On Wednesday I commented on Alan Kupeman’s Op-Ed piece in the New York Times. In knew that Nicolas Kristof would respond and I had hoped to find a copy not behind the Times Select firewall. But that wasn’t to be. The folks at Save Darfur, however, have posted Kristof’s rebutal and I repeat that service here.

I am pleased to see the debate expand.

The Times today carried an op-ed about Darfur that has all of us who have been banging the drums about the genocide there gnashing our teeth. Basically, the essay argues that the slaughter in Darfur is much more complex than it appears, that there are no good guys, and that well-meaning Westerners (like me) are only prolonging the genocide by calling for military intervention.

So let me respond.

Keep reading to see what Kristof, who more than any other columnist I know has beat the Save-Darfur drum long and hard, had to say.

My Soundtrack: Tears, Tears And More Tears by Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint on WOXY.

The single most important presidential election in U.S. history took place in 1796 when Americans saw the peaceful election and transfer of power to an opposition party. History may mark the 2004 re-election of President George Bush as the second most important because of its conscious theft of political office.

I dislike conspiracy theories, but I took part in the recount, saw the irregularities and I think in time it will become irrefutable that the election was stolen.

Rolling Stone’s national affairs desk is turned over to Robert Kennedy Jr. this month for: Was the 2004 Election Stolen? The subhead leaps to Ohio and answers the question by replying: Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted — enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

It only takes Kennedy three paragraphs to get back to Ohio.

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush’s victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency.

A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.

Kennedy does not hold back. Only two paragraphs later he stands up to declare, I’ve become convinced that the president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.

And in the next paragraph he quotes Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), In Ohio, you had a secretary of state who was determined to guarantee a Republican outcome. I’m terribly disheartened.”

And the master of the Ohio election system, Ken Blackwell, is running for governor. If he can hand Ohio over to Bush, don’t you think he can ensure his own ascendancy?

If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.

[Update — 1210 — both Tim and Russell comment on Kennedy’s story.]

My Soundtrack: Enduring Love by Rahim on WOXY.

Anyone who thinks Democrats have a lock on the Black vote in November needs to listen to two podcasts from Ed Gordon’s News And Notes program this afternoon. The first is an interview with Ken Blackwell and he comes off good. Then listen to the pandemonium, nay, ODP Christmas party-esque near riot, that erupted among the panelists.

Wired magazine sent one of its writers to Crystal City, Virginia to eavesdrop on the eavesdroppers at the Intelligence Support Systems World conference. Press credentials weren’t available, but it’s amazing how much people will talk (some of the stories I could tell you) in a convention hotel bar.

What follows is the section that should send chills down every American’s spine.

“I’m not much concerned about wiretaps in America and Europe,” I’d [Wired author Thomas Greene] been saying to one of the Pen-Link engineers, “but I wonder if it bothers you to consider what this technology can do in the hands of repressive governments with no judicial oversight, no independent legislature.”

Our man interrupted. “You need to educate yourself,” he said with a sneer. “I mean, that’s a classic journalist’s question, but why are you hassling these guys? They’re engineers. They make a product. They don’t sell it. What the hell is it to them what anyone does with it?”

“Well, it’s quite an issue,” I said. “This is the equipment of totalitarianism, and the only things that can keep a population safe are decent law and proper oversight. I want to know what they think when they learn that China, or Syria, or Zimbabwe is getting their hands on it.”

“You really need to educate yourself,” he insisted. “Do you think this stuff doesn’t happen in the West? Let me tell you something. I sell this equipment all over the world, especially in the Middle East. I deal with buyers from Qatar, and I get more concern about proper legal procedure from them than I get in the USA.”

“Well, perhaps the Qataris are conscientious,” I said, “and I’m prepared to take your word on that, but there are seriously oppressive governments out there itching to get hold of this stuff.”

