Saint George's Day

Juan Cole Has a Modest Proposal

In Barcelona they celebrate St. George's day by giving a rose to women, who then give their man a book. The reasoning, which makes perfect Catalonian sense, is to have the rose given because a drop of the dragon's spilled blood sprouted up into a red rose. Then, since Cervantes was Catalan, it just made good Spanish sense.

I have no objection to the use of St. George. Using the Knight of Knowledge to slay the Dragon of Ignorance is an attractive proposal.

Next April 23rd I will be giving books and roses. You are all invited to join me.

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Tokyo Event Report: Juan Cole, Iraq as a Global Crisis

Dr Cole was just in Japan and giving a seminar to some folks and I begged asked him to do a short talk for us here in Tokyo. On Saturday 50 people got together for some brunch, a speech and some q&a.

His talk was only about 40 minutes, but it was chock full of information. He began by outlining the reasons for the invasion, oil. Describing the worlds over dependence on oil and how as a historian he understood the rise and fall of oil prices to be cyclical and once the U.S. left Iraq it would decline. After-all it was 15-16 dollars just a few years after Gulf War I. He has since come to understand that with factors such as oil production peaking which is now widely believed to have been achieved, China and India soon to become even larger consumers of oil than the United State, that we will never see oil as cheap ever again. He described Cheney's introduction to the dark side when he spent 5 years in Houston under the tutelage of the oil industry. Cheney now has a mission. He is an incredibly incompetent fuck so, its been a total disaster but, he is on a mission. Dr Cole thinks that the purpose behind sending the neocon-ette's to Baghdad was to attempt for oil companies to actually own oil fields again. Oil fields rumored to be as large as Saudi Arabia. Something they haven't been able to do for more than 30 years. Not since the fields were mostly nationalized. It's his belief that Cheney was trying to grab the oil before China and India cut the U.S. out.

He doesn't think that alternative energy will be able to fill that gap quickly enough. He quoted a Detroit engineer who say he didn't think that alternative energies would really account for more than 20-30% of energy needs even by 2030. Can't say as I agree, there are many ill-informed people on alternative energy many of them work for the car industry in Michigan. I would like to see us put a fraction of the trillion dollars we are and will continue to spend on Iraq on innovation in alternative energy, fuel cells, solar, hydrogen storage, etc. He and I also discussed how abysmally wrong he is on withdrawal ;) He believes a much slower withdrawal that keeps a large scale civil or regional war from happening is necessary. I tried to make it clear we can control the air without having to actually be in Baghdad and that his mother quite possibly wears combat boots. There was also large quantity of alcohol consumed. I am pretty sure he made it back to his hotel.

It was an excellent event and there were some great questions asked in the almost 40 minute q&a. There is video and when its done getting done whatever it is that those people do to it I will provide a link. Like I said after YearlyKos Dr. Cole is a very good speaker and I highly recommend getting him to speak at a local event for yourselves.

We also sold out of his book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East which again, I highly recommend. The parallels are very interesting.

Also read his piece in Salon -- The collapse of Bush's foreign policy.

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Tokyo Event: Brunch with Juan Cole on 11/3

"The Iraq Crisis as a Global Crisis"

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rising potential of war with Iran, events in the Middle East are in no way isolated to a single region. World markets are buffeted by skyrocketing oil prices, world leaders are allocating more and more of their budgets to weapons and the military rather than domestic priorities, and more countries face the potential for terrorist acts on their own soil.

Yet, many people continue to see events in the Middle East as 'foreign affairs' that have little to no impact on their own countries or communities.

Middle East expert and renowned author Professor Juan Cole knows better, and Democrats Abroad Japan (DAJ) is sponsoring a brunch at Fujimamas Restaurant between 1 and 3 on November 3, 2007, for a discussion on how the Iraq crisis is indeed a global crisis. The event is in English, and open to anyone, regardless of nationality, who is interested in Middle Eastern affairs. Reservations required @ japan-chair@dems-abroad.com.

Juan Cole is a professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan in the United States. He has lived in the Middle East, speaks Arabic, Persian and Urdu, and has spent the last 30 years putting the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context through books, speeches, a regular column at salon.com and his award-winning blog Informed Comment ( www.juancole.com), a daily must-see for an alternative view of the Iraq war and American foreign policy in that region, often from the perspective of the Arab press.

Cole will be available to sign his most recent book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East,* which will be for sale before and after the brunch. In his book, Cole uses diaries and letters of Egyptian and French contemporaries to tell the story of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1789, the first modern attempt to invade the Arab world to "liberate" Arabs from their oppressors.

Cost for the event is 4000 yen (2000 yen for students with a valid ID), which includes the brunch and discussion, a donation to an organization supporting peaceful conflict resolution in the Middle East and a donation to DAJs Get Out the Vote effort in preparation for Democrats Abroad's first international Global Primary.

Fujimamas is located at 6-3-2 Jingumae Shibuya, Tokyo (03-5485-2262). For a map and directions, visit www.fujimamas.com.

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Book Thread, Bitches!

Okay, so Doc' posted up the books he currently is working on getting through below. I just finished reading Juan Coles' book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East and really enjoyed it. A great read and stunning how the Bush administration has fallen into some the exact same traps that Napoleon did more than 200 years ago. Highly recommended.

These other books were written some time ago but I enjoyed them a lot and also recommend you read them, if you haven't already.

This is about a Leo Marks' experience with the SOE during the war. I liked this book so much I have actually read it 3 times.

John McPhee has alot of books Uncommon Carriers and Founding Fish are just 2 recent ones. My introduction to McPhee was the 1990 title "Looking for a Ship" which is about the U.S. Merchant Marines.

oh, and although I can recommend one of the books Doc is reading "The Zen of Fish". I found "Sushi Economy" interesting but more a collection of magazine articles than a book.

Anata wa? (and you?)

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