http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:26:49 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/27/182649.php Bob TarantinoRead this book. In clear, engaging prose, Ignatieff has made an eloquent attempt at providing an analytical framework to evaluate the steps which a liberal democracy takes when confronted with terror. If that sounds too dry, it can easily be put into less prosaic terms: when, if ever, is it okay for a liberal democracy to torture (suspected) terrorists, engage in mass round-ups based on ethnicity, deny access to counsel and any of the myriad other steps taken by governments around the world in the wake of 9/11? Ignatieff is honest enough to admit that the liberal democratic foundational commitment to individual human rights, which animates his entire argument, will at times constrain the activities of the state, sometimes to an extent which is either politically or strategically damaging (e.g., by refusing to engage in torture or mass detentions, it is possible that an actual terrorist will be left alone and will be able to pull off a terror attack). But the strength of his argument is that it takes a balanced approach, trying not only to evaluate the short-term efficacy of an action, but also its long-term effects. His proscriptions are deceptively simple: respect for human rights; as much transparency as possible; constant re-evaluation of tactics by means of adversarial justification in legislatures, courts and the press; and, ultimately, the wisdom to not give in to fear and to not fundamentally alter and hamstring institutions in the wake of terrorist atrocities. In Ignatieff's view, it is the very willingness of a liberal democracy to fight "with one hand tied behind it's back" which is its hallmark: we won't descend to no-holds-barred war, and that restraint is the characteristic which we are trying to defend when we confront political terror.It is an interesting dynamic which Ignatieff identifies: the dialectic which the terrorist seeks to spark is the spiralling descent into unconstrained violence; by "forcing" a liberal democracy to forego constraint, the terrorist is attempting to weaken the allegiance of the state's citizens to the state, to force the state to "reveal" itself as every bit as bad as the terrorist has been claiming all along, and to thereby poison the mechanics of the state itself, so that it's lifespan is shortened. Ignatieff also delves into the history of political terror, reminding the reader of interesting tidbits from the Russian anarchists of the late 1800s, the burgeoning American communist terrorist movement of the early 20th century (smashed by the Palmer Raids shortly after WWI), the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof gang.Somewhat surprisingly, almost no mention is made of the American terrorist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s (such as the Weather Underground), and little attention is paid to the mechanics of the Canadian federal government's squashing of separatist terrorist violence in the 1970s (by means of invoking special war powers). But there are examinations of many other attempts to counter terrorism, from Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka.Ignatieff fares less well when he attempts to translate his analysis to (a) the war on Iraq and (b) what he refers to as "apocalyptic terror" (i.e., terrorists equipped with weapons of mass destruction). With regard to the latter, he notes that the potential civilization-ending threat of apocalyptic terror calls into question the efficacy of his proposed evaluative system, but instead of confronting that, his argument seems to trail off without coming to any discernable conclusion. In short, his framework seems workable for the sort of terrorist activities which we've all seen before, but it's not clear whether it's appropriate to handle a situation involving WMDs, nor a situation (perhaps as yet unrealized) where in a major confrontation between states one of the primary tactics is apocalyptic terror. In a similar vein, Ignatieff's attempt to link his analysis to the war in Iraq (which might be a strategic part of the war on terror but isn't tactically) stumbles badly; which is surprising, because Ignatieff usually writes quite lucidly (if, in my view, incorrectly) on Iraq (see, for example, here). In the end, his attempts to wield an evaluative framework explicitly geared towards domestic politics on (a) a tactic which would entirely destroy that domestic politics and (b) on the vagaries of foreign policy mars an otherwise excellent book.Grade: A Books23668@blogcritics.org Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:26:49 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/08/112313.php Bob TarantinoNo matter how awesome you think you are, you have come nowhere near the sheer volume of drugs which Anthony Kiedis has consumed, nor have you had as much incredible sex with as many spectacular women. That, roughly speaking, is the theme of Kiedis' autobiography and, if even half of what he says is true, it's hard to imagine that anyone will ever be able to trump him in either endeavour.For those who do not know, Anthony Kiedis is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a merry band of funksters who have over the course of a career spanning two decades broken down a startling number of musical barriers in the mainstream and produced some fantastic music along the way.The most damning indictment of the book is that there is literally no narrative structure here; Kiedis does not impose any sort of dramatic development on his story, so unless one is familiar with the outlines of Chili Pepper history, this is just one really, really, really long picaresque. And I use that word in its strongest pejorative sense: this is 465 pages of "this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; then this happened; oh, and then this happened; did I mention that this happened? No? Anyways, then this happened; then this happened..." and on and on seemingly ad infinitum.Which is too bad: the Chili Peppers' story could make for fascinating reading. They let their freak flag fly and eventually the music-buying public wandered over, trying to figure out what these guys were up to. They never really compromised their music, with even their poppiest tunes (except for the execrable One Hot Minute) slanted just slightly off-kilter to what the rest of the mainstream was doing. And the personalities in the band are, to put it mildly, eccentric: Kiedis is the beautiful, rapping, flowing, sex god, drug addict, front man; bassist Flea is the manic musician, the kind of guy who would probably be terribly unsettling to sit beside on the subway, but who, by all accounts, has a heart of gold; current (and former... it's a long story) guitarist John Frusciante is a drug-damaged artiste; and Chad Smith, the drummer (of course) is the odd one out, the guy who doesn't seem to fit in so well. Very little of this comes through in Scar Tissue; for example, Smith, who has been drumming for the band for more than fifteen years is barely mentioned, and almost no interactions between Kiedis and Smith are recounted, other than a drunken near-brawl in a hotel.The story of the band really needs to be told by an outsider. Kiedis' account (and yes, I understand that it is an autobiography, but come on) is too relentlessly solipsistic: other people function so tangentially to the story that they end up being props. One of the more chilling moments in reading the book is realizing that the overdose death of Hillel Slovak (the Chili Peppers' original guitarist), who Kiedis refers to as his best friend and "soulmate", prompts approximately a page of reflection from Kiedis. That's it. After that, it's on to further bouts of drug-taking, startlingly dysfunctional relationships with women and occasional musings on sobriety. More than anything this is the story of a raging drug addict who happens to be in a successful band. Unfortunately, the drug addict's story (and, really, eventually they're all the same) can't sustain itself for the length of the book: it just becomes monotonous.After plowing through the book, I still can't decide whether to like Kiedis or not. There definitely were times when you recoil from him: self-absorbed; a remorseless juvenile delinquent and petty criminal; destructive to those around him. But, bizarrely, he still generally comes across as an alright guy. There's an interesting story to be found somewhere in here, but Kiedis isn't the one to tell it.Grade: (For Chili Peppers fanatics) B (For everyone else) D Books23048@blogcritics.org Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:23:13 EST