Camus: Honor, Grave Robbing or Simply Absurd

By Robert Weller

If not for an accidental car accident and the ravages of time we would have the perfect philosopher in our presence to deal with an age that can only be described as absurd.

Albert Camus probably would smoke, noting that with the world collapsing around him what difference would it make. He lived through World War II, serving on a resistance newspaper, and the Holocaust.

Few people lived up to the words of the poem "Invictus" but Camus took so many turns in his life that no one could deny that he was the captain of his soul if not the master of his fate.

Born in the French colony of Algeria made him a "pied-noir," a group of French nationals blamed for the bloody Algerian War. He came from a low-income family, a Spanish mother, a father killed serving in the French Army in World War I.

Then he suffered tuberculosis twice.

He worked his way up the French educational writer in the days before World War II, and became a writer, ultimately the second-youngest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

On the way he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the influence of the Roman Plotinus on Christianity, a very academic subject that demonstrated his interest in the philosophy of the ancients. Plotinus believed that morality and happiness were natural and possible without being created by God.

Recent research among primates has lent support to Plotinus's view.

Camus acquired and discarded philosophical reputations along the route, particularly existentialism which he was often considered to be a comrade of Jean-Paul Sarte, who later won a Nobel Prize. Camus discard Sartre both because he had come to believe life was absurd and because he rejected Communism.

His belief in absurdity is found everywhere, including his first novel, "The Stranger." After a dispute on the beach, the protagonist and narrator, Meersault, fatally shoots an Arab. Yet he is convicted and sentenced to death for what appears to be his lack of remorse and failure to demonstrate any sadness at his mother's funeral.

Just before his execution he tells the prison chaplin:

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself, so like a brother, really” I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hatred."

His "The Myth of Sisypus" makes the concept of absurdity crystal clear. Condemned for putting Death in chains so humans could not die required to roll a boulder up a steep hill; then it rolls down and he starts again. According to Camus it is easier to commit suicide than to live through a life that appears to have no meaning.

His clearcut style made most of his books an easy read for English speakers.

Now, in a battle probably more absurd than any he faced in life, France is battling over whether to move his remains from the family graveyard in Lourmarin near Luberon in Provence. Camus and writer Henri Bosco fell in love with it during visits. It was built around a monastery and primitive 15th-16th century castle surrounded by vineyards.

A rich benefactor restored it and placed works of art and decorative furniture there.

Now, President Sarkozy wants the remains disinterred from a beautiful village and moved to the Pantheon where Voltaire, Jean Moulin, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and many, many more. It is not unusual for honorees to be brought to the Paris monument more than 100 years after their death.

These matters are rarely routine in France. It took 21 years to the remains of Moulin, leader of the French Resistance, into the Pantheon.

Ashes purported to be those of Jean d'Arc are displayed in a museum in Chinon in the Loire Valley.

The two children of Camus, faux jumeaux, the French expression for male/female children are split. His son Jean, like many lovers of Camus's books want him to stay where he is. Jean says his father would not be happy with becoming part of a government monument. His sister, Catherine, says it is a complicated issue and would be an honor.

Strong critics say Sarkozy simply wants to benefit politically by moving the remains for the 50th anniversary in January.

"Throughout his life, he refused honors," said Olivier Todd, one of his biographers. "He accepted the Nobel Prize but only to speak out about the fate of Algeria and the French population of Algeria."

Algeria, where he was born, seems to have no say in the matter.

Big White Lies (Ski area snow reports)

If ski areas, radio and TV are talking about big dumps ask what it is made of

By ROBERT WELLER

Ask almost anyone who skis or snowboards a lot if they have everarrived at a slope only to be disappointed that the huge dump of snowthey were promised wasn't there.And you left your rock skis at home.

Not all ski areas do that, of course. Many can be trusted. And then some plant their ski-measuring stakes in areas where the most snow falls,

And it's not only the ski resorts. Television and radio often boast that the skiing will be excellent because of heavy snow, even when the snowriders' cities and towns got more snow than the mountains.  A longtime, and highly regarded mountain-ski writer, recently was fired for pointing out that while Denver had lots of snow the mountains didn't.

Bob Berwyn, who has skied since he was 3, was called into the office of the Summit Daily and fired after Vail complained about the column on phony snow counts. The resort, the nation's biggest and considered thebest by man, pulled its adds.

Summit Daily Publisher Jim Morgan said Berwyn was fired for poor writing andreporting. That used to be the beauty of being in the media, you always got the lastword. Now there is the Web.

