By The Times correspondent in Berlin, the excellent Roger Boyes.
Plus, a photo of a nice set of jugs at the link IYKWIMAITYD
An invitation arrived last week to enter the First Circle of Hell and naturally I am going to accept.
The Oktoberfest is the last great journalistic challenge. Despite being famous around the world, the Bavarian beer festival remains the strangest, most mysterious of German institutions.
How can the rogue state of Bavaria succeed in attracting over six million people to sit in pools of vomit? It is Europes biggest orgy and, despite the suspiciously large number of Munich babies born in June, one that is largely sexless.
The Australians and Americans consider it to be a centrepiece of their trip to old Europe. Even now the blogosphere is full of almost scholarly comparisons between Paulaner and Augustiner beer.
Getting kinda sick of the Hofbräu-Zelt, says one American fleeing to Munich from the land of Budweiser, the paint-stripper that poses as beer. Lets go for the Hippodrom, comes a reply from another beer-refugee. Really want to (over)indulge in Spatenbräu.
Frankly, after the second Maß a pitcher-sized mug for 8.50 I dont see how anyone can tell the difference. I have visited the Oktoberfest only once and remember only the little piles of male Japanese tourists, overcome by the great, though declining art of German brewing.
This year though promises to be different: I am heading for the Käfer tent, the Promi-ghetto which probably ranks, for these few days, as the most embarrassing zone in Germany. It is the place where whatever passes for glamour in German society Boris Becker and actresses such as Veronica Ferres and Uschi Glas rubs up against the Bierokratie, or the Beerocracy. And, of course, earn themselves a picture in society mag Bunte, securing their market value on Germanys celebrity B-list. Usually someone in an expensively tailored Dirndl kicks off her shoes and dances on a table. It is an act of complete pointlessness and therefore oddly compelling.
I cant wait.
This time though I have to be properly kitted out. You can slip into the Hofbräu tent in civilian clothes, but uniform is de rigueur at Käfers. Stupidly, I imagined that you could buy a good pair of Lederhosen at Franconia, the local hunting and shooting shop, because it sells green, leathery things to minor aristocrats with bloodlust. But real Oktoberfest Lederhosen apparently have to be bought at Angermeier in Munich.
What no one tells you about this curious apparel is that once you have levered your way into them, it is almost impossible to go to the toilet without spraying everywhere. As far as traditional garb goes, kilts are much better in this respect.
Why has this been a secret for so long? The combination of tight leather, heavy beer consumption and an unreliable bladder is a certain recipe for disaster.
Oktoberfest then promises to provide an interesting spectacle. Somehow the statistical output 980 seated toilets, 878 metres of standing up facilities does not reassure me.
I suppose I have been invited along because the English are legendary drinkers of warm, soup-like ale, and therefore unable to hold themselves steady when drinking the real, Bavarian brews. So, if conversation flags, you can always laugh at the dumb foreigner. This is a realistic calculation.
A scientific comparison of Anglo-German drinking behaviour showed that the English drank too fast in the initial phases, partly because of dehydration, partly because they underestimate the power of alcohol but also because they want to shed their chronic British embarrassment. When tipsy, the Englishman considers himself to be witty and a master seducer. Sadly, the phase between losing ones inhibitions and falling into a coma is a rather short one.
By contrast, the German drinker paces himself. The Bavarian does not need beer to loosen his tongue since, with or without alcohol, he remains incomprehensible. At the end though both British and German beer drinkers end up at the same destination: either asleep with their mouths attractively open, or in a police cell.
Beer is so much more than a breakfast drink, says a Bavarian sage. But the truth is that fewer people are drinking beer. The Oktoberfest is a last-ditch but ultimately doomed attempt to show that beer still rules the world. The revellers are coming to seem like a barley cult out of touch with the modern age. Perhaps they should set up an alco-pop tent on the Wiesn. Thats what the young want these days: sickly sweet vodka based drinks.
The venerable Oktoberfest will last a few more years yet, but it has swollen out of recognition. Foreigners though not the Australians are beginning to ask why so many Germans need to seek oblivion in order to be happy. I am going to see if I can find out.
If I can remember anything, I shall report back to you.
#5
The Munchen festival is too large. A much nicer one is the Stuttgart Fish Festival, which has all the good stuff of Oktoberfest, with a much smaller crowd and far fewer international drunks.
