7:26 AM From Philip Short's biography of Pol Pot (p.171):

Ratanakiri was a prime example of this forced cohabitation [between the Cambodian communists and their Vietnamese counterparts].

With the two neighboring provinces of Mondulkiri and Stung Treng, it occupied almost a quarter of Cambodia's total land area but contained less than 2 percent of the population, fewer than 100,000 people. Almost all were from tribal minorities - Brao, Jarai, Kachâk, Krâvet, Krûng, Lamban, Lao, Rhade, Stieng, Tampuon - whose natural affinities were not with lowland Cambodians but with their fellow montagnards [see Degar]in Laos and Vietnam.

These Khmer loeu (Highland Khmer), as they were called, wore loincloths, practised slash-and-burn agriculture, worshipped their own gods and spoke their own tribal languages. They had nothing in common with the Buddhist, rice-eating Khmers and saw little beneift from their presence. In the entire region, until the late 1950s, the Cambodian government had built three primary schools and the same number of medical clinics to serve an area the size of Denmark. Only when signs of tribal unrest and strategic concerns about security on the frontier with Vietnam began to concentrate minds in Phnom Penh were the first timid efforts made to bring development to the area.

By then the Vietnamese communists had been active in Ratanakiri for more than a decade, building support networks to shield their bases along the border. But no Khmer revolutionary had yet penetrated the region.

7:58 AM I just liked that phrase. Otherwise, this tale has a sad ring to it.

"She is a child star unraveling and is the perfect example of when a child star evolves into an adult and doesn't have someone telling them what to do, or giving them the right affirmative advice, and the right support," said Ian Drew, editor at large at Us Weekly magazine. "She basically started out very young in a competitive business." [cnn link]

Of course, this is what also happens to all kinds of kids who aren't famous. If only there'd been more people giving her standardized testing, eh?

Coincidentally, I just shaved my head again. It feels good.

8:39 PM Amos links to a very interesting interview of retired general William Odom by Hugh Hewitt, which is in part a follow up to an article Odom wrote in the Washington Post called Victory is Not an Option. From the WP article:

First, the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. Of the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, fewer than 10 can be considered truly "constitutional" -- meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic fissures like those in Iraq.

But invasion seemed like such a no-brainer at the time! Sigh. The interview between Hewitt and Odom hits all the now-familiar points, but Odom answers each like a grown-up instead of a silly pundit. Good stuff. And I had a bit of deja-vu when HH brings up Cambodia:

HH: Did you predict or see coming the Cambodian holocaust after our withdrawal from Southeast Asia?
WO: That would have happened if we’d stayed.
HH: But did you predict it?
WO: We didn’t…we were not in Cambodia.
HH: But did you…
WO: We [helped] perpetrate that.

It reminds me of an exchange from DemocracyNow I linked to a while back where the possible consequences of pulling out of Iraq were disingenuously compared to the disastrous Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. I say disingenuously now because I've had a chance to read a little about what was happening at that time and it's a gross over-simplification to claim that US withdrawal from Vietnam brought the KR to power; if anything, US policy towards Pol Pot and his vile thugs was to support them, since they represented a Chinese-aligned communist regime which threatened the Soviet-aligned Vietnamese -- this was, after all, around the time of Nixon's opening to China. Complicated stuff.

The questions doesn't seem to be whether an Iraqi civil war will cause suffering and death, or whether Iran will gain nuclear capabilities, or even whether we're going to run out of cheap, affordable oil; the question is how are we, both specifically as a nation and generally as world citizens who want stability, peace and prosperity for as many Earthlings as possible, how are we going to deal with these challenges in the short and long term?

Ugh, that felt like a stump speech. I don't envy the next administration, but maybe we'll get a crew of dedicated, brilliant and tireless technocrats and policy junkies who will be able to dive into this mess and make something magical happen.

Yesterday I linked to a Charlie Rose interview with several folks including Ray Takeyh. I'm currently reading his book, Hidden Iran, which is deceptively slim -- it's only a little over 200 pages but written in the dense, terse style of an executive summary, and it feels like it's taking me forever to finish. Still, it's rewarding in that his observations and recommendations all ring true to me. He argues that Iran is an isolated country with few if any true allies, that political and theocratic opinion is more diverse there than we might expect, that they have good reason to distrust both US intentions towards their county as well as the ability of international organizations to protect them (the west was mostly silent if not complicit as Saddam gassed Iranians with chemical weapons). He also argues that the US and Iran seem to miss every opportunity to reach a closer understanding of each other, the most recent example being the huge opportunity for cooperation in post 9-11 Afghanistan operations; Bush responded to their overtures by calling them part of the Axis of Evil. And Takeyh points out that this type of short-sighted, Bushian saber-rattling merely strengthens the hard-line anti-US elements in Iranian society to the detriment of the moderates we want to see in power there.

