The Araucaniad

I just want to point out that it doesn't make any sense to decriminalize only the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. If you say "it's okay to have a marijuana hobby", where is the hobbyist going to get his supply?

There's no law against playing with model train sets or radio control airplanes. And the hobbyists in these fields need a local hobby store to buy their toys.

It seems obvious that we have de facto decriminalization of possession for personal use anyway. We only hear about dealers going to jail. And that's the problem - it's the criminalization of a business which is one of the few available to people without education or prospects. This is why our statistics on incarceration are so horrendous, particularly for minorities.

We have to legalize the whole product, not the amounts, not its possession versus the distribution of it. This needs to become a regulated product subject to licensing and taxes. People say "there will be no incentive for the criminals to go legal." That is not true: the legal providers will be able to provide the product for cheaper, since they don't need a higher price to justify the risk of entering an illegal industry, and presumably they could provide a more pleasant experience for the user.

It's the difference between buying cases of stolen liquor off the back of a truck, versus walking into your corner liquor store and walking out with a six-pack without the fear of being arrested, or spending two hours relaxing in a nice bar somewhere. Sure, people do buy cartons of contraband cigarettes in order to escape paying the taxes on cigarettes in stores. But you're always going to have black markets. The question is whether or not to enact a major public policy change that would instantly change the quality of life for many people and allow the state to drastically redeploy resources into more worthwhile areas. I say the time has come to let the people smoke what they want.

Sincerely,
Someone who has never smoked weed in his life and never will.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-piper15-2009jul15,0,5266029.story

On Facebook I posted a small selection of low-resolution pictures from my Spain trip this April. Here are about 360 full-resolution pictures. Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Malaga, Granada, Seville. Man, I wish I was back there.

http://picasaweb.google.com/araucaniad/Spain?feat=directlink

From Spain

Here's probably why the regular Army hasn't played a bigger role in Iran:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran7-2009jul07,0,1530538.story

The Pasdaran, which we call the Islamic Guards Revolutionary Corps, has apparently taken the lead in public security since the election.

Like a Roman Praetorian guard, like the old Republican Guard in Iraq, very much like the SS in Nazi Germany, the Pasdaran appear to be taking on aspects of the role of the Chinese Communist Party along with China's People's Liberation Army - a role approaching monopoly on political power, and increasing economic power as well (the IGRC, like the PLA, is a powerful property owner and government subcontractor).

Can totalitarianism last forever? Orwell says that the ultimate goal of power is power, that the only requirement for a ruling class is that it be capable of arbitrarily nominating its own successors: "Imagine a boot stepping on a human face forever." Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. Russia and Mexico both had long-standing political monopolies in the 20th century - the Partido Revolucionario Institucional and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It would appear that after the fervor of the original revolutionary generation has died out, these two systems underwent significant evolution. It is an open question how "free" Mexico and Russia are today, of course.

In The Godfather, Sonny says with the benefit of 1970s hindsight, "we shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich." What is the appropriate role for the West towards Iran now? It seems clear we should never have put an embargo on Cuba or kicked it out of the Organization of American States. The E.U. has a similar problem in figuring out how to deal with Russia - accomodation or engagement or confrontation all have their supporters.

I think confrontation is counterproductive. It gives sustenance to the worst hardliners anywhere, from Cuba to the Soviet Union. Just look at the mileage George W. Bush got out of the argument that "our homeland is under threat". It seems to me that West Germany was always trying to encourage exchange and openness with East Germany, and it seems that Eastern desire to emulate the West's prosperity and openness is what led East Germany to become unviable. German unification took a long time, and Korean unification still hasn't happened. I think openness and engagement is the only way to go. This doesn't mean appeasement. But it means being smart.

Also I think we need to look at Iran in a bigger context, not just "how do we deal with Iran one-on-one" as if we are trying to interpret the results of an experiment in a test tube. We need to hink about Iran in terms of its regional context, in terms of its role in the "Global South" (or "Third World" if you like). Obviously Kissinger accomplished a huge amount in terms of diplomacy with the USSR by drawing China into the picture (China certainly collected a handsome price).

