Segacs's World I Know

Archive for the ‘USA’ Category

The gunman who opened fire at Virginia Tech in a massacre that killed 32 people, including Montrealer Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, has been identified as 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui. Dawson College and other schools across Montreal lowered their flags to half-mast today in solidarity.

Of course, this has been the headline news of the last couple of days, so there is no shortage of reaction, finger-pointing, and laying blame.

…in my view, the problem with responding to news of tragedy with policy ideas right away is that we tend not to realize in such situations how often our “proposals” are really expressions of psychological need. It’s human nature to respond to tragedy by fitting it into our preexisting worldviews; we instinctively restore order by construing the tragic event as a confirmation of our sense of the world rather than a threat to it.

This means that often we won’t pay a lot of attention to the details of tragedies and what caused them. We’ll just know deep down inside what happened, and what caused it, and how to stop it next time. Take [yesterday's] tragic events at VA Tech. If you’re committed to gun control, the tragedy probably proves to you that there are too many guns; if you’re against gun control, the tragedy probably proves the exact opposite. Given that people will tend to see in events what they want to see, turning to policy right away will come off as rudely “playing politics” to those who don’t share your worldview. And obviously this doesn’t foster a helpful environment for policymaking, either.

(Via Damian P., who points out that “the responsibility rests with one man”).

This pretty much echoes what I wrote after the shooting at Dawson last September. It’s tragic enough as-is; the finger-pointing and agenda pushing only makes it worse.

New York State called in the National Guard to Oswego, where they got 141 inches of snow over the past week, and are forecasting more.

In Ohio, snow and ice combined to cause traffic nightmares, travel delays, and the death of a 9-year-old girl.

Meanwhile in Chicago, they got a whopping 8.8 inches of snow… and freaked out. In Oswego, they refer to this as “summer”. It’s all relative.

Here in Montreal, we had temporary amnesia that we’re actually Montrealers, and people massively overreacted to the threat of a snowstorm. Maybe people were afraid we’d get 11 feet of snow, like in Oswego? In any case, the amount of people cancelling plans, closing schools, and panicking over the mere few inches of snow we received is just shameful. It’s just snow, people. We get it every winter. Life goes on.

The skiing should be good this weekend, anyway.

They just keep flocking to the race to succeed lame-duck Bush. The latest to throw his hat into the ring? Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, rising star in the Democratic party and many people’s Great Black Hope.

It’s still early for analysis, but this piece in The Independent has an interesting – if perhaps a bit optimistic – perspective on how things might play out.

They’re rare, but they do exist. Check out the story of this New York construction worker who risked his life and jumped on a subway track to save a complete stranger who was having a seizure:

While waiting for a downtown Manhattan train, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering from some kind of medical episode. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, knew he had to do something.

“If I let him stay there by himself, he’s going to be dismembered,” the Navy veteran remembered thinking.

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough — cold, wet and more than a little unpleasant smelling — between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

The train’s operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident.

Hollopeter was taken to a nearby hospital; Autrey refused medical attention — and then went to work.

According to bystanders, Autrey had time to shout to people to take care of his daughters before the train came. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind when he did it, but he was probably acting more on instinct than anything else:

Meanwhile, Autrey said the impact of the risky rescue was sinking in.

“It’s all hitting me now,” Autrey said. “I’m looking, and these trains are coming in now. … Wow, you did something pretty stupid.”

Perhaps, but it worked out well for him. It’s really nice to know that, with all the bad news out there, some people still care about others.

Happy 2007, all.

Under Republican control, the House Intelligence committee may have been stubbornly ignorant. But under Democratic control, it appears that they will be just plain ignorant:

Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[ . . . ]

While Stein said Reyes is “not a stupid guy,” his lack of knowledge said it could hamper Reyes’ ability to provide effective oversight of the intelligence community, Stein believes.

“If you don’t have the basics, how do you effectively question the administration?” he asked. “You don’t know who is on first.”

Aside from not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shi’ite, there’s no evidence that Reyes is a bad guy or anything . . . but I’m tempted to apply my basic Bush-rule here: if you can’t pronounce nuclear, you shouldn’t be allowed to have your finger on the button.

The intelligence level of elected members of government – from both parties – is frighteningly low. Is anyone else more than a little scared that these are the people making the big decisions?

Webb versus Allen is still too close to call.

But never mind those clowns. Personally I think the winner should’ve been Meryl Yourish.

The sweeping gains made by Democrats tonight only tell half the story. There were also a number of issues votes that, if nothing else, indicate that the country is feeling more anti-Bush right now than pro-Liberal. For example:

• Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage won approval in South Carolina, Tenessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, with similar amendments on the ballot in 4 other states also expected to pass once the votes are tallied. This would mean that a total of 28 states – more than half – will have banned gay marriage in the U.S., delivering a serious blow to the hopes of people in favour of equality and civil rights.
• Arizona passed measures against illegal immigrants, including making English the state’s official language.

