Parries 

Irit, the Jam and I walk from Brighton to Gatwick Airport.

Time was, Seymour Hersh’s dispatches were a cause for minor celebration. They were full- and deep-throated journalistic tours de force, possible changers of paradigms. But his latest, “Preparing the Battlefield” on funding covert ops in Iran, leaves too many clues that reveal precisely where he’s coming from.

With the recent reported training exercises over Crete, perhaps Israel’s strike on the Iranian regime’s machinery of genocide has already begun.

Beyond steadfastness and vigor in prosecuting Islamofascism, John McCain seems an American president I’d love even more than the great liberator George W. Bush (most of you just left, I know) because he is more American on immigration than either his party or the other.

First, there is a general moode and desire to write.

Apple’s operating system will in time become the dominant one, and with a current market share of only 6% or so, that’s a lot more computers to sell. And as the only operating system seller that also sells the computers it runs on, as well as owning the shops they’re sold from, Apple stands to become a colossus, even a frightening one.

My phone! One of the reasons I didn’t want an iPhone is that I’m invested in the T9 text entry method and like it. But while I do like the Nokia N95’s slider, it creates discomfort when entering text because all the weight in the phone is further up.

Hamas may try to use Egyptian territory to stage cross-border attacks on Israel, aiming to operate in parts of the Sinai as Hezballah does in southern Lebanon.

Caroline Glick, the strident Jerusalem Post columnist, seems to see the Gaza-Egypt border breach as yet another in a long line of Israeli strategic disasters by incompetent leaders. I’m not convinced however of her arguments, mainly because she doesn’t make any.

The great tactician Ariel Sharon steamrolled through Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and today we see another step in the unfolding of this masterplan to staunch the damage caused by the victory of the Six Day War in 1967.

First procedure: clean out the 2-cup mokka from the previous usage. The sink here is metal and I enjoy lightly bashing the coffee holder against it to knock the damp grains out then putting them in the rubbish before swilling out the remains under the tap. The sound is just the same as baristas make in cafes.

There in the empty restaurant by the water at Dieppe I had toast with foie gras, a carafe of red wine, a huge plate of mussels and chips, and finally a creme brulee. Somehow, though I’ve eaten in restaurants hundreds of times, I felt grown up sitting there alone on my travels.

Of course we were late for the train. We enquired frantically among the taxis for one who would accept the two dogs—mine and Davide’s—and take us to Termini Station so I could catch the 11pm train to Milan that would be one third of our journey to Britain.

Ariel Sharon’s disengagement policy reflected an understanding that ownership of the Palestinian issue is shared with Egypt and Jordan. Once Tony Blair acquires this view, he can help facilitate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Because of the recent US National Intelligence Report, the electorate will turn to someone who demonstrates not only the ideological conviction required to continue to prosecute Islamism, but also the administrative savvy to reform entrenched bureacracies.

There she was, sitting outside the apartment block! How did she do it? Dogs must have some sort of navigational sense we don’t understand.

Yesterday I lost Jam in Villa Borghese, the central park here in Rome. She has not turned up since.

I went to Astor Place Haircutters. I crossed Manhattan Bridge on foot. I walked west along Canal St, seeking a bamboo steamer.

At Rome I felt queasy that they would paint and revere scenes that occured in Israel, but here, looking at the Calvary Church campus, I felt that the religious energy is actually here, that we are far enough away from the places of the events themselves that they can finally become abstracted and spiritualized and kept relevant. An ocean and a small continent separate Fort Lauderdale from Afula.

The moon is shining through these tropical September clouds, directly above a neighbor’s palm tree, and it’s completely full. An airplane is landing at a nearby airfield. I ramble, unable to reach what I mean, perhaps because what I mean is an almost meaningless jumble of contradictory thoughts that are less thoughts than incomplete attempts to label fleeting tumbling emotions.

With the squeaks from the front and the clatter from the bulkheads and the smell from the toilet, there’s a reason to prefer Gatwick and the train over Heathrow and the bus. It’s very misty but we’re here. Korean Air Cargo. A parking lot.

To have a camera back again a personal epoch later feels like a time machine squared. Your chronicling device—itself a time machine of sorts—is suddenly back to what it was years ago, before much was changed, which in itself somewhat returns you to those times.

