So there seems to be a lot of talk these days about crazy ol' Bush's most recent decision, to send in yet more troops to Iraq despite basically the rest of the population (not only Congress and the military but the populace at large) telling him that this is what they least want in the world right now. And it might surprise some of you to learn this (although not long-time readers), but in this I actually agree with Bush for once in his miserable life; in fact, I'd go all the way down McCain's road in my case and say that we actually need a lot more troops over there right now than we currently have, and have needed them for a long time. Where I completely disagree with most conservatives, though, is in how these troops have been used so far, what the plan for rebuilding the country has been, and who exactly has and has not been invited to help in that rebuilding process. I have sometimes complicated thoughts on the subject, in fact, that sometimes cross traditional party lines; maybe it'd be best if I took a moment and spelled them out...

Like most hawkish conservatives, I too believe that the best kind of society that can be put into place in a chaotic part of the world is a constitutional democracy, backed by a free-market economy (either socialistic in nature or capitalistic). I've studied government types in detail in the past, after all, both how they work in theory and how they turn out in practice; and I'm just one of those people who conclude that the system currently in place in North America and most of Europe happens to be the best one we've yet invented. Given my moderate and practical leanings, though, I believe that establishing a free-market democracy in a chaotic area is an extremely complex process, one that involves work from all sectors of humanity and all sides of the political spectrum.

I've gone on at length here before about all the details that go into such a complex process, so won't do it again today; what in particular has had me thinking this week, though, with all of the talk of new troops, is my long-standing belief that an "Iraqi Marshall Plan" needs to be formed, a way of profoundly improving the basic infrastructure of Iraq in a very short time period, using all of the resources the international community can muster. This is what I'm talking about, frankly, when I say that the rebuilding of Iraq is the work of a coalition, because you need all these different aspects to build a basic urban infrastructure to begin with -- you need the military to establish order and the first supply routes; corporate interests to build the roads, sewage lines and other structures; neighboring countries to provide the small loans needed to kickstart an entire Iraqi middle-class; NGOs and religious organizations to provide the first schools, markets, hospitals and the like. At this point, yes, whether you like it or not, all those American troops are simply needed in Iraq right now, and definitely more in my opinion; what gets people so angry, though, including me, and makes them not want to support such a decision, is that these troops are being used in entirely the wrong way, to disastrous effect for pretty much everyone except the people making the actual decisions.

And so all this got me thinking about a question that's partly science-fiction, partly city planning, concerning the subject of "rapid infrastructure" -- that given what we now know about prefabrication, transport, information technology and the like, I wonder just how fast and cheaply we as a society could erect a modern, stable urban infrastructure in a large area currently lacking one. Given the progress made over the decades in these subjects, is there a way now that we could somehow "flash freeze" the Marshall Plan, erecting the things a modern nation needs at a fraction of the time and cost it's been done in the past? Or to think of it in more concrete terms, imagine this -- that most likely, not only Bush but all the people who think like him will be booted from the White House in 2008, and almost certainly be replaced with people much more intelligent and much more moderate. If we assume this to be true, what kind of plan could we as a society put together by then for this future President, that could be quickly enacted and actually lead in the long term to a stable, peaceful home for free-market democracy in Iraq, and a thriving middle-class?

If I were running a thinktank right now, for example, instead of trying to open an arts center, this would be a perfect thing to issue as a public challenge: the Rapid Infrastructure Challenge, if you will (or RIC), where the great minds of the world would be invited to contribute ideas and plans, and with us sponsoring public events and publications and the like to help facilitate the spread of the ideas. And like any good challenge, the RIC needs a series of goals for which to aim; here are the five I came up with off the top of my head, for example, although I'm sure a much more sophisticated list could be put together under a formal thinktank system:

1) In the short term, the goal is to rapidly create the parts of an urban infrastructure a modern society needs in order to survive and thrive: roads, water, electricity, communications and the like.

2) In the long term, the goal is to build a stable permanent environment out of such temporary quarters, either through the structures originally built or through a long-term plan to replace such structures with sturdier ones.

3) The finished plan should create a society that can look at least twenty years into the future, creating deliberate "holes" in the infrastructure for technologies not yet invented.

