http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8
“Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered”
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Why the West Is Best
By Ibn WarraqCity Journal 2/8/2008
Last October, I participated in a debate in London, hosted by Intelligence Squared, to consider the motion, “We should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.” Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan, among others, spoke against the motion; I spoke in favor, focusing on the vast disparities in freedom, human rights, and tolerance between Western and Islamic societies. Here, condensed somewhat, is the case that I made.
The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.
In short, the glory of the West, as philosopher Roger Scruton puts it, is that life here is an open book. Under Islam, the book is closed. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, citizens are not free to read what they wish. In Saudi Arabia, Muslims are not free to convert to Christianity, and Christians are not free to practice their faith—clear violations of Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In contrast with the mind-numbing enforced certainties and rules of Islam, Western civilization offers what Bertrand Russell once called “liberating doubt,” which encourages the methodological principle of scientific skepticism. Western politics, like science, proceeds through tentative steps of trial and error, open discussion, criticism, and self-correction.
One could characterize the difference between the West and the Rest as a difference in epistemological principles. The desire for knowledge, no matter where it leads, inherited from the Greeks, has led to an institution unequaled—or very rarely equaled—outside the West: the university. Along with research institutes and libraries, universities are, at least ideally, independent academies that enshrine these epistemological norms, where we can pursue truth in a spirit of disinterested inquiry, free from political pressures. In other words, behind the success of modern Western societies, with their science and technology and open institutions, lies a distinct way of looking at the world, interpreting it, and recognizing and rectifying problems.
The edifice of modern science and scientific method is one of Western man’s greatest gifts to the world. The West has given us not only nearly every scientific discovery of the last 500 years—from electricity to computers—but also, thanks to its humanitarian impulses, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. The West provides the bulk of aid to beleaguered Darfur; Islamic countries are conspicuous by their lack of assistance.
Moreover, other parts of the world recognize Western superiority. When other societies such as South Korea and Japan have adopted Western political principles, their citizens have flourished. It is to the West, not to Saudi Arabia or Iran, that millions of refugees from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes flee, seeking tolerance and political freedom. Nor would any Western politician be able to get away with the anti-Semitic remarks that former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad made in 2003. Our excusing Mahathir’s diatribe indicates not only a double standard but also a tacit acknowledgment that we apply higher ethical standards to Western leaders.
A culture that gave the world the novel; the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; and the paintings of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Rembrandt does not need lessons from societies whose idea of heaven, peopled with female virgins, resembles a cosmic brothel. Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.
As Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said, there are no jokes in Islam. The West is able to look at its foibles and laugh, to make fun of its fundamental principles: but there is no equivalent as yet to Monty Python’s Life of Brian in Islam. Can we look forward, someday, to a Life of Mo? Probably not—one more small sign that Western values remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.
Since 1998, Ibn Warraq has edited several books of Koranic criticism and on the origins of Islam, including Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, and Which Koran? (forthcoming).
By Ibn WarraqCity Journal 2/8/2008
Last October, I participated in a debate in London, hosted by Intelligence Squared, to consider the motion, “We should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.” Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan, among others, spoke against the motion; I spoke in favor, focusing on the vast disparities in freedom, human rights, and tolerance between Western and Islamic societies. Here, condensed somewhat, is the case that I made.
The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.
In short, the glory of the West, as philosopher Roger Scruton puts it, is that life here is an open book. Under Islam, the book is closed. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, citizens are not free to read what they wish. In Saudi Arabia, Muslims are not free to convert to Christianity, and Christians are not free to practice their faith—clear violations of Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In contrast with the mind-numbing enforced certainties and rules of Islam, Western civilization offers what Bertrand Russell once called “liberating doubt,” which encourages the methodological principle of scientific skepticism. Western politics, like science, proceeds through tentative steps of trial and error, open discussion, criticism, and self-correction.
One could characterize the difference between the West and the Rest as a difference in epistemological principles. The desire for knowledge, no matter where it leads, inherited from the Greeks, has led to an institution unequaled—or very rarely equaled—outside the West: the university. Along with research institutes and libraries, universities are, at least ideally, independent academies that enshrine these epistemological norms, where we can pursue truth in a spirit of disinterested inquiry, free from political pressures. In other words, behind the success of modern Western societies, with their science and technology and open institutions, lies a distinct way of looking at the world, interpreting it, and recognizing and rectifying problems.
The edifice of modern science and scientific method is one of Western man’s greatest gifts to the world. The West has given us not only nearly every scientific discovery of the last 500 years—from electricity to computers—but also, thanks to its humanitarian impulses, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. The West provides the bulk of aid to beleaguered Darfur; Islamic countries are conspicuous by their lack of assistance.
Moreover, other parts of the world recognize Western superiority. When other societies such as South Korea and Japan have adopted Western political principles, their citizens have flourished. It is to the West, not to Saudi Arabia or Iran, that millions of refugees from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes flee, seeking tolerance and political freedom. Nor would any Western politician be able to get away with the anti-Semitic remarks that former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad made in 2003. Our excusing Mahathir’s diatribe indicates not only a double standard but also a tacit acknowledgment that we apply higher ethical standards to Western leaders.
A culture that gave the world the novel; the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; and the paintings of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Rembrandt does not need lessons from societies whose idea of heaven, peopled with female virgins, resembles a cosmic brothel. Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.
As Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said, there are no jokes in Islam. The West is able to look at its foibles and laugh, to make fun of its fundamental principles: but there is no equivalent as yet to Monty Python’s Life of Brian in Islam. Can we look forward, someday, to a Life of Mo? Probably not—one more small sign that Western values remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.
Since 1998, Ibn Warraq has edited several books of Koranic criticism and on the origins of Islam, including Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, and Which Koran? (forthcoming).
Monday, February 25, 2008
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10698485
http://instapundit.com/
Some good links. Like this quote too-
KAPHTOR ON CUBA "I might add that the US tends to get blamed for both dictators, which just goes to show, in the minds of some people, it doesn't matter whether we support third rate leaders like Batista, or oppose third rate leaders like Allende, when they fall to a coup within their own country, it's America's fault. It also doesn't matter whether we embargo them or trade like crazy with the subsequent junta, the policy is to blame for the continuing plight of the people. And it doesn't matter whether we gently show the dictator the door, or shake our fist at him in his dotage, we don't get much credit."
http://instapundit.com/
Some good links. Like this quote too-
KAPHTOR ON CUBA "I might add that the US tends to get blamed for both dictators, which just goes to show, in the minds of some people, it doesn't matter whether we support third rate leaders like Batista, or oppose third rate leaders like Allende, when they fall to a coup within their own country, it's America's fault. It also doesn't matter whether we embargo them or trade like crazy with the subsequent junta, the policy is to blame for the continuing plight of the people. And it doesn't matter whether we gently show the dictator the door, or shake our fist at him in his dotage, we don't get much credit."
Q&A: Gary smith
This Portland priest-turned-author cusses and helps African refugees.BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
Gary Smith is a 70-year-old Catholic priest who says things like “Darfur is a frickin’ mess” and “humans are fucked up.”
“I don’t fit the stereotype,” says Smith, who also doesn’t wear a priestly collar.
