Wednesday, August 31, 2005
"No man is free who is not master of himself."
Stoicism is a school of philosophy founded (308 BC) in Athens by Zeno of Citium (Cyprus). It teaches self-control and detachment from distracting emotions, sometimes interpreted as an indifference to pleasure or pain. This allows one to be a clear thinker, levelheaded and unbiased. In practice, Stoicism is designed to empower an individual with virtue, wisdom, and integrity of character. Students are encouraged to help those in need, knowing that those who can, should. Stoicism also teaches psychological independence from society, regarding it as an unruly and often unreasonable entity. Virtue, reason, and natural law are prime directives. By mastering passions and emotions, it is possible to overcome the discord of the outside world and find peace within oneself. Stoicism holds that passion distorts truth, and that the pursuit of truth is virtuous. Greek philosophers such as Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and later Roman thinkers such as Cicero, Seneca the Younger, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus are associated with Stoicism. In Cicero's case, it should be emphasised that while he shared many of the moral tenets of Stoicism, he was not a Stoic himself but an eclectic. Stoic philosophy is usually contrasted with Epicureanism.
Report Documents Terrorism/Immigration Link
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies analyzes the immigration histories of the 94 known foreign-born terrorists who operated in the United states between 1993 and 2004. The Center's conclusion: "[T]wo-thirds of them committed immigration fraud prior to or as part of their terrorist activities." Twenty-one of the terrorists became naturalized citizens before being charged or convicted as terorists. It can hardly be a surprise that a key element of defending ourselves against terrorism is more vigorous enforcement of the immigration laws.
The Washington Post is trumpeting its latest poll, showing President Bush's approval rating at an "all-time low" of 45%. Actually, though, considering that the poll was of "random adults," conducted over four evenings, three of them on the weekend, with only 29% Republicans in the survey, the result is hardly surprising. In fact, Bush's approval ratings on the key issues has barely budged compared to prior Post/ABC surveys. Here is what is interesting, in the present context: the issue on which Bush scores worst is not Iraq, the economy or Social Security. It is immigration. News accounts often implicitly assume that more or less all of those who are critical of the administration are on the administration's left. In fact, though, on the issue where the President's position is least popular, the criticism comes almost entirely from the right, some of it from people who on other issues describe themselves as moderates or even liberals.
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies analyzes the immigration histories of the 94 known foreign-born terrorists who operated in the United states between 1993 and 2004. The Center's conclusion: "[T]wo-thirds of them committed immigration fraud prior to or as part of their terrorist activities." Twenty-one of the terrorists became naturalized citizens before being charged or convicted as terorists. It can hardly be a surprise that a key element of defending ourselves against terrorism is more vigorous enforcement of the immigration laws.
The Washington Post is trumpeting its latest poll, showing President Bush's approval rating at an "all-time low" of 45%. Actually, though, considering that the poll was of "random adults," conducted over four evenings, three of them on the weekend, with only 29% Republicans in the survey, the result is hardly surprising. In fact, Bush's approval ratings on the key issues has barely budged compared to prior Post/ABC surveys. Here is what is interesting, in the present context: the issue on which Bush scores worst is not Iraq, the economy or Social Security. It is immigration. News accounts often implicitly assume that more or less all of those who are critical of the administration are on the administration's left. In fact, though, on the issue where the President's position is least popular, the criticism comes almost entirely from the right, some of it from people who on other issues describe themselves as moderates or even liberals.
Oriana Fallaci
Pope Benedict met with courageous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, and Agence France Presse can barely suppress their horror: Pope meets controversial critic of Islam.
VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI held a meeting at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, a strident critic of Islam, Vatican sources confirmed. The 76-year-old writer, who describes herself as an atheist Christian and was sued in Italy for insulting the Muslim faith in one of her books, asked to meet the pope, a source said. The meeting on Saturday between Benedict XVI and the former war correspondent became public only after Fallaci’s associates let slip that the meeting took place. Based in the United States where she is being treated for cancer, Fallaci once said in a newspaper interview that she was comforted by the writings of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became pope after the death of John Paul II.
VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI held a meeting at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, a strident critic of Islam, Vatican sources confirmed. The 76-year-old writer, who describes herself as an atheist Christian and was sued in Italy for insulting the Muslim faith in one of her books, asked to meet the pope, a source said. The meeting on Saturday between Benedict XVI and the former war correspondent became public only after Fallaci’s associates let slip that the meeting took place. Based in the United States where she is being treated for cancer, Fallaci once said in a newspaper interview that she was comforted by the writings of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became pope after the death of John Paul II.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush called for an end to corporate rock, "wuss-metal," and sellout-punk in his weekly pirate-radio address Saturday, delivered from an unlicensed mobile transmitter in the back of his presidential limo. "You don't wanna be an American idiot!" said Bush over the opening strains of "Take The Power Back" by Rage Against The Machine. "Reject Clear Channel's spoonfed bullshit! Wake up, motherfuckers!" An estimated 2,000 listeners in the District of Columbia tune in weekly to Bush's notoriously low-fi, DIY show, The Revolution Will Not Be Podcast, broadcast Saturday from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Che Guevara’s family to fight use of famed photo.
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) — With his picture on rock band posters, baseball caps and women’s lingerie, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is firmly entrenched in the capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn. The image of the Argentine-born guerrilla gazing sternly into the distance, long-hair tucked into a beret with a single star, has been an enduring 20th century pop icon. The picture — taken by a Cuban photographer in 1960 and printed on posters by an Italian publisher after Guevara’s execution in Bolivia seven years later — fired the imagination of rioting Parisian students in May 1968 and became a symbol of idealistic revolt for a generation. But as well as being one of the world’s most reproduced, the image has become one of its most merchandised. And Guevara’s family is launching an effort to stop it. They plan to file lawsuits abroad against companies that they believe are exploiting the image and say lawyers in a number of countries have offered assistance. “We have a plan to deal with the misuse,” Guevara’s Cuban widow Aleida March said in an interview. “We can’t attack everyone with lances like Don Quixote, but we can try to maintain the ethics” of Guevara’s legacy, said March, who will lead the effort from the Che Guevara Studies Center which is opening in Havana later this year. “The center intends to contain the uncontrolled use of Che’s image. It will be costly and difficult because each country has different laws, but a limit has to be drawn,” the legendary guerrilla’s daughter, Aleida Guevara, told Reuters.
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) — With his picture on rock band posters, baseball caps and women’s lingerie, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is firmly entrenched in the capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn. The image of the Argentine-born guerrilla gazing sternly into the distance, long-hair tucked into a beret with a single star, has been an enduring 20th century pop icon. The picture — taken by a Cuban photographer in 1960 and printed on posters by an Italian publisher after Guevara’s execution in Bolivia seven years later — fired the imagination of rioting Parisian students in May 1968 and became a symbol of idealistic revolt for a generation. But as well as being one of the world’s most reproduced, the image has become one of its most merchandised. And Guevara’s family is launching an effort to stop it. They plan to file lawsuits abroad against companies that they believe are exploiting the image and say lawyers in a number of countries have offered assistance. “We have a plan to deal with the misuse,” Guevara’s Cuban widow Aleida March said in an interview. “We can’t attack everyone with lances like Don Quixote, but we can try to maintain the ethics” of Guevara’s legacy, said March, who will lead the effort from the Che Guevara Studies Center which is opening in Havana later this year. “The center intends to contain the uncontrolled use of Che’s image. It will be costly and difficult because each country has different laws, but a limit has to be drawn,” the legendary guerrilla’s daughter, Aleida Guevara, told Reuters.
He should try McDowell's
King comes courting 20,000 virgin dancers Swaziland's spectacular Reed Dance sets ritual against rampant HIV and the subjugation of women
Andrew Meldrum in Ludzidzini, Swaziland Tuesday August 30, 2005
The Guardian
Zanele Dube flashed a gleaming smile as she led 30 girls in a rhythmic song and a hip-swaying dance. Wearing little more than wide, beaded belts, brightly coloured sashes and a few feathers, the young women all beamed with happiness. "This is our big day, the Reed Dance," said Ms Dube, 24, as she shepherded the younger girls into a line. "This is a celebration of our culture and we are very proud. We girls are encouraged to take care of ourselves. We are encouraged to stay girls and not to let others pressure us into sex." Having performed in dances since the age of 15, she blew a whistle, and led the younger girls towards the stadium where they would dance before Swaziland's King Mswati III. This sight of thousands of bare-breasted virgins dancing before their king and his warriors is one of Africa's great traditional spectacles. But the Reed Dance is also a chance for the 37-year-old king to take a wife from more than 20,000 dancers, as he has done every year since 1999. Critics say the ceremony has degenerated into little more than a beauty pageant, and does little to address the status of women in a country with the world's highest rate of HIV infection.
"The Reed Dance has been abused for one man's personal satisfaction," Mario Masuku, the leader of a banned opposition party, told Reuters. "The king has a passion for young women and opulence." There is little sign of King Mswati moderating the practice. Last year he chose the winner of Miss Teen Swaziland for his wife, and he is expected to announce his new selection this week. As absolute monarch of a country where women have few legal rights, he cannot be refused. In 2002 when the king chose a teenager for a wife, his emissaries abducted her from her school. The girl's mother began a lawsuit alleging kidnap, but royal representatives argued successfully in court that the king by tradition has the right to select wives at his pleasure.
Women are minors under the law, and cannot have bank accounts or sign binding legal contracts, so the opportunity to become a royal wife with one's own palace and BMW is attractive to many. The country is stuck in poverty with 66% of the 1.1 million population living on less than a dollar a day. A third are dependent on international food aid. Last week, unaccountably, the king decreed the end of the umchwasho, a ban on sex with teenage girls. He initiated the rule in 2001, stating that all teenage girls had to wear large woollen tassels around their heads to signify their virginity. The tassels were said by some girls to protect them from unwanted sexual advances. But the king was among those who broke the ban and had to pay cows as penalties for having sex with teenage girls. Tradition counts for a lot in Swaziland and the previous king, Sobhuza, had more than 70 wives and 400 children. King Mswati is following in his father's footsteps and has taken 14 wives since he came to power in 1986. The 20,000-plus "national flowers", as the young women are called, have participated in an eight-day ritual in which they hiked through the night before cutting and bundling reeds they presented to the Queen Mother, ostensibly to help her repair her house after the Swazi winter. The climax was yesterday's dance. Sporting a boyish grin, the king was loudly cheered by the assembled dancers. He presents an affable image and is generally popular. But trade unions and civic groups criticise him for entrenching his absolute power, barring political parties and splashing out on jets, cars and palaces while his subjects remain in poverty.
Andrew Meldrum in Ludzidzini, Swaziland Tuesday August 30, 2005
The Guardian
Zanele Dube flashed a gleaming smile as she led 30 girls in a rhythmic song and a hip-swaying dance. Wearing little more than wide, beaded belts, brightly coloured sashes and a few feathers, the young women all beamed with happiness. "This is our big day, the Reed Dance," said Ms Dube, 24, as she shepherded the younger girls into a line. "This is a celebration of our culture and we are very proud. We girls are encouraged to take care of ourselves. We are encouraged to stay girls and not to let others pressure us into sex." Having performed in dances since the age of 15, she blew a whistle, and led the younger girls towards the stadium where they would dance before Swaziland's King Mswati III. This sight of thousands of bare-breasted virgins dancing before their king and his warriors is one of Africa's great traditional spectacles. But the Reed Dance is also a chance for the 37-year-old king to take a wife from more than 20,000 dancers, as he has done every year since 1999. Critics say the ceremony has degenerated into little more than a beauty pageant, and does little to address the status of women in a country with the world's highest rate of HIV infection.
"The Reed Dance has been abused for one man's personal satisfaction," Mario Masuku, the leader of a banned opposition party, told Reuters. "The king has a passion for young women and opulence." There is little sign of King Mswati moderating the practice. Last year he chose the winner of Miss Teen Swaziland for his wife, and he is expected to announce his new selection this week. As absolute monarch of a country where women have few legal rights, he cannot be refused. In 2002 when the king chose a teenager for a wife, his emissaries abducted her from her school. The girl's mother began a lawsuit alleging kidnap, but royal representatives argued successfully in court that the king by tradition has the right to select wives at his pleasure.
Women are minors under the law, and cannot have bank accounts or sign binding legal contracts, so the opportunity to become a royal wife with one's own palace and BMW is attractive to many. The country is stuck in poverty with 66% of the 1.1 million population living on less than a dollar a day. A third are dependent on international food aid. Last week, unaccountably, the king decreed the end of the umchwasho, a ban on sex with teenage girls. He initiated the rule in 2001, stating that all teenage girls had to wear large woollen tassels around their heads to signify their virginity. The tassels were said by some girls to protect them from unwanted sexual advances. But the king was among those who broke the ban and had to pay cows as penalties for having sex with teenage girls. Tradition counts for a lot in Swaziland and the previous king, Sobhuza, had more than 70 wives and 400 children. King Mswati is following in his father's footsteps and has taken 14 wives since he came to power in 1986. The 20,000-plus "national flowers", as the young women are called, have participated in an eight-day ritual in which they hiked through the night before cutting and bundling reeds they presented to the Queen Mother, ostensibly to help her repair her house after the Swazi winter. The climax was yesterday's dance. Sporting a boyish grin, the king was loudly cheered by the assembled dancers. He presents an affable image and is generally popular. But trade unions and civic groups criticise him for entrenching his absolute power, barring political parties and splashing out on jets, cars and palaces while his subjects remain in poverty.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Need an expert?
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_an_expert
When you click on their email tab, it reads blank. Spooky!
When you click on their email tab, it reads blank. Spooky!
Oliver Stone on Y.A. Tittle
To a boy of ten, the men on the football cards of the 1950s generally looked meaner and much older than normal men today in their twenties and thirties-- was it the haircuts, the harder times, perhaps the lack of vitamins? Lou Groza, the star tackle and Hall of Fame kicker for the Browns, looked sixty to me. Chuck Bednarik, who played both center and linebacker for the Eagles, flat-topped Leo Nomellini, toothless Bob St. Clair, angry Norm Van Brocklin, grizzled Bobby Layne, born with a Popeye face, and of course Johnny Unitas, perhaps the greatest-- slouch-shouldered gunslinger, calm predatory eyes-- the guy who always pulled it out in the end. These were among the warriors I grew up worshipping.
And then there was Y.A. Tittle. With his balding head, the great jug ears, the flat Asiatic bones in his face hooding eagle-blue eyes, Y.A. had that beaten-up outdoor look, like maybe an old uncle had. And that screwy name. But grace he always had, even when, at 35, he was traded by my beloved 49ers to be a washed-up second-string quarterback with the most famous media team of that time-- the New York Giants of Gifford and Katcavage, of Robustelli and Huff. And the fans booed! The cynical New York crowd actually booed Y.A. when he took over from popular Charlie Connerly and, proving himself all over again, led the surprised Giants to their glory years of 1962-64.
But, as in a nightmare, Y.A. was destined to lose in the Finals. And though he would kneel there in the mud with blood streaming down his face, an image as famous to football fans as Capa’s dying Spanish soldier is to veteran brigades, this wily old Odysseus would never ever win the Big One.
But it’s okay with me, Y.A.. You done good. Better to have tried and never tasted the sweet fruit than to have tasted it and not known its true meaning. And by the way, thank you Y.A. for showing a young boy that winners come in all shapes and sizes.
