I am become tourist trap, maker of dollars

On Tuesday, the New York Times put up an interactive online feature that lets you roam around a map of New York and click on former Manhattan Project sites for pictures and info. Among the notable clicks are Pupin Hall at Columbia University, where early experiments on atom-splitting led to breakthroughs, J. Robert Oppenheimer's childhood home on the upper west side, and the former New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street.

Thought: why not go one step further and organize a paid-admission 'Manhattan Project Walking Tour' — you know, an American equivalent of sorts to Whitechapel's über-popular Jack the Ripper walk? I'd sign up.

And a bottle of Rummy

I got into a spirited discussion/pseudo-argument at a recent Canada's World shindig, the topic du jour being the "cause" of the Iraq war. (Indeed, I know how to pick 'em). Speculation abounded: It was oil. It was the power of the Israeli Lobby. It was Bush playing second fiddle to his executive. It was doing what daddy had not done in 1991. It was part of a liberal grand strategy to install democracy in the Middle East. It was Cheney. It was Rumsfeld. It was Rove. Yep, that's the cause. Based on the evidence. Well, depending on how you read the evidence. Er, which evidence you read.

It occurred to me, after nearly a half hour of this sort of cherry-picking (*gasp*, could it be all of the above?), that discussions of these sorts are now largely irrelevant. The sad fact of the matter is that the U.S. is in, hands dirty, knees bent, and Iraq for its part has been invaded, occupied, liberated, dismantled, remantled, reconstructed, deconstructed, and screwed and nailed in lopsided bits and pieces into a giant fucking mess.

Was it for the oil?
Does it matter?
And if it does, is this really worth so much of our attention?

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On an aside, DFAIT, as part of its decades-long, never-ending budget cut, is selling its expensive embassies and properties in a bid to raise cash.

Canada is reviewing properties abroad that have been owned for 25 years or more that are too big for their diplomatic functions, too costly to upkeep and too far from business centres, said Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore. When a property is sold, it will be replaced by a more economical leased or purchased property.

Getting rid of expensive, limited-function overhead is, of course, wise resource management. But why do I get the feeling this yard sale is a bit of a public cry for help in the face of more systemic cash-related problems?

*cough*

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No queen walks here

Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the sequel to 1998's Elizabeth and, astoundingly, made by mostly the same people, is a giant mess of sloppy editing, overbearing music, cringe-inducing melodrama, and gross historical inaccuracy, the last of these problems so egregious that the film's screenwriters are unquestionably guilty of high treason — the historical-disinformation-ala-Braveheart kind of treason that is sure to leave audiences far dumber than they would be otherwise.

Historicity aside — Hollywood can't always be perfect, after all — Braveheart aimed no higher than a relatively obscure bit of the past, at the very least capturing William Wallace's 14th century rebellion against English imperialism 'in spirit'.

The same cannot be said of The Golden Age, which (among other things) reduces Philip II of Spain to an effete, maniacally-religious twat, portrays the long, rather indecisive Spanish Armada of 1588 as an all-night boat party held within throwing distance of the not-even-close cliffs of Beachy Head, and depicts the poet/explorer Sir Walter Raleigh as if he stumbled off the set of Pirates of the Caribbean and added cum-saviour-of-England to his CV.

Granted, a few plot devices here or there approach the level of historical accuracy one hopes to get from a big-budget period-piece: the infamous Papist plot to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots is kept, for example, and Raleigh's contentious marriage to lady-in-waiting Elizabeth Throgmorton becomes a central part of the film's narrative thrust. But they're either grossly simplified or happen at the wrong time — like, during or just before 1588, instead of after, way before, or not at all.

(For a movie with few pretensions against gruesome displays of torture, some well-known and dramatically colourful bits of history are inexplicably ignored. It took no less than three swings of the executioner's blade to separate Mary's head from her body, for example, and the second blow sliced open her subclavian artery, sending blood everywhere. All we get in The Golden Age is one off-screen clang!)