On the other hand:

• Missouri passed a measure to guarantee stem cell research would be permitted.
• South Dakota’s voters rejected an attempt to restrict abortion in the form of proposed legislation.

Some analysts have further noted that, though Democrats made significant gains, they may have done so at the expense of ideology, since many of the newly-elected Democrats are much more moderate than Liberal while many of the defeated Republican incumbents were on their party’s more moderate wing. So the House (and possibly the Senate) may have shifted to the left, but both parties actually shifted to the right in the process.

What will it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine.

Democrats have to be drunk with power tonight. With a decisive victory to take back the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years, and even a narrow victory in the Senate within their sights, the overwhelming emotion among Democrats tonight must be one of feeling invincible.

But, for the sake of the United States, I hope that drunkenness subsides soon, or else all they’ll be left with is a giant hangover.

All of the planets aligned for the Democrats right now. Increased frustration at Bush’s policies – namely, the war in Iraq – combined with ill-timed sex scandals and a lot of general weariness led to a sort of protest vote against Republicans as proxies for Bush. But Democrats would do well to note that there’s still two long years until 2008. That’s enough time to either put up or shut up, so to speak.

It’s easy to gain popularity by pointing fingers in opposition (well, for everyone but John Kerry, anyway). It’s a lot harder to make excuses once you’re in the hot seat. A lot of eyes will be on the Democrats now, looking to see what they do with these two years of limited power, in order to decide what to do about 2008. If tonight’s vote was against Bush, the next presidential election will be about some sort of vision for the country… and despite the Democrats’ victories tonight, they haven’t conclusively demonstrated that they have one.

The Democrats, therefore, have a choice to make. They can either spend the next two years dragging the country down into myriad scandal investigations, handing out subpoenas like tissues and clamouring for time on TV. That’s door number one, and it leads to a path of increased cynicism, frustration and disillusionment with politics in general.

Or, they can take the tougher road and start taking a stand on issues and trying to once again define a voice for the party. Door number two means taking whatever limited power you’ve been handed and trying to actually do something with it. Agree or disagree, voters will generally have a lot more respect for someone who leads than for someone who blames. This is what the Democrats didn’t figure out in 2004, and from many of the interviews I’m seeing tonight with key Democrats, I don’t think they’ve figured it out in 2006 either.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the Democrats weren’t the big winners tonight. Not because a serious backlash could still result in a resounding Republican victory when it counts, in 2008’s Presidential election – though it’s certainly possible. But because we haven’t seen anyone try to raise the standard of debate with this election. It’s the same old corruption scandals, negative campaigning, negative issues, finger-pointing about Iraq and threatening of congressional investigations that we’ve seen a million times before. And it’s coming from all sides.

In reality, there may be no true winners in tonight’s election, only losers: the American people.

Key contests tonight:

• Congress: Democrats take control with a projected 16-seat gain.
• Senate: Still too close to call, but looks like the Republicans will narrowly hang on.
• Hockey: Habs 3-2 over Oilers in a shootout.

Everyone knows which one of those is the most important in my book, of course.

Tomorrow’s U.S. midterm election is garnering way more attention than this non-event typically gets. The prospect of the Democrats taking back one or maybe even both houses has got a lot of people talking, but it’s really the same old nonsense, rehashed.

If the Democrats take control of the House (somewhat likely) and/or the Senate (highly unlikely) tomorrow, will that mean Bush will be relegated to lame duck status? Is tomorrow’s vote pivotal for gays/women/minorities/Iraq, or will it really not change very much? If the Democrats win some power, will they use it to legislate, or will they use it to launch a bunch of costly and pointless probes and investigations into Republican behaviour that will make voters sigh and roll their eyes at the endless scandal circus?

What will the results spell for 2008? Will it scare Republicans into a voter backlash, or will it energize the Democrats and give them momentum?

Personally, I hope that the Democrats gain control of Congress at least, not because I’m particularly disposed to favour one side or the other (I’ve already spelled out my objections to the giant either-or wedge in American politics numerous times) but because, on principle, I believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I’ve seen what happens too many times with the lack of a strong enough opposition. The Canadian Liberals, for instance. Even my years at Concordia were instrumental in demonstrating the pitfalls of having too much power concentrated in too few hands. The Bush administration has had a blank cheque for quite some time now, and it’s time to instill some checks and balances in the form of a more powerful opposition.

Basically, what it boils down to is my belief that the more handcuffed a government is, the less it will be able to do… and, hence, the less harm it will be able to do. Like doctors, government officials ought to be required to swear an oath of office that begins with “first, do no harm”. But, since they don’t, the next best option is to limit their power as much as possible.