And then there was Y.A. Tittle. With his balding head, the great jug ears, the flat Asiatic bones in his face hooding eagle-blue eyes, Y.A. had that beaten-up outdoor look, like maybe an old uncle had. And that screwy name. But grace he always had, even when, at 35, he was traded by my beloved 49ers to be a washed-up second-string quarterback with the most famous media team of that time-- the New York Giants of Gifford and Katcavage, of Robustelli and Huff. And the fans booed! The cynical New York crowd actually booed Y.A. when he took over from popular Charlie Connerly and, proving himself all over again, led the surprised Giants to their glory years of 1962-64.
But, as in a nightmare, Y.A. was destined to lose in the Finals. And though he would kneel there in the mud with blood streaming down his face, an image as famous to football fans as Capa’s dying Spanish soldier is to veteran brigades, this wily old Odysseus would never ever win the Big One.
But it’s okay with me, Y.A.. You done good. Better to have tried and never tasted the sweet fruit than to have tasted it and not known its true meaning. And by the way, thank you Y.A. for showing a young boy that winners come in all shapes and sizes.
Primer on critical thinking
Critically Evaluating the Logic and Validity of Information
Many articles and essays are not written to present information clearly and directly; instead they may be written to persuade you to accept a particular viewpoint, to offer an, opinion, to argue for one side of a controversial issue. Consequently, one must recognize and separate factual information from subjective content.
Subjective content is any material that involves judgment, feeling, opinion, intuition, or emotion rather than factual information. Recognizing and evaluating subjective content involves distinguishing between facts and opinions, identifying generalizations, evaluating viewpoints, understanding theories and hypotheses, weighing data and evidence, and being alert to bias.
Check out the link. This is great stuff.
Many articles and essays are not written to present information clearly and directly; instead they may be written to persuade you to accept a particular viewpoint, to offer an, opinion, to argue for one side of a controversial issue. Consequently, one must recognize and separate factual information from subjective content.
Subjective content is any material that involves judgment, feeling, opinion, intuition, or emotion rather than factual information. Recognizing and evaluating subjective content involves distinguishing between facts and opinions, identifying generalizations, evaluating viewpoints, understanding theories and hypotheses, weighing data and evidence, and being alert to bias.
Check out the link. This is great stuff.
Democracy- "it won't work for them"
An excellent commentary piece by Jim Forsyth, at San Antonio’s WOAI site: The Racism of the Anti War Movement.
"Like most Texas reporters, I have made the pilgrimage to interview Cindy Sheehan and her anti war comrades parked in front of Crawford. One of the made-for-television signs held up behind Cindy during the news event I attended was particularly disturbing. “Iraq,” read the sign held aloft by two prosperous looking white women,“is Arabic for Vietnam.”
By holding this sign, I presume they would favor that the Iraq war end the same way the war in Vietnam ended. I also presume that this means they would not oppose the same fate for the people of Iraq that befell the people of Vietnam and Cambodia after the end of US involvement there, which was one of the more horrible in the sorry annals of twentieth century tyranny. But in 1975, we were told by the anti war crowd that, after all, they were only Asians, they probably couldn’t understand democracy anyway, and knew it wouldn’t work ‘for them.’ Its sad to see the same attitude repeated today, that its not worth the blood of white Americans like Casey Sheehan to win freedom and democracy for ‘those people,’ in this case, brown skinned Arab Muslims. (sound familiar?-P)
Even if you drink every last drop of the anti war Kool Aid, even if you are convinced that President Bush was ordered by the Chairman of Halliburton to start the Iraq war and that he intentionally lied to the American people about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, the simple fact is that today, there is demonstrably more freedom for the people of Iraq and for the people of Afghanistan, some 50 million brown skinned Muslims. Yes, there is dawdling over the drafting of an Iraqi constitution, but before April of 2003, metal shredders and rape rooms awaited any Iraqi who breathed the word ‘constitution.’ Yes, a brutal insurgency continues to threaten the Iraqi people, an insurgency which has killed some 25,000 Iraqi civilians since April of 2003. But Saddam Hussein, even by conservative estimates, butchered 1.5 million Iraqis during his 25 years in power (not counting the one million who died in the war he started with Iran). So Saddam and his goons killed an average of 60,000 people a year, while the insurgency has killed 25,000 in two and a half years. Despite the hand-wringing over the insurgency, the devil’s arithmetic would indicate that life for the average Iraq is actually safer today than it was under Saddam. But they’re brown skimmed Muslims, so not worthy of America’s notice, let alone America’s sacrifice. President Bush is actually the greatest liberator of Muslims in history, considering that there weren’t 50 million people in the entire Middle East when Saladin beat back the Crusader hordes. But to the anti war activists, providing freedom from slavery, democratic and economic opportunity to brown skinned people isn’t worth the sacrifice of white Americans. Good thing they weren’t around when Lincoln was drafting the Emancipation Proclamation."
"Like most Texas reporters, I have made the pilgrimage to interview Cindy Sheehan and her anti war comrades parked in front of Crawford. One of the made-for-television signs held up behind Cindy during the news event I attended was particularly disturbing. “Iraq,” read the sign held aloft by two prosperous looking white women,“is Arabic for Vietnam.”
By holding this sign, I presume they would favor that the Iraq war end the same way the war in Vietnam ended. I also presume that this means they would not oppose the same fate for the people of Iraq that befell the people of Vietnam and Cambodia after the end of US involvement there, which was one of the more horrible in the sorry annals of twentieth century tyranny. But in 1975, we were told by the anti war crowd that, after all, they were only Asians, they probably couldn’t understand democracy anyway, and knew it wouldn’t work ‘for them.’ Its sad to see the same attitude repeated today, that its not worth the blood of white Americans like Casey Sheehan to win freedom and democracy for ‘those people,’ in this case, brown skinned Arab Muslims. (sound familiar?-P)
Even if you drink every last drop of the anti war Kool Aid, even if you are convinced that President Bush was ordered by the Chairman of Halliburton to start the Iraq war and that he intentionally lied to the American people about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, the simple fact is that today, there is demonstrably more freedom for the people of Iraq and for the people of Afghanistan, some 50 million brown skinned Muslims. Yes, there is dawdling over the drafting of an Iraqi constitution, but before April of 2003, metal shredders and rape rooms awaited any Iraqi who breathed the word ‘constitution.’ Yes, a brutal insurgency continues to threaten the Iraqi people, an insurgency which has killed some 25,000 Iraqi civilians since April of 2003. But Saddam Hussein, even by conservative estimates, butchered 1.5 million Iraqis during his 25 years in power (not counting the one million who died in the war he started with Iran). So Saddam and his goons killed an average of 60,000 people a year, while the insurgency has killed 25,000 in two and a half years. Despite the hand-wringing over the insurgency, the devil’s arithmetic would indicate that life for the average Iraq is actually safer today than it was under Saddam. But they’re brown skimmed Muslims, so not worthy of America’s notice, let alone America’s sacrifice. President Bush is actually the greatest liberator of Muslims in history, considering that there weren’t 50 million people in the entire Middle East when Saladin beat back the Crusader hordes. But to the anti war activists, providing freedom from slavery, democratic and economic opportunity to brown skinned people isn’t worth the sacrifice of white Americans. Good thing they weren’t around when Lincoln was drafting the Emancipation Proclamation."
Steve? Ed?
As mainstream media and leftists put on a full court press to delegitimize the Iraq War, here’s an essential essay from Christopher Hitchens to remind us of the reasons we’re in this conflict—and what we stand to lose if we flinch: A War to Be Proud Of.
"LET ME BEGIN WITH A simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: “Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad.”
I could undertake to defend that statement against any member of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, and I know in advance that none of them could challenge it, let alone negate it. Before March 2003, Abu Ghraib was an abattoir, a torture chamber, and a concentration camp. Now, and not without reason, it is an international byword for Yankee imperialism and sadism. Yet the improvement is still, unarguably, the difference between night and day. How is it possible that the advocates of a post-Saddam Iraq have been placed on the defensive in this manner? And where should one begin?
I once tried to calculate how long the post-Cold War liberal Utopia had actually lasted. Whether you chose to date its inception from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, or the death of Nicolae Ceausescu in late December of the same year, or the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, or the referendum defeat suffered by Augusto Pinochet (or indeed from the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s book about the “end of history” and the unarguable triumph of market liberal pluralism), it was an epoch that in retrospect was over before it began. By the middle of 1990, Saddam Hussein had abolished Kuwait and Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to erase the identity and the existence of Bosnia. It turned out that we had not by any means escaped the reach of atavistic, aggressive, expansionist, and totalitarian ideology. Proving the same point in another way, and within approximately the same period, the theocratic dictator of Iran had publicly claimed the right to offer money in his own name for the suborning of the murder of a novelist living in London, and the génocidaire faction in Rwanda had decided that it could probably get away with putting its long-fantasized plan of mass murder into operation.
One is not mentioning these apparently discrepant crimes and nightmares as a random or unsorted list. Khomeini, for example, was attempting to compensate for the humiliation of the peace agreement he had been compelled to sign with Saddam Hussein. And Saddam Hussein needed to make up the loss, of prestige and income, that he had himself suffered in the very same war. Milosevic (anticipating Putin, as it now seems to me, and perhaps Beijing also) was riding a mutation of socialist nationalism into national socialism. It was to be noticed in all cases that the aggressors, whether they were killing Muslims, or exalting Islam, or just killing their neighbors, shared a deep and abiding hatred of the United States."
Read it all.
"LET ME BEGIN WITH A simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: “Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad.”
I could undertake to defend that statement against any member of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, and I know in advance that none of them could challenge it, let alone negate it. Before March 2003, Abu Ghraib was an abattoir, a torture chamber, and a concentration camp. Now, and not without reason, it is an international byword for Yankee imperialism and sadism. Yet the improvement is still, unarguably, the difference between night and day. How is it possible that the advocates of a post-Saddam Iraq have been placed on the defensive in this manner? And where should one begin?
I once tried to calculate how long the post-Cold War liberal Utopia had actually lasted. Whether you chose to date its inception from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, or the death of Nicolae Ceausescu in late December of the same year, or the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, or the referendum defeat suffered by Augusto Pinochet (or indeed from the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s book about the “end of history” and the unarguable triumph of market liberal pluralism), it was an epoch that in retrospect was over before it began. By the middle of 1990, Saddam Hussein had abolished Kuwait and Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to erase the identity and the existence of Bosnia. It turned out that we had not by any means escaped the reach of atavistic, aggressive, expansionist, and totalitarian ideology. Proving the same point in another way, and within approximately the same period, the theocratic dictator of Iran had publicly claimed the right to offer money in his own name for the suborning of the murder of a novelist living in London, and the génocidaire faction in Rwanda had decided that it could probably get away with putting its long-fantasized plan of mass murder into operation.
One is not mentioning these apparently discrepant crimes and nightmares as a random or unsorted list. Khomeini, for example, was attempting to compensate for the humiliation of the peace agreement he had been compelled to sign with Saddam Hussein. And Saddam Hussein needed to make up the loss, of prestige and income, that he had himself suffered in the very same war. Milosevic (anticipating Putin, as it now seems to me, and perhaps Beijing also) was riding a mutation of socialist nationalism into national socialism. It was to be noticed in all cases that the aggressors, whether they were killing Muslims, or exalting Islam, or just killing their neighbors, shared a deep and abiding hatred of the United States."
Read it all.
A search of Google News shows more than 20,000 results for “Cindy Sheehan”—and less than a hundred (mostly press releases and military sources) for this story of a gutsy hero: Colonel awarded Distinguished Service Cross for rallying Iraqi troops during Mosul fighting.
A colonel was presented the second-highest award for valor Aug. 24 for his actions during a furious firefight last year in Iraq when he rallied Iraqi commandos to defend their position against an insurgent assault.
Col. James H. Coffman Jr., who was wounded during the Nov. 14 gun battle at Mosul, received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony in Baghdad.
Last November, insurgents attacked several police stations in Mosul. According to the military’s account of his actions, Coffman was with a group of Iraqi commandos moving to reinforce one police station that was under attack when insurgents ambushed them.
All but one of the commando team’s officers were killed or seriously wounded early in the fight, leaving the Iraqi officer and Coffman, an adviser to the commandos, to direct the battle.
“Coffman exhibited truly inspirational leadership, rallying the commandos and organizing a hasty defense while attempting to radio higher headquarters for reinforcements,” his award citation reads.
During the fight, Coffman was shot in his shooting hand, a shot that wrecked his weapon. But he picked up AK47s from the wounded Iraqis and kept shooting.
The battle lasted four hours, ending only after U.S. armored vehicles and air support arrived. Coffman consented to be evacuated for medical treatment only after all of the Iraqi wounded were evacuated.
Twelve Iraqi commandos were killed, as were 25 insurgents, the military said.
A colonel was presented the second-highest award for valor Aug. 24 for his actions during a furious firefight last year in Iraq when he rallied Iraqi commandos to defend their position against an insurgent assault.
Col. James H. Coffman Jr., who was wounded during the Nov. 14 gun battle at Mosul, received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony in Baghdad.
Last November, insurgents attacked several police stations in Mosul. According to the military’s account of his actions, Coffman was with a group of Iraqi commandos moving to reinforce one police station that was under attack when insurgents ambushed them.
All but one of the commando team’s officers were killed or seriously wounded early in the fight, leaving the Iraqi officer and Coffman, an adviser to the commandos, to direct the battle.
“Coffman exhibited truly inspirational leadership, rallying the commandos and organizing a hasty defense while attempting to radio higher headquarters for reinforcements,” his award citation reads.
During the fight, Coffman was shot in his shooting hand, a shot that wrecked his weapon. But he picked up AK47s from the wounded Iraqis and kept shooting.
The battle lasted four hours, ending only after U.S. armored vehicles and air support arrived. Coffman consented to be evacuated for medical treatment only after all of the Iraqi wounded were evacuated.
Twelve Iraqi commandos were killed, as were 25 insurgents, the military said.
Friday, August 26, 2005
First Human Flight
It's the birthday of the inventor Joseph Montgolfier, born in Annonay, France (1740). He and his brother Etienne were in the paper manufacturing business. And one night watching the fire in his fireplace, Joseph wondered what caused the sparks to rise. He made a bag out of silk and lit a fire under the opening and watched it rise. He thought it was smoke that lifted it. He didn't know it was simply heated air.
So the Montgolfier brothers decided to build a contraption for flight. At that time the only creatures who had ever flown were birds and insects. But in 1783, they made a huge bag out of cloth and paper, held the opening over a fire, and inflated the bag to a height of 110 feet. When it was full, they released it, and it rose more than 3,000 feet into the air. Then they sent up a balloon with a sheep, a duck, and a rooster in a basket under the balloon, with the king and queen of France watching. The balloon landed, and the animals were okay.
So on November 21, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers sent up the first human beings to take flight. Deciding not to do it themselves, they sent up two volunteers, one of whom was a major in the French army. A half a million people came to watch in Paris.
One of the people watching was Benjamin Franklin, and when someone asked him what practical purpose this contraption might have, Benjamin Franklin said, "What use is a newborn baby?"