Rather than reaching the heights, to exciting thoughts and feelings, I tend increasingly in the sauna to just sit and think about the work I’ve just done and the work I’m about to do after. Something’s missing.

Gatwick is my airport now, largely unchanged since 1986, so it now looks tawdry. Airports. They’re so charged, so symbolic, and so empty once you’re at one; I dream of them often.

There’s a bridge in London’s St. James’s park where you can see Buckingham Palace at one end of the pond and Whitehall at the other, with the London Eye behind. Whitehall looked less a thumping fast haven for bureaucrats than a fairytale town, with the improbable slowly-moving Eye completing the fantasy.

One reaction (in The Times) to Islamist terrorist doctors: “Nowhere can inequality be so devastatingly stark as in a well-resourced British hospital.” So now we know: it’s understandable that after removing an annoying woman’s varicose veins, why, one sets a car alight and drives it into an airport departure hall.

The back yard is now set up and quite effortlessly picturesque, with its greenage and raw brick walls. Until we start trying to grow wee vegetables nothing else need be done except the daily maintenance of clearing the butts from the ashtray and the leaves from the ground.

We all, like twinkles on a sunny day’s waves, shine briefly. That I do know to be true. Other perspectives are futile. Grief, loss—these are the great teachers surely. Understand that what one has will pass.

I have a rash on my face these days, reaching from my forehead down the sides of my nose and to my mouth. It went away while I was in America but now back in Britain it’s returned. How can that be?

It’s a last bastion of civility, Brian mused ruefully (with that inability of his to be really rued), as we had a beer walking through Penn Station to his train. I realized that I don’t know people like him anymore: libertarian Democrats.

Wherein I obsess about developments in Gaza rather than recording the sights and sounds of New York City in the springtime.

I rode the Metro subway for the first time—didn’t even known Los Angeles has one. It’s cheap and clean, but the problem is there just aren’t that many trains, as if the city sabotages its own public transport system and wants you to have a car.

Here in Los Angeles I am bombarded with superlatives. Daniel’s record collection. The Bikram Yoga College of India world headquarters. Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Cutting-edge web applications by people down from the Bay Area. All mixed in with the most ravaging mediocrity.

Welcome to three weeks in America. Top story in USA Today: Tiger Woods is going to design a golf course.

Both systems are comprehensive in their respective realms and, controversially, ground-up rather than top-down.

Palestinian Arabs, quasi-sovereign for the first time, are descending into civil war in Gaza. Lebanon, acting militarily for the first time, is going after al-Qaeda cells within its Palestinian camps. And Israel is undergoing political convulsions, hammering out a new political system it seems. And all these developments among the neighbors are in play each with the other.

A bunch of loud white kids came running down from the promenade shouting vilely to each other. I was reminded of El Topo (we saw it yesterday at the fabulous Duke of York cinema) and I was reminded of the scene when the three bandits gradually build up their cackling harassment of the man in black as he rides into their valley.

“Like many provincial towns,” the Private Eye reviewer stabs, “Brighton, as depicted in this hacked-together tribute, defines itself more by what it isn’t than by what it is. It’s not London, for one thing.”

I needed my wallet more than the gypsies did.

Please pardon the unannounced, unplanned and unbecoming two weeks off. Following are some memorable moments from them in the order they popped into mind.

For my first test of the day as day, I open the back door and step outside to the little patio to see the sky and feel the air. I realize not everybody does this, so if people tell me I’m a miserable bastard then perhaps this little habit will correct their impression.

No that’s not right, said I, sipping strong tea just brewed. Klement wanted me to read over an email he wrote. “Thank you for taking your time to interview me,” it began. My Dad also called to tell me of his new socks.

Dreaming about our passed companions as if they are alive requires tricks to the dreaming mind to overcome what it believes and knows to be true.

I’m reading Shardik by Richard Adams, famous for Watership Down. I chose it because it’s about religion, and Adams demonstrated such insight there with the rabbits’ religion—“Oh Frith on the hill, he made it all for us!”—that he’s clearly a contributor to our understanding of ourselves and our meaning addiction.

