Even a blogger needs to eat. This blog is primarily Charles' hobby. But if he is intent on continuing to woo the Hooter's waitresses
in Chatanooga he needs something that pays.... wings don't come free you know. Here's a link to his
day job where he works the education beat
and, assuming he can't annoy enough people that way, is sometimes allowed to write opinion pieces.
Need perspective? Watson offers readers all they could possibly eat. For a unique view on current events, namely how they look from
orbit, here's Chuck's Real-Time(ish) Satellite Imagery of Areas of Interest.
Whenever it strikes his fancy, and there's good telemetry, Chuck will
process and post near real-time images of locations in the news. Eminently engrossing.
Wanna get into the head of a Japanese salaryman? Why, for Chis'sakes?! Well, assumin' you do, feel welcome to check out
the on-line journal of
Campbell's English class. Everyday, a group of disaffected salarymen are required to spill out their inner-most thoughts about life, the universe
and everything in broken English. Amazingly prosaic.
Shoutin' across the Pacific
Chiizu taberu koufuku shiteiru saru ga kangei-saremasen.
Tuesday, June 18, 2002 Mises Must Be Spinning In His Grave. His name and legacy have been hijacked by a bunch of neoConfederate quacks. When I first started writing for this blog, I posted a few things on LewRockwell.Com, the main voice of those persons. But I quickly lost interest. Frankly, the Rothbard-Rockwell faction of libertarianism grows more marginal by the day, talking only to each other. Rockwell descended past the point of parody with he posted an article arguing that it would be a good thing if Washington, D.C. were nuked.
But PunchtheBag.com slams the paleocons the way they deserve to be slammed, even if the author doesn't know the difference between the Stars and Bars and the Southern Cross.
The main problem with Rothbard-Rockwellianism is that it isn't founded in a love of liberty. It is based instead on a hatred of the state, and more generally, a hatred of authority. That's the common thread among all of the articles on Rockwell's site. This faction is at war, not just with government, but with mainstream economics, mainstream science, mainstream medicine, mainstream history, etc. If the authorities in any field believe in something, Rothbard-Rockwell libertarians oppose it.
And Rothbard-Rockwellians find themselves believing in every sort of conspiracy. Think homeopathy is unscientific quackery? You've just been deluded by the medical establishment which supresses the truth about homeopathy for its own nefarious reasons. Think evolution is a scientific fact? You've just bought the big lie offered by the scientific mafia for its own evil ends. Think Adam Smith was the father of modern economics? Well, you get the idea.
In The Eye Of The Beholder. FHM has just released its latest ranking of the world's 100 sexiest women. These awards are purportedly voted on by the magazine's readers. That would be teenage boys who spend several hours a day surfing the Internet for porn. So it's no surprise that Anna Kournikova finished first. (Anna also finished first in the survey by the magazine's U.K. edition.)
Anna's not bad. But the real sexiest woman, Halle Berry, is ranked only 3rd by FHM. And how can Salma Hayek and Cindy Crawford not be in the top five? Jennifer Connelly should be in the top 20. (Up until just a couple of years ago, she would have been much, much higher, but she has lost too damn much weight.) Speaking of losing too much weight, Sarah Michelle Gellar's number nine ranking is too high. A few years ago? Maybe. But she has gotten too damn skinny.
And Pam Anderson at 11? Please. In 1991, she was definitely top 10 material. Maybe even top five. But that fresh-faced beauty from British Columbia now looks like a drag queen. She pushed her luck with breast implants once too often. It looks like she's got a pair of salad bowls on her chest now. She isn't even top 100.
I give them credit for acknowledging that Wil Wheaton got enough votes to qualify for 26, but was ineligible because he was a man. (I used to know a costumer from ST: TNG who told me that Wil was, um, very manly. At first I thought that was just good snarky gossip. Then I remembered that Wil was like 12 when he did that show, and I became very uncomfortable.)
I disagree with many of the other placings. Elizabeth Hurley (31) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (56) are too low. Kim Delaney and Sela Ward should probably be on the list.
But the one that most jumps out as incredibly stupid is former WWE performer Joanie Laurer (Chyna) at 98. Come on, if Wil Wheaton can't make it because he's a guy, then Chyna should be cut as well.
Monday, June 17, 2002 Viva USA! I know nothing of soccer, and I don't care to learn. But I do know that the USA kicked Mexico's ass. I was living in L.A. in 1998 when the U.S. team lost a Gold cup match 1-0 to Mexico before nearly 100,000 screaming fans -- nearly all whom cheered for the Tricolores, the nickname for the Mexican team.
After the game, American fullback Alexi Lalas said, "Tomorrow morning they are going to get up and work in the United States and live in the United States and have all the benefits of living in the United States."
Quite so. I only wish I was still in L.A. to see those traitors crying now.
Small-Town Tolerance. Sorry my updating has been so spotty the last couple of days. I've really been under the weather. Here's something I've bee sitting on for several days, hoping to give it one last polish. But it doesn't seem I'm going to have the energy to do that soon. So I thought I'd go ahead and post it before it gets too old.
Summerville lies deep in the Bible Belt. It’s a small town. The only high school in the county school system has barely 1,000 students.
So what happens when an openly lesbian high school senior takes another girl to the prom?
“Nothing happened. There was no reaction at all, because everyone is
used to it,” said one teacher.
Everyone should be used to it. The girl took a female date to the prom last year as well.
In fact, her classmates had known for some time that she was gay. But she didn’t suffer a lot of ostracism from her peers. Indeed, she was elected class president in her freshman and sophomore years.
“It's surprising to me that in a small, redneck town like this the students would be so accepting of this, but this has been the case. I believe that if it were two boys, however, they would be ridiculed and beaten by other boys,” the teacher said.
He may be right about gay boys being treated differently.
But small towns in the South have always been more tolerant than their images would suggest. These towns usually made a sharp distinction between private and public behavior. And a surprising range of private behavior was tolerated. Indeed, good manners often dictated that those who engaged in public displays of intolerance were themselves looked down upon.
I grew up just a few miles from Summerville, and I spent most of my first 22 years in rural communities. It seemed that everyone knew everyone else’s secrets, even the embarrassing ones.
From an early age, I knew of women in their 30s and 40s who lived together, women I often saw driving their trucks to the local feed store. The adults around me called them “old maids.” I later learned that was often a euphemism for something else.
And as I grew older, adults began to share more of their gossip with me. Small towns are big on gossip. I heard what was said about the men who owned the local florist shops. And there were quite a few rumors about the men who owned a local diner.
As far as gossip goes, it wasn’t particularly mean-spirited. Certainly, no one thought it was a good thing to be gay. But I never heard anyone saying these men and women would go to Hell or decrying their influence on the community. The only time I heard that was when I saw some evangelist on TV.
During the early 1980s, some of those men we gossiped about died at a young age, and rumor had it they died of AIDs. But I never heard anyone say those men deserved to die. I never heard any of that “wages of sin” talk, though I’m sure that many felt that way. I only heard expressions of sadness from people who knew them and liked them.
It wasn’t that people approved of homosexuality. It was simply that people drew a sharp distinction between private and public behavior. As long as one acted politely and properly in public, good manners called upon you to treat that person with respect.
A person could drink too much or practice “deviant” sex or engage in any other manner of “sins” in the privacy of his own house, and good people could still befriend them.
But bring those habits out into the open and polite society would cut you off very quickly.
The best example of this may be the unfortunate case of Dr. Charles Scudder and his live-in companion Joseph Odom. The two moved to Chattooga County in the mid 1970s and built a castle-like home they called Corpsewood Manor. They filled it with occult symbols and statues and a pair of English Mastiff dogs. One of the dogs they named Beelzebub.
The men were widely rumored to be gay, and I always heard them referred to as “the Satan worshippers.”
Whether it was true or not, people widely believed the stories. And the two men sometimes had to deal with drunken rednecks determined to drive the Satan worshippers out of town. But these men were a minority. Most people in the county condemned those who harassed Scudder and Odom.
Why?
Well, the two men were polite to others, paid their bills on time and never flaunted their beliefs or sexuality. Private sodomy and devil worship were seen as lesser sins than getting drunk and making an ass of yourself in public.
In 1982, Scudder and Odom were murdered and robbed by two local men they had befriended. The trial was a lurid affair. Scudder and Odom’s homosexuality, their religious beliefs and their alleged drug use were all raised by the defense. To no avail, as the men who killed them were convicted.
Again, I never heard any “wages of sin” talk. Instead, I often heard people say ”They didn’t hurt nobody.”
Not that anyone agreed with the men’s lifestyle. Rather, it was just a heart-felt belief that if you weren’t bothering anybody, then nobody should bother you. And if you didn’t hurt anyone else, no one else should hurt you.
Of course, small-towns in the South were far from libertarian utopias. Much private behavior was illegal, even if those laws were rarely enforced.
And regulation of “public” but non-violent behavior is still very strong. Many rural counties now allow the sale of beer and wine, for instance, but only in convenience stores or supermarkets. Having a beer after work is frowned upon by many Southern Baptists. And for a long time they kept much of the South completely dry. But the idea that people have a right to do what they want in their own homes slowly took precedence, and alcohol sales are now allowed in many places. Yet drinking alcohol in restaurants is still considered public behavior, and buying liquor by the drink is still illegal in many small towns.
But despite such restrictions on personal liberty, small towns, at least the small towns I knew, never deserved their reputation for intolerance and repression.
Saturday, June 15, 2002 I Don't Have A Dog In This Fight. So it's a bit interesting to hear the former head of the Southern Baptist Association, Jerry Vines, call Mohammad a "demon-possessed pedophile."
Muslims are, of course, outraged. But they have a problem. The Hadith, a collection of sayings of and stories about Mohammad, traditionally attributed to his earliest followers, says quite explicitly in a number of passages that he married a girl of six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. That certainly sounds like pedophilia to me.
When confronted with these facts, Muslims have reacted in two ways. The first is to argue that the Hadith are simply wrong. But that flies in the face of traditional beliefs.
The other is to affirm the truth of the Hadith, point out that very young marriages were common to all Semitics peoples of the same era and to claim that God doesn't mind if 40-something men have sex with 9-year-old girls. (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for those links.)
Mohammad had 17 wives in his life. At one point he was married to nine women at once, despite the fact that God had ordained that man should have no more than four wives. Again, how do Muslims react to the difference between his words and deeds? Some simply deny the facts.
Selod Faroog, an orthopedic surgeon and an Islamic spokesman in Fort Worth, said: "People who can't face the truth come out and make accusations like this. If Muhammad was heavily involved in multiple wives, he wouldn't have had time to spend all night praying like tradition says."
Or they find reasons to excuse his behavior. Mohammad married all those women so that they would have a man to provide for them or to cement political allegiances. Her certainly didn't do it to sleep with many women.
Even Vines's "demon possessed" claim has an origin in Islamic tradition. A lengthy passage in the Hadith shows that Mohammad himself thought that his visions and the voices he heard were signs of demonic possession. It was his first wife who convinced him that it was actually the word of God that he heard.
Vines knew all of this because of the work of Ergun and Emir Caner. The two were raised as Sunni muslims but converted to Christianity. Ergun is assistant professor of theology and church history at Criswell College in Dallas, while Emir is assistant professor of church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. together, they are the authors of a new book, "Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs" (Kregel Publications).
A Desperately Needed Constitutional Amendment Not being a professional journalist, I don't have time to scan very many blogs or pundits. In the mornings I spend 30 or 45 minutes reading Drudge, the BBC News, scan Townhall.com, the Washington Times and Post, and a couple of blogs (Katzman, Reynolds), and check Drudge and BBC (and, of course, Shoutin') maybe 3 or 4 times during the day. So this topic has probably been blogged, punditized, and ranted on at length, as well as having been discussed by virtually every media source, but it's a source of frustration for me at the moment, so I'll add some thoughts on it. I don't normally think amendments to the constitution are a good idea, but we need some kind of mechanism to sunset laws and regulations. Therefore I propose the following amendment to the constitution:
No Federal Law, Regulation, or Directive shall remain in force unless, within 8 years of of its initial passage or revalidation, said law, regulation, or directive is read in full before each house of congress with a quorum physically in attendance, and a majority of those physically attending voting in the affirmative to retain the law, regulation, or directive. Within 30 days of revalidation, the President may reject the validation. If the President exercises such authority, the Congress may override such rejection with a 2/3rds majority in each house.
Simple, direct, and would revolutionize government. There is contradictory stuff, technically obsolete or redundant regulations, and just plain stupid directives that have the force of law. Actually requiring a law to be read in full before passage would be a novelty - many representatives have admitted to voting for (or against) measures without having read them at all. Regulations, promulgated by the executive branch with the objective of implementing law, are a snakes nest with in many cases little or no oversight. Requiring Congress to be present during readings would, in my view, reinforce the seriousness of the matter of passing laws and their implementing regulations. I think many in politics see laws in the abstract, rather than as concrete things people have to live with. Finally, one could argue that it is impossible to physically read the entire existing CFR in 80 years, much less 8 years. RIGHT! And that's exactly the point.
Friday, June 14, 2002 Manson or Tyson? I missed just two questions on this quiz. I don't think that is such a good thing.
Sorry I haven't updated until now. I'm feeling very under the weather. And I may be having problems with my computer as well. I'll try to post more later if I and my computer feel like it.
Thursday, June 13, 2002 Stay Out Of Kashmir I think that Ted Galen Carpenter is right on the money when he says the U.S. shouldn't get deeply involved in the India-Pakistan dispute.
There's no easy solution to this situation.The one thing that Pakistan and India seem to agree on is that Kashmir shouldn't be independent, and that seems to be what the Kashmiris themselves most want.
The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that Pakistan gave China a chunk of Kashmir several decades ago. Back in 1948, the United Nations said Kashmiris should be allowed to vote on their fate. Does anyone really think China is going to allow those in the region it controls to have a free vote on independence? Will the rest of Kashmir accept any solution that does not involve their brothers?
The U.S. can only get itself into a quagmire here.
Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. I've just finished more Brickbats. Check those out. Meanwhile, the Beijing Evening News has admitted that a story it ran on Congress threatening to move from D.C. unless it gets a new Capitol is false.
The story first apeared in the satirical publication The Onion.
