Attackerman

Saturday Japanese Baseball Blogging

I had three goals for Japan. 1. Yomiuri Giants game. 2. Dawn visit to the world's greatest fish market. 3. A Bathing Ape. I left batting .666. 

The Giants were on the road the week that we made it to Tokyo. But Japan's historic baseball madness ensured that its capitol wouldn't be stuck with merely one baseball club. So we headed to Jingu Stadium our second night in town to watch the Tokyo Yakult Swallows take on the Yokohama Bay Stars, who I think were favored. The scene outside the park, 30 minutes before first pitch:

One mistake I didn't know I was making: I bought us tickets along the third-base line. We quickly learned that was the visitors' fans section. Not that we were invested, but it felt uncharitable to Tokyo to spend all our time amongst the Yokohama supporters. And the culture of stadium fandom is a lot more like soccer than American baseball: there are customized chants for individual players when they step into the box or make impressive plays; lots of team-flag waving at important moments; and lots of cheap noisemakers to cheer on the club.

For instance: witness the passion play of an early-inning at bat by Yokohama's Norihiro Nakamura. I filmed him because a couple people seated in our section were wearing his 99 jersey. From his stats, he seems like a pretty-good journeyman whose best seasons are behind him, but he's got his diehards.  

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 743-11

August 27, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pfc. Brandon S. Mullins, 21, of Owensboro, Ky., died Aug. 25 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

For more information the media may contact the U.S. Army Alaska Public Affairs Office at 907-384-1542/2072.

A Community of Writers

 

There is no more New York Press.

Fun with counterfactuals: had there never been a New York Press, I wouldn't be a journalist. Until I started reading NYP -- George Tabb, an amazing overgrown child and huge-hearted dude I knew from punk rock, wrote there -- I didn't care about journalism at all. But I had the good grace and luck to start reading the Press in the late '90s, its high-water mark as a writer's paper: Andrey Slivka, John Strausbaugh, Jim Knipfel, Sam Sifton, Godfrey Cheshire, a production staffed helmed by Jeff Koyen from fuckin' Crank zine. Alan Cabal. C.J. Sullivan.  

What the Press did wasn't really reporting, although it had that; wasn't really criticism, although it had that, too; and wasn't really polemic, although it couldn't avoid that. It was bile, viscera, iconoclasm, passion, fire and blood. I don't know if there's ever been another publication like it. My friend Sam Goldman will tell you how thoroughly obsessed I became.

If there was a general consensus opinion that New York City held, the Press was there to say Fuck You, as loudly as possible. Not you-think-it's-that-but-it's-really-this. No cheap, bloodless counterintuition. It didn't care about persuading you, and it hated the rest of the media. The Press was there to grip you by the throat and scream in your miserable face that you were too fucking stupid to waste the city's time. I wanted desperately to be down.

So in the sweltering late summer of 1999, when I was a sophomore in college, I applied for an internship, went to 333 7th Avenue, and promptly got turned down. But, dear reader, I refused to quit. By sheer cosmic luck, when I left the building, I ran into my friend Diego, who asked what I was up to on a summer day in a suit. When he heard that I was trying to intern at the Press, he mentioned that his friend Lisa LeeKing was the listings editor there. After getting rejected, I used Diego's connect to convince Lisa that I was just the right guy to open her mail after classes twice a week.

When Bad Things Happen To Fictional People

You guys, Sady Doyle breaks the news that horrible and politically retrograde things happen to people in A Song of Ice and Fire, including -- and often especially -- women. Maybe you thought that was kind of the point, that Westeros and Essos are bleak places where misery reigns and nobility has gone the way of the dragons. I was unaware that enjoying ASOIAF entailed granting my assent to all this rampant and seemingly immutable injustice, but Doyle puts me on notice that to consider her argument unpersuasive is to whine about all my broken toys:

[H]ere’s how it goes, when you criticize beloved nerd entertainments: You can try to be nuanced. You can try to be thoughtful. You can lay out your arguments in careful, extravagant, obsessive detail. And at the end of the day, here is what the people in the “fandom” are going to take away: You don’t like my toys? I hate you!

Um, OK. Personally, I kind of hate fantasy, and that's one of the reasons I love ASOIAF -- George R.R. Martin really likes to break people's toys. (It's also one of the reasons that A Dance With Dragons is maddening: as Adam Serwer masterfully observes, it's the most conventional "fantasy" of all the books.) I'm hardly invested in the sanctities of the genre, or even in the sanctities of ASOIAF, but don't go writing shit about how a failure to assent to your argument is a character flaw of mine.

 E.D. Kain writes a more text-based critique. I don't see the point. If someone doesn't think that it's desirable for art to depict ugliness, the argument's at a standstill.

But Asha Greyjoy is still my role model. 

