Fascinating piece in Stratfor.com on how the media and the military have now exchanged roles in the war. The military and the Bush administration, if you listen closely, are clearly saying that this war has only just begun. They are suspicious that the Taliban is even routed yet. Work needs to be done in Iraq, Iran, Singapore, the Philippines, Somalia and elsewhere before we have a real grip on al Qaeda and its allies. Meanwhile, some elements in the media are already acting as if the war were essentially over, as if our initial and stunning victory in Afghanistan were definitive. I’m with Stratfor on this. I hope the president uses his State of the Union address to remind us that the war is still real, that we haven’t yet come close to victory, that healthy criticism of the conduct of the war is essential (as opposed to Sontag-like hostility to the war on terrorism altogether), and that all we have achieved now is the end of the beginning. Check this piece out. It’s excellent.
THE HONORIFICS, AGAIN: A good friend chides me for my item this morning. Here’s his point:
“One of the historical indignities perpetrated against blacks was the refusal of whites to use titles in addressing them….throughout most of American history (especially in the south) whites would never address blacks using “sir” or “ma’am”…”boy” or maybe their first name would be used. Even today, I think whites are generally less conscious to use titles when addressing blacks (part of the legacy of white supremacy, and our perception that they are less educated and therefore deserve or require less formality than members of other racial and ethnic groups). Another symptom of this history is an insistence by individual African-Americans that they are called by whatever they want to be called. This insistence (more emphatic, I think, than people from other cultures) is rooted in a history in which naming was denied to slaves. Finally, for a people to whom education was systematically denied and/or at the least provided for in an unjustly, inferior manner, “honorifics” have become even more important as a sign of respect for educational achievement. Thus, we so often hear people referring to “DR. King.” Educated status has a heightened importance.”
This strikes me as an important point, of which I should have been aware and more sensitive to. But it is still hard to think of millionaire media-star academics like Gates and West dealing with these issues in any serious way in a context like Harvard or at a newspaper like the New York Times. If, indeed, this is the reason for the Times’ different treatment of black or minority honorifics, then it would be useful for that policy to be made explicit, and debated.
ROOT CANAL: Just back from an hour of hell. I now get the metaphor. I was one of those rare cases where the canal actually got connected to the sinuses and so I still have bloody anti-biotic liquid dripping out my nose. Lovely.
The Dish 