Music

I was never a fan of buying music on Amazon. Forget about digital downloads, even shopping for CDs there wasn't much fun. Mainly because the previews were of poor quality, and listening to them required you to launch a player for single songs, or open a new tab in your browser to sample an entire album.

No more. The new MP3 store is great to use; easy to browse and find the music you are looking for, and previews play almost instantly within the window, without the need for a new one to be opened. And the coup d'etate: songs and albums cost less than on iTunes(typically $6.99 on Amazon to $9.99 on iTunes), and are sold with Digital Rights Management (DRM). That means that you can play them on any mp3 player, copy/burn them as often as you please, and send them to as many people as you want. I've bought extensively on iTunes. From now on I will check Amazon first when I'm looking for a music download.

This article provides a good explanation on all the features and differences between Amazon's new store and iTunes.


Amazon's MP3 store: Better than iTunes
http://www.salon.com/tech/machinist/blog/2007/09/26/amazon_store/print.html

Wang

Chien-Ming Wang won his 19th start of the season last night against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He would have captured that increasingly rare 20 games-won season if Mariano Rivera had not blown a save on August 13th against Baltimore. Ironically, Rivera got the win. Wang ends the season with a 19-7 record.

At 38-13, he has the best record in the Major Leagues in the past two seasons. And at $489,500, he's been invaluable to the Yankees, in a season when the next-best pitching record is Pettitte's 14-9.

ESPN's Cy Young predictor doesn't give Wang much of a chance in winning the award. Even though he came in second in last year's voting, he did not receive one first place vote. (He tied the winner, Johan Santana, with a 19-6 record.)

If race is an issue of concern to you, then it might be worthwhile to consider if that had anything to do with it. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it did, even if on an unconscious level.

Osceola

I came across an old bookmark that I had probably gotten in an elementary school book fair. Or through those book orders the teachers used to hand out: a folded sheet, peeled from a pad of them, printed on cheap paper, with an order form on the edge of one side. You would check off which books you wanted, hand it in to your teacher with your money. They encouraged you with a free bookmark if you ordered a certain number of books. This was in Oklahoma, the West. Did they do such things in the Northeast?

Anyway, it was long ago enough that I don't remember where or when I got it. The front was red with various motifs in green, blue, yellow, black and brown, arranged so that a hidden face looked out, with star eyes, a nose-mouth of a female form, crowned with a leaf and flower. On the back, I found the below text. Interesting to find so much education to be attempted through the back of a bookmark. I wonder if it is still done. Do people still use paper bookmarks? Or just scraps at hand? Do people still try to educate through what's written on the back of a bookmark? I wonder about the person who came up with the idea for this.

Ugly truth can be found in simple, forgotten, discarded places.

In his short life the Seminole leader Osceola probably did more than any other southeastern Native American to try to protect his land and people from the influx of white settlers. In the 18th century, the Seminoles had migrated to Florida which was then owned by Spain. Since Spanish rule was generally easygoing, the Indians lived at peace. They also offered shelter to runaway slaves and many Blacks intermarried into the tribe. This peaceful situation ended after the First Seminole War (1817-1818) when Florida was sold to the Americans. Troops invaded the area, burning and looting villages, killing people, and capturing slaves for return to their masters. Protecting themselves, the Seminoles retreated farther into the swamps.

In 1823 certain Seminole chiefs signed a treaty ceding Indian lands. It also made anyone with any amount of Africa blood a slave - and therefore a runaway. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 provided that the Seminoles and other southeastern tribes must move to Indian Territory. Those who went suffered intense hardship on the "Trail of Tears."

Osceola, called "Snake of the Everglades," began moving from tribe to tribe preaching resistance. He fought against Indian leaders who advocated cooperation with the whites as well as with the whites.[sic] Finally, through deceit, he was captured by troops under General Thomas Jesup. He met his death soon after with great pride and dignity.

Haiku

My first attempt at a haiku poem:

flower with cut leaf
blooms anew with sun and dew
blossoms with petals

Written for a friend; she was injured in a car accident.

Empty.