He became moved to help the poor when he was ordained at the University of San Francisco in 1971. A Jesuit, Smith went to Oakland as a community organizer in poor neighborhoods and then to Tacoma as the director of a drop-in center for homeless and street people.
Smith moved to Portland in 1992, and worked in jails with mentally ill people, and residents of low-income hotels before realizing 10 years ago even that wasn’t enough. He went to work for the Jesuit Refugee Service, an international organization that works with the United Nations, and got assigned to Northern Uganda. There, he found himself in camps with as many as 30,000 Sudanese refugees displaced by Sudan’s 20-year civil war.
Smith, who returned to Portland in January, has written a book about his experiences in Africa called They Come Back Singing, a reference to the return of the people of Israel from exile. This spring, Smith will return to Africa—most likely to Zimbabwe. Before he leaves, WW asked him how he stays optimistic in the face of such suffering.
WW: Given that the Bible says God loves everyone, why are there problems like a refugee crisis? Gary Smith: It’s not that God doesn’t love us. It’s because humans are fucked up. Evil is not sustained by God, but by us. People choose to blow off God’s love. Groups are evil to groups, and individuals are evil to individuals. We choose a lot of disorder.
The Jesuits are famous for questioning any and all assumptions. Doesn’t that philosophy lead you to doubt whether your own work is effective? [Jesuits] are taught to be critical and examine data as it comes. When there were options of what we had to do in a village, I was always critical of what would work. For example, when it came to staffing, and how we would spend money. You have to ask what would work in these circumstances.
How do you handle moments of self-doubt? You learn circumspection and prudence. You learn how to finesse madness. You run into screwed-up people, and you have to figure it out. That shows you’re not naive and up to the situation. I’m a big believer in dialogue. And when I was in doubt, I went to people I could trust, and said, “This is how I’m feeling. Could I take this out on you?” If they’re smart, loving people, they will help you, and you can work through the dark spots.
Did you try to convert refugees to Catholicism? Oh God, no. We never got into trying to convert people. If people needed help, we provided it. I would do a liturgy, but it wouldn’t be like we’re doing it with a loudspeaker in the middle of the village. It would be rude and offensive. I figure people watch and see what you’re doing. If they get interested, then you can teach them. You’re never in a position to proselytize. If you spent your whole life worrying about conversion, you would miss the whole point of being in a relationship with God.
There’s got to be a temptation to throw up your hands and say these problems are too large to solve. Of course, you don’t work alone, you work with lots of people. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for decades, so I’m not easily discouraged. I have enough experiences with the positive to accent the negative. You take breaks, depend upon your friends. I had friends in the U.S. I was always in touch with through email or telephone. Keep nourishment coming in the face of the darkness you would encounter. Everybody has their days. Some days were pretty grim.
What’s an example of a grim day? You could go into a tukul (a hut) and somebody had just lost a child to malaria. There’s a lot of grief, because it’s so senseless. A four-month-old baby dies because there’s no mosquito net or health care. Or the LRA [the Lord’s Resistance Army—an armed, religious group infamous for its raids of Northern Ugandan villages and child abductions] would make incursions into the areas I worked in. After you went back into the village, you would see dead people and people who have lost their children because of the abductions. It was a terrible scene.
A good day? The next day you could be spending time with a teacher who shared their conviction with you that education is the only thing that will move Uganda to the next level. Or you can walk into a Catholic Mass and everybody’s singing and dancing. You can run into seeing some terrible scenes of war, and at the same time or the next day run into class acts of people who are there to take care of each other. It could happen in the same day.
Given the church’s opposition to birth control, how do you square that philosophy with the refugee crisis? I don’t even try to square it. It’s an issue I never ran into. It was never anything on my front burner. Some of these issues like birth control are just not questions when you face death every day. It’s in another league as far as I’m concerned. There are more important things the Church is doing with the poor and refugees than birth control.
What was on your front burner? Medical services, getting people to clinics. If a woman was going into labor about to have a child, I would take her in my pickup. People were trying to figure out how to grow their crops better. Why their pigs were dying. Why trees were dying. I would be the one who would hear about or see it, and I could refer people to the right places. Of course, education is important, but you have to provide the means so they can get that education. And you couldn’t believe the gratitude of the people. People just thank you for not forgetting them. That cracks me open in ways that I suppose you could say only love cracks you open. When you’re around poor people with no power, no money, no beauty, it’s pretty hard to be a phony. All they have to offer you is their love. Like when a child who comes to you with their love. They crack you open by their total love for you. I think the same thing happens when you work with the poor. Part of the discovery of myself is in the presence of the poor, like you discover yourself in the presence of the person who loves you, or you love.
What’s the biggest mistake you have ever made? There are probably a whole litany of times when I’ve made judgments on people on the streets and was wrong. Why don’t you get a job, why do you smell so much, why don’t you stop using drugs. And then you find out their story. Of course, you learn from that it’s so easy to pass judgment on people who don’t have as much as you have. Once, a cabbie said to me in New York, pointing to someone in the street: “Look at that troll.” And another person in the cab said, “He had a mommy and a daddy, too.” And that stopped the cabbie cold. You can look at people as trolls or people with beating hearts.
What would you tell a young person considering your career path? You gotta expose yourself to it. That means shelters or working with agencies that work with the poor. Go do it, then go back and pray about it and see if that’s what you want to do. Then you can figure out some way how you can use your skills and talents to deal with the problem. You have to figure out the structures that create the poor. You can’t be compassionate. You have to analyze what is causing this reality, and ask is there a way you can analyze things to figure out what’s happening, then move toward some solutions to the problem. And eventually one insight leads to another.
What do you do to take a break when you’re in Uganda? Normally I would fly to Kampala [the capital], about 400 miles south as the crow flies. There’s a Jesuit community there. And I would stay there and take a hot shower. You could never get one in the north. Eat some food, sleep and relax a bit. Sometimes you don’t want to do anything but have a glass of wine with a friend and take it easy.
FACTS: To learn more about Jesuit Refugee Services, go to www.jesref.org
St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order within the Catholic Church in 1534.
Originally Published on
Find this story at www.wweek.com/editorial/3414/10387 Close Window
This Portland priest-turned-author cusses and helps African refugees.BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
Gary Smith is a 70-year-old Catholic priest who says things like “Darfur is a frickin’ mess” and “humans are fucked up.”
“I don’t fit the stereotype,” says Smith, who also doesn’t wear a priestly collar.
He became moved to help the poor when he was ordained at the University of San Francisco in 1971. A Jesuit, Smith went to Oakland as a community organizer in poor neighborhoods and then to Tacoma as the director of a drop-in center for homeless and street people.
Smith moved to Portland in 1992, and worked in jails with mentally ill people, and residents of low-income hotels before realizing 10 years ago even that wasn’t enough. He went to work for the Jesuit Refugee Service, an international organization that works with the United Nations, and got assigned to Northern Uganda. There, he found himself in camps with as many as 30,000 Sudanese refugees displaced by Sudan’s 20-year civil war.
