Rants and Raves

WE'RE MOVING!

2009-10-26T11:52:00.001-07:00

Yeah! A good bud Joshua has set me up with a brand new site with my own domaine name.

Henceforth, all posting will be done at http://www.stephenwbrowne.com/

So please bear with me while I learn the bells and whistles of the new system.

Expect more photos, easier-to-read text, dancing girls...

Another Ah-ha! moment

2009-10-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

In my review of Thomas Sowell's book, "A Conflict of Visions" I described reading it as one of the great Ah-ha! moments in my life.

(See: http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2007/04/review-conflict-of-visions-by-thomas.html )

A commenter in Peru agreed, "I have read in 1996 the Spanish translation of the 1987 edition. It was also an Ah-ha moment for me."

Well I caught Rush Limbaugh on my pickup radio the other day talking about his blacklisting while trying to buy a football team.

Rush said, "If the NFL can be politicized, what makes you think a liver transplant can't be?"

Ah-ha!

Take the jab!

2009-10-18T07:37:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting at home writing this, with a temperature of 101 and diffuse aches throughout my body. I'm cold, in spite of layers of thermal underwear. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool and my throat feels like it's been swabbed with sandpaper. And though I'm not coughing much, when I do it feels like two guys with baseball bats have laid into both sides of my lower ribs simultaneously.
In other words, I have the flu.

What's worse, I have no excuse for it. A few weeks ago I covered a drive-through flu innoculation our city/county health personel put on at the county highway department barn. How difficult would it have been to pay the fee and get the jab myself?

Well, maybe I didn't want to spend the money, and maybe I'm kind of chicken about shots.

Apparently lots of people are, our City/County Health director said while the event went very well as a preparedness exercise, turnout was disappointing.

I guess the joke's on me. I had to spend the money and get blood drawn anyway.

Not that that did any good. My doctor said everything was normal in my bloodwork, which simply ruled out a number of other things I didn't have and confirmed what I knew already. It's flu.

So I said, "Bed rest, plenty of fluids..."

"That's right," he replied, "everything your grandmother would have told you. And, don't take anti-fever medication unless it gets above 102. Fever fights infection."

That's one of the reasons my father, a retired physician, says medical services are overused in America.

"Things that used to be treated with a mother's kiss are taken to the emergency room these days," is how he put it.

So now I've paid the co-pay to confirm what I already knew, and done my bit to raise the insurance premiums of my co-workers next time around.

In the meantime, I can't hug my kids (and I could use a hug right now,) I can't kiss my wife (and she's going to kill me if she gets sick while the play she's in is running,) and while nausea is one of the symptoms thankfully absent, nothing really tastes good either.

So do yourself, your family, and your co-workers a favor and take the jab!

When deadly force is a duty

2009-10-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Dumb moments in journalism

If you go here:

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/669521/76c2a9da/haatbaarden_in_engeland_tegen_wilders.html

you'll find a Dutch website* with a video of British press interview with a raghead (observe the gutra on said head) about the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, speaking in a good solid English working-class accent - the accent I associate with the salt of the earth, saying:

"...in Islam, the punishment for anyone who insults the prophet (Arabic phrase which means "peace be upon him,") — is capital punishment. He should take the lesson from Theo van Gogh and others who've faced the punishment."

The journalist (not on-camera, only his microphone appears) then breaks in to ask, "Is that (unclear) be construed as a threat?"

Is the Pope Catholic? Does the bear shit in the woods?

After which the interviewee goes on to elaborate that, while he wouldn't necessarily be the one to carry it out, short answer: yes.

Well, perhaps the fellow was just double-checking. Perhaps it was an example of English reserve. And perhaps the excerpt wasn't long enough to show how he undoubtedly had penetrating questions about how could the interview subject expect full rights of citizenship and rely on the hospitality of a free society, and yet demand the right to annul those very freedoms which made that country such an attractive destination for immigrants?

Now go on and listen to the speaker with the megaphone express his hatred for democracy in every country in Europe, and "this dog Wilders."

"Islam will dominate... So no matter where he runs... Islam will come, and it will conquer... Islam will enter the house of every person in this world...We will see the European crusaders destroyed..."

You get the drift.

And, this takes place outside the Houses of Parliament, the "Mother of Parliaments."

Interviewer asks, "So you consider this a victory today, that you've prevented him from speaking?"

I vote clueless.

Listen a little longer and you'll hear another speaker loudly trumpeting his invitation to Geert Wilders to come out and be murdered by the mob. And moreover, expressing his indignation that the British police won't allow them to come in and get him.

I don't know about you, but it's my strong impression that these fellows mean what they say. (How's that for English-style understatement?)

I suppose some fellow-libertarians (those not members of the "libertarians with cojones" caucus) are going to call me names again for this, but there are times when a government of free men must be willing to shed the blood of its citizens.

This is one of them. That mob of savages should have been read the Riot Act**, ordered to disperse, and if they didn't they should have been treated to mass volley fire.

You don't like tyrannical government supressing free speech? So do you think the tyranny of a bloodthirsty mob is an improvement?

Now that I've stuck my foot in it, let me think of a few other occasions when I saw government clearly failing in its duty to use deadly force.

For those preparing angry comments calling me a racist, try this on for size.

A few years back, a mob in a German town besieged a hostel for immigrants. In the course of the riot, the mob set fire to the place and burned to death several Turkish women and children.

The police pretty much stood by wringing their hands.

Their clear duty was again, order the mob to disperse and give them a "first, second, third warning..." followed by volley fire. Then form a skirmish line, sweep through town and shoot/bayonet anyone carrying an incindiary.

Case three, requiring more subtlety.

A while back I saw a news video of English soccer hooligans in a stadium with two tiers of seating. The upper tier was quite high above the lower tiers.

The lager louts were ripping up the wooden seating and throwing it onto the heads of the spectators below.

From that height, throwing heavy objects onto a crowd is attempted murder.

Obviously, volley fire is not an appropriate response in crowded conditions. Snipers are.

"If you are not prepared to use violence to defend civilization, you must be prepared to accept barbarism."
--Thomas Sowell

*To show you something about education in the Netherlands, the web site text is in Dutch, but the video is of course in English, but with no translation or subtitles. The Dutch audience is just assumed to understand English.

**From Wikipedia: The Riot Act[1] (1713) (1 Geo.1 St.2 c.5) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of more than twelve people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action. The Act, whose long title was "An act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters", came into force on 1 August 1715, and remained on the statute books until 1973.

No longer on the statute books. Pity, it's kind of classy.

"Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!"

Point being, you get a warning. Von Hayek pointed out years ago that one of the essential qualities of the laws of a free society is not that they always make perfect sense, or be perfectly just (if there is any such thing this side of heaven,) but that they be consistent. You've got to know from day to day what to expect from the law.

Sue the bastards Rushbo!

2009-10-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

How could you say these vile things Rush Limbaugh?

“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed."

"I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

Oh, you didn't. In fact they were made up. By people who were not mistaken, but deliberately lying.

But here: http://newsone.com/obama/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/

You can find a site which still claims El Rushbo said them all - and cites sources!

Please take a minute to go there, and click on the SOURCE buttons under each quote.

Back now?

OK, notice that each source is secondary. Among the sources are the book "101 People who are Screwing up America," by Jack Huberman, and CommonDreams.org (a say it very softly, communist - shhhhh, front organization.)

(OK, spare yourself the trouble, I'll say it for you, "MCCARTHYITE PIG! WITCH HUNT! WITCH HUNT! WITCH HUNT!" There, don't you feel better now?)

Not once is a written source or an air date for these alleged quotes cited.

So what? This is a tinfoil-hat-wearing blogger so who cares?

Except that supposedly "professional" types at CNN and elsewhere are refusing to apologize, some (such as one Rick Sanchez) offering lame excuses of the "Well if it ain't true, it oughta be" kind.

The wittiest living man writing in English, Mark Steyn, pointed out the single, obvious fact that should have given the lie to this. If Rush had made these statements, does anyone seriously think they would only have been brought public attention now?

The occasion of these particular slanders/libels* is of course, Rush's attempt to buy a football team.

I could give a crap except for one thing, this time the slanders have evidently achieved their purpose. They have derailed what was a purely business deal.

Bingo!

Rush, I think you just won the lottery.

Libel laws in the U.S. I'm told, rest on two legs, 1) the assertion must be false (in America truth is absolute proof against libel**), and 2) there must be demonstrable damage.

Nowadays "mental anguish" has been accepted as damage, and defined down to "hurt feelings." Dumb and dangerous to free speech. But Rush actually suffered an aborted business transaction directly attributable to these slander, as documented by the football bigwigs' public statements.

Sue the bastards Rush! Sue them down to their underwear! Sue everybody in sight!

As a libertarian I've always been a bit uncomfortable about libel laws (and I'll present my Free Market Anarchist alternative later.)

In a civilized society, a gentleman falsely accused of making statements that vile would send a designated gentleman around to the slanderer with a polite request for either a public apology, or a meeting on the Field of Honor.***

One could of course, say no. And thus be revealed as a coward without the courage to defend one's lie. And of course, no jury would award more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine and a hearty handshake for the slandered party when he met the offender on the street and caned him. (As Sam Houston once did on the Capitol steps to a member of Congress who made a vile - and racist, insult, then haughtily refused him a duel.)

But we don't have a civilized society, so sue them Rush!

P.S. I'll point out here that I have been sharply critical of Rush Limbaugh in the past here: http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/11/libertarians-emerge-as-spoilers.html
when his mouth ran ahead of his brain.

But read the post and see that what Rush said on that occasion was an intemperate, and uncharitable interpretation of something that was admittedly true.

Note also that the insults I delivered to Rush for satirical purposes, "fat, deaf, junkie," were also true at the time.

*A lawyer friend once explained the legal difference between libel and slander to me: slander is spoken, libel is written. That's it.

That definition held for centuries until broadcast/recorded media made it a bit more complicated. The modern convention seems to be to use the term 'libel' for everything.

**In the U.K. startlingly, this is not the case. Which is why London is a favorite destination for libel tourism.

***Am I kidding? Even I don't know.

All eyes on the prize

2009-10-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Note: A slightly different version of this was the weekend op-ed in my newspaper.

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows:...and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
--Last Will and Testament of Alfred Nobel

Norway, with less than five million inhabitants and a military smaller than many states' National Guard, has managed to do what Russian might, terrorist ruthlessness, and Latin American tyranny could not.

They've made the president of the United States a laughingstock.

In 2009, a record 205 nominations were received for the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was awarded to President Barack Obama, nine months into his term. Worse, nominations closed on Feb. 1, which was less than two weeks after Obama took office.

Of course the Nobel Peace Prize Committee did not mean it that way. They obviously chose Obama because he's the anti-Bush, and to influence U.S. foreign policy in a direction more to their liking.

But Obama supporters and detractors alike realize there is no upside to this. They only difference is whether they're reacting with delight, or dismay.

Obama said he was, “surprised and humbled.” I suggest a better adjective is “humiliated.”

If you doubt this, imagine yourself in large public gathering introduced by a speaker who heaped the most fulsome and effusive praise on you, which you knew for a fact you did not deserve.

Heck, it's embarrassing enough for any man with self-respect to listen to when you do deserve it.

If someone is heaping abuse on you, you can ignore it and look above it all. So how do you deal with sickeningly sycophantic praise without looking rude and graceless?

So why would the awards committee make such a gaff? And one at such odds with their intended purpose?

Well, to begin with the Peace Prize is awarded by an entirely different set of people than the other Nobel prizes. The Nobels for Physics, Chemistry, and economics are awarded by a committee from the Swedish Academy of Science, the literature prize from the Swedish Academy.

The Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian Parliament, roughly representing the political makeup of that body. This year that's three from left to far-left parties and two from conservative parties. The chairman of the committee is the notoriously gaff-prone Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway. (A.k.a. "The Joe Biden of Norway.")

For another, the prize has always been inconsistently awarded.

Teddy Roosevelt won the prize for brokering the peace treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese war. And both sides agreed he deserved it.

On the other hand, both Hitler and Stalin have been nominated, Yasser Arafat actually won it, and Jimmy Carter only won his twenty years after he negotiated the peace between Israel and Egypt.

Mahatma Gandhi (nominated 5 times!), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Václav Havel, and Corazon Aquino never won.

In 2007 the committee nominated Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children during the Second World War. She was tortured and left for dead by the Gestapo, and later imprisoned by the Communist government.

That year Al Gore won it for his Power Point presentation on Global Warming.

The fact is, the Peace Prize has always been a poor relation coasting on the reputation of the other Nobel prizes given for real, substantial accomplishments in literature, science, medicine, and economics. (With a curious exception. There is no prize for Mathematics.) So I wouldn't take this prize too seriously.

Still, though I have my differences with Barack Obama, that's the President of the United States you're patronizing you lutefisk-eating Euro-weenies!

How about a “public option” for newspapers?

2009-10-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a rare, in fact unique example of an op-ed that I was asked to hold. Not spiked, just asked to hold and rework if I liked.

I was not offended. In fact, I was delighted when I thought about it.

Why? Because it scared the $#!+ out of my publisher and editor. What they said was, 1) "We sometimes make mistakes" is a damaging admission. Manifestly true, and we're not trying to hide it, but it's the kind of honesty that can hurt you if it ever comes up in court.

And 2) they thought some people would actually say, "Hey, what a great idea!"

But most of all, because given the premises of the health care argument, the logic herein is inescapable - and that's scary.

So..... SATIRE ALERT!

*******************************************************************************

Wednesday night President Obama gave a speech to congress outlining his ideas for health care reform. Mostly it was a recap of what he's been pounding away at for a while, with a couple of minor surprises.

The president did give a nod to the lawsuit factor driving health care costs up. Baseless accusations of malpractice too-often force health care providers to practice “defensive medicine.” By ordering every diagnostic test under the sun they try to avoid winding up on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

Since the president has so far studiously avoided the subject of tort reform this was praiseworthy, however offhand and half-hearted the mention.

Another surprise was he didn't quite insist on a “public option” in health insurance.

He didn't have to. Once a large enough fraction of the health care industry is pulled into the government sector, the rest will fall into place.

The president said, “But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance.”

How could anyone object to that? He's not proposing to nationalize the health insurance industry after all.

In fact, this sounds so reasonable I have an additional suggestion. How about a public option for newspapers? We could try it right here in our city.

We at the newspaper are aware that local government is sometimes not entirely happy with our coverage. We sometimes make mistakes. Some accuse us of being one-sided or unfair, or of only reporting bad news. We often give coverage to people they regard as troublemakers with nothing constructive to say.

And, we have a quasi-monopoly in our county as it's only daily newspaper. And let's not forget that advertising can be pretty expensive. Why should only big, rich businesses be able to afford full-page ads? What about small mom-and-pop businesses? Don't they deserve quality advertising?

So why not start a tax-subsidized newspaper to create some competition in the local newspaper business? And maybe a radio station as well. After all, if the people are paying for it, it would serve the people and not some private for-profit interest.

Using the president's logic, “But an additional step we can take to keep newspapers honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the media. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have access to news and advertising. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have newspaper subscriptions and advertising accounts.”

A tax-subsidized newspaper could afford more reporters and photographers, more color pages and more comics. A not-for-profit newspaper or radio station could offer free or greatly discounted advertising.

This wouldn't affect your present newspaper or radio station. Any business which preferred to could keep their own paid advertising in the privately owned media.

Of course, more people want their particular news interests published than any newspaper has room or any radio station time for. But you shouldn't worry about news and ad rationing. Public option media would have an impartial board of prominent citizens appointed by the government to review submissions and decide what is really important and newsworthy.

Isn't that the way it always works in government?

After all, it's not like we're proposing a government monopoly on newspapers.

Reworked Afghanistan post for an op-ed

2009-10-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Note: Readers will recognize this op-ed I wrote for my newspaper as a reworking of an earlier blog post. I'm posting it because, 1) I post almost all of my published op-eds as a way of filing them in a secure location, and 2) it shows the difference in styles between a newspaper column and a blog post.

The differences are due to space constraints, and the prospective audience. Writing op-eds, you are always struck by how many things you have to leave out. And you know that your audience is composed of a lot of people who don't agree with you, so you have to take a certain approach just to get them to read it.

I'll have more to say about that kind of writing later, after I figure it out myself. So:

I have a very, very, bad feeling about Afghanistan

I have a very, very, bad feeling about Afghanistan, and recent events are only making it worse.

General Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is already in trouble with the administration for going public with disagreements over strategy.

Obama picked McChrystal, to replace General David McKiernan in May, 2009 less than a year after McKiernan took command.

Afghanistan is Obama's “war of necessity,” as opposed to Bush's “war of choice” in Iraq.

Certainly a punitive expedition to Afghanistan after Sept. 11 was entirely justified. The planners of the attack were there. The Afghan government said "Nyah, nyah you can't have them" when we asked, so we went in and killed and captured as many of them as we could find.

Comb the history of civilization and find me one which would deny a legitimate cassus belli existed in this case.

But sticking around to practice nation-building on the Afghans strikes me as a long-term project with immense costs and problematic gains.

If you believe western civilization is engaged in what amounts to a long war against Islamic jihadism whether we like it or not, Afghanistan doesn't look like the best place to pin down limited resources.

Whatever you think of that war, Iraq is an ancient civilization near the geopolitical center of Islam. Iraq is rich in resources, and in the hands of a hostile power capable of supplying money and resources to the jihadist campaign against the West.

Saddam Hussein for example was, as our “ally” Saudi Arabia still is, paying substantial sums to families of suicide bombers in Israel.

Afghanistan has always been peripheral to the ancient civilizations of the region. It's importance to the jihadists is basically, that it's a great place to hide.

For students of military science, the critical difference difference between them is the strategically important part of Iraq is pretty flat. Afghanistan... isn't.

As a descendant of Scottish highlanders I can affirm that forcing civilization on mountaineers is very, very difficult. Mostly because they don't want it.

I feel for Afghanis who have to live with the Taliban, especially women who aspire to a life as something more than domestic chattels. But our resources are not infinite, and we have every reason to believe this new kind of war is going to be a long and expensive one.

So at the risk of sounding heartless I have to ask, what's in it for us? What do we gain by the enormous expense in the long term? And might those resources be better applied elsewhere?

Students of World War II might remember Germany lost two sizable armies in Africa and Russia, and possibly the war, because Hitler was unwilling to abandon any theater of operations once occupied by German soldiers.

Students of Vietnam remember that the justification of fighting for a democratic regime was rendered indefensible by a succession of about a half-dozen coups in rapid succession followed by strongman rule. Now it appears Afghan President Hamid Karzai may have rigged the last election.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur said, “It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

With Afghanistan we have an electorate not fully committed to the war effort, and an administration that has shown itself weak and vacillating on the issue.

If we stay in Afghanistan, the Russians can do to us exactly what they did to us in Vietnam, and what we did to them when they occupied that country. They can supply cheap arms to our enemies at no risk to themselves, while we expend immense sums of money and the valuable lives of our soldiers.

I say if the jihadists base themselves in Afghanistan, play whack-a-mole with them every time they stick their heads up. But unless we're willing to commit to an all-out effort, with all of the resources our field commanders ask for, maybe it's better to fight the jihadists another day, in a place where the outcome is more decisive.

Gilded ghettos

2009-10-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

I'd like to draw your attention to this message from my friend Robert Bidinotto, which he posted on his facebook page. It deserves wider distribution than his mailing list, and his web site is hors de combat after the hosting company fraked up.

Underneath I'm going to indulge myself in some sour grapes. Or at least that's what some may say.

Lest you think Robert is indulging himself in some of those, I'll point out here that wa-a-a-ay back, Robert was the writer who broke the "Willie Horton" story in Reader's Digest during the Bush/Dukakis campaign.

And by the way, Robert NEVER referred to the oft-incarcerated psycho as anything but "William Horton."

Robert wrote:

In Defense of the "Right-Wing Populists"

by Robert James Bidinotto

Jonah Goldberg—the undeniably intellectual author of Liberal Fascism—criticizes those intellectual weenies, both left and right, who attack talk-show host Glenn Beck and other right-wing populists, including Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Partiers. (See his article here: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/10/column-in-defense-of-glenn-beck-.html )

I'm with Goldberg on this.

I've spent most of my professional life within the right-wing think-tank world. Sadly, in my experience, the majority of the wonks and theorists who populate this mini-universe live in the rarified air of theoretical abstractions severed from real-world experience—that is to say, totally inside their own skulls. Many have migrated straight from grad schools into think tanks, without the invaluable rite of passage provided by a job out in the competitive marketplace. As a result, they have become cocooned in a self-selected world of other intellectuals, and many are uncomfortable around those who don't share their bookish preoccupations. This causes an interesting cultural tension for right-wing intellectuals. As a point of ideological faith, they profess to like "Americans," at least in the abstract—but they despise most of the concrete examples of Americans whom they encounter in the streets and shops.

Read conservatives such as David Frum, David Brooks, and Peggy Noonan, or even some prominent denizens of libertarian think tanks. Such right-wing intellectuals are about as disconnected from Main Street America as are left intellectuals. Their alienation from their nation's citizens finds expression in constant, condescending contempt toward people like Sarah Palin and "Joe the Plumber," toward rank-and-file Tea Party activists, and toward the talk-show champions of Main Street America, like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Mark Levin. Such people, they sniff, are so intellectually impoverished, so unrefined, so lacking in Ivy League nuance and subtlety.

I sense that such conservative intellectuals would love to spend hours at a Georgetown dinner party trading bon mots with a smooth and refined progressive like Barack Obama, or exchanging light-hearted barbs with a quick-witted left-wing comic like Jon Stewart. But they wouldn't be caught dead with a beer in their hands at a barbecue hosted by Sarah, Joe, or Glenn.

Many have noted that America seems to be undergoing a political realignment. But I think that's merely one part of a much broader cultural realignment. It's a realignment of American society based on fundamentally clashing values. And this value-conflict reveals itself in a host of other profound differences—in lifestyle preferences, personal priorities, and social-class affinities.

Of course, the most public manifestation of this great divide can be seen in the political arena. There, we're witnessing an all-out attempt by arrogant, technocratic know-it-alls to take over our lives, our social institutions, and entire industries, and to run them strictly according to their pet theoretical systems. Educated at the best universities, comfortably surrounded by other anointed members of the Establishment elite, they believe they know how to manage the lives and affairs of ordinary Americans far, far better than those little people can do for themselves. Meanwhile, Main Street America is righteously rebelling against this self-appointed aristocracy, and popular figures like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin are giving eloquent voice to their cries of protest.

In this pivotal battle for individual freedom, those intellectuals on the right who align themselves with the power-hungry elites, rather than with the beleaguered citizenry, are akin to the Tories who betrayed their fellow colonists and supported the coercive Crown during the American Revolution.

As for me, I'll gladly leave the parasitical aristocrats to their glittering cocktail parties, preferring to stand outside in the streets with the protesting crowds bearing signs, torches, and pitchforks. It's an easy choice, because not only do I know which side is right, but also which side will ultimately win.

The author is online at www.RobertTheWriter.com, www.facebook.com/bidinotto, and www.ecoNOT.com.

I replied:

Robert,

AMEN!

I've refrained from bitching about this too much, because it'd sound like sour grapes, but...

A few years back I returned from 13 years living and working in Eastern Europe (Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, with frequent visits to the Baltic States and points east) with a good working knowledge of Polish and street competence in a few other Slavic languages. I was elected an Honorary Member of the Yugoslav Movement for the Protection of Human Rights for my work with Serbian dissidents. I ran money to Belarusian dissidents, founded the Liberty English Camps (now operating in a half-dozen countries around the world,) been in a few truly hairy situations, and have been kicked with honest-to-God jack boots and beaten with real rubber truncheons. (They're not all rubber, they have a steel rod inside.)

I thought, thought I, with my education, accomplishments, and experience, I should be working with think tanks and foundations dedicated to spreading liberty throughout the world.

So I applied in a number of places over 3-4 years. The responses usually went through three stages: 1) initial enthusiasm, followed by 2) rapidly cooling ardor, and 3) excuses for not hiring me.

"Oh Steve, we thought with your experience you'd be bored in this position." (Real example.)

Now, I don't actually know, but it occurred to me that since most of these positions would have had me working for people who in your description, "have migrated straight from grad schools into think tanks, without the invaluable rite of passage provided by a job out in the competitive marketplace," they might have a problem hiring someone who's been some places and done some stuff.

Or as my (Polish) wife asked, "Who are these children who keep calling you?"

I did get a paid internship through the conservative National Journalism Foundation, which placed me at Human Events for three months. I had a ball and made some good friends - but you're right. Inside-the-Beltway people often have more in common with their inside-the-Beltway opposite numbers on the Left than they do with their alleged constituency outside the Beltway.

Victor Davis Hanson called the right-wing think tanks, "gilded ghettos."

Amen. Every time I hear that yet another libertarian or conservative think tank has moved "up" to offices inside the Beltway I think, "Another casualty in the war for liberty."

Or maybe that should be "defection."

Steve

Robert's comment: "Maybe Victor Davis Hanson is so sane because he’s a farmer, as well as an academic, and not afraid to get dirt under his fingernails."

UPDATE:

Robert,

On reflection it occurs to me that the inside-the-Beltway crowd is actually out of touch with the real Washington as well.

Three months in D.C. I stayed in a nice little flat behind the Supreme Court, a five-minute walk away from the office. From Capitol Hill, out to Dupont Circle and Embassy Row in one direction, to Foggy Bottom in another is it's own little world, kept reasonably safe by at least three separate police forces (D.C., Metro, and Capitol Hill P.D.) and innumerable private security agencies.

A 20-minute walk in another direction, or a 3-5 stop ride on the metro, and you were in a different world entirely. (Which then changes back around Silver Springs.) Even within the metro system you are in a different city if you get on the green line.

D.C. is an island of calm surrounded by a sea of barbarism the insiders have zero contact with, and though they're aware of it, they prefer not to think of it. (I was told, "If you live on Capitol Hill, you have to, have to, send your kids to private school." No elaboration needed.)

And weirdly, on weekends inner D.C. has the quiet deadness of a small town on Sunday.

P.S. For those who know D.C. - apologies if the geography is vague. I never got a sense of spatial location there, which kind of makes the point...

Defending that putz Woody Allen

2009-10-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Roman Polanski got himself arrested and is facing extradtion to the U.S. to face the music after 32 years on the lam, living the life of a hunted fugitive, hiding in posh parties and movie premiers in European capitols.

Hollywood and the artistic community abroad are aghast at us uncultured American barbarians. They've gone public with their hitherto private conviction that artistes are above conventional morality and the law.

In America of course, this gets you a horselaugh. Which is probably one of the reasons disaffected artists and intellectuals are among the most prominent America-haters.

I do think there are... troubling things in the Polanski case that I may deal with later.

Or maybe not. Frankly, this and some criminal cases I've covered lately are making me want to book a place in Our Lady of Perpetual Incarceration convent school when my little girl gets to be school age.

But right now, this is one of those times I have to grit my teeth and defend someone I disagree with, against a specific charge I know is unjust.

Woody Allen signed a petition demanding the release of Roman Polanski.

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

Conservative commentors are having a field day.

L. Brent Bozell said, "Woody Allen, another famous dirty old man in Hollywood, who scandalously carried on a sexual relationship with an adopted stepdaughter 34 years his junior, and then married her."

Married a girl he was carrying on with? Oh heavens to Betsy surely not! All Right-thinking social conservatives must surely disapprove of that.

Bozell is the brother-in-law of William F. Buckley. As I recall, Jerome Tucille wrote in his book about the then-nascent libertarian movement, It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand, that Bozell in his youth helped found something called The Sons of Thunder.

"Sons of Thunder" is a Bibilical reference to the disciples James and John, sons of Zebedee, nicknamed "thunder."

Evidently these guys wore red berets, carried crucifixes and broke into hospitals to baptise aborted fetuses.

But I digress.

Jonah Goldberg, who really ought to know better, wrote, "No surprise that Woody’s on board, given that he married his adopted daughter."

I once wrote, "Your belief in freedom is tested by your willingness to defend the freedom of people you despise."

This isn't quite one of those occasions. This is more a test of journalistic integrity.

So... ONCE AND FOR ALL, SOON-YI PREVIN-ALLEN IS NOT AND NEVER WAS WOODY ALLEN'S ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

She is the adopted daughter of Allen's previous girlfriend Mia Farrow - who was not his live-in girlfriend either, and Farrow's then-husband Andre Previn.* Allen was never legally or informally a parent-figure to her.

He did father a child with Farrow and they adopted two together. Allen lost any parental rights whatsoever to the adopted children in court, and only supervised visitation with his biological child, who has since cut him off.

But then that's what happens when you don't marry the mother of your child and speaks volumes to the issue of allowing unmarried couples to adopt.

And, he and Soon-yi have been married for 12 years now, have two kids and seem to be doing just fine, thank you very much.

(Evidently Soon-yi isn't the kind to take any of that we-don't-need-a-piece-of-paper-to-affirm-our-love crap. Good for her.)

Bozell, what you're doing looks suspiciously like deliberate misleading - the kind of thing you accuse the Left of doing. You wrote "an adopted daughter" though you didn't specifically say "his adopted daughter" it looks an awful lot like you were trying to slip it by.

Goldberg, you wrote something that is just flat wrong. Since it's an easily checkable error of fact, I'm assuming you simply made a mistake. Plus I like you better and don't want to believe you acted with malice aforethought.

Woody, you're a putz for signing that stupid petition - but everybody should lay off your family.

Note: Since it is known that there is a similar, though not quite as large an age difference in my marriage, the question arises whether I have something personal invested in this.

Not really. We've never gotten any static or public disapproval. If there's been any behind our backs, I've never heard it and wouldn't give a $#!+ anyway.

*For those too young to remember, composer Andre Previn was the husband of Mia Farrow's good friend Dory Previn. Farrow fled to Dory Previn after her marriage with Frank Sinatra broke up, then stole her husband. Dory Previn got a sort of revenge by writing and recording a song about it:

"Beware of young girls who come to your door,
Wistful and pale, twenty and four,
Delivering daises with delicate hands.
Beware of young girls, too often they crave,
To cry at a wedding... And dance on a grave."

"She was my friend, my friend, my friend.
She was invited to my house, Oh yes she was,
And although she knew my love was true, and no ordinary thing,
She admired my wedding ring, she admired my wedding ring."

"We were friends, oh yes we were,
And she just took him from my life, oh yes she did.
So young and vain, she brought me pain, but I'm wise enough to say,
She will leave him one thoughtless day, she just leave him and go away, Oh yes."

The good news and the bad news about the Zazi arrest

2009-10-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Note: This is my weekend op-ed for the newspaper.

There's some good news and some bad news about the arrest of Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi last week for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks on New York public transportation.

The good news is, the FBI and local police really seem to be on top of things. They've evidently had red flags up on this guy for some time now, and know something about accomplices in Al-Qaeda cells operating in America. And it's a safe bet they know more than they're telling the press, which I find professionally frustrating but personally reassuring.

The bad news is, Zazi was evidently arrested because law enforcement believed he'd started making a powerful explosive by a process so simple, using chemicals so easily available that I'm not going to give it's formal name. I'll just refer to it by its nickname among Islamic terrorists, “Mother of Satan.”

Its chemical name alone gives half the formula for making the stuff. It took me five seconds to find a video detailing the process on the Internet. But I'm going to be responsible and not tell you how to find it. That'll keep you busy for... easily five minutes.

As an aside, a few years back when we were living on the Oklahoma University campus, a student blew himself up near the football stadium on game day with Mother of Satan. There's no evidence he was a terrorist. He was evidently just fooling with the devilish stuff, which explodes at a harsh look.

That's the terrifying thing about terrorism these days. A modern industrial society puts the means of making powerful weapons into everyone's hands. And technology is only going to make it worse as time goes on.

Timothy McVeigh made the Oklahoma City bomb out of fertilizer and diesel oil. The good news is, if you try to buy a whole bunch of fertilizer these days and you're not a farmer, some folks are going to have some searching questions for you.