I would like to add that lederhosen are the finest pants for growing boys ever invented. They will outgrow them before they destroy them.
Lederhosen are freedom. You can climb any tree with impunity, get dirty, never come home with ripped pants.
Oh btw people do not sit in pools of vomit. And it's definitely not "sexless" there.
And if you haven't owned lederhosen for 20 years don't bother buying one. You just look silly with a new one.
The cheap ones are made in China anyway.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/01/2008 22:35 Comments ||
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#7
an expensively tailored Dirndl
Clearly, Mr. Boyes is as ignorant as his prose is facile. It is the dirndl that is expensive in the Promi-ghetto, because that is not peasant garb, any more than the tweed suit milady wears at her country house. In fact, it is the Bavarian version of the tweed suit milady wears. I have one, and while it didn't cost the earth it is still one of the more expensive and hard-wearing suits that I own (trailing daughter #2 will inherit it in time -- trailing daughter #1 is too tall -- such things never go out of style in certain circles). Tailoring, however, was accomplished by my clever au pair in about half an hour with a pair of embroidery scissors and a friend's sewing machine.
As for lederhosen, nobody has a problem with tight ones, because nobody except stupid British journalists wears anything but the old ones they've had for years, which fit as comfortably as their own skin. Nor do Germans go to Oktoberfest to get falling down drunk. It's the stupid foreign tourists one sees lying in vomit.
Mr. Boyes is correct, however, that the Bavarians will be laughing at him long before the night is over.
#8
Actually you see both styles of dirndl... the real stuff is not pink or mint, but has subdued traditional colors and is definitely not made of polyester in China.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/01/2008 23:39 Comments ||
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#9
Oh, I know, European Conservative. My skirt is a beautiful deer-and-forest pattern in forest green and black, with red rickrack trim in rows on the bottom, and red heart-shaped leather patches backing the horn buttons. The sweater picks up the colours and the leather patches... and of course horn buttons. I always get compliments when I wear it.
Oh, and I answered your question about sex ed in the other thread.
By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week's (now-delayed) Republican convention against John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate - for the same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Palin is, if anything, less qualified for the vice presidency (and the presidency) than Miers was for the court. But there is one big difference: Palin passes all the right-wing litmus tests, which means she is unlikely to suffer Miers's fate. McCain, it appears, also wanted a woman, and so he went with the young Alaskan governor with strongly conservative views. How do Palin and Miers compare?
Miers, at least, had been a lawyer for 35 years, the head of the state bar in Texas and White House counsel. Palin's experience comes down to a couple of years as governor and six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town with fewer than 10,000 residents.
Where Miers definitely tops Palin is on the question of whether her patron can vouch for her. Bush knew Miers well, worked with her closely, trusted her deeply. You can question Bush's judgment in pushing her for the court - for the record, at the time I called the choice "too clever" and thus "dangerous" - but at least he had good reason to believe in the person he was asking others to count on.
McCain, as far as anyone can tell, met Palin only once before considering her for vice president, and once more before settling on her, which is to say he barely knows her. For the purpose of courting disaffected Hillary Clinton voters and satisfying the social conservatives, McCain is willing to place someone he knows mostly from press clippings and, okay, what his staff insists was thorough vetting, in the direct line of succession to the presidency. There is a breathtaking recklessness about this choice.
There are many who say that in choosing Palin, McCain has taken the issue of experience off the table. I disagree. Now, the balance on experience shifts toward the Democrats, and it's not just for the obvious reason that Joe Biden is manifestly more qualified than Palin.
Conservatives have complained that we barely know Obama. This is nonsense. Obama has been put through the journalistic wringer since he entered the public spotlight four years ago. We have been given fewer than 70 days to get to know Palin.
In particular, we know Obama's foreign policy views in great detail. About Palin's opinions on foreign policy, we know absolutely nothing. According to a 1999 Associated Press report, she sported a Pat Buchanan button when Buchanan visited Wasilla during his campaign for the 2000 Republican nomination. Does this mean she shares Buchanan's isolationist foreign policy views? Who can say? There is no record. There will be E.J., just you wait.
This week's convention will be overshadowed not only by a hurricane but also by McCain's choice of Palin. The Republicans once hoped to use their gathering to persuade Americans not to trust Obama. Now, as the speakers here make their case, the media will rightly be doing their job, trying to figure out who Palin is. Palin, not Obama, will be the issue, in a way that Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty or some other well-known figure would not have been.
