LINK: Hitch blasts them all out of the water. Again. A must-read.

AND Iraq talking about maybe letting weapons inspectors in is like Yassir Arafat talking about peace with the Israelis: as much as they might talk, it's never gonna happen-- but it'll distract you from doing anything about the situation in the meantime.

COUNTERPOINT:

"Is it just me, or does a pre-emptive strike seem against what the US stands for morally? I always thought our policy was not to act as the agressor but to act as a defender of the peace."

-This is, in theory, true, assuming there are no countervailing considerations-- things like the general opposition of autocratic regimes, support for democratic governments and the rights of minorities (think Kurds and Shi'a Muslims, for example). The moral questions involved here are more complicated than whether or not some theoretical miltiary strike is justified in a military sense.

And as far as Europe, anti-immigrant sentiment, and France in particular, there was a fantastic article on this very subject in last month's Commentary, which I will lend to you if you like.

LINK: Controversial? Perhaps, if the point hadn't been made many, many times before. Rolling Stone has been beating the drum on this for the past three or four years, and it was two years ago that Atlantic Monthly did a cover story on the subject.

VOCABULARY LESSON: from The Philosophical Lexicon, and I bring this up for no reason:

"quine, v. (1) To deny resolutely the existence of importance of something real or significant. "Some philosophers have quined classes, and some have even quined physical objects." Occasionally used intr., e.g., "You think I quine, sir. I assure you I do not!" (2) n. The total aggregate sensory surface of the world; hence quinitis, irritation of the quine."

LINK: Camille Paglia on the Left:

"Only a lunatic fringe on the far Left is still calling for revolution, a smashing of the social order, but it must be acknowledged how widespread that idea was in the 1960s. Most leftists do believe that, without them, the naive proletariat would wallow for ever in ignorance and slavery."

LINK: Interesting take, and there's a lot to agree with, except, of course, that William the Conqueror was technically French, and T.S. Eliot was born in America...

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS: from the BBC's poll of the 100 greatest Britons: the shortlist for greatest Briton of all time:

"The 10 who have polled the most votes will each then be the subject of a weekly one-hour programme. It is understood the shortlist includes Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, John Lennon, Sir Isaac Newton and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Only one woman is believed to have made it- Elizabeth I."

Hint: it's not Elizabeth I I'm talking about

QUOTE: Jay Nordinger on our beloved hometown:

"More from Ann Arbor? Okay. Got this letter the other day. I’ll simply reprint it without comment:

"A female law student got her a** kicked by a homeless man in the law quad on Saturday here at U of M. A coworker of mine called Campus Security to hear a report of what happened, as we work in the law quad. I was the only one confused to hear, in the report, the homeless man being referred to as RESIDENTIALLY CHALLENGED. Christ."

QUOTE: Yuval Levin on capitalism:

"The answer is that the market alone will not create them. Illiberal economic systems are indeed great barriers to decent moral living. But free markets alone are not the source of virtue. They must be accompanied by a larger culture that encourages morality and virtue to flourish. And occasionally there are ways in which totally unfettered capitalism can impair such a culture, and therefore in which capitalism should be gently fettered in the service of a higher end. Libertarians often fail to see this point because their notion of culture and community is informed by a radical individualism that has real trouble dealing with the necessarily common task of educating citizens.

The three great advocates of a free economy at the birth of the capitalist idea — Adam Smith, Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton — did not imagine that the market would produce its own morality. On the contrary, they saw it as arising out of a certain moral view of the world (as Younkins does), and answering to the norms of a political community ruling itself through free institutions.

They were informed, above all, by an insight that seems too often lacking in contemporary libertarian circles: an overriding skepticism about the capacities of human beings to perfect themselves and their world. Capitalism as originally understood is truly the least worst form of an economy, and not the road to some utopia. It is this darker and more grave sense of the world, this fundamental conservatism, that separates the classical liberals from the keen post-modern futurists among the friends of capitalism."

About the quote: Shades of the übermensch, don't you think? C.S. Lewis called that sort of mentality out on the carpet more effectively than anyone in A Horse and His Boy.

Note of curosity: is it the fact that I'm showing applied knowledge from things I've encountered that makes me a 'liberal arts major?' Or just the fact I'm referencing things you haven't read?

LINK: The Hitch, with several pointed observations about the situation with Iraq.

