Third Avenue

New York plane crash

My journey home tonight was delayed by more than just the torrential rain that arrived this afternoon in New York. My bus was diverted by the aftermath of a plane crashing into a building not far from the East River. Rush-hour bus passengers engaged readily in conversation with one another, a scene that it seems only tragedy can elicit.

While terrorism was ruled out pretty early, it has since become clear that one of the people killed, and most likely the pilot of the plane, was Cory Lidle, a leading player with the Yankees baseball team. At a rough guess, the equivalent of someone like Nasser Hussain being killed back in the UK. This will play big here.

It's also a big baseball night here in New York. The mood will undoubtedly be very subdued.

The Iraq death toll

The Lancet has issued the results of research indicating that over 600,000 civilians have died as a result of the Iraq war. Dreadful, dreadful news.

George W Bush has already said that the methodology behind the report has been 'pretty well discredited'. A curious statement, as the research uses the best available methodology, according to all epidemiological experts I've so far heard talk on the subject. But expect Bush and his supporters to use the following clever tactic: claim repeatedly that the report is flawed, and then point to the controversy that this claim causes as proof that the methodology is disputed.

More election stuff

Yes, it's only a month until nationwide elections take place here in the States. I hope to be able to write about some of the issues involved between now and then.

As far as I can tell, British media outlets are not yet taking much interest in the elections, but their US counterparts are already breathless in excitement.

One very interesting contest is taking place in the sparsely populated state of South Dakota, in the Northern Plains (home of Mount Rushmore). This is one of the most socially conservative places in the country, and the local legislature recently passed a bill outlawing abortion in virtually all circumstances. This November sees a referendum on the issue.

Given that South Dakotans are seen as being very much in the pro-life camp, it is interesting to note that opinion polls suggest that the referendum might well see the ban overturned.

One reason for the apparent relative unpopularity of the law is the absence of any exception for a woman who gets pregnant as a result of rape or incest. But I find this objection hard to understand: if you believe that life begins at conception, then abortion in the case of rape or incest is just as abhorrent as any other kind of child murder.

It will be interesting to see how this one develops. If the law is maintained, it will certainly be challenged in the Supreme Court as it appears to be in clear violation of the constitutional right to an abortion (as laid down in the famous decision on Roe vs Wade). If the law is struck down, it could well be a sign that Americans, even socially conservative ones, are less happy than previously thought to have the law control other people's reproductive decisions.

Republican political ad

One of the big differences between UK and US politics is the ubiquity here of television commercials for politicians. I hope to highlight a few of my favourites over the next few weeks. But to start off, take a look at this one. Pretty priceless, I think you'll agree (via Andrew Sullivan). Who could see this and not vote Republican?

Autumn on the Avenue

The leaves begin to change, the temperatures fall. October in New York.

Admirable disagreement

I wrote a few days ago that I was increasingly tired of those blogs, and of political writers in general, who displayed nothing but total conviction in the rightness of their opinions. Such a stance, it seems to me, is simply at odds with the beautiful, frustrating and multifaceted thing that is the human condition.

But there are some excellent blogs out there - blogs I disagree with and yet admire.

At the moment, I am enjoying very much Andrew Sullivan's blog. Sullivan is someone who has views quite different to my own on many (but not all) topics. But his blog is never anything other than stimulating and enjoyable. He has his own committed position (generally conservative, Catholic, free-market) and yet is able to express that most glorious human commodity - doubt. As a result, Sullivan has the ability to  make me think deeply about issues, about opinions that I hold deeply, in a way that a thousand ranting Melanie Phillips posts will never succeed in doing.

Reliable sources

Of course, I couldn't really return to blogging without turning to one of my favourite writers, the wonderful Melanie Phillips.

I'm pleased to see that she is as entertaining as ever - she now finds herself in despair at that lily-livered, terrorist-hugging, supine, bleeding heart liberal, known to the world as President George W Bush.