Iran's president announced today that the country has started to produced enriched uranium on an industrial scale, which is a process that could create weapons-grade uranium. The U.S., along with its allies, has been trying to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, with little effect (some would say with no effect, which seems a pretty accurate way of describing the situation). U.N. sanctions have not done anything to slow down the process, it seems--which is more telling about the weakness and ineffectuality of the organization than anything else, a weakness that is a result of a lot of the hypocrisy inherent in its structure and conduct. But let us save that for another day.

India and Pakistan were able to become nuclear powers, a goal the U.S. had little ability to deter them from achieving. More recently, while the Bush administration issued a lot of tough rhetoric, the North Koreans tested a small nuclear device. Now the U.S. is in the process of negotiating with the North Koreans, and is agreeing to one of their major demands, which is the release of its funds from a bank in Macau. While poking fun of the North Korean leader's appearance is de rigeur in the media, it should be pointed out that he is smart enough to know that the U.S. only respects strength.

This is in contrast to Taiwan, a U.S. ally and democratic country, which suspended its nuclear program under U.S. pressure. More recently, the U.S. has been making numerous concessions to China, which has around 1,000 missiles pointed at Taiwan, and has passed an "anti-succession" law to justify attacking the country. The U.S. is bound by law (via the Taiwan Relations Act) to arm and help defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by the China.

So Ahmadinejad simply looked around and saw how the U.S. bullies those who do not defy it (and instead cooperates), only respects strength, and has an aversion to diplomacy, at least until it is forced to confront a defiant adversary who has succeeded in achieving its stated goals--goals which the U.S. government had stated they would not allow. It's easy to see how he would reason that, if countries such as India and Pakistan are "allowed" to have nuclear weapons, why should a big, important country such as Iran not possess them. And why shouldn't they, from their point of view, since the U.S. is developing so-called "bunker-busting small nukes" and threatening Iran with carrier groups in the Persian Gulf (which obviously happened after the nuclear issue had arisen, but a contingency they had to prepare for given the relative readiness the U.S. had shown in invading a Middle Eastern country such as its neighbor Iraq). They need something to defend themselves with and to act as a deterrent. Simple logic (from the other's point of view), which is something the Bush administration seems unable to take into account in their formulation of policy, and subsequent rhetoric and actions.

I see little that would indicate that Iran will suspend its nuclear program. Unless the Bush administration is willing to start another war to prevent it, in all likelihood Iran will join the elite "nuclear club" in the not too distant future.

Repeat.

They say that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. It might be more accurate to say that the occurrence of tragic events are more the result of circumstances, than the lack of knowledge of history.

An article in the New York Times ("Relatives of Interned Japanese-Americans Side With Muslims," April 3rd, 2007) talks about a class action suit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, that was brought by people, mainly Muslims, who were swept up and detained after the Sept. 11 attacks. The reasons for their detention is suspicion based on their national or ethnic background, and overstayed visas.

Three descendants of Japanese citizens who were interned after the attack on Pearl Harbor have filed a friends-of-the-court brief urging the Manhattan appeals court to overturn the sweeping language of the judge's ruling on the case. The article described his ruling last year this way:

The judge held that under immigration law, "the executive is free to single out 'nationals of a particular country.' " And because so little was known about the 9/11 hijackers, he ruled, singling out Arab Muslims for detention to investigate possible ties to terrorism, though "crude," was not "so irrational or outrageous as to warrant judicial intrusion into an area in which courts have little experience and less expertise."

A bit of history (also excerpted from the article):

By 1940, he was one of 47,000 Japanese immigrants who lived in the 48 states, nearly 90 percent on the West Coast. They had remained aliens because federal law forbade naturalization of any person of Asian ancestry. Since the law also forbade Japanese immigration after 1924, the United States had been home to all of them for at least 17 years on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Two months later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, decreeing that West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry — whether American citizens or not — were "enemy aliens." An 8 p.m. curfew was imposed on them; roundups sent them to desolate internment camps.

A law wasn't enacted until 1988 apologizing for the internments and offering compensation of $20,000 each for the survivors; "the law was intended partly 'to discourage the occurrence of similar injustice and violations of civil liberties in the future.'"

