Office of the Independent Blogger

I almost died today. Well, yesterday, but that’s just a detail. The greater point is that I am alive. Who knows what would have happened if there didn’t happen to be lifeguards at the beach in Encinitas just outside of San Diego?

This is definitely not what I expected to write about in the first entry of this travel-log. I expected to make remarks about the fun we are having with our Honda Civic hybrid rental car, or detail our trip to the Getty Museum and Santa Monica yesterday after a delightful plane ride, or describe the joy we had driving down the highway to meet a former Major League Baseball starting pitcher for an interview in San Diego but instead I find myself writing about a near-death experience. That’s life.

The story I have to tell can be summarized in one sentence, really. It is not a sentence I expected to hear at the beach, nor is it one I could have imagined through pure imagination. As I prepare to type it, I am reminded of an argument made in this article about the nature of non-fictional narratives: “Nonfiction has to be true, of course, but it doesn’t have to be believable, which may help explain why so many recent best-sellers are of the Ripley’s variety. Coincidences that no novelist could get away with happen all the time in ‘real life.’ And while characters in fiction have to be consistent, people rarely are.”

Once we had arrived at the shore, and I had stood on my own two feet for the first time in several minutes, the lifeguard looked me over and said: “Good God, man. Are you wearing pants?” I was. Slacks. And a golf shirt, with socks. Grey socks. It had to have been the strangest rescue he had ever had to make. I did not intend to go deep into the ocean at all when we pulled up to the beach, partly because I was not wearing shorts and partly because I am not an exceptional swimmer and it has been awhile since I went for a good swim in deep or deepish water, but I was floating backward in relaxed pose when I realized that I was rather far from the shore. I attempted to swim back but could not for the life of me move from where I was and in fact seemed to have been swimming backward. I looked across the water and saw a young man about thirty, forty feet away and I asked him if he would get me help, please. “You need help?” I do, I told him. “I do not think I can get out of here alone.” I was starting to tire from swimming in place, and I did not believe that I could return to shore of my own strength. (I am generally aware of my limitations and my strengths. Fighting strong currents is not a strength. And I was probably right, but I will never know as the lifeguard arrived half a minute afterward to tether me to him and bring me back to land.)

“That’s a nasty, nasty rip there, man,” he told me as he tied me. “I need you to kick for me, okay?” He set off, carrying me behind him as if I were a corpse, motionless but for the thoughts racing around inside my head about the situation I had just found myself in as I simply could not generate the strength for a good kick but thoughts are not “heavy.” I apologized for my inability to help him help me, and he took it all in as his duty. Then he noticed that I was wearing normal clothes, and told me that I should be in as near a state of total undress as legally allowed when I go swimming, if I wish to swim efficiently. I will certainly keep that in mind, and I will always remember the look on his face when his voice rose to heights it likely hasn’t reached since before he hit puberty and said “Good God, man. Are you wearing pants?”

Believe it or not, I did not know what a riptide was, but I do now. I will avoid them, and I won’t wear pants into the ocean.

I would write about my interview but I will be working on an article about it for a different publication and so I will not go into details at this time. I will write about the other things we have done since we arrived on the west coast tomorrow, in all likelihood. Right now I am rather tired and somewhat busy, so I will return to the first day tomorrow. Today’s near-death experience, coupled with a more pleasant start and finish to the day, has left me exhausted. I do recommend you look here for images from the trip. I am not a good photographer nor do I have a great camera nor am I the sort of man who likes to just snap picture after picture (I would rather be sharing word after word) but I have taken some, and I’ll share them even if they are nothing special. Tomorrow I will write you, with the blessings of a lifeguard.

You know, the Human Genome Project proves that we are all far more alike than different, with a 90+% margin of similarity, too. That’s the first thing I thought of when I read the news this evening. Barack Obama has pledged five hundred million dollars in faith-based initiatives, which I am not at all opposed to and welcome as these sorts of programs provide purpose to people who might otherwise have no hope, and I do not believe that faith-based aid, equally (or near-equally) dispersed amongst different sects, is not a violation of the First Amendment. I just wonder if “Bush-is-a-Theocrat” Democrats will be as furious with this move from Obama as they would be if Bush were the one responsible. There was a good Obama article in the Wall Street Journal today that argues that the Illinois Senator is running for Bush’s third term and it’s definitely worth looking at. If nothing else, it demonstrates that even two people completely different from one another from several perspectives have common ground and plenty of it. Of course, the scientists proved that awhile ago.

