The Real Slim Slavin

Responsibility: Taking and Avoiding It

2011-01-09T21:47:00.022-05:00

I am deeply disturbed that liberal bloggers were so quick to appropriate and exploit for political purposes this past weekend's shooting in Tucson of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a judge, and several other innocents (including a 9 year old girl), but here's the thing you'll find they're reluctant to talk about, and for good reason: I suspect they know, in their heart of hearts, that the toxic political atmosphere hasn't been helped in recent years by rhetoric from many on the Left, and Democrats...more specifically, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Leadership Committee.

For example, I submit to you Exhibit A - courtesy of the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC).

Well, actually, perhaps I should call it Exhibit B, given the image at the top of this post, originally seen on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn way back in '00, when Dubya won the GOP presidential nomination.

For more info, go here: http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647 (post dates from late March 2010), but I'll quote you from the link:

"Granted these are bulls-eyes instead of gun-sights, and the targets are states not individual congressmen. But we’re really splitting hairs at this point. This map and the language it uses (Behind enemy lines!) are, if anything, more militant than what Palin used in her Facebook posting."

Really, look at some of the images on there. Sure, there's the one Dem map from earlier in the decade...but there's also map with bulls-eyes on them - targeting Republicans - that dates from within the past two years...prior to the Palin map in question. Below are links that take you directly to images that, suffice it to say, show that liberals' claim to a moral high is tenuous at best, outrageous (and then some) at worst.

What are those? Bulls-eyes?!

Mein Gott! A "targeted Republican"?!

http://www.verumserum.com/media/2010/03/DCCC-targeted-republican.jpg

AND

Ah, OK...this makes everything better. No, wait...it doesn't.

http://www.verumserum.com/media/2010/03/DCCC-map-legend.jpg

Still not convinced that liberals have stuff to answer for? Still sure that only or primarily the Right is to blame for the highly-charged atmosphere in American political discourse today? Well, I'm sure Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos - hardly a staple of the Right - didn't actually mean he wanted certain politicians literally taken out when he said they should be targeted in 2008, but even so...there's this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/25/1204/74882/511/541568

"Who to primary? Well, I'd argue that we can narrow the target list by looking at those Democrats who sold out the Constitution last week. I've bolded members of the Blue Dogs for added emphasis."

Note, there's a reference to a "target list" (I bolded it for ya) and you'll see Rep. Giffords' name is in bold on the page itself. For emphasis, according to the Kos-man himself). And mind you, that's from mid-2008. By a liberal blogger. Years before PalinPAC, etc.

From an anti-war rally, March 2008

Then, for good measure, I urge you to read these excellent observations from the UK's Telegraph:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100071004/the-unseemly-rush-to-blame-sarah-palin-the-tea-party-and-republicans-for-murder-in-arizona/#dsq-content

And finally, with the following link you're able to see how some liberals made calling for Bush's death into an art form; I didn't see too much self-restraint (or remorse, in the years since) regarding this stuff. If you have the time, scroll down a fair bit, look at all the photos, and then with a straight face come to me and tell me that responsibility for nurturing the climate of hatred belongs to the Tea Party, the Right, and so on and so forth:

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

You can avoid looking at the above links and the images they lead to (I've included a few throughout this post), but that would be the equivalent of burying your head in the sand (and making the problem worse). Yes, all sides have a share of the blame...but you don't see liberals really taking any responsibility for their share, and when they do, it's often with qualifications.

We can play the blame game indefinitely - letting the problem fester - or we can just tackle the issue head-on, honestly.

Don't just put some of it out there...we need to put all of it out there (or as much of it as we can), however uncomfortable it makes people...whether they're on the Right or the Left, whether they identify as conservative, liberal, independent, moderate, libertarian, Republican, Democrat, etc. We need to clean the air, not just temporarily fan the smell away...know what I mean?

If this means conservatives entrenching themselves and liberals doing the same, so be it. That might actually be the best course of action: Two clearly-defined teams duking it out - civilly - rather than a mess of people making a muddle of discourse and, in the end, leaving things more or less where they started.

Mind you, what happened to Gabby Giffords probably wasn't directly caused by all the unfortunate rhetoric and imagery being spread around - after all, a loner, lunatic gunman probably doesn't have many direct influences aside from the voices in his head. But still...this tragedy - and the reminder of human frailty it stands for - presents an opportunity for us, as a Nation, to look at ourselves in the mirror...and clean up. We probably won't - but we should at least try.

Now Is Not the TIME to Cry "Wolf!"

2010-09-13T04:22:00.016-05:00

Those who know me well know that when it comes to anti-Semitism, I don't generally keep my mouth shut. If I see or sense anti-Semitism, I respond to it, and openly. The "nice" thing about anti-Semites is that they are quite often direct and open, unless they are using criticism of Israel to mask their anti-Semitism, in which case their anti-Semitic views are subtle but still, generally, easily discerned.

So, today, when I read today in the Jerusalem Post intense criticism of an article published in a recent issue of TIME magazine, reportedly titled "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace" and authored by one Karl Vick, based in Jerusalem. I was deeply disturbed and ready to join "the bandwagon of justice".

Or at least I was ready to saddle-up and join the justice posse until I found the article online, and reading the few short paragraphs available there, I saw in italics the following message at the end:

This is an abridged version of an article that appears in the Sept. 13, 2010, print and iPad editions of TIME magazine.

At that moment, when I saw that "disclaimer", I knew there was more to the story than just what people were gathering from the title on the cover and the relatively few paragraphs shown in the abridged version on Time.com. I knew, instinctively, that my intense desire to post the article on Facebook would have to wait until I had the full story...literally.

Being in South Korea, I do not have easy access to print versions of TIME, but I do have an iPad. So on my lunch break, I went to a nearby cafe in Mokpo that offers free WiFi, downloaded the TIME app and made an in-app purchase ($4.99) of the issue in which the supposedly anti-Semitic article titled "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace" appears.

And was immediately flummoxed.

Looking through the contents of the Sept. 13 issue, I couldn't find the article. I know that a story's title on the cover isn't always the same within the pages of a magazine itself, but...I was kind of annoyed. Of course, this was because I was looking at the images for a Star of David or something like that, and not the subject listed underneath ("Israel")...but setting aside a discussion of my more vacant moments for another day, what I ended up doing was going back to the cover, tapping in the middle of the Star-of-David-of-Daisies, right on"Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace"...

Et voilà...

A funny thing happened, though, at that moment: The article it took me to was titled as "The Good Life and Its Dangers". Nothing particularly anti-Semitic about it. Nor could it be surmised that familiar anti-Semitic tropes would be found in an article whose blurb appears (under the title) as follows: "Israelis feel prosperous, secure - and disengaged from the peace process. Is that wise?" On first glance, not particularly...anti-Semitic on the part of TIME. Or wise, on the part of my fellow Israelis.

What followed, in the article itself, were - by my count - twenty-four paragraphs to judge it by. And the more I read of it, the easier it was to discern that people - the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) included - were apparently judging the article not by the 24 paragraphs seen in the print or iPad editions, but the mere five (yes, "5") that can be seen on Time.com. I'm no mathematician, but 5 is a lot less than 24, any which way you look at it.

Undoubtedly, the article's title as it appears on the cover was unfortunately named, ill-conceived, insensitive, and quite possibly deliberately designed to portray Israel in a negative light. Based on that alone, as I began reading I steeled myself for an anti-Semitic blow...that never came. Ultimately, the most anti-Semitic thing about the article was, in my estimation, the title as it appears on the cover...but not in the magazine itself.

At the end of this post, you will find several images posted - eachtaken from my iPad this afternoon, images of the full article. I want you to look at both the abridged version, as it appears on Time.com, and the unabridged version, available both in print and on...well, my iPad. When you have time, if you have time, I want you to read both versions of the article and decide for yourself: Is it anti-Semitic? Was it meant to be? Or is this all much ado about nothing - or, at least, nothing like what so many think it's about?

I will leave it to you to decide for yourselves if the article merits the following criticism from ADL head Abraham Foxman, who said of it, "The insidious subtext of Israeli Jews being obsessed with money echoes the age-old anti-Semitic falsehood that Jews care about money above any other interest, in this case achieving peace with the Palestinian...At the same time, Time ignores the very real sacrifices made by Israel and its people in the pursuit of peace and the efforts by successive Israeli governments of reconciliation.”

I, for one, disagree that this is the subtext of the article. Then again, I read the whole thing.

I will leave it to you to decide for yourselves if the article merits this observation from American Jewish Committee acting Director Ed Rettig: “Leaving aside the libelous nature of the article (what awful people don’t care about peace?), its internalization by decision-makers would be catastrophic...The false belief that Israelis are indifferent to peace will prevent them perceiving the conflict as it really is, and cause a misreading of developments.”

I disagree that the article is libelous, and I disagree that Israelis are indifferent to peace. Again, the impression that this is what the article is asserting is left in part by the title on the cover, but isn't borne out in the text of the article itself (in my honest opinion).

And I will leave it to you to decide for yourselves if the article merits the following hits from Aish.com: "Yet, unbelievably, Time Magazine paints a picture of crass, wealthy Jews so busy with buying and selling that they have no real desire to make peace with the Palestinians,"and "In the case of the Time Magazine article, the straw man so painstakingly described are a couple of shallow-sounding Israelis who care only about money, say they don’t care about anything else, and even imply that they might be dishonest in their business dealings."

Considering that more than just "a couple of shallow-sounding Israelis" were interviewed for the article, I think this criticism is way off. Again, it seems blatantly obvious that the only basis for such criticism is a reliance on the abridged article (five paragraphs long) rather than the unabridged article (twenty-four paragraphs long).

Anyway...I know I'm asking of you a significant investment of your time and thought processes, but please...oblige me. Israel is undoubtedly and undeniably the subject of a perpetual anti-Semitic smear campaign by various media outlets, politicians, and countries throughout the world. This article, however, is not representative of that, and making it out to be will only distract people when truly abhorrent examples once again show themselves.

Furthermore, as the imbroglio over former White House correspondent Helen Thomas's comments regarding Jews a few months back showed, being charged with anti-Semitism can cost people their jobs. This is, I think, overall a good thing...but only when people who are actually anti-Semitic are the ones finding their positions threatened. Knowing our "power," in this respect, we should use it wisely ... sparingly ... responsibly.

On some websites I've seen people posting the address of TIME magazine, so offended Jews can write and complain.

I'd urge them to read the full article (posted below) first, not the abridged version.

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0100.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0090.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0091.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0092.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0093.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0094.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0095.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0096.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0097.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0098.jpg

http://therealslimslavin.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_0099.jpg

Crazy Thoughts of an Expat

2010-07-29T10:19:00.007-05:00

If I knowingly break another country's immigration laws, would ideologically dogmatic American liberals consider me "innocent" the way they consider "innocent" those who break our nation's immigration laws? Or, as is likelier the case, would I be patronizingly admonished to respect the laws and culture of foreign lands, were I to share with such liberals a temptation to do the opposite? If I were caught by another country's immigration authorities, would American liberals go to bat for me - or recruit help abroad - the way they go to bat for illegal immigrants in the USA?

What I'm also asking is, "What makes America different?"

The standard argument that, "Well, we are a nation of immigrants," doesn't quite cut it, as the days when a man or his family could alight on American soil and begin a new life relatively free from the constraints of immigration laws (that, once upon a time, didn't even exist) ended a long, long time ago. What immigration laws and border control practices are in place in America exist for various socio-economic, political, security and health reasons...and a great many of these are reasonable, sensible, and quite good. Similar arguments can be made about other countries.

So, again...what is it that makes the United States of America so different...so (and now I'm going to use a word modern liberals - Obama included - loathe to use to describe the USA) "exceptional", with regards to our immigration practices? How is the logical leap made that allows someone to argue against the enforcement of our immigration laws at the same time they defend the right of other countries to enforce their immigration laws? Is that right? Is that fair to Americans? Does "You don't have to follow our laws, but we have to follow yours," make sense?

Without intergovernmental reciprocity on that score internationally, it doesn't to me...and even then, with such reciprocity, it really wouldn't make sense, would it?

And, wouldn't it be kind of, well...racist...to sympathize with illegal immigrants of a certain ethnicity within America, but then deny the same sort of sympathy to an American - regardless of his or her skin color - living and/or working illegally in a foreign land? Or is it not "politically correct" these days to point out hypocrisy...unless a conservative is at fault? I'm just wondering all this, you see, from the perspective of a seasoned, itinerant expatriate. I'm not now breaking any immigration laws, nor do I plan on doing so in the future. I'm just curious.

If Only History Would Repeat Itself...

