He is Making quite a Splash…

Depending on our point of view, the Senator-elect from Virginia is either a hero or a boor.

 Recently there was an exchange between President Bush and Senator-elect Webb at a White House Dinner. As reported by the Washington Post:

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn’t long before Bush found him.

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House

 Some, like our friends over at NLS., think the President was trying to push buttons. Their logic is that Bush had to have known that Webb’s son had been under fire, and that Webb was right to respond as he did.

Others, like columnist George Will, think the Senator-elect has by his early conduct shown himself to be “insufferably full of himself”  when the president asked about Jimmy Webb, who

 Based on what I have read, I think they may both have behaved badly.

I will say that President Bush is on record as seeming very keen on using words and language to put people in their place.  His widespread use of nicknames is evidence of this.  Nicknames work best when the ability to bestow nicknames flows both ways-otherwise it is merely shows on person has authority over another.  Refering to someone’s child as “boy” or “girl” may work well over the backyard fence but not as well over the partisan divide.  I like to think that had the President said “son” or “Jimmy” instead of “boy”, the reaction would have been different.

 Then again, it may not.  I would also like to think that people representing Virginia in Washington can disagree without being disagreeable, and that they can show themselves to be able to conduct themselves with dignity and rise above petty and childish tactics and taunts…you know, act like adults.

 So far, the jury is out on James Webb.

 I do not think this reply speaks well of Senator-elect Webb.  It speaks of someone with a prickly disposition who is ready to take affront at the drop of a hat-and that is not a characteristic typical of someone who will function well in the collegial atmosphere of the US Senate.   It is one thing to have a strong set of beliefs…it is another to lack civility.

Late Report on Thanksgiving

The tryptophan has finally been eliminated from my systen, and I can say that this was one of the best Thanksgiving’s my young family has ever had…in fact, it was so nice I thought I would share it with you.  Thanks go to my sister in law for the Pictures… 

Googlebombing and Dirty Tricks

Technology often confuses me, but nowhere do technological advances make a bigger impact than in the realm of competition…athletics, war, negotiations, the latest and greatest makes a difference. 

 This is certainly true in politics, and we can see where the Democrats are refining what might be called the latest Dirty Trick.

 I have written previously about Googlebombing…and now it seems other folks are noticing, even the folks over at Slate.

It seems like every time some new technology is created that allows better and greater communication within the political arena, it gets twisted into another tool by which to one up the other guy and not something that elevates the level of discourse. Somehow turning the internet from a place to search with some objectivity for information on a candidate into another gotcha pratice seems crude and a little tawdry.

I don’t know whether to wryly grin at American ingenuity or just cry over the lost opportunities.

I just cannot take it…

…so we are going to give WordPress a try before heading to the pay to play blogs.

Please come visit at renaissanceruminations.wordpress.com

I hope to hear from you soon!

Bwana

Off We Go at Another Home…

The changes at Blogger are not to my liking, so I am switching over here to see how things roll.  Frankly, all the stuff that I got used to using in editing seems to be in place here at WordPress, plus it is free, plus the On-Hiatus Chad Dotson and the active duty Vivian Paige recommended it, so let’s see how it goes-and on with the show!

 For those looking for old posts, those will be found at the old site. Blogger beta currently has no export function, so I will keep them there until I figure out the best course to follow.

Blogger Beta Update-Still Sucks

After a long time period to allow the tryptophan to wear off, I come back to blog and discover that even if I post in the afternoon much of the WYSIWYG features of blogger are still not working. Even the links for “post options: and “show all” are disabled.

The Blogger Beta still sucks, and I will begin searching for other options.

Bwana out…

Happy Thanksgiving!

To the denizens of the blogosphere, have a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy yourself today, embrace the oncoming food coma, and if you go shopping on Black Friday remember this: Don’t drive around trying for the perfect place, grab the first parking slot you see!

Michael Collins Lives On…

I was reading the WaPo coverage of another attack in Iraq against civilians, this time a group of trainee policemen. And as I have done numerous times over the last three years, I thought to myself “Michael Collins lives on.”

Much of what Americans might know of Mr. Collins comes from the movie Michael Collins, but that gives an incomplete picture.

Michael Collins was the defacto leader of the Irish Independence movement after Eamon de Valera went to the USA to raise funds. His innovative guerilla tactics ulimately brought the British government to the negotiating table, where the Irish Free State was created. This step caused an estrangement between Collins and de Valera, who would accept nothing but Irish independence as opposed to the near dominion status created by the agreement. After the Irish legislature accepted the treaty, de Valera and his followers broke off and began the Irish Civil War. Collins ultimately led the government forces to victory, but was killed shortly before the end of hostilities in an ambush in County Cork at the crossroads of Béal na mBláth.

There are numerous books and websites that provide the details of Mr. Collins life and impact far better than I can in this blog. What continues to captivate me is how his tactics have survived and proven effective for almost a century. The Israeli guerilla leader Yitzhak Shamir, used “Michael Collins” as his code name in fighting the British, and the conflict to establish Taiwan (in the face of the Communist revolution in China) was called Operation Michael Collins.

The tactics? First, his men did not wear uniforms. Earlier generations of guerillas of all counties in revolt (including colonial america) saw themselves as being part of a national army and were uniformed as if in an army. Collins felt being able to move unnoticed was of far greater value tactically than claiming national pride in a uniformed force. In fact, the British did not have a verifiably accurate photograph of him until Collins was sent to England with Archie Griffith to negotiate with Winston Churchill over the creation of the Irish Free State. Today this tactic is such an accepted point that no one thinks to question it…but Collins was the first to do it.

The second and more pertinent tactic was silencing sources of information. Collins realized the British were able to track down IRA figures adn Dail politicians was that they had impeccable sources of information stemming from their work with the Irish police. Collins created an assassination team called the Twelve Apostles. This team first warned potential targets to stop collaborating with the British, then killed those who continued to do so. This group also carried off the Bloody Sunday executions of fourteen British intelligence offers sent to Ireland to eliminate Collins and his team. This spread fear among potential informers and cut off the flow of information to the British, who then found it difficult to operate.

This interdiction of intelligence is the tactic that he founded, and the fruits of it are seen to this day.

Blogger Beta Update

Still not what it could be. It seems that half the time that when I blog in the afternoon there is an what was called the “edit HTML” screen and a preview link, but not a “compose” tab…in the morning there is a notepad type editor with out the editing icons of the “edit HTML” screen, there is no preview link, and-of course-there is no “compose” tab.

As yet, beyond the options of labels and the much faster publishing of blogs, I am seeing no compelling reason to have made the change.

Stay tuned for future developments…

California Says Bloggers Free from Certain Libel Claims

MSNBC reports that the California Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that bloggers cannot be sued for libel for printing the words of others. This protection covers ISP’s and users of their services, including bloggers and bulletin board posters.

The Court said: “Subjecting Internet service providers and users to defamation liability would tend to chill online speech”.

The case does not address the matter of suing bloggers for words they have themselves written.

The court also said while the ruling may have some “some troubling consequences”, that “Until Congress chooses to revise the settled law in this area” people who contend they were defamed on the Internet can seek recovery only from the original source of the statement, not from those who re-post it.”