And gosh I have heard that line about people writing controversial columns not being fired for that but rather because their writing, which had been highly praised, now sucked.

My own opinion is that he is very good, doingwork few others do, especially now that newspapers have cut their staffs. His stories were often picked up by others. Several in the industry agreed with me.

The mistake thegatekeepers usually make is not to have built a file that goes backawhile. In this case the editor approved the column. So does that meanhe  let a piece of crap go out?

"At no time did I, or anyone else at Vail Resorts, threaten the Summit Daily to withhold advertising dollars or in any way ask or imply that Bob Berwyn be fired.  Jim expressed that he would look into it and get back to me with the background on the story,” said Vail CEO Rob Katz.

The Nov. 19 column was headlined:"Has weather science been hijacked for marketing?" It included a photo of a ski executive with heavy snow on his deck. But he lives more than an hour below the mountains. Berwyn said there was no significant snow in Frisco, near the Breckenridge ski area, where he lives.

The column also pointed out that a Vail flak appeared on the WeatherChannel boasting of heavy new snow in an area where it had not fallen. If you believed local television in some markets you wouldn’t leave your home after Oct. 1. Internet road cams  are pretty accurate. The Muppets once had an episode was standing outside waiting for snow that never came.

"It's unfortunate but, especially in this economy, some advertisers feel like they can flex their muscles when there's commentary that they don't like," Ed Otte of the Colorado Press Association told TheDenver Post. "Newspapers need to withstand these kinds of threats."

The Post reporter said she was challenged by the Summit editors when asked for their reaction. They said it wasn’t a story. Well, since Jim Morgan claims to be an example of good journalism I will play the same role “businessmen don’t tell me what to write.”

I had a similar experience, by coincidence. Vail had built a new gondola at one of its most frequently used launching points. Like most reporters I mentioned it, and then let it go.

As the season opened I went up to Vail. I ran  into some friends while getting on a chairlift. They asked me if I knew the new gondola would be opening late because a worker had spliced right through. A new cable was ordered from Europe but the driver got lost on the high plains.

I called a public relations representative at Vail and asked him what was going on. He said, "Robert, you don't want to write about that." I replied that I did and that if I didn't someone else would. "No they won't," he insisted. I had to guess what that meant. One of my friends got a call from Vail telling them not to talk to me.

Also critical of Vail was Breckenridge Councilman Dave Rossi. "It'shugely damaging for the credibility of a paper that's the singlesource of local news in this community." He told The Post:

"It also makes us wonder — is Vail Resorts really that sensitive that it can't handle any kind of informed criticism?"

For a sport of such beauty, skiing seems to draw lying. With climate warming, at least anecdotally, it seems the snow keeps coming later.

Yet no matter if the snow didn't come until December I'll bet some will report it is earlier than usual.

I seem to recall flying back from a New York meeting around Sept. 10 and it was snowing hard in Denver.

Another issue that merits scrutiny is what is being done to increase safety. I agree that allowing the sale of marijuana at some ski resorts will not increase ganja consumption, and it is already against the law to ski while stoned..

Don’t expect to find it in trade magazines. The New York Times reported Ski Magazine pulled an article about the first ski death this year in Colorado.

HOW TO TRACK AND CATCH A TIGER

By Robert Weller

One wonders how much thought Tiger Woods put into his philandering, if any? 

Media are now speculating at least nine women will come forward. But even if he does the back nine he won't be anywhere near the champion, the late and cocky Wilt Chamberlain.

Guides were plentiful: in literature, movies and plays, from the days when divorce was denied to those other than kings that could have served as guides. On the other hand, there are societies where multiple marriages are still allowed. I am not sure if they allow cocktails. But I am not here to help cheating husbands.

Mobile spyware should put the fear of God into cheaters, reports the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in Denver. It's not much harder than installing Skype, though it will cost several hundred dollars a year. Mobile phones are essential to make adultery convenient. Using your landline phone _ not a good idea. It wouldn’t work if you were in downtown Denver on a dark night trying to find your mistress.

Hiring a private dick would be many times more expensive and might fail. So you use a mobile phone. But who is listening?

OK. Make sure that the phone you want to listen to has a connection to the Internet, like an iPhone or Blackberry and now virtually every carrier has what is called a data phone. That will probably cost an extra $30 or so a month. One spyware provider is FlexiSpy. It will not only allow you to listen to your spouse’s conversations but if his phone has a GPS at the end of the day you can see where he has been.