These details wouldn't matter if the film's artistic license held any water. But the possibility of 'in spirit' film making — or good film making, even — seems to have been left on the editing room floor. Or in the second unit director's head. Or buried under a budget cut.

Indeed, aside from Cate Blanchett's performance, The Golden Age is glorious in its incoherence.

But for all its foibles, The Golden Age is still worth watching. First among reasons is Blanchett, who brings wit and intelligence to even the most deadened of lines. And there are a few scenes, mostly toward the end, that pack tremendous visual power (and even fewer, mostly toward the beginning, that convey a pang of emotion or two). But the main attraction here is all that blabbering and historical apostasy, which make for one bloody entertaining show, even if it's more parade of horribles than, for lack of a better comparison, Elizabeth.

Just don't say you weren't warned.

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Wither DFAIT, year 33

In what must be one of the most systemically true, non-time-sensitive Canadian news stories of all time, the Canadian Press reported on Sunday that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (or, wearing a different hat, Foreign Affairs Canada) is "is in the grips of a kind of existential crisis" and "faces financial, morale crisis; feels muzzled."

Quelle surprise.

This sort of thing has been true since the mid-1970s, when, as a colleague tells me, Canada's foreign diplomats in Kabul attempted to pull one over the Brits by kindly asking them to henceforth handle Canada's affairs in Afghanistan.

The British response to our request did not, as one might expect, reciprocate any usual Canadian courtesy.

The problem then was, as it is now, a matter of funding. Not a culture of bureaucratic indifference, nor inter-departmental enmity, nor any of those adjunct institutional factors that, while they play a major and ongoing role in the tragedy, are actually understudies to the lead.

The real existential crisis is overextension, the 'minimax' expectation that Canada punch above its weight without wearing the right gloves. Our leaders consistently make 'maximum' public foreign policy demands that, supplied with 'minimum' funding, are well beyond DFAIT's financial and operational capabilities.

(The same could be said of CIDA, DND, CSIS.)

The systemic nature of the 'minimax' problem then begs the question: are we — the taxpayers, the government, whomever — actually willing to spend the money it takes to address let alone achieve Canada's foreign policy objectives, be they what they may?

Or have we always simply set the bar too high?

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Link of the day, Vol. XIX

Alas, I cannot resist.

Japanese workers in Wikipedia row

Japan's Agriculture Ministry has reprimanded six civil servants who spent hours at work editing articles on Wikipedia - mainly about robots.

One man was found to have made 260 entries to articles about Gundam, a popular animated series featuring giant robotic fighting machines.

Read the story.

Four steps to Russian 'Democracy'

Big moves in the motherland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin deftly ensured his place at the top of the Russian political apparatus by appointing loyal, no-name Victor Zubkov as Prime Minister, and then announcing that he himself will run for Parliament after his constitutionally-limited second term as President is up. When run through the Russian mystery political strategy formula™, this essentially means that Putin plans to play switcheroo with Zubkov using a four-step process:

1. Putin runs for Parliament and wins, being an obviously popular, affable man;
2. Zubkov runs for President and wins — unopposed, of course, thanks to the dirty work of Putin's cronies;
3. Zubkov nominates Putin as Prime Minister, allowable under the Russian Constitution; and
4. Zubkov de facto steps aside while Putin takes reign, as PM, over the Executive.

The real coup-de-grace is that the Russian Prime Ministership has no term limitations, meaning Putin can effectively run Russia from the Federal Assembly forever provided he maintains favour with the President. Should this plan go awry for some reason, Putin can run again for the Presidency after sitting out for a term — the constitution only limits consecutive terms. The success of all this back-door strategizing will be assured though the precise and meticulous application of bribery, threats, and cronyism, of course — all those Soviet-era tactics Putin's democratic rule has worn like an old jacket.

Machiavelli would be pleased.

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