Miami Beach

It's really expensive. I suppose a lot of people know this already. But, as many can attest to, I don't typically belong to the demographic known as 'a lot of people.'

I get that a beach stay in a hotel is going to be expensive...no problem. What I was unprepared for was a doubling of prices for everything. I'm used to hamburgers costing $8 or $9. But, I'm not ready for the same quality burger to cost $18 or $19, or to have an 18% tip included on every meal, calculating that 18% on tax as well, something that neither the waiter nor the restaurant deserves as part of the tipping calculation.

It's also really hard to eat my normal fare of mostly vegan. With all the Cuban, Brazilian, Peruvian and Columbian communities in Miami Beach, there is an overwhelming amount of meat. And, yucca is considered a vegetable.

If someone happens to go there and wants a vegan meal, I recommend Black Sheep. It's not a vegan place, but, they have a quinoa, lentil and red curry dish that's vegan and excellent.

If you feel like you have to stay in Miami Beach and not just visit, I'd recommend an AirBnB in one of the North Beach neighborhoods. They're relatively quiet and they're located near stores so that you can moderate your expenditures on eating out. They're also really close to the beach since the island at the north end is pretty skinny...no more than four blocks away.

North Beach is also a good entree to get to the public beaches which are very multi-cultural....and, a bit crowded.

The Tactician.

I've heard pundits, primarily, Russian ones, talk about Vladimir Putin as a brilliant tactician and a poor strategist.

I've thought about what this means and believe it to be true. Activities such as attacking Georgia on behalf of the Abkhazian minority, the 'lifting' of Crimea from Ukraine and, possibly, the destabilization of eastern Ukraine.

I say 'possibly' because I think that the tactics jury is still out...if Ukraine, overall, remains unstable, it will be a brilliant move..if Ukraine solidifies, then, Putin may find himself facing a long-term, expensive, foe.

In all of the above cases, Putin took a big, military risk, a risk in the hopes that the US or other countries wouldn't respond meaningfully. It paid off, neither a war-mongering president like George Bush nor a pacifist like Barack Obama, elected to respond.

But, the long-term consequences seem to be in the air. In all these cases, Russia's place in the world community is now more in line with North Korea, than a a stable, member of the world community.

Giving Iran a Chance

I was 12 years old in 1979 when the US Embassy employees were taken hostage by the Iranian "students."

That, and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan were arguably the first two world events of which I was conscious.

I would argue that they indelibly marked me and influenced how I would perceive world affairs for the rest of my life.

First, I learned from both those events that governments lie to their citizens. The Russians lied about why they went in to Afghanistan (they were invited) and the US lied about the relationship it had with the Shah and his impact on his own countrymen.

A destroyed Mujahideen Village

All, in order to make themselves look like the victims and sympathetic to the rest of the world.

I think that we're barking up the wrong tree in our current relationship with Iran. Granted, they injured and humiliated the US in 1979 and we have long memories. But, these are countries, after all. Our interests change and we have to allow our policies to change to match those interests.

Seems that we have changed our interests in the Middle East and need to have our policies agree with that change.

As George Bush said, he wanted to bring democracy to the Middle East and the invasion of Iraq would liberate the first Middle Eastern country and, using the moribund Communist domino theory, he asserted that Iraq would be the first domino for the Middle East as it becomes a democracy.

Did we pick the wrong country? Maybe. As far as I know, the only Middle Eastern country, other than Israel, that has any history with democracy, is Iran.

In the 1920s, it was a burgeoning democracy, one that Russia put an end to after World War II and that the US continued to supress with the ascendancy of the Shah.

In my years long study of political systems, totalitarian, authoritarian, and democratic systems, I have come to the conclusion that societies pick the type of government that they have a proclivity for.

Now, that may seem obvious, but, think about it. What I'm saying is that the people pick the system. Someone imposing that system upon them are rare to the point of that elusive snipe one may hunt for (Japan, is an obvious exception).

For a society to be truly democratic, it needs to have a civil society that supports the notion of democracy. It took hundreds of years in the West for this kind of society to develop and, ultimately, influence the development of democratic governments.

Iran has, in the past, created a rudimentary civil society that supported its democratic government. And, though we see it as a theocratic oligarchy now, we need to realize that Iranians DO vote. They may vote for candidates who have a limited political view, but, even better than the Soviet Union, the offices are in contention.

On this basis, maybe the US should reconsider whom is its friend and, at the very least, recognize that Iran has a heritage the US can appreciate and support. A heritage that is far more in line with the US' political heritage than the Shah that the US once supported.

Recording Permanence - Sotomayor

I can't tell you the number of times that I've said something I regretted. Nothing egregious, usually, but, something where my mouth got ahead of my brain has happened enough times that I couldn't even come close to guessing the volume.