But that's a matter of politics. There is also the question of principle. In picking Biden as his running mate, Obama made a prudent choice. It is McCain who is asking us to roll the dice. You'd think that people who call themselves conservative would have a problem with that. Yet, most of the folks here do not seem to have that problem...
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/01/2008 08:37 ||
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Given that she's running with McCain rather than Buchanan I would suspect she doesn't share his isolationist beliefs.
Hasn't he endorsed Obama this time around, anyway?
Posted by: Phil ||
09/01/2008 8:51 Comments ||
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#2
Dionne's a fool and definitely in the tank for Bama. You don't get to work at the NYT if you're not; one more reason why they're collapsing as a business entity.
The sooner they're out of business, the better off the country will be.
Anyone else remmeber the sexist tag we got when Harriet Miers was considered an unknown quanity, not because of her gender but because she was, well, unknown?
I do. The Palin choice, while not perfect, is as good as it gets from our curmudgeonly yet lovable Johnny Mac. There were any number of candidates for veep that would have pleased me, but very few that would have pleased me and caused the left to lose all control of their bodily functions.
OODA loop my ass. McCain has shut down the left's observer portion of the loop; they haven't even decided what to do yet. They're still whining while McCain is planning his next move.
#5
the media will rightly be doing their job, carrying the water of the Democratic Party to engage in character assassination trying to figure out who Palin is
So, since you've skipped going anywhere but the O'man's campaign handouts to find out who he really is, you need to spend the time to manufacture controversy and conflict to kill this nomination. Every rumor, every unsubstantiated claim will be given the full blown multi-hour, multi-column coverage it doesn't deserve. The anti-Edwards MSM standards at work. Just remember if she doesn't have the paper for VPrez you've made the case that the O'man doesn't have the paper for Prez.
#8
The lefty moonbats are more unhinged than usual.
They still haven't figured it out. They're committing all their time and energy fighting the O'man against Palin. Think about it. They're committing the attention of their primary against the other guy's secondary. They're violating the principles of Mass and Objective by allowing their resources [not just money, but the limited time till election day] to be diverted from 'The Message' to their efforts to blunt Palin's presence. However, Palin's play brings up the till now unenthusiastic conservatives who were never accessible for their game. Their efforts are also wasted upon that group who'll vote for a female regardless of party [just as there are blacks/whites who'll only vote on the color of skin]. Fear is a mind killer - litany of the bene gesserit
#14
You don't get to work at the NYT if you're not; one more reason why they're collapsing as a business entity.
Dionne writes for the Washington Post.
That said, his "journalistic wringer" comment is ludicrous. Palin and family will get a far more invasive political-rectal-probe in the next 70 days than Obama and his has gotten in the past four years.
#15
Not much of a prediction -- the press will be more openly hostile and dubious of Palin than they've ever been of Obama.
For example, Palin already answered the bit about the Buchanan button, but the press in general will no more accept that answer than they've dug into Obama's relationship with Ayers.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/01/2008 15:06 Comments ||
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#16
Bigoted coastal idiots showing condensation to all not power coast - be it flyover or outlands.
Being parasites/barnacles attached to the edges of a continent their sick point of view is understandable.
Posted by: Bob Angains3148 ||
09/01/2008 18:04 Comments ||
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#17
Palin's experience comes down to a couple of years as governor and six years as mayor.
#18
"Palin's experience comes down to a couple of years as governor and six years as mayor."
Which is 8 MORE YEARS than your messiah has.
Keep it up, idiots. Please, please don't throw her in that briar patch....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/01/2008 18:31 Comments ||
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#19
Palin's experience comes down to a couple of years as governor and six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town with fewer than 10,000 residents.
Which is infinitely more experience than a blowhard columnist with questionable fashion sense, but I digress.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
09/01/2008 18:35 Comments ||
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#20
Being parasites/barnacles attached to the edges of a continent their sick point of view is understandable.
Posted by Bob Angains3148 2008-09-01 18:04||
Whahhahahaa....Bob Angains! I love the nautical "FREE RIDE" theme.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/01/2008 19:31 Comments ||
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#25
Ok, Bob, I'm willing to concede on graciousness, and your deft reply :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/01/2008 19:38 Comments ||
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#26
The latest proof Palin is unqualified is her teenaged, unwed daughter is pregnant.
