SUPREME COURT ON EXECUTION OF THE MENTALLY RETARDED:
Again, I find myself marvelling over the stupidity of the Justices involved.
First, I should declare my biases openly: I am unabashedly pro-death penalty; not because I believe it's a deterrent (though it can be), and not because I believe it's unimpeachably fair and just (it isn't always), but rather because it provides a fairly easy way to stop the more unsavory elements of society (think serial murderers, child molesters, and Hitler), even if only one-at-a-time. Secondly, as Christopher Hitchens said repeatedly around the time of the execution of the Oklahoma City bomber, one cannot be for the death penalty a la carte: either the State absolutely has the right to take a life, or it absolutely does not.
That said, let's move on.
1. Well, the next lawsuit is clear: a killer with a high IQ should appeal his death sentence on the grounds that he is being unfairly descriminated against for being smart. Hell, he might even win.
2. Let me see if I get this straight: an accused killer can't even be tried if he is ruled unable to understand the charges against him, assist himself adequately in his own defense or unable to grasp the distinction between right and wrong. In other words, if someone makes it to trial on a murder charge, they know damn well what they did, and that it was wrong. All the people affected were found guilty, which means we can remove (for our intents and purposes) the concern that they 'might not have done it.' The argument, as I followed it, of the ruling is that executing these people is a moral, not procedural, wrong, and there is little precedent to support this decision. In other words, there's no legal reason to stop these people from being executed, but the Justices felt compelled to speak for the American people.
Now, maybe skipping all of those Intro to American Politics lectures hurt my understanding of how our government works (Ha!), but isn't it the job of the Legislative branch to respond to the urges of the public? And isn't it the job of the Supreme Court to interepret the law? Alexander Hamilton must be rolling in his grave.
But then again, what do I know?
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
30.6.02
9th CIRCUIT COURT RULING:
Well, like most people, I think those judges who found the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional are morons. But I can assure you that's only for legal reasons. I'll make two quick notes about the ruling:
1. The Court noted there were two requirements that had to be met by the Plantiff to establish his case: that the injury inflicted by reciting the Pledge was both immediate and concrete (that is, having a definite ill effect, rather than a merely theoretical one). The Court determined that the child having to listen to the Pledge was a harm both immediate and concrete. But, it seems to me, they Quined away the most important part: an act can be immediate and concrete in its effects, and still not be at all injurious. The Court began with the assumption that a recitation of the Pledge was in some sense a hostile act: therefore, no one can be quite surprised at the conclusion they came to.
However, this leaves unanswered the question as to what exactly the harm may have been. It certainly wasn't the law passed by California, or the school district's code requiring recitation of the Pledge: Barnette v. West Virginia School Board established, if nothing else, that a school district may reasonably direct the civic education of children as they see fit, provided no one is ever forced to take part. This was not the case here. It would be dubious to claim, as the Plantiff did, that the mere mention of God was the cause of harm. If this were the case, the Court would then logically seem to embrace the idea that it is never okay to discuss or mention God in any setting whatsoever, which would be well and good if this case involved and overly coercive Administration at the school, but it does not. Clearly, though, banning casual mention of God (which is the direction the ruling seems to be pushing in, even if it never explicitly reaches that point) actually ends up restricting the free-speech rights of many more people, and in a much more immediate and concrete way that any discomfort.
2. The really curious part of the ruling is that in declares the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. It would make significantly more sense (and be better backed by legal precedent) to declare either the California statute or school board policy illegal, since you could claim either as being overly coercive... or at least, that would be a reasonable argument one could make. But, to refer again to Barnette, the Supreme Court saw nothing wrong with the Pledge per se, just the compulsory nature of some policies on recitation. None of the precedents I read in the ruling persuasively made the case otherwise.
Well, that's what I think, but what do I know?
Well, like most people, I think those judges who found the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional are morons. But I can assure you that's only for legal reasons. I'll make two quick notes about the ruling:
1. The Court noted there were two requirements that had to be met by the Plantiff to establish his case: that the injury inflicted by reciting the Pledge was both immediate and concrete (that is, having a definite ill effect, rather than a merely theoretical one). The Court determined that the child having to listen to the Pledge was a harm both immediate and concrete. But, it seems to me, they Quined away the most important part: an act can be immediate and concrete in its effects, and still not be at all injurious. The Court began with the assumption that a recitation of the Pledge was in some sense a hostile act: therefore, no one can be quite surprised at the conclusion they came to.
However, this leaves unanswered the question as to what exactly the harm may have been. It certainly wasn't the law passed by California, or the school district's code requiring recitation of the Pledge: Barnette v. West Virginia School Board established, if nothing else, that a school district may reasonably direct the civic education of children as they see fit, provided no one is ever forced to take part. This was not the case here. It would be dubious to claim, as the Plantiff did, that the mere mention of God was the cause of harm. If this were the case, the Court would then logically seem to embrace the idea that it is never okay to discuss or mention God in any setting whatsoever, which would be well and good if this case involved and overly coercive Administration at the school, but it does not. Clearly, though, banning casual mention of God (which is the direction the ruling seems to be pushing in, even if it never explicitly reaches that point) actually ends up restricting the free-speech rights of many more people, and in a much more immediate and concrete way that any discomfort.
2. The really curious part of the ruling is that in declares the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. It would make significantly more sense (and be better backed by legal precedent) to declare either the California statute or school board policy illegal, since you could claim either as being overly coercive... or at least, that would be a reasonable argument one could make. But, to refer again to Barnette, the Supreme Court saw nothing wrong with the Pledge per se, just the compulsory nature of some policies on recitation. None of the precedents I read in the ruling persuasively made the case otherwise.
Well, that's what I think, but what do I know?
23.6.02
LINK: Very good assessment of ye olde average college student. If you have neither the time nor the patience to read it all, scroll down to the picture. If that doesn't make you want to cry, you're not human.
QUOTE:
" To: The 37% of American college students who say they would dodge the draft (less those with genuine religious/moral conscientious objections)
From: Me
Re: Your continued status as Americans
Effective today, you're out. Vive Quebec libre, m*****f*****s.
PS: Western culture: Better than the rest of the world since circa 1800!"
-From The Hoosier Review's weblog. Go Fightin' Whities!
" To: The 37% of American college students who say they would dodge the draft (less those with genuine religious/moral conscientious objections)
From: Me
Re: Your continued status as Americans
Effective today, you're out. Vive Quebec libre, m*****f*****s.
PS: Western culture: Better than the rest of the world since circa 1800!"
-From The Hoosier Review's weblog. Go Fightin' Whities!
QUOTE: Andre Sullivan, on his anniversary:
"At times it feels as if that whole era is a strange part of near history. The last friend who died was seven years ago. Here in Provincetown, once a war zone, you can feel life returning in full. And yet I always succumb to depression at this time. It's totally unconscious. I have no conscious reason to feel blue. It's as if my body remembers the impact of that awful news received at a time when it really felt like a death sentence, and today shudders at the memory. But perhaps my depression is about the guilt of surviving when so many didn't, and in other parts of the world, aren't. I can close my eyes now and see the faces of my young friends who died - forever young and hopeful. Their ghosts hover in this town - on the beach at sunset, in corners of bars, as the sunlight rises on shingles. My close friend, Patrick, died at 31. What conceivable justice is there in my having eight more years than he ever had? Man, I still miss him so much. And so, in some ways, I'm proud of my unconscious remembering. I might have careened on obliviously without that psychic, physical memory, sending me into melancholy, withdrawal, sleep. And it serves to remind me why the struggle for the dignity for gay men and women is in large part fueled by the bequest of these lost ones. They urge us forward as we look wistfully back. And then I realize this isn't depression I feel. It's just sadness. Sadness that they are not here any more, edged only by the faith that one day I will be with them once more. "
"At times it feels as if that whole era is a strange part of near history. The last friend who died was seven years ago. Here in Provincetown, once a war zone, you can feel life returning in full. And yet I always succumb to depression at this time. It's totally unconscious. I have no conscious reason to feel blue. It's as if my body remembers the impact of that awful news received at a time when it really felt like a death sentence, and today shudders at the memory. But perhaps my depression is about the guilt of surviving when so many didn't, and in other parts of the world, aren't. I can close my eyes now and see the faces of my young friends who died - forever young and hopeful. Their ghosts hover in this town - on the beach at sunset, in corners of bars, as the sunlight rises on shingles. My close friend, Patrick, died at 31. What conceivable justice is there in my having eight more years than he ever had? Man, I still miss him so much. And so, in some ways, I'm proud of my unconscious remembering. I might have careened on obliviously without that psychic, physical memory, sending me into melancholy, withdrawal, sleep. And it serves to remind me why the struggle for the dignity for gay men and women is in large part fueled by the bequest of these lost ones. They urge us forward as we look wistfully back. And then I realize this isn't depression I feel. It's just sadness. Sadness that they are not here any more, edged only by the faith that one day I will be with them once more. "
LINK: I know it's only rock and roll, but I like it: well, at least, it used to be rock and roll. Reason Magazine on the decline and fall of the Rolling Stones. Bonus points if you can catch all the references.