So the Montgolfier brothers decided to build a contraption for flight. At that time the only creatures who had ever flown were birds and insects. But in 1783, they made a huge bag out of cloth and paper, held the opening over a fire, and inflated the bag to a height of 110 feet. When it was full, they released it, and it rose more than 3,000 feet into the air. Then they sent up a balloon with a sheep, a duck, and a rooster in a basket under the balloon, with the king and queen of France watching. The balloon landed, and the animals were okay.
So on November 21, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers sent up the first human beings to take flight. Deciding not to do it themselves, they sent up two volunteers, one of whom was a major in the French army. A half a million people came to watch in Paris.
One of the people watching was Benjamin Franklin, and when someone asked him what practical purpose this contraption might have, Benjamin Franklin said, "What use is a newborn baby?"
This looks like a blast
WHAT IS A MULLET TOSS?
A Mullet Toss consists of individuals on the beach throwing a mullet, from a 10-foot circle in Alabama across the state line into Florida. Not to mention a great excuse to throw a weekend long party, with lots of fun activities, great music and food! This year's event will feature local celebrities tossing out a few fish at Noon, Saturday April 24th.
A Mullet Toss consists of individuals on the beach throwing a mullet, from a 10-foot circle in Alabama across the state line into Florida. Not to mention a great excuse to throw a weekend long party, with lots of fun activities, great music and food! This year's event will feature local celebrities tossing out a few fish at Noon, Saturday April 24th.
October 2003
Stranger in a Strange Land
The enduring American appeal of existentialism
Nick Gillespie
Of course I remember my first time. Only a true cad -- or a true liar -- doesn’t.
When I look back on it, I was way too young -- just 14. It happened, of all places, in the musty basement of the house I grew up in, during a lazy summer afternoon when for one reason or another my parents and siblings were gone and I had the place all to myself. A square beam of dust-filled light streamed in from a small window, and I stumbled across a box filled with books whose pages were alternately brittle and yellowed and mildewed. I picked up a small paperback with an odd cover and a cracked binding and squinted to read the book’s first few lines, among the most famous in 20th-century literature: "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure..." I spent the next two hours sitting on the basement’s cool concrete floor, ripping through Albert Camus’ seminal existentialist novel The Stranger. By the time I had finished that relentlessly compelling tale of gratuitous murder and vague redemption -- "all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration," read the book’s last words -- my sense of the world had been shattered into a thousand pieces.
I didn’t really understand The Stranger (I confess I still don’t), but somehow it spoke to me, and I went on to devour Camus’ other fiction and philosophical works, including "The Myth of Sisyphus" and The Rebel (another great opening line: "What is a rebel? A man who says no."). From there, I dug into the two other French figures most associated with existentialism in these United States: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Soon enough, I firmly believed that "existence precedes essence" (something else I’ve never quite understood) and embraced the four Ds that the critic Walter Kaufmann said defined existentialism: "dread, despair, death, and dauntlessness." One of the great pleasures of reading George Cotkin’s brilliant study Existential America (Johns Hopkins) is that it explains why existentialism has proved so deeply appealing and enduring in an American context -- this, despite haughty claims by Camus, Sartre, and de Beauvoir that we were too shallow and upbeat a people, too lacking in metaphysical anguish, to get what they were saying. Cotkin, a historian at California Polytechnic State University, details how existentialism in its French and Kierkegaardian forms hugely influenced people ranging from Whittaker Chambers to Richard Wright to Betty Friedan to Tom Hayden. He traces how existentialism similarly informed the Beats and the civil rights movements of the 1960s and makes a provocative case that the 9/11 attacks will keep it relevant for a long time to come. "To be existential," writes Cotkin, "is to wrestle most fully with the jagged awareness of one’s own finitude, with the thunderbolt fact that my death will be my own, experienced by no one else....To be existential is to recognize, in the face of all these somber truths clutched close to our own sense of being, that we must act." Cotkin’s most original insight is something that escaped Camus and the others: "Existentialism, American style...jibes well with American antinomianism, that willingness of the lonely individual to rebel against entrenched authority in the name of his or her most intense beliefs. Antinomianism, like existentialism, challenges easy certitude, entrenched religion, and moribund political assumptions." He rightly identifies figures as diverse as Jonathan Edwards, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, William James, Edward Hopper, and Walter Lippman as "existentialist precursors," each wrestling in his or her own way with the four Ds, yet always refusing to make a "fetish out of nihilism." If Existential America falls short in any way, it is that Cotkin at times inveighs against contemporary America as "a culture saturated with the consolation of easy salvation" through easily gotten material goods and worldly success. Such a culture, he fears, breeds smugness, shallowness, and superficiality. In such moments, he fails to appreciate that it is precisely the relative richness of lifestyle options, including banal ones, which predisposes us to existentialism and its insistence that "we must act." The freedom -- however incomplete it may be -- that has allowed Americans to constantly reinvent themselves in ways unimaginable in Europe is hardly an impediment to a deep and continuing appreciation of existentialism. Indeed, the acts of choosing we necessarily make on a daily basis -- in the marketplace, in the workplace, in how we live -- are its very essence.
Nick Gillespie is Reason’s editor-in-chief.
Stranger in a Strange Land
The enduring American appeal of existentialism
Nick Gillespie
Of course I remember my first time. Only a true cad -- or a true liar -- doesn’t.
When I look back on it, I was way too young -- just 14. It happened, of all places, in the musty basement of the house I grew up in, during a lazy summer afternoon when for one reason or another my parents and siblings were gone and I had the place all to myself. A square beam of dust-filled light streamed in from a small window, and I stumbled across a box filled with books whose pages were alternately brittle and yellowed and mildewed. I picked up a small paperback with an odd cover and a cracked binding and squinted to read the book’s first few lines, among the most famous in 20th-century literature: "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure..." I spent the next two hours sitting on the basement’s cool concrete floor, ripping through Albert Camus’ seminal existentialist novel The Stranger. By the time I had finished that relentlessly compelling tale of gratuitous murder and vague redemption -- "all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration," read the book’s last words -- my sense of the world had been shattered into a thousand pieces.
I didn’t really understand The Stranger (I confess I still don’t), but somehow it spoke to me, and I went on to devour Camus’ other fiction and philosophical works, including "The Myth of Sisyphus" and The Rebel (another great opening line: "What is a rebel? A man who says no."). From there, I dug into the two other French figures most associated with existentialism in these United States: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Soon enough, I firmly believed that "existence precedes essence" (something else I’ve never quite understood) and embraced the four Ds that the critic Walter Kaufmann said defined existentialism: "dread, despair, death, and dauntlessness." One of the great pleasures of reading George Cotkin’s brilliant study Existential America (Johns Hopkins) is that it explains why existentialism has proved so deeply appealing and enduring in an American context -- this, despite haughty claims by Camus, Sartre, and de Beauvoir that we were too shallow and upbeat a people, too lacking in metaphysical anguish, to get what they were saying. Cotkin, a historian at California Polytechnic State University, details how existentialism in its French and Kierkegaardian forms hugely influenced people ranging from Whittaker Chambers to Richard Wright to Betty Friedan to Tom Hayden. He traces how existentialism similarly informed the Beats and the civil rights movements of the 1960s and makes a provocative case that the 9/11 attacks will keep it relevant for a long time to come. "To be existential," writes Cotkin, "is to wrestle most fully with the jagged awareness of one’s own finitude, with the thunderbolt fact that my death will be my own, experienced by no one else....To be existential is to recognize, in the face of all these somber truths clutched close to our own sense of being, that we must act." Cotkin’s most original insight is something that escaped Camus and the others: "Existentialism, American style...jibes well with American antinomianism, that willingness of the lonely individual to rebel against entrenched authority in the name of his or her most intense beliefs. Antinomianism, like existentialism, challenges easy certitude, entrenched religion, and moribund political assumptions." He rightly identifies figures as diverse as Jonathan Edwards, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, William James, Edward Hopper, and Walter Lippman as "existentialist precursors," each wrestling in his or her own way with the four Ds, yet always refusing to make a "fetish out of nihilism." If Existential America falls short in any way, it is that Cotkin at times inveighs against contemporary America as "a culture saturated with the consolation of easy salvation" through easily gotten material goods and worldly success. Such a culture, he fears, breeds smugness, shallowness, and superficiality. In such moments, he fails to appreciate that it is precisely the relative richness of lifestyle options, including banal ones, which predisposes us to existentialism and its insistence that "we must act." The freedom -- however incomplete it may be -- that has allowed Americans to constantly reinvent themselves in ways unimaginable in Europe is hardly an impediment to a deep and continuing appreciation of existentialism. Indeed, the acts of choosing we necessarily make on a daily basis -- in the marketplace, in the workplace, in how we live -- are its very essence.
Nick Gillespie is Reason’s editor-in-chief.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
True
WASHINGTON DIARIST
Remastered by Michael Crowley
Since the dawn of rock, there have been individuals, usually young men, of argumentative tendencies who have lorded their encyclopedic musical knowledge over others." So states the introduction of the recent Rock Snob's Dictionary, compiled by David Kamp and Steven Daly. I like to believe I'm not the insufferable dweeb suggested by this definition. Certainly, much of the dictionary's obscure trivia (former Television bassist Richard Hell is now a novelist; Norwegian death metal stars actually murder one another) is news to me. But I do place an unusual, perhaps irrational, value on rock music. I take considerable pride in my huge collection and carefully refined taste. And I consider bad rock taste--or, worse, no rock taste at all--clear evidence of a fallow soul. I am, in other words, a certified Rock Snob. But I fear that Rock Snobs are in grave danger. We are being ruined by the iPod.
While the term "Rock Snob" has a pejorative ring, the label also implies real social advantages. The Rock Snob presides as a musical wise man to whom friends and relatives turn for opinions and recommendations; he can judiciously distribute access to various rare and exotic prizes in his collection. "Oh my God, where did you find this?" are a Rock Snob's favorite words to hear. His highest calling is the creation of lovingly compiled mix CDs designed to dazzle their recipients with a blend of erudition, obscurity, and pure melodic dolomite. Recently, I unearthed a little-known cover of the gentle Gram Parsons country classic "Hickory Wind," bellowed out by Bob Mould and Vic Chestnutt, which moved two different friends to tears. It was Rock Snob bliss.
In some ways, then, the iPod revolution is a Rock Snob's dream. Now, nearly all rock music is easily and almost instantly attainable, either via our friends' computers or through online file-sharing networks. "Music swapping" on a mass scale allows my music collection to grow larger and faster than I'd ever imagined. And I can now summon any rare track from the online ether.
But there's a dark side to the iPod era. Snobbery subsists on exclusivity. And the ownership of a huge and eclectic music collection has become ordinary. Thanks to the iPod, and digital music generally, anyone can milk various friends, acquaintances, and the Internet to quickly build a glorious 10,000-song collection. Adding insult to injury, this process often comes directly at the Rock Snob's expense. We are suddenly plagued by musical parasites. For instance, a friend of middling taste recently leeched 700 songs from my computer. He offered his own library in return, but it wasn't much. Never mind my vague sense that he should pay me some money. In Rock Snob terms, I was a Boston Brahmin and he was a Beverly Hillbilly--one who certainly hadn't earned that highly obscure album of AC/DC songs performed as tender acoustic ballads but was sure to go bragging to all his friends about it. Even worse was the girlfriend to whom I gave an iPod. She promptly plugged it into my computer and was soon holding in her hand a duplicate version of my 5,000-song library--a library that had taken some 20 years, thousands of dollars, and about as many hours to accumulate. She'd downloaded it all within five minutes. And, a few months later, she was gone, taking my intimate musical DNA with her.
I'm not alone in these frustrations. "Even for a recovering Rock Snob, such as myself," Steven Daly told me, "it's a little disturbing to hear a civilian music fan boast that he has the complete set of Trojan reggae box-sets on his iPod sitting alongside 9,000 other tracks that he probably neither needs nor deserves." It's true: Even if music leeches don't fully appreciate, or even listen to, some of the gems they so effortlessly acquire, we resent them anyway. One friend even confessed to me in an e-mail that "I have been known to strip the iTunes song information off mix CDs just to keep the Knowledge secret."
But resistance is futile. Even the Rock Snob's habitat, the record shop, is under siege. Say farewell to places like Championship Vinyl, the archetypal record store featured in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. "The shop smells of stale smoke, damp, and plastic dust-covers, and it's narrow and dingy and overcrowded, partly because that's what I wanted--this is what record shops should look like," explains Hornby's proprietor, Rob. Like great used bookstores, the Championship Vinyls of the world are destinations where the browsing and people-watching is half the fun. (A certain kind of young man will forever cling to the fantasy of meeting his soul mate as they simultaneously reach for the same early-era Superchunk disc.) Equally gratifying is the hunt for elusive albums in a store's musty bins, a quest that demands time, persistence, and cunning, and whose serendipitous payoffs are nearly as rewarding as the music itself. Speaking of book-collecting, the philosopher Walter Benjamin spoke of "the thrill of acquisition." But, when everything's instantly available online, the thrill is gone.
Benjamin also savored the physical element of building a collection--gazing at his trophies, reminiscing about where he acquired them, unfurling memories from his ownership. "The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed," he said. But there's nothing magic about a formless digital file. I even find myself nostalgic for the tape-trading culture of Grateful Dead fans--generally scorned in the Rock Snob world--who used to drive for hours in their VW vans to swap bootleg concert tapes. My older brother still has a set of bootleg tapes he copied from a friend some 20 years ago during a California bike trip. Having survived global travels from Thailand to Mexico, the tapes have acquired an almost totemic quality in his mind. I feel the same way about certain old CDs, whose cases have become pleasantly scuffed and weathered during travels through multiple dorm rooms and city apartments but still smile out at me from their shelves like old friends. Soon our collections will be all ones and zeroes stored deep in hard drives, instantly transferable and completely unsatisfying as possessions. And we Rock Snobs will have become as obsolete as CDs themselves.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at TNR.
Remastered by Michael Crowley
Since the dawn of rock, there have been individuals, usually young men, of argumentative tendencies who have lorded their encyclopedic musical knowledge over others." So states the introduction of the recent Rock Snob's Dictionary, compiled by David Kamp and Steven Daly. I like to believe I'm not the insufferable dweeb suggested by this definition. Certainly, much of the dictionary's obscure trivia (former Television bassist Richard Hell is now a novelist; Norwegian death metal stars actually murder one another) is news to me. But I do place an unusual, perhaps irrational, value on rock music. I take considerable pride in my huge collection and carefully refined taste. And I consider bad rock taste--or, worse, no rock taste at all--clear evidence of a fallow soul. I am, in other words, a certified Rock Snob. But I fear that Rock Snobs are in grave danger. We are being ruined by the iPod.
While the term "Rock Snob" has a pejorative ring, the label also implies real social advantages. The Rock Snob presides as a musical wise man to whom friends and relatives turn for opinions and recommendations; he can judiciously distribute access to various rare and exotic prizes in his collection. "Oh my God, where did you find this?" are a Rock Snob's favorite words to hear. His highest calling is the creation of lovingly compiled mix CDs designed to dazzle their recipients with a blend of erudition, obscurity, and pure melodic dolomite. Recently, I unearthed a little-known cover of the gentle Gram Parsons country classic "Hickory Wind," bellowed out by Bob Mould and Vic Chestnutt, which moved two different friends to tears. It was Rock Snob bliss.