Her current pin-up is the Australian PM, John Howard, whom she praises for exposing the sick left-wing intellectuals who invidiously rule Western academia and are basically plotting the downfall of Life as We Know It (although given that Phillips manifestly believes that Life as We Know It is depraved and corrupt beyond measure, I'm rather surprised that she is not lauding those who are plotting its downfall, but maybe that's just me).

This is a popular theme of Phillips - that the Western establishment deliberately silences voices such as hers, thus suppressing real debate. I'm sure she would have time to write many more articles on, say, how the BBC is ignoring her views if it wasn't for the annoyance of the BBC constantly interrupting her work by inviting her to appear on programmes to voice her views, thus preventing her spending the maximum amount of time denouncing them for silencing her. Clearly proof of the BBC's evil agenda. Phillips is indeed a national treasure.

'Umble, ever so 'umble

Perhaps I owe the ether some explanation for my prolonged absence. Perhaps not.

But here goes in any case. Most reasons were to do with that annoying thing called real life. But I was also getting increasingly discouraged by so much of Internet political discourse. I might well have been visiting the wrong sites, but it seemed to me that there was such an overwhelming feeling of smug self-righteousness on so many blogs, such an unwillingness or even inability to admit any crack of doubt, any possibility that anyone else's views might, just might have some truth to them, that it was getting pretty much impossible to actually debate things. What passed for debate was the slinging of increasingly adolescent insults.

I am totally turned off by people who treat politics and economics as if there already existed some solution to all our problems that, if only the evil, slimy self-serving politicians and their diabolical cohorts in the media would adopt them, would transform the country and the world into a nirvana of happiness. What makes politics and economics so endlessly fascinating is that they deal with human beings, and the richness of the human condition precludes being boiled down to easy statements on the 100% wonderfulness of the market, the diabolical evil that is the EU, the anti-human-rights horror that calls itself the United States, or how the welfare state has destroyed Britain. Things are more complicated than that, for goodness' sake.

Humility, folks, humility.

So I will now snivel away, Uriah-Heep-like, to a corner, to consider my next posting. Of course, I can't promise to practise what I preach. Where would the fun be in that?

The Queen

Let me ease my way back in with a film review - or at least thoughts on seeing a film. The film in question being The Queen, recently released here in New York and which I saw in a packed cinema on the East Side last night.

I will not deviate from the ecstatic reviews this film has already received (check some out here and here). Helen Mirren is astonishing, but almost as good is Michael Sheen as a remarkably young and remarkably popular Prime Minister. This is British art-making at its very best, and the Manhattan audience I saw it with lapped it up, applauding generously at the end (although some of the jokes, most particular keeping Gordon Brown on hold, went unremarked).

What clinched the film for me was the way Stephen Frears, the screenwriter, understood all his characters, even loved them, and shied away from any cheap point scoring. This was a Blair who was both a consummate politician at the height of his power (whatever your view of him) and a man clearly touched by the Queen and her approach. This was also a monarch who, for all her dowdy lack of emotion, showed a strength and a dignity that one could not help admire. If I were a member of the House of Windsor, I would be seriously pleased with this film.

I am no monarchist, but neither am I much moved by republican arguments. These arguments might have the force of some considerable reason and logic behind them, but life needs more than reason and logic. I see no reason to think that a republic of Britain would be in any remote way a better place to live, and I can see plenty of ways in which it might well be worse.

But if The Queen is in some ways a moving elegy to our current monarch, it also points to where the monarchy's downfall may lie. What may well make it untenable in the long run is the sheer cruelty inflicted on the individuals that fate has thrust into this position. Grotesquely materially privileged they may well be, but watching this film I couldn't help feeling that before too many more generations are out, someone within the royal family will simply throw up their hands and say enough is enough. Revolution will not come from outside. The British monarchy way well give up on its own.

Toe back in the water

Blogging cold turkey for over six months. Good for the health? Possibly. But something draws me back.

The problem now, of course, is that no-one is around any more to read my carefully crafted bons mots. But the autumn sun shines brightly and hotly on the man-made canyons of the island of Manhattan, and perhaps inspiration will strike. Here's a skyline to keep me going.