In Chile they call Jose Miguel Insulza, the former Minister of the Interior, "el panzer", because he was one of the most effective, efficient policymaking bureaucrats ever. If you wanted to get something done, you gave it to the Panzer. Partly corroborating this is the simple fact that he beat Mexico's candidate, supported by the Bush Administration, when Chile nominated him for the presidency of the Organization of American States in 2005. Really, Ricardo Lagos presidency in Chile stands out in my mind as quite an impressive period. He kept Chile out of war in Iraq, still got the U.S. free trade deal signed, and his candidate beat the one favored by the United States for the OAS leadership post.
Now a delegation from the OAS including Insulza and Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will accompany Honduras' president Manuel Zelaya back to his country from exile in Costa Rica, where he's been since the weekend.

There is no doubt that Zelaya was democratically-elected and it is not legitimate to claim that his presidency has ceased due to the Army's arresting him and kicking him out of the country. Nevertheless, I don't want to absolve him of all responsibility. Most Latin American countries have a tradition of disallowing sitting presidents to run for re-election. Part of why the coup happened is that Zelaya was laying the groundwork for a future re-election campaign.

Now the OAS has given Honduras three days to restore Zelaya to office. I wonder if the country's elite is ready to face suspension from the OAS - this has to have a sting, since Cuba was recently reinstated. I also wonder how the Army will feel about submitting itself again to the command of a man it recently conspired to remove. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/americas/02coup.html">The bland wording of the New York Times cannot hide was was essentially a civil-military conspiracy</a>.

We may see some awesome footage later this week, if "El Panzer" and Fernandez de Kirchner (in some ways a political heir of Argentina's Peron) really do show up in Tegucigalpa with Zelaya.

A totally legal coup d'etat? Nice trick, if you can get anyone else to believe it.

Okay, this means there still is a dedicated cadre of opposition protestors who will persist in organizing resistance any way they can get around the authorities.

The latest: a shop-in at the city bazaars. No one knows how many people will show up, but if enough opposition members flood the Tehran open-air market without buying anything, it may make it impossible for real shoppers to buy anything, and in drawing the threat of police crackdowns, the shopkeepers may decide just to close up shop and go home. Some of them are known to be sympathetic to the resistance anyway, so the shop-in allows them to close their businesses on the pretext of the shop-in instead of their own politics, thus dodging police retaliation.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/9-am-bazaar-gatherings-called-in-iran.html#comments
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this doesn't go away.

This is pure speculation and I'm one of the least-equipped to be making it, since I have very little in the way of cultural knowledge here, don't speak the language, etc. But, since these hardliners are now calling for the <i>death penalty</i> for protestors, I have to think that this may be a sign that they are losing the political battle behind the scenes among the Qom clergy. I say this because an increasing shrillness in demands often betrays growing weakness. "Methinks thou dost protest too much," as Shakespeare would say. It might be that the right wing feels it is losing support among the Qom clergy and is trying to intimidate its opposition into standing down before the clerics are forced to rule.

On the other hand, this is the same clergy which countenances death by stoning for a variety of offences, so I really can't pretend to know anything about how they think. I do think that Middle Eastern politics tends to proceed by stealth, and usually values discretion and subtlety, so these increasing demands for executing protestors seem uncharacteristic. The fact that we have heard nothing from Rafsanjani and relatively little from Mousavi might mean that they are actually busy at working winning over the Qom clergy. Who knows...

"Victory goes to he who holds out a quarter of an hour longer than the other one."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009626134653439673.html

If (and that's a big "if") this is true, it goes to show that Obama can be rolled. This will strengthen the arguments that his famous "pragmatism" is more mechanical and less visionary; i.e. he is struggling to play a political game that pleases as many people as possible, instead of finding creative solutions that bring the country closer to a predetermined goal with which one might or might not sympathize.

