I think it is one of the strangest signs of our times, this "level red alert" level orange, level yellow thing. I got this in my email today, from the university:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
The US Department of Homeland Security has lowered the threat level to
³elevated² (yellow). In response, the University will resume normal
security operations. Effective immediately, guard kiosks will resume normal
hours of operation (7:30 a.m. 4:00 p.m.) and allow through traffic on the
main campus. The metal detector on the tower will be removed, and tower
tours may be scheduled.
To paraphrase Michael, it seems like if we need security, we need security. How can you randomly change that from day to day?
Headlines! I always notice them, on the corner of Dean Keaton and Whitis when I'm coming back from class. Today this is what 2 of them say, probably the Dallas paper and the Houston one, but I'm not really sure:
About the Michael Moore talk, I liked him because he was plain. He was just a regular old lardo. Like me. Like all of us, and yet he has convictions and stands next to them. And even though he is probably a little fanatical, he seems to truely want to do good things. He was funny and inspirational and not too self-righteous. At the end, I felt like I could take over the Travis county democractic party if I wanted to. Everyone can do something. And everyone should do something. I think that was his main point. That not only can we make a difference, but it is our duty to do things. If we don't, we are responsible for the results of our indifference.
Is it true? From the Tao te Ching, 57, thanks to Alex.
The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become.
The sharper men's weapons,
The more trouble in the land.
The more ingenious and clever men are,
The more strange things happen.
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers.
Therefore the sage says:
I take no action and people are reformed.
I enjoy peace and people become honest.
I do nothing and the people become rich.
I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life.
April 11, 2003 | The images of cheering Iraqis celebrating the demise of Saddam Hussein and dragging a demolished statue of the dictator through the streets of a liberated Baghdad will be linked forever with this war. It was the sort of defining moment that American media outlets have thirsted for, a feel-good picture of a coalition-led victory that could be played and replayed.
But the war is not yet over, and more fighting and attacks are certain, as painfully proved by Thursday's suicide bombing at a U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad. Once the thrill of the falling statue fades, news outlets will again be confronted with the grisly reality of grave injury and death -- among U.S. soldiers, Iraqi soldiers and civilians. But if the past three weeks are any guide, the American news media will not run them. And as a result, American news consumers will have little idea of what happens when the world's mightiest military power unleashes sustained attacks, albeit targeted ones, on an impoverished, despot-ruled nation, or what happens when that regime, fighting for its life, answers in kind.
To be sure, there have been deeply troubling pictures, but sometimes even they have a sentimental overlay. Perhaps the most famous battlefield photo to date, one that ran on newspaper front pages across the country, is a haunting shot of an Army doctor in full military gear squatting on the dirt and holding a young Iraqi girl in his arms just minutes after her mother had been killed in crossfire. The New York Times, Time magazine, CNN.com and others have, occasionally, run photos that featured more jarring looks at the injured and dead.
April 12, 2003 | MOSUL, Iraq -- A little girl in a red velvet dress stood in the middle of the street on the outskirts of Mosul on Friday morning, holding a box. Traffic zoomed past her in both directions. She was hesitating, uncertain about which way to go, because she was transfixed by everything that was rushing past her.
Beat-up taxis sped out of town, loaded down with every possible item -- light fixtures, teapots. A boy was trying to sell black electrical transformers to drivers through the window of passing cars. Men on donkeys carried impossibly tall heaps of office equipment down the road toward their villages. The road was jammed with madness and greed; drivers were barely avoiding their rivals in their haste to get to the free merchandise.
It was a violent scene, because in order to pillage, you have to break locks, smash windows, burn and threaten, and this was all happening because it had somehow become necessary. Tens of thousands in Mosul were helping themselves, climbing over fences and walls, while the rest hid in their houses. We saw that the cars coming from the city center were full of junk, while the cars going in were empty. Everything with wheels carried loot. What they couldn't carry, they put on the curb, and guarded it by sitting on it. Bedouin farmers brought their tractors in and loaded them up. The population armed themselves. Men with guns were everywhere, and they were looting, too, doing most of it in fact; and they were busy organizing themselves into criminal gangs -- but we learned that later.
For the first time since American troops took over Baghdad, ordinary people are now beginning to venture out onto streets that were the preserve of looters. Baghdad residents are beginning to venture outside. Some shops have reopened, local religious leaders have been trying to recover looted goods, storing them in mosques until they can be returned. People who fled the war are now coming back to Baghdad but many are still angry at the Americans for allowing the chaos of the past few days, and some demonstrated in central Baghdad. Several people demanded that US forces look for relatives they believe are still locked up in underground jails. Others wanted water, electricity, jobs and for the Americans to stop looting that is continuing in some areas.
The situation in Iraq's second city Basra is calmer on Sunday. British troops occupying the city have today begun putting local Iraqi police back on the streets, to try to bring some order and to stamp out the violence and looting. In Basra, the people want supplies as well as peace. Outside the charred remains of Basra's former police headquarters, a group of about 100 men gathered in the morning heat, waiting to be inducted into Basra's new police force. Some wore the old green uniforms of Saddam Hussein's police, but most did not. They were too afraid to put their old uniforms on, they told me, as it would identify them as having worked for the old regime.
While this is being dubbed as a new police force for Basra, the fact is all of the men being recruited today once worked for the old regime. British commanders admit that with their own troops stretched to the limit, they have little choice but to re-employ police, who until a week ago worked for Saddam Hussein. How they will be greeted on the streets is another question. But the people here are desperate for some semblance of security. At night the ripple of machine-gun fire can still be heard across the city, and there is still not a single shop open. The looting has died down, but many people here will tell you that is simply because most of the good stuff has already been taken away. Most of the city also remains without electricity and consequently without running water. Until the security situation can be improved, none of that is likely to change.
For the moment at any rate, the crisis here seems to be over.
American soldiers are at last patrolling the streets of Mosul in some numbers and as a result the shops are starting to reopen and something like normal life is beginning to return. Looted goods have been returned to a Mosul mosque. People in the city are ascribing some of the credit for all this to the Islamic clergy. Many mullahs and imams broadcast appeals for calm and for an end to looting. And in the street leading to one mosque in particular, people have been bringing back goods that were stolen and piling them up in the street. It is a remarkable turnaround in a short time since, even during the night, there was a wild outbreak of shooting that lasted half an hour and an American soldier was shot outside the main hospital, where the looting and the violence has been greatest.
But now there are even one or two uniformed policemen on traffic duty in the streets.
