Bowing To The Bean
The Bean is a benevolent Master... until you cross it.
I got hit with a stomach bug at the beginning of the year. Spent the first to the fourth sans solid food. Good times. But the one thing the bug did was get me through the withdrawal, such that it is, and off coffee. So I decided to try life without.
My great friend John drinks decaf, and I made fun of him for years for drinking kickless coffee. It's like drinking O'Douls. What's the point?
At a former job, he told me, he'd worked long hours and been in a fast-paced, high power position. As such, he'd developed a terrible coffee habit, and had been measuring his consumption in terms of pitchers instead of cups.
As an aside, John also argued that the his name gets screwed for no reason, second only to the name Dick in terms of negative connotations. Meanwhile, Joe had somehow become the name to pair with coffee, the sweetest of ambrosia.
He had an excellent point -- John is, for no reason, associated with bathrooms and port-a-potties. Meanwhile, what did Joe ever do to earn such a fine, caffinated association? Contrary by nature, John started a one-man campaign to change this unfair arrangement. Now he and I (and hopefully you) will tell people you're off to get a cup 'o john after stopping by the Joe.*
Back to the story... John, drinking pitchers-a-day, left the job and tried to get off The Bean. He quit cold turkey and, said he, it was, um, not pleasant. So why decaf? Because. Once The Bean has you, it never lets go.
I laughed and laughed and teased him for years. But you know what? He was right. It's awful.
I didn't start drinking coffee until I was in my mid-20s, and never got past a max of three or four cups in a day, but still, I'm ruined. Spoiled. Changed forever. Tea sucks. Chai is lame. Hot chocolate? Don't get me started.
I haven't had a cup o' john yet in 2009, but my resolve grows weaker by the day. I'm studying for the Feb. Bar Exam, and there's only so much tea that I can drink in a day. It has no depth, no richness. Life is all grays, no color. It sucks. Chai latte, I scowl at thee.
* What about Dick? Well, we're talking Nixon and Cheney with that one -- they earned it. Just don't name your son Richard.
[Image and more great examples of latte art via Oddee.]
Frost, Nixon, Cheney and McNamara
Caught Frost/Nixon yesterday. It's the most entertaining film about the making of an interview that you're likely to see.* Yes, the interview is important, but director Ron Howard made the issues around funding, preparation and distribution as close to a suspense-filled story as is reasonably possible.
The key moment of the 1977 interview, and the key to this film, is Nixon's response to questions about Watergate. The only time he answered direct questions about Watergate, Nixon stated that he made mistakes, likely broke laws, tarnished the office of the President specifically and our system of democracy generally, but still believed that anything a President does to serve his country is legal.
I'm interested in seeing how the movie's portrayal stacks up to the real interviews, released on DVD earlier this month. I also want to check out Charlie Rose's interviews about the movie with Ron Howard and Frank Langella, the actor portraying Nixon in the dramatization.
Having just returned from watching the movie, I opened my Wind and pointed Chrome to the NY Times. One of their top stories discussed the exit interviews being given by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush at least admits that he was unprepared for war, Cheney is completely unapologetic.
Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.
“I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
It's been said many times before, but Cheney believes that the President is above the law when serving his country. I think Cheney would say that the executive must be unfettered by the law when protecting America... but the result is the same either way. In fact, it's clear that Cheney believes Nixon didn't go far enough, that he never should have felt guilty or admitted to anything.
Today, Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, says he has no advice for VP-elect Biden, and clearly states that he authorized torture (or, as is the official term, "enhanced interrogation") of "terror suspects." He characterizes his decision as making the hard choice, and asks us to take it on faith that his action has made America safer.
Assuming that Cheney's statement is correct, even Nixon would ask: what point is there in acting to protect America if that act undercuts the very tenents upon which the country has been built and claims to hold high for the world as its banner ideals?
* If you saw and enjoyed Frost/Nixon, you'll also enjoy Fog of War, the brilliant film by Errol Morris centering around his interviews with Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.
[Image via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.]