perfidy

Daniel Drezner points us to a fascinating feature in the Chicago Tribune on Baghdad's book bazaars and how the events of the last year have affected their business.

What are Iraqis selling and reading? Works by Shiite clerics, religious text, formerly banned books, volumes looted from libraries and private collections, and American paperbacks. The upshot for the merchants is: freedom's good; competition's a pain in the keister; and it's really nice not to get beaten or taken away for having the wrong book in sight of the authorities.

My favorite part is this:

A lifetime devotee of popular American novels, Toma's guru is Sidney Sheldon, and he has an ambitious dream for the new Iraq. He wants to open a Sidney Sheldon Institute for Modern English, where he will teach English to Iraqis and reveal to them the literary magic of the blockbuster American novelist.

Where do I send funding?

I've been mum on this topic because I live in Massachusetts and talk about it elsewhere so much. But here's the thing. As Jacob Levy observes, the FMA would make marriage one of the very few topics expressly taken off the table for states to legislate on, and aside from everything else that fact sits poorly with me. Most of the other "no-no's" for states are things like slavery. That is, the US Constitution bans states from passing legislation that would enslave people, and thereby restrict their human and civil rights.

The FMA is something different: in its most extreme wordings, it arbitrarily denies some people the rights granted to others. I'm not saying it's an easy question, and I understand that some people are dead-set against it. But many gay marriage opponents are conflating religious and moral issues with civil issues, and they need to be separated out here. Nobody will force the Church of What's Happening Now! to marry gay couples, just like nobody is forcing them to perform midnite ceremonies for a drunk-ass ho like Britney Spears.

As for my own opinions, I'm for gay marriage just like I'm for classic marriage-- and I take the matter pretty seriously, and expect that couples intending to marry do so as well. I'm even empowered to perform marriages, and have done so for couples who are appropriately serious about the affair. My state's legislature is meeting today to decide whether to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot banning gay marriage. Two thoughts: at least it's happening in the right arena-- the state level; and a gay marriage ban will pass into the Massachusetts Constitution over my dead (or at least severely mauled and wounded) body.

[wik] The Onion comments. Excerpt: "What's the big deal? It's legal now. My sister's married to a gay guy and everyone knows it."

Although I'm risking dismemberment for saying so (Brdgt), George Lucas stubbornly refuses to let his past successes get in the way of his current failures.

The yummy sandwich: The original Star Wars trilogy is finally coming out on DVD.

The poo on the sandwich:

"The versions on DVD will only feature the special editions, LucasFilm spokeswoman Lynn Hale said. Many fans of the original movies had hoped the rougher, unaltered films would also be provided.

[Lucasfilm marketing hack] Ward said there wasn't much debate about whether to release the unaltered originals.

The official definitive versions are the 1997 special editions. That's the version the artist, in this case George Lucas, intended to be seen," he said.

I saw the revisions Lucas made, and they really hamstrung the originals. While I respect the fact that it's his perogative to give to the public the films he wants the public to see, I constantly marvel at Lucas' tin ear as to what makes a good film good.

Thanks to vodkapundit for the tip.

NASA has decided to end support for the Hubble Telescope, arguing that further repairs to the aging satellite would be to dangerous to attempt.

While the NASA brass seem to be in accord that this is a sound, though sad, decision, I'm not so sure: I just think it's sad. Of all the projects NASA has attempted in recent years, Hubble is the most emblematic. They spent a bundle. They threw it up there. It didn't work. Some dudes went and fixed it in orbit. We see the ends of space, and glory ensues.

Its value to cosmology aside, NASA should keep Hubble operating as a constant reminder of the perils of bureaucratic planning and the intrepidness of engineers and astronauts.

The OpinionJournal has an interesting piece up on the possible fate of Cuba once the murderous ratfink dictator Castro finally claims gets his ticket punched. The article is based on the conclusions of Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute, in his book Cuba, the Morning After.

