Back to the Future

Glenn Reynolds continues to push the hypothesis that the current round of hostilities between Israel and the "Palestinians" will end in Jordan taking over the West Bank.

Not going to happen.  Probability zero.

In 1948, Abdallah I (the current king's great-grandfather) seized the West Bank, which contained a far less radicalized population.  Although this territory was envisioned by the UN to have been the core of a Palestinian Republic, Abdallah I annexed it to Jordan (up to then "Transjordan", in recognition of the face that it was supposed to be limited to the far side of the river) and began to seek a sub rosa understanding with Israel.  He was assassinated for his pains in 1951 by a "Palestinian" activist.  His son, Talal, was universally recognized in Jordan as unfit to rule, and Talal's 17-year-old, Hussein, was placed on the throne.

In 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Jordan and seized the West Bank, which still contained nearly a million "Palestinian" refugees from the Israeli War of Independence (despite the Hashemites' claim to rule west of the Jordan, they had never attempted to re-settle these refugees).  About 400,000 new refugees fled over the Jordan; the Trans-Jordanian region was already about 70% "Palestinian" (i.e., local, settled Arabs) in composition.  Arafat quickly set his sights on rule over Jordan as the first step on the road to the conquest of Israel; by 1970, he and Hussein were battling it out in the "Black September" war which, despite Syrian intervention on the PLO's size, ended with Arafat and his thugs being ejected from Jordan.

Why all this repetition of history, much or all of which may have before my readers were born?

Quite simple (to my mind, at least).  We'd be asking Abdallah II to take back a far more radicalized population, one whose terrorist endeavors are subsidized by Europe and by that part of the Arab world with any money, one which contains the very men and movements that murdered his great-grandfather and tried to overthrow his father.  We'd be asking him to vastly increase a part of his population that views his rule with something between indifferent contempt and virulent hatred, against the will of the rest of the Arab world (which wasn't happy with Abdallah I's annexation of the West Bank).

Whatever one's opinions of Abdallah II, it must be acknowledged that he is neither fool nor saint.  He will not immolate himself on the pyre of "Palestinian" rights.

Reynolds has suggested that the scenario before us is one in which Israel plays "bad cop", using military force to destroy the military and political strength of the intifada, whereas Jordan plays "good cop", offering the "Palestinians" succor and leadership afterwards.  But the "Palestinians" have long since demonstrated that they do not want Hashemite leadership, and their material losses will quickly be made good by Sa'udi Arabia, Iraq, and the EU countries.  Even if the scenario went awry, and Arafat or his successor were to overthrow the Hashemites, this would embolden them to seek the destruction of Israel from their new base of Jordan.

This scenario is a non-starter.  Of all the weird, wonderful, and horrible things that come out of the Middle East, this will not be one of them.

2002 Federal Election Handicapping

Senate:  0 - +1 Republican

House: +5 - +10 Republican

Obviously, things can change a lot between now and November.  If the election were held tomorrow, yada yada.

Vive le roi!

Via Andrea Harris comes this news story that Zahir Shah has returned to Afghanistan, in part to preside over the Loya Jirgah that will determine the permanent government of Afghanistan.

I hope that he can influence them not to choose a democratic form of government.

And why do I say that?  Because it's been a generation since democracy has had any meaning in Afghanistan other than "Wave a ballot with the boss thug's name at the television cameras and we won't kill you today" (it didn't have much meaning before that, either).

IMHO, the best thing that HM Zahir can do is to translate Magna Carta into Pushtun, delete the clauses instead to respond to specific abuses of the time (with apologies to my Scottish readers -- if any -- I don't think the clause promising justice to the King of Scots has much meaning in here-and-now Afghanistan), and present it to the Loya Jirgah as his vision of the short-term Afghan future.

Not to be morbid or callous here, but Zahir Shah is 87 years old.  With the best will of everybody (which I don't think exists), he's not going to be around much longer.  His last and best service to his country cannot be to give Afghanistan a democratic government -- he doesn't have the time, or the resources.  Let that service be to give it a stable government that can evolve into a democracy -- as England did, even though the gang at Runnymede who imposed Magna Carta on John Softsword in the first place wouldn't have known democracy if it bit them on their collective backside.

I don't have my copy of The Return of the King here with me, so I can't give an exact quote.  In it, however, Gandalf says something to the effect that we can't guarantee to future generations what weather they will have for raising crops, we can only prepare the soil as best we can.  Let Zahir Shah do that then, and leave governing the weather to the next generation.