Smith, who returned to Portland in January, has written a book about his experiences in Africa called They Come Back Singing, a reference to the return of the people of Israel from exile. This spring, Smith will return to Africa—most likely to Zimbabwe. Before he leaves, WW asked him how he stays optimistic in the face of such suffering.
WW: Given that the Bible says God loves everyone, why are there problems like a refugee crisis? Gary Smith: It’s not that God doesn’t love us. It’s because humans are fucked up. Evil is not sustained by God, but by us. People choose to blow off God’s love. Groups are evil to groups, and individuals are evil to individuals. We choose a lot of disorder.
The Jesuits are famous for questioning any and all assumptions. Doesn’t that philosophy lead you to doubt whether your own work is effective? [Jesuits] are taught to be critical and examine data as it comes. When there were options of what we had to do in a village, I was always critical of what would work. For example, when it came to staffing, and how we would spend money. You have to ask what would work in these circumstances.
How do you handle moments of self-doubt? You learn circumspection and prudence. You learn how to finesse madness. You run into screwed-up people, and you have to figure it out. That shows you’re not naive and up to the situation. I’m a big believer in dialogue. And when I was in doubt, I went to people I could trust, and said, “This is how I’m feeling. Could I take this out on you?” If they’re smart, loving people, they will help you, and you can work through the dark spots.
Did you try to convert refugees to Catholicism? Oh God, no. We never got into trying to convert people. If people needed help, we provided it. I would do a liturgy, but it wouldn’t be like we’re doing it with a loudspeaker in the middle of the village. It would be rude and offensive. I figure people watch and see what you’re doing. If they get interested, then you can teach them. You’re never in a position to proselytize. If you spent your whole life worrying about conversion, you would miss the whole point of being in a relationship with God.
There’s got to be a temptation to throw up your hands and say these problems are too large to solve. Of course, you don’t work alone, you work with lots of people. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for decades, so I’m not easily discouraged. I have enough experiences with the positive to accent the negative. You take breaks, depend upon your friends. I had friends in the U.S. I was always in touch with through email or telephone. Keep nourishment coming in the face of the darkness you would encounter. Everybody has their days. Some days were pretty grim.
What’s an example of a grim day? You could go into a tukul (a hut) and somebody had just lost a child to malaria. There’s a lot of grief, because it’s so senseless. A four-month-old baby dies because there’s no mosquito net or health care. Or the LRA [the Lord’s Resistance Army—an armed, religious group infamous for its raids of Northern Ugandan villages and child abductions] would make incursions into the areas I worked in. After you went back into the village, you would see dead people and people who have lost their children because of the abductions. It was a terrible scene.
A good day? The next day you could be spending time with a teacher who shared their conviction with you that education is the only thing that will move Uganda to the next level. Or you can walk into a Catholic Mass and everybody’s singing and dancing. You can run into seeing some terrible scenes of war, and at the same time or the next day run into class acts of people who are there to take care of each other. It could happen in the same day.
Given the church’s opposition to birth control, how do you square that philosophy with the refugee crisis? I don’t even try to square it. It’s an issue I never ran into. It was never anything on my front burner. Some of these issues like birth control are just not questions when you face death every day. It’s in another league as far as I’m concerned. There are more important things the Church is doing with the poor and refugees than birth control.
What was on your front burner? Medical services, getting people to clinics. If a woman was going into labor about to have a child, I would take her in my pickup. People were trying to figure out how to grow their crops better. Why their pigs were dying. Why trees were dying. I would be the one who would hear about or see it, and I could refer people to the right places. Of course, education is important, but you have to provide the means so they can get that education. And you couldn’t believe the gratitude of the people. People just thank you for not forgetting them. That cracks me open in ways that I suppose you could say only love cracks you open. When you’re around poor people with no power, no money, no beauty, it’s pretty hard to be a phony. All they have to offer you is their love. Like when a child who comes to you with their love. They crack you open by their total love for you. I think the same thing happens when you work with the poor. Part of the discovery of myself is in the presence of the poor, like you discover yourself in the presence of the person who loves you, or you love.
What’s the biggest mistake you have ever made? There are probably a whole litany of times when I’ve made judgments on people on the streets and was wrong. Why don’t you get a job, why do you smell so much, why don’t you stop using drugs. And then you find out their story. Of course, you learn from that it’s so easy to pass judgment on people who don’t have as much as you have. Once, a cabbie said to me in New York, pointing to someone in the street: “Look at that troll.” And another person in the cab said, “He had a mommy and a daddy, too.” And that stopped the cabbie cold. You can look at people as trolls or people with beating hearts.
What would you tell a young person considering your career path? You gotta expose yourself to it. That means shelters or working with agencies that work with the poor. Go do it, then go back and pray about it and see if that’s what you want to do. Then you can figure out some way how you can use your skills and talents to deal with the problem. You have to figure out the structures that create the poor. You can’t be compassionate. You have to analyze what is causing this reality, and ask is there a way you can analyze things to figure out what’s happening, then move toward some solutions to the problem. And eventually one insight leads to another.
What do you do to take a break when you’re in Uganda? Normally I would fly to Kampala [the capital], about 400 miles south as the crow flies. There’s a Jesuit community there. And I would stay there and take a hot shower. You could never get one in the north. Eat some food, sleep and relax a bit. Sometimes you don’t want to do anything but have a glass of wine with a friend and take it easy.
FACTS: To learn more about Jesuit Refugee Services, go to www.jesref.org
St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order within the Catholic Church in 1534.
Originally Published on
Find this story at www.wweek.com/editorial/3414/10387 Close Window
Gazans stage mass protest against Israeli blockade.
Al-Mughrabi also calls it “peaceful,” which it was if you overlook the rockets fired into Israel and the arrests of 50 stone-throwing “youths.”
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians formed a human chain in the Gaza Strip on Monday in a protest against an Israeli blockade that has deepened hardship in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Israel had put troops on alert along the frontier and threatened to open fire if protesters tried to surge across the border. Organizers had forecast 40,000 to 50,000 participants but only about 4,500 people turned out in inclement weather.
Although the event, promoted by Hamas Islamists and allied activists, was peaceful, militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at southern Israel while the protest was under way, wounding a child.
After the human chain broke up, Palestinian youngsters hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers at Gaza’s Erez border crossing. The Israeli army said it detained 50 stone-throwers.
The Associated Press, on the other hand, doesn’t even mention the rockets or the stone-throwers: Hamas Gaza protest passes peacefully.
Al-Mughrabi also calls it “peaceful,” which it was if you overlook the rockets fired into Israel and the arrests of 50 stone-throwing “youths.”
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians formed a human chain in the Gaza Strip on Monday in a protest against an Israeli blockade that has deepened hardship in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Israel had put troops on alert along the frontier and threatened to open fire if protesters tried to surge across the border. Organizers had forecast 40,000 to 50,000 participants but only about 4,500 people turned out in inclement weather.
Although the event, promoted by Hamas Islamists and allied activists, was peaceful, militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at southern Israel while the protest was under way, wounding a child.
After the human chain broke up, Palestinian youngsters hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers at Gaza’s Erez border crossing. The Israeli army said it detained 50 stone-throwers.