LINKS: Two takes on contemporary leftism in colleges around America, one from Mother Jones and the other from the New Statesman.
From Mother Jones:
"Eleven years ago, during the Gulf War, across San Francisco Bay, the head of a student splinter group at Berkeley addressed a room full of faculty and students opposed to the war, spitting out venomously, "You Jews, I know your names, I know where you live."
The faculty and students in attendance sat stiffly and said nothing. Embarrassed? Frightened? Or worse -- thinking that it wasn't time to tackle this issue, that it was off the agenda, an inconvenience.
Far more recently, two students of mine at NYU wondered aloud whether it was actually true, as they had heard, that 4,000 Jews didn't show up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. They clearly thought this astoundingly crazy charge was plausible enough to warrant careful investigation, but it didn't occur to them to look at the names of the dead.
Wicked anti-Semitism is back. The worst crackpot notions that circulate through the violent Middle East are also roaming around America, and if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. Students! As if the bloc to which we have long looked for intelligent dissent has decided to junk any pretense of standards.
A student movement is not just a student movement. It's a student movement. Students, whether they are progressive or not, have the responsibility of knowing things, of thinking and discerning, of studying. A student movement should maintain the highest of standards, not ape the formulas of its elders or outdo them in virulence.
It should therefore trouble progressives everywhere that the students at San Francisco State are neither curious nor revolted by the anti-Semitic drivel they are regurgitating. The simple fact that a student movement -- even a small one -- has been reduced to reflecting the hatred spewed by others should profoundly trouble anyone whose moral principles aim higher than simple nationalism -- as should be the case for anyone on the left."
From Mother Jones:
"Eleven years ago, during the Gulf War, across San Francisco Bay, the head of a student splinter group at Berkeley addressed a room full of faculty and students opposed to the war, spitting out venomously, "You Jews, I know your names, I know where you live."
The faculty and students in attendance sat stiffly and said nothing. Embarrassed? Frightened? Or worse -- thinking that it wasn't time to tackle this issue, that it was off the agenda, an inconvenience.
Far more recently, two students of mine at NYU wondered aloud whether it was actually true, as they had heard, that 4,000 Jews didn't show up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. They clearly thought this astoundingly crazy charge was plausible enough to warrant careful investigation, but it didn't occur to them to look at the names of the dead.
Wicked anti-Semitism is back. The worst crackpot notions that circulate through the violent Middle East are also roaming around America, and if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. Students! As if the bloc to which we have long looked for intelligent dissent has decided to junk any pretense of standards.
A student movement is not just a student movement. It's a student movement. Students, whether they are progressive or not, have the responsibility of knowing things, of thinking and discerning, of studying. A student movement should maintain the highest of standards, not ape the formulas of its elders or outdo them in virulence.
It should therefore trouble progressives everywhere that the students at San Francisco State are neither curious nor revolted by the anti-Semitic drivel they are regurgitating. The simple fact that a student movement -- even a small one -- has been reduced to reflecting the hatred spewed by others should profoundly trouble anyone whose moral principles aim higher than simple nationalism -- as should be the case for anyone on the left."
ANN LANDERS COULD KICK YOUR ASS: A nice obit of Ann Landers. Check out the part about answering the question on homosexuality... is that not cool, or what?
SPORTS, PT II: One reason not to like El Duque. Seriously, the Yankees pitching rotation needs good young hurlers, and Hernandez isn't one of them.
20.6.02
LINK: Splendid profile on Howard Dean, who, if there is any justice in the world, will be the next President of the United States.
Which is to say, of course, that he won't be. But he's exactly what they Democrats need: John McCain without all that nasty conservatism.
Which is to say, of course, that he won't be. But he's exactly what they Democrats need: John McCain without all that nasty conservatism.
DERB ON PEOPLE GETTING WHAT THEY DESERVE:
"Finally, you may know that Saudi Arabia?s King Fahd is in Geneva, to be medically cared for. There is a fine mosque there. He asked the city fathers for permission to build another one. They replied: Yes ? when it is possible to build a church in Riyadh.
Helps one get through the day."
"Finally, you may know that Saudi Arabia?s King Fahd is in Geneva, to be medically cared for. There is a fine mosque there. He asked the city fathers for permission to build another one. They replied: Yes ? when it is possible to build a church in Riyadh.
Helps one get through the day."
LINK: I bet you didn't know this applies to arguments about ethics, too, except that whoever can correctly use Hitler or Nazism first usually wins.
LINK: Blistering take on the Palestinians and Israelis in Slate, who can manage to (almost) unequivocally take the side of Israel for once. Will wonders never cease!
QUOTE: from Tapped:
"UM, COME AGAIN? From today's Post:
Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 of the Sahih Bukhari edition of the Hadith says, "The Prophet married [Aisha] when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old." But Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said many Islamic scholars interpret that passage to mean Aisha was 16 when she was betrothed to Muhammad and 19 when they wed.
This comes from an article about the tempest that has been created by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Vines's reference to Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile," and bears directly on the pedophile charge. It's also an example of startlingly poor journalism. You can't just report that "many Islamic scholars" claim that six equals 16 -- and nine equals 19 -- without giving some explanation of why it is that they get to do such funky math. Tapped is highly suspicious, to say the least. [posted 9:25 am]"
"UM, COME AGAIN? From today's Post:
Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 of the Sahih Bukhari edition of the Hadith says, "The Prophet married [Aisha] when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old." But Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said many Islamic scholars interpret that passage to mean Aisha was 16 when she was betrothed to Muhammad and 19 when they wed.
This comes from an article about the tempest that has been created by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Vines's reference to Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile," and bears directly on the pedophile charge. It's also an example of startlingly poor journalism. You can't just report that "many Islamic scholars" claim that six equals 16 -- and nine equals 19 -- without giving some explanation of why it is that they get to do such funky math. Tapped is highly suspicious, to say the least. [posted 9:25 am]"
19.6.02
OCTOBER SURPRISE?: the U.S. might be invading Iraq in the not-too-distant-future. This would be good, of course, because overthowing dictators and establishing democracies is always good (witness the Loya Jurga in Afghanistan... doesn't it warm your heart to see people openly debating the merits of representitive government in all it's forms?), without exception. It's also reassuring to see the Bush administration stop pussyfooting around and get back to doing what it does best... scaring the crap out of evil, evil men. One thing to which I must take exception:
"Interestingly, administration officials advocating a fall attack on Iraq have fleeting concerns, if any, about inevitable charges from the left of an "October surprise" or of "wagging the dog." Cooler heads are thankfully prevailing with the argument that military policy can't be dictated by politics."
Now, I am perfectly willing to accept that military planning might be the most important consideration here, and even that the (as yet non-existent) complaints of many leftists will be unfounded. Nevertheless, I take umbrage at the suggestion that never can such criticism be justified, which seems to be the upshot of the claim here. Though many of the people doing the planning are professional soldiers and, at least in theory, above questions of electoral politics and influence peddling, I'd never put it past any politician to meddle in that manner.
"Interestingly, administration officials advocating a fall attack on Iraq have fleeting concerns, if any, about inevitable charges from the left of an "October surprise" or of "wagging the dog." Cooler heads are thankfully prevailing with the argument that military policy can't be dictated by politics."
Now, I am perfectly willing to accept that military planning might be the most important consideration here, and even that the (as yet non-existent) complaints of many leftists will be unfounded. Nevertheless, I take umbrage at the suggestion that never can such criticism be justified, which seems to be the upshot of the claim here. Though many of the people doing the planning are professional soldiers and, at least in theory, above questions of electoral politics and influence peddling, I'd never put it past any politician to meddle in that manner.
THIS: Is a pressing issue for every native Virginian and Virginian at heart (herein I include myself): they want to take Monticello off the nickel, despite the fact that Monticello is the primary example of American architecture, and one of the few truly beautiful buildings in a country dominated by glass-and-steel behemoths. Fortunately for us all, Republicans are up in arms about it. And don't even get me started on what they want to replace it with...
17.6.02
QUOTE: The Bull Moose speaketh!
"War is Hell. The Moose observes that we now know that we are capable of fighting two wars at once - as long as one of them is a class war.