Which is all stuff that can be found elsewhere, but this book is a nice little collection of this perspective. Think of it as the cliff's notes companion to Kenneth Pollack's longer but similarly-themed The Persian Puzzle.

In 2005 Pollack and Takeyh collaborated on an article for Foreign Affairs titled Taking On Tehran:

Yet there is reason to believe that Tehran's course can still be changed, if Washington takes advantage of the regime's vulnerabilities. Although Iran's hard-line leadership has maintained a remarkable unity of purpose in the face of reformist challengers, it is badly fragmented over key foreign policy issues, including the importance of nuclear weapons. At one end of the spectrum are the hardest of the hard-liners, who disparage economic and diplomatic considerations and put Iran's security concerns ahead of all others. At the opposite end are pragmatists, who believe that fixing Iran's failing economy must trump all else if the clerical regime is to retain power over the long term. In between these camps waver many of Iran's most important power brokers, who would prefer not to have to choose between bombs and butter.

This split provides an opportunity for the United States, and its allies in Europe and Asia, to forge a new strategy to derail Iran's drive for nuclear weapons. The West should use its economic clout to strengthen the hand of Iranian pragmatists, who could then argue for slowing, limiting, or shelving Tehran's nuclear program in return for the trade, aid, and investment that Iran badly needs. Only if the mullahs recognize that they have a stark choice--they can have nuclear weapons or a healthy economy, but not both--might they give up their nuclear dreams. With concern over Iran's nuclear aspirations growing, the United States and its allies now have a chance to present Iran with just such an ultimatum.

This time appears to have passed.

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This post could almost pass for political punditry. Think I'm ready to open the Tanque Institute for Strategic Studies and Excessive Speaking Fees?

11:18 PM Went to the annual Soup Bowl this afternoon, picking up my forth bowl. I've missed a couple years, so my bowl collection isn't yet complete, but I'm pleased with the bowl I went home with this year. Maybe I'll even get a picture posted one of these days. Anyway, it was nice to eat some soup and get a bowl, and I want to go back next year, but this event has become so popular that I find it to be a little claustrophobic.

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I tend to take a long time to digest some things (like getting to a place where I feel I understand US involvement in Korea or Cambodia). Add to that a recent couple of posts from Bart where he mulls over the pros and cons of staying in New Orleans. The part I've been mulling over is what the appropriate level of support the federal government should be providing, and how drug laws/legalization effect the crime levels there. But since I might not ever get to a place where I want to post my thoughts on that stuff, I do want to say this: I'd love it if Bart and Xy moved back to Bloomington. I didn't spend a lot of time with them while they lived here, but I enjoyed every encounter with them, and think our city would be richer for their presence. That said, I've always been happy for New Orleans knowing that they're there. Bloomington will always welcome them back, but the big easy probably needs them more.

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Spab and/or consumption-related link: Rugged competition from smaller brands has made the TV sets cheaper than ever (BusinessWeek.com) By the time I'm ready to buy a flat screen (when?), sounds like they'll be dirt cheap.

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In theory I'm trying to eat less animal, but this Thai dish looks like something I might be able to pull off. Importfood.com has lots of fun kitchen stuff too, like this sticky rice steamer. Also, I'm a huge fan of Huy Fong's sriracha sauce, but this page maintains that it's hotter than stuff most Thai's would use. So of course I gotta track down some of the Shark brand sriracha stuff too.

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via Atomic Books blog, Sex and the Single Superhero.

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Have I already linked to this odd asian (Japanese?) movie trailer? If so, sorry for the repetition but I just watched it again and found it just as delightful and disturbing as before.

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Korean Food Journal's 15 Strangest Foods I've Tried Thus Far

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Warning: the rest of this post contains poo-talk.