He sneered again. “Do you think for a minute that Bush would let legal issues stop him from doing surveillance? He’s got to prevent a terrorist attack that everyone knows is coming. He’ll do absolutely anything he thinks is going to work. And so would you. So why are you bothering these guys?”

“It’s a valid question,” I insisted. “This is powerful stuff. In the wrong hands, it could ruin political opponents; it could make the state’s power impossible to challenge. The state would know basically everything. People would be getting rounded up for thought crimes.”

“You’re not listening,” he said. “The NSA is using this stuff. The DEA, the Secret Service, the CIA. Are you kidding me? They don’t answer to you. They do whatever the hell they want with it. Are you really that naive? Now leave these guys alone; they make a product, that’s all. It’s nothing to them what happens afterward. You really need to educate yourself.”

We all do.

My Soundtrack: As Far As The Eye Can See by Radio 4 on WOXY.

There has been a spike in visitors to Have Coffee Will Write of late. I just finished my best month ever with more than 8,400 unique visitors to my blog and nearly a third-0f-a-million hits sucking up more than five gigs of bandwidth. This compares to a little more than 3,600 unique visitors, 127,000 hits and only 1.42 gigs of bandwidth a year ago.

So I just like to say to everyone who stops in, takes the time to read, and most importantly, to write a comment: thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you can make the next blogger MeetUp (Wednesday, 21 June at the Town Fryer) I’ll be buying a round for the house in celebration.

My Soundtrack: Lately, I’ve Been Thinking by Eleventh Dream Day on WOXY.

Suspended you danced with her the best slow dancer
Who stood on tiptoe who almost wasn’t there
In your arms like music she knew just how to answer
The question mark of your spine your hand in hers
The other touching that place between her shoulders
Trembling your countless feet lightfooted sure
To move as they wished wherever you might stagger

From The Best Slow Dancer by David Wagoner.

Libraries shelve their fiction, logically enough, alphabetically by the author’s last name. But that means that if you enjoy the books of Jonathan Kellerman you’d be hard pressed to stumble upon the books of James Lee Burke. With The Literature Map, however, type in Jonathan Kellerman and hovering down and to the right is Burke.

The literature map (there are maps for music and movies as well) is driven by Gnod. Its creater describes it this way:

Gnod is experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. Its a self-adapting system, living on this server and ‘talking’ to everyone who comes along. Gnods intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn ‘understanding’ its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don’t know about.

For someone who likes to read as much as I do, this is an invaluable tool. I’ve already identified two authors I know nothing about and have ordered books by them from my library.

Marketing tip for new authors. If you’re not on the map, get busy and start linking your name.

My Soundtrack: Black Grease by The Black Angels on WOXY.

Readers of my blog know I’ve been writing posts on the genocide in Darfur for more than a year. I’ve done my best to stay current with what was happening and to pass what I’d found along to my readers. Usually I provide the regular links and observations and then allow the reader to graze the buffet.

Some writings, however, are too important to let slip behind a firewall.

In this morning’s New York Times is one such piece. Strategic Victimhood In Sudan by Alan J. Kupeman examines how nothing in the world is ever simple. Today’s rebels are yesterday’s victims. Yesterday’s victims are tomorrow’s oppressors. Everyone’s hands are dirty. And as always, it is the weak, the old, the young, the lame, the women who suffer the most.

The World must do everything within its power to stop this and all genocides. But we must not allow our indignant rage to lull us into rightious folly.

Writes Kupeman:

…two of Darfur’s three main rebel groups still rejected peace. Frustrated American negotiators accentuated the positive – the strongest rebel group did sign – and expressed hope that the dissenters would soon join.

But that hope was crushed last week when the rebels viciously turned on each other. As this newspaper reported, “The rebels have unleashed a tide of violence against the very civilians they once joined forces to protect.”

Seemingly bizarre, this rejection of peace by factions claiming to seek it is actually revelatory. It helps explain why violence originally broke out in Darfur, how the Save Darfur movement unintentionally poured fuel on the fire, and what can be done to stanch genocidal violence in Sudan and elsewhere.

