Ugh!

This is probably the most misguided "ethnic outreach" site I've ever seen. What is McDonald's thinking? And what were they hoping to say with this website?

Here's what I got out of it...

• Hi, we're McDonald's and we like people of Asian/Pacific Islander heritage.
• Your culture is important to McDonald's, which is why we've included a section of this website that will show you what holidays you should be celebrating, whether you're Cambodian, Laotian or Japanese.
• McDonald's really respects Asian people, which is why we're providing you with external links from our website to articles like "Top Asian American Professionals" and "The 20 Most Inspiring Asian Sports Stars in America."
• We have Asian people working for us! Here are profiles of them.
• Wanna browse meaningless McDonald's trivia? Haven't you always wanted to know what Ronald McDonald's shoe size is?

Perhaps the most profound statement this website makes is its raison d'etre. It's obvious McDonald's looks at Asian-Americans as a media audience against which it needs to beef up its ad presence. Which is why they built this exceptionally lame Asian "culture portal" and why no one will ever spend any significant length of time there.

Abu Ghraib=Gitmo

Everybody read the New Yorker article? Good...

I wanted to believe that the incidents at Abu Ghraib were isolated ones - that perhaps they were simply the result of misguided and inexperienced military personnel playing to their own personal sadistic tendencies. Now I'm thinking that this is what was expected of them by the chain of command, which leads directly to Donald Rumsfeld. Here are two paragraphs from the New Yorker article that were red flags for me:

The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo, who had been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that “detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation.”

Miller’s concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to “Gitmoize” the prison system in Iraq—to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba—methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in “stress positions” for agonizing lengths of time.

My last post about this situation drew parallels between Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. I simply couldn't believe that the administration would want to set two separate standards for detainees at these two distinct facilities. When the administration can essentially deal with the Gitmo detainees in a lawless fashion and use torture as a tactic to gain information, why wouldn't they want the same thing for Abu Ghraib, where any intelligence gleaned would be immediately actionable?

So maybe what we're looking at here is a concerted effort on the part of Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense to extend the lawlessness and state of legal limbo of the prisoners at Guantanamo to other places where we're embroiled in conflict. Can someone please tell me why we bother to even make mention of the Geneva Conventions if the administration can continue to set up these concentration camps wherever they want, whenever they want?

Rumsfeld knew. This whole thing has been designed to create an environment in which the administration can have concentration camps where anyone who appears remotely suspicious can be detained indefinitely and be tortured to obtain information, regardless of guilt or innocence.

How far does this administration need to go before we make it known, as a nation, that we won't stand for concentration camps and lawlessness?

Grillicious

I don't care if Memorial Day hasn't yet arrived - now is the time for all good men to begin making every single weekend meal on a gas grill.

I live off my gas grill in the summertime. There's the standard steak, hot dog and hamburger fare, but gas grills can do so much more. Learning to master your grill is the non-wuss way to challenge the long-held notion that men shouldn't be placed in charge of meal preparation. (Taking gourmet cooking classes is the wuss way...)

For instance, last night at Craig's place, I was appointed grillmeister and prepared the following:

• Hamburgers
• Hot dogs
• A huge steak that was about 2 inches thick and about the size of a frisbee
• Eight lobsters
• Tuna steak
• Corn on the cob
• Chilean sea bass
• Chicken cutlets

I love grilling, and I'm convinced that there's no hot meal that can't be prepared on a gas grill. Corn takes on a nice flavor when you grill it - leave the husks on and soak the ears of corn in water. Put the ears of corn on the middle rack and keep them moist by brushing water on them every few minutes as you turn them. It adds a nice roasted flavor.

And Chilean Sea Bass? We marinated ours in a Tupperware container in some lemon and butter for about 2 hours. When it was time to cook, I doubled over a piece of aluminum foil, turned up the edges and put the thing - foil and all - right on the grill next to the chicken cutlets. I got tons of compliments on it.

There are some that say charcoal is the only way to go, and they look down on us propane enthusiasts. But who the heck wants to sit around for an hour and a half waiting for coals to get to the right temperature? My grill warms up in five minutes. And despite what anybody tells you, everything doesn't need to have the "smoky flavor of mesquite" to be appealing.

I wonder if I can go an entire summer preparing all meals on the grill...

It's Quite Simple, Really

We ought not to be torturing people. It really comes down to just that simple notion: We ought not to be torturing people.

We're a freedom-loving people, trying to convince an occupied country that they should value freedom as well. Torture is antithetical to freedom. How can we do our job in Iraq if we have concentration camps there, where torture is commonplace?

I'm hearing arguments coming out of the mouths of people in the administration and those who support them. These arguments are utter bilge and they serve to undermine the basic moral tenet here: We ought not to be torturing people.

Argument #1 - What we're doing pales in comparison to what Saddam Hussein did.

I refuse to accept this argument. It allows Saddam Hussein to set the moral standard. Should we let one of the most brutal dictators in history set that standard? I think not. There isn't some invisible line set by Hussein that we can approach but not cross. We set our own standards for what is acceptable and what is not.

Argument #2 - Where were the complaints about torture when Saddam Hussein was torturing people? Why hasn't anyone complained about this before?

Again, this puts Saddam Hussein in the ethical driver's seat. More importantly, I refuse to accept the notion that if someone fails to protest behavior in the past, they waive their right to protest such behavior in the future. Using this argument attacks the person who is protesting torture by attempting to suggest hypocrisy on the part of the protestor. It does not address the torture itself or the moral implications of torturing people. Try again.

Argument #3 - The issue is being inflated for the sake of partisan gain.

This isn't an issue of which party captures the presidency in November. It's an issue of whether our behavior is consistent with our principles. I'll say it again: We ought not to be torturing people

I don't mean to imply that supporters of the current administration are the only ones who seem to have lost focus here. I hear this coming out of liberal mouths these days: Our reputation is shattered. We've lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

Our reputation, while quite important, is a secondary concern here. Our primary concern should be that people are being tortured. I'm not saying that our reputation is unimportant, but in terms of importance, it's secondary to the fact that people are suffering torture. Outlawing torture is an end in and of itself. If we stand against torture, our reputation will change accordingly. We should be doing this not solely because we're afraid of what everyone else thinks about the torture incidents. We should be doing it because people are suffering and because we ought not to be torturing people.

This is as close to black-and-white as it gets in this world of shades of grey. We must stop the torture now and make sure it never happens again because torture is wrong.