The Associated Press, on the other hand, doesn’t even mention the rockets or the stone-throwers: Hamas Gaza protest passes peacefully.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
AP Suckles Castro's Beanbag
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRZ0jbwAcDj5dkd6GCPmrQcciVwAD8UTLD081
"Castro brothers" I love Bush's candor. Honestly, why should the policy change?
I like how the AP says he "outlasted" 9 U.S. Presidents (Presidents who are constitutionally term-limited unlike a dictator) as if it is an achievement!
Raul has also "reduced the number of Cuban political prisoners by more than 20 percent" since taking provisional power. Thanks Hombre!
Reporters are so blind by ideology they can't see the wood for the trees. If I was an editor I would have this asshole reporting on feline fashion shows by the end of the week.
"Castro brothers" I love Bush's candor. Honestly, why should the policy change?
I like how the AP says he "outlasted" 9 U.S. Presidents (Presidents who are constitutionally term-limited unlike a dictator) as if it is an achievement!
Raul has also "reduced the number of Cuban political prisoners by more than 20 percent" since taking provisional power. Thanks Hombre!
Reporters are so blind by ideology they can't see the wood for the trees. If I was an editor I would have this asshole reporting on feline fashion shows by the end of the week.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
What Makes Michelle Obama Proud?
Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 11:15:02 am PST
Hot Air has video of Michelle Obama saying she has not been proud of America in her entire adult life—until now that her husband is running for President: Michelle Obama hasn’t been proud of America in at least 26 years?
I wasn’t shocked by the statement myself; it’s pretty standard “progressive” thinking. But it’s interesting to note that the person who said it is a graduate of Harvard Law School who has held many prestigious and highly paid professional positions, and has benefited enormously from living in a country of which she has never been proud.
Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 11:15:02 am PST
Hot Air has video of Michelle Obama saying she has not been proud of America in her entire adult life—until now that her husband is running for President: Michelle Obama hasn’t been proud of America in at least 26 years?
I wasn’t shocked by the statement myself; it’s pretty standard “progressive” thinking. But it’s interesting to note that the person who said it is a graduate of Harvard Law School who has held many prestigious and highly paid professional positions, and has benefited enormously from living in a country of which she has never been proud.
Separatists and states see hope and fear in Kosovo
Tue 19 Feb 2008, 12:40 GMT
By Peter Apps
LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Newly independent Kosovo might be a unique case, experts say, but it has nonetheless given fresh hope to separatist movements around the world and created a worrying precedent for nations with restive regions.
Effectively under international administration since NATO bombing forced the withdrawal of Serb forces in 1999, Kosovo follows the former Indonesian region of East Timor into independence -- and others are hoping to achieve similar status.
That worries countries from Spain to Sri Lanka, who are fighting their own insurgencies and independence movements and whose concern has led them to refuse to recognise Kosovo.
Almost all of those who have accepted Kosovo as the world's newest state have been keen to stress its uniqueness, citing its history, a near decade under international administration and its status as the final part to break away from former Yugoslavia.
The United States and others recognising Kosovo say Serbia lost the moral authority to the region because of atrocities, massacres and ethnic cleansing, and after negotiations repeatedly failed to find another solution.
"The mere fact that everyone is going to such great lengths to say it is a unique case and doesn't set a precedent means that ultimately it does set a precedent," said international relations lecturer Spyros Economides at the London School of Economics.
"It establishes a precedent that you can overturn national sovereignty for apparent moral or humanitarian reasons -- but we only apply it selectively."
For example, Western powers were happy to recognise Kosovo, but not Chechnya or Kurdistan, he added, for fear of overly upsetting Russia or Turkey.
Essentially, NATO had intervened militarily to back a separatist rebel group and Western states had nine years later formalised that independence, he said -- a significant shift from previous ideas of state sovereignty.
That is a step beyond what happened with the birth of other new nations born in recent years such as Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia, or East Timor. Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor was never recognised by the United Nations.
"There is a conflict between two key legal standards," said Sabine Freizer, head of European programmes at the International Crisis Group. "There is the principle of territorial integrity which conflicts with the right to self-determination."
NEVER WITHDRAW
Kosovo's independence announcement rippled through the world's separatist movements and breakaway states, which range from disputed slivers of former Soviet republics to remote rebel enclaves in Asia or Africa.
A pro-Tamil Tiger rebel Web site said the recognition "debunked" arguments that a separate ethnic Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka was unviable.
Georgia said it feared Kosovo's independence may embolden breakaway movements in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
Moldova, with its own Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdniestra, also warned it could be a "factor of destabilisation in Europe".
Ultimately, Economides said there was a risk countries -- possibly including Russia, a long-term Serbian ally angry at Western recognition of Kosovo -- might recognise other breakaway states in their neighbours in an attempt to destabilise them.
Experts say that, at the very least, Kosovo's fate acts as a drastic disincentive for countries to allow large multinational peacekeeping forces into areas such as Sudan's Darfur region that might in future want independence or greater autonomy.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to Geneva and the United Nations Dayan Jayatilleka said Serb forces should have held their ground in 1999 and fought NATO troops back. [Right!!!- TP]
"The...independence of Kosovo is the result of the failure of political will on the part of the ex-Yugoslav leadership," he wrote in a Sri Lankan newspaper, drawing lessons for his own country, where government forces are launching an assault into rebel territory where Tamil Tigers run a de facto state.
"Never withdraw the armed forces from any part of territory in which they are challenged, and never permit a
foreign presence on (your) soil."
(Editing by Kate Kelland and Jon Boyle)
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. Learn more about Reuters
Tue 19 Feb 2008, 12:40 GMT
By Peter Apps
LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Newly independent Kosovo might be a unique case, experts say, but it has nonetheless given fresh hope to separatist movements around the world and created a worrying precedent for nations with restive regions.
Effectively under international administration since NATO bombing forced the withdrawal of Serb forces in 1999, Kosovo follows the former Indonesian region of East Timor into independence -- and others are hoping to achieve similar status.
That worries countries from Spain to Sri Lanka, who are fighting their own insurgencies and independence movements and whose concern has led them to refuse to recognise Kosovo.
Almost all of those who have accepted Kosovo as the world's newest state have been keen to stress its uniqueness, citing its history, a near decade under international administration and its status as the final part to break away from former Yugoslavia.
The United States and others recognising Kosovo say Serbia lost the moral authority to the region because of atrocities, massacres and ethnic cleansing, and after negotiations repeatedly failed to find another solution.
"The mere fact that everyone is going to such great lengths to say it is a unique case and doesn't set a precedent means that ultimately it does set a precedent," said international relations lecturer Spyros Economides at the London School of Economics.
"It establishes a precedent that you can overturn national sovereignty for apparent moral or humanitarian reasons -- but we only apply it selectively."
For example, Western powers were happy to recognise Kosovo, but not Chechnya or Kurdistan, he added, for fear of overly upsetting Russia or Turkey.
Essentially, NATO had intervened militarily to back a separatist rebel group and Western states had nine years later formalised that independence, he said -- a significant shift from previous ideas of state sovereignty.
That is a step beyond what happened with the birth of other new nations born in recent years such as Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia, or East Timor. Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor was never recognised by the United Nations.