Dem read: failure as a mother so would be failure as a president.
Rep read: failure as a mother because she neglected her duties raising her family.
Lot's come home preggers. It's natural. It's our culture that's unnatural, making them (us) wait till long after nature says it's time.
So, one of your daughters has missed a period or two. Whatcha gonna do?
I'm a trunk. I think this maybe part of the price the Palin family pays for her achievement. Or maybe not. She'll get to think about it the rest of her life as we all think about what we wish had happened better for our kids. I know plenty of stay at home moms and a dad whose daughters have come home preggers. They are their own selves, ultimately, as are we.
But the Palins, to their credit, have handled it the proper way given the cards they were dealt. I pray the young mother isn't too traumatized by her coming crucifiction in the MSM.
#31
Glenmore, this is kind of how my little niece got her start in this world. It is very common.
In fact, it is so common that if McCain/Palin got the votes from everyone who has been in this situation, it would make the McGovern and Mondale blowouts look like close calls.
To their credit, they are welcoming their first grandchild into their family and giving him or her a solid base of support. We already know what the Obamas would do in case of such a "burden" happening to one of their daughters.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
09/01/2008 20:52 Comments ||
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#32
Very correct NS - and I think you've hinted at the key - which is to essentially ignore the MSM. Others are already reporting how this is a non-issue, and locally known in Wasilla. The Palin's challenge will be to keep home there as much as possible, and I expect and cannot wait to meet the respective great-grandparents.
#33
And the kids plan to get married anyway. So single motherhood isn't an issue... although the poor baby will certainly have interesting old newspaper clippings for its own Golden Anniversary celebration.
#34
I did not mean my comment as a criticism of Mrs. Palin, though it clearly came out that way.
In addition to the Dem and Rep spins, add
Pragmatist read: proves daughter's critical parts work so bride price should be raised.
John McCain has flummoxed the leaders of his Republican Party and most of the media by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. It's a choice no other candidate conceivably could have made - a typical McCain gamble, unpredictable in its consequences.
This does not make Palin a bad choice. A Bush White House operative said that he can see Palin stumping repeatedly through Midwest battleground states, pitting her own blue-collar background against the similar family story of Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential hopeful. "She can talk to those worried workers and their families in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania as well as he can," he said. "She is really one of them."
That may be true. But Biden combines his working-class background with decades of experience in foreign policy - a base of knowledge Palin cannot hope to match no matter how hard she crams for their Oct. 2 debate. Her credibility will be on the line that night in St. Louis, as will Biden's self-discipline. He cannot afford to condescend. She will have to know her facts.
The two-step reaction is best capsulized in the comments of a smart veteran campaign operative, a New Hampshire delegate and early Mitt Romney supporter, who told me: "When I first heard, I was appalled. I thought we had forfeited the election. But then I got a call from my 22-year-old daughter. She's a pro-choice voter, just like I am. But she was very excited and enthused by this choice. She is captivated by Palin's life story, the way she has taken on the odds. She may be more acute than I am."
That's the kind of reaction McCain is counting on, not just among Republicans but, importantly, among independents and women, where most of the undecided votes are. And without realizing it, Obama may have boosted the odds on this gamble paying off.
Obama began his campaign for the nomination as the outsider candidate, promising fundamental change in Washington and offering a post-partisan approach to politics. With time, he has come to be seen as a much more conventional Democrat who is now half of a ticket based in Congress, the least admired institution in a widely scorned capital. Millions who saw his acceptance speech heard a standard recital of liberal Democratic programs.
By picking Palin, McCain has strengthened his reputation not as an ideologue, not as a partisan, but as a reformer - ready to shake up Washington as his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, once did. My guess is that cleansing Washington of its poisonous partisanship, its wasteful spending and its incompetence will become McCain's major theme.
The Democrats' great advantage is that they are not responsible for the pain and frustration that many voters have suffered in the Bush years. But if McCain and Palin can shift the focus to the future, they may be able to appeal to the "change" voters who will in the end decide the election.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/01/2008 08:28 ||
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#1
But Biden combines his working-class background with decades of experience in foreign policy
You mean like his idea that the factions in Iraq were irreconcilable and that Iraq should be broken up into three separate countries? Brilliant /sarcasm off
Look, both Donks are products of machines and while McCain is too long in the beltway to technically be an outsider, Palin is the only one to take on her OWN corrupt patronage party hacks and win. The O'man is a product and player of that kind of machine. The only real outsider is Palin. O'man talks the talk. Palin walks the walk. That is real change and hope. The difference between a cheap imitation street hawked knock off and the real genuine thing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/01/2008 11:26 Comments ||
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The interesting aspect is that it really puts the pressure on Biden, and also gives him an opportunity. IF he can play it cool and keep his mouth muzzled, he may appear statesmanlike vis Palin.