It took the Beijing paper several days to run a retraction. In fact, after the goof was pointed out, the editor challenged Western reporters to prove the story wasn't true. While apologizing for "factual inconsistencies," the paper doesn't seem to feel any regret about running a story from another publication without crediting it. And the Chinese proved they still don't quite get The Onion.
"Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money," the paper said. "This is what the Onion does."
It cited a recent Onion article about the U.S. government issuing life jackets to all Americans for some unexplained reason. "According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports," the Evening News said.
Wednesday, June 12, 2002 Prince Charles Blasts Blair. Chas is miffed that the prime minister actually defends genetically modified crops against scientific illiterates. What makes this jug-eared, in-bred twat think anyone should give a damn what he thinks? In Georgia, a man like this would be sitting in overalls playing a banjo, while his father tells you what a pretty mouth you have. You'd get the hell away from him and his kin as quickly as you could. In England, they invite the entire family over from Germany to be their titular rulers.
Christ, this is a man who left a beautiful young wife for Camilla Parker-Bowles. This is a man who thinks it's either romantic or sexy or both to tell his beloved he wishes he were her tampon. This is a man who talks to plants. This is a man who supports homeopathy and aromatherapy and other medical quackery. Does anyone think he has displayed sound judgment in any matter?
The Japanese Get It. So why don't they act on it? Seventy-four percent of Japanese distrust bureaucrats in central government ministries and agencies.
When asked what images came to mind when they thought of bureaucrats, 41 percent of respondents mentioned the practice of amakudari (descent from heaven), in which bureaucrats are given lucrative jobs in the private sector after retirement.
This was followed by "corrupt ties with politicians and businesses," cited by 35 percent and "irresponsibility," cited by 34 percent.
After more than a decade of economic stagnation, the Japanese must know their economy is screwed up. And they seem to know their political system is lousy. So why aren't they demanding real change?
Enron and Postmodernism. Jacques Derrida would have approved of the company's business strategy.
The philosophical essence of the postmodern, or anti-Enlightenment, outlook is that there exists no external reality to which our beliefs should conform. On the contrary, say postmodernists, the nature of reality simply is what people believe and say it is. Of course, people cannot believe and say anything they like. Their beliefs and speech must be coherent and consistent. And if they want to work with others, they must ensure that the group is in agreement about what to believe and say. But that is the goal: constructing a shared narrative that supports the group's desires and activities. So long as that is achieved, no "external reality" is going to come along to correct or punish them.
Enron execs spent their time trying to construct a narrative that would support its goals. But reality bit them on their asses.
Since the dawn of time, man has been able to delude himself into believing that things are better than they really are. But when so many people share such a delusion, and so few speak up, something is truly amiss. Did "postmodernist" attitudes lie behind Enron's complex structure and "creative" accounting? I'm not completely convinced, but it's an interesting point to ponder?
Good News For That Lying Bitch. Uh, girls, the league is losing money hand over fist. Don't you think you should wait until at least one team is at least breaking even before going on strike?
You Are The Weakest Link. Arab men don't like to hear those words, especially from a woman. So it must be women who have turned the Arab-language version of The Weakest Link into a hit.
''Educated and urbane men who come on the show relish it as a challenge,'' (host Rita) Khoury said. ''But the more traditional ones have more difficulty putting up with it. I try to provoke them, not humiliate them, but it's not my problem if they can't answer.''
Khoury says she regularly turns down pleas from men, anxious to protect their honor back home, that she edit out some particularly acid remark
''No woman contestant has ever got upset,'' she said, flashing a cheeky grin. ''Maybe it's because Arab women are so downtrodden.''
It's easy to mock game shows, but this one may herald a small revolution in Arab gender relations.
Tuesday, June 11, 2002 Oh, Great. The Cavalry's Here. The International Monetary Fund says it's sending a team to Argentina to lay the groundwork for new loans to that country.
Prior IMF loans to that country have done more harm than good. They allowed the government to continue the profligate spending that got the country into this mess.
And IMF action in other areas has been even more disastrous. The IMF's own reviews of its activities in Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and Thailand revealed that the policies the IMF demanded as conditions for loans did more harm than good. Argentina, however, can't blame its bad polcies on the IMF. Those mistakes were home-grown. The IMF only acted as an enabler there. More IMF loans won't solve Argentina's basic problems -- bloated government payrolls, high taxes and strangling red tape. At best, they'll just allow the government to ignore those problems for a little while longer.
I Wonder If Teenage Boys In Tehran Have Her Pictures On Their Walls. JAG star Catherine Bell is British born and half Iranian. (She prefers to call it Persia.) She's even fluent in Farsi. But something tells me she isn't well-regarded by the mullahs who rule Iran. And it isn't just the fact that she is a Scientologist. (Well, no one is perfect.)
Islamist? Thug? What's the Difference? The Chicago Sun-Times has some interesting articles on Abdullah al Muhajir, the man charged with plotting to blow up a dirty bomb in the U.S. The man is also a member of a Latino street gang. And there are other connections between gangs and Islamic terrorists.
"Like all American gangs, [terrorist groups] have this combative, hate-the-system, tear-it-up, blow-it-up attitude,'' said George Knox, director of the National Gang Crime Research Center. "What drives gangs is conflict ... it's like they made it big time, they want to wreak havoc.''
Knox said the first link between gangs and terrorist groups surfaced when El Rukn leader Jeff Fort was convicted in 1987 of plotting to carry out terrorism against the United States on behalf of Libya for a $2.5 million payment to the South Side street gang. No terrorist acts were carried out, Knox said.
Knox also pointed to the relationship between the Latin Kings and the FALN, the Spanish acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation, the terrorist group that fought for the independence of Puerto Rico.
I also find it interesting that the articles refer to al Muhajir as Jose Padilla. Most of the press seems to prefer to call him by his birth name, rather than the name he has chosen just as they refuse to call John Lindh by the Muslim name he has adopted. Funny, no one calls Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lew Alcindor. Are we supposed to believe that only good guys truly convert to Islam?
The Sharia Is Not Divine. That's the judgment of Ziauddin Sardar.
The very term fiqh was not in vogue before the Abbasid period when it was actually formulated and codified. But when fiqh assumed its systematic legal form, it incorporated three vital aspects of Muslim society of the Abbasid period. At that juncture, Muslim history was in its expansionist phase, and fiqh incorporated the logic of Muslim imperialism of that time. The fiqh rulings on apostasy, for example, derive not from the Qur'an but from this logic. Moreover, the world was simple and could easily be divided into black and white: hence, the division of the world into Daral Islam and Daral Harb. Furthermore, as the framers of law were not by this stage managers of society, the law became merely theory which could not be modified - the framers of the law were unable to see where the faults lay and what aspect of the law needed fresh thinking and reformulation.
If sharia doesn't seem like a very practical way to run an open and technologically advanced society, that's because it isn't.
What this means in reality is that when Muslim countries apply or impose the Shari`ah – the demands of Muslims from Indonesia to Nigeria - the contradictions that were inherent in the formulation and evolution of fiqh come to the fore. That is why wherever the Shari`ah is imposed – that is, fiqhi legislation is applied, out of context from the time when it was formulated and out of step with ours - Muslim societies acquire a medieval feel. We can see that in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and the Taliban Afghanistan.
Sardar says the problem is that many Muslims want ready-made answers to all of life's problems. But true Islam doesn't offer that. It does offer an integrative worldview. It provides ethical principles that each person must apply to his own unique situation and time. There's more to this fascinating article, but I'll let you discover it.
The Greater Evil. As I've noted before, I don't think that Israel is completely blameless in its on-going war with the Arabs. Nor do I believe that it is the steadfast ally of the U.S. some neocons and Randians believe. Still, over the last year or two, I've abandoned my "a plague on both your houses" attitude, and I have become much more symapthetic to the Israeli cause than to the Palestinian. Why? Consider this story from, of all places, The Village Voice.
"According to data from Palestinian sources, 55 percent of the Palestinian dead were combatants," said Don Radlauer, an ex-New Yorker, who is building a casualty database at ICT. "And we rated all kids under 13 as non-combatants, even if they were armed when they were killed."
On the Israeli side, statistics show that only 25 percent of the dead were combatants.
The data on the number of women killed is even more telling. Radlauer said the findings "were not what we were expecting."
"Less than 5 percent of all Palestinian casualties to date were female," he said, "while 30 percent of Israeli casualties were women."
"Among the non-combatants killed, and again relying on Palestinian reports, we found that 7 percent were Palestinian women," he said. "In contrast, 37 percent of the Israeli non-combatant dead were women."
Looking at solid numbers, the Palestinians report a total of 66 women killed as of the end of April. In the same period, 135 Israeli women died, all but three non-combatants.
"But if you only look at non-combatants, excluding female suicide bombers and women killed in bomb factory 'work accidents,' etc., the number drops to 40 Palestinian women killed," Radlauer said.
"Do the math—132 Israeli female civilians compared with 40 Palestinian women," he said. "That's more than three Israeli women killed for every one Palestinian."
"Palestinian data on fatalities do not bear out the claim that Israel is attacking a civilian population in their homes," said Radlauer.
"The Palestinian fatalities are an engineered tragedy," he added. "If I am angry at anything it is that the Palestinian leadership is willing to put so many of their own kids in harm's way just to gain propaganda points."
Pussies. Several days ago I linked to a Fox News column on abuses at Straight, Inc., a drug rehab program backed by several prominent Republicans. Now, Radley Balko, the author of the piece, says Fox has pulled it under dubious circumstances. (Scroll up for more.)
The value of a liberal arts education. Singapore's The Straits Times has a fascinating article on the intellectual battle for the soul of Islam in Indonesia.
STRANGELY enough, most of the Muslim hardliners come from secular universities like the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Bandung Institute of Technology and the University of Indonesia.
Nearly all of them are grounded in the science and engineering disciplines.
In these universities, student bodies like the Campus Propagating Group (LDK) are common place and a focal point for students who lack an early education in the fundamentals of Islam.
Unlike their counterparts in IAIN who grew up dissecting Islamic teachings while learning to read the Quran, the LDK members make easy converts to religious dogma.
The article cites some worrisome trends that indicate that radicalism may be growing fastest among the affluent and near-affluent.
That really shouldn't surprise us. Many Islamic radicals have been highly educated. In the West, many of our homegrown radicals have also been children of the affluent and the middle class, people who were highly schooled if not well educated.
As the Straits Times notes, moderate Islam has a long tradition is Islam. And many people are educated in that tradition. From an early age, they are made aware of the history of that tradition. They learn the intellectual challenges their faith has faced and how moderate Muslims responded. And through that education they learn to think about values.
Indonesia's secular schools don't seem seem to equip their students with those vital skills. They learn to use their minds to grapple with science and math but not with ethics and metaphysics. Yet science and math can't be context free. The implicit values of such schools may be tolerance and rational inquiry. But those values too often are just platitudes mouthed by teachers.
When students from those schools find those values challenged, they have little ability to defend them. And they are easy prey for extremists who are certain of their arguments.
Sunday, June 09, 2002 Watch Those Umbrellas! Reader Domenic Anghelone pointed me to something else for you to worry about, Ron. Always use the right honorific when talking to people.
Glen Reynolds calls it Vatican Suicide. I call it a little balance.
The Cardinal has a good point, although his comparisons to Nero et al are a little over the top and his comments are bound to cause more trouble. The problems within the Church with a few sick priests, and the way the matter is being handled by some of the bishops, is a scandal in the true sense of the word. However, I agree with Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga that this is a crisis primarily due to media exaggeration. Certainly the press has a duty to report this, however, the intensity of the reporting is way out of proportion to the scope of the scandal. In addition, the terminology in many cases is deliberately inflammatory: an affair with a teenager is a very different thing from molesting a 6 year old. If the public school system were treated with the same intense scrutiny on the topic of teachers having affairs with students, they would be shut down (yeah, I know, mixed blessing). In our local school system, I know of at least three cases of teachers being caught in affairs with students, in one case involving a pregnancy, since this January. In the case of the pregnancy, the matter was handled with a payment to the family and an out of court settlement. The Coach/Teacher was transferred. Sound familiar? Where is the reporting and national attention? The bottom line is that in any environment where adults are entrusted with the supervision of children and young adults, there will be adults who will take advantage of it. Many who attack the Church so vigorously over this scandal seem to be doing so largely to advance their various agendas - there are plenty of targets out there if the true goal is to protect children. Others have made this point better than I can, but it is frustrating. The best hope is to try to do what is right, ship priests who fail off to a monastery after their prison term if applicable, and wait for the media hounds to move on to another subject.
As for the Palestinian matter mentioned both by GR and by Charles on this blog, I'll comment on that in my much anticipated (ok, not anticipated at all) rant on the Middle East, which will come after the rant on hot socialist babes.
But the Church will survive this, and will come out of it stronger. The 10:00am Mass today at Blessed Sacrament was well attended, despite summer vacation starting and it being just a normal Sunday in Ordinary Time. Children hugged the Priest after Mass, and life goes on.
Ron, no need to worry about a job. If you come back to the states, I have the perfect gig for you. You can team up with this woman. She covers China. You can cover Japan. the two of you can make a fortune.
Hello? Blogger's been down from this end for the past 12 hours. I've tried two different ISPs from here and I keep getting "500 Internal Server Error."
Anyway... the point of this post "The Nipponese win the pennant! The Nipponese win the pennant!" Or something. I'm an American so I don't really understand how the rankings work. But with Japan's upset against Russia (1-0) in their World Cup match in Yokohama you could walk into any bar in this country and get action tonight. If you've never seen a normally reserved salaryman and equally coquettish Office Lady liquored up and kissing each other with wild abandon... well... it's not pretty. Unless you're the guy.
Congrats to the home team anyway. Omedetou Nippon!
Update: And on the other side of the world... like you couldn't see this coming.
Just what Japan Needs to boost its economy. Ron -Typhoon headed your way, keep your head down. Should blow out before it reaches you, but here is the map.
Saturday, June 08, 2002 Perfect for the family den or rumpus room. Oh God I WANT THIS! And so do you! You can have this vintage, mid-60s lounge chair with plywood siding, Naugahyde covering and non-functional arm-rest controls for a mere $150,000. Maybe more now. Bidding seems to be active... I'm amazed that Paramount and their legal team haven't stepped in and tried to take this thing back from the lucky SOB who 'rescued' it.
Update: Just what is that stain on the left side of the pedestal? Tribble juice?
