Of Arabs and Asians

Thomas Friedman has been mulling over the failure of Arab development in the Middle East in the post-World War Two era, and he draws some interesting comparison to the Asians.

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After World War II, Asia was ruled by many autocrats who essentially came to their people and said, “My people, we’re going to take away your freedom, but we’re going to give you the best education, infrastructure and export-led growth policies money can buy. And eventually you’ll build a big middle class and win your freedom.” Over that same period, Arab autocrats came to their people and said, “My people, we’re going to take away your freedom and give you the Arab-Israel conflict.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman at The New York Times

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New Grass

I just watered the new grass the cable guys left us. Pop and I were hoping they would do that, though I wonder if life would be better without this new chore, especially since we are likely to lose it anyway to the drought, the poor dirt, and the all-conquering weeds.

The back yard is such a jungle of weeds, it is kind of funny to see a good patch of grass there. It is in the back-quarter behind the big tree, that part of the yard we have always tended to write off, so that we could have been a little luckier, say, if it was on the other side, the patio-side of the yard, but, nevertheless, this is definitely an instance where the cable guys left us better than they found us. How big is this new patch of grass? Roughly about four-feet by twenty feet. It is not so huge, but it is substantial. Like I said, it will probably be overrun in time by the weeds anyway, but I will water it and give the grass a fighting chance to thrive.

Looking at the lovely patch of new grass, I wish our whole back yard could be redone. I would think that might be worth a good thousand dollars, and it would probably cost at least that much. That yard of weeds always did a lot to make life here feel poor, that and my decrepit shower. Sadly, the front yard inside our fence is starting to be overrun with weeds as well, and I only expect to lose that too rather than actually save the back yard.

I just cannot look to life getting better. It is just about managing the decline. How can I not feel bad? I cannot find enough consolation in my books and my musings. Maybe it is unfortunate that I am not a religious man, as I imagine it might be nice indeed if I genuinely looked forward to shuffling off this mortal coil for a new, perfect body and being happy in heaven, thereby finding some solace and even grounds for joy in this losing struggle against poverty and mortality, in my weeds and my decaying body.

Elvis

I believe it is fair to say that Ed Sullivan became supportive of Elvis and his career, but apparently that was not true at the beginning. New York and the high-culture were not having anything to do with the new rock & roll music, and Sullivan was part of that censorious opinion. He declared at one point that he would prefer to run a sixty-minute test pattern than put Elvis on his show. But the people wanted to eat Elvis like he was sweet candy, bringing in the ratings and the money, and the culture changed, for better and worse.

[Source: Steve Dunleavy, "Elvis: What Happened?"]

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