Not too long ago I'd have considered that a dangerous expansion of government powers of surveillance. Now I'm just fine with it.

But then there's good news, of a sort. Islamic jihadists seem fixated on suicide missions to the point they don't even consider long-term campaigns of widespread destruction in our country through missions which allow for the survival and escape of the jihadists.

The bad news is, I took some time off to think about it and came up with a comprehensive, detailed plan which terrified me.*

But there's some other good news.

What they are doing is not exactly war, in the sense we understand it. Islamic jihadists trumpet their desire to first drive the “crusaders” out of the Lands of Islam (dar Al-Islam) and re-establish the ancient Caliphate under Sharia law; then to conquer the Lands of War (dar Al-harb, i.e. all countries that aren't Islamic.)
This is of course a fantasy, albeit a dangerous one. Both for them and us.

What they appear to be doing with terrorist actions is something like the plains Indian custom of counting coup. Among the horse-riding plains tribes, the highest honor a warrior could win was to do something daring against an enemy, such as riding up to one and striking him with a coup stick in battle, or sneaking into their camp and stealing his horses.

Likewise, a jihadist terrorist is going “nya-nya” to the richer, more powerful Great Satan with terrorist acts that serve no real military purpose. Their purpose is exactly what the name implies, to terrorize. They prove to themselves they are our superiors by making us afraid.

The good news is, to get greater glory jihadists have to top the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. And that's really hard to top because for one, we're warned and ready now. And second, actions the size of Sept. 11 requires a large group. Larger conspiracies are easier to catch. Especially when maybe not everyone in the group is equally enthusiastic about martyrdom. (There is some evidence that not all the 19 hijackers on 9/11 realized it was a one-way trip until they were in the air.)

The bad news is, after 9/11 the ultimate coup is a terrorist strike using no-name nukes.

*See, 'If I were a terrorist, part 2' http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2007/01/if-i-were-terrorist-part-2.html

Sucks to be back

2009-09-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Note: I emailed this in last Thursday for the paper's weekend edition. Orgeon, Washington, and the northern coast of California are the states to be for those who have a taste for mountains, seacoasts and deserts. You can live on the slope of a mountain with forrest all around, and high desert at your back across the peaks.

I reminded myself of why the late Charles Kuralt had the best job ever.

On the road across America

By Steve Browne

Today I'm on the sixth day of a road trip across the north western states with my son, and preparing to return home tomorrow with the greatest reluctance.

We left Valley City on Saturday and headed west down I-94 to Billings, Montana and from there to Yellowstone National Park.

I last saw Yellowstone when I was about my son's age, so this was a real treat. He'd read about Old Faithful, so he had to see it. We were not disappointed.

Well, perhaps about one thing. We saw elk and buffalo close up, but no bears. When I was a boy bears were begging everywhere along the roads, fed by idiot tourists from their cars in spite of all the signs telling them not to. I was told that doesn't happen anymore. After a few tourists were killed, they really started enforcing regulations.

From there we took old U.S. 20 across the high desert country of Idaho to Boise, where we picked up I-84 to Portland, Oregon.

We've crossed the same territory it took the Lewis and Clark expedition a couple of years and tremendous effort. We've gone through different ecological zones, sometimes in a matter of minutes, and reset our clocks three times.

We've seen the truly breathtaking beauty of the high western mountains, the rugged volcanic landscape of Craters of the Moon National Monument, high plains, deserts, the mighty Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.

When I think about it, I am astounded that we've done this in a matter of days. What a time to live in when such things are possible!

I find myself possessed of a longing for contradictory things. I want to keep on the road for... a lot longer. Maybe forever.

On the other hand, I've seen intriguing little communities I'd like to settle down for a while and get to know better.

There's a little town called Arco way out in the Idaho desert, population about 900. Yet it manages to have a thriving Main Street, and a nuclear submarine museum. Why does this little place seem to thrive when small towns are dying across the country? Could it have something to do with the top secret-looking energy laboratory in the desert.

Arco boasts it was the first town in America powered by nuclear energy.

Then there's Baker City, Oregon, population 9,000. A town of well-preserved historical buildings set between a steep mountain gorge and a fertile valley. We stayed in a motel there one night, because our tent needed fixing.

In the motel office the manager lady had turtles, a ferret, an iguana, and a bearded dragon lizard, literally running around loose.

"Are you a collector?" I asked.

"Not exactly," she replied. "I got the iguana from an animal rescue group. Then when word got around I had him, people started giving me other abandoned animals."

We saw people coping with the recession by starting small coffee and food kiosks. We encountered waitresses in diners who passed a word of encouragement to my son when I had him doing his homework on the table. We met Americans, a people of diverse origins scattered across an immense land, but all still recognizably my countrymen.

Travel writing is a thing of extremes. On the one hand you have John Steinbeck's 'Travels with Charlie,' and William Least Heat Moon's 'Blue Highways." But most is filler for tourist brochures.

It's difficult to describe what you see driving across America and the people you meet. But when you start to travel, it's difficult to stop. It's like a hunger, you want to eat the life of this country.

And that's when you have to remind yourself to slow down, stop and savor the place you're in before you move on.

Well, maybe next trip. We've got a lot to see yet.

The middle class on the march

2009-09-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

Note: This is my weekend op-ed for the newspaper. I penned it early because this Saturday I'm headed out on the road again! My son and I are going car camping through the north western states, maybe all the way to the Pacific.

Maximilien François de Robespierre, a leader of the French Revolution and architect of The Reign of Terror, was sitting with a friend in a sidewalk cafe in Paris.
Suddenly a huge crowd rushed by. Robespierre jumped up and ran after them.
“Robespierre! Where are they going? What are they doing?” his friend calls.
“I don't know, but I have to be in front. I'm their leader!”

Last Saturday, September 12, a crowd of protesters descended on Washington, D.C., a big one.

They came to protest the massive expansion of government and the national debt.

How big a crowd is debated. News reports first said, “thousands,” quickly revised to “tens of thousands.” Eyewitnesses known to me say, “six figures minimum.”

The London newspaper Daily Mail, estimated at least a million, others as high as two million. To the cautious that sounds a bit over the top.

All of these figures come from eyeball estimates. Counting crowds is dicey at best. You define a square, get a rough count of the people inside it, then count how many squares cover the crowd. Then there's the question of how dense the crowd is. People tend to cluster near speakers, for example.

The National Park Service said they'd have an estimate later this week, based on analysis of aerial photos. The Park Service hasn't done crowd estimates for 14 years, since their 1995 estimate of the Million Man March sponsored by Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam turned out so disappointingly low.

We'll see how long it is before they're allowed to do another crowd estimate after this. But from the pictures, no one can doubt this was huge.

From photos and interviews some facts are emerging.

This is not the Republican Party still sore about the election. This is a lot of Americans from all over the country who are really sore about both parties. A sentiment expressed on one T-shirt, “Impeach Everybody!”

There are Republicans trying to ride this movement's coat tails like Robespierre – and they're being told to sit down, shut up and listen. They should consider themselves lucky, Robespierre was guillotined.

Media call the crowd “conservative,” and it may be in the sense that 41 percent of the electorate label themselves. Which means something different from what conservatives in Washington (a.k.a. Big Government Republicans) mean by it. It might be Populist, if anyone could tell me what that means. There appears to be a strong libertarian “leave us the hell alone” streak in it.

These people are not happy about insults they've received, as expressed on one sign, “It doesn't matter what this sign says, they'll call it racist anyway.”

This is the real thing, in that overused phrase, a grass-roots movement. Not “astroturf.”

The pictures show a crowd generally well-dressed though not upscale, orderly, an average age surprisingly high, and contrary to critics not lily-white either. Minorities are represented though sparsely, as are a surprising number of immigrants.

This is the middle class on the march, and I've seen it before. In several countries where people got utterly fed up with their government.*

A people fed up with a recklessly spendthrift Republican administration turned them out of power. Democrats took that as permission to join the Republicans in running up debt to levels many say looks like national suicide. Someone's not listening.

After Sunday an anonymous commenter remarked, “When people with jobs demonstrate, you know something is happening.”

Folks, this is a game-changer. A lot of angry Americans have learned that when you're frustrated, insulted, and feel like nobody is listening, demonstrating is fun.

*In Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Romania I marched with people who had had enough of their government and turned out in numbers too big to ignore or shoot down; students, professionals, workingmen, little old babushkas and elegant ladies in fur wraps. In Yugoslavia it was a very near run thing. I may owe my life to a police chief who refused to give the kill order – and was killed for it.

Preliminary impressions; the march on Washington

2009-09-13T13:06:00.001-07:00

I've been trolling for news from Washington after the March.

First impression: I am semi-suicidally depressed I wasn't there.

First thing I found out (God bless the Internet!) from people who were there and are known to me, the numbers are not "thousands" of people, but tens or hundreds of thousands. Possibly topping a million.

(Counting crowds is dicey and notoriously subjective. You imagine a square, try and count the people inside it, then count how many squares cover the crowd. Some accounts say the crowd covered about half the area of Washington that were there for the inauguration. Which leaves the question of how dense the respective crowds were.)

First important point: This movement is not a Republican Party surrogate and it is national in scope. I attended a Tea Party in Jamestown, ND (pop. 12,000) a while ago and got the same quote heard there:

"Actually, I'm pretty disgusted with both parties."

Second: There is an attempt by the Republicans to co-opt it - and they are getting told in no uncertain terms to sit down and shut up.

Third: It is not a libertarian movement per se, though it has strong libertarian elements. It might be more on the conservative side. Populist? Dunno, first tell me what that means.

I think it's a "pissed-off movement."

How it'll translate into election results... dunno.

I'm wondering if a suggestion Paul Harvey made some years back could be the basis of a national election plan. What he suggested was that until spending is reined in and the budget ballanced, evey non-incumbent's election slogan should be, "Elect no incumbents!"

There should perhaps be a short list of exception: Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) (yes, I'm aware he's a little nutty on some issues, mostly foreign policy) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK.)

A website could be set up to list who's an incumbent, and the election slogans could be the same for everyone:

(blank) is an incumbent!

Vote for (blank)
He couldn't be worse.

And BTW, go here: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/136042.html

for an account by eyewitnesses.

And scroll down to this perceptive observation:

"When people with jobs are out protesting, then you know the government is really screwing up."

Dangerous numbers

2009-09-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking about numbers, specifically demographic numbers.

I've written previously about the potential for chaos caused by sex-ratio imbalance in Asia, and commented on Mark Steyn's wonderfully witty analysis of the demographic decline of Europe in 'America Alone.'

But what I'm thinking about now is something I noticed about the civil war in Ulster (Northern Ireland) some years ago.

The various IRA factions (there isn't just one) were backed by the Catholic Irish, the Unionists by the Scots-Irish Protestants.

In Eire, Catholics amount to around 97 percent of the population, the rest being mostly descendants of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy who actually supplied quite a few Irish revolutionaries during centuries of English rule. (Weird? No, just Irish.)

Northern Ireland was kept by the UK because the population was roughly two-thirds Unionist Protestants and one-third Catholic. Actual percentage numbers varied over a couple of generations, and Catholics have a higher birth rate. Higher enough to scare the Protestants.

Without going into specifics of why the decades-long troubles started, it occurred to me years ago this ratio was really dangerous.

In America the largest minority is black people, at about 11 percent. (Now swiftly being overtaken by Hispanics.) That's why Black Nationalism, in either its secular or Islamist version was a fantasy.

Any revolutionary movement based on a population group of only 11 percent is a fantasy. The most they could aspire to (on the light side and dark side of democracy) is power through organized crime or as a swing voting block. And that assumes unanimity of purpose, something almost never achieved within any group on more than a single issue.

To put it very, very, bluntly, the question that dominates majority/minority relations in any time and place, the one we're all to polite to talk about is, "If they grow too troublesome, can we kill them all?" (And I'm putting that in its most extreme form. "All of them" is not necessary, just enough to terrorize the rest.)

Eleven percent? You know the answer.

But one-third? A one-third minority can realistically dream of winning.

Look throughout military history and you'll find plenty of examples of armies who defeated other armies twice as large.

Point: total victory is not necessary.

Mark Steyn, referring to Europe’s growing Islamic population, “(I)t’s not about hitting 50 percent. It’s about the point at which mediating between the Muslim population and the broader population becomes a central and then the dominant feature of the culture.”

And it's not just the numbers that matter, but the age distribution. Steyn pointed out the median age of the Muslim population of Europe is considerably less than the native European population. Crime rates in America are sent soaring by a smallish demographic within the minority population, males between 15 and 35 years of age.

Hint: What demographic do your street fighters come from?

So what does that have to do with us?

Newt Gincrich told a breakfast group I attended a few years back, that all surveys show the committed Hard Left in America is no more than 14 to 16 percent in this country.

Frankly I was surprised it's that high.

So 16 percent max is still only at the nuisance level. And quite frankly, they strongly tend to be wimp academics and intellectuals. Not exactly street fighter material.

(Their birth rate isn't all that high either. That's why they want control of education. They can't breed enough of their own so they want our children. And that's why they want to change the demographic makeup of America by importing illegal immigrants.)

But... what happens when they're reinforced by dissatisfied masses who are basically non-ideological, but whose sense of grievance, real or imaginary, can be organized and focused?

I've said before, any ambitious program to socialize America cannot be done through the electoral system alone. They're going to need a thug corps.

Notice that today, September 12, Americans who resist the idea of turning our country into a fascist state are the ones taking to the streets of the capitol.

A lawyer with the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) once pointed out to me that control of the streets is very important to fascists.

So what kind of reply can we expect from them?

Interesting times we live in, what?

Funny thing happened on the way to an article...

2009-09-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

I got a request from my editor a few days ago.

Reasonably simple, please get short opinions from doctors on what they think about health care.

A vague questions to be sure. Refine it a little. What do you think should be done about health care? About six opinions in a short paragraph each.

So... I got one from a clinic administrator. Another from the county public health director, an RN. One more from an Osteopath who doesn't practice now. (He's busy building attended care homes and such.)

I stopped off at the local Innovis clinic.

"Well, some of the doctors would like to talk to you, but we have to check with HQ in Fargo to see if they'll let us. We'll get back to you."

I'm still waiting.

Doctors in another clinic attached, but not part of the local hospital, were all too busy at the times I called. Messages asking them to get back to me, have gone unanswered.

The short article is on hold. Probably scrapped.

Now, organizations understandably don't want newspaper readers to get the idea that a doc giving an opinion is not speaking for the org. I understand that.

And yet, am I paranoid or does it seem like docs seem a tad timid about expressing an opinion on this issues these days?

The road to utopia

2009-09-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as the weekend editorial in the Times-Record.

The utopian ideal, the belief that something close to heaven can be created on earth, has been part of the fabric of the American national character since the beginning of our country.

The colonies of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were founded in the 17th century on differing visions of what a Christian utopia should look like. In the 19th century the Mormons established their own utopia in the west, later brought into the union, not entirely voluntarily as the state of Utah.

Pamphleteer of the American Revolution Tom Paine, expressed that part of our makeup in 'Common Sense,' “We have it in our power, to begin the world anew.”

From the founding of our nation, utopian idealists started to take off into the wide open spaces of the west with groups of like-minded individuals to build models of what the good society would look like. They expected their success would convince the world to follow their lead into utopia.

Their efforts were opposed by Karl Marx, who despised “utopian socialists” and preached the only road to utopia was through world revolution.

There were literally hundreds of attempts to found intentional communities throughout the 19th century. Most failed in short order.

Businessman Robert Owen bought a town from the Rappite religious community in Harmony Indiana and founded the secular socialist community of New Harmony in 1825. It folded in less than three years. The Rappites themselves lasted as a communal sect until 1906 though.

In 1843 Bronson Alcott, father of novelist Louisa May Alcott, founded Fruitlands, whose members ate only fruit that fell naturally from trees and wouldn't bathe in heated water. It lasted until winter set in.

Brook Farm was founded in 1841 on vaguely socialist ideals of combining a life of manual labor with artistic and intellectual pursuits. The community, which included famous members such as Nathanial Hawthorne, was by most accounts a pleasant enough place, remembered fondly by people who lived there. But it fell heavily into debt and closed in 1847.

There were longer-lasting attempts. Some survived for a few generations, some blended into the mainstream of American society, others still thrive as subcultures among America's “peculiar peoples.”

The Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amana community, offshoots of the 16th century German pietistic movement, transplanted to America to escape persecution.

The Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites survive as religious communities. The Amana communities reorganized as a joint-stock company in the 1930s, manufacturing household goods.

The Oneida free-love community founded in 1848 in New York became the Oneida silverware company, whose stockholders and board of directors seem rather embarrassed by their wild ancestors.

Their polar opposites, the celibate Shakers, survive though greatly diminished as one might expect.

The Individualist Anarchist community of Modern Times on Long Island eventually became a more-or-less normal community with a strong tolerance for eccentricity, now known as Brentwood.

It's easy to laugh at these people now. How naive and impractical the intellectuals of Fruitlands and Brook Farm now seem, to dive headlong into farm life without a clue about how to run a successful farm!

Yet, to me there is something appealing about them. Today those who would build the world anew disdain the idea of say, allowing the states to try different reforms of health care, welfare, etc to see which ideas prove workable. They have no patience with local, piecemeal, step-by-step approaches to reform.

Unlike our modern utopians who insist we overhaul our national institutions RIGHT NOW, the 19th century utopians took a more humble approach. They tried to demonstrate on a small scale how their ideals would work first. Most failed, but then that's the nature of experiments.

But the next time you use a flat broom, circular saw, or clothespin – thank the Shakers who invented them. And maybe we should remember that utopia means “no place.”

The passing of "the Liberal Lion"

2009-08-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar; Act 3, Scene 2

Well he's dead now, and the coverage is... actually less sickeningly sacharine than I expected.

That's not saying much however. I NEVER expected to hear the word Chappaquiddick, but in fact it got mentioned the very first morning after Edward Moore Kennedy died.

But the networks are treating this as only a little less momentous than his brother John's funeral, and even FOX is scrambling hard to avoid the impression of being mean-spirited by speaking ill of the dead.

Bible-thumping conservative Cal Thomas spoke movingly of his friendship with Ted Kennedy, as did Book-of-Mormon-thumping Senator Orin Hatch.

Many on both sides of the aisle have praised Kennedy's warm personality and capacity for friendship with people of different views. Something growing increasingly rare as politics grows increasingly mean.

Others point out he told vile slanderous lies about Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Teddy justified his famous "Robert Bork's America" speech by saying they needed a strong statement immediately to take the high ground while they did the background research on Bork.

In differing versions of the story, Teddy afterwards told either Robert Bork or his wife, "Nothing personal."

Sorry. Disagree is what free men do. Disagree forcefully is what free men do about issues they feel passionately about. Ridiculing dumb and dangerous ideas is what we should do.

But lying about someone's true beliefs and character for rhetorical advantage?

That's personal. And any man who is a man has every right to resent it.

Some have reminded those too young to remember that Teddy did after all leave a young woman to die in a car under seven feet of water.

Friendlier accounts mention in passing that Mary Jo Kopechne "died," or "drowned" in Teddy's car.

She did not "drown." She died of asphixiation in an air pockect, an excruciating death that may have taken hours. Ample time for Teddy to have gone to the door of the nearest house, which was evidently within eye-shot of the road, and rouse the residents to call for help.

Kennedy influence hurried Mary Jo into her grave without an autopsy. Teddy showed up at the funeral wearing an orthopedic neck brace. Apparently as a fashion statement, there was no medical reason for it. The judge at the inquest said publicly he thought Teddy lied.

I was a kid in neighboring Rhode Island then, and I saw Teddy's speech on TV to his constituents. I thought it was a tissue of lies and sanctimonious ass-covering.

When he said he'd wait and see what his constituents wanted, and resign if that's what the opinion ran to, I thought, "He's toast."

(Or the late-60s equivalent. We didn't use that expression then.)

When he announced public opinion was in favor of him sticking around, I thought, "Phoney! But he'll get turned out in the next election."

He didn't. He was re-elected eight more times and became the second most senior member of the senate and third-longest serving senator in U.S. history.

I've never felt good about Massachussetts people since.

What's my point? Why am I flogging a dead man, and possibly adding to the grief of those who cared for him?

I would like very much to be understanding of a man who made a horrible mistake in his youth, and (perhaps) tried hard to live it down and do something with his life that justified him living on longer than the total lifespan of the one whose life he cut short.

I know... more than a few people who have killed; by accident, in self-defense, war, hot-bloodded passion, and a few in cooler blood by grim necessity. Some had to face legal consequences. Some were outside the law.

All of them paid a price, in one way or another. Sometimes the legal price was the least of it.

But firstly, this was not a single mistake made in a moment of intoxication and bad judgement. This was a series of wrongful actions made over a prolonged period.

And, if Teddy had not been Edward Moore "Kennedy," he would at the very least, been charged with involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide.

Most likely he wouldn't have gone to jail. Most certainly he would have had to serve probation, report regularly to a parole officer, and had his right to vote, own firearms, practice law, and hold public office stripped.

That's why this man's life offends me. After Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon before he'd even been charged with anything, Teddy Kennedy asked:

“Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?”

Teddy Kennedy's own life and career answers the question.

We don't live in "Robert Bork's America," we live in Teddy Kennedy's America.

Our national debt

2009-08-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as the weekend op-ed in the paper.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, "If you don't work you die.”

-- Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Something very odd is happening in our country these days, our people have become worried about the national debt.

What's odd about that? (I hear you say.) Isn't it something to worry about?
Indeed it is, but we never worried about it before. Why have we started now?

Our national debt has been mounting ever higher longer than I've been alive. I've read dire warnings of the consequences to come for decades now. Warnings that included hyperinflation, economic collapse, food riots, and possibly a dictator sweeping to power, a la the Weimar Republic of Germany in the 1930s.

Thoughtful people did worry about the long-term consequences of rising indebtedness, but generally the only people who got really scared were fringoid types who stockpiled guns and canned goods, and muttered darkly about the Bavarian Illuminati controlling the Federal Reserve.

Intellectually everybody knew you can't keep spending more than you earn, as a household or a nation, and you can't live on borrowed money forever. But it never felt really real, and the inevitable consequences seemed a long way off.

Until now.

Now you can feel it, people are really scared. Ordinary people like you and me, not “Nazis,” not “mobs,” and not “racists,” either. And we're telling our senators and representatives about it in Town Hall meetings across the country, as little as they like to hear it.

What's different now?

I don't know for sure, but I can hazard some guesses.

One: The national debt finally hit the magic trillion mark that had been predicted for years, and it's projected to go into the multi-trillions in fairly short order. We used to think the longer the string of zeros, the less people were able to visualize the order of magnitude. Maybe there's something about 12 zeros that makes an impression a mere nine zeros didn't.

Two: The Democrats read the election wrong. The Republicans were turned out in disgrace at least partly because of disgust with George Bush's massive budget deficits and the first bailout. Then inexplicably the Democrats, rather than returning to the relative fiscal sanity of the Clinton years, took it as permission to max out the federal credit card and send the deficit into the stratosphere.

Three: Personal experience with debt. We live in a self-indulgent age of easy credit, and consequently an awful lot of us now have the experience of opening that dreaded credit statement every month. We've had our “Holy heck, the whole country is maxed out!” moment.

Four: We know who we owe. It used to be the vast majority had only vague notions of what the national debt was. We were reassured with soporifically stupid statements like, “We owe it to ourselves.” Nowadays whatever else you can say about media coverage, there has actually been discussion about who holds the debt. And as it turns out, mostly it's China.

So what's going to happen?

Some place their hopes on a third party to restore fiscal sanity. But there seems to be something in the political structure of our country that makes this unlikely. A third party rising to permanent national status has happened precisely once in our history, when Lincoln led the Republicans to victory in 1860.

Republicans are hoping for a replay of the mid-term elections of 1994 when they swept the House and Senate and taught Clinton the lesson that, “The era of Big Government is over.”

But in the longer run that didn't stop the Republicans from, to put it bluntly, betraying us. Perhaps they'll get another chance, simply because there is no one else to turn to. If so, then God help them if they betray us again. God help all of us.

And after this being accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

My recent "West and the Rest" moment

2009-08-22T07:35:00.001-07:00

I just spent Friday covering the second day of a two-day jury trial, and am currently wrestling with how to write it up.

Apparently I missed all the excitement the first day of the trial.

Thursday I saw a cop car heading up to the courthouse with the siren on. Unfortunatley I was headed in the other direction for a physical checkup.

Turns out a defendant, a Haitian citizen on trial for felonious restraint and simple assault had freaked out in the courtroom and had been removed to another room where he assaulted an officer and had to be put in leg irons. He spent the second day of the trial in his jail cell.

Understand, as far as I could see every attempt was made to include the guy in his defense. A translator was provided and a very intelligent and competent attorney. (Though his skill was severely hampered by the fact that he had zip to work with.)

The defendant had come to our town as part of a program a local enterprise has to bring in weekend shift temp workers recruited from a homeless shelter in Fargo.

A woman who was a night shift supervisor testified how she was impressed with the defendant's willingness to work hard, ambition, and how he always came well-dressed and groomed. Something that evidently made him stand out from the others.

She recounted how she recommended him for a full-time position, found him a room in town and paid first months rent, gave him some money for groceries, and drove him around on various errands to help get him started in town.

This was about four months ago during the flood crisis in our town.

Then the guy snapped.

The proximate occasion seemed to be some minor documentary problems with social security, which everyone was perfectly willing to help him with, and the mandatory closing of all businesses in town ordered by the mayor when the mainsewer system collapsed on a Friday. The defendant wasn't able to access his paycheck over the weekend. B.F.D.

This 60-year-old woman came by on Monday to take this guy to the bank, and was totally unexpectedly subjected to a terrifying ordeal.

He beat her on the head with a closed fist, knocked her down and stomped on her thigh, and at one point locked her in a bedroom.

Of course, she was terrified. At various points she thought she was going to be raped and murdered. She strongly suspected he might have murdered his (also my) landlord and another lodger. (Thankfully, not.)

He screamed, "In Haiti I am a man! Here I am nothing!"

When she asked if she could go he shouted, "No! You are my slave!"

He tormented her by throwing a cell phone on the floor and saying, "Why don't you call the police?" Then jumping up when she moved towards it.

Thankfully, he didn't rape her, but did subject her to humiliation I won't go into.

Then he totally weirded out and said calmly, "I invite you to my wedding. (Evidently an obsession with his landlord's 16-year-old daughter) OK, we go to the bank now."

When she found he had not followed her closely on the way out, she ran for her car, thinking, "Push once, push once." (Referring to her car remote: one push unlocks the driver's door, two unlocks all doors.)

She got in drove down the road, had to turn around, and said to herself, "If he's in the road, I'm not stopping."

She stopped by the first law enforcement officer she found and reported. Later a policewoman found the guy walking down the street jauntily in his pin-stripe suit.

When the officer told him what she stopped for, he cheerfully told her all about how he'd beaten the woman, complete with pantomime gestures of beating with a fist hammer. Backup arrived, and he repeated it for their benefit. And repeated it at length, in English with mixed French or creole commentary, all the way to the police station.

Under questioning he repeated it all again, and again, before and after being Mirandized.

Hold for a point. The victim is still traumatized and broke down on the stand. She was also mortified that this would appear in the paper. I think however the story will be about the defendants bizarre behavior and only minimally about the victim.

I do want to say that I think she acted with good instincts and great courage - and I kind of wish she had had the opportunity to run the son-of-a-bitch down!

A cop I saw on TV speaking about rape victims said, "If you survived, you did the right thing."

Now here's the point of all this. The perp is up for sentencing, max on the felonious restraint, five years. For simple assault, 30 days. But what's most likely is Immigration and Naturalization Service will step in and deport him back to Haiti.

Whether that's better than a prison term in America is another question.

I confirmed with the State's Attorney there had been a psych evaluzaion, and talked to one of the investigating officers.

They are aware that this guy acts crazy by our standards, but maybe not by the standards of his culture.

The translator told the judge (answering a jury question as to whether she could adequately communicate with him) what he'd said while looking at pictures of the victim's bruises.

"They are going to send me to jail for this?" he asked incredulously.

He's explained to any number of people that in Haiti it's perfectly OK to treat women this way.

My take: I think receiving this kindness from a woman was humiliating to him. It put him in the position of being dependent on her. That's the cultural misunderstanding.

My opinion: Back when I was an anthropologist of sorts, I reached a conclusion that may have a lot to do with why I'm not working in the field.

Just as there are insane individuals, there are insane cultures.

Big no-no in social science these days.

So they're wrong - and that's a truth that is not relative, not a matter of opinion, and not "racist," "ethnocentric," or whatever jargon word you want to use.

The wisdom, rightness and effectiveness of "exporting our culture" by whatever means is one of the great debates of our time.

But, what seems beyond debate to me is that we must have the confidence to tell everyone who would come to live with us that you can't bring shit like that with you to our country.

UPDATE: Doing the police reports this morning (the Thursday following the Friday of the trial) there was an 'information only' report from the jail that our Haitian guest had spit in the face of a female correctional officer.

The office deputy commented that this fellow has no trespect for women.

They didn't beat him up and they don't really want him in the North Dakota prison system at all. They just want him off their hands and out of the country.

What to expect when your doctor is a government employee

2009-08-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

Note: A shorter version of this appeared as the weekend op-ed in the Times-Record. It had to be shorter, I could have gone on at consdierably greater length just on examples from people I know personally.

The president and congress seem determined to pass nationalized health care just as quickly as they can, despite 89 percent of Americans saying they like their current health care just fine.

Make no mistake about it, nationalized health care is what they intend, despite claims they only want to “create competition” or a “government option.” Go to YouTube and search “Obama,” and “single-payer.” You'll get videos of Obama speaking at public meetings two and six years ago, in favor of a single-payer health care system.

It is possible the president has changed his mind since then. So why hasn't he said so?

Now search “Barney Frank,” and “single payer.” You'll find Congressman Frank, quite frankly stating that creating a tax-subsidized government insurance plan is the best way to get to a single-payer system by driving private insurance out of business.

Here's just one which excerpts Obama on a number of occasions speaking in favor of a single-payer system.

“Single payer” is what they used to call “socialized medicine,” before the catastrophic collapse of socialism around the world starting in 1989.

There are arguments for socialized medicine articulated by honest, well-meaning people. But what we're getting is a dishonest attempt to pass it without first convincing us through that messy democratic process.

You've heard both sides. Perhaps you'd like to hear from people in countries where doctors and nurses are government bureaucrats?

In Poland a few years back, a lady friend was in a car wreck with her father and grandmother. Her father was dead of a heart attack at the scene. My friend was taken to the local hospital (minus her wallet and watch which mysteriously disappeared somewhere along the way) and treated.

Her grandmother, old and overweight, was left lying on a gurney in a dreary hospital corridor for hours. Finally someone passed by and reacted, “Oh, you're still alive? Maybe we should do something after all.”

She took her two months to die. There's no telling if quicker treatment would have saved her – it's just the sheer callous indifference that's shocking.

A dear friend of ours, a mother with three children, died in a ghastly Soviet-era hospital in Lithuania after eating poison mushrooms. The doctors ignored the pleas of her desperately sick husband to pump her stomach. He tried to tell them she had a life-long inability to vomit and her body wasn't expelling the poison.

Atropine is sometimes given for neurotoxins such as the amanita phalloidia mushroom. Perhaps atropine wouldn't have saved her. We'll never know. The hospital had none on hand and couldn't be bothered to send to town for any, “because then we'd have to do it for everyone.”

When my wife was a child she broke her leg in a playground accident. Her leg was set by a drunk doctor who didn't lay gauze down and screwed up the bone setting. When it had to be rebroken, the cast was taken off with a drill which cut to the bone on her ankle.

Fortunately, quality low-cost medical care is becoming available in the former Soviet bloc countries, as the competent medical personnel abandon government service for private practice.

But that was the communist system. We're told we should look at England and Canada.

