. military with whom they went to the War College or CGSC. (We Americans would also like to think we have played a role in the professionalization of the Egyptian officer corps, but that may be giving us too much credit.)

What a different situation we have in Pakistan, where an entire generation of the Pakistani officer corps was "lost" to the U.S. military because of the Pressler Ammendment and the way in which it halted cooperation and exchanges between our two militaries. In that way, one thing Egypt and Pakistan have in common is the way in which each, in different ways, highlight the very real benefits of mil-mil cooperation, officer exchanges, and security force assistance.

UPDATE: President Obama just spoke on Egypt. His first words were words of praise for the Egyptian Army. That is no accident.

Eric

Stephen Macht looks like Fred Ward

2011-02-04T17:59:00.016-05:00

When I watched Graveyard Shift, I thought Stephen Macht, who plays Maine-accented hard-bastard boss Warwick, was Fred Ward of Tremors fame. Both actors were born in 1942, and Graveyard Shift and Tremors both came out in 1990.

Eric

Any Given Sunday inspirational speech

2011-01-30T16:01:00.003-05:00

The captivating "inches" half-time speech given by Miami Sharks Head Coach Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino) in 1999's Any Given Sunday:

Eric

Pet ferret eats baby's fingers

2011-01-19T01:55:00.002-05:00

Nightmarish.

Eric

Old War Dogs: Veterans as an Ethnic Minority

2011-01-18T23:09:00.005-05:00

An oldie but goodie at the Old War Dogs milblog, eg see "Gene Harrison".

Eric

Sad story of Brittany Murphy

2011-01-15T17:19:00.002-05:00

Brittany Murphy became famous as sweet misfit Tai in one of the defining movies of my generation, 1995's Clueless, which shot Alicia Silverstone to stardom. A family friend of actress Brittany Murphy writes the sad story of her final days. Murphy seems like a girl I easily could have fallen in love with.

Eric

Marc Schulman's NeoLiberals versus Populists

2011-01-14T00:37:00.001-05:00

Read it and Peter Beinart's "A Fighting Faith" featured in the Schulman post. I just might be a neoliberal.

Eric

Marshawn Lynch power run

2011-01-09T10:26:00.003-05:00

In the 7-9 Seahawks' 41-36 1st round play-off upset win over the defending champions Saints, Marshawn Lynch clinched the game with a 67 yard touchdown run in which his ran through, not around, the Saints' entire defense. Beast mode, indeed. Check it out:

Eric

Preview: Blueprint for Columbia ROTC

2011-01-02T06:05:00.021-05:00

** PREVIEW while awaiting publishing at Securenation. **

Blueprint for Columbia ROTC

“I invite you to consider whether the right question may no longer be “How could we ever formally recognize ROTC on our campus,” but, instead, “How can we not welcome them back?””
--Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams, October 2, 2010

Columbia ROTC was once a special institutional partnership that educated generations of Columbia students in the civil-military leadership tradition of alumnus and founding father Alexander Hamilton. The partnership was severed when ROTC was effectively barred from Columbia University in 1969. Since 2002, students, alumni, and faculty have organized to restore ROTC on the Columbia campus. The majority of responses to ROTC in the Columbia community have been positive, but Columbia's acceptance of ROTC has been delayed by opposition to the "don't ask don't tell" law (DADT).

Columbia ROTC after DADT

“[The repeal of DADT] effectively ends what has been a vexing problem for higher education, including at Columbia -- given our desire to be open to our military.”
--Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, December 18, 2010

On December 18, 2010, Congress repealed DADT. On the same day, Columbia President Lee Bollinger declared that the end of DADT is “the opportunity for a new era in the relationship between universities and our military services.” On December 20th, the Student Affairs Committee of the Columbia University Senate, the governing body that must decide whether the university will elect to restore ROTC, announced the formation of the “Task Force on Military Engagement.” The University Senate, which last considered ROTC in 2005, will take up the ROTC issue in the Spring 2011 session.

The repeal of DADT makes all the difference in Columbia welcoming ROTC. Much like the November 2010 Yale student survey on ROTC, a majority of Columbians have expressed support for ROTC on campus but not if having ROTC meant importing DADT. The repeal of DADT means a majority of Columbians now favor having ROTC on campus, period.

For Columbia officials, the question after DADT is whether an ROTC program fulfills the civic responsibility of an American flagship institution and the University's mission to furnish “a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields.”