LBJ, for example, struggled to "please" the antiwar camp by limiting escalation of the war against North Vietnam; and struggled to "please" his military leadership by authorizing bombing in the North. The "pragmatic" compromise was to restrict targeting in the North, for example avoiding Hanoi and Haiphong, and requiring White House approval of individual targets. The resulting Rolling Thunder bombings were militarily incoherent in terms of disrupting the enemy's operations, and the restricted targeting resulted in preventable American deaths (for example, some pilots would not have died if North Vietnamese airfields had been bombed earlier, but this was regarded by the White House as an undesirable escalation).

Obama started with a clear, visionary position at the beginning of the Iranian conflict: the U.S. government has no place in this affair. The choir of right-wing know-nothings has now succeeded in getting him first to change his tune in his public pronouncements, and now apparently to actually give money to the Iranian opposition. Some people really do want American objectives to fail, it seems; I guess we have not learned from 60 years of stalemate with Cuba. Any Iranian who takes Obama's money can kiss their Iranian credibility goodbye. And Obama will lose a large part of his own.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-06-25-iran-money_N.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder

Because some things are too long to be posted on a Facebook wall post...

I actually did protest at the Democratic National Convention in 2000, narrowly escaping a hail of rubber bullets. I’m sure I’ve told you the story about the parking lot at Figueroa & Olympic, how the cops read the Riot Act giving us 15 minutes to disperse, and started shooting 5 minutes after their announcement. And I protested in 2001 on Inauguration Day. And, you’re right, the “protest zones” in New York City in 2004, or the arrests in Minneapolis last year, show that this country still has a hard time dealing with political protest and free speech. Your caveat about degree and circumstance is well-taken – obviously what I’ve described is not the same as what’s happening in Iran; what’s happening in Iran is worse than our Kent State University shooting, our 1968 DNC police riot, and 2000 election theft, all put together.

 

Yes, our anti-democratic behavior, not only at home but overseas, means that we are obviously not “pure”. We are the country that gave the world Guantanamo. But the “tu quoque” argument you raise is not cogent here. I am just as much against our own anti-democratic behavior as I am against the repression in Iran.

 

Correct me if I am putting words in your mouth, since I know it’s easy for me to mistakenly take things personally, but I think you’re incorrect if you are saying that I am being quick to “slam” a country that I refuse to make the effort to understand. I’ve read some things on Middle Eastern history, I took a class on Revolutionary Iran at Berkeley taught by a Persian kid, Pouya, whose blog I follow regularly; and I also follow Al Jazeera and the blog of Juan Cole, whose expert Middle East analysis happens to make sense to me, and also happens to be well at odds with that found in the majority of our mainstream media.

 

Indeed, I strongly disagree with all arguments that President Obama should be “forcefully advocating” for the Iranian resistance – it would be the political kiss of death for them, just as our policy in Cuba has been so counter-productive.

 

I’m not setting myself up as any kind of Iran expert, and of course you don’t have to read anything I write. What little I’m trying to say – Juan Cole and Pouya do a much better job than I can – comes from what I understand about politics and “third world” culture as I derived from my studies about Latin America. Corporatist politics, institutional conflict, disruptions in electoral politics – I know nothing is a clean parallel. But it pleases me to tease out different threads of meaning from what I read in the news.

 

And I know Mousavi is no freedom fighter. He participated in the clerics’ revolution, he led the country during the war with Iraq. He’s a part of the system. He’s anti-Ahmadinejad the way that Kerry was anti-Bush, when both of them were part of the same fraternity, products of the same social class, beneficiaries of the same system. Still, I think it’s clear which was the better candidate. And if 2004 had been a steal the same was 2000 was, then you bet I would have been out in the streets again. Not because Kerry was an angel. But because of the violence that had been done to institutionality, and because he was marginally better. Mousavi is marginally better than Ahmadinejad. The fact that he is “no freedom fighter” does not tell me that I should treat this as “all the same to me no matter what happens”. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and were Mousavi to triumph, the forces set in motion would have been impossible to ignore: a first step on the road to strengthening of Iranian civil society, a moderation of the clergy’s social control.