2010-06-02T09:45:00.012-05:00

On March 5, 1770, a clash between British soldiers and local citizens in Boston, Massachusetts ended with the deaths of five men. Tensions had been high for some time prior to the incident - the presence of Redcoats enforcing unpopular laws imposed on the Colonies by Parliament was deeply resented - and New England was a powder-keg awaiting only a match...and what would shortly thereafter become known as the "Boston Massacre" stood a good chance of being just that. It was in the interests of many at the time to avoid open rebellion - war - and so a middle ground was tread: A trial would be held for the British soldiers and their commander. Justice would be served.

Defending the British soldiers being accused of murder was the man who would, several years down the line, become the first Vice President of the United States, and our young Union's second President: John Adams. Passions were high, and as is often the case today with regards to Israel, people had already made up their minds about the guilt of the accused. If ever there was a more thankless job, it was being the defense lawyer for British troops in the wake of the Boston Massacre. By the time the trial opened, the event had been immortalized by Paul Revere in an engraving likely familiar to anyone who has taken an American History class.

But Mr. Adams handled himself quite well, though he knew the odds were stacked against him. An avowed Patriot, he nevertheless gave the men an honest defense. He argued that the Redcoats were faced with what was effectively a lynch mob. If, as they claimed, they were being threatened and felt endangered by "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs," then they had the legal right to fight back. At most, they could be found guilty of manslaughter - not murder - if they hadn't been in any danger but were instead merely provoked. In the end, the jury agreed with Adams.

They acquitted six of the eight soldiers, perhaps ultimately swayed by an argument made by Adams, as true and applicable to our world today as it was back in Colonial times: "Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." As for the two other soldiers, they were convicted of nothing more than manslaughter: Further evidence that the jury agreed with John Adams's argument that the soldiers had some justification for opening fire. As for the soldiers' commander, one Captain Preston, he too was acquitted of any crime.

Stop and think about that for a minute: British soldiers accused of murdering five people in cold blood - accused of carrying out a massacre - in 1770s Boston, Massachusetts (a hotbed of Patriot sentiment) were able to get a fair trial, and were defended by no less than John Adams, one of the more prominent Patriots of his day. The Redcoats were ultimately judged not by the dictates of passion of the common people or the wishes of the Sons of Liberty or New England's inclination to rebellion, but by the stubborn facts of the situation they faced (for instance, there were those in the mob yelling at the soldiers, taunting them to "Fire!").

Fast forward from 1770s America to the modern Mediterranean: On May 31, 2010, a flotilla put together by a Turkish organization suspected (with good reason) to have ties to Islamist terrorist groups throughout the Muslim world challenged an Israeli naval blockade of a strip of land ruled by Hamas, an Islamist Palestinian terrorist group committed to the eventual destruction of the Jewish state. As predicted, Israel's navy intercepted the flotilla and - after giving fair warning - proceeded to board a ship, the Mavi Marmara. Nine people died in what was described immediately thereafter by international media as an "Israeli attack".

Not twenty-four hours would pass before the incident earned the democratic State of Israel yet another trip to the United Nations Security Council (Jerusalem really ought to have its own key to the place, it's there so often), though it's worth noting that an unprovoked North Korean attack on a South Korean naval vessel (the Cheonan) this past March, in which 46 sailors were killed, has yet to earn Pyongyang any sort of censure by the august UNSC (incidentally, China has yet to admit its DPRK ally might be even possibly responsible for the attack...while Obama's USA once again threw Israel to the wolves. Who has the better friend?).

Turkey in short order recalled its ambassador to Israel and declared its former close alliance with Jerusalem to be at an end (honestly, though, we who pay attention saw this coming). The EU has condemned Israel, yet again. Al-Jazeera has predictably devoted ample time and resources to vilifying Israel. And China - reluctant to accept the findings of an international investigation into the Cheonan sinking that found its unstable, unpredictable, nuclear-armed and despotic North Korean ally responsible - wasted little time in saying the People's Republic was "appalled" by Israel's actions (no investigation needed, apparently!).

In contrast to the trial of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, which took place nearly 240 years ago in a hostile political environment and yet proved unimpeachably fair, it is all but impossible today for Israel or any of its soldiers to get a fair trial anywhere...except in Israel itself. Whereas once it was possible for Redcoats in Colonial America to be acquitted of a crime by arguing on behalf of the unalterable "state of facts and evidence", today Israeli soldiers are judged guilty by an outside world that makes judgements based not on stubborn facts, but "whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion."

Despite the uphill PR battles it regularly faces (and often, loses), Israel doesn't give up in trying to use stubborn facts in defense of its actions. It's a good - if idealistic - and straightforward strategy, though our civilization has progressed to a point where we don't have the patience to sit and view or listen to the facts of an issue, whether its Israel's latest military action or a law on illegal immigration in America. We're urged to "feel", discouraged from "thinking". We're content to let 24-hour news network anchors or op-ed columnists do our thinking for us.

It's so much easier, isn't it? Letting others do your thinking for you.

Yes. Yes, it is. ;)

But interestingly enough, the State of Israel this time around has an unwitting ally in its usually clumsy efforts to defend itself with stubborn facts: YouTube. According to the Jerusalem Post, the most popular video on YouTube for the past day or so (with over one million views) has been a posting by the Israel Defense Forces of its raid on the flotilla approaching Gaza, consisting of footage of Israeli troops dropping down onto the aforementioned Mavi Marmara and those Israeli soldiers being assaulted with weapons of various kinds and levels of lethality.

The footage even shows one soldier being thrown off the side of a ship:

Another video shows the same scene, but from a different perspective - the deck of the ship itself:

Activists are seen here attacking Israeli soldiers with a stun grenade, a box of plates, and water hoses as they attempt to board the Mavi Marmara. Note, this is before the soldiers boarded!

Here you can witness Israeli soldiers discovering that some of the activists on a ship flying a white flag are using real weapons against the Israeli boarding party:

And it wasn't as if Israel didn't try to avoid a confrontation, before the raid commenced:

Despite the best efforts of CNN, BBC News, Al-Jazeera and other news organizations (but not FOX News, according to what I've seen) to censor such footage from Israel's raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla, footage that could prove Israel isn't the bloodthirsty, barbaric monster that the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the EU and Turkey portray it as, people are finding it and watching it and, likelier than not, making up their minds for themselves (Al-Jazeera's raid footage hasn't proven nearly as popular).

In contrast to its treatment by the news media, Israel might just be able to find itself judged in the court of public opinion according to...facts.

If only the Redcoats had YouTube...but then, they had John Adams. We don't. So...YouTube it is...

Flotillas and Fools

2010-05-31T08:03:00.007-05:00

By now you all - in one way or another - have probably heard about what went down in the Med today.

A flotilla of ships, attempting to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, was boarded by Israel's navy and...things didn't go so well. At last count, 9 flotilla participants died. According to what I've read, several of these purportedly "peaceful" activists attempted to grab the weapons of Israeli soldiers. I've also heard that the activists (who apparently have a big problem with Israel, but not so much with Hamas) might have had crude weapons of their own, using them to assault - maybe even stab - Israeli soldiers, whose perseverance and bravery I salute.

I've been looking at the prominent role being played by Turkey in all this - you can do your own news searches regarding this, as I wouldn't want to deny you the "fun" and I'd rather not be your sole source of news..hint, "IHH" - and after some considerable consideration, I wouldn't be surprised if Turkish PM Erdogan intended for things to go this way, in order to have political cover to further downgrade the state of Turkish-Israeli ties. I'd say the Turks were counting on Israel reacting strongly, though they might not have expected such consequences as this. Or maybe...they did?

All they needed were a few willing agents provocateurs, a little money slipped under the table by Ankara...et voilà, Israel looks bad before the world (like that is new), and Turkey has a "good" reason to call in an Israeli ambassador or other consular official, dress him down, all as cover as Turkey gets cozier with Syria and Iran. Heck, Turkey's already recalled its ambassador to Israel (so quickly!). And who can blame Turkish protestors for trying to storm an Israeli consulate in Istanbul, even if - perish the thought - whatever protests "spontaneously" erupted were, in fact, pre-planned and well-coordinated?

They need only say, "Look what Israel did!" and understanding is born. Especially, in America, amongst devotees of the Huffington Post, acolytes of His Awesomeness Barack H. Obama II, and supporters of J Street. Meanwhile, though the Muslim world as a whole doesn't exactly need another reason to bash Israel, a brief perusal of Al Jazeera's English website this afternoon showed me they'll still gladly run with whatever they get.

Sure, Turkey could openly repudiate Israel (and by extension, the West), but that wouldn't look so good, now would it? Especially not if there's still the slightest chance the EU might one day consider possibly letting the Turks join their club, even nowadays when it might not seem to be the best club to join. But if you get Israel to be your unwitting fall guy, many more people than might otherwise see your perspective now will. You can go your own way and hardly be accused of further abandoning your country's secular roots and longstanding partnership with Israel, after an event like this.

One also can't discount a major role by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which of course stands to benefit from the international media's focus switching from one regional pariah to another. After all, the more the int'l media focus on Israel and its actions (policies, etc), the less they'll be talking about Iran, it's despotic regime, and that regime's nuclear program. You know something ain't kosher when Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has the gall to call Israel's actions "inhumane". What a spectacle! Pot calling kettle black, much?

This is also, in a way, exactly what North Korea needs at the moment. I'd be willing to bet money that this flotilla incident today is enough to get Jerusalem hauled before the UN Security Council before North Korea's torpedoing of a South Korean naval vessel (with 46 fatalities) in March gets Pyongyang censured by that body. Never mind, of course, that Israel gave fair warning before boarding the ships, and that North Korea's attack was surreptitious and unprovoked. It's the way of the world: Blaming Jews (and/or Israel) works.

Call me a cynic, but don't tell me I don't have justification to be cynical!

This just seems to have gone too badly - for Israel's image, and the flotilla participants' lives - to have come about by mere happenstance.

Turned On the Faucet. This Came Out.

2010-03-31T22:40:00.001-05:00

It's funny. What's funny? I don't know. That's just the first thing that popped into my head. I was wondering what to write, somewhat concerned that nothing was coming to mind, and then...it's funny. That's what popped into my head. Come to think of it, I just repeated myself. I said popped into my head twice. Why did that happen? How did it happen? Oh, shit. Does it really matter one way or the other, why or how? Is it going to affect my future, wondering about that? I don't know. Which is why determining the worthiness of spending time wondering about it is either much or little, depending on the moment. Depending on the moment. Shouldn't it be depending on the moments? No, probably not. Moment to moment, that's what it depends on. There's no need to pluralize that which needn't be so.

Needn't be so. That sounds somewhat archaic. I read too many older things, maybe. Too much or too little, because the writing today often pales in comparison to what was written in the past. Take Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work about the Great Boer War. I spent about 20 minutes today perusing that on my Kindle for Mac, and the only thing that caused me to cease my reading was...well, my memory is fuzzy on just what it was that inspired me to stop. It could have been hunger, or thirst, or a need to pee. Hell, it could have even been a hard-on. I'm not really sure. And the funny thing is...heh, it's funny...that at the time of this writing, the moment - oh, there's a connection - I speak of took place just a short time ago. Just a few hours, ago. Why did I put that comma there? Fuck if I know. I don't know myself half as well as I think.

Anyway, what was I saying? I digress. No, I wasn't saying that. I digressed, that's it. So anyway, I was reading the author of Sherlock Holmes' work about South Africa. I bought it months and months ago, while I was still in Coree du Sud. Wait, why the fuck did I just write South Korea in French? What purpose does that serve? What does it add to the narrative. Wait, is this a narrative? Wait, why the hell am I saying wait so much? Okay, back to the story. Doyle's words regarding the failings of British policy in southern Africa don't read like a modern history narrative. They might as well be a novel, for the way that they collectively enrapture me, instill in me a desire to keep on reading until something or other - again, I can't remember what - distracts me enough that I decide to pull myself away from the book and abandon it for a while.

Distractions. They're interesting, aren't they? Of course they are, otherwise they wouldn't distract us to begin with. They wouldn't command our attention. Mind you, when I started writing this bit about distractions, I was meaning in the more general sense that they are interesting. The very act of being distracted isn't so strange, but that we get upset about it. We're told we need to focus, focus, focus, keep our eyes on the prize, maintain our trek toward whatever the goal may be. But like I said, distractions are interesting. And perhaps even more interesting is what it is that distracts us, as I said before. I, for one, am particularly distracted by a woman's pretty face, or - as is just as often the case - the bust situated just beneath it. I can't be honest? You want me to say a woman's face is all I look at?

But see, just there I was distracted. I wasn't thinking about me, but about you. What do I care what you think, about what distracts me? The saying might be, judge not lest ye be judged, but we all do it anyway, and file an appeal...at least, in our minds we do. We know, or think we know, when we're being judged, and we rush to defend ourselves. Why? How well do those who are judging us know us? Not that well. So when I write about how cleavage manages to distract me even in a bookstore - where not much besides is able to easily disrupt my attention - there's a part of me that knows that whoever is reading this has suddenly come to certain conclusions about me that may or may not be accurate. They certainly aren't the whole story, those conclusions. So why do we care so much that they're being made?

