Going Around

“And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on the successful Palestinian bid to become a nonmember observer state of the United Nations.
U.N. Assembly, in Blow to U.S., Elevates Status of Palestine

“These activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on renewed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Housing Move in Israel Seen as Setback for a Two-State Plan

Leave aside whether or not one feels that either or both sides are entitled to the actions that they've recently taken. The fact of the matter is that each side comes across as intent on thumbing their noses at the other.

Perhaps the single biggest obstacle to an agreement is that it really doesn't appear to be in the interests of either side to work with the other. For starters, it's difficult to look at the back-and-forth between the two sides and conclude that either of them really has any faith in the other to either bargain in good faith or live up to any agreements reached. Secondly, both sides have political constituencies that are opposed to the entire process. (Even if the factions on both sides who believe that they are the sole rightful owners of the entirety of the former Mandate of Palestine are in the minority, they are loud, vocal and active minorities. And in politics, that counts for a lot. While there may very well be Israelis and Palestinians who, were they to sit down in a room together, could hammer out a workable compromise, if they can't get into office on that because the hard-liners mobilize the votes to prevent it, it does no-one any good.) And both sides think it's worthwhile to go for the win. Compromise is what happens when people are tired of fighting - one side realizes that it can't win, and the other concludes that complete victory isn't worth the added costs. That both sides continue to antagonize the other means that they aren't really at that point.

Neither side is going to get what it wants. The simple realities of human nature are arrayed against them. Perhaps what this needs is a change in approach. Because no-one wants to be involved, Israel and Palestine simply hammer away at one another without making any progress. Maybe what needs to happen is that a different nation - say, Japan - calls in the top three allies of each side, and has THEM work out a compromise, with the idea that when one is reached, the allies of the two parties will be on the hook for doing the arm-twisting required to make each side accept.

Okay, so that's not the best idea. But it can't do any worse than what we have happening now. And considering that the international community started with without consulting with either side, maybe that's what needed to end it.

Menkhesis

I don't know if "menkhesis" is a real word, or if I've spelled it correctly. I came across it in a book some time ago, and it was presented as an antiquated term for what we would now call hypnosis. According to the text, it is best translated into English as "the taking away of responsibility," and this is what made if of interest to me, as it seems that American society has developed a habit, from time to time, of looking for ways to avoid taking responsibility.

Jim Zarroli: [...] Elena Seyer(ph) says she doesn't exactly like the idea of shopping on Thursday night when people should be with their families.
Elena Seyer: I feel bad for the employees who happen to work on Thanksgiving, but with the economy, you're kind of forced to have to do it. You know, if you can find something $100 cheaper, you kind of have to do it.
Holiday Season May Be A Good One For U.S. Retailers

Of course, no one sees low prices on consumer goods as being an actual form of coercion. What's really at work here is the process of becoming just another puppet, with a confluence of perceived poverty and the desire for the trappings or appearance of affluence pulling the strings. But the reluctance to own up to the willingness to have others spend the holidays away from their families in exchange for less expensive goods doesn't serve us well. If we're going to do these things, we need to own them. Ducking our choices makes it difficult to discuss them, and therefore to understand their causes and their effects.

Thanks A Lot

With today being Thanksgiving Day here in the United States, we're supposed to take some time to remember what we're thankful for. As I came to understand American history better, I became more and more conflicted about Thanksgiving. Partly because, in my opinion, our supposed thankfulness has become a mixture of banal platitudes and pseudo-religious groveling. But partly because we don't really think about what it all means, in the big picture.

The United States exists because the European settlers and their descendants who ranged across the continent saw vast tracks of open land. The native peoples weren't really even regarded as people - you could make the case that they were mainly seen as uppity wildlife. And the first Thanksgiving came about mainly because some of those same native peoples had more compassion than foresight. The "endless opportunities" that drew, and still draw, people to the United States (and, for that matter, to other destinations in the Americas) looking for a new and better life were paid for with an awful lot of blood and death. The native peoples who once populated the whole of the United States were on the wrong end of an amazingly raw deal, and most of what made the country arguably the foremost power in all of history mainly passed them by. And it seems that we've swept all of that under the rug, in favor of a feel-good holiday that's little more than a gateway to the world's largest shopping spree.

While it's hard to imagine that one could write a thanks to all of the people (natives and otherwise) who paid very high prices for the position that we're in now without appearing to simply channel the bitterness of history's losers, that shouldn't stop us from acknowledging how the flow of history brought us to this point. That doesn't mean needing to see ourselves as complicit in what we now (sometimes, anyway) regard as the crimes of others. Just that we should spare some thought for those that wound up footing the bill for opportunities that they themselves were denied.