I have been a little short with this blog in the last few days, and that is a direct result of this trip I am taking through the west coast. I will be using it in the next few days to blog my travels across the West Coast as I am driving with one of my closest friends from Los Angeles to San Diego to LA again then back to San Francisco, Eureka, Eugene, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, with other stops along the way. I’ll be writing shortly about the first night out, soon, and I will occasionally drop a political note in as well. It’s just incredibly time-consuming and I am sure that I’ll be rather tired every night, from the travels.

David Addington, who is one of the Bush Administration’s legal experts and can be charitably described as a cross between Dick Cheney and Chewbacca, appeared before a subcommittee to discuss the use of interrogation techniques and “stunned” his questioners with the contempt he showed for them. Toward the end of the session, he answered a question about whether or not he had ever discussed “waterboarding” by claiming that he could not answer “because al-Qaeda might be watching.” The chic comment to make about this story is “I wonder if he would answer after a good ‘waterboarding,’” and I suppose I could succumb to being chic just this once but al-Qaeda might be reading.

A couple of nights ago I commented on the “Merry-Go-Round” pace of our negotiations with North Korea over their nuclear program. Tonight, I want to refer you to this Fred Kaplan analysis of the situation, especially these paragraphs:

Daniel Sneider, assistant director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, calls the deal “a plutonium-containment program” and adds: “That’s fine. But it’s not what it was supposed to be.” Scott Snyder, senior associate at the Asia Foundation (and author of Negotiating on the Edge, the best book about North Korea’s diplomatic strategy), agrees: “The scope of this agreement does not match what we signed up for.” He also says, “As always with North Korea, it’s disappointing and frustrating.” Still, he says, “It’s better than nothing.” Both Sneider and Snyder, it should be noted, have been strong advocates of arms control and critics of the Bush administration’s earlier approach.

Two questions arise. First, could Rice and Hill have managed a better deal? It’s hard to say. In his book, Scott Snyder writes that the North Koreans typically adopt a very hard line toward the end of a negotiating session. At that point, the other side has to be willing to stand firm and walk away. Clinton’s emissary did just that toward the end of the Agreed Framework talks, after the North Koreans announced a signing ceremony then told the puzzled American that the five remaining disputes would simply be settled in Pyongyang’s favor. (They relented when he said he was going home.) Should Hill, too, have taken his car to the airport? Would the North Koreans have backed down? Who can say?

There is one big difference between 1994 and 2008: The United States had lots of leverage back then—and it has very little now. There are two reasons for this. First, when Clinton dangled the threat of force in front of the North Koreans in ‘94, they might have believed he’d really use it; Bush never even dangled a threat, and, with military forces stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, such growling wouldn’t have been credible anyway. Second, and more important, by 2008, the North Koreans had already reprocessed plutonium and set off an atomic bomb; they were a bona fide “nuclear state.” They could walk away from the table with a more sincere shrug than we could.

He goes on to note that the problems we have with North Korea have their roots in several different dirt-patches, but that John Bolten and his ilk in the Administration made it almost-impossible for us to achieve our diplomatic goals.

Robert Novak has written an article on potential Republicans for Obama whose defections John McCain is said to fear, and the two biggest names on the list are Chuck Hagel and Colin Powell.

“The national security adviser for Ronald Reagan left the present administration bitter about being ushered out of the State Department a year earlier than he wanted. As an African American, friends say, Powell is sensitive to racial attacks on Obama and especially on Obama’s wife, Michelle. While McCain strategists shrug off defections from Bruce Bartlett and Larry Hunter, they wince in anticipating headlines generated by Powell’s expected endorsement of Obama.”

Time’s “The Page” speculates that Powell could be a surprise speaker at the Democratic Convention in Denver, and I think that would be a development worth some note but would anyone outside of Beltway gossip parties care? I’d guess that, generally, not.