New hilarity, just to your left!

QUOTE: I find the phrasing here to be impeccable:

"There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away..."

LINK: good news from Georgia

COMMENT: Oh, no, I would quite agree with that sentiment. But it's really a question of efficacy: picking up trash by the side of the highway is good, and certainly it should be done, but it's marginal effect is meaningless. What is needed, then, is some sort of organizational superstructure that can make all of those acts work together. And that, of course, requires the ability to agitate effectively for some manner of political and social change; but the key word is 'effectively:' vitriol generally accomplishes nothing except to turn away one's natural allies. Obviously, there's a lot more here to argue about... but we'll have time for that soon enough, won't we?

THE SMILE OF VOLTAIRE

QUOTE:

"You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets..."
-"Thunder Road"

As far as women go, it seems a shame that you haven't learned the basic truth that women aren't that different from men; and if you fail to see the underlying hostility in the 'greatest cryptographic system ever invented' then I'd refer you back to DuBois.

There are sensistive critiques of issues relating to race issues (to get an idea of what I mean, check out the NRO-set, who manage to put them out all the time), and yours was not one. To wit:

"Kiss my butt Ogletree Jr."

Perhaps I was wrong to see this as demogougery instead of rational debate. But I could be wrong.

QUOTE: Not aimed at anyone in particular:

"And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, all men know something of poverty; not that men are evil, who is good?; not that men are ignorant, what is truth?; nay, but that men know so little of men."

-W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, a book I recommend you read before you consider yourself qualified to discuss the racial situation in America

RACIST, SEXIST, and a bit of a pill. Your parents must be proud.

QUOTE: Not from Rushdie... not from Amis.

"because somewhere in between the brain and mouth of a woman lies the greatest cryptographic system ever built."

-As George Will might put it, piffle! And heavy-handed misogyny, too.

AND AGAIN:

"(After he had settled up the last bill, and the wallet he had once found at a rainbow's end was empty, his father said to him: 'See now. You pay your way. I've made a man of you.' But what man? That's what fathers never know. Not in advance; not until it's too late.)"

QUOTE: Someone different this time:

"'Don't you get it?' he shouted after her, spewing sausage fragments from the corners of his mouth. 'No thunderbolt. That's the point.'
She came back to stand in front of him. 'You're alive,' she told him. 'You got your life back. That's the point.'"
-Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

QUOTE:

"Whereas in the real world, the world of experience, a vanished friendship leaves you with many doubts and questions; it is an amorphous absence that haunts your present, your future, and, most unwelcomely, your past."

-Martin Amis, again

LINK: If you don't find this funny, there's something hugely wrong with you as a human being

MORE HUMOROUSNESS CLAIRE WOULD LIKELY APPRECIATE: from the Casanova Quiz:

"You scored a 29.

26-40: CHICK MAGNET
If you don't get laid a lot, you're doing something else wrong, because your grasp on women is solid. You know that the romance we're after doesn't have to be planned to the last detail, and that a romantic gesture is one that shows you were thinking about us rather than what you think women think is romantic. Unlike a lot of guys, you aren't too stuck on yourself to care if we're in the room, and you're not too bumbling to get us in the room in the first place. Even the bedroom. Sure, you've been blown off without a clue, but who hasn't? At least it doesn't happen to you as often as it does to these other two jackasses. "

THOUGHTS: From The Boss:

"Lights out tonight trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision smashin' in my guts man
I'm caught in a crossfire that I don't understand
But there's one thing I know for sure girl
I don't give a damn for the same old played out scenes
I don't give a damn for just the in-betweens
Honey I want the heart I want the soul...

Talk about a dream try to make it real
You wake up in the night with a fear so real
You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don't come
Well don't waste your time waiting..."

LINK: you just can't make this stuff up

QUOTE: From Amis, again, and I don't aim this at anyone in particular:

"And by calling him humourless, I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo."

HAHA: Martin Amis, on having his teeth out:

"The next hour was nothing: I was going to sail through it. How? Because I could look in my soul and see the courage, the strength, the simple heroism of a man who has taken a tremendous amount of valium.*"

and, the footnote:

"* Advice. Take a near-fatal dose on rising, of course. But take a near-fatal dose the night before, in addition. Then numbness descends on numbness. Then you are two distances away from your reality."