Further, these kinds of mistakes have happened when I was speaking extemporaneously, not something that I'd well rehearsed.

I think that this has befallen Sotomayor.

Speaking

You may disagree with her when it comes to qualifications and decisions. That's fine. But, if you discount a person for a single, verbal, incident, I certainly hope you don't live in a glass house because I would imagine no one can claim verbal perfection.

While that's my initial take on this, there's a deeper problem that bothers me.

One reason I don't worry too much about my gaffes is that no one had a recorder on during every public engagement I had. So, people have forgotten those gaffes. Having forgotten those regrettable moments means that I have a chance to move on. I can't be easily pigeon-holed into some version of a past me.

Since no one has captured my verbal life, they only have one choice when it comes to evaluating me. They must make their decisions about my personality and capabilities based upon what I do from now on...not what I have done (unless, of course, they are, like my two middle school friends, people who've known me for 30 years).

North Korea

I don't pretend to me any foreign policy genius. But, I DO have my opinions. And, North Korea has been on my mind.

They act completely enigmatic when it comes to relations between nation states. We've tried to engage them with carrots, we've tried to punish them (somewhat) with sticks, we've tried to manipulate the relationship that they have with their supporting powers (China and Russia).

All to no avail.

They remind me, a bit, of one of those loosely robotic dogs that I've bought my daughter where you're suppose to give them some level of attention to get them to do things. The only thing is that, unlike the dog, the only behavior that seems to impact North Korea is when we ignore them for a while.

The robotic dog barks and moans when no one pays attention to it....so does North Korea. Except that when it doesn't feel the spotlight, it decides to do something to get attention and people talking to it again.

What would happen if even during its extreme actions, we just didn't talk about it.

I feel like recognition of its badness is just reinforcing behavior. And, frankly, if all the other types of engagement or disengagement haven't worked, why not try something else?

Medvedev (Медведев) - A Rise in Authority

In political science, the concepts of Power and Authority are often divergent. In day to day language, we tend to confuse and interchange the use of those words.

Power, in politics, is the ability to wield the levers of action in a government to get things done.

Authority is the ability to influence the direction that people take, bending toward the direction that you wish.

In many cases, the same person might equally utilize Power and Authority because they contain both.

However, there are examples where Power and Authority are divided among political figures.

A perfect example is Ghandi and the British Empire. The British controlled the levers of government and wielded Power to control India.

Ghandi, on the other hand, wielded Authority because he had moral superiority and a timely message for Indians that made him the key directional force as India achieved its independence.

I'm wondering if we're seeing the same divergence begin to happen in Russia.

Until the past year, I would have unequivocally argued that Vladimir Putin possessed both Power and Authority in Russia.

I believe he still does. However, if you see Power and Authority as two separate, horizontal 'sliders,' the slider representing Authority is gradually sliding inversely in relation to Putin. It is sliding, I believe, slightly, toward Medvedev.

Russians have traditionally preferred strong rulers. Putin certainly fulfills that promise. But, Russians have also shown an occasional penchant for separating Power and Authority and giving Authority to more sympathetic characters.

For example, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after the Tamizdat publication of the Gulag Archipeligo, and even after is emigration from Russia, held considerable moral authority that demanded the opening and reflection of its past by the Communist Party.

In 1825, the Decembrists Revolted against the Imperial government and were desirous of creating something like a Constitutional Monarchy. Again, they had very little power, but, influenced the intelligentsia in Russia for the next 85 years.

Lastly, an example I use is Andrei Sakharov. Very much an Oppenheimer like person, Sakharov was under house arrest until the middle-end of the Gorbachev era. Once the Duma was created, he wielded some Power as a sitting member. But, in that body, he possessed considerable Authority to the point where Gobachev had to negotiate with him personally in order to get rules and laws passed in the assembly. Simply because Gorbachev knew that Sakharov could sway so many other members and the public at large simply with his personality.

All those people...and groups, have possessed great directional authority for Russia, but had virtually no actual Power to achieve anything.
We might be seeing a more sympathetic leaning toward Medvedev such that even though Putin wields considerable Power, Medvedev is increasing his authority within the country.

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Gitmo

I'm not all that sure what to do about Guantanamo. It grates against my sensibilities to have a place that the US controls, but, doesn't play by American civil liberty rules. Rather, it plays by Gulag rules.

Yet, what do we do with those prisoners if we close it down? We captured them and should be responsible for holding them. However, we've used techniques on them that would invalidate any ability to try those people and hold them in a standard US prison. It's not that they could escape from our prisons, it's that under normal American rules, no judge would allow them to be convicted..so, they would be set free.