It has only been 65 years since President Roosevelt signed the executive order that resulted in the internment of American residents or citizens of Japanese ancestry, and only 19 years since Congress enacted a law apologizing for the internments. 65 years is a blink of an eye in the scope of history. Yet the story is repeating itself, and high-level officials like this federal judge, John Gleeson, are justifying and sanctioning the detention of people (after the Sept. 11 attacks) for months before they were cleared and released.

So when injustices occur, it is more a result of the circumstances being a catalyst for it, then any lack of knowledge of history, as one can assume the judge is aware of the history of the internments and the Holocaust. The situation in post-war Germany created the rise of the Nazi party and the Holocaust. The attack on Pearl Harbor allowed for the internment of the Japanese living in the U.S. And the Sept. 11 attack created the circumstances for the sweeping, indiscriminate detention of Muslims in the U.S. and at Guantanamo Bay. One common thread of all these events is the racial or ethnic component. The most obvious example was how German Americans were not interned during WWII even a lot of them returned to Germany to join the Nazi army. Throughout history, when a country is attached, or when a society is in decay, it is "standard procedure" to persecute a minority group as the scapegoat. Understanding history has nothing to do with it. Circumstances dictate the action.

The situation in which many Muslims are being detained in America is, to many, reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese during WWII. No one should be under the illusion that something like that, and other crimes, could not occur in the U.S. The images after the Sept. 11 attacks of white Americans standing on the side of the road yelling at those who appeared Middle Eastern to go home is evocative of a different ear. But it is topical. And just as circumstances, such as the Sept. 11 attack, has been a catalyst for this, another crime could easily occur, at any time, as long as the "right circumstances" exist. That's all it takes, that's all there is to it.

---

This country is very patriotic and nationalistic, compared to a lot of European countries. The country tries, and is very successful, in instilling loyalty among Americans. Yet the story of the grandfather of one of the people who took part in the friend-of-the-court brief says a lot about who is considered American and who isn't, when all is said and done. It is a lesson on how one will be better served to be more critical and objective about where one places one's loyalties. You are expected to have utmost loyalty to your country. But who is the country loyal to, and whose country is it considered to be?

In the case of Ms. Yasui's grandfather:

"In the case of my grandfather, the tragedy was multiplied by the fact that he was a hero in the eyes of his children, a leader in the Japanese-American community of Hood River, and had always counseled his compatriots to be '200 percent American,'" Ms. Yasui said. "And look what it got him: arrested and dragged out of his house a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, transferred from one military prison to another for years, and not released until several months after the war was over." She was only 5 when he died in the 1950s, she said, but she later learned that he committed suicide, after days of hallucinations in which he imagined that the F.B.I. was after him again.

The history of this country contains many examples of groups of citizens showing more loyalty to this it than it has shown them. This is seen in the service of African-American soldiers during WWII, in which they sacrificed their lives for a country that still did not give them equal rights and protection under the law, as well as in the service of Japanese-American soldiers during the same war. The disappointing thought is that this is still the case, in many respects.

---

Postscript: The article, speaking of the three Japanese citizens, grandparents of the three who brought the brief to the appeals court:

By then, courts re-examining the cases of the three Japanese-American litigants found that the government had suppressed evidence that security fears were overblown. For example, what the Army had suspected were signals sent to Japanese submarines from California hillsides had actually come from "farms where people used flashlights to go to outside toilets," a former Justice Department lawyer testified.

Savagery.

I have to admit, I'm a big fan of the show Globe Trekker. Through it, one can travel the world vicariously and learn a lot about other cultures and histories. In an episode, La Ruta Maya: Belize, Yucatan and Guatemala, the traveler mentioned how the Mayans had invented the concept of zero centuries before the Old World, and used a calendar that is more accurate than the one we use today.

During the 13th century, in what is considered the Dark Ages in Europe, the Mayans cleared dense jungle, built canals and large structures, all without the aid of steel tools, the wheel, or beasts of burden, in the area of Caracol. The population of that ancient city is greater than that of present day Belize.

Yet these people were considered savages by the Europeans who came into contact with them when they arrived in the 16th century. Something to consider.

"You go back to the 17th century, when the commercial and industrial centers of the world were China and India. Life expectancy in Japan was greater than in Europe. Europe was kind of a barbarian outpost, but it had advantages, mainly in savagery." (Noam Chomsky)

Promiscuous.