In some ways, then, the iPod revolution is a Rock Snob's dream. Now, nearly all rock music is easily and almost instantly attainable, either via our friends' computers or through online file-sharing networks. "Music swapping" on a mass scale allows my music collection to grow larger and faster than I'd ever imagined. And I can now summon any rare track from the online ether.
But there's a dark side to the iPod era. Snobbery subsists on exclusivity. And the ownership of a huge and eclectic music collection has become ordinary. Thanks to the iPod, and digital music generally, anyone can milk various friends, acquaintances, and the Internet to quickly build a glorious 10,000-song collection. Adding insult to injury, this process often comes directly at the Rock Snob's expense. We are suddenly plagued by musical parasites. For instance, a friend of middling taste recently leeched 700 songs from my computer. He offered his own library in return, but it wasn't much. Never mind my vague sense that he should pay me some money. In Rock Snob terms, I was a Boston Brahmin and he was a Beverly Hillbilly--one who certainly hadn't earned that highly obscure album of AC/DC songs performed as tender acoustic ballads but was sure to go bragging to all his friends about it. Even worse was the girlfriend to whom I gave an iPod. She promptly plugged it into my computer and was soon holding in her hand a duplicate version of my 5,000-song library--a library that had taken some 20 years, thousands of dollars, and about as many hours to accumulate. She'd downloaded it all within five minutes. And, a few months later, she was gone, taking my intimate musical DNA with her.
I'm not alone in these frustrations. "Even for a recovering Rock Snob, such as myself," Steven Daly told me, "it's a little disturbing to hear a civilian music fan boast that he has the complete set of Trojan reggae box-sets on his iPod sitting alongside 9,000 other tracks that he probably neither needs nor deserves." It's true: Even if music leeches don't fully appreciate, or even listen to, some of the gems they so effortlessly acquire, we resent them anyway. One friend even confessed to me in an e-mail that "I have been known to strip the iTunes song information off mix CDs just to keep the Knowledge secret."
But resistance is futile. Even the Rock Snob's habitat, the record shop, is under siege. Say farewell to places like Championship Vinyl, the archetypal record store featured in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. "The shop smells of stale smoke, damp, and plastic dust-covers, and it's narrow and dingy and overcrowded, partly because that's what I wanted--this is what record shops should look like," explains Hornby's proprietor, Rob. Like great used bookstores, the Championship Vinyls of the world are destinations where the browsing and people-watching is half the fun. (A certain kind of young man will forever cling to the fantasy of meeting his soul mate as they simultaneously reach for the same early-era Superchunk disc.) Equally gratifying is the hunt for elusive albums in a store's musty bins, a quest that demands time, persistence, and cunning, and whose serendipitous payoffs are nearly as rewarding as the music itself. Speaking of book-collecting, the philosopher Walter Benjamin spoke of "the thrill of acquisition." But, when everything's instantly available online, the thrill is gone.
Benjamin also savored the physical element of building a collection--gazing at his trophies, reminiscing about where he acquired them, unfurling memories from his ownership. "The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed," he said. But there's nothing magic about a formless digital file. I even find myself nostalgic for the tape-trading culture of Grateful Dead fans--generally scorned in the Rock Snob world--who used to drive for hours in their VW vans to swap bootleg concert tapes. My older brother still has a set of bootleg tapes he copied from a friend some 20 years ago during a California bike trip. Having survived global travels from Thailand to Mexico, the tapes have acquired an almost totemic quality in his mind. I feel the same way about certain old CDs, whose cases have become pleasantly scuffed and weathered during travels through multiple dorm rooms and city apartments but still smile out at me from their shelves like old friends. Soon our collections will be all ones and zeroes stored deep in hard drives, instantly transferable and completely unsatisfying as possessions. And we Rock Snobs will have become as obsolete as CDs themselves.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at TNR.
Powerline on Polls
Some Thoughts on Casualties in Times of War and Peace
It is universally acknowledged that public support for the Iraq war is eroding. Some of the polls supporting this claim are faulty because they are based on obviously misleading internal data, but the basic point cannot be denied: many Americans, possibly even a majority, have turned against the war.
This should hardly be a surprise. On the contrary, how could it be otherwise? News reporting on the war consists almost entirely of itemizing casualties. Headlines say: "Two Marines killed by roadside bomb." Rarely do the accompanying stories--let alone the headlines that are all that most people read--explain where the Marines were going, or why; what strategic objective they and their comrades were pursuing, and how successful they were in achieving it; or how many terrorists were also killed. For Americans who do not seek out alternative news sources like this one, the war in Iraq is little but a succession of American casualties. The wonder is that so many Americans do, nevertheless, support it.
The sins of the news media in reporting on Iraq are mainly sins of omission. Not only do news outlets generally fail to report the progress that is being made, and often fail to put military operations into any kind of tactical or strategic perspective, they assiduously avoid talking about the overarching strategic reason for our involvement there: the Bush administration's conviction that the only way to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism, long term, is to help liberate the Arab countries so that their peoples' energies will be channelled into the peaceful pursuits of free enterprise and democracy, rather than into bizarre ideologies and terrorism. Partly this omission is due to laziness or incomprehension, but I think it is mostly attributable to the fact that if the media acknowledged that reforming the Arab world, in order to drain the terrorist swamp, has always been the principal purpose of the Iraq war, it would take the sting out of their "No large stockpiles of WMDs!" theme.
One wonders how past wars could have been fought if news reporting had consisted almost entirely of a recitation of casualties. The D-Day invasion was one of the greatest organizational feats ever achieved by human beings, and one of the most successful. But what if the only news Americans had gotten about the invasion was that 2,500 allied soldiers died that day, with no discussion of whether the invasion was a success or a failure, and no acknowledgement of the huge strategic stakes that were involved? Or what if such news coverage had continued, day by day, through the entire Battle of Normandy, with Americans having no idea whether the battle was being won or lost, but knowing only that 54,000 Allied troops had been killed by the Germans?
How about the Battle of Midway, one of the most one-sided and strategically significant battles of world history? What if there had been no "triumphalism"--that dreaded word--in the American media's reporting on the battle, and Americans had learned only that 307 Americans died--never mind that the Japanese lost more than ten times that many--without being told the decisive significance of the engagement?
Or take Iwo Jima, the iconic Marine Corps battle. If Americans knew only that nearly 7,000 Marines lost their lives there, with no context, no strategy, and only sporadic acknowledgement of the heroism that accompanied those thousands of deaths, would the American people have continued the virtually unanimous support for our country, our soldiers and our government that characterized World War II?
We are conducting an experiment never before seen, as far as I know, in the history of the human race. We are trying to fight a war under the auspices of an establishment that is determined--to put the most charitable face on it--to emphasize American casualties over all other information about the war.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to state the obvious: being a soldier is a dangerous thing. This is why we honor our service members' courage. For a soldier, sailor or Marine, "courage" isn't an easily-abused abstraction--"it took a lot of courage to vote against the farm bill"--it's a requirement of the job.
Even in peacetime. The media's breathless tabulation of casualties in Iraq--now, over 1,800 deaths--is generally devoid of context. Here's some context: between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.
That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town. In fact, I'll offer a free six-pack to the first person who can find evidence that any liberal expressed concern--any concern--about the 18,006 American service members who died accidentally in service of their country from 1983 to 1996. The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be. Driving in my car this afternoon, I heard a mainstream media reporter say that around 2,000 service men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq "on President Bush's watch." As though the job of the Commander in Chief were to make the jobs of our soldiers safe. They're not safe, and they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.
What is the President's responsibility? To expend our most precious resources only when necessary, in service of the national interest. We would all prefer that our soldiers never be required to fight. Everyone--most of all, every politician--much prefers peace to war. But when our enemies fly airplanes into our skyscrapers; attack the nerve center of our armed forces; bomb our embassies; scheme to blow up our commercial airliners; try to assassinate our former President; do their best to shoot down our military aircraft; murder our citizens; assassinate our diplomats overseas; and attack our naval vessels--well, then, the time has come to fight. And when the time comes to fight, our military personnel are ready. They don't ask to be preserved from all danger. They know their job is dangerous; they knew that when they signed up. They are prepared to face the risk, on our behalf. All they ask is to be allowed to win.
It is, I think, a reasonable request. It's the least that we--all Americans, including reporters and editors--can do.
It is universally acknowledged that public support for the Iraq war is eroding. Some of the polls supporting this claim are faulty because they are based on obviously misleading internal data, but the basic point cannot be denied: many Americans, possibly even a majority, have turned against the war.
This should hardly be a surprise. On the contrary, how could it be otherwise? News reporting on the war consists almost entirely of itemizing casualties. Headlines say: "Two Marines killed by roadside bomb." Rarely do the accompanying stories--let alone the headlines that are all that most people read--explain where the Marines were going, or why; what strategic objective they and their comrades were pursuing, and how successful they were in achieving it; or how many terrorists were also killed. For Americans who do not seek out alternative news sources like this one, the war in Iraq is little but a succession of American casualties. The wonder is that so many Americans do, nevertheless, support it.
The sins of the news media in reporting on Iraq are mainly sins of omission. Not only do news outlets generally fail to report the progress that is being made, and often fail to put military operations into any kind of tactical or strategic perspective, they assiduously avoid talking about the overarching strategic reason for our involvement there: the Bush administration's conviction that the only way to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism, long term, is to help liberate the Arab countries so that their peoples' energies will be channelled into the peaceful pursuits of free enterprise and democracy, rather than into bizarre ideologies and terrorism. Partly this omission is due to laziness or incomprehension, but I think it is mostly attributable to the fact that if the media acknowledged that reforming the Arab world, in order to drain the terrorist swamp, has always been the principal purpose of the Iraq war, it would take the sting out of their "No large stockpiles of WMDs!" theme.
One wonders how past wars could have been fought if news reporting had consisted almost entirely of a recitation of casualties. The D-Day invasion was one of the greatest organizational feats ever achieved by human beings, and one of the most successful. But what if the only news Americans had gotten about the invasion was that 2,500 allied soldiers died that day, with no discussion of whether the invasion was a success or a failure, and no acknowledgement of the huge strategic stakes that were involved? Or what if such news coverage had continued, day by day, through the entire Battle of Normandy, with Americans having no idea whether the battle was being won or lost, but knowing only that 54,000 Allied troops had been killed by the Germans?
How about the Battle of Midway, one of the most one-sided and strategically significant battles of world history? What if there had been no "triumphalism"--that dreaded word--in the American media's reporting on the battle, and Americans had learned only that 307 Americans died--never mind that the Japanese lost more than ten times that many--without being told the decisive significance of the engagement?
Or take Iwo Jima, the iconic Marine Corps battle. If Americans knew only that nearly 7,000 Marines lost their lives there, with no context, no strategy, and only sporadic acknowledgement of the heroism that accompanied those thousands of deaths, would the American people have continued the virtually unanimous support for our country, our soldiers and our government that characterized World War II?
We are conducting an experiment never before seen, as far as I know, in the history of the human race. We are trying to fight a war under the auspices of an establishment that is determined--to put the most charitable face on it--to emphasize American casualties over all other information about the war.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to state the obvious: being a soldier is a dangerous thing. This is why we honor our service members' courage. For a soldier, sailor or Marine, "courage" isn't an easily-abused abstraction--"it took a lot of courage to vote against the farm bill"--it's a requirement of the job.
Even in peacetime. The media's breathless tabulation of casualties in Iraq--now, over 1,800 deaths--is generally devoid of context. Here's some context: between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.
That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town. In fact, I'll offer a free six-pack to the first person who can find evidence that any liberal expressed concern--any concern--about the 18,006 American service members who died accidentally in service of their country from 1983 to 1996. The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be. Driving in my car this afternoon, I heard a mainstream media reporter say that around 2,000 service men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq "on President Bush's watch." As though the job of the Commander in Chief were to make the jobs of our soldiers safe. They're not safe, and they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.
What is the President's responsibility? To expend our most precious resources only when necessary, in service of the national interest. We would all prefer that our soldiers never be required to fight. Everyone--most of all, every politician--much prefers peace to war. But when our enemies fly airplanes into our skyscrapers; attack the nerve center of our armed forces; bomb our embassies; scheme to blow up our commercial airliners; try to assassinate our former President; do their best to shoot down our military aircraft; murder our citizens; assassinate our diplomats overseas; and attack our naval vessels--well, then, the time has come to fight. And when the time comes to fight, our military personnel are ready. They don't ask to be preserved from all danger. They know their job is dangerous; they knew that when they signed up. They are prepared to face the risk, on our behalf. All they ask is to be allowed to win.
It is, I think, a reasonable request. It's the least that we--all Americans, including reporters and editors--can do.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Ugliest' Dog Gaining Cult Status
POSTED: 1:30 pm EDT August 23, 2005
A dog deemed the ugliest dog in the world has become a canine celebrity and is quickly becoming a hit online since his mug was featured in newspapers and on television, according to a Local 6 News report. Since his third contest win, Sam has inspired several Web sites, blogs and even an Internet comic strip. Sam, a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested, won the World's Ugliest Dog contest for the third time in June.
SLIDESHOW: Images Of Ugliest Dog VIDEO: See The Story
Since his third contest win, Sam has inspired several Web sites, blogs and even an Internet comic strip. Web sites are even selling Sam memorabilia and attempting contests to find an even uglier dog than Sam, according to the report. Also, the Internet myth debunking site, Snopes.com, has Sam's story as a "true" status. Another Web site cheered the fact that Sam is neutered, saying, "We do not want another Son Of Sam."
Sam's owner, Susie Lockheed, 53, said her dog is an accident of breeding, Local 6 News reported. Lockheed took Sam in five years ago when he was considered not adoptable.
"Sometimes other dogs don't seem to quite know if he's a canine," Lockheed said. "They have to have a good sniff."
POSTED: 1:30 pm EDT August 23, 2005
A dog deemed the ugliest dog in the world has become a canine celebrity and is quickly becoming a hit online since his mug was featured in newspapers and on television, according to a Local 6 News report. Since his third contest win, Sam has inspired several Web sites, blogs and even an Internet comic strip. Sam, a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested, won the World's Ugliest Dog contest for the third time in June.
SLIDESHOW: Images Of Ugliest Dog VIDEO: See The Story
Since his third contest win, Sam has inspired several Web sites, blogs and even an Internet comic strip. Web sites are even selling Sam memorabilia and attempting contests to find an even uglier dog than Sam, according to the report. Also, the Internet myth debunking site, Snopes.com, has Sam's story as a "true" status. Another Web site cheered the fact that Sam is neutered, saying, "We do not want another Son Of Sam."
Sam's owner, Susie Lockheed, 53, said her dog is an accident of breeding, Local 6 News reported. Lockheed took Sam in five years ago when he was considered not adoptable.
"Sometimes other dogs don't seem to quite know if he's a canine," Lockheed said. "They have to have a good sniff."
Hugo n' Pat!
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States. . . .
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." . . .
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
I agree that Chavez is a menace, but give us a break. Religious conservatives argue (to take an example) that embryonic stem-cell research is wrong because the sanctity of nascent life is absolute and thus outweighs any possible benefits. But Robertson is willing to countenance assassination because it is "easier" and "cheaper" than other ways of bringing about a desired outcome? It goes to show that one can be religious without being morally serious.
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." . . .
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
I agree that Chavez is a menace, but give us a break. Religious conservatives argue (to take an example) that embryonic stem-cell research is wrong because the sanctity of nascent life is absolute and thus outweighs any possible benefits. But Robertson is willing to countenance assassination because it is "easier" and "cheaper" than other ways of bringing about a desired outcome? It goes to show that one can be religious without being morally serious.