In our country, as in most of the industrial World, the journalists mantra is follow the money. And perhaps that is one of the reasons we in the West have been lulled into complacency about who the actors in Darfur are and why they do what they. There is no great wealth seemingly at stake. No vast mineral deposits. No oil fields. What we see in the pictures are tracts of sunbaked mud and sad.

But there is a much more ancient currency in play in Darfur: power.

Kupeman continues:

Darfur was never the simplistic morality tale purveyed by the news media and humanitarian organizations. The region’s blacks, painted as long-suffering victims, actually were the oppressors less than two decades ago – denying Arab nomads access to grazing areas essential to their survival.

Violence was initiated not by Arab militias but by the black rebels who in 2003 attacked police and military installations. The most extreme Islamists are not in the government but in a faction of the rebels sponsored by former Deputy Prime Minister Hassan al-Turabi, after he was expelled from the regime. Cease-fires often have been violated first by the rebels, not the government, which has pledged repeatedly to admit international peacekeepers if the rebels halt their attacks.

None of this excuses the slaughter.

Americans, as a whole, do not care for complicated issues. Tell us the problem. Tell us the solution. Let us write the check. When things get complicated our eyes glaze over. Think of President Jimmy Carter trying to explain the complexities of nuclear disarmenent. Think of President George Bush’s Medicare benefit plan.

We have an obligation to not avert our eyes. We have an obligation to wrestle with what can be known. These are what make us Human.

My Soundtrack: The Needle Has Landed by Neko Case on WOXY.

Can’t you just see Ken Blackwell, huddled over his game consol, blasting away at the forces of Ted Strickland the Anti-Christ? Here’s the bet, dinner at the Town Fryer if one single, christianist, family-friendly organization condemns this game for its violence, anti-social and anti-American values. Do they fear the world won’t end by the fall?

From the Left-Behind loonies:

Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in Left Behind: Eternal Forces – a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling Left Behind book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!

–Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

–Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

–Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

–Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

–Control more than 30 units types – from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

–Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!

–Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist’s Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet!

Anybody interested in a nice wetware game of spades?

Thanks to Daily Dish.

My Soundtrack: A Beating Heart by The Electric Soft Parade on WOXY.

Several years ago my father gave me the gift of a bundle of letters. Held together with rubber bands, the letters represented five years of life, the time I’d served in the U.S. Navy. Like my peers in the service, it was letters in those pre-Internet and cell-phone days that had connected me to my family.

I still have those letters, along with the ones I received in return. Perhaps someday some great-nephew or -niece will read them and gain some insight into who I was and what I experienced.

I puzzled over what I would do this weekend to commemorate Memorial Day. When I found Letters From The Front Lines in this morning’s Los Angeles Times, I knew it was the perfect response. Wars are never really about grand strategies and geopolitics. They are about lonely men and women far from the people they love doing what they know needs doing.

Today there will be parades and barbeques. There will be baseball games and lemonade. There will be fireworks.

I would wish there would be more telling of stories and reading of letters; diaries opened.

There is too little of memory in Memorial Day.

My Soundtrack: A Beating Heart by The Electric Soft Parade on WOXY.

Our president is proof positive of No. 1 on this list. In addition to No. 1, Terry, who sent me these pearls, likes No. 10 and No. 26. I’m kind of partial to No. 13, No. 22 and No. 25. On board the USS Bainbridge we used to joke that we were never more than seven miles away from land, it was just straight down. Which ones do you like?

31. It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
32. Everybody lies, but it doesn’t matter since nobody listens.
33. I wished the buck stopped here, as I could use a few.
34. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
35. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people that weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Little Known Facts, 1-5.
Little Known Facts, 6-10.
Little Known Facts, 11-15.
Little Known Facts, 16-20.
Little Known Facts, 21-25.
Little Known Facts, 26-30.