Persian civilization typefaces, Palestinian innovation, Flood worries, that’s life with websites, Brighton is slow, and bad Jajah.

The Village Voice, often a source of genuinely good movie reviews, gives this insulting movie total kids glove treatment, limiting itself to plot summary. I guess any enemy of my enemy the Bush Administration is a friend. Ditto The New York Times.

In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin one of the major lessons the author wishes to impart is that when proposing new initiatives it’s best to stay in the background because people are jealous and are far more likely to enthusiastically come aboard a new project if it seems to come from themselves or from the ether. But should Israel be applying this wisdom to the case of denuking Iran?

How does one tamp down the debilitating, and as we’ve seen this week, frightful engrossment with me me me? One way is to follow Sailor Bob and ask what’s wrong with right now unless you think about it.

Before university I’d used bookshops as other people use the I-Ching or tarot cards: whatever struck my fancy as I crossed the oceans of those shelves would set me on my next ideational trajectory.

Without a blog, I spent half an hour or so at a time writing comments on other people’s. And every time I added a URL back to adamkhan.net, Google came across it.

How do we know which we want if we don’t know what we want? Musings on Professor Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less, complete with video lecture.

Even though the British government did a great job in getting the kidnapped soldiers back, that is the first step, not the last. Such piracy must cost dearly in order to discourage the Iranians (or anyone else) from doing anything like it again.

A full cooked English breakfast is a naughty treat—not quite junk food but not the sort of thing to eat daily unless work involves cross-country skiing. So when going for a fry-up I like the slumming aspect.

Music written before the invention of the train bores me. Maybe the relentless pleasurable rhythm of train travel forced composers to up the ante.

Brighton lacks the buzz of a global city like London but it is vivacious and though it has its uglinesses it has elegant and even lovely parts.

“Extraordinary scenes as Iran frees sailors”—The Telegraph. “Iran releases 15 as ‘gift’ to Britain”—The Times. Strangely, it’s the left-wing papers who seem less naive and and demonstrate understanding that it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. “Iran announces release of British sailors”—The Independent; and “Iran to release sailors tomorrow”—The Guardian.

It’s a golden new age of submersive television drama. But which show is better, 24 or Lost?

Last night we saw a totally-covered woman exiting an apartment building. The man was dressed normally but she was a black shroud, as ominous as the Lost opening titles except not as sexy. Or is the issue just one of degree, that people normalized to this garb find a Western street as naked as I find a German sauna? No. A uniform that hides the face is madness, diabolical.

When you sit in a Japanese conveyor belt-style restaurant you can get a little mesmerized by the dishes trundling around their smooth path, some near, some far, all moving at precisely the same speed like a wonderful toy you can eat. And then you contemplate the maki roll.

Hugh Hewitt’s saying after watching the Clintons on TV that Bill is all gaunt and papery and Hillary is God-awful. Mark Steyn on Al Gore: “Sanctimonious… Humbug. Hypocrite… Just the glow from his self-satisfaction must be contributing to global warming.”

Totally different to Drudgereport’s. I think it’s rats, pay-per-action and John Bolton.

When you’re on a fast you’ve always got a topic on hand. My breath for instance has become a bizarre concoction of horrendousness signalling detoxification has commenced.

I’m hoping I’ll do it: keep my focus away from the pointless longing for food and stay pleased and excited to be on the trip. That’s how it was the first time, back in 2003, when I juice fasted for seven weeks. This time I’m going to do just seven days.

Am I the only man who enjoys standing up and doing things in the sauna? I do the first few Bikram Yoga poses. Works great in the super heat, but with my towel wrapped around my head to stop my nostrils from burning I think I upset people when bending over.

Recently the term Palestine has come increasingly into currency, used even by venerable Israelis and ardent Israeli supporters such as Hillel Halkin and Charles Krauthammer. In the wake of this change, within the past couple of years the term “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” has been telegraphed increasingly into “Israel/Palestine”. What next?

A South African fellow was hammering away today at the newly-opened Beach House Cafe on Kensington Gardens, which which we share a courtyard.

Jam was one of Maddie’s nine puppies, the one who remained after the others were all taken I must admit, and that’s how I ended up with her. That was always my plan, to keep the runt.