Horrible little man

Last night, as I often do, I spent some time in IRC, and happened to mention (truthfully) that I was taking wagimoko out to dinner tomorrow.  "I try to take the burden of cooking off of her at least once a month", I said (also truthfully).

A couple of women on that channel lit into me, saying that I should be taking her out once a week, not once a month (the phrase "horrible little man" was actually used several times in reference to me).  I was also told (very definitely) that I shouldn't cut back on her shopping money to compensate.

I mentioned it to wagimoko last night, and she said, "Talk to me about it when I'm sober".  Since that was now, I brought it up again.

"So, should I be taking you out more often?"
"I don't know; I don't really want to go out."
"How about to something other dinner?  There are other things out there."
"I don't know.  I'll think about it."

Which either means, "I don't want to go out; I'll forget about this conversation in thirty seconds, and don't ever bring it up again", or, "You're such a fucking asshole than you can't understand when you've been slapped in the face with the truth".  I am such a fucking asshole that I can't decide between the two statements, which does incline to the latter.

So, if the women who beat me up in IRC last night would like to tell me more about what I'm doing wrong here (and I'm sure they will), either e-mail me or, if Jonty brings up netcomments on a new host, leave comments here.  You know who you are, as do I; we don't have to tell anyone else.

Movie review du jour

I just finished watching Ran.  (Ran is not an idependent word in native Japanese, FTR, but it is an element in a number of words having the notion of randomness -- bilingual pun not intended).

As the readership will know, Ran is Kurosawa's retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear (Kurosawa was quite fascinated by Shakespeare).  Shakespeare, of course, was writing in the English High Renaissance, during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the plots of his semi-historical tragedies (and Shakespeare probably thought of King Lear as being historical, although it is not) are from the High Medieval period, which was very similar to the Sengoku Jidai setting that Kurosawa gave to Ran (for those readers not well versed in Japanese history, the Sengoku Jidai, the "Age of Wars", was that period of feudal chaos in Japan both cause and effect of the collapse of the Ashikaga dynasty of shôgun.  It's considered to begin with the Ônin War of 1467-1477, and end in Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory at Sekigahara in 1600).

The basic plot of King Lear is clearly and immediately recognizable in Ran; although it's been a few years since I've read King Lear, I think that Kurosawa may have lifted a few lines of Shakespeare's dialogue and translated them in Japanese.  The Gloucester sub-plot has no equivalent (although the banished-but-loyal samurai Hideyada Tango has echoes of Edgar in him), but Kurosawa introduces his own sub-plots in Lady Kaede's revenge and the sufferings of Lady Sué's family (both are the daughters-in-law of Ichimonji Hidetora -- the Lear figure of the film -- and both of their families were treacherously destroyed by Hidetora -- a too-common occurence in feudal Japan).

The setting of the film is faithful to the late Sengoku Jidai (and, incidentally, the muskets used by the ashigaru -- peasant infantry -- are accurately portrayed, although the tactics seem a little advanced for a film obviously set before Oda Nobunaga's rise to power).  Many of the incidents will be familiar to anyone even moderately familiar with the period, as will the costumes, customs, etc.  Kurosawa was willing to have his battle scenes, where appropriate, partially or even wholly obscured by smoke and flame (see the taking of the Third Castle by Tora's and Jiro's troops, who then turn on each other), which only adds to the realism of what, to Western and perhaps, even, Japanese eyes, is a setting far divorced from modern times.

Ran is not a mere translation of King Lear, but a brilliant adaptation by Kurosawa of a tale that, stripped of its inessential cultural elements, is common in speaking to both nations, not only of their pasts, but of the human condition that they both will recognize.

Daily Pundit

Another addition to the blogroll:  DailyPundit.

William Quick is probably more in the "linker" than the "thinker" category, although he certainly adds intriguing and thoughtful commentary to many of his links.  Both his comments and the linked items themselves are well worth reading.

We knew that...or should have

A correspondent writes to me giving this link to a CNN article on jungles (or, in PC-speak, rain forests), which says in part:

U.S. and Brazilian researchers say waterways in the Amazon are exhaling far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously thought.

Well, this falls into the "d'oh!" category for anyone who thinks about it (which is practically no one).  It should be evident that any system, eco or otherwise, that is in dynamic equilibrium, will average outputs equal to its inputs.  (Not even Rush Limbaugh claims that the jungle has to be cut down to keep it from overrunning the world.) Likewise, the "news" in the same article that temperate pine forests don't show the expected absorption of CO₂.

