Sticks and Stones

It has been said in the past that the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and Robert Kennedy stole hope, idealism, youthful vigour, and inspirational politics from the US in the 1960s. That has to be tempered with reality, because those three men were not the only idealists in politics but had JFK lived on, and had Robert Kennedy succeeded him, we would likely be looking at a very different world. The neoconservative mindset would likely not have been as prevalent, and government would likely have followed a more liberal course. The fictional Matthew Santos, and the real-life Barack Obama would have been mainstream politicians in this world, but history did not unravel that way; instead both men are candidates of change - with striking similarities.

In Slate V’s Life Imitates The West Wing Torie Bosch visits the fictional portrayal of a ‘Yes We Can!’ candidate and the not-so-coincidental similarities with Barack Obama. I am careful to avoid labelling things ‘best’, because such extreme phrases inevitably require compromise and future reassessment, but as I have said before, Barack Obama is the best candidate today for the United States, and as I’ll say now: The West Wing was the best TV show. What surprised me most about the video was that it refused the connection between John McCain and Alan Alda’s Arnold Vinick. Nevertheless, I hope the outcome of the election will stay faithful to the finale of The West Wing. A clue about what I mean: Find out who became Secretary of State in the Santos administration.

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There are two very important reasons why the entire tech industry got HD-DVD completely wrong. One, as Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow ought to be advocates of, is HD-DVD not having region coding or as much DRM as Blu-ray. The second, which the entire Wall Street Journal editorial board should support is the fact that variety is the spice of life. Oh, no, I meant that competition is the seed for all that is good and wonderful in our laissez-faire economic system.

The tech industry got HD-DVD so wrong because, unlike Blu-ray, HD-DVD had no region coding and had less restrictive DRM. This is important because consumers like you and me are sick of being dictated to about how we use our content. The VCR allowed us more freedom, as did the CD burner. Complicated codecs (Apple’s .m4p) and software restrictions (iPod usage limitations) severely hamper what we can do with the music we paid for.

Amazon’s MP3 store has gone a long way towards rectifying this situation but DRM on video remains as absurdly limiting as ever. iSquint, HandBrake, VLC, and so on exist just to help you untangle your content from their manacles. Why is it so hard?! HD-DVD did not have as complicated a DRM system as Blu-ray and for that reason we should have all been trumpeting it as the next generation product.

We should allow the market to operate on its own free from regulation and allow it to fight monopolistic tendencies. It is controversial to argue for more than one optical format, because the response will be that it complicates matters, forces a higher cost on the consumer by requiring her to buy two players, and complicate the lives of average citizens staring at stacks of competing players at CompUSA.

It may seem illogical to argue that competing formats is good for the consumer, but the opposite is true. When two similar goods square off the result is a bitter fight to the death with equally split market share. Using the example of colas, every time Pepsi lowers the price, Coca-Cola must follow suit. If Pepsi increased the quality of its product, Coca-Cola would have to scramble to match the new standard. In this way, Blu-ray and HD-DVD would have squared off and fought bitterly for our dollars. They would have increased quality, lowered prices, and packed in more features to beat the other for that precious penny.

All that is left is one player in a lucrative market. Yes, in ten years we will all download music and video from iTunes or Amazon or maybe even a resurgent Napster, but today Sony is grinning. It can riddle its product with copy protection, region coding, and restrictive DRM. Geeks/nerds/techies should be disappointed. Sony can also price its players and discs however it wishes, control production numbers to throttle output, and pay its employees whatever it likes. Economists should be disappointed. From whatever angle you approach the issue, I believe you too should be disappointed. Unless you work at Sony.

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The United Nations is often (although not always) ineffectual, time wasting, spineless and bureaucratic. We all know that. But perhaps the United Nations would do better for itself if it actually sought to solve the real issues facing our world and not waste a disproportionate amount of its time slating Israel.

Issues such as genocide in Sudan, covert nuclear proliferation in DPR Korea and Iran and the ruins of Iraq collectively occupy a fraction of the UN resolutions passed on issues surrounding the Syrian Golan, the Palestinian territories and the future of Jerusalem.

Sure, these are questions that need dealing with. But why do they merit any more UN time than any other issue at all? Israel is one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world, and the UN instead of being an international forum to build closer links between nations with differences has become an instrument of unfair isolation and condemnation.

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The second in a series in which Leo examines the modern uses and abuses of certain words from the Greek lexicon.