Military officials currently judge ROTC programs using an accounting standard, i.e., whether an acceptable number of second lieutenants are produced at an acceptable cost, with some consideration for factors such as the host school's comity with the military, racial diversity, and regional coverage. The effect of current ROTC metrics has been to view the suppressed cadet numbers, long estrangement, and other suspected challenges at Columbia as drawbacks, whereas Columbia’s preeminent institutional strengths have not been judged as countervailing advantages.

Since the repeal of DADT, skeptics have challenged the practicality of an ROTC program at Columbia from the military's perspective. However, the issue is not whether the military is able to add an ROTC program at Columbia; since the Columbia ROTC movement was organized in 2002, ROTC programs have been granted to other host schools. The issue is whether university and military officials will determine that a new Columbia ROTC partnership is feasible and worth the cost.

If the evaluation of Columbia as an ROTC host school is limited to the military's current accounting standard, then Columbia will continue to be doubted as a candidate to host ROTC. Realizing ROTC at Columbia depends on university, government, and military leaders who can see beyond current ROTC metrics and envision the benefits of an institutional partnership that invests Columbia’s strengths in the military and vice-versa.

An ROTC+ vision for Columbia

“Future Army forces require lifelong learners who are creative and critical thinkers with highly refined problem solving skills and the ability to process and transform data and information rapidly and accurately into usable knowledge, across a wide range of subjects, to develop strategic thinkers capable of applying operational art to the strategic requirements of national policy.”
--The United States Army Operating Concept 2016-2028

“A healthy force must maintain high standards. Recent analyses emphasize the need for officers who are even more agile, flexible, educated, skilled, and professional.”
--The Final Report of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel

Leaders in all fields often stress that a vision is important, but 90% of the effort is in implementation. Simply adding ROTC to Columbia would fill an important gap at Columbia, but our goal goes beyond simply adding an ROTC program. We envision Columbia ROTC as the leading, state-of-the-art ROTC program in the nation. Much depends on the degree to which the university, the military, and the alumni are willing to implement an ROTC+ vision at Columbia.

The military's evolving 21st Century mission aligns the military with Columbia's global outlook and raises the potential of a Columbia ROTC+ with course offerings that are a plus both to the university and the military. In an increasingly complex global security environment, America needs military leaders able to adapt on a full spectrum, which means officers who are “lifelong learners” and “creative and critical thinkers” with the best possible academic foundation. Columbia University’s gifted students and combination of top-tier academic and New York City resources offer ROTC an ideal setting for innovative programs to attract qualified young men and women, recruit personnel with specialized skills, and prepare officers for a full range of complex missions with enhanced pre-accession training. Columbia already hosts innovative crosscutting programs that rely upon the special reach and multi-dimensional resources of a flagship university in a world city – Columbia ROTC+ would be a rare opportunity to rise to the needs of the nation with an evolutionary officer program that draws upon everything Columbia University in New York City has to offer.

Columbia ROTC+ would take advantage of Columbia’s large diverse pool of top-quality undergraduate and graduate students, a world-class research and learning environment that already trains students in a wide range of scholarly and professional fields, and the unique resources of a world capital. Columbia has top language, anthropology, and civil engineering programs that should immediately interest the Army and Marines, as well as excellent engineering and science programs that should attract the Air Force and Navy.

Navy ROTC is a promising match for Columbia. Columbia owns strong historical ties to Naval officer training. An NROTC program at Columbia would provide the Navy with much-needed access to New York City. NROTC favors strong engineering programs and Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is one of the best in the world. For New York City, a home for NROTC at Columbia would advance Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to make the city an "applied science and engineering hub."

ROTC at Columbia would help solve the military’s absence of ROTC within Manhattan — which has poor access to ROTC despite having the highest concentration of college students in the country — and affirm to Columbia students their nation-building responsibilities in both military and civilian life. The return of ROTC to Columbia University, the flagship academic institution in New York City, would have a positive wider cultural and public relations impact on the military and the university.

Any new ROTC program at Columbia would join a distinguished military heritage and find a fraternal community ready to support the program. Columbia’s military tradition dates back to the students who joined the fight for a new American nation. Indeed, the standard bearer for Columbia officership is founding father Alexander Hamilton and his lifetime of visionary leadership in and out of uniform. The Hamilton Society, the student group for ROTC students and Marine officer candidates founded in 2002, has consciously sought to revive General Hamilton’s Columbia military lineage. Columbia enjoys an active and growing population of over 300 student-veterans, the largest by far in the Ivy League, as well as numerous active-duty officers in the graduate programs. Alumni group Columbia Alliance for ROTC has the express purpose of promoting and supporting ROTC at Columbia. Alumni have served in all the military branches, though none more than the Navy, where Columbia Naval officers once rivaled Annapolis’s output.

