The following skit brilliantly explains the whole subprime brouhaha. It’s performed by a British comedy duo known as The Long Johns, Messrs Bird and Fortune.
The second explanation to which the title refers is that, were North Americans able to understand and appreciate comedy this sophisticated, there probably never would’ve been a subprime crisis in the first place.
I funded most of my university career by hawking musical instruments, surfing my many credit cards (i.e., paying one with another), and accumulating an impressive student loan. I do remember the leaden weight of that debt, and I recognized it in Maxed Out (found via Best Free Documentaries). While I like to believe we thrifty Canadians won’t be as affected as the film’s American victims by ridiculous credit enticements, I don’t see any minor cultural distinctions interfering in the pursuit of profit.
(You may get a better viewing experience by clicking the Google Video button and then “Go to Google Video”. I also had to constantly jiggle the progress slider to get the video to play for more than five minutes at a stretch. Why must Internet video be so difficult?)
Sorry for the gap in my posts of late; I was laid low by influenza. It was as if several dozen enraged short people were given leave to pummel me from foot to midsection, while selected members of their furious brethren were equipped with croquet mallets to have at my upper bits. So if this post — or any future post, for that matter — seems shaded by delirium, go ahead and blame the flu.
The news this morning is that Israel, Lebanon, and now even Hezbollah, have agreed to a UN cease-fire. 15,000 peacekeepers are to take up station along the border, presumably under an extended UNIFIL or UNTSO mandate.
Israel will have to choke down a whopping big mideast crow should they withdraw according to the resolution. Kadima, the IDF, and even Israeli cosmopolitanism will find themselves at the end of many a pointed finger. Unlike a certain three-letter superpower, Israel does not suffer failure quietly (see 1973 Yom Kippur War, fallout from).
So now the UN is scrambling to cough up these 15,000 volunteers. Not just anyone will do, after all. The US and UK have many, many present-day and historical reasons to keep well away. The Russians are a little too Syrian-friendly. The Germans are queasy at the prospect of pointing their weapons at Jews. Islamic countries are clearly out of the running, as are those with anti-Islamic histories, viz. India. South Americans have never been enthusiastic UN fodder.
This seems to leave France — time heals even colonial wounds — and the usual desperate gaggle of African militia as the default option.
But what about the fifth UN permanent member, China? What’s not to like? No historical ties to the locals. No official observance of any of the region’s religions. A large standing army complete with an assumedly high tolerance for casualties. Trifecta!
Of course, China isn’t exactly known for peacekeeping, other than the type it strictly imposes upon its own citizenry. But Chinese soldiers have participated in UN missions before, and the People’s Republic even sent a few lonely soldiers to Lebanon earlier this year.
There’s just a tiny wrinkle in this scheme. China sending troops in number to Lebanon would be a direct shot across the United States’ bow. In effect, the Chinese would be saying to the superpower, “we’re here to do the job you can no longer handle.” The American neocons would completely spaz. Gwynne Dyer — in a brilliant talk given in Whitehorse this spring — twigged me to the notion: the neocons’ real agenda is to prevent, or at best forestall, the decline of the American empire in the face of an ascendant China (and/or India).
Then imagine Chinese divisions rolling in to quell the Iraqi civil war just as the Americans retreat from Baghdad, all the while proclaiming “peace with honour.” Likely? No. China will stare down the US soon enough though, and then it’s a whole ‘nuther (ping-pong) ball game.
Stephen Harper has taken some flack for describing Israel’s response to the Hezbollah as “measured“. I’ve also seen the word “proportional” bandied about.
I’m forced to — reluctantly — side with our PM: Israel’s response has been measured, and in a unexpected way it is also proportional, and that’s the problem. Let me explain.
Israel and its IDF had every reason to respond to the kidnappings and rocket bombardment with an uncompromising and ferocious massed counter-attack. That it didn’t is the very definition of “measured”.
Instead, Israel took the aerial superiority route and employed various standoff munitions to target Hezbollah’s positions and supply chain. The Americans had already refined this technique in Iraq, with equally disastrous results, borne in the main by the civilian population.
So what we’re left with is two opposing forces, lobbing weapons back and forth over the Blue Line. In this sense alone, Israel’s response is proportional. I think this parallel leads world opinion toward the notion that both parties are similarly aggrieved.
But the power of Israel’s weaponry is completely out of proportion with the unguided rockets that are flung southward. So now Israel takes on the — not unfamiliar — role of the regional bully, driving world opinion toward a censure of the “oppressor” nation.
I’m led to believe that the only way Israel could have defended herself from both the rockets and the frowns of world opinion would have been through a very costly infantry-led house-by-house purging of the Hezbollah militia. The Lebanese army would then have had to move in, perhaps with international assistance, to restore order as the Israelis withdrew.
Okay, that last paragraph was a real work of fantasy. Apparently my harebrained ideas are just as harebrained as those of others.
These are some well-written articles that helped me better understand the situation (free registration required in some cases):