Last week, General Karl "Guts and Glory" Rove pledged to the assembled troops at a gathering of the National Federation of Independent Business that, "This is a war, and we need to make an ongoing commitment to winning the effort to repeal the death tax." Finally, all of those Bush Administration and Republican officials who missed the opportunity to fight in 'Nam have a good war in which they can enlist.
All those "fighters for freedom" such as Lott, Armey, DeLay and Gramm can now have their chance to take the hill for the heirs of the comfortable. Like we watched in Braveheart, with faces painted, these free-market warriors will march into battle oblivious to the potential paper cuts and the threats to their vocal cords. Freeeeeeedom is their battle cry.
Sound the bugle, muster the troops, this time we must make the world safe for trust fund heirs! No doubt, soon the draft will be revived to ensure that we have sufficient resources to defeat both Osama and Senator Dorgan. After all, this is K Street's version of Yorktown, Gettysburg, and D-Day all rolled into one. Visualize a crack lobbying equivalent of SEAL Team One repelling down the side of the Capitol clad in specially designed Brooks Brothers camouflaged-patterned suits.
Just think of all the battle ribbons and medals that are to be won. The East Room will be the site for the awarding of the Heroic Medal of Cloture to some brave lobbyist. Imagine the purple hearts that will be issued over heartburn episodes at the Palm and the Monocle. Will the K Street cabal be eligible for Veterans Benefits?
Forgive the Moose for being a Conscientious Objector in this war on behalf of trust fund heirs. The Democratic alternative that was rejected by the GOP would have protected family farms and businesses from the tax by raising the exemption to $4 million and $8 million for couples. Will some wise Democrat point out that the GOP voted to raise taxes by rejecting this alternative? Yet, Commander Rove is not deterred to storm the beaches on behalf of the super-rich beneficiaries of less than one half of one percent of all estates.
Who said idealism is dead?
The President made a mighty fine speech on Friday at the Ohio State University commencement. He eloquently said, "Patriotism is expressed by flying the flag, but it is more. Patriotism means we share a single country. In all our diversity, each of us has a bond with every other American. Patriotism is proven in our concern for others -- a willingness to sacrifice for people we may never have met or seen. Patriotism is our obligation to those who have gone before us, to those who will follow us, and to those who have died for us."
Isn't patriotism also about those who have benefitted so much from this great land to contribute to the cause of its defense? In past wars, the rich have had to pay more for the defense of nation. Why is this war so different? If the President wants to demonstrate that national unity was more than flowery words, why can't he ask those, like himself, who have benefitted from being born in the right family to give a little more?
The Moose suggests that the President should also tell his top political adviser to be a bit more careful about employing the rhetoric of war on behalf of the trivial. Real soldiers are in harm's way defending our real lives and liberty. The Moose realizes that defending the rich has become a theological cause for the modern GOP. But it is not the crusade that concerns the American people.
Run that up the flag pole, Mr. Rove."
"War is Hell. The Moose observes that we now know that we are capable of fighting two wars at once - as long as one of them is a class war.
Last week, General Karl "Guts and Glory" Rove pledged to the assembled troops at a gathering of the National Federation of Independent Business that, "This is a war, and we need to make an ongoing commitment to winning the effort to repeal the death tax." Finally, all of those Bush Administration and Republican officials who missed the opportunity to fight in 'Nam have a good war in which they can enlist.
All those "fighters for freedom" such as Lott, Armey, DeLay and Gramm can now have their chance to take the hill for the heirs of the comfortable. Like we watched in Braveheart, with faces painted, these free-market warriors will march into battle oblivious to the potential paper cuts and the threats to their vocal cords. Freeeeeeedom is their battle cry.
Sound the bugle, muster the troops, this time we must make the world safe for trust fund heirs! No doubt, soon the draft will be revived to ensure that we have sufficient resources to defeat both Osama and Senator Dorgan. After all, this is K Street's version of Yorktown, Gettysburg, and D-Day all rolled into one. Visualize a crack lobbying equivalent of SEAL Team One repelling down the side of the Capitol clad in specially designed Brooks Brothers camouflaged-patterned suits.
Just think of all the battle ribbons and medals that are to be won. The East Room will be the site for the awarding of the Heroic Medal of Cloture to some brave lobbyist. Imagine the purple hearts that will be issued over heartburn episodes at the Palm and the Monocle. Will the K Street cabal be eligible for Veterans Benefits?
Forgive the Moose for being a Conscientious Objector in this war on behalf of trust fund heirs. The Democratic alternative that was rejected by the GOP would have protected family farms and businesses from the tax by raising the exemption to $4 million and $8 million for couples. Will some wise Democrat point out that the GOP voted to raise taxes by rejecting this alternative? Yet, Commander Rove is not deterred to storm the beaches on behalf of the super-rich beneficiaries of less than one half of one percent of all estates.
Who said idealism is dead?
The President made a mighty fine speech on Friday at the Ohio State University commencement. He eloquently said, "Patriotism is expressed by flying the flag, but it is more. Patriotism means we share a single country. In all our diversity, each of us has a bond with every other American. Patriotism is proven in our concern for others -- a willingness to sacrifice for people we may never have met or seen. Patriotism is our obligation to those who have gone before us, to those who will follow us, and to those who have died for us."
Isn't patriotism also about those who have benefitted so much from this great land to contribute to the cause of its defense? In past wars, the rich have had to pay more for the defense of nation. Why is this war so different? If the President wants to demonstrate that national unity was more than flowery words, why can't he ask those, like himself, who have benefitted from being born in the right family to give a little more?
The Moose suggests that the President should also tell his top political adviser to be a bit more careful about employing the rhetoric of war on behalf of the trivial. Real soldiers are in harm's way defending our real lives and liberty. The Moose realizes that defending the rich has become a theological cause for the modern GOP. But it is not the crusade that concerns the American people.
Run that up the flag pole, Mr. Rove."
A good summary of the current crises in European politics, which makes a nice companion piece to Hitch's in the last Vanity Fair... fascism, indeed...
QUOTE:
"And so it goes. Historians have a term for this back-and-forth dynamic. They call it the "pendulum law," meaning that the politics of the pope the cardinals elect tends to oscillate rather than to follow directly from the previous pontificate. Why? Because popes don't change as often as U.S. presidents do. At the end of a long papacy, there is always a sense of unfinished business, which the pope either couldn't or wouldn't address. Even cardinals who love the present pope tend to think that his approach has had a long time to work, and welcome fresh ideas. The Italians, as they always do, have a better phrase to capture this dynamic: "You always follow a fat pope with a thin one.""
-From The Washington Monthly
"And so it goes. Historians have a term for this back-and-forth dynamic. They call it the "pendulum law," meaning that the politics of the pope the cardinals elect tends to oscillate rather than to follow directly from the previous pontificate. Why? Because popes don't change as often as U.S. presidents do. At the end of a long papacy, there is always a sense of unfinished business, which the pope either couldn't or wouldn't address. Even cardinals who love the present pope tend to think that his approach has had a long time to work, and welcome fresh ideas. The Italians, as they always do, have a better phrase to capture this dynamic: "You always follow a fat pope with a thin one.""
-From The Washington Monthly
BUSH SELLS OUT AMERICAN CHILDREN: thanks to The Corner for the link to Ari Fleischer's press briefing:
" Q In the meeting this morning, did the President mention this testimony up on Capitol Hill about Saudi children who are being kidnapped and taken back to Saudi Arabia -- allegedly kidnapped and taken back to Saudi Arabia -- did he mention that? Does the President have an opinion on that kind of thing?
MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, I was asked that at the gaggle this morning. That was a topic that was raised by Secretary Burns in his meeting directly with the Foreign Minister. And what I indicated this morning is this is an issue that, unfortunately, presents itself not only with Saudi Arabia, but with many a sovereign government that have their own laws that are not carbon copies of America's laws -- after all, they're sovereign nations -- about custody. And in each of these cases, it's a heartbreaking, difficult, difficult issue that the State Department works very hard on in a very individual way to do what's best for the interests of a child.
And it's just as complicated and just as sad as any domestic case here where you have parents who are fighting for the custody of a child, and it's compounded and made more difficult by the fact that it involves laws of a sovereign nation that the United States cannot control, whether it's Saudi Arabia or any other nation.
And so, unfortunately, there's long casework at the State Department. They have a bureau that's focused just on these type of issues. And each one of these cases presents a real heartbreaking incident that the State Department works very hard to solve, case by case by case around the world.
Q If I may follow up, I would imagine there are some women's groups out there who would want some kind of forceful statement from the President on this matter.