4) As much as possible, the finished plan should embrace the idea of mixed-income residential areas, or at least discourage the formation of "rich" and "poor" neighborhoods.

And 5), taking a cue off many cities in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, finished plans should incorporate large sections of protected natural landscape within urban areas, as well as a plethora of public "green spaces."

So there's the challenge, I suppose; of how to most quickly and cheaply accomplish the five goals above, say for example in Iraq starting in 2008, while still leaving an aesthetically pleasing permanent environment behind, and avoiding the mistakes that plagued similar experiments in America and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and '60s. Or to put it in as plain of terms as possible: How do you best and most quickly create a "fake" urban environment, where none previously existed, while still allowing for a cheap transition into a "real" urban environment?

Just to cite one small example, something maybe that one person in your thinktank would spend time pondering: obviously, the cheapest and quickest way to provide electricity to a rural area is to plop down a series of poles in a straight line, and to string lines of electrical wires between them. But, this is a terrible option when it comes to the long-term longevity of that electrical line; not only is it highly prone to attack and natural disasters, but the temporary pole placements also have a permanent effect on the resulting landscape. A much better option for the long term, then, might be a series of underground pipes from the electrical plant to the outlying areas; but seriously, do you know exactly how long it takes to bury several hundred miles of interconnected weatherproof pipes? This is where the challenge lies, then, is in figuring out the best balance between the two situations; a way to cheaply and quickly get the electricity running in the first place, while still allowing for an inexpensive conversion to its permanent structure, all while harmonizing with the concurrent plans for water, sewage, telcom services, roads, buildings and everything else that's being constructed at the same time.

(Image courtesy Vestal Design)

Now I admit, I myself like thinking about such subjects as a hobby, which is what almost led me to actually opening a thinktank back in 2004 when I first decided to change careers, instead of trying to open an arts center. And I admit as well, I have a special geek love for going by the websites of these young European green-architecture smartypants; you know, the ones who in their spare time come up with these grandiose plans for providing temporary housing to a million people at a time, housing that's not only safe and cheap but also uses cutting-edge biomechanical devices to provide some of its power, plus as a nice bonus wouldn't look out of place in an IKEA catalog. I keep imagining these days the idea of actually putting a theoretical system like this into place on a massive basis; of what it would take, for example, to provide such a system and all the related infrastructure to one million people in Baghdad, of the six million who currently live there.

It's a fascinating topic to ponder, I think, because there are just so many different things that need to be taken into consideration, and with a lot of "but"s that I find particularly intriguing:

--The various systems in the prefab housing units (HVAC, water, sewage, etc) wold need to work simply, and be easily repairable by the occupants of the unit; BUT, not at the cost of making the unit feel cheap or institutionalized.

--A basic unit would need to be created to handle a small family, say two parents and two children; BUT, a way of easily connecting units into a communal space would need to be invented as well, for those who live in large familial units or as a village.

--This million-person settlement would need to be zoned in a way that's easily understood and implemented; BUT, that over time would leave behind a sophisticated mixed-zone environment, combining the right mix of residential units, parkland, and city services such as schools and hospitals.

--And perhaps most vexing, all units (not only housing but community) would need to be constructed in a way that provides security, pride of ownership and community involvement; BUT, in a way that's inexpensive and straightforward enough to implement in the millions, and that could be repacked and used over and over again (to be used, for example, by the United Nations or National Guard).

Ah, but just imagine all the global uses of such a system, if such a thing could be perfected through experimentation in Iraq. Imagine how useful it could've been, for example, if we could've shipped in a "temporary city" to the outskirts of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- a place that provided not only security, shelter and food for a million people at once, but also electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, telephone and internet connections, and a working school system. Imagine providing such a thing on the fly for millions of political refugees, gathered at the edge of a neighboring country on the eve of a civil war.