Religion in America: Crisis has a interesting article on how American Christianity looks to outsiders. I hope this is just the first part of its interviews with non-believers. There are so many other questions to be asked. And I look forward to seeing what Christians from various braches of that faith have to say.
I'm not going to defend Steve Den Beste.He does a great job of that on his own.
But I would like to add my thoughts about sexual attractiveness. I'm talking purely about physical assets here. So don't bust my chops about maturity and human interaction or any of that. I'll concede all of those points for the sake of argument.
That having been said, an awful lot of men seem to find women in their late teens and early 20s to be at the peak of their beauty. Former football player Jim Brown once said that when he eats a peach, he wants to eat it when it's just ripe. And when he's with a woman, he wants to be with her when she's just ripe, her late teens or early 20s. I suspect many men think the same thing but would never voice those sentiments.
Ron tells me this sentiment is even stronger in Japan. Single women over 25 there are called "Christmas cakes." That's because Christmas cakes are very expensive until the 25th, then you can't give them away.
And I guess there may be some biological basis for that. As we've all heard recently, a woman's fertility generally starts to decline around the age of 27, and it plummets after age 35. So that reptilian part of our brain that just wants to spread our seed tells us that women under the age of 27 are the most desirable.
But evolutionary biology aside, I've never understood why so many men are so fixated on youth. I see plenty of pretty young women, and they are delightful to look at. Still, for my money, most women are at their most attractive between the ages of, say, 30 and 33. Again, I'm talking purely physical beauty. For many, this is the period between baby fat and teen-age acne and just before things start to spread and sag. (I know I'm going to get mail on that.)
Still, even those women who are damn near perfect in their youth seem to get better with age. Compare, for instance, the Playboy photos Cindy Crawford did at 22 with the ones she did 10 years later. Can you really tell me she is less attractive in the later photos?
When I was in my teens, I was generally most attracted to women in their late 20s and early 30s. And now that I'm, um, past my early 30s I'm still most attracted to women in that age group. That isn't to say that women outside that age range don't catch my eye from time to time. If the right young (but legal) woman came along, I wouldn't pass her up. And if the right older woman wanted to have a fling, I could go for that. (If Barbara Eden reads this, e-mail me.)
More on Tyson. Some of you may know that Mike Tyson converted to Sunni Islam while in prison. And when he isn't threatening to eat his opponent's children, he can be heard praising Allah for his victories. When he isn't seen being led into jail in handcuffs, he can be seen bowing towards Mecca.
Evander Holyfield is even more adamantly a Christian. He leads his entourage in prayer before a fight. He trains to the sounds of spirituals. He credits all of his victories to God. Okay, there's the matter of all those children by all those women. But remember that first stone stuff.
In the hoopla leading up to the first Tyson-Holyfield fight, we heard more religious talk than we would in an entire year of watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Each man claimed that his god had ordained his victory.
As for the fight itself, Holyfield dominated Tyson, knocking him out in the 11th round. I was watching on pay-per-view, and when the ref waved his hands over a dazed Tyson and called the bout, a friend turned to me and said, "I guess we know which god is mightier now."
And this nation has nuclear weapons? Pakistan is trying to drag itself into the 21st century. Unfortunately, it's saddled with a religion that doesn't want to emerge from the 11th century. Islamists can't create, just destroy. And they are determined to destroy the nation's economy.
Islamic Democracy. Islamists value democracy only as a means to power. Once in control of the government, they have no allegiance to democracy, constitutionalism, limited government or individual rights.
Look at Malaysia. Muslim fundamentalists there have taken control of two states. They've introduced a harsh Islamic code of law in one and plan to enact a similar code in the second, even though the constitution gives the national government alone the right to draft penal codes. "We feel our obligation to God is greater (than our obligation to the constitution)," said the chief minister of one of the Islamist-controlled states.
What sort of legal code do the Islamists want? Consider its treatment of rape.
The "hudud" code stipulates that rape victims unable to prove sex was forced upon them can be sentenced to 80 and 100 lashes. The code also says at least four Muslim men must have witnessed such a rape and women cannot become legal witnesses.
Just over one half of Malaysia's population is Muslim. But Islamists won't be satisfied until their cruel faith dominates the land.
In Defense Of Boxing Fans. Press reports indicate the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight has already sold some 400,000 pay-per-view buys. There's talk it could meet or excede the 2-million buy PPV record set by the second Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight.
This has many sports writers and other commentators upset. They argue that people are only paying to see a freak show. Fans are buying the PPV only to see if Tyson bites Lewis or tries to break his arm or starts a riot. No one is paying their money to see a boxing match.
That sells the people buying this show short. Promoters are charging $54.95 for the PPV. That's an awful lot of money to pay for a freak show. And the fact is that you could take any other fighter, have him do what Tyson has done in and out of the ring, and there wouldn't be any interest in him.
Tyson is different. From 1985 to 1988 he dominated the heavyweight division in a way that few, if any other, fighters ever have. He combined size, handspeed, one-punch knockout power in both hands, foot speed, head movement, defense and a killer instinct. No other heavyweight has had that sort of complete package. Tyson was the most electrifying heavyweight since Muhammad Ali. He won his first championship by knocking Trevor Berbick down three times with one punch. He solidified his claim by KOing Michael Spinks just 91 seconds into the first round.
He was the American success story. He came up from the streets, achieved success, fame and wealth. He married a beautiful, educated woman who was born well above his station. And then he threw it all away. His prime ended before he turned 23. His reign as champion lasted less than four years. And spent his 26th birthday in prison for rape.
And that's why many people are still fascinated by Tyson. There's a drama there. Tyson ruined himself with bad choices. Maybe he can still save himself by making the right ones. Fans want to see if he can somehow find that old Tyson. They want to see if he can once again pull together those ferocious seven- and eight-punch combinations.
Yes, some people will tune in to see a train wreck. And virtually everyone who buys the fight fears the worst. But there are an awful lot of people who hope that Tyson can pull out one last great performance in the ring. They hope that with the championship on the line and with his other options exhausted, Tyson will be motivated and can turn the clock back 15 years.
Even Tyson's most ardent supporters seem to have given up hope he can ever redeem himself outside the ring. But many hope he can redeem himself one last time inside the ring. That is why they are giving him one last chance.
Joe Katzman has some interesting thoughts re the upcoming Indo-Pak war.
I'm 70% sure it won't go nuclear. Winds would now disperse things a bit more than the past couple of weeks. Maps are still here updating periodically. Targeting is now labeled.
I'm A Professional Wrestling Fan. I have been since I was a small boy. I'm also a journalist. And that's why I get pissed whenever mainstream journalists try to cover wrestling. They don't like it and look down on those who do, so they think that gives them the right not to prepare, not to take whatever story they are doing seriously. They get basic facts wrong. They slip into easy cliches.
To see how arrogance can affect even good reporters, try to find the video of John Stossel's infamous piece of wrestling from the mid 1980s. You know, the one where Stossel got slapped around by wrestler David Schultz. There was a major story there. Wrestling was going through one of its periodic reinventions. Vince McMahon was helping to dismantle the regional cartels that had dominated since the 1950s. Vince helped pioneer pay-per-view, now a staple in the entertainment industry. The WWF was a "big man's" promotion, and to get to the big leagues more and more wrestlers started using steroids to bulk up. John missed all of that.
Instead, he devoted much of his segment to asking "Is wrestling fake." If John had done just a little research, he'd know that the press has been "exposing" wrestling since at least 1915. He'd know that having former wrestlers discuss the mechanics of how a match is preformed was nothing new either. In short, he'd know the story he did do had been done literally hundreds of times before.
And if he'd done a little research, he might have found out that David Schultz was an infamous tough guy, even by the standards of pro wrestling. If John had tried to find exactly the worst guy to ask "Is it fake?" he couldn't have done better.
I don't mean to single out John Stossel. The story he did was largely factually correct, if cliched. That isn't true of much mainstream coverage. (Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, magazines like Forbes and Fortune did stories with wildly unrealistic numbers of pro wrestling revenues. That changed only when the WWF, now WWE, went public and the numbers were easy to obtain.)
So I'm surprised when a mainstream reporter does a story that's largely accurate. Shaun Assael's analysis also strikes me as sound, and I'm now looking forward to his biography of WWE promoter Vince McMahon.
Bonus Thought: In the chance that someone in the financial press reads this, you might want to do a story on how much the WWE has slipped in the last year. Ratings have plummeted, attendance is down. It's still in good fiscal shape, but nowhere near its former strength. The WWE will say that wrestling is a cyclical business or they'll point to lengthy absences of their biggest star The Rock. The real reason for the decline is piss-poor writing and backstage politics that have kept it from elevating new stars. (The owner's daughter is the head writer, and her real-life boyfriend is one of the major stars.) Just a thought.
You'll Burn In Hell. I'm glad Ryan Zempel admits that's his argument for why old people should not live together if they aren't married. Zempel recognizes that some people may question why he has been gifted with such knowledge of their fate in the afterlife. So he weakly argues, "There's plenty of 'social-policy garb' that legitimately shows why sex outside marriage isn't a good idea, and I suspect some of it would even apply to seniors."
Well, I went to the site that he linked to, and it's full of dire material showing that children born out of wedlock are more apt to be poor, commit crime and suffer abuse. I don't know of many 65-year-old women worried about accidentally conceiving children. So I think it's up to Zempel to tell us exactly how senior sex outside marriage is a bad idea in this world.
But this statement gets to the real problem with his position
Every worldview is steeped in faith - whether it be faith in a deity or in the nonexistence of any deity or in mankind itself. There are no valid reasons why the "religious" ones are to be discounted while the humanistic and atheistic ones, whose adherents are often just as devout, are to be accepted unquestioningly.
Let's put aside Zempel's (deliberate?) misunderstanding of atheism.
The real problem with basing public policy on religious beliefs is that each religion claims to be the truth. How do we settle those disputing claims to truth? Look at the issue of cloning. Devout Catholics believe that life begins at conception, and that leads them to a very distinct view on cloning. But Mormons and Jews have a different view about when life begins. Mormons can point to their holy books to "prove" their point, but that will never convince Catholics, who don't accept those works, to change their minds and vice versa.
The only way to settle such disagreements is on consequentialist grounds. We can't reach any agreement over matters of faith, but we may be able to reach agreement on matters of fact and science.
Zempel may truly believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, even for seniors. And his religious arguments may sway those who share his worldview. But if he wants to convince others, he's going to have to offer practical reasons for seniors to remain celibate if unmarried. So far he hasn't.
I'm No Anarchist. But I also thought Guns, Germs and Steel was overrated. Don't get me wrong. It was a good book, but I thought Jared Diamond had, like all those who have a big idea, a tendency to tweak data to fit his thesis. And far from being a dispassionate scientist, he had a subtle but clear leftist bias throughout the book. If history is determined chiefly by geographical factors, not cultural ones, then Western society's greater wealth isn't due to superior culture, but to luck of location.
So when Diamond attacked Viking Iceland I was a bit skeptical. Again, I wasn't sure that it was the libertarian paradise described by David Friedman, but I had even less faith in Diamond's description.
Now, Roderick Long responds to Diamond's Iceland article. I think the libertarian philosopher gets the best of the acclaimed physiologist.
Creative Cities. Salon has an interview with Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class. He discusses his thesis that those cities that do the best job of attractting creative persons are the ones that will thrive in the 21st century.
What that means for cities is that instead of "underwriting big-box retailers, subsidizing downtown malls, recruiting call centers, and squandering precious taxpayer dollars on extravagant stadium complexes," the leadership should instead develop an environment attractive to the creative class by cultivating the arts, music, night life and quaint historic districts -- in short, develop places that are fun and interesting rather than corporate and mall-like.
In case you are wondering, yes, I am still pissed that I wasn't allowed to cover this story in the national issues slot several months ago at Investor's Business Daily.
My favorite quote from this interview: "Gays are the canaries of the creative economy."
Harvey Weinstein Is Satan. Ian Rowan is completely right about the abuse of intellectual property laws and the butchering of Hong Kong films by their American distributors. One of the worst things about my move back east was that I had to get rid of all the HK videotapes I had collected over the years in Chinatown and from, um, other sources. These were originals, not the American releases that have been mutilated and burdened with rap soundtracks. But I just couldn't afford to ship them back, and I have no place to put them.
Tough Jews. The Saudi ambassador to Great Britain, Ghazi Algosaibi, says a gang of young Jews beat his son and some friends on the streets of London, attacking them with baseball bats.
I'm sad to hear that the problem of aimless young Jews wandering the streets causing trouble has spread to Britain. I understand the ambassador's fear. I know it's wrong, but on more than one occassion, I've crossed the street when I saw a Jew walking towards me rather than take a chance he might jump me. And, yes, I'll admit, I get nervous when an elevator door opens and I see a Jew standing there.
But I try to overcome such fears and remember that many young Jewish men, maybe even most, have no criminal record. And I hope that the unfortunate incident doesn't poison Algosaibi's attitude towards Jews. I take comfort in the fact that neither he nor his family ever reported the event to the police or the British Foreign Office or to his own government. And I'm delighted that he waited more than a month before mentioning the attack to the Arab press. That gives the youths who attacked his son the chance to think through the errors of their ways. Instead of jail, these young men deserve compassion, and the ambassador, who is a noted poet, has displayed much of that.
Some Advice For Insomniacs: Watching the Ron Jeremy infomercial for Extenze won't put you to sleep. It will give you nightmares when you do fall asleep. And it will ruin you appetite the next day.
Why? Well, because we have the Calgary Stampede, and a bitchin' display of the Aurora Borealis.
Oh, and we have oil. A lot of oil. We are the lubricated province. Chafing is unknown to the average Albertan. Whenever we're feeling particularly dry and itchy, we just punch a stick in the ground and roll around in that bubbling black gold. We have enough oil to keep the hair of ALL the Baldwin brothers slick and shiny and black. That's how much oil we have.
Alberta is a good fit for America. We like guns - you like guns. We both have ex-alcoholic leaders. Imagine the fun they can have sitting around the Oval Office, cleaning their guns and talking about the time at the G-8 summit when they put lampshades on their heads and ran around yelling, "Look at me, I'm a Saudi prince!".
I can't see the rest of Canada giving up that province so easily. It has oil and wrestling's Hart family. The only marketable exports the rest of Canada has are fish, granite and John Vernon.
