It looks obvious

Charlie Savage,The author of Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency, reviews at the Atlantic the accumulation of power by the executive branch and he is suggesting:

In 1944, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson warned that each new assertion of executive power, once validated into precedent, lies about “like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes.”

In the six decades since, presidents of both parties have seldom hesitated to use all the powers available to them. So what will future presidents do with the arsenal they will inherit from Bush and Cheney? So far, the 2008 candidates have volunteered little about what limits, if any, they would respect if entrusted with the presidency. It’s time to start asking.

Knowing Giuliani’s authoritarian tendencies and Clinton’s first round at the white house, we should be worry.

Analyzing the different reasons for the inherent weakness and inefficiency of the modern political system in the Arab world Fouad Ajami included the beauty of the Arabic poetry, and its influence on the the daily culture. And while poetry is beautiful it is lacking the practicality so needed when discussing political issues. However, it is so much better than American Idol:

Imagine an American TV network deciding to take the American Idol format and apply it to poetry; lining up poets to read their poems in front of temperamental judges while the nation gets out its mobile phones to vote for its favorite poet. One can be sure the show would not survive the first commercial break before the chastened executives pull the plug on it and replace it with yet another series on the Life and Times of Nicole Ritchie. Yet, that was exactly the formula for the latest TV sensation to take Arab countries by storm.

 I recommend listening to the clips embedded in the post, even if you don’t understand Arabic, it is still beautiful and give some first hand impression.

And from poetry to a dance, a war dance. Reading this excellent Hebrew sport blog I learned about an interesting tradition of the New Zealand national rugby team - they are performing before every game a traditional Maori war dance name Haka. Beside the obvious observation of the relative similarities between rugby game and tribal warfare I’m wondering if the adoption of the Maori dance is part of more integration of cultures that happened in New Zealand, compared with other colonized parts of the world.  

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