The U.K.-American 'Special Relationship' Is Burned Toast (Without Marmalade)

PRIME MINISTER BROWN AND PRESIDENT OBAMA

Ten years after the end of the 20th century, the perception persists that Britain's ruling class still consists of a bunch of bewigged and stuffed shirted gentlemen who while away the days mourning for their long lost empire and tut-tutting about the depredations of the new world order.

While this perception is unfair to a certain extent, it is omnipresent in the current row across the pond about whether the "special relationship" between Britain and the U.S. forged by Winston Churchill and FDR has run its course.

The mini-tempest was set off by Sir David Manning, who served as the British ambassador to Washington for four of the eight years of the Bush administration. Manning recently warned members of Parliament that President Obama was "less sentimental" about American links with Britain, having been born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and brought up partly in Indonesia.

Forgetting for the moment that Obama is an astute student of history, which Bush was not, and overlooking the veiled racism in Manning's warning, what he really was saying was that the gauzy romanticism of the special relationship took a dart to the heart when Bush famously used former Prime Minister Tony Blair as his poodle in the run-up to the Iraq war. As a consequence, Britain's global image, like the U.S.'s, took a beating from which it has not yet recovered.

The subtext is that Blair, who was turned out of office, should have been a little more concerned about the will of his own party and the British people.

The special relationship, which flourished as recently as the Margaret Thatcher-Ronald Reagan era, has rested on the idea that the two largest English-speaking countries have an historic bond that elevates their relationship to a special level.

Manning's warning was heeded by a bi-partisan select committee on foreign affairs.

"The use of the phrase 'the special relationship' in its historical sense, to describe the totality of the ever-evolving UK-US relationship, is potentially misleading, and we recommend that its use should be avoided," the MPs concluded. "The overuse of the phrase by some politicians and many in the media serves simultaneously to devalue its meaning and to raise unrealistic expectations about the benefits the relationship can deliver to the UK."

My own view is stuffed shirt free: The U.S. saved Britain's ass in the darkest days of World War II while Britain did not return the favor when the Iraq saber rattling commenced in 2002. It is not inconceivable that had Blair refused to be leashed by Bush that the war would have never happened.

Yes, the relationship between 10 Downing Street and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will never return to the good old days, but the Brits and Yanks are growing closer together in other ways, notably the fusion of the cultures of the two nations, and that is jolly good.

Top photograph by Anthony Devlin/EPA

Cartoon du Jour

Kal/The Economist
(2009)

Toffs & Toughs: Story Of A Photograph

This may be the most famous photograph in English history and one that the Tories wish would go away. The back story is fascinating.

The Fox In The Iraqi Henhouse

As noted recently here, beyond the Axis of Evil so ably represented by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, there is no better example of the manifold failures in the run up to and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq than Ahmed Chalabi.

Many of the intelligence failures prior to the invasion can be attributed to Chalabi, whom the White House and Rumsfeld and his neoconservative brain trust in particular fawned on as the nominal head of the Iraqi National Congress, which had been created after the first Gulf War to foment the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chalabi, who was once dubbed "the George Washington of Iraq," in reality had no influence.

But now he has plenty. After an effort spearheaded by he and other pro-Iran hardliners to keep 15 pro-Sunni parties off the ballot in the parliamentary elections bombed, he is moving to have six winning candidates stripped of their votes and lose their seats, which would cost secular politician Ayad Allawi's bloc its narrow upset victory of Prime Minister Al Maliki.

June Havoc (1913-2010)

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Beautiful Photograph du Jour

DANCER
(Autochrome, ca. 1915)
Photographer Unknown
From the George Eastman House Collection

Barack Obama's Perfectly Awful Week

I mean, can things get any worse for the president with the funny name and dubious birth certificate?

First he signs into law the biggest fix to the social safety net in 45 years. Then the scoundrels who have been ripping off the student loan system for years are banished from the temple, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is told where he can stick his settlements, a strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia is finalized, the obdurate GOP, which continues to be its own worst enemy, is given the middle finger as long overdue recess appointments are made, stocks and growth indicators continue to rise, President Karzai is given an earful and American troops a well-deserved pat on the back in a brief visit to Afghanistan.

I mean, can't the guy do anything right?

White House photograph

Cartoon du Jour

Mike Thompson/Detroit Free Press

The New Worst People In The World

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Stamps That Lick You Right Back

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RIP Volvo Station Wagons

I had a couple of them back in the day. They racked up nearly 400,000 trouble-free miles. But now the legendary Swedish wagon may be a goner.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

TRANSPARENT CITY
By Michael Wolf

Guest Post: Our Town, The Rooster Police & How To Condition The Slasher Cock

A HEALTHY ROOSTER WITH COMB AND WATTLE INTACT

By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Like many of you, I grew up in a small town (population 600).