FORTUNE SMALL BUSINESSSunday, May 1, 2005 By David Whitford
The character of a person never changes as you go through life," says Millard Fuller, 70, founder of Habitat for Humanity. we're meeting in the office Fuller uses in his home, on six acres of swampy woodland near Americus, Ga. He's leaning back in his chair. A plate of chocolate cookies is on the desk between us. "Your goals in life change," Fuller continues, warming to his homily. "In the Bible the apostle Saul was an aggressive persecutor of Christians. Then he was converted on the Damascus road, and he became an aggressive promoter of the Gospel. That's the same thing with me. I was an aggressive businessman. Then my goals changed, and I became an aggressive promoter of putting everybody in the world in a house."
This summer in Knoxville, Tenn., Habitat for Humanity will erect its 200,000th house (they're financed by donations, built with volunteer labor, and sold to low-income families at no profit with a zero-interest loan). That translates into shelter, maybe not for everybody in the world, but for one million poor people in 100 countries—an amazing legacy.
Fuller developed an appreciation for growth by watching the struggles of his perfectionist father, a small-time grocer and frozen-custard-stand owner in Lanett, Ala. "If you're going to demand perfection, you're always going to run a real small operation," Fuller says. While in law school at the University of Alabama, Fuller went into business with classmate Morris Dees, whom he had met in the registration line. Their mission: "to get rich. Our idea was that if you have talent—if you can sing real good or shoot a basketball real good—you can make a lot of money, but if you don't have those talents you'd better learn how to sell." Fuller and Dees sold holly wreaths, birthday cakes, firecrackers, phone books, desk blotters, rat poison, tractor cushions, cookbooks, and whatever else they could buy cheap and unload quickly, and they did indeed get rich. "We bought big houses," says Fuller, "and 2,000 acres of land and horses and cattle and speedboats and brand new Lincoln Continentals to drive around and had maids and servants, and we weren't even 30 years old. It was a huge success."
The business was, that is. Fuller's personal life collapsed—a consequence, he says, of always working. Linda left him. Fuller pursued her from Montgomery to New York City. And there, in a taxicab on the way to the Wellington Hotel, Fuller says, he saw the light. Literally. "In that moment of light," he recalls, "this thought came into my head: Give all your money away." Fuller's priorities shifted dramatically. Dees's too: he founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet how much, really, has either man changed? A social activist—that's someone who's not satisfied with the way things are, thinks about how they could be better, and follows through. Wait a minute: Isn't that an entrepreneur?
The character of a person never changes as you go through life," says Millard Fuller, 70, founder of Habitat for Humanity. we're meeting in the office Fuller uses in his home, on six acres of swampy woodland near Americus, Ga. He's leaning back in his chair. A plate of chocolate cookies is on the desk between us. "Your goals in life change," Fuller continues, warming to his homily. "In the Bible the apostle Saul was an aggressive persecutor of Christians. Then he was converted on the Damascus road, and he became an aggressive promoter of the Gospel. That's the same thing with me. I was an aggressive businessman. Then my goals changed, and I became an aggressive promoter of putting everybody in the world in a house."
This summer in Knoxville, Tenn., Habitat for Humanity will erect its 200,000th house (they're financed by donations, built with volunteer labor, and sold to low-income families at no profit with a zero-interest loan). That translates into shelter, maybe not for everybody in the world, but for one million poor people in 100 countries—an amazing legacy.
Fuller developed an appreciation for growth by watching the struggles of his perfectionist father, a small-time grocer and frozen-custard-stand owner in Lanett, Ala. "If you're going to demand perfection, you're always going to run a real small operation," Fuller says. While in law school at the University of Alabama, Fuller went into business with classmate Morris Dees, whom he had met in the registration line. Their mission: "to get rich. Our idea was that if you have talent—if you can sing real good or shoot a basketball real good—you can make a lot of money, but if you don't have those talents you'd better learn how to sell." Fuller and Dees sold holly wreaths, birthday cakes, firecrackers, phone books, desk blotters, rat poison, tractor cushions, cookbooks, and whatever else they could buy cheap and unload quickly, and they did indeed get rich. "We bought big houses," says Fuller, "and 2,000 acres of land and horses and cattle and speedboats and brand new Lincoln Continentals to drive around and had maids and servants, and we weren't even 30 years old. It was a huge success."
The business was, that is. Fuller's personal life collapsed—a consequence, he says, of always working. Linda left him. Fuller pursued her from Montgomery to New York City. And there, in a taxicab on the way to the Wellington Hotel, Fuller says, he saw the light. Literally. "In that moment of light," he recalls, "this thought came into my head: Give all your money away." Fuller's priorities shifted dramatically. Dees's too: he founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet how much, really, has either man changed? A social activist—that's someone who's not satisfied with the way things are, thinks about how they could be better, and follows through. Wait a minute: Isn't that an entrepreneur?
Monday, August 22, 2005
Keeler: Hayden lives on: Visitors' quarters still pretty in pink
SEAN KEELER REGISTER COLUMNISTAugust 21, 2005
Iowa City, Ia. - You wonder what Bo Schembechler would say, assuming he regained consciousness.The sole refuge is two waist-level drinking fountains, cold and silver, floating like pinballs on the head of a strawberry shake. Aside from that, the new visitors' locker room at Kinnick Stadium is Barbie's Dream House on acid, a pastel nightmare. You feel naked without a little dog in one arm and a handbag in the other.Pink walls. Pink stalls. Pink seats. Pink ceiling. Pink carpet. Pink urinals.
Pink urinals?"It's called 'Dusty Rose,' " corrected associate athletic director Jane Meyer, head conductor of Saturday morning's media tour. "That's actually a standard color (offered) by (the) Kohler (company)."Dusty Rose. If it's good enough for the Hawkeyes, it's good enough for your guest bathroom."We want to maintain the history that Hayden Fry started when he came here," Meyer said. "We decided to take it the next step."In case you don't know the legend, here's a recap: In one of his more brilliant gambits, Fry ordered the walls of the old visiting locker room at Kinnick painted pink. A psychology major, Iowa's football coach reasoned that the soothing color might placate some of the savage beasts that had pounded on the Hawkeyes for much of the 1970s.
And, heck, if that didn't work, it would at least give them something to think about - and complain about - rather than focus on the game. The old fox never missed a trick.Over the years, Big Ten coaches tried little ways to counter Fry's stratagem. Most of them didn't work. A few did. In 1989, Illinois assistants wore pink hats on the sidelines at Iowa City, and the Illini won, 31-7. In 1996, Gary Barnett had some students paint Northwestern's home locker room pink the week they practiced for the Iowa game. The Wildcats won at Kinnick for the first time in 25 years.
But the most infamous detractor was Schembechler. Michigan's coach repeatedly grumbled about Kinnick's guest room. He went so far as to order his assistants to paper the walls before he'd dare let his Wolverines enter. Out of sight, out of mind.This room would give Schembechler a heart attack. It's Bo-proofed, a gaudy Crayola explosion from the patterns on the carpet - pink speckled with brown - to the tiles on the ceiling above. Genius. Madness. Dusty Rose.
"You have to realize," Meyer said with a grin, "how many pink colors I looked at for this project."She settled on a shade - "Innocence" - roughly the same as a Hi-Liter. To call it bright would be an understatement. When Hawkeye running back Marcus Schnoor first saw it during a team tour last week, he almost had to shield his eyes.And then Schnoor tells you he's color-blind."I could tell it was different," he said. "I thought it was hilarious."
Most of the Hawkeyes, in fact, thought it a hoot. But when Ball State shows up in two weeks, you get the feeling the Cardinals will be far from tickled pink."It would probably tick me off a little bit," Iowa linebacker Abdul Hodge said. "Because it's like sending a message about how you want them to feel."Which is lousy. The Hawkeyes have won a school-record 18 consecutive games at home, and "the pink thing wasn't a huge factor in it," Schnoor said. "We've played smart football at Kinnick. That has a lot to do with it."
"But I still like the tradition," Hawkeye fan Matt Mattson, a 14-year-old from Jesup, noted proudly. "I think it's clever. No one should be able to steal the idea."Few have, oddly enough. The nearest known copycat is in Madison, Wis., where the walls of the new visitors' locker room at Camp Randall Stadium were painted baby blue. Big Ten coaches will try just about anything to ensure their season comes out smelling like a rose. So long as it's not the Dusty kind.
SEAN KEELER REGISTER COLUMNISTAugust 21, 2005
Iowa City, Ia. - You wonder what Bo Schembechler would say, assuming he regained consciousness.The sole refuge is two waist-level drinking fountains, cold and silver, floating like pinballs on the head of a strawberry shake. Aside from that, the new visitors' locker room at Kinnick Stadium is Barbie's Dream House on acid, a pastel nightmare. You feel naked without a little dog in one arm and a handbag in the other.Pink walls. Pink stalls. Pink seats. Pink ceiling. Pink carpet. Pink urinals.
Pink urinals?"It's called 'Dusty Rose,' " corrected associate athletic director Jane Meyer, head conductor of Saturday morning's media tour. "That's actually a standard color (offered) by (the) Kohler (company)."Dusty Rose. If it's good enough for the Hawkeyes, it's good enough for your guest bathroom."We want to maintain the history that Hayden Fry started when he came here," Meyer said. "We decided to take it the next step."In case you don't know the legend, here's a recap: In one of his more brilliant gambits, Fry ordered the walls of the old visiting locker room at Kinnick painted pink. A psychology major, Iowa's football coach reasoned that the soothing color might placate some of the savage beasts that had pounded on the Hawkeyes for much of the 1970s.
And, heck, if that didn't work, it would at least give them something to think about - and complain about - rather than focus on the game. The old fox never missed a trick.Over the years, Big Ten coaches tried little ways to counter Fry's stratagem. Most of them didn't work. A few did. In 1989, Illinois assistants wore pink hats on the sidelines at Iowa City, and the Illini won, 31-7. In 1996, Gary Barnett had some students paint Northwestern's home locker room pink the week they practiced for the Iowa game. The Wildcats won at Kinnick for the first time in 25 years.
But the most infamous detractor was Schembechler. Michigan's coach repeatedly grumbled about Kinnick's guest room. He went so far as to order his assistants to paper the walls before he'd dare let his Wolverines enter. Out of sight, out of mind.This room would give Schembechler a heart attack. It's Bo-proofed, a gaudy Crayola explosion from the patterns on the carpet - pink speckled with brown - to the tiles on the ceiling above. Genius. Madness. Dusty Rose.
"You have to realize," Meyer said with a grin, "how many pink colors I looked at for this project."She settled on a shade - "Innocence" - roughly the same as a Hi-Liter. To call it bright would be an understatement. When Hawkeye running back Marcus Schnoor first saw it during a team tour last week, he almost had to shield his eyes.And then Schnoor tells you he's color-blind."I could tell it was different," he said. "I thought it was hilarious."
Most of the Hawkeyes, in fact, thought it a hoot. But when Ball State shows up in two weeks, you get the feeling the Cardinals will be far from tickled pink."It would probably tick me off a little bit," Iowa linebacker Abdul Hodge said. "Because it's like sending a message about how you want them to feel."Which is lousy. The Hawkeyes have won a school-record 18 consecutive games at home, and "the pink thing wasn't a huge factor in it," Schnoor said. "We've played smart football at Kinnick. That has a lot to do with it."
"But I still like the tradition," Hawkeye fan Matt Mattson, a 14-year-old from Jesup, noted proudly. "I think it's clever. No one should be able to steal the idea."Few have, oddly enough. The nearest known copycat is in Madison, Wis., where the walls of the new visitors' locker room at Camp Randall Stadium were painted baby blue. Big Ten coaches will try just about anything to ensure their season comes out smelling like a rose. So long as it's not the Dusty kind.
NEW YORK — The University of Wisconsin-Madison (search) has been named the country's top party school in a survey of 110,000 college students.
The Princeton Review (search) has released its 2006 edition of "The Best 361 Colleges." (search) The survey ranks the top 20 colleges in 62 different categories ranging from best academic, to toughest to get into, to most beautiful campus.
The top academic school is Reed College in Portland Oregon. Reed also ranks as the least religious of all the schools.
The most religious is Brigham Young University, which is also the top stone-cold sober school for the eighth straight year.
Study author Rob Franek says the book is designed to help college-bound high school students make a more informed college choice.
The Princeton Review (search) has released its 2006 edition of "The Best 361 Colleges." (search) The survey ranks the top 20 colleges in 62 different categories ranging from best academic, to toughest to get into, to most beautiful campus.
The top academic school is Reed College in Portland Oregon. Reed also ranks as the least religious of all the schools.
The most religious is Brigham Young University, which is also the top stone-cold sober school for the eighth straight year.
Study author Rob Franek says the book is designed to help college-bound high school students make a more informed college choice.
A Great Offer From Craig's List PDX
Reply to: anon-92690880@craigslist.orgDate: 2005-08-22, 12:20PM PDTIF . OK, here's the deal, I am a married women who wants to have great sex with a real man. My husband is 76 years old. I married for money. He married for a trophy wife (I am 5'8" 135#, blonde, blue, very fit, well pampered, a few surgeries, ongoing maintenence - think Sharon Stone) He spends most of his time in Vegas. I spend most of my time in this big house, alone. I am staying in this marraige until the end, until I get what's mine. I want to get out of this house! I want a companion to escort me around town (disguised as my assitant), to my vacation homes in the desert and Hawaii, on trips etc. You will travel seperately (at my expense) and we will meet discreetly at our destination. I will give you an allowance for the time we can't be together. You must be able to travel with 24 hours notice and able to be away for up to a month at a time. You must have impeccable social skills and be naturally goodlooking, in shape and well groomed. Be advised now that before we ever meet, I will have an investigator do a thorough background check on you, which will include your criminal history, credit history, medical / mental health history. You will also need a passport. You will also be required to sign a contract / confidentiality agreement of which the elements of will be detailed by my attorney. Apply by return email. The basic requirements listed above are not negotiable. If you don't meet them don't respond. I am not looking for love, this is for companionship only. This could be long term or short term depending on the events naturally occurring in the course of life which are beyond my control. In other words, you are disposable and I will **NOT** tolerate any emotional connection between us whatsoever. More details to follow in private correspondence.
Tottenham 2-0 Middlesbrough
More Premiership photos
Tottenham scored two second-half goals to see off Middlesbrough and move to the top of the Premiership. Jermain Defoe scored with a long-range strike after picking the ball up in the centre circle and marauding forward as Boro's defence backed off.
Mark Schwarzer then allowed a tame shot from Mido to squirm under his body.
Boro had plenty of chances themselves - Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, George Boateng and Stewart Downing all missing while Paul Robinson made two good saves.
Mark Viduka played a series of delightful through balls after his introduction at half-time.
But his team-mates failed to capitalise on his creativity and only have themselves to blame for leaving White Hart Lane empty handed. It was a satisfying afternoon for Spurs, though, as Martin Jol's team have yet to concede a goal in the Premiership and have a 100% record after two games.
More Premiership photos
Tottenham scored two second-half goals to see off Middlesbrough and move to the top of the Premiership. Jermain Defoe scored with a long-range strike after picking the ball up in the centre circle and marauding forward as Boro's defence backed off.