Our son's late godmother suffered treatment by Britain's National Health Service on two occasions.

After treatment for a broken wrist, she asked if she could impose on my father (a retired orthopedic surgeon) to look at her X-rays and records. After examining them, my father wrote a scathing letter to the NHS bureaucrats about their “stone-age” treatment methods and “that rag” (the wrist brace) they supplied her with.

A few years later, following an operation for bowel cancer, she lay in the NHS hospital wasting away. They said she, “had no appetite,” and what could we expect, she was nearly 90?

It turned out she was too weak to sit up and eat. She got better after we sent a Polish friend to feed her and look after her at home. That for certain gave her the extra year-and-a-half of life the NHS didn't think she needed.

There are people who think the NHS is just fine. My own sister, a long-term resident of the UK, is one of them. Sis is healthy and rarely uses the service. But with her family history she should have a mamogram every year. NHS rations her to one every three years.

Canada? Ninety percent of their population lives within 100 miles of an American doctor. New York city alone has more MRI machines than all of Canada. Heck, Valley City, North Dakota, population less than 7,000 has an MRI parked outside of the local hospital right now!

Some believe we can create a nationalized health system that corrects all the defects of such systems around the world, despite all experience to the contrary.

Maybe so, but do you think they can do it in six months?

Here's my favorite cartoon

2009-08-20T04:10:00.000-07:00

Yale University Press is publishing a book by Jytte Klausen, entitled The Cartoons that Shook the World.

Among other things, the book is of course about the cartoons of Mohammed published in the Danish newspaper Jylland- Posten in September, 2005, and the aftermath.

However, something interesting (the absurd is always interesting, don't you think?) is going on here. The book will omit the cartoons that are one of the most importants subjects of the book!

Yale University Press Director John Donatich said a committee of experts' "overwhelming and unanimous recommendation" was to withdraw all images of Muhammad.

Of course they gave a reason. And of course it was longish and left out the single word that would have summed it all up - cowardice.

Long-time readers know I try to avoid using vulgarity, satire, and personal insult too often. Not so much from delicate sensibility, but because overuse diminishes effectiveness.

Nor do I usually care to belittle any man's religion. However absurd I may think another's opinions on the Great Perhaps may be, if it gets you through this vale of tears with any amount of courage and grace, more power to you.

So here's my thoughts on the matter: Fuck you Yale University Press. You Ivy League assholes used to produce scholars, leaders, and heroes.

How are the mighty fallen!

And you Yale University Press Director John Donatich and your committee of "experts," fuck you you gutless cowards.

Now here's my challenge:

Fellow bloggers - plaster these pictures on your blogs. Pick your favorite and feature it prominently.

Shame the cowards, and defy those who would tell free-born Americans what they can and can't say or print.

Show them we are worthy descendants of the brawling, lusty, vulgar men who conquered this continent and built a mighty nation!

"Where there are no men - be thou a man."
-- Rabbi Hillel

"Freedom is not negotiable."
-- Andy Garcia

UPDATE: Here http://townhall.com/columnists/DianaWest/2009/08/20/yale_economics_101_crush_cartoons,_get_sharia-backed_gold

Columnist Diana West offers an additional explanation for the YUP decision - greed.
In "Yale Economics 101: Crush Cartoons, get Sharia-Backed Gold," West details why she thinks Yale is whoring after sources of Saudi money that has already benefitted Harvard and Georgetown Universities. The same sources have also openly supported suicide bombing and supported the families of the "martyrs."

Enjoy spening your 30 pieces of silver guys. But if and when the West ever wakes up to realize it's under attack, I wonder how much good your money is going to do you on that day?

I have a very bad feeling about Afghanistan

2009-08-15T06:27:00.000-07:00

It looks like President Obama wants his very own war, and I have a very bad feeling about it.

Long time readers may remember I was cautiously supportive of the Iraq occupation for a couple of reasons. Though recognizing it could go horribly wrong, as it almost did and may yet, my view is that Iraq is a strategically important theater in the Long War against jihadism.

Arguing "Iraq is not Vietnam," I said at the time:

In terms of geopolitics, the situation in Iraq is far different from Vietnam. Vietnam was a minor client state of a rival superpower that the U.S. could not afford to confront directly. Iraq was a major player among hostile Arab nations who resent and fear American world hegemony but cannot confront it directly and can only work covertly against American interests. Vietnam’s patron superpower had less interest in outright victory than they had in keeping the United States engaged in a protracted and expensive war that sapped its strength, created domestic chaos and distracted it from their main interest in Europe.

Iraq is in the geographical center of the struggle against Jihadism. The patrons of fanatical Jihadism are vitally concerned with Iraq and rightfully fearful that a stable, even semi-democratic Iraq would be the beginning of the end of their tyranny and autocracy throughout the Middle East.

That alone should explain my misgivings, but to elaborate...

Iraq is an ancient civilization which at this point in history is in the geopolitical center of Islam. Iraq is rich in resources, and in the hands of a hostile power capable of supplying money and materiel to the jihadist campaign against the West.

(Saddam for example, was with Saudi Arabia a source of payments to families of suicide bombers in Israel. Taking him out possibly reduced by as much as half the substantial bounties paid to families who successfully encouraged one of their own to take one for the team. Unless of course the Saudis are taking up the slack.)

Afghanistan has always been peripheral to the ancient civilizations of the region. It's importance to the jihadists is basically, that it's a great place to hide.

And for students of military science, the first difference that strikes one is the strategically important part of Iraq is pretty flat. Afghanistan... isn't.

A punitive expedition to Afghanistan after 9/11 was entirely justified. The planners of the attack were there, the local government said "Nyah, nyah you can't have them" when we asked, so we went in and killed and captured as many of them as we could find.

Comb the history of civilization and find me one which would deny a legitimate cassus belli existed in this case.

I say if the jihadists base themselves in Afghanistan, play whack-a-mole with them every time they stick their heads up.

Nor do I have moral objections to the nation building efforts afterwards - I just wonder if it's, A. possible, and B. worth the effort.

Thomas Sowell once pointed out how civilization can spread across plains, oceans, and along great rivers - and stop dead at 50 meters of mountain.*

I feel for Afghanis who have to live with the Taliban, especially women who aspire to a life as something more than domestic chattels. But our resources are not infinite, and we have every reason to believe this new kind of war is going to be a long one.

But at the risk of sounding heartless, what's in it for us? What do we gain by the enormous expense in the long term? And might those resources be better applied elsewhere?

And vis-a-vis the point I raised about Iraq, are we sure the jihadists don't want us in Afghanistan, i.e. have we allowed the enemy to choose the time and place of battle?

Steven Vincent, who was murdered in Basra while trying to find answers for the strategic questions raised by the Long War, said victory in Iraq would come when women could go shopping without fear of being kidnapped.**

Is there the same longing in the majority of Afghanis? Answer that question and we'll be better able to answer the others.

* Some of my ancestors were Scots Highlanders, and a pretty uncivilized bunch in spite of 19th century romanticism. Rather more like Afghani tribesmen than we'd like to admit in fact. We did eventually come to appreciate the benefits of civilization. All it took to accomplish this was to locate a civilized nation with 10 times the population and many times the resources next door.

But before that civilizing process was quite complete, Highlanders did good service for civilization all over the world when recruited into the British Army. One wonders.

** I was in email contact with Steven Vincent a week before the day I turned on CNN in the morning and saw he'd been murdered. It was like waking up from a pleasant dream to find a nightmare at the foot of your bed. I'd been hoping to meet him some day and it is one of the consuming regrets of my life I never shall.

Note: My posts on Iraq a few years back can be found here:

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/10/iraq-is-not-vietnam.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/11/iraq-could-be-worse-than-vietnam-and.html

The seductive lure of conspiracy theories

2009-08-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

My weekend op-ed in the newspaper.

To conspire,” verb: from the Latin con spirare, “to breathe with”: 1. to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement . 2. to act in harmony toward a common end. - Merriam-Webster

“Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
- The First Principle of Conspiracy.

The Daily Kos website recently posted the results of a survey that purported to find that in spite of contemporary birth announcements in newspapers and Hawaiian state documents, 28 percent of Republicans believe President Obama was not born in the U.S. and 30 percent are not sure.

Note however, this is the same website that took seriously columnist Andrew Sullivan's claim Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was not the mother, but the grandmother of her child Trig.

In 1997 when I was living in former Yugoslavia a student very seriously asked me, “Do you think (President) Milosevic is working for Clinton?”

After 9/11 a student in Poland asked me, “Is it true that all the Jews who worked in the World Trade Center were told to stay home that day?”

What is the appeal of the notion events are ruled by sinister groups of conspirators?

For one, conspiracy theories appeal to our sense of self-importance and the thrill of possessing occult knowledge. "Everybody's been duped about how the world really runs but me and a few like-minded comrades. We know things nobody else does."

Conspiracy theories offer reassurance. The realization the powerful are not inherently wiser than we are can be terrifying. The idea those in charge are sinister conspirators is actually reassuring, if the alternative is that no one really knows what's going on.

And then there are people so convinced of the self-evident rightness of their position the mere existence of people who disagree is incomprehensible. They must have ulterior motives for denying what is so obviously true.

For example, the reaction of the proponents of the administration's health care plan to the opposition amounts to sheer incomprehension that so many people could sincerely disagree. Which causes them to, equally sincerely, attribute dissent to “a vast right-wing conspiracy” in Hillary Clinton's famous words.*

Real or not, widespread belief in conspiracies has driven historical events more often than we're comfortable thinking about. Historian Bernard Bailyn has documented how much popular belief in a conspiracy against American liberty motivated the American Revolution. The Nazis claimed a Jewish conspiracy against Germany justified the “Final Solution.”

Calling a claim someone is making a “conspiracy theory” can be used to dismiss, rather than address a position.

The Associated Press recently ran an article stating, “Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.”

Calling it a “conspiracy theory” is disingenuous. In fact, there is a “conspiracy” in the sense of “acting to a common end,” but it's not the least bit secret. It's openly discussed in articles, websites, and speeches by Mexican officials and Mexican-American intellectuals who have never forgotten what Americans never remember – that the southwest quarter of the U.S. was once the northern half of Mexico.

And, sometimes there really are conspiracies. That's why we have criminal conspiracy laws.

“Never be surprised by conspiracy. Conspiracy is normal primate politics.”
- The Second Principle of Conspiracy

* Hillary's dismissal of claims her husband had "sexual relations with that woman" and lied about it under oath.

A pleasant satirical exchange in the morning

2009-08-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

Monday morning I came into work to find the email copied below from a local resident commenting on my weekend op-ed posted below as "Dane-geld."

It was marinated in mild sarcasm, so I responded in kind.

The resident does this kind of thing, and we probably won't be printing the exchange, because once we started doing exchanges, we'd be spending a lot of time and space on them.

I'm posting it, because I'm rather pleased with myself. I LIKE doing satire, it's the Irish in me. My guilty secret is that I love reading Ann Coulter rip somebody a new one.

But... Coulter does it all the time, and I think that makes it less effective than it might be. Using satire is like cussing; for greatest effect it should be used sparingly.

Soooo- the Resident wrote:

"I read with interest your article on N. Korea's release of the two American journalists coming at a price. Obviously the public, like myself, is not privy to some of the things you mentioned or I just missed them by not reading my 3 newspapers closely enough. I thank you for the update.

"Perhaps you can clarify a few things yet. Which "armed and agile nation" were you referring to at the beginning? Both we and
N. Korea are armed to the teeth, whether either country can currently afford it or not, but I am not sure which one or both are considered "agile" and in what sense?

"Being half Norwegian, I have always been interested in the Vikings and how they worked things out with the countries they invaded. In many cases I think the countries or areas felt the Dane-geld paid was a small price to being annihilated or devastated by the Vikings and as long as they got what they wanted, geld, they pretty much "honored" the agreements. The current day idea of "no negotiations with terrorists" just did not work that good back then. Ha I am not convinced it works now.

"In both the recent cases we got our people back and the families reunited. I doubt if that would have happened under the Bush Administration or some others.. It would have been, "You got yourself in that position and you live or die with it. No help from your country.", even if it only meant giving up some people or concessions you had no further use for anyway.

"With the N. Koreans, as with most oriental cultures, (which our government seldom seems to care to know nothing about, like with the Middle East also), saving face is still a big deal. Did you see the big smile on the face of Kim Jong II when he was standing next to the unsmiling Bill Clinton? The man could not have been happier for someone in his health! Happy people are LESS likely to kill like that angry young man in the news the last couple days. A small price to pay I think for those women, but then you obviously know something we don't.

"Like with the Iran deal to get Roxanne out. Until your article I had never heard anything about the "Irbil five" and still have not.

"Did these 5 really kill hundreds of American's themselves? If so, they indeed should have been kept, but I suspect they had served their usefulness to us, if not to the terrorists. Anyone that believes we did NOT have to give anything up to get the two releases is very unaware anyway and probably would believe anything. So no harm done. :-)

"Just who is the SPJ?. Can you speculate at least on all the things we don't know about yet?. If we did give them cash, maybe some of it will go to feed their people. Is that all bad? How would you get rid of the "Dane" Kim Jong II without taking out a lot of other people with him, on both sides? Just curious. Blockades don't work.

"My moment of sympathy for the little girl was not when she met her mother again, where she almost acted uncertain of who she was, but the story by her father of her starting to draw pictures of just him and her and leaving the mother out.. The damage was already being done, but to "save face" for our country, it normally would have continued. I personally hope to see more diplomacy tried or used, then just just the "big stick". Teddy R. advocated both. Was the price really that great? What was the concession exactly N. Korea got other then some recognition they crave? Will they be "nicer" now and talk at least?

"You referenced violence professionals calling it "rewarding bad behavior:. We obviously see it different as I felt it was rewarding good behavior, i.e releasing the women.. N. Korea has long set certain standards. Cross into our country without permission for any reason, even if it might be a malfunctioning GPS unit, and you are toast. Could this have happened here?

"They, like the 3 hikers that ended up in Iran push the envelope in even getting that close to known belligerent countries, but does that mean we should abandon them to their fate or possible stupidity? Will we get them back too "for a price"? Who knows.

"Kipplings shame is just a western way of saying you do not want to lose face yourself. No one does, but common sense has to prevail sometimes. I think the current administration is making the right "adjustments" in our foreign policy. Thanks for listening."

(SIC: All misspellings and syntax are his.)

I replied:

Google "Irbil five." That should get you into the inner sanctum of information I'm privy to.

You said: "What was the concession exactly N. Korea got other then some recognition they crave?"

Perhaps, and I'm just guessing here, it's the privilege of being treated as if they were a reasonably civilized nation that say, doesn't allow a few million of their own people to starve to death to maintain their "face."

You said: "A small price to pay I think for those women, but then you obviously know something we don't."

Read it again. I have no alternative to doing what we did to get them back. There isn't one. Teddy Roosevelt could cry, "Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead!"* but North Korea though tiny, is one of the countries China regards as its tributary/buffer states.

What I said, plainly enough I think - though it goes against the American cultural assumption that all problems have unambiguously good solutions, was that there is a price to pay. Period.

I can say that with confidence because there is a price to pay for everything. It's called economics I think.

You say the price is "small enough." We shall see. My personal opinion is, there are no "small" prices to pay when dealing with mass murderers.

You said: "Happy people are LESS likely to kill like that angry young man in the news the last couple days."

Really? That's an interesting theory. My own reading of history (and personal experience with psychopaths) is that states such as North Korea, the Soviet Union, National Socialist Germany, etc. are ruled and staffed by people who are really happy when they are bending other people to their will, and hurting and killing them from sheer sadistic glee. In such states they take people like that angry young man in the news and give them jobs.

One of the happiest smiles I ever saw was on the face of a uniformed thug in Eastern Europe swinging a rubber truncheon. (They're not all rubber actually, they have a steel rod inside.) But then it connected with my face and I don't remember much after that, so perhaps I didn't see the remorse after he realized he'd hurt me.

You said: "Being half Norwegian, I have always been interested in the Vikings and how they worked things out with the countries they invaded. In many cases I think the countries or areas felt the Dane-geld paid was a small price to being annihilated or devastated by the Vikings and as long as they got what they wanted, geld, they pretty much "honored" the agreements. The current day idea of "no negotiations with terrorists" just did not work that good back then. Ha I am not convinced it works now."

I'm confused. You say the idea of "no negotiation with terrorists" didn't work that good back then - but in the previous sentence you mentioned that negotiating, buying them off, was precisely what they were doing.

Nonetheless I agree, "no negotiation" is a silly way to put it. "Don't mess with us or you'll die" is a negotiation.

Oh, and as I recall the Danes wound up taking the Saxon kingdom, until Alfred the Great took it back by force. Later a descendant of Norwegian Vikings took England for good in 1066. That works pretty good if you're Norwegian I guess. I suppose it's all in your point of view.

* One of the most delightful things I ever learned was that the central incident of one of my favorite movies, "The Wind and the Lion," with Sean Connery as the Raisuli, Candace Bergen as Eden Pedicaris, and Brian Keith as Teddy Roosevelt, was based on an actual incident. And Roosevelt really did say, "Pedicaris alive, or Raisuli dead!"

On of the biggest disappointments in my life was learning that Pedicaris was a man.

A cloud on the horizon, no bigger than a man's hand

2009-08-08T04:48:00.000-07:00

Last October I wrote 'The Perfect Storm of the Left,' published on The Atlasphere and posted here.

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/10/perfect-storm-of-left.html

Comments were mostly favorable with some demurrals along the lines of,
"Oh I don't think it'll be THAT bad - just like Jimmy Carter maybe."

One of those who agreed it was going to be very bad indeed, was appropriately enough, a Russian lady with a keen sense of history.

I wrote about Obama's trial balloon of a "...civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded" as the military.

My comment was, "Who do you think they'll be recruiting from? Teenagers? Disaffected minorities? Illegal aliens even, as part of an "amnesty" and "path to citizenship"?

By now, a lot of you have seen this video from the election in 2008:

Two Black Panthers, one of them conspicuously armed, swaggering in front of a Philadelphia polling place, intimidating people with remarks like, "You're going to be ruled by the black man."

Their particular hatred seems to have been directed at two African-American poll watchers they called, "race traitors."

Keep that in mind, it's an important point.

Attorney-General Eric Holder's Justice Department dismissed the case against the Black Panthers after it had already been won by default.

Oh, but the one with the billy club has been enjoined not to brandish a weapon near a polling place anymore.

It's already illegal to brandish a weapon near a polling place - or any other place with intent to intimidate for that matter.

Now the media (well FOX, CNN hasn't posted it yet) is abuzz with this:

Kenneth Gladney, an African-American was handing out 'Don't Tread on Me' buttons and stickers at a demonstration against nationallized health care outside a "town hall" meeting in St. Louis, when he got knocked to the ground and kicked by four Service Employees International Union (SEIU) thugs.

Gladney said in an interview the first to throw a punch was African-American - who called him the N-word.

If you'll look at the video, you'll see that people came to Gladney's aid - thank God! The day that doesn't happen is when we'll know our country is in it deep.

But, look at the body language of the man in the white shirt. He's angry, and gutsy enough to confront those thugs - but then he has to back off quickly when they advance on him. In the video it looks exactly like what it is, a man afraid.

Understand, I'm NOT criticizing that man's courage. It took cojones to stand up to those thugs. It's his preparation that was lacking.

And that goes for all of us.

Winston Churchill once said that the Second World War first appeared on the horizon like a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

What do you think this is?

I've said it before, to put a fascist state in place they need a thug corps. And make no mistake, what is on the drawing board in Washington is the plans for a fascist state.

That's why there is this unseemly haste to overhaul, well pretty much everything: the banking and credit system, health care, etc. This has to be largely in place before the mid-term elections of 2010. Because even if the Republicans make substantial gains in congress, it's damn near impossible to dismantle massive government programs.

Once Americans have to go to the government as supplicants for their home loans and health care it probably won't matter who's in office anyway, we're serfs.

Once they control the credit system, and mandate health care through your employer - they control your job.

There is quite obviously a dawning realization of that in this country, and folks are taking to the streets and meeting halls to protest.

That's where the fascists have to strike back.

Next: The Thug Corps.

Note: The statement of Kenneth's lawyer.

Kenneth was attacked on the evening of August 6, 2009 at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s (D-MO)town hall meeting in South St. Louis County. I was at the town hall meeting as well and witnessed the events leading up to the attack of Kenneth. Kenneth was approached by an SEIU representative as Kenneth was handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags to other conservatives. The SEIU representative demanded to know why a black man was handing out these flags. The SEIU member used a racial slur against Kenneth, then punched him in the face. Kenneth fell to the ground. Another SEIU member yelled racial epithets at Kenneth as he kicked him in the head and back. Kenneth was also brutally attacked by one other male SEIU member and an unidentified woman. The three men were clearly SEIU members, as they were wearing T-shirts with the SEIU logo.

Kenneth was beaten badly. One assailant fled on foot; three others were arrested. Kenneth was admitted to St. John’s Mercy Medical Center emergency room, where he was treated for his numerous injuries. Kenneth was merely expressing his freedom of speech by handing out the flags. In fact, he merely asked people as they exited the town hall meeting whether they would like a flag. He in no way provoked any argument or altercation, as evidenced by the fact that three assailants were arrested.

The Internet Snitch Brigade

2009-08-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

If you'll have a look at this article by prize-winning investigative journalist and major hottie Michelle Malkin here:

http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/08/07/whos_behind_the_internet_snitch_brigade

Czardom has its privileges. This week, President Obama's health care overlord, Nancy DeParle, launched a taxpayer-funded initiative to recruit an Internet Snitch Brigade that will combat "disinformation about health insurance reform." As the White House explained in a special online bulletin:

"These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an e-mail or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

There's the email, I think you all know what to do.

SPAM PARTY!

Dane-geld

2009-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as a weekend op-ed in my newspaper. I've used the Dane-geld trope before, in an email after the Madrid bombings, and it went viral. So sue me, it's a damn good poem and expresses an Eternal Truth.

Dane-geld (A.D. 980-1016)

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbor and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

- Rudyard Kipling

Dane-geld (Dane-gold): A tax raised by Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to pay off Viking raiders in return for not ravaging their lands.

A while ago in these pages I explained why I thought the U.S. government probably couldn't do anything for Roxanne Saberi, then imprisoned on espionage charges in Iran.

In hindsight, it seems I overlooked one possibility – they could buy her out.

And it appears they have. The price was the release of the “Irbil five” Iranian terrorists captured in Iraq, where they specialized in deploying anti-armor explosives that killed hundreds of Americans. There may have been other concessions we don't know about yet.

This Tuesday I received a message from the Society of Professional Journalists that American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been released by the North Korean government after being imprisoned for 140 days and sentenced to 12 years hard labor – which in North Korea essentially means a sentence of death by prolonged torture.

The release stated, “Former President Bill Clinton arrived in North Korea today, Tuesday, Aug. 4, to negotiate the release of Lee and Ling, who had been imprisoned since March. North Korea’s... leader Kim Jong II pardoned and ordered the release of the journalists after meeting with Clinton for negotiations.”

With apologies to the SPJ, this is false and misleading on one essential point. President Clinton did not go for “negotiations,” the outcome was established before he set foot on the plane. He was there to pay a ransom: legitimacy for North Korea, tremendous “face” for Kim Jong Il, and most certainly more we don't know about yet.

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

This is how small but unspeakably brutal countries hold rich and powerful nations to ransom. North Korea's leaders were indifferent to the death by starvation of an estimated 300,000 to 800,000 people a year for three years in the recent, preventable famine.

We care deeply as a nation about the fate of only two of our own, in a deeply personal way. I could feel the anguish of their husbands, and my heart nearly broke to see Lee's little girl run to hug Mommy when she got off the plane. Like everyone else in the country, I breathed a sigh of relief when we got these two back safely.

But let's not fool ourselves, there is a price for this. One we're all going to pay eventually. North Korea has demonstrated again they can get big concessions for a trivial cost. The Obama administration calls it “engagement.” Violence professionals call it “rewarding bad behavior.”

Somewhere down the road, we're going to re-learn what Kipling tried to tell us a long time ago.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"

What's Kathleen Parker about?

2009-08-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Readers may remember that I've heaped scorn on Civil War revisionism here:

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/01/second-guessing-history-this-lincoln.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/01/second-guessing-history-this-lincoln_17.html

and defended the South here:

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-no-durn-yankee-peckerhead-is-ever_12.html

Now I have to defend the South again, from an attack from an unexpected direction.

If you go here

http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenParker/2009/08/05/them_dang_southerners

You'll find a column by allegedly-conservative Kathleen Parker, 'Them Dang Southerners.'

Some excerpts:

"In a fusillade of pique, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich charged that Southerners are what's wrong with the Republican Party.

"We got too many Jim DeMints (South Carolina) and Tom Coburns (Oklahoma)," he told an interviewer with The Columbus Dispatch. "It's the Southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners. The party's being taken over by Southerners..."

"Whatever Voinovich's sound effects were intended to convey, his meaning was clear enough: Those ignorant, right-wing, Bible-thumping rednecks are ruining the party."

To begin with, Okies are not exactly Southerners. We're either the most north-westerly southerners, or most northeasterly southwesterners, or whatever. The accent is not "southern" but a distinct regional accent linguists call the Arkahoma dialect.

But OK, it was technically part of the Old Confederacy, though not a state at the time and its part in the Civil War was pretty much a civil war among the Five Nations.

Ah don't know nothin' 'bout no Jim DeMint, but I've met Tom Coburn and know something about his reputation in Congress.

I might find some differences with Coburn if I cared to comb through his record, but the guy is one Republican who made himself unpopular with his own party by putting their damn feet to the fire about out-of-control spending back when they had their snouts in the trough. AND he's willling to vote against pork in his own district.

This is a problem?

"Alas, Voinovich was not entirely wrong.

"Not all Southern Republicans are wing nuts. Nor does the GOP have a monopoly on ignorance or racism. And, the South, for all its sins, is also lush with beauty, grace and mystery. Nevertheless, it is true that the GOP is fast becoming regionalized below the Mason-Dixon, and becoming increasingly associated with some of the South's worst ideas..."

Nice of you to acknowlege that Kath. Strategically I'd say you put your foot in it though.

The fact is the Democratic Party is now, as it was in its beginning, the party of institutionalized racism.

Can anyone explain with a straight face how the unspoken assumption behind affirmative action is NOT that certain minorities are incapable of rising by their own efforts on a level playing field?

Allegedly benign paternalism is every bit as racist as the hateful cross-burning variety - and the latter is pretty dead in the South, case you hadn't noticed.

Friends of liberty, even the tepid Republican conception of it, should be shouting this from the rooftops, not making feeble, defensive, "Am not!" statements.

"In a poll commissioned by the liberal blog, Daily Kos, participants were asked: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?..."

"In 1966 Buchanan and Richard Nixon were at the Wade Hampton Hotel in Columbia, S.C., where Nixon worked a crowd into a frenzy: "Buchanan recalls that the room was full of sweat, cigar smoke, and rage; the rhetoric, which was about patriotism and law and order, 'burned the paint off the walls.' As they left the hotel, Nixon said, 'This is the future of this Party, right here in the South.'"

"That same rage was on display again in the fall of 2008, but this time the frenzy was stimulated by a pretty gal with a mocking little wink. Sarah Palin may not have realized what she was doing, but Southerners weaned on Harper Lee heard the dog whistle."

There's that loathing of Sarah Palin of hers, which I absolutely fail to understand. I don't mean when Parker publicly asked Palin to withdraw after poor performance on TV interviews. That's a legitimate position on electoral stategy.

This is a visceral loathing, and it's kind of weird coming from Parker.

"What the GOP is experiencing now, one hopes, are the death throes of that 50-year spell that Johnson foretold. But before the party of the Great Emancipator can rise again, Republicans will have to face their inner Voinovich and drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie."

This sounds like the kind of Southern-bashing we're used to hearing from people who've forgotten that the Ku Klux Klan was huge in the North in the early 20th century. That historical embarrassment was by no means an exclusively Southern thing.

However, it turns out Kathleen Parker was raised in Winterhaven, Florida and lives in South Carolina.

(Well, Florida hardly counts as Southern anymore. The native Floridian is thought to be mythological or at least extinct.)

At any rate, this is what I published in the comments section. It's kind of lost in the 130-and-counting indignant replies and the one or two "Right on!"s though.

Ms Parker,

1) The Daily Kos is perhaps neither the most reliable source for accurate polling, nor in a position to point fingers after having promoted the "Sarah Palin is not the mother of her Down's child but covering for her daughter" story against all reason and evidence.

2) "Southerners weaned on Harper Lee" means what? You mean the author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' possibly the most powerful anti-racist novel since Huckleberry Finn?

That doesn't strike me as an association to be embarrassed by, but then I guess I'm just a dumb redneck.

Such is life...

2009-08-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

Heavy sigh. I wrote the following editorial after the events described within. The web site of the organization is here: http://www.nrn.org/

Everybody must have heard by now about the bunch of volunteers in town from an organization most of us have probably never heard of.

The National Relief Network evidently contacted Valley City Mayor Mary Lee Nielson and asked if we still needed help with flood cleanup.

She answered, “Heck yes!” or words to that effect.

Nielson set Lori Jury to work compiling a list of people who needed help, and pretty soon we had about 100 kids from Maryland and Michigan working around town.

They’re between 14 and 18 years of age, though kids as young as 13 may volunteer.

This bunch was recruited from two Catholic youth groups. Scott Harding, founder and CEO of the National Relief Network, says they work with high schools, universities, churches and synagogues. Volunteers pay their own way for what is typically a five-day, six-night project. They usually come during the cleanup phase of a disaster,because of the potential danger for the younger volunteers.

I’m impressed.

Like a lot of others, I thought interest in helping out would fade after the immediate, dramatic danger of flooding was past.

I remember joking with fellow sandbaggers during the emergency, “Does anyone think we’re going to get this many volunteers to empty sandbags when this is over?”

I’m impressed that anyone thought to organize help after the flood was over. I’m impressed by the whole concept of this unique organization, and I’m impressed with the kids.

Of course the help is welcome, but I’m also thinking of the benefit this effort is to these young volunteers. This is a character-building activity of the highest order.

In an age when life is, materially, pretty easy for teenagers, these volunteers are seeking ways to challenge themselves.

In a time when the dominant problem-solving model is the massive government program, they are practicing and developing the model of voluntarism.

And in a time when many people feel a soul-sickening inability to affect change as individuals, they are learning that individuals are all that truly matters in creating change for the better.

Thanks from all of us in Valley City, kids. The help you bring is most welcome, but even more important may be the lift to our spirits you’ve brought with you.

The example you’ve set will live on long after the flood and is a memory preserved in our historical museum, which I hope you will take in while you’re here.

And when my children are of age, I hope to send them on just such a wonderful adventure.

After it published, I got an email from the director telling me that this piece expressed what they're about better than anything he'd ever read.

"Well," thought I, "that's laying it on with a trowel, but I'll take it."

Then Saturday a lady told me, "Hey Steve! Scott's going to take your editorial to a meeting in Maryland and show it to the Secretary of Education!"

"Wow!" I thought.

It turns out he's going to argue the program should be instituted in the public schools.

ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Pity, it was such a wonderful idea while it lasted...

Are we at finally at the 'Gates' of racial harmony?

2009-07-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

Note: A version of this appeared as the weekend op-ed.

In the late '90s when I was living in Bulgaria, I met a man named Kyril in the capitol, Sofia. (This has something to do with Professor Henry Louis Gates, bear with me.)

Kyril heard me and a Polish girl speaking Polish and English, approached us and addressed us in better Polish than mine, and excellent English. It turned out he was a multi-lingual translator.

Kyril invited us to dinner with his family, where we learned some of his life story. He'd been interned for five years in hard labor camps in the '70s, for the crime of having foreign visitors. His neighbors, who still lived in the same apartment building, had turned him in to the secret police.