On the local news today there was a segment on a news program concerning pre-teen and teenage girls receiving a new vaccine that prevents cervical cancer cause by the HPV. The usual concerns were raised, such as what the risks and benefits were. But the main issue was how parents would talk to their daughters about the vaccine, since it would touch upon the subject of sex.

The host of the show asked a guest, a medical doctor, how a parent would tell their daughter to get a vaccine against something that was sexually transmitted, when the daughter was not supposed to be having sex. This is definitely a hard discussion to have with a child, especially over something as important as a vaccine that prevents cancer.

Another issue raised by the host was whether getting this vaccine would somehow encourage teenagers to be more promiscuous. The doctor was obviously in favor of girls getting the vaccine, and she cited many statistics showing the relatively high number of teenage girls having sex. Some of them include:

• 63% of high school senior girls have had sex (many of them having had 3 or more partners)
• 30-something % of girls has had sex by age 16

She felt that since teenage girls were obviously already having sex, it would be better for them to protect themselves against the HPV by getting the vaccine.

As to whether having the vaccine would promote promiscuity, I guess one could interpret that as meaning whether it would promote an increase in promiscuity, since from a certain perspective, it seems that promiscuity is already at a relatively high level. It may all depend on one's definition of promiscuity, but if parents are concerned about promiscuity among their teenage children, they could be well off to start looking somewhere else for causes.

Even before getting into the issue of whether their children should get this vaccine, which prevents an STD, they should see that society is already flooded with messages that promote promiscuity. Without putting a value judgement on this behavior, if it is something parents wish to prevent, they have to realize that everywhere around them, everywhere their children are, they are exposed to messages that promote this behavior. In television, movies, and music, magazines, etc., the messages are there, along with countless other sources. The fact that it goes so unnoticed by most people is a testament to how deeply ingrained these sexual messages have become, so much so that it has become an intrinsic part of culture and society.

But on the other hand, it is pointless to try and change it. The fact that it has become such an intrinsic part of society makes it impossible to extricate this idea of the acceptability, the non-issue, of treating the act of sex (and having many sexual partners) casually.

Four years on.

I wonder where that "Mission Accomplished" sign, unfurled on May 2, 2003, is languishing. I wonder if it is stored somewhere, in a warehouse, waiting for the day it can see the light of day again. It could be there forever.

A lot of Americans anger towards the war is due in large part to the false pretenses that were used to justify it. But nothing turns people against a war more so than losing it. If the invasion had been successful, many would probably willingly and easily forget about the false justifications used for the invasion.

Monday was the four year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. After four years of fighting, President Bush and co. still claim that victory can be achieved in there. This is possible, but by all indications, it seems very unlikely. Part of the reason is that the military system is simply not capable of fighting the type of wars it is engaged in. No matter what types of technology it implements, or what type of tactics, the structure of the U.S. military prevents it from effectively meeting the challenges of this new type of asymmetric warfare. It is precisely because it is so structured which prevents it from having the flexibility to fight an opponent using guerrilla tactics. Despite superior technology, the military has not been able to defeat smaller, poorly equipped adversaries, as was evidenced in Vietnam and Iraq. In order to effectively fight against a guerrilla force, one has to become a guerrilla force. The type of extreme overhaul and change required to make the military such a force seems unlikely to be adopted. It might not even be feasible to make such a dramatic change to a system that is so rigid and entrenched; such a large bureaucracy with a long history. Its greatest weakness is the very nature of what it is.

The newest general in charge in Iraq, General Petraeus has touted recent successes in reducing the violence in Baghdad. But the insurgents have simply shifted their focus to the outlying provinces. A loosely structured guerrilla force is by nature flexible and amorphous, exactly the things that a traditional military, such as that of the U.S., is not. The resulting choices left to the Iraqi government and U.S. military might be simply to maintain security over Baghdad, and ceded control of the outer provinces to the insurgents, or to shift the limited forces to go after them wherever they are. But then that would leave Baghdad vulnerable, and the insurgents would simply move back in.