LINK: I mean, seriously. You'd think that they pay people at Salon to sit around all day and write smut

LINK: I will let this one pass without comment, though feel free to make one of your own.

SOMETHING FOR CLAIRE: since I fell like I've been neglecting her on here lately: this article on deal-breakers in relationships. I only bring this up now because I was at a function at work, and everyone was very fascinated by Elisha's husband, since he's a student at the dental school (and none of them have dental plans, natch). Anyway, Elisha turned to me and said, "I hate it when he wears Tevas. I wish he'd stop," which is one of the things mentioned as a deal-breaker in the article. When I read it, I assumed no one could get that upset over footwear... apparently, I'm wrong. So here it is, Claire (...Camille, Tara, Amy, Dara and whoever else might feel like answering): what are your deal-breakers?

The only one I can think of off the top of my head are people who own Nalgene water bottles... it's not a deal-breaker, exactly, but I always view ownership of one with suspicion.

The other thing that occurs to me is that the old cliché is quite true: it's not the family you are born into, it's the family you choose.

REFLECTIONS: on my short trip back to Midland:

Going back used to be the ultimate occasion for ennui, a time to remember all the missteps I made and re-fight all the old battles, even if only in my head. It was curious to me that this time I felt nothing. The past (which runs all the way through the summer after Freshman year), I guess, I just label as one big mistake, aided and abetted by my youth (seems slightly odd to be writing that, but whatever might've been left of my naivete disappeared this summer, and I can't say, on balance, that I'm sad to have seen it go). There were frequent accusations during that period of my callousness, which, I think, was best addressed by T.S. Eliot (just slightly removed from 'Prufrock,' Dara will no doubt be glad to hear):

"And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
and smiles at situations which it cannot see"

So there you have it. My youth, like everyone's: the arrogant smile of one who does not know. I do reserve judgment against myself, though: it wasn't ignorance that made me so difficult to deal with-- I couldn't have known, and I can only hope to have the humility and ability to forgive that I didn't have then.

That's rather the point, old sport: there are many things in life we neither create of our own accord nor can ever understand in the conventional sense of the world. A fully-formed life does not shy away from these areas because they lack the sort of certainty we might crave: that something is difficult, as Rilke said, is all the more reason for us to do it. There will always be, if nothing else, love and death: not meant to be understood, which is a good thing, because our powers and vastly insufficient for what that understanding would require. This is the trembling point, at which we must admit our own powerlessness: everything worthwhile flows from this.

QUOTE (about soft money financing):

"I am open to persuation and evidence. I don't need to discover logical reasons for things through my "feelings.""

I hate to say it, but you sound like (pick one) Joseph Stalin/Joe McCarthy/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Michael Moore: anyone who disagrees with you doesn't do so from an honest difference of opinion, they do it because they're wrong! And rather than use, as you suggest, logic to explain why they might be wrong about something, you declare them to be using their feelings, as if, ipso facto, this demonstrates the strength of your case. And why the quotation marks around "feelings?" Do you have something against human emotion to the point wherein you feel it necessary to give yourself some ironic detatchment? Or do you just really, really hate people?

AND ANOTHER THING: Did you actually read a newspaper during the 2000 election? All of the issues you mentioned were covered. Just because people don't print the opinion you want to see represented doesn't mean they don't address an issue.

MY AMAZING ABILITY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE:

(See this for an explanation)

See, there's this thing we have in Washington called a Congress, and one of the things they do is pass laws. Sometimes the laws don't take effect until sometime after they are passed and signed by the President. Shays-Meehan-McCain-Feingold is one of these bills. Therefore, the ban on soft money that the law requires will not take effect until after the 2002 elections... and I know this because... I read the bill! Shocking, I know, to read things to help you understand more.

:which raises the question of exactly what this amorphous thing called the media really is. Clearly, Mr. Hucul fails to understand there's a huge difference in methods and intents in various wings of the printed world. For the record, Woodward and Bernstein wrote for the Washington Post, which is a newspaper, and as such is compelled to write about news. The American Prospect, for which the article at the center of this brouhaha was written, is a political journal, and, unsurprisingly, consists of articles meant to advocate or rationalize certain ideological viewpoints. The source is important when you want to ascribe intent!
And then there's this:

"I will bet anyone $5 that they ignore the lack of enforcement of laws to punish corporate thieves, our growing reliance on middle eastern oil (hurray for SUVs), the failure to negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine, the pitiful leadership in the CIA, FBI, and INS, the growing influence of not-so-noble special interest groups through soft money contributions to political parties, the national debt, and a slew of other issues."

