Camille’s latest Salon column discusses President Obama’s Cairo speech. (She likes the attempt at outreach to moderate Muslims but thinks his grasp of religious faith seemed deficient and undercut it.) Worth reading as always.

What really got my attention, though, is that she sings the praises of Depeche Mode. Really? I mean, I know they were a big Catholic-schoolgirl thing, but really? And her favorite song—go figure!—is “Never Let Me Down Again.” An image flashed into my mind of her standing at the kitchen sink in the ’80s, scrubbing the dishes with a plastic scrubby while tunelessly chanting, in that bark of hers, “He promises me I’m as safe as houses / as long as I remember who’s wearing the trou-sahs.”

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Because web design is not my metier (no comments from the peanut gallery), I spent most of my blog-related time over the last week getting the site up and running here at WordPress rather than actually looking at the news. I did, however, catch at least some of the imbroglio over Ed Whelan’s snippy-vengeful disclosure at The Corner of the real name of the guy who blogs as Publius. Janis Gore, who I can’t imagine would ever be snippy, has posted about it several times recently. She links to a bunch of good posts and herself says:

I’d hope my niece never shows up with this guy for dinner. Mr. Whelan didn’t do anything illegal, immoral or even unethical — just what in the South we’d call “tacky,” or my mother would call “ugly.”

There was nothing illegal, immoral or unethical about Al barfing on that bridesmaid’s dress at Zee’s wedding, but he still won’t be invited to any more of Zee’s parties. Poor guy didn’t have the charm to carry that off. Few do.

And I’m surprised. The National Review is an institution, and the bloggers there have never before confronted adversaries that way. I’d say Kathryn Jean Lopez has endured some of the most brutal, hateful and hurtful commentary I’ve ever read. I’m sure it’s on her radar, but she goes her merry way, as the other bloggers have.

In the interest of fostering mutual understanding between cultures, let me point out that we’d call it “tacky” here north of the Mason-Dixon Line, too. (What my mother would say, for the record, is “You just don’t do that sort of thing!”) Janis approvingly links Bruce McQuain’s post at Q and O, and she’s right. That he’s right. McQ says:

The fact that Whelan’s outing of Publius added nothing of weight to his arguments nor took away from those of Publius smacks of petty vindictiveness. He knew he could hurt Publius by doing something to him that Publius had carefully avoided over the years. In a word it was petty.

Some commenters at Q and O maintain that Whelan doesn’t owe Publius any courtesy, but in these cases, it’s always useful to do a little thought experiment. If the roles were reversed, and a blogger on the left had revealed the name of an anonymous right-leaning blogger who was throwing rough-and-tumble criticism at him, would these same people be saying that no ethical lines were crossed? Sorry, I know it’s impossible to prove a such a hypothetical, but I don’t believe that for a second. Especially if the right-leaning blogger in question had invoked livelihood and family as reasons for staying anonymous, or even just the problems of being a conservative surrounded by liberals. I think Janis and McQ have found exactly the right pitch: the guy acted like a jerk and should be shunned. That people who blog under pseudonyms should not be naive about the possibilities that their real identities will be ferreted out doesn’t change the fact that publicizing who they are is violating their wishes. If their arguments suck, then post counter-arguments. If you think they’re writing at a level of nastiness that they would never sink to if they were using their real names, then point that out. Challenge them to put their own names to what they write if they want to be disagreeable—there’s nothing unreasonable about doing that. One of the reasons I’ve always commented and blogged under my own name is…well, so that I’d have a sense of ultimate responsibility every time I clicked on the “Submit” button. It was important to me to do that. But other people make different calculations, and I wouldn’t dream of interfering with them.

Well, I can stop worrying about all my dear friends in Japan—the UNSC has drafted another resolution telling the DPRK that it’s naughty-naughty to be playing with plutonium (Japanese version at the Nikkei here):

The latest U.N. action is expected to spark a reaction from North Korea as in the case of a presidential statement issued by the Security Council on April 13 condemning North Korea’s April 5 rocket launch.

A draft outlined last week by the United States contained a requirement for all U.N. members to inspect North Korean cargo if it was suspected of carrying nuclear or missile-related items.

But China had rejected the proposal, urging the six other countries to weaken the wording on cargo inspections and maintaining that mandatory inspections of North Korean cargo would lead to military conflict, the sources said.