I find it fascinating to think about such subjects, if you can't tell by now; and to be truthful, sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision by choosing to open an arts center, instead of a professional thinktank. You laugh, I know, I can hear some of you right now, but such a thing is still a very real career choice for me: I'm pretty good at getting grant money, the few times I've tried, and I'm good at gathering smart people around me and asking them complicated questions, and I'm good at collecting and analyzing the answers those people give back. Add a legal non-profit status, a publishing wing, a good chunk of corporate foundation grant money, and a popular "geek culture" blog based on your research, and boom -- you've got yourself a working, profit-making thinktank, with me drawing a salary as executive director but answering to a board of directors much smarter and richer than me. I still don't think it's a bad idea; in fact, on nights when things with CCLaP are going badly, I tend to think it's a better idea than the arts center. At least I'd have access to immediate money in such a situation, in the form of grants after establishing our non-profit status; that's the one thing lacking from all my arts center plans so far, and the one thing most sure to shut plans down.

Anyway, since I'm not running a thinktank these days, I guess I can't officially issue the Rapid Infrastructure Challenge with a promise of money and power for those with good ideas; so instead maybe I'll just informally issue the challenge to my readers and their friends, as a way of getting you too to start thinking of Iraq in constructive terms rather than destructive ones. We've been spending six years, after all, thinking of Iraq (and really, the Middle East in general) in about the worst terms possible; as an endless desert filled with bomb-toting godless animals, who must be shot and tortured in mass numbers until they finally realize that we're going to build a bunch of McDonald's there, whether they like it or not. And seriously, has six years of this gotten us anywhere? I mean, besides hundreds of thousands of deaths, a more entrenched fundamentalist base than ever before, the hatred of the rest of the world, and it turns out an official support of yet another crazy religious-based sect there, as the official people in power now?

I would love to see more Americans start looking at Iraq in a more enlightened way, which is simply as any other place in the world -- a place mostly filled with moderate, practical people with small dreams, who yearn for nothing more in life than marriage, children, and control of their own destiny at as young an age as possible. Instead of couching the situation in Iraq in terms of "How many more people do we have to slaughter before they'll finally give up?" (which, let's face it, is the attitude the Bushites have, when all is said and done), I'd love to see the conversation in America turn more to, "How can we best spend all that crazy money we're spending over there right now, to create a situation where peace can finally take hold?" How great it'd be if we could spend the next couple of years talking about that -- how to best build roads and power stations, how to best get groups like the United Nations and the Peace Corps involved. Of how to truly implement a Western-style justice system without upsetting Arab sensibilities, instead of getting Haliburton executives even richer and richer, and embracing whichever wacko of the moment is most willing to let Haliburton do such a thing. (Isn't that how we got Saddam Hussein in the first place? Jeez, just how short an attention span do we have in this country, anyway?)

So it's a thinktank, I suppose, that I invite you to participate in at home and amongst your friends, specializing in whatever area you are most conversant: construction, technology, education, attracting the creative class, etc etc. That's what's so great about this subject, after all, is its sheer complexity; there are a multitude of issues to be worked out, requiring a broad cross-section of the population to pull off, and especially when you start talking about converting the lessons to something that could be attempted domestically (like rebuilding the American South, for example, big parts of which are still lying in ruin years after Katrina, thank you very much George Goddamn Bush). If all of us can start slowly turning the conversation in this direction, we'll be in a great position in 2008 to influence the candidates to take this position as well, and to make the election hinge on what practical solutions they would actually implement to combat the situations. Maybe we can avoid a repeat of the last three Presidential elections we've had, virtual screamfests whose only insights were passed on via clever jingoistic soundbites. Just perhaps, if we all work on it, we can get the level of discourse raised in this country, and get our candidates talking again about complex and real solutions to our complex and very real problems, instead of another four years of "mission accomplished" and "smoke them out of their holes" and "shock and awe."

Hmm. Maybe.

So, for international readers who don't know; if you're one of those Yanks who particularly likes beating his fist against his forehead, while repeatedly muttering, "Stupid fucking American! Stupid fucking American!" -- there's not much better a way to induce the situation than to spend some time online, especially places where the arts in other countries are being shared. Your humble narrator, for example, found himself just last week with a tender red spot on his forehead, after stumbling across the work of the brilliant British comedian Chris Morris completely by accident at YouTube, a guy with so many projects and fans under his belt by now that you can't help but to feel like the stupid fucking American you are, for not having any idea who the guy was before accidentally stumbling across him at YouTube.