The Oxford English dictionary tells us:

/kyoodos/

• noun praise and honour.

— USAGE Despite appearances, kudos is not a plural form: there is no singular form kudo, and use as a plural, as in he received many kudos for his work, is incorrect.

— ORIGIN Greek.

The fact that it is singular is contained in the definition so I don’t need to say anything more about that.

The more significant abuse is the trivialised use of the word. In Greek, kudos is more than just honour. It is fame, undying glory. To better understand this one has to have a brief understanding of heroic culture.

One of the best examples of the heroic attitude is Achilles, who chose a short life with glory and fame over a long life at the end of which he would be unknown - almost a ‘Live Fast, Die Young’ sort of philosophy. The ancients believed that a man could achieve some degree of immortality by being remembered and talked about after their death. Compare these lines from the Roman poet Horace:

Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei
vitabit Libitinam

“I shall not wholly die, and a part of me will survive the grave”

Kudos refers to undying fame as acquired by the greatest men in the world. The greatest warrior of the Greeks in the Trojan War, Achilles, achieved it by killing the greatest warrior of the Trojans, Hector. Hector, meanwhile, before his death, told his wife that he had to risk death (which would result in the death of his son, father and brothers and the enslavement of his wife, mother and sisters, as well as the destruction of his city) in order to achieve kudos for himself and his father (Iliad VI).

Kudos is not even fame in the sense that we would think of it. Who will know Amy Winehouse’s name in a hundred years, let alone 2,500? Hector is still a boy’s name (albeit a somewhat unfashionable at the moment) although the man, if he ever existed, died around 3,000 years ago: that is kudos. That is undying glory. Very few can claim it in the last few years: Napoleon perhaps? Mozart, Shakespeare?

Whatever the case may be, kudos should not be used lightly to refer to getting something in the bin from across the room, or completing a level of Guitar Hero III. The fact that we still talk about Homer, Horace and Shakespeare is a great testament to their genius, and this form of immortality should be respected.

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Senator Hillary Clinton won the Israel vote in the Democrats Abroad Global Primary, but was defeated in the international race by Senator Barack Obama, who captured the majority of the votes cast by American expatriates who voted in the Democratic Global Primary held earlier this month.

Israel, which is home to an estimated 200,000 U.S. Citizens, is considered to be an important overseas vote, not least because of the view that the concencus of opinion in Israel may very well be reflected in the Jewish and ‘Israel lobby’ vote in the U.S.

As Clinton’s campaign has seen a sharp decline since Super-Tuesday, the race between Clinton and Obama has sharpened and a number of Clinton campaign operatives have sent around negative material about Obama’s relations with Israel, according to Newsweek. The emails have been said to attack notable Obama advisors such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who endorsed a a book, called “The Israel Lobby,” which blames many U.S. foreign-policy problems on Washington’s ties to Israel.

In addition to Brzezinski, other Obama advisers such as Rob Malley, a negotiator at the 2000 Camp David talks (who has since written articles sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view) has been mentioned. Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama’s Trinity Church in Chicago has also been cited too, given that he is a notable critic of Israel. A publication run by his daughter, called ‘Trumpet’ gave an award for “greatness” to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who once called Judaism a “bloodsucking religion.” That said, Obama has stated his objection to the award since talk of the matter surfaced.

An advisor to Obama commented that “there’s an increased number of these attack going around in direct correlation to Barack’s strength in the primaries and caucuses.” Obama has successfully fought off Clinton, to gain support among Jewish voters in California, Connecticut and Massachusetts whilst Clinton has won in New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Obama also has responded to recent attacks linking Obama to Brzezinski, saying: “I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. He’s not one of my key advisers. I’ve had lunch with him once. I’ve exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times.”

Whilst AIPAC have maintained that Obama’s voting record and public pronouncements paint him squarely as an Israel supporter, Senators Clinton and Republican front-runner, Senator John McCain as well as possible independent candidate Mayor Michael Bloomberg are considered to be more pro-Israel, according to Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

Senator Clinton has been keen to remind voters that Obama has stated his willingness, if President, to engage in talks with the Iranian regime whilst Danny Ayalon, Israel’s former ambassador to the USA, says Iran would exploit Obama’s gullibility and race ahead with a nuclear program.

Obama’s campaign looks set to face questioning on the issue of Israel, unless he can dispel rumours, being circulated by Clinton and her advisors.

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