He was beaten regularly in the camp, and showed us the dental bridge where he'd had his teeth knocked out. (Thanks bud, I used to think of you every time I was detained in some Eastern European police station for "Your papers please!")

But Kyril's real grievance was against the Greeks. Bulgarians and Greeks hate the Turks, because both were oppressed by the Ottoman Empire for centuries. But they also hate each other.

Kyril told us about a war fought between the two countries. After the war, they negotiated a prisoner exchange. The Bulgarians sent the Greek prisoners home in good faith. The Greeks blinded 14,000 Bulgarian prisoners, with only one in a hundred left with one eye to lead the other 99 home.

Kyril was literally pounding his fist into his palm and shouting about those blankety-blank Greeks, when it dawned on me he was talking about the Byzantine Greeks. Which meant this happened about a thousand years ago. (In 1014 to be exact.)

This long term grudge-holding is not at all unusual in Europe. One of the great things about America is, mostly we don't do that.

If you doubt it, tell me where else could you have a hideously destructive civil war that killed more Americans than all our other wars combined, and sectional animosity as tepid as ours a mere 145 years later?

Up here in Yankeeland people sometimes make fun of my accent when it slips out. I am quite confident it would never occur to anyone to kill me for it. In former Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland, you could get killed for your accent.

Within the memory of living men, African-Americans were arrested, beaten, and murdered for lipping off to cops or just speaking impertinently to white people. But all that changed with what seems breathtaking speed, to those who know the history of the Old World.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, one of the highest-paid academics in America, got himself arrested for disorderly conduct for dissing a cop. Did his now-admittedly obnoxious behavior rise to the level of disorderly conduct under the law, or was it just “contempt of cop”? Rather than explore that question in court the charges were dropped.

Professional grievance-monger Rev. Al Sharpton immediately cried “racist America!” - like we didn't know that was going to happen. The mayor of Cambridge, governor of Massachusetts, and President of the United States all weighed in with their comments on American racism.

But wait, aren't they all African-Americans? Wasn't one of the arresting officers African-American?

And pay close attention, the undisputed fact is an African-American man heaping verbal abuse on heavily-armed police officers got no more than a kid-gloves arrest and a brief confinement, whatever you think of the validity of the charge.

You can almost see the dawning awareness in the distinguished professor, mayor, governor and president. In America, history is not destiny. We don't believe people are uniquely privileged or uniquely guilty for what their ancestors, or people of the same race, did to each other before they were born. And we have little patience for dwelling on ancient wrongs as long as we have a future to build.

Tameshigiri on YouTube

2009-07-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment with embedding a YouTube video on my blog, so have patience and bear with me.

This is me doing tameshigiri, straw mat cutting with a samurai sword.

The mat was bought at a garage sale, the sword is a Masahiro cheap katana bought at eBay for less than the price of the shipping.

It occured to me after the embarassment of knocking the mat off the stand that I might have tied the base tight.

At any rate, see here:

The Gates affair, three takes

2009-07-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Of course by now everyone knows about the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates. What would have been a local news event got covered nationally because, 1) the black man in question was a Harvard professor who was, 2) a friend of the President of the United States who, 3) made a public statement on the subject of his friend's arrest.

The three takes on this, exceprted below come from a writer at the generally liberal Slate on-line magazine, the conservative Mark Steyn, and the libertarian-conservative Larry Elder.

I know Ford only from this piece. Steyn and Elder are among the authors whose laundry lists I'd read.

My views are well-known to my readers. IMHO the Ford article contains a number of fallacious assumptions, which I will comment on. The Steyn article is full of the brilliantly witty sarcasm he's justly famous for. Elder did his homework the best of all and dug deeper than either of the other two.

Ford's piece is fairly moderate. I know I could have found a number of "It's the racists pig-state of Amerikkka!" articles on the subject. What I wonder is, is this a crack in the foundation assumption that charges of racism are always valid? Have we been burned too many times at last? Did the Duke "rape" case teach us something after all?

And with the election of an African-American president, has the mainstream America Ford views in such a patronizing light finally gotten to the point of saying, "All right, if this doesn't satisfy race-grievance mongers then nothing will"?

I urge readers to follow the links to the full articles. I will have more to say about this in the next post.

http://www.slate.com/id/2223472/

The Depressing Cycle of Racial Accusation
The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is about neither racial profiling nor playing the race card.
By Richard Thompson Ford

The president got it right: There's no plausible justification for the arrest. It was worse than stupid—it was abusive. And that raises the suspicion that it was racially motivated. But there's really no evidence that the police officer involved was a racist rather than a bully with a badge or a decent cop who made a bad call in the heat of the moment.

Let's take the charge of racial profiling first. Strictly speaking, there was no profiling here: Sgt. James Crowley did not assume that professor Gates was a burglar because he fit some generic stereotype of a black criminal; he was responding to a 911 call. But racial profiling has become a sort of catchall term: If the police consider race in any way, it's profiling. The claim here is that once the police arrived, they treated Gates differently than they would have treated a white person Was this racist? The witness who called 911 said that two black men were breaking into the house, so it wasn't outrageous for Crowley to suspect that the black man he saw inside the house had just broken in. If there was racial profiling, it began with the neighbor who described the burglary suspects in terms of race (or the 911 operator who probably prompted her to do so). But that's a normal part of a suspect description: Like sex, height, and weight, race is a convenient way to identify a person. Asking police to ignore race in a description of a specific suspect takes colorblindness way too far...

Observe the "strickly speaking" qualification. From the outset Ford seems to be hedging his remarks. Then "If there was racial profiling..."

This just doesn't make sense. The neighbor gave a description of two men, with the most obvious characteristic one could see from a distance in bad light. The only purpose of the "If" clause is to cast doubt on the entirely reasonable passage following.

It's clear that Sgt. Crowley, who arrived at Gates' home last Thursday, treated Gates as a suspect: He demanded that Gates step outside, and when Gates said he lived there, the officer demanded identification...

In fact, it is not clear that Crowley treated Gates any differently than anyone at a possible crime scene at all. A policeman treats everyone at a scene with a certain amount of suspicion.

Ford uncritically uses "demanded" twice, rather than "asked" or "requested."

And even racial profiling in the sense of using race as a part of a generic composite of a typical criminal isn't necessarily racist. It's a tragic fact that blacks as a group commit a disproportionate number of certain types of crime. The trouble is that racial profiling—even if it's based on accurate generalizations—imposes a disproportionate share of the costs of law enforcement on innocent blacks, like professor Gates. Let's face it: It's hard to imagine that police would have presumed that a middle-aged white man who walks with a cane was a burglar...

Another assumption. What occured to me immediately, perhaps because I cover a police beat, and am familiar with procedures for clearing buildings etc (though it also occured to my wife right away) was this: you ask someone at the door to step outside, even when you know full well he/she is the lawful resident because you need to make sure this is not a hostage situation.

I don't know whether Crowley arrested Gates because he was angry that an uppity black man dared to question him or whether this was just a tense misunderstanding that escalated out of control. What's clear is that neither the overused notion of racial profiling nor the trope of a black malcontent playing the race card gives us any real purchase on this controversy. Gates has said he hopes to use the incident as a teaching moment. But if we are really to learn anything from it, we'll have to look deeper. We need to ask why so many police officers of all races suspect the worst of racial minorities. (I wonder what the black Cambridge police officer pictured in the photo along with Gates after his arrest would say about all of this if he could speak candidly.)

If the author didn't know if Sgt. Crowley was angry with "an uppity black man" one wonders why he never mentioned the detail which emerged in the news coverage, that the officer teaches racial sensitivity to fellow police officers?

If the back story on this is that a bigot is in charge of teaching cops to avoid giving the impression of bigotry, surely that merits deeper treatment than a casual aside?

"I wonder if...?" is the Michael Moore tactic of offering a speculation without owning it. I wonder if anyone notices it's a sneaky and cowardly chickenshit rhetorical device...?

Decades of blatant and pervasive racial discrimination, poor urban planning, and failed labor policy have left blacks disproportionately jobless and trapped in poor ghettos across the United States. Faced with few opportunities and few positive role models, a disturbing number of people in those neighborhoods turn to gangs and crime for money, protection, and esteem...

Now we're back to the background assumptions on the Left. People from protected minorities and working class backgrounds are helpless victims of circumstances entirely beyond their control that the larger society has done nothing to ameliorate- i.e. people have no free will. Evidently only white people with Ivy League degrees do.

And this assumption isn't classist and racist?

Rather than improve those neighborhoods and help the people who live in them join the prosperous mainstream, we as a society have given police the dirty job of quarantining them. Frankly, we should expect that a disproportionate number of power-hungry bigots would find such a mandate attractive. And an otherwise decent and fair-minded officer, faced with the day-to-day task of controlling society's most isolated, desperate, and angry population, might develop some ugly racial generalizations and carry them even to plush and leafy neighborhoods such as those surrounding Harvard Yard.

Psychologizing, the poor officer is just a victim of his envrionment - a nice way of libeling a man you can back away from.

It looks to me like Ford wants it both ways - or maybe he's afraid. Like he wants to say it really wasn't a case of racist cops, but knows if he says so, he'll be crucified in his circle of friends and colleagues.

Steyn focuses more on President Obama's putting his foot in the mess.

I'm inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt. Like Ford, he's a friend of Gates, and it's natural to reflexively take a friend's side.

I will say it upsets my notion of federalism a bit that the President of the United States should concern himself with a local police matter that doesn't appear to involve a question of constitutional law.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gates-professor-black-2506786-racism-sgt

Obama knows 'stupidly' when he doesn't see it
By Mark Steyn

The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power. And thank God the leader of the free world had the guts to stand up and speak truth to municipal police Sgt. James Crowley.

For everyone other than the president, what happened at professor Gates' house is not entirely clear. The Harvard prof returned home without his keys and, as Obama put it, "jimmied his way into the house." A neighbor, witnessing the "break-in," called the cops, and things, ah, escalated from there. Professor Gates is now saying that, if Sgt. Crowley publicly apologizes for his racism, the prof will graciously agree to "educate him about the history of racism in America." Which is a helluva deal. I mean, Ivy League parents remortgage their homes to pay Gates for the privilege of lecturing their kids, and here he is offering to hector it away to some no-name lunkhead for free.

As to the differences between the professor's and the cops' version of events, I confess I've been wary of taking Henry Louis Gates at his word ever since, almost two decades back, the literary scholar compared the lyrics of the rap group 2 Live Crew to those of the Bard of Avon. "It's like Shakespeare's 'My love is like a red, red rose,'" he declared, authoritatively, to a court in Fort Lauderdale.

As it happens, "My luv's like a red, red rose" was written by Robbie Burns, a couple of centuries after Shakespeare. Oh, well. 16th century English playwright, 18th century Scottish poet: What's the diff? Evidently being within the same quarter-millennium and right general patch of the North-East Atlantic is close enough for a professor of English and Afro-American Studies appearing as an expert witness in a court case. Certainly no journalist reporting Gates' testimony was boorish enough to point out the misattribution...

And I certainly sympathize with the general proposition that not all encounters with the constabulary go as agreeably as one might wish. Last year I had a minor interaction with a Vermont state trooper, and, 60 seconds into the conversation, he called me a "liar." I considered my options:

Option a): I could get hot under the collar, yell at him, get tasered into submission and possibly shot while "resisting arrest";

Option b): I could politely tell the trooper I object to his characterization, and then write a letter to the commander of his barracks the following morning suggesting that such language is not appropriate to routine encounters with members of the public and betrays a profoundly defective understanding of the relationship between law enforcement officials and the citizenry in civilized societies.

I chose the latter course, and received a letter back offering partial satisfaction and explaining that the trooper would be receiving "supervisory performance-related issue-counseling," which, with any luck, is even more ghastly than it sounds and hopefully is still ongoing.

Professor Gates chose option a), which is just plain stupid.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/larry-elder.html

HWB - Home While Black
By Larry Elder

Here's what happened.

Gates, "one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars," writes The Boston Globe, was arrested about 1 p.m. at his home near Harvard Square by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. "The incident," says the Globe, "raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling."

"Friends of Gates," writes the Globe, "said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver's license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours." The Globe posted redacted arrest reports on its Web site. But for reasons unknown, the Globe removed them less than a day later.

Now Elder is being disingenuous, we know damned well why the Globe removed them. They were about to get caught doctoring the news and realized it just in time.

The Cambridge Chronicle, however, still posts the reports on its Web site. The Chronicle's article also mentions a few things the Globe omitted — including that "during the incident, Gates accused Cambridge police officers of racism."

The Chronicle writes: "A witness had called police when she saw a black man, apparently Gates, wedging his shoulder into the door, trying to gain entry, according to the arrest report. ...

"In the arrest report, police said Gates initially refused to step onto his porch when approached by (Cambridge Police Sgt. James) Crowley. He then allegedly opened his door and shouted, 'Why, because I'm a black man in America?'

"As Crowley continued to question Gates, the Harvard professor allegedly told him, 'You don't know who you're messing with.' When Crowley asked to speak with him outside, Gates allegedly said, 'Ya, I'll speak with your momma outside.'"

Crowley's report, as well as that of another responding officer, describe Gates yelling repeated accusations of racism while asserting that the officer "had no idea who (he) was 'messing' with" and that the officer "had not heard the last of it."

After initially refusing to produce any identification confirming his residence, Gates finally supplied a Harvard ID. By that time, a crowd of officers and passers-by was outside. In front of the house and "in view of the public," Crowley states he twice warned Gates that he was becoming disorderly. But Gates' yelling and "tumultuous behavior" continued, causing "surprise and alarm" in the citizenry outside. Crowley then placed Gates under arrest.

Crowley "asked Gates if he would like an officer to take possession of his house key and secure his front door, which he left wide open." Gates said "the door was unsecurable due to a previous break attempt at the residence ." (Emphasis added.)

OK, the cops overreacted. Cops' training involves dealing with verbally abusive citizens. They could have walked away, written a report and allowed the prosecutor to determine whether to file charges. But Gates overreacted, too.

Last week, about 2 p.m., while driving a nice car, I got stopped by a police officer about a block from my home in Los Angeles. The officer asked for license and registration. "Yes, sir," I said, handing him my license. Before I could retrieve the registration, he said, "Mr. Elder, do you still live at this address?" I said I did. He said: "OK. I stopped you because you rolled through a stop sign. Two pedestrians saw you, and they gestured to me, as if saying, 'Are you going to do something about that?' So I felt I had to stop you. I'm not looking for area residents. I'm looking for people who don't live here who might be committing crimes. You're fine."

I did roll through the stop sign. He could have ticketed me. Rather, he responded to my politeness with politeness. Besides, don't we want a proactive police department that, within the law, doesn't just react to crime but also tries to prevent it?

Cops routinely deal with conflict, angry citizens and quite often the worst of the worst — while going to work every day willing to take a bullet for someone they don't even know.

Even Henry You-Don't-Know-Who-You're-Messing-With Gates should understand that.

OK, now we've got some detail that didn't get as widespread circulation as it should have. Detail that tends to support what is so far only a rumor: that Gates is known to seek confrontation with authorities, perhaps to bolster his "angry black man against the racist power" cred.

(Sarcasm alert; I just used the Ford technique I've been 'deconstructing.' And I just left myself the same kind of chickenshit out as well. My, my, a twofer.)

Next, some thoughts and personal anecdotes.

Ricci v. DeStefano

2009-07-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

This appeared as the weekend op-ed in the Times-Record.

At the end of its term on June 29, the Supreme Court decided the lawsuit, Ricci v. DeStefano 5-4 in favor of the 17 white and one Hispanic firefighter who claimed they were denied promotion on account of their race by the city of New Haven, Conn.

The firefighters had all passed the test for promotions. City of New Haven officials threw out the test results and promoted no one, because no African-American firefighter and few Hispanics had passed the exam.

City officials said they feared a lawsuit. They got one anyway. The firefighters who sued claimed they were denied the promotions because of their race, that in fact it was they who suffered discrimination.

The Supreme Courts decision reverses a previous decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel, on which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sits. This marks her sixth reversal in eight cases that have gone before the Supreme Court.

Just because this case has been decided doesn't mean the issue is going away anytime soon.

On one side of this issue are those who believe society owes everyone only a fair chance and a level playing field to succeed - or fail, by their own efforts and help freely given.

On the other side are those who claim that unequal results are proof positive the playing field is not fair. The odd thing is that these are the people most likely to trumpet the value of “diversity” in society, education and the workplace. Evidently we will never have true diversity until every group is exactly the same in all respects except ancestry.

That individuals differ in abilities and aptitudes, is no secret. That groups also differ... is a subject that bringing up can end your career in certain fields.

In America and around the world, certain groups tend to be disproportionately represented in certain professions. Sometimes because of early colonization of the profession by group members who recruit friends and relatives as more jobs become available, sometimes for reasons that defy explanation.

In Germany, “Polish plumber” is now as much a stereotype as “Irish cop” or “Italian fireman” is in New York.

But these things are not set in stone, they change over time. New York cops say the new Irish cop, is a Puerto Rican. Japanese once dominated produce farming in southern California. Jews and Italians once ruled the sport of boxing.

There's been a lot of argument about whether the test is “fair,” though New Haven hired an outside contractor to design the test for that very reason.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in her dissent, “Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice."

Ginsberg cited a 1980 decision from St. Louis, (a fire officer's job) "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure and a host of other abilities -- none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."

However, New Haven previously ruled out recommendations from candidates' superiors, who might know a thing or two about those qualities, for fear of accusations of bias.

The New Haven Independent quoted an anonymous reader, identified as Hispanic, that the test favored "fire buffs"—guys who read fire-suppression manuals on their downtime and pay test-manual writers to come to New Haven to speak.

Oh heaven forbid, surely not! You mean the test favors guys who actually have an interest in how to put out fires?

What's next, favoring doctors who show an interest in curing the sick?

Two things show how seriously weird things get when government goes from insuring fairness of opportunity to equality of result. Ginsberg has never gone into a burning house to suppress a fire or rescue a victim, and has reportedly never hired an African-American law clerk over her entire career.

But I'm sure if she ever finds herself slung over the shoulder of a fireman exiting a burning building, she'll have penetrating questions about his ethnicity and people skills.

And speaking of swine...

2009-07-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

I just got a call from my wife at noon - that would be at night, her time in Warsaw.

She just spent the day with an old friend from high school, Klaudyna: sweet, very intelligent, artistic, raven-haired (somewhat unusual for Poles), very pretty (not at all unusual for Poles.)

One of the things that convinced me my lady and I were compatible for the long run, in spite of obstacles like a generation's difference in age (I'm her mother's age - and mother-in-law is a stone fox by the way), was her friends.

I know more than many, that hormones can warp your judgement about True Love and compatibility. But my lady had a group of friends she'd known for a long time who were just super. The fact that they thought I was super cool, and we together were the hippest couple in town just confirmed my judgement of their good judgement.

When we had our first kid, they were all really happy for us. I think the first sound our son heard in the womb was the scream of delight from our friend Kasia, the first friend my lady told about her pregnancy. But of course, she and they drifted a bit apart afterwards. It's not that the friendships cooled, they didn't. It's that married people with kids keep different schedules than singles and couples without kids.

So it was with some delight we heard that Klaudyna had been courted, very romantically, by an older man. My lady met him on her last visit to her family in Poland, and thought he was great too.

When Claudina had a baby girl we were ecstatic. And Klaudyna told my lady how close she felt to her, now they were both mothers.

My lady called to tell me the sod had dumped her.

I'm livid.

The bastard was "thinking things over" for a couple of months, then told her he'd fallen in love with another woman.

Oh, and he thinks she's a wonderful mother but he's not going to be tied down by a baby.

He promised to support her - until her maternity leave is up. He made some vague noises about supporting the baby.

Wanna start a betting pool about how long that's going to last?

You godrotting sod. You left a wonderful girl in the lurch with a beautiful baby.

DON'T YOU KNOW MAKING A BABY HAS RESPONSIBILITIES?

If you just had to get you some strange, did you have to pay for it with your honor?

And to you, unknown lady who won his heart, someday maybe you'll learn that a woman who gets a man who abandons the mother of his children, gets a man who abandons the mother of his children.

MoDo and Sarah, Femina lupa femines

2009-07-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, they're at Sarah Palin again. But that red you see in the water is Maureen Dowd's hair.

Palin resigned the governorship of Alaska, and everyone is aghast, right and left.

Maureen has yet another column devoted to the woman she loves to hate, the second in as many weeks.

After this one, dated July 4: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05dowd.html?_r=1

"Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president.

"Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy."

She gives us this one, dated July 7: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/opinion/08dowd.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

"Sarah Palin's secret diary."

Less hysterical, but in their own way equally as vicious, were Sally Quinn's two consequtive columns questioning Palin's qualifications as a mother.

The logic on the left side of the fence seems to be: we savage your children, joke about your 14-year-old daughter being raped (Oh, Letterman meant the 18-year-old? Well that's quite all right then), publish unspeakable comments about your Down's Syndrome baby - and then call you a bad mother for exposing your kids to all this.

Yeah, sounds about right to me.

Palin's family has a half-million dollars in legal fees to pay down from ethics complaints pretty obviously frivoulous - except that there's nothing frivolous about corrupting the justice system to destroy political opponents.

The state of Alaska is on the hook for a few million investigating same.

Palin's resignation puts into office the Lt. Governor who is philosophically compatible, and will have the advantage of incumbancy when the next election rolls around.

Is there a problem with this? I think it's fraking brilliant from the viewpoint of Alaska politics! The attack dog machine doesn't know this guy and will have to switch directions in mid-leap.

Ohhh I bet they're pissed.

The motive for attacks on Sarah from elite women, some of them on the right, are obvious enough and have been commented on by more than one pundit.

Sarah has it all: a business of her own, kids, a life outside politics, and a loving and supportive husband who's such a mensch Bill Clinton has a man crush on him.

In short, Sarah would be the posterchild for feminist utopia if it weren't for the facts that she's a believer, she didn't abort her Down's baby, and she doesn't have the required opinions.

And most unforgivably, that mensch she married quite obviously had nothing to do with her success in politics.

Sarah is despised by powerful leftie women like MoDo and Sally who, though intelligent and talented enough, didn't exactly not sleep their way to the top. Her success is a reproach to them which they will never forgive.

I urge you to go over Maureen and Sally's articles, and see if you can find anything substantive. Sally's approach is sweet-reason-and-I'm-really-doing-it-out-of-concern-for-your-kids.

Maureen is just her usual whinny unpleasant self, "I can't get married and all my boyfriends dump me because I'm successful and intelligent."

No Maureen, you boyfriends dumped you because you're an unpleasant, self-obsessed person. They wanted to prong you because you're a looker, but now that you're on the cusp of losing that advantage, all that's left is the unpleasant, albeit snarkily witty self-obsession.

And BTW, Catherine Zeta-Jones is a better looker, intelligent, funny, and by all evidence a great mother - an accomplishment invariably beyond that of the self-obsessed. You think Michael Douglas dumped you because he was turned off by highly accomplished women? I'm not buying it.

And by the way, though you've got a way of turning a phrase, you actually don't seem all that bright, nor can you fashion a coherent argument. (Vis-a-vis your description of Sarah's speech as "rambling and incoherent.")

"She refuses to succumb to the “politics of personal destruction.” It’s no fun unless she’s the one aiming those poison darts, as she did when she accused Barack Obama of associating 'with terrorists who targeted their own country.'"

Hint Mo: the reason she "she accused Barack Obama of associating 'with terrorists who targeted their own country.'" is that he did. That is not the “politics of personal destruction” it's an established fact.

Of course, on the Left bringing up established facts is considered a foul.

If I ever ran for public office (not possible, but let's speculate) I'd have to face questions about the fact that I too have associated with and had friends among, real criminals, sexual deviants, and people at least marginally associated with the Ayers-Dohrn wing of the Weathermen.

What can I say? I've had interesting friends, not all of them the kind you'd bring home to meet mother. The legitimate question is, "Have you ever worked at common purposes with them?"

And that was a close call...

What I haven't seen comment on is what a close call the Palin famiy has had.

They almost had that swine Levi Johnson for a son-in-law.

Folks, being a single mother sucks, and I have that from a lot of single mothers I know who are doing a truly heroic job.

But it's better to have a bastard in the family, than a bastard like that in the family.

Did anyone else notice that Levi posing in his shirtless hunkiness for magazines, his possible book deal, and whatever else he may reap from his closeness to the Palin family is only made possible from a devil's bargain to savage that family for the amusement of his new masters on the celebrity Left?

Enjoy your 15 minutes Levi. You're still a wuss who knocked up a nice girl and bailed on her and the kid.

Well! I don't know about y'all, but I feel better. I didn't call this blog Rants and Raves for nothing.

Note: Any Latin scholars out there? Did I get the inversion of the classic quote right?

Anybody notice this?

2009-07-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is the Doonesbury strip from July 1.

Mother Boopsie says, "See how many female protestors there are? That'd be impossible in most Arab societies. Images like that are incredibly empowering to gals all over the Middle East."

Daughter remarks, "Arab girls need empowering."

First of all, let me say that I agree whole heartedly.

It almost makes me regret what I'm about to do to Gary Trudeau.

I've been following Doonesbury on and off since near the beginning. More off than on these days I'm afraid. Since Gary Trudeau became more a social commentator than a cartoonist he's been preachy, snide, and to put it baldly - either a liar or woefully ignorant of history.

He recently identified waterboarding as the same torture practices used by the Spanish Inquisition and the Japanese in WWII - a lie. Whether you excuse the practice of waterboarding by American interrogators or not, the fact is the torture techniques used by the Inquisition and the Japanese are similar only insofar as they use water.

But the worst sin of all is - he's not funny anymore. At least not as much or as often as he used to be.

As an Okie, I still treasure his hilarious take on the Oklahoma county commissioners scandal, lo these many years ago.

"Say, you're Emma Doonesbury's boy ain't you? Well, we just want you to know your Uncle Henry is a good 'ol boy who always took care of his people."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," Uncle Henry replies.

"Say Henry, do you think you could do my driveway afore you goes to jail?"

So it's with a certain "gotcha" feeling that I have to point out to Mr. Trudeau, IRANIANS ARE NOT ARABS YOU TWIT.

And furthermore, I am gobsmacked that anyone who has been so loud about his opinions on the war on terror (silly term though it is) and the Iraq strategy thereof, wouldn't know that.

Tea Party, July 4

2009-07-04T17:21:00.001-07:00

I went to the nearest Tea Party I could find on the Fourth, which happened to be Jamestown, North Dakota, pop. 15,527, about 30 miles west of me.
Oddly, I didn't find any mention of one in Fargo - though there was a Hot Air Tour there on June 23. As far as I know, I was the only media person at that one. I did get there about a half-hour after it started, so some might have come and gone by then.

See: http://hotairtour.org/

There were at my count about 77 people at the Tea Party, including the kids. One of the organizers told me there was more interest than that, but a lot of people were out of town on the Fourth.

There was a fair amount of cars and bikes passing by honking their horns and waving.

As the march started shaping up I got a call from a friend in Oklahoma City. He said he was at the OKC Tea Party in front of the state capitol building, with about a thousand other people.

Folks, something is happening in this country. Jamestown impresses me even more than the much larger demonstration in OKC. When ordinary people start gathering to demonstrate in significant numbers in small communities (as opposed to marginalized fringoids gathering in major urban areas) it means something.

Now let's see what kind of media coverage the Tea Parties around the country get. When the MSM is made uncomfortable the sequence goes:
1) militantly ignore
2) ridicule
3) slander

They went from 1 to 3 pretty quickly on this phenomenon, which itself ought to tell us something.

Now here is something interesting about the Tea Party movement. Google "Tea Party" on the Internet, and you'll find a number of different sites, with different URLs. The various sites have state-by-state lists of planned Tea Parties - which to not coincide completely.

This suggests to me a movement so decentralized it has not yet developed a coordinating center, much less a national leadership. The hackneyed and much-abused term "grass roots" springs to mind.

I've sat in on meetings in Washington where a "grass roots" conservative revival was being organized within the Beltway from the gilded ghettos of D.C. think tanks, where there was nary a hint that anyone appreciated the irony of it all.

This could be the real thing, and if it can remain based in "flyover country" and avoid being taken over by a central committee with a Beltway office, maybe...

The Defense of Ft. McHenry/The Star Spangled Banner

2009-07-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

Note: A shorter version of this appeared as an op-ed in the July 4 weekend of the paper.

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

On the night of September 13-14, 1814, a 35-year old American lawyer and amateur poet stood on the deck of the Royal Navy ship HMS Tonnant, as it took part in the bombardment of Ft. McHenry in Baltimore harbor. Francis Scott Key was moved to write the poem, which set to music became the national anthem of the nation founded on July 4th, 38 years earlier.

In 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain which, still smarting under the humiliation of losing half its North American empire, had been blockading U.S. trade with its enemy France, impressing American seamen into the Royal Navy, and supporting Indians on the Northwest frontier attacking American settlements.

The British felt keenly that America had betrayed their common kinship by aiding Napoleon, the greatest threat to England in centuries.

“Now that the tyrant Bonaparte has been consigned to infamy, there is no public feeling in this country stronger than indignation against the Americans,” declared the London Times, demanding Britain, “not only chastise the savages into present peace, but make a lasting impression on their fears.”

Key was on board the Tonnant to negotiate the release of a prisoner, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Beanes, a part-time sheriff, was taken prisoner after arresting some rowdy British stragglers, who according to some accounts were caught robbing a chicken coop.

After receiving testimonials the British prisoners were well-treated, Major General Robert Ross and Admiral Alexander Cochrane agreed to release Beanes. But because the delegation had seen the strength of the naval forces ready to besiege Baltimore from the sea, they were detained through the night, though treated as guests.

The naval bombardment began in coordination with a land attack on the city by the British Army, flushed with success after invading and burning Washington almost unopposed. The Royal Navy had to attack at night when the tide was full, and sail out of the harbor shortly after dawn, or be left stranded and vulnerable in the shallows at low tide.

Key and the others could do nothing but watch the bombardment by naval guns and Congreve rockets.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

In the morning as the smoke cleared, and one has to have some experience with black powder firearms to appreciate how much smoke they generate, Key could see an American flag waving from the battlements of the fort.

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Key wrote the poem on the back of a letter. It was later set to the music of a popular English drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Why that particular tune is anyone's guess. It is very difficult to sing, as it goes higher and lower than most people's vocal range. It actually works better as a poem in the later verses, which are so little known to Americans that author Isaac Asimov once wrote a humorous short story about catching a German spy by getting him to reveal that he actually knew the third verse!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Key died in 1843 after a long and distinguished career in the law. Ironically, his grandson was interned in Ft. McHenry during the Civil War for pro-Southern sympathies.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered "The Star-Spangled Banner" be played at official occasions, but it was not actually declared the national anthem until a law was signed by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.

It beat out “America the Beautiful” for the honor, which still has its advocates among the squeamish who feel “The Star Spangled Banner” is embarrassingly warlike.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

SEX!

2009-06-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Boy that got your attention didn't it?

It seems to have everyone's attention these days. At the latest count there are two political sex scandals in the news, one writer humiliating her soon-to-be-ex husband in print, and 24/7 coverage of the death of an accused pedophile pop megastar.

To wit:

- Senator John Ensign (R-NV) revealed he had an affair with a staffer - and was by the way cuckolding another staffer.

He came clean after they pulled what looks suspiciously like a Badger Game on him.

Anyone else remember that idiom? Its' an old con: woman seduces man, her husband walks in...

No less a politician than Alexander Hamilton fell for that one.

Ensign's wife issued a statement, "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation."

Since "we" found out? Was Ensign sleepwalking during this affair? Perhaps he had amnesia?

Of course liberals are ecstatic about this one. Oh the hypocrisy! Ensign is a born-again Christian and got awful holy about Clinton's adulteries a while back.

Leftist politicians are by definition not hypocrits about sex and extramarital affairs. It's only hypocrisy if you believe what you're doing is wrong.