Beyond Columbia’s military community, ROTC would find a supportive environment on campus. Since 2005, University leaders have consistently cited DADT as the only significant obstacle to the university welcoming ROTC, and DADT is no longer relevant. The ROTC movement has grown within Columbia from students, alumni, and professors supporting the military on campus. The steady trend on campus has been to support the military, as expressed by University leaders such as Trustees chairman and Army veteran Bill Campbell and Columbia College Student Council president and ROTC advocate Learned Foote, multiple Columbia Spectator staff editorials calling for ROTC at Columbia, Columbia's outreach to recent veterans with robust participation in the Yellow Ribbon program, the unveiling of the Columbia War Memorial, and highly visible commissioning ceremonies on campus. In 2006, Columbia even amended the university non-discrimination policy to add "military status" as a protected category.

The devil is in the details

As stated earlier, since DADT ended as the justification for separating Columbia and ROTC, skeptics have challenged the practicality of an ROTC program at Columbia from the military's perspective. Issues cited include student interest, providing satisfactory physical facilities, granting ROTC instructors faculty status and titles, and granting academic credit for ROTC courses. As with any ambitious institutional change, the devil is in the details, but all the issues cited are resolvable:

a. Student interest in ROTC

Skeptics point to the current low number of ROTC students at Columbia in order to claim that student interest is too low to sustain an ROTC program on campus. However, their contention is impossible to prove or disprove without an ROTC program on campus. The damaged status of ROTC at Columbia after 1969, alienation from poor exposure, distance and poor access in urban terms, and lack of institutional assistance likely deter most Columbia students from seriously considering ROTC. It's simply unfair to judge Columbia students for not joining an ROTC program that isn’t there. We first have to plant the seed in order to grow the tree - building up ROTC student numbers at Columbia first requires ROTC on campus. Then, as Columbia ROTC is nurtured into a fully integrated and supported part of the university, Columbia ROTC student numbers will grow over time. That's just common sense. Roughly one-fourth of the undergraduate population is renewed every year. After ROTC is established on campus and properly advertised, eventually every student applying to Columbia will know about the ROTC program on campus.

Of course, financial incentives help attract students from elite - and expensive - universities like Columbia to any career field. In order for the military to compete for the best students, the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel recommends:

To attract more youth to military careers and recruit from the nation‘s top colleges, the services should offer full scholarships on a competitive basis, usable anywhere a student chooses to attend, in exchange for enlisted service in the reserves (and summer officer training) during schooling, and 5 years of service after graduation, to include officer training school.

It is worth noting that, of the three ROTC programs, Navy ROTC is viewed by many as the ROTC program most likely to succeed at Columbia. The undergraduate NROTC survey of 2008 originated from SEAS students requesting the pathway to Naval officership, and in spite of the unpopularity of DADT, SEAS students voted in favor of Navy ROTC at Columbia. Unfortunately, despite the demonstrated student interest, Columbia students have zero access to NROTC. The absence of NROTC at Columbia is made doubly tragic by the storied history of Naval officer training at Columbia. Many alumni supporters are Navy veterans who would be particularly supportive of a Navy ROTC on campus.

b. Physical facilities for ROTC

ROTC campus space needs are relatively modest and could reasonably be met at Columbia under current conditions. ROTC-friendly neighboring spaces such as Grant’s Tomb and Central Park would augment the space available for ROTC. Furthermore, the projected timeline of the Manhattanville university expansion coincides with the likely timeline for starting an ROTC program at Columbia, which should increase the space available for ROTC on the main campus.

c. ROTC instructors' faculty status and titles

A key constraint is the law governing ROTC, the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964. Its provisions should not block efforts at Columbia to restore ROTC; they include the following:

No unit may be established or maintained at an institution unless the senior commissioned officer of the armed force concerned who is assigned to the program at that institution is given the academic rank of professor… and the institution adopts, as a part of its curriculum, a four-year course of military instruction … which the Secretary of the military department concerned prescribes and conducts.

The faculty appointment issue has been solved well at universities comparable to Columbia. At MIT, for example, ROTC leaders are designated as “visiting professors.” At Princeton, ROTC professors are assigned “a rank equivalent to the senior academic rank of professor.” Both these formulations satisfy the law without undermining the status of regular tenured professors and accord with Columbia's instructional appointment policy.

d. Academic credit for ROTC courses

The courses of instruction issue has also been solved in ways that fit with the values of comparable universities. Although it has been claimed that "the University would also have to grant credit for ROTC coursework" there is no such requirement in the law. Indeed, Princeton has announced that "credit would not be provided at Princeton" for ROTC courses, despite language in the 1972 Army-Princeton agreement that “academic credit for military professional subjects will be judged by the institution under the same procedure and criteria as for other institutional courses.” Similar conditions for ROTC courses may be observed at MIT.