Alright, enough of that. I'm not a philosopher, I don't need to try to answer questions others who believe they are philosophers spend plenty of time worrying about on their own. I think for myself, of course, but ultimately the bigger questions about why we worry about what we worry about don't affect me all that much. The questions don't get in my way when I'm reading a book. They don't normally bother me when I'm watching TV. They stay out of my line-of-sight when I'm wandering around a tourist attraction. Obviously, they pop into my head - there it is again - when I'm writing, but that's what happens when you lift off the bridle of the mind and just run with it. Thoughts you'd rather not have but aren't ashamed to have force their way into your consciousness, and if you're in the process of writing, they're added to the evidence.

The evidence of what? The evidence of the writing, of course. The tangible, readable shapes you now see before you. They are evidence that, one way or another, I have been thinking. Maybe I haven't been thinking all that profoundly, but then, who needs to think profoundly except those who believe they have to think profoundly? My reputation - such as it is - doesn't depend on any such notion. I could think about banal, vulgar things, and then write about them, for days on end. Well, not literally for days on end. I'd need to sleep, eat, shower, brush my teeth, masturbate, drink water, drink juice, drink beer, etc. And when you get right down to it, I probably wouldn't be able to keep up the banal thread for long. Sooner or later, I'd involuntarily try my hand at profundity again, realize I don't need to, and then write about it all.

What in that last paragraph, that preceding collection of words combined into sentences, sticks out at you right now? Don't think too much about it. Just think, and say. Well, think it, at least, 'cause I can't hear you and if you're talking out loud to yourself there's a good chance you'll have some explaining to do later. As for me, what sticks out is...well, fuck. I don't know. I'm not sure what there is to remember in that last paragraph, whether there's anything in there that I should be remembering more than any other thing accompanying any other thing. I just kind of repeated myself, but I don't care and didn't mean to do it. I, well...fuck it. I actually want to talk about something else, but damned if I can think of what. I'm not in command of this process. It's just happening, flowing freely, like the Nile, the Jordan, the Han. Rivers.

Rivers! That's what I can talk about. I can talk about the rivers I've seen. Such as the Mississippi, and the Nile, and the Jordan, and the Han, and the Yarkon, and the...well, there was a really dirty river in Daegu, Korea, but I can't remember the name of it at the moment. It was really dirty, as I recall from research the dirtiest in Korea, but...what does it matter? I'm talking about a river. Or rivers. Say, is it redundant to speak of multiple rivers? Does it matter, in the greater scheme of things? It sounds weird, to say there are multiple rivers on our planet. Shouldn't it be enough to just say, there are rivers on our planet? Doesn't that speak for itself, the plural of river? Obviously, if there is more than one river, there are rivers. It stands to reason that if there are rivers, they aren't just found in one spot, but many. Hence the plural. Rivers.

Okay, time to write about something else. How about this: Writing. Am I writing right now? There are many books about writing and being a writer. But am I writing? No. I'm typing. I'm the author of this, yes, and it could be said that I authored it and whoever said it wouldn't be wrong. But, as I said, did I write all of this, pen in hand, paper in front of me? No. If I'm being literal, practical, then I can't say that what this is is writing. It's typing. On a MacBook Air in a cafe at a Barnes & Noble in Tucson, Arizona, USA on March 31, 2010 at 8:26:26 p.m., or 20:26:39 if you're in the military or in a country other than the United States of America. Shit, digressed again. Writing. Erm, typing. These words have not been written, not in the traditional sense. Not in the literal sense. So why do we call people who type books, writers?

To Obama, and the Future Glory of His Changed America!

2008-09-04T14:29:00.001-05:00

I think it's obvious, isn't it? Barack Obama is the New Savior not only of America, but all Mankind. Even for those who don't believe in God, he is the Messiah, resurrected. His record stands on its own: Not quite four years into his freshman Senate term, he already has a personality cult whose growth, tenacity and spirit rivals the cults which once surrounded Stalin and Hitler. Obama has, as we know, overcome great odds to defeat a favored Democrat rival and become his Party's official nominee for the job of President of the United States of America. And his rise to power, coming as the George W. Bush era comes to a close, is as providential a sign as there can be that Obama's meant to be President, or to even prepare the ground for a "President for Life"...a position to be occupied only by Democrats for the duration of the American Republic.

Change!

And who are Democrats, to deny that such is their goal - permanent power? Permanent power, devoid of dissent, or at least as devoid of dissent as is possible in the United States at this time? Such permanent power is - can it be disputed? - the best, most assured way of putting one's political plans into action. The Nazis and Soviets, the late Saddam Hussein regime and the current Islamic Republic of Iran, the House of Sa'ud in Arabia and Putin in Russia all demonstrate this truth clearly. For his part, Senator Obama has already shrewdly given his tacit blessing to his supporters to silence the opinions of those who oppose his/their views, and since he changes those views so often, he makes it very difficult for people to oppose him in the first place. This is hardly worrying; be encouraged! One-Party Rule depends on such leaders!

Change!

Obama has already showed us what the New Seal of the President of the United States will look like. He has already rallied millions upon millions of naive, young college students, mostly freshmen just like him (but of a different sort), and a few older students, who know only what their parents have taught them, what their professors have taught them, or what the mainstream media has taught them. Get 'em while they're young, as the saying goes, while they still have yet to really learn how to think independently. This is something to celebrate, the easy indoctrination of the leftist, liberal mantra (Republicans are bad, conservatives bad, Americans are bad, Democrats good, liberals good, power good, the Party is more important than the individual, the Government is more important than the individual, etc.) of willing acolytes.

Change!

Just imagine everything which will be possible once Democrats have retaken the White House and further entrenched their majority in Congress, securing their indefinitely extended power: We'll have a socialist-style universal medical system, just like in Cuba. And just like in Cuba, dissent against the Government will slowly but surely be quashed in the New Revolution (bye, conservative talk radio!), and only the elite in the Party or foreigners with money - who'll become, as they are now in Cuba, a different kind of elite - will be able to take advantage of all the medical advances (shorter wait times, for example) in our Great Republic. Can't you just see it? It will be a glorious time in America, a New Golden Age. I wonder who "our" Che Guevara will be. I really do. Will he murder as many people as the real one did? For the New Revolution?

Change!

The planet Earth, of course, will also be saved alongside America after Obama wins the Presidency and Democrats begin what will hopefully be a permanent period of residency in the White House. Because only Democrats, or rather, liberals, are capable of and willing to fight Global Warming to the bitter end. Yes, only left-wing liberals are willing to take on both humanity and Mother Nature herself. They'll not be content with simply ending humanity's contribution to Climate Change...they'll also take measures to ensure that the natural processes of the Earth - which led to past Climate Change and ended the last Ice Age (and which enabled humanity, civilization, to grow to such numbers and advancement as it has) - adhere to left-wing, Democratic liberalism's theoretical physical laws, not today's proven laws of Physics.

Change!

Barack Obama's inauguration will be a cause for further celebration abroad, beyond that which will follow Climate Change's inevitable, permanent defeat once the Earth stops rotating on its axis. Europeans, especially, will have reason to feel comfortable in the event the Democrats win the presidential election of 2008 and every such election thereafter, since Europeans, we cannot forget, know a thing or two about the potential power of a Government which intends to rule over the People rather than serve them. We have so much to learn from Europeans, for they are receptive to such systems of Government, and Europeans are obviously so much wiser and more worldly than Americans are. How could they not be, when they've learned so much from their fratricidal conflicts, and they've taught us how to industrialize mass genocide?

Change!

Yes, the world will Change for the better when the Democrats have power once more. Especially in the Middle East. Israel will be forced to partition Jerusalem, a la Berlin, with the Arabs despite there having been a Jewish majority in the modern city for over 140 years, and despite repeated Palestinian demonstrations of hatred, disrespect and irresponsibility toward Jews and their beliefs (demonstrated especially well during the period of Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem, when Jews, Christians and Muslims from Israel were prevented from worshiping at their Holy Sites). Governments the world over will flock to Jerusalem to establish and open their embassies to Palestine, while most embassies to Israel will likely remain in Tel Aviv, despite the mantra of those who say that Jerusalem will be a capital of two states, not one. Ah, a just peace!

Change!

Back in the U.S. Homeland, there will no longer be such a thing as illegal immigration. Not because our sovereign borders will have been secured by the Federal Government, but because said sovereign borders will have been opened in accordance with the demands of sovereign Mexico. We musn't forget, it is far easier for the Mexican Government to sanction illegal immigration, to print official fliers explaining how to sneak into America, than it is for them to work to grow their indigenous economy. But once full amnesty has been granted to all previous "illegal" immigrants, and the borders are forcibly opened - to the everlasting chagrin of the formerly semi-autonomous States - the Mexican Government will be able to spend its money on other things, like a campaign to make Spanish the official language of the U.S. Viva la reconquista!

Change!

As for African-Americans, an Obama victory would mean that finally, all their hopes and dreams have been (or can be) realized. It will signal the end of all the trials and tribulations afflicting "Blacks". An Obama victory in November '08 would be the ultimate vindication of the Civil Rights struggle, and all who fought for an America that lives up to its founding creed would have cause for immense pride. For how else might African-Americans have helped to realize Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, of an America whose citizens are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, than by voting en masse for a candidate based primarily on his...skin color? It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

Change!

As Election Day nears, this much is certain:

Change, either domestically or internationally, is only possible with an Obama victory in the presidential race and a further Democratic victory in Congress and throughout the States of the American Union. Even though a change in the administration of Executive power is mandated by the Constitution and its amendments (meaning that no matter who wins in 2008, we'll have a new president in 2009), True Change, the kind that will restore dignity and honor to America, can only be implemented once ultra-liberal Democrats control our Government. Change, after all, never even existed before the advent of Barack Hussein Obama. Before Obama, there was just change. Regular, old, lawful "change". That will change, though, once Obama wins and Change comes to America. Can we so Change America...not just change it? Yes we can!

To facetious fascism!

God, Government and Us

2008-09-03T20:28:00.004-05:00

"God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." - William Wilberforce

"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature." - Ben Franklin

Reading an article in The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, in which it was reported that Senator John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had before a church group called the Iraq war 'a task that is from God', I immediately began to wonder how this would be used by Democrats to tarnish the Republican candidates' reputation (just as similar thoughts expressed by President Bush have been used to ridicule him). The thought dismayed me, because I am a man who cares deeply about his country and its history, well aware of how alien such criticism would have sounded to those who established the United States of America. If anything, in late 18th century/early 19th century America, to be accused of being an atheist was as bad as being accused of overt political ambition.

Today, sadly, the opposite is true.

Most of those who today criticize the use of God or the inclusion of the Almighty in a political context - say, in describing a certain national task as God-given - don't believe in God to begin with, or profess not to. They are of those who think it's chic to be an atheist, who claim a disdain for "the God delusion". They are not simply expressing doubt that God is on our side; they are expressing doubt over God's existence, period. They don't believe that God has granted us our liberty (effectively negating the value of the Declaration of Independence...you know, the whole "endowed by their Creator" bit) or helps us defend it. And yet, they'll sympathize with the aims of those who claim God is on their side - in, for example, their expressing support for Hizballah or Hamas rather than Israel - when the goal is the destruction of liberty.

Odd.

It's good to be a skeptic, at times. During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, nearly 2,000 years ago, the Holy City's zealous defenders believed fanatically that God was on their side. Josephus, a Jewish soldier captured by the Romans who later changed sides and wrote an account of the Jewish War (Great Revolt), is said to have appealed to the spiritual sentiments of the Zealots of Jerusalem by attempting to convince the Jews that at that particular juncture of history, God was clearly siding with Rome. In vain did Josephus undertake this appeal, which he had only done at the request of the general (later Caesar) Titus in order that the City and its Temple might be spared the ravages of warfare and famine.

Jerusalem, and its Temple, were later destroyed as the Roman legions overwhelmed Zion's defenders, force having been seen by Titus as his only choice.

But then again, it's also important for Americans to remember that at the time of their country's founding, those who were daily risking their lives in publicly standing up to the might of the British Crown believed that God Almighty was supportive of their task. Of course, I am not just speaking of the Declaration of Independence's recognition of self-evident truths, such as "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I'm also calling attention to the Founding Generation's belief that they were assuming "among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them."

And I feel that I need to point out that the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in support of that Declaration, mutually pledged to each other their "Lives", their "Fortunes" and their "sacred Honor", and did so "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence".