Mark Schwarzer then allowed a tame shot from Mido to squirm under his body.
Boro had plenty of chances themselves - Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, George Boateng and Stewart Downing all missing while Paul Robinson made two good saves.
Mark Viduka played a series of delightful through balls after his introduction at half-time.
But his team-mates failed to capitalise on his creativity and only have themselves to blame for leaving White Hart Lane empty handed. It was a satisfying afternoon for Spurs, though, as Martin Jol's team have yet to concede a goal in the Premiership and have a 100% record after two games.
Happy Monday
White Horse
Opinions differ on whether the first horseman, riding the white horse, represents Christ, the Antichrist, or the False Prophet, but the general consensus of biblical scholars is that he is the Antichrist.
One argument against this horseman representing Christ is that each horseman is released due the opening of a seal, and the seals represent God's curses upon the world, it is unlikely that the author would consider Christ's return as a curse. However, it could be conceived as a curse by those who oppose Him.
Red Horse
The second horseman, riding the red horse, is generally held to represent War. The red color of the second horse could mean bloody war, and the sword held by the rider could symbolize war and violence.
Black Horse
The third horseman, riding the black horse, is Famine. The black color of the third horse could be a symbol of death and famine. Its rider was holding a scale, which means scarcity of food, higher prices, and famine.
Pale Horse
The fourth horseman (on the pale, or sickly horse, which may be the source of the notion of "pestilence" as a separate horseman) is explicitly named Death. The pale greenish color of the fourth horse means fear, sickness, decay, and death. The imagery of the horses and riders is similar to a passage in Zechariah.
Opinions differ on whether the first horseman, riding the white horse, represents Christ, the Antichrist, or the False Prophet, but the general consensus of biblical scholars is that he is the Antichrist.
One argument against this horseman representing Christ is that each horseman is released due the opening of a seal, and the seals represent God's curses upon the world, it is unlikely that the author would consider Christ's return as a curse. However, it could be conceived as a curse by those who oppose Him.
Red Horse
The second horseman, riding the red horse, is generally held to represent War. The red color of the second horse could mean bloody war, and the sword held by the rider could symbolize war and violence.
Black Horse
The third horseman, riding the black horse, is Famine. The black color of the third horse could be a symbol of death and famine. Its rider was holding a scale, which means scarcity of food, higher prices, and famine.
Pale Horse
The fourth horseman (on the pale, or sickly horse, which may be the source of the notion of "pestilence" as a separate horseman) is explicitly named Death. The pale greenish color of the fourth horse means fear, sickness, decay, and death. The imagery of the horses and riders is similar to a passage in Zechariah.
Acthung
At a meeting with Islamic leaders in Cologne, Germany, Pope Benedict XVI urged them to do something to fight terror.
The meeting with Muslim officials in Germany was part of Benedict’s outreach to non-Catholics during his visit to achieve common positions on social issues and world peace. Germany has some 3.5 million Muslims, one of the highest figures in western Europe.
The pope said Muslim leaders had a “great responsibility” in properly educating younger generations.
“I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up as one of our concerns the spread of terrorism,” Benedict told the Muslim leadership, mainly Turks.
“Terrorist activity is continually recurring in various parts of the world, sowing death and destruction, and plunging many of our brothers and sisters into grief and despair,” he said.
The pope spoke of terrorism striking in “various parts of the world” but did not mention any specific attacks, assess responsibility or speak directly about suicide bombings. It appeared significant, however, that he chose a Muslim audience for his remarks on terrorism as many recent attacks have been blamed on Islamic extremists.
Please. That last sentence is politically correct reporting taken to an absolutely ridiculous conclusion. “Many recent attacks have been blamed on Islamic extremists?” How about all recent attacks? And there’s no doubt whatsoever about who perpetrates these atrocities—the “holy warriors” proudly, even boastfully claim credit for them.
The meeting with Muslim officials in Germany was part of Benedict’s outreach to non-Catholics during his visit to achieve common positions on social issues and world peace. Germany has some 3.5 million Muslims, one of the highest figures in western Europe.
The pope said Muslim leaders had a “great responsibility” in properly educating younger generations.
“I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up as one of our concerns the spread of terrorism,” Benedict told the Muslim leadership, mainly Turks.
“Terrorist activity is continually recurring in various parts of the world, sowing death and destruction, and plunging many of our brothers and sisters into grief and despair,” he said.
The pope spoke of terrorism striking in “various parts of the world” but did not mention any specific attacks, assess responsibility or speak directly about suicide bombings. It appeared significant, however, that he chose a Muslim audience for his remarks on terrorism as many recent attacks have been blamed on Islamic extremists.
Please. That last sentence is politically correct reporting taken to an absolutely ridiculous conclusion. “Many recent attacks have been blamed on Islamic extremists?” How about all recent attacks? And there’s no doubt whatsoever about who perpetrates these atrocities—the “holy warriors” proudly, even boastfully claim credit for them.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Hell in the Pacific
Lone Japanese soldier Toshiro Mifune diligently scans the ocean from his island lookout as he must have thousands of times before, but this time he spies an abandoned life raft resting on a rocky bluff. Within minutes he's face to face with American sea-wreck survivor Lee Marvin and the two begin an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Director John Boorman presents this two-man war as a deadly game between a pair of overgrown children, who finally tire of it (as kids will) and settle into tolerated co-existence and then even something resembling a friendship. With impressionistic strokes, Boorman paints a lush tropical paradise in colors you can drink from the screen, capturing the texture of their experience as refracted through the cinema: the look of the island as seen through the haze of smoke, the sound of a sudden rainstorm as it hushes the island in a calming roar, the timelessness of life outside of civilization. The story seems almost secondary, an allegorical drama that comes alive in the excellent performances by Marvin and Mifune (who soon enough converse despite their complete inability to understand each other's language) and the visceral immediacy of Boorman's gorgeous widescreen images. Hell in the Pacific is not a tale told as much as a film experienced. --Sean Axmaker
Holy Shi#!
The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent.
It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation. In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The hard rains started falling that year, when Matt Dery and his neighbors in Fort Trumbull learned that the city planned to replace their homes with a hotel, a conference center, offices and upscale housing that would complement the adjoining Pfizer Inc. research facility.
The New London Development Corp... is offering residents the market rate as it was in 2000, as state law requires. That rate pales in comparison to what the units are now worth, owing largely to the relentless housing bubble that has yet to burst.
"I can't replace what I have in this market for three times [the 2000 assessment]," says [Matt] Dery, 48…In June 2004, NLDC sent the seven affected residents a letter indicating that after the completion of the case, the city would expect to receive retroactive "use and occupancy" payments (also known as "rent") from the residents.
In the letter, lawyers argued that because the takeover took place in 2000, the residents had been living on city property for nearly five years, and would therefore owe rent for the duration of their stay at the close of the trial. Any money made from tenants--some residents' only form of income--would also have to be paid to the city.
It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation. In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The hard rains started falling that year, when Matt Dery and his neighbors in Fort Trumbull learned that the city planned to replace their homes with a hotel, a conference center, offices and upscale housing that would complement the adjoining Pfizer Inc. research facility.
The New London Development Corp... is offering residents the market rate as it was in 2000, as state law requires. That rate pales in comparison to what the units are now worth, owing largely to the relentless housing bubble that has yet to burst.
"I can't replace what I have in this market for three times [the 2000 assessment]," says [Matt] Dery, 48…In June 2004, NLDC sent the seven affected residents a letter indicating that after the completion of the case, the city would expect to receive retroactive "use and occupancy" payments (also known as "rent") from the residents.
In the letter, lawyers argued that because the takeover took place in 2000, the residents had been living on city property for nearly five years, and would therefore owe rent for the duration of their stay at the close of the trial. Any money made from tenants--some residents' only form of income--would also have to be paid to the city.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Hamastan
Hamastan? Gaza Pullout Is Worth the Risk
By Max Boot
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2005
FOR ALMOST 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.
Now the Israeli decision to remove its settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank should provide a further test of the belief that Jewish settlements are the root cause of this conflict. If this were in fact the case, you would expect that a partial pullout would lead to at least a partial melting of Arab hostility toward the Jews. Maybe this will occur; and maybe the Gaza Strip will overnight become as peaceful as Switzerland.
The early signs are not good - literally. Gaza City is decked out with green Hamas banners proclaiming, "Resistance wins, so let's go on." The banners from the supposedly more restrained Palestinian Authority reveal the same mind-set: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow." Far from being sated by Israeli concessions, the Palestinians are emboldened to demand more. Many will not be satisfied until - in the words of a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle - there are no more "Jews on this world."
So does this mean that Ariel Sharon is making a big mistake? It certainly means he is taking a risk - the risk of creating a Hamastan where terrorism will flourish - but, on balance, it is the right decision.
The Gaza settlements were simply not sustainable. Approximately 8,500 Jews could not live safely among 1.3 million Arabs. That may be a sad commentary on the Arabs, considering that a million Arabs live safely among 5 million Jews in Israel, but that's life. The Gaza settlers had a right to risk their own necks but not the necks of soldiers who had to protect them. Sooner or later they would have had to go. If Sharon had waited, like his predecessors, for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians before the inevitable pullout, he would have waited until kingdom come. In the meantime the settlements would have remained an easy debating point for Palestinian propagandists.
By removing the settlements on his own initiative, Sharon has helped to regain the initiative - moral and political - for the Jewish state. The international opprobrium into which Israel had sunk was not fatal to its existence, but it was not good either. Israelis feel themselves part of the West, and it is deeply dispiriting for them to be shunned by every Western country except the U.S. The pullout, on top of the concessions offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David five years ago, eases (if not erases) the onus on Israel and puts pressure on the Palestinians to get their own house in order.
Opponents of the withdrawal cite parallels with the 2000 Israeli evacuation of southern Lebanon, which helped spark the second intifada, but the danger now is much less. Even if Palestinians want to attack Israel - and they do - they will be hard-pressed to do so. All of Gaza is fenced in and so is most of the West Bank, reducing opportunities for suicide bombers to penetrate Israel. If the Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza, Israel will be free to mount a military response - more free, in fact, when the threat comes from a sovereign Palestinian state than when it emanates from Israeli-occupied territory. The Palestinians will no doubt stockpile heavy weapons in Gaza but, as is the case with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they can be deterred from using them.
The real danger from Gaza may not be to Israel but to the rest of the West. The Israeli army has battled terrorist groups in a way that the Palestinian Authority has neither the power nor, in all likelihood, the desire to do. If, following the Israeli pullout, Gaza becomes another training ground for Islamo-fascist fanatics - a successor to Afghanistan under the Taliban - the resulting terrorists will find the U.S. and Europe much easier targets than Israel, which is the world's most heavily defended state. Irony of ironies, perhaps in a few years enlightened Westerners will rue the day when Israel gave up control of Gaza.
By Max Boot
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2005
FOR ALMOST 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.
Now the Israeli decision to remove its settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank should provide a further test of the belief that Jewish settlements are the root cause of this conflict. If this were in fact the case, you would expect that a partial pullout would lead to at least a partial melting of Arab hostility toward the Jews. Maybe this will occur; and maybe the Gaza Strip will overnight become as peaceful as Switzerland.
The early signs are not good - literally. Gaza City is decked out with green Hamas banners proclaiming, "Resistance wins, so let's go on." The banners from the supposedly more restrained Palestinian Authority reveal the same mind-set: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow." Far from being sated by Israeli concessions, the Palestinians are emboldened to demand more. Many will not be satisfied until - in the words of a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle - there are no more "Jews on this world."
So does this mean that Ariel Sharon is making a big mistake? It certainly means he is taking a risk - the risk of creating a Hamastan where terrorism will flourish - but, on balance, it is the right decision.
The Gaza settlements were simply not sustainable. Approximately 8,500 Jews could not live safely among 1.3 million Arabs. That may be a sad commentary on the Arabs, considering that a million Arabs live safely among 5 million Jews in Israel, but that's life. The Gaza settlers had a right to risk their own necks but not the necks of soldiers who had to protect them. Sooner or later they would have had to go. If Sharon had waited, like his predecessors, for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians before the inevitable pullout, he would have waited until kingdom come. In the meantime the settlements would have remained an easy debating point for Palestinian propagandists.
By removing the settlements on his own initiative, Sharon has helped to regain the initiative - moral and political - for the Jewish state. The international opprobrium into which Israel had sunk was not fatal to its existence, but it was not good either. Israelis feel themselves part of the West, and it is deeply dispiriting for them to be shunned by every Western country except the U.S. The pullout, on top of the concessions offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David five years ago, eases (if not erases) the onus on Israel and puts pressure on the Palestinians to get their own house in order.
Opponents of the withdrawal cite parallels with the 2000 Israeli evacuation of southern Lebanon, which helped spark the second intifada, but the danger now is much less. Even if Palestinians want to attack Israel - and they do - they will be hard-pressed to do so. All of Gaza is fenced in and so is most of the West Bank, reducing opportunities for suicide bombers to penetrate Israel. If the Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza, Israel will be free to mount a military response - more free, in fact, when the threat comes from a sovereign Palestinian state than when it emanates from Israeli-occupied territory. The Palestinians will no doubt stockpile heavy weapons in Gaza but, as is the case with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they can be deterred from using them.
The real danger from Gaza may not be to Israel but to the rest of the West. The Israeli army has battled terrorist groups in a way that the Palestinian Authority has neither the power nor, in all likelihood, the desire to do. If, following the Israeli pullout, Gaza becomes another training ground for Islamo-fascist fanatics - a successor to Afghanistan under the Taliban - the resulting terrorists will find the U.S. and Europe much easier targets than Israel, which is the world's most heavily defended state. Irony of ironies, perhaps in a few years enlightened Westerners will rue the day when Israel gave up control of Gaza.
Orphan/Oregon
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) is best known as being the 31st President of the United States (1929-1933). However, prior to that, he was a successful mining engineer, humanitarian, and administrator. He had the longest retirement of any U.S. President and died 31 years after leaving office, during the administration of Lyndon Johnson — his fifth successor. Hoover was born into a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa. He was the first President to be born west of the Mississippi River. Both of his parents, Jesse Hoover and Hulda Minthorn, died when Hoover was young. His father died in 1880, and his mother in 1884.
In the summer of 1885 eleven-year-old "Bert" Hoover boarded a Union Pacific train headed west to Oregon. Sewn into his clothes were two dimes; he also carried a hamper of his Aunt Hannah's homemade delicacies. Waiting for him on the other end of the continent was his Uncle John Minthorn, a doctor and school superintendent whom Hoover recalled as "a severe man on the surface, but like all Quakers kindly at the bottom." The future president lived with his uncle in Newberg, Oregon for several years following his parents' deaths.
Hoover lived with his Uncle John Minthorn in this Newberg, Oregon house from
1885-91. Hoover's six years in Oregon taught him self-reliance. "My boyhood ambition was to be able to earn my own living, without the help of anybody, anywhere," he once reported. As an office boy in his uncle's Oregon Land Company he mastered bookkeeping and typing, while also attending business school in the evening. Thanks to a local schoolteacher, Miss Jane Gray, the boy's eyes were opened to the novels of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. David Copperfield, the story of another orphan cast into the world to live by his wits, would remain a lifelong favorite.