Camera Clueless

Sony Australia sent "Gary Heery, professional photographer," out to see if he could find the "DSLR Clueless;" people Sony defines as those who have "all the gear and no idea." Of course, Mr. Heery manages to find a group of people with Nikon and Canon cameras who leave the camera on "auto" all the time or otherwise basically don't know what they're doing. These good sports are mocked on camera with signs such as "Unfit to DSLR" and "DSLR Gear - No Idea." The point is a fairly simple one - promote their Alpha NEX-series cameras by creating the impression that Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras are too difficult, complicated and heavy for the average shutterbug.

The First Victim...

Surprisingly, despite the fact that Sony also sells DSLRs, which are supposed to "Take your photography to the next level" and provide "Pro features and top technologies," none of the DSLR Clueless seem to own them - even though the defining characteristic of the type is a belief (based on just such puffery) that it's the gear, and not the wielder, that makes the difference. And, predictably, Sony disabled comments on the video to prevent some wag from making that point - or asking why, if DSLRs are so awful, Sony bothers to sell them.

Most people who have made it a point to understand the technology of cameras know that eventually, the consumer DSLR market will likely fade to a few special-purpose niches, especially once Nikon gets their mirrorless offering together and Canon gets on board (or one or both fall by the wayside as another company eats their lunch). There are any number of reasons why the non-SLR cameras are excellent choices for the sort of general-purpose photography that most people engage in. If the Sony ads had addressed these issues, that would be one thing. Instead, they went after the idea that many SLR users are clueless n00bs who don’t know one end of a camera from the other, and so people should buy Sony mirrorless cameras instead. To a degree, I get it – it’s about making a catchy video that might go “viral” on the Internet. Mocking ignorant/stupid people tends to garner more publicity than dry technical-speak. But if someone who doesn't know what DSRL means is in over their head owning one, I don't see how that situation would be any better if they shelled out roughly the same amount of money for a MILC*. After all, it's not like a mirrorless camera is any better than one with a mirror if you don't know enough to change the default settings, or otherwise let the camera do all the thinking. Sure, they're smaller and lighter - and so I guess if you're going to suck, you may as well avoid straining yourself while you're at it...

Rather than pitching a product on: “This will suit your needs, and provide some advantages over the competition,” and incidentally being funny about it, Sony opted for “Buy our stuff so people (including us) don’t point and laugh at you,” and in the meantime, seemed to add a subtext of “Photography is hard, and you’re not smart enough to use the equipment that other companies (or we ourselves) sell.” I don’t think that this approach worked for Apple, and it seems that Sony is simply the latest company to conflate “moderately amusing” with “effectively communicates a value proposition.”

You. According to Sony.

*Mirrorless Interchangable-Lens Camera, for the MILC-Clueless among you. The main difference is that MILC cameras do not have optical viewfinders, so there is no need to have a mirror in the camera that allows you to look out through the lens. Even if the camera has a viewfinder, it shows you a smaller version of what the LCD screen on the back of the camera shows you, in the same way that the larger "point-and-shoot" cameras do. This allows the bodies to be much smaller, and simpler mechanically. This doesn't, however, make them automatically less feature-rich or easier to use.

Insanity

The following analysis develops a theory for why terrorist groups—especially ones that primarily target civilians—do not achieve their policy objectives. The basic contention is that civilian-centric terrorist groups fail to coerce because they miscommunicate their policy objectives. Even when a terrorist group has limited, ambiguous, or idiosyncratic objectives, target countries infer from attacks on their civilians that the group wants to destroy these countries’ values, society, or both. Because countries are reluctant to appease groups that are believed to harbor maximalist objectives, CCTGs are unable to win political concessions.
"Why Terrorism Does Not Work" Max Abrahms

I find myself going back to read this paper every time things in the Middle East escalate. I don't really know why I do this, because it simply makes me depressed. While the plight of the Palestinians garners a certain level of international sympathy for their willingness (if you can call it that) to gamely suffer yet another ass-beating at the hands of the Israeli military every time hostilities reach a boiling point, the fact of the matter is that the path that Hamas, Hezbollah, et al have chosen is simply has yet to work. For them, or for anyone else. During the time period covered by Mr. Abrahms paper, the success rate of groups achieving their stated policy objectives through attacks on primarily civilian targets was 0%.

By the same token, because groups like Hamas are not formal military bodies, and do not have bases and barracks that may be easily targeted, Israeli attacks on them can lead to numbers of civilian casualties (Although it seems that sometimes, the definition of "civilian" is anyone who didn't have a weapon in their hand right at the moment a bomb or missile blew them to smithereens.), thus leading the Palestinians (and others, for that matter) to infer that Israel wants to destroy Palestine's values, society, or both. And this creates a situation where concessions on the part of Palestinian leadership are viewed as appeasement of a hostile other that "doesn't understand peace."

And so the cycle of useless violence continues. The Palestinians, it must be said, were on the receiving end of a raw deal. But even if that could be undone, launching rockets and sending bombers into Israel is not going to manage that. And so people die, and keep dying, in vain.