Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Hunter S. Thompson
Is it reasonable, acceptable, or even expected to write R.I.P. after the name of a person who railed against the currents as hard as Hunter and for as long? A man who abhorred the peace and quiet of a settled and comfortable life, opting to play the only role he could play and staying on stage for far longer than his promised 15-minutes of Warholian fame?
Like most devotees I came to his work via Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas while a freshman in college. It remains one of my favorite and most recommended books, one that I was referencing to friends on Saturday, one day before Hunter took his own life. I recall saying that I didn't trust a pristine copy of Fear and Loathing--that any copy you get should be tattered, stained, charred at the edges, and covered with remnants of spilled beers and bongs. It was indeed the fantasy handbook for the adventurous psychedelic travellers that I and all of my friends were in those days, and Thompson was our omnipresent if not somewhat reluctant guide.
Still, I think his absolute best work was one of his earliest, Hell's Angels. In it he exposes the way which popular culture both demonizes and mythologizes the famous outlaw motorcycle gang. Hunter was along for the whole ride, including the meetings of the Angels and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters made famous in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, scenes which he paints much better and more vividly than Tom Wolfe ever could. In the end he goes a little too far with a few of the Angels, who have taken to their new personas as media bad boys by demanding cash, drugs, and motorcycle parts before granting interviews, and he is stomped by them. His club buddies can't go against the gang credo by helping him out, and he ends the tale estranged from his one-time story.
"Why do my literary heroes keep killing themselves?", my wife asked me yesterday, referring to both Hunter and Spalding Gray, who not so long ago took a long walk off of a relatively short ferryboat.
I wish I had an answer.
Is it reasonable, acceptable, or even expected to write R.I.P. after the name of a person who railed against the currents as hard as Hunter and for as long? A man who abhorred the peace and quiet of a settled and comfortable life, opting to play the only role he could play and staying on stage for far longer than his promised 15-minutes of Warholian fame?
Like most devotees I came to his work via Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas while a freshman in college. It remains one of my favorite and most recommended books, one that I was referencing to friends on Saturday, one day before Hunter took his own life. I recall saying that I didn't trust a pristine copy of Fear and Loathing--that any copy you get should be tattered, stained, charred at the edges, and covered with remnants of spilled beers and bongs. It was indeed the fantasy handbook for the adventurous psychedelic travellers that I and all of my friends were in those days, and Thompson was our omnipresent if not somewhat reluctant guide.
Still, I think his absolute best work was one of his earliest, Hell's Angels. In it he exposes the way which popular culture both demonizes and mythologizes the famous outlaw motorcycle gang. Hunter was along for the whole ride, including the meetings of the Angels and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters made famous in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, scenes which he paints much better and more vividly than Tom Wolfe ever could. In the end he goes a little too far with a few of the Angels, who have taken to their new personas as media bad boys by demanding cash, drugs, and motorcycle parts before granting interviews, and he is stomped by them. His club buddies can't go against the gang credo by helping him out, and he ends the tale estranged from his one-time story.
"Why do my literary heroes keep killing themselves?", my wife asked me yesterday, referring to both Hunter and Spalding Gray, who not so long ago took a long walk off of a relatively short ferryboat.
I wish I had an answer.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Sex and Torture
No, this isn't the porno post it seems, but it is disturbing nonetheless. Word comes from today's Washington Post that a new investigation has revealed sexual humiliation and even threats of rape were commonplace tactics for trying to 'break' prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
While official statements from the Pentagon insisted that "[Female interrogators] are trying to find the key that will get someone to talk to them. Using things that are culturally repulsive is okay as long as it doesn't extend to something prohibited by the Geneva Conventions."
Meanwhile, lawyers for the detainees as well as human rights officials in general were not so sure.
"Detainee lawyers likened the tactics to Nazis shaving the beards of orthodox Jews or artists dunking a crucifix in urine to shock Christians. "They're exploiting religious beliefs to break them down, to destroy them," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents several dozen detainees. "What they're doing, it reminds me of a pornographic Web site -- it's like the fantasy of all these S&M clubs.""
One thing is for certain, they better be getting some damn good info out of these people, because every one of them that was culturally and sexually humiliated in such a way will most likely never forget nor forgive the experience. Which points out the failed logic of torture in the first place and how its use so easily spirals downward into inhumanity cast broadly over an entire population.
I think it's pretty clear that any of these folks who had scantily clad ladies touching them suggestively or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood (which, according to them may make them unclean and unable to pray and find strength from their God), if they ever leave Gitmo, are going straight to the Mosque followed by a short trip to the "I want to kill any and all Americans" recruiting office.
Blowback indeed.
No, this isn't the porno post it seems, but it is disturbing nonetheless. Word comes from today's Washington Post that a new investigation has revealed sexual humiliation and even threats of rape were commonplace tactics for trying to 'break' prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
While official statements from the Pentagon insisted that "[Female interrogators] are trying to find the key that will get someone to talk to them. Using things that are culturally repulsive is okay as long as it doesn't extend to something prohibited by the Geneva Conventions."
Meanwhile, lawyers for the detainees as well as human rights officials in general were not so sure.