So here's the deal. You give us Alberta, we'll give you Hawaii. Okay, it's smaller in both area and population than Alberta, but let's face it, Alberta is a frozen wasteland. Even Wolverine got out of there as soon as he could. Hawaii is a lush tropical paradise. What it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. (Hawaii, that is.)
Hawaii likes the sort of genteel socialism that is so popular in Canada, so you'd get along well.
And best of all, once Hawaii adopts the loonie, the cost of a vacation there drops about 60% for both you and the U.S. Think about it. Many of you can no longer go to Florida each winter because of outstanding warrants for leaving the scene of traffic accidents. With my plan, you could winter in Hawaii. That should boost tourism and help both the Hawaiian economy and the Canadian as well.
Act before the end of the month, and we'll throw in North Dakota.
Wrestling With Limited Government: Thanks to Title IX, the law that bars gender discrimination in education, colleges have been slashing men's sports programs, especially wrestling. The Department of Education says the law requires schools to have gender parity in their athletic programs. If 46% of a school's enrollment is women, then 46% of its athletes must be women. But men go out for sports at a much greater rate than women. So most schools have an imbalance, and most have "solved" that imbalance by cutting men's teams.
Some wrestlers have sued the government saying that Title IX, as interpreted by the DOE, is unconstitutional. How have Republicans reacted? The Bush administration has filed a brief opposing the wrestlers.
Meanwhile, Congress thinks that we should just throw some money at the problem, not change a discriminatory law. Rep. Jim Leach is the mastermind behind the idea.
Leach offers this hypothetical: A college with 12 men's teams and six women's team might "solve" its Title IX problem by cutting men's teams. But it could also solve its problem by creating six new women's teams and leaving the men's teams intact.
This, of course, would cost money. And this week, Leach plans to introduce a bill to provide federal funding for college fellowships to help participants in both women's sports and the men's sports that lack the clout of football and basketball. In a nice touch, Leach plans to name them Hastert Fellowships after Dennis Hastert, the Republican speaker of the House who just happens to be a former wrestling coach. Hastert could thus come to symbolize the effort to rescue both women's sports and his beloved wrestling.
Now, remind me why it's important for the GOP to retain control of the House of Representatives.
We've had teen sex and elder sex. How about polygamist sex? A Utah court has barred Rodney Holm from having sex with his second wife when the children he had with his third wife are in his home. He may still have sex with his first wife.
The order came during a custody battle between Holm and his third wife, Ruth Stubbs. Holm is a member of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Stubbs was a member until she left her husband and the church. Now, she wants to raise her children outside the influence of the church. The judge's ruling was a temporary one. He will soon have to rule whether Holm's religion makes him an unfit parent.
I'm really not sure how a I feel about this. I want the state to have as little involvement as possible in how parents raise their children. And I really don't want the state deciding which religious beliefs are harmful. But what happens when parents have strong and fundamental differences over how their children should be raised?
My solution would be to have couples sign formal contracts when they get married that would cover things like who gets custody of children in the event of a divorce, who pays child support, what sort of religious instruction a child gets, etc. That would allow people to make such decisions in a more calm, and one hopes, rational manner, not in the heat of a nasty divorce.
But people don't sign such contracts. And even if they did, there's no way that couples can anticipate all the things that might happen to them. Ms. Stubbs probably didn't even think she would get divorced when she married, much less realize she might leave the church she was raised in.
So I don't see any way out of these types of situations.
Tuesday, June 04, 2002 So You Are Calling Jeff Cohen A Sell-Out? TAPPED says it agrees with Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting that in a world of big media companies "independent journalism is compromised."
By compromised, TAPPED means mainstream media don't cover what it wants covered the way it wants it covered.
Still, citing FAIR to bolster this point is a little odd. As I noted yesterday, Jeff Cohen, the founder of the leftist group, has recently joined MSNBC as senior producer and on-air commentator for Phil Donahue's new show. Has Cohen been "compromised?" Or is this proof that, despite TAPPED's claims, one can still do "independent" journalism?
Actually, this isn't Cohen's first job in big media. For several years, he has been a commentator on Fox News. This was while he was serving on FAIR's board. (If someone from AIM or the Media Research Center occupied a similar position, FAIR would likely have cried conflict of interest. But it wasn't when Cohen did it because he was one of the good guys.)
We'll soon see what sort of market there is for FAIR's vision of journalism.
Meanwhile, despite the fears of the people at FAIR and TAPPED, truly independent journalism is growing with each new person who starts a blog. Far from stifling independent journalism, big media fosters it. Hell, what would we bloggers do if we weren't bitching about the media.
Conservatives vs. Seniors. Ryan Zempel is unhappy with seniors shacking up. He wants them to set a better example. Seniors just want to be left alone. In Arizona and other states, otherwise conservative seniors have found themselves allied with libertarians and liberals who want to remove laws against co-habitation and sex outside marriage. This is just one small example of why cultural conservativsm isn't a more powerful force. None of us, no matter how conservative we may be in our personal life, want some ninny telling us how to live.
Many seniors have been married and see no reason to get married again. Others don't want to lose Social Security benefits or face higher taxes.
Conservatives argue that marriage is necessary to civilize men and protect children. Those wouldn't seem to be major concerns for elderly couples.
Still, if a man reaches 70 without being civilized, I say more power to him. According to conservatives, he should have been dead decades ago. I'll tell you what, Ryan, if you see a 70-year-old man shacking up with some woman and sleeping around with lots of other women and fathering lots of children out of wedlock, I'll agree with you that he's setting a bad example. And I hope one day to set such a bad example myself.
Kashmir. Fared Zakaria has some sobering words on the situation. An nuclear war isn't imminent, but it's certainly a possibility in the future.
There is a real danger that by ratcheting up the rhetoric, each side will have to act if those threats fail. Will nuclear deterrence work time after time? If the United States and the Soviet Union had had a Cuban missile crisis every three months, at some point they could have gotten unlucky.
But there's no easy solution in sight. Neither Pakistan nor India seem willing to let the Kashmiris decide their own fate.
Zakaria says there is, however, a solution to the short-term crisis. Pakistan must end the cross-border incursions. But that would be a costly move for Musharraf. Zakaria says he'll need something in return.
But how much did Musharraf get in return for his help in Afghanistan? When Musharraf agreed to help the U.S. he asked for greater access to Western markets for Pakistani textiles, which account for 80% of the nation's exports. At first, President Bush agreed to reduce U.S. barriers to Pakistan's textiles. But under pressure from House Republicans and the U.S. textile industry, the White House reneged on the deal.
Why should Musharraf trust further U.S. promises?
Update: Mickey Kaus has a sobering column on just how many promises to its partners in the war on terror the U.S. has broken. He notes that some of this was not the adminstration's doing.
The Prisoners. Here's a great Washington Times story on six Palestinian terrorists being "guarded" by the U.S. and Great Britain. To call their captivity "minimum security" would be an insult to country club prisons everywhere.
He Didn't Tell Alex Haley About This. Someone has uncovered a letter Malcom X wrote to Elijah Mohammad years before their split. It paints a rather unheroic picture of Malcolm.
Southern Fried. I've been trying to get away from personal posts, but my father's family had a reunion Sunday, and I noticed a couple of things I'd like to remark on. The first is Southern cooking. The Oliver family reunion is a big affair, with people coming in from all over the South.
As I went through the large buffet, I noticed an awful lot of vegetables. We Southerners eat a lot of them. Unlike those Scottish nutritionists I posted on a couple of days ago, a typical Southerner should have no problem getting six helpings of fruits and veggies each day. Heck, when I was growing up, most meals consisted only of vegetables and cornbread or biscuits. We didn't eat meat that often.
Sounds good, right?
Well, not quite. You see we Southerners like to fry things. So meals consisted of fried corn, fried squash, fried green tomaotes, fried okra. You get the picture. To this day, I can't stand squash unless it has been fried. Hell, I've even eaten fried pickles. Southerners know that on the eighth day God created the iron skillet.
And what we don't fry, we "season" with lard or pork. Greens and beans and cabbage should all be cooked with a big hunk of pork, or failing that a scoop of lard. Southerners know that among God's greatest gifts to man the hog ranks a close second to woman. That piece of wisdom alone makes us superior to Muslims.
But younger generations seem to be ignoring the wisdom of the past. I've noticed since I got back that some younger women don't fry foods and don't use lard and pork they way their mothers and grandmothers did. Quite frankly, their cooking doesn't taste as good, either. There are some Southern traditions that simply must be preserved.
Monday, June 03, 2002 Time To Put Up. Those who believe there's too much right-wing bias in the news will get a chance to compete, thanks to big corporate media. We'll see how much of a market there is for a pro-socialist viewpoint.
More Randroid Tripe: Robert Tracinski says the U.S. must seize and occupy Pakistan. Well, I guess it's a bit better than calling for us to nuke it until every last Pakistani is dead.
Tracinski seems to think that occupying Pakistan would be as easy as editing out Nathaniel Branden's voice from tapes of one of Ayn Rand's lectures. He doesn't seem to realize that such an effort takes time, money and equipment. It took about six months to get everything in place for Desert Storm. And that was just to "liberate" Kuwait.
It would be an even more massive undertaking to invade Pakistan. And an invasion would just be the beginning. Unlike in Afghanistan where we were seen by the people as liberators, in Pakistan the people would rightly see us as invaders. We'd turn the whole country against us. To keep the radicals from bouncing back even stronger, we'd have to occupy the country for years. That alone would require a commitment of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of men.
And how does Tracinski propose that we mount the invasion? We were able to succeed in Afghanistan because Pakistan and other countries in the region shared intelligence with us and allowed us to use air bases and land routes into Afghanistan. Does he really think those other countries, apart from India, would give us help in an invasion of Pakistan? His proposal would turn uneasy allies in the region into enemies.
Pakistan isn't the only nation with a terrorist problem. Iran, Syria and Iraq, to name a few, sponsor and harbor anti-American terrorism. Will we invade and occupy them for years? To the extent that we do flush Islamic terrorists out of those nations, we'll likely only send them into places like Kazahkstan where they'll find a great welcome thanks to U.S. aggression in Pakistan. Will we then invade and occupy all of the Stans? Tracinski would lead us down the path of a massive military commitment in dozens of countries. You don't have to be a Rothbardian to realize that no free nation could sustain such a military and long remain free.
In intellectual arguments, Randians know only how to sling a sledgehammer. So it should be no surprise that their approach to foreign policy is similar. But contrary to their macho posings, the U.S. is more wise to pursue a strategy of diplomacy and surgical strikes, much as we actually do seem to be doing in Pakistan.
Miss China. Okay, I watched the Miss Universe pageant. And each time Miss China appeared, I could only wonder if she really thought that hairstyle was attractive. But those in her home country seem to have been even more harsh in their assessments.
If the Chinese consider Ling Zhuo "ordinary looking," then I think I should catch a plane to Shanghai quickly.
Culturally Incorrect: TAP Online has a lousy piece on Bill Maher and his show Politically Incorrect.
There's so much wrong with the article, it's hard to know where to start.
The truth is that Maher was a marginally funny, not-terribly-successful comedian who hit on a great idea in the early 1990s. He'd bring on a bunch of quirky guests to talk about the day's events in a light-hearted, but not terribly lowbrow discussion. It quickly became a hit, and a few years after its debut on Comedy Central, ABC picked it up.
The show did well at first on the big network. But with Maher's new-found audience, he began to take himself more seriously. And oddly, he became more angry. Witty commentary gave way to lengthy rants. And his guests took his cue. The quirky discussions gave way to loud arguments where people simply talked over each other and constantly interrupted other guests.
Indeed, one of the ironies of Maher's plight is that the point he was trying to make with his infamous "cowardice" rant was relatively innocuous and one that conservatives had made for years. But he never got to flesh out his thoughts because he was interrupted by a guest. Maher may have finally been done in by his inability to control the discussion.
Even TAP admits that the show peaked in 1997. But the author of that piece really doesn't indicate just how far the show had fallen since then. In fact, he seems not to have watched it that closely in years.
He writes
In format, the half-hour Politically Incorrect packs together an opening monologue by Maher on the week's breaking political events and an "honest" round-table discussion with guests that include celebrities, supermodels, political pundits, and "ordinary" dissenting citizens.
Maher hasn't opened the show with a monologue in years. I suspect that ABC complained after the "monologues" became ravings and forced him to stop.
The piece also describes Maher as a "witty, irreverent, sacred-cow slaughtering libertarian." Maher's politics were never libertarian, no matter what he called himself. And they became more doctrinaire liberal after his move to ABC. Far from slaughtering sacred cows, he petted every one that was offered up. It doesn't take a lot of guts to embrace drug legalization in Hollywood, or to kiss John McCain's ass. And for the last two years, it seemed that almost every discussion led Maher to another angry call for campaign finance reform.
In short, Politically Incorrect was never very informative, and it stopped being entertaining years ago. Its loss will be lamented only by those who don't know that Steve Allen stopped being relevant in 1960.
Jimmy Kimmel at least is funny. Or maybe I should say was funny. Based on recent interviews he has given, he has started taking himself way too seriously. What is it about the move from Comedy Central to ABC?
Sunday, June 02, 2002 Do As I Do. Surprise, surprise! Eight out of ten dietitians and nutritionists surveyed at a conference in Edinburgh admitted that they did not stick to their own advice about eating at least five portions of fruit or vegetables every day.
My favorite finding of the survey:
And when asked which dietary item they could not survive without if stranded on a desert island, almost 40 per cent of them said alcohol.
Timely Fatwa Watch: Islam Online's latest question for the religious scholars is We always hear the Hadith: "Women have a shortcoming in reasoning and religion." Unfortunately, some men use it to insult women. Could you please explain the sound meaning of the Hadith?
A Hadith is a saying of Mohammad.
The answer to this question claims that women do in fact have lesser mental powers than men but that doesn't make them inferior to men. They are just special.
The site's answer specifically raises the point about women's testimony being less highly regarded by Islamic courts.
Focusing more on the question in point, we’d like to cite the following Fatwa issued by the late Muslim scholar, Sheikh ibn Baz, the former Mufti of Saudi Arabia:
“The Prophet, peace be and blessings upon him, explained that women’s mental deficiency is reflected in their weak memory, the fact that makes Shari`ah stipulate that a woman’s testimony must be corroborated by another woman. Thus, this injunction does not imply woman’s inferiority to man; rather it has more to do with justice than to gender.
