This article by William K. Black on the complete failure of the Obama administration to punish those responsible for the financial fraud that led to the collapse of the housing market is essential reading. The contrast with the 1987 savings and loan crisis is even more damning.

"The Obama administration’s record of prosecuting elite financial frauds is worse than the Bush administration’s record, which is a very large statement. This fact is demonstrated by a November report by Syracuse University’s Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), “Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Institution Fraud Continue to Fall.” The truth is that neither administration has prosecuted any elite CEO for the epidemic of mortgage fraud that drove the ongoing crisis, in contrast to over 1,000 elite felony convictions arising from the Saving & Loan debacle in the 1980s. Yet today's ongoing crisis caused losses more than 70 times greater than the S&L debacle, and the amount of elite fraud driving this crisis is also vastly greater. Bank CEOs leading what I call "accounting control frauds” now do so with impunity. They become wealthy through fraud, and even if they are sued civilly they almost invariably walk away wealthy with the proceeds."

I thought Paul Krugman's critique of the Charles Murray book was dead on. Krguman sees an attempt of the right to switch the debate from economics, which have essentially gutted the prospects of the working class, to a fictional crisis of morality, and then to shift blame for the decline of morality on liberals, the Sixties, and the host of usual suspects.

I am interested to see how the Murray attempt to change the terms of debate plays out in this political year. First the Tea Party discovered an intense love of limited government and fiscal conservatism which had, astoundingly, somehow remained dormant during the profligate Bush years. For a time, the cultural war was eclipsed by the Tea party's clothing of a kernel of race war against what they believed Obama represented within the rethoric of orginalism. Sure, there was still the Palinesque language of "real America" but it was linked much more to questions of government power more than to critiques of morality.

Now Occupy has changed the debate quite thoroughly to deep questions on the distribution of wealth, with indications that the spring is bringing continued energy and growth in this way. The Tea Party wing of the Republican party seems to have lost some direction as it sows its damage internally.

But what to do when the attention turns back out with what Murray is sketching as a ravaged "real America". The more he details the decline, no matter what the supposed source, the less the "real America" language resonates and contrasts with everybody else. If the real Americans are so easily made unreal, what does this mean? Palin's own family is a case in point, where teen pregnancy and out of wedlock birth were only rendered moot in economic impact by Palin's own celebrity status and instant wealth. What is a demagogue to do?

I was speaking with my night students about the sad passing of Angel Flores, a great conjunto accordionist. Since my guess is that not many of them ran to look up old footage of him playing, I am putting some here:

Suffolk is weighing whether to pass a law in the schools to prevent students from wearing clothes ""that [are] not in keeping with a student's gender"

"Board Vice Chairwoman Thelma Hinton, who initiated the dress code discussion, said Wednesday that she's pleased with the superintendent's proposal.

"You can be whatever you want to be," she said, "but as long as I'm on the board, I'm about safety."

Hinton mentioned reports from last summer that boys who wore feminine clothing had to use a faculty restroom because they felt threatened by their peers. She doesn't know the motivation behind their dress, "but when it becomes a safety issue, how far do you go with freedom of expression?""

Right, let's not get carried with this "freedom of expression" foolishness in the schools, what good could that possibly do?

Oh yes, safety is paramont. No state understands this better than freedom-embracing Virginia, which is lifting the ever-so stifling ban on buying more than one handgun a month.

It is plain to see that the issues have merged. To buy more than one gun a month while wearing clothes not in keeping with one's gender-- this is something the fine people of this state need to consider very, very carefully.

We had such a warm winter that whales are congregating off Virginia Beach.

Good news from Texas is that Cristina Ballí is the new executive director of Texas Folklife. She used to be the head of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center in San Benito, among other positions, so this is a positive sign that there will be a strong advocate for conjunto in the organization. Kind of amazingly, this is the first director who is fluent in Spanish.

Over at the Reyes Forum, which is the central discussion board about Conjunto music, one of the main members welcomed her and then immediately asked "Now that you are the director please try to get a soundman that has experience with the genre of Tejano/Conjunto because last year [at the Big Squeeze accordion contest in Austin] many of the students and artist were having major issues with the sound."

It will be nice that someone who gets it is now in charge.

One of the bright spots in Hampton Roads, if not in the universe, is Grand Mart, a large and lovable grocery store which sells half Korean and half Latino, largely Mexican, food. The store here opened right when we came back here from Korea, right next to the college in fact. I felt like it was a moment of destiny since I was really in despair about good food options. Though there is a little Vietnamese run store on Virginia Beach Blvd which has a decent selection. Grand Mart is a Korean chain, I know there is one in Alexandria also, and I think it was probably the same Grand Mart we shopped at in Sinchon, but perhaps not.

Anyway, it is a source of true happiness in life. If you need to get fresh nopales and octopus in one stop this is the place. The sheer variety of vegetables is astonishing, and even more so in this area where large stretches of Norfolk are food deserts and where the grocery stores that do exist seem to be filled with a lot of stuff that is not exactly food--what Michael Pollen called "edible foodlike items." (one of the worthwhile things out of this book, which I have now saved you the trouble of reading). They have vegetables you can rarely find, like my current favorite green, yu choy. And they sell fish you rarely see, like parrot fish. I didn't even know people ate parrot fish, I thought it was just a staple of coral reefs.

Anyway, I am waxing rhaposdic for a couple of reasons. I just secured a new beeyard out in Suffolk at a Korean organic farm that sells produce to Grand Mart. I am, as you might imagine, thrilled at this opportunity to get organic nectar from a variety of sources. The year has been so warm the Japanese apricot trees were already blooming when I was down there this past weekend. I am going to move some bees down there sometime in the next week or so.

The other reason I was thinking of Grand Mart is because I had lunch there the other day, as I am resolved to do as often as possible now since you can eat high quality Korean for cheap. (You can get excellent Korean elsewhere around here at Norfolk Garden, but it isn't cheap) There is a little restaurant in the back which sells Korean and Latino food. There are two different registers and two different sides for the foods. The people (speaking either Spanish or Korean) make the food standing next to each other in the open kitchen. It is an interesting arrangement reflecting exactly the whole spirit of Grand Mart. Everybody eating there was either Latino or Asian.

I was amused when the large group of Spanish speaking men there for lunch were thinking about what to get, which was either the chicken, rice, and beans special or the "plato Chino." They opted for the chicken, I went "plato Chino."

A couple of things I have written are now up online.

One is an article on handmade strings, which was the cover story in the new Old Time Herald magazine. That was an interesting story to write, not least in learning how gut strings are made. Speaking of upright basses as we just were, I'll quote the maker of gut bass strings I spoke to: "a lot of animals have to die to make a set of bass strings." I use steel.

The other piece is about the legality of Newt's screwy plan for a moon colony, on the History News Network. I was told this piece was "bizarre" but it seemed pretty straightforward to me. At least as straightforward as a lunar colony.

[As I wrote this last sentence I just heard five gunshots. I love Norfolk. But why fix the problems here when we can colonize the moon?]

a year ago I had the astounding luck to find an upright bass at a local auction and picked it up for only 80 bucks. It did need some significant repairs, but turned out to be a carved German bass of the same make Charles Mingus played. Which is to say it is worth more than 80 bucks...

Now I have it out of the shop after a year's worth of work, much of which I swapped for (a lot!) of honey. Now all that stands between me and "the Haitian Fight Song," is just some practice.