MR. FLEISCHER: Again, I explained exactly how this matter is handled, and it involves some of the most difficult issues. And you can make the same case about things domestically. There are terrible, heartbreaking cases that pit man against woman, husband against wife, former husband, former wife, here in our country when it comes to custody. And each one of them is complicated, each one of them is difficult. And the focus at all times, in the President's opinion, should be on what's best for the child.
Q Ari, does that mean the United States --
MR. FLEISCHER: We'll get there. Wendell."
" Q In the meeting this morning, did the President mention this testimony up on Capitol Hill about Saudi children who are being kidnapped and taken back to Saudi Arabia -- allegedly kidnapped and taken back to Saudi Arabia -- did he mention that? Does the President have an opinion on that kind of thing?
MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, I was asked that at the gaggle this morning. That was a topic that was raised by Secretary Burns in his meeting directly with the Foreign Minister. And what I indicated this morning is this is an issue that, unfortunately, presents itself not only with Saudi Arabia, but with many a sovereign government that have their own laws that are not carbon copies of America's laws -- after all, they're sovereign nations -- about custody. And in each of these cases, it's a heartbreaking, difficult, difficult issue that the State Department works very hard on in a very individual way to do what's best for the interests of a child.
And it's just as complicated and just as sad as any domestic case here where you have parents who are fighting for the custody of a child, and it's compounded and made more difficult by the fact that it involves laws of a sovereign nation that the United States cannot control, whether it's Saudi Arabia or any other nation.
And so, unfortunately, there's long casework at the State Department. They have a bureau that's focused just on these type of issues. And each one of these cases presents a real heartbreaking incident that the State Department works very hard to solve, case by case by case around the world.
Q If I may follow up, I would imagine there are some women's groups out there who would want some kind of forceful statement from the President on this matter.
MR. FLEISCHER: Again, I explained exactly how this matter is handled, and it involves some of the most difficult issues. And you can make the same case about things domestically. There are terrible, heartbreaking cases that pit man against woman, husband against wife, former husband, former wife, here in our country when it comes to custody. And each one of them is complicated, each one of them is difficult. And the focus at all times, in the President's opinion, should be on what's best for the child.
Q Ari, does that mean the United States --
MR. FLEISCHER: We'll get there. Wendell."
15.6.02
ROCK AND ROLL!!!
"SIR MICK: [Rod Dreher] I think Mick Jagger's knighthood for services to music is a fabulous idea. The Rolling Stones haven't made an album since Tattoo You (1981, if memory serves) worth listening to, but their run in the late Sixties and early Seventies, a period that included Let It Bleed, Beggar's Banquet, Sticky Fingers, and their peerless masterpiece Exile on Main Street , grants them rock and roll immortality. To hell with those who whinge about Jagger not being a proper role model for a knight; the "Sir" business is about Mick's artistic contribution, for one thing, and for another: Sir Elton John. I have only two complaints: 1) that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was knighted before Mick Jagger, inasmuch as the Rolling Stones were the better band, and 2) that Keef didn't get a knighthood too."
"SIR MICK: [Rod Dreher] I think Mick Jagger's knighthood for services to music is a fabulous idea. The Rolling Stones haven't made an album since Tattoo You (1981, if memory serves) worth listening to, but their run in the late Sixties and early Seventies, a period that included Let It Bleed, Beggar's Banquet, Sticky Fingers, and their peerless masterpiece Exile on Main Street , grants them rock and roll immortality. To hell with those who whinge about Jagger not being a proper role model for a knight; the "Sir" business is about Mick's artistic contribution, for one thing, and for another: Sir Elton John. I have only two complaints: 1) that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was knighted before Mick Jagger, inasmuch as the Rolling Stones were the better band, and 2) that Keef didn't get a knighthood too."
And this reminds me of the great closing lines of "Babii Yar" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:
"The 'Internationale', let it
thunder
when the last antisemite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all antisemites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!"
"The 'Internationale', let it
thunder
when the last antisemite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all antisemites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!"
ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: Quelle surprise! Liberals in California (in college, natch) are doing all sorts of nasty things to Jewish students. Makes me glad for the tolerant, open society Michigan fosters.
LET 'EM SEE RED! (A little late, I know): Salon has a nice wrap-up of the Wings' season, and makes much of the unbridled joy that all of Detroit's players showed when they finally won the cup. Everything in life should be that fufilling.
LINK: Good column by Jonathan Last, also on soccer:
"YOU WILL REMEMBER, of course, that Ronaldo is the most famous athlete on the planet--much more popular and well-known than Michael Jordan.
Four years ago the soccer scolds insisted this was true. It defied all logic (it's not like the kids in China were running around in Ronaldo jerseys), but it didn't matter. The people who love soccer said so. Now here we are, four years later. Michael Jordan is--still--Michael Jordan and Ronaldo, it's clear, isn't as globally popular as Tiger Woods, let alone MJ. (On a recent "Meet the Press," Tim Russert presented Russia's foreign minister with a Washington Wizards #23 jersey--the Russian beamed and exclaimed how happy he was to get a token from "hiz ayahness." Do you think his face would have lit up for a Ronaldo jersey?)"
"YOU WILL REMEMBER, of course, that Ronaldo is the most famous athlete on the planet--much more popular and well-known than Michael Jordan.
Four years ago the soccer scolds insisted this was true. It defied all logic (it's not like the kids in China were running around in Ronaldo jerseys), but it didn't matter. The people who love soccer said so. Now here we are, four years later. Michael Jordan is--still--Michael Jordan and Ronaldo, it's clear, isn't as globally popular as Tiger Woods, let alone MJ. (On a recent "Meet the Press," Tim Russert presented Russia's foreign minister with a Washington Wizards #23 jersey--the Russian beamed and exclaimed how happy he was to get a token from "hiz ayahness." Do you think his face would have lit up for a Ronaldo jersey?)"
LINK: A surprisingly well-written and (barring the end) non-histrionic column from Bill Kellar of the New York Times on fear and nuclear weapons. A must read, in my opinion. A bit to pique your curiosity:
"During the maximum jitters of the Cuban missile crisis, the high school where I was an impressionable freshman happened to be holding an assembly. The star speaker was a priest from San Francisco, who arranged to have his remarks interrupted by a student delivering a note. The priest studied the note, then looked up with a somber face and announced that the Soviet Union and the United States had just launched nuclear missiles at each other.
Forty years later, I can still hear the terrified whimper in that auditorium as we all considered our imminent doom. But I can't remember a word of what the speaker said afterward. That's the thing about fear: It gets your attention and then refuses to give it back..."
"During the maximum jitters of the Cuban missile crisis, the high school where I was an impressionable freshman happened to be holding an assembly. The star speaker was a priest from San Francisco, who arranged to have his remarks interrupted by a student delivering a note. The priest studied the note, then looked up with a somber face and announced that the Soviet Union and the United States had just launched nuclear missiles at each other.
Forty years later, I can still hear the terrified whimper in that auditorium as we all considered our imminent doom. But I can't remember a word of what the speaker said afterward. That's the thing about fear: It gets your attention and then refuses to give it back..."
GAY BASHING: from The Nation, no less. The two main fallacies perpetrated by the article are 1. That any moral system that does not permit people to behave however they want is prima facie wrong and 2. That gays must refuse to become part of the rest of society if they are to be good and decent people. Let the outrage begin!
"Of course, liberal society is not a monolith. Some of its members remain open to self-examination and social change, but others have retreated from this critical edge, and a powerful backlash culture reinforces their flight. Homocons appeal to retreating liberals in a way that radical queers do not. For one thing, they don't seem all that conservative. The fact that they are out and proud can make their most reactionary ravings seem vaguely progressive, and they maintain the illusion by the enemies they keep. The gay right is as fiercely opposed to religious fundamentalism as it is to queer theory, and this dual repudiation allows homocons to position themselves as independents whose only agenda is speaking "common sense." They pose as free thinkers fighting the orthodoxies of both the left and right. In fact, homocons are neither independent nor individualistic. They are neoconservatives in every respect--or would be were it not for the issue of homosexuality.
If only he were straight, Sullivan would fit snugly into the right-wing Weekly Standard. Like its editors, he is fiercely nationalistic, dedicated to the free market, antichoice and hostile to civil rights. Most homocons actually oppose laws that prohibit discrimination against gay people (Sullivan has called the issue of discrimination "a red herring"). And when it comes to sex, the gay right stands for a lifestyle that comes as close to the straight norm as it's possible for homos to get. Marriage, Sullivan has written, is the only alternative to "a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation." Recent revelations about his adventures on the Internet punctured his pose of respectability, and Sullivan has morphed into a champion of cruising. Still, his standard for proper behavior is the closest thing the gay right has to a motto: "virtually normal.""