"There is a conflict between two key legal standards," said Sabine Freizer, head of European programmes at the International Crisis Group. "There is the principle of territorial integrity which conflicts with the right to self-determination."
NEVER WITHDRAW
Kosovo's independence announcement rippled through the world's separatist movements and breakaway states, which range from disputed slivers of former Soviet republics to remote rebel enclaves in Asia or Africa.
A pro-Tamil Tiger rebel Web site said the recognition "debunked" arguments that a separate ethnic Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka was unviable.
Georgia said it feared Kosovo's independence may embolden breakaway movements in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
Moldova, with its own Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdniestra, also warned it could be a "factor of destabilisation in Europe".
Ultimately, Economides said there was a risk countries -- possibly including Russia, a long-term Serbian ally angry at Western recognition of Kosovo -- might recognise other breakaway states in their neighbours in an attempt to destabilise them.
Experts say that, at the very least, Kosovo's fate acts as a drastic disincentive for countries to allow large multinational peacekeeping forces into areas such as Sudan's Darfur region that might in future want independence or greater autonomy.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to Geneva and the United Nations Dayan Jayatilleka said Serb forces should have held their ground in 1999 and fought NATO troops back. [Right!!!- TP]
"The...independence of Kosovo is the result of the failure of political will on the part of the ex-Yugoslav leadership," he wrote in a Sri Lankan newspaper, drawing lessons for his own country, where government forces are launching an assault into rebel territory where Tamil Tigers run a de facto state.
"Never withdraw the armed forces from any part of territory in which they are challenged, and never permit a
foreign presence on (your) soil."
(Editing by Kate Kelland and Jon Boyle)
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. Learn more about Reuters
Monday, February 18, 2008
http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches
McRib takes its rightful place among nation’s best.
McRib takes its rightful place among nation’s best.
"Free Kosovo a Door for Islamic Radicals," from Javno :
Independent Kosovo will endanger the stability in the Balkans once again, estimated the American ambassador at the UN, John Bolton.
I think that there is a significant risk that the instability in the Balkans will continue in Bosnia and other areas where ethnic groups do not live in a country they refuse, said Bolton in an interview for Glas Amerike reported in Serbian language.
Kosovo will be a weak country submissive to Islamic radical forces which will spread its influence in the area with the support of singular Albanians and so potentially open the door to radicals in Europe, Bolton estimated.
Independent Kosovo will endanger the stability in the Balkans once again, estimated the American ambassador at the UN, John Bolton.
I think that there is a significant risk that the instability in the Balkans will continue in Bosnia and other areas where ethnic groups do not live in a country they refuse, said Bolton in an interview for Glas Amerike reported in Serbian language.
Kosovo will be a weak country submissive to Islamic radical forces which will spread its influence in the area with the support of singular Albanians and so potentially open the door to radicals in Europe, Bolton estimated.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sorry, Pal
The recent border crisis between Egypt and Gaza has led to a drastic change in the attitude the pro-government Egyptian press takes toward the Palestinians. Noha El-Hennawy, blogging for the Los Angeles Times Web site, describes the shift:
The new content replaces headlines that showed sympathy with the Palestinians, stressing President Hosni Mubarak's statements that Egypt would not let the Palestinians starve. However, 10 days later, a change of heart has become crystal-clear. Rosa-al-Yousef, a state-owned paper known as the most vocal mouthpiece of the regime, has spearheaded the anti-Palestinian campaign. "Egypt is generous and patient but its patience has limits," warned a front-page headline that appeared after skirmishes the Egyptian-Palestinian borders earlier this week.
The paper even questioned whether Gaza had a humanitarian crisis, hinting that Gazans were well-off. "It is not true that the siege imposed on Gaza caused a serious humanitarian crisis that eventually led to the Palestinian flood [into Egypt]," wrote Abdullah Kamal, Rosa-al-Yousef's editor-in-chief and a staunch proponent of Mubarak's regime. "Each [Gazan] comer spent an average of US$260 in three days. . . . The total spending during that period [where the Gazans broke through Egypt] reached US$220 million. These figures raise real questions about the financial situation in the Gaza Strip."
Arabs love Palestinians in the abstract--as a symbol of the putative evil of the hated Jews. But they're not so crazy about Palestinians as actual human beings.
The recent border crisis between Egypt and Gaza has led to a drastic change in the attitude the pro-government Egyptian press takes toward the Palestinians. Noha El-Hennawy, blogging for the Los Angeles Times Web site, describes the shift:
The new content replaces headlines that showed sympathy with the Palestinians, stressing President Hosni Mubarak's statements that Egypt would not let the Palestinians starve. However, 10 days later, a change of heart has become crystal-clear. Rosa-al-Yousef, a state-owned paper known as the most vocal mouthpiece of the regime, has spearheaded the anti-Palestinian campaign. "Egypt is generous and patient but its patience has limits," warned a front-page headline that appeared after skirmishes the Egyptian-Palestinian borders earlier this week.
The paper even questioned whether Gaza had a humanitarian crisis, hinting that Gazans were well-off. "It is not true that the siege imposed on Gaza caused a serious humanitarian crisis that eventually led to the Palestinian flood [into Egypt]," wrote Abdullah Kamal, Rosa-al-Yousef's editor-in-chief and a staunch proponent of Mubarak's regime. "Each [Gazan] comer spent an average of US$260 in three days. . . . The total spending during that period [where the Gazans broke through Egypt] reached US$220 million. These figures raise real questions about the financial situation in the Gaza Strip."
Arabs love Palestinians in the abstract--as a symbol of the putative evil of the hated Jews. But they're not so crazy about Palestinians as actual human beings.
fighting words
To Hell With the Archbishop of Canterbury
Rowan Williams' dangerous claptrap about "plural jurisdiction."
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at 12:27 PM ET
In December 1931, George Orwell got himself arrested in the slums of East London in order to find out about conditions "inside," and then he wrote an essay about the people he met while in detention. One of them was a buyer for a kosher butcher who had embezzled some of his boss's money. To Orwell's surprise, the man told him that "his employer would probably get into trouble at the synagogue for prosecuting him. It appears that the Jews have arbitration courts of their own, and a Jew is not supposed to prosecute another Jew, at least in a breach-of-trust case like this, without first submitting it to the arbitration court."
You might think that such relics of the medieval ghetto, and of the rabbinical control that was part of ghetto life, had more or less disappeared in England in the 21st century. And you would largely be right. There exists a "Beth Din," or religious court, in the prosperous North London suburb of Finchley to which the ultra-Orthodox submit some of their more arcane disputes. (This little world is very amusingly described by Naomi Alderman in her lovely novel Disobedience.) But to speak in general, Jews in Britain consider themselves, and are considered, to be answerable to the same laws as everybody else. Should I mention any of the numerous reasons why it would be extremely nerve-racking if this were not true?