I've been communicating with some interesting people in Texas involved with Conjunto music and was amazed to find out that this person's mother and grandfather were recorded by John Lomax during his field recording trip through Sugarland in 1939. Most of the recordings are from "San Dimas el Buen Ladron" (Passion Play about the Good Thief). Though here is a courting song called "Yo ya me voy" or "I'm Going Your Way."

This quote in this Sunday Times article which caught my eye, if only for the utter tone deafness of Apple's executives. They are happy to reap enormous profits but unwilling to shape their manufacturing structure in a way that might aid American workers or the overall U.S. economy.

Anyway, the quote is:

"We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

The article notes:

"As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.

Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings. "

Ok, so none of this is very surprising, even if it is appalling and indicative of the wrongheaded approach of the 1%, whether residing in Wall Street or Silicon Valley, or, gee, in Evansville, Indiana. The lack of care for an impact on local communities essentially makes them no different than other major corporations, of course. Then again, few corporations pretend to be as alternative or countercultural as Apple. It is a deft trick.

If efficiency and profit is indeed its only goal (if you will, "making the best product possible") then Apple should feel fine about choosing profits over community. But Apple at least should be forthright that this is a choice, not something forced exclusively by inexorable market pressures. If the profit differences are small in the end (as the Times article details) even if the pace of change might be a bit slower, is it worth helping to eviscerate the U.S. economies and with it lives and communities around the country?

Community building is not sleek and cool, and it is not efficient. Democracy is not efficient either. American democracy is in fact designed to be inefficient as possible (to its detriment, at times). But community and democracy (as well as health, environmental, and safety standards) are worth investing time, energy, and work in to improve.

Autocracy, on the other hand, is much more efficient. Capitalism operating in an autocratic system can and does achieve that peak efficiency so treasured by Steve Jobs. It does render Apple's old 1984 commercial in an ironic light, however.

I happened to read this article in conjunction with this thorough and quite persuasive post from Frank Pasquale on Balkinization, which details realities at the Chinese iphone factories with consideration of the workers as "animals" to the life and conditions in the Foxconn factory, which he draws from this piece on This American Life (which is, I have now discovered after clicking through, much less annoying to read than to have to hear, though still cloying). He links through to a lot of interesting things, including this test you can take to guage your current "slavery footprint."

Pasquale writes:

"The question for a future economics (and morals) is how to set a baseline "social minimum" for workers in an utterly precarious and unpredictable work environment.

We have the resources to do this. There have been enormous gains in productivity over the past few decades. But the gains are going disproportionately to those at the very top. In the last economic expansion, the top 1 percent of U.S. households captured two-thirds of income gains. Yes, that's 67% going to the top 1%. During the expansion, "the inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households grew more than ten times faster than the income of the bottom 90 percent of households." The thought that the gains from automation will be shared equally among social classes is about as quaint as this personal robot envisioned in 1961.

Now I'm sure that, among that top 1%, there were some incredibly hard-working geniuses. Maybe some produced productivity gains that were actually worth 200 times more than what the average member of the bottom 99% contributed. But power drives economic outcomes at least as often as productivity. Being able to slash all your workers' pay (or work them to exhaustion in an 110-degree warehouse [Amazon]) simply because there is high unemployment is not exactly a valuable skill. Any fool could improve the bottom line at "a highly profitable company" by "demanding large-scale concessions" from its employees."

From Jonathan Turley in the Washington Post, this is a welcome and concise reminder just how many of our freedoms have been sharply curtailed in the last decade, and the direct role the Obama administration has played in this process.

"Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”

And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.

Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free."

It has been six months since I posted anything, but I'vre had a good excuse. Two good excuses. I'll let the following picture do the talking. This was taken Jan 1, which saw a beautiful 70 degree day here in Norfolk:



For those of you keeping score, that is indeed two more Little Buddhas in the picture. They are, from left to right, Birch and Aura. Longtime readers of Nunal will of course recognize the original Little Buddha on the far left, hugging Wee Oscar and now quite grown.

The babies arrived in the summer and it has been survival mode around here since.

{personal note to future parents of twins: having two babies at one time is insane....}

There is no way here to realistically catch up what has been happening. And I promise I won't write some insufferable Adam Gopnik style book about the process either. We'll just call the last half year one of those lost horizons and move on. I'll be back on Nunal more reliably now.

I've been not posting much, but it has been a busy summer. (Of course I'll have nothing but time when the twins arrive...) This month I have really had the pleasure of engaging the two major aspects of my interests in history and music.

Currently I'm at a Society of Ethnomusicology NEH Institute at Wesleyan University for a couple of weeks. Since this is the epicenter of the study of ethnomusicology it is a huge honor to be here. The scale of the program both intellectually and in terms of infrastructure for the ensembles is really astounding and enviable.

The focus is on ethnomusicology and global culture, so it is pretty exactly in line with my interests, and it has been a lot of fun too. A truly astounding bunch of scholars here too, I am really pleased to have the opportunity to spend time with them and learn from them. Here are a few photos Wesleyan put up on its page.

Then of course my major interest is in American foreign relations, and I just got back to Wesleyan from another typically fascinating time at the annual SHAFR meeting. This year the very positive trend of greater temporal and topical diversity in the panels has continued.

I chaired a roundtable called “Bringing the Law Back In: New Approaches to the History of the U.S. in the World” where we discussed some new approaches and our new research. It was a nice opportunity for me talk about my new book, which I was happy to hear people have begun reading. I am getting a longer description of the roundtable together and when it is ready I will post it.

I was really saddened to find out that George 'Speedy' Krise died on June 9, 2011. He had a really moving memorial service today at a Baptist church in Chesapeake, and will be buried in Hinton, West Virginia, where he was born.

Speedy was 89 years old and his passing marks the end of an era in country music. I've known Speedy for about 6 years and have been visiting him in a nursing home since he had a stroke about a year ago. He was an incredibly nice guy and I am very sad that I can't spend more time with him.

Speedy was one of the true pioneers of the dobro in early country. He was one of those crucial sidemen in the classic bands who really invented the music and the playing styles. Speedy is credited with being the first the dobro player to record bluegrass during his stint playing in Carl Butler's band in 1950-51.

The music of Speedy's that most changed my own life was his groundbreaking playing on Molly O'Day's classic sessions for Columbia Records. That was an incredible band, with Skeets Williamson on fiddle, Speedy on dobro, Lynn Davis, on guitar, and Mac Wiseman on bass. All backing Molly's incredible voice.

I listened to "Lonely Mound of Clay" on the way to Speedy's memorial service and every part of that song is heartbreaking and perfect, from Speedy's intro and playing throughout to Molly's voice.



Speedy also performed for many years on radio stations like WJLS in Beckley, West Virginia and at the legendary WNOX in Knoxville throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Speedy was a songwriter of note with songs recorded by Roy Acuff, Carl Butler, Mac Wiseman, and Jim & Jesse among others. It was from singing on a demo of Speedy's songs that Carl Smith first came to the attention of Peer-Southern Music and Columbia, launching his career. Speedy continued to play and record music after moving to Akron, Ohio, notably with his good friend Glenn Lehman.

Speedy had a lot of stories about his long career. He remembers eating fried chicken with Little Jimmie Dickens when the news came on the radio about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He loved to play, sing, and talk about music until the very end, and after he couldn't play anymore he still sange. He even sang several songs at his 89th birthday party last month.

One of Speedy's lines that I remember most was "I always thought it wasn't country music if you don't play 'Maple on the Hill.'"