 

My understanding of the Iranian situation is that right now we are seeing a slow-motion coup, that’s been in process since 2005, where the Pasdaran (IGRC) are taking power away from the clerical forces which were originally set up to be in parallel to a functioning electoral system. Popular sovereignty was set up with a check against it by the clergy. Now the Pasdaran are setting themselves up to be the new unassailable arbiters – like the Chinese Communist Party. This would be an altogether less desirable situation than what prevailed in Iran before 2005.

 

To conclude with another totally moot point, none of this would be happening if we hadn’t destroyed Mossadegh’s peaceful revolution in 1953.

Thanks to National Public Radio (!), admire these pictures of lobbyists present when a Senate committee began reviewing health care-reform legislation.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/

The public is invited to identify anyone in the audience. Some of the people, naturally, have clear vested interests in the outcome of this legislation. A lot of mortgages are riding on those six-figure salaries...

<a href="http://www.daylife.com/photo/03GX9sc0BI3cC">Here is a picture</a> of Mark Sanford's wife Jenny, giving a press conference <i>on his behalf</i> in 2006. It would appear that Mark "burned his eyes" (???) in the spotlights at a groundbreaking ceremony, so his wife stepped in for him.

"Burned his eyes under the stage lights" sounds like a filmsy, flimsy excuse for missing a press conference for a man running for election. Correct me if I'm wrong; has anyone else ever heard of eyes being "burned" by stage lights before? 

I'm just gonna go way out on an unjustified limb here, and say that this smells to me like the following: a man who has gotten used to taking advantage of his wife in many ways, a man who came to expect that his wife would always be there for him. And then he found something a little bit better, a little 'exotic', if you will. Like... a woman at an airport or something, struggling with her separation from her own spouse, with whom you share "a really earnest conversation" and carry on an email correspondence which turns you into "dear, dear friends" over the course of years and years, a secret friendship which is no big deal because she is "thousands and thousands of miles away". And then somehow something sparked? Give me a fucking break.

I hope he didn't think it made him look any better by introducing the story of his girlfriend with the fact that, at the time they first met, he counseled her to stay together with her husband for the sake of her children and in obedience to "God's laws". It just seems like a man caught in the middle of an affair who is still not thinking clearly about it. It's worthy of a Philip Seymour Hoffman role (like his corrupt preacher in the movie <i>Cold Mountain</i>).

And I'm so tired of these abject apologies from assholes who were perfectly content to keep their peccdilloes secret the day before they get found out. And as long as they're getting away with it, they're riding high, and continuing to make political hay out of the very "traditional family values" which they were mocking in private. Why are you all of a sudden so very sorry for what you've done? Because you got caught, asshole. That's the only thing that made it wrong.

I am fascinated by the ongoing evolution of the resistance in Iran. We see an on-the-ground improvisation of tactics. While repression has reduced the numbers of protestors from the overwhelming hundreds of thousands to merely hundreds or few thousands, the core who dared to protest in the city on Monday display an incredible commitment. Those who continue to resist will be adapting to the situation and at any opportunity they may catalyze huge new protests. It also looks like the Basij are not immune to influence; not all of them may be fully disciplined.

I didn't know this, but the transportation workers' union has lately been pretty militant, and they may strike on Friday, which would effectively force many people to miss work. So the calls for a Tuesday general strike were either premature or incorrectly reported.

The Marxist in me is fascinated by Iran's development. We are witnessing the dialectical confrontation of the clerical and the secular in Iran; a sort of civil society versus the religious authority. This was a tension, a contradiction, if you will, that was deliberately built into the Iranian system after 1979. Subsequent developments have strengthened both sides, and now we are seeing history at work, resolving the contradiction. Because this is a cleavage that goes from the bottom to the top of the country, I don't see it going away easily. The shadow-puppetry of the political games at the top level, involving ex-president Khatami and his shadowy patron Yazdi, who are opposed to Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, adds a new element of complexity to all equations.