Which shows nothing if not the complete and total unwillingness to ever browse the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, or any other major paper across the country. Miscellaneous points: our reliance on Middle Eastern oil is decreasing, not increasing, as exploration is being opened up across Russia and in South America, Palestinians (or at least their leaders) have shown complete and total contempt not just for the peace process, but the concepts of freedom, public safety, and anything short of a thugocracy run by militant Islamists (yes, let's do negotiate with them!), then there's the fact that soft money contributions will be outlawed after this election cycle (and apparently a short historical memory, too-- read a speech by Teddy Roosevelt).

And, of course, you can read about any of those issues in a week of reading the Times-- but you already knew that.

THOUGHT: The Moose speaketh:

"The Moose suggests that the national Democratic Party should not ignore the Dingell Democrats. Cultural issues continue to matter in American politics. It is nice to have the bean-sprout eaters, but the donkey must also have the Field and Stream readers."

Which leads me to the thing I've been wanting to say about the primary election just past: I didn't vote on the Democratic side (Joe Schwartz, baby!) because I found the tactics employed by both sides to be a touch too reprehensible for me to endorse. Rivers' argument did, as Dingell noted, essentially boil down to: "I was a teenage mother. Therefore I should be in Congress." And Dingell's response was the political equivalent of "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What have you actually done in office?" In other words, they both behaved like stupid politicians.

The folks at The Nation, perhaps predictably, see a conspiracy to keep female voices out of Congress, which, I would like to suggest, is a load of shit. Look, this is the House of Representitives, not the Senate. Having someone who ideologically matches you may make you feel good, but it won't actually do anything for you; in a sense, Dingell was right to bring up his success in passing bills: even if he doesn't exactly match your enthusiasm for liberalism, there's a better chance that he will be able to write and pass a bill that you'll at least find tolerable (and this no matter who runs the House: look at the strength of Dingell-Norwood last year as evidence). Lynn Rivers, even in a Democratic-controlled House, would be virtually powerless. A cynical choice, maybe, but certainly also the smart one.

Which leads me to what the Moose had to say: I agreed with Lynn Rivers about virtuall everything: abortion, unions, public education, civil rights, the environment. And yet, I have this distinct recollection of the last time I heard her speak (the kick-off for College Democrats last year), and being very turned-off by what she was saying because she made a point of being so completely adversarial to anyone who disagreed with that ideology at all. If you liked guns, or free trade, or the death penalty, there was clearly something wrong with you. I have no beef with hunters if they support the right of workers to bargain collectively, nor with free-traders if they accept some basic regulation and controls, nor with those who are pro-death penalty if they are willing to look a legal reforms that might be necessary for fairness. But all this gets lost in the rush to be partisan. And the Democratic Party will go precisely nowhere as long as that is true.

QUOTE:

"'I've been aware of madness in the Islamic world. I've written about it. The madness of people who have fallen behind technically, and who do not have the will to make the intellectual effort to catch up. I was aware of the religious hatred, I was aware of the indifference to life. I was aware of the anti-civilisation aspect of the new fundamentalism. But I had no idea it had gone so far -- the madness. The idea of their strength is an illusion. Nothing is coming from within. The terrorists can fly a plane, but what they can't do is build a plane. What they can't do is build those towers. I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It's nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can't deal with the threat of a universal religious war.' Though he approved of the recent war in Afghanistan, he is keenly aware of the inherent absurdity of the current war on terrorism: 'Your biggest enemy is your great ally -- Saudi Arabia -- and the foot-soldiers of the terror come from your other ally -- Pakistan.--'"

-V.S. Naipaul

QUOTE:

" Wouldn't it be great if there was a McCain-Nader ticket in 2004? "

Two possible responses:

1. Yes; except, of course, I couldn't pick any two people with less in common politically and ideologically
2. As William F. Buckley once said, "I would take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence"

NOTE: Amazingly enough, not everything I post is directed to you. And if you fail to see how that might be wise for someone to employ in the course of their life, well, I feel sorry for you, because you're restricting yourself to half an existence.