Of course, that only emphasizes the opposite pickle with BO, and for Biden to play the Cheney role would be hilarious and hardly imaginable.
#5
#4 The interesting aspect is that it really puts the pressure on Biden, and also gives him an opportunity. IF he can play it cool and keep his mouth muzzled, he may appear statesmanlike vis Palin.
Never happen. Unless I miss my guess, he'll be lunging at the end of his chain. Biden never misses an opportunity, to miss an opportunity.
#6
B - Agreed - it's just going to be fun to watch. The only possible capper to the whole show will be if Rove gets them to mention Cheney's gay daughter.
BO says to his side that all comments are off limits - I think we'll get a fascinating display of message control. Now that he's the party's nominee, he'll find that control issues extend exponentially - he's got to be hoping Oprah can help with this, but I doubt any congressperson, let alone the leadership, will be all too cooperative or disciplined.
#8
Some of the nutroots are already disillusioned with the Omessiah due to his compromises with party leaders. I doubt they'll cooperate, but if they do it's a sign he's owned by them.
#10
Was at a barbecue yesterday with folks I haven't seen in years...
One was a handsome Engineer and Harley riding biker with a beautiful woman he finally tied the knot with.. (Dozens and Dozens of motorcycle women had failed....) I asked how she got him (when he wasn't around...) She explained how she loved cycles and excitement and living life to the fullest but all the cycle drivers she had run into were not the loving type... she was discussing this with a girlfriend and she said "my man rides with this hunk who's really nice too..." She went into hunting mode and 6 months later was married to him - his first.... (one of the uncatchable)...
So... (PURPOSE OF THIS LONG STORY) I asked her what she thought of Sarah Palin...
"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! - A soul I can understand... I AM SO GOING TO VOTE FOR HER!"
Front-page WaPo 'analysis' - hence, 'Opinion'.
ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 31 -- Three years after it battered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina upended this convention city Sunday.
For John McCain, struggling to separate himself from the worst of President Bush's record and to get out from under the weight of his unpopular party, this week was supposed to be about emerging as his own candidate. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate energized the Republican Party's conservative base and the candidate himself, setting up a convention week designed to discredit Democratic nominee Barack Obama and boost McCain as an independent-minded reformer ready to shake up Washington. Discredit? Your bias is already showing. "Watch him self-destruct" is more like it. Now a storm called Gustav threatens to remind voters of perhaps the signal event that helped turn them against the GOP - the Bush administration's botched response to the devastating 2005 storm. What neither McCain nor the party can tolerate now is anything that smacks of insensitivity or incompetence in the face of another potential natural disaster. As he told NBC anchor Brian Williams on Sunday, the opening of the convention "has got to be Americans helping Americans. America first." Waitaminute! Wouldn't that be 'change'?
Gustav has disrupted McCain's convention, but the storm also presents the candidate with an opportunity to show that he would be a different kind of president than Bush. His decisions to fly to Mississippi on Sunday for a pre-storm assessment and then to radically redraw the agenda for the convention's opening night until it is clear what might happen with the storm send a message that some top Republicans believe will serve him well in the campaign ahead against Obama. He might even surprise the WaPo.
"McCain has shown exactly the right values in putting America ahead of the Republican Party," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich. "This is a very dangerous situation for thousands of people and for the country, and it is vital that McCain keep focused on the country. So far he has done exactly the right things." Where does Gingrich fit into a McCain White House?
Bush and the Republicans have never recovered from Katrina. Nagin, however, showed genius this time, using the busses.
The president's approval ratings, already sinking under public dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq through the summer of 2005, plunged further after Katrina. His halting reaction - and even worse, the woeful performance of federal disaster agencies and his widely ridiculed remark to then-FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" - left an indelible mark on his presidency and his party. The Republican brand is at its lowest point in years. So loyalty is over-rated, anyway.