Effectively implementing the inspection of North Korean cargo was one of the measures the Security Council contemplated as a way to enforce Resolution 1718 in response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test.

The resolution, adopted in October 2006 after North Korea’s first nuclear test, states all U.N. members are ”called upon” to take ”cooperative action including thorough inspection of cargo to and from” North Korea.

Following Pyongyang’s second nuclear test, Japan and the United States had insisted that a new resolution include a phrase making cargo inspections by U.N. members mandatory rather than ”calling upon” them to cooperate.

Okay, little man, that’s it! It’s a time-out for you.

This Yomiuri story on Toshikazu Sugaya, who was convicted of the 1990 murder of a child but released last week after new DNA tests pointed to his innocence, exemplifies one of the common complaints about the sky-high rate of convictions among cases that go to court in Japan:

While saying investigators used heavy-handed interrogation techniques only on the day of his arrest, Sugaya spoke of how he went on to conjure up a story of his “crime.”

This further shadow over the investigation begs the question as to why Sugaya felt compelled to make a false confession.

…

At the station, the investigators and Sugaya became involved in a verbal duel of accusation and denial that continued until the evening.

He did not immediately admit the crime when investigators showed him evidence such as the results of a test that matched his DNA with that of body fluid found on an item of the girl’s clothing.

“It was night, I was desolate and began to feel that if I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t be able to go home,” he said.

After about 13 hours of interrogation, Sugaya finally broke down at about 9 p.m., saying he “gripped both of the detective’s hands tightly and broke down into tears.”

“The detective seemed to think I’d done it because I cried,” he said. “But in fact, I cried because I was upset that he wouldn’t listen no matter how many times I told him I didn’t do it. I’d gotten desperate.”

Sugaya later confessed. He also said he imagined the story based on details the media had covered of the case.

“Since I was young, I’d clam up when people said things to me,” Sugaya said of his personality. “I hate offending people.”

His lawyer, Hiroshi Sato, said of Sugaya, “He has a tendency to be accommodating and felt he wanted to convince investigators [of what he did].”

Sato pointed out similarities between Sugaya’s case and that of a man in Himi, Toyama Prefecture, who had been arrested and imprisoned for rape and attempted rape. This man was found innocent in 2007.

If the Japanese police pick you up and decide they want a confession out of you, they have a well-stocked arsenal to help them ensure they get it (that link via Debito). Notice this sentence: “Yasuda claimed they told him it is cowardly to invoke the right to remain silent and said he should take responsibility as a lawyer.” The Yomiuri article mentions personality, and it’s probable that Sugaya is unusually self-effacing; nevertheless, the tendency in Japan when there’s a disturbance is for everyone at hand to make reflexive apologies. Interrogators, say those who’ve studied detention practices in Japan, play on that. If you don’t apologize and then sign a confession, you’re holding up justice, you’re wasting the police’s time, and you’re disrupting the smooth flow of things. Even if you weren’t the exact person who caused the disturbance, as long as you’re involved in it, it’s considered proper to step up and say you’re sorry. Those concerns are especially powerful to Japanese people. Of course, there are wrongful convictions in the U.S., too, often over the protests of suspects who maintain their innocence all along. At the same time, our system is set up to presume innocence and to maximize the options of the defense. There’s a great deal of self-policing in Japanese society, and often for lesser crimes charges aren’t pressed even if a suspect is picked up. But we were told, practically the moment we arrived in Yokohama for our language program thirteen years ago, that once you sign a confession, that’s it.

Another story from a few days ago illustrates a complementary problem: when things are not expedited but rather gridlocked because too many entities are engaged in turf wars. This is from a Nikkei editorial published Friday about ITS (intelligent transport systems), in which it is hoped Japan can take the technology and implementation lead:

ITS comprise things such as vehicle-vechicle communication that avoids collisions between vehicles, road-vehicle communication that transmits road information, and navigation using high-speed roads. Auto navigation or or fee-collection systems (ETC) also fall within them. The metropolitan government and police department of Tokyo are moving forward with route guidance through traffic-signal controls and electronic signage, aimed at easing traffic jams.

The challenge is the form cooperation between the public sector and manufacturers takes. For ITS, it has a vertically divided structure, with the Ministry of Land, Infrastrucure, Transport and Tourism, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the National Police Agency having, all four of them, jurisdiction; and there’s a powerful tendency for manufacturers also to be dead-set on their own unique technologies.