A larger force in Iraq might possibly have a better chance of pushing back the insurgency, since presumably it would allow sufficient forces to hold and maintain security in Baghdad while other troops went after the insurgents in the provinces. But when General Eric Shinseki was asked in February of 2003 about his estimation of the size of force needed to maintain security in Iraq after a successful invasion, he answered:

I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this.

His response was excoriated by Rumsfeld and his deputy, Wolfowitz. It's telling that they are no longer with the administration; that Bush let them go, given how religiously he holds the idea of loyalty, the fact they they are no longer there is an admission of how their ideas and leadership has been discredited. This is particularly amazing given how this administration has dogmatically refused to admit mistakes, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. While for others, there is vindication.

***

Ancient Rome is a subject I find fascinating, and reading about it is one of my hobbies. (On the literary side, I recommend Robert Graves' I, Claudius, and Claudius The God.) The reasons for Rome's decline is also of particular interest. Recently I read an interesting hypothesis to explain the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The writer posits that part of the reason for the empire's collapse was that it required "over 3 million soldiers to meet its basic security needs[citation needed]. However, by AD300, they only had an estimated 500,000 troops, which meant that they could not control the territory the empire possessed." (from Wikipedia)

This was a poorly planned war. From an outside perspective, it seems almost amateurish in its execution. After six-and-a-half years, the Taliban is still active and undefeated in Afghanistan. As NATO and the U.N. is still struggling to get enough troops to continue the fight there, the Bush administration launched a war based on false pretenses. This has left the military overstretched. Even more, its lack of success in Iraq and the fact that it is bogged downed there, has put the military in a situation where it is unable to intervene in a potential situation which would actually be a direct threat to the United State's national security.

The military has been weakened, and one wonders how it would respond to a situation such as a conflict with China over Taiwan. No one believes that such a clash would really be about Taiwan, but instead that it would simply be an excuse used by a superpower and a rising superpower to clash over their attempts to assert global power and dominance. But the failure in Iraq has had the effect of making people more willing to question the use of military power in order to resolve conflicts. This is in part due to people questioning the previous assumption that American military power had absolute dominance and effectiveness. But others have already realized that this is not the case, and it no longer works well as a deterrent. This can be seen in the confrontation with Iran, and their unwillingness to bend to American pressure to stop their uranium enrichment program. They see how the U.S. military is tied up in Iraq, unable to quell an insurgency, and realize the relative emptiness of any threat to use military force to resolve the issue. The Bush administration's recent attempts to play down a military option in Iran is quite conspicuous and telling. A surreptitious reason for going to war was to create a "new Middle East," one where democracy would spread and take hold. Instead, the position of the members of Bush's "Axis of Evil," Iran and North Korea, along with other foes like Hezbollah, have been strengthened by the U.S.'s failure in Iraq.

One positive outcome of this war might be that Americans would be far less willing to support using the military as a means of resolving international issues, and instead rely on diplomatic means. Along with this, they might also be a lot more critical of administrations calling for war, and be more inclined to take a much more critical look at evidence and justifications used to start a war.

***

It is interesting to note that the United States has not won a major conflict in the East since the end of WWII. This was the case in Korea, Vietnam and now Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, where the international community was fully supportive of military action, the war goes on, and in the meantime, Bush had shifted his sights to Iraq. Now he is stuck there, and sees no way out.

"When you assume..."

"...you make an 'ASS' out of out 'U' and 'ME'." That was one of the funniest punch lines in an episode of The Odd Couple. In this episode, "My Strife in Court," Felix and Oscar are arrested for trying to scalp a ticket, and they wind up in court. The court scene is one of the funniest in the series, a classic.

This past Thursday, March 15th, my M.B.A. statistics professor was conducting class. Through the usual digressions, the talk got around to Galileo, then to the question of which object (out of two) would hit the grown first when dropped simultaneously.

Not wanting to get into all the details of the discussion, e.g. making sure the release was really simultaneous, I'll skip to the relevant part.

The professor asked a white student whether his water bottle or pen would hit the ground first if dropped at the same time. The student answered that he thought the water bottle would hit first. The professor fatuously said something to the effect that he's the product of the American education system, thus implying that the answer was incorrect. He then called on an East Asian student and asked where he went to school. The student replied that he had gone to school in New York City. So the professor moved on to the South Asian student sitting next to him and asked him the same thing. The reply was the same.