Among the top stories here in Britain today are the (not) racist comments of Tory frontbencher Patrick Mercer regarding life in the Army. He was summarily fired from his shadow ministerhood, despite his Black fellow soldiers coming to his defence. All this does is show up David Cameron as a lightweight.

It’s 4pm. The next train to Lewes is at 4:10pm. The cheap day return ticket, £3.60, rolls out of the machine thanks to a credit card. Then tea from a kiosk. All is well.

Maddie, who died 18 months ago today, was a mangy mutt and stank, but she was also among the most beautiful dogs I’ve ever seen and for me the longest, richest, widest, deepest streak of feeling lucky.

One cannot yet fully take up with Rob Manuel’s findings in his epic ‘How to Poach an Egg’. Tried his clingfilm method but the ex-ovals merely stuck to the plastic instead. All this plus my prediction of the next American president.

Maybe because Lawrence Olivier is not just an actor but a star, Henry V seems pretty much the same guy as Hamlet. Olivier is handsome, yes, but he’s not a very convincing heterosexual.

Left-wingers are Romantics, right-wingers romantics. The former struggle against oppressive authority, the latter remove obstacles to enable a situation to fix itself.

I have had something very flattering: a request. Juan Carlos has asked me for comments on Casino Royale.

We defaecate into convenient porcelein pools of water, and with a pull of a chain the mess is gone. Yet if it were not gone so quickly and easily, might we be a bit more circumspect about what we eat?

Peter O’ Toole is as charming offscreen as he is on—ah, his diction, his pacing, his unaffected yet perfect English and obvious delight in using the language with precision, music, beauty. And Michael Crichton: What a fabulous man, not just great in accomplishments but so personable and easygoing.

I’m relieved now to have left Rome, though despite a profound lack of click with the place I did what I could to stay, thinking there was some glamour to it.

I found Kiefer’s heavy breathing an increasingly unconvincing substitute for real tension, Tom Lennox and his poor proposals dull and dry, and the presidential assassination plot thread to be a grinding up an alley we’ve been up before in 24. But Day 6 Hour 10 has somehow turned it all around.

The topic is the Palestinian deal for a national unity government. I present two perspectives, one from Dore Gold’s thinktank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and one from the BBC.

I just finished the Extreme Elements website. I’m worried about its reception, as I always am with a big new site, but it does benefit from designs I did in the past for two high-profile sites that never got used.

You get to a stage in life where you are already formed by the past. Thoughts and dilemmas about place are either central questions or a distraction from real issues.

I’m too tired for there to be much in this entry so I suggest you move along—there’s nothing to see here.

Ryanair has brought human wretchedness to the skies. Rather than existing on a privileged plane, with Ryanair you stew in a poisoned atmosphere, feeling you’re only there because you can’t afford to fly a better airline (leading you to ponder the lifelong mistakes that led you to such poverty) while the staff seem only to be there because they can’t get hired by a better airline. Even the website looks ugly on purpose.

Immediately after 9/11, the burgeoning war on terror was named “Operation Infinite Justice”. This terrible name was quickly changed to “Operation Enduring Freedom” but there was such a gulf between the emotions connoted by the two monickers that the second always seemed to me merely a polite cloaking of the first. That is to say, the mission is still infinite justice and it may well still be on.

Is Neil Strauss’s The Game our generation’s On the Road or Electric Kool Aid Acid Test? Certainly it’s about extreme personalities on the edge of self-destruction yet leading a social revolution that may change modern society. And the characters travel around America somewhat frantically, with returns to their families from the foment of the group’s experiment.

Irit is skeptical of David Allen’s Getting Things Done self-management system because it eschews the rigors of time management for what feels right. But GTD is about informed feeling.

“The primary navigation interface had to be a sentence. And so it is,” writes Jeffrey Zeldman, lead at the web shop with the greatest cred in the business, Happy Cog, on their redesign today. But it’s not a very good sentence.

First thing this morning I walked the fifty paces to the Starbucks at the end of the road. There I learned the police letters—don’t worry, it’s the most industrious thing I’ve done in years.

James Lileks is celebrating ten years of The Bleat, a web site about nothing updated five days a week without fail by one person. Now, I can do that.