ITS Japan conducted a joint experiment of large-scale ITS in the Odaiba area, for which the Tokyo Olympic Center is planned. The technologies that each federal entity is moving forward with were unveiled, but to look at it from the perspective of people who drive, there was no uniformity to the systems and it was impossible to deny the impression of disjointedness.

The system that results is almost certain to be a snazzy one. When it comes to electronics, Japan does not fool around. But it’s also likely that consumers will pay, because each ministry, agency, and powerful corporation will find a way to get a piece of the governing power and the licensing and fee structure.

The lead editorial in the Nikkei today carries the headline “Only reasonable to redesignate North Korea a ‘terrorism-sponsoring state.'”

United States Secretary of State Clinton has revealed that she is looking into redesignating North Korea a terrorism-sponsoring state. North Korea’s provocative behavior, with its further conducting of nuclear testing threatening the safety of the international community and the region, cannot be overlooked. It would be only reasonable for the Obama administration in the U.S. to shift its pivot point from dialogue to pressure.

The preceding administration under Bush lifted its designation of North Korea as a terror-sponsoring state in October of last year. Its explanation was that, bearing in mind that North Korea would move forward with the disabling of its nuclear facilities in accordance with the consensus reached at the 6-party talks and had agreed even to inspections of its nuclear program, the lifting of the designation would encourage progress on nuclear issues.

…

In order to contain North Korea’s aggression, the U.S. should work in concert with Japan and South Korea, and also firm up the sanctions it adopts individually. What are effective are financing sanctions.

In 2005, the U.S. government designated as a target of concern related to money laundering Macao bank Banco Delta Asia, and it froze funds in North Korean accounts. It was hard going for North Korea to procure funding in dollars, and the regime was dealt a corresponding blow, but in ’07 the policy was lifted in order to encourage progress on nuclear issues. Where things stand now, the frozen assets have returned to North Korea.

In addition to being suspected of covertly dealing in weapons of mass destruction, North Korea is also subject to lingering suspicions that is traffics illegally in U.S. dollars and drugs.

The Nikkei is worried, of course, about what the DPRK plans to do with the two women reporters who were captured along its border with China. Amy Alkon and several of her commenters imply that the women might have wandered into an area that any thinking person would have known was unsafe, and that’s plausible, but I’m really not entirely sure. At least in the Japanese press, stories like this one are very common in my experience. (What’s common is not the economic difficulty, but the open-secret nature of the traffic between the DPRK and the PRC.) I haven’t seen any information about where the two reporters were taken—it’s not in the LAT piece Alkon links, for instance–but it’s hard to imagine “encroach[ing] on North Korean soil” unawares when there’s a river border. Maybe they were stupid and decided to push their luck, or maybe they were nabbed while still on the China side because border guards had instructions to be on the lookout for a convenient, walking negotiation tool. It’s difficult to say at this point.

I do think that Laura Ling’s sister, freaked out though she understandably is, shows a conspicuous lack of understanding of what’s going on diplomatically here:

“As we stand here tonight, it is entirely possible that my sister Laura and Euna Lee are standing trial in a North Korean courtroom. I know they are scared,” Lisa Ling said at a vigil at a Santa Monica restaurant that drew several hundred people.

She also said she was frustrated with the pace of negotiations and the families have begun an online petition calling for the women’s freedom.

“It seems so simple, why doesn’t someone in our government pick up the phone and call someone from their government? Well, that would be far too easy,” Ling said. “Right now, the only way the U.S. communicates with North Korea is through a third-party, neutral country.”

Well, yes, and the reason we need a “neutral” country between us is that we’re sworn enemies. I hope Ling and Lee are repatriated soon, but the fact is that they’ve gotten themselves mixed up in something very sticky, especially right at the moment. We’ll have to see what concessions Pyongyang thinks it can demand.

Added later: Naturally, it’s Bush’s fault.

There are several websites devoted to people who have been members of the cult-ish Christian sect in which I was, I believe I’ve mentioned several times, brought up.  The editor of one of them offered to create a page about what it was like for gay kids, and it’s up here.  Yes, I’m linking to a page that mostly consists of my nattering, but the interesting parts to me were the questions he came up with.  There was nothing I hadn’t been called upon to think about before, but it never hurts to cast an unsparing eye over these things again.  Thanks to James, the editor in question, for making such an effort to turn out a page that looks great.  I hope its target audience finds it of use.