The Princeton arrangement demonstrates a basic model on which the university and the military can agree. More importantly, efforts at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia have pointed the way towards an ROTC+ model that builds on the basic model by making available high quality courses valued by both the university and the military. These ROTC+ efforts have been of two types:

Regular faculty arranging ROTC credit: Professors at comparable universities such as Harvard have taught courses that were coordinated with the military and received ROTC as well as university credit. This model can be expanded, especially as the subject areas relevant to military leadership continue to expand. Although universities may have significant gaps in areas of interest to the military, departments are glad for opportunities to hire top scholars to cover important areas.

ROTC faculty arranging university credit: Columbia has discussed having regular university departments co-sponsor ROTC courses deemed worthy of academic credit. With a similar vision, the Army has sent ROTC leaders with PhDs to Princeton, positioning them to have joint appointments in regular departments.

Under these models, some courses could be offered with joint Columbia and ROTC credit. Creating an ROTC+ model in which ROTC students get courses such as military history, international relations, game theory, and anthropology provides to the military a “laboratory of the universities,” and also enhances the course offerings of the university. ROTC+ offers capabilities that are a plus both to the university and the military.

The next steps to Columbia ROTC

"Now, as anyone who has been involved in transformation knows, change can be hard. It can be challenging. And it can be frustrating. Inevitably, all institutions resist change to some degree--even when all recognize that change is needed."
--Army General David Petraeus, May 6, 2010

President Bollinger's encouraging statement immediately following the repeal of DADT was the necessary first step towards restoring the Columbia ROTC partnership.

The next step is for the University Senate to deliberate, then approve ROTC. Input from the Columbia community will be vital to the University Senate’s decision. If the University Senate approves ROTC, university officials would then reach out to the military to start negotiating an ROTC program at Columbia. In order for the military and Columbia to negotiate constructively, it is important that the two sides deal with each other in good faith, are motivated by compelling interests and tangible benefits, and judge Columbia ROTC by a standard that favors Columbia's institutional strengths. The intervention of political leaders to break through bureaucratic deadlocks may be necessary. Alumni will also be crucial. Columbia alumni have a strong voice in both the university and in government. Alumni are crucial in encouraging students to apply to Columbia and encouraging them to try ROTC. Alumni are also crucial in transcending bean-counter arguments and providing resources to achieve important goals.

A call to action

“The moral compass of the Army is the P.L. [platoon leader, usually a lieutenant] and the C.O. [commanding officer]. I told every one of my P.L.'s that they have to set that moral standard, that once you slip to the left, you can’t pull your guys back in.”
--Army Captain Dan Kearney, February 24, 2008

Few causes are as manifestly impactful as advocating for Columbia ROTC. As it does today, much of the weight of future missions will be borne by young officers. They must be able to lead their soldiers in any combination of homeland defense, disaster relief, crisis stabilization, ministerial training, conflict prevention, security and stability, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, essential government services, emergency infrastructure, and humanitarian aid. In the short term, young lieutenants and captains prepared by Columbia ROTC will be better equipped to rapidly innovate and adapt to unpredictable challenges. Over their careers, a strong academic foundation will help Columbia officers to master their duties with a commensurately greater acquisition of faculties. Pentagon budget cuts that may lead to leaner capabilities on the ground and the forecast of politically sensitive missions that rely on smaller numbers of forces further point to a heightened need for the exceptional individual officers that Columbia can provide the nation.

The challenges facing America are great, but so are the opportunities. At this crossroads in our history, Columbia must choose: are we an “Ivory Tower" disconnected from the needs of People and nation, and only good for insular thinking and selfish pursuits? Or, are we truly America’s producer of vanguard leaders who pursue the greater good and the improvement of all parts of our society, including the military?

The challenge of our time demands the best leaders from our generation. As Dr. Martin Luther King said in another time of pressing need in American history:

Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.

As Columbians and Americans, it is again time for us to stand with a greater determination, for the sake of People and nation. The decision we make for ROTC at Columbia is about more than just ROTC. We are shaping our generation’s vision of Columbia University and of ourselves as fellow citizens.

Recommended reading:
Blueprint for Harvard ROTC
The Changing Landscape of American Higher Education -- Panel on the Military and Academe

A Cappella on Glee

2010-12-31T00:19:00.006-05:00

As a fan of a cappella, I like this Glee-souped-up a cappella rendition of Train's pop-catchy "Hey Soul Sister" by the all-male Dalton Academy Warblers.