Falcoff concludes that post-Castro Cuba will have a hard time recovering from more than four decades of communist dictatorship. "Failed states typically become--like Haiti--platforms for the export of illicit substances, centers of international criminality, and vessels leaking illegal immigrants," he says. "Perhaps, indeed, the island will somehow avoid this fate, but present indicators do not offer much encouragement."

The article continues, "Other obstacles abound, Mr. Falcoff argues, even if the dictatorship topples like the Berlin Wall. Cuba, once prosperous, is now desperately poor, and one of Castro's legacies is the destruction of the whole framework of civil society. Gone are the entrepreneurs of Spanish-immigrant culture. Gone are the vibrant business groups, labor federations and professional societies. Gone are the engines of wealth, like a profitable sugar industry. The regime has trashed the island's environment and badly damaged its human capital. Cuba now ranks among the world's top five nations in suicides per capita. Even psychologically healthy Cubans are burdened by years of indoctrination, with its bias against individual responsibility and risk-taking.

About the only thing that might avert this rather grim scenario is the return of Cuban-Americans who have combined Cuban culture with American entrepreneurial skills and respect for civil soceity. Cuba was once the richest country in Latin America in per capita income. Now it is by far the poorest. Hopefully, this can change back.

The White House released payroll records today, supposedly proving that the President was never AWOL or otherwise derelict of duty from the National Guard back in the days before disco.

Why payroll records? Anybody can be on "payroll," just ask the mafia. Payroll records prove jack squat, and surprise! White House Press Wrangler Scott McClellan agrees with me!

[U]nder questioning from reporters, McClellan said the records do not specifically show that Bush reported for Guard duty in Alabama, where he spent much of 1972 working on a Senate campaign. And he said the White House has been unable to locate anyone who remembers serving with Bush during that period.

However, McClellan said, "he was paid for the days he served in the Air National Guard. That's why I said that these records clearly document that the president fulfilled his duties."

In truth, the only proof to come out of today is that Scott McClellan is no Ari Fleischer.

Michael Ledeen has some thoughts on the letter that Johno mentioned in the previous post. This is the best part:

According to the Times — whose correspondent, Dexter Filkins, saw both the Arabic original and a military translation, and "wrote down large parts of the translation" — the letter is a sort of jihadist primal scream. It says that the jihad against the Americans in Iraq is going badly. The Iraqis are not signing up for martyrdom or jihad, they do not even permit the jihadis to organize their terrorist attacks from local houses, and, worst of all, the Americans are not afraid of the terrorists. With that charming neglect of logic that seems to define much of the radical terrorist "mind," Zarkawi says both that the Americans "are the biggest cowards that God has created," and that "America...has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."

And he adds, "we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases."

If we had a government capable of advancing its case to the world at large, those phrases would be broadcast around the world, because they constitute an admission of defeat by a man in the forefront of the campaign against us in Iraq.

This is it, right there. One of the signal failures of the Bush administration has not been its judgment in the conduct of the war on terror; but rather its perverse inability to make a case for its actions. While I have been doing so on a ( very ) small scale along with numerous other bloggers and journalists, the unconvinced need to hear it from the man at the top. Bush should be screaming this news from the rooftops.

And Ledeen also gives us some news from Iran:

Nonetheless, demonstrations continue all over the country. Demonstrations in Kerman a couple of weeks ago were so large that the regime was forced to bring in helicopter gunships to mow down the protesters, and the usual thugs were unleashed on student demonstrators in Tehran and Shiraz in the last few days. Despite the calls for appeasement from the State Department and a handful of our elected representatives, the Iranian people can see what is going on in Iraq, and they must take a measure of comfort from it. And the regime was so upset by President Bush's passing reference to Middle Eastern tyrants who feel threatened by the liberation of Iraq (this weekend), that on Monday the official news service reported that Bush had threatened Iran with the same treatment he had delivered to Iraq. I can hear the Iranians sighing, "oh, if only it is true."

It would be wonderful if the Iranians were able to free themselves. But it is foolish for us to stand by and not help what is clearly a growing movement, and one that hates everything that we hate - religious fundamentalism, thuggery and terrorism. Surely we can spare a couple billion dollars, some special forces troops and some loud support from the oval office to help the Iranian democracy movement.