Lost? Fucking American! I'll explain; in a nutshell, Morris is considered by many to be the greatest living satirist in Great Britain, a man of constant controversy who lives a mysteriously shrouded life, with an unending burning hatred for all things idiotic that fuels both the success of his shows and their ongoing controversy. After years originally in radio at the BBC, his first big break was with a fake investigative television news show called Brass Eye, a hilarious parody of such alarmist shows as "Dateline: NBC" that would regularly dupe real celebrities into saying outrageous things on the air, in return for cheap and easy publicity towards what they thought was a good cause.

For his next experiment on television, then, Morris went in a totally opposite track, making an experimental late-night sketch show simply called Jam -- featuring not only these sick, incredibly black premises for the sketches themselves, but then with the sketch videotape often slowed so that voices sounded demonic, and with creepy ambient music from Brian Eno added to the background. Yeah, fucking crazy, man, and a show that was actually voted one of the top 25 horror shows in British TV history, even though it was billed as a comedy.

So then for his next big TV project, Morris yet again goes in a totally different direction; he produces a narrative comedy shot in a documentary style on the streets of London, entitled Nathan Barley. And oh Jesus, is it hilarious -- it's about this guy named Nathan Barley, naturally, one of those annoying "self-proclaimed media node" fucks, who's always carrying around Japanese cellphones because no one else has them, living their entire lives in club mode and through their MySpace account. But it's about more than that too, of course -- it's about this bitter slacker who hangs around them all, too (that is, Nathan and his crew, who put out a pop-culture website called "Trashbat.co.ck"), who can't stand any of them and regularly says so, which is misinterpreted by Nathan and company as irony which they love, which turns the bitter slacker into the cult center of this hipster community he can't stand in the first place. Yeah, complicated and mean and hilarious, and especially lovely to an American since it's all shot on the real streets of London guerrilla-style.

And so then Morris gets involved with yet even another project, a traditional sitcom called The IT Crowd, which you have the greatest chance of already knowing about, since it's become a bonafide cult hit in the US and with NBC making an American version next year ala "The Office." (Morris has nothing to do with the writing or producing of The IT Crowd; instead he's just an actor, the one who plays the strange-ass mustachioed CEO of the corporation.) And all this in the last ten years, mind you, while still also finding the time to writing and directing an award-winning short film, maintaining a humor website, and knocking out a couple of one-off TV specials. Ugh! And I hadn't heard word one about him before last week, until stumbling across one of the creepy surrealist "Jam" sketches completely by accident at YouTube, while searching on a completely unrelated topic. (For those who are curious, it was one of the Doctor sketches; specifically, the one where the doctor assures a child that there's nothing to be ashamed of by wetting one's pants, then proceeds to piss his own pants while the horrified child and mother watch.)

Stupid fucking American! Stupid fucking American! There is so much culture in the world that so many of us miss every single day; but let's admit it, it's even worse when it comes to most Americans. I mean, I even try to keep up on world culture, and look how easily someone as famous as Chris Morris evades my awareness for so long; just imagine how it is for Americans who don't particularly care, and who don't particularly like challenging projects in America in the first place. So many of us intellectuals, I think, gravitate to such a negative view of culture right now, seeing a world filled with American Idols and Eurovision, open contempt towards intelligence, a global obsession with fart jokes and animated movies marketed towards adults. But really, how much of good global culture are any of us really taking in, anyway? Sure, no particular country seems to be putting out too high an amount of high-quality, challenging artistic projects, and with the crap being backed by multinational corporations, that stuff seems to be everywhere; but when you add up all the amazing things being done on a country by country basis, that might have huge audiences there but that you might never have heard of yourself, it's not nearly as dire an outlook as us gloomy smarties might sometimes see it.

Anyway, my point is -- check out the work of Chris Morris, for God's sake, if you never have before. Just look up his name at YouTube or Google Video, seriously -- the searches will yield hundreds of clips for you to watch, in some cases comprising almost the totality of the entire show. British fans of Morris, just imagine my brain these days -- imagine watching almost the entire run of Jam, Brass Eye, Nathan Barley and The IT Crowd in a two-week period, all for the first time and without knowing anything about the shows beforehand. Mind...has been...fucked with! Get out of...my head, bastards! More, please! Mr. Morris, if you happen to come across this; I would please like an invitation to one of your infamous Bristol dinner parties! I will rob a liquor store if I have to, to raise the money to attend such an event, I promise!