Eric

Quick word: With DADT repealed, return of ROTC to Columbia is next

2010-12-19T12:36:00.011-05:00

Yesterday, the Senate passed DADT repeal. Good.

The follow-up issue is Ivy ROTC. Immediately after DADT repeal, mainstream journalists contacted the presidents of the prestigious universities that lost ROTC during the Vietnam War about ROTC returning to their campuses. Their responses, including by President Bollinger, were promising.

Soapboxing ROTC rhetoric during the DADT era was easy. With the DADT block gone, now it gets real. The hard part for ROTC advocates is just beginning. The devil is in the details: buy-in from the needed university and military decsion-makers, course credits, faculty status, campus space and facilities, recruitment, operating costs, etc., etc., etc.. A viable business model for Columbia ROTC will be key. General David Petraeus on institutional change:

Now, as anyone who has been involved in transformation knows, change can be hard. It can be challenging. And it can be frustrating. Inevitably, all institutions resist change to some degree--even when all recognize that change is needed.

Eric

Columbia 5 drug bust

2010-12-08T09:35:00.015-05:00

In yesterday's titillating scandalous news from Alma Mater, 5 Columbia students were arrested on campus for selling MDMA (AKA ecstasy), marijuana, Adderall, LSD, cocaine, and other drugs, like DMT and amphetamines. More up-the-minute reporting at bwog.com. MDMA, marijuana, and Adderall seem like drugs commonly used by college students. LSD and DMT are less common and a step up in risk, but still not surprising. Cocaine is the heavy hitter. Apparently, only one of the students sold cocaine and is facing the most serious charges.

I don't use drugs, but in college, I nevertheless had a peripheral sense of widespread drug use on campus and I wondered sometimes how students knew where to get it. I had (and have) no idea how to buy drugs, even the seemingly ubiquitous marijuana.

I believe if alcohol and tobacco products are legal, then marijuana, which I believe to be less dangerous for similar effect, should also be legal. But what is legal doesn't always seem right, and what seems right isn't always legal. The law is the law, and they're smart kids - they knew, or should have known, the risks they were taking.

FYI, as of this posting, all 5 students are still in custody in the Tombs according to VINE and the NYC DOC websites. Odd in the case of Michael Wymbs because the news reports said his parents attended his arraignment, hired a very expensive defense attorney, and were prepared to pay his bail. 1:40 pm Update: Wymbs is out, the others are still in.

Eric

Hyundai Christmas song commercials

2010-12-06T17:52:00.007-05:00

The cute girl singing and playful guy on instruments with light-hearted antics featured in the new series of Christmas-themed Hyundai commercials are Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte of Pomplamoose. Look up their music on youtube. Yep, cute girl. They're a couple - lucky guy. Precious jewels.

Eric

Cool website of the day: thaddeusrussell.com

2010-12-04T08:53:00.003-05:00

I took Professor Thaddeus Russell's class at Barnard in spring 2005. It is one of the few classes I took at Columbia that changed how I see culture and society.

Eric

Amazing Race Season 17 Episode 10

2010-11-29T20:33:00.005-05:00

TWOP, my go-to site for Amazing Race episode recaps.

On last night's episode, Nick and Vicki came in last place and quit on the detour, which earned them a 6 hour penalty. It turned out to be a non-elimination leg which means they'll get their last place start time, a speed bump, plus a 6 hour penalty. Normally, that would be the end of them for the race. But the time penalties may be wiped out since they're flying to Korea for the next leg, which means it's possible that the wait for the next flight out will eat up the entire time penalty and only leave them with a speed bump in Korea. I agree with this episode recap that Nick and Vicki should be out of the competition for quitting. Instead, they may hardly suffer for it.

Previews for next week's episode looks like it will involve a lot of Army-related activity in Korea, which will be nostalgic, even though soldiers don't wear BDUs anymore.

Eric

Warm flashes in leg

2010-11-29T13:31:00.002-05:00

The last several weeks, I've been getting occasional warm flashes on my lower right leg. Not uncomfortable, but odd, especially when it happens while I'm swimming in the cool water of a pool. I searched on-line and this may be the answer: Peripheral Neuropathy.

Information pages:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/peripheralneuropathy/peripheralneuropathy.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/peripheral-neuropathy/DS00131

Eric

Patchwork colors on Empire State Building

2010-11-22T07:15:00.005-05:00

Tower lights: 11/18 - 11/21/2010 Private Lighting

Eric

Quote of the day

2010-11-18T23:03:00.003-05:00

Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn - The War in North Africa 1942-1943, p 377:

Having participated in several catastrophic defeats himself, [British General Harold Alexander] should have recognized that defeat sometimes carried annealing and even salutory properties. A great sorting out was under way: the competent from the incompetent, the courageous from the fearful, the lucky from the unlucky. It would happen faster in the American Army than it had in the British.