[alsø wik] Here is another article, by Amir Taheri, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran which happens tomorrow.

Yesterday saw the news of a letter siezed from al Qaeda which seems to indicate that they've been having a hard time drumming up support in Iraq. Michael Totten (linked above) takes the letter as an encouraging sign, and I'm inclined to read it that way as well. I've only read excerpts, so it's hard to know what the whole thing says. Anyway: good news, neh?

It's hard to be too happy when every single day brings a new headline like this one: Truck bomb outside police station south of Baghdad kills dozens. (the AP updated headline adds, "Crowd Blames Americans.") There seems to have been a lot of high-casualty suicide bombings recently; how long until this stops being "a desperate ploy by the terrorists" and becomes "an ongoing campaign of successful mass murder by the terrorists"? I thought such events were supposed to subside in the wake of Hussein's capture.

I know that good comes with bad and war is inherently contemporaneously nonnarrative, but how are things GOING in Iraq?

Better than in Haiti, I hope. One of the United State's great experiments in imperial libervasion (that is, invade 'em, civilize 'em, trade with 'em) is now in full-blown civil war.

From the Associated Press: French lawmakers vote overwhelmingly to ban religious apparel in public school. I'm not one to wag fingers [liar!!!] but I'm afraid that France is sweeping a crucial issue under the rug. At a time when they should be taking every step to help integrate a new generation of French Muslim (and Jewish)schoolchildren into French society, they are attempting to eradicate the outward differences between groups, in the process making those difference more apparent and less bridgeable.

[wik] Yes, I know there's deeper and older issues involved. I stand by my point. Does that make me a touchy-feely hippie?

It's time once again for me to lay upon the benighted masses another over-long, wordy, and tedious book review of interest only to me and people like me. See, I've always wanted to write for the Atlantic, yet I lack drive, ambition, talent, or the requisite measure of snobbery it takes to write 5,500 words on the unsung childlike genius of Proust and the perils of English translation. Despite these handicaps, I in my own way want to be like the big boys.

I geek out about things: it's what I like to do. If I learn a little about something, I usually want to know a lot more. In some ways, this is a pain. For instance, I'm a baseball fan but suck the big one when it comes to quoting statistics about who was the best Texas-born left-handed shortstop of all time. I'm waaaaay out of my league on that count, and it's frustrating.

But in other ways, geekery is deeply rewarding. For example, I like to cook and over the years have gotten pretty good at it. I've got a sensitive palate and a notion of what an extra teaspoon of rosemary will do to the balance of a beef stew. Since I'm a decadent Western aesthete at heart, in individual pursuits like cooking, wine, or the building of Magic The Gathering decks, it's very very good to be a geek.

Currently I am geeking out about bread baking. My mom taught me the basics years ago, and since I moved into a place with a real gas oven, I have been baking bread in earnest. Over the years I have amassed a collection of half a dozen or so decent bread cookbooks, and on my own I managed to give myself an okay grounding in the principles of bread baking. But my inner geek was not yet satisfied. My holy grail of breadmaking is the quintessential artisan loaf: a chewy, slightly open crumb with plenty of body and a deep flavor encased in a crisp yet tender outer crust. I had come close on my own, and some of my efforts last winter with sourdough rye loaves were outstanding. Even so, I didn't have a clear idea of what to do to achieve consistently good results without guesswork and uncertainty.

Enter Rose Levy Beranbaum. Beranbaum is a noted cookbook author and total geek whose "Cake Bible" is one of the landmark cookbooks of the last decade. In that book, Beranbaum approached cake baking with rigor, enthusiasm, and creativity, resulting in recipes that very nearly come out perfect every time.

Beranbaum's new book, "The Bread Bible," does the same for bread.
Exhaustively researched, fully annotated, and crammed with detail, this is the best single book on the subject I have ever come across. I got The Bread Bible for Christmas, and the next day decided to whip out a couple breads to have with our New Years' dinner. I chose Beer Bread and something called Sicilian Pizza Roll. Both were fantastic, better than almost anything I had done before. Her recipes were perfect. The Beer Bread was crusty and chewy, with a subtle flavor you would never guess came from a bottle of Porter. The Sicilian Roll was like a rolled pizza stuffed with broccoli, garlic, and olive oil.