The likes of Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy are not hypocrits, merely opportunistic liars. Their only regret is getting caught.

The hypocrits are the feminist leadership who make excuses for them when they treat women as disposable conveniences to be used and discarded, sometimes in shallow bodies of water.

Ensign showed a measure of backbone by refusing to be blackmailed.* Like the Duke of Wellington when a would-be blackmailer threatened to publish some damaging correspondence.

"Publish and be damned!" Wellington replied.

Of course, by that time the Iron Duke was in the House of Lords and didn't have to stand for no steenking election.

The Ensigns have three kids.

Note: remember that I foretold you here: http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/10/perfect-storm-of-left.html

Starting I think a year after Obama takes office, if there is a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, it's going to get very bad.

If the Republicans succeed in keeping a one or two-vote filibuster number, how much do you want to bet the news media can find a scandal or two to knock at least one Republican politico out of congress?

Told you.

- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (A Republican with a libertarian bent) fessed up he's been having an affair for, evidently a while now. His wife kicked him out of the house a while back, and more importantly didn't stand up with him in public while he made his obligatory public abasement. (Good for her!)

The thing that makes this scandal actually, you know... interesting, is the sheer airheadedness of the way Sanford sent emails which wound up in the hands of a local paper for months before the scandal broke, and left the state without doing his constitutional duty to turn the office over to the Lieutenant Governor during his absence.

By now EVERYONE knows emails should be considered about as private as a postcard. His ineptness in covering a flight to Argentina**, where he spent five days crying in homage to Evita, suggests that on some level Sanford wanted to be caught.

Governor Sanford's public confession was a weird mixture of painful and kind of sweet to watch.

It's always painfully embarrassing to watch a man fall apart in public. What was kind of sweet was, as he was maundering on about his Argentine inamorata, it became plain the guy's in love with her.

This isn't a Bill Clinton/Ted Kennedy-style conquest f**k, Sanford plainly adores this woman. Can you doubt this after reading the emails?

Lust can make you do extremely stupid things, but it takes true love to really motivate you to screw your life up.

He could have pulled a Sarkozy, divorced his wife, and married the exotic hottie. Liberals are always going on about how the Europeans are so much more sophisticated about sexual matters than we grim American puritans, they'd scarsely be in a position to kvetch* - but he's got four young boys.

If you think they're not going to hurt for a long time over this, maybe forever, you're fooling yourself. That goes for you too Sandra.

- Tsing Loh, sweet chariot...

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Well, as Paul Harvey used to say, "After all guys, it is their turn."

Sandra Tsing Loh, writer and performance artist (with a B.A. in physics, I'm impressed) has a piece in The Atlantic here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/divorce

that has a fair number of conservatives in a twitter. (Oh wait, that means something different now. And BTW, Sandra makes puns on her own name as well. She once had a radio show called, "The Loh Life," which I thought was pretty clever.)

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"

The author is ending her marriage. Isn’t it time you did the same?

Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book. Cataclysmically changed, I disclosed everything. We cried, we rent our hair, we bewailed the fate of our children. And yet at the end of the day—literally during a five o’clock counseling appointment, as the golden late-afternoon sunlight spilled over the wall of Balinese masks—when given the final choice by our longtime family therapist, who stands in as our shaman, mother, or priest, I realized … no. Heart-shattering as this moment was—a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history—I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to “work on” falling in love again in my marriage. And as Laura Kipnis railed in Against Love, and as everyone knows, Good relationships take work.

The rest is rather rambling and disjointed. In the middle it reveals that she finds some of her friends are thinking of doing the same, claims her two daughters are just fine, and ends with a rousing call to... what? Get rid of marriage?

Not quite, in spite of the title and subtitle. She does point out that marriages over time tend to get almost intolerably dull.

One is tempted to congratulate her on the triumphant discovery of the obvious.

She says the company of a good man who is a great father was ultimately never going to be as heart-poundingly exciting as trysts with her lover.

Ditto.

Although, there is curiously little about her lover in the piece. He, like her husband and even children, appear briefly onstage as curiously two-dimensional characters. The only people in the piece who appear fully fleshed-out are her female friends, who seem to stand in as extensions of herself and her need to gas on endlessly about her favorite subject, herself.

And though her encomiums to her husband abound in the article and the videolog she's keeping about the divorce process, one has to wonder what he did to her to piss her off so much that she should humiliate him in public?

Oh, she never meant to do that when she implied, or actively stated that she found him a bore in bed and cuckolded him with someone so much more exciting?

And no doubt her children will never get it back from their schoolmates because little kids don't read The Atlantic, and their parents would never talk about that kind of thing in front of them.

But do read the article, she does in fact have some interesting things to say. Also a great many misleading ones, such as the prevalence of divorce in America.

"One in two marriages ends in divorce," is true but does not mean that most couples are going to get divorced. Most people do in fact wind up in stable, long-lived marriages.

What the statistics (and observation) reveal is that the divorce average is inflated by 1) people who have one early marriage that fails, remarry and stay married the next time, and 2) a much smaller number of much-married relationship junkies who raise the average way high all by themselves.

(An ex of mine had just divorced husband number five last I heard. Which was some time ago, she may have done even more to raise the average by now.)

Loh discovered that living with the same person for a long time can become, we shall say routine, and going to bed with a good book and a glass of Merlot is what she looked forward to every day.

This, as I mentioned, is not news to the vast majority of married couples. So what is to be done?

There's good old-fashioned cheating of course. But that involves deception, which Loh evidently couldn't live with.

For Christ's sake, even Dear Abby (the original, not her daughter who took over the family business) said, if you slip; bury it, live with it, and don't burden your partner with it.

Open Marriage*** has it's advocates, though Loh admits the concept is kind of icky.

It is indeed, and I would point out that over thirty-odd years, couples I've known with open marriage agreements have had a 100 percent failure rate. Making "open marriages" far less stable than merely adulterous ones.

Listen, I understand, really I do. The desire for sex with someone new is a drive probably hard-wired into our brains by evolution, and I'll deal with that in a subsequent post.

Perhaps even more than the discipline of fidelity, the responsibilities of marriage with children weigh upon one. No matter how happy or content you are, from time to time you are going to be tortured by the possibilities that would lie before you if you didn't have the responsibility of caring for little persons who would be helpless without you.

I don't mean the freedom to tom-or-tabbycat around. I still dream of building that oil-drum raft and pushing off into the Pacific ocean like that 70-year-old man I read about in my youth.

Maybe I will someday - but that day is not yet. Not while there are little ones relying on Daddy to be there for them.

- And then there's Michael Jackson, the celebrity death that surprised me least.

I really can't bring myself to say much about that sad, pathetic person-of-male-gender.

Was he an active pedophile? So far all we have is a Scotch Verdict, "Not proven."

De morituris nihil nisi bonum est, but...

1) Paying a multi-million-dollar settlement is not the behavior of an innocent man. On the other hand, after paying once and realizing it really encouraged others to make the same accusation, he did fight tooth and nail the next time it happened. On the other hand, the behavior of that "welfare mother" Geraldo Rivera so plainly despises looked a lot like a greedy mother getting a kid to "take one for the team" - shades of The Godfather!

2) The saddest thing of all is that he hired women to create children for him, to be his playthings. Anyone want to take bets on how their lives turn out?

3) If he wasn't an active pedophile, his behavior with little boys was still mega-creepy.

Rest in peace Michael. Sadly, this is probably the only peace you've ever known.

* I'm going to say this again. The leftie sophisticates' claim that sophisticated Europeans see nothing wrong about this kind of thing is misleading at best. True, many cultures European and non-European like the Philippines, allow a man to keep a querida on the side, but the rule is you do not let it affect your marriage and you DO NOT humiliate your wife.

** It has however, produced one really great joke. His staff misheard when they said he was hiking the Apallachian Trail. He actually said he was tracking some Argentine tail. Thanks Gov.

*** 'Open Marriage' was the title of a book published in 1973 by anthropologists George and Nena O'Neil that quickly entered the language as a synonym for what the Brits call a "relaxed marriage."

The book was basically about marriage where the couple were comfortable enough with each other that they didn't feel the need to live in each others' laps, gave each other their space, etc. Stuff that sounds pretty orthodox now.

In precisely one short chapter they discussed the possibility of non-monogamous relationships - which were seized on by bunches of readers as permission to cat around.

They came to bitterly regret this, and Nena specifically argued for fidelity in a subsequent book. Largely because every one of the couples they knew with 'open marriages' got divorced in the interval between the first book and the second.

Previous posts on marriage, sex and relationships:

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/11/bad-time-for-lovers.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/12/have-some-free-relationship-advice.html

UPDATE: That article where Tsandra Tsings is evidently striking a chord. The morning after this was posted I opened MSN to find the article in full and a video interview of Sandra, with the obligatory defense of marriage shrink by her side.

Sandra's argument is weak, though to be fair she probably had all of 90 seconds to make it. The interviewer paraphrased it for her first: marriage is an invention of agrarian societies because intact family units were needed to work the farm.

No, marriage predated agriculture. It is a universal feature of hunter-gatherer societies as well.

Sandra made a revealing statement before the video cut off, "I decided I had better things to do with my time than over-parent my kids."

So is she divorcing her husband or her kids?

* UPDATE: Nope, it now turns out Mommy and Daddy were paying off the couple to the tune of $96,000 - so far as of the time of this update. That's not bad for pimping your old lady. The payments were explained as "gifts" to the wife, husband, and children.

I hope she was good John, that is one expensive piece of tail.

Hey kiddies, Mommy's taken an extra job to earn your college money.

Demonstrations that bring down governments

2009-06-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Note: A slightly different version of this appeared as the weekend editorial in the paper..

I’m watching the demonstrations in Iran with the oddest feeling I’ve seen this movie before. In fact, I think I was an extra in a street scene.

In late 1996 I was living in Sofia, Bulgaria, and working at the Institute for Foreign Languages as an English teacher. It was interesting work, my students were a delight to teach, and the country was very beautiful.

Unfortunately, the work was rewarding only in the spiritual sense. I was getting paid in the local currency, Bulgarian leva, which was inflating at the rate of about 10 percent a day. My last payday amounted to $40 for the month, which became $36 dollars by the end of the day without me spending any of it.

On top of that, government offices would not accept their own country’s currency for fees and permits.

About that time, I heard that a friend of mine, Tomas Krsmanovic, a Serbian dissident, was being leaned on by the secret police. After communicating with a dissident-support network I worked with, I decided to relocate to Belgrade, on the theory that if I lived in Tomas’ lap, the thugocracy wouldn’t want to murder him in front of a foreign witness.

What was happening in former Yugoslavia were demonstrations in the capital, Belgrade, and many other cities around the country, to protest electoral fraud attempted by the government of Slobodan Milošević after the 1996 local elections.
Before I left, I marched with the people of Sofia down the yellow brick road (I’m NOT kidding) past the government offices, in a protest that brought down the last communist/coalition government.

A British traveller told me, "You ought to head to Albania, you're on a roll!"

Within 24 hours I was in Belgrade in the middle of their demonstrations.
My friend helped me find jobs at two language schools and a room to rent (payment in Deutchmarks.) The lawyer of one school helped me get work and residence permits in order. (She was, by the way, a lovely young woman who bore, with reasonably good humor, the name Biljana Dracula.)

The demonstrations in Belgrade went on for 96 days and nights from November 1996 to February 1997, when Slobodan Milošević recognized the opposition victories.
Every night an estimated 17 percent of the city’s population (about 1,182,000 though it was hard to tell with war refugees and constant in-migration from the countryside) were on the streets marching, singing and making as much noise as they could during “pandemonium half-hour” when the official government news was broadcast. People not on the streets made noise from their apartment windows and balconies. Construction of homemade noisemakers was a thriving cottage industry.

I marched with students, working people, elegant ladies with furs, and little, old Babushkas beating on metal soup bowls. I couldn’t help it, the demonstrations were impossible to avoid. After work I just took the first demonstration heading home.
The government lined the streets with heavily armed paramilitaries recruited from Bosnian Serb refugees who had no connection with the local people - because the army announced they would not leave their barracks or fire on civilians.
The president’s wife, Mira Markovic or “the Red Queen,” made no secret she wanted the paramilitaries to fire on the demonstrators, but ultimately couldn’t find anyone willing to give the order. The order went down as far as it could go, to a vice-police chief who refused even after they had his son beaten up.

Finally, they had to cave in to the demands of the protesters, and the regime’s days were numbered. In revenge, they had the vice-chief murdered with machine guns Chicago-style, in a pizzeria not far from my work.

Milosevic had to resign from the presidency of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2000 and ultimately died in prison while on trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

That’s how tyrannies fall, and that’s what we should watch for in Iran. Whether the demonstrators win this round or not, my gut tells me this is the death rattle of a dying regime.

Maybe later than sooner - this regime may indeed be willing to shoot down demonstrators by the hundreds. But if it does, it'll never be able to pretend legitimacy again, and our diplomatic president will have a really hard time explaining how his silver tongue will fix everything.

What's going on in Iran?

2009-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as the weekend editorial in the Valley City Times-Record.

Lots of trouble it seems. Supporters of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the recent presidential race are claiming President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election.

There are riots in the streets of the capitol Tehran which have spread to other cities, and reports of demonstrators being killed.

So did Ahmadinejad steal the election, as all three opposition candidates claimed? It's hard to tell. It's not like he wouldn't, the results were announced suspiciously quickly and nobody really believed that he'd go quietly if he did lose.

Obviously, given the looming danger that a country ruled by crazy people will soon be a nuclear power, a lot of folks in Washington must be hoping this is the beginning of the end of the reign of the ayatollahs.

On the other hand, every time America meddles with Iran it gets burned. Iranians are still mad about Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953 when he was overthrown by a coup d'état sponsored by the U.S. and Britain after he nationalized foreign oil companies.

They hold grudges longer than we do, since we seem to have all but forgotten the Iranian hostage crisis when Islamic radicals held American diplomatic personnel for 444 days in 1979-80. Former hostages say they seem to remember a guy who looked a lot like Ahmadinejad among their captors.

President Obama has taken a cautious, non-committal stance, though for once France and Germany are actually making forceful protests.

So who are these people in this “far off country of which we know little”? (Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on Czechoslovakia after the German invasion.)

Iran is an ancient country, once one of the largest, most powerful empires in the world back when it was called Persia. Iranians are not Arabs and get testy if you make that mistake. Iran means “Land of the Aryans,” and today is still the 18th largest country in the world with a population of over 70 million. And of course, they have oil.

Iranians are mostly Muslims, but Shia, a sect whose adherents make up about one-third of all Muslims worldwide. And to make things interesting, there are minority communities of Baha'is, surviving Zoroastrians (the ancient indigenous religion of Persia), Yazidis, Iranian Jews, and no-fooling devil worshipers.

There are doctrinal differences between Shiites and the majority Sunni Muslims, but the division basically goes back to an ancient power struggle over the leadership of Islam.

When the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D. Shiites believe Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, was his rightful successor. However, Ali didn't take power for 35 years, while three Caliphs rose and fell. He finally took power in 656 A.D. after the third Caliph was assassinated, and ruled until 661 A.D. when he was assassinated in turn. After that it gets really complicated.

What makes it so difficult for westerners to wrap their heads around politics in the Islamic world is, there's little difference between religion and politics.

Until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran was a monarchy ruled by a dynasty all of three generations old which ruled from 1925. It replaced another dynasty which ruled Iran from 1794 to 1925. That's the pattern, from time to time a vigorous new dynasty from the outlands rides in a takes over, but must rule through the educated administrative class which provides continuity.

The tradition was broken when the revolution did away with kings because the last Shah was a cruel tyrant – that and he was trying to drag Iran kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

So are the demonstrators going to overthrow the tyrant and create a liberal democracy so we can all be buds again? Would be nice.

However we should remember that Ahmadinejad is only the president. Above him is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, head of the council of Muslim jurists that wields the real power.

Khamenei can always throw Ahmadinejad to the mob and say, “See? All fixed now.”

Economics: a short guide to the dismal science

2009-06-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as the weekend editorial in the Valley City Times-Record.

I suppose everybody agrees we're in an economic crisis now. Unfortunately that's about all everybody agrees on.

The president has his economic advisors working on the problem. The loyal opposition has their own opinions about what caused it and what to do about it.

George Bernard Shaw said, “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”

So if the experts disagree, what hope can we poor mortals have to understand the problem and evaluate any proposed solutions?

Years ago a distinguished economist, once advisor to presidents, at the end of his life revealed a closely guarded secret – economics is not all that complicated. In fact he said, all the economics you need to be an advisor to presidents is taught in the the Intro course for college freshmen.

The basic principles of economics are simple, quite easy to understand, and don't even involve math. When you get to the application, the details of production and consumption and measurement thereof, is where the math and razzle-dazzle comes in.

The 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle called economics “the dismal science.” Most people think it's because economics is complicated and boring. I suspect it's because economics tells you what you can't have.

The first principle of economics is: there's not enough of what we want for everybody. (The first principle of politics is to assure the electorate you can fix this.)

The second principle of economics is: to get something you want, you must give up something you want less, if only your time. (Political careers rely on telling the electorate the choices won't be painful.)

That's what's dismal about it, you can't have something for nothing. Unfortunately, the desire for something for nothing is part of human nature.

I once had an argument with an Englishwoman about the superiority of the British National Health Service. I pointed out the service is lousy by American standards. She countered that it's free, unlike our inhumane American system.

I said, “No it's not.”

She huffily informed me that she was after all English, and knew very well what British health service costs.

“I understand that,” I replied, “but it's still not free. Because nothing is. If you didn't pay for it, it means somebody else did – and not by choice.”

There's a reason paying for some things is not left up to individual choice. Economists call it the “common good,” or “free rider” problem. Things like infrastructure, police and national defense benefit everybody, whether they paid for them or not.*

But whether General Motors stays in business concerns me very little, as long as I can still buy a Ford or a Toyota. I feel for the Detroit autoworkers, honestly I do. But that money the government is giving them to make cars I don't want to buy is money I don't have to pay for my retirement, my kids education, or a car I'd rather buy.

How democratic governments get away with taking from many people, to give to a few people, is explained by a principle economists call, “concentrated benefits/distributed costs.” This simply means the amount any one special interest is able to extract from us, in direct subsidies or price supports, is not enough to complain about. Until we're nickel-and-dimed to death.

But for the special interests, those nickels and dimes add up to a lot.

Shaw explained it even simpler, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.”**

* Libertarian purists and anarchists sail under the slogan "taxation is theft" and say all taxation is coercive and thus immoral.

No libertarian/anarchist theory has yet successfully demonstrated how a complex society can be maintained without tax levees.

On the other hand, nobody has satisfactorily explained how taking money by threat of force is different from theft either. Once you admit the right of taxation, how do you justify saying what amount is "too much"? How is 10% just and 50% unjust?

** Since Shaw was a Fabian Socialist and an admirer of both Hitler and Stalin, it is not clear to me whether he was speaking approvingly of this as a tactic or not.

Why are you so calm? Why am I so calm?

2009-06-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering lately why I've maintained such a state equanimity while watching the news.

I started by wondering why the heck the country as a whole is so calm.

Yes, yes I know. Everybody is worried about their jobs, their homes and their 401 Ks. What they don't seem to be worried about is the fact that the president of the United States just tossed a long-established body of law in the shredder with a wave of his hand.

I'm referring (among other things) to firing of the CEO of GM, the overturning of creditor seniority in the Chrysler debt, and oh by the way the nationalization of a huge chunk of the auto industry. (You vill drive a peepuls vagen, und you vill like it!)

And this from a president who got testy when asked if he were a socialist!

Why isn't the whole damn country outraged?

For that matter, why aren't I outraged? There was a time this would have had me foaming at the mouth and climbing the walls.

You know, the only really serious analysis in broadcast media of the whole economic situation I see is on Glen Beck on FOX. GB regularly brings on really first-rate economists like Thomas Sowell, who go into technical detail that Common Wisdom says the American people are supposed to be too impatient to sit still for. And his ratings are waaay high.

Not bad for a guy that started out in stand-up comedy. (And yes, the obvious rejoinder has occurred to me.)

But even on FOX they seem eerily calm, all things considered.

Maybe purely economic issues just don't grab people the way say, mass internments or ethnic cleansing would.

Maybe two generations of indoctrination in universities, and increasingly at the secondary and even primary levels have readied our people for socialism. Or at least the variety of socialism technically called fascism, if anybody cared to use the correct term.*

Maybe those of us who aren't with the program have just become resigned to the notion that this country just has to have a fling with socialism/fascism again, as we did in the Wilson and Roosevelt eras.

After all, market processes seem uncertain, chaotic, often confusing and more than a little scary. The idea that order and predictability can be imposed on them is very tempting...

Terribly, disastrously wrong of course, but tempting.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, a fair number of people have reached the conclusion that this time maybe we're not going to pull back from the brink.

Maybe an increasing number of people fear that the long argument we've had since the beginning of this country is not going to be settled by talk and compromise this time.

The argument between those who believe if you just take away the restraints of power those surly, suspicious curmudgeons who created the Constitution put upon high office, they'll be free to create heaven on earth; and those who don't figure we'll ever get to heaven this side of the grave and mind your own damn business thank you very much!

If you go here: http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/05/29/obama-and-supreme-court-nominee-sonia-sotomayor-send-gun-stocks-soaring.aspx

you'll find the MSN MoneyBlog TopStocks.

Obama's court pick, Sotomayor, keeps gun stocks soaring
Posted May 29 2009, 01:52 PM by Louis Navellier Rating: Filed under: investing, economy, Politics

President Obama's nomination of federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter heralds yet another victory for gun-makers. Yes, you read that right.

Let me explain.

While most investors have been rightly focused on the crisis in the markets and economy lately, some Americans have been focusing on other political issues, namely the Second Amendment.

They wonder, will the Obama Administration and new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor put the right to bear arms in jeopardy? Clearly, many think so, as evidenced by an increase in gun sales and an associated rally in gun stocks.

Followed by some stock jargon. Then the author inserts one of those unsupported stealth opinions that journalists get away with too damned often.

But it's not just Sotomayor's nomination that has been lifting the gun-makers. The recession has helped, too.

Buying protection

You wouldn't think a recession as deep as the one we've been experiencing would be a boon to gun sales, but many citizens are arming themselves expressly because of the recession. You see, the recession has brought massive budget cuts to many municipalities. That means less fire and police protection. In response, gun sales are on the rise.

My response to this undercurrent is to recommend stocks that take advantage of the increase in gun sales.

Two of my favorite stocks to buy now make guns. More stock jargon.

I'm pleased to see that the author has done his homework and confirmed what has been quietly circulating around for a while, that gun sales are through the roof.

His contention that people are afraid of crime because the recession is causing cuts in police funding is bullshit.

The unstated premise in this enthymeme** is: when the economy tanks, desperate people turn to crime to live.

There is not now, nor has there ever been a shred of evidence for this in the U.S. People who've lost their jobs do not go to liquor stores and gas stations gun in hand, seeking money to pay their bills and feed their families. They go cap in hand to the local Department of Human Services.

The author's assertion that funding for police is being cut is problematic at best. My town has a population of less than 7,000 and is located in a county the size of Rhode Island with a population of about 12,000. The police have lots of fancy equipment, and are getting more from grant monies.

People are buying guns because they are afraid of their government.

And I don't mean loud-mouthed a$$hole kids screaming "Revolution! F**k the fascist pig-state of Amerikkka!" I mean people with jobs, families, etc. You know, a life.

Specifically, they are afraid of the federal government in Washington, D.C. By and large they get along just fine with local cops and admire and respect the military.

So who do they expect to need those guns against?

I wonder if anybody really knows right now. Maybe it's a generalized anxiety that's soothed by having the means of self-defence on hand. Maybe it's a suspicion that conflict will arise between civilian factions of our society. (Paging Dr. Tiller!)

Or maybe it's a fear of social movements that bode no good at all.

Now go to the Washington Times here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/29/protecting-black-panthers/?feat=home_editorials

The editorial in full, and just to make sure you know it's just as bad or worse than it reads, the video:

Imagine if Ku Klux Klan members had stood menacingly in military uniforms, with nightsticks, in front of a polling place. Add to it that they had hurled racial threats and insults at voters who tried to enter.

Now suppose that the government, backed by a nationally televised video of the event, had won a court case against the Klansmen except for the perfunctory filing of a single, simple document - but that an incoming Republican administration had moved to voluntarily dismiss the already-won case.

Surely that would have been front-page news, with a number of firings at the Justice Department.

The flip side of this scenario is occurring right now. The culprits weren't Klansmen; they belonged to the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. One of the defendants, Jerry Jackson, is an elected member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party when the violations occurred. Rather conveniently, the Obama administration has asked that the cases against Mr. Jackson, two other defendants and the party be dropped.

The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any "attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce" any voter or those aiding voters.

The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: "These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right ... to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants." In other words, because the defendants haven't tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won't punish them.

By that logic, if a murderer doesn't respond to the charges, he should be let free. That's crazy.

The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again "displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location" in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished.

We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: "That is correct." Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response.

Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, "In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment... . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it."

Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was "the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life."

Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: "It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself."

We couldn't agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn't do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll.

Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.

Well-written, but this one also has a chickenshit conslusion.

"This all but invites racial violence at future elections," is either a tremendous understatement, wishful thinking, or just plain dumb. This doesn't "all but invite," it frakking guarantees!

I'm not going to speculate about the motives of the president and his supporters in congress. Fact is, I don't have a clue if he has any long-term motives, or is just possessed of the kind of youthful arrogant certainty that given the power, he could solve all the world's problems by next Tuesday after lunch.

(Various people have told me that President Obama reminds them of an imperious tribal chieftan, Adolf Hitler, or various unsavory characters. Actually, what he reminds me of is me in my teens and twenties. Now that's really scary!)

But I am going to make this observation: a managed economy is going to need a thug-corps. Not because of the motives of the rulership, not because they are consciously aiming at tyranny, but because the logic of the situation demands it.

People will not consent to have their lives regulated in this way, to this extent without coercion. Police do not like to be involved in civil/property disputes, the military is aware their oath is to the Constitution not the president, and the ranks of both are drawn from the ruled, not the rulers.

My guess is that a fair number of people have at least a vague intuition of this, and are preparing accordingly.

* I tell you again and again, buy and read Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning." But wait for the paperback edition coming out soon. It's got a new afterword on Obama.

Goldberg gives a calm, well-reasoned argument supported by impeccable (and undeniable, that's why critics resort to name-calling and slander) research. But even Goldberg at the end seems to kind of lose steam, as if his conclusions are taking him to a place he doesn't want to go...

From a review by historian and former Leftist Ronald Radosh, "When Mr. Goldberg uses the term "liberal fascism," he is not offering a right-wing version of the left's smears. He knows it is a loaded term. What he is talking about is the historical idea of fascism: a corporatist and statist social structure that creates a deep reliance of its subjects on the government and engenders a sense of community and purpose. In American politics, this tendency toward statism has always been much more at home on the left than on the right."

** Enthymeme: in logic, a syllogism in which one of the two premises is assumed and unstated.

UPDATE: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13788623&source=most_commented

In The Economist, "Soaring gun sales in Arizona."

American gun sales surged after Mr Obama was elected president. He had a voting record of raising the tax on guns and ammunition by 500%, and, on top of that, he hinted during the campaign that he might restrict gun sales and create a national registry of gun-owners. The election was seven months ago, and the buying spree has not flagged since. Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which serve as a gauge of actual sales, reported 1,255,980 checks in April 2009: a sixth monthly increase, and a 30.3% increase from the 940,961 reported last April.

20 years since the “incident” at the Gate of Heavenly Peace

2009-06-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Note: A shorter version of this appeared as the weekend Op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record,

Thursday was the anniversary of what the Chinese government calls “the June 4 incident.” That nice bit of understatement describes the killing of somewhere between 241 and 2,600 protesters by the People's Liberation Army.

The first is the official government figure. The second is an early estimate by the Chinese Red Cross, which they now deny they ever said. Really. You must be confusing us with somebody else.

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 followed the sudden death of Hu Yaobang, former Secretary General of the Communist Party of China and prominent advocate of reform, from a heart attack. Hu had been forced to resign by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and humiliate himself publicly in a “self-criticism” session.

A demand for a reversal of the verdict against Hu was the focal point for a growing demonstration in the 100-acre square in the heart of Beijing by Chinese students, workers, disillusioned Party members and masses of people who felt the longing people in communist countries had for anything resembling a normal life.

Protesting students erected a statue of the Goddess of Democracy, modeled on the Statue of Liberty with a Chinese face.

At the time I was a grad student at Oklahoma University, and helping a couple of Chinese students defect.

I'd gotten involved by helping Tang, an archeology student in our department, by proof reading his papers. I actually don't know how he'd gotten in, his pronunciation was horrible and his written English needed a lot of editing. And to give you an idea of how naive he was, he told me his original destination in the U.S. was Harvard, but a friend had talked him into coming to OU with him.

One evening at a party I was making small talk about history and made some off-hand remark about the good fortune of our country in having such a wealth of natural resources.

Tang burst out, “No! Here you are rich because you have freedom!”

“We've got to talk,” I said.

In the course of conversation, it turned out Tang desperately wanted to stay in America – and was an overstay on a J1 student visa.

The J1 visa allows one year of study in the U.S., after which the student must return to his home country and must wait two years before he or she is eligible to return. At the time, we had about 40,000 Chinese students in the U.S. on J1 visas.

It also turned out that Tang had been rather free with his pro-democracy sentiments and admiration of America, and had just discovered his room mate was an informer for Chinese Security. He found out when he got the phone bill, and saw the record of a few hundred calls to the Chinese consulate in Houston.

I couldn't help but laugh, “Tang this girl can't have been a professional if she didn't know all long distance calls are itemized on American phone bills. A real pro would sneak down to the pay phone on the corner.”

I introduced Tang, and his new fiancee Ying, to my housemate who was Director of Hispanic Student Services at the university, on the assumption he might know something about immigration problems.

All this time, the tension was building in Beijing at Tiananmen, the “Gate of Heavenly Peace.” We saw on TV that heroic, unnamed youth standing in front of a line of tanks, and making them back off.

Then the killing started and we all saw the face of a protester on the cover of Newsweek, lying on the pavement his face covered with blood.

The next day, the Chinese students on campus held a demonstration, and crossed their own Rubicon by signing a petition condemning the killings. I saw them on the oval carrying the American flag and singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Since the Vietnam war, the national anthem had left a bad taste in my mouth when I remembered young barbarians burning the American flag, and old scoundrels wrapping themselves in it. I hadn't sung the anthem myself in a long time, and here were all these Chinese kids singing their hearts out.

They were, in a word, awful. It's a difficult song at best and they were so off-key they needed a search party to find it. And in the middle of it I realized I was crying.

The rest is history. The protests were crushed, and a number of protesters tried and executed. But reportedly only workers, no students or intellectuals. The statue of the Goddess of Democracy was demolished. George Bush Sr. solved my friends' problem by unilaterally abrogating the visa treaty, and we got 40,000 new Americans.

But I came across the goddess years later, while out walking in Washington, D.C. There she was at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues and G Street, NW, within view of the U.S. Capitol. She was chosen as the appropriate symbol for the Victims of Communism Memorial. There people from many lands lay flowers and light candles at her feet in memory of their own dead.

Wow, racism does that?

2009-05-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

If you go here: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2009/05/experience_of_r.html

you'll find at bostom.com, in a regular feature "White Coat Notes: News from the Boston-area Medical Community," an article entitled "Perceived racism linked to weight gain, researchers say."

Hooo boy! As author Frances Kendall once said to me, "Everybody who touches that subject gets burned."

But, fools rush in...

Perceptions of racism -- from being treated with suspicion in a store to unfairness in employment or housing -- can heighten stress levels and affect health, research has shown. A new study from Boston University links these smoldering signs of racism to weight gain in black women, suggesting a possible explanation for the their higher obesity rates compared to white women.