Do modern, self-proclaimed "liberals" or "progressives" really feel themselves so much wiser than the Founders of our Republic, when they express doubt over the existence of God or attempt to make ordinary Americans feel shameful about believing that God is on our side in any particular task or struggle? (There aren't, to my knowledge, many atheist conservatives out there). Is it really so abhorrent to us, to read or see our politicians profess their faith in the Almighty? Are we supposed to be offended by a politician's opinion that God exists and that He (or She - your opinion) cares about what we do? Pardon me, but I was under the impression that in America, one's religious convictions do not qualify or disqualify him or her for/from political office.

There are actually laws that spell this out, aren't there?

Why yes, there are!

Now, I do not support merely paying lip-service to God, as in someone saying "God told me to do this" when whatever "this" is, is whatever they're doing this week. Nor can I take kooks, who murder innocent people and say "God told me to kill them!", at face value. And I am not one who will publicly proclaim that I believe God means for us to undertake such and such a task, unless I absolutely, truly believe that God would entrust such a task to us instead of another people. I reserve the right to agree or disagree with another's opinion on the matter, for, after all, I am entitled to my own opinion just as much as he (or she) is.

But as far as the concept goes, the notion that God might work His will through us at one time or another, well...I must admit, I believe it's not only possible, but probable, that this happens from time to time. I have faith that this is so. I'm not ashamed of this faith. It gives me hope. This faith instills in me more hope, and confidence, in the future than any politician ever could. I trust God to get things right, far more than I trust any particular Government or Bureaucracy to get things right.

Some people, I guess, are just plain afraid to believe in God, though. They're afraid to cede even partial responsibility for the events of their lives to Someone or Something else, even if the way they're living their lives shows they've already ceded that responsibility in decidedly irresponsible, dangerous, and unhealthy ways. Such people don't want to entrust their destiny to God's care or direction; they are unable to reconcile themselves to a reality in which their destiny is always so entrusted, whether they like it or not.

"I enter on the trust to which I have been called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens with my fervent prayers to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor." - James Monroe

"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God." - George Washington

How London Can Surpass Beijing

2008-08-27T16:19:00.001-05:00

Already the prejudgment is being bandied about that there is no way that the Summer Olympics in London, in 2012, will be able to compete with the majesty and spectacle that were the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. However, the commonsensical among us know that peoples' memories of the Beijing Olympics will forever be tainted by the smoke and mirrors placed before them, both at the location itself and on television screens around the world. What was gained in Beijing in 2008 was not an accurate picture of what the People's Republic of China is, but a picture of what the Communist rulers of that country want foreigners to think China is. They knew as well as any tourist-targeting con artist that "the West" is fascinated by "the East", and so they showed the world a more palatable, more fantastical China than actually exists. And gullible as we are, the ruse mostly worked.

Needless to say, the defeatist commentaries about the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games are quite premature. The mainstream media hasn't helped matters much; that more and more people are inclined to think that China's Olympics will be the standard by which all others will in the future be judged is not because Beijing's Games deserve such praise, but rather because over the past few years, more and more people have been taken in by the mainstream media's mantra that "China is the future, and you - we - are the past." But underneath the celebration of thousands of years of Chinese culture present at these most recent Games was an unspoken celebration, held by the Chinese Communist rulers, of their authoritarian power. Beijing's 2008 hosting of the Summer Olympics was a victory not for the Chinese people, but their unelected, unrepresentative government.

Unlike those already predicting mediocrity - juxtaposed with Beijing's majesty - for London's moment in 2012, my attitude is different. Though I am an American, and furthermore, an American who has yet to visit London, I've seen enough of the world and read enough of its works to know Western (Westernized) countries don't need a pseudo-fascist spectacle on a Chinese scale to demonstrate the worth or wealth of their cultural, historic contributions to humanity. If, of course, London and the United Kingdom together wish to try to outdo the Chinese in covering up failures and, in general, sugar-coating the reality of life for most Britons, then they probably will fail: The British Government isn't nearly as ruthless as the Chinese Government is, and besides, such deception would be much harder in an English free society than in a Chinese fear society, given the presence of a free press.

Depending on the length of visitors' memories and their attachment to - or detachment from - reality, the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics will be a study in contrasts that, in the end, will surely favor London over Beijing in posterity. How can I say this? I do so with the confidence of one who was raised in a free country, and who appreciates the gift of personal liberty he was born with. Whereas a successful Beijing Olympics is a triumph for a Government that owes no allegiance to and feels no responsibility toward the people living under it, the London Olympics will be a triumph of a free people who voluntarily volunteer - as opposed to the Chinese practice of "coercive volunteerism" - to make those Games be as enjoyable and exciting as possible, giving visitors a small taste of what makes Great Britain...great.

What's more, if something goes wrong at the 2012 London Olympics - say, things fall behind schedule, or fireworks don't go off as planned, or if hooligans disrupt events - it would result in a Games which reflected an unpredictable, often chaotic human reality far more than Beijing's controlled, precise, order. Yes, a part of me hopes that London 2012 won't go as smoothly as Beijing 2008, because then free peoples might realize what an anomaly - what a sham - were the Communists' "perfect" Games. And despite the tendency to attempt to separate politics from sport each Olympics, protests - say, against China's continued attempts at ridding Tibet of Tibetan heritage, culture and religion - won't likely be violently (or worse, silently) put down by police who serve their government more than their citizenry (as was - is - the case in China).

Though we are four years away from seeing what will become of the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, I'm already optimistic about their success. I predict the 2012 London Games will give a free multicultural society - indeed, all such societies - reason to celebrate, and that the 2008 Games hosted by Communist, monocultural China will be fondly remembered, but as something of a cautionary tale. And I can't really worry my mind with whether China will in London once again win more gold medals than the U.S.A., since I know that America's success in 2012 won't be judged - at least by me - by how well the Government trains athletes, but rather by the individual accomplishments of athletes from all over the Union (and let's not forget, in 2008 the U.S. did have 110 total medals to China's total of 100).

Thankfully, our "power" - cultural, political, economic...athletic - isn't as centralized (read: as weak) as China's.

2008's Olympic Games truly sparked the imagination, but they were a triumph of fascism and conformity - cleverly packaged as Communist, with Chinese symbols - over individuality, liberty and self-expression. Except by those who were willfully duped by the Chinese, this can't be denied. Sure, the 2012 Summer Games in London - heck, even the 2010 Winter Olympics, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - might be "boring" compared to Beijing, but at least they will not likely be as nationalistically self-congratulatory as Communist China's 2008 Summer Olympics. That, I think, will come as no small relief to a lot of people. And in 2012, people will be able to be themselves (i.e., freely speak their minds, without fear of imprisonment by the authorities for doing so) in the host country.

By that measure...in my mind...London already has surpassed Beijing.

The Pity and the Shame

2008-08-25T20:05:00.000-05:00

I'm even less inclined to watch, listen or read the news from "traditional" sources than I was before the Olympic Games in Beijing. How hypocritical is it, for a network or newspaper to heap praise on a authoritarian nation, while at the very same time heaping scorn upon a democratically-elected politician for not criticizing the very same autocracy the media outlet couldn't portray flatteringly enough? It should make any reasonable fellow or fellette nauseous, or at least, feel shameful. And a failure to acknowledge and condemn this contemptible hypocrisy is just as bad as the President of the United States traveling to China and making barely a peep about Beijing's human rights violations.

How noble, the mainstream media is attempting to seem in the wake of the Games. How blind, how dumb, they hope their viewers and their readers are. Praise and wonder give way to cynicism and criticism, and we're to forget the past. During the Olympic Games, only a few brave commentators - compared with the total number - dared mention the plethora of broken promises of the so-called "People's" Republic's Communist masters. Now, these media hypocrites have donned their white hats and portray themselves as arbiters of justice, Protectors of the Human Way. A pity, though, that their timing wasn't better. A shame, it is, that they sacrificed their morals - or professed values - for continued accreditation.

By and large, China got away with pretending to be one thing in the eyes of the world while actually being something quite different. Sure, as those brave souls whose moral compass never wavered have pointed out, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is largely to blame. President Bush, too, deserved to be called out for not speaking out when he could - when he should - have. But as I myself pointed out in a recent letter to the editor in the International Herald Tribune, and as I reiterate here, the mainstream media, the networks and newspapers, the journalists we turn to for our daily recommended intake of (mostly) bad news, deserve just as much - if not more - of the blame.

Now, Americans are being told to watch out - China's economy is soon to pass ours. We're informed that the era of Olympic dominance by the United States was brought to an end by China's unprecedented gold medal performance, and that this, along with all the other signs, indicates that America's decline is continuing at a steady pace. For years now, magazines the world over, not just in North America, have declared that the future lies with China (even though the vast majority of the country's population lives in some semblance of poverty). A sort of romantic aura now surrounds the People's Republic of China, an undeserving modern heir credited with an ancient civilizations' many accomplishments.

While the media is largely to blame, we the people are also fairly responsible. We choose our news sources based on our individual or familial ideologies, and generally stick with them through thick and thin. We rarely question the mainstream media, as we rely on it much too much to direct the lives we live (usually, by way of our accepting their fear - "info" about "Global Warming" or "Terrorism" or "Big Oil"). We fail to remember that when the New York Times shares with us "All the News That's Fit to Print" for a daily edition's price, it is not we who decide What Is Fit to Print, but unelected editorial staffers and journalists, who are accountable only to their shareholders (if even), and not the public at large.

Only the Chinese people themselves will ever be able to claim credit for future democratic evolution of personal and political liberty in their land now, especially since the media of the West, and the democratically-elected leaders of the Free World, failed not only those in the People's Republic they had a chance to immeasurably help before and during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, but their own citizens. As for China's performance in the Games, well...the Chinese people can be proud of their fellow citizens, but their country's victory in the gold medal standings - and 2nd place in amount of total medals won, behind the U.S.A. - belongs not to the Chinese people at large, but their unelected government.

A pity, isn't it, that the mainstream media - domestic and international - doesn't point that out as much as it could?

A shame, isn't it, that we don't care enough that this is the case?

If Not Now, When?

2008-08-11T19:58:00.003-05:00

Perhaps the President of Georgia miscalculated in his decision to launch an assault on breakaway regions at the time and in the manner he did. But President Saakashvili has just as much a right to attempt to - by military action - reclaim for Georgia the regions of South Ossetia (and Abkhazia) as past Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin possessed to reclaim rebellious Chechnya, by force, for the Russian Federation. Russia, however, has no similar rights in South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the situation was different. Nowadays, when Russia meddles in the Caucasus, it does so as a foreign entity.

In granting to some residents of Georgia's separatist regions citizenship and/or de facto recognition, Russia violated the sovereignty of the republic of Georgia, and should Moscow continue its military campaign against the Georgians - who, again, have every right to exert their governmental authority over the lands in question - this would represent a further unacceptable violation of Georgian sovereignty.

Have we even begun to contemplate the consequences of the West doing nothing? The United States, amongst other countries and organizations - including NATO - have declared their support for the territorial integrity of Georgia. Will such proclamations, in time, be shown to have been nothing more than a retread of similar statements prior to the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s? No, I am not saying that Russia today is as evil as Nazi Germany once was. I am, however, noting that despite the differences between the two polities, one modern, the other extinct, they share a trait in that their vision of the world stands in stark contrast to the vision of those who wish for democratic order and peaceful relationships between nations.

Nazi Germany once was, and the Russian Federation today appears to be, an agent of controlled chaos.

Shall Russia's aggression remain unchecked? It should be obvious to us, now, that tiny Georgia cannot hold off the Bear on its own. And, we should keep things in a moral perspective: However mistaken President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia might have been in trying to fulfill one of his campaign promises (imagine that, a politician trying to keep promises to the electorate!) - the reconquest of rebel regions - it has not been Georgian planes bombing the Russian capital...but Russian planes have bombed Tblisi, the Georgian capital. And to what end? For what purpose? Georgia wasn't trying to reclaim Russian soil for Georgia. Georgia was trying to reclaim Georgian soil for Georgia.

What would it say to our allies, if we, the United States, did nothing more for Georgia than help fly Georgian troops home from Iraq, so they might participate in the defense of their homeland?

Whatever might be done by the West, what nevertheless should be done is that the Russians should be reminded that the Free World, armed and ready, views with intense dismay any attempts to forcibly reunite former Soviet republics once more under the iron fist of Moscow, either by swallowing them up whole or simply by toppling their governments and installing friendly puppet ones. Let us not forget, Russia's envoy at the United Nations in New York City, regarding the situation in the Caucasus, stated that there are occasions when popularly, democratically elected leaders (in reference to Georgia's Saakashvili) "become an obstacle".

Forgive me for taking offense, for becoming alarmed, at such a statement, as in my view, such words are hardly conducive to international stability, or constructive of positive ends.