"Detainee lawyers likened the tactics to Nazis shaving the beards of orthodox Jews or artists dunking a crucifix in urine to shock Christians. "They're exploiting religious beliefs to break them down, to destroy them," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents several dozen detainees. "What they're doing, it reminds me of a pornographic Web site -- it's like the fantasy of all these S&M clubs.""
One thing is for certain, they better be getting some damn good info out of these people, because every one of them that was culturally and sexually humiliated in such a way will most likely never forget nor forgive the experience. Which points out the failed logic of torture in the first place and how its use so easily spirals downward into inhumanity cast broadly over an entire population.
I think it's pretty clear that any of these folks who had scantily clad ladies touching them suggestively or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood (which, according to them may make them unclean and unable to pray and find strength from their God), if they ever leave Gitmo, are going straight to the Mosque followed by a short trip to the "I want to kill any and all Americans" recruiting office.
Blowback indeed.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
A glimmer of light?
At the end of the tunnel, that is. No, not Iraq after the elections. That place will be a sucking Stalingradesque quagmire for months (years) to come. But there just might be some hope on the Israeli-Palestinian front with news this morning out of Egypt that Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon have agreed to a cease fire. On his part Mazen (I just like that name so much better than Mahmoud Abbas) declared support for no attacks on any Israelis anywhere, which is a huge step forward for his camp, which in the past had always endorsed nebulous language against attacks within Israel proper but generally left settlers and IDF troops in the Occupied Territories free game.
Sharon, as usual, played his cards cautiously and close to the vest, but senior Israeli officials went on the record as saying that they understood no country had ever completely stopped terrorism and that as long as progress was being made toward that goal they would show restraint.
This is a huge position shift for Israel, which previously had demanded such a high standard that one suicide bomber sent by a renegade faction of the Palestinian resistance frequently blew the whole deal and engendered a massive Israeli retaliation that usually involved some dead innocents and started the whole cycle of violence over again. Mazen no doubt gained points in the last weeks by stationing his Security Forces in border towns in the Gaza Strip to prevent rocket attacks into Israel that had become all too frequent, though rarely deadly.
I still think the wildcards in the equation are Hamas, which won huge victories last week in local Gaza elections, handily defeating Mazen's own Fatah slate, and the Israeli settlers and their minority-yet-vocal, and perhaps violent, supporters in Israel proper. Sharon has kept his seat as PM only by engaging the rival Labor party in an unlikely coalition, since his own right-wing Likudniks and several pro-settler parties in the Knesset withdrew much of their support for him over his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Hamas saw its victory as vindication of its extreme 'push-Israel-into-the-sea' position. In reality, their victory was most likely the outcome of years of frustration by Gazans stemming from almost top-to-bottom corruption of the Fatah movement that was led by Yassir Arafat. How and if they make the move from militants to politicians will greatly effect the utility of this and future overtures toward peace and reconciliation with their neighbors.
What is clear is that all posturing aside the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis want peaceable co-existence with one another. The first step to easing these long-standing conflicts and repairing the deep wounds will be measured in large part by the extent to which both sides can keep their most militant factions at bay while inching toward a negotiated settlement.
At the end of the tunnel, that is. No, not Iraq after the elections. That place will be a sucking Stalingradesque quagmire for months (years) to come. But there just might be some hope on the Israeli-Palestinian front with news this morning out of Egypt that Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon have agreed to a cease fire. On his part Mazen (I just like that name so much better than Mahmoud Abbas) declared support for no attacks on any Israelis anywhere, which is a huge step forward for his camp, which in the past had always endorsed nebulous language against attacks within Israel proper but generally left settlers and IDF troops in the Occupied Territories free game.
Sharon, as usual, played his cards cautiously and close to the vest, but senior Israeli officials went on the record as saying that they understood no country had ever completely stopped terrorism and that as long as progress was being made toward that goal they would show restraint.
This is a huge position shift for Israel, which previously had demanded such a high standard that one suicide bomber sent by a renegade faction of the Palestinian resistance frequently blew the whole deal and engendered a massive Israeli retaliation that usually involved some dead innocents and started the whole cycle of violence over again. Mazen no doubt gained points in the last weeks by stationing his Security Forces in border towns in the Gaza Strip to prevent rocket attacks into Israel that had become all too frequent, though rarely deadly.
I still think the wildcards in the equation are Hamas, which won huge victories last week in local Gaza elections, handily defeating Mazen's own Fatah slate, and the Israeli settlers and their minority-yet-vocal, and perhaps violent, supporters in Israel proper. Sharon has kept his seat as PM only by engaging the rival Labor party in an unlikely coalition, since his own right-wing Likudniks and several pro-settler parties in the Knesset withdrew much of their support for him over his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Hamas saw its victory as vindication of its extreme 'push-Israel-into-the-sea' position. In reality, their victory was most likely the outcome of years of frustration by Gazans stemming from almost top-to-bottom corruption of the Fatah movement that was led by Yassir Arafat. How and if they make the move from militants to politicians will greatly effect the utility of this and future overtures toward peace and reconciliation with their neighbors.
What is clear is that all posturing aside the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis want peaceable co-existence with one another. The first step to easing these long-standing conflicts and repairing the deep wounds will be measured in large part by the extent to which both sides can keep their most militant factions at bay while inching toward a negotiated settlement.