In the summer of 1885 eleven-year-old "Bert" Hoover boarded a Union Pacific train headed west to Oregon. Sewn into his clothes were two dimes; he also carried a hamper of his Aunt Hannah's homemade delicacies. Waiting for him on the other end of the continent was his Uncle John Minthorn, a doctor and school superintendent whom Hoover recalled as "a severe man on the surface, but like all Quakers kindly at the bottom." The future president lived with his uncle in Newberg, Oregon for several years following his parents' deaths.
Hoover lived with his Uncle John Minthorn in this Newberg, Oregon house from
1885-91. Hoover's six years in Oregon taught him self-reliance. "My boyhood ambition was to be able to earn my own living, without the help of anybody, anywhere," he once reported. As an office boy in his uncle's Oregon Land Company he mastered bookkeeping and typing, while also attending business school in the evening. Thanks to a local schoolteacher, Miss Jane Gray, the boy's eyes were opened to the novels of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. David Copperfield, the story of another orphan cast into the world to live by his wits, would remain a lifelong favorite.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Interesting article-
Heralds of a Brighter Black FutureHeather MacDonald
More and more, African-American iconoclasts reject victimology and embrace American possibility.
"When Bill Cosby, in a speech to the NAACP last May, let fly a merciless condemnation of black illegitimacy, educational apathy, and the idea that white racism causes black social problems, political commentators dropped their jaws. They remained stunned when he vented similar frustration to audiences across the country over the next six months. Sure, “civil rights” advocates have been known, on rare occasions, to criticize self-defeating black behavior, but convention requires that after briefly denouncing, say, black-on-black crime (as if black-on-white crime would be okay), the “leader” should turn his attention to the racial injustice that allegedly causes such crime and harp on that for the next year or so. This Cosby refused to do. “It’s not what [the white man] is doing to you; it’s what you’re not doing,” he thundered in Detroit.
The reaction of black audiences was just as unexpected. Rather than take offense, they waited hours in line, in blistering heat and freezing cold, to hear Cosby deliver his impassioned plea for bourgeois behavior. Cosby’s tough-love campaign foundered in January, when a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her the previous year; he denied the charge, but has not been heard from since. No need to wait for him to find his voice again, however. Dozens of grassroots black conservatives have been delivering the same message of personal responsibility—in as electrifying a fashion—for years without generating a glimmer of interest from the press. Routinely denounced as pariahs and race-traitors, they nevertheless believe that they are speaking for the silent majority of blacks. Now that Cosby has exposed the untapped audience for straight talk, maybe the media will finally pay attention to these unknown iconoclasts. Nothing would help black Americans more than for the mainstream press to give such honesty and hard-won wisdom the respect it deserves." -read it all
http://city-journal.org/html/15_2_heralds.html
More and more, African-American iconoclasts reject victimology and embrace American possibility.
"When Bill Cosby, in a speech to the NAACP last May, let fly a merciless condemnation of black illegitimacy, educational apathy, and the idea that white racism causes black social problems, political commentators dropped their jaws. They remained stunned when he vented similar frustration to audiences across the country over the next six months. Sure, “civil rights” advocates have been known, on rare occasions, to criticize self-defeating black behavior, but convention requires that after briefly denouncing, say, black-on-black crime (as if black-on-white crime would be okay), the “leader” should turn his attention to the racial injustice that allegedly causes such crime and harp on that for the next year or so. This Cosby refused to do. “It’s not what [the white man] is doing to you; it’s what you’re not doing,” he thundered in Detroit.
The reaction of black audiences was just as unexpected. Rather than take offense, they waited hours in line, in blistering heat and freezing cold, to hear Cosby deliver his impassioned plea for bourgeois behavior. Cosby’s tough-love campaign foundered in January, when a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her the previous year; he denied the charge, but has not been heard from since. No need to wait for him to find his voice again, however. Dozens of grassroots black conservatives have been delivering the same message of personal responsibility—in as electrifying a fashion—for years without generating a glimmer of interest from the press. Routinely denounced as pariahs and race-traitors, they nevertheless believe that they are speaking for the silent majority of blacks. Now that Cosby has exposed the untapped audience for straight talk, maybe the media will finally pay attention to these unknown iconoclasts. Nothing would help black Americans more than for the mainstream press to give such honesty and hard-won wisdom the respect it deserves." -read it all
http://city-journal.org/html/15_2_heralds.html
Why do they hate us?
A series of bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in dozens of cities across Bangladesh Wednesday, striking regional capitals as well as the national capital, Dhaka," CNN reports:
"According to police, at least 115 people were injured with 350 bombs detonating. Bangladeshi media reported at least one fatality."
Three hundred fifty bombs? Wow, someone's really mad about the Bangladeshi occupation of Iraq!
"According to police, at least 115 people were injured with 350 bombs detonating. Bangladeshi media reported at least one fatality."
Three hundred fifty bombs? Wow, someone's really mad about the Bangladeshi occupation of Iraq!
Recommended Book of the Day
Robert Spencer’s latest book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) is the perfect counter-argument to the deluge of whitewash from mainstream media, Islamic advocacy groups, and Islamic apologists in academia. In order for an Islamic Reformation to take place—assuming you believe such a thing is possible, and the jury’s still out on that—its leaders will have to deal with the issues that Spencer identifies brilliantly in this very readable book.
(P.S. For once, the Amazon reviews for Spencer’s book haven’t been taken over by lunatics.)
Robert Spencer’s latest book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) is the perfect counter-argument to the deluge of whitewash from mainstream media, Islamic advocacy groups, and Islamic apologists in academia. In order for an Islamic Reformation to take place—assuming you believe such a thing is possible, and the jury’s still out on that—its leaders will have to deal with the issues that Spencer identifies brilliantly in this very readable book.
(P.S. For once, the Amazon reviews for Spencer’s book haven’t been taken over by lunatics.)
www.soapboxracer.com
Portland's 2005 Adult Soapbox Derby is taking place on Saturday, 20 August!
The day will be positively volcanic as the racing begins high atop Mt. Tabor (60th and SE Hawthorne) at 10 a.m. The racing will continue until 4 p.m., the day ending with an afterparty - open to everyone - at Sabala's (48th and SE Hawthorne).
More information available below, or at www.soapboxracer.com!
The day will be positively volcanic as the racing begins high atop Mt. Tabor (60th and SE Hawthorne) at 10 a.m. The racing will continue until 4 p.m., the day ending with an afterparty - open to everyone - at Sabala's (48th and SE Hawthorne).
More information available below, or at www.soapboxracer.com!
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Horse Jockey
I hesitate to post this little ditty but I just cannot stop from sharing this disturbing update to an earlier post here on Package Delivery.
Last week there was an article in Willamette Week about a man in Seattle dying after having sex with a horse. I, like most people I think, believed the man must have been kicked in the head by an unwilling mount. I posted this article, to share in the weird, and was content in moving on with my life. Well... this story will not end.
Today I was reading the Portland Mercury, (I was NOT conducting further research on the topic of horse sex!), where they ran an update to the WW story. The man died of a perforated colon. Let that sink in a moment.... he was the catcher, not the pitcher.
Giddeeup and Have a Great Day!
Last week there was an article in Willamette Week about a man in Seattle dying after having sex with a horse. I, like most people I think, believed the man must have been kicked in the head by an unwilling mount. I posted this article, to share in the weird, and was content in moving on with my life. Well... this story will not end.
Today I was reading the Portland Mercury, (I was NOT conducting further research on the topic of horse sex!), where they ran an update to the WW story. The man died of a perforated colon. Let that sink in a moment.... he was the catcher, not the pitcher.
Giddeeup and Have a Great Day!
Powerline on Krugman
Krugman Flails Wildly, Misses
It goes without saying that Paul Krugman's latest column is a hysterical attack on the Bush administration. Krugman has written nothing else for years. [His latest] subject is Social Security reform. Krugman's language is, as always, over the top; he says that President Bush "misrepresent[ed] his goals" and "repeatedly lied about the current system." Bush uttered various "falsehoods," while "the administration politicized the Social Security Administration and used taxpayer money to promote a partisan agenda." This is, of course, typical, since "the administration sells its policies by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies."
Wow. One problem with a 750 word column is that when you use up 500 words with invective, there isn't much left for argument. And, typically, Krugman offers very little in the way of argument or evidence. The centerpiece of his column is an attack on Social Security commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart, who wrote an op-ed last week in the Orlando Sentinel. Barnhart's column is about as inoffensive a treatment of the subject as you'll find; here is her conclusion:
The Social Security program is largely a pay-as-you-go system -- with today's workers paying for today's beneficiaries. This system has worked well over the years -- especially when there was a relatively large number of workers to support each individual receiving benefits. But today's demographics are working against us. Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents can feel confident about the promise of a secure future. Their benefits are secure and will be paid. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my teenage son and his friends. I believe Social Security's 70th anniversary is the perfect opportunity for us to signal to younger generations of Americans that we, as a society, are committed to strengthening this important program -- for them. In today's rapidly developing world, it's no surprise that government programs also will need to adjust to our changing circumstances. Under President Bush's leadership, this issue is being discussed on Capitol Hill and in living rooms across the country. Looking ahead, the financing problems facing Social Security, coupled with the program's complexity and scope, will be challenging to address. Reflecting back, our nation has a proud history of grappling with difficult issues. And we do it best when we work together. I believe Social Security -- a program that touches the lives of almost every American -- deserves nothing less.
In Krugman's twisted world, this mild exposition is a tissue of lies, misprepresentations, and abuse of power. Krugman writes:
"Last week Jo Anne Barnhart, the commissioner of Social Security, published an op-ed article claiming that Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits."
But wait! Barnhart didn't say any such thing. Krugman is just making it up! Read Ms. Barnhart's article with care, and see whether you can find any trace of a claim that "Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits." There is none. Having set up this extravagant straw man, Krugman proceeds to knock it down: "Now, it turns out that an article on the Social Security Administration's Web site, "Life Expectancy for Social Security," specifically rejects the idea the Social Security was originally "designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits," and the related idea that the system faces problems from "a supposed dramatic increase in life expectancy in recent years. And the current number of older Americans as a share of the population is just about what the founders of Social Security expected. The 1934 report of F.D.R.'s Commission on Economic Security, which laid the groundwork for the Social Security Act, projected that 12.7 percent of Americans would be 65 or older by the year 2000. The actual number was 12.4 percent."
Those figures are interesting, but they don't quite address what Ms. Barnhart wrote, which was this:
The number of older Americans living now is greater than anyone could have imagined in 1935. Then, only 7.5 million people were age 65 or older. Today, approximately 36 million, or roughly one in eight people, are older Americans.
What Barnhart wrote was true. The 1934 Committee on Economic Security projected that by 2000 there would be a little over 19 million Americans over 65, just over one-half of the actual number. So Barnhart was right. But that isn't the real problem with Krugman's attack. The real problem is that he simply ignores Barnhart's point, which was not about today's elderly population. Rather, the concern she expressed (like President Bush and other members of his administration) was for what will happen in the years to come, when the baby boomers retire and there are only around two workers for each retiree:
These numbers are going to continue to grow even more rapidly in the coming decades. In less than three years, America's 78 million baby boomers will begin to reach retirement age. By the middle of this century, about one of every five Americans will be 65 or older.
This is why Barnhart concludes that the program needs to be reformed for the sake of younger workers. Note how unfair Krugman's attack on Barnhart is: he triumphantly declares that currently 12.4% of Americans are over 65, while in 1935 the projected percentage was 12.7. But that doesn't address Barnhart's point, which is about the future. Go back and look at the 1934 Commission's table projecting the number and percentage of retirees through the year 2000. The Commission projected the percentage of those over 65 to level off between 12 and 13 percent. Barnhart's point is exactly correct: the prospect of an America where 20% of the population is retired, and there are only two workers per retiree, was never contemplated when the Social Security act was adopted. There are many arguments, pro and con, relating to Social Security reform. But Krugman makes none of them. On this topic, as on so many others, he is so twisted by his obsessive hatred of President Bush that he cannot state facts accurately or argue fairly. Thus, he can only mislead those who take him seriously. If there are any such people left.
It goes without saying that Paul Krugman's latest column is a hysterical attack on the Bush administration. Krugman has written nothing else for years. [His latest] subject is Social Security reform. Krugman's language is, as always, over the top; he says that President Bush "misrepresent[ed] his goals" and "repeatedly lied about the current system." Bush uttered various "falsehoods," while "the administration politicized the Social Security Administration and used taxpayer money to promote a partisan agenda." This is, of course, typical, since "the administration sells its policies by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies."
Wow. One problem with a 750 word column is that when you use up 500 words with invective, there isn't much left for argument. And, typically, Krugman offers very little in the way of argument or evidence. The centerpiece of his column is an attack on Social Security commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart, who wrote an op-ed last week in the Orlando Sentinel. Barnhart's column is about as inoffensive a treatment of the subject as you'll find; here is her conclusion:
The Social Security program is largely a pay-as-you-go system -- with today's workers paying for today's beneficiaries. This system has worked well over the years -- especially when there was a relatively large number of workers to support each individual receiving benefits. But today's demographics are working against us. Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents can feel confident about the promise of a secure future. Their benefits are secure and will be paid. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my teenage son and his friends. I believe Social Security's 70th anniversary is the perfect opportunity for us to signal to younger generations of Americans that we, as a society, are committed to strengthening this important program -- for them. In today's rapidly developing world, it's no surprise that government programs also will need to adjust to our changing circumstances. Under President Bush's leadership, this issue is being discussed on Capitol Hill and in living rooms across the country. Looking ahead, the financing problems facing Social Security, coupled with the program's complexity and scope, will be challenging to address. Reflecting back, our nation has a proud history of grappling with difficult issues. And we do it best when we work together. I believe Social Security -- a program that touches the lives of almost every American -- deserves nothing less.
In Krugman's twisted world, this mild exposition is a tissue of lies, misprepresentations, and abuse of power. Krugman writes:
"Last week Jo Anne Barnhart, the commissioner of Social Security, published an op-ed article claiming that Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits."
But wait! Barnhart didn't say any such thing. Krugman is just making it up! Read Ms. Barnhart's article with care, and see whether you can find any trace of a claim that "Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits." There is none. Having set up this extravagant straw man, Krugman proceeds to knock it down: "Now, it turns out that an article on the Social Security Administration's Web site, "Life Expectancy for Social Security," specifically rejects the idea the Social Security was originally "designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits," and the related idea that the system faces problems from "a supposed dramatic increase in life expectancy in recent years. And the current number of older Americans as a share of the population is just about what the founders of Social Security expected. The 1934 report of F.D.R.'s Commission on Economic Security, which laid the groundwork for the Social Security Act, projected that 12.7 percent of Americans would be 65 or older by the year 2000. The actual number was 12.4 percent."
Those figures are interesting, but they don't quite address what Ms. Barnhart wrote, which was this:
The number of older Americans living now is greater than anyone could have imagined in 1935. Then, only 7.5 million people were age 65 or older. Today, approximately 36 million, or roughly one in eight people, are older Americans.
What Barnhart wrote was true. The 1934 Committee on Economic Security projected that by 2000 there would be a little over 19 million Americans over 65, just over one-half of the actual number. So Barnhart was right. But that isn't the real problem with Krugman's attack. The real problem is that he simply ignores Barnhart's point, which was not about today's elderly population. Rather, the concern she expressed (like President Bush and other members of his administration) was for what will happen in the years to come, when the baby boomers retire and there are only around two workers for each retiree:
These numbers are going to continue to grow even more rapidly in the coming decades. In less than three years, America's 78 million baby boomers will begin to reach retirement age. By the middle of this century, about one of every five Americans will be 65 or older.
