Category: The Dish

She reassures. All the Democrats and McCain now oppose Bush’s use of torture.

The richer you are in the world, the likelier you are to have sex with more people and to avoid condoms. A study of repressed Indians and horny, bare-backing Norwegians.

If we were all a lot richer, would we all be a little skinnier? Some thoughts on Cuba’s new anti-obesity campaign.

The Dems go on the offensive.

Cool stop-motion animation:

Oliver Sacks channels Sam Harris:

Music doesn’t represent any tangible, earthly reality. It represents things of the heart, feelings which are beyond description, beyond any experience one has had. The non-representational but indescribably vivid emotional quality is such as to make one think of an immaterial or spiritual world. I dislike both of those words, because for me, the so-called immaterial and spiritual is always vested in the fleshly — in "the holy and glorious flesh," as Dante said.

So if music is not directly representative of the world around us, then what’s inspiring it? One has the feeling of the muse, and the muses are heavenly beings. This feeling is very, very strong with Cicoria, the surgeon in my book who was hit by a bolt of lightning. He felt that he was actually tuning in to the music of heaven — that he had God’s phone number. I can’t avoid that feeling myself when I listen to Mozart. I feel differently about Beethoven. I think of Beethoven as a sweating Prometheus, a terrestrial figure.

I intensely dislike any reference to supernaturalism, but I think there can be profound mystical feelings which do not have to call on fictitious agencies like angels and demons and deities. The whole natural world is bathed in wonder and beauty and mystery. The feeling of the holy, the sacred, the wonderful, the mystical, can be divorced from anything theological, and is conveyed very powerfully in music.

Ko Htike is posting round the clock. So is Niknayman. And this smells like Burmese spirit to me. Write them. Tell them we give a damn. A reader writes:

What I find amazing, is the stark contrast between real democracy in action (Burma) and the staged theater in Iraq.  For those of us who witnessed Tiananmen and the fall of the Wall…not to mention Ukraine, etc., the lesson is that true democracy is an organic event that arises from the people. It can not be bestowed, bequeathed or imposed.

As you say, know hope.

These amazing sights and sounds are what the birth of freedom sounds like:

The junta will accept the UN envoy. Perino reads Bush’s statement. The Internet ban is not succeeding too well. The guy in the photo I posted earlier today is the Japanese journalist shot dead by the military. At least one other journalist has been killed. Kerry Howley explains how the Internet is vital to keep freedom alive in the country:

Seven people out of 1,000 own televisions, and they’re not getting BBC. They’re watching MRTV-3: all government propaganda, all the time.

I remember in my hippie-back-packing days, finding an entire village in the Burmese hinterland gathered around one sole television. A Burmese activist, Aung Naing Oo, tells al-Jazeera:

"It’s very clear that the Burmese people are no longer afraid of the Burmese military. The violence and killing of buddhist monks have taken away their fear of confrontation … and we will continue to see more demonstrations in the days ahead."

Bono is stirring, which may help get more international attention. Havel adds his voice. BBC video is available here. Some gripping YouTubes (including the one above) can be found here. There are some reports that the crowds are growing, despite reports of over 700 arrests last night and attacks on three more monasteries:

The soldiers eventually crashed through the gate with one of the trucks and used bamboo sticks to beat everyone in the monastery, including monks, laymen, women and children, some of whom were related to or were under the care of the head abbot, or sayadaw.

One witness said the soldiers shouted "harsh, abusive words" at the monks while they were beating them. One monk who had tried to warn the monastery of the soldiers’ approach was beaten unconscious as he lay on the ground.

Another witness said the soldiers were led by a two-star general who beat some of the soldiers who were reluctant to harm the monks. The attack lasted about 90 minutes, ending when about 60 monks and 40 laypeople were tossed into waiting trucks and driven to an unknown destination.

Pray for them all.

(Thanks to my remarkable research assistant, Jessie Roberts.)

Kevin Smith gets "sexualized."

"Other than the flippant criticisms of our "failure" to take Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, one sees little discussion of an occupation of Iraq, but it is the key element of the current debate. The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of [Saddam Hussein], but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years. Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade and stay," – now-senator, Jim Webb, Heading for Trouble, Washington Post Op/Ed, September 4, 2002.