Like it or not, believe it or not, there are still governments in existence on the face of this planet committed to sowing disorder and reaping the benefits, at the expense of the personal liberties and national sovereignty of free peoples. While I don't mean to sound alarmist, Russia's blatant disrespect for Georgian sovereignty represents a threat to American sovereignty; indeed, it represents a threat to the very principle and idea of sovereignty and the right of a democratic government to exercise it over the lands the vast majority of the international community recognizes as being under that government's domain.

Should Moscow have its way militarily in Georgia, of all times during an Olympic Games being held in an authoritarian country, we stand to lose much more than just face amongst our friends. We'll lose it against our foes, those agents of controlled chaos. And we'll pay a high price. Maybe not now. But mark my words, we will. The dominoes are stacked up again. If Georgia falls, Ukraine could be next. Are we really willing to wait to sit around and watch that happen? I hope not.

God, I hope not.

The Dark Knight, Part II

2008-07-20T21:47:00.001-05:00

Reading the New York Times' glowing review of The Dark Knight, written by a critic - Manohla Dargis - who in my view quite too often comes off as divisively elitist, I came across this observation about The Joker, as portrayed by Heath Ledger:

"He isn't fighting for anything or anyone. He isn't a terrorist, just terrifying."

This statement immediately got me to wondering, why is Manohla Dargis reluctant to refer to Heath Ledger's Joker as a terrorist? (We are, mind you, talking about the New York Times, so Dargis's reticence to call a spade a spade isn't that much of a surprise).

The filmmakers leave no doubt as to the opinion of Gothamites, that that is what The Joker is - a terrorist (he is referred as such more than once). Why the hesitation, on the part of the critic? His creed is chaos, his targets generally civilians (the Joker - in a televised message which eerily brings to mind those occasional al-Qaeda video updates on al-Jazeera - threatens to continue killing civilians until and unless Batman unmasks himself). What the Joker finds humorous terrifies the citizens of Gotham into a panic. In "The Dark Knight," the Joker is very much a domestic terrorist who hopes the fear felt by citizens will send them over the edge, and make them abandon what we conceive of as our "humanity".

An inability to call a terrorist a terrorist leads to our coddling those who walk the walk and talk the talk; just because a terrorist might not refer to himself as such, doesn't make him any less of one. The Joker, at least in The Dark Knight, seems insane. But he is methodically, undeniably brutal in carrying out his exacting plans of death and mayhem, while claiming that he bucks the trend - that unlike others, he's kind of just winging it...hoping and waiting to see what happens next, with a firm notion about what SHOULD happen next. And when things don't go as planned, disappointment is easily - if only momentarily - read upon the face of this anti-plan master planner brought to memorable life by Heath Ledger.

"...that a spectacle like this even glances in that direction (9/11) confirms that American movies have entered a new era of ambivalence when it comes to their heroes..." - Manohla Dargis, "Showdown in Gotham Town"

Manohla Dargis can take a none-too-subtle pleasure in the ambivalence of a hero, or anti-hero, such as Batman in The Dark Knight. Even so, The Dark Knight is an allegory, representing not some new, profound truth in whatever "post-(insert phenomenon, idea or event here)" era, but rather one which points to an eternal truth. Despite the reluctance of many in America and around the world to recognize evil, and that it has its opposite, The Dark Knight boldly proclaims that evil exists, that there is a dichotomy separating it from good, and that it is a very fine line all too easily crossed by choice, even by those who might have at heart the best of intentions.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-18T05:56:00.003-05:00

Can mere words adequately describe The Dark Knight? Or the late (and now, I'm finally convinced, much to be missed for his talent) Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker? The Dark Knight is a sucker-punch to the emotions, an assault on the senses...and the heart. Yes, ostensibly it's a movie about a guy dressing up in a Batsuit, fighting crime in Gotham City. We don't usually expect much from such a premise, but while I've seen my fair share of Batman movies, The Dark Knight was more like the best of The Godfather movies on steroids.

Heath Ledger, as the Joker, was...amazing. A supernal performance. I had underestimated him as an actor while he was alive. His tour de force in The Dark Knight has forced me to revalue, or rather, reconsider, that view. I can't say I've ever seen a better Batman movie. And, I have to admit, I can't say that I've seen a better movie this year (and folks, I've seen a lot of movies this year). Maybe, upon further viewings, I'll expand that assessment. Yes, expand it.

Because this is one of those films that can haunt you after you depart the theatre. It was everything I wanted it to be, and then some. The hype surrounding it, in my judgment, didn't - couldn't - do it justice. I'm not just speaking as a Batman fan. Don't for a second let my well-known feelings about the Dark Knight cause you to think I'm only recommending The Dark Knight due to a decades-old attachment to the eponymous character. Watch it for yourself. Watch what Heath Ledger did as the Joker.

While I am, yes, still processing what I saw shortly after Thursday, July 17, 2008 became Friday, July 18, 2008, what you'll see when you go to The Dark Knight should convince you in ways I can't, should show you that I'm not just feeding you a knee-jerk reaction. If you liked Batman Begins, then I'm pretty sure you'll love The Dark Knight. But if you loved Batman Begins, then...well...The Dark Knight...well...

I'm truly at a loss for words.

And my friends, you know me. You read my blogs.

How often am I ever at a loss for...words?!

Government and Gay Marriage

2008-07-13T16:22:00.004-05:00

Senator John Quincy Adams, in a letter from Washington, DC, wrote to his father John, formerly the second president of the United States, "This is now in general the great art of legislation at this place...To do a thing by assuming the appearance of preventing it. To prevent a thing by assuming that of doing it." (He was trying to stop the spread of slavery into Louisiana Purchase territory). I share the preceding quote only because it recently came to my attention that Arizonans are once again being asked to vote on an amendment to our State constitution addressing gay marriage.

Alas, how far we have allowed Government to stray from its Purpose, and how ignorant today of that Purpose our Society is!

What does gay marriage have to do with law and order? Do we really presume, is it fair to assume, that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic, wary as they were of overbearing interference of any sort on the part of centralized Government - local or national - in the private affairs of the People, intended the State or National Governments to over-regulate Nuptials along with Commerce? And as far as issues go, should homosexual unions concern us, one way or the other, more than the dismal state of public education in the Grand Canyon State? Tell me true, just how much Government do we want in our lives? How much is too much for our own good?

Mind you, Arizona law already defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. An amendment reminding Arizonans of this fact would be redundant, though I to some degree sympathize with - or rather, understand - the paranoia of those supportive of it. For here is the predicament we face, not only in Arizona, but throughout our Union:

Were there an amendment, or a court ruling, which effectively legalized homosexual marriage in Arizona, my native State, my first home, it is likely that earnest defenders of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) "rights" would be as supportive of such an act - of such government intrusion in the private lives of Arizonans - as they are now opposed to the particular measure being discussed presently, which would explicitly prohibit gay marriage here. And though LGBT activists fancy themselves guardians of Liberty and Human Rights, they are hypocrites, unless they are as opposed to a Government blessing gay marriage as they are to a Government proscribing it.

Given past developments in California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, LGBT hypocrisy is self-evident. Or as Thomas Paine wrote in his second "American Crisis" paper addressed to Lord Howe in January 1777, regarding the Quakers in Philadelphia who took pains to reassure his lordship of their allegiance to George III: "These men are continually harping on the great sin of our bearing arms, but the king of Britain may lay waste the world in blood and famine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say."

*

Should it be approved, gay marriage would not contribute to national progress. Nor would it hinder such progress, if not recognized. But this should not be either the State or Federal Governments' concern. It is not an existential issue; it would be as erroneous to say the Revolutionary War was fought so that gays might marry each other, as it would be to say that Lincoln fought the Civil War to end slavery. Nor is this about "civil rights"; the very idea that anyone should have - or be denied - political rights based on the type of relationship, or sex, they have is absurd, but the last time I checked, homosexuals have the right to vote and hold political office.

The chief end of Government - it's raison d'etre, according to the philosophy of those who established The United States of America and blessed the Union with long standing instruments, such as the federal Constitution - is the preservation of individual Liberty, and contrary to conventional wisdom, this does not mean one can do whatever he wishes, irrespective of the effects on others. It does mean, at some level, treating others as you wish to be treated. It does not mean everyone should have their way; just as Government must be restrained, so must we guard against unbridled majorities or tyrannical minorities.

Just as Government should have no say in what religious beliefs you have, or deny, and should not punish you for adhering to certain spiritual beliefs or for lacking them, it is also the case that Government should not possess the unmitigated right to tell you whom you can or cannot wed. Love, we should remember, is rarely respectful of legal boundaries. However, at the same time, I do not feel that a Government selected by a majority should be manipulated to suit the demands of a minority, a minority which is offended that the majority disagrees with it (leading the former to adopt elitist sentiments).

In other words, though I am against Government banning gay marriage, I am as equally - or more - against Government sanctioning it. If I had to choose between one measure or the other, let there be no mystery as to which would have my greatest support. I am entitled to my own opinion, am I not? I surely am, even if, to quote Buckley, those who "claim to want to give a hearing to other views...are shocked and offended to learn that there are other views."

Henry David Thoreau said, in his 1849 tract on Civil Disobedience, "To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government." Arbitrary laws, such as those seeking to ban flag burning, or unnecessary amendments prohibiting gay marriage (in a State with laws already on the books effectively banning it), do nothing to make our Government better. At the same time, those who via so-called "activist courts" seek to subvert the will and decisiveness of a reasonable majority of the electorate in favor of gay marriage would do us, our State constitution, and our democratic system no favors.

"That government is best which governs the least," said Thomas Paine. How little Common Sense we have today, failing to recognize the truth of such an aphorism!

**

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/

The Curious Predicament of the Anti-Zionist

2008-07-11T14:46:00.001-05:00

Think much I do on the situation of the Jewish people, on the State of Israel, and the world at large. All are intertwined, after all. It occurs to me that if those who stand opposed to Israel would just be honest with themselves, and with those who either support Israel, are Jewish, or Israeli, they would be able to bring themselves to admit what many of us others who stand against them already know. And what do we know about them, about these anti-Semites, these anti-Zionists? Quite a bit, for to be acquainted with human nature and not deny its faults gives one insight of a sort those blind to or dismissive of their own faults manage to avoid, often purposely.

These anti-Zionists, indeed, all anti-Semites, are deeply disturbed by the idea of Jews having the means and the ability to defend themselves. See, after thousands of years of Jewish statelessness, the world got pretty used to being able to pick on Jews, without much in the way of retaliation deterring them from murdering, expelling, or otherwise oppressing Jews on a whim. But now, over sixty years after the establishment of the State of Israel, anti-Semites and ordinary individuals still have yet to come to terms with the idea of Jews not only having a country, but warplanes, tanks, soldiers and nuclear weapons with which they can defend it vigorously.

Yes, long since gone are the days when anti-Semitism rarely had the potential for serious repercussions. Jews now have the ability, and the will, to strike back at those who would do them harm or have already done them harm, even if the guilty parties hide thousands of miles away. The world blusters and protests, embargoes and boycotts, vilifies and scapegoats, all because the established order - of thousands of years - has been turned upside down, because the Jews are no longer shy about holding accountable those who attack them. How the anti-Zionist yearns for yesteryear, when a Jew could be assaulted, persecuted, without fear of retaliation!

The truth is, the building up and establishment of the State of Israel did not create a "new Jew", as the proponents of early Zionism thought it would. No, what the re-founding of a Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel did was return the Jew to his and her former station.

Jews in the time of King David, and for some period before and long afterward, were able warriors. Thousands of years after David made Jerusalem his capital and that of all the people Israel, it was the Jews who rose up against the might of the Roman Empire and held it off successfully for several years. The destruction of the Second Temple, and later the great expulsion following the Bar-Kochba revolt (which resulted in Rome renaming Judea-Israel as "Syria Palaestina") was as significant to the disarming of the Jews as the rebuilding of Jewish statehood was to their rearmament. And it is their rearmament which is most disturbing to the anti-Zionist.

Modern Israel is not, of course, above criticism, nor should it be. However, Israel's existence as a liberal democracy - whose citizens both Jewish and Arab, Muslim and Christian, enjoy rights and privileges not shared by the residents of neighboring lands - cannot be the reason for the amount of disproportionate criticism heaped upon it. Nor, unfortunately, does Israel's existence as a liberal democracy prevent it from being counted amongst those nations inimical to world peace, along with such dictatorial stand-outs as North Korea, Iran, Burma, Cuba or even quasi-dictatorial regimes such as Venezuela and, to a lesser degree, Russia.

So what else but the existence of Jewish military power, and the absence of a reluctance by Jews in Israel to use that power in a just cause, can be the reason for Israel being viewed and treated by many as a pariah?