We'll miss you Speedy!

Somehow over a month has passed since I posted here. It's been a busy one, as they tend to be in the summertime. I wanted to post some pictures quickly before too too much time passes.

The usual start to the summer is the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio, and this was an especially important year since it was the 30th anniversary. This was certainly among the best I have attended in the six years I've been going.

here is a view of the always crowded dance floor.


I was in San Antonio for a long time and also had the opportunity to go to the Royal Palace ballroom for the daily dances. I forgot to take a picture, but I did remember to get one of Lerma's the legendary club on the west side that I usually describe as the CBGBs of conjunto music. The building it is in has been condemned so Lerma's is soon going to be gone forever.



I also had the opportunity to visit again the storied Macias bajo sexto shop, the Stradivarius of San Antonio. I am thinking of writing the history of the Macias bajo, which is a story that really needs to be told. Here is an image of George Macias, grandson of the founder, standing beneath two oil paintings of his grandfather and father. These paintings were made from some iconic photographs by a painter in Iraq hired by George's son, who is serving in the military.


And the most incredible experience I had this time was spending two days with Santiago Jimenez, Jr. listening to his and his father's music and to an array of stories that can only be captured fully in a book (hopefully a forthcoming one...)
Here is Santiago in his iconic pose, with an accordion recently painted expressly for El Chief:



It happens that this week I just had an article titled "Transmission of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music in the 21st century" published in the International Journal of Intangible Heritage (article downloadable for free here), so things have lined up fairly nicely.

I have a lot more to say about all of these experiences but will wait until there is some more time.

a friend of mine now in his second year of keeping bees, and in the process of starting to make splits of the hives he overwintered, writes "I'm sure at least one of them will die this winter after eating another 100lbs of sugar. By the way, do bees actually make surplus honey or is that a rumor made up by the National Association of Cane Sugar growers?"

Of course he is really just headed down the path of exponential growth, as most all beekeepers do to within a couple of years. I was up to 30 hives for a time (considered "sideliner" status) but have dropped back to a comfortable 15. Though I did split some hives this week and made three new ones.

I truly like that people I have have introduced to beekeeping have become obsessed. And really good beekeepers, too. One created a new beekeepers organization of a hundred plus people. An old friend of mine now has 40+ hives in SC and has swept the state fair prizes with honey and wax entries for the past few years. Obsession with bees, a good thing to spread!

I was an instructor at Madison Area Technical College before and, for a semester, after getting my doctorate. I never experienced any discrimination, but this history instructor did, and he just got $1.1 million for getting terminated after complaining.

Note to administrators who favor retaliation: Like, uh, firing people making discrimination claims who also happen to be educated and motivated enough to get a PhD but strapped enough to be teaching at a school like MATC-- not a good idea unless you plan to go to court. Especially in Wisconsin. Or at least, in pre-Walker-ite Wisconsin, who knows where things are headed nowadays.

I may not have been discriminated against at MATC, but like all highly exploited adjuncts, I was paid such a tiny amount of money per huge class that is appalling to recall: $1500 per semester class. That was only a bit more than a TA at UW got per month, but without the benefits. And at MATC.

For some reason I used to think that it mattered. All at the same time I taught at MATC, was a TA, and had a classified state job as well. I used to get home from MATC at 9 am, sleep a few hours, than do the other jobs until 2am. Living the dream.

That is a key part of the Big Lie foisted on history PhDs (actually, some of it is self-generated), which is that it is worth it to work for less than you'd earn doing virtually anything else in order to validate the decision to get a PhD. Neat trick, it has been spun into a continent-wide system of adjunct exploitation which is at the center of the massive expansion of higher education.

I was really struck by the choice of "Geronimo" as the code name for the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, and so I wrote a short piece called "Geronimo, Bin Laden, and U.S. Foreign Policy", which is now up on the History News Network. Let me know what you think!

Another article on understanding bin Laden's death in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy, "Osama bin Laden is gone, but US war in the Middle East is here to stay" by the always insightful Andrew Bacevich is worth reading too.

I've been working on a project documenting the visual and musical impacts of Latino (mostly Mexican) migration to the Southeast, and now my photographic collection called "Latinization of Southern Space and Place" is online, hosted by the University of Richmond. Go check it out.

I really like how the page was designed by Nathan Altice, it makes a huge difference to have a functional and dynamic webpage.

This is one of my favorite images, from Winston-Salem



Though this is probably my favorite

None of my students seemed to want to talk about anything related to the bin Laden capture other than the possibility that it hadn't actually happened. There was animated discussion about the likelihood of lies in this killing, but not much else. Why is that?

This made me start thinking about the unusual prominence of conspiracy theories in the news overall, which seems to have accelerated recently. These theories have always existed, of course, but it strikes me that the way they are discussed in the forefront of the news is something new.

So we have newspapers reporting on the idea of releasing bin Laden death photos while discussing how this might quell the voices of those spinning conspiracies. If nothing else, this shows the centrality of conspirators in shaping current politics. But why should we take conspiracy theorists seriously rather than just ignoring them? Why thrust them into the conversation of reasonable people? It is a constant requirement now for government to prove its legitimacy in all cases.

I asked one of my colleagues (an expert on colonial America) if he can think of a comparable situation. It is not as if conspiracy theories have not always found traction in the American hive-mind (he cited Hofstadter, as you might expect), but the fact that that self-serious news outlets report on conspiracies now as a matter of course is, frankly, a bit bizarre.

It is almost as if the conspiracy theorists are being given equal time. Some examples of this would be the Big Lies foisted by the Swift Boaters, the death panels, and the Birthers. Any stupid idea expressed or lie floated is treated now as something to be considered and disproven.

Yes, the fact that it is right wing conspiracies that always get a lot of play should not go unnoticed. The right has perfected the art of the smear and the Big Lie, and the effective spinning of conspiratorial floss into political gold. The media dutifully reports these claims.

But the big media reporting on Donald Trump's lines seriously is in fact as morally defensible as serious reporting on recent statements from Christian Identity adherents. The rantings of a fool are not inherently news.

Keep in mind that I don't believe what the government says in most cases, like any sensible person. But this does not require the creation of fantastical conspiracies.

Plenty of for-real ones exist, created in the same precincts on the right. The same people nowadays pushing conspiratorial readings of anything that deviates from their narrow political readings are most often the ones who ran real Constitution-endangering conspiracies like Iran-Contra, Bush v. Gore, or the Iraq War.

It is hard to sort out exactly how to respond to the killing of Osama bin Laden. That is an understatement.

I do believe it is a positive thing that this mass murderer is dead, and I am as impressed as anyone by the raid (and looking forward to Mark Bowden's book on the subject). But to have a real coherent, official "response" yet, no way.

Remember the Onion headline after 9-11 "HOLY FUCKING SHIT". That perfectly captured that uncapturable moment. But this moment is orders of magnitude less and besides relief this chapter is over, what it ultimately means is less than clear. When I heard last night my response was, appropriately, "whoah."

And certainly I don't have the immediately visceral response of any coherence. I have not been consumed with the relief, glee, or blood thirst that seems to be the more typical response. Running like a fool into the streets chanting and singing is actually inconceivable, is it not? More than a bit too similar to the crowds in those "other" countries chanting and singing in ecstasy when a murderous terrorist attack has been executed successfully. This clearly isn't V-J day. Ain't nobody coming home from the 3+ wars we are in at the moment.