"Natural" systems, over less than geological time, are intended to be in dynamic equilibrium, with no net change to their environments (the ones that don't act that way are quickly eliminated by evolution).  If one wants net carbon drawdown from a temperate pine forest, the wood of mature (broadly speaking) trees has to be harvested and turned in forms that do not quickly return to the environment (e.g., furniture, lumber, or paper) and new trees planted.  Any other biological system must be treated in the same way to achieve the same ends.

To think otherwise is environmentalist; i.e., not to think at all.

(UPDATE:  And I managed to forget to put the link in.  "D'oh" on me.)

Protein Wisdom -- forgotten, but not gone

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom says via e-mail:

Hey, everybody--

Sorry for the group email, but it's faster this way, and I'm panicked.
 
Because of some snafu at Network Solutions, protein wisdom will be
down for a coupla days.  Can you please maybe post an alert (I'm sure
we share at least a few readers).
 
Of course, most people won't even notice that we're gone -- but for
those 5 or 6 shut-ins who rely on breast jokes and daily snark, your
willingness to help us out might be all they have...

Meantime, I'll be out throwing stones at squirrels.

Richard Bennett replies:

your temp link is
http://209.151.89.63/weblog/ . Try it, it works.

So, the two people who read this blog, take notice.

(UPDATE:  Protein Wisdom is accessible through its URL again.)

The bow of the Tao

(with apologies to Larry Gonick).

From The Thresher (via Virulent Memes) we have this article by R.U. Sirius.  Notably, Mr. Sirius writes:

But after awhile, I realized it's the people who are so fuckin' sure they know what's going on and what to do about who are straight up nuts!

Well, yes.  But "yes" is not the whole answer.

Rather, some people act sure.  This is because we all have do something.  Something; only the dead can be completely passive (and possibly not even them, if you believe in an afterlife).  Not to choose is, in fact, a choice (philosophical Taoists will disagree with me on this.  They're wrong.  That,  however, is another article -- or, more likely, a whole series of articles).  Of course we have incomplete knowledge; complete knowledge is not available to us mortals.  The incompleteness of our knowledge, however, does not free us of moral responsibility.

So, then, how should we act?  In the knowledge that our information is incomplete, we ought still to act as if it were -- but at the same time, strive to complete it, knowing in advance that we will fail to do so, knowing in advance that our lack of knowledge may lead us into fatal blunders.

Not to choose is to choose not to act.  It means that everyone who does choose act -- whether deliberately or otherwise, on the basis of ignorance -- will have their inputs, however small, into affairs, whilst you do not.  Most importantly, it means that you are witholding your knowledge, incomplete as it is, from others -- and what you know may not be known to others, may in fact prevent them from making that mistake fatal to themselves or to others.

There is no gnosis, there is only communication.

Jennblog du jour

I've spent most of the afternoon cleaning the study (I didn't choose "Rat's Nest" as the name of this blog out of idle fancy).  Wagimoko said to me, as she went out to schlepp her mother around, "Why don't you clean this mess up so I can put more books in here?"  So I did.

Of course, I started looking at bookshelves.  I asked wagimoko, "About how many as wide as the door do you think we should fit in here?"  She immediately riposted, "Oh, I want those white melamine shelves from Home Despot; you can screw them right to the studs."  This means, of course, that we will never have bookshelves, since we will not purchase them, nor will she set them up.

I'm tired, hot, and dirty; it's getting very warm in here (the airco is down, for reasons unclear to wagimoko), and what fine motor control I have left disappears at about 80°F.  I'll probably sign off until this evening, if not tomorrow.

What She Really Thinks

Ginger Stampley is not updating her website at the moment due a corrupt database that apparently threatens her archives.

I don't always agree with her (sometimes I flat out disagree; more often I have so little knowledge about her subject that I can't say "yea" or "nay"), but I always read what she has to say, and do my poor best to think about it.

I hope that your technical problems can be resolved, Ginger, and that, whatever the outcome, you're not discouraged from blogging.  We want to know what you really think.

Reality 2,367,409; Progressives 0

Some person had the misfortune to not only post a barely legible support of "Palestinian" terrorists over at Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs, but to leave a link to her(?) site.

(WTF does "Personaly i find violence is rearly justified " mean?  That it's "rarely justified"?  That it's "nearly justified"?  That it's "really justified"?  That it's only a justified response to anal rape?  Granting that none of us are perfect, perhaps a bit more effort could have been put into seeing that a key sentence in the argument actually made sense in English?)