Loath though many outspoken opponents of Israel may be to admit it (they'll spout platitudes to human rights they deny to the Jew, but want for everyone else), nevertheless it is the case that they prefer the meek Jew to the assertive Jew; they would rather the Jew be the prey, not the hunter. The idea of aggressive Jews, able and willing to stand up for defend themselves when threatened, is anathema to such people, even in this day and age, long after the Nazis were discredited and defeated. Furthermore, for a Jew to claim she has just as much a right to defend herself as an Arab has to defend himself, well...to the anti-Zionist, what an absurdity this is!

It is as if the decrees of Heaven itself have been overturned by the Devil!

To the anti-Zionist, Israel's greatest crime is not that it kills Arabs in self-defense or captured land from Arabs in wars the Arabs were - and are - responsible for instigating. No, to the anti-Zionist/anti-Semite (the labels are interchangeable), Israel's greatest crime is simply...that Israel exists. To those of this view, the non-existence of Israel would bring peace of mind, to say nothing of peace on Earth. For a millennium or two, the world - in particular, anti-Semites - were able to deal with the Jew as the stronger party. Now, anti-Semites must contend with Jews who can make a strong claim to being an equal, and in some aspects even the stronger, party.

2,000 years of disenfranchisement, pogroms, exclusions, Inquisitions, Crusades, expulsions, genocides and like and such as against the Jews didn't prepare the anti-Zionist, the anti-Semite, for this, a world in which Jews are capable and cunning commandos, generals, spies, fighter pilots and artillerymen. Anti-Zionists would rather they didn't have to deal with this reality at all; the criminal is usually vexed when the victim fights back. But deal with this reality the anti-Semite must, and in so doing, resentment breeds. Resentment breeds, and Israel is the focus.

Israel is the focus, and Jews are the targets.

Jews are the targets...but now, they fight back.

What a predicament!

Change I Already Believe In

2008-07-07T13:32:00.005-05:00

How can people get all worked up over the false hope being propagated by Senator Barack Obama? His claim to be an agent of change is disingenuous, because the agent of change is not Senator Obama, but the American System. The agent of change is the Constitution of the United States, especially the Twenty-Second Amendment, which instituted presidential term limits. "Change we can believe in" is coming whether or not Sen. Obama wins the 2008 election, and notwithstanding the wholly, obviously false charges that a President McCain would simply continue the policies of George W. Bush (after all, media history shows how often the latter two were at odds, doesn't it?). Change is our destiny.

That a great many Americans are willing to go along with Barack Obama's claims, or not question them, demonstrates to me the lowly stature of our Constitution in this day and age. Such is that compact's plight that the American Civil Liberties Union is able to get away with claiming the Bush Administration is trampling on our rights at the same time the ACLU itself is committed to trampling on Americans' right to bear arms, which despite uber-liberal spin, is not limited to those in service of State militias (that right, guaranteed by the Second Amendment, was inspired by British oppressions and by the Founders was seen as a fundamental protection of personal liberty). Freedom, eh? According to your POV.

Yes, politicians can be and often are agents of change. But in an election year - especially a general election year in which the Office of the President is up for grabs after a Chief Executive's maximum two terms and the incumbent Vice President isn't in the running - "change" relies not on the election of one candidate or another, but in a faithful adherence to the literal and legal provisions of the federal covenant which binds together this Union. We are, as the Founders wished, a Nation ruled by firm laws, not fickle men. In fact, by upholding those laws, especially the Supreme Law of the Land, we the People each and every election year are also agents of change, in concert with our Constitution.

Unlike those whose bumper stickers celebrate the approach of President Bush's last day in office, I look forward to next year's inauguration with hope...not in anticipation of an Obama victory, or even a McCain win, but because on Inauguration Day, a great thing happens. Prior to the birth of the United States and the adoption of the Constitution, peaceful transference of government - republican or monarchic - was a rare occurrence. When after serving two terms, George Washington stood in the same room as John Adams and watched the latter take the presidential Oath of Office, the press of the time gushed, "Thus ended a scene the parallel of which was never before witnessed in any country."

Election years are, more or less, always fun for me. Whereas others are enamored of "the theory of natural selection," and advocate constantly in favor of it, I am myself far more fascinated by - and protective of - the process of democratic selection. Disagree though I may with the stances of one or both of the candidates standing for a particular office, there are few things more intellectually satisfying to me than waiting in anticipation of the results of a vote. When someone I didn't wish to be elected wins, I take comfort from the fact that so long as "We the People" fulfill our duties and responsibilities under both the Federal and our State Constitutions, change we can believe in will always be possible.

I take comfort because Change, as you can see, is not the purview solely of Barack Obama or his campaign. Change needn't be an overt "campaign promise" of Senator John McCain, either. Change is coming, no thanks to either of the candidates, save for the fact that they are competing for the position George W. Bush currently holds. And who is to say that when Inauguration Day 2009 comes around, the following won't apply to "Bush 43" (as the next President of the United States is sworn in, and as about his predecessor another President once mused upon taking office over two centuries ago): "Me thought I heard him think, 'Ay, I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!'"

That, my fellow Americans, is Change of the sort I not only can believe in, but that I already do believe in.

American History 101 - A Lesson for Europe

2008-07-04T17:03:00.003-05:00

This post is actually located on another blog site:

American History 101 - A Lesson for Europe

Irrational Terror Requires Rational Response

2008-07-02T20:35:00.006-05:00

Compare the lives of Israel's Arabs with the lives of Arabs in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, and what you will find may startle you: Israeli Arabs, an uncomfortable, distrusted and admittedly unofficially discriminated-against minority living amongst a Jewish majority, are still far better off in Israel than their brethren in neighboring countries. Israel's Arabs, as an Arab minority amongst a Jewish majority, are freer - religiously, physically, culturally and politically - than Arabs living in Arab-majority states.

In the wake of the latest terrorist atrocity perpetrated in Jerusalem by an Arab holding Israeli residency, there are once again calls to expel Arabs from Israel en masse . While it is undeniably the case that such a position is born of justifiable anger, it is completely and utterly without reason that such an opinion - such a suggestion - is ever seriously propagated. No liberal democracy worthy of being called such should countenance any form of ethnic cleansing.

Wednesday's attack was wholly unpredictable, at least with regards to its timing. Anyone who assumes that the Arabs of Jerusalem's eastern neighborhoods - brought under Israeli sovereignty in June 1967 both against the will of Israel and by the fault of an intransigent, adventurous but later wise King of Jordan - are in love with their position in the region deludes themselves.

Still, when one compares the situation of Arabs in Israel with Arabs in Arab-majority states, one would be forgiven for thinking resident Arabs slightly less of a threat than foreign Arabs.

*

Looking around at the world today, there are relatively few "ethnically pure" states. Notably, the members of the Arab League by and large conspicuously hold to policies restricting or prohibiting immigration by non-Arabs. Saudi Arabia, amongst other countries, is intolerant of the practice of any religion within the kingdom's boundaries but Islam.

Given the threat Israel faces, several minds hold to the notion that an expulsion of Arabs from the Jewish state would solve the tiny country's problems.

How they can believe such a thing, cognizant as they must be of all of the problems/accusations beleaguering Israel still today thanks to the departure of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Israel's territory in the War of Independence - because of fighting as well as exhortations and reassurances victory from Arab leaders - is vexing. Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, has enough existentially-significant image problems already.

Besides, why would Israelis wish to emulate their Arab foes, who expelled (or persecuted-until-they-left) from their lands about as many - 800,000 - Jews as Arabs who departed what was once the Palestine Mandate following the establishment of the State of Israel? There is no moral precedent for even the mildest form of ethnic cleansing, that which merely consists of mass deportation.

Thus, it is for these reasons that I cannot seriously entertain the idea of ridding the Jewish state of its sometimes all-too-willing potential Fifth Column citizens and residents of Arab and Muslim ethnicity.

Me? I feel that preemptive strikes, police raids, human intelligence, and yes, home demolitions and even the freezing of bank accounts/assets of Israeli Arabs or Arab families supporting or carrying out terrorist activities should suffice. And going a step further, I would dare to suggest that calling on Israel's Arabs to be better citizens in their democracy, and calling out their hypocrisy whenever necessary, is a far more preferable alternative to expulsion.

**

Writing to a New England synagogue in the 1790s, the first President of the United States, George Washington, said, "For happily the government of the United States which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

Since Arabs in Israel - whatever their trials and disadvantages as a minority - receive more protection and support from the Israeli government than they would under any sort of Arab/Muslim government now existing, is it too much to ask that they who live under a Jewish government's protection, "should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support"?

No, it is not too much to ask.

***

In fact, I think such a "requirement", such a demand on Israel's Arabs, is quite reasonable given the circumstances, since they who seek respect, recognition and protection from the State should be willing to give respect, recognition and protection to the State in return. Banal hypocrisy in this regard, on the part of the Israeli Arab community, sows bitter seeds and reaps bitter fruit. As it has in the past, it does in the present; as it does in the present, it will in the future.

See, within Israel's declaration of independence of 1948 is contained an extraordinary passage: WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

It is not too much, of course, to ask that Israel's Arab population respect the State's Jewish underpinnings, majority culture, and institutions, in exchange for guarantees of their "full and equal" rights of Israeli citizenship. In return, Arabs can vote for who they wish, maintain their own free press, speak their mind and travel throughout the country - along with their fellow Jewish citizens.

Sure, the family of the perpetrator of Wednesday's horrific bulldozer rampage through central Jerusalem was brought under Israeli rule against their will. But given Israel's request to King Hussein of Jordan not to enter the fighting in 1967, Israel is less at fault than the Arab states. And while Israel could easily do more to accommodate and care for Jerusalem's Arab residents, their lot is far more to their benefit than it would be under any sort of Palestinian rule.

Wednesday's senseless attack once again brought into the spotlight the contentious history and position of Jerusalem. But simply expelling Arabs en masse from the State of Israel will never be the answer. Such a "solution" is akin to sweeping dust under the rug, and then believing it to be forever gone.

No...the most proper solution I can see at present is time and again calling on Israel's Arabs to acknowledge and appreciate their lot - all the while, fulfilling our end of responsibilities to them, whilst holding the door wide open for them if they feel they might be happier elsewhere. If out of stubborn, idiotic pride born of ethnicity they wish to live as a majority under Arab dictators rather than Jewish (and Arab) democrats as a minority, in countries where their lives and opinions belong more to the government than to themselves, let them.

****

"After all, life inside Israel is much better than the West Bank." - Ibrahim Barakat, businessman from Beit Hanina

****

The Significance of July 2, 1776

2008-07-02T04:24:00.005-05:00

"Resolved...That these United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." - Richard Henry Lee, delegate of Virginia, submitting a resolution before the Continental Congress on June 7, 1776

*

We take for granted far more than we are willing to admit to, and when it comes to our history, this is no exception. Such might be the case with all peoples and all free nations, but in America in particular, we're so content with the generalities of our history that the facts are often forgotten or ignored, ignored because they are forgotten. Ignored because, most likely, they are not taught. Like the story of Washington with the cherry tree, we celebrate myth as much as fact. This is not so bad, in our case; but the truth is not just what sets us free - it made us free.

After all, it is one thing, is it not, to say that Lincoln freed the slaves in the Civil War, and then quite another to acknowledge that with the Emancipation Proclamation, he only freed the slaves in the South? I think so. And if you think the North was always so anti-slavery, read up on the vast numbers of slaves who entered America through Rhode Island. But I digress...

I'm not writing, here, about the Civil War. At least, not at much length. At the moment, I'm writing of an event - or rather, a series of events - without which the War Between the States in the 1860s might merely have been the product of an imagination rather than a consequence of intransigence and pride. It being the first week of July, 2008, I'm writing about - what else? - American Independence.

Take a look at this piece of correspondence, now just about 232 years old:

"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."

Why was the future ambassador to the Netherlands and England, and lest we forget future Vice President and President of the United States, John Adams, so enthusiastic about July 2, 1776? So much so that he wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail Adams, with his feelings on the day that message's subject? (He wrote nothing of July 4.) Well, July 2 that year was a day of great significance.

"This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States..." - Charles Wilson Peale, an artist in Philadelphia, in his journal...July 2, 1776

Yes, at issue that day - July 2, 1776 - in the Continental Congress was whether the Thirteen Colonies would finally, officially break with Britain and go their own separate ways from George III and Parliament. Without that vote (twelve Colonies voted in favor, while New York abstained), there would have been little point to Congress then commencing debate over the final wording of the Declaration of Independence which had been submitted to them by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin.

Incidentally, on July 4, 1776, only the President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, and the Secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, actually signed the final draft of the Declaration approved that day. It would be another month before a different copy was signed by all the delegates at Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson was out buying ladies' gloves for his wife, and a thermometer, on July 4, 1776. That thermometer cost 3 pounds, 15 shillings, by the way.

