Belated Round-Up

This weekend, I had a visitor. The end result was I found various ways to not get a darn thing done. It was great fun, but the catching up Monday portion is about what you would expect. As I wrote before, Alison is now Dr. Alison. I received pictures through Dianne and one is above. The belated link-dump begins with Afghanistan. Quite some time ago, the President said we had to finish the Afghan job, but never explained what that job was. Now we know.

• Vast Minerals" in Afghanistan: The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
• Trillion Dollar Curse: The value of the reserves just discovered is already estimated at about a trillion dollars - and there's probably more where that came from. What does this portend for Afghanistan, and the war? That's the, ahem, trillion dollar question.

Next are culture links, including a eulogy for Jonathan Wolken, founder of Pilobolus. You might remember seeing Summer in the City on a late night gabfest.

• The nature-nurture canard: I sympathize with both arguments; I see Carr's point, but feel he overplays it. I find digital culture immensely distracting. I regularly dive down rabbit holes in my computer, iPhone, and iPad, taking wandering, shallow paths much like those manner Carr describes. Yet I remember pretty clearly getting distracted by other things — newspapers, magazines, favorite books I'd already read, tennis matches, conversations with neighbors — as a young adult in the dark dark pre-Internet era.
• Jonathan Wolken, R.I.P: The lights go down, the curtain goes up, and six half-clothed dancers come running on stage and immediately start tying themselves into exotic knots and strange, almost-familiar shapes. Are you dreaming? Are you trapped inside a surrealist painting? No, you're just watching Pilobolus Dance Theatre, a group so witty and imaginative that it has flourished for a quarter-century...
• New science fiction and fantasy from Finland in English: It may be those long cold winters, but when it comes to fantastic writing the Finns are on top of their game.
• Charles Fort, The original Art Bell: A better description of his interests would be to say that what fascinated Fort were the things which were intellectually excluded by science. Rains of frogs, alien spacecraft, meat falling from the sky and spontaneous human combustion were the grist for his mill and this is what he spent his life meticulously cataloging.

The remainder of the links are political. I can find no reason to think that professional wrestling isn't a good metaphor for the real world.

• Tsk tsk … I realize we should all be amazed and delighted that state Rep. Nikki Haley won the Republican gubernatorial primary in South Carolina despite the nasty and hard-to-substantiate charges of adultery coming at her from two yoyos who claim to have been her lovers. But personally, I’m riveted by Haley, a Tea Party favorite and Sarah Palin buddy as everyone delights in observing, precisely because of those allegations. I know columnists are supposed to be above the fray and bemoan, as Nikki did on the cusp of victory, the trashing of opponents with “disgusting politics.
• The deterioration of U.S.-Turkish relations: Of course, for many analysts referring to this divide is not so much intended to describe what is going on as it is aimed at demonizing the direction Turkish foreign policy has taken. The so-called “Islamic” turn is mostly cited by those who want to minimize or deny the role that Western governments have had in sabotaging the Western orientation of Turkey they claim to find so valuable.
• No one under the bus: The omnipresence of this narrative is matched by its complete disconnect from reality. In fact, the reset has provided a laundry list of deliverables, from an agreement that allows U.S. planes to fly over Russian territory on their way to Afghanistan, to Iran sanctions that are significantly more stringent than the prior three (if it's a used rug, then it must be a pricey Persian antique).
• The Hollow Arab Core: But for the most part, the Obama administration chose to fall back on the conventional policies of the past: Palestinian reconciliation remained in the hands of an enfeebled and partisan Egypt, the grand bargain with Iran faded from an agenda dominated by the nuclear question and sanctions, and the Turks are now seen as more of a problem than an asset.
• Weasel Stomping Day: What do you mean, ‘in’ a democracy?” answered the Stoic. “Democracy is a procedure of rulership. It’s not a place you live in. Saying you live ‘in’ a democracy is like saying you live ‘in’ a trial by jury.”