Why the appeal of "The Girl...?

I just finished reading "The Girl Who Played with Fire," and began to wonder why I, and so many others, like these books. I think it's Liz Salander's ability to read other people's computers and to delve into the data that accumulates on all of us. In this cyberage, she is the equivalent of a flying Superman with X-ray vision in a physical age. She can go anywhere and find out what anybody is doing and thinking. We are happy to go with her.

Cycles of Oppression

I have been reading the memoir of Helen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, who interested me when I covered her appearance at the Press Club some time ago. Her own life is intertwined with the history of Liberia. As most readers know, the country was populated by freed African-American slaves in the nineteenth century. These people retained their American ways and created a colonial society with themselves in power and the indigenous people "colonial" subjects similar to colonies created by European powers. Revolts in recent decades led to other repressive regimes and horrendous civil wars not different from those elsewhere in Africa. Descendants of the original "colonists," known as Americo-Liberians, were persecuted. The story seems to say something very unfortunate about human nature.  Is hierarchy inherent?

What is Reason?

Last night Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke at the John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies on the need for American judges to understand international laws. Referring to being in India on 9/11, he reflected that the division in the world is not between nations but between those who accept reason and those who don't. But what is reason? Use of technology and deductive logic might be included but the terrorists used them to good effect, deducing that airliners could be used as missiles and learning how to fly them. It seems that Justice Breyer meant something else, perhaps resolving differences through negotiation or mediation within an legal framework rather than through violence. Or, of course, through a judicial system. Such a meaning would also require that parties accept the result as legitimate even when they don't reach their goals. So perhaps reason, to him, means acceptance of the rule of law and an associated legal structure. Not "unreasonable." But what if laws are not the same everywhere? What if sharia is the accepted framework? Is his distinction a tautology?

Footnote to a Debate on End-of-Life Care

Last night I reported on a debate on end-of-life care at the Press Club to be aired later on PBS. A trial attorney who represented former Governor Jeb Bush in the Terry Schiavo legislation ranted continually about nameless faceless bureaucrats in Washington making decisions. Others, a bioethicist and a palliative care physician, noted rationing occurs now, but is not as rational as it ought to be, and is inevitible. They wanted ethicists, theologians and doctors to develop guidelines. What is missing, in my opinion, is the need to emphasize that families and patients can choose hospice care. That requires conversations that people tend to avoid. Sarah Palin's turning the idea of requiring such conversations into "death squads" reveals that the solution cannot be via legislation. Perhaps through a private citizen campaign and public service announcements? Having personally used hospice at home when my husband died, but not when my mother died in a hospital, I strongly believe the hospice experience is more comforting to the patient.

Deception and Delusion

I have just completed The Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth, a novel set in March, 1914 in the area that is now Iraq. Oil interests, Ottomans, German and British governments, and a monomaniacal archaeologist conspire for their interests. All but two of the characters engage in conscious deception and self-delusion, which is maintained by some deception of others as well. This leads me to muse whether self-delusion necessarily requires deception of others - pretense, exaggeration of accomplishments, concealment of truths dissonant with the delusion, or even just plain lies. Additionally, is the reverse true? Does habitual deception require some self-delusion to be maintained?

More or different college graduates?

Last Friday, I reported on a debate, moderated by PBS economics reporter Paul Salmon, at the National Press Club that will be aired on PBS. (Story at www.press.org/wire.article.cfm.id?=1934). The question was whether the United States needed more college graduates. The "pro" side (former education secretary Margaret Spellings and United Negro College fund CEO and president) argued that expanding college enrollments would assist minorities who are now under-represented among graduates. The con side, George Leef, of an education policy think tank, and Richard Vedder, Ohio State University economics professor, argued that the costs are too high, that quality has declined and many graduates take jobs that do not require college educations. (They don't deny the need for good colleges and universities and the need for doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. to have education.) The issue is adding more to what we already have.

What I couldn't say in a news article is that the two sides are consistent provided one argues the politically unacceptable point that it is the composition of college graduates, not the number, that concern Spelling and Lomax. More minorities could graduate if fewer majority did. This gets to the conundrum affirmative action programs have reached in many contexts.

Is there an answer?

Forced return to community

My apartment building is home to between 500 and 600 people, most of whom are staying in for the duration. An unusually large audience for the Monday night movie led to a group of people who hadn't seen each other for ages deciding to have a bridge game. Those who know they are members of AA arranged a meeting in the building for tonight. It's a time for casual invites, "Join me for supper," as we empty pantry and refrigerators. Normally, DC offers so many options that neighbors don't leave time to be neighborly. Now we're a snowbound small town in the big city.

On the Seam

At a book event for The Hawk and the Dove, the dual biography of George Kennan and Paul Nitze, held Feb. 1 at the School for Advanced International Studies founded by Nitze, Eliot Cohen, Director of Strategic Studies at the school, commented that both Kennan and Nitze tried to live "on the seam between thought and action." Neither succeeded completely. This living on the seam strikes me as the definition of Washington policy wonks who mainly think but would like to affect the world. Perhaps the ideal is to experience the two sequentially - a time for thought and a time for action. But does the competitive environment of professional life now allow the time for thought?

It's Bad when Good News is News

A friend once explained to me that in her journalism course, she was taught that bad news is news - people are not interested in hearing that a store was not robbed, no car crashes occurred and nobody was shot. There are two hypotheses about human interest in bad news: evolution favored the genes that worried about predators and therefore survived and news is what is unusual. In fact, life goes on without major incident most of the time.

In tragic times, the usual reverses. In Haiti, where tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands depending on the report, have died, the news focuses on each survivor pulled from the devastation. Suddenly, good news is news because it is so rare. This is bad.

Screams in the night in Haiti

At the Cleveland Park Congregational Church today a parishoner who was in Haiti during the earthquake related his experience. He was in a hotel above the city. Hotel guests camped on the tennis courts arranging some food, water and security. As complete darkness fell the sounds of the city below rose - screams that blended together into one voice. After each aftershock, of which there were 15 or 20, the screams intensified. His description blends the magnitude of the total horror with the personal horror each individual scream represented.

The dots may be a blob

There was a headline yesterday in The New York Times, "Military is Awash in Data from Drones," describing the potential information overload the videos taken by drones in Afghanistan and Iraq are creating for the Air Force and the systems being created to deal with it. This also evokes thoughts of why the would-be Nigerian plane bomber's information wasn't processed correctly. One commentator has pointed out that "connect the dots" may be the wrong metaphor for a system generating so many dots that they blend together. The real challenge for intelligence systems, and perhaps for all of us, in this age is how to create systems that filter the information coming to us so that we know where to direct our attention.