ADVICE?
From surer hands than mine:

"Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentations, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and bringing forth."

MORE FROM JONAH:

"Meanwhile, conservatism has always understood that life is too complicated to be easily defined ? or controlled ? by the human intellect. 'The nature of man is intricate,' wrote Edmund Burke, 'the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs.' Man is born in sin, God's plan is unknowable, the known and tried, in Lincoln's formulation, is preferable to the unknown and untried: This is the spine of conservatism's humility."

Man, what's not to like about Edmund Burke?

KUDOS TO JONAH: he actually goes somewhere with the latest G-File, and actually manages to hit a few really important points.

"Something similar holds true in the realm of ideas. In most spheres of human endeavor we understand that people should start simple and work their way up. If you're learning to shoot, an expert may start you off with a small gun. If you're just learning German, your instructor won't give you a stack of books by Heidegger, he'll give you some flashcards with pictures of shoes and doggies on one side and the translation on the other. If you're studying to be a scientist, they teach you how to use the Bunsen burner before they teach you how to split the atom. If you're learning how to fly, you start with reading a book, not with flying a 747 through a hurricane. You get the point: There are stages and degrees of knowledge and expertise that form the basis for further understanding and skill.

The world of ideas, alas, works on slightly different rules today. After an unprecedented campaign of psychological warfare and propaganda, America and large chunks of the developed world have been told that self-esteem is everything and external authority is at best quaint. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, nobody has the right to be judgmental, inconveniences are translated into the denial of rights, feelings trump intellect, etc."

Now, it seems to me someone has argued at least a couple of the points he makes here: there's a huge difference between the entry-level and the professional-level, and it is concrete, and we can identify it. I would be an idiot if I thought that knowing Bernoulli's Principle (or Law, or whatever) makes me qualified to comment on the engineering of 747s. To try and pretend that distinctions don't exist and that qualifications are unimportant is to subvert the actual purpose of the Enlightenment and scientific progress: we aren't born knowing everything; we have to learn as we go, and it will consequently follow that there are some areas in which our opinions will be less informed than others.

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TOO MUCH FREE TIME WHEN: you write something like this. And what does that show about the state of the Democratic Party that their opinion leaders are finding this to be the most pertinent thing to write about?

LINK: There's lots of interesting things going on in Iran, which every decent American ought to be profoundly interested in. Of course, as Ledeen points out, this story isn't getting covered anywhere, in any major newspaper or news outlet-- only on National Review Online, one more good reason to go there if you don't already.

LINK: Well, it's good news for me, and something to keep in mind, for sure.

QUOTE: Salon.com on Bruce Springsteen:

"The media hadn't gone this Springsteen-happy since Ronald Reagan misappropriated the lyrics to "Born in the USA." This time, of course, the theme of "The Rising" was the news hook; it's the first full-length Sept. 11-themed work by a rock artist of Springsteen's stature, featuring songs sung from the perspective of the dead, the grieving and the walking wounded. As Time reported, Springsteen found inspiration in part from the New York Times' "Portraits of Grief" section, the thumbnail sketches of lives in full swing that were stopped short that day.
[Click Here]

On "Today," Matt Lauer delicately suggested that some people might take a cynical view of "The Rising" as a commercialization of the national catastrophe. But imagine for a moment that you're Bruce Springsteen reading "Portraits of Grief" and you keep coming across your own name. Your music was one victim's passion, your songs were played at another victim's memorial service. Imagine being so much a part of these people's lives that you're included in their obituaries. How do you respond to that? Isn't it more cynical not to respond?"

LINK: Joseph Epstein (he of the very funny, and good, book Snobbery: The American Version) on Allan Bloom, and self-congratulating critics everywhere. Very bitchy.

Me likey:

"Apart from Shakespeare, Bloom's great culture heroes are Emerson and Freud, who, in combination, yield a gasbag with a dirty mind. 'Why criticism has not addressed itself to the image of masturbation in Whitman,' Bloom writes, 'I scarcely know.' A critic's work, as you can see, is never done."

LINK: TNR on Gore and Lieberman.