But now the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has cited the Beth Din as one of his reasons for believing that sharia, or Islamic law, can and should become a part of what he called "plural jurisdiction" in Britain. His reasoning, if one may call it that, is clear: Other faiths already have their own legal authorities, so why not the Muslims, too? What could be more tolerant and diverse? This same argument has been used already, and will be used again, to demand that laws governing "blasphemy," originally written to protect only Christians from being upset, should now, in a nondiscriminatory way, be amended to cover Muslims as well. The alternative—don't have any blasphemy laws and let religious people's feelings be hurt, just as the feelings of the secular are regularly offended by religion—doesn't occur to the archbishop and people who think like him.
A BBC interview with Williams had him saying that the opening to sharia would "help maintain social cohesion." If that phrase is even intended to mean anything, it can only imply that a concession of this kind would lessen the propensity to violence among Muslims. But such abjectness is not the only definition of social cohesion that we have. By a nice coincidence, a London think tank called the Center for Social Cohesion issued a report just days before the leader of the world's Anglicans and Episcopalians capitulated to Islamic demands. Titled "Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK," and written by James Brandon and Salam Hafez, it set out a shocking account of the rapid spread of theocratic crime. The main headings were murder and beating of women, genital mutilation, forced marriage, and vigilante methods employed against those who complained. It could well be—since we are becoming every day more familiar with the first three—that the fourth is the one that should concern us most.
Picture the life of a young Urdu-speaking woman brought to Yorkshire from Pakistan to marry a man—quite possibly a close cousin—whom she has never met. He takes her dowry, beats her, and abuses the children he forces her to bear. She is not allowed to leave the house unless in the company of a male relative and unless she is submissively covered from head to toe. Suppose that she is able to contact one of the few support groups that now exist for the many women in Britain who share her plight. What she ought to be able to say is, "I need the police, and I need the law to be enforced." But what she will often be told is, "Your problem is better handled within the community." And those words, almost a death sentence, have now been endorsed and underwritten—and even advocated—by the country's official spiritual authority.
You might argue that I am describing an extreme case (though, alas, now not an uncommon one), but it is the principle of equality before the law that really counts. And just look at how casually this sheep-faced English cleric throws away the work of centuries of civilization:
[A]n approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts"—I think that's a bit of a danger.
In the midst of this dismal verbiage and euphemism, the plain statement—"There's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said"—still stands out like a diamond in a dunghill. It stands out precisely because it is said simply, and because its essential grandeur is intelligible to everybody. Its principles ought to be just as intelligible and accessible to those who don't yet speak English, in just the same way as the great Lord Mansfield once ruled that, wherever someone might have been born, and whatever he had been through, he could not be subject to slavery once he had set foot on English soil. Simple enough? For the women who are the principal prey of the sharia system, it is often only when they are shipped or flown to Britain that their true miseries begin. This modern disgrace is deepened and extended by a fatuous cleric who, presiding over an increasingly emaciated and schismatic and irrelevant church, nonetheless maintains that any faith is better than none at all.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2184186/
To Hell With the Archbishop of Canterbury
Rowan Williams' dangerous claptrap about "plural jurisdiction."
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at 12:27 PM ET
In December 1931, George Orwell got himself arrested in the slums of East London in order to find out about conditions "inside," and then he wrote an essay about the people he met while in detention. One of them was a buyer for a kosher butcher who had embezzled some of his boss's money. To Orwell's surprise, the man told him that "his employer would probably get into trouble at the synagogue for prosecuting him. It appears that the Jews have arbitration courts of their own, and a Jew is not supposed to prosecute another Jew, at least in a breach-of-trust case like this, without first submitting it to the arbitration court."
You might think that such relics of the medieval ghetto, and of the rabbinical control that was part of ghetto life, had more or less disappeared in England in the 21st century. And you would largely be right. There exists a "Beth Din," or religious court, in the prosperous North London suburb of Finchley to which the ultra-Orthodox submit some of their more arcane disputes. (This little world is very amusingly described by Naomi Alderman in her lovely novel Disobedience.) But to speak in general, Jews in Britain consider themselves, and are considered, to be answerable to the same laws as everybody else. Should I mention any of the numerous reasons why it would be extremely nerve-racking if this were not true?
But now the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has cited the Beth Din as one of his reasons for believing that sharia, or Islamic law, can and should become a part of what he called "plural jurisdiction" in Britain. His reasoning, if one may call it that, is clear: Other faiths already have their own legal authorities, so why not the Muslims, too? What could be more tolerant and diverse? This same argument has been used already, and will be used again, to demand that laws governing "blasphemy," originally written to protect only Christians from being upset, should now, in a nondiscriminatory way, be amended to cover Muslims as well. The alternative—don't have any blasphemy laws and let religious people's feelings be hurt, just as the feelings of the secular are regularly offended by religion—doesn't occur to the archbishop and people who think like him.
A BBC interview with Williams had him saying that the opening to sharia would "help maintain social cohesion." If that phrase is even intended to mean anything, it can only imply that a concession of this kind would lessen the propensity to violence among Muslims. But such abjectness is not the only definition of social cohesion that we have. By a nice coincidence, a London think tank called the Center for Social Cohesion issued a report just days before the leader of the world's Anglicans and Episcopalians capitulated to Islamic demands. Titled "Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK," and written by James Brandon and Salam Hafez, it set out a shocking account of the rapid spread of theocratic crime. The main headings were murder and beating of women, genital mutilation, forced marriage, and vigilante methods employed against those who complained. It could well be—since we are becoming every day more familiar with the first three—that the fourth is the one that should concern us most.
Picture the life of a young Urdu-speaking woman brought to Yorkshire from Pakistan to marry a man—quite possibly a close cousin—whom she has never met. He takes her dowry, beats her, and abuses the children he forces her to bear. She is not allowed to leave the house unless in the company of a male relative and unless she is submissively covered from head to toe. Suppose that she is able to contact one of the few support groups that now exist for the many women in Britain who share her plight. What she ought to be able to say is, "I need the police, and I need the law to be enforced." But what she will often be told is, "Your problem is better handled within the community." And those words, almost a death sentence, have now been endorsed and underwritten—and even advocated—by the country's official spiritual authority.
You might argue that I am describing an extreme case (though, alas, now not an uncommon one), but it is the principle of equality before the law that really counts. And just look at how casually this sheep-faced English cleric throws away the work of centuries of civilization:
[A]n approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts"—I think that's a bit of a danger.
In the midst of this dismal verbiage and euphemism, the plain statement—"There's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said"—still stands out like a diamond in a dunghill. It stands out precisely because it is said simply, and because its essential grandeur is intelligible to everybody. Its principles ought to be just as intelligible and accessible to those who don't yet speak English, in just the same way as the great Lord Mansfield once ruled that, wherever someone might have been born, and whatever he had been through, he could not be subject to slavery once he had set foot on English soil. Simple enough? For the women who are the principal prey of the sharia system, it is often only when they are shipped or flown to Britain that their true miseries begin. This modern disgrace is deepened and extended by a fatuous cleric who, presiding over an increasingly emaciated and schismatic and irrelevant church, nonetheless maintains that any faith is better than none at all.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2184186/
Thursday, February 07, 2008
What, Me Worry?