One of the cats I live with has been dubbed "Blue." Originally his name was Mr. Blue, a reference to Reservoir Dogs, which morphed into Blue Lou at some point, and now I call him all sorts of names, mostly silly and affectionate. He's demanding and loves to sit on a lap. He's also had trouble with his intestinal plumbing from day one. "Stinky kitty" is one of his names, which I figure is okay as long as it's said with affection since he doesn't speak English and won't be offended. It's true, he stinks. He's been having trouble pooping lately, straining to get anything pushed out, so I took him to the vet yesterday where he received an enema. When I picked him up a couple hours later (I had to leave him there for a while to get the business done) he was clearly freaked out and glad to be leaving. He seems okay now, but I still haven't seen him pass anything comfortably, so we'll see how it works out.

I mention this now mainly because my sister's cat passed away recently. She (Emily) was pretty frail the last time I saw her, over Christmas when the four of us were together for the holidays, but she'd also grown more comfortable with company in her old age, I think, so I got to interact with her perhaps more than I have before. I try to avoid anthropomorphizing cats; I don't claim to understand what's going on in their minds, and I feel less and less like I understand what our interactions mean to them, but I do like having them around, and I'll miss them when they're gone (assuming, you know, that I outlive the zombies longer than they do).

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Latest comic interest: I've been reading The Runaways in collected digest format. Four volumes into it and I've enjoyed it much more than I expected. The latest issue of Supergirl (14), however, which featured a fight between Supergirl and Batgirl, was false advertising (one of her nemesises just dressed up like Batgirl). Planet Hulk continues to satisfy, however. Civil War concludes somehow this month (how exactly are they going to wrap up Red Skull's involvement, I ask?), having lasted just a little longer than my attention span. I may start scaling back on my comics consumption...

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Good discussion of Iran on this episode of Charlie Rose. I'm saving this one to re-watch in a month or so.

4:02 AM ...from outer space.

We're all spacemen and spacewomen, floating on a big blue marble through the endless, mindless void. The new LCD album is taking shape. All tracks are recorded, I believe, so now it's in Spab's hands, deep in a secret lair where he and his army of studio minions work round the clock to get my drum stylings to somehow match the tempo of the rest of it. "More tambourine!" has been my rallying call for the past year and a half (has it really been gestating that long?). Ah, the deliciously satisfying "shink" of the tambourine's micro-cymbals...

I took the picture above in Chicago, but we had a photographer at the last recording session to capture the magic; you'll only see if it you're my flickr-friend or family, but Reed took some fun pix while Sean and Scott worked on some final tracks.

It'll be out soon. Meanwhile, I need to get Reed behind the lens again soon. She's a photography genius, as evidenced by this pic:

It screams "suitable for framing" doesn't it?

10:08 AM ian mackaye testifies against an all ages ban. related article.

I'm probably just getting older, and I'm not saying I don't like being a grown-up and going to grown-up places, but one of the things that makes playing at Max's Place is the multi-generaltion aspect of it and all the associate chaos that goes with it. A number of years ago I went to a story-telling event to see my sister perform. It was a rarity, maybe the only time all five Baughs were together at such an event, so it was a real treat, and one of the story-tellers pointed out that such multi-generaltional events aren't necessarily so common, and are therefore special and valuable. Or something like that, I'm paraphrasing an experience from several years ago.

The latest incarnation of the Mundane Men did indeed play at Max's Place last weekend. It was even more of a chaotic, Harmonyesque affair than usual since the first band was such a draw. I don't remember what they called themselves (I'd never make it as a music scene reporter) but it was the bass player from Walking Ruins (playing guitar) and his wife on bass and their son playing drums, and it was pretty cool. Then me, Scott, Jimmy and Claudio played a more subdued set, always fun to play with those guys (and I was wishing I'd remembered to get it recorded somehow). After us some old-school Bloomingonians got up and played a cool rock set to the dwindling crowd (the kids gotta go home early at Max's). Maybe Jimmy will give more details in a comment; Al Jarvis led the combo but I don't remember the name of the guitar player, though if you lived in Bloomington in the 90's you'd recognize him. Good stuff.

I spend most of my day sitting in a cube staring at a computer screen, but the library is a multi-generational zOne, and while it's frustrating at times to maintain, it's that aspect that makes it so interesting to me. If it was adults-only we might have a simpler range of challenges, but it wouldn't be as valuable. I'm not usually up to being kid-friendly, I'll admit. Some of the crazy situations the folks in the children's department have to deal with would totally kill my enthusiasm for the place. I can't imagine being a school teacher for the same reasons. But it's hard to think of more valuable slices of life. Why? Well, let's set aside the interesting process of becoming a person, something we all went through as we grew into the people we are today. It's valuable on a societal level because if humans are raised poorly they become monstrous.

That's all I got this morning.