The historian in me knows enough to keep my mouth shut for a time. The citizen in me, roughed up by the last decade, is realizing that this decidedly strange political moment requires a hell of a lot more temporal distance to fathom.

(Though let me pause to ask, what exactly did Obama mean with this line: "But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place."

Killing bin Laden showed that the United States can do anything it sets its mind to? Was the killing of this terrorist after only ten years really equal to creating the richest society in the history of the world (his first example)? Ending segregation (his second?) Or, picking a really low hanging fruit, getting men on the moon?

I think this line is intended in a few ways. It remind critics that Obama is not Carter, and this raid was emphatically not Desert One. And that Obama is not Bush. It is a subtle but vital dig--under Bush everything essentially fell apart, and the search for bin Laden was literally the prime example of any inability to accomplish this fundamental thing, whereas Obama is actually showing signs of being that mythical beast, a competent politician who gets things accomplished with relatively little showboating.)

The media machine on this story, in speed, detail, and roll out, is just astonishingly deft and totalizing.

My seeming inability to instantaneously get with the big celebration may come from the awareness of just how much has happened since 9-11.

It is unalterably clear that bin Laden being dead is not going to change the realities created by George W. Bush, creator of his own reality (recalling that surreal Karl Rove line which has its own Wikipedia entry under "reality based community").

Since the Afghanistan war has mutated into something having nothing to do with al Qaeda, and seemingly interminable, and the Iraq War was never about 9-11 and is supposedly over though actually not, what exactly should a response be to bin Laden's death? I don't know. What to make of the ongoing low-intensity warfare in Pakistan, the legality of which was rather rapidly shunted aside? Carl Levin's sabre rattling today asking very stern questions about what Pakistan knew is a sign where this new path to permanent, ever-morphing war might lead.

I'll end with a question rather than a response: who is now going to serve as the face for the daily Two Minute Hate?

I'm in San Antonio at the moment at a conference (presenting my work on the Tejano Conjunto Destvial en San Antonio) and also getting in as much new research and interviews on the subject as I can.

Oh, and eating a lot of Mexican food, too.

Yesterday I spent much of the day at the Macias bajo sexto shop, an institution in San Antonio and surely one of the most significant luthier shops in the United States, if one of the least known. I'll write about the experience in greater detail when I have some time to do it. I am simply pausing with my computer as I EAT lunch, then on to better thingts.

Today taking in many other locales and talking to people, all culminating tonight with the Conjunto Kingz de Flavio Longoria at legendary VFW Post 4700. Much more scheduled for tomorrow.

I was really thrilled to get a copy of my book in the mail the other day. It is not officially out yet but I guess this is the early printing. The press tells me it will be distributed within six weeks, right on time.

Of course I am really excited. It is hard to really capture what it feels like to have a book out after so long working on it. Better yet when people actually read it. Since it is coming out in paperback I have hopes that people will actually read it too. Not exactly going to be sold in airport bookstores, but this book sho8uld be interesting in lots of diverse ways my first one apparently might not have been (though, I must say, it was not bad!).

Of course the delay in distribution should not stop you from ordering it today on Amazon!

Actually, my book is already up in full on Google books, which is kind of amazing and ever-so slightly freaky.

I definitely can't complain--I've read a lot of new books on Google books as well as all manner of 19th works. I consider it a totally invaluable resource. Often if a book seems interesting enough from perusing it on Google I'll buy it but no way I could buy all of the books I used on the site. That is how it is supposed to work, of course, though I suspect it does not always.

Google books is a godsend for people toiling at institutions with terrible libraries, maybe the greatest single leveling force (and joining such pioneering sites as SSRN and the UW-Madison's FRUS site).

So, my book can be read for free there and it is hard to complain, especially if you believe in the free flow of information. I am certain that being on Google books increases exposure for books exponentially, especially academic titles.

So there is it, go buy several copies for your and your friends and read it in whatever form. Come on in, the water is warm.

Here is a typically sharp takedown (and historical contextualization) of Obama's war in Libya from Andrew Bacevich, whom I am glad to see will be speaking at the SHAFR conference this summer.

Essential things

My professor in college, N. Gordon Levin, used to require that our essays reflect the "essence of the essence of our thinking." This required focus and thought, to say the least.

This crystalline description is something I have continued to think about and use with my own students today when I describe what I want in their papers. I of course give Professor Levin credit.

(As long as I mentioned Professor Levin, I should note that he is a legendary professor who in addition to his influential work on Wilson, launched an incredible number of people into careers as historians. In the half century he has been teaching he also inspired who knows how many others who actually went on to get gainful employment in other fields. I meet people all the time who had his classes and were deeply influenced by them.)

Anyway, I put a section in one of my grade sheets that has different boxes to be marked for no essence, essence, pure essence, and essence of the essence. Few get to that highest realm, but it does happen. Most aspire to it, and it helps.

A cousin of mine married a guy she met in an ashram in India (an American) who had adopted the name Humkara. He says it means "sense of nonsense." I've been meaning to put a place on the grade sheet but haven't made that step yet.

I was thinking about all of these things when I saw that the Buddha had some thoughts on essence of the essence. This is no real surprise, but it is worth floating out there to place alongside Professor Levin's formulation:

"Those who mistake the unessential to be essential
and the essential to be unessential,
dwelling in wrong thoughts,
never arrive at the essential."

Its in the Dhammapada. You can hear it in the original Pali here.

maybe they should subpoena his emails

Glenn Greenwald:

"Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham yesterday both suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones, which triggered days of violence this week by angry Muslims in Afghanistan. Graham in particular -- using the "but" that is the hallmark of all enemies of the First Amendment -- said: "Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war."

This whole post is worth reading in its entirety, I am just excerpting his main points. Don't stop here, go read his elaborations of each.

"There are several points worth highlighting about all of this. First, it demonstrates how many people purport to believe in free speech but don't. The whole point of the First Amendment is that one is free to express the most marginalized, repellent, provocative and offensive ideas."
...

Second, this event demonstrates one of the most uncounted (though one of the most intended) costs of our posture of Endless War: the way it is exploited to endlessly erode core liberties.

...

Third, there is an extreme irony in Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham, of all people, suddenly worrying about actions that trigger anger and violence in the Muslim world. These two Senators, after all, have supported virtually every one of America's actions which have triggered vastly more anti-American anger, vengeance and violence in the Muslim world than anything Pastor Jones could dream of spawning -- from the attack on Iraq to the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan to blind support for Israel to the ongoing camp at Guantanamo."

This is a surprising fact given the growth in all sectors of the economy and population:

"Today’s nationwide supply of movable honeybee hives, at 2 million hives or somewhat more, is only half what it was in the mid-1940s, says Eric Mader of the Xerces Society, an insect-focused wildlife conservation group in Portland, Ore. Yet the U.S. acreage needing pollination roughly doubled during the same time."

My sense is that despite the size of the commercial beekeepers with thousands of hives, there aren't that many of them. I spoke with one in Santa Barbara (600 hives) and he said he basically knew all of the major beekeepers in California since it was a surprisingly small group.

I'm glad to see that there is still attention being given to the crisis of the bees this spring, like in this article about experiments with blue orchard bees.

I liked this description of the situation of pollinating bees in the California almond crops: "like other migrant farmworkers, honeybees face risks from exposure to pesticides as well as from the stress of a nomadic life."

