WeÂ’re not going to last in Iraq.

It's not working. Not surprisingly, we are being blamed for everything bad that happens there, which these days may be most everything, and that country appears to be literally up in arms [curious that a well-armed citizenry, traditionally just a fetish of the American radical right, did not save Iraq from tyranny]. I donÂ’t expect we will hold out very long. We donÂ’t seem to have a plan, we almost certainly don't have the commitment needed, and we don't even have the advantage of the kind of [courage of conviction?] which was able to maintain the last Iraqi dictatorship for so long.

They donÂ’t love us.

Americans, incredibly uninformed or misinformed anyway, are increasingly confused about whatÂ’s going on over there, and now even military families are getting very upset, although their anger is not focused or directed at a target - yet.

The administration didnÂ’t tell them that we wouldnÂ’t be welcomed with open arms, that we werenÂ’t going to spend much money or manpower on rebuilding what we destroyed, that the world wouldnÂ’t support our unilateral invasion and wouldn't bail us out in our occupation duties afterward, especially since we look increasingly like sitting ducks, that the lights would still be out in much of the country months after we decided we won, that the numbers of Americans being maimed and killed would accelerate as time passed, that we would end up fighting an insurgency which might never end, that this was not Japan or Germany in 1945.

Perhaps most important, itÂ’s certainly unlikely the administration told its corporate backers that, since we could not make friends or even keep order in a country we boasted we had liberated, in the end there would be no fortunes made in Iraq, and this may ultimately be the decisive factor when we decide to abandon our self-appointed role.

At least it's clear once again that for this administration it was never about "nation building." The Bushies did not change their tune as they marketed the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq with generous promises of liberation gifts. The talk about democracy, schools, health care and repair of infrastructure was domestic and foreign Realpolitik, mouthed as cover for the cynical objectives of national power and party advantage.

It's just not working out the way the White House thought it would. Unfortunately that may not be any better news for Iraq than it is for an American republic now corrupted and compromised, perhaps beyond repair.

Found this straight guy thing on Mark Allen's site. The magic is that Sam Stern's photo comic should amuse just about all tastes.

Today at home, in Chelsea Gardens gardens.

I've wanted to point to MarkAllenCam.com for some time, but didn't know where to begin, or to end, a post which would do it justice. Still don't, so I'll be very brief.

I first saw Mark Allen in the heyday of ACT UP, noticed he was way cute, serious about activism, and even gay (not everyone was!) but I guess there's always been much more, not least an infectious playfullness, and a creative aesthetic beyond what he gives us to look at. You'll find a lot of it his site.

It's good to be cute, smart, creative and nice - also brave, clean and definitely irreverent.

In the wild, and I think in "conventional" households as well, Parakeets are expected to wake with the sun and retire as it gets dark. But our Sweet Pea (don't ask!) is a New York bird.

We may not usually be out late, but we eat late and are always late to bed. That means late to rise, and over the months since he flew through our window the bright-green winged one has accomodated himself to our schedule.

Yesterday I pointed out to Barry that the little guy never starts singing back to the birds in the garden, ignoring their early hours and their amazing volume, until we finally shuffle into the breakfast room where he sleeps. Even then he shows that he's no more a morning type than we are. He takes his time about jumping about or entering into any conversations.

And then at the end of the day he's usually ready to stay up chirping and playing with his imaginary friend in the cage mirror (also something like ourselves) until we turn the lights out, sometimes well after 2 in the morning, although I have to admit that eventually he stares at us from his perch with a sad look that seems to say, "can't we go to sleep yet?"

"We've made him nocturnal!", Barry replied to my bird-watching observations, but in a tone which sounded like real guilt.

Are we bad parents? Probably not. Sweet Pea seems at least as cheerful as we are, which is to say pretty to very, and that should count for something.

Chirp!

The caption for this picture from this week's Paris Menswear shows on the BBC site reads: "Strike the pose: Models at the Gaspard Yurkievich show"

Lots more guy stuff.

Can we stop and think about this lead NYTimes story for a minute?

Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor making his first bid for national office, raised substantially more money this quarter than all his more established opponents in the Democratic presidential contest, according to figures released today.

The result forced Dr. Dean's rivals to reconsider how to deal with an opponent they had until now viewed as little more than an irritant.

At the same time, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who had initially been seen as a formidable fund-raiser with strong ties to labor, has apparently come in fifth among Democrats in fund-raising in the second quarter, which ended Monday. It would be the second weak showing in fund-raising by Mr. Gephardt. His aides cautioned today that they were still counting checks.

Dean is now a real candidate because he has money, and the corollary of that is that he will cease to be a real candidate if he should eventually fall behind others in the accumulation of more money.

Is the headline, "Dean's Surge in Fund-Raising Forces Rivals to Reassess Him," and the story itself for that matter, even conceivable in any other mature republic? Elsewhere citizens, even professional politicians, don't appear and disappear as legitimate candidates for office only on the basis of whether or not they are cash cows.

Our government is available to the highest bidder, and nothing else is ever really discussed, except the candidates' numbers in the polls.

Germans get 8 weeks of vacation each year, including single-day holidays. Although the figure is not much different for the rest of Europe, Germans, being Germans, are asking themselves whether lots of a good thing is not really such a good thing. The NYTimes tell us that some Germans are even asking: are the Germans lazy?

The lively discussion which follows includes a history and a lesson in comparative leisure cultures.

Here, perhaps, is the difference with Americans, who also like their vacations. Many Americans, who have no recent history of labor struggles or national traumas, simply see work as a good in itself; they don't believe deep inside that they have an inalienable right to an idle August and take pride in postponing retirement, or taking on a second career. But for many Europeans, leisure time is not just a break from work; it is the goal of it.

or maybe just looking to have a good day?

If most Americans never learn why they are working, and end up botching the limited vacation opportunities available to them, a very few decide that work itself will be rewarding when the reward is generously shared. Leisure needn't be sacrificed, nor worshipped.

Gene Estess was a New York stockbroker for 20 years. Today he runs a program that helps adults with housing, employment and drug dependence difficulties. He operates at a fraction of the cost per person required for shelters and with something like a 95% success rate in keeping clients from returning to homelessness.

But the best part of this article describing a man who admits that his Wall Street colleagues thought he was nuts when he quit, is how he made the decision.

"Please understand," he said. "It was nothing religious. It wasn't godlike."

"For 20-some-odd years I really didn't have a good day," he continued. "I didn't come home with any stories to tell or satisfaction or a feeling I'd done anything to help anybody except myself and my family."

Not lazy, surely, and it doesn't sound like leisure, but it's definitely smart.

Our daring commander-in-chief, who will always be the most protected individual on the planet, courageously flipped the bird at Iraqi militants who might be thinking of threatening our already-beleagured troops in the Middle East.

"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is: Bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."

He's daring a people already on the brink of major insurgency to just try to kill and maim Americans. Do "our boys and girls" need this kind of support from an idiot who has already said he placed them in great peril in the first place because his friend god told him to?

Even in the initial story about Bush's remarks, Reuters has to report that they have outraged Washington - well, at least the Democrats.

"I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let alone the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops," said New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, a Democratic presidential candidate, said: "I have a message for the president: 'Enough of the phony, macho rhetoric. We should be focused on a long-term security plan that reduces the danger to our military personnel.'"

Artnet has some good images from the Venice Biennale. The photograph above, of artists in the gardini, helps to explain the seductive appeal of this event. Obviously it's not just the venue.

Well, we did hear that the temperature was 108 on the opening days.