So when sharia demands that Zafran be killed because her brother in law didn't rape her in front of eight other women, that isn't a sign of Islam's low regard for women. It's just a matter of justice.
Why We Hate Them. Shiraka Bibi's daughter Zafran waits in a Pakistani prison, hoping for a reprieve from a death sentence. Her crime? She was raped by her brother in law.
She's just one of a number of women in Islamic nations who've gotten attention in the Western press because she faces the death sentence for adultery. But for every woman who gets some attention in the West there are countless women who have been executed under Islamic law. Men are much less likely to face the death sentence.
Why? Well, Zafran conceived a child because of her rape. In her case, and others, that was proof she'd had "adulterous" sex. (Zafran's husband passed away years ago.)
But her rapist faces no charges. Islam requires four men or eight women to witness the act to convict him. (A woman's testimony is worth just half that of a man. Mohammad must have been in a generous mood when he came up with that one. Women aren't usually valued so highly in Islam.)
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in its recent 2001 report, estimates that one woman in Pakistan is raped every two hours, but most sexual assaults go unreported because of the impossibility of being able to prove the charges and the attached social stigma.
"How is it possible for a woman to bring four witnesses to prove that she has been raped?" said Aneesa Zeb, a women's rights activist and lawyer in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
In the country's most populous province of Punjab, the HRCP says one woman is raped every six hours and a woman gang-raped every fourth day, yet only 321 cases were reported to police last year.
"These are harsh laws.... and women have always been at the receiving end," said HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak.
"Men are often bailed out and if the women are complainants, they are turned into accused," Khattak said.
Even if the "adulterous" women are spared death by execution, they may still be killed by male relatives beacuse of the "dishonor" they have brought upon the family. Fortunately, Zafran's family says she won't be punished by them if the government reduces her sentence.
Unintended Consequences: Trucking companies are rushing to buy current truck models to avoid a new generation of less-polluting diesel engines that take over the market in October. Trucking companies complain that the new engines -- mandated by federal rules to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions -- will cost more, weigh more, use more fuel and likely require more maintenance.
The companies also say they will extend the time they drive the current model trucks by several years. Therefore, efforts to reduce pollution will actually keep older, more polluting trucks on the road longer.
Saturday, June 01, 2002 It’s for the Children. Britain’s National Association of Head Teachers wants to give African languages, including Somali and Hausa, the same importance as the main European tongues. The head teachers also suggest that Albanian, Punjabi and Urdu be added to the curriculum. Secondary schools are required to teach a foreign language until the age of 14, with most opting for French, German or Spanish
The move will basically make teachers’ jobs easier and make schools look like they are doing a better job. In many schools, immigrant children already speak the languages the teachers want to add.
Tim Benson, the head teacher of Nelson Primary School in east London, who will propose the change, said: "In schools like mine many of the children are speaking and learning English as their second, third or even fourth language.
"The assessment system in this country just does not recognise those achievements. It would be very good for the child's self-esteem if they could be assessed in their own language."
The languages spoken by his school's 865 pupils include Punjabi, Urdu and the southern Nigerian tongue Urhobo. Recently, a number of Albanian-speaking children from Kosovo had also joined the school.
"If I had 100 pupils and 80 of them were speaking French, then my school would be heralded as a great success. Because my children are speaking Urhobo, Punjabi, or whatever it might be, that is not the case," he added.
But the move will shortchange students. Its major trading partners are the other EU nations and the U.S. With one in four British jobs relying on trade, a strong knowledge of the languages of its big trading partners will be a plus. And Britain does vastly more trade with France or Germany than all the African nations put together.
Tourism is a major industry for the nation. The top five countries of origin for tourists visiting Britain are the U.S., France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. For anyone working in the tourism industry, knowing the languages spoken by visitors will be a plus.
Finally, Germany, France and England share strong cultural bonds and intertwined history. If you are trying to assimilate immigrants into British society, learning the languages of its neighbors will help them understand those common bonds and history.
But if you are only trying to make your school look better and make students feel good, then by all means, teach them African and Asian langauges they already speak.
Steven Den Beste is one of the brightest bloggers out there. But even the brightest of us utter a howler every now and then.
In a post on changing attitutes towards female attractiveness, he writes
When I was 20, it was the height of the first wave of feminist rebellion against the cruel male chauvinist pig hegemony conspiracy thingie whatever-it-was. Admittedly, there was a lot of that around at the time, epitomized by the Playboy club, which hired stables of bimbos who worked in preposterously silly but very revealing costumes in exclusive and lush surroundings where men who were wealthy could go and be pampered by said bimbos. (I actually saw the outside of the New Orleans Playboy Club once; it was much smaller than I had thought it would be.)
I'm not going to deny that the Playboy clubs catered to a male fantasy. And the Bunny costumes were silly. But just about everything else in this paragraph is wrong.
Let's start with the claim that the club hired "stables of bimbos." My dictionary defines bimbo as a vacuous woman.
A few years ago, former Bunny Kathryn Leigh Scott wrote a book called The Bunny Years about the women who worked at the Playboy clubs. She found among their ranks a federal judge, a millionaire real estate tycoon, doctors, lawyers, scientists, many successful businesswomen, journalists, a newspaper editor and teachers. Scott herself had authored several successful books.
Granted, there were thousands of Bunnies, so many of them may have been empty-headed. But as Scott notes, the job paid well and had fairly flexible hours, so it attracted a lot of college students.
There were limits on how far the clubs would go to pamper customers. Those Bunnies who had worked as cocktail waitresses at other clubs or as flight attendents claimed they preferred the work environment at the Playboy Club. Playboy was much more likely to toss out men who were rude to waitresses or who got drunk and loud.
As I said, the costume was a bit silly, mainly because of the ears and collar. But it was basically just a strapless, one-piece swimsuit. I doubt it was considered "very revealing" when it was introduced in 1960. And by 1973, Steven should have been able to see a lot more flesh at any beach or swimming pool.
Of course, as he observes, you can see even more at swimming pools now, which may explain why the last of the Playboy clubs closed in 1988.
ARMENIAN GUYS NUDE PICTURES Someone just came here through a Yahoo search for those terms. Why? Was it some self-loathing Turk who has fantasies of being dominated by a studly Armenian? Just another of life's mysteries.
Accusing your critics of McCarthyism is the last refuge of scoundrels. Or in this case, of Michael Bellesiles. How was he to know that his book was going to arouse such passion?
But this may be the key paragaph of this story
Records from the late 1700s, cited in his work and examined by the Guardian, suggest that gun ownership may have been far higher than claimed by Prof Bellesiles, who argues that even on the frontier, only 14% of households owned guns.
When even the Guardian admits his central thesis is wrong, Bellesiles is in trouble.
Another Outstanding Catholic Priest. Father Labib Kobti tells us what's wrong in the Middle East. It's the Europeans.
It is European Jews such as Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon and Benyamin Netanyahu who insist that peace will only come to the region at the expense of Palestinian blood. Indeed, almost the entire Israeli government is composed of Ashkenazi, or European Jews. Their outlook is colored by their past experiences at the hands of Europeans who systemically slaughtered Jews -- a mentality that will never bring peace to the region. These European Jews have never lived side-by-side with the Arabs as the Sephardi Jews have. The Sephardi did not have the European Jews' experience.
Those European Jews must leave behind their European attitudes, or better yet, just leave. And the Europeans and Americans must stop funding them. Then, the Middle East will return to being the peaceul paradise it was before the European Jews came.
Gov't Says Economy Has Bottomed Out. Again. This has become an almost-monthly declaration by the Japanese government. But the number of jobless heads of households hit a record high 1.08 million in April.
The jobless rate was highest among men and women between 15 and 24 years old, at 11.6% and 10.3% respectively. That may explain why so many young adults are still living with their parents.
Japan Dropped To Latvia Level. Moody's has downgraded government bonds issued by Japan to the same status as those from Latvia and Poland. After more than a decade of trying to revive its economy through fiscal pump priming, the Japanese government has run up debt levels that have never been seen in the industrial world.
Despite wishful pronouncements from the government, unemployment rose for the 13th straight month in April. Moody's doesn't think the government can turn things around.
Russian Women. Okay, for decades Russian women were the object of an awful lot of fat and ugly jokes. (Remember the Yakov Smiroff bit where he would say "In Russia, we have a saying 'A woman is like a bus'," then move on to another topic.)
So now we have a Russian Miss Universe, Oxana Fedorova, who is drop-dead gorgeous, can strip and reassemble a Kalashnikov in minutes, has a black belt in judo, is studying to be a lawyer, loves Dostoevsky and is an officer in the Russian police.
And she's not much of an anomaly. Anyone who spends much time in strip clubs can find quite a few girls from Russia and Ukraine who are absolutely gorgeous, speak English with just the cutest trace of an accent and clearly are a step or two above the other strippers in intelligence and education.
Playboy has featured several Russian and Ukrainian girls as centerfolds over the last few years. Probably the most notable is Victoria Zdrok, who claims a Ph.D. in psychology and a law degree.
While they haven't achieved the acclaim that those young Brazilians have, there are several notable models from the former Soviet Union who speak several languages and boast degrees in physics and philosophy and Russian literature.
And if one is to believe the ads certain magazines, there are scores of fairly attractive Russian women with MDs and Ph.Ds in particle physics who are waiting to meet American men.
When did Russian women stop being the butt of jokes and become superwomen?
Thursday, May 30, 2002 Go Bruins.The Army turns innocent minority kids into soulless killing zombies. That's the opinion of at least one columnist for The Daily Bruin.
Shirin Vossoughi writes
My proposal for the next reality TV show: give cameras to some kids in war-torn Afghanistan, a few women in Japan's Okinawa and the people of Iraq and the Philippines. Have them tape-record the death and destruction, sexual abuse and displacement caused by the U.S. military. Show the tape to America's youth alongside Army recruitment ads and adequate information about higher education. Then let America's youth decide if the military is right for them.
Sure, and why not show the Dutch and French citizens who welcomed U.S. GIs who liberated them from the Germans? Why not show the Afghans who welcomed the U.S. troops who overthrew the Taliban? And why not show the Iraqis whose only complaint about the U.S. military is that it didn't finish the job 11 years ago?
I don't know which of the girl's premises is more foolish, that the U.S. Army is composed of killers who blindly follow orders or that college is the only route to success in life?
I certainly hope the average UCLA student is more capable of critical thought than this poor girl.
Teen Sex, Amish Style. It seems the Amish have something called bed courtship where unmarried teens are allowed to sleep together.
"It's more or less condoned," an elder says, sounding like Bill Clinton. "Not that they're going to have sex, but they are going to get pretty intimate."
I'm sure.
The Amish have long practiced something called rumspringa, which lets teens loose at 16 to do whatever they want: drive fast cars, stage all-night drunken parties, even get involved with drugs. When they've had their fill, the theory goes, they will return to be baptized into the church and join the Amish way of life.
And guess what? Despite all of the temptations of the modern world, 90% of Amish youth do join the Amish life after their wild partying ends. That's the highest retention rate in the church's history.
Could it be that much of the teen sex, drinking and drug use that cultural conservatives decry is just non-Amish youth enjoying their own rumspringa?
The simple 72hr fallout trajectory map showing where the center of the debris from an exchange of nukes between India and Pakistan might go should be updating periodically, and is now a much "prettier" picture. Again, this isn't using our more sophisticated algorithms, but you get what you pay for . . .
Targets selected were: several in the Kashmir area, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Bombay.
What does a multi-billionaire do after a lifetime of whoring and bad investments that cost him several billion dollars? He converts to radical Islam. The Sultan of Brunei, best known for paying hundreds of millions of dollars to bring Western beauty queens, centerfolds and actresses to his tiny nation to watch him play badminton, has reportedly given up his hedonistic ways. His brother Prince Jefri, who reportedly banged more of the women the Sultan hired, is in prison after losing about $14.5 billion of the family's fortune. (Note to self: Never let your ne'er-do-well younger brother handle the family finances.)
Cloning And Abortion Are The Same Issue. So why does everyone pretend that they aren't? Consider the debate on SB 790, the bill authored by Sen. Sam Brownback that would ban all cloning.
"Why is the right-to-life movement saying this is the most important vote of this Congress?" said Sean Tildon, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. "It's because if Brownback is enacted, you will have given more protection to clonal embryos than to sexually produced embryos, and that's incredibly powerful if you want to oppose abortion."
But when pressed on this issue the major right-to-life groups deny that cloning and abortion are in anyway linked. And the big pro-abortion groups seem to believe them. They largely stayed silent in the debate.
This has produced all sorts of confusion. Sen. Mary Landrieu claims to be pro-choice. But she backs the Brownback bill.
"I think it's far-fetched," said Lindsay Ellenbogen, Landrieu's press secretary. "(Therapeutic cloning) would allow the creation of life for the express purpose of destroying it, and that's something the senator can't support."
But the Brownback bill essentially defines life as beginning at conception and grants the anti-abortion movement its basic premise. No matter how you feel about cloning and abortion, this debate is a bit odd. It seems as if both sides are dancing around the central issue, refusing to state their real beliefs.
Wednesday, May 29, 2002 Eurowhining:The Guardian says the U.S. Constitution is pretty much worthless.
The US constitution is a uniquely powerful document, but whether it has really done anything for the cause of freedom is open to debate. It accommodated slavery for longer than European states, turned a blind eye to the Jim Crow segregation laws for decades, and did nothing to stop McCarthyism. Nowadays it is being used as a vehicle for the proliferation of guns and a shelter for racists. It clearly takes more than a document to negotiate the treacherous currents and eddies of human liberty.
That last sentence is undeniably true. A written consitition is worthless if the people lose their zeal for liberty.
But the U.S. Constitution, and the spirit of the American people, kept fascism and socialism from arising in this country. Europe can't say the same.
Yes, the Constitution does protect the right to bear arms. And the Guardian's sneers aside, that's a good thing. Given the fact that European crime rates are soaring, even as U.S. rates drop, they can no longer pretend that their attempts to restrict gun ownership reduce crime.
Yes, the Constitution protects hateful speech. But it doesn't protect hateful, violent action. Our system isn't perfect. But right now, what continent is seeing synagogues set afire? What continent has ghettoes seething with hatred for outsiders?