France says Iranian rocket cannot work in space
Published:
02.07.08, 21:16 /
France said on Thursday an Iranian rocket Tehran says is intended to put a satellite into orbit is in fact a missile that cannot navigate in space, and added to concerns that the technology is aimed at making weapons.
On Monday, Iran launched what it said was a rocket designed to carry a locally-made research satellite. "This new test, presented by the Iranian authorities as the illustration of a space programme when the missile in question does not have extra-atmospheric capabilities, is a further source of concern," French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said on Thursday.
(Reuters)
Well, Europe is a lot closer!
Published:
02.07.08, 21:16 /
France said on Thursday an Iranian rocket Tehran says is intended to put a satellite into orbit is in fact a missile that cannot navigate in space, and added to concerns that the technology is aimed at making weapons.
On Monday, Iran launched what it said was a rocket designed to carry a locally-made research satellite. "This new test, presented by the Iranian authorities as the illustration of a space programme when the missile in question does not have extra-atmospheric capabilities, is a further source of concern," French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said on Thursday.
(Reuters)
Well, Europe is a lot closer!
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Evita Effect
The Evita Factor
The Clinton campaign has long known what Obama’s team is only now learning: Hispanics are the key to Super-Duper Tuesday—and November.
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By John Heilemann
Published Feb 1, 2008
(Photo: Illustration by Ward Sutton )
The ad begins with a frozen image of Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy; on the audio track the former intones, “Soy Barack Obama y yo apruebo este mensaje.” The next shot features Congressman Luis Gutierrez from Chicago, looking straight into the camera, speaking in Spanish, too. “We know what it feels like being used as a scapegoat just because of our background and our last name,” goes the English translation. “And no one understands this better than Barack Obama.”
The commercial, which went on the air this week in California and Arizona, is remarkable on a number of levels. There’s the bluntness of the language. There’s the crudeness of the appeal. There’s the way the ad plays the victim card with all the subtlety of Doyle Brunson slapping down a royal flush—something that Obama has refused to do in any other context. The other day, over a meal in Los Angeles, I asked two seasoned political pros what would happen if an adman proposed running a spot so artless, so thoroughly off-message, on English-language TV. Both responded without hesitation: The idea would be laughed out of the room.
That the Obama operation is running such an ad tells you a great deal—and not merely that it’s trafficking in the sort of identity politics it claims to abhor. It indicates just how much is at stake when it comes to the Hispanic vote on Super-Duper Tuesday, February 5. It reflects how aggressively, if perhaps belatedly, Team Obama is moving to prevent a royal culo-kicking among Latinos. But it also hints at something darker and more troubling for Democrats: that the race-tinged politics being practiced by both sides poses major risks down the road to whichever of them is left standing.
The Clinton campaign has long known what Obama’s team is only now learning: Hispanics are the key to Super-Duper Tuesday—and November.
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23Comments Add Yours
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By John Heilemann
Published Feb 1, 2008
(Photo: Illustration by Ward Sutton )
The ad begins with a frozen image of Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy; on the audio track the former intones, “Soy Barack Obama y yo apruebo este mensaje.” The next shot features Congressman Luis Gutierrez from Chicago, looking straight into the camera, speaking in Spanish, too. “We know what it feels like being used as a scapegoat just because of our background and our last name,” goes the English translation. “And no one understands this better than Barack Obama.”
The commercial, which went on the air this week in California and Arizona, is remarkable on a number of levels. There’s the bluntness of the language. There’s the crudeness of the appeal. There’s the way the ad plays the victim card with all the subtlety of Doyle Brunson slapping down a royal flush—something that Obama has refused to do in any other context. The other day, over a meal in Los Angeles, I asked two seasoned political pros what would happen if an adman proposed running a spot so artless, so thoroughly off-message, on English-language TV. Both responded without hesitation: The idea would be laughed out of the room.
That the Obama operation is running such an ad tells you a great deal—and not merely that it’s trafficking in the sort of identity politics it claims to abhor. It indicates just how much is at stake when it comes to the Hispanic vote on Super-Duper Tuesday, February 5. It reflects how aggressively, if perhaps belatedly, Team Obama is moving to prevent a royal culo-kicking among Latinos. But it also hints at something darker and more troubling for Democrats: that the race-tinged politics being practiced by both sides poses major risks down the road to whichever of them is left standing.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
opinionjournal.com
San Jose State University has banned blood drives on campus as "discriminatory," reports the San Mateo County (Calif.) Times:
The rise of AIDS in the 1980s prompted the FDA to prohibit donations from men who had sex with men any time after 1977. These days, groups such as the American Red Cross say that lifetime prohibition is excessive, since modern blood testing will catch any diseases contracted more than three weeks before the donation.
They've lobbied for years for officials to relax the restriction on blood donation to one year after the latest sexual activity, but to no avail.
Gay rights groups on several college campuses, including Stanford's, have held protests on the issue in recent years. At San Jose State, it was an employee's complaint last year that prompted [SJSU president Don] Kassing's office to investigate whether the rule made blood drives discriminatory.
They decided it did, since gay men were being treated differently than other groups of people with similar risk factors.
"What San Jose State has done is to take an institutional position based on principles, based on values," said Larry Carr, the university's associate vice president for public affairs.
Well, how satisfying that must be for San Jose State University. Yet the paper reports "local blood banks say that position comes at a steep cost"--some 1,000 pints of blood a year gathered in drives on the campus. All this to protest a rule that clearly is not discriminatory in intent, and whose continued existence surely represents an abundance of caution rather than any antigay animus.
But hey, if patients suffer because there's not enough blood, that's just a price that has to be paid for this principled stand. Don Kassing's conscience simply will not allow him to do the right thing.
The rise of AIDS in the 1980s prompted the FDA to prohibit donations from men who had sex with men any time after 1977. These days, groups such as the American Red Cross say that lifetime prohibition is excessive, since modern blood testing will catch any diseases contracted more than three weeks before the donation.
They've lobbied for years for officials to relax the restriction on blood donation to one year after the latest sexual activity, but to no avail.
Gay rights groups on several college campuses, including Stanford's, have held protests on the issue in recent years. At San Jose State, it was an employee's complaint last year that prompted [SJSU president Don] Kassing's office to investigate whether the rule made blood drives discriminatory.
They decided it did, since gay men were being treated differently than other groups of people with similar risk factors.
"What San Jose State has done is to take an institutional position based on principles, based on values," said Larry Carr, the university's associate vice president for public affairs.
Well, how satisfying that must be for San Jose State University. Yet the paper reports "local blood banks say that position comes at a steep cost"--some 1,000 pints of blood a year gathered in drives on the campus. All this to protest a rule that clearly is not discriminatory in intent, and whose continued existence surely represents an abundance of caution rather than any antigay animus.
But hey, if patients suffer because there's not enough blood, that's just a price that has to be paid for this principled stand. Don Kassing's conscience simply will not allow him to do the right thing.
More 'Accountability Journalism'In June we noted that the Associated Press had embraced a new idiom called "accountability journalism." The AP's Ron Fournier explained that the venerable wire service, long known for its just-the-facts style of reporting, now aimed to be "provocative," telling readers not only what happened "but why it happened," "what it might mean," and "what it might reveal about the people who presume to be our leaders," who "sometimes" are "just plain wrong."