Everything here in St. Paul is now on hold until the storm hits and the damage is assessed. Normally, a political convention is the most scripted of events, a four-day infomercial for the nominee. No one has a script for what the Republicans are dealing with now. They announced Sunday that they would dramatically shorten the opening-day schedule, stripping out political speeches and doing essential business, but out of the glare of television's prime-time hours. Beyond that, it is anybody's guess what kind of show they will be able to present. There'll still be time for a Greek spectacle later in the week.
For now, Gustav has denied McCain and the Republicans the kind of platform that Obama and the Democrats enjoyed in Denver last week. "Gustav is making this a very different, even unique, convention," said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican strategist and former party official. "It calls for something appropriate in this situation, which is not drama and spectacle." I'm betting McCain will find a way to turn this to his advantage.
Gustav will disrupt the Democrats as well. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), will be forced to adjust their own campaign plans to account for the storm. Balance alert:
McCain has moved quicker on that front, but the Democrats will certainly adapt.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/01/2008 06:38 ||
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If they want to make it a battle of the sock puppets they should consider the popularity ratings.
Bush may be 28%, but it still beats the combined rating of Congress and the MSM.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/01/2008 8:42 Comments ||
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#3
The libs tights, in both parties, are going to get wound tighter and tighter as they realize the full implications of the McCain-Palin ticket. Somebody correct me if I missed something but these two promise more change to the (liberal) establishment than any ticket since Jackson-Van Buren. I doubt they'll feel as obliged to play by the rules as Reagan.
Lincoln and FDR may have actually changed the country as much, but they didn't campaign on doing so. These guys are and will.
And we will have redistribution of House seats for the 2012 election.
#6
Former Gov Blanco was on FNC blaming everything Katrina on Bush and not clueless democrats.
Well, we [and she] knows how well that work for her non-reelection. I'm sure she can demonstrate through geometric logic that there was another set of keys to the strawberry locker too.
#8
McCain has moved quicker on that front, but the Democrats will certainly adapt.
The first indication the MSM sees he OODA loop aspects. Interesting to see if there's any follow-up, or if they'll keep using the four-year old "swift-boat" metaphors.
Already struggling to maintain a lid on the AIDS epidemic in Iran, which has infected as much as 30% of the 70 million population with full blown AIDS or HIV, the islamic regime has now threatened prison and execution to any doctor who reveals any details about the CHOLERA outbreak that is spreading like wildfire throughout the country with major cities as contamination centers...
#2
This may be a perfect storm for transmission of HIV. To start with, IV drugs, especially heroin from Afghanistan, are the big cheap thrill in Iran, if you can't afford smuggled alcohol. But Allan knows how many junkies share their needles, which are probably as dull as pencil lead after being used a few dozen times. The big stat that would confirm it is if they also have sky high rates of hepatitis c.
But add to that the flaky interpretation of homosexuality in Shiite Islam: that oral sex is homosexual, but sodomy is not. Some of their almost entirely male religious cities might have HIV rates that even the Castro Street crowd in San Francisco never experienced. The madrassas perfectly complementing their junkies as a second, parallel epidemic.
In that this is most likely the African strain of HIV, which passes easily from male to female, and back, if the male has untreated VD sores, and you have a serious health care problem.
Remember that their health minister is in denial, as "There are no homosexuals in Iran". Almost every boy that would be trained there will be sodomized at some point. And most many times.
Yep, a sky high infection rate isn't likely, but in this case, not impossible. And if their public sanitation is so poor that they are getting a cholera outbreak on top of it, they are in deep kimchee.
#3
Cholera is spread ONE and only ONE way - drinking water that people have shit in. There is no other way to get cholera. The bacteria is easily killed by the most basic of sanitation practices.
#4
"The bacteria is easily killed by the most basic of sanitation practices."
Unfortunately for the Iranians, the Prophet (bees pee upon him) didn't use those practices, and so there is no need for them to use them either.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/01/2008 2:38 Comments ||
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#5
The Shah invested a good deal of Iran's oil money in infrastructure such as clean water supplies, waste water treatment and schools.
It was the integrated schools in the cities that drove the fundies berserk and led to the 'revolution' - he had the audacity to teach girls and fail to impose the veil on women. The MMs hate the US because he had close ties to us (including defense ties).
