Vacation over. Back to work.

The cruise did not end well. The gala event of every cruise, the final day of the "snowball" Bingo tournament, was a fiasco, as the P&O policy of allowing rugrats into the gambling room backfired terribly. Dozens of elderly players (and myself) were compelled to stand at the back of the room because some jackass parents thought it would be cute to bogart the seats with their obnoxious brat children. A ship the size of the Star Princess simply does not generate vacations as enjoyable as smaller cruise ships; it's way too big, and there are too many people on board. Also, my grandmother got sick, and I came down with something resembling a flu, except I already had my flu shot; I guess it's a stillborn flu. The only good news was the surprise win last night of Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, and the fact that four cubans entered the country successfully.

Strange day. Today we had our last stop of the trip, in Cabo San Lucas. Unlike the other ports, the ship was there for only six hours, which is almost nothing to me since half of that time I'm still asleep. By the time I was motivated enough to get out of bed and go ashore, I could do little more than walk around the city in a daze. Again, I stopped at a sports bar for a couple of hours and watched ESPN News, thereby getting all facets of the Parcells-to-America's Team story while developing a nice late morning buzz. As I was walking back to the tender that would take me back to the ship, I was accosted by a lady who wanted to sell me a doll for $5. I thought it would be nice to buy for my secretaries' kids, so I asked for two, and was able to bargain the price down to $8. Then I checked my wallet, and found out I had nothing. The expression on that woman's face; I wanted to cry.

The first day of the New Year was spent in Mazatlan, a "resort" town of about a million people that consists largely of luxury hotels and slums. I spent the day at a couple of sports bars in the "Golden Zone", a shopping area that seems largely designed to attract American tourists. One of the bars, The No Name Cafe, is apparently owned by a Chicago Cubs fan, and serves incredible shrimp dishes. And yes, they had all the games this afternoon. Cheap drinks, great food, I'm in heaven.

Ah, New Years Eve--champagne, streamers and horns, and casual sex with gorgeous young strangers in red cocktail dresses. If only....

We landed at our first port today, Puerto Vallarta. My family and I visited a small village about thirty miles north, Sayulita, and perchance visited one of the best restaurants I have ever had the privilege of eating at, Don Pedro's. If for no other reason than to eat there, this cruise has been worth it. Also, ESPN International does get occasional American football games. There's a chance it will be broadcasting the Rose Bowl sometime on Friday.

Til we meet in 2003--Happy New Year !!!

Hah !! I can blog at sea. Unfortunately, internet access costs $.50 a minute, so all I will be doing is "warm weather out here", or "boy, the Buckeyes sure did suck last night." The "sports bar" advertised in the brochure only gets ESPN International, which would be fine if I were a Formula One fan.

So, let's get some housekeeping done before I go away on my cruise. Iraq, with its laughably incompetent military, and its current lack of nuclear capability, is a threat worth going to war over, while North Korea, which held us to a draw the last time we fought them, and which is neighbored with a real democracy, is going to get appeased. All one needs to know about W's priorities can be summed up by this report on Bush's reaction, in which "a senior State Department official hinted that James Kelley, assistant secretary of state for East Asian Affairs, will probably soon go to Seoul." The Middle East gets the Marines, the Korean Peninsula gets some low-level bureaucrat. Unless Mr. Kelley possesses the powers of Magneto, I don't see the PRK quaking in its boots over that move.

Which only goes to show, if you want to be a dictator, rule a country without oil. Well, I need to pack, so unless the Star Princess has very inexpensive internet access, I probably won't be posting too much over the next week (or at least, I will be on my college football blog). Obviously, if Al Qaeda attacks the ship, or if some other unthinkable event occurs, like unemployment benefits suddenly running out during the holidays for 1 million Americans, then all bets are off. But if not, see ya in twenty-ought three.

Happy Boxing Day. Every so often I have a dream that I'm back at Reed College, where I spent my freshman year (I almost never have dreams about Berkeley, where I actually graduated). I'm always returning to school so that I can get another degree, but invariably, two things will happen: I will forget my locker combination, and I will overlook my class schedule, so that by the time I realize there was a class I never attended, I will have an hour to study for the final exam.

Well, I don't suppose this has anything to do with that, but C-SPAN plans on broadcasting a college course on the Clinton Administration at the U. of Arkansas next year. Friend and foe alike will offer guest lectures.

"Chuckles" Kelly strikes again !! Merry Christmas !!!

"White" Christmas, indeed !! Getting into the holiday spirit, the Lakers giftwrapped a victory for their hated Sactown rivals with a poor second half performance. Shaq celebrated his last night as a free man by scoring only two baskets in the final half, both in the last half minute. Bah Humbug.

For fans of pro wrestling, this is news akin to being told there is no Santa Claus.

So far, a decent X-mas. I got a subscription from my secret Santa (my brother-in-law) to The New Yorker, and one of my clients purchased some Cajun cooking supplies and a cookbook. The weather outside is typical Chamber of Commerce beautiful, with not a cloud in sight and the temperature hovering around 60^o.

Here's hoping each of you have a special day, regardless of where your spiritual beliefs tend.

Strange Fruit: Perhaps not the most appropriate thing to post on Christmas Eve, but this list presents an anecdotal history of lynching in the United States. This evil practice was the most effective method of enforcing Jim Crow; it put blacks (and other minorities) on notice that if they stepped out of line, they could not expect to receive even the most rudimentary justice. Lynch victims were what another blogger euphemistically refers to as a "synecdoch", a symbol used to stoke white fears of the savage Negro.

Sadly, we've never had anything like the "Truth Commission" in South Africa for civil rights. Dixiecrats could simply change parties, slightly moderate their rhetoric, and be reborn as Republicans. Any politician who tolerated lynching, or who fought efforts to ban the practice, should be marked by history as a traitor to American values, rather than having a Senate Office Building named after him. Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were better Americans than Richard Russell or James Eastland.