" But it will be regrettable if the way Lieberman gets out of his pledge is by prolonging, or even escalating, his public feud with Gore. That's because, much as it may pain either man to admit it, each could benefit from the other's advice. Gore, for one, is right in his rebuttal of Lieberman: Being a New Democrat isn't the same thing as being pro-business; it's also about being anti-special interest--not least when the special interest in question happens to be business . In his op-ed, Gore got at this point by arguing that "'when powerful interests try to take advantage of the American people, it's often other businesses that are hurt in the process'--most of all, smaller companies that play by the rules."

But Lieberman is also right. Gore did his best to obscure this important nuance by pushing his crude "people versus the powerful" line in 2000. Certainly an alternative--say, "public interest over the special interests"--could have packed the same rhetorical punch without scaring off middle-class voters. If Lieberman really wanted to be a team player, he'd stop his public posturing and make this point to his old running mate over martinis at the Palm. Instead, he's using it as a wedge to break up their old partnership and free himself to run for president."

LINK: I think he's going somewhere interesting with this, but you, like me, will have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

LINK: The always inimitable Derb weighs in on atheism, religion, and what's so great about America.

QUOTE: Kind of funny. Kind of:

"It seems to me they give these ball players nowadays very peculiar names.

You mean funny names?

Strange names, like Nomar Garciaparra. "

HAPPY BLOG-A-VERSARY to me! Six months, which is, as Morrissey once put it, 'a long time.' Indeed.

Well, he's not exactly wrong, is he? None of those things are ever going to happen... just because y'all have done some other interesting stuff doesn't change the fact that so much of what you guys said you could do you just can't...

QUOTE:

" I was reading Nick's Blog website, like I do everyday, when I came across an article that I want to comment on. John Derbyshire tries to lay out why conservatives are pessimistic. He points out several things that "in your heart, you know he (conservatives) is right.""

Actually, no. Derb was (tongue heavily in cheek) pointing out the difference between European Conservativism and American Conservativism, by way of noting that American Conservatives are always optimistic, whereas good European Conservatives tend to take a Hobbesian view of human nature (or, as I like to refer to it, an 'accurate' view of human nature). "In your heart, you know he's right" was the slogan of the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, and wasn't meant to apply universally to Conservatism; Derb does so as a joke. Honestly, some people can be so humorless...

LINK: I was never a fan of his, and I was definitely never a fan of hers, but sometimes you can be happy for someone else anyway

LINK: Al Gore, with something interesting to say

QUOTE:

"BAD VLAD [Andrew Stuttaford]
One of the more alarming aspects of being a friend of Martin Amis must be the danger of having one's more ridiculous opinions being quoted in his books. In Koba the Dread, his new work on Stalin, Amis has plenty to say about the views of journalist Christopher Hitchens, amongst which is the opinion that Lenin was a 'great man' . Whether Mr. Hitchens also thinks that the world is flat goes, sadly, unrecorded.

Christopher Hitchens has now reviewed Amis' book in the September 2002 edition of The Atlantic Monthly (sadly it's not yet on the magazine's website, but go on, splash out a few bucks on an original copy). As is very often the case with something written by him, the piece is well worth a read, and it merits much, much longer discussion. Nevertheless, one point in particular made startling reading: Mr. Hitchens' suggestion that there was no prospect of parliamentary pluralism in a Russia devastated by the First World War.

This is nonsense. The last legacy of the vaguely liberal Provisional Government that succeeded the Czars was a democratic election for a constituent assembly. The Bolshevik coup took place too late to stop this vote, and the results were profoundly embarrassing for the new Soviet regime. Turnout was high, the campaign was vigorous and the Bolshevik share of the poll (ten million votes, or 24 percent. of the total) was unacceptable to Lenin. Less than two months later he shut down the new assembly.

It wouldn't have been easy, but Russia in 1917 had a chance of moving towards democracy. That it didn't get to take that opportunity was the fault of one individual more than any other: Lenin, the tyrant who Christopher Hitchens apparently still considers to have been a 'great man'."

LINK: Oy!

LINK: What's that you say? The Pope's Catholic? Stop the presses!

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: And better this than virtually anything else:

" Bill Clinton - who avoided serving in Vietnam - says he would take up arms and 'fight and die' for Israel if Iraq attacks the Jewish state.

'If Iraq came across the Jordan River, I would grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die,' the ex-president said to wild applause at a Jewish fund-raiser in Toronto."

BAH, HUMBUG: For the eternal pessimist, the real conservative.