In it's zeal to smear the U.S. constitution, the Guardian even gets history wrong. Whatever one thinks of civil rights laws, they were written to enforce the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The Constitution didn't turn a blind eye towards the evils of Jim Crow, but many of the nation's rulers did, just as many Europeans turned a blind eye to the nature of Nazism until German forces were in Paris, just as many Europeans turned a blind eye towards the true nature of the Soviet Union and just as many Europeans today turn a blind eye to the true nature of Yassar Arafat.
The political system set up by the Constitution eventually brought a halt to the excesses of "McCarthyism." And quite frankly the repression of civil liberties in the name of anti-communism was never that great anyway.
For those who've asked, here is what some of the fallout projections look like. This is from a very simple (and therefore available) algorithm. Click to view the readable picture. It shows the low, medium and high altitude drift at hourly intervals over the next 72 hours. Given the size of the Indo-Pak weapons, high altitude fallout shouldn't be much of a problem.
More Drugs, Less Crime In England the south London borough which is piloting a scheme to treat cannabis offenders more leniently has seen the number of robberies and muggings halved in the last six months.
Now, treating marijuana users more leniently may not have led to the decrease in crime. But part of the reason that police started going lightly on drug users was to concentrate resources on violent and property crimes. So maybe that plan worked.
But at the very least, we can say that not arresting pot users didn't lead to more crime.
The Hurricanes Go For The Cup. The Canes will be in the Stanley Cup finals. For those of you unfamilar with the team, here's a bit of useless trivia. At home, the team plays a recorded "Whooo!!" when the Canes score. The voice on that tape is professional wrestler Ric Flair, a Charlotte native and perhaps his profession's greatest performer of the last 25 years. The practice of playing Flair's trademark yell when the home team scores started with the NBA's Hornets.
Sorry I haven't updated until now. I've been working on Brickbats. While searching for material, I found a short article in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution on how terrorists are continuing their jihad behind bars. It counted more than 20 attacks on guards and other crimes commited by Muslim terrorists who are now in prison. It says Al-Qaida training manuals have a section on causing problems while in prison. The story isn't on line, however.
I Can't Point Any Fingers. As many as a million Japanese -- most of them young men -- are voluntary shut-ins, either literally cloistered in their rooms or refusing to work and avoiding all social contact for periods ranging from six months to more than 10 years. The vast majority of these men show no signs of mental illness.
Experts site many reasons for this, but I can think of one big reason, and it's summed up by this sentence describing one couple's attempt to get their 25-year-old son out of his room:
In an attempt to get their son to communicate with them, Abe and her husband have decided that from now on, they are not going to slip an envelope under his door with his $400 monthly allowance.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002 The Multiracial Society: Mike Sugimoto has some interesting thoughts on the demands sometimes placed on multiracial individuals.
Why is it that a person, as a member of an ethnic group, is sometimes more important than a person individually, and why do we insist on trying to group people into these large and increasingly arbitrary categories? What does that say about us?
Multiculti Action Stars: Someone writes to ask whether the multiracial action hero/sex symbol is really a new phenomenon. After all, he says, Burt Reynolds was once a big star and he’s part Indian.
Burt Reynolds wasn’t just a big star. He was the biggest box office draw of the late 1970s and early 1980s. And he played an awful lot of Native Americans. (Despite all of Burt’s jokes about the title, Navajo Joe was one of the best films he made.) But I don’t know if he actually is part Indian.
There are two other examples of multiracial action stars that I can think of. Bruce Lee was one-quarter German. And Chuck Norris claims Cherokee heritage, which is quite believable for the Oklahoma native. Chuck has played several characters who were themselves part-Indian, most notably Texas Ranger Cordell Walker.
Lee had an undeniable cross-racial, cross-cultural appeal. But I don’t think his audiences, in the U.S., regarded him as anything other than Chinese. (I’d be interested in knowing if his Chinese audiences regarded him differently.)
Norris was a big draw overseas. I don’t think he had quite the same ability to draw among non-whites in the U.S. And even if he did, I just don’t think anyone saw him as anything other than a white guy.
Why? Well, part of it is marketing. Movie studios are getting savvier about courting ethnic markets and playing up the multi-ethnic backgrounds of today’s actors to sell them to various groups. And part of it is society. You have more multi-ethnic, multiracial people who can identify with multi-racial stars.
Life, the Universe and Everything. I'm more than a bit leery of people who say they have a theory that explains it all, no matter how brilliant that person is. But I really can't stand those who claim that there is one "master narrative" to explain the world. For that reason alone, I hope Stephen Wolfram is onto something.
Action Hero. A few weeks ago, I posted a piece on The Scorpion King as an unheralded breakthrough movie because of its multiracial leads. Well, the LA Times today gives that movie its due.
The Times also throws in Vin Diesel as another example of the new multiracial star. In interviews, Diesel has usually referred to himself as “Italian and a lot of other things.” But Diesel’s spokesman told columnist Ted Casablanca that Diesel has Italian, black, Irish, Dominican, Mexican and German ancestry. That makes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Samoan-Black-Caucasian roots seem pedestrian. (Of course, Johnson’s father was from Canada, so I guess we could include Canadian on his list, too.)
As I noted earlier, men like Johnson and Diesel and women like Kelly Hu are the face of the future in the U.S. That’s going to make life interesting. But it is also going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. There are people who define themselves by their racial or ethnic affiliation. And there are organizations whose existence is defined by putting people into narrow racial boxes. They don’t have a place for an Italian-black-Irish-Dominican-Mexican-German actor who calls himself “multicultural” when asked about his race. They don’t have room for a Black-Samoan-white wrestler whose taste in music runs more to Elvis Presley and George Jones and Merle Haggard than hip hop. These people and these organizations want multiracial persons to choose one race and define themselves by it. And many multiracial persons show no desire to deny any part of their heritage or to allow anyone else to define who they are.
Sometimes you gotta love the xenophobia. I appreciate that this country can send people packing on the mere suspicion of hooliganism. No courts, no lawyers to muck things up, just a simple, "Turn around, Ian, and get back on the plane."
Japan's campaign against World Cup violence began on Monday when two British men were deported because one of them was suspected of being a hooligan.
James Benedict Rayment, 34, from Banbury, Oxfordshire was detained at Tokyo's Narita Airport after arriving on a flight from Istanbul, according to immigration officials. His name was on a list of potential trouble-makers based on information supplied by the British police.
The two were "physically restrained", according to the report, and were due to have been sent back to Istanbul.
The World Cup came to America back in 1993 (I might be off a year or so) when I was living in Orlando. And, I swear, if you were not already aware of the fact that the games were being played in the city there was nothing to tip you off that something of world-wide (sans America so it don't count) import was taking place. I think that's because the stadium was right in the middle of the Orlando projects... and that was one tough neighborhood. Most of your soccer rioting, at least that done by the Brits and the French, seems to take place in 'soft,' middle-class areas. In those neighborhoods the populace is scared to react to the threat of mobs and the local police are hesitant to strongly confront them (i.e. not worry too much about property damage incurred while pacifying the gangs).
Orlando's major turf fights for drug sales were taking place just a block away from the soccer stadium. I think the guys who normally get caught up in this "spot of violence and fun" understood that the local (heavily armed) gangs would cut them down in a heartbeat if they tried to pull the same crap as they would back home.
The point here is the hooligans were operating outside their element and that's why nothing happened in Orlando. Likewise Japan is a pacifist and mild-mannered seeming bunch. But if these guys come here and try to take advantage of the "weak" Japanese by attempting to trash game sites they're going to be in for a rude surprise.
The police will come down hard and, even more importantly, the justice system will make them pay in spades. They'll find out just how far away from Europe they are when they're detained without charges, denied the advice of counsel, forced to do hard labor and made to pay massive fines for their release (usually along with having to write a letter of apology... I love that bit of grinding your nose in it). The Japanese will not accept mobs of rioting foreigners on their soil. And Japan won't give a dingo's kidney about European charges of human rights abuses by their police and courts if they feel they are being threatened in their own country.
I'm working on some simulations of where the plume and fallout from a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan will go, for a client with business interests in the region. No need to say it's a very messy situation; very dense populations, and their targeting probably isn't the best. Some estimates floating around are 12 million or so dead. The Washington Times played with the CATS model and discusses their results. My runs show 90% limits at 3 to 50 million, with up to 100 million long term casualties for a 20 device exchange (each side firing 6 at military and 4 at civilian targets), depending on where the fallout goes. The plume and fallout are the key question. Could cause problems over much of SouthEast Asia - Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. Maybe even get some up towards Japan (Hey Ron: how long can you hold your breath?).
The Times article ran a scenario using a 43KT Indian strike. I don't think either side has a device over 25KT. Both sides seem to inflate their yields by a factor of 2, and I sure don't believe the 43KT "Thermonuclear" claim made by India.
In the end I don't think they will do it. Both sides are making a lot of noise, but my guess is that India will have to start it, and they have the most to lose. They are crazy, but not quite that crazy.
Monday, May 27, 2002 I'm no Maradona fan. But something is seriously screwed up in Japan. (Not like we haven't heard that before on this blog.) Seriously, Maradona has only himself to blame for his troubles, but isn't screwing up his life punishment enough?
Reader D Anghelone made the following comments regarding my post on accountability that I feel should be responded to on the "big page", because it is a widespread and bogus attitude. The numbers are mine, the words are his:
1) I think your demand for government to do more than can be done is precisely what grows government.
2) Your call for accountability would be reasonable if you were more explicit in stating which domestic or foreign hides you would have on the wall.
Regarding point 1: Say what? "... do more than can be done ..."? How exactly do you come to the conclusion that preventing the 9/11 attacks was impossible? The threat was there. The warning signs were there. The means to interfere with if not actually prevent the attacks were there. Yet no action was taken. This isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight: there have been warnings about attacks for several years from the Bin Laden group, not to mention the small matter of several prior attacks. Given that we had the intel and the means to act on that intel, how exactly is insisting that the leadership of this country do its damn job going to grow government? Whenever government fails, it is said to be because it doesn't have enough resources. That's almost always bull. It is more likely the failure of individuals who are not held accountable because to do so might embarrass the bureauocracy. You have apparently fallen for this fallicy.
On point 2: That's a fair comment, but not having direct access to the classified information that would be needed to make such an assessment, I can't be exact as to which hides, "foreign or domestic", should be on the wall. Here is a start, not necessarily in order:
1) the DCI
2) the CIC of the DIA
3) the head of the FBI terrorism unit
4) The Tailb (the only hide we currently have most of)
5) The FAA security head
6) Organizations that have supported Al Qeada (many in Saudi Arabia)
7) Congress (well, the voters have to do that)
My primary point was that there isn't even a token effort at addressing the domestic failures. Excuses are being made - such as those offered by Anghelone - that nothing could have been done. And, worse, excuses are being set up for the next failure. Just listen to the VP's remarks regarding future attacks.
Here it is, eight months after Sept. 11, nearly 3,000 dead American Civilians on the deck, and nobody has paid the price. There isn't even a serious public effort to try to find somebody to take the blame, much less actually find out what went wrong. It would be tempting to say it is a by-product of our society - that success or failure isn't as important as "doing your best", and since everybody was trying really hard to protect us it doesn't matter that they failed miserably.
Supposedly Republicans stand for governmental accountability, yet it seems that our current administration is more concerned with protecting the bureaucracy than with insuring accountability. Where is the hide on the wall? Honor would seem to demand that somebody be held personally accountable for failing to intercept the attacks. Yet we don't even have the obligatory offering up of the junior or mid-level scapegoat. This is obscene.
It is interesting to compare these events with those surrounding Pearl Harbor. Michael Gannon's book, "Pearl Harbor Betrayed", is an excellent review of the intelligence and policy failures that led to the surprise attack. I don't remember the source, but I seem to recall a historian say "History doesn't repeat itself, but different people make the same stupid mistakes over and over" . This is especially true when there is no price to be paid for failure. And, in my view, not interecepting the 9/11 attacks was the textbook definition of a failure.
No matter what else you might say about her, she makes a great ex. According to Bo Derek, Jane called her just after she and Ted Turner split and tried to fix them up. I've never had an ex-girlfriend do anything for me like that. I usually can't even get my CDs back from my exes.
Paul Cantor takes on The Osbournes. As usual, he does a great job. Still, it's a bit odd to see cultural conservatives jumping on the Ozzy badwagon. Cantor gets it right. But some conservatives are really tone deaf. Remember Dan Quayle saying that
"In a weird way, Ozzy is a great anti-drug promotion. Look at him and how fried his brains are from taking drugs all those years and everyone will say, 'I don't want to be like that'"?
Quayle apparently didn't know that Ozzy seems to display pretty sound judgment or that his wife has said his slurred speech and minor tremors are due to prescription medicine he has to take.
But let's assume Quayle is right about the effect of drugs on Ozzy's brain. Isn't it instead more likely that kids are going to look at Ozzy's mansion, limos, swimming pool, fairly attractive wife and multi-million dollar book and TV deals and say "You mean I can party like hell for 20 years and still end up living the good life in Beverly Hills? All righht!!!"?
I’d thought about saving my thoughts on this film because we’ve had so much sex talk on the blog over the last couple of days. But if I wait much longer the film will probably be gone from theaters.
By now everyone has likely read other reviews and knows the basic storyline. Connie Summer (Diane Lane) cheats on her husband Edward (Richard Gere) with Eurotrash Paul (Olivier Martinez.). It’s based on a much better French film called La Femme Infidele.
What else can I say about the film? Well, it was an Adrian Lyne film, so if you like his work, you’ll probably like this. It’s not as good as Fatal Attraction, but better than Nine and a half Weeks. I’d say it’s on a par with Indecent Proposal. Critics have raved about Diane Lane’s performance, and she is – as always – very, very good. Richard Gere is not as bad as some critics have said.
But most of the critics I’ve read have said that the basic story is just unbelievable. Connie Summer just doesn’t seem unhappy enough to cheat on her husband, especially with an obvious piece of sleaze like Paul. And why should she be unhappy? Her husband has a good job and clearly makes a good living. He seems attentive, if a bit dull. And he looks like Richard Gere.
Those critics have obviously forgotten Gere’s earlier films such as Breathless and American Gigolo. Go back and watch those films and you’ll find that parts of Gere’s body don’t measure up to the standard set by his face. (That's why I never bought those rumors he was gay.) I guess Gere's gear was so unimpressive that people have forgotten about it. I figure the character played by him in this film shares that shortcoming.