Because, certainly, Sullivan's Catholic faith has no impact on his beliefs whatsoever, and if it did, that'd be wrong, right? I mean, who ever heard of using religion to help guide you through the important choices of life?
The part that is really beyond the pale, though, is the 'revelations of his adventures on the internet,' (a charge so vile I won't repeat it), which can never be mentioned except as a way of using his sexuality to discredit his political and moral views, exactly the sort of homophobia the good folks at The Nation are so against... right? right?
"Of course, liberal society is not a monolith. Some of its members remain open to self-examination and social change, but others have retreated from this critical edge, and a powerful backlash culture reinforces their flight. Homocons appeal to retreating liberals in a way that radical queers do not. For one thing, they don't seem all that conservative. The fact that they are out and proud can make their most reactionary ravings seem vaguely progressive, and they maintain the illusion by the enemies they keep. The gay right is as fiercely opposed to religious fundamentalism as it is to queer theory, and this dual repudiation allows homocons to position themselves as independents whose only agenda is speaking "common sense." They pose as free thinkers fighting the orthodoxies of both the left and right. In fact, homocons are neither independent nor individualistic. They are neoconservatives in every respect--or would be were it not for the issue of homosexuality.
If only he were straight, Sullivan would fit snugly into the right-wing Weekly Standard. Like its editors, he is fiercely nationalistic, dedicated to the free market, antichoice and hostile to civil rights. Most homocons actually oppose laws that prohibit discrimination against gay people (Sullivan has called the issue of discrimination "a red herring"). And when it comes to sex, the gay right stands for a lifestyle that comes as close to the straight norm as it's possible for homos to get. Marriage, Sullivan has written, is the only alternative to "a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation." Recent revelations about his adventures on the Internet punctured his pose of respectability, and Sullivan has morphed into a champion of cruising. Still, his standard for proper behavior is the closest thing the gay right has to a motto: "virtually normal.""
Because, certainly, Sullivan's Catholic faith has no impact on his beliefs whatsoever, and if it did, that'd be wrong, right? I mean, who ever heard of using religion to help guide you through the important choices of life?
The part that is really beyond the pale, though, is the 'revelations of his adventures on the internet,' (a charge so vile I won't repeat it), which can never be mentioned except as a way of using his sexuality to discredit his political and moral views, exactly the sort of homophobia the good folks at The Nation are so against... right? right?
13.6.02
HAHAHA:
HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahehehehehehehahahahahahrehhrhehehehehe
haha... haha... hahaha... ha... ha... woo!
ChiCom always has that effect on me, sorry.
HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahehehehehehehahahahahahrehhrhehehehehe
haha... haha... hahaha... ha... ha... woo!
ChiCom always has that effect on me, sorry.
DAMN CONSERVATIVES: Well, damn Bob Barr, who just can't seem to resist writing the punch line to his own joke. When Larry Klayman is unwilling to get behind you, you know you've gone beyond the pale.
DAMN LIBERALS: turning on Israel after the Six Day War because, apparently, they can't identify with anyone unwilling to embrace victimhood.
LINK: Catholic Bishops are meeting in Dallas (that hotbed of Catholicism) today and tomorrow to discuss what the Church's policy should be on sex abuse by priests. Sadly, for most of us, this is a no-brainer, but apparently a bishoporic endows you with a moral sense of much higher attunement, capable of seeing why they should protect evil, evil men. Actually, in fairness to the American Church, they're probably going to do what they're supposed to. It's the prospect of the Vatican shooting down their new rules that should concern people. Rod Dreher covers all this and everything else you need to know.
LINK AND QUOTE: First, read Jonah Goldberg's G-File from yesterday, a collection of intriguing, if occasionally inflammatory, thoughts about contemporary feminism. Then read an e-mail response to the column, as posted on The Corner:
"Who on earth gave you a column? Who thought you could write?
But more importantly, why do you express such ridiculous opinions in the 21st century?
You are the most rabid misogynist I've ever had the misfortune to read.
You wouldn't recognize a feminist if you stepped on one barefoot - which is where you'd no doubt have all women - underfoot.
What kind of cretin are you that you would call women "chicks?"
Even men MY age don't call women chicks. They know it's the equivalent of calling a black person the "N" word.
You don't grasp that, do you?
All during the Clinton years I watched you and your spooky mother (she IS a woman, isn't she? I was never sure) and I could not believe that supposedly intelligent people would listen to people like you.
Yet you and Ann Coulter and your ilk prospered because Bill and Hillary Clinton were so hated, you'd go to any length or stoop to any depth to get rid of them.
When you failed to to it legally, you resorted to character assassination.
You succeeded in making the president's into a joke.
Clinton himself was the ONLY civil person in the entire picture.
Trust me. I'd give anything to have Bill Clinton back in the White House, or to have Al Gore there where he RIGHTFULLY belongs."
Now here is where my page ended. But the truly hilarious part was below the fold (isn't it always?):
"It's those like you who get paid to be ridiculous - you and the Rush Limbaughs, the Oliver Norths, the Sean Hannitys, the Drudges, the O'Reillys, the ARROGANT POMPOUS TESTOSTERONE POISONED JERKS OF THE WORLD - who have ruined this great country.
It's too bad Al Gore didn't get to be inaugurated.
Had HE been in office, the mess on Sept. 11 would never have happened.
So blame your pretender to the throne for the attacks.
He's the biggest jerk ever to have been governor, and certainly the biggest jerk ever to have traveled out of Texas - and that's a BIG role!
Thanks for getting my adrenaline pumping. I don't have to go for coffee now.
Just consider me one of the old persons or one of the loons.
But certainly consider me a dyed-in-the-wool feminist. And consider my husband, my sons and my daughters feminists, too.
And consider yourself a cretin with such a low forehead, your eyes barely show.
And consider your wife perhaps one of the most unfortunate creatures God ever put into a woman's body.
Give her my sympathy.
And tell her we feminists are looking for new members who have been on "the other side" and have seen the light."
Well, it's good to see that rational, well-considered debate is still fashionable.
"Who on earth gave you a column? Who thought you could write?
But more importantly, why do you express such ridiculous opinions in the 21st century?
You are the most rabid misogynist I've ever had the misfortune to read.
You wouldn't recognize a feminist if you stepped on one barefoot - which is where you'd no doubt have all women - underfoot.
What kind of cretin are you that you would call women "chicks?"
Even men MY age don't call women chicks. They know it's the equivalent of calling a black person the "N" word.
You don't grasp that, do you?
All during the Clinton years I watched you and your spooky mother (she IS a woman, isn't she? I was never sure) and I could not believe that supposedly intelligent people would listen to people like you.
Yet you and Ann Coulter and your ilk prospered because Bill and Hillary Clinton were so hated, you'd go to any length or stoop to any depth to get rid of them.
When you failed to to it legally, you resorted to character assassination.
You succeeded in making the president's into a joke.
Clinton himself was the ONLY civil person in the entire picture.
Trust me. I'd give anything to have Bill Clinton back in the White House, or to have Al Gore there where he RIGHTFULLY belongs."
Now here is where my page ended. But the truly hilarious part was below the fold (isn't it always?):
"It's those like you who get paid to be ridiculous - you and the Rush Limbaughs, the Oliver Norths, the Sean Hannitys, the Drudges, the O'Reillys, the ARROGANT POMPOUS TESTOSTERONE POISONED JERKS OF THE WORLD - who have ruined this great country.
It's too bad Al Gore didn't get to be inaugurated.
Had HE been in office, the mess on Sept. 11 would never have happened.
So blame your pretender to the throne for the attacks.
He's the biggest jerk ever to have been governor, and certainly the biggest jerk ever to have traveled out of Texas - and that's a BIG role!
Thanks for getting my adrenaline pumping. I don't have to go for coffee now.
Just consider me one of the old persons or one of the loons.
But certainly consider me a dyed-in-the-wool feminist. And consider my husband, my sons and my daughters feminists, too.
And consider yourself a cretin with such a low forehead, your eyes barely show.
And consider your wife perhaps one of the most unfortunate creatures God ever put into a woman's body.
Give her my sympathy.
And tell her we feminists are looking for new members who have been on "the other side" and have seen the light."
Well, it's good to see that rational, well-considered debate is still fashionable.
IF IT WEREN'T IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER: I'd've watched it. And you should, too. The New Republic Online explains why.
A GAME SO BIG: they're not letting anyone into the city, which is fine, because most Wings fans don't live there anyway. Then again, rioting in West Bloomfield doesn't quite have the same chache, does it?
LINK: If you watched the NBA Finals, you know exactly what they're talking about. I kind of liked Walton, his tendency to be somewhat overly involved in what was going on aside.