See http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/guardianship-council-rules-out.html

1. Given the available evidence it appears impossible to sustain any argument that the official results of the election were accurate. Given the on-the-ground anecdotal evidence that is turning up, it's starting to look like Moussavi probably really did actually win.
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/chatham-house-study-definitively-shows.html

2. It's not only up to Moussavi. The also-ran Karroubi, who got less than 1 million votes in the official tally, has also been right in there with him, complaining to the Guardian Council, and supporting the protestors. This influences the game calculus. Moussavi cannot be seen to be any less vigorous than Karroubi. Karroubi appears to have quite a lot to gain from continued protests as well. A significant share of the 2009 vote would make him that much more of a player in the medium-term of Iranian national politics.

3. The real action is not in the streets. This war is going to be fought and won inside the Iranian establishment, as long as the armed forces don't get involved. The clergy, the Assembly of Experts and the Guardian Council, are in play right now. And naturally the world media cannot know the full story of what's going on there, although a story about a petition circulating among the experts has been going around.

4. Reasons for the Army not to intervene:
- avoiding a conflict with another branch, such as the Air Force, perhaps (which was the first to come out in favor of the ayatollahs in 1979)
- avoiding a conflict with the IGRC and Basij
- avoiding conflict with the clergy (this is less of a factor if the clergy is clearly divided)
- reluctance to step out of its constitutionally-assigned role (this factor is stronger the more that danger from abroad is perceived)

5. Reasons for the Army to intervene:
- if Rafsanjani's daughter was arrested, who else has had kids arrested by the fanatics? any Army general's daughter gets locked up, I bet that's one barracks ready to revolt.
- to preserve public order, national unity, etc.
- if the IGRC and the rest of the state show themselves incapable of restoring order/resolving the conflict with the opposition
- if they feel that Moussavi has disqualified himself from power by his actions during the conflict
- a power vacuum in Iran strengthens enemies on Iran's borders - not only the M-e-K terrorists, but the enemies of Iran's clients in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am not hoping for an Army coup. I'm just saying its a likely scenario given what little I know about similar situations in other countries in the recent past.

It's also theoretically possible that the Army could intervene on the side of Ahmadinejad. Perhaps even more so, since Ahmadinejad's official "victory" is a fait accompli, so they would be able to claim to be intervening on the side of the established order, in favor of "institutionality".

The longer the Army waits, though, the stronger their hand gets. If disorder grows, then a chorus of voices may rise up calling for Army action. If disorder diminishes, the generals will be praised for their restraint.

I guess we'll see whether people show up for work tomorrow in Iran. This is the nuclear option. The risk of reprisal which an individual faces for staying at home is low enough that it is possible this could be massively observed. It's the next move in the chess game, since it seems that the fanatics have been able to (temporarily?) slow down the street protests. But if people decide to go to work, Mousavi is spent.

http://www.ipouya.com/?p=346

On the face of it, it is surprising that a political candidate would call for further protests when the state has announced that all protests will be dispersed by force. One might even call it irresponsible, since the value of a single human life is infinite. But Mousavi is not Al Gore. And the logic of "settle for nothing now, settle for nothing later" means that the people who continue to believe that the status quo is intolerable are going to continue to fight. Now, since the numbers being reported of demonstrators are now much smaller than they were immediately after the election, it looks like repression has succeeded in intimidating some people enough to deter them from turning out. Mousavi knows that successful escalation works in his favor, as continued disorder discredits the regime. However, if he calls for escalation and not enough people show up, it goes against him.

Meanwhile the Guardian Council is now admitting that 100% voter turnout occured in at least 50 cities. Is this the avenue that the system will opt for in order to resolve the situation? You preserve the veneer of institutionality, allowing people to repeat the myth that the system is self-correcting, that the integrity of the "sacred system of the Islamic Republic" is being preserved.