Adrian Lyne’s films always have some central message. And the message in this one is that it doesn’t matter how romantic you are, how good looking you are or how wealthy you are, if you have a little willy, your wife will eventually cheat on you with some well-endowed guy, even if he’s French.
I think it was Plato who said “Muscles, money and looks matter. But women really want a bigger man.” Unfaithful simply dramatizes that piece of wisdom.
I really love the way these guys wallow in their conspiracy theories and hatred of the West from the safe confines of East Orange, New Jersey, London, England, and Toronto, Canada.
They hate living among the unbelievers, but you don't see them emigrating to Muslim lands to make them stronger. That's probably because they don't have any skills to actually build a better society. And besides a true Islamic society wouldn't put up with their cranky, spoiled asses for very long.
Eugene Volokh joins the ranks of us trolling for hits with a thoughtful post on teen sex. And he ups the ante with a lengthy post on lesbians. Specifically, he wants to know why more fathers don’t want their daughters to be lesbians.
It turns out this is a topic Ron and I have discussed before at considerable length. Actually, before our respective financial reversals, we ran up many huge trans-Pacific phone bills discussing lesbians. (That’s not a joke.)
Ron and I agree with many of Eugene’s points. Both Ron and I are single and childless. (That may be either a cause of or a result of our long discussions of lesbianism.) But we agreed that if we had a daughter we wouldn’t want some guy pawing at her.
So to answer Eugene’s question, why don’t more men want their daughters to be lesbians?
Actually, many, many men would want their daughters to be lesbians. They just don’t want them to be dykes or to have sex with dykes.
Let me explain. Most men get their early knowledge of lesbianism from those girl-girl pictorials in Penthouse magazine. As depicted there, lesbianism looks great. What father wouldn't want that for his daughter?
But as one grows up and actually meets real lesbians, he finds they are more likely to look like centerfielders than centerfolds. Lesbianism, like communism, works better in theory than practice. Men don’t want that for their daughters.
The thought of a guy having sex with his daughter may upset a father, but he's not actually there to witness the act. Yet he'll notice her wallet chain every time he sees her. It's a constant and visible reminder she's not daddy's little princess.
Put simply, a man believes that if his daughter is going to hook up with some beefy person in Levis, a plaid shirt and a bad haircut, it might as well be a guy.
Men hope their daughters will grow up to be Miss America, not members of the U.S. Olympic softball team. Men don’t really want to take their daughters to a Backstreet Boys concert. But there’s no way in Hell they’ll take them to see the LPGA championship.
While Islam is growing in the West, Christianity is still growing swiftly in the Third World. And Pentecostalism is one of the fastest-growing forms of Christianity.
Historian and religious studies scholar Philip Jenkins, author of "The Next Christendom," says the major conflict of the 21st century may not be between Islam and the relatively secular nations of the West but between Islam and more fundamentalist Christian nations of the Third World.
In a worst-case scenario, he pictures Christian and Islamic countries of the southern hemisphere locked in religious conflicts reminiscent of the Middle Ages. "Imagine the world of the 13th century armed with nuclear warheads and anthrax," Jenkins writes.
And the conflict may not be just between Islam and Christianity. Pentecostalism is growing rapdily in Latin America, and this is leading to more conflicts between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Given current birth rates, the Japanese population will start to shrink in 2007. When he gets back online, Ron can talk about this trend more fully. But part of the problem seems to be that it's so expensive to raise a child in Japan. And the nation resists using immigration to bolster its population.
So the population will start to shrink, even as life expectancy continues to climb. You already have a relative few young people working to support growing numbers of aged. That situation is only going to grow more severe.
Seven teachers and two counselors from Piper High School's staff of 31 teachers and counselors have resigned. The Kansas City school made headlines last year after the superintendent ordered a science teacher to change the failing grades of students she found had plagiarised material.
School officials say the mass resignation has nothing to do with that controversy. Many teachers disagree.
Some of you didn't appreciate my crack about the South.
To recap, these are the people Jonah Goldberg said shouldn't be having sex: poorly-educated people with raging hormones and bad or no jobs, little life experience and few life skills, who mostly live with their parents.
I said if you took out the part about living with their parents that describes a large part of the South. It was a joke. I'm sorry some of you didn't appreciate it.
But I was also trying to make a point. Let's imagine a 17-year-old young man who dropped out of school after the 10th grade. His parents never made it past the 9th grade.That man has never traveled more than, say, 200 miles from the place he was born. He's just got a job sweeping the floor at a textile plant. On Mondays, he makes it to work on time, but he often has a hangover from the partying he and his girlfriend have done over the weekend. Speaking of his girlfriend, she's just 15 and she plans to drop out of school when she turns 16 and she legally can. The two of them plan to marry, and she'll work in a glove mill. Oh, and by the way, they are already having sex.
Sound like just the sort of people Jonah was advising not to have sex.
Well, I grew up in Georgia, and it also sounds like the many of the adults I grew up around during their youth. Most, but not all, of those people managed to make lives for themselves, raise families and generally do okay. That's because they were treated as young adults, not kids. If the boy missed work, he got fired, and daddy didn't take him back in.
Perhaps, as Glenn suggests, Jonah and I are talking past each other. But I just don't think teen sex or premarital sex is inherently bad or unnatural or psychologically harmful. And I think history proves that point.
I guess I was wrong. Here's one more note on Jonah. He uses a quote from The Winter's Tale to show that concern about teen sex isn't new. Of course, the quote is ripped out of context. It was muttered by a shepherd who was pissed off that some young men scattered part of his flock. Even without that context, it's clearly a blanket condemnation of youth, not just youthful sex.
But how can anyone possibly use Shakespeare to condemn teen sex and overlook the play Romeo and Juliet? That play certainly seems to romanticize teen sex and romance.
Juliet was just 14 when she and Romeo spent the night together, and Romeo wasn't much older. And remember when Paris asks Lord Capulet if he may woo Juliet? Lord Capulet tells him he won't allow Juliet to marry until she is 16. (Incidentally, one of Shakespeare's own daughters married at age 16 or 17.)
Glenn, if it makes you feel better, think of "Teen" as a catchall phrase for poorly-educated people with raging hormones and bad or no jobs, little life experience and few life skills, who mostly live with their parents. People -- of any age – who fit this description shouldn’t be having too much sex, if you ask me.
Take out the part about living with their parents and Jonah is basically arguing that many Southerners shouldn't be having sex.
Conservatives are already blasting Glenn for his stand on teen sex. Over on The Corner, Jonah Goldberg writes
The idea that Western Civilization, American culture or any modern culture for that matter, doesn’t see something distinct about "teen sex" strikes me as plainly false. Yes, people used to have sex at a younger age, but they also used to get married at a younger age too. Reynolds surely knows that for most of humanity’s non-prehistoric history, society thought ill of folks who got it on before marriage, especially very young people. That doesn't mean such things never happened, but the standard was real.
First, he argues that Western civ used to see something distinct about teen sex. But he offers no proof of that assertion. Indeed, I don't think he can prove that.
In fact, he quickly acknowledges that people used to get married much earlier than they do today. Then, he quickly again moves on to an assertion that for most of our non-prehistoric history people frowned on people having sex before marriage.
Jonah is on firmer ground here. But not quite as firm as he thinks. It’s more accurate to say that societies frowned on promiscuity and births outside wedlock.
But sex without marriage was more respected than Jonah might think. In many European countries, especially the Germanic ones, "trial marriage" was once and for a very long time popular and accepted.
In rural Germany, trial marriages persisted well into the 19th century. Peasants would live with a partner, sometimes for as little as one night, to see if they were compatible. And there was no limit to the number of trial marriages one could engage in.
In England and Scotland the custom of trial marriage lasted until well into the Middle Ages. These marriages were more serious affairs than those in Germany. (No pun intended). The couple would announce a formal engagement and were expected to live together for some time, usually at least a year. And serial trial marriages were frowned upon. But unless they had a child, there was no shame in the couple not going through with the marriage.
In rural parts of Scandinavian counrties, a form of trial marriage persisted well into the 19th century.
In these places, in the spring, young boys would begin to serenade the young girls. The girls decided whether or not to invite the boys to join them in their sleeping chambers, and also whether to invite them to return. When it happened that a boy and a girl became romantically interested in one another, it was proper for their friends and family to allow them to meet together alone. The couple was supposed to follow a prescribed routine whereby the boy would stay the night with his girlfriend, but sleeping with his clothes on and above the covers. Step by step, visit by visit, he got under the covers, and then under the covers with his clothes off, and then, well, you figure it out. At that point the couple announced to their families their intent to be betrothed. The betrothal would eventually lead to marriage, but only after a pregnancy had ensued. Marriage, then, was a condition of parenthood not a prerequisite for sexual intercourse.
Of course, Jonah is right about one thing. The fact that some things were once thought proper in many places and for a long time doesn't make those things proper today. But the fact that the human race survived during periods when teen sex was not taboo should give pause to those who say it is inherently harmful.
Removing any taboo from teen sex, as a single policy, would indeed be disastrous. In fact, I would argue that is exactly the situation we have right now. We have people making important decisions who have never been allowed to make decisions.
My argument is that we should treat teens as adults in all matters, not just sexual ones, which is also what I think Glenn suggested. As I pointed out, we've already taken the step of treating them as adults when they commit serious crimes.
As I noted earlier, English common law treated people as young as 13 as adults. Maybe we wouldn't want to go quite that far. And maybe we should gradually broaden the rights and responsibilities of teens. We'd give them more of each as they grew older. But we should give them more freedom and hold them more accountable for their actions at an earlier age than we do now. In terms of government policy, we should take steps such as reducing the drinking age back to 18, perhaps even lower for wine and beer. We should abolish or at least lower the maxium age for mandatory school attendance laws and reduce or eliminate laws that forbid teens from working full-time jobs. Give me time, I'll think of more things.
But the general message that parents, government and society should send to teens is "You're an adult now. It's up to you to act like one because we are going to treat you as one. You'll have a lot of freedom, but if you fuck up, you, will pay the price, physically, emotionally and financially."
Instapundit points out that for much of human history what we now call teen sex was simply called sex. Until relatively recent times, people were considered adults, with all the rights and responsibilities that involves, at around the age of 13 or 14. Starting in the late 19th century, Western nations began to raise the age at which we considered people adults.
The impulse behind this was benign. Rising standards of living were starting to make it unnecessary to set children to work and start families of their own. So why force them to?
But this increasing infantilization of what are really young adults has produced a disastrous effect. Even as we increasingly regulate and regiment their lives, we fail to hold them responsible morally for their actions. They are just children, you know. I think that much of what is wrong with teen sex is due to that fact. If teens don't see that sometimes bad things happen to those who are sexually active, especially those who are promiscuous, it's because we as a society try to shield them from the negative consequences of their actions in all areas of life. If they make bad decisions, it's because parents and society don't allow them to make many decisions that really carry weight until they are in their late teens.
In at least one area, we've recognized the folly of treating young adults as children. In the last 20 years, we've, rightly, started to treat teens as adults in criminal matters. Refusing to hold them responsible even for violent crimes led to a skyrocketing juvenile crime rate. Raising the punishments teens face and making it more likely they'll do time with adult felons has cut into teen crime. Maybe we should recognize just how truly wise that policy is.
I must say that I really liked the lede to this story. This article picks up on some important information about ID proponent Phillip Johnson. ID advocates usually try to be coy about exactly who the designer was who created life. But
An internal memo, reportedly lifted from Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture, called "The Wedge Strategy" surfaced in 1999. Johnson has spoken and written about the "Wedge" publicly, as Southeastern Louisiana University philosophy professor Barbara Forrest points out in her chapter of Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, but the "Wedge" document provides a convenient thumbnail for design's plans. It lays out a five-year strategic plan, as well as a three-part strategy -- 1. Scientific Research, Writing and Publicity. 2. Publicity and Opinion-making. 3. Cultural Confrontation and Renewal.
So far, the Center is batting two-for-three with only the scientific research lagging. The document, which uses language similar or identical to other Center writings, also makes clear the Center's position in the fight it's waging. It "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
In Johnson's 2000 book The Wedge of Truth, he goes further: "The 'Wedge of Truth' ... enables people to recognize that 'In the beginning was the Word' is as true scientifically as it is in every other respect."
Neither Johnson nor the Center for Renewal will confirm whether "The Wedge Strategy" belongs to the Center for Renewal, a fact that rankles Skip Evans, the network project director for the National Center for Science Education.
"Can you imagine the National Science Foundation being asked, 'Is this your document? Did you guys write this?' And then they say, 'We're not going to say,'" Evans asks rhetorically. "That's the way political organizations operate."
I especially like this article's take on press coverage of the ID controversy.
This is one case where the mainstream press's adherence to the quaint but antiquated idea of objectivity has actually helped obscure the truth for a public that's scientifically illiterate.
A vast majority of the hundreds of stories written about intelligent design since 1998 use the Holy Grail of journalistic forms, the point-counterpoint. Take the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's April story about the Cobb textbook flap. As sidebars to the piece, a conversation with Berkeley's Johnson is featured on the left side of the page while a Georgia State biologist gets the right side. The juxtaposition gives a weight to the intelligent design community that it doesn't carry in the real world.
"Promoting a false equivalence really doesn't help, and there is a false equivalence between these ideas," says Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist and co-author of one of the biology textbooks Cobb students will read in the fall. A representative story might have 10,000 biologists who support Darwinian evolution and one intelligent design proponent.
Meanwhile, a search of media online archives for the words "wedge strategy" turns up only six stories, so newspapers have generally neglected to mention intelligent design's designs on society. And the media rarely ever takes the time to investigate any of the claims made by IDT adherents even though it's pretty easy to do.
Frankly, that's a failing of the press on a lot of issues. They cannot or will not distinguish between real experts and quacks. They feel that by simply quoting both sides of a story, they have done their job. They too often don't take the time to evaluate those statements. I've been guilty of this myself. Sometimes on a story that demands a quick turnaround all you can do is get a quote from both sides and rap it up. But sometimes it's just laziness that prompts that sort of coverage.
Other bloggers have attacked the American Jewish Congress for calling for a boycott of the Cannes film festival. And they may have a point. Is it really fair to hold the organizers of the festival responsible for attacks against synagogues and other anti-Semitic violence? The French film community and the city leaders of Cannes likely aren’t behind the attacks.