Now, I'm willing to bet that a great majority of the Americans (and others) reading this had little notion of what happened on July 2, 1776 in Philadelphia. They probably have never cared, though ardent patriots they may consider themselves. In fact, to them, July 2 has probably always been just another day on the road to America's Independence celebrations. But, just as we must be conceived by sexual intercourse before our actual birth can be celebrated, America was created - by a wholly different type of intercourse - before it was actually born.

So if you love Freedom, raise a bottle or mug of Samuel Adams lager - if you have one - in a salute to the momentous vote which took place in Philadelphia 232 years ago today (you can of course toast using the beer of your choice; I merely stated my own preference). Do this in remembrance that but for the significance of July 2, 1776, the Fourth of July would be for us what it is for the rest of the world...just another day, to be foolishly taken for granted.

**

"The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than had prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America." - John Adams writing to Patrick Henry, May 27, 1776, on hearing of Virginia's decision to support independence

Barack Obama: Change To Be Wary Of

2008-06-24T11:47:00.006-05:00

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me - 'He's young and inexperienced, and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?'" - Senator Barack Obama, at recent fundraising event in Florida

I would like to correct a gross misconception about the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. Were he to win the White House, he would not become the first Black president of these States united by the Constitution. It is disingenuous to claim this is so. The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama, aside from being an inexperienced, untested, mysterious (in a bad way) and charismatic "Illiberal (only-my-opinion-matters-not-yours) Liberal" with an outspoken, arguably unpatriotic wife, is mulatto....not "Black".

His having a black parent and a white parent of course does not un-qualify Monsieur Obama for the Oval Office. His politics do that, in my eyes. But, you already knew this. Allow me to go further.

Yes, I object to this portrayal of Barack Obama as being that which he isn't - Black, and an Agent of Change, and for good reason. For why would a self-proclaimed agent of change, whose politics are supposedly politics of a different sort (despite his voting record in the Senate saying something different about him) so arrogantly appropriate a symbol of the Presidency - in a remarkably fascistic way - while the election is decidedly undecided?

Months, in fact, before it is held?

Personality cult, much? Look at the Obama seal above. On it we see "Vero Possumus," a.k.a. "Si, se puede" or "Yes we can". His campaign slogan. I guess "E Pluribus Unum," is on its way out the door? Along with "In God We Trust," the United States' other motto?

Obama's campaign seal might as well say...well, not say, but scream... "Sieg Heil!" It's a wonder his most ardent supporters aren't doing so already, the zealots....

Think I'm exagerrating? He's appropriating the symbols of the State, attempting to get the people at large to associate them with himself. He's got plenty of willing "executioners" going along with him, blind supporters eager to make his the only accepted vision of the country's future.

Roman emperors did that sort of thing. Monarchs do that sort of thing. Dictators do that sort of thing. Hitler did that sort of thing. Obama and the Democrats are doing that sort of thing. Pardon me for being wary of such practices, for America's sake...for humanity's sake!

**

And despite any efforts to make this race be about something else other than race, Obamaniacs find it easier to portray the Illinois senator as 100% Black. Though they claimed a desire to not make race a part of this campaign, there is an almost unspoken-of tendency by his campaign to inject little racial jibes and provocations into the discouse every now and then, leading opponents like me to question whether they will be labeled - and vilified - as racists due to their justifiable criticisms of Barack Obama.

If I don't vote for Obama in November, and someone finds out about it, will I be labeled "racist"? The late William F. Buckley once said, "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to learn that there are other views." If I don't vote for Obama in November, will I be sent by Democrats to a re-education camp, for political undesirables?

Are Americans so ignorant of history that they are dooming themselves to repeat the history of other nations? I hope to God this is not so. I really hope not. Between you and me, Obamaniacs could give "Brownshirts" a whole new meaning...get what I'm saying?

***

Cold, hard facts aren't important to Senator Obama, or his supporters. Running a campaign based on conjecture, charisma and "good feelings", the substance of which is...a lack of substance, beyond the ambiguous...

Obamaniacs buy into his appropriation of "Hope" and "Change" just as blindly as Bush supporters eagerly bought into the 43rd President's appropriation of "Freedom" and "Patriot"-ism after 9/11. Whether they admit it or not, Barack Obama's proponents think the world of him, but don't think much about him. They think change relies on the election of Barack Obama, and not on their own deeds.

But we don't need Barack Obama to become a country true to its creed. We're not perfect, but we're working on it. That's been the way, our way - imperfect, yet constantly improving - since 1776. And the fact is, we already are a Nation which, for the most part, judges people based not on the color of their skin but instead on the content of their character. Bobby Jindhal, a Republican of Indian descent, is the Governor of Louisiana. New York State's governor is a legally-blind African-American.

We have come a long way, on our own, since Independence. Barack Obama, and his outspoken wife, - as well as his campaign - should recognize, honor and celebrate this. They don't. In fact, they act as if America has changed only because of them, and can (will) only change with them. That scares me, no small amount it does. Come this November, I hope to God we don't take a good many steps back after going so many forward.

More Reasons to Distrust Barack Obama

2008-06-06T19:48:00.004-05:00

Every week, it seems, free-thinking, independently-minded Americans (a.k.a. "those of us not caught up in the hype and spin") such as myself get more material from Barack Obama and his campaign, material which we - in this glorious political-cultural societal system of ours - have every right to advertise to the rest of the world as examples of why Senator Barack Obama is not qualified to be the next President of The United States of America.

Case in point:

*

"Obama clarifies united J'lem comment"

**

Just as it became apparent that Barack Obama was going to be the official Democrat nominee for President, at an American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference he declared that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." A day or so later, an Obama adviser clarified the Senator's statement by saying, "Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties."

The whole idea of Barack Obama saying one thing at a conference mostly attended by none-too-few members of that American demographic most likely to vote Democrat in the next election - Jews - and then his campaign saying another thing, later, which effectively changes the meaning of the prior declaration, smells fishy to me, and is enough to send chills down my spine.

For a candidate who is supposedly the standard-bearer of "change" in American politics, this unfortunate incident once again earns Obama a reputation as a shameless opportunist.

***

Nathan Diament, public policy director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, reacted this way: "If Senator Obama intended his remarks at AIPAC to be understood in this way, he said nothing that would reasonably lead to such a different interpretation."

And as Morton Klein of the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) has pointed out, "It means he used the term inappropriately, possibly to mislead strong supporters of Israel that he supports something he doesn't really believe."

Is this the kind of President self-proclaimed liberals want in the White House? When I think of all the times President George W. Bush has been labeled a liar, a war-monger, or several other less-than-complimentary terms, and then look at what Obama and his lackeys are feeding us, I'm inclined to fling many of those same insults right back at the Illinois Senator.

And for all the Left-led mockery of Bush which shamelessly portrays the man as a buffoon, I'm not seeing much of a difference between their caricatures of a sitting President and their presumptive presidential candidate's campaign.

When one takes into account these same peoples' expressed convictions that Bush is an evil genius (at the same time they deride him as an idiot), he might even begin to think the "organized mental confusion" embodied by the Obama camp is a deliberate ruse designed to make their candidate seem like an ordinary, flawed "everyman"...which, by the way, worked out pretty well for George Walker Bush.

In any case, I'm more than a little insulted by Barack Obama's opportunistic employment of obfuscation and revisionism in order to ingratiate himself with "American Israel". As if his disingenuous stance this week regarding Jerusalem - a city I in many ways consider myself an expatriate from - wasn't bad enough, last week he claimed an uncle helped liberate Auschwitz.

****

Why or how, exactly, I am supposed to be impressed that a great uncle of Barack Obama participated in the liberation of Buchenwald (not Auschwitz) I have no idea; perhaps it is the case that on the heels of numerous examples of "guilt by association" (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Michael Pfleger, et al) plaguing their man, Obama's campaign was trying to inject some "virtue by association" to inoculate him against future outbreaks.

Be that as it may, Barack Hussein Obama is still in many ways an unknown, untested entity, and the more that is learned about him, the more reasons we commonsensical - maybe cynical, but absolutely attentive - members of the American electorate have to distrust him. But hey, skepticism is healthy when it comes to American politics. Our motto is "In God We Trust", not "In Politicians We Trust", after all.

The least so-called "liberals" (those I not-so-playfully call "Illiberals") could do is be straightforward with the rest of us in the U.S., if it is their goal to have "Obama the Disingenuous" succeed "Bush the Liar" in the Oval Office. But wait, be honest with us? They can't do that: Their candidate is the Great Obfuscator, remember?

*
**
***
**
*

FURTHER READING:

"Obama's Revisionist History"
by Karl Rove

Make a Choice: It is Obama, or MLK, Jr. ?

2008-06-04T18:35:00.001-05:00

"Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

- John McCain in 1982, addressing a voter who accused him of being a carpetbagger

*

Since many people are justifying Senator Barack Hussein Obama's run for the Oval Office - and sometimes insinuating that the job of President of the United States is his (or should be his) by default - whilst quoting or alluding to the words of a certain, revered, celebrated civil rights leader who had a dream that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'", I believe that honoring the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. is exactly what we should be doing in this "historic" 2008 presidential race, now that an African-American has the majority of the Democrats' approval to be the Jackass Party's general election presidential nominee.

Thus, I believe it is the case that anyone who votes for Barack Hussein Obama - and I am, undoubtedly, specifically addressing African-Americans here, but "Caucasians" too - based on the Senator's skin color (with an attitude of "It's about time" or some nonsense like that) is effectively abandoning the memory of the late, great Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in favor of political expediency. After all, was it not during the celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech, given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, that MLK, Jr. shared his dream that "my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"?

How, I ask you, would voting for Barack Hussein Obama because he is African-American - regardless of considerations as to whether or not his policies would be good for America (which should be our concern) - be anything but a slap in the face to MLK, Jr.'s legacy, especially taking into consideration that above quote? Such an act would effectively, at the very least symbolically, negate all that Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for, worked for, prayed for and died for.

Is it right to hold a man - truly, a knight of liberty - in such high esteem and at the same time willfully act in total contradiction to the values he espoused, the hopes he shared, the dreams he dreamed? No.

I think it's demeaning. Irresponsible. Hypocritical.

**

Look, I am cognizant of the fact that a great number of Democrats out there, and some Republicans too, support Senator Barack Hussein Obama of Illinois due to the man's ideological stance.

But I am also aware that in their zeal for change, many well-intentioned Americans see Barack Hussein Obama's skin color, much more than his positions, as being just the sort of change - culturally and politically - this (to quote the late, great Winston Churchill) "Great Republic" needs at this point in our history. They're willing to overlook the many factual errors in his speeches, his irresponsible approach to foreign policy and overall, his inexperience, because hey...look...you gotta understand...he's got charisma, and hey, he's an African-American who has a chance of becoming President!

Of The United States of America!

However, as a free-thinking, reasonable and common sense-guided voter, I'm not willing to overlook such "faults" simply because, as did Adolf Hitler, Barack Hussein Obama has style, charisma or personal magnetism. Just because an African-American is for the first time a major political party's choice for President of America doesn't mean he must win the election or else his candidacy won't mean anything. A lot of people will tell you that such is the case, but they're wrong.

While Obama's skin color is irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, his ideological stance is not, especially at this point in our country's history when we have - both Democrats and Republicans, "conservatives" and "liberals" alike - largely abandoned the use of reason and allowed ourselves to be caressed and cajoled by leaders - both elected and self-appointed - who all too eagerly employ demagoguery in their efforts to shape America and Americans in their image.

His ideology leads Senator Obama to advocate positions and policies which would entrench and expand the welfare state rather than scale it down. When it comes to national security, I get the impression Barack Hussein Obama hasn't a clue what is really happening in Iraq (this, while one of John McCain's sons has served in the country, and while Senator McCain and - lest I forget - celebrated action star Chuck Norris have both visited Iraq many more times than Obama).

And tell me, why should I trust a guy who is, for all intents and purposes, an unknown entity? He's asking Americans to give him vast political power to make "change we can believe in" on the basis of promises presently made, not promises previously kept.

By the way, I also know Obama's supporters don't like it when critics emphasize the Hussein in Barack Hussein Obama; this I find funny, though, when few critics of George W. Bush don't have any problem with derisively calling him "Dubya" or labeling his gaffes "Bushisms" (hey, I admit, many are pretty darn funny). Why, though? It's his middle name. We can say it, emphasize it, if we want to. And, we're allowed to feel however we want about that middle name. Some people with the name Hussein are good (I count the late King Hussein of Jordan in that group), and others not so much (duh - Saddam!). What if we make the judgment based on that?

My feelings about Senator Barack Hussein Obama - hey, if you don't like me doing it too, just call me "Jeremy Sidney Slavin" from now on - have nothing to do with the man's skin color:

* Pardon me for not wanting in the White House a First Lady who was quoted as saying "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country".