Yet he promised the AP would somehow do this without editorializing or becoming partisan. How well has it done? Here are a few examples.
An AP dispatch yesterday explained the differences in the two political parties' processes for selecting convention delegates via presidential primaries. A key distinction is that many states' Republican primaries are winner-take-all--that is, whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote is allotted the state's entire slate of delegates. The Democrats, by contrast (along with Republicans in some states), divide up delegates proportionately. The result is that a strong second-place showing is worth more to a Democrat than to a Republican.
Here is how the AP's David Espo sums this all up in his lead paragraph:
When it comes to presidential primaries, Democrats and Republicans play by different rules. One party likes to share. The other, not so much.
Nope, nothing partisan there. Then there's a piece by the AP's Calvin Woodward that actually defends congressional earmarks. It starts off in a similarly cutesy style:
Earmarks are only pork when someone else is feasting on them. On your plate, they're veggies. They are the train that takes you to visit Aunt Betty, or the health clinic down the street, or the waste treatment plant that makes your water safer to drink. They're not all bridges to nowhere. They're also bicycle trails to somewhere.
If John McCain is true to his rhetoric in the Republican presidential campaign, he would take a broad ax to spending that voters, upon closer examination, might wish were cut in a more discerning way.
Woodward goes on to list a series of earmarks he considers to be worthy:
In California, $438,000 to Monterey County for gang prevention and intervention.
In Illinois, $5 million for the Red Cross to buy backup generators, cots, shelter trailers, emergency vehicles and more.
In New Haven, Conn., $487,000 to help families and children exposed to violence and trauma.
In Oneonta, N.Y., $243,000 for hospital equipment and facilities.
In St. James, Mo., $412,000 to expand services to abused and neglected children.
In North Dakota, $390,000 to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for a methamphetamine prevention program.
This actually is a useful news story, a corrective to the most outrageous earmark examples typically offered by foes. Woodward's conclusion is this:
Pork haters like McCain say an agency with its eye on the national interest and an objective way of looking at a region's needs should decide on such spending, not members of Congress currying local--sometimes very local--favor.
But McCain's spending plan does not make such distinctions between waste and worthy. In his accounting, if it's an earmark, it's bad and it's gone.
This is a very shallow analysis that seems designed to paint the Republican front-runner as both simple-minded and uncaring. He's against abused children and the Red Cross! In truth, though, there is a strong argument that even these "worthy" earmarks should be anathema, not only to limited- government conservatives but to welfare-state liberals as well...
Woodward says that earmarking lawmakers justify the practice by insisting "they know their district's priorities better than Washington could." But if their chief concern is with local priorities, maybe they should run for City Council or state Senate.
One more example of the AP's colorful but not terribly detached reporting comes from economics writer Jeannine Aversa:
In a shower of pink slips, U.S. employers cut jobs last month for the first time in more than four years, the starkest signal yet that the economy is grinding to a halt if it hasn't already toppled into recession.
The headline refers to "a Pink Slip Blizzard," which directly contradicts the lead paragraph (a shower is an event of short duration, while a blizzard is prolonged). Aversa further explains:
Conditions are deteriorating, according to the latest employment snapshot by the Labor Department, which showed nervous employers slicing payrolls by 17,000.
We checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release, and it didn't say anything about employers being "nervous" or indeed give any clue at all to their emotional state. Moreover, the BLS characterizes the 17,000-job loss as a "small" one, and it's hard to argue with that. It amounts to less than 1 in 8,000 of the total 138.1 million nonfarm jobs in the country, and it isn't enough to affect the unemployment rate.
Yet he promised the AP would somehow do this without editorializing or becoming partisan. How well has it done? Here are a few examples.
An AP dispatch yesterday explained the differences in the two political parties' processes for selecting convention delegates via presidential primaries. A key distinction is that many states' Republican primaries are winner-take-all--that is, whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote is allotted the state's entire slate of delegates. The Democrats, by contrast (along with Republicans in some states), divide up delegates proportionately. The result is that a strong second-place showing is worth more to a Democrat than to a Republican.
Here is how the AP's David Espo sums this all up in his lead paragraph:
When it comes to presidential primaries, Democrats and Republicans play by different rules. One party likes to share. The other, not so much.
Nope, nothing partisan there. Then there's a piece by the AP's Calvin Woodward that actually defends congressional earmarks. It starts off in a similarly cutesy style:
Earmarks are only pork when someone else is feasting on them. On your plate, they're veggies. They are the train that takes you to visit Aunt Betty, or the health clinic down the street, or the waste treatment plant that makes your water safer to drink. They're not all bridges to nowhere. They're also bicycle trails to somewhere.
If John McCain is true to his rhetoric in the Republican presidential campaign, he would take a broad ax to spending that voters, upon closer examination, might wish were cut in a more discerning way.
Woodward goes on to list a series of earmarks he considers to be worthy:
In California, $438,000 to Monterey County for gang prevention and intervention.
In Illinois, $5 million for the Red Cross to buy backup generators, cots, shelter trailers, emergency vehicles and more.
In New Haven, Conn., $487,000 to help families and children exposed to violence and trauma.
In Oneonta, N.Y., $243,000 for hospital equipment and facilities.
In St. James, Mo., $412,000 to expand services to abused and neglected children.
In North Dakota, $390,000 to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for a methamphetamine prevention program.
This actually is a useful news story, a corrective to the most outrageous earmark examples typically offered by foes. Woodward's conclusion is this:
Pork haters like McCain say an agency with its eye on the national interest and an objective way of looking at a region's needs should decide on such spending, not members of Congress currying local--sometimes very local--favor.
But McCain's spending plan does not make such distinctions between waste and worthy. In his accounting, if it's an earmark, it's bad and it's gone.
This is a very shallow analysis that seems designed to paint the Republican front-runner as both simple-minded and uncaring. He's against abused children and the Red Cross! In truth, though, there is a strong argument that even these "worthy" earmarks should be anathema, not only to limited- government conservatives but to welfare-state liberals as well...
Woodward says that earmarking lawmakers justify the practice by insisting "they know their district's priorities better than Washington could." But if their chief concern is with local priorities, maybe they should run for City Council or state Senate.
One more example of the AP's colorful but not terribly detached reporting comes from economics writer Jeannine Aversa:
In a shower of pink slips, U.S. employers cut jobs last month for the first time in more than four years, the starkest signal yet that the economy is grinding to a halt if it hasn't already toppled into recession.
The headline refers to "a Pink Slip Blizzard," which directly contradicts the lead paragraph (a shower is an event of short duration, while a blizzard is prolonged). Aversa further explains:
Conditions are deteriorating, according to the latest employment snapshot by the Labor Department, which showed nervous employers slicing payrolls by 17,000.
We checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release, and it didn't say anything about employers being "nervous" or indeed give any clue at all to their emotional state. Moreover, the BLS characterizes the 17,000-job loss as a "small" one, and it's hard to argue with that. It amounts to less than 1 in 8,000 of the total 138.1 million nonfarm jobs in the country, and it isn't enough to affect the unemployment rate.
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