But I’m still in favor of the boycott. Why? Well, for one, Cannes has come to be dominated by the American and European “intellectuals” who regard America-bashing as the best way to prove one’s mental and moral superiority. Take Sean Penn, who told reporters at Cannes that: “We now have a president who thinks in terms of good and evil and that comes from watching too many Hollywood movies.”
So the attack on New York wasn’t evil? In fact, thinking “in terms of good and evil” is wrong. So can we condemn, say, the Holocaust? How about the Cold War blacklisting of Communists that Hollywood still loves to dwell on? Was that not evil?
I can see how a man with a criminal record of assault would say that thinking in terms of good and evil is immature.
Speaking of evil, Michael Moore’s documentary “Bowling for Columbine” — about the culture of guns and violence in America — has received rave reviews and a 13-minute standing ovation. It is widely considered to be the front-runner for the prestigious Palme d’Or award. And Moore’s numerous anti-American diatribes have been lapped up by the press at Cannes.
And the festival is largely irrelevant anyway. At one time, it was a place where independent companies could market their films to national buyers. But most films that play Cannes now already have distribution lined up.
The awards are also largely meaningless now. Last year, the Palme d’Or went to The Son’s Room. Did you see it? I see an awful lot of films. I never saw it. The year before the award went to Dancer in the Dark. I saw that one. It was neither Lars Van Trier’s best film, nor the best film at Cannes that year. Dancer got some publicity, attracted some audience. But that was likely due more to the fact that it starred Bjork than to the fact it won at Cannes. You’d have to go back to 1994 to find a Palme winner – Pulp Fiction – that really broke into the mainstream.
So if you wanna go spend a few weeks on the French Riviera in the spring, by all means go ahead, but skip the Hollywood riff-raff and Eurotrash at Cannes.
Here's a good story on how Saudi charities are trying to undermine traditional Muslim practices in Bosnia and replace them with a strict form of Wahabbism.
In conjunction with the mosque building, the Saudi High Commission, one of the largest Islamic charities and a group suspected by Bosnian and NATO intelligence of having some ties to terrorist groups, has also recently used its money and influence in ways that alarm local officials.
According to Rasim Kadic, a Bosnian deputy minister who monitors Islamic radicals and possible terrorist connections, the High Commission rebuilt a damaged mosque last fall in a rural section of Bosnia that had been the scene of intense fighting between Muslims and Croats, usually Catholic. Since the war, the United Nations has been attempting to repatriate the Croat population, which had fled to safer Croat-controlled areas to avoid the fighting. In a widely distributed letter announcing the re-opening of the mosque, the High Commission included a sentence that was in essence a thanks to Allah for allowing the local Muslims to live in an area rid of ethnic Croats.
Any serious war on terrorism is going to have to attack Saudi agents and their efforts to undemine secular governments across the world, just as Cold Warriors had to deal with Soviet agents. But I haven't seen any indication that the Bush administration has a plan for countering Saudi organizations and influence, either at home or abroad.
A pretty good profile in The New Republic of Alberto Gonzales is marred by its lede.
One weekend in early May, Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's White House counsel and longtime confidant, found himself motoring out to a Ritz-Carlton in the Virginia suburbs to hang out with creationists and Christian reconstructionists. Gonzales spoke before some 500 members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an umbrella group of social conservatives that includes major figures such as James Dobson and Gary Bauer, as well as some of the fringiest elements of the right--including Henry Morris, who has devoted his career to the proposition that evolution is a myth; and R.J. Rushdoony, a reconstructionist who advocates replacing the American legal system with the injunctions of the Old Testament.
What's the problem with this passage, other than it being a bit windy and dull?
R.J. Rushdoony died in February 2001. I don't think that he's still a member of the CNP.
The Village Voice asks why we are throwing more money at the FBI. After all, the agency failed to put the pieces together and prevent the 9-11 attacks. And it has a recent history of screw ups and blunders from its part in the Ruby Ridge fiasco to the Waco disaster.
But these recent foul ups may be nothing new. After all, this was the agency whose head steadfastly denied the existence of the Mafia for decades. Only after the New York state police raided a meeting of national syndicate bosses in Apalachin in 1957 did J. Edgar Hoover admit the existence of the mob.
While Hoover showed little concern about the Mafia prior to 1957, he had agents in Hollywood collecting salacious gossip about TV, movie and music stars. He continued that "investigation" until his death.
Playboy has finally given us the definitive list of the universities with the best looking women. The University of Georgia, where Ron and I went to school, is ranked 10th. We didn't get a very good education, but we made up for it in other ways.
Six of the top 10 schools were in the South. And they say that allowing cousins to marry is bad.
Was played by a New Zealand actor named Temuera Morrison. I first saw him in a movie called Once Were Warriors, which looked at life among contemporary Maoris. I highly recommend that film. I've heard Morrison got his start playing hunky good guys on NZ soaps. You'd never know it from his performance in Warriors.
Check out this article. Actually, the fact that many Japanese school girls prostitute themselves in order to buy the latest in fashionable clothes has been known for a few years. Some surveys indicate that the percentage of female Japanese high school students who have had sex for money is well into the double digits.
This phenomenon is relatively new, dating back no earlier than the early 1990s.
Why have so many young girls who suffer no real economic need turned to prostitution? Ron can probably give a better answer, since he actually has lived in Japan. But in his absence, I thought I’d try.
As Ron has noted earlier on this blog, the Japanese birthrate has plummeted. Japan is filled with one-child families, and parents spoil their children. Whatever the parents can afford, they give to their children. Tokyo’s youth spend an average of $150 a month on cell phone bills alone, for instance. So they grow up believing that they should have everything they want.
At the same time, the economy is in a shambles. The official unemployment rate is only about 5%. But that’s because companies keep a lot of unneeded workers on the payroll. (Regulation and tradition encourage this practice.) By some estimates the real unemployment rate may be triple the official number.
Young people simply aren’t getting hired. More and more adult children are living with, and off, their parents.
Many Japanese youth see no future, so they’ve adopted an attitude that may be favorably called “live for today” and may be unfavorably called nihilistic. For females, who have long been discouraged from having careers out of the home, this mindset must be particularly intense.
So if they want the latest shoes or handbags or electronic devices, many don’t see any harm in selling sex to get them.
So what’s the lesson?
Cultural conservatives like to talk a lot about the values needed to preserve a free and prosperous society. While I disagree with their particular positions, I think they are right to focus on cultural issues. A free market and a free society don’t exist in a vacuum. There’s a reason they emerged and flourished in some nations rather than others.
But the relationship between values and freedom and economic growth doesn’t flow in just one direction. Poor economic policies can undermine important values. We saw that in the former Soviet Bloc nations, where competition for truly scare resources brought out a meanness in people. And we see that in Japan where 12 years of economic stagnation have undermined hope and fostered nihilism.
San Francisco HIV/AIDS specialist Marcus Conant, MD, wants to be able talk to patients about the pros and cons of medical marijuana. But the federal government threatens to yank the DEA license of any physician who recommends marijuana. So Conant and other California doctors have sued to stop that policy.
"It's an issue of freedom of speech," Dr. Conant said. "I am not advocating doctors should hand out marijuana. But if a patient comes in and says 'My mother is throwing up from chemotherapy and I've heard that it does help,' I can't say, 'Yes, I've seen it help' or 'Here are the side effects.' "
George Bush promised us compassionate conservatism and a respect for States rights and decentalized government. So how does he justify a federal crackdown on doctors who prescribe medical marijuana. Well, he doesn't. He and AG John Ashcroft don't try to justify their actions. Bush seems to have a bit of the common man when he is campaigning. But his style of governing is pure imperial presidency.
Al Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups met in Lebanon in March to talk about joint action against the U.S. and Great Britain.
It isn't clear if we knew about the meeting at the time it happened or found out later. But if the government knew about the summit at the time it took place, I want to know why we didn't lob a few missiles into the building.
Other bloggers have already linked to the Islam Questions & Answers site. But since some of you may not have had the time to go through the entire thing, I thought I’d give you some of the highlights.
Q: What is the way of solving the Palestinian issue which becomes more complicated each day?
A: A solution cannot be reached in this matter unless it is regarded as an Islamic issue and the Muslims cooperate to find a solution, and wage an Islamic jihad against the Jews, until the land is given back to its people and the Jewish immigrants go back to the countries from which they came, and the original Jewish inhabitants stay in their towns under Islamic rule, not communist or secular rule. (Italics mine.)
Q: If a woman uses a massager on her vagina, is this considered masturbation. What is the ruling concerning using this if the woman is under alot of stress and sees good-looking men at work but her husband is living in another country?
A: You have to keep away from everything that leads to a provocation of desire, for these means will no doubt ultimately lead you to fall into doing the “secret habit”, which is haraam. What counts is doing that which leads to a climax, whether that is done directly by the hand or by using a machine whose vibrations lead to a climax. So strive against yourself (jihaad al-nafs) and do not do that. You must keep away from and avoid places where you may mix with men, because that is haraam according to sharee’ah, because the Shaytaan will make you commit evil actions so long as you meet with them every day, especially since your husband is absent.
Q: I want to become Muslim, but my family gather to celebrate Christmas, and I want to go and greet them. This is not with the intention of celebrating or joining in, but simply to make the most of the opportunity of my relatives getting together. Is this allowed?
A: No, it is not permitted. If Allaah blesses her with Islam, then the first thing she must do is to distance herself from her former religion and its festivals.
And Allaah knows best.
Q: I work in the army of a non-Muslim state, and there are wars between them and the Muslims. What is the ruling if they send me with a division of this army to wage war against the Muslims?
A: We want to emphasize to you the necessity of finding other employment and of leaving service in the army of the kaafirs, because that implies helping them, strengthening them and increasing the numbers of their fighters and supporters – unless your work can bring some benefits to the Muslims, such as giving information and secrets of the kaafirs to the Muslims so as to help the Muslims… (Italics mine.)
Q: Is it permissible to say “ Jazaak Allaahu khayran (may Allaah reward you with good)” to a non-Muslim if he does us a favour or helps us in some way?
A: It is not permissible to pray for good for a kaafir, because he does not deserve it.
Q: Why is it forbidden to sleep on ones belly?
A: The reason for this is that it was forbidden by the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), who left no good thing but he told us about it and left no evil thing but he warned us against it.
Since most of my work is at the intersection of scientific research and public policy, I'm often frustrated by the ignorance of basic science that virtually all journalists and political leaders display.
British PM Tony Blair, coming as he does from the euro-socialist crowd, isn't normally my favourite politician, but sometimes he is "spot on". As quoted in this Times Article, Mr. Blair takes on the "anti-science fashion" many on the left have towards topics such as medical research on animals, and those on the right have towards environmental research.
Here's a follow up to a story I posted several days ago about how Muslim "refugees" are treating non-Muslims who are being housed with them in Australian detention centers.
Minority religious groups in Australia's immigration detention centres are being persecuted and physically assaulted by Muslim asylum seekers, according to Amnesty International, the human rights group.
I'm a fairly pro-immigration person. But it seems to me that if someone isn't willing to abide by values such as tolerance and peaceful coexistence with others, a nation has a right to refuse to admit that person and send him packing, even if he faces persecution himself at home.
One of the great joys of my childhood was getting home from school in time to see this series. Of all the 60s sf/horror TV shows, this was my favorite. I'm glad to see the Sci Fi Channel bring it back.
Salon does a good job of explaining why some of us loved the show. But I think the piece is wrong when it says most fans are female. Yes, it is the rare sf/horror show that attracted a large female audience. But most of the fans I've met at conventions were men. (And why not? Lara Parker, who played the evil Angelique, was one of the sexiest babes in 60s TV.)
But the piece is dead on about why the big-budget 1991 remake failed.
And that's because its limitations made "Dark Shadows" the intimate spook show it was. The flat look of the videotape, especially in the early black-and-white episodes, contributed to the foreboding mood. The lack of realistic exterior scenes and the soap opera necessity of setting most of the action indoors (usually with a raging storm outside) gave the show a heart-thumping sense of claustrophobia and entrapment, of horror burrowing into confined spaces. "Dark Shadows" may not have been a masterpiece of sleek special effects, but it was a masterpiece of haunted house lore, a campfire story that tricked us into imagining gore that wasn't there. "Dark Shadows" scared the living daylights out of us, in the lengthening shadows of the afternoon.
A career Army guy I used to know once said that Marines are an odd mix of neanderthals and intellectuals. My limited experiences with Marines suggests that the same could be said of many of the individual Marines.
Here's the Marine Corps reading list.I find it particularly telling that A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan, How We Won the War by Gen. Giap and The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam are on the list. I'm heartened that Ender's Game and Starship Troopers are on the list. And I'm amazed that Guns, Germs and Steel is there.
In 1999, the issue of standardized testing flared up in Gwinett County, Georgia. Superintendent, J. Alvin Wilbanks was intent on using the district's own specially designed Gateway test to establish himself as a leader in the nationwide standardized testing movement. But many parents opposed the test, and Wilbanks didn't take kindly to parents who dared question either his wisdom or his test. So Wilbanks went after the Concerned Parents of Gwinnett.
In April 2000, things escalated sharply after a copy of the test was stolen and mailed to the news media. The school district's own police force, which reports to Superintendent Wilbanks, launched a criminal investigation.
That's right the school police. Turns out they have the right to seek warrants and arrest people.
But they used that power incompetently and perhaps corruptly.
The officer in charge of the case was undoubtedly an intimidator. Jim Keinard talked freely of sending a lot of people -- mainly CPOG members -- to jail. According to interviews with several CPOG members whom he interrogated, Keinard claimed to have ironclad evidence against "suspects" that two years later he has yet to produce. He warned that families could be destroyed, and careers ruined.
When Keinard interrogated Terry Knight and her husband, the Knights tape-recorded the session. In the recording, Knight is told repeatedly of evidence that placed her in the middle of the theft ring. She is told that fellow parents in CPOG were going to jail, and if she didn't cooperate, she would go to jail as well.
In the ultimate threat to a mother, Keinard tells Knight more than once that if she doesn't cooperate, her children could be taken from her. Knight responds, as she does throughout the tape, by saying she knows nothing about the theft.
To make matters worse, Keinard was confused about who he was talking to and was threatening the wrong "Terry."
But the scandal hasn't hurt Wilbanks. He has been appointed to a committee to draft federal regulations for state standards and testing, the only district school superintendent in the country given that honor.