I’ve only got a couple of small notes for you, dear reader, before I head to bed. The first is just my recommendation that you read this article, about the FBI’s file-deletion program and regulations. We often like to think of our age as the “information age,” but while information is easily-accessible today it is also easy-to-destroy, and we often lose sight of this fact. It is unsettling to any student of history to know that priceless records are being destroyed by the FBI.

My second note is on this news story.

North Korea on Thursday is expected to release details on its plutonium stockpile and continue preparations to publicly dismantle a controversial nuclear reactor — key steps meant to assuage international concerns about nuclear activity in the usually secretive Communist nation.

Under an agreement hammered out in six-nation talks that included the United States and China, leaders in Pyonyang agreed to provide a full accounting of the plutonium, “acknowledge” concerns about its nuclear proliferation and uranium enrichment activities and agree to continued cooperation with a process to ensure that no further activities are taking place.

I can’t believe that these negotiations have been going on since, roughly, 1994. I’d like to attribute it to the inefficiency of the Communist system but it’s more a result of paranoia and stonewalling on their side and an unwillingness to communicate on the other side, with China refusing to apply necessary diplomatic pressure alongside us and the other nations generally unable or unwilling to make any strong moves toward nuclear accountability on the Korean Peninsula.

Forgive me for the absence yesterday, dear reader, but I am in Indiana to support my cousin in his Little League playoffs and their Internet is beyond working for me without a hassle. I’ll be back home tomorrow evening, so expect more thorough posts then, but right now I am going to comment on the Zimbabwe elections, where Mugabe has run the opposition candidate out of the race and into the Dutch Embassy for fear of his life. If there were any justice in Zimbabwe then Mugabe would be in prison and the people of that country could start to recover from their leveled economy. But fear not, dear reader: the election is going on despite the opposition withdrawing.

How democratic is that!

In more interesting news, John McCain has offered a three hundred million dollar prize to any person or company who discover a next-generation hybrid battery that can work for all of us. Obama calls it a “gimmick.” I disagree. It is a great idea worthy of much applause, and it is largely receiving it.

This New York Times article is an excellent one chronicling the CIA’s interrogation of KSM, the 9/11 mastermind. From beginning to end it raises questions about whether or not we would be able to successfully interrogate terrorists without using harsh methods, and I’m afraid I have no concrete answer to that although my guess is that we can achieve success without resorting to the tactics we deplore.

In My Life, Bill Clinton describes FEMA as an organization that no one thinks about until a disaster strikes, and while no one ever votes on the basis of a candidate’s disaster-relief program it should still be a primary consideration on the agenda of elected officials because people die when relief is not thought-through. Barack Obama criticized John McCain today, arguing that he would leave cities underfunded and unprepared for dealing with disasters. McCain shot back that Obama is contributing to the problem by refusing to fast-track legislation that would help people. Meanwhile, human beings are suffering all over the Midwest.

I know that many of my fellow liberals are furious with the House for compromising with George W. Bush on domestic spying, but I think the solution they came across is fair and sensible.

The House on Friday easily approved a compromise bill setting new electronic surveillance rules that effectively shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits arising from the government’s terrorism-era warrantless eavesdropping on phone and computer lines in this country.

The bill, which was passed on a 293-129 vote, does more than just protect the telecoms. The update to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an attempt to balance privacy rights with the government’s responsibility to protect the country against attack, taking into account changes in telecommunications technologies.

“This bill, though imperfect, protects both,” said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and a former member of the House intelligence committee.

President Bush praised the bill Friday. “It will help our intelligence professionals learn enemies’ plans for new attacks,” he said in a statement before television cameras a few hours before the vote.

The House’s passage of the FISA Amendment bill marks the beginning of the end to a monthslong standoff between Democrats and Republicans about the rules for government wiretapping inside the United States. The Senate was expected to pass the bill with a large margin, perhaps as soon as next week, before Congress takes a break during the week of the Fourth of July.

The government eavesdropped on American phone and computer lines for almost six years after the Sept. 11 attacks without permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the special panel established for that purpose under the 1978 law. Some 40 lawsuits have been filed against the telecommunications companies by groups and individuals who think the Bush administration illegally monitored their phone calls or e-mails.