This is why Barnhart concludes that the program needs to be reformed for the sake of younger workers. Note how unfair Krugman's attack on Barnhart is: he triumphantly declares that currently 12.4% of Americans are over 65, while in 1935 the projected percentage was 12.7. But that doesn't address Barnhart's point, which is about the future. Go back and look at the 1934 Commission's table projecting the number and percentage of retirees through the year 2000. The Commission projected the percentage of those over 65 to level off between 12 and 13 percent. Barnhart's point is exactly correct: the prospect of an America where 20% of the population is retired, and there are only two workers per retiree, was never contemplated when the Social Security act was adopted. There are many arguments, pro and con, relating to Social Security reform. But Krugman makes none of them. On this topic, as on so many others, he is so twisted by his obsessive hatred of President Bush that he cannot state facts accurately or argue fairly. Thus, he can only mislead those who take him seriously. If there are any such people left.
Event: 9.3-5 - Charity Classic Vintage Race Brings 3 Days Of Thunder
Join the fun Labor Day weekend at Portland International Raceway as we thunder with the most powerful cars ever raced. The Columbia River Classic Vintage Race, Sept. 3-5, 2005, will feature a full grid of vintage cars. On Saturday night, Sept. 3, the Columbia River Classic will host a Vintage Block Party from 6 to 10 p.m. on Charleston St. at Lombard Ave. in Historic St. Johns. The party includes a People's Choice concourse of racecars, some tasty hot rods, a great vintage fashion show and live music. Vintage Block Party tickets are $25 per person - includes all food and drink, and a shuttle to and from the track. Block party tickets are limited and proceeds benefit The Boys & Girls Aid Society of Oregon.All weekend - Portland International Raceway, $25 per person
Join the fun Labor Day weekend at Portland International Raceway as we thunder with the most powerful cars ever raced. The Columbia River Classic Vintage Race, Sept. 3-5, 2005, will feature a full grid of vintage cars. On Saturday night, Sept. 3, the Columbia River Classic will host a Vintage Block Party from 6 to 10 p.m. on Charleston St. at Lombard Ave. in Historic St. Johns. The party includes a People's Choice concourse of racecars, some tasty hot rods, a great vintage fashion show and live music. Vintage Block Party tickets are $25 per person - includes all food and drink, and a shuttle to and from the track. Block party tickets are limited and proceeds benefit The Boys & Girls Aid Society of Oregon.All weekend - Portland International Raceway, $25 per person
Monday, August 15, 2005
The organs of the mainstream media reliably act as the public relations arm of the left, promoting its heroes and trashing its enemies. The case of Cindy Sheehan provides an excellent example. Last night John reported on the nature of Cindy Sheehan's views in "Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism: An old brew in a new bottle." Today the Christian Science Monitor provides the straight public relations view of Cindy Sheehan: "Antiwar sentiment gets champion." Try if you can to find a hint of the deep thoughts of Ms. Sheehan or her friends in this double-bylined CSM article. Consider, too, this first-hand report by FrontPage, which begins with convicted felon and terrorist abettor Lynne Stewart and continues on with Ms. Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan followed this act. Wearing a sweatshirt advertising the website for United for Peace and Justice, Sheehan was interviewed outside just before the meeting by an ABC-TV news reporter. Sheehan said then that military recruiters should not be allowed on college campuses, maintaining they trick naïve 18-year-olds with offers of money and scholarships. Tragically, Cindy Sheehan lost her son Casey who was in the Army and was killed two weeks after arriving in Iraq. She claimed he was promised a job as a chaplain’s assistant although once in the service was placed in a combat role and killed, certainly a moving story – one she exploits to promote venomous anti-Americanism. "George Bush and his neo-conservatives killed my son," she said tearing up a bit. "America has been killing people on this continent since it was started. This country is not worth dying for."
Sheehan said she considered Lynne Stewart her Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defended an innocent Black man accused of rape in the book and film "To Kill A Mockingbird."
"They’re not waging a War on Terror but a War of Terror," she said. "The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush." She claimed "it costs $66,000 to recruit one soldier, not including training, and $49,000 a year to house a prisoner, yet only $6,000 per year is spent to educate a child in California. (Recruiting costs are actually $15,000 per soldier, the cost of housing a prisoner in California for one year is $26,000.) Sheehan continued, "9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda" and declared the U.S. government a "morally repugnant system." Then she raged: "We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!" While one might dismiss some of Sheehan’s hyperbole due to grief over her son’s death, a little research about Casey Sheehan revealed that contrary to being tricked by military recruiters, Casey Sheehan had re-enlisted in the U.S. Army voluntarily when he was 24-years-old, after serving his first hitch successfully. Casey Sheehan was in fact a hero who received a Bronze Star. He was attached as a mechanic to the artillery division of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in Iraq. When a convoy of soldiers from Casey’s unit was attacked in Sadr City by insurgents, Casey volunteered to join a rapid rescue force to get them out. His commanding sergeant told him he did not have to go into combat, because he was a mechanic and not an infantryman. Casey was quoted telling his officer, "I go where my chief goes." He was tragically killed during the rescue attempt. The source for this story? Cindy Sheehan herself.
Cindy Sheehan: is she a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American like the extremists with whom she associates? I don't know, and I'm not sure there is any way to know. But either way, is there any reason why she should be glorified by virtually every American media outlet?
Sheehan said she considered Lynne Stewart her Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defended an innocent Black man accused of rape in the book and film "To Kill A Mockingbird."
"They’re not waging a War on Terror but a War of Terror," she said. "The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush." She claimed "it costs $66,000 to recruit one soldier, not including training, and $49,000 a year to house a prisoner, yet only $6,000 per year is spent to educate a child in California. (Recruiting costs are actually $15,000 per soldier, the cost of housing a prisoner in California for one year is $26,000.) Sheehan continued, "9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda" and declared the U.S. government a "morally repugnant system." Then she raged: "We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!" While one might dismiss some of Sheehan’s hyperbole due to grief over her son’s death, a little research about Casey Sheehan revealed that contrary to being tricked by military recruiters, Casey Sheehan had re-enlisted in the U.S. Army voluntarily when he was 24-years-old, after serving his first hitch successfully. Casey Sheehan was in fact a hero who received a Bronze Star. He was attached as a mechanic to the artillery division of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in Iraq. When a convoy of soldiers from Casey’s unit was attacked in Sadr City by insurgents, Casey volunteered to join a rapid rescue force to get them out. His commanding sergeant told him he did not have to go into combat, because he was a mechanic and not an infantryman. Casey was quoted telling his officer, "I go where my chief goes." He was tragically killed during the rescue attempt. The source for this story? Cindy Sheehan herself.
Cindy Sheehan: is she a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American like the extremists with whom she associates? I don't know, and I'm not sure there is any way to know. But either way, is there any reason why she should be glorified by virtually every American media outlet?
Can Infidels be Innocents?
Two so-called fatwas (even a novice in Islam knows they do not fulfill the definition of a fatwa, which has to be in response to a query) came out in July condemning the 7/7 attacks in London.
British Muslim Forum: "Islam strictly, strongly and severely condemns the use of violence and the destruction of innocent lives." (July 18, 2005)
Fiqh Council of North America: "Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives." (July 28, 2005)
Non-Muslims can be forgiven if they assume the reference to "innocent lives" includes those traveling on the Underground and bus lines in London three weeks earlier. But the term "innocent lives" can be much more restricted in application, as a fascinating article in today's Sunday Times (London) makes clear. Titled "Undercover in the academy of hatred," it is based on the undercover research by Ali Hussain of the newspaper's Insight team. Ali joined the Saviour Sect in June, a few weeks before the 7/7 bombings and took along his tape recorder. What he heard is hair-raising – it is imperative for Muslims to "instil terror into the hearts of the kuffar," "I am a terrorist. As a Muslim, of course I am a terrorist," "They will build tall buildings and we will bring them down," the bombings were "a good start" and Allah should "bless those involved"
He also heard two speakers discuss whom they consider to be innocent.
Zachariah, referring to the London passengers: "They're kuffar [infidels]. They're not people who are innocent. The people who are innocent are the people who are with us or those who are living under the Islamic state." Omar Bakri Mohammed, the sect's leader, who publicly condemned the deaths of "innocents," but at the Selby Centre in Wood Green, north London, on July 22 referred to the 7/7 bombers as the "fantastic four" and explained that his grief for the "innocent" applied only to Muslims. "Yes I condemn killing any innocent people, but not any kuffar." Comments: (1) Muslim statements condemning the killing of "innocents" cannot be taken at face value but must be probed to find out who exactly are considered innocent and who not. In brief, Can infidels be innocents?
Two so-called fatwas (even a novice in Islam knows they do not fulfill the definition of a fatwa, which has to be in response to a query) came out in July condemning the 7/7 attacks in London.
British Muslim Forum: "Islam strictly, strongly and severely condemns the use of violence and the destruction of innocent lives." (July 18, 2005)
Fiqh Council of North America: "Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives." (July 28, 2005)
Non-Muslims can be forgiven if they assume the reference to "innocent lives" includes those traveling on the Underground and bus lines in London three weeks earlier. But the term "innocent lives" can be much more restricted in application, as a fascinating article in today's Sunday Times (London) makes clear. Titled "Undercover in the academy of hatred," it is based on the undercover research by Ali Hussain of the newspaper's Insight team. Ali joined the Saviour Sect in June, a few weeks before the 7/7 bombings and took along his tape recorder. What he heard is hair-raising – it is imperative for Muslims to "instil terror into the hearts of the kuffar," "I am a terrorist. As a Muslim, of course I am a terrorist," "They will build tall buildings and we will bring them down," the bombings were "a good start" and Allah should "bless those involved"
He also heard two speakers discuss whom they consider to be innocent.
Zachariah, referring to the London passengers: "They're kuffar [infidels]. They're not people who are innocent. The people who are innocent are the people who are with us or those who are living under the Islamic state." Omar Bakri Mohammed, the sect's leader, who publicly condemned the deaths of "innocents," but at the Selby Centre in Wood Green, north London, on July 22 referred to the 7/7 bombers as the "fantastic four" and explained that his grief for the "innocent" applied only to Muslims. "Yes I condemn killing any innocent people, but not any kuffar." Comments: (1) Muslim statements condemning the killing of "innocents" cannot be taken at face value but must be probed to find out who exactly are considered innocent and who not. In brief, Can infidels be innocents?
Friday, August 12, 2005
DUI Unconsitutional?
DUI law ruled unconstitutional
Va. presumes guilt if blood-alcohol level is 0.08, a judge says
BY MATTHEW BARAKAT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aug 12, 2005
McLEAN -- A Fairfax County judge has ruled that key components of Virginia's drunken-driving laws are unconstitutional, citing an obscure, decades-old U.S. Supreme Court decision that could prompt similar challenges nationwide. Virginia's law is unconstitutional because it presumes that an individual with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 or higher is intoxicated, denying a defendant's right to a presumption of innocence, Judge Ian O'Flaherty ruled in dismissing charges against at least two alleged drunken drivers last month.
As a district judge, O'Flaherty's rulings do not establish any formal precedent, but word of the constitutional argument is spreading quickly among the defense bar. Every state has similar presumptions about intoxication at a 0.08 blood-alcohol level, so defense lawyers across the nation are likely to make similar arguments. "I am sure there will be lawyers out in the field making similar arguments tomorrow," Steven Oberman, chairman of the DUI defense committee at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, a defense lawyer who often practices in Fairfax, said he disagrees with O'Flaherty's ruling and sees no difference between a presumption of intoxication at 0.08 and a presumption of speeding at 80 mph. He said he did not see any reason to change Virginia's drunken-driving laws. "So far not a single judge in Virginia has ruled the same way," he said. "It's just one judge." Corinne Magee, a McLean defense lawyer who successfully argued the issue to O'Flaherty, said the judge's ruling is based on a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case called Francis v. Franklin, which deals with prosecutors' obligation to prove all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Magee said she came across the Francis case doing research on another case and realized it might apply to Virginia's drunken-driving laws.
"Frankly, I was surprised" that the judge dismissed the case based on her constitutional arguments, Magee said yesterday. "But I think Judge O'Flaherty's ruling is based on a very solid reading of this case." She said Virginia's law is problematic not just because of the presumption of intoxication at 0.08, but also a presumption in the law that the blood-alcohol level at the time the test is taken is equal to the level at the time of the offense, even if the test occurs hours after police make a stop. Magee said a person's blood-alcohol level can fluctuate up or down depending on when a person had their last drink and how their body metabolizes alcohol.
Prosecutors are now taking steps to avoid O'Flaherty on all drunken-driving cases, withdrawing cases assigned to him and instead obtaining indictments that send the cases directly to Circuit Court. Prosecutors cannot appeal cases dismissed by a district court judge, but could appeal if a circuit judge makes a similar ruling.
Va. presumes guilt if blood-alcohol level is 0.08, a judge says
BY MATTHEW BARAKAT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aug 12, 2005
McLEAN -- A Fairfax County judge has ruled that key components of Virginia's drunken-driving laws are unconstitutional, citing an obscure, decades-old U.S. Supreme Court decision that could prompt similar challenges nationwide. Virginia's law is unconstitutional because it presumes that an individual with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 or higher is intoxicated, denying a defendant's right to a presumption of innocence, Judge Ian O'Flaherty ruled in dismissing charges against at least two alleged drunken drivers last month.
As a district judge, O'Flaherty's rulings do not establish any formal precedent, but word of the constitutional argument is spreading quickly among the defense bar. Every state has similar presumptions about intoxication at a 0.08 blood-alcohol level, so defense lawyers across the nation are likely to make similar arguments. "I am sure there will be lawyers out in the field making similar arguments tomorrow," Steven Oberman, chairman of the DUI defense committee at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, a defense lawyer who often practices in Fairfax, said he disagrees with O'Flaherty's ruling and sees no difference between a presumption of intoxication at 0.08 and a presumption of speeding at 80 mph. He said he did not see any reason to change Virginia's drunken-driving laws. "So far not a single judge in Virginia has ruled the same way," he said. "It's just one judge." Corinne Magee, a McLean defense lawyer who successfully argued the issue to O'Flaherty, said the judge's ruling is based on a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case called Francis v. Franklin, which deals with prosecutors' obligation to prove all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Magee said she came across the Francis case doing research on another case and realized it might apply to Virginia's drunken-driving laws.
"Frankly, I was surprised" that the judge dismissed the case based on her constitutional arguments, Magee said yesterday. "But I think Judge O'Flaherty's ruling is based on a very solid reading of this case." She said Virginia's law is problematic not just because of the presumption of intoxication at 0.08, but also a presumption in the law that the blood-alcohol level at the time the test is taken is equal to the level at the time of the offense, even if the test occurs hours after police make a stop. Magee said a person's blood-alcohol level can fluctuate up or down depending on when a person had their last drink and how their body metabolizes alcohol.
Prosecutors are now taking steps to avoid O'Flaherty on all drunken-driving cases, withdrawing cases assigned to him and instead obtaining indictments that send the cases directly to Circuit Court. Prosecutors cannot appeal cases dismissed by a district court judge, but could appeal if a circuit judge makes a similar ruling.
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