It appears that the only option we have for those real terrorists is to send them to countries that don't have the civil liberties that would prevent them from holding them in their countries.

What about military prisons here in the US? Their rules are different than civil rules. We DO have Leavenworth and we all accept that the people already being held there have been tried and convicted by rules that are far more restrictive than those we expect for ourselves in civil society.

The Coconut Rule

What's the real issue with the Swine Flu? I'm not saying that it can't become an epidemic or pandemic. However, so far, we have one death in the United States from the Swine Flue and 13,000 deaths from the normal viral flu that we get every year...in the same timeframe mind you.


Not to belittle the death of a single person. But, Stalin's truism comes to mind, "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

мертва одного человека, трагедия, мертва миллионих статистика.

Note that this is an unverified quotation as far as I can tell. It sounds like something that Stalin would say, but, who knows.

I have my own rule about this kind of thing. I call it the coconut rule. Unless the number of people affected by something is greater than the number of people killed per year by coconuts, it shouldn't be in the news or be legislated around.

For those of you who are curious...on average, 150 people are killed, per year, by coconuts. Sharks? 6-10 per year. We hear about all the shark attacks, but, no one ever sees anything about the killer coconuts in the news.

Television Makes You Stupid

I have a story.

My grandmother may the most politically and events apathetic person conceivable.

This is a woman who is 92 years old, has never voted, has no sense of geography, and, though very traveled around the world, has focused purely on what kind of knickknacks she can bring back to the US rather than capture a brief instance of the culture surrounding her.

Mind you, this is a grandmother with whom I lived as a child when my mother couldn't afford my upkeep during the tough times of the 70s. I love my grandmother and have a relationship with her that many people don't often have with their grandparents (in the US, at least).

Anyway, my mom just bought her a TV. It was a Christmas present. Primarily, the goal was to give her access to the Lawrence Welk Show.

I thought that was nice, but, didn't give it a second thought.

My first surprise was a call from my grandmother to talk about the invasion of Gaza by Israel just before Obama's inauguration.

We discussed why they invaded, what they hoped to get out of it, how many Palestinians had been hurt or killed, and, who Hamas was.

So, that was just one instance.

But, today, my mom related to me another discussion she'd just had having watched the news around Obama attempting to close Guantanamo Bay down.

Again, the same kind of questions as before. What do we have prisoners there for, why would Bush not want those people to come to trial....etc.

So, I know that this is a sample set of 1, but, television has broadened the horizon of my grandmother and I'm glad for it.

Totalitarianism vs. Authoritarianism

Some of my friends know that I spent a long time studying Russia and the Soviet Union from an academic viewpoint. They also know that I've lived there during the death throes of communism, during the transition to Russian democracy and during the actual height of Russian anarchic democracy.

That as the background, I've often been asked what I think of Vladimir Putin and the direction he's going. I know that Medvedev is the current President of Russia, but, I don't give his position and role much credence in either power or authority within Russia. More on that later because I think that there are situations where he can manipulate the appointment system within the bureaucracy in order to increase his leveraged power.

So, what do I think?

First, let me distinguish my understanding of totalitarianism and authoritarianism and highlight why I think they're different.

Authoritarianism is a system of government where one person or an oligarchy control the levers of power. And, they expect the people to obey those levers of power. Quite often there is a tacit bargain that as long as the people or the corporations don't interfere with the levers of political power and appear to support the political leadership, they won't interfere with the economic gain or personal lives of society.

Totalitarianism takes the concept of authoritarianism one step further where the political leaders don't accept that tacit bargain. They expect society to emotionally and economically bow to the will of the political system, organizing the economic system to track their political requirements and explicitly interfering in the personal lives of individuals to ensure that they not only appear to be supporting the political leadership, but, actually support the political leadership. At some level, to accomplish this in a large society, requires oppression and brainwashing.

This is an important difference to me because I believe that while Russia is reverting to authoritarianism with the Putin regime, I don't believe that there is a danger of descending into totalitarianism.

The ongoing Putin regime appears accept the tacit social contract that civil society toe the line and support them in appearance, not rock the boat, and they, in turn, can have economic and personal freedom (personal freedom that doesn't significantly impinge upon the political structure.)

Witness the arrest of Mikhail Khodorovski who ran Yukos. I'm not arguing that the charges were trumped up, he may very well have been breaking the law. But, he was not breaking it any more than anyone else in similar positions within the commercial sector. Once he started speaking out against the government, then his activities were used as a means of justifying removing a potential political opponent.

If you're interested in taking a look at other, like situations, check out The US Report on Human Rights Abuses.

With this as background, is Russia headed down an authoritarian path or down a soviet-style path?