I like reading hometown news and sharing it with you, and that includes the most recent squall from Elkhart, Indiana. At first it seemed like another quaint "How naïve can you get?" article. But then it merges into a considerably more jolting issue that is behind police raids in states as disparate as California, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee, among others, and those just in the last month alone.

The reason? Drugs? Illegal weapons? Money laundering? Exposing children to criminal activities?

No and yes.

MORE THAN 40 CHICKENS DISCOVERED
WITHIN ELKHART CITY LIMITS

Elkhart, Indiana -- A complaint led Elkhart police to a surprising discovery -- over 40 chickens inside city limits. Now investigators and animal control officers are trying to determine if this is just the tip of the iceberg to a much bigger issue.

Employees at Boulderman Landscaping have been working on Elkhart's north side for weeks, and they've been hearing more than just the typical sounds of the city.

"About 7:30, 8 in the morning, you would hear a rooster out here cock-a-doddle-doing, and I always wondered where it would be coming from right here on Cassopolis Street in the middle of the city," said Sean Mutchler.

Apparently they weren't the only ones to hear it. Someone complained to police, so animal control went out to investigate.

"As he's turning on Country Club Lane he says he can actually hear the roosters crowing all the way from Cassopolis Street," Lt. Ed Windbigler said of the animal control officer who responded to the complaint. "He pulls up and sure enough, there are several dozen chickens, roosters on this property."

City ordinances do not allow such animals within the city limits. Officers seized the animals, which were being kept in the back yard of a residence. Some of them were injured. . . . Police say the majority of chickens found at the scene were roosters.

The owner faces fines for having the chickens within city limits.

"All these roosters were very aggressive," said Rachel Dennis of the Humane Society. "They are something that you can't catch quickly and put in a cage."

As is obvious by now, someone was keeping these poor creatures as fighting roosters. tournaments.

Although the article doesn't say so, staged animal fights are against the law in Elkhart and there may be additional charges against the owner. Hopefully there will be shelter for the now retired fighters, who were harassed and poked with barbed sticks, restrained against their will to make them more aggressive, and turned literally insane with fury when thrown into a cockfighting ring. All for profit.

* * * * *

I used to awaken every morning of my young life to a rooster crowing. It was a sound that enabled me to witness the golden dawn so many times as I grew up in the northwoods. The roosters were never mistreated; they were considered harbingers among other the duties they performed in the hen house.

Another reason that I was slow to understand that newspaper article is because only hens were called chickens in our hamlet, while roosters were only Roosters with a capital R and were never called chickens.

But one thing is obvious. When it comes to cockfighting, men are not men. They are barely human.

* * * * *

Roosters usually don't like being around other roosters unless a pecking order has been established. They are predisposed to peace if they are in their own bailiwick, but disposed to defending territory otherwise.


In the excerpts from the following letter, written in 1971 by a native Hawaiian, he refers to men who train roosters to fight as "cockers." Cockers come from all over, including Appalachia, the African south of the U.S., the Philippines and other parts of Asia, and Central and South America.

This training involves amputating roosters' combs and wattles (see photo above) to give them advantages in the cockfighting ring, and razor-sharp steel blades or gaffs resembling curved ice picks are fitted to their legs.

Cockfighting is animal abuse, according to the American Humane Society and the Association for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, because the birds are not allowed to escape from a fight regardless of how exhausted or injured they become.

I don't know if it's just me, but beyond the egregious instructions that the letter contains, a Freudian would have a field day with its language alone.

CONDITIONING THE SLASHER COCK

Since many cockers have written me numerous letters inquiring about my personal conditioning methods, I will now take the liberty of answering these letters . . . Please let it be understood that I myself condition all of my cocks the way I want them and prefer them to fight.


My conditioning programs cover a lot of different types and forms of daily exercise. These various forms of exercise are mainly to develop speed, stamina and endurance. Let me first emphasize speed.

In my opinion, speed is the most important factor in conditioning slasher cocks for the pit. Speed really plays major role in routine daily exercises. How to apply speed? Well, the only way I know of is through selective swinging methods. By swinging methods, I mean place an individual cock on a swing built four feet of the ground and make the swing three feet wide. . . .

In this manner of control swinging method, a cock will tend to become very nervous and begin flapping his wings and bending both of his legs with tremendous force.

This is good because now he not only knows how to balance on the swing, but at the same time he is learning to properly flap both of his wings evenly. Thus giving him a sense of balance, timing and wind power. . . . Since slasher fighting rarely goes to the drag and most fights are won in about 30 to 40 seconds, I'm a firm believer in the essence of speed . . .

Many of you young and old time cockers alike will say that this guy is whacky and is ready for the nut house. Stamina requires a lot of work, putting my best slasher cocks into their proper conditions. . . . I put each of my pit cocks through a fast, and torrid pace while sparring them each with four to five short pittings. If at any time they sulk, or appear to do so, I pick them up and bill them close together . . .