More at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23iran.html?_r=1

Here is how it could go down: the repression succeeds in containing the street demonstrations. The Guardian Council makes concessions by whittling down Ahmadinejad's margin with their investigation. Maybe they'd even take the victory away from Ahmadinejad? Doubtful, but it could happen, if this can be managed as a sort of sacrifice to preserve the system, make a show of it "working". Hard to see them handing it to Mousavi, though, because he must look bad in the clerics' eyes because of his active role in fomenting unrest. More likely, the official margin of victory is whittled down to a more believable figure, but Ahmadinejad remains in power, and meanwhile the protest movement runs out of steam. Maybe afterwards he resigns in favor of some "national unity" figure - doubtful.

However, unlike China, I don't think that'll be the end of the story here. There is too much underlying resentment of the system. China was able to socially liberalize at the same time that it maintained a Communist Party monopoly on power; but it appears that social liberalization is out of the question for the clerics, for whom social control, cultural conservatism, is the actual purpose of holding power in the first place. But there are, possibly, enough people who are now dissatisfied with the power of the morality police and the clergy.

seems to me that in the past, political struggles involved warlords and strongmen, not the people. so despotism worked by decapitating (literally) its opposition. what I've read about struggles between local rulers in Palestine during the Crusades, when some Ottoman or Arab leaders would temporarily ally with the Christians crusaders, deploying their forces as part of power struggles at the top level. while popular revolts did happen, they were uncommon, and state repression involved selective enforcement against leaders, for the most part. the average person engaged with the State mainly through taxation, and while these burdens might have been onerous, they were designed to be livable, at least in average years. (obviously, a parasite cannot bleed its host to death too quickly, or else it will also die.)

but nowadays, politics actively involves the masses of people. in 1979, the people demanded the Shah leave, and in the ensuing power game, the ayatollahs came out on top. today, the regime has entered a crisis of legitimacy, and a large number of people (a critical mass, it would seem) are calling for the ayatollahs to leave. Mousavi himself appears to be speaking through spokesmen or friends, perhaps partly because organs of mass media are being denied to him, but probably also because what he says is less important than what the people in the streets are saying. for the regime to simply crack down on the three candidates who lost the election, and cause the disappearance of the top people of their campaign organizations, might not be enough.

instead you get the regime's loyal fanatics to invade people's houses in the middle of the night. it's interesting that these fanatics don't just make their targets disappear. if this video that's appeared on CNN is to be believed, and if it is representative, then these fantatics want to make an example of their targets by beating them up in front of their families, where the whole neighborhood can hear. this was not the M.O. for the repressors of Chile or Argentina, where the Ford Falcon would show up at your house in the middle of the night, and no one would hear from you again. it makes me think that these home invasions are being perpetrated by amateurs. but still, you wind up letting a whole city block know that someone just got a beatdown by the basij. this is state terrorism.

and I don't know if it will work. in the past, shahs and sultans might have successfully held a dynasty together by acting mercilessly towards their individual rivals. exterminate your enemy's bloodline and you get another ten years on the throne. in Iran, where the culture highly respects martyrdom, every death means another protest at the funeral, at the wake a month afterwards, and again at the 40-day mark memorial.

either this crackdown by amateurs works - and it can only work if it works fast, if it hits so hard that it drives the air out of the lungs of the opposition - or else the regime will have shot its last bolt. the crisis of legitimacy becomes a crisis of authority. khamenei has no more arrows in his quiver, as his big speech at Tehran U. was explicitly intended to be "the last word". the ensuing question answers itself: if the protests continue despite the repression, the army will step in. you heard it here first.

doesn't mean Mousavi will become president. doesn't necessarily mean the Council of Guardians or Council of Experts will go away. it might mean a military dictatorship, or it might mean a reshuffling of faces. but I think the regular armed forces are the last institution with any credibility.

Found at the Huffington Post. I'd say there are at least 10,000 people here, given how long the march stretches on the street, and that's just from what you can see in this brief clip. I remember the marches at the L.A. Democratic National Convention in 2000, and other protests I've been to. 2,000 people seems like a lot when you're inside the crowd. I don't even remember how many people were there at the last night of the DNC protests, but it was at least 10,000, densely packed all the way from the Staples Center to at least the Paul Hastings building on Figueroa in downtown.