My Soundtrack: The Lovers’ Rights by The Rosebuds on WOXY.

From Groilla Mask.

Our president is proof positive of No. 1 on this list. In addition to No. 1, Terry, who sent me these pearls, likes No. 10 and No. 26. I’m kind of partial to No. 13, No. 22 and No. 25. On board the USS Bainbridge we used to joke that we were never more than seven miles away from land, it was just straight down. Which ones do you like?

26. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat drinking beer all day.
27. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.
28. As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.
29. When you’re swimming in the creek, and an eel bites your cheek, that’s a moray!
30. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing right.

Little Known Facts, 1-5.
Little Known Facts, 6-10.
Little Known Facts, 11-15.
Little Known Facts, 16-20.
Little Known Facts, 21-25.

More to come tomorrow…

My Soundtrack: Step On by Happy Mondays on WOXY.

To be continued tomorrow…

My Soundtrack: In The Ballroom by The Great Shakes on WOXY.

On Thursday, 8 June, George Nemeth and other bloggers will travel to Columbus for a Meet The Bloggers with Ian James, campaign manager; Michael Hopcraft, media and Todd Hoffman, Onine cmmunications director for the Ohio Learn & Earn committee. I really wish I could be there because I’d love to skewer the carpetbagging scam artists.

But alas, I can’t. So I’ve suggested six questions that George might ask on my behalf.

First, my understanding is that this involves putting slot machines in nine locations: seven current horse racing venues and two (to be named) downtown casinos. Why does Ohio Learn and Earn believe that these will attract those Ohio gamblers who now travel out of state for full-service gambling in other states?

Second, the Ohio Larn and Earn website mentions $200 million/year for local communities. Why does this not represent a shell game since the money will not be an influx of new revenue into a community but will rather represent a redistribution of already taxed discretionary dollars? What percentage of those discretionary dollars, previously spent in locally owned businesses, will now leave the community?

Third, at what taxation level will Ohio Learn and Earn no longer support the program? That is, if the Ohio legislature requires that say 50 percent of all revenues be fed into the scholarships, would OL&E still go forward? How about 75 percent; 95 percent?

Fourth, what tax-incentives/public monies will Ohio Learn and Earn require to develop the slot machine venues and two new casinos?

Fifth, what real, continuing jobs (such as slot machine repair staff) do you expect Ohio Learn and Earn to create? Will any of these jobs be union jobs? Have benefits? What is the going salary for a slot machine mechanic? What is the projected ratio of machines to mechanics: 100:1, 500:1, 1000:1?

Sixth, what is the cap (the maximum any one student may receive) on the scholarship? Does money not used by a student get redistributed to other students? What about money allocated for students who do not pass the Board of Regents standards, or students who drop out before using their allotment ? Is their allocated money redistributed to other students?

My Soundtrack: Raising The Sparks by Akron/Family on WOXY.

Well, not really the GOP, this list of 50 rock songs tagged by readers of The National Review does puport to illustrate what Conservatives are listening to. I always thought Rush Limbaugh’s theft of the Pretenders: My City Was Gone, was bad, but if anything could possibly kill Rock ‘N’ Roll, this is it.

Writes John J. Miller:

What makes a great conservative rock song? The lyrics must convey a conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values. And, to be sure, it must be a great rock song. We”re biased in favor of songs that are already popular, but have tossed in a few little-known gems.

In several cases, the musicians are outspoken liberals. Others are notorious libertines. For the purposes of this list, however, we don”t hold any of this against them. Finally, it would have been easy to include half a dozen songs by both the Kinks and Rush, but we”ve made an effort to cast a wide net. Who ever said diversity isn”t a conservative principle?

Here are the Top 10, click through for the whole list, with links to MP3 files.

Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who.
Taxman by The Beatles.
Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.
Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice by The Beach Boys.
Gloria by U2.
Revolution by The Beatles.
Bodies by The Sex Pistols.
Don’t Tread on Me by Metallica.
20th Century Man by The Kinks.