While encouraging natural pollinators (and the article has a decent list of possibilities at the end, mostly different kinds of solitary bees) I think the key is to directly and honestly address the issues facing beekeepers and to accept the need to transform the system in sustainable ways. This means smaller yields and more work, but also creating a system that is likely to last rather than to fail spectacularly.

As we've told a few people already, the big news around here is that we are expecting twins. We found out today that it will be a boy and a girl. We are definitely stoked.

Lark, who has just recently found out herself, is now insisting that we call her "Big Sister" rather than Lark.

It is fairly impossible to wrap my mind around completely, especially in terms of the exponentiality involved, but it is an impossibility of lesser intensity than the level that was involved in having Lark. It will be a little while until they arrive, which is good as I madly scramble to get things together in these parts.

Alas, we aren't going to be somewhere interesting during the first year of these kids' lives, as we were in Seoul for Lark. That also means it is necessary to reconfigure things at home rather than simply split the country and worry about it later on. It will also mean we won't be able to simply put the babies in a stroller and walk a few blocks to a sashimi joint serving fresh flounder and nakji. Oh benighted fate!

At least my need to have a lot of banjos of all sizes and descriptions suddenly makes real, practical sense. Each one of these kids is going to need their own instrument for the Colonel's Finest Banjo Orchestra we roll out in a few years time.

the bizarre answer to the central question of the day: "why is no one in jail for defrauding the country?" is that someone is, just a small fry who probably did nothing wrong. It is redundant to note that the CEO crooks who created the mess have no fear whtasoever of anything other than a slap on the wrist.

If you have any inkling or thought that our political and legal system is not wildly out of control, you must read this absolutely astonishing and disgusting story from the NYTimes today. It is about the federal government going over a small fry who supposedly committed mortgage fraud while it continues to ignore the actual crooks who destroyed the financial and mortgage systems.

"On Valentine’s Day, the elder Mr. Engle said, his son had entered a minimum-security prison in Beaver, W.Va., to begin serving a 21-month sentence for mortgage fraud. He then proceeded to tell me the tale of how federal agents nabbed his son — a tale he backed up with reams of documents and records that suggest, if nothing else, that when the federal government is truly motivated, there is no mountain it won’t move to prosecute someone it wants to nail. And it was definitely motivated to nail Charlie Engle.

Mr. Engle’s is a tale worth telling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its punch line. Was Mr. Engle convicted of running a crooked subprime company? Was he a mortgage broker who trafficked in predatory loans? A Wall Street huckster who sold toxic assets?

No. Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the “mortgage fraud” for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble."

The story gets more insane as you read it, and the punchline at the end would be funny if it wasn't such a clear sign that this country is politically and morally bankrupt in addition to the financial bankruptcy.

Bill Cronon is definitely one of the last historians at the University of Wisconsin (where I went to grad school) that I would think of as a radical or even as very political. Even his masterwork Nature's Metropolis, which I happen to be using this semester in my 19th century America class, is marred by an inattention to politics (though still a very fine book, a real model of the craft in many other respects).

I thought Cronon's op-ed in the NYTimes the other day was actually quite moderate and reasoned, it sounded exactly like him.

But he has gone and launched a shit-storm by simply being a reasonable fellow in an increasingly unreasonable state in a crazied time. The Republican party in Wisconsin is now seeking his emails through the open records law. What triggered the attempt to intimidate Cronon came from his excellent report on the rightwing consipiracy behind the recent anti-Union push (which is essential reading, here).
he concludes:

"What you’ll quickly learn even from reading these few documents is that ALEC is an organization that has been doing very important political work in the United States for the past forty years with remarkably little public or journalistic scrutiny. I’m posting this long note in the conviction that it’s time to start paying more attention. History is being made here, and future historians need people today to assemble the documents they’ll eventually need to write this story. Much more important, citizens today may wish to access these same documents to be well informed about important political decisions being made in our own time during the frequent meetings that ALEC organizes between Republican legislators and representatives of many of the wealthiest corporations in the United States.

I want to add a word of caution here at the end. In posting this study guide, I do not want to suggest that I think it is illegitimate in a democracy for citizens who share political convictions to gather for the purpose of sharing ideas or creating strategies to pursue their shared goals. The right to assemble, form alliances, share resources, and pursue common ends is crucial to any vision of democracy I know. (That’s one reason I’m appalled at Governor Walker’s ALEC-supported efforts to shut down public employee unions in Wisconsin, even though I have never belonged to one of those unions, probably never will, and have sometimes been quite critical of their tactics and strategies.) I’m not suggesting that ALEC, its members, or its allies are illegitimate, corrupt, or illegal. If money were changing hands to buy votes, that would be a different thing, but I don’t believe that’s mainly what’s going on here. Americans who belong to ALEC do so because they genuinely believe in the causes it promotes, not because they’re buying or selling votes.

This is yet another example, in other words, of the impressive and highly skillful ways that conservatives have built very carefully thought-out institutions to advocate for their interests over the past half century. Although there may be analogous structures at the other end of the political spectrum, they’re frequently not nearly so well coordinated or so disciplined in the ways they pursue their goals. "

I actually think that all public records should be accessible (agreeing with Jack Shafer in this regard) but I also think that going after a college professor is clearly the kind of assault on free thinking that it is a Republican hallmark.

Sure, professors at public universities are public employees, which is why it is so easy to find out their pay. (Oddly, I searched for a young historian recently on google and the very first thing that came up about her, before even her faculty page, was a webpage detailing her salary at a public university).

But anyone who thinks that public university professors are to be treated the same as politicians or as employees like civil servants is, frankly, an idiot and a danger.

Politicians are servants, and there is nothing they do that should be kept from public view. They should have nothing to hide since they serve entirely at our pleasure and to reflect our interests. Yes, this is in theory. The reality is they are self-interested, vainglorious, and very often corrupt. Since they in fact have plenty they wish to hide, we need robust open records laws to compel their attentiveness to the public good.

Clearly too, state bureaucrats can't be allowed to abuse their positions by taking state time for private or political acts. If they are clocked in, they should be doing the public's work, and if not they they can of course do whatever they want.

I was once a civil servant in the great state of Wisconsin (Technical Services Assistant-Senior was my title) and I can say that every single second of every single dayI was on the clock I had no thought but public service. Or something like that.

But professors are different and have to be held to different standards. Most importantly, there is the idea of academic freedom. It is absolute and must not be endangered because of currrent politics. Academics should be able to say, think and communicate whatever they want and not have the newly elected crooks go on a crusade (or in the case of Cronon, the state party hacks).

Furthermore, this position cannot be said to be a regular workplace concept. When does a professor's workday end, for example, and where does the work take place? (and yes, I am well aware that university professors who teach 2 classes max and have TAs to do all the real work can't actually be said to be working, but that is a different issue).

If a professor is constantly grappling with issues and ideas and communicating same, than the limits on their workplace and their use of essentially free resources like email should not be subject to the same scrutiny as the workaday accounts of Jane Q. Publicemployee.

I am glad, though, that the Republicans picked a fight with Cronon. He ain't no Bill Ayers-like target. Cronon is brilliant as he is calm, and he is as prominent as they come among true academic historians. He is Jimmy Stewart, and he'll be hard to demonize and harder to silence.

Jack Balkin has a superb and disturbing consideration of the ways Obama's war on terror policies are a continuation of Bush's second term policies, and on the related significance of the torture of Private Manning.