Oh, and if you happen to be busy and unable to listen to a call, FlexiWeb’s Website has a DVR device that records all calls. Sounds like a busy business person might want one of these. Some activities require that a computer be available. It also can be used as a bugging device. Accidentally leave it behind and then come back and get it.

Seems like it would be more useful to a real spy, if they don’t already have one, than a pistol. The Chronicle decided to test one. Staffer Neil Ambinder and his fiance, Jennifer Jordon signed on.

“Even though we both knew what was going on it was still shocking to be able to literally track Neil’s every move and hear every word that came out of his month,” said Jennifer.

The product’s Web site declares: “The product is not illegal, but the way in which it is used may break local laws. In general, you may use it on a phone that you own, for protecting your children, for archiving data, for enforcing explicitly stated business use guidelines and so on. We do not support any illegal use of our products, and the term of sale means that you agree to abide by your local laws. Please consult a qualified lawyer in your country for the correct answer to this question.” It is sold from several overseas locations. What do you know.

One day there may be an Apple app. Of course with the kind of money Elin Woods has she would have many choices. She could send his underwear to a DNA lab, plant a GPS on his car and so on. Or even buy a chastity belt from a museum, but that might add some strokes to his play.

As for his lame excuses a hint: Read Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors." More recently, from the late Henny Youngman, "Take my wife. Please take her."

 

NO EXIT: AFGHANISTAN

The Military Industrial Complex Wouldn't Have Talked Eisenhower Into More War

By ROBERT WELLER

President Obama has led himself into a hell where it doesn't matter if it is as big as an arena or as small as a classic Airstream trailer. There is No Exit, to borrow the title from Jean-Paul Sartre’s most famous novel. 

There are no mirrors, no windows and only one door. Three more people are brought in and it is locked forever. All expect to be tortured, especially Obama, it’s what we do now. But no brutes enter. The four are there to torture each other. In the play’s most famous line, “Hell is other people.”

Nevertheless, Obama remains capable of teasing the country from behind the closed doors.

On Tuesday, knowing the majority was against sending 30,000 more people to Afghanistan, he went ahead and glibly ordered it. Yet, several times in his speech he vowed they would not be there long. A few minutes is more than enough to die.

“After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan,” he said.

He also promised combat brigades would be gone from Iraq by the end of next summer.

Going back in the speech to Afghanistan, he said, “Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.

“Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We will continue to advise and assist Afghanistan's Security Forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul. But it will be clear to the Afghan government - and, more importantly, to the Afghan people - that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.”

The problem is twofold. One, the Iraq evacuation itself could run into major problems, requiring that troops be sent back. Our military is already maxed-out.

Two: Obama’s top advisers, civilian and military, have gone from talk show to talk show to assure that if mango (a type of marijuana grown in Afghanistan) hits the fan we won’t just pull out. They say they don’t want the Afghan people to think they are being abandoned.

Many Americans believe they are the ones being tossed in the garbage. The nation is bankrupt, health care is unavailable to many, the number of people on Food Stamps keeps rising, the infrastructure is falling apart. It goes on.

Not many knew the cost of war and the military industrial complex better than the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower. “Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children,” he wrote.

A man like Eisenhower might ask why Chinese soldiers don’t come into Afghanistan, at least to guard their huge new copper mine. It’s only about 500 miles to China. They have 2.25 million active duty soldiers. Why should American soldiers die protecting China’s assets.

Will American Soldiers Protect Chinese Copper Miners in Afghanistan

By ROBERT WELLER

As always, look to history when your government does something that makes no sense: like sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

The United States’ population was probably as surprised that we had been able to bomb Tokyo within four months of Pearl Harbor as they (we) are now that President Obama is going to send thousands more troops into the abyss known as Afghanistan.

Of course “the 30 seconds over Toyko” mission had been kept secret, and had to be kept one. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt was asked where the B-25s had launched from he replied: “Shangri La.”

Look in the same direction for at least one reason to keep the war going. China needs copper. Afghanistan has it.

Demand is so high that thefts of copper began even in the United States several years ago with it being pulled even from church air conditioners. People trying to remove copper from electric and communications’ wires have been killed around the world. Prices keep breaking records with Asian demand nearly impossible to satisfy.

The biggest potential site for a new copper mine is guess where? Near Kabul.