Eric

Sullivan Ballou's Civil War letter

2010-11-11T00:00:00.005-05:00

** Bumped up from original 29OCT04 posting in honor of Veterans Day 2010. **

US Army Major Sullivan Ballou wrote this letter to his wife Sarah on July 14, 1861, made famous by Ken Burns' poignant presentation in the Civil War documentary series with the backdrop of the haunting Ashokan Farewell. On July 21, MAJ Ballou was mortally wounded in the First Battle of Bull Run (aka Battle of First Manassas). His letter has become definitive of the American citizen-soldier, as well as great romantic literature.

Add 29MAY11: youtube clip from the Ken Burns documentary:

Link to the full letter (there are slightly different versions on other websites)

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps
tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write
lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure -- and
it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God,
be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my
country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the
cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how
strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and
how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and
suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay
down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that
debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly
all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows -- when,
after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must
offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children -- is it weak or
dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the
breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should
struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two
thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps,
before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with
his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a
wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not
find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles I have often advocated
before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death"
have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty
cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country
comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these
chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping
over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so
long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of
future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together,
and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but
few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me --
perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my
loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love
you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your
name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How
thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with
my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the
misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot.
I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the
storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we
meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen
around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in
the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours -- always,
always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or
the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we
shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a
father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my
blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his
childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your
development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's
blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither
my children.

Sullivan

- Eric

The battle for the soul of the region continues in Iraq

2010-11-02T19:12:00.005-04:00

In today's news, from the BBC, Iraq attacks: Dozens die in series of Baghdad blasts.

What Tom Barnett said in 2004 about Operation Iraqi Freedom continues to prove true:

Disconnecting the great disconnector from the Gulf’s security scene is only the beginning of our effort, because now Iraq becomes the great battle field for the soul of the whole region. That second victory will be far more difficult to achieve. Our efforts to integrate Iraq into a wider world will pit all the forces of disconnectedness in the region against us. Therefore we must enlist the aid of all the forces of connectedness across the Core—not just their troops but their investment flows and their commercial networks.

America needs to demonstrate to the Middle East that there is such a thing as a future worth creating there, not just a past worth re-creating, which is all the bin Ladens will ever offer Muslim populations—a retreat from today’s diminished expectations. If America cannot muster the will—not to mention the Core’s aid—to win this struggle in Iraq, we will send a clear signal to the region that there is no future in the Core for any of these states, save Israel.

Related: Columbia political science professor Richard Betts explains the grand strategies whose shifting lens can be used to understand a complex security landscape.

Eric

Goal: explore the great parks of New York City

2010-10-22T19:05:00.002-04:00

I watched the excellent documentary Blueprint New York City Parks about New York City's great parks, one for each borough. It is now my goal to hike/explore Manhattan's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Staten Island's Greenbelt Park, Queens' Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, and Bronx's Pelham Bay Park.

Eric

Why US troops will continue to be needed for 3D

2010-10-21T17:06:00.006-04:00

3D is defense, diplomacy, and development. Tom Barnett recently posted about it. A case in point illustration in today's Washington Post.

Eric

SNL Classic: Eddie Murphy's White Like Me

2010-10-20T18:09:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Shane.

Eric

DADT repeal in the Defense budget bill

2010-10-15T17:31:00.004-04:00

H.AMDT.672 (A019)
Amends: H.R.5136
Sponsor: Rep Murphy, Patrick J. [PA-8] (offered 5/27/2010)

AMENDMENT DESCRIPTION:
Amendment repeals "Don't Ask Don't Tell" only after: (1) receipt of the recommendations of the Pentagon's Comprehensive Review Working Group on how to implement a repeal of DADT (due December 1, 2010) and (2) a certification by the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and President that repeal is first, consistent with military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion & recruiting, and second, that the DoD has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to implement its repeal. The amendment also includes a 60 day period after certification before the repeal takes effect.

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
An amendment numbered 79 printed in House Report 111-498 to repeal Dont Ask Dont Tell only after: (1) receipt of the recommendations of the Pentagon's Comprehensive Review Working Group on how to implement a repeal of DADT (due December 1, 2010) and (2) a certification by the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and President that repeal is first, consistent with military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion & recruiting, and second, that the DoD has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to implement its repeal. It would also include a 60 day period after certification before the repeal took effect.