Looks like the Vatican just can't bring itself to pull the trigger on these guys. I'm glad they ordered them not go go forward with these new ordinations, but it doesn't address the fundamental underlying contradiction: that the existing ordinations are problematic. The Vatican's previous pronunciation is that they were valid but not licit, or some such nonsense, since Lefebvre was a real bishop but he was wrong in performing freelance ordinations. I love that SSPX just can't stop moving - barely a few months ago their resident Holocaust denier was embarassing them, and now they're going and pulling these new shenanigans.

It seems like a China vs Taiwan situation is developing. Clearly, SSPX has the supporters to sustain its own existence. But they are playing the "more Catholic than the Pope" card, so they don't want to cut themselves off from Rome; like the Kuomingtang, they hope to be able to return in triumph, eventually taking over the entire Church and reversing Vatican II completely. Is this a sign of the Catholic Church hierarchy's growing irrelevancy? Like the old adage about politics among university faculty: "they are so vicious because there's so little at stake". Maybe that's not the case here. Your thoughts?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8105716.stm

Last night a friend of mine held her birthday party at a karaoke bar. It was great, she invited a lot of nice people and sprang for huge platters of teriyaki and sushi (from the restaurant next door).

There's only one song that I really like to sing for karaoke. Partly because, like all great poetry, it is spoken more than sung. So of course I had been planning on that all day.

I should mention that while I was in Spain I picked up a beautiful t-shirt, a bright red one with the classic black silhouette of a bull, like the Osborne bull (pictured here). Now, I've found that A) for whatever reason, I'm always bolder with the ladies in foreign countries, and B) whatever I've got seems to sell better in Spanish (also French). The thing with this crazy t-shirt is that when I put it on, I experience not only a bit of the liberating feeling of being overseas (like the shirt is a bit of Spain that I've brought back with me), or a bit of the Latin verve that seems to make me "sell better" (also associated with my recent vacation); I also enjoy a bit of a totemic boost, with this beautiful bull (balls and all) emblazoned across my chest. I feel like a gangster, or a rock star, when I'm walking up Fillmore street with this bull leading the way, especially if I'm wearing my leather jacket too.

So I'm at the karaoke bar, fortifying my nerves for the forthcoming spectacle, when the MC announces the parties that are present. Our party is named, and then a bachelorette party, which is seated close to us - you can tell because the bride is wearing a tiara with a flashing light, and a bunch of streamers in her hair.

I don't remember what song came up, but it seemed to me to be eminently danceable. So I went over to the bachelorette party and addressed the girl in the tiara: "Hello, excuse me, are you the bride?" She grinned and nodded. "Would you like to dance?"

That made her night. She gave me a thousand-watt smile and agreed at once. This lady was definitely in the mood to party; she was a great dancer. Later that night she sang a couple of songs and displayed an amazing voice - she might have been the best singer of the whole night, and a hell of a good stage performer as well, with presence, charisma, and a great way of moving her body. I danced with her for a couple of other songs during the night. The last song I saw her sing was that notorious one with the delightful nearly-pornographic music video. When she finished she gave out big kisses to a few of her girlfriends and, I think, other women in the bar, too. It was great.

When I finally got to do my song, it went over very well in the bar. For the final verse I saw the bachelorette walk right up to me on the stage and pose with me while I belted out the last couple of lines. Truly epic. When my friend's birthday party adjourned, I sought out the bachelorette to wish her well, and she looked me in the eye and said with admiration, and I quote: "You are the most amazing person."

At the Miami airport. I'm behind on updates - think I left off in Cordoba. Will write more soon. For now, here are the words to an old pasodobles song:

Quiso Dios, con su poder,
Fundir cuatro rayitos de sol
Y hacer con ellos una mujer,
Y al cumplir su voluntad
En un jardin de Espana naci
Como la flor en el rosal.
Tierra gloriosa de mi querer,
Tierra bendita de perfume y pasion,
Espana, en toda flor a tus pies
Suspira un corazon.
Ay de mi pena mortal,
Porque me alejo, Espana, de ti,
Porque me arrancan de mi rosal.