Feigning frustration, perhaps to hide the fact that he had made an "ass" of himself by his assumptions, he asked another student for an answer, a white one, who had revealed his foreign upbringing via his heavy, Russian accent. That student gave the correct answer.

Letting go. (A "monologue.")

Voice 1: Yeah, she's smart, beautiful, successful, has a great job...I'm sure she doesn't have anyone pursuing her. She's just there waiting for you to come along.

Voice 2: I just thought, maybe, if we were meant to be together...

Voice 1: Look, you've got the dreamer's disease. Even if she likes you a lot...your kindness to her, your gentle, sensitive ways....

Voice 2: So none of that matters, the kindness, the friendship, the closeness...

Voice 1: That matters. But it's not enough. First off, you don't even know if she feels that way about you. Your career is going nowhere, you're not making that much, you're not successful...do you live in the real world? It's not that she's not a good person. In fact, she's a wonderful person, I know as well as you, and that's why you fell in love with her...and probably ever other man who's met, and gotten to know, her.

Voice 2: She's out of my league.

Voice 1: That's right. I hate to take the romanticism out of it, but it's a competition. And what makes you think you can compete? She likes you a lot...as a friend. You're not a bad person, but when it comes to winning her heart, you're not even on the short list. What can you give her? What makes you think you deserve to be with her?

Voice 2: Love.

Voice 1: Love is not enough! When will you grow up? Be a man, not a child. See the world...as it is, not how you want it to be. It might be hard for someone like you, but you need to make that distinction clear in your mind. The sooner, the better...for your own sake. If you don't, it'll just end up enveloping you, and you will disappear.

Voice 2: I have a lot to give.

Voice 1: She will choose someone, be with someone, who will be able to provide her with the life she deserves. She comes from a distinctive family...her...elegance, grace...she deserves to be with someone who will be able to provide her with a wonderful life...everything her heart desires. She's wonderful, and I'm sure she cares about you a lot, to a certain extent, because otherwise she wouldn't have made the effort to continue the friendship after that.... But like any other woman in her position, she wants to be with someone successful, with ambition...

Voice 2: It doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem fair.

Voice 1: Fair by what? Your standards? Some would say, this is exactly as it should be. Social Darwinism, and all that. Again, you need to cure yourself of this dreamer's disease.

***

Voice 2: Why does it hurt so much.

Voice 1: Because you love her.

Voice 2: So what is left?

Voice 1: Let go. Accept the fact...you'll have to make it alone. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be. If you can't, it will bury you. And let go. Let her go, so to speak. That is, let the dream of being with her go. Let it go so that all it will ever be is a dream. Because it can only exist, survive, as a dream. To hold onto that dream as something, a part, of reality...that dream will die in reality. It's too delicate for this world.

Voice 2: My life is an endless succession of people saying goodbye.

Voice 1: Time's tide will smother you.

Voice 2: And what's left for me?

Voice 1: Nothing. No one.

Voice 2: Maybe someday...

Graffiti

On the way home a few nights ago, I got on my commuter train as usual. Finding a seat, I sat down, and noticed some graffiti scrawled on the back of the seat in front of me. Someone had written something like "Fuck America." Someone else responded by writing "Fuck terrorist Muslims." This is not the first time I've seen this type of graffiti on my commute.

The chain of logic is what is of interest here. Obviously whoever responded to the initial graffiti assumed that if someone wanted America fucked, then s/he must be a Muslim and a terrorist.

There is a tradition of that here. Despite American leaders' attempts to state the contrary, there are still many here who will simply equate Muslim = terrorist = the enemy. There's a racial component to this, of course. No one talked about "fuck terrorist Catholics" during the I.R.A.'s campaigns in Northern Ireland. And during WWII, German-Americans were not interned, yet Japanese-Americans were. I think there's no other conclusion to draw, other than that, in these instances, the demonetization of the enemy was based purely on racial considerations.

Little has changed.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was still a little disconcerting to see people standing on the street after 9-11, yelling at people who appeared to be Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin to go home, and other trite "witticisms" that Americans, who like to give directions to other people on where they need to go, pull out of their 'standard slogans' bag.

This story is old, I know, but it goes on.