Me likey:

"The next version of MicroSoft Windows will be even buggier and more counterintuitive than the last. That one you know perfectly well, of course ? I don't know why I bothered to include it. Further bad news on this front: e-mail will be rendered completely useless by spam, all that wonderful free information on the web will gradually be shut off into fee-paying sites, and NRO will start posting my photograph again."

and

"This is stuff you don't want to hear, but that, if you are a true conservative, you cannot dispute. Remember the slogan of the 1964 Goldwater campaign**: 'In your heart you know he's right.'

**While trying not to remember the counter-slogan put out by the LBJ campaign: 'In your guts you know he's nuts.'"

AND, in the interest of even time, there's the other side, well worth remembering:

"The additional irony here is that Bowden?s team was in New York just last week, and the Reds players -- those selfish, strike-contemplating players who were on the other end of Bowden's Sept. 11 analogies -- acquitted themselves like heroes. Ken Griffey, often excoriated as the quintessence of the egomaniacal modern athlete, met the widow and orphans of Kenny Marino, a New York firefighter who perished in the collapse of the towers. Two weeks after the attacks, Katrina Marino had e-mailed the Reds, explaining her lost husband's fanatical devotion to Griffey, and asking if the outfielder could hit a home run in Marino's memory.

He promptly did just that.

As Griffey followed-up with a personal visit with the Marinos, his teammate Scott Williamson went to Ladder Company 2 in Lower Manhattan. Williamson's fiancée is pure firefighter stock -- her father and brother each district chiefs in Cincinnati, another brother, a captain. They brought shirts and hats from Cincinnati's department to the officers of Ladder 2, who lost 10 men in the attacks. The New Yorkers, in turn, gave Williamson a cap, which he wore on the field that night. Scott Williamson is from Fort Polk, Louisiana, and lives in Friendswood, Texas. And he went downtown and cried as honestly as any native of Manhattan."

A few small things, sure, but sometimes that's all that matters.

LINK: People say stupid, insensitive things all the time. People in positions of authority say stupid things all the time. But that doesn't make it okay.

QUOTE: Andrew Sullivan expresses it for the enlightened throughout the world:

"BARBARIANS: Doesn't it tell you everything that Hamas bombed a university? "

QUOTE: I've avoided flaunting my Zionism for awhile now, so I feel a little less guilty about reprinting this verbatim:

"The forces of evil have struck yet again. For them, the entire State of Israel, its citizens, and its institutions are legitimate targets - this time, however, the target was chosen with much care. The attack required planning and determination in order to overcome the many layers of security and strike at the very heart of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This was not just an attack on our institution; it was an attack on a symbol of the rebirth of Israel in its own land, on a modern state that is rooted in tradition but embraces openess.

This attack was perpetrated against a university founded upon the principles of pluralism and tolerance, a university that seeks to understand the world in which we live and that - despite the wave of terror and murder we are experiencing - aspires to promote peace and understanding with its neighbors in this region. The aim of the terrorists responsible for the horrific scene that I witnessed several minutes after the explosion was to bring an end to those values that the Hebrew University embraces and embodies - understanding, tolerance, and the quest for peace.

The victims include many members of the University community - students, teachers, employees, and visitors from all parts of the world. They are Jews and Arabs, and citizens of the US, Korea, France, Italy, and other countries. This attack is a crime not only against Israel or the Jewish people; it is a crime against the free and enlightened world. As I stood facing the destruction, the pools of blood and the wounded, I was forced to ask myself how we can continue in our research, teaching and other vibrant activity while we mourn for the victims. The answer is clear and it is expressed by the Hebrew word davka, 'despite everything'. The perpetrators of such heinous acts may kill those dear to us, but they cannot destroy our vision and our determination to continue to create a society that is based on reason and mutual understanding, and to work as a community of researchers and students which welcomes Israelis of all backgrounds and guests from all over the world. Above all, we will not let them kill our aspirations for peace.

Professor Menachem Magidor
President, Hebrew University of Jerusalem."

LINK: Should you doubt that complete and total delusion is not doing quite well in the country right now (thanks for asking), there's always the Green Party, who are apparently now a major national force. This is because of their charismatic, egoless frontmen, right? No, wait, it's their moderate, pragmatic agenda that is explicitly not just warmed-over Marxism. No, wait, it's their ability to not massively piss off their natural allies (Minnesota Senate race, anyone?). No, wait, it's their tremendous, broad-based coalition of elected officials, including such American policy sine qua non as dogcatchers as city council members. No, wait...