STATUS:

5/27/2010 8:29pm:
Amendment (A019) offered by Mr. Murphy, Patrick. (consideration: CR 5/28/2010 H4055-4056, H4062-4063; text: CR 5/28/2010 H4055-4056)
5/27/2010 10:08pm:
On agreeing to the Murphy, Patrick amendment (A019) Agreed to by recorded vote: 234 - 194 (Roll no. 317).

ADD: CU Prof Tanya Domi and others: We are determined to see legislative repeal this year.

Project Runway Season 8 semi-finalists

2010-10-15T10:00:00.005-04:00

April was eliminated in the last challenge. I called it: Mondo, Andy, Michael, and Gretchen are going to Fashion Week at Lincoln Center, although one more will be eliminated when they come back to New York City to narrow down to the three finalists.

April was set up for failure. She was praised all season for making dresses in the same style and then was slammed for it at the end. Mondo once again breezed through, but I got the sense he was coasting. It's time to see his final collection. Andy's textured wet look was sleek. Gretchen's skirt was nice, but the top and jacket were lost. I thought Michael was going to lose because his flowy black dress was too simple, but he won the challenge.

Eric

The Last Patrol by 2 Charlie

2010-10-12T22:38:00.001-04:00

Read it: November 2010 Atlantic magazine The Last Patrol by Brian Mockenhaupt.

Iraq is to Europe as Afghanistan is to the Pacific?

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2010-10-10T15:00:00.038-04:00

Local treasure: Church of the Guardian Angel, a Catholic church and school at West 21st street and 10th Avenue. For quiet quirky NYC scenery, try walking from the West Village to Chelsea. I need to do it more.

Port 10 has a rooftop lounge with outdoor projection screen theater.

Valerie Mayen of Project Runway, Amanda Baumgarten of Top Chef, and Heather Chittum of Top Chef Desserts seem like nice girls.

Michelle Wie's blog.

Former supermodel Paulina Porizkova on Aging.

For its student-veterans, Columbia named as a military friendly school by G.I. Jobs.

Classic movie moment: Death of Spock (Star Trek II Wrath of Khan).

"From hell's heart I stab at thee ..." - Ahab, Khan, Monty Burns.

Jeremy Lin, playing for his hometown Warriors, made his first NBA preseason appearance last week.

In other Taiwanese-American pop news, good luck to Michael and Kevin Wu on Season 17 of the Amazing Race.

I would have preferred them getting together on the Knicks, but I still look forward to watching James, Wade, and Bosh play together for the Heat this season. James received a lot of criticism for joining Wade's Heat, but I don't agree. He was a free agent and took advantage of the opportunity to join his Redeem Team teammates while they're still in their prime. It came together for them. When you get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to achieve something special, you grab it or regret it.

Last week's episode (Season 8, Episode 11) of Project Runway showcased Ivy Higa bullying Michael Costello. Earlier in the season, before her elimination, she had turned all the contestants against him. I've dealt with venomous women like Higa in the workplace - you can't reason with them.

What does Duke '10 grad Karen Owen's faux thesis about her college sexual experiences say about the premise of 'strict liability' date rape laws? Related, Owen gives weight to disheartening views of modern women. A man's got to be a man: Why I Left My Beta Husband.

Word of the day: Neoteny.

Lion King's opening number, Circle of Life. Image of lion pride in background inspires, 'Wait, what?' thought. King has harem. King has son, let's call him Simba, with mate1, where Simba has dad's Y and mom1's X, call it X1Y. King has daughter, let's call her Nala, with mate2, where Nala has dad's X and mom2's X, call it X2X. So, while Simba and Nala are half-brother and half-sister sharing a father, they don't actually share genes. Which makes their marriage not gross?

Rest in peace, Mr Kwock. I enjoyed hearing about your Vietnam War experiences. I'm sorry your daughter and I didn't work out - my fault.

Eric

Mail Order Wife (2004)

2010-09-27T19:59:00.002-04:00

I checked out fake documentary, or mockumentary, Mail Order Wife on Hulu.com. Exaggerated, sure, but the isolation, desperation, and venality of the characters strike enough chords to be very depressing. There is no redemption in the story.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

2010-09-25T19:21:00.007-04:00

Alexandra Palmer stands out as the best model, a class of her own, on this season's (Season 8) Project Runway. As far as the designers, I think Mondo Guerra will win; he's in control of his craft, consistent, and has the most innovative style. Andy South's style is as unconventional as Guerra's, but he's hit or miss. Michael Costello and Gretchen Jones should round out the last four finalists.

Swimming is good. Just make sure to shower afterwards.