The MMs invested the subsequent 30+ years of oil money in vast, corrupt personal fortunes and in a mad race to show they're better than the West. The irony here is that if the Shah had not fallen, we would almost certainly have sold them better tech than they are getting now AND we would have trained them in using it effectively. Saddam would have been contained geopolitically, if not internally within Iraq, and that bloody 8 yr long Iran-Iraq war would not have occurred. Not even Saddam's Soviet sponsors would have indulged him in aggression when he had US ally Saudi Arabia on one side and US ally Iran on the other.
#6
Jimmy Carter made a lot of mistakes but failing to support the Shah of Iran was by far the worst. We may end up in a nuclear exchange because of it.
Carter's refusal to support the Shah was because the Shah was guilty of human rights abuses. This was one of those cases where the perfect was definitely the enemy of the good because Carter's delicate sensibilities turned Iran over to some truly horrible people. They killed more, by orders of magnitude, than the Shah and Savak would have ever come close to approaching.
Sometimes it just boggles the mind to think that Democrats have such a talent for being wrong about almost everything. You would think the law of averages would eventually have them getting something right sooner or later...
#7
Ironically, a silver lining. The burden of Carter's cause de jour, Habitat for Humanity will be lightened somewhat by nature's culling, of upright primates, by disease, war, famine, etc.
#8
Sometimes it just boggles the mind to think that Democrats have such a talent for being wrong about almost everything. You would think the law of averages would eventually have them getting something right sooner or later...
#9
Though #5 and #6 sound great I'm not sure it was this simple. Like to hear from Ol spook or someone else from that era that can add some light on this topic.
#10
Cholera has been reported on the increase in Iran since 2006 or so. Probably on the order of tens or hundreds of fatalities nationwide in 2007.
The presumptive main vector is via the water supply. The rainy season begins in Nov or so and when storm water and sewer water systems interact during floods, the danger is greatest.
#11
I certainly was around then and there is no question Carter had a choice and forced out an ailing Shah to let events take their own course instead of backing him and finding a way orderly succession and to keep the Ayatollah in Paris. Carter will be savaged by history.
#12
bman: The Shah had the same situation as Porfirio Diaz of Mexico. Each used the iron fist to force their country into the modern era. And each made the mistake of easing up on their people when they thought progress had been made, which was interpreted as weakness, and caused instability. Mexico still has a tolerably good train system thanks to Diaz.
However, Carter is singularly to blame for destroying both the Shah and Somoza in Nicaragua, but utterly pulling the rug out from underneath them. He turned major problems into a crisis, and was so short-sighted that he could not see that the solution was far worse than the problem.
He was very blunt that he despised them, even though they were our allies, and preferred their enemies to them.
Carter's whiny lack of character also created turmoil elsewhere, because his spinelessness meant to our enemies that they could get away with it. The French FL had to drive the Cuban mercenaries out of Africa because Carter couldn't act, just snivel.
All told, Carter's actions threw five nations from peaceful stability, if dictatorship, into the arms of bloody tyrants. And to this day, Carter still blames everyone but himself for his screw ups.
#13
FWIW early in my career I worked as a programmer for the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the Shah was investing in defense tech compatible with the systems we were building for DOD. I got a very nice job offer (tax free too, at the time) to go to Teheran for 2 years. Mr. Lotp really didn't want to as he had healed from a serious training injury and wanted to go back to active duty. So we had a child and he did just that.
As you can imagine, tho, I had a LOT of questions about how exactly I was likely to be received as a young western woman working in Teheran with Iranian (male) programmers. Other contractors there told me things would be more or less fine with the Shah's military officers and in the better neighborhoods of Teheran but it would be best not to leave the capital without an escort.
Just as well I/we didn't take the offer. 16 months later the Shah fell. I didn't get to the Middle East until the mid-late 80s.
As it happened, a good friend of ours married an Iranian man whose father had been a police official in the provinces. The family was sympathetic to the Shah (although not associated with SAVAK or politically active) and when he grew ill they emigrated. That's the sum total of my own information sources, apart from watching the horrific mess Carter made and the bloodshed that followed.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week's (now-delayed) Republican convention against John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate - for the same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Now a storm called Gustav threatens to remind voters of perhaps the signal event that helped turn them against the GOP - the Bush administration's botched response to the devastating 2005 storm. What neither McCain nor the party can tolerate now is anything that smacks of insensitivity or incompetence in the face of another potential natural disaster. As he told NBC anchor Brian Williams on Sunday, the opening of the convention "has got to be Americans helping Americans. America first."