Yvette Cozier, an epidemiologist at the Slone Epidemiology Center at BU, led a survey of more than 43,000 women enrolled in the long-running Black Women's Health Study. Writing in the June issue of Annals of Epidemiology, she and her co-authors describe participants' reports on their weight, body mass index, and perceptions of racism.

OK, research design looks OK at first glance. Though you're treading on shaky ground when using self-description of emotional states, as every competent researcher knows. The sample size certainly seems more than adequate.

At the beginning of the eight-year study, the women were asked if they sometimes felt they were treated poorly in a restaurant or store, whether they thought people considered them dishonest or less intelligent, and if they had felt unfairness on the job, in housing, or from police. The women, 21 to 69 years old at the study's outset, were placed in four groups based on how frequently they said they experienced these signs of racism. Their weight was recorded every two years from 1997 through 2005. Their waist circumference was measured at the beginning and end.

At the end of the trial, all the women had gained weight. But the women who said they felt higher levels of racism gained more weight and had bigger waist-size increases compared to the women who felt the least racism. That held true after accounting for factors such as education, geographic region, and beginning body mass index.

OK, the second variable is something that can be objectively measured and compared to the emotional states, and the extraneous variables seem to have been controlled for.

Now the conclusion:

"Racism is real and it has real effects," Cozier said in an interview. "It can result in real changes in the body."

"Racism is real..." no kidding? I thought it was a myth.

"...it has real effects." Well, I guess being insulted, assaulted, robbed, lynched or whatever are real enough to suit anyone's standards.

"It can result in real changes in the body."

Yep, getting shot or having the stuffings beat out of you results in some pretty real changes.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't mock the good doctor without knowing more about her. She isn't necessarily a public speaker, may have been quoted out of context, or may just have been searching for a rhetorical trope to introduce her conclusions with.

That particular trope may have a formal name in rhetoric. Where I come from we call it, "the triumphant discovery of the obvious."

Higher stress changes hormone levels that influence food choices and where in the body fat is stored, the authors write. That makes an association between the stress of racism and weight gain, particularly around the waist, fit with other research in humans and animals, they say.

This is doctor-speak for pure speculation. What they dare not speak about is the established fact that people of different races store fat differently, apparently due to climatological adaptations. This may or may not be relevant - but it seems relevant that it wasn't even included in the discussion.

Cozier said she was interested in learning whether there was another reason beyond diet and exercise that could explain why black women tend to be heavier than white women. Her study did not include white women, so a direct comparison is not possible, she said, but the unique experience of racism appears to be a potential contributor to the difference.

"Her study did not include white women..." so she thinks the controlling variable is racial discrimination, and didn't examine a control group which presumably doesn't experience it?

Folks, I haven't read the full article, published in the 'Annals of Epidemiology' (and when the heck did overweight become an epidemic?) but this looks an awful lot like shopping for research results to support your conclusion.

What seems to me a far more defensible speculation (I won't say conclusion, since the study was not designed to test this) is that weight gain has a lot to do with how far you think you're in control of your life, versus how much you think it's controlled by external factors you have no control over - such as other people's attitudes.

Weight control is by far the simplest physical problem to prescribe for. (In the vast majority of circumstances, I know there are medical conditions that complicate it.) And it's quite possibly the most difficult prescription to carry out.

You eat more than you burn, you gain. You burn more than you eat, you lose. Period.

I.e. there is no "beyond diet and exercise." That's not even medicine, it's physics.

And yes, I'm acutely aware that it's easier said than done. A lot of things are. Everyone who's ever tried to quit smoking knows that.

I'll also add that the researcher didn't even touch upon another well-known observation. Body image problems seem to be a White girl thing in this country. Anorexia and bulemia seem to be confined pretty exclusively to white teens and 20-somethings.

The brightest spot in all of this is, the comments section.

The first 11 out of 110:

Couldn't an underlying insecurity lead to both weight gain and higher sensitivity to apparent slights? How is the causality demonstrated here?

Posted by pg May 26, 09 07:24 PM Obviously racism hasn't gone away - your study proves it - you are a racist!

Posted by Don Johnson May 26, 09 07:58 PM Come on. Of all the stories I've read today this has got to be the most outrageous. Honestly, some people are going to try and use every trick in the book to blame their bad habits, whether it be eating, drinking, smoking whatever on someone or something else.

It seems that no one is accountable anymore for their actions in this country. Let's see, why don't we blame the recession on "blue eyed white males" which the president of Brazil recently did.

Posted by Jim May 26, 09 07:59 PM If McCain were president, George Bush would be linked to weight gain.

Posted by lol May 26, 09 08:08 PM It is clear, very clear, that social experiences of discrimination against lead to pernicious hormonal and behavioral changes. It is not just a matter of habits, there are social and structural determinants of health. People under stress do not have the same chance of controlling themselves when eating. If they are under acute stress, the corticotropin hormone makes them to eat less. Right after the acute stress, the corticoids are still high and the corticotropin low and they eat a lot. That is well known. The weakness of this study is the utilization of perception of discrimination against as a measure of racism. I do not know how well correlated are other measures of racism with perception of racism. I also do not know what other measures of racism are reliable.

Posted by John Smith May 26, 09 08:21 PM I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This is, quite possibly, the most asinine thing I've ever read.

Posted by urkiddinme May 26, 09 08:24 PM I have felt all the the feelings associated with the discriminatory practices listed above. If you want to discuss a problem, let's discuss self-esteem and the effects of being a woman, especially an aging woman, in this society. Let's do a study on that and see what results we get! That said, everyone has felt rejected and has been treated unfairly: male, female, black white, Asian, Hispanic, Christian, Jew, young old, etc. Yes, there is discrimination in this world and it is not restricted to black women.

Something else to consider is that just maybe the store clerk, policeman, waitress

or other perpetrator of "discriminatory" behavior was just having a bad day and took it out on thew closest person. It happens to me all the time and I'm not a black woman.

Posted by Kathie May 26, 09 08:28 PM Jim,
I was going to write something, but you covered it all.

Posted by Joe May 26, 09 08:30 PM I had to make sure I hadn't inadvertently gone to The Onion after seeing this headline

Posted by Jack May 26, 09 08:33 PM One who suffers feelings of inferiority regardless of race or ethnic background, is more likely to eat unhealthy comfort food. I agree with the commenters above. This is a ridiculous correlation. Pray tell, who funded this foolish study?

Posted by Noname49 May 26, 09 08:49 PM Wow. Low self-esteem due to racism causes obesity. How 'bout we just say low self-esteem = bad self image. Hmmmm. Duh. Next up... candy is sweet. Also, this just in, people that yell have sore throats. How about, 'People who are constantly put down have a tendency to snap?' Ooooh. Does someone actually pay money for studies like this?

Thank God! Maybe the lunatics haven't quite taken over the asylum quite yet.

Note: When I was copy editing for the Polish Academy of Science Annual Review, I got a paper that measured fat gain in Polish women, correlated with the education level of their husbands. The study found that women's tendency to stay slim correlated with higher levels of education of their husbands.

Note: Other posts about racism can be found here. So if you're going to write in and call me a racist - read the damn things first.

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/11/racism-versus-culturism.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2007/02/racism-some-questions.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2007/10/that-which-must-not-be-said-and-why-it.html

Recognizing Israel's "right to exist"

2009-05-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

It's on the news again. The president is trying to get Israel to make territorial concessions in the hope their enemies will be satisfied, make peace, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

I can't believe I'm still hearing this garbage about getting Hamas, Abbas and Whatsisass to recognize Israel's "right to exist."

The very term Israel's right to exist is a lie.

Israel's enemies aren't against the existence of a Jewish nation, they're against the existence of Jews period. End of story.

This isn't like the cycles of conquest we're used to hearing about from European history. Poland was conquered and dismembered between Russia, he Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Prussia for 135 years - but there were still Poles.

Those powers subjugated and sometimes attempted to assimilate many various subject nations. They didn't try to exterminate them genetic stock, lock and barrel.

But that's what the jihadists want to do.

And how do you know this, you terrible, xenophobic, racist, intolerant person? (I hear you say.)

Oh gee, let me think for a minute...

Could it be because they say so? Loudly, conspicuously, and at every opportunity?

Call it a hunch.

Memorial Day, 2009

2009-05-21T11:05:00.001-07:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the weekend edition of the Valley City Times-Record.

"On, sons of Greece! Set free / Your fatherland, your children, wives, / Homes of your ancestors and temples of your gods! / Save all, or all is lost!" Aeschylus, The Persians

Those lines were written by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. For his part in creating the art of tragic drama, he won immortal glory. Winner of the highest honors his own and other Greek cities had to offer, he wrote this epitaph inscribed on his tomb.

“Under this monument lies Aeschylus the Athenian, Euphorion's son, who died in the wheatlands of Gela. The grove of Marathon, with it's glories, can speak of his valor in battle. The long-haired Persian remembers and can speak of it too.”

There is not a word about his fame as an artist, only about his service as a common foot soldier in the battle that saved his city and his civilization.

This Monday we celebrate Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember our countrymen and women killed in our country's wars.

Memorial Day is not a day for the glorification of war, celebration of past victories, or lamentation for heroic defeat. It is a day to remember that for each and every American who died in a war, whether that war was inevitable or avoidable, the world ended for someone and was forever damaged for others.

It is fashionable in some circles these days to be “against war,” and to decry the horrors of war.

Congratulations. Only a lunatic is “for” war.

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity," said Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe World War II.

The sixth century Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius, considered by some military historians to be the greatest field commander in history, said, "All men with even a small store of reason know that peace is chiefest of blessings."

Gen. Robert E. Lee, who Winston Churchill called, “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived,” said, “It is good that war is so terrible, lest we should learn to love it.”

Does anyone think their moral authority to condemn war is greater than these men's?

Our oldest living veterans went to war in a time when men like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Hideki Tojo commanded armies and fleets that laid waste to nations.

Our fellow-citizens in today's military serve at a time when weapons of terrifying power are in danger of falling into the hands of rogue nations, failed states and international terrorists.

Some day there may come a time when men “shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war any more.”*

Some day perhaps, Memorial Day will be “a dim remembering of a cursed time, when man was a wolf to man.”**

But that day is not yet.

And until that day comes, men and women in uniform, our countrymen, must continue to put themselves between their homes and those who would destroy them. And we must continue to honor those who did not fail in their duty, lest the day come when there is no one left willing to stand between our homes and war's desolation.***

* Isaiah II

** Bartolomeo Vanzetti to the judge who condemned him to death, "Your laws, your courts, your false god, will be a dim remembering of a cursed time when man was a wolf to man." Very eloquent, especially for a man for whom English was a second language. Too bad the sumbitch was guilty. Unfair trials sometimes convict guilty people too.

***O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause, it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Fourth verse, it's really a better poem than it is a song IMHO.

Oh God, not this "sophisiticated European" crap again

2009-05-16T06:09:00.000-07:00

If you go here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/so-john-edwards-had-an-af_b_203742.html

to the Huffington Post, you'll find an article by a Johann Hari, a columnist for the London Independent, entitled, "So Jonathan Edwards Had an Affair -- Grow Up, Adultery is not a Political Issue."

Hari invokes the Monica Lewinski scandal:

"Memo to America: Grow. Up. Have you forgotten the lesson of Lewinsky so soon? While al-Qa'ida plotted a murderous attack on the US, the twice-elected president was busy being impeached over a few bouts of consensual oral sex. It meant nothing. It was nothing. But it skewed your politics for years."

Hari is half-right here. Outraged and uptight Republicans focused on the sex aspect of l'affair Lewinski to the point where the real issue was totally obscured.

The real issue was perjury - lying under oath, and witness tampering. And that damn well does impact the issue of whether a public official is fit to serve.

A society can survive a high crime rate, even a high violent crime rate. What it cannot survive is allowing the trivialization of perjury, and witness and jury tampering. Tolerate these - for any reason, and you haven't got a justice system left.

A lawyer once pointed out to me, that if a prosecutor finds evidence of witness tampering by a murder suspect, many would happily drop the murder charge if they could send the perp up on the tampering charge.

But our pols evidently don't have to live under the same law as the rest of us.

Hari goes on:

"It doesn't have to be this way. Continental Europe has a mature model where politicians' affairs are considered irrelevant. The idea a French President would be debarred from office for sleeping with somebody other than his wife is preposterous.

Talking about "a right to know" about affairs is silly. We no more have a right to know about Edward's sex life than we have a right to know what he looks like naked."

True enough. When Francoise Mitterand died, his wife and his mistress (with her daughter by him) walked in the funeral procession hand-in-hand.*

I did not then, nor do I now give a frak who Bill Clinton, or Jonathan Edwards, sleeps with.** If I were the president of this land, I'd have a hareem in the East Wing of the White House. (Uh, you know I'm kidding honey. Just making a point!)

I care about taking an oath seriously, and I care about courage.

Caught out in lies that were certain to be uncovered eventually, neither of these wimps had the guts to look the press in the eye and say, "Who I sleep with is none of your damn business!"

Once a pol does this and makes it stick, then maybe we'll grow up and become tres European.

*Interesting side note. Some years back I asked a Japanese fellow-grad student about then-Prime Minister Tanaka, and how the Japanese press treated the fact that he had a traditional arrangement with a concubine and second family in a house across town from his wife and primary family. (I'd read it in Newsweek.)

She answered, "Oh, does he?"

She wasn't shocked you understand. She just didn't know. Which answered my question.

**Although I've got to say, what the hell is wrong with these guys' taste? They've got access to some of the most beautiful women on the continent - and they get caught with a pudgy Valley Girl and a skank groupie.

The administration and those photos

2009-05-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the weekend edition of the Valley City Times-Record.

"There were young knights among them who had never been present at a stricken field. Some could not look upon it and some could not speak and they held themselves apart from the others who were cutting down the prisoners at My Lord's orders, for the prisoners were a body too numerous to be guarded by those of us who were left. Then Jean de Rye, an aged knight of Burgundy who had been sore wounded in the battle, rode up to the group of young knights and said: 'Are ye maidens with your downcast eyes? Look well upon it. See all of it. Close your eyes to nothing. For a battle is fought to be won. And it is this that happens if you lose."
Froissart’s Chronicles, 14th century

President Obama, announced he would authorize release of photos showing prisoners undergoing “enhanced interrogation.” Right-wingers announced the imminent downfall of the American republic.

Then he changed position and said he wouldn't. Left-wingers announced the imminent downfall of the American republic.

Reportedly, top US commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan personally told the President they opposed release, arguing it would make the US mission more difficult.

Most of the controversy concerns “waterboarding,” a technique used on three terrorists a total of six-and-a-half minutes. It's also routinely used on U.S. military personnel training to resist interrogation.

One of the terrorists the CIA is known to have waterboarded is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The 9/11 Commission claims Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “the principle architect of the 9/11 attacks.” Under questioning he boasted, “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan.”

Pearl's body was found cut into ten pieces in a shallow grave in the outskirts of Karachi in 2002. A video of Pearl's last minutes was posted on the Internet, and featured on snuff-DVDs sold as light entertainment in parts of the Middle East where they don't like us much.

The arguments about “enhanced interrogation” concern whether the techniques used are, or are not torture. And given they are, is torture ever justified?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the CIA didn't tell her they would actually go out and do what they described in the briefings she attended. The minutes of the meetings show, to put it bluntly, that she's lying her head off.

Anyone who says they'd never use torture under any circumstances is lying their head off. Tell anyone that someone they love more than their own life is in the hands of Khalid's buddies, and watch them join the “waterboarding is for sissies” camp in two seconds.

The question is, how far can we go before what we do destroys us and the ideals that define us as a civilization? Is there too high a price to pay for survival?

Maybe – but you have to survive to have that discussion.

We are justifiably proud of the progress we've made since the not-so-long-gone days torture was acceptable legal practice, and executions and bear baiting were public entertainment. What we too-often fail to realize is, that progress has not been evenly distributed across the globe.

Our enemies come from a culture which holds public beheadings - and parents bring their children and let them kick the head around like a soccer ball. Where to murder someone who insults you, your clan, or your religion is praiseworthy. Where mothers teach sons if their wife, daughter, or sister is raped, their duty is to murder her.

Our enemies think we are soft, and their ruthlessness will overcome our power. Whether they are right or not, is a still-open question.

So Mr. President, I'd say go ahead and release those photos. If we allow these things in our name, we ought to be willing to look at them.

But if we do, let's look at that Danny Pearl video too.

This just in....

2009-05-13T15:02:00.001-07:00

I just received this comment on an old post of mine from October 28, 2006, "Iraq is not Vietnam."

Here: http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/10/iraq-is-not-vietnam.html#comments

At 11:47 PM, Blogger Deepak said…

I'm sure those thousands of dead Iraqis have you to thank, genius. You know that Saddam had no ties to bin Laden, right? It's pretty obvious that you're a half-fascist, not a libertarian. Stop calling yourself that, you McCarthyite pig!

Always nice to hear from a fan.

The answer I posted:

Deepak,

It's difficult to understand what you're referring to, since your post is so brief and consists entirely of name calling, i.e. "half-fascist" and "pig."

And since you use a nom-du-blog, have provided no links to a website, and have no public profile available, I must refrain from speculating and limit myself to only those conclusions justified by the evidence you provide.

1) You can't argue, you can only call names.

2) You're a coward who hides behind the anonymity of the Internet.

As to your demand I stop calling myself a libertarian, make me.

Waiting to hear from you Deepak, but not anonymously, nor holding my breath.

In the meantime, you might brush up on some more of my old columns:

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-martial-arts-study-pekiti-tirsia.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/10/martial-arts-research-combatives-part-1.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/10/martial-arts-research-combatives-part-2.html

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/11/martial-arts-research-part-3-combatives.html

And after you're through wetting yourself...

Hey, I won something!

2009-05-11T15:21:00.001-07:00

No, it wasn't the lottery. Not yet, and you won't hear about it from me when I do...

What I won was First Place in the North Dakota Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Contest, in the category of Personal Columns - Serious, among newspapers of 12,000 or less circulation.

I posted it here http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2008/06/fathers-day-lessons-for-older-dad.html

I also won second place in the category of Picture Story, for a photo series on a drill the first responders of our community staged in front of the local high school - very fake-gory it was and a great drill.

It seems very appropriate on the day I'm going to pick up my family at the airport. They've been evacuated to my parents home on the east coast, and it's given me an excellent opportunity to rediscover something.

Being a bachelor sucks.

The house is eerily un-haunted. There are no sounds at night, no breathing on the other side of bed, and beyond her in the crib. And beyond the crib in the next room.

I'd have welcomed the company of a ghost.

Now I'm getting my family back - can the lottery be far behind?

A recommendation and my plan for voluntary term limits

2009-05-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

Have a look here: http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_/The_Cost_of_Media_Bias/1736/6337/

at Bill Whittle (my favorite blogger) video-commenting on media bias. Chapter and verse, chapter and verse.

God I love the video age! It's getting harder and harder to maintain hypocrisy and lies in public anymore.

Whittle speaks of an aristocratic congress-for-life. Some say the cure for this is term limits.

Well, term limits have been passed a few times, and just as quickly overturned, or delayed forever by challenges in the courts. Does anyone really think the political class will willingly put up with exclusion from the gravy train?

So I have "a modest proposal." We propose a social contract with those who would undertake the noble sacrifices of public service. Which (so they say) are a burden they undertake for the Greater Good of Us All.

You altruistic public servants can have three consecutive terms in office.

After one, you have to spend at least an equal amount of time making an honest living before you run for any public office again.

Or, you can have two terms in office. After which you spend an equal amount of time in jail.

Or, you can have three consecutive terms in office, after which we take you out and shoot your sorry ass because you're hopeless.

And speaking of pictures...

2009-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

We had an exchange at the office the other day, which I'm still chuckling over, for reasons I can't quite explain.

The weather outside was foul, and our town is still rationing sewer use. The durn college sports auditorium electronic billboard is flashing, "Yellow is mellow, brown flush it down," if that gives you an idea.

At any rate, I got an email from my father with pics of my wife and kids. They're staying with my parents on the east coast while the emergency lasts.

(I suspect my boy became instantly popular in school after telling his new schoolmates there were no toilets in our town, "Ewwww gross!")

At any rate, I was telling a female colleague in the office about the pics, and how the sun is shining on the bay and everything looks so beautiful.

"I don't want to see them," she said grumpily.

"Damn she looks good!" I remarked.

"Steve!" she said, shocked.

"Hey, that's my wife I'm talking about."

What can I say? Nine years and I'm still crazy about my wife.

There was a time that was considered shocking. The Polish King Jan III Sobieski, who led the Polish-German forces that relieved the siege of Vienna by the Turks, had a wife Maryszenka. Their relationship was the scandal of Europe at the time.

You see, one doesn't know how to put this delicately, but the king was known to be in love with his wife.

That just wasn't done!

Polish popular movies still make fun of this. I saw one in which foreign ambassadors come to the palace to meet with the king, and the palace staff find him in a corner enjoying a little slap-and-tickle with the queen.

Since the king was often away on campaign in those turbulent times, they wrote to each other a lot. It's a pity their correspondence hasn't been translated, I'm told it deserves a place among the masterpieces of delicately erotic literature.

"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice."

G.K. Chesterton

Ooooo am I getting it now!

2009-05-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

Note: What follows is an editorial for the Valley City Times-Record. It follows a story I did, which is described in the editorial. The story was accompanied by two pictures. One of two North Dakota Highway Patrolmen in their shirtsleeves in the freezing water, and one of the rescue team working to save the life of the young lady whose car plunged into the frigid water.

In the picture you can clearly see her face. She remains in critical condition in a hospital in Fargo.

There has been some controversy about the picture, to say the least. The family of the accident victim did not like it at all, which I fully understand. They've got to be mad at somebody, and there really isn't anyone to be mad at: no other driver caused the accident, no pothole in the highway, not even a bartender who served one too many drinks. It was a damn goose in the road the driver swerved to avoid.

Reactions are mixed. A Fargo TV station called us and begged for the pictures. Others think it was tasteless. I'm sorry I can't reproduce the pic, but it's not my property anymore. What I saw, and I believe the pic shows, is brave and skillful men working their hearts out to save the life of a young woman who might be anyone's little girl.

Now, even as we speak, a loudmouthed sports caster on the local radio station is going on and on about how we only did it to show them up (absurd, they're a radio station) and I should be fired, blah, blah, blah.

At any rate, here's what I have to say about the incident:

***********************************************************************************

*Volunteers do their communities proud

Wednesday evening was hectic to be sure. I was on my way out of the office to follow a story when word came in that a woman was trapped in a car in Hobart Lake.

Following a fire engine to the scene, I saw personnel from the state Highway Patrol, Barnes County Sheriff's Office, Sanborn Fire Department, and Valley City/Barnes County fire, rescue and ambulance, not to mention the wrecker from Gille Auto. They were moving so quickly, smoothly, and with such coordination you'd think they did they did this every day.

Rescue Lt. Scott Magnuson, who led the team of divers who recovered the victim from the submerged car, rightly said the rescue was a team effort by a lot of people, starting with the witnesses who called in the report via cell phone. Remember when a witness would have had to drive to the nearest gas station to use a phone?

Highway Patrolmen and Sheriff's Deputies immediately established traffic control and secured the scene, a vastly under-appreciated part of any rescue effort.

A couple of the first Highway Patrolmen on the scene shucked their shirts and jumped in the frigid lake and located the car, saving the rescue team precious time. I was freezing my keister off just standing there fully clothed in the wind and rain.

All of them performed crucial roles, but the success of their efforts depended on the highly specialized training and equipment of the volunteer fire and rescue personnel.

Without the men and equipment; the wet suits, rubber boat, SCUBA gear, and tools, I have no doubt that good men would have killed themselves in a possibly futile attempt to rescue the victim. It takes nothing away from the professionals to say, our volunteers are awesome!

The tradition of volunteer responder has a long and honorable history. The first fire brigades were founded in ancient Rome, the Corpus Vigiles.

The all-volunteer, privately financed Royal National Lifeboat Institution, organized in 1824, has 272 lifeboats assigned to 210 stations in the British Isles. Since it's founding the RNLI has saved more than 124,000 lives, an average of three a day, at a cost of 435 crew members killed in the line of duty.

Volunteer responder services exist because small communities just flat can't afford to maintain highly trained full-time professionals for emergencies that are thankfully rare. In the United States, 73 percent of all firefighters are members of volunteer fire departments, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council.

The NVFC is a non-profit membership association representing the interests of the volunteer fire, EMS and rescue services, and serves as an information source regarding legislation, standards and regulatory issues.

On the web there is also VolunteerFD.org, a place for volunteer firefighters to come and share information with their fellow unpaid professionals. They operate the Sponsor a Firefighter program which suggests ways in which individuals, businesses, and communities can support their volunteer first-responders.

One way some communities support their volunteers, is to provide tax incentives to volunteer.

The IRS previously considered such benefits income subject to federal taxation, until Congressman John B Larson (D-Conn.) proposed the Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act (VRIPA). George Bush signed the bill into law, in December of 2008.

H.R. 3648 exempts all tax benefits provided by state and local units of government to volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel from taxation by the federal government. Additionally, the first $360 per year of any other type of benefit that a volunteer receives would be exempted from taxation.

VRIPA expires at the end of 2010. So if you'd like to do something for the men and women who guard your lives, you might make a note to write your congressman next year.

I'm back, and I've got an answer about China

2009-04-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

I've been in Vancouver for a week at the Fraser Institute seminar/course on economics for journalists, a great experience on which I'll be blogging anon.

I came back to a depressingly empty house, as I evacuated my family after the sewer system in the city was breached by floodwaters. Limited use has been restored - but we're still using port-a-potties stationed on street corners.

Vancouver is a city set in the most staggeringly beautiful setting I've ever seen, which made it doubly hard to come back, but duty calls...

At any rate, during a dinner discussion on how China may, or may not be liberalizing due to the benign influence of market economics, I raised the question of whether it matters if the gender imbalance in China creates tremendous civilization-wrecking instability.

For years I have been trying to find data on what the gender imbalance caused by China's one-child policy is, since wa-a-a-ay before I started to see it in print.

Well, now there are some figures: around 32 million extra boys in China, and getting worse in the younger, not yet pubescent age groups.

If you go here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1550484

you'll find an article by Therese Hesketh, a lecturer at the Centre for International Health and Development at University College London, and Qu Jian Ding: Family size, fertility preferences, and sex ratio in China in the era of the one child family policy: results from national family planning and reproductive health survey.

The conclusion is: Since the one child family policy began, the total birth rate and preferred family size have decreased, and a gross imbalance in the sex ratio has emerged.

The funny thing is, the article is from 2006, the article on MSNBC here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30155400/

is from a few weeks ago. Look around and you find the MSM seems to have noticed this just recently.

The MSNBC article seems to summarize the point of the more technical BMJ article reasonably well. Briefly, the gender imbalance in post-pubescent males is very bad now. It's going to get much worse over the next 10-15 years as more boys grow up and experience that volcanic hormonal surge we all remember so fondly.

Many media articles quote Hesketh thusly, "If you've got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes."

I don't know if this is an example of that charming British understatement, or just plain dense. These numbers are not just a recipe for a high crime rate, this is a portent of war, revolution, and chaos on a scale not seen since World War II.

Oh, and by the way, India may be experiencing the beginning of a similar gender imbalance for the same reason, a preference for sons expressed in sex-selective abortion and female infanticide.

Pleasant dreams!

Pirates – hostis humani generis

2009-04-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record.

If you've been following the news, you know that Capt. Richard Phillips is free, and three Somali pirates won't be sailing under the Jolly Roger anymore.

To most people, this must seem like a pretty bizarre interlude amidst news of the economy, foreign affairs, etc. Most people are only marginally aware that there still are pirates in this day and age.

Piracy, the capture and looting of cargo transported by sea, is a very old business. Three-thousand-year-old wrecks of ships recovered by archaeologists from the Aegean Sea, show evidence their cargo was looted and the ships deliberately sunk.

The Roman statesman Cicero called pirates, hostis humani generis - “enemies of all mankind.”

The first foreign war fought by the United States was a Naval/Marine Corps expedition sent by Thomas Jefferson against the Barbary Pirate state of Tripoli, in what is now Libya. The capture of the pirate state's capitol is commemorated in the Marine Corps Hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli...”

Piracy diminished, but never entirely died out, when steam ships became faster than any wooden sailing vessel. Steam ships required coal for fuel, and extensive infrastructure to build and maintain their steel hulls. Pirate ships which were formerly pretty self-sufficient when powered by wind, and able to affect their own repair and maintenance with available wood, just weren't able to catch merchant ships anymore.

In effect, civilization doomed piracy.

But piracy survived in places where ships have to pass through narrow seas near coasts not under the control of civilized states. The Gulf of Aden, the Straights of Malacca, the Philippine archipelago are all areas long dangerous to commercial shipping and wealthy yachtsmen.

In modern times, pirates operate from swift motorboats darting out from rugged coasts, or launched from harmless-looking mother ships.

Pirates, then and now, require a marketplace to sell stolen goods, and modern financial apparatus to arrange the transfer of ransom payments for captured ships and seamen.

And, just as in Jefferson's administration, they thrive because the merchant firms and governments they operate under find it easier and cheaper to pay ransom than take on the pirates.

In Jefferson's time the European states had been paying ransom for hundreds of years. If you were among those fortunate enough to be ransomed like Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Some historians estimate that more Europeans were captured and taken into slavery in North Africa, than West Africans were taken into slavery in the Americas.

And in both cases, the slave catchers and sellers operated from North African Islamic states which grew rich on the trade.

Now U.S. ships and seamen are once again targets of pirates. President Barack Obama gave orders to act decisively at the discretion of the on-site Naval commanders, and deserves great credit for this. The Europeans are again playing the ransom game, and the pirates are even now holding dozens of European hostages and several ships awaiting ransom.

Congressman Donald Payne, (D-N.J.) chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on Africa, traveled at some personal risk to assess the situation on the ground in Somalia, and also deserves credit.

Unfortunately, he also came back mouthing more of the “we have to address the root causes” drivel our civilization seems afflicted, and hamstrung by.

Congressman, permit me to explain the truth about “root causes.”

The reasoning of a pirate or any other extortionist goes like this, “You have it. I want it. I'm strong enough to take it. You're not strong enough to keep it.”

Keep that in mind and the path to a solution to this problem should be, if not easy, at least relatively straightforward.

Bias example

2009-04-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Here's another example of the kind of thing I study in media bias. Not the open, conscious type of gatekeeping (a la the New York Times, which decides what you ought to know) but the unconscious, off-the-cuff turn of phrase that reveals the mindset of the speaker.

Last Sunday (Sunday before Easter) I caught Geraldo at Large on FOX. The subject was, men who go off their heads and kill or rob after losing jobs etc.

Now note one thing. FOX is widely known, and widely despised in some circles, as a "conservative" network. And in fact, you can see the opinions of some of the newsreaders on FOX displayed quite openly.

To my mind, that's the good thing about FOX. The positions of their talking heads is out in the open. On the other networks, they're "objective" you know.

Of course, they're nothing of the kind, and it shows to anyone paying attention.

And in point of fact, FOX employs more self-identified liberals than the other networks combined have open conservatives.*

One of them is of course, Geraldo Rivera.

At any rate, on the program, Geraldo asked two guests, "After all things were worse during the Reagan administration, unemployment was higher, my God... And in the 70s with those gas lines..." (Quoted from memory, I don't have recording devices ready at all times for this kind of thing. I have to get it on the fly.)

Notice what is missing, "in the 70s" NOT "during the Carter administration." He specifically mentioned the Reagan administration, then identified the Carter years only by decade.

That's the kind of thing I'm looking for - and I'd appreciate help. Examples from any point of view.

Happy Easter to all.

* There remains the question of whether FOX deliberately, or unconsciously chooses liberals to represent that point of view, who are kind of creepy, or macho-flash a$$es - or whether they just have to scrape the bottom of the barrel because liberals who are articulate and attractive are all welcome at the other broadcast outlets.