LINK: World Cup update, which y'all should follow because the Americans don't actually suck this year. And to see the French being made fun of (in the interest of fairness, I was a big fan during their 1998 Cup win, so I'm not unfamiliar with Frogophilia).
12.6.02
BIG-UP TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:
Just when you think they're permanently screwed up and irredeemable, they pull off something so effortlessly right, it's almost shocking
Just when you think they're permanently screwed up and irredeemable, they pull off something so effortlessly right, it's almost shocking
11.6.02
QUOTE: The American Prospect's blog, on of the few readable left-liberal ones (and certainly one that can hold it's own with NRO's Corner) weighs in again on the Green Party and stupidity:
Bastards. This is as bad as when TNR used to not let you save their articles as text files. Here's the link: blah!
Bastards. This is as bad as when TNR used to not let you save their articles as text files. Here's the link: blah!
FROG ALERT:
" THE FRENCH DON'T EVEN HAVE A WORD FOR "VICTORY"... [Jonah Goldberg]
at least according to Homer Simpson. The news that the surrender-monkeys didn't even score a single goal in the World Cup has to be good news to lovers of French-haters everywhere. In a sense it's even better than the old joke about the 10,000 rifles for sale on eBay -- a real bargain: never fired, only dropped once."
" THE FRENCH DON'T EVEN HAVE A WORD FOR "VICTORY"... [Jonah Goldberg]
at least according to Homer Simpson. The news that the surrender-monkeys didn't even score a single goal in the World Cup has to be good news to lovers of French-haters everywhere. In a sense it's even better than the old joke about the 10,000 rifles for sale on eBay -- a real bargain: never fired, only dropped once."
QUOTE:
"NEW YORK, NR [Jonah Goldberg]
I popped in to National Review's international headquarters, based in NYC, yesterday (which is why I failed to post to the Corner). I really should show up more than once every year or so. The place is so, so whacky. Why, when I showed up Michael Potemra and Ramesh Ponnuru were huddled together conspiring to do something. Before I could say "What's up?" I heard Potemra insist in a loud whisper: "Let's water-balloon Brookhiser! He has to pay for saying Charles Fourier directly influenced the Fabian Socialists! The mad fool!" But before they could act out their dastardly plan, Brookhiser burst into the hallway with a can of silly-string in each fist and drenched the conspirators, cackling "You dare doubt me! Hah ha ha!" Meanwhile, Lowry missed all of the shenanigans because he was busy showing the interns how to shotgun a beer.
Good times, good times."
"NEW YORK, NR [Jonah Goldberg]
I popped in to National Review's international headquarters, based in NYC, yesterday (which is why I failed to post to the Corner). I really should show up more than once every year or so. The place is so, so whacky. Why, when I showed up Michael Potemra and Ramesh Ponnuru were huddled together conspiring to do something. Before I could say "What's up?" I heard Potemra insist in a loud whisper: "Let's water-balloon Brookhiser! He has to pay for saying Charles Fourier directly influenced the Fabian Socialists! The mad fool!" But before they could act out their dastardly plan, Brookhiser burst into the hallway with a can of silly-string in each fist and drenched the conspirators, cackling "You dare doubt me! Hah ha ha!" Meanwhile, Lowry missed all of the shenanigans because he was busy showing the interns how to shotgun a beer.
Good times, good times."
LINK: Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus today especially on fire. And to think that I share a political disposition with some of the people described therein. O Samuel Gompers, where art thou?
LINK: Nice piece on NRO (check out that girl! Do all Republicans look that hot?) about the WRC and New Era. If you didn't believe campus activists were stupid befpore, here's a good reason to start. Check out the qualifications of the WRC's objections:
"The problem with that report is that it was researched and written without anyone from WRC setting foot in a New Era facility. Because New Era was working with an independent auditor assigned to them by FLA, they didn't see the need to also deal with WRC. But that didn't stop WRC from issuing a preliminary report, based on interviews with striking workers, OSHA reports, and various other sources. WRC claims to have uncovered evidence of company malfeasance regarding safety and workers' rights."
"The problem with that report is that it was researched and written without anyone from WRC setting foot in a New Era facility. Because New Era was working with an independent auditor assigned to them by FLA, they didn't see the need to also deal with WRC. But that didn't stop WRC from issuing a preliminary report, based on interviews with striking workers, OSHA reports, and various other sources. WRC claims to have uncovered evidence of company malfeasance regarding safety and workers' rights."
QUOTE:
A song, shocking for it's accuracy:
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed."
A song, shocking for it's accuracy:
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed."
FUN:
What kind of Villain are you?
I'm the despondent villain (quelle surprise!), which puts me in the same league as Raskolnikov. Tell me you didn't see it coming.
What kind of Villain are you?
I'm the despondent villain (quelle surprise!), which puts me in the same league as Raskolnikov. Tell me you didn't see it coming.
9.6.02
QUOTE:
"Now it's true, if Jesus came back today and saw what had happened, his first question would likely be: 'What is The View, and why is it on five times a week?'
And it's true, if you are going to invoke the name of Jesus, you might want to wait for something a bit more important than the end of your diet."
-Mitch Albom, in the Freep today
"Now it's true, if Jesus came back today and saw what had happened, his first question would likely be: 'What is The View, and why is it on five times a week?'
And it's true, if you are going to invoke the name of Jesus, you might want to wait for something a bit more important than the end of your diet."
-Mitch Albom, in the Freep today
LINK: I wasn't aware that the Washington Post was in the business of Hagiography (Cammie would probably know better than I do (you still do the journalism thing, no?)), but, well, they proved me wrong. To wit:
"The next day, during the long flight from Washington to Berlin to begin a presidential tour of Europe, Card took Bush page-by-page through the fat document. Bush raised a number of specific questions, mostly nuts-and-bolts matters regarding the problems of unifying agencies with different work rules and pay scales. But he approved the basic outline."
This after noting that the original findings were three-quarters of a inch thick... now, I don't buy into the 'Bush is dumb' line, but it's as if the White House is very intentionally trying to put out the 'See! He's smart after all! We told you so!' line. Kinda defensive, dontcha think?
"The next day, during the long flight from Washington to Berlin to begin a presidential tour of Europe, Card took Bush page-by-page through the fat document. Bush raised a number of specific questions, mostly nuts-and-bolts matters regarding the problems of unifying agencies with different work rules and pay scales. But he approved the basic outline."
This after noting that the original findings were three-quarters of a inch thick... now, I don't buy into the 'Bush is dumb' line, but it's as if the White House is very intentionally trying to put out the 'See! He's smart after all! We told you so!' line. Kinda defensive, dontcha think?
QUOTE: I don't know if y'all follow Observational Humor, the Seinfeld of stupid college-related things, but this part really hit home. Something for those of you who haven't started pulling 40 a week to look forward to:
"The biggest thing that changes when you start work is your concept of midnight. I used to see midnight and go to the bars. Now I see midnight and go to sleep. I don't know if that's really funny, but it sure does suck."
"The biggest thing that changes when you start work is your concept of midnight. I used to see midnight and go to the bars. Now I see midnight and go to sleep. I don't know if that's really funny, but it sure does suck."
LINK: Ariel Sharon, that tireless defender of humanity, civilization and the benefits of freedom, in the Times, laying out a fairly persuasive apologia for Israel's current policy on the Palestinians. Most encouraging, Arafat seems to be betginning to fold under the pressure. Apparently, knowing scores of tanks and troops can be at your front door without forewarning has a chilling effect on the contemplation of future terrorist attacks. I hope GWB is taking notes.
LINK: Am I the only one who misses Gail Collins' regular presence on the New York Times' Editorial Page? Granted, she's a great editor, and the page is, if anything, better than it was under Howell Raines (if that's even possible), but still... pretty amusing stuff.
8.6.02
OKAY, ONE MORE THING: As those of you who've seen my apartment know, my room is on the second floor. My TV is on the first floor. To hear the phone (also on the first floor) when I'm busy typing away at my computer (as I'm doing now), I have to mute the TV. This causes a problem when trying to follow, for example, the Red Wings playing for the Stanley Cup. Fortunately for me, about two minutes ago, I heard this tremendous roar from outside my window; people were honking their car horns. So I ran downstairs. Woo! Gotta love Detroit!
FASCIST ALERT:
The fascist, of course, being me. Economist.com suggests, as I have for many a year now, that it is precisely the broadening of education to the masses that has all sorts of unintended effects on a country's way of life. Now, of course, I was always a fan of connecting this to art and scholarship; that is, that by making an education easy to get, you reduce the motivation necessary to receive it, and people who are not as familiar with the human condition and human history are bound, in a perversion of Satayana's dictum, to forever say hopelessly boring and unimportant things about it.
