Thoughts on the Shitshow

I really wanted to dig up some super huge scandal from the wikileaks, or at least be able to make some well founded predictions for the state of the US's place in the world in the coming decade. These leaks though - jeez - either the State Department was forceful in demanding the NY Times not print anything interesting or (more likely) the State Department is somewhat clueless. Not totally clueless, but about as clueless at a sophomore writing a paper about foreign relations or IR. The Arab countries don't want Iran to have the bomb? Really? Putin has a lot of power in Russia?? Really??? Mugabe is smart, but also totally psycho??? Those questions marks were supposed to denote heavy sarcasm. Don't get me wrong, obviously this stuff is interesting, and I will read all of them because I am a dork (not all 250,000 of them. All of the ones the NYT puts on the web - I'm not that much of a dork), but it is more History Channel than Woodward and Bernstein (who was married to Nora Ephron!).

Also, I'm really curious about the guy who originally downloaded these documents. Don't get me wrong, I don't really have a problem with what wikileaks or the New York Times has done (although I don't think it'd be totally repressive and crazy for the government to take them to court), but I am a little unclear about the original leaker's motives. Does he believe that people working for the State Department abroad don't, in fact, have the right or need to communicate privately with their employer? Does he believe that citizens have the right to know every secret of the government? Or does he believe that these documents will expose some specific failure of the government that is so terrible that the public has a right to know? 

Anyways, awesome. I am glad I am not in college now, because I'll but I would have ended up trying to write a paper that would have involved reading all 250,000 documents. 

Castro and the Jews...

I can't really add much to this story. Haaretz reports:

Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro has urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop slandering the Jews, according to an article published on the U.S. website The Atlantic on Tuesday.
The ageing revolutionary devoted much of a five-hour conversation to the issue of anti-Semitism, wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed Castro in the Cuban capital Havana.
Castro told The Atlantic that the Iranian government should understand the consequences anti-Semitism.

"This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything."

He added: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust."

Asked by Goldberg if he would repeat his comments to Ahmadinejad, Castro said. "I am saying this so you can communicate it."
Following the interview, Goldberg spoke with Haaretz about his impression of the thinking behind Castro's comments.

"I think he [Castro] realizes he's gone too far in certain criticisms of Israel," Goldberg said.

"I think he wants to be a player in this issue; and I think he's genuinely offended by Holocaust denial."

Ahmadinejad has publicy called the Holocaust "a myth", claiming Jews exaggerated the Nazi genocide to win sympathy from European governemnts.

 The one thing I can add is that I heard a rumor that Castro recently apologized for persecuting gay Cubans after the revolution, calling the persecution "unexcusable." I don't have a good source for that one, but if these both are true, something seems to be going on in Havana... last words of a dying man? Insanity? Maybe he is already dead and whomever is speaking for him is more of a softie on these matters. 

Breaking News

If I knew someone by the name of Shah, I'd call her Shahira.

EUROVISION MAAAAAAAAADNESS!!!!

I'm going to bring you news of the most important cultural event of the year, thats right, you guessed it - the Eurovision song contest. Eurovision has brought us such gems as 2006 winners Lordi, with their Hardrock Hallelujah, and from all appearances this year's crop will not disappoint.

I have done you the favor of culling through a bunch of the entries (not all though, I'm not that dedicated) to find the most crucial ones for your viewing pleasure.

This year's award for originality is going to have to go to Ireland, about whose entry I have nothing bad to say. As Dustin the Turkey says, Ireland is a nation that knows how to write a song. Dustin doesn't take best video, for which you'll have to luck East, and uh, I'm guessing a bit south to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I have NO IDEA what this video is about, but I did recognize the words 'dolce banana' in the song, which I assume means sweet banana. This only makes sense, because who has ever had a sour banana?

As you might be able to tell if you click on the links, my taste by no means runs only , or even mostly to the tasteful, but I'm going to have to give a shout out in a bad way to Azerbaijan. It is the first they have submitted a song to Eurovision, so maybe practice makes perfect, but people, it takes a lot more than that to pull off angel wings. Basically the angel vs. devil thing is hard to pull off if you really want someone to chop off the angel's head. Taken alone, Finland's band is a bit different, and therefore interesting, but in the context of past winners Lordi - it's been done.

Don't get me wrong there are many boring entrants that you shouldn't really waste time watching (ok, the France video is pretty cool, but close your eyes and listen to the song - tres non cool).

In case you're American and don't know, voting for Eurovision is complicated, and not done based on skill but on geographical and linguistic proximity, and shared history. The Slavic countries tend to vote in a block, as do the Baltic countries, and the ex Soviet type countries. This makes France and Germany very pissy, because they are used to winning, but tough cookies.