HAHA: The classic line:

"Harris said she thought the law did not apply to her office."
-No, really? She had trouble figuring out the law? There's certainly no precident for this

QUOTE: As Voltaire would said it:

"Finally Micromegas said to them:
'Since you know so much about what is outside you, doubtless you know even more about what is inside of you. Tell me what your soul is, and how you form ideas.'"

THE MOOSE SPEAKETH: and we all listen. My thoughts exactly:

"The Moose notes that some have it and some don't.

Andersen accounting cheats don't have them. Neither do tax dodging corporate execs. The CEO's at Enron, World Com and Global Crossing didn't have them. Neither do the market analysts who lied to investors about falling stock.

In contrast, many of the heros of 9/11 had them. In fact, probably the majority of the NYC and DC firefighters had them. Many miners have them.

What in the world is the Moose referring to? Union cards, of course. The Moose is not exactly a cheerleader for the labor movement. In many instances, it is narrow, shortsighted and parochial. Particularly annoying are teacher's unions that stand in the way of school choice.

Nevertheless, unions are an essential brake on the power of money in American society. At a time when even some Democrats are intimidated and faint of heart about being labeled as "anti-business", labor serves as an important balance to corporate power.

The reason that the Moose's attention is on the union label is the President's stance on waving union rights in the new Homeland Defense agency. While it appears that the GOP has lost its appetite for limited government, it continues its animus toward labor.

It has never been clear to the Moose how the creation of a new federal bureaucracy will make us safer. The prudent approach would have been first to have an independent commission to study what went wrong on 9/11 before reshuffling federal agencies. Moreover, the new department does not even address the problems in the primary agencies that are charged with our national security - the FBI and the CIA.

Nevertheless, the President has drawn the line on the one enemy that unites all K Street Republicans - organized labor. Interesting how those union rules didn't inhibit firefighters from sacrificing their lives on 9/11? Ask yourself, would you feel more secure being rescued by non-union CEO's?

The Moose senses the political and cultural spectrum is shifting from the worship of the market and individualism to an embrace of prudent regulation and collective action. Note the words of the President yesterday at the signing ceremony for the corporate reform legislation, "This law says to every dishonest corporate leader: you will be exposed and punished; the era of low standards and false profits is over; no boardroom in America is above or beyond the law."

This rhetoric is quite an interesting contrast to Clinton's, "The era of big government is over."

In the aftermath of the Pennsylvania mine miracle, the Moose was particularly struck with a television interview with the President of the United Mine Workers. When the interviewer asked how miners cope with their hazardous work environment, he explained that it was much like the way his platoon in Vietnam looked out for each other.

Needless to say, he has a union card."

I TOLD YOU SO We told you so. plato told... (wait, that was someone else).

QUOTE: Jay Nordinger, thusly:

"The other night, I was reading the Bible and The Paul Johnson Reader. Sometimes I confuse the two.

I thought you might be interested in hearing what Johnson had to say, years ago, about America and anti-Americanism in light of recent goings-on:

'In the 1770s, surveying the immensity and diversity of London, Dr. Samuel Johnson laid down: 'Sir, a man who is tired of London is tired of life.' The saying could be rephrased today. A man who hates America hates humanity.

Anti-Americanism is ubiquitous, a direct consequence of America doing her duty, the resentment of followers, not leaders. To be sure, anti-Americanism is an ignoble and irrational emotion. Like anti-Semitism, which in some ways it has replaced, it is impervious to facts or logic.

The attacks on America during the 1970s were so venomous and for the most part so irrational as to merit the description of an international witch-hunt. One might say that the most ubiquitous form of racism during this decade was anti-Americanism. The adage 'to know all is to forgive all' does not work in international affairs. One reason why America was attacked so much was because so much was known about her, chiefly thanks to the American media and academia, which poured forth a ceaseless torrent of self-critical material. But a more fundamental reason was that America as a great power, and still more Americanism as a concept, stood for the principle of individualism as opposed to collectivism, for free will as opposed to determinism.'"

LINK: Old-Timey Music... the way it was meant to be.

NOTICE: There is absolutely nothing potentially incendiary in this article. Nothing. That is all.