 

So It Turns Out The Public Is Really Smart

AEI has an overview of public attitudes to counterterrorism in the Decade Of 9/11. It turns out the public knows what it's talking about. A taste:

Americans believe there will be another terrorist attack, but they don't believe they will be victims. 69% told CBS News/New York Times pollsters in May 2011 that there would be another terrorist attack on our soil. In another CBS question, 22% were concerned about an attack where they lived.

Hard to argue with that! Chances are there will be another attack; chances are it won't kill you. 

At a time when criticism of government is widespread, Americans believe the country is safer due to the government's efforts. They also believe George W. Bush made us safer and that Barack Obama has kept us safe. 69% told Pew that the government was doing very or fairly well in reducing the threat of terror. 50% in 2008 told CBS that George W. Bush had made the country safer; 21% said less safe. 63% approved of the job President Obama was doing handling terrorism in a June 2011 Quinnipiac poll.

It won't surprise you that I think the public is wrong here about Bush, but it would seem churlish to insist on my side here. My suspicion is that the public is inclined to trust the government on Can It Protect Us questions and sees no problem with any cognitive dissonance in dissatisfaction with the government on questions of prosperity or health care or whatever. 

• Americans continue to believe that the initial decision to send troops was the right one. In 16 questions asked by Gallup since 2001, a majority has said it was not a mistake to send military forces to Afghanistan. In May 2011, 58% gave that response.
• After the surge in Iraq, when most pollsters turned their attention back to Afghanistan, Americans were more critical about our involvement in the war. In summer 2011 Quinnipiac and CBS polls, majorities said we shouldn't be involved now.

Yeah, probably true.

Concern about civil liberties for "average Americans" has risen over the past ten years. 61% in mid-September 2001 Pew polling said the average person would have to give up some civil liberties; 27% gave that response in 2009. 

Healthy! At least from the perspective of my policy preferences.

• Still, Americans think the current balance between protecting civil liberties and protecting the nation is satisfactory. They tilt in the direction of government actions to protect the country. More say the government's policies have not gone far enough than have gone too far (47% and 32% respectively in Pew's polling).
• Americans supported reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act (53% a good thing in a 2006 Fox poll, 30% bad thing). Majorities believe it is acceptable to monitor phone calls of people suspected of terrorism without court approval. Americans don't want to use torture. Still, only 25% in a 2009 Pew poll said it is never justified. Americans are understandably cautious about assassinations but believe killing Osama bin Laden was the right thing to do (80% in an NBC survey). 60% in a CNN/ORC survey from March 2010 wanted to keep Guantanamo open.

I'm out of step with the public on the liberty/security balance and the Guantanamo questions. But it's significant that you don't see lopsided majorities in favor of any of that stuff. The public is pretty OK with being conflicted or hesitant, even if the impulse in writing about all of this from a policy perspective is to shave off the nuances. 

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 739-11

August 26, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Andrew R. Tobin, 24, of Jacksonville, Ill., died Aug. 24 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms fire. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.

For more information the media may contact the 10th Mountain Division public affairs office at 315-772-8286.

Friday Tiger Blogging

My wife and I hung out with tigers in Chiang Mai. These are their stories. 

This dude is three months old. Note his glassy eyes and giant paws. They work in tandem for a singular purpose: to murder you. Case in point...

Don't be distracted by the adorable white spots on the ears of this baby tiger. Check out the red spots on the forearm of the man in the blue shirt who, I assure you, looks like Norman Podhoretz but probably isn't. How'd he get those red spots? From the claws of a baby tiger, who ripped the shit out of not-Podhoretz's arm when the opportunity arose.

But, I mean, so cute.

At three months old, their underpaws are already like leather. More pics after the jump!

No Peacekeeping!

And not just because there ain't yet peace to keep in Libya. It's never been clear how to extricate NATO from Libya, and NATO's reluctance to close the door on a post-Gadhafi role isn't exactly helpful. Gordon Adams goes yard:

Isn't it time to take stock here and recognize that the western countries have a pretty sorry record of bringing stability and reconstruction to other countries. The Europeans brought colonialism, and were chased from the scene. And the Americans brought a talent for destruction and a well-intentioned desire for near-term results, but little long-term success in telling other countries what to do.

Plus, I don't exactly see U.S. approval ratings in the Mideast rising after committing to the ouster of Gadhafi.  Mohamed Salem provides a win-win way out:

The worst idea of all would be to send in foreign ground troops now, even under the peacekeeping banner. Not only would this be met with fierce opposition by the Libyan people, it would send the message that the west still feels that Arabs cannot be trusted to look after themselves.

We'll see how easy it is to extricate NATO from Libya if Gadhafi can't be captured or if a post-capture insurgency begins. 

 

Defend Me From Freedom

 

A Patient Boy

Rancid covering Fugazi. Day made. Also, the vending machine at the Pentagon next to the press pen has Mello Yello today, so #allIdoiswin