The fascist, of course, being me. Economist.com suggests, as I have for many a year now, that it is precisely the broadening of education to the masses that has all sorts of unintended effects on a country's way of life. Now, of course, I was always a fan of connecting this to art and scholarship; that is, that by making an education easy to get, you reduce the motivation necessary to receive it, and people who are not as familiar with the human condition and human history are bound, in a perversion of Satayana's dictum, to forever say hopelessly boring and unimportant things about it.
QUOTE:
"In one of [Cicero's] famous Philippics attacking Mark Antony, he said, 'You assumed a man's toga and at once turned it into a prostitute's frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that.' So much for the lamentations bemoaning the loss of civility in our coarser times."
-The always witty and delightful Jeff Greenfield, writing in the Washington Monthly
"In one of [Cicero's] famous Philippics attacking Mark Antony, he said, 'You assumed a man's toga and at once turned it into a prostitute's frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that.' So much for the lamentations bemoaning the loss of civility in our coarser times."
-The always witty and delightful Jeff Greenfield, writing in the Washington Monthly
QUOTE:
"In one of [Cicero's] famous Philippics attacking Mark Antony, he said, 'You assumed a man's toga and at once turned it into a prostitute's frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that.' So much for the lamentations bemoaning the loss of civility in our coarser times."
-The always witty and delightful Jeff Greenfield, writing in the Washington Monthly
"In one of [Cicero's] famous Philippics attacking Mark Antony, he said, 'You assumed a man's toga and at once turned it into a prostitute's frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that.' So much for the lamentations bemoaning the loss of civility in our coarser times."
-The always witty and delightful Jeff Greenfield, writing in the Washington Monthly
WAKE-UP TIME:
The Green Party... oy! Well, start here. If that does not convince you overly of the phryrric soul of the 'radicals,' consider that even The Nation, that bulwark of unthinking liberalism, is suggesting that the Minnesota Greens might need to do a serious re-think.
The Green Party... oy! Well, start here. If that does not convince you overly of the phryrric soul of the 'radicals,' consider that even The Nation, that bulwark of unthinking liberalism, is suggesting that the Minnesota Greens might need to do a serious re-think.
MORE LEFT IDIOCY: If someone can tell me precisely what it is I'm supposed to 'get' from Arundhati Roy's latest screed, I'd appreciate it. Does it have something to do with trees or rocks? No? Nature, then? Ah, who cares?
LINK: If you never associated Ralph Nader with crack-smokery before, here's as good a reason as any to start
HAHA: You just have to read it to appreciate it. Or not. The swipe at HRC is less than funny. But the rest of it is pretty damn good.
3.6.02
IF: you never believed in the intelligence of the free-market system before, here's as good a reason as any.
QUOTE:
"THE CASE FOR INSENSITIVITY: If you've spent much time around the newly graduated, you'll find something striking about this younger generation. They have a new religion. It's called "sensitivity." There are plenty of things wrong in human conduct, but by far the greatest sin is "insensitivity." Anything that could faintly unsettle, upset, disturb, unnerve or discombobulate another person according to the Litany of offenses - ethnic, religious, sexual, etc. - must be excised from speech and thought. The reductio ad absurdum of this new creed is to be found in New York States Regents' Exams for graduating high school students. In the New York Times yesterday, we found out that even Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anton Chekhov have been bowdlerized to conform to the new faith. Their writing has been gutted of any conflict, ethnic references, sexual innuendo, and even hedonistic mentions of wine. It's so clarifying when all the fusty puritanisms of new left and old right combine. According to the bureaucrat defending this violation of literature, "The changes are made to satisfy the sensitivity guidelines the department uses, so no student will be 'uncomfortable in a testing situation.'" Doesn't she understand that making students uncomfortable is the point of education? It's precisely when we read something offensive or strange or alien that we start to think, to put ourselves and our myopic lives into a broader context. What our education system is now attempting to do is therefore literally instill incuriosity into children, a stultifying, inoffensive, comfortable state in which all the difficult conflicts of the modern world are conflated into anodyne pabulum. Thank God there are some feisty people with brains ready to expose and fight this. Thank God also for Cathy Popkin, Lionel Trilling professor in the humanities at Columbia. She wrote the Regents: "I implore you to put a stop to the scandalous practice of censoring literary texts, ostensibly in the interest of our students. It is dishonest. It is dangerous. It is an embarrassment. It is the practice of fools." But the fools are now running a large part of the educational asylum. "
-Andrew Sullivan, defending the reasonable use of the academy
"THE CASE FOR INSENSITIVITY: If you've spent much time around the newly graduated, you'll find something striking about this younger generation. They have a new religion. It's called "sensitivity." There are plenty of things wrong in human conduct, but by far the greatest sin is "insensitivity." Anything that could faintly unsettle, upset, disturb, unnerve or discombobulate another person according to the Litany of offenses - ethnic, religious, sexual, etc. - must be excised from speech and thought. The reductio ad absurdum of this new creed is to be found in New York States Regents' Exams for graduating high school students. In the New York Times yesterday, we found out that even Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anton Chekhov have been bowdlerized to conform to the new faith. Their writing has been gutted of any conflict, ethnic references, sexual innuendo, and even hedonistic mentions of wine. It's so clarifying when all the fusty puritanisms of new left and old right combine. According to the bureaucrat defending this violation of literature, "The changes are made to satisfy the sensitivity guidelines the department uses, so no student will be 'uncomfortable in a testing situation.'" Doesn't she understand that making students uncomfortable is the point of education? It's precisely when we read something offensive or strange or alien that we start to think, to put ourselves and our myopic lives into a broader context. What our education system is now attempting to do is therefore literally instill incuriosity into children, a stultifying, inoffensive, comfortable state in which all the difficult conflicts of the modern world are conflated into anodyne pabulum. Thank God there are some feisty people with brains ready to expose and fight this. Thank God also for Cathy Popkin, Lionel Trilling professor in the humanities at Columbia. She wrote the Regents: "I implore you to put a stop to the scandalous practice of censoring literary texts, ostensibly in the interest of our students. It is dishonest. It is dangerous. It is an embarrassment. It is the practice of fools." But the fools are now running a large part of the educational asylum. "
-Andrew Sullivan, defending the reasonable use of the academy
2.6.02
OY!:
"Man's view of himself is changing very rapidly. Within the next 20 years I think you'll feel its effects. After Darwinism, after Freudianism, there's now a tremendous influence of neuroscience. It's a very exciting field. It would be very tempting to go into, but if I may reduce with terrible reductiveness the bottom line of neuroscience, it is that let's not kid ourselves. We're all concatenations of molecules containing DNA, hard wired into a chemical analog computer known as the human brain, which as software has a certain genetic code. And your idea that you have a soul or even a self, much less free will, is just an illusion.
Your fate is preordained and if we had . . . enough data and sufficient parallel computers, we could predict everything you're going to do, including the fact that within the next 20 seconds you'll touch your forehead.
Somehow it reminds me of this marvelous song by the Bloodhound Gang, which says: "You and me baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals. So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."
-Tom Wolfe, attempting to demonstrate the depths of stupidity to which he himself, and mankind in general, are able to sink. He sounds like a frat-boy.
"Man's view of himself is changing very rapidly. Within the next 20 years I think you'll feel its effects. After Darwinism, after Freudianism, there's now a tremendous influence of neuroscience. It's a very exciting field. It would be very tempting to go into, but if I may reduce with terrible reductiveness the bottom line of neuroscience, it is that let's not kid ourselves. We're all concatenations of molecules containing DNA, hard wired into a chemical analog computer known as the human brain, which as software has a certain genetic code. And your idea that you have a soul or even a self, much less free will, is just an illusion.
Your fate is preordained and if we had . . . enough data and sufficient parallel computers, we could predict everything you're going to do, including the fact that within the next 20 seconds you'll touch your forehead.
Somehow it reminds me of this marvelous song by the Bloodhound Gang, which says: "You and me baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals. So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."
-Tom Wolfe, attempting to demonstrate the depths of stupidity to which he himself, and mankind in general, are able to sink. He sounds like a frat-boy.
QUOTE: Tom Ridge:
" You know, that sounds a little bit familiar. I've heard the same thing a few times myself. In fact, I went on Lexis-Nexis to find out how many times the media has used the words "impossible job" or "task" in the same sentence as "homeland security."
Seventy-three references popped up."
" You know, that sounds a little bit familiar. I've heard the same thing a few times myself. In fact, I went on Lexis-Nexis to find out how many times the media has used the words "impossible job" or "task" in the same sentence as "homeland security."
Seventy-three references popped up."