Endurance, like stamina, has to be taught to each individual cock through vigorous daily exercises. Both of these phases can not and will not be bred into a slasher cock. Any cocker with good wholesome common sense knows this, but I just thought I'd say it anyway. The quick side stepping and dodging techniques I use are in the following manner. I place each cock through an obstacle course which varies in height and width.

At the other end of this particular obstacle course my oldest son "A" holds another cock that is visible enough to be seen through the course. By "A" holding the cock in his hands, and as if tempting the one that is inside of the course this begins the dodging and side stepping exercise method, which I might add, is my own invention.

A lot of you will say Gee what an odd ball [I am]. . . . So if my methods of conditioning seem of a humorous nature to most of you, just be patient, because I am just a little ole pineapple who has got a lot to learn. . . .

We cockers are pretty hard headed at times, which makes us cock fighters, but we are not too stupid nor are we ignorant to learn from some bright cockers who offer each and everyone of us their kindest advice, and general overall know how.

It's far more than just hard headed. Something about a calcified heart despite the odd empathy toward other cockers who suffer not at all, and have no sympathy nor care for the animals who do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is Jungian psychoanalyst who has practiced for nearly 40 years. She also is a post-trauma specialist, author, poet, commentator and dear friend. Dr. Estés' books have been published in 32 languages, while her Women Who Run With the Wolves was on The New York Times Best Seller list for 145 weeks.

Previous collaborations with and guest posts by Dr. Estés include The Anatomy of PTSD, A Warrior Loves Peace More Than Anything, and Why Were Psychologists Behind The Curve On The Bush Torture Regime?, and Mythos & Alberto Gonzales' Red Shoes.

Cartoon du Jour

Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News

Car Porn

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Beautiful Photograph du Jour

IMAGE #1
By Nicholas Hughes

Science Sunday: Amazing Antioxidants

A OLIVE STRIPED FLYCATCHER FUEL UP ON BERRIES

You can't go into a supermarket these days without being bombarded with food labels touting products as being rich in antioxidants, wee molecules that naturally occur in certain foods and are added to many dietary supplements because of the belief that they help maintain good health and prevent diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease.

I happen to maintain an antioxidant rich diet that includes lots of raw vegetables, grain cereals, legumes, nuts, eggs and berries -- oodles of berries, including wild blueberries -- and eat few processed foods. I do so because that's what I feel that is best for my bod, but these edibles also help me as a stroke victim who has rheumatoid arthritis.

As accidentally smart as my diet turns out to be, certain birds have we humans beat hands down: This is because bug-eating songbirds switch to berries rich in antioxidants before migrating south for the winter.

This abrupt dietary change has less to do with fattening up and more to do with stocking up on nutrients to help their bodies deal with the stress of migration, according to researchers.

"It has been known for some time, this phenomenon of birds switching to fruits in the fall," says bird researcher Scott McWilliams of the University of Rhode Island. It was assumed that the birds were packing in extra fats or carbs during cooler weeks when insects were on the wane. "But that didn't explain it enough."

So McWilliams teamed up with Navindra Seeram, the head of the university's Bioactive Botanical Research Laboratory, to see what was up with the fruits birds were choosing.

To collect the same berries as the birds were choosing, graduate student Jessica Bolser spent months in the field on Block Island, off the eastern tip of Rhode Island. Batches of 12 kinds of berries were brought back Seeram's lab where researcher Liya Li got to work on them.

"This study is one of the new generation of bird food studies that is . . . not just looking at energy and protein but looking at micronutrients," said ecologist Douglas Levey of the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"The whole twist of looking at the antioxidant qualities is novel," agreed migratory bird researcher David Bonter of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who noted that thrushes, sparrows, warblers and such evolved very specialized beaks for eating insects but suddenly switch to fruits.

"They look clumsy and ridiculous," Bonter said.

Indeed, but as so often happens in the animal world, the relationship between these bird and the berry bushes is mutually beneficial. The birds stock up on nutrients and the bushes get their seeds dispersed when the birds defecate.

The fruit-picking behavior itself remains something of a mystery, Bonter said, because its probably not something the birds learn since many are only eight to nine weeks old when they are readying to migrate.

Top photograph by Ryan Brady

My Twenty Most Influential Books

Bloggers naming the books that most influenced them and their world view is the flavor of the moment. Most bloggers are listing 10, but this bibliophile is doubling that number. So here are mine (in alphabetical order):

FICTION

THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durrell. (1957-60). These stunningly written and interlocking novels are set in Alexandria, Egypt between the first and second world wars. Written in experimental form, Durrell presents his narrative of love and love's labors lost from different view points.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger (1951) This classic tale of teenage angst was the first of many books that would alter my world view. I bought a Signet paperback that I still have with money from my paper route at age 12 and read it through twice -- and several more times over the years.

CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) Reading this satire on the insanity of war was a rite of passage for my Vietnam era generation, but Heller's masterpiece of comic set pieces is timeless. "Catch-22" has entered the English language to signify a no-win situation and influenced Robert Altman's M*A*S*H.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866) I only recently got around to reading the classic story of Romanovich Raskolnikov, a dissolute former student who rationalizes killing a greedy pawnbroker as not just a way out of poverty but justifiable in the pursuit of the higher purpose of ridding the world of an evil person.

GOING AFTER CACCIATO by Tim O"Brien (1978) Like Heller, O'Brien brilliantly captures the absurdity of war in this tale of a private, intent on walking 8,000 miles to the Paris peace talks, deserting his post in Vietnam. This is hands down the best novel about Vietnam.

THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969) Women's liberation and reevaluating gender roles were ascendant in the 1970s, and no book better captured those memes than this sensitively told story of an emissary to a planet where people are of no gender -- or both. Science fiction at its very best.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkein (1954-55) The greatest beauty of this trilogy, written by Tolkein for his grandchildren, is that it is great literature whether you read it simply for the epic story of Frodo Baggins and his trek through Middle Earth, or dwell on its religious, mythological and philological sub-themes.

THE MAGUS by John Fowles (1966) I only rarely read a book more than once, but I read this masterpiece of mystification and survival shortly after it was published and then again two years ago. Given my own intellectual growth, it was even better the second time around.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut (1969) This is the story of Billy Pilgrim, a former prisoner of war in a German POW camp who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens. A masterpiece of absurdity.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee (1960) Lee's only novel follows three years in the life of a backwater Mississippi town through the eyes of an eight-year-old, but is chockablock with big themes, including race, class and justice, as well as one of the best surprise endings in fiction. Okay, I read this one twice, too.

NON-FICTION

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X as told to Alex Haley (1965) I once was put off by the late great black activist's militancy, but I found the story of his transformation from bitter and self-destructing petty criminal into a political activist is inspiring.

BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James MacPherson (1988) If you can read only one book about the Civil War, this is it. MacPherson writes beautifully, but it is his deft weaving of the oft-told story of the war on the battlefield with the complex economic and social forces of the time that make it so special.

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA by Alexis de Toucqueville (1835-40) This, of course, is the seminal reference work on the American democratic system, but it is the exploration of the economic sociology of the young republic that I found most fascinating.

THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST by Tom Wolfe (1968) This tale of Ken Kesey and his LSD-gobbling, revolution-fomenting Merry Pranksters is the ultimate Sixties book and a harbinger of what became known as New Journalism. It has one of the best openings paragraphs evah.

FIRE IN THE LAKE by Frances Fitzgerald (1972) Precious few studies of the Vietnam War were written as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Her analysis is a reminder of how the U.S. so tragically misinterpreted the people and misunderstood the conflict.

IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote (1966) This story of the brutal murders of a wealthy Kansas farmer, his wife and two of their children was a harbinger of the flood of true-crime books, television shows and movies that continues to this day. Capote is at his best in exploring the complex psychological relationship between the murderers.

THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM by T.E. Lawrence (1922) I had read a popular abridged version of "Lawrence of Arabia," but two years ago finally read the original, which is about a third longer and twice as good. Lawrence's penetrating observations about the Arab world and British imperialism during World War I are just a pertinent today in Iraq.

STORMING HEAVEN: LSD AND THE AMERICAN DREAM by Jay Stevens (1998) Although not the best written of books, this history of LSD is invaluable. Most accounts give the usual suspects too much credit, while none focus on a strange and wonderful bird by the name of Al Hubbard, who is said to have given LSD to 6,000 people in the belief that the drug could change the world.

UP IN THE OLD HOTEL by Joseph Mitchell (1992) At its best, my spare but evocative writing style mirrors Mitchell's, a New Yorker writer who lovingly chronicled the lives of odd New York characters, including greasy spoon cooks, oystermen, gofers, bag ladies and Gypsies, struggling to survive during the middle decades of the 20th century.

Meanwhile, the always thoughtful Julian Sanchez muses about the whole notion of being influenced by books.

TOP IMAGE: "Reading" (1873) by Berthe Morisot

Cartoon du Jour

Tom Toles/Universal Press Syndicate

Jim Marshall (1936-2010)

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Photograph by Jeffrey Scales/HSP Archive

A Jim Marshall Photo Sampler

Among my favorite Jim Marshall photos are (top to bottom) Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and the Newport Folks Festival (1963), the Grateful Dead (1967), Janis Joplin backstage at Winterland in San Francisco (1968), Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey International Pop Festival (1967), and Chuck Berry at Madison Square Garden in New York (1969).