My friend Sarah also posted about upbringings in a slightly less self-aggrandizing context this weekend.  She was responding to this post by Ilya Somin, and she said in part:

If I need to explain how this leads to racism — my sons, both US born, with a US father, routinely get asked why they’re not preserving their Portuguese culture and I routinely get taken to task for not teaching them “their language.”

…

And that brings us to the next point — tourism culture — culture is NOT the food or the clothing or — at least not in the US — the religion. This is how cultures are taught in US schools, and it is wrong. These are trappings and the sort of thing a tourist might think is “neat.” Teaching it this way is poisonous because kids get this “foreign cultures are just like us, except for neato traditions we don’t have” view at the same time they get the MOST jaundiced, sin-oriented view of American history and culture possible. They have no idea that if they actually studied other cultures in depth, their historical “sins” and their modern ones too would FAR outweigh those of the US. (No, I’m not going to apologize for that qualitative judgement. I voted with feet, remember?)

I have to say the whole down-on-the-West thing is something I’ve never understood. One of the very most dominant strains in the development of Western thought has been self-examination, and through it self-awareness and self-correction. You acknowledge that colonization (or slavery, or treating women as chattel) is bad, and then you stop doing it. Social injustices on those vast scales take a while to be worked out, of course; but the idea is always to be working toward improving our institutions so that they serve the liberty of their individual members better. That doesn’t make us a flawless society, but it’s hard to see how it makes us worse than everyone else. Even among those who keep insisting we have a litany of transgressions to apologize for, most Americans wouldn’t want to make the trade-offs required to live in Canada, much less elsewhere.

And on a somewhat lighter note, while keeping with the errant-elders theme, Eric encountered one of those classic product warning labels that leave you wondering whether you or the attorneys who drafted it are crazier:

It doesn’t look too bad, and it seems solid enough. The only complaint I have is with the lawyers, who put a ridiculous disclaimer on the front page of the instructions:

WARNING
Unit can tip over causing severe injury or death.

And underneath that there are more warnings, but here’s the part that killed me:

Put heavy items on lower shelves or drawers.

Who are they kidding? This is an aquarium stand, for God’s sake. The aquarium goes on top!

A filled 55 gallon aquarium weighs 625 pounds.

Sure, there are some little shelves you could put things on, but there is no place to put the aquarium except on the top. That’s what it was designed for.

Or are the lawyers warning me that it was not designed for what it was designed for?

Well, they fulfilled the form of a warning, if not the function; and form is often what counts.

The owners of Powerblogs have devoted their energies to other things for the last few years and are thinking of shutting it down soon, so it seemed like a good time to make the jump to another platform.  I’m trying things out here without redirecting www.seorookie.net to it for the moment, for anyone who’s happened on it and been confused.  At first I was going to delete this post and start with a new one after importing everything from my existing blog, but I like the title, which reminds me of the chorus to the first song on the Go-Go’s reunion album eight or so years ago.  Not the most consistent album, but a fantastic opening volley.  Think I’ll listen to it.

Anyway, if you’re a regular reader, you’ll see this after I redirect my domain to WP.  If anything’s displaying weird or what have you, please let me know.

Added later: Is it my imagination, or does this fixed-width format make me look even more long-winded than usual?

Added still later: Naturally, mine seems to be the only computer in the free world that is still directing to the old Powerblogs blog. GRRRR! I wouldn’t have been able to get things up and running here last night were it not for my mother’s behemoth desktop, on which she uses AOL. AOL! Who’d have thought I’d ever be thankful to have AOL to fall back on?

Added yet later: Okay, I think it’s displaying fine in Firefox now, though it took me a bit to figure out what the problem was. (Why on Earth would you want to put the code in for the footer at the end of your Main Page template? That would be silly!) If anyone’s getting weirdnesses (besides that related to the content of what I post), please let me know.

Busy and not where it’s easy to post. But I didn’t want to let the D-Day anniversary go by without acknowledging it. Q and O, Rondi, and Eric, among many others, I’m sure, have posts up. We all owe an enormous debt to those who fought.