Still, it's hard to argue with the following:
"To regard people as 'temporarily backward' rather than 'permanently different' is to accept that while people are potentially equal, cultures definitely are not; it is to accept the idea of social and moral progress; that it would be far better if everybody had the chance to live in the type of society or culture that best promoted human advancement.
But it's just these ideas - and the very act of making judgements about beliefs, values, lifestyles, and cultures - that are now viewed as politically uncouth. In place of the progressive universalism of James and Fanon, contemporary Western societies have embraced a form of nihilistic multiculturalism. We've come to see the world as divided into cultures and groups defined largely by their difference with each other. And every group has come to see itself as composed not of active agents attempting to overcome disadvantages by striving for equality and progress, but of passive victims with irresolvable grievances. For if differences are permanent, how can grievances ever be resolved?
The corollary of turning the whole world into a network of victims is to transform the West, and in particular the USA, into an all-powerful malign force - the Great Satan - against which all must rage. In Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, one of the central characters, Saladin, finds himself incarcerated in a detention centre for illegal immigrants. Saladin discovers that his fellow inmates have been transformed into beasts - water buffaloes, snakes, manticores. He himself has become a hairy goat.
How do they do it, Saladin asks a fellow prisoner? 'They describe us', comes the reply, 'that's all. They have the power of description and we succumb to the pictures they construct'. There is a similar sense of fatalism in the way that many contemporary radicals view the USA. The Great Satan describes the world, and the world succumbs to those descriptions.
In this fatalism lies a common thread that binds contemporary Western radicalism and fundamentalist Islam. On the surface the two seem poles apart: fundamentalists loathe Western decadence, Western radicals fear Islamic presumptions of certainty. But what unites the two is that both are rooted in contemporary nihilistic multiculturalism; both express, at best, ambivalence about, at worst outright rejection of, the ideas of modernity, universality, and progress. And both see no real alternative to Western power."
"To regard people as 'temporarily backward' rather than 'permanently different' is to accept that while people are potentially equal, cultures definitely are not; it is to accept the idea of social and moral progress; that it would be far better if everybody had the chance to live in the type of society or culture that best promoted human advancement.
But it's just these ideas - and the very act of making judgements about beliefs, values, lifestyles, and cultures - that are now viewed as politically uncouth. In place of the progressive universalism of James and Fanon, contemporary Western societies have embraced a form of nihilistic multiculturalism. We've come to see the world as divided into cultures and groups defined largely by their difference with each other. And every group has come to see itself as composed not of active agents attempting to overcome disadvantages by striving for equality and progress, but of passive victims with irresolvable grievances. For if differences are permanent, how can grievances ever be resolved?
The corollary of turning the whole world into a network of victims is to transform the West, and in particular the USA, into an all-powerful malign force - the Great Satan - against which all must rage. In Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, one of the central characters, Saladin, finds himself incarcerated in a detention centre for illegal immigrants. Saladin discovers that his fellow inmates have been transformed into beasts - water buffaloes, snakes, manticores. He himself has become a hairy goat.
How do they do it, Saladin asks a fellow prisoner? 'They describe us', comes the reply, 'that's all. They have the power of description and we succumb to the pictures they construct'. There is a similar sense of fatalism in the way that many contemporary radicals view the USA. The Great Satan describes the world, and the world succumbs to those descriptions.
In this fatalism lies a common thread that binds contemporary Western radicalism and fundamentalist Islam. On the surface the two seem poles apart: fundamentalists loathe Western decadence, Western radicals fear Islamic presumptions of certainty. But what unites the two is that both are rooted in contemporary nihilistic multiculturalism; both express, at best, ambivalence about, at worst outright rejection of, the ideas of modernity, universality, and progress. And both see no real alternative to Western power."
This would seem, on closer observation, to indicate a certain accident of history that almost all of the major inventive geniuses and leaders came from the West. But, I believe, it is precisely the frequency of this accident-- the West is hegemon when it comes to virtually everything-- that makes it impossible to argue that the underlying project of civilization (especially the contributions of the Enlightenment) is some caprice.
LINK: Particularly brilliant treatment of the usual argument about the merits of Western culture. I'm not particularly convinced by the assertion that Islamist and other civilizations are some kind of sine qua non for what Europeans and Americans have acheived historically (the discovery of zero) notwithstanding: as they say, had Einstein never lived, someone would've figured out the Theory of Relativity-- but had Dostoevsky not lived, there'd be no Crime and Punishment.
1.6.02
ON THE SUM OF ALL FEARS:
"One of the producers, Mace Neufeld, says that complaints from the CAIR crowd started coming into the studio before they even had a script, and Affleck now cavalierly says, "The Arab terrorist thing has been done a million times in the movies." Which is true. Of course, in all of the World War II movies, America is fighting Germany and Japan."
"One of the producers, Mace Neufeld, says that complaints from the CAIR crowd started coming into the studio before they even had a script, and Affleck now cavalierly says, "The Arab terrorist thing has been done a million times in the movies." Which is true. Of course, in all of the World War II movies, America is fighting Germany and Japan."
SCARY: A profile on the wonderful job Ari Fleischer is doing on TNR Online. Too bad he's an inveterate liar.
Well, we can hope that CFR foe Mitch McConnell, who's up for re-election this year, will be taken down. Hell, we might even have some help.
NPWA:
Billy Bragg lights it up on England, labor unions, and the arrogance of youth-- "I think it was more a t-shirt than a developed idea." Now wonder this guy is responsible for my breif conversion to socialism.
Billy Bragg lights it up on England, labor unions, and the arrogance of youth-- "I think it was more a t-shirt than a developed idea." Now wonder this guy is responsible for my breif conversion to socialism.
BILL CLINTON GETS PISSED- about--you guessed it-- Yassir Arafat, via a hack job in the New York Review of Books:
"What the hell is this? Why is she turning the mistakes we [i.e., the US and Israel] made into the essence? The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism. That's the real story?all the rest is gossip."
"What the hell is this? Why is she turning the mistakes we [i.e., the US and Israel] made into the essence? The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism. That's the real story?all the rest is gossip."
QUOTE: Ehud Barak on the Palestinians:
"They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie...creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as 'the truth'"
And Andrew Sullivan's shocking shrill reply:
"The tantalizing question is whether he's referring to the PLO or the literature departments of most Ivy League colleges."
Now I know he's just having his fun, and there's nothing wrong with that; frankly, I'd be the first to criticize the most college literature departments, ours included (it is, after all, possible to get a PhD in English Literature at U of M and not read Shakespeare. Shakespeare! But Andrew just seems to have started to become another flack for the Right, and a particularly unfunny one, at that.
"They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie...creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as 'the truth'"
And Andrew Sullivan's shocking shrill reply:
"The tantalizing question is whether he's referring to the PLO or the literature departments of most Ivy League colleges."
Now I know he's just having his fun, and there's nothing wrong with that; frankly, I'd be the first to criticize the most college literature departments, ours included (it is, after all, possible to get a PhD in English Literature at U of M and not read Shakespeare. Shakespeare! But Andrew just seems to have started to become another flack for the Right, and a particularly unfunny one, at that.
HITCH, AT IT AGAIN:
This time on the whole 'Bush Knew' inbroglio. To wit:
"(The FAA has made sure of one thing. The next suicide-murderer who manages to get on a plane will find that his victims have been thoroughly and efficiently disarmed. No improvised resistance will be possible, unless experts in unarmed combat happen to be among the passengers. And I hesitate to mention even that, in case some bright spark in authority decides to disqualify such people from flying at all in their "weaponized" condition.)"
This time on the whole 'Bush Knew' inbroglio. To wit:
"(The FAA has made sure of one thing. The next suicide-murderer who manages to get on a plane will find that his victims have been thoroughly and efficiently disarmed. No improvised resistance will be possible, unless experts in unarmed combat happen to be among the passengers. And I hesitate to mention even that, in case some bright spark in authority decides to disqualify such people from flying at all in their "weaponized" condition.)"
LINK:
Let me see if I get this straight: Steinbrenner gets Drew, screws up last year's football season, and is now having doubts about having him play? Oy!
Let me see if I get this straight: Steinbrenner gets Drew, screws up last year's football season, and is now having doubts about having him play? Oy!
A FEW NOTES: from the last week, as I've been a little recalcitrant about posting:
1. Having been told the same thing four times by four different people, I think it's incumbent upon me to take it seriously, which is bad for things the way they are now,
2. Work sucks
3. Actions really do speak louder than words
1. Having been told the same thing four times by four different people, I think it's incumbent upon me to take it seriously, which is bad for things the way they are now,
2. Work sucks
3. Actions really do speak louder than words
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