Of course, the true shallowness of her(?) thinking(?) is shown by the first article, "THE REAL COST OF GAS (Do The Math)" (no permalinks, sorry) where the whole argument is invalidated by half a paragraph:

The premise that you must accept, in order for these figures to be meaningful, is that the “War on Terror” will have no other benefit (and has little other purpose) than protecting US access to importable petroleum. While I think that is obvious I will include a link to anAlterNet article that nicely sums up the situation

Other than the extremely falliable political intuition of the author, support for the argument comes solely from the AlterNet (hardly a reputable source) article.  Aside from the inclusion of Enron (Gasp!  Choke!  Enron!?) in the list of players, AlterNet's faux exposé has long since been repeatedly and ably refuted.  But the hard left maintains a veneer of intellectual respectability by incessantly quoting each other's articles in the hopes of obscuring the source of a lie (the Marc Herold "study" -- actually article-clipping from leftist sources -- of Afghan casualities merely being the most obvious and recent example of this conduct).

Once again, to quote Andrew Olmsted:

I have yet to see any of those behind [a self-described anti-war website] present a real argument, instead depending on a combination of insults, innuendo and fantasy to prop up their sentiments. I confess I'm quite disappointed, although not overly surprised. While I think there are some people out there who have rational arguments (not necessarily irrefutable, but rational) against the war, it appears clear they're not going to make their presence known.

The importance of being legible

In various fora, we have the usual debate (which has been going on on USENET since, I think, about the third post there) as to the importance of good spelling, grammar, paragraphing, etc.  As reactionary and uncreative as it may sound (a sound which is commensurate with my age and rearing), I must come down firmly on the side of the Writing Police.

Assuming that the purpose of writing something is not just to luxuriate in the appearance of one's own words in pixels (i.e., Jennblogging), but to convey an actual message to someone (and hopefully to change his mind -- although he may, like Trotsky, find that getting something through his skull is fatal), then actually writing in such a way that the reader may understand it is paramount.  Bad spelling, bad punctuation, bad grammar, bad paragraph -- in short, murky, unclear writing -- interferes with that communication.  Whilst may hope that the reader is not hoping to passively absorb what is on the page or the screen, but putting forth some effort, at a certain point she will say, "There's actually nothing here that's worth my investing time and effort in".

The Holy One blessed be He knows that I am not perfect in this (or any other) regard.  Still, I feel that I invest a reasonable amount of time and effort in being legible and literate.  A writer who does not, but drops his words, like a cat defecating, any old way that occurs to him, and them demands that I spend time sorting them out and cleaning them up in my mind, trying to figure what, in anything, he has said, reminds me of nothing so much as a sullen teenager whining, "I didn't ask to be born".  (To which my response is:  That makes two of us, since I didn't ask for you to born, either.)

I believe that this is one of Larry Niven's writing rules:  "If you have nothing to say, say it any way you want.  If you do have something to say, say it so that any misunderstanding is the reader's fault, not yours".

Global Harming

Even before September 11, critics of the "unilateralist" stance of the Bush administration were criticizing his declaration that the Kyoto protocols would not be adhered by the U.S. (although it has since been seen that other nations were waiting for an excuse to bail out themselves).

A good deal of the criticism, it seems to me, is due to the deliberate coonflation of two uses of the phrase "global warming".

The first of these is a description of a phenomenon:  the Earth is getting warmer (and has been since the late 18th century).  Whilst there is and can be legitimate debate over the magnitude of this phenomenon, no one can seriously debate that it is fact.

On the other hand, "global warming" is also used to describe an ideology:  that this warming is essentially anthropogenic, that it is uniformly and imminently harmful, that it can only be combatted by massive de-industrialization, and that that can be accomplished only by putting unpredecented amounts of money and power in the hands of the appropriately "concerned" NGOs and the politicians who love them (at least until they control that money and power).

The main obscurant of the debate, then, is when a person agrees to the phenomenal use of the term, and various ideologues from well-meaning fellow travellers to self-styled deep environmentalists insist that that agreement must also pertain to the ideological use of the term.  A person must either deny the undeniable, or find herself in constant danger of being included in an illusory mass of "supporters".

Lynn Unleashed

Have I mentioned that Lynn of Lynn Unleashed knows everything worth knowing about the visual arts and classical music?  No?  Shame on me, then.  She does.  Go read her blog.

