« September 02, 2012 - September 08, 2012 | Main | September 16, 2012 - September 22, 2012 »
September 15, 2012
Your 3rd-rate satire is my fighting/killing words, sir.
Multicultural Islam or multicultural anything non-Western: Do not hold your breath. I was in Los Angeles for a day--and by the time I get back the U.S. has deployed armed services people to an astounding number of locations around the world to handle (or deter) the multiplying protests and attacks in the wake of sudden publicity about one of the dumbest films ever made. Outrage over "Innocence of Muslims"--an anti-Islam satire (sort of)--first resulted in the deaths of four Americans in Libya last week. The reaction, however, seems to have legs. According to the French news agency AFP, as of late Saturday GMT, the number of locations where violence has already occurred or is expected to occur by the U.S. State Department is a whopping eighteen (18).
The offending movie--a very bad one from what I can tell from the trailer--was trotted out weeks after it was accessible by one manipulative Egypt-based "tele-Islamist", part-time television host and full-time asshole. So aren't some of these energies born of a pretext by a few firebrands to wage war on the West and gain pawns to carry the ball? Sure they are. But many more Muslims genuinely deeply believe that "insulting" Islam deserves swift punishment. It is the way they think and feel. And most who think and feel that way are not evil humans.
Arab Spring and the new "democracies" now cropping up in Africa and the non-Western world does not mean--and may never mean--that underlying cultures that struggle with building new forms of government and societies are going to "get" or embrace Anglo-American notions of dissent, freedom of the press or the First Amendment. It does not mean that they will buy into these principles, or even appreciate or tolerate them in Westerners, for years or even decades. Those states have not yet been able to reconcile a new form of government with religions that have old, sometimes very old, nuances and rules. It will take a while. We need to get used to that.
In the meantime, what efficient Yankee-styled solution is there, if any? In the short term, there is none. Get used to that, too. But there is an approach. I think it's this: get our heads out of our wazoos and realize, in all our dealings with non-Westerners, that we are wired very differently than them and that they are not "wrong" or evil. They are culturally fundamentally different--and we need to remind each other of that truth. And also take to our hearts and heads what one Western 12-step program likes to say--often unthinkingly but wisely--about time. It is simply that "time takes time".
From "Innocence of Muslims".
Posted by JD Hull at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2012
Special Breaking Recession Survival Tip: If someone refers work to your firm, thank them.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not natural for most of us to remember who refers us good work or good clients--from within our firms or from outside our firms. For that reason, strain to make it a habit (1) to remember who pushed work to you and (2) to thank them over and over again. I can think of several instances in which our firm would have referred a second lucrative project to a law firm or other services shop if we had been thanked--even once--for the first lucrative project.
Art: Barbara Kruger
Posted by JD Hull at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2012
To the Nixon-era law that gave us the MS4 NPDES Permit: Happy 40th, Clean Water Act.
What would fancy lawyers do without phrases like TMDL assessments, POTW biosolids and "that's a kick-ass DMR this month for the client's NPDES permit, Jim". In The Huffington Post: "Clean Water Act Is 40 Years Old: Landmark Water Law Hits A Milestone During Critical Time".
Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, New York.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2012
Africa: Al-Qaida re-groups, re-energizes and re-launches.
If your clients are among the legions of multi-nationals competing in the ongoing free-for-all for Africa's natural and human resources, here's an inevitable wrinkle of doing business. In Salon, and via the GlobalPost, see yesterday's piece by Tristan McConnell, "Al-Qaida Rising in Africa". Excerpts:
But while Al Qaeda central wanes, affiliates elsewhere are growing stronger, nowhere more so than in Africa, where groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), Boko Haram and Al Shabaab are finding ways of hitching Al Qaeda’s ideology to their local struggles.
“Africa represents a fertile ground for diminished ‘Al Qaeda-core’ to re-group, re-energize and re-launch its mission of global jihad,” according to a recent report by the Royal United Service Institute, a London-based think tank.
The report pointed to the potential for an “arc of instability encompassing the whole Sahara-Sahel strip and extending through to East Africa.” It warned that Al Qaeda’s new strategy seemed to be “going native,” using local militant groups and their conflicts to gain a foothold in new countries.
“Much of this is being driven by the Africans themselves,” Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center at Washington’s Atlantic Council, told GlobalPost. “They are finding in this ideology, which is not native, a way to transcend the local particularities of their individual fight and invest it with a greater meaning that has purchase beyond their borders,” Pham argued.
Photo: GlobalPost
Posted by JD Hull at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2012
No Jail Time for Appropriation Art Hero Shepard Fairey.
And we hear a strong mea culpa here. In this morning's New York Times, see "Shepard Fairey Is Fined and Sentenced to Probation in ‘Hope’ Poster Case". Excerpt:
Government prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fairey should serve time for his actions and he faced up to six months in prison. In February he pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge after admitting that he had destroyed documents and fabricated others to try to conceal the fact that he had used a particular Associated Press photograph of Mr. Obama as the source of his well-known “Hope” campaign poster.
After he was sentenced by Judge Frank Maas, a United States magistrate, Mr. Fairey, 42, said in a statement issued on his Web site, “My wrong-headed actions, born out of a moment of fear and embarrassment, have not only been financially and psychologically costly to myself and my family, but also helped to obscure what I was fighting for in the first place — the ability of artists everywhere to be inspired and freely create art without reprisal.”
Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)