It is also worth noting that an analysis of campaign contributions by FOX employees a few years back, tilted slightly to the Democrats.

Why America can do nothing for Roxana Saberi

2009-04-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as an Op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record. You can google Roxana Saberi if you're unfamiliar with this case. Briefly, she's a Fargo resident, dual American-Iranian citizen, now in prison in Iran charged with espionage.

Her father is Iranian, her mother Japanese, and if there's any combination more likely to produce lovely daughters I'd like to hear about it. She is a former Miss North Dakota USA.

***

Fargo resident Reza Saberi, father of imprisoned journalist Roxana Saberi is in his native Iran, demanding the regime release his daughter.

I hate to say this, but lots of luck.

Roxana, a 31-year-old freelance reporter from Fargo, is in an Iranian prison charged with espionage. Reports indicate she has been living in Iran for six years, working as a freelance journalist reporting on the Islamic Republic, and stayed on after her permission to work as a journalist was revoked.

One report has it she was arrested buying, or attempting to buy, a bottle of wine, a big no-no in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The thought of a lovely young woman in prison in Iran gives one a queasy feeling. The worst jail in America is a five-star hotel in comparison with what passes for normal in Islamic countries. And news reports say she's in the infamous Evin prison. That's not good.

There are efforts underfoot to bring pressure on the Iranian government to release Saberi.

I would give a lot to be wrong about this, but there is probably nothing that can be done to help her from this country. She is going to have to rely on the whims of a capricious and probably clinically insane clique of thugs for mercy.

It could happen though. Ahmedinejad delighted in showing “king's mercy” to the British sailors and marines they caught at sea a few years back – after rubbing the UK's nose in their impotence to do anything about it, and their complete lack of support from their fellow EU members.

And, the President of the United States has made conciliatory gestures to Iran. He was answered with withering contempt, but it doesn't seem to have registered on him.

President Obama was also recorded on video bowing low to the King of Saudi Arabia, also known as “The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” and conspiracy buffs have been having a field day ever since, while the media studiously ignores yet another protocol blunder.

The White House denies the bow. So who are you going to believe, the President of the United States or your lying eyes?

But, if the President deigns to take notice of the Saberi case, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated publicly Saberi should be released, then it might just happen. Because nothing would trip President Ahmedinejad's trigger more than to have our president grovel publicly to him.

And, that's the only thing that has a chance of working, because legally the United States doesn't have a leg to stand on, even presuming the Iranians would be impressed by legalities.

Here's how I know. Saberi holds dual American and Iranian citizenship. My children are dual citizens of the U.S. and Poland. When our first child was born in Warsaw, we registered the birth with the Polish authorities and the American Embassy.

What they told us at the embassy was, they don't like dual citizenship, but they recognize it happens. The consequences are: my children must enter Poland on their Polish passports, and enter the U.S. on their American passports. Everywhere else they can whip out the passport that offers the cheaper visa.

Whichever country my son becomes of draft age in (if they have conscription), they've got him.

And here's the kicker, if a dual citizen is arrested in either country he/she holds citizenship in, the other can do nothing.

I think we'd better get used to seeing our president grovel.

UPDATE: April 18, According to the morning news, Roxana Saberi has been convicted of espionage in Iran, and sentenced to eight years in prison. We'll see what happens.

It could have been worse...

SHAME!

2009-04-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the still. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JGK-xbXxMw&feature=related

for the video and see that it's not a trick of cherry-picking photos for an awkward or out-of-context shot.

The President, and his staff's ignorance of protocol, resulting in abominable rudeness to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom pales before this.

That is the backside of the President of the United States you see, as he bows low to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

You may recall, the President returned a bust of Winston Churchill on loan to the United States. And after receiving wonderfully tasteful and significant presents from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, gave him a set of DVD's that won't play on English sets and some trinkets from the White House gift shop.

If it wasn't a calculated insult, it was definitely tacky.

He also, by the way, took the Queen's hands in both of his. Protocol is for a quick touch of the hands. Michelle touched the Queen on the back, also not protocol. To be fair the Queen initiated a touch, so Michelle might actually have been invited to a greater intimacy than protocol stipulates.

Those of a conspiratorial bent will no doubt read very sinister motives into this. I think there is no need - even "innocent" ignorance in this case is appalling enough.

At this moment I am so furious I can barely see straight. Once and for all, AMERICAN CITIZENS DO NOT BOW TO FOREIGN MONARCHS GOD DAMN IT!

Much less the President of the United States! Innocent ignorance, or whatever motive you wish to ascribe to this. Our president has disgraced our country.

If it were a private citizen who'd done this, I'd say stay overseas because you haven't got a country to come back to.

I am going to be watching the MSM for reactions to this with great anticipation. I'll be watching to see how the MSM tries to 1) ignore, 2) make light of, 3) justify this.

Thank God for the Internet! It's very difficult to bury things anymore. (My wife saw it before I did - on the online Polish media.)

I have been a critic of the President; his ideology, his associates, and his policy. Nonetheless, I realize that these are differences of opinion, and my assessment of the soundness of his judgement, and have tried to express my differences in an appropriate tone.

But this is neither.

This is a disgrace.

Mr. President, you have disgraced our country. Every one of your countrymen who understands the symbolism of this gesture, giving the sign of submission to a foreign tyrant, is - or damn well should be, burning with shame right now.

Sandbagging for the flood

2009-04-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record

I went up to the North Dakota Winter Show building on Tuesday morning to put in a few hours sandbagging after the paper went to press.

Monday I'd seen the college students up there and I knew the high school students would be there taking the first shift.

So I drove up, parked my car and walked over to the sign-up desk. I'd covered this story enough to know they really need to be finicky about documenting everything for federal aid reimbursement, and that includes volunteer time.

“Where should I go?” I asked the gentleman at the desk.

“You know Daryl Stensland?” he said.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“See him, he's over there.”

So I go up to the volunteer fireman who's coordinating efforts on the floor.

“What should I do?” I ask.

“Grab a shovel and start filling,” he answers quite logically. “Three full shovels in each bag.”

Following his advice, I join a group of high school students at the nearest pile of sand. They're all paired up, shovelers and baggers. So I start filling bags solo.

There's a drill to this. Grab a bag and open it. Hold it with a couple of fingers while you use both hands to stick the shovel into the pile. Take out the shovel with your right hand near the blade and use it like a very big trowel to put in the bag. Put the bag down and get another shovelful with two hands. Shift grips, grab the bag with your left and pour in the sand. Repeat. Shift grips, grab the bag with your left, and put it aside.

Young girls around me are shoveling and grabbing bags that look like they're a significant fraction of their own weight and piling them on pallets.

After a while a young lady comes up and without a word starts helping me with the bags. Now I can shovel without interruption while she opens bags, holds them and puts them aside. Repeat.

I can feel it coming, the ache. It starts in back, right on the belt line, a little more on the right at first, if you're right-handed.

Come on! You used to do this for a living. And shoveling stuff much less pleasant than sand at that.

Jeez, will you look at that girl! You can see the exhaustion in her face, but she doesn't complain.

Come to think of it, nobody's complaining. These kids are having a ball. They're doing meaningful work to help save their town, and they're doing a durn good job of it too, without supervision and without slacking an inch.

There's an old guy over there working alongside kids who look like they could be his grandchildren. There's a woman with a grade-school kid working together, filling bags.

Pallets get covered with bags, one, two layers at most. Wouldn't take many of these to break them. Guys come and get them with forklifts and put them on big flatbed trucks to take into town.

My partner gets called away to help with something else. By! I wonder what her name was? Back to shoveling one-handed.

After a while the Salvation Army arrives with barbecue sandwich makings. This is the second meal in my life I've had from the SA. Tastes grand.

More sandbagging after a quick lunch. Then I've got to get back to town and take some pictures of the work along the dikes.

So long kids, it's been an honor working with you.

Putin visits Washington, gets refrigerator magnets

2009-03-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

From the Valley City-Times-Record, Wednesday, April 1.

In a historic first, the likes of which Washington has not seen since "Gorbymania" during the Reagan administration, Prime Minister of the Russian Republic Vladimir Putin made a historic visit to the United States to discuss spheres of influence in Europe and the Middle East with President Barack Obama.

Putin presented Obama with a priceless Faberge egg from the collection in the Russian National Museum, "As a symbol of the historic ties between our two nations which were, with a slight interlude of tension between the 1950s and 1980s, the most uniformly friendly of any between two such powerful nations, from the founding of the United States through the Second World War," Putin said.

Only 69 of the eggs were made by Peter Carl Faberge and his assistants, as gifts for members of the Russian royal family between 1885 and 1917. The eggs are made of precious metals decorated with enamel and gem stones and open to reveal cunningly fashioned models, such as miniature royal carriages and other designs.

The term "Fabergé egg" has become a synonym for luxurious opulence, and the eggs are regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler's art.

Obama presented Putin with a set of White House refrigerator magnets and autographed copies of his books, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and, "Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance."

Putin offered to extend the treaty of 1867 which ceded Alaska to the United States.

Obama politely refused and told Putin could take it home with him, and would like the purchase price refunded.

“As Mr. Putin knows, we've got a bit of a budget crunch theses days,” Obama said, “and as conservatives are harping on the necessity of cutting spending, it makes sense to cut loose a state that has always absorbed more federal revenue than it produces.”

Saturday Night Live alumnus Tina Fey commented, "Now Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, you betcha!"

Alaska's Governor Palin, who has been touted as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, was unavailable for comment.

A presidential aid unofficially apologized to the Chief of Protocol of the Russian delegation for putting Putin up in the D.C. Super 8 motel, and explained that Barbara Streisand was using the Lincoln Bedroom this week.

Flood fighting

2009-03-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday morning, but not a day of rest for me I think.

At 9 o'clock I'm going to City Hall for the morning briefing of the emergency management team, and then probably up to the Winter Show building to put in some time sandbagging.

The dikes in Valley City have been raised enough to give us a comfortable margin of safety. We'll raise them another couple of feet to the 22 foot level (which is about the level of the top of my front porch, three blocks from the river) to meet the projected 50/50 chance the National Weather Service gives us.

We've had a break for a while. The predicted precipitation this last week came in the form of snow, so it's not running into the river right away. Next rain though...

The Army Corps of Engineers is taking the opportunity to bring the level of the reservoir down, raising the river to just below the banks for a prolonged period of time so they'll have storage capacity.

Thirty-odd miles downriver, he delightful town of Fort Ransom (pop. less than 100) was saved by one inch. That's how close the flood waters came to the top of the dikes as the Corps and volunteers were building it up.

Further down river, below where the Sheyenne joins the Red River is Fargo.

Fargo, to put it bluntly, is screwed. They're predicting 44 feet in Fargo and they've already started evacuating old folks homes, hospitals and invalids. In short, everyone who isn't light on their feet first.

To show how serious they were, Fargo police arrested a CNN camera crew and some gawkers who didn't believe that "stay of the dikes" means YOU.

Our authorities asked everyone who isn' a volunteer or media not to sightsee. Since the on-site media is me and the guy from the radio station, we haven't exactly been in the way.

It's funny. I realized lately that I've lived in a country undergoing a civil war, associated with dissidents in a country with a real-live KGB - but I've never covered a flood before.

Not counting the time me and a bud put out in a canoe in the South Canadian river in flood - it wasn't actually threatening the town.

We had a wild ride for a couple of miles, clinging to the bottom of the overturned canoe.

"And how old were you when you did this?" is what my wife asks when I tell her these things.

Well, I'm old enough to know better now. Though actually the river isn't raging here, the danger would be the ice jams downstream...

Ruminations

2009-03-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

From the depths of depression, to guarded optimism. Come along with me on a roller-coaster ride!

* Political mercenary Dick Morris had this to say recently:

"In an effort to promote liquidity and boost the economy, the Federal Reserve yesterday announced plans to grow the money supply by another 50 percent to 60 percent. This ignores the profound observation of Gen. George Patton, 'You can't push a string.'"

See: http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2009/03/20/the_feds_futile_move

This looks very bad to me. A credit crunch, high unemployment, and now here comes the inflation!

For those of you who've got money in savings, what are you going to do with it when the inflation rate starts to exceed the interest rate?

My guess is, buy stuff. Quickly.

A usually sober financial guru advised, buy a house on a plot of land of any size you can garden on.

Some have added, guns - and don't leave a paper trail.

There was a time I'd have considered that advice paranoid and inflamatory...

* I sometimes wonder about Dick Morris. He's one of the few examples of a political consultant who has worked both sides. That doesn't happen often, you rapidly make yourself unemployable doing that.

What I wonder is, after working for the Clintons, is he pissed-off after enduring Hillary's personal anti-Semitic slurs? And after Bill threw him under the bus (pics of a toe-sucking hooker showed up in the Enquirer if you remember) is he out for revenge?

Or did the reality that the Left is finally in a position to destroy captialism, the engine of our prosperity and power, finally sink in?

After years of screwing with the market to the extent that it's on the ropes, the Left is pointing to their handiwork and saying, "See, capitalism is a failure!"

Morris has been around the block a few times. He can see what happens under socialism - and more specifically, what has happened to Jews under socialism.

* From America's wisest public intellectual.

"One of the many symptoms of this decay from within is that we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs.
Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone's paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins?"

Thomas Sowell, Feb. 24

* From John McCaslin's column: http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnMcCaslin/2009/03/20/well_put

...a Tennessee constituent of Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn said it best when he told the congresswoman: "I'm tired of the government spending money I have not made yet for programs I don't want."

* We just saw on TV that The One Who Causes Legs to Tingle has made ovetures to sell my wife's country to the nation that within living memory, participated in the murder of 20 percent of its population.

That's what it looks like from here at any rate. He's putting on hold (meaning he's going to drop) plans to base a missile defense system in Poland, that is no possible threat to Russia - it's a turf thing.

I couldn't help but remember a Polish colleague in Warsaw. It was some years ago when Poland wanted into NATO, and Russia objected. It didn't look good for Poland then, although it did get in after all.

Piotr said gloomily, "It will be second Yalta. The West will sell Poland for peace."

The Polish prime minister said they'd have to reevaluate how they trust America.

My wife just snorted derisively.

* I just got in from filling sand bags to fight the rising flood waters in our valley. I worked with a bunch of high school students, let out for this purpose.

These young men and women were great. They did the work cheerfully, with minimal supervision, and without slacking.

One small girl held bags for me while I shoveled. I could see the exhaustion on her face, but she never complained.

She did however, abandon me for a tall, handsome young senior. At one time he had three girls holding bags for him to fill, while I had none. ;) (However, he was shoveling like a machine.)

So I paired with a woman closer to my own age who works in the juvenile justice system. She mentioned she recognized a few of the young folks around...

I feel better about a few things now, although I'll be stiff and sore tomorrow for sure. These kids faced up to a crisis, and believe me it's a crisis here, with guts, grit, and cheerfulness.

These kids have have been raised in a nation with a crap educational curriculum and an increasingly toxic culture. But when the chips were down, they came through.

I don't know if this is just a local phenomenon, this is after all a pretty isolated part of the country. And I don't know how they'd fare faced with a threat that's not just impersonal nature but malevolent and evil, such as resurgent communism or radical Islam.

Still, I feel good about this - and the water is still rising.

"God will save you, fear you not. Be ye the men you've been. Get ye the sons your father's got, and God will save the queen."

Mark your calendar! I defend Obama.

2009-03-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

Mark it on your calendar - today I defend Obama!

A few days back Obama went on Leno - causing my wife to remark, "What's the president of the United States doing on Leno?"

Understand, she loves Leno, but not being American she has certain assumptions about the dignity of the office, but never mind.

Anyhow, after the usual political verbiage with intellectual content as close to zero as doesn't matter, Obama made a self-deprecating joke about his bowling prowess, "it's like - like Special Olympics or something."

The audience laughed. The PC lobby was not amused, and surprisingly did not excuse one of their own this time.

Once given permission, Republicans jumped on him too.

Mark Steyn said, "He might be "a fairly sensitive and compassionate man," (in the words of a defender.) Alternatively, he could be a mean, self-absorbed S.O.B. who regards anyone other than himself as intellectually disabled."

“I was shocked to learn of the comment made by President Obama about Special Olympics,” Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, mother of a child with Down's Syndrome, said. “This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world."

After the show, Obama phoned Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, to apologize.

Shriver later said the president expressed regret "in a way that I think was very moving."

However, the foster-mother of Kolan McConiughey, a Special Olympics athlete from Ann Arbor, Mich., was not the least bit offended

McConiughey has an IQ somewhere around the 50s. He never learned to read or figure, but holds down a job just fine thank you, and evidently shows signs of savantism.

Idiot savant is a French term, pronounced "ee-dee-oh sah-vaunt." It describes the phenomenon of people who appear to be of sub-normal intelligence or autistic, who display remarkable talents of memory, calculation, or sometimes music.*

McConiughey's talent it appears, is bowling. He bowls an average score of 266 and has bowled three perfect games.

And now he wants to take on the president, according to the TMZ Web site.

Now here's my suggestion:

You critics, need to LIGHTEN THE FRACK UP!

Don't feed the PC beast!

Mr. President, FOR GOD'S SAKE GROW A PAIR AND QUIT APOLOGIZING!

And if you want to do something for Special Olympics athletes, and show you're a good sport - take Mr. McConiughey's challenge and let us watch him wax your ass at bowling.

* The most famous movie depiction of savantism, was of course, "Rain Man" with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman.

The question of why these talents don't appear more often among people of more normal or high intelligence is an interesting one. Or perhaps they do - some have suggested more socially adept people quickly learn to hide such talents.

On that note, my grandmother had the "play by ear" talent. When her older sister finished pracitising her piano lessons, my grandmother could sit at the piano and repeat everything she'd heard - before she'd ever had lessons herself.

My great-aunt told me how mad it used to make her.

Perhaps such talents just aren't very useful or are even, dare we say, handicapping.

People with perfect pitch or the play-by-ear talent rarely, if ever, become great musicians. I've heard perfect pitch can make listening to an orchestra an excruciating experience.

People with phenomenal natural memories often have problems with attention and focus - as I can attest.

Lightning calculators - how handy is that in normal life?

Battlestar Galactica, not the frakkin' end!

2009-03-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

"What seems human, is human."
- Cordwainer Smith (Dr. Paul Myron Linebarger)

Battlestar Galactica concluded in a two-and-a-quarter hour special last night, and it wasn't bad at all.

I actually feared they might have painted themselves into a corner they couldn't get out of, and might have to use the stock ending of incompetent writers, "And they all got run over by a truck."

They found Earth - our Earth, not the radioactive ruin they ended last season on. And it was the distant past.

This was the ending I suspected they'd use. There were after all, only three possibilities: find Earth in our past, present or future. Last season appeared to settle on the future, but then they announced another 10 episodes, and I did notice that they didn't show the continental outlines of the globe on that "Earth"...

Their decision not to rebuild a civilization right away, but scatter across the globe and ultimately mix with and mentor the primitive humans they found here was a bit of a surprise. One might have expected them to build cities with the limited technology they could sustain (38,000 survivors don't have enough collective skills between them to run a civilization as advanced as ours) and become the gods of antiquity: Hera, Athena, etc.

Not everybody got a happy ending, not everybody survived, but thank Gods Helo, Athena and their little girl Hera came out OK! I don't think I could have stood a tragic outcome for them. There's only so much a man can take after all.

(Have I got something personal invested in the welfare of this mixed-marriage family? Maybe.)

Laura Roslin got a peaceful death with the man who loved her at her side, after performing heroicly in Galactica's last battle. Adama didn't crash the aircraft he was flying her around to see their beautiful new home, as I expected. Instead he landed at a nice spot, built a cairn for his woman, and planned to build the cabin they wanted to spend their last years in beside it.

Boomer redeemed herself before her twin/clone Athena blew her away. One can't help suspect Athena might have forgiven her for kidnapping her child (she did bring her back after all) if Boomer hadn't frakked her husband while she was tied up in the closet...

Chief, perennial screwup, managed to destroy the chance for a Cylon-Human bargain at the end - which may not have been a bad thing. The choice was made for a human race that continues and evolves by natural reproduction and the turnover of generations, rather than eternal ressurection of a few standard types.

He wound up with neither of the women he'd loved. He killed the Cylon reincarnation of his ancient fiancee on "Earth" when he realized she'd killed his wife Callie.

Chief (whose name "Galen" is Celtic) went off to be a hermit in the mountains on a cold island off the northern continent.

My wife said, "The immortal Highlander!"

If Boomer had lived, would he have forgiven her? Could he have?

That's one of those good questions that have no final answers.

Surprisingly, Saul and Ellen got to live happily ever after. She was unfaithful quite a lot, and he did poison her, but I guess love conquers all.

I was unclear about the Six who miscarried with Saul's child. Was that Caprica Six?

More surprisingly, Baltar and Caprica Six seem to have redeemed themselves. Surprising because they were after all, between them responsible for the 12 colonies coming out on the losing side of the war that killed most of the human race.

The Galactica got the honorable send off she deserved.

Not all the loose ends were tied up, and that's how it should be. Only trivial questions have final answers.

How'd Kara Thrace come back?

God, evidently. She and Lee Adama didn't get together after all. She went poof, gone. Maybe joined Sam on the "other side."

God it seems, can send a risen savior back in a fighter-spacecraft.

Who was the Six that haunted Baltar?

Apparantly some kind of angel or higher power. And at the very end, it turned out Baltar had an angelic doppelganger as well.

And then it ended now, and in 21st century New York. Baltar-angel and Six-angel debating whether mankind will screw it up again, like on Kobol, "Earth," and Caprica, or not.

"And don't call him God, you know he doesn't like that silly name..."

The specific screwup is developing artificial intelligence and then treating it badly enough to make it turn on mankind. I think we can treat that as a dramatic device. The reality could be that, or any number of other possible screwups.

(Have you read the controversy about the Large Hadron Collider? There is a school of thought that holds the earth could be destroyed by a lab accident. As in a lab accident within the next year.)

There are holes you could drive trucks through of course. This is drama, not history.

Are they just turning a bunch of city folks who've spent the last 5-7 years in artificial environments loose in the wilderness with no survival skills? How about a little reliance on the tech they've got left while they teach their kids flint knapping and such.

If they've scattered all over the world already, how did Hera become mitochondrial Eve to the whole human race?

If a bunch settle in Tanzania, how come it was the white and Asian people?

Baltar is going back to his roots as a farmer. But this is 150,000 years ago, and agriculture was invented only about 10,000 years ago.

Maybe it didn't work.

But there's room to keep exploring.

Caprica, a prequel-series just might be OK. Knowing how it ends is usually the kiss of death for drama, but the brief teaser we saw looks promising.

And, there is going to be a two-hour made for TV movie about the final war - from the Cylon point of view.

That took balls!

Earlier in the series it was made plain there were scattered survivors in parts of the 12 colonies. Places in the mountains and areas not radioactive. In time the radiation will subside and without the bad cylons hunting them, the survivors can spread across the ruined worlds again.

Do we have kin out there still?

And who's this God guy?

God, as in God, or could this hint at a modification of Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The corollary would seem to be: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from (a) god.

Well whoever He is, thank Him for this thought-provoking and entertaining series. Only He knows how seldom the industry manages to put the two together successfully!

Olson, Ayers, Dorhn: America's aging terrorists

2009-03-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Note: The body of this appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record.

"What matter the victims, so long as the gesture is beautiful?"
- Laurent Tailhade, 1854-1919

A couple of news items caught my attention last week, and apparently almost nobody else's.

On March 17, Sara Jane Olson, nee Kathleen Soliah, was released from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California, after serving seven years of a 14-year sentence for possessing explosives with intent to murder, and first-degree murder for the killing of Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four, during a bank robbery. Though she did not personally discharge the shotgun that killed Mrs. Opsahl, she did kick a pregnant woman in the belly during the robbery, causing her to miscarry.

Before her arrest for acts committed while a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Olson had been living for 23 years in Minnesota as a housewife and mother of three, active in various worthy causes.

The SLA was famous in the 1970's for kidnapping, and shortly thereafter converting, heiress Patty Hearst.*

On March 12, representatives from “The Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism,” held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., asking the Justice Department to reopen the case of the 1970 bombing of Park Police Station in San Francisco, which killed police Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell.

FBI informant Larry Grathwohl, testified under oath that Bill Ayers, University of Chicago professor of education, told Grathwohl that Ayers' wife Bernadine Dohrn, Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Director of Northwestern University's Children and Family Justice Center, "had been forced to plant the bomb at Park Station because others were not active enough in committing violence."

Full disclosure: I was not part of that world, but I knew people in it. My childhood best friend disappeared underground. But unlike Mrs. Olson and Professors Ayers and Dohrn, he never resurfaced.

Olson, Ayers and Dorhn's parents were affluent to wealthy. Ayers' father was a CEO at Commonwealth Edison. His comrades in the Weather Underground included the children of high-powered lawyers, business owners, and educators. Many of them received financial support from their families while living underground.

My friend, Thomas "Tiff" Feeney, was the son of an Irish cop, who made it into a good university on a scholarship. Since he disappeared underground, I have never heard a word of him. I fear the worst.

The criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with these people. Criminals act to satisfy their desires to get things without working for them, and to feel good by hurting people they don't like.

A terrorist feels him-or-herself to be a soldier in a cause separate from and superior to himself - although he or she my be acting to satisfy a need greater than wealth or comfort, the need to feel important. This is felt most strongly by those whose material wants are already satisfied. Which is why the ranks of American terrorists come largely from the children of privilege.

Before paroling an offender into society, the justice officials wants to see some evidence of remorse, or at least a desire not to go back to jail. They are well aware that criminals are very good at faking it. Recidivism rates among released and paroled offenders are high.

Recidivism among our aging domestic terrorists is rare. After their youthful radical adventures, they re-entered society and hold prestigious, well-paid jobs they'd be disqualified for if they'd robbed, bombed, and killed for mere money, rage, jealousy, or any motive any sane person could comprehend.

Remorse is totally absent. Ayers and Dorhn have said many times they'd do it all over again. Their only regret is they "didn't do enough." Olson pleaded guilty and allocuted to her offenses, then had to be hauled back into court after stating publicly she was innocent. None of them have ever cooperated with authorities to solve any of the still-open cases. Their attitude towards their victims is eerily detached, like they aren't real.

Well, that's what you'd expect from "soldiers in a cause," though to my knowledge none of them ever demanded to be tried by military commission under the laws of war. They prefer to trust the criminal justice system of the “fascist pig-state of AmeriKKKa” and the best lawyers Daddy's money could buy.

You see, under the Geneva Convention, you get to shoot people who do things like that.

******************************************************************************

*Patty Hearst was treated rather harshly by the press after she was caught, tried, and sentenced. Journalist Marylyn Baker quipped, "Patty didn't need a brainwash, just a quick rinse."

I confess I shared the sentiments. However, in the Playboy interview Patty said two things that hit me right between the eyes.

"I did two years of a seven year sentence, and everybody talks about it like it was nothing."

Right Patty. Two years in stir is not nothing. And it wasn't a country club prison for politicians and white collar criminals either.

And, this I thought was really profound. The interviewer asked her what she thought made it politically possible for President Jimmy Carter to commute her sentence (she eventually got a full pardon from Bill Clinton.)

She replied, "Jonestown. Before Jonestown, nobody believed in brainwashing."

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

*And by the way, Marylyn Baker was the journalist who really broke the case, did the legwork the feds followed up on, and revealed the SLA were in fact mostly a bunch of white, middle-class dykes, who got a totally un-political black career criminal (Donald DeFreeze, a.k.a. "Field-Marshall General Cinque") to front for them.

*"I asked, 'well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?' and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say 'eliminate,' I mean 'kill.' Twenty-five million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people. And they were dead serious."
-Larry Grathwohl

*“She lived in Berkeley. It was kind of normal. I always tell people she wasn't a terrorist. She was an urban guerrilla.”
-Emily Peterson, Olson's daughter.

*"We were young, we were idealistic and we'd do it again... we were so lucky to have been born into that moment in history." - Bernadine Dorhn, Connie Chung interview 1998

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQsYzBlXK6M

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

We invoke holy Patrick, Ireland's chief apostle.
Glorious is his wondrous name, a flame that baptized heathen;
He warred against hard hearted wizards.
He thrust down the proud with the help of our Lord of fair heaven.
He purified Ireland's meadow-lands, a mighty birth.
We pray to Patrick chief apostle; his judgment has delivered
us in doom from the malevolence of dark devils.
God be with us, together with the prayer of Patrick, chief apostle.
- Ninine (eighth century, translated from Old Irish)

“Beannachtai na Feile Padraig agat!” Blessings of the feast of Patrick on you!

Don't even try to pronounce that from the text. The rule of Irish spelling is, you only pronounce the letters that aren't there.

March 17 is St. Patrick's Day, marking the date of death sometime between 461 and 496 A.D, of a man born Maewyn Succat sometime in the late fourth or early fifth century. Which ought to tell you something about how much is known for sure about the patron saint of Ireland.

Patrick was born of Romano-British stock in what is today Wales, where Romanized Celts fled from the Saxon invaders after the death of the leader known in legend as King Arthur.

He was taken by slave raiders from Ireland and set to work as a herd boy for six years.

Patrick said in his Confessio, “I, Patrick, unlearned and a sinner, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age.”

After a time, Patrick had a vision that if he made his way to the coast, he would find a ship which would take him home. After he was reunited with his family for a time, he had another vision.

“I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and they were crying as if with one voice: 'We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and walk again among us.'”

Patrick, as he was now known, returned to Ireland as a missionary. Legend has it he commenced his activity on the pagan feast of Beltane, on May 1 when all the fires in the land were extinguished and re-lit from one sacred fire of the Druids at the hill of Tara, seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

The story goes that Patrick kindled a fire within sight of Tara, causing a Druid to prophesy, “If that fire is not put out, it will kindle a blaze that will consume all of us.”

The Druids brought Patrick to a trial, at which he acquitted himself so well he won his first converts. In fact, conversion proceeded so rapidly that Ireland was Christianized without a single martyrdom, the only Christian nation which can claim that.

Of course, the Irish have been making up for it ever since...

Various reasons have been advanced for this. It seems likely Irish paganism had become encrusted with taboos and obligations (gaesa in the Irish) and Christianity offered a much more liberal and humane set of dos and don't.

“You mean, I avoid meat on Friday, fast once a year, and I don't have to get up every sunrise and run backwards nine times around my house because I saw my mother-in-law hang her washing on the line ten years ago? Baptize me!”

Since the pagan tradition offered so little resistance, there was no reason to suppress it. Patrick himself enjoyed listening to the old tales, and specifically commanded they be written down, to the everlasting gratitude of historians, anthropologists, and folklorists.

The recorded Irish mythology is the largest collection of Celtic culture in existence, twice the volume of the next largest, the Welsh. What is known of the mythology and religion of the continental European Celts fills one very thin book.

So whether you're Irish or not, here's a toast to St. Patrick, in green beer or uisge beatha (“water of life” origin of the word “whiskey.”)

And you don't even have to get plastered and start a fight. It's not a law or anything.

That was a short honeymoon

2009-03-13T07:49:00.001-07:00

This has got to be the shortest presidential honeymoon in the history of the Republic.

We're just over 50 days into the new administration, and even the mainstream media that had "A Slobbering Love Afair"* with The One Who Sends Tingles Down Legs, is beginning to sound like how the easy bar pick-up feels next morning when she sobers up and sees what she's woken up next to.

The Obama presidency seems to be a floundering mess from day one. Polls seem to indicate practically no one believes the economic "stimulus" is going to do anything but make things worse.

And, the foreign policy front of the administration is such a disaster that even the Bush-despising Europeans are aghast. In short order, The One has managed to insult the Brits, the Eastern Europeans, and even the damn Brazilians!

Ovetures to the Islamic crazies are met with sneering contempt. The Russians are openly flouting the Monroe Doctrine in our back yard and ratcheting up the bullying of Europe. Looks like the Euros are going to be needing a cowboy soon. Too bad what they'll get is a hip metrosexual.