"My view, as I expressed to Charlie Savage in that interview, is that Obama has played the same role with respect to the National Surveillance State that Eisenhower played with respect to the New Deal and the administrative state, and Nixon played with respect to the Great Society and the welfare state. Each President established a bi-partisan consensus and gave bi-partisan legitimation to certain features of national state building.

After the Obama presidency, opponents of a vigorous national surveillance state will be outliers in American politics; they will have no home in either major political party. Their views will be, to use one of my favorite theoretical terms, "off the wall."
...

Yet, one might hope that the Obama version of the National Surveillance State might turn out to be more benign and friendly to civil liberties than the Bush/Cheney version. To a certain extent this is true, but not by as much as you might think. On several fronts, Obama has continued Bush era policies of preventive detention, surveillance, and protection of state secrets. And in other respects, he has gone further....

What the Manning episode demonstrates, however, is that Obama has little interest in spending political capital in reining in many of the excesses of the National Surveillance State. Quite the contrary: he, like future Presidents, will sincerely believe that he needs every ounce of discretion he can get to protect the nation's security. Therefore, if the DOD informs him that we need to make an example of Bradley Manning so there will be no future leaks of sensitive information by disgruntled government employees, then this is a good and proper thing to do. Legal and constitutional scruples against harsh treatment of Manning are, to quote Attorney General Gonzales, "quaint;" entirely inappropriate in the dangerous times in which we live.

In July 2009, I explained that we were witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimation of the National Surveillance State, in which the President's power to detain, surveil, and punish at his discretion would be greatly expanded. In the treatment of Bradley Manning, we can see a glimmer of what this will mean in practice. Unless there is a public outcry, we have no guarantee that this exceptional incident will prove truly exceptional. After all, if a liberal Democratic President is willing to look the other way in this case, what can we expect of future presidents of either party?"

Current events definitely means that sometimes being a historian gets as demoralizing as it does a whole lot easier. Virtually everything on the front page reflects what we are covering in my survey class.

This is not actually a good thing, pedagogical advantages aside.

Take, for example, the financial crisis and the recession. As a historian teaching about the Great Depression this week (causes, responses, legacies, and so on) it is certainly helpful to have this crystalline example of structural inadequacies, greed, bad policy, criminality, incompetent leadership, and suffering to show as a resonant endpoint to all that flourished back in the 1920s and after.

It also rather effectively counters residual progressive historical sensibilities (not to be conflated with the current (mis)usage of the term "progressive"), as things really have not improved at all by so very many measures.

The same goes for the issues of unionism, nuclear safety, American liberal-capitalist internationalism, and on down the line. The disintegration of Detroit is alone something so sublimely wrought that it would be hard to invent it as a historical example.

I emphasize change and complexity over both space and time in my history classes, but just as useful can be the fusion of change and continuity. Anything that helps break the cycle of both linear and progressive history.

In this regard, I've found Kurt Spellmeyer's Buddha at the Apocalypse: Awakening from a Culture of Destruction an interesting take on the notion of progressive change. In it he counters linear habits of mind in some creative ways, especially by tracing the way varieties of apocalyptic thought have influenced all manner of thinking and action. For one think, it breeds what he calls "the mind-set of disposability" rooted in

"free market economics, technology gone wild, and religious fundamentalism-- all three keep our eyes fixed hypnotically on the future as we imagine it. But this habit could be our fatal flaw. Counting on the future reassures because it lets us disconnect from a world of change that will always be unpredictable."

I don't think there is any question that the wrongheaded involvement in the Libyan uprising has been handled unconstitutionally. But then again, it is perfectly in line behind all of the other unconstitutional wars, large and small, we have waged since 1950.

I am not alone in this thinking, of course, and Michael Ramsey at Opinio Juris has a nice concise discussion of the constitutionally of U.S. war in Libya. He concludes:

"Perhaps, though, the President also has power to declare war (after all, the Constitution expressly says only that Congress has it, not that the President doesn’t, and it could be part of the President’s power as commander-in-chief). Returning to Hamilton, a key passage in his Federalist 32 argued that often constitutional power could be held concurrently by different entities. But, he continued, an exclusive grant of power would arise where concurrent power would be “totally contradictory and repugnant” – that is, when one branch’s exercise of a power would wholly undermine an express grant to another branch. Hamilton didn’t give the example of declaring war here, but it fits his model: war, once launched, cannot be undone without consequences. If Congress’ power is to decide when war should begin, it follows that the President cannot independently launch attacks.

And the Constitution’s drafters expressly described the clause as designed to exclude presidential war-initiation power. James Wilson told the Pennsylvania ratifying convention: “This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large.”

As a result, the founding generation’s views are clear and have firm basis in the Constitution’s text: the declare war clause gives Congress the exclusive power to decide when war should be “declared” – meaning begun by “word or action.” In Libya, President Obama has “declared” a war – a limited one, to be sure, but still a war by 18th century definitions – without congressional approval. That contravenes both the Constitution’s text and the founding era’s consensus understanding."

Jack Goldsmith has a different view and, characteristically, he states it with clarity. He lists the various similar unilateral military actions, beside Korea and Kosovo, he lists Haiti (2004), Bosnia (1995), Haiti (1994), Somalia (1992), Panama (1989), Libya (1986), Lebanon (1982), and Iran (1980), then notes

"Critics will claim that a pattern of consistently violating the Constitution cannot remedy the illegality of these actions. But that is not the right way to view this pattern. An important principle of constitutional law—especially when the allocation of power between the branches is at issue—is that constitutional meaning gets liquidated by constitutional practice."

He concludes that:

"It does not appear that President Obama gave the issue of domestic political support much thought when he turned on a dime last week. This is an astonishing oversight, if it was that, from a man who campaigned on the need for retrenchment and prudence in the use of U.S. military force."

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't G.W. Bush run on a similar claim in 2000, back in his anti-Wilsonian days? Power gets awfully compelling when you have the levers in your hands.

If you have some time to kill (and you have institutional access to the database, since it is behind a wall, you can read my new article in the Journal of American Culture on applying sustainability theory to conjunto music here.

If you don't have access you can hear me talk about this in San Antonio next month for free. Or you can just email me.

[It does get a bit tiresome to post every couple of months while proffering up a litany of excuses, does it not?]

A month of traveling a lot on the weekends and staying on top of my classes during the week (and of course all while swept up in the perpetual whirlwind that is Miss Lark) meant that something had to give, so unfortunately it was Nunal.

I've also been to some fun places which has made blogging less of an option at the time. I went to San Francisco courtesy of the ever-renewable Bad Co. Films Fellowship Desk. While out there I got to see Santiago Jimenez, Jr. play at the 50th Anniversary celebration for Arhoolie Records. It's a nice thing to celebrate for all sorts of reasons, and especially since Chris Strachwitz's musical endeavors definitely changed my life (and all for better too).

From there in short order to New Orleans, Washington, DC, and Chicago, all of which were great fun and none of which will get any real attention here.

Though here are a few pictures of Lark dancing in Audubon Park in New Orleans. Behind her is the island dedicated to Skye's dad, Mims Ochsner.




and then all of us in the same spot once Lark would stand sort-of still:



Now I am back here in time to spend weekends getting the bees squared away for the spring nectar flow. Fortunately I lost no colonies over the winter (though I have heard my bees in Pungo are not booming, I hope to get out there this week. I do have several strong hives that seem like they will do well this year. Optimism triumphs over experience with bees this time of year, something about the bloom that does it...

gone but not forgotten

I haven't had a chance to post on Nunal, but will get around to updating things around here when I have a chance in the next few days.

