News Nuggets 539

A mother and baby hippo at the San Diego Zoo.  From Zooborns.

In the Middle East, What Democracy Could Bring (Ray Takeyh) from the International Herald Tribune via the New York Times
"While the spread of democracy might stabilize inter-Arab relations and create more viable economies, it is unlikely to accommodate America’s presence and its expansive regional agenda. ... They would see no rationale for continuing to accommodate U.S. military installations or cooperate with efforts to disarm Iran. This is not a clash of civilizations, but a nationalistic defiance of a global power’s priorities."
A thoughtful look at what's coming if democracy takes hold in Arab states.

Where Do We Go From Here? from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Foreign Policy asked experts to weigh in on what Egypt means for the future of U.S. foreign policy."

Beyond 'American-backed' Foreign Policy (Edward Schumacher-Matos) from the Washington Post
"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; he was the "American-backed" ally. Or we read about the American-backed governments in Jordan or Tunisia. Last year, it was the ones in Honduras and Colombia. The idea isn't technically wrong - and I, too, have pointed out U.S.-supported programs or politicians - but the sense behind them as a shorthand definition is an anachronistic holdover from the Cold War that both exaggerates our influence and often wrongly conflates our relationship with our endorsement. It subtly imposes a U.S. frame on Third World events that is dangerous - for American policy and for the affected countries."

Mubarak's Hired Thugs: Rural Poor Paid to Attack Opposition Supporters from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"In exchange for the equivalent of a few euros, poor seasonal workers have taken part in street fighting in Cairo on the side of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The thugs, who fight with iron bars, knives and clubs, have been recruited by privileged members of the regime, including party officials, security forces and rich business people with lucrative state contracts."

The Kindling of Change (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"It is impossible to know exactly which embers spark a revolution, but it’s not so hard to measure the conditions that make a country prime for one. … I would add spending on essentials like food (there is nothing like food insecurity to spur agita), income inequality and burgeoning Internet usage (because the Internet has been crucial to the organization of recent uprisings). Seen through that prism, Tunisia and Egypt look a lot alike, and Algeria, Iran, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen look ominously similar."
The interesting table he cites is HERE.

We the Egyptian People (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"Egypt had a Western-backed free-market economy run by a family with contempt for freedom: That’s problematic. It puts the global forces concentrating wealth into overdrive in the service of the chosen few."

Egypt Through Obama's Lens (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"Obama looks at the Egyptian drama through an unusual lens. He has experienced dictatorship firsthand, a world where "the strong man takes the weak man's land," as he quoted his Indonesian stepfather in his autobiography. The president came of age reading Frantz Fanon and other theorists of radical change. He is sometimes described as a "post-racial" figure, but it's also helpful to think of him as a "post-colonial" man."

Al Jazeera Banned: The Revolution America's Missing (Wadah Khanfar) from the Daily Beast
"Al Jazeera has been leading the coverage of the Egyptian uprising—and the numbers prove it. Wadah Khanfar, the network’s director general, on why the U.S. should wise up and let the network broadcast here."

A contrasting view:
In Egypt, the 'Lamestream Media' Shows its Courage and Value (Kathleen Parker) from the Washington Post
"The turmoil in Egypt has been a lesson in the fragility of a right we so often take for granted: to speak. It also has been a reminder to those who deride the "lamestream media" as the enemy, traitors and worse that many members of that maligned tribe are also very brave."
Parker's point is correct -- and it's quite ironic too given that, as the previous story above suggests, the "lamestream media" has rarely been more LAME than it has been in their coverage of the Egypt crisis.  In my view, Al Jazeera English has shamed ALL of the US-based cable news organizations.  The analysis provided by US TV news has been inadequate and it has routinely been shallow, ill-informed, and America-centric to the point where the analysis provided obscures or misleads far more than it reveals or clarifies.  While there are some exceptions in the MSM, after about day 2 or 3 of the crisis, I have seen no reason to turn on my TV to find out what's going on in the Middle East; instead I simply stream Al Jazeera on my computer.

Why Yemen Won't Fall (Victoria Clark) from the New York Times
"Ali Abdullah Saleh — a former army officer who has been president since 1978, when his predecessor was assassinated by means of an exploding suitcase — is proving less of a klutz than his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak."

Getting Iran Right (Paul Pillar) from the National Interest
"Much of the American public discourse on Iran exhibits a couple of unfortunate characteristics. One is a demonization of Iran that fosters emotion over analysis and that encourages absolutism of the “must prevent through whatever means necessary” sort while discouraging more sober assessment of costs and benefits of different courses of action. The other is a remarkably narrow focus on one issue—Iran's nuclear program."

We Fought a War on Lies, and Lies Won (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"Trashing the War on Poverty, Reagan destroyed the social compact that built the postwar American dream."

Republican Senators Demand Spending Cuts of 'No Less' than $100 Billion from Roll Call
""Since the Democrats still control the Senate, we need the House-passed [continuing resolution] to be as bold as possible in order to strengthen the hand of Senate conservatives in increasing or maintaining the spending reductions," the letter said. "

Something’s Fishy (Matthew Dowd) from National Journal
"Tea party activists should think twice about letting Michele Bachmann depict herself as their leader."

Why Romney Is a Very Frail GOP Frontrunner (Stuart Rothenberg) from Roll Call
"If the pattern holds this cycle, Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney in Tampa, Fla., in August 2012, setting up the odd circumstance of the first black president of the United States facing the first Mormon major-party presidential nominee in the nation’s history. But Romney, who ran a well-funded, serious effort for the GOP nod in 2008 only to lose out to McCain, looks to be a very frail frontrunner."

BOOK NUGGET [of a sort]!!
Rumsfeld’s Defense of Known Decisions: A Review of Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld from the New York Times
"Donald H. Rumsfeld’s memoir plays a fast and loose game of dodge ball with what are now “known knowns” and “known unknowns” about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
       
US CIVIL WAR NUGGET!!
The Diary of a 'Susseader' (Daniel Crofts) from the New York Times
"Cobb and his family lived more comfortably than most white Southerners, and he was regarded as a substantial citizen in his home community. If we are to understand why the white South pursued the catastrophic course it did, and why Virginia ultimately joined that ill-fated venture, we need to understand Cobb."

REAGAN HISTORY NUGGET!!
Five Myths about Ronald Reagan's Legacy (Will Bunch) from the Washington Post
"Much of what today's voters think they know about the 40th president is more myth than reality, misconceptions resulting from the passage of time or from calculated attempts to rebuild or remake Reagan's legacy. So, what are we getting wrong about the Gipper?"
Let me just say, I taught a course last semester on recent US history which covered Reagan in some detail.  As part of my preparation for the course, I read a lot of recent scholarship on Reagan, and it has really altered my perception of his administration.  Ironically, I think both critics of Reagan and his conservative defenders have really missed the historical substance of his tenure in office, particularly in regard to the Cold War.  Reagan was so much more pragmatic than either side cares to acknowledge. 

YOU-CAN'T-MAKE-THIS-STUFF-UP NUGGET!!
Malawi Government Proposes Fart Ban from the Huffington Post
"In Malawi, a new bill in the country is trying to make it against the law to fart in public."