Those of us who never felt the love to begin with may be pardoned for indulging in a moment of schadenfreud** - but damn it, it's my country too, and the prospect of a nuclear Iran and Russian long-range bombers in Cuba and Venezuela is no laughing matter.

Bill Clinton had a floundering period too, at the beginning of his presidency when he and his buddies would stay up past midnight over pizza and solve the world's problems, like a pack of college sophomores. He did eventually straighten up and get things at least semi-organized.

(I didn't and don't give a damn about the shenanigans in the Oval Office, apart from the perjury. If I were president I'd have a hareem in the East Wing - and if you were married to Hillary...)

Maybe Obama will realize there are limits to power, organize his administration, and deal with the stuff a president must deal with, before trying to do what he'd most like to do.

Maybe.

* http://www.amazon.com/Slobbering-Love-Affair-Pathetic-Mainstream/dp/1596980907/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237132781&sr=8-1

** I don't think I ever get over the creepy realization there is a language which has such a word which means that and nothing else.

A time of juveniles

2009-03-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record. The title is from an essay by Eric Hoffer, which seems prescient at present.

Question: What is the most dangerously stupid thing that walks the earth?

Answer: An above-average bright adolescent.

What's that you say? If the kid is so smart, why do you say he's stupid?

It's this, the better-than-average bright adolescent can see that he's better-informed about many things than most of the adults around him. What he cannot realize is that experience counts for something. He can't see it of course, because he doesn't have any.

I'm not being holier-than-thou. I was that smart-aleck adolescent, and the memory of it is painful.

But what's really painful now, is my growing suspicion that we're ruled by highly-educated people with no experience of normal life, i.e. bright adolescents.

Case in point. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom paid the first state visit to the United States in this administration. He brought the gift of a pen holder, carved from the timbers of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Gannet, which played a prominent role in the anti-slavery crusade, a gift designed to symbolize the "historic ties" between the two nations.

In return, he got a set of DVDs that probably won't play on English sets, and a couple of toys from the White House gift shop for his kids.

It's customary on such occasions to hold a joint press conference with two podiums and the flags of both nations prominently displayed. The president didn't have time for that, though he did have time to meet with the Boy Scouts that week.

The British press are aghast. Speculations abound. The President is tired and on the verge of a breakdown, he's hostile to Britain because his father was Kenyan and Kenya was a British colony, he's signaling an end to the “special relationship,” etc.

The thought that the head of the mightiest state on earth simply has no idea how to behave on the world stage and has no one to tell him how, hasn't come up. Probably because the thought is just too scary.

Remember how scornful the Europeans were that cowboy George Bush didn't have a passport, didn't know people from Kosovo are “Kosovars” not “Kosovians,” and couldn't pronounce “nuclear?” Do you think they're reassured now?

When the present economic crisis emerged in the last months of the Bush administration, Bush junked everything economics and common sense says about not going deeper into debt, and threw money we don't have at the problem.

Can anyone see anything different in the present administration's policy? Except perhaps for who gets the pork?

Do I have to point out that indifference to tradition, courtesy, and the long-term consequences of profligate self-indulgence are the hallmarks of an adolescent mind?

Obama has spent his entire working life seeking every-higher public office, except for a grand total of one year's experience in the private sector. A year he described as like, “being a spy in the enemy camp.”

Bush's experience in the private sector was brief, heavily dependent on family connections, and largely a financial failure.

And it's not just presidents, it's cabinet officials, advisors, and congressmen. We are increasingly ruled by people whose career choices begin and end with the pursuit of power.

Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern realized this is a bad idea too late, after leaving office for the private sector. “In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business.... I wish that during the years I was in public office I had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better Senator and a more understanding presidential contender...”

Paul Harvey ... Good day

2009-03-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

Note: This appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record.

Paul Harvey died on February 28, 2009, at the age of 90 in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by family and friends and mourned by millions around the world.

There will never be another broadcaster like him, and I'm quite confident making that assertion. Paul Harvey started in radio in 1933 in Tulsa, Oklahoma when he was 15 years old, first as a janitor and soon after as a news and commercials reader. That doesn't happen anymore. It probably isn't even legal.

Harvey had an idiosyncratic cadence in his delivery that once heard, was never forgotten. When his program was carried on TV, you saw just what you expected, a face and body language that matched his voice perfectly.

I first encountered Harvey many years ago on TV in my grandmother's house in Ponca City, Oklahoma. I was never a follower, I'm not of the radio generation. I just seemed to run into him from time to time, whenever I was someplace near a radio. It wasn't hard to run into Harvey, he broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, to an audience estimated at 22 million people.

There were things he did, and got away with, that few others would have dared. For one, he read his own commercials. Salon magazine called him the "finest huckster ever to roam the airwaves."

Maybe so. Others might call it, “not biting the hand that feeds you.”

Harvey said, "I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is."

For another, he went out of his way to chronicle good news. News about people being decent and good to other people. And however much we in the news business may decry “sensationalism,” we never really lose sight of the adage, “if it bleeds, it leads.”

When Harvey did note and comment on the foibles of humanity, he usually did so with irony and a certain sadness rather than the outrage-for-public-consumption we're used to from today's talking heads.

Politically he is considered conservative. But he was an Old Right, Paleo-conservative. In foreign policy he was isolationist. But unlike the Left isolationists who cried ”American imperialism” was corrupting the world, Harvey warned the United States that dealing with dictatorships was corrupting our country.

Just as Lyndon Johnson had his Walter Cronkeit moment when the liberal Cronkeit came out publicly against the Vietnam war, Nixon had his Paul Harvey moment.

“Mr. President, we love you, but you're wrong,” was what America heard from the other most trusted man in America.

That's how Harvey would disagree with you. I don't think anyone ever heard a gratuitous personal insult from Harvey, or ever the slightest implication that disagreeing with him made you a bad person.

Harvey was what we call a social conservative these days. He did not approve of the commercialization of sex, and made no secret of it. But he was not a joyless prude and did have a wry sense of humor about it.

On one occasion he related the results of a survey about... which anatomical features of men women look at most, and chuckled, “After all guys, it is their turn.”

Paul Harvey ... Good day.

They're ba-a-a-ack!

2009-03-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

If you go here http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2009/02/12/we-are-all-illiterates-now/

you'll find a very nice article by Michael Ledeen that I meant to write - complete with the title I'd picked for it.

Heavy sigh.

Only goes to show the dangers of procrastination. When there is an obvious truth staring you in the face you should write about it without delay. Because if it is, 1) true, and 2) obvious, somebody else is going to see it and write about it.

The title of the article We Are All Fascists Now, suggested itself. It's a play on words of the title of the Newsweek article We Are All Socialists Now, which is itself a takeoff on Richard Nixon's remark "We are all Keynesians now."*

What Ledeen points out, is that in Obama's Great Plan for the Economy and All of Us, we aren't seeing pure Socialism, but the "Third Way" partnership of government and corporations of Mussolini, i.e. Fascism.**

The term "Fascism" has for a long time had no intellectual content other than perhaps, "position held by people on the Right that I don't like." Or more specificly, "positions held by people on the Right which are so repugnant they ought to be killed for holding them."

I once had an email exchange with a correspondent who referred to an Englishman I recommended listening to, as a "fascist bastard." I then invited him to name a single plank in the Fascist Party platform, either Mussolini's or the contemporary Fascist Party in modern Italy, (yes, it's still around and regularly elects delegates to parliament) your choice.

Of course, he couldn't. Instead he blustered, "I know it when I see it."

Well, actually no. He didn't

Anyone who investigates history seriously runs into the uncomfortable but incontrovertable fact that German Nazism and Italian Fascism are phenomena of the Left.

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "National Socialist German Workers' Party" - sound Right-wing to you?

In the words of Jonah Goldberg, "Everything you know about Fascism is wrong."

So, as part of your survival kit for the next four-to-eight years, if we're lucky, I recommend that you read Michael Ledeen's article right now, and follow the link and read the Newsweek article.

Next, I strongly urge you to read Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" without too much delay.

It drags in spots, and at the end it almost seems like his argument is taking him to places even he doesn't want to go. Nonetheless, read it. You need to.

Among other things you'll find are:

-Mussolini's Fascist Party was not at all anti-Semitic. Italian Jews joined in disproportionate numbers and were included in the highest ranks.

-Mussolini considered himself a Marxist and socialist to his dying day.

-Musollini was initially admired by a great many American intellectuals, including Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, and (this hurts) Will Rogers.

-The Fascist platform included a number of planks many would approve of: abolition of the draft, lowering the voting age to 18, universal suffeage - including women, repeal of titles of nobility, an eight-hour day, a minimum wage. Along with others you'd find very familiar: the obligation of the state to build "rigidly secular" schools for the raising of "the proletariat's moral and cultural condition," and "A large progressive tax on capital that would amount to a one-time partial expropriation of all riches."

According to Goldberg, America has gone through three flirtations with fascism, under Woodrow Wilson, FDR and the National Recovery Administration, and a period of "smiley faced fascism" that started in the 60s and has been sputtering along ever since.

We'll discuss this further. In the meantime - get the book.

*Nixon was invoking the ghost of leftist economist John Maynard Keynes (an English milord no less, 1st Baron Keynes) who advocated strong state intervention in the economy, particularly in the area of monetary policy - deficit spending.

We are now in what is called the "Keynesian revival." Keynes fell out of favor during the Reagan years and is now having somewhat of a comeback.

The irony of it all is, according to people who actually knew him (such as his friend and intellectual opponent Leonard Read,) Keynes confided to them he had second thoughts about much of his theory. However, he didn't publicly revise his opinions because the last act of his professional life before he died of a heart attack in 1946, was to help negotiate a post-war loan from the U.S. to Britain - and much of the argument from the loan proceeded from Keynesian theories he no longer supported!

**I love the response of Vaclav Klaus, sometime prime minister of the Czech Republic, and staunch free marketeer. His comment about a "third way" between capitalism and socialism, he remarked, "The Third Way is the quickest route to the Third World."

Advice for my kids

2009-02-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

Note:this first appeared as an op-ed in the Valley City Times-Record.

Rules (of thumb) to live by

As my children get older I've been forced to think more about the advice I give them. I figure I've got this window of opportunity while they're still listening, I don't figure it's going to last much longer.

Soon, they'll become better-than-average bright teenagers. Then they'll know everything, and discover that the grownups are so stupid they can't hardly stand them.

Understand, I am not being holier-than-thou. When I was that teenager I had all the answers, and a vast contempt for the adults who couldn't see them. Now all I seem to have is a set of disturbing questions.

I miss those answers!

What I have now is some rules of thumb I'd like my kids to remember. Not accept on faith, that's not what a “rule of thumb” is for. I just want them to keep them in mind, because they worked for me (some of the time) and too often I paid a high price for learning them.

Some of them, in no particular order, are:

*Regularly read and listen to the opinions of people you disagree with. Force yourself to wade through the arguments of people whose politics you despise. Sometimes you find that you have points of agreement with them, sometimes you gain insight into why they think the way they do. And, you can't fight their opinions if you don't know them.

“We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don’t,” Frank A. Clark, newspaperman.

*Remember, any debater who uses sarcasm, ridicule and insult to make points is not trying to convince the opponent, but the audience. And always, always, always remember that sarcasm, ridicule and insult are often highly effective tactics, but say nothing about the truth of the argument, and are often used to hide the fact there is no argument.

*In any conflict between logic and experience – go with experience.

Q: What is the stupidest thing that walks this earth?
A: An adolescent with an above-average IQ.

This is not a contradiction. Any bright kid can see for themselves they are smarter than most of the adults around them. What they cannot see is that experience counts for something. They can't, because of course they don't have any.

And I have to say, I see some pretty tall juveniles around these days.

*Never trust a gambler who claims to give you the best odds, an investment broker who says he can consistently do better than the market rates, or a politician who claims not to enjoy the power and perks of the job.

“You can't cheat an honest man,” is not just a W.C. Fields joke, but sober truth. Every classic con game relies on an element of dishonesty in the victim, the desire for something for nothing. And that includes cons run by Wall Street hucksters in expensive suits, and politicians promising the moon in a basket.

Have you looked at the list of Hollywood sophisticates and big city slickers Bernie Madoff took in?

Makes you want to ask, “If you're so rich, why ain't you smart?”

*Read! A man who won't read has little advantage over a man who can't read. If you're a reader, you'll never have a reason, or an excuse, to be bored. If you've got nothing to do, books are easy to come by, and if you can't get hold of one you can think about ones you've read.

*Listen to that little voice in your head that says; don't walk down that street, something bad is going to happen at this party, that person is bad news.

*Never make irrevocable decisions when tired, hungry or intoxicated. Consider whether “being in love” is a form of intoxication.

*Before dismissing sayings, proverbs, and old wives tales, you might consider how they got to be such old wives.

...and an anecdote for Mr. Holder

2009-02-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

And a P.S. on AG Holder's desire for an honest conversation on race.

I think it was in 1992 or '93 I was attending a conference in then-Czechoslovakia, in a town called Swit (now Slovakia.)

There I met a delightful lady, South African author Frances Kendall.

Kendall had just published a book called, "The SeXY Factor: Gender differences at home and at work" about, as the title suggests, gender differences.

This was a bit of a daring subject, at a time when feminists were denying there were any differences in gender beyond basic plumbing.

Kendall told me that friends had told her, "This is great! Now why don't you do one on race?"

Her answer, "No way! Everybody who touches that subject gets burned."

Let's have that conversation some other time.

Ruminations

2009-02-21T04:36:00.000-08:00

*Gosh, aren't you glad we didn't elect McCain, a.k.a. "Bush III"?

Why, if we had more of the Bush policies, we might be maxing out the national debt and sending our troops to fight a probably unwinnable war in a far country of no strategic importance to us.

We'd have a cabinet of lobbyists totally in thrall to the multi-national corporations.

We'd be governed by a rich boys club who think the tax code us common folks live by doesn't apply to them.

Boy wasn't that a narrow escape?

*President Obama, to his credit, maintained a consistent position on the Iraq war from the beginning. Unlike opportunists such Hillary who trimmed their sails when it appeared to be going badly.

So what's this Afghanistan thing?

Iraq is at the heart of the ancient Caliphate, rich in resources and population. Afghanistan is rough country good for hiding out in, but otherwise poor and lacking in resources.

Iraq has been conquered many times throughout history. Afghanistan eats armies.

Experience has shown Iraq can be pacified, if its people can be shown peace and security will follow.

In Afghanistan, raiding your neighbors - and those effete lowlanders, is considered manly sport.

To be fair, that could be a description of Scotland before my family came over. And Scotland was eventually pacified and civilized.

So all we have to do is to place a civilized but warlike nation, with ten times the population and resources, right next to Afghanistan.

*I see our new Attorney-General, Eric Holder has ripped aside the veil of silence and boldly tackled a subject we've been too cowardly to talk about.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

Wow, what an idea. Let's talk about race.

On second thought, how about we not talk about race for a change.

Of course I'm being sarcastic. It seems that all we do is talk about race. Like race is the single thing that defines us, more than say, character, intelligence, wit, staying out of jail...

Holder may have a point however. He went on to say, "If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us."

OK, now we're talking.

Let's talk frankly about the fact that the difference in crime rates, especially violent crimes, between black people and white people is... "astronomical" is one adjective that comes to mind.

And explaining it away as a result of White oppression doesn't wash. Young black men are mostly killing and assaulting each other.

Then there's those nearly three quarters of black children being raised without a father in sight. Is this a recipe for social collapse or what?

The fact is, after every vestiege of legal oppression and discrimination has been abolished, Us White Folks are watching with horrified fascination what looks an awful lot like the mass suicide of an entire sub-culture.

Is that frank enough for you?

Thought not.

We're not ever going to "to have frank conversations about the racial matters" because white people are afraid that if they did say what's on their minds, they'd, 1) get called "racist" and lose their jobs, or 2) get assaulted.

Rumor has it that Asian people are not speaking their minds because, 1) their contempt for the both of us is really extreme, and 2) they're waiting for us to destroy our society so they can pick up the pieces.

*Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders, currently being prosecuted in the Netherlands for his film "Fitna," was denied entrance to the UK.

An English newspaper called "Fitna" a "nasty little rant against Islam."

That's true only if you consider actually quoting the Koran as a "rant against Islam."

For nostalgia night, you might rent "Soldier of Orange," to have a look at what the Dutch used to be.

To see what the English used to be... almost anything made before and during WWII will do. Or anything with David Niven in it.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Note: This originally appeared on the editorial page of the Valley City Times-Record Valentine's Day weekend edition.

“Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
Robert Heinlein

Years ago around this time of year, when I was teaching English in the Warsaw Berlitz School, I asked a middle-aged Polish gentleman if he was going to buy a Valentine for anyone.

“It's an American holiday, not Polish,” he said, “so I don't celebrate it.”

“You'll learn to,” I replied. “The ladies like it. And besides, it's not American.”

And of course, it's not originally American. It is celebrated on Feb. 14 all over the western Christian world, with odd exceptions like Poland until recently.

But nobody knows exactly when it started, or who Valentine really was. At one time the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints had 11 St. Valentines, of whom at least two were associated with Feb. 14, Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Both were martyred in the early years of the Christian era.

Though there was no early association with romance in the early biographies of the saints, by the fourteenth century a legend grew up about Valentine of Rome.

St. Valentine is known to have been martyred in 269 A.D., the last year of the reign of the Emperor Claudius II. Legend has it that Claudius, in need of soldiers, forbade young men to get married, believing they would be less willing to go to war if they had the comforts of a wife and family at home. Valentine defied the edict by secretly marrying young lovers. When he was caught at it, he was first imprisoned, then executed.

The legend further states that while imprisoned, he healed his jailer's daughter of some illness, and she promptly fell in love with him. On the eve of his martyrdom he wrote a love-note to her signed, “From your Valentine.”

There was by the way, nothing improper about this. Celibacy was not made mandatory for clergy until the Second Lateran Council in 1139.

In the year 1400 a “High Court of Love” was established in Paris (where else?) to deal with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were chosen by women based on a poetry reading contest.

The tradition of courtly love was an idealization of the ideals of chivalric romance, whereby a knight was inspired by the object of his affections to live up to the high ideals of chivalry and become the best person he could be.

Later the radical idea developed that a man's romantic ideal might even be the woman he was married to. Though considered scandalous at the time, the idea of a love match eventually caught hold.

The first surviving Valentine is a fifteenth century poem sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The custom of sending Valentine cards began in the nineteenth century in England, and established in America by Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts in 1847. Today the U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates a billion Valentines a year are sent world-wide.

And the holiday is indeed spreading. Though many other cultures have days celebrating amity between the sexes, the tradition of sending cards, flowers, and chocolates on Feb. 14 is spreading beyond the western world.

Singapore, South Korea and China have all had booming sales of Valentine gifts in recent years.

Recent reports have it that the demand for roses for young men to send to young ladies is skyrocketing in Pakistan, in spite of being declared “haram” (forbidden) by the fundamentalist Muslim clergy.

In Saudi Arabia, the sale of Valentine items was banned by the religious
police, and shops were ordered to remove all red items last February. Nonetheless, there was a huge black market in roses and wrapping paper.

Which really goes to show, “Amor omnia vincit” (Love conquers all.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Looking at the "economic stimulus" from North Dakota

2009-02-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

Note: The body of this was written as a newspaper op-ed. I thought it needed to be extended for people who aren't familiar with the upper midwest.

Since I came to North Dakota last year I've covered a lot of government meetings, a couple of elections, and recently some of our district's legislative forums.

What I found was rather a pleasant surprise to me. The local elected officials I've observed and reported on are by and large, competent and decent people (many with their personal quirks to be sure) who are doing a reasonably good job under difficult circumstances. To say the least, it is not always thus in other places I've lived.

The reason I think, is that in North Dakota there is essentially no such thing as a full-time professional politician, until you get to the governor or congressional level. Most of our elected officials either have other jobs, or hold an office as a retirement job.*

One consequence of this is, these people know where money comes from.

Let me rephrase that, these folks know where wealth comes from. Money isn't wealth, money is the bookkeeping system. Wealth at bottom, comes from growing stuff, making stuff, and moving stuff around.

You can't create more wealth by moving the money around, that only transfers wealth from one person to another. You create wealth only by growing more stuff, making more stuff, or moving stuff to places it's more useful.

That's why it's worrying to me to see how eager some of our elected officials seem about the “economic stimulus” money they're expecting from the federal government.**

What occurred to me was, this is money from home.

I think most of us remember learning to live on our paychecks when we first went to work. We learned to budget what we made for our rent, food, gas, clothes and stuff we really needed, and maybe even saved a little, before we spent any money on what we merely wanted.

If you were fortunate enough to have parents who were reasonably well-fixed, they might send you money from time to time, maybe after the babies started arriving, or maybe it was just your birthday.

So how did you use that money?

Well, if your finances were in reasonably good shape to begin with, you probably took some of it and did something nice but not necessary for yourself. If they weren't, you likely got yourself out of that hole temporarily, but didn't learn to stop digging.

North Dakota's finances are in pretty good shape. We actually have a billion dollar budget surplus and people are thinking seriously about how to use it wisely and prepare for that proverbial rainy day. That's why we're in better shape than most of the rest of the country, so far.

Now it looks like we're going to get some free money. We can't just take it and put it away for a rainy day, that's not allowed. Nor can we replace existing funding for projects we've already got going, that's not allowed either.

We have to think up some new projects to spend it on, and have them shovel-ready RIGHT NOW!

I am personally convinced that the so-called economic stimulus, is nothing of the kind. I think it's a disaster in the making, and evidently not only professional economists think so, but a majority of the public at large as well.

But I can't honestly say that I'd recommend the state and city I live in refuse to take the money. Money is money, and if they're handing it out you'd feel like an idiot if you didn't get some while the getting was good.

All I'd say is, be careful. Like gambling money, or money from home, this doesn't feel like the kind that sticks.

And we'd do well to remember this is money, not wealth. It wasn't made here, it was taken and sent to us from somewhere else.

*North Dakota has a legislature that meets for only one session every two years. Our (Democrat) state senator and (2) representatives for District 24 make it a practice to hold scheduled forums in towns all around the district, every Saturday during the legislative session. They discuss the legislation they're working on and make themselves available to anyone who cares to come to ask questions.

Few other legislators do this and I must say I'm rather impressed.

**North Dakota is perpetually grappling with a problem unique to the upper midwest and Alaska. The state is about the size of Oklahoma (where I moved here from,) but with a fifth the population. And believe me, it shows in the amenities available out in the sticks.

The largest city is Fargo at about 100,000. (Though actually larger since it sprawls across the Minnesota line into another jurisdiction, and is commonly referred to as Fargo-Moorehead.)

To give you an idea: going west from Fargo across the Interstate to the next largest city Bismarck (the captitol, located at the western edge of the state), you go past two towns of about 7,000 and 12,000, and then across a hundred-plus miles of prairie whose widely scattered towns have populations measuring in hundreds.

Low population density equals thin tax base. The result is, the tax base is apparently inadequate to maintain basic infrastructure. For example how do you pay to build and maintain a paved road from the Interstate to a town that might be 30 to 60 miles away and have a population of 300?

(And by the way, a huge part of those maintenance costs is snow removal.)

In between are farms of course. But with modern machinery, even family-owned farms get larger and larger, because 1) not a lot of people really like to farm anymore, and 2) you have to have a huge acreage to afford a set of farm machinery these days.

The consequence of this is, farmers live at increasing distances from their neighbors. Which makes farm life even tougher, especially on women. Which makes people abandon farming and sell out, which makes the remaining farms larger etc.

North Dakota is a tax-absorbing state. It receives about 50 percent more money in federal aid than it pays in federal taxes.

So what do you do, abandon the state? For the past three generations, that's what a fair number of people have done. The population has had a steady decline from it's peak in the early 20th century.

In my gloomier moments I think the only thing that might populate the upper midwest would be disaster elsewhere. The decay of the inner cities might send refugees here, or the eventual reality of nuclear terrorism might motivate a decentralizing of our economy.

Ruminations

2009-02-04T03:32:00.000-08:00

*From the AP wire:

'Mother' of Iraqi women bomber network arrested
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and BRIAN MURPHY – 12 hours ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — A woman accused of helping recruit dozens of female suicide bombers looked into the camera and described the process: trolling society for likely candidates and then patiently converting the women from troubled souls into deadly attackers.

The accounts, in a video released Tuesday by Iraq police, offer a rare glimpse into the networks used to find and train the women bombers who have become one of the insurgents' most effective weapons as they struggle under increasing crackdowns.

In a separate prison interview with The Associated Press, with interrogators nearby, the woman said she was part of a plot in which young women were raped and then sent to her for matronly advice. She said she would try to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame and to reclaim their honor.

....

She said she was "able to persuade women to become suicide bombers ... broken women, especially those who were raped."

In many parts of Iraq, including conservative Diyala, a rape victim may be shunned by her family and become an outcast in society.

Police interrogators were not in the room during Jassim's interview with the AP, but they were in an adjoining chamber.

Jassim did not offer additional details on her alleged role in the attacks, but suggested she was pressured into working with the insurgency.

She claimed that Ansar al-Sunnah provided her a house in Diyala, where she operated a shop selling the traditional robes for women called abaya. She added, however, that Ansar al-Sunnah once threatened to bomb her house if she did not cooperate.

"I worked with (Ansar al-Sunnah) for a year and a half," she told the AP.

It's at times like this I have to pray, "Please exist God. Please let there be a hell for such as these."

Oh, and just one quibble. In "conservative" Islamic societies, women who are raped are not "shunned" by their families - they are killed by their families.

* Michael Phelps got caught on camera with his snout in a bong only a little smaller than the Olympic-sized pools he sets world records in.

Gotta watch that stuff, it really ruins your health!

It is one of the enduring mysteries of our time, that a vice which doesn't involve sex, and is indulged in by a fraction of the population large enough to swing any election and is most likely just short of a majority - can still get you time and a career-destroying record.

What gives?

That's not a rhetorical question, I really mean what the hell is going on here? What powerful vested interests give a damn about keeping pot illegal? (Aside from drug dealers I mean.)

The notion that pot would displace alcohol is silly. Ask any pothead what he wants after a couple of hits, a Pepsi or a beer?

*President Obama made his first overture to the Islamic world on Al-Arabiya, and seems to be clueless that he's had a huge loss of face.

I am not going to crow about this, it's my country too. But doesn't he have Rahm Emmanuel at his side to clue him in?

*Something has been bothering me ever since the presidential campaign. I was recently reminded of it when going through old comments posted.

It's about Sarah Palin and the brutal way the media treated her.

Understand, it's not about sympathy. At its worst, I'd say it was THAT LOOK on Katie Couric's face when interviewing Palin. You could see it in her eyes - Katie wanted to kill her.

But there's a saying about heat and kitchens that covers that one. Palin was visibly unnerved, Katie was in control. (God how I wish she'd lost control, gone for Sarah physically - and gotten herself stomped.)

Practice Sarah, practice. And remember, femina lupa femines.

No, what bothers me is the merciless fun poked at her for that answer, "I can see Russia from my house"* in the Gibson interview.

Damn it, I knew what that meant right away! My wife knew it without having to think twice about it. Any Eastern European would know what it meant!

Or, think about this. If someone asked a politician from the southern border states, "What do you know about illegal immigration?" and they answered, "I can see Mexico from my house" - you'd know what they meant.

It means, "I pay attention to this issue - because I have to. Because I can't avoid it."

Turn my example around, "I can see Canada from my house,"* means nothing - because Canada is not threatening.

So did the media deliberately misconstrue that one?

Doesn't seem likely, FOX didn't pick up on it and go to her defense.

No, what's frightening is, they flat didn't understand.

That does not bode well for us.

Update: It just occurred to me that it might work turned around though. If a Canadian politician said, "I can see the U.S. from my house," that could be very meaningful in certain contexts.

*Correction: What Palin actually said was, "There are parts of Alaska you can see Russia from." That quote is how Tina Fey lampooned her. Point remains the same.

On becoming an educated person in this day and age

2009-01-31T05:45:00.000-08:00

I think I've made it plain that I, like a lot of people, think higher education is in a sad state in this country, and overpriced to boot.

This applies mostly to the arts and humanities. The U.S. is still has two of the best scientific/technical schools in the world (CalTech and MIT) and a host of world class departments in other universities.

Trouble is, most of the high schools aren't teaching science and math well enough to prepare American kids for them.

And, even for kids who aren't going to become scientists and engineers, the laymen's courses in science don't impart enough knowledge of how science and math work to enable them to make rational decisions on public policy issues concerning science and statistics.

The arts and humanities have abandoned a historical/great books curriculum and are almost entirely devoted to indoctrination.

Even at the high school, and God help us, increasingly at the grade school level, a great many teaching positions are essentially make-work welfare.

Vo-tech at the secondary level shows encouraging progress, and for post-secondary ed there seems to be a move towards schools that teach stuff that might actually get you a job. This results in the decline of males enrolled in college that is such a matter of concern to the colleges.

It hasn't struck them that nobody's buying what they have to sell, because it's worthless.*

Now I'd like to direct your attention to Victor Davis Hanson's article, "Humanities Move Off Campus" here: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson121008.html

Dr. Hanson is writing about how the free market reacted to decline of learning on campus. A number of companies have used audio/video tech to record lessons and lecture series for sale or rental.

He mentions some others, but I'd like to recommend the two I use.

Here: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/teach12.aspx?ai=34198

please find, The Great Courses.

The first one I got was "Argumentation: the Study of Effective Reasoning," with Professor David Zarefsky - glorious! Twenty-four half-hour lectures on how logic and rhetoric are applied to analyzing and constructing arguments. With lots of historical references.

Next I sweated through, "Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers," with Professor Edward Burger.

That was tough for me, I'm not a math person, but well worth it.

It's about the history of the concept of number, number theory for non-mathematics people.

You probably know about cardinal and ordinal numbers. Did you know there are at least five kinds of numbers? (What the hell are p-adic numbers?) Did you know that infinity comes in an infinite number of sizes?

Now I'm going through, "Machiavelli in Context," with Professor William Cook. On the stack I've got a 12-lecture course in Game Theory, and "Jewish Intellectual History: 16th through 20th Centuries."

You can find: anatomy, art history, world history, chaos theory, string theory, anthropology, biology, literature...

The cost per course is proabaly less than the cost of the damn books for an equivalent college course. And, they have periodic sales where they slash prices to the bone, in what I believe is basically a loss leader strategy.

Now go here: http://smartflix.com/

I've commented that our intellectuals have become alienated from the skills that make a civilization work - here's the cure.

Want to know how to repair guns? Shoot them?

Music lessons, drawing lessons, woodworking, kayaking, welding... It's all there, for a reasonble rental.

Right now I'm going through the companion DVDs to the book "Attack Proof." I didn't have to buy an expensive DVD to check out whether it was useful or not (it is - definitely) nor do I have to own a DVD whose material I can absorb in one or two go-throughs. (I prefer to own The Great Courses.)

So this is by way of an unsolicited product endorsement. I don't have any professional connection with either of these - and you can bet that if I did I'd be too proud to keep it secret.

Dr. Hanson mentions other companies such as Knowledge Products, and Rosetta Stone (languages), but I haven't bought any of their stuff - yet.

Not to gush too much, but this may ensure that our civilization doesn't have to decay just because our educational institutions are failing us.

What's missing from the great courses, is interaction with a teacher and other students.

But with any initiative at all, one could form a book club/discussion group to view and discuss them, and perhaps real teachers could make themselves available online?

After all, "God will not do everything for us, in order not to deprive us of free will or that share of glory which is ours by right."**

*I'd like to point out that I live a few blocks away from one of the nations small but highly-regarded universities that seems to buck the trend. It's 1) a teaching university, if you sign up with a teacher, teaching is what he or she is supposed to do. And 2) they've got a set of good practical courses (including a really fine music department!) that actually relate to what you might actually need to know for a job.

**Machiavelli, "The Prince," last line.