Mineweb.com, which tracks the industry, alleges that a report found that Afghanistan’s Mines Minister took bribes of $20 million or more to give the $2.9 billion contract for the Aynak mine to China’s Metallurgical Group.

The Web site says China also is the No. 1 bidder for an iron ore mine also near Kabul. Its information is based on a report by a former consultant to the Aghan mines’ ministry, James Yeager of Tucson. He said American, Russian, Australian and other producers had bid for the mine.

The real unanswered question is who will protect these miners, whether they are Chinese or Afghans or both? China has an active army of 2.25 million, and there should be guarantees that they will provide their own security. Not one of the members of the latest U.S. surge should be assigned there.

Al Jazeera Accuses French Of Bribing Taliban Not To Attack Them

By ROBERT WELLER

Cadeaux? Cadeaux? Euros or Francs?

It would sound like a Monty Python movie if it didn’t involve real lives.

Do you remember? King Arthur offers a French count the opportunity to share in recovering the Holy Grail. A French soldier says, “We already got one.”

Failing that, Arthur has his men push a huge wooden horse in front of the castle and they say it is a gift, cadeau. And the French are curious and bring it in. Unfortunately the Knights of the Round Table forgot to hide inside.

Now French soldiers are being accused of offering the Taliban money and gifts not to attack them, Al Jazeera reports, quoting the Kabul district commander, Saif-Allah Jalili.

This has a history. The Italian soldiers who preceded the French in the area were accused not only of bribing the Taliban to keep things quiet, but failing to tell the French. The French said 10 soldiers died as a result of not knowing there still were active fighters in the area.

"The French in Sorubi [in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan] tried to send gifts to Taliban fighters and offered them a lot of money in return for not launching attacks targeting the French troops," Jalili said. "But Taliban fighters replied by rejecting everything and by strongly demanding the departure of the French troops and all other troops from our country, which they invaded by force," he said.

NATO officials denied the claims.

Now, for those who will laugh and say this is typical of France, this writer, partly of French descent, will denounce you at once.

A couple of things to remember. We only won the Revolutionary War because of the intervention of the French Navy. The joke is: “If it wasn’t for the French we would still be speaking English.”

Also, remember Napoleon. His troops actually briefly captured Moscow, something Hitler never managed.Obama may have taken a cue from Napoleon: “If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”

And by the way, the Congressional Research Service says it costs $1 million for every soldier and/or contractor we send to Afghanistan.

GOP SHOCKS BEEN DIVERTING PUBLIC FROM OBAMA'S FAILURES

Never forget the Latin phrase that stupidity is a force unto itself

By Robert Weller

President Obama’s ratings are likely to fall even more as he plunges us deeper into the Afghan war, betraying voters who were counting on peace. The late Wayne Morse of Oregon was one of only two Senators who opposed Lyndon Johnson's expansion of the Vietnam War, though it turned out to have been exaggerated.

GULF OF TONKIN

There will be many more this time, in both houses. Obama is showing that he doesn't care what the rest of his party cares about let alone his people.

What he will propose won't be enough for him to switch parties. The stupid GOP attacks have saved Obama up to now. Without the stupid birth certificate dispute, promotion of torture, some major racism and anti-health care agitprop that reached the point of insanity, Obama might have begun falling much sooner. It got Obama laugh after laugh, night after night on Jon Stewart. And it saved him closer scrutiny for his failed promises. The humor is over.

Meanwhile, Obama promised us we were getting out of that long-ignored war; instead he has been persuaded by generals who never saw an extra soldier they couldn’t use to send 30,000 more troops. Some may have to be set aside to guard White House state dinners.

This as Britain investigating how it got mislead into the Iraq War, and Germany has admitted they burned dozens of Afghan civilians to death and then lied about it. Meanwhile, GITMO is going to be closed as possible. A secret prison thought to have been closed in Afghanistan is open. No one has been punished for punishment. The number of soldiers killed in extra-war violence continues. Thousands and thousands of soldiers, Marines and others are coming home with brain damage and PTSD.

Several European allies have made clear they will send no more, and even want to bring some back. Got to have “boots in the sand” to win, right? Or will they become blood sponges? The betting around the world is that Obama has a plan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. I hope he does. And I hope it works.

Keep in mind that these are military leaders who can’t even keep our soldiers on their posts and bases, not to mention civilians who live by. Yes some have been killed near Fort Carson and elsewhere. A lengthy investigation at Carson led to no NCOs or officers who blocked soldiers from getting the mental care they needed punished.