I wonder what a progressive version might look like?

My Soundtrack: Lessons Learned From Rocky I To Rocky III by Cornershop on WOXY.

The Open Business Project needs help defining exactly what an open business is. That’s a tough one. To way too many people Open means the same as Free. But there is very little that can be truly free since we all need to eat and clothe ourselves. Somebody, somewhere has to pay. But I’m willing to engage in the discussion. From OBP:

Now we are beginning to understand how in the digitally networked world “attention” becomes not only a currency with which you can attract advertisement revenue, but a much more diverse and crucial feature of emerging open business models built around participatory architectures, where co-creation and collaboration are the norm and not the exception.

Given this our working definition of ‘open” includes mechanisms for opening up ways to create, produce, collaborate and share a wide variety of informational resources.

Yet, thinking practically, MySpace — one of the best known ‘open” platforms for sharing content and information – recently changed its copyright policy following acquisition by Murdoch. Today everything which is uploaded to the site, your pictures, movies and recordings belongs, legally at least, to them.

This position is clearly in opposition to some of the benefits sought by loosening intellectual property restrictions. The definition of ‘open” also depends, in this regard, on encouraging communities which are sustainable.

There is also another aspect of how “Openess” changes the way business operates: Big industrial organisational models which were made for the era of mass-media and mass-production make no sense anymore. An online record label run by a staff of three can perform similar functions to a big record label run by hundreds of people.

New organizational forms, new management styles and cultural norms are emerging, as well as new revenue models. But are these businesses more ethical, because they can re-distribute more, or radically reduce the costs of publishing making access to educational resources much cheaper?

Twenty-five years ago when I began to preach that all media should move to the Internet, the first question out of every publisher’s mouth was: How do you make money from it? The question is still a good one. But now I’d frame it this way: Which are the successful open busiensses and what are they doing?

My Soundtrack: Hard Row by The Black Keys on WOXY.

By then I had been married and divorced.
The girl I reached for in unfinished walls
had moved away as if by nature’s course.
The house was gone. Under quiet hills

the creek had cut new banks, left silt in bars
that sprouted alder scrub. No one would know,
cruising the dead-end road beneath the stars,
how we had trespassed there so long ago.

From The Lost House by David Mason.

Our president is proof positive of No. 1 on this list. In addition to No. 1, Terry, who sent me these pearls, likes No. 10 and No. 26. I’m kind of partial to No. 13, No. 22 and No. 25. On board the USS Bainbridge we used to joke that we were never more than seven miles away from land, it was just straight down. Which ones do you like?

21. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try and pass them.
22. You can’t have everything–where would you put it?
23. Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world’s population.
24. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
25. The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those who got there first.

Little Known Facts, 1-5.
Little Known Facts, 6-10.
Little Known Facts, 11-15.
Little Known Facts, 16-20.

More to come tomorrow…

My Soundtrack: You Alumni by Maritime on WOXY.

University of Florida PhD. student Philip Sandifer has caught the attention of attorney Mitchell Silverman who wants the University of Florida police to turn over all records relating to the case; a request the police must comply to by law. Sandifer’s troubles are linked to disgruntled wikipedians who are displeased with Sandifer.

Today 25 May, is Towel Day. What is Towel Day, you might rightly ask? Well it’s a day for all of us to remember the literary genius of Douglas Adams who gave us the answer to Life, The Universe, Everything. (And no, I’m not going to tell you, if you don’t know you probably need to read the directions on a box of tooth picks.

But why a towel? Because, as the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy informs us:

A towel, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value:

you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta;

you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours;

you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon;

use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth;

wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat;

wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal,
it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous);

you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course

dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc.

Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth f the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

I shall have my towel with me all day. Thank you Douglas.

My Soundtrack: Down In The Valley by The Brokedown on WOXY.