Yale’s Paul Kennedy knows a little something about global economic issues. So when he wrote about the high speed rail this week, I paid attention as I thought it would focus on the role of state of the art infrastructure in the transition to the next American economy.
Unfortunately, Kennedy didn’t really tell us anything new. The piece suffers from the typical globetrotter’s lament of travel inconveniences and dreamy “wouldn’t-it-be-great” aspirations. Kennedy also doesn’t acknowledge that this nation is poised to make a significant investment in high speed rail with the $8 billion from the recovery package and another $2.5 billion in the 2010 budget.
Here's one of the slightly-under-the-radar stories at Copenhagen: The Wall Street Journal has a piece about how any eventual climate agreement will likely include a modest tax on "bunker fuel," the low-grade oil that ships use for fuel. Much like airlines, the shipping industry was exempt from the original Kyoto Protocol, but since shipping now accounts for 3 percent to 5 percent of the world's carbon emissions, that won't last.
...but just imagine if this scenario had played out:
Shortly after 9/11, President Bush had issued a “lethal finding,” giving the C.I.A. the go-ahead to kill or capture al-Qaeda members. (Under an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, it had been illegal since 1976 for U.S. intelligence operatives to conduct assassinations.)...
On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.
Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young man, Zazi--who was born in Afghanistan and spent part of his childhood in Pakistan before moving to the United States at the age of 14--kibitzed easily with the counter staff, joking that he had to buy such large quantities of hair products because he "had a lot of girlfriends."
In Slate, Daniel Brook kicks off a multi-part series on Mohamed Atta's strangely ignored master's thesis in urban planning from the Hamburg University of Technology. The thesis was about the Syrian city of Aleppo, and Atta's plan to strip one of its neighborhoods of Western influences. Not surprisingly, Atta's Aleppo wasn't very female-friendly:
Jeffrey Herf is one of the pre-eminent intellectual historians of totalitarianism. He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic. See, for example, his last few contributions here, here, and here. You can also find a TNR review of one of his books, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys, here.
In the current issue of The American Interest, Herf makes a highly convincing argument that radical Islam today is in fact a totalitarian movement with totalitarian ideology and totalitarian methods. No, it is not Nazism or Communism. And, though its ideas are rather more primitive (my word, not his) than either of the reigning doctrines of the twentieth century and though its weapons are also more primitive, it partakes of contemporary methods--and, increasingly, technological methods--in the mobilization of masses of people.
Please read this essay and read it carefully...
Outliers: The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell
(Little, Brown and Company, 309 pp., $27.99)
The Lives of John Lennon
I.
John Lennon was shot on December 8, 1980, finally laying to rest the dream that the Beatles would rise again. Lennon's murder guaranteed the legend of the Beatles. History is kind to those who do not die in their beds. And the massive mourning surrounding Lennon's death confirmed the opinions of those who saw the Beatles as not only singers but symbols. A generation that had come of age to their music now mourned not only a hero but a lost hope.
In 1963, when the Beatles emerged from Liverpool onto the national scene, England was in radical transition. The society was changing from being top dog to becoming America's poodle, from 13 years of Conservative rule to a Labour government. It was the era of the miniskirt and the twist, when the English were beginning to move to new rhythms and to adopt new styles. "I saw no reason why childhood shouldn't last forever," the fashion designer Mary Quant said. "I wanted everyone to retain the grace of a child and not to have to become stilted, confined, ugly beings. So I created clothes that worked and moved and allowed people to run, to jump, to leap, to retain their precious freedom." The Beatles, those "lads" who mixed Cardin chic with Liverpool cheek, embodied the daydream of abundance and eternal youthfulness. Their success was as exciting as their songs. By late 1963, even if Britannia no longer ruled the waves, the Beatles dominated the airwaves. They were at the center of the new boy network of renegade energy and classless achievement. The Beatles' songs and their public high jinks gave British life the backbeat of promise.