Ever since then, my weekends have revolved around baking. Friday night 11 PM: mix the levain starter. Saturday 11 AM: mix and knead the dough. Six hours and several steps later: remove from oven and enjoy with dinner, then start Sunday's bread. My wife has grounds to complain-- this hobby is time-consuming and not any cheaper than just buying a loaf at the store. But she has yet to stop me. Must be good bread.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's approach to baking has many advantages over conventional cookbooks. Where a pithy, catch-all book like The Joy of Cooking or The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook favors economy over rigor, Beranbaum goes the opposite route. The recipe for her basic Hearth Bread (essentially the "quintessential" bread I was looking for above) runs to five pages and includes notes on pan selection, various rising strategies, and variations. Whereas another cookbook might specify "5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour, " Beranbaum's ingredient lists specify exactly how much flour ("2 2/3 cups plus a tablespoon") to use, and in some cases even exactly what brand of flour will work best.

Within the recipes, the instructions are impeccable. When Beranbaum writes that "the dough will be very sticky," you know that the dough will be a total mess, almost unkneadable by hand and sticking to the counter, your hands, the bowl, and your face (don't ask!). But when she writes that "after five minutes of kneading, the dough will be smooth and only slighty tacky (sticky)," you also know that five minutes from now, your sticky morass will have somehow transformed under your fingers into a perfect dough: shiny, smooth and elastic. And so it goes.

But all the detail in the world is useless without the "why," and here Berabaum also excels. She devotes several pages to the differences between all-purpose and bread flour, down to the differences in protein content between King Arthur All-Purpose and Pillsbury (it's something like 7.4% vs. 7.2%, if you were wondering). Yeast, salt, sweeteners, and additives all get similar treatment, as does equipment. Why does the Ciabatta dough need to be so wet? Why must you not overknead the baguette? Why use All-Purpose for pizza dough? Why must you not add the salt until the final mix? All is explained, and everything works perfectly.

Quick breads, scones, muffins, popovers, sweet rolls, sourdoughs, Indian paratha, Kugelhopf, rye, and French breads all get the Beranbaum treatment, and all of them are outstanding. She even includes a recipe for Wonder-style soft white bread. I tried it this weekend, and it's absolutely oustanding. Not gummy at all, and utterly delicious.

As with any cookbook, "The Bread Bible" is not without its flaws. There are better resources than this one for absolute novices-- James Beard's Beard On Bread deserves its reputation as a classic, and you can't go wrong with the Joy of Cooking. Rose Levy Beranbaum's approach works better if you alrady know your way around a loafpan a little and are ready to find out the effects of relative hydration levels on gluten extensibility. A new baker is likely to get lost in the details where these other books are more careful about helping novices understand the very basics. (Beard's approach is particularly good for newbies, and includes an essential section on what could go awry and how to correct it. )

Sometimes Beranbaum's best asset-- her methodical nature-- is also a liability. Several times I've made a foolish mistake and had to throw out a half-mixed dough because I glanced and saw "3 1/2 cups flour," but missed the note, "hold back 1/4 cup if mixing by hand." Substitutions come at the end of recipes, and this also caused a problem when I had to swap in real milk for powdered milk, but forgot to change out the water for milk when adding the ingredients. These problems stem partly from my own cooking style and lack of organization, and a marginal note by me is all it takes to fix them. But I've rarely encountered these issues in the past, which makes me suspect that Beranbaum's style won't be a perfect fit for everyone.

Baking is as serious in its way as kung fu, doll-collecting, or pet breeding, and I for one am glad that Rose Levy Beranbaum has finally met the need for a serious, geeky, high-quality book on breads. If you have any interest in a technical-manual approach to bread construction, I cannot recommend "The Bread Bible" highly enough.