Ils ne se casseront pas

Breyten Breytenbach writes this article in the Guardian, that rag of record for the left.

Not surprisingly, he writes only of his horror at the state of the "Occupied Territories".  He condemns Sharon's "attempts to subvert previous agreements and scupper the possibility of peace", but does not condemn St. Arafat for doing the same thing.  He even condemns "[t]he Berlin walls around your settlements in Gaza", perhaps hoping that these walls be torn down, releasing a flood of terrorists upon Israel to commit atrocities.

His intent is obviously.  He does not want Israel to exist.  He hopes that Israel will make itself naked and defenseless before its enemies, so that they may destroy it, whilst he clucks sadly at the bodies of slaughtered Jews choking the Jordan.  Having settled in what has now shown itself to be the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, France, he judges that his own anti-Semitism will remain unnoticed, trusting to the masses of anti-Semites around him to provide camouflage.

Saturday night dinner

...was Spanish price, broccoli, and cod loins with garlicked bread crumbs.

I think that wagimoko wrote the cod loin recipe down.  If so, I'll post it this afternoon.

The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

Graham Freeman concedes that his comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were superficial.

Well, sustained superficiality is bad.  On the other hand, an initial superficiality is OK, possibly even good.

Since a view the blogosphere as a giant PHI-DEL, this sort of process should be going on:  A says, "I have an idea!"  B replies, "I have these problems with and questions about that idea".  A (or C) provides more details, sharpening, defining, and publicly throwing out unworkable details.  B (or D) has further questions and objections.  The process goes on until A says, "Well, that was a really stupid idea; I'm sorry that I thought of it" or B says, "My questions have been answered; I'm convinced" (or more likely, we all get bored with it drop it).

The 75-page plan, if it has been developed in isolation by someone who is less than an excruciatingly careful checker of facts and logic, is less valuable than the two-paragraph outline presented for public comment.  No member of the blogosphere knows everything; I don't know everything (please do not tell my clients that).  But working together, we make up for each other's deficits of knowledge.  It is (with no apologies to any Marxists reading this) the marketplace of ideas and answers.

So, we're at step 2 on Freeman's idea.

A wall is a wall, that's all, that's all

Rich Hailey is less than convinced by my recent article on the benefits of walls.  In response to his response, I find that I have some things to say.

The great wall worked well as long as it was in the hands of a stable dynasty.
The Israeli government, with its constantly shifting alliances, and multiplicity of priorities cannot be termed a dynasty, nor does it represent a consistent, stable philosophy of government. Rather, it is a constantly shifting balance of conflicting viewpoints, where priorities change rapidly

Well, I would certainly hope that Israel is past dynastic politics (although I do remain a philosophical monarchist; it never hurts to remind people that not everythingcan be decided by popular vote).  Nonetheless, I do not think that the Knesset is much less stable (and certainly less bloody) than the Ming court.  Do we foresee a shift in Israeli politics to the point where the security of Israel is no longer of concern to its government?  Or a shift where hundred of thousands of "Palestinians" would be admitted without concern over whether they can be controlled, or at least expelled again?  If so, let us admit now that Israel has failed as a nation, just as we would concede that for any nation whose government was willing to let its territory be overrun by murderous, unassimilated barbarians.

The maginot line would have worked if the Belgians had done their part.
The spectacular failure of the Maginot line lies not in the rapid collapse of Belgium, but in the fact that a wall represents a static defense, and if the attacking army chooses to avoid the fence, all the resources spent on building maintaining and manning the wall are completely wasted. The configuration of any Israeli wall would of necessity copy that of the Maginot line, since encirclement is impossible, and the territories surrounding Israel are all either hostie, or at best partially neutral.

The attacking army (in this case the Wehrmacht) did not have the choice to avoid the wall until after the collapse of the Belgian army.  In fact, the Maginot Line stood; the unfortified Belgian army did not (the capture of Eben Emael represented a bit of luck of the Germans' part, and a lot of incompetence on the Belgians').  I freely concede that a fortification plan that relied on, say, the Egyptian army's restraining "Palestinian" terrorists would be so close to stillborn that there would be no point in discussing it.

Yet I see no more than a bare assertion that complete encirclement would be "impossible".  It should be recalled that when I originally wrote on the subject, I explicitly included the entire Israeli boundary.  Possibly I have misled the other parties in this discussion; the generality seem to be discussing only a wall against the West Bank.  So, let me say again on this point:  I am discussing fortifying the entire Israeli border, not of sticking a 100-meter section of wall outside of Ramallah.

