February 2008

Matthew Yglesias: Kosovo and the Rise of the Humanitarian Hawks

Yglesias cautiously questions the Clinton legacy of the "good war" in the former Yugoslavia, now that Kosovo has declared independence and more ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Roma, etc, there appears imminent. Bombing Belgrade was bitterly opposed by Congressional Republicans, who then turned around and used it as grounds--following the supposed moral authority of the liberal hawks--for attacking Afghanistan and Iraq for "humanitarian" reasons. In so many words, Yglesias suggests the old UN model of diplomacy and international peacekeeping forces was a better one for regional conflicts than a unilateral rain of death from the skies.

From Bennett at Double Happiness:

Borna and I were in some sort of museum at a kiosk that featured the works of Jeff Sisson. It was a large screen w/ mouse interaction, containing a collection of Rock Band-esque band/karaoke projects, also one Photoshop filter style manipulation of faces that could be rotated, swirled, etc. and would transform into other faces as they did so. Then we came upon a “cookie making” piece, that had the background of a dough-colored surface, and one could click on various spices and sprinkle them on, add other ingredients - this had been the piece that Jeff had “gotten famous for,” we knew. Jeff came by and said “oh have you checked out the camera function? thats what really makes this piece good.” I clicked the camera icon and nothing happened - Jeff realized the machine must be broken, and reached down under to dislodge something that was stuck. The bottom of the kiosk had a small drawer that was jammed with cookies that were “printed out” based on the image you had made on the screen, but they had gotten stuck. He pulled a few and then handed me mine. There was a condom on it.