The White House had threatened to veto any surveillance bill that did not also shield the companies.

The compromise bill directs a federal district court to review certifications from the attorney general saying the telecommunications companies received presidential orders telling them wiretaps were needed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack. If the paperwork were deemed in order, the judge would dismiss the lawsuit.

I am not sure what, exactly, merits objection in this case. This is good for the Congress, the President and the people.

Barack Obama officially announced his decision to opt-out of the public finance system for Presidential campaigns this morning, and I am deeply disillusioned by this decision. But before I comment on the decision itself, I want to comment on the manner in which it was announced to the public: not via press release, or in a speech, but in a video email. I can not begin to describe how angry that makes me. Listen, it is not proper etiquette to break up with some via text message and it is not acceptable to fire people over the phone, so it is most certainly not acceptable for a Presidential candidate to announce something such as this via email and then refuse to speak to the press about it.

Obama has previously indicated his support for public financing, once writing that he would work vigorously with the Republican candidate to make sure they can both work within that framework; he has spoken about it in his speeches, and has referred to himself recently as an “unabashed” supporter of campaign finance reform; he even put “Yes” down on paper when surveyed on this question by a political organization early in his campaign for President. Of course, Harry Truman once said that if a man’s word is no good, it isn’t made better on paper, and that appears to be the case here.

So, what happened that made Obama change his mind? Simple: he wants the opportunity to outspend John McCain by a ridiculous total, as he thinks it will make him President of the United States and Obama seems to believe that the ends will justify the means. The Presidency takes its toll on everyone who seeks it and especially those who obtain it, and Obama is willing to play this game the hard way for the sake of becoming President. This is not “hope” or “reform” but it is “change” — it’s a price change that he hopes we can all believe in. Well I don’t, and I think this is absolutely shameful. If I were McCain I’d hammer him as a fraud all year long. This is the same guy who has an ex-Friends of Barack club going because he is disloyal to friends, and he doesn’t stand true to his own stated principles, either.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a truce over Gaza. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it does not appear to have anyone’s full committment to it.

I hope it will succeed. I believe there will be quiet in (Israel’s) south,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a speech to philanthropists. But he also said he instructed his military “to prepare for any operation, short or long, that might be necessary” if the truce breaks down.

In Gaza, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the truce would “ease the lives of Gazans,” but success or failure was in Israel’s hands. “The calm is going to bring stability to Israel if they commit themselves to it,” he said.

I do not know whether or not this truce will hold, but until these leaders can trust one another in public and in private we will continue to see these agreements fall apart. Maybe that cycle will be broken with this agreement, but I doubt it.

I received the following email from a good friend and Iowan this morning:

My family is ok, but many, many people here have not been so lucky. Lots of people were told when they bought their homes that there was no need for flood insurance because the water never gets this high. Levees are breaking, roads are closed, towns and hospitals are cut off. It’s unbelievable.

The President of the United States had this to say:

President Bush says he will inspect flood damage in Iowa on Thursday. The president said that an existing federal disaster relief fund has enough in it to cover the recent severe Midwest flooding. He also said he will work with Congress on emergency legislation to help replenish the fund to be ready for possible additional natural disasters. Bush was briefed on the flooding Tuesday by federal officials involved in the relief effort.

The president told reporters (in his words), “We’re concerned about people who lost their homes, who lost their businesses. We’re in constant contact with people on the ground.”

I think it is tragic that there are people who have lost everything because they took it for granted that floodwaters never get as high as they have gotten this week, and I believe that the American Government has a duty to assist these families and businesses in paying for their homes or else we are going to leave thousands of people in a state of suffering, and that is simply unacceptable. We might as well not have a government if Washington doesn’t believe that “promoting the general welfare” involves aiding all those people in Iowa.

My heart is with Iowa tonight, as thirty six thousand Iowans are homeless after the floods there this weekend. You never want people to lose their homes and lives, and when it happens in such a short period of time it just emphasizes how unpredictable life can be.

Happy Father’s Day, dear readers!
Not so happy “Nuclear ring reportedly had weapon design” day.