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             "I look at my own arc and berate
             myself for being so slow to catch on."

                       -- Paul Krugman, October 2, 2003
                          talk at the "Carnegie Council",
                          referring to the Bush regime.


                                             December 10, 2006

Myself, I look at the situation in
the Middle East, and look at my
own history of lukewarm opinions on
the subject, and I wonder where my
brain has been.

It's been 25 years since Israeli's
invasion of Lebanon in the early 80s,
and it's been nothing but a damn
Human League song to me.
                                                 
I had to wait for them to do the same                            
damn thing again -- several times --          And I have still other       
before I finally paid attention.              huge ranges of ignorence:   
                                              notably the Kosovo War.   
                                                                          
                                              That happened during one 
                                              of my stints as a Silicon 
                                              Valley technical grunt.

                                              I go through periods where    
                                              I become something of a     
                                              specialist, working full    
                                              time on some technical      
                                              task or another, leaving    
                                              little time to follow       
                                              "current events".           
                                                                          
                                              I don't maintain that kind  
                                              of tight focus all the     
                                              time though -- I take       
                                              breaks from it occasionally 
                                              and play the generalist.    
                                                                          
                                                  What if I were someone  
                                                  who (by necessity or    
                                                  inclincation) *never*   
                                                  took these kind of      
                                                  breaks?                 
                                                                          
                                                  I suspect that that     
                                                  describes the majority  
                                                  of my fellow citizens... 
                                                  








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