But I did want to note the passing of my dog of ten years, Mother Maybelle. She was striken with massive cancer and went very quickly over the past week. Here is a picture of her in happier days:

From Frank Pasquale at Balkinization, "Why should a country that can't even raise taxes on its richest citizens think it can keep its communications secure? Where's the commitment of resources?"

and this incisive statement:

"Neoliberal policy that always prioritizes freedom over security, liberty over equality, invites the kind of social disintegration of which Wikileaks is a symptom. The Wikileaks cables reveal the ugly bargains needed to sustain a global dream of "spontaneous order" generated by markets. Now a state that has promoted out-of-control information flows finds itself undermined by their reckless uses, and ever less capable of combatting the problem because of the unconstrained capital flows it has also championed. Both the process and the substance of the Wikileaks affair can be embedded in a larger tragic narrative of the unintended consequences of the neoliberal project for its chief exponent."

Can Julian Assange be extradited to the US, assuming he is caught? Roger Alford takes a look and thinks it will be tricky.

I personally think it will be a really interesting case when the political offense exception gets invoked. This is something I wrote about fairly extensively in my book.

It seems to me that Assange'as acts are going to trigger a discussion about whether they can be seen as "purely political" offenses or simply political offenses compounded by other crimes. The final decision makes an enormous difference.

This (un)helpfully, but more interestingly, in turn produces a series of political decisions masquerading at times as judicial decisions. This should be fascinating to watch, in other words. (The fact that Assange is claiming to be prepared to release some really juicy stuff (or a "poison pill") if he gets pinched is additionally intriguing)

I do wonder why Assange chose to got to England to hide rather than, say a country that has no extradition treaty with the US like Afghanistan. There must be a place or two to hide there.

Yessir, there are all sorts of reasons to go hide out in extradition-free Afghanistan, starting with the fact that the US inability to find wanted fugitives there is, uh, something of a major policy issue.

Lloyd Gardner has some worthwhile thoughts on the Wikileaks from a historians point of view. Reading Other People's Mail with Wikileaks

Some of the most cutting perspective on the U.S. response to Wikileaks that I've seen comes from Glenn Greenwald in his typically and relentlessly oceanic style. It is worth just going to read his page in full, but a couple of examples:

I like his comparison of Joseph Lieberman's campaign and the campaign in China to prevent any access to the documents:

"That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts by a U.S. Senator in quite some time. Josh Marshall wrote yesterday: "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government." That's true of all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests and easily manipulated by those in political power. That's precisely the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone call to Amazon (in essence: Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that WikiLeaks site right away, right?). Amazon, of course, did what they were told.

Note that Lieberman here is desperate to prevent American citizens -- not The Terrorists -- from reading the WikiLeaks documents which shed light on what the U.S. Government is doing. His concern is domestic consumption. By his own account, he did this to "send a message to other companies that might host WikiLeaks" not to do so. No matter what you think of WikiLeaks, they have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime; Lieberman literally wants to dictate -- unilaterally -- what you can and cannot read on the Internet, to prevent Americans from accessing documents that much of the rest of the world is freely reading."

and his approach to the "The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics"

"Time's Joe Klein writes this about the WikiLeaks disclosures:

I am tremendously concernced [sic] about the puerile eruptions of Julian Assange. . . . If a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail because of a leaked cable, this entire, anarchic exercise in "freedom" stands as a human disaster. Assange is a criminal. He's the one who should be in jail.

Do you have that principle down? If "a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail" because of the WikiLeaks disclosure -- even a "single one" -- then the entire WikiLeaks enterprise is proven to be a "disaster" and "Assange is a criminal" who "should be in jail." That's quite a rigorous moral standard. So let's apply it elsewhere:

What about the most destructive "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" the planet has known for at least a generation: the "human disaster" known as the attack on Iraq, which Klein supported? That didn't result in the imprisonment of "a single foreign national," but rather the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent human beings, the displacement of millions more, and the destruction of a country of 26 million people. Are those who supported that "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" -- or at least those responsible for its execution -- also "criminals who should be in jail"?

How about the multiple journalists and other human beings whom the U.S. Government imprisoned (and continues to imprison) for years without charges -- and tortured -- including many whom the Government knew were completely innocent, while Klein assured the world that wasn't happening? How about those responsible for the war in Afghanistan (which Klein supports) with its checkpoint shootings of an "amazing number" of innocent Afghans and civilian slaughtering air strikes, or the use of cluster bombs in Yemen, or the civilian killing drones in Pakistan? Are those responsible for the sky-high corpses of innocent people from these actions also "criminals who should be in jail"?

I'm not singling out Klein here; his commentary is merely illustrative of what I'm finding truly stunning about the increasingly bloodthirsty two-minute hate session aimed at Julian Assange, also known as the new Osama bin Laden. The ringleaders of this hate ritual are advocates of -- and in some cases directly responsible for -- the world's deadliest and most lawless actions of the last decade. And they're demanding Assange's imprisonment, or his blood, in service of a Government that has perpetrated all of these abuses and, more so, to preserve a Wall of Secrecy which has enabled them. "

Sometimes it is nice when contemporary issues make classrooms discussions suddenly and intensely relevant. (True, it helps that this semester I'm teaching classes on globalization, US empire, and Korea, which are ever-giving wells of contemporary focus).

This week there is an embarrassment of riches from the sudden and quite bizarre emphasis on exceptionalism on the right (and critiqued from the middle) and of course most of all with the State dept. cable leaks, as well as the net neutrality issue, North Korea, and on and on. Too bad the semester is ending (well, in this sense anyway).

My upper level students have been excited about the diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, and any time students get excited about primary documents this is a good thing. The fact that my globalization and empire class just finished a couple of weeks on cyberlaw and international relations (including discussion of Goldsmith and Wu) has made this whole affair even more timely (as has Eurore's antitrust assault on Google.)

Despite the public sector froth and posturing on all sides, the cables don't seem to me like much more than a glancing first pass at contemporary diplomacy and policymaking, but the accessibility and relative illegality of the material is enough to garner some notice for diplomatic history at least. But unfortunately the fact is that hundreds of thousands of documents are being reduced to bullet-point lists of the most salacious tidbits. Historians tend to deal more than in tidbits (though those discoveries of snarky critique in diplomatic correspondence do help enliven some archival time).

A friend of mine has a beach house in Malibu. (Yes, having a beach house in Malibu is every bit as incredible as you would think. Having a friend with one ain't bad). This house is not far from the Malibu point. Sometimes it is hard to fathom that it actually exists.

Anyway, Lark and I went out there to see him and so she could play with his kids when we were in California a week ago. The ocean was too cold to go in, but it is still about the most beautiful place in the world. It actually doesn't even look real, does it?



This picture is almost a cartoon. Lark's expression is pretty hilarious, if uncharacteristic.

Sorry, I've been just flat out too busy to write on Nunal for the past six weeks between staying on top of my classes during the week and then going away every weekend somewhere farflung and fascinating.

My life recently has been a rotating and really incredibly interesting series of academic conferences and music festivals encompassing a cross section of everything that makes this country interesting and also happily included some of the very best places to eat that I can think of.

The places were Nashville (for the American Folklore Society meeting), San Benito, Texas (Narciso Martinez Festival), Lafayatte Louisiana (the unparalleled Blackpot which I am finally going to write about), Los Angeles (the utterly fascinating Southwestern Law School Extraterritoriality Symposium), and Philadelphia (American Society of Legal History meeting) just this past weekend.