Truly a sad day. I saw the Clash twice in my youth, once at the Hollywood Paladium as the main act (the English Beat opened for them), and once as the lead-in for the Who at the LA Coliseum. Strummer was one of the most important figures in early-80's music, and the Clash, even more than the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, made punk rock matter in this country. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the fact that you can still play one of his albums, and hear music that is as fresh as the day it was released.

Of course, racist appeals have long been a part of our political discourse. When I was at Berkeley, the introductory U.S. history course was taught by Leon Litwack, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his book on the black experience during Reconstruction, Been in the Storm so Long, and is still, in my opinion, one of the most eloquent public speakers I have had the privilege to hear. The theme of Prof. Litwack's course was that of racial suppression: he was a social historian, so his examples typically focused on how racism impacted ordinary people. It was a most humbling experience for someone who loved (and still loves) his country, because he didn't sugarcoat matters by painting American history as an upward movement towards "progress". Each of his lectures was a gem of storytelling. I took his class my sophomore year, and became a history major about halfway through; he offered the same course when I was a senior, and I audited almost every lecture, just to listen to him teach.

Anyway, one of his villains was Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson has become, over the years, something close to a saint, due in large part to his unsuccessful advocacy of the League of Nations, a cause for which he would die. This article focuses instead on Wilson's principle domestic legacy, one that progressives would just as soon forget: his unabashed bigotry [link via Matthew Yglesias]. It is fair to say that Wilson was the most racist of all post-Civil War Presidents: worse than Andrew Johnson, worse than Nixon, worse even than Reagan. Wilson pretty much ended the last legacies of Reconstruction, purging African-Americans from holding government offices in the South, and imposed Jim Crow in the nation's capital, an odious practice that lasted well into the century. Most famously, he praised the film Birth of a Nation, in words that have lasted to this day whenever the D.W. Griffith movie is discussed, as "history written in lightning". His deeds matched his words: although as President he was one of the first to actively promote Catholic and Jewish officeholders (including nominating Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court), he was also a child of the Confederacy, who never outgrew the notion of white supremacy, and fought throughout his Presidency to support that end.

And he was a Democrat. In 1948, Wilson's death was as recent to Americans as the deaths of Hubert Humphrey and Harvey Milk are to us. Among progressives, Wilson was still a revered figure, and for Democrats, he was often paired with the recently deceased FDR as the greatest of all Presidents. When Strom Thurmond ran for President that year, he campaigned on a platform that was well within the mainstream of the Democratic Party of the 1910's and 1920's, and spoke words that could have (and did) come easily from the mouth of Woodrow Wilson. None of this, of course, can excuse the Dixiecrats' campaign that year, much less Trent Lott or John Ashcroft's nostalgia for the Old South. But it should force progressives to feel some measure of humility, especially when considering whether we have unexamined assumptions that may one day be found wanting.

This morning's Frank Rich column beautifully summarizes l'affaire Lott, and why it symbolizes our current political climate. For some reason, I think he might be a rather interesting blogger, if he took it up.

Next Saturday I will be embarking on the third Smythe's World Cruise, a seven day trip down the Mexican Riviera on the Star Princess. Still have a spot left !!!

Trent Lott steps down !! Advantage Blogosphere !!!

UPDATE: Bill Frist is the likely replacement. TPM focuses on how he has played the race card in past elections.

UPDATE, PART DEUX: Counterspin has an encylcopedic takedown of Dr. Frist and his coziness with the pharmaceutical industry. Get a load of that rider he snuck into the Homeland Security bill at the last second, geared to benefitting Eli Lilly in their brave efforts to defeat terrorism through the use of mercury.

Right now, only the September 2002 archive is working for this site. It appears to be a problem with the server, so some of you may like to try again later.

Finally. The first season of Alias is being released next September on DVD. I never saw the first five episodes, so there's much to the back story that I would be interested to see. For example, why is the CIA allowed to investigate a domestic entity(SD-6) that may be involved in organized crime? Wasn't that proscribed by the Church Committee? Why won't investigators use the media (or at least a reporter more reputable than Will Tippin) to bring down the Alliance, through a process of well-placed leaks, rather than two overmatched double agents? If a newspaper won't publish the story, a blogger certainly will. And considering how Sloane was so paranoid that he had Sydney's fiance murdered because he knew of the existence of SD-6, doesn't he wonder about the number of conversations she has that are bug-proof, especially in his office with her dad? Also, aren't any of the characters
(besides Jack) going to wonder about what happened to Haledki? Anna Espinoza? McKenas Cole? Oh well, the show hasn't disappointed me yet....

After tonight's atrocious performance in New Jersey, there will be some who suggest that the Lakers better start looking at the merits of getting a good lottery pick. It may take some doing to get LeBron James, but (the thinking goes) the Lakers are so far away from being a championship team that it is best that the rebuilding begin post haste. The geniuses who buy into that theory forget that Jerry West is no longer the G.M. To date, Mitch Kupchak has yet to make a move that works, and the team now surrounding Kobe and Shaq consists, in large part, of players signed or drafted by him.

This team is the defending NBA champion, have all their players healthy, and yet are perhaps the worst Lakers team since the days of Elmore Smith. To believe that things are going to get better requires one to have faith that Derek Fisher is going to suddenly find his range, that Samaki Walker is going to start playing like he cares, that Rick Fox is going to give four quarters of solid effort every night. And that Robert Horry is going to turn 25 again. And that Phil Jackson is going to lose the deer-in-the-headlights look every time his team falls behind by ten points in the first half. Yeah, I don't see that happening, either.