Check out these faithful performances of South Park songs by Berklee College students.

Ouch. A female college student columnist tells it like it is.

One week until the big Hamilton Society event. My contribution.

Rent: Seasons of Love. Simple and stirring.

R.I.P. Leona Weiner.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Dragonlance Nexus

2010-09-25T08:48:00.001-04:00

Dragonlance Nexus.

Eric

Ninth anniversary of 9/11

2010-09-11T10:48:00.002-04:00

In light of current events on this year's anniversary of 9/11, my The Power of Diversity column, published in the Columbia Spectator Friday 9 November 2001:

In our war against terrorism, diversity should be the greatest strength of the American people. Our country is not defined by any ethnicity or religion. We share a concept of country that embraces every person, no matter where he traces his family’s roots. Every language, every culture, every religion, every ethnicity, and every race of the world can be found in our American mosaic. To fight this war, our country should be able to draw upon an abundance of diverse human resources.

We have been raised, however, to think of our differences as a source of conflict. Politically correct culture has tried to downplay our differences when we should cherish our diversity and recognize that it makes us stronger people. Now that peacetime discourse has been replaced by wartime necessity, we have the opportunity to transform American diversity from a source of domestic conflict into a powerful weapon. The nation demands the unity of the American people in confronting our common enemy, but the diversity of the American people is the key to American victory.

Osama bin Laden, on his side, views our diversity as a weakness. Where President Bush has continually affirmed that the war on terrorism is not against Muslims, Osama bin Laden has defined the war along unmistakable ethnic and religious lines. His voice is louder than America’s voice in the Muslim world, and he has succeeded in winning the sympathy of many Muslims.

The United States has taken the lead in the war against Osama bin Laden’s terrorism, and we have the capability to defeat him. When isolated, the terrorists amount to no more than a radical fringe of particularly sophisticated bandits. But we cannot defeat terrorism if Osama bin Laden succeeds in polarizing Muslims against America. The war against terrorism is, in large part, a psychological war; therefore, winning the hearts and minds of the world’s Muslims is essential to the American war effort. Fortunately, within our diversity, we find a powerful weapon in the psychological fight: millions of Americans who are gifted with the right language, culture, and religion to appeal to the world’s Muslims on America’s behalf.

In building his terrorist organization, Osama bin Laden has proven to be an astute student of history and a master of propaganda. He appreciates the power of hate and has chosen the United States to be the scapegoat of his hate-driven campaign, much like the way Adolph Hitler once chose Europe’s Jews to focus his efforts. Terrorism represents a virulent form of destructive hate that is every bit as effective as Nazism in 1930s Germany. Like Hitler, Osama bin Laden has presented himself as an avenger of past wrongs, thus masking his murderous actions with pretences of a false victimization. Even as he defiles Islam, kills thousands of innocents, and foments a war that causes massive destruction among those he claims to represent, Osama bin Laden, by manipulating legitimate grievances, has successfully won the sympathy of many Muslims who would otherwise be in the best position to stop him. The unfortunate people who have chosen to support Osama bin Laden, such as the Taliban, are also victims of terrorism. In the unavoidable human cost of America’s battle against terrorism, the supporters of Osama bin Laden will pay the same penalty as the Nazi supporters in World War II.

Muslim Americans are in a unique position to aid the American war effort, both at home and abroad, while diminishing the overall casualties of the war. At home, many non-Muslim Americans lack an understanding of Islam and Islamic culture, which has allowed the fear generated by the terrorist attacks to have a deep impact on our country, particularly Muslim Americans. By engaging in the American war effort and educating non-Muslim Americans about their religion and culture, Muslim Americans can unify and strengthen the American people, while also negating the caustic fear that serves the terrorist enemy. As the face and voice of America abroad, Muslim Americans can effectively combat Osama bin Laden’s propaganda campaign in the Muslim world. By convincing the world’s Muslims to support America and not the terrorists, Muslim Americans can save many lives: those who do not support Osama bin Laden, after all, will not die on his behalf.

In our American diversity, we find our greatest advantage over the terrorists and our nation’s key to winning this war. All Americans share the same duty of service to our country. Muslim Americans, however, have a special opportunity to serve their country with a unique set of skills and abilities. With this war, Muslim Americans hold the power to change the course of American history, and in doing so, to join the annals of the greatest American heroes. Muslim Americans, in essence, have been given a rare chance to create a permanent niche in the hearts and minds of America.

Eric

Dan Henninger: If Saddam Had Stayed

2010-09-05T12:03:00.005-04:00

From WSJ.com 02SEP10: If Saddam Had Stayed.

Eric