(And there there was also one weekend at my old friend's son's bar mitzvah in LA. It is more than a bit odd when your friend's kid already is old enough to have a bar mitzvah).

At these places I've been presenting my work on extraterritoriality, extradition, and Conjunto music, or doing new research on my sustainable music project, so everything is South Texas related even if it is all quite different. It's been both very instructive and an incredible amount of fun.

The real pleasure has been the opportunity just to be around so many accomplished scholars and musicians. Expertise and mastery in any field is always a pleasure to be around, and I feel like I've learned more in the past couple of months than in any span I can think of recently.

I wouldn't complain if the whole year was this intense, though it would be tough to survive.

I have had a lot of different experiences everywhere, worth detailing here at Nunal, and some good pictures to post, maybe I'll get some time over the Thanksgiving break.

And truly nothing beats coming home to Skye and Lark. The only bad part about travelling is being away from them.

Here is Miss Lark in full fall splendor today:

It won't be out to the spring, but here is the cover for my forthcoming book. I am very much looking forward to its release, to say the least.

When you keep bees, the top questions tend to be: Do you get stung alot? Are your hives collapsing? Do you have honey for sale? and "What about killer bees?"

Africanized bees have been found officially in Georgia after a man was killed by a disturbed hive he knocked over accidentally with a bulldozer.

This is a big concern for beekeepers outside of Georgia because the south Georgia beekeepers supply most of the package bees in the southeast. This means that if beekeepers buy packages of bees they could potentially to very likely have Africanized strains. This is not good for beekeepers or for anyone else. These bees are extremely defensive and can be dangerous, especially in the places most beekeepers keep bees.

The Africanized bees have been spreading for sometime, check out this 2009 map of their progress (from the Georgia Beekeepers' site):


Africanized bees are so-called "killer bees." There is a lot of good information on the Georgia site (which hasn't been updated after this attack yet).

A beekeeper I know here in Virginia told me that when he was being certified to sell bees some of his hives had some Africanized strains which he had to eliminate before being certified. Generally the perception is that Virginia is too cold for them to last, but knowing how rapidly and successively the bees reproduce it is not surprisingly that some genetics have entered the stream here.

This is why there is such a strong emphasis on producing local queens and nucs. The key is strong local hives and no need to buy packages.

Another part of the equation which can't be overlooked is the bad press a death via Africanized bees produces. People already harbor unreasonable fear of bees, this will just make it worse.

Can octopus heads be hazardous to your health?

This is seriously troubling news:

Can octopus heads be hazardous to your health?

How many octopus heads is it safe to eat on a daily basis?

The government says two is the maximum, because of heavy cadmium levels found in local and imported octopuses. But that has infuriated restaurateurs and fishermen in South Jeolla, who say the government’s warning has cost them a bundle in lost sales.

The octopus head war began in September, when the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it discovered heavy concentration of cadmium in octopus heads sold in Seoul.

According to the city government, of three Korean and six Chinese octopuses purchased at local fish markets, supermarkets and department stores, up to 29.3 milligrams of cadmium per kilogram was found in the heads, 14 times higher than the permitted level of 2.0 milligrams. Cadmium is a carcinogen that also poisons the liver and kidneys.

The government advised consumers to completely remove any internal organs, ink and intestinal matter before eating octopus heads - which restaurants rarely do because it takes away most of their taste.

Octopus heads are a favorite dish in Korea because of their nutritional benefits and reputation for building sexual stamina. Nakji-bokkeum, a stir-fried octopus dish, is known for going well with soju.

As concerns grew, the Korea Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 30 released its own research results on 67 local and imported octopuses. Its conclusion: “It’s okay to eat two octopuses per day without removing the internal organs of the heads.”

Then came the backlash. A group of 30 fishermen from Muan in South Jeolla met Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on Oct. 8 and threatened to sue the city government if it didn’t offer an official apology and compensation for business losses. Muan and Sinan, both in South Jeolla, are the two main octopus producers in Korea, with over 2,000 households engaged in the business. Over 12 million octopuses worth 40 billion won ($35.4 million) are produced every year.

Mayor Oh apologized for causing losses but explained, “The intent of the research was to inform people of the health risks of eating internal organs of octopus heads, and it didn’t mean people shouldn’t eat octopus.”"

It is reassuring that one can still eat octopus as long as you are willing to eat cadmium.

As much as I enjoy eating octopus, both as nakji bokkeum and simply raw with salt and sesame oil, I must admit that recently I have been troubled by eating octopus because they have consciousness and may even dream.

Our kids is learning! or, Arguments for home schooling, part xix

On reason to learn some history is so you don't look like a complete fool, such as this Republican candidate in NJ who identified Dred Scot as the recent Supreme Court case he most opposed.

That is always a great moment, when candidates reveal that they in fact know nothing at all.

Knowledge of recent Supreme Court decisions (or the Constitution more generally) is not considered a qualification for the candidacy for the Grand Old Party. Christine O'Donnell could not even conjure up any case, from any era.

Another important reason to learn some history is so that the kids learning it are not fed lies reflecting current reactionary politics, as they are in Virginia as a matter of official state business.

In this fine state, to which I am compelled to pay taxes to support the schools and to which I send x amount of my students each year to become teachers, the Education department uses a 4th grade history text book called Our Virginia: Past and Present by Joy Masoff. Ms. Masoff isn't a historian. But since the state education standards are writtem by non-historians, why have students use a textbook written by anyone other than a non-historian? It makes perfect sense, of a sort.

The author has also authored Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty and Oh Yikes! History's Grossest Moments and Fire! and Extreme Sports: Snowboard! and Emergency! and Our World Let's Go! and Everest: Reaching For The Sky (which for some reasons does not have the !) and The Boo Boo Book (also sans !) Masoff is quoted in a news story saying "'I am a fairly respected writer.'"

I personally think she should have said "I am a fairly respected writer!"

This book being forced upon a generation of 4th graders. This is an age which I suspect is especially impressionable and open for ripe manipulation by those in power. (isn't this the age of kids pressed into child armies in Africa?) The key with the Big Lie is to tell it early and often enough for it to become received wisdom (see "creationism, textbook presentation of" ).

Masoff's book claims that large numbers of black confederates fought for the Confederacy. The research this information was based upon came from the "internet," particularly from the site maintained by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Washington Post drily notes "Scholars are nearly unanimous in calling these accounts of black Confederate soldiers a misrepresentation of history."

But since the Sons don't believe that slavery was a cause of the war, clearly their standards of historical knowledge are not finely honed.

It does make me wonder why any textbook writer is drawing information from websites of political interest for a 4th grade textbook. She is not even claiming to be using Wikipedia. Or blaming her "cousin" for providing the information. She just took fabricated information from a neo-Confederate group and then folded it into her book where it is effectively a landmine.

The shameful thing is that the Education department claims that it is not responsible for this "'Just because a book is approved doesn't mean the Department of Education endorses every sentence,' said spokesman Charles Pyle." Um, really? If the state of Virginia forces this book upon every student this does in fact imply that it endorses every sentence. Otherwise, why use the book? And if it doesn't endorse it, then why not allow teachers the freedom to choose their own books according to their own educations? (not that that would necessarily be a good idea, let me add).

Ironically, Masoff also wrote We Are All Americans: Understanding Diversity