The Berlin wall was a success because it kept the refugees in East Berlin
The Berlin wall was built not only to keep refugees in, but to keep out Western influences. In this second role, the wall was an utter failure. But more importantly, and the reason I listed it, was that the Berlin wall, by its very existence became a symbol of brutal repression, and it was this which doomed the wall to failure. Building such a wall In Israel would suffer from the same flaws, as it would be characterized as an attempt to ghettoize the Palestinians. Not to mention the sheer impossibility of routing the wall to please all interested parties, unless you picture a wall through the center of the temple mount.
Also, you note that the number of escapes plummeted with the erection of the wall. What you fail to consider is that the driving forces behind the escapes remained present, and the refuges kept trying. How much more motivated are the palestinians, who will undoubtable see this wall as a pen to keep them out?

That the Berlin Wall failed to keep Western influence out of the Warsaw Pact, I agree.  However, I do not think that the Israelis are frantically trying to avoid being drowned in a sea of Arabic cultural influences; quite the opposite, the various Arab regimes are desparately to keep Western notions of freedom, democracy, and equality away from their subjects.  If a "Green Wall" utterly fails to do so, I would consider that an advantage, not a disadvantage.

The driving forces behind "Palestinian" terrorism will indeed remain for many years to come, I am sure.  That, after all, is why I suggest a wall; neither its construction, nor any other conceivable action, will suddenly remove them.  If in fact it did, then the "Green Wall" could be torn down the next day, its purpose having been served.

As for the "Palestinians" seeing this wall as a pen to keep them out, it is.  It's not intended to be a tourist attraction; it's a statement (and more than just a statement) that, since the "Palestinians" generally, and the "Palestinian" leadership in particular, have proved to be vicious animals, we are penning them up like any vicious animals, to prevent them from harming human beings.

Let us  not delude ourselves here:  the alternative to the "Green Wall" appears to be ethnic cleansing, whether that it to be seen as a euphemism for genocide, or for mass uprooting and transfer of populations.  The latter undoubtedly will happen, no matter where a "Green Wall" is built.  What we wish to avoid is a situation where all Israelis are forced out of Israel, or where all "Palestinians" are forced out of the West Bank, alive or dead.

In addition, refugees generally don't have access to rockets, nor would they be interested in lobbing them over the wall, wreaking havok while remaining safely on their side of the wall. But I'm certain a terrorist would love the idea.

Neither the Great Wall nor the limes were viewed as mere cover to cower behind, but as fighting platforms to give  punitive expedition a secure base to operate from.  I've already stated that a "Green Wall" must serve the same purpose.

Finally, the US Mexican border. I threw this in as an example of how a semi permeable barrier, such as the one that would be required in Israel, is a complete failure at its intended purpose.

I reiterate:  the U.S.-Mexican border isn't a semi-permeable membrane, it's a network of holes.  The issues in building a "Rio Grande Wall", like those involved in building a "Green Wall", are not restricted to the engineering or the military.  To take just one of them; the inside (Israel, the U.S.) will be cut off from its principal source of cheap unskilled labor, whilst the outside (the West Bank, Mexico) will lose not only income, but a relief valve.  I've noted this already.

Finally, even though you try to avoid this point, each wall failed in its stated purpose, although to be fair, some met with a degree of success before absolute failure.

In this floating world, everything is impermanent:  gam ze ya'avor.  The Maginot Line failed, but did not fall apart, at the first touch; the Berlin Wall was successful at one of its purposes for decades; the Great Wall and the limes for centuries.  If the "Green Wall" gives us fifty years in which to decide what to do next, it will have served its function.

Blogback

For the benefit of any readers who are even more isolated  from the outside world than I am, let me note that Hugo Chavez has been overthrown in Venezuela.

The hard left in America is apparently hard at work constructing the same sort of myth around Chavez that they did around Allende -- that a hugely popular, progressive but scrupulous president was overthrown by a tiny clique of reactionary military officers, with CIA backing, fronting for American corporate interests.  Indeed, they can use the Allende myth as a template for the Chavez myth.

Of course, in constructing the Allende myth, they had to ignore the past couple of years of Chilean history, from the March of the Empty Pots to the Tancazo and Allende's reaction to it.  They were able to essentially wipe these events out of the public consciousness, however.

What events will they attempt to burke in constructing the Chavez myth?  And will they be as successful?