* Pardon me for not wanting as my employee - let's not forget, these candidates are interviewing us for the highest executive job in the Federal Government, as they aren't entitled to anything or any position - a man who knows as much about dealing with the real world as I do about physics.

* Pardon me for not wanting to see The United States of America effectively turned into The United States of Canada (not that I have anything against "America's Hat").

***

Whatever else is said about him, this much can be ascertained about his character: If Barack Hussein Obama was a candidate of principle, who had the interests of the electorate at heart, he would not seek to abandon the people of Illinois - who elected him to a federal office for a specific reason, to do a specific job - and would instead at least serve out his very first term as a U.S. Senator before his ambition - which he's certainly allowed to have - compelled him to seek higher office...

...For as my Dad has attempted to teach me over the years (he's been somewhat successful), you should keep the promises you make, and finish what you start. I don't see Senator Obama doing either. Does "trust" no longer matter in 2008? That Senator Barack Hussein Obama is so darn eager not to do the job he was initially entrusted with, and cares more about power than probity, should be obvious to anyone who not only has a brain, but uses it too (the same could be said of Hillary Clinton).

Yes, it's true that Senator John McCain, if he won the Presidency, would not serve out the remainder of the current term of the federal office that the good people of the State of Arizona re-elected him to in 2004. But then, Sen. McCain has already served not one but three full U.S. Senate terms since January 1987 (and two full terms in the House of Representatives as well - from January '83 to January '87), so I'm willing to give the man a pass on his fourth if he is successful in his bid for the White House.

But then, that's me.

He's Not Doing Us Any Favors

2008-05-29T15:48:00.007-05:00

It should be painfully obvious to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel that his attempt to shift the country's attention from his legal woes to talks with the Syrians has been, while not a complete failure, certainly an abject one. A dishonest man negotiating on behalf of a democratic country with a dishonest, dictatorial regime is not a recipe for peace, but disaster - at least, for the democracy. It is the height of selfishness to drag a country into negotiations with a country that sponsors terrorist activities against you, just because the media's been scrutinizing the legality of your associations and donors as a politician.

I'm not on principle opposed to an eventual peace accord between Jerusalem and Damascus; I simply, reasonably, commonsensically question the ability of Israel to gain an honest peace with Syria, by which I mean a peace under which the Syrians actually end their official support for Hizballah and Hamas, instead of just agreeing to do so without carrying out the terms of the agreement.

And since it is still the case that any non-diplomat attempting to enter Syria is immediately deported if any evidence is found, on his or her person, that he or she has visited Israel, I won't believe the Syrians are earnestly pursuing peace between their Arab Republic and the Jewish state until such discriminatory policies are abandoned...which, given the close relationship between Iran and Syria, and Hizballah and Syria, and Hizballah and Iran, isn't likely to happen any time soon. Does Israel deserve peace from Syria? Absolutely. But does Syria deserve peace with Israel?

This isn't mere Diasporic bluster or frustration on my part; I feel somewhat responsible for current events. As both my conscience and my good friend Avram have frequently reminded me, it was in Israel's March 2006 elections, at my polling place in Jerusalem, that I voted for Kadima and Olmert. What the hell was I doing? Why, making a mistake, of course. (If only most Palestinians, who had voted for Hamas in their January 2006 elections, felt the same sense of democratic responsibility that I do.)

There was a word I associated with that party - change - that if left unspoken, seemed in any case in the air. After all, Kadima - formed around Ariel Sharon - had aimed to end the decades-old monopoly on power the Labor and Likud parties had more or less shared, and wished to revolutionize (in its own way) relations with the Palestinian Arabs. Change seemed about as possible then with Kadima as many deluded Americans feel it is today with Obama.

Well, I was wrong then...and they are wrong now. You hear that?

Allow me to "yell" it for you: I was wrong then, and they are wrong now!

The only significant changes were the changing of the guard in Zion from one set of corrupt politicians to another, and a loss of confidence following a disastrous attempt to punish Hizballah and Lebanon over the former's terrorist activities, in a war Hizballah started but which Israel...which Israel did not win. Now, when the pressure is really on, Ehud Olmert - an archetypal, rather than atypical, Israeli politico - is stubbornly clinging to power amidst a crumbled mandate while negotiating with state-sponsors of terrorism.

Ehud Olmert's immediate and future actions will demonstrate whether he cares more about himself or the country. He has the option of humility, resigning in face of the fact that, if nothing else, he is immensely unpopular - to say nothing of the legal accusations against him. Or he could resign, for the benefit of his own party, since even Labor chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak has stated he would prefer to keep the ruling coalition in the Knesset intact, rather than go to early elections he suspects are on the way.

Or, Prime Minister Olmert, who is as infatuated now with the power and prestige of political office as he was when he served as Jerusalem mayor, could continue his assault on the safety and sensibilities of Israelis until the bitter end - to their, and his own, detriment.

No, this isn't just Diasporic bluster...but even if it were, something very few Israelis in Israel - or their politicians - seem to take into account must still be remembered. As the self-proclaimed, sovereign, militarily-adept national home of the Jewish people, domestic and international political matters affecting the State of Israel tend to reflect negatively or positively (depending on the situation) on Jews around the world, and affect them the same way...whether they are Israeli or not, whether they associate themselves with Israel or not, and whether they like it or not.

This is Ehud Olmert's - and our own - reality, even if he denies it. It is not just for the benefit of Israelis that he must resign and own up to whatever deeds, legal or illegal, he has done. In addition to their political responsibilities at home, Israeli prime ministers have the added burden - acknowledged or not - of moral responsibility toward a millions-strong Jewish Diaspora that, after thousands of years of disenfranchisement, pogroms, discrimination and genocide, looks to modern Israel with a mixture of hope and fear, for themselves and for the future.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert isn't just harming the State of Israel with his selfishness and duplicity; he's injuring the People of Israel as well. This might not bother him at all...but it bothers me, a Jewish American and an Israeli, a great deal. It is one thing when an ordinary citizen feels a sense of responsibility toward his people, and something completely different when a person entrusted by his people with a position of power and influence doesn't.

Thoughts About Israel's 60th Birthday

2008-05-08T14:02:00.011-05:00

What does Jewish independence mean to me?

Well...

When one considers that what we're talking about now is the 60th year of modern Jewish sovereignty, over a portion of the Land of Israel, after nearly 2,000 years of Jews being denied not only the right to sovereignty, but the right to live, well...such is a question weighted with historical and spiritual importance.

Not only that...we must remember that I am approaching the question not from some abstract perspective, but from the perspective of one who by his own choice became Israeli, who not only lived in the Land which God promised to the patriarch Abraham, but then later, of his own volition left it and our eternal capital...left it physically, if not completely mentally, and never spiritually.

Let us not forget - let's not forget - that how a man feels about the State of Israel, and what its existence means to him 60 years after the reestablishment of Jewish independence in the Land of Israel, is a very personal thing. His thoughts on the matter cannot and should not - in this or any other case - be separated from his close, personal experience with the subject in question.

That of necessity being said, speculation abounds these days over what Israel's greatest accomplishment in its 60 years has been.

To me, that's a no-brainer: Israel's birth, and survival - and flourishing - against incredible odds, is the State of Israel's greatest accomplishment in my view.

We're talking, remember, about a country which was invaded by the armies of five Arab states on the day of its birth in May 1948; a country which faced imminent and utter destruction in June 1967 yet turned the tables on its scheming enemies with a surprise attack decimating the air forces of its greatest enemy; a country which - with the help of arms from the United States - held off the armies of Egypt and Syria following a cowardly surprise attack on Yom Kippur, 1973.

There is no other country on Earth possessing as sound a claim to existence and perpetuation as the State of Israel so possesses; no other nation, anywhere, has as solid a Biblical, historical, archaeological, and moral right to exist as does the State of Israel.

I'm speaking, mind you, as an unabashedly patriotic American.

Governments which raised their fingers not an inch or centimeter to assist the Jews being persecuted and murdered by the Nazis - or governments whose forebears collaborated with Nazi Berlin - haven't any right to criticize or condemn any but the most extreme, disproportionate method of self-defense the modern Jewish commonwealth employs...and even then, I'm not inclined to give such critics - and their sympathy for a genocidal Palestinian cause - the benefit of the doubt. Especially when Israel's existence, and the lives of Israelis, are threatened.

***

I find it particularly poignant that this year, Israel's 60th birthday falls according to the Hebrew calendar on May 7 (evening) & 8 (day), 2008.

May 8th, as you may or may not be aware, is V-E Day - Victory in Europe Day. In 2008, this marks the 63rd anniversary of the day Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies and brought an official end to the Second World War's ravages of Europe. Fighting, of course, would go on for several months more in the Pacific theater against the Japanese, and not so long after the victory would former allies of convenience - the USA and the USSR - square off against one another, with the fate of a Free Europe hanging in the balance.

When came V-E Day in 1945, the United States and their allies in "the United Nations" were still processing the horrors they'd witnessed in the multiple concentration camps they'd come across as they pushed across Germany and former Nazi-occupied territories. Three years and seven days later, the State of Israel was born as a legacy both of the Holocaust and the world's indifference to the plight of European Jewry.

Meant to be both a national home and a haven for a long-displaced faith-nation, Israel was born in a baptism of fire: Five Arab armies pushed across the nascent frontiers of the newly reconstituted Jewish commonwealth the day of its Declaration of Independence, their goal - in their own words, which you can look up for yourself - being to finish what the Nazis had started. They failed then, and have been failing ever since in their efforts to destroy the State of Israel...and my feelings about Jewish independence cannot fail to be influenced by such facts of history.

How do I feel about Jewish independence, in the Land of Israel, 60 years after its reestablishment?

I'm proud.

***

Am I proud of Israel merely due to the Jewish state's military accomplishments? Hardly. It is Israel's tenacity, it's pluck, demonstrated by the Jewish state's flourishing as a country in spite of the many existential threats faced by it, that makes me proud. It is Israel's democracy - as imperfect as any other system of government determined by competitive elections - that makes me proud of the State of Israel, as a Jew and an American by birth, and as an Israeli by choice (thank you, Law of Return).

If the Jews could do what they have done in Israel, after 2,000 years lacking the experience of sovereignty and faced with the threats they face, surely any disadvantaged people or faith-nation could do the same. There is much to be fixed, much to dislike, much to criticize about the State of Israel - but to do so, and act as if other countries are perfect or more virtuous in comparison, is disingenuous.

Israel at 60 isn't so much a miracle, as it is a fulfillment of a divine promise and the perpetual realization of a human dream. After all, what is so miraculous about God saying something will happen and then, well...it happens? Seems pretty cut and dry normal to me. Israel would be a miracle if God had said the people Israel wouldn't return to their Land, and then did anyway. So, too, it goes with human work and sacrifice which has gone into making Israel the success story it is.

Why is the Israeli - the Jewish - ability to outwit and outlast our enemies thought of as strange? Because so many other peoples, faith-nations and whatnot, haven't had the success we have? I mean, think about it - ancient Egypt, Babylon, Haman in Persia, the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Arab League, the Islamic Republic of Iran...they've all tried, and all failed - though at times, they've come close - to wiping us, our culture and traditions, off the map and mind of human history.

***

The only miracle with regards to the people of Israel in this day in age might be this: That the State of Israel has held together in spite of all the differences between the Jewish population, in spite of all the life-and-death issues affecting the country which would long ago have caused other countries to be torn apart in civil war.

Maybe it's a miracle, or maybe its the anti-Semitism of Arab state neighbors, the bombs and rockets of terrorists that don't discriminate between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jew, and a shared religious, moral, geographical, cultural and historical heritage rising above petty, arbitrary differences between imperfect human beings. I don't know; it's probably a combination of all those things, with a little help from Divine Providence mixed in.

Whatever the reasons, I feel there is much to be proud of - as a Jew, an American, and as an Israeli - about 60 years of Jewish independence. There's something for everyone to be proud of, really, about Israel, whether you are Jewish or not.

And everyone - Jew and Gentile alike - should be able to take comfort in the fact that at its most basic, the State of Israel is evidence that God hasn't forgotten about us. Modern Israel stands today as proof that when God makes a promise to us, He keeps it.

I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.

It's OK. Photo ID Me, Please!

2008-04-29T14:30:00.005-05:00

I cannot say I am disappointed with the United States' Supreme Court's decision yesterday to uphold the State of Indiana's 2005 photo voter identification law. In fact, I applaud it...both the decision, and the law.

Had the result been different it is very possible that in the future the likes of "Mary Poppins" or "James Bond" would be permitted to vote (presumably, for Democrats) and there would be little the 19th State's officials could do to disprove the veracity of such dubious identities at polling places. In the absence of voter ID laws, it is easy to draft the dead to your campaign (it's not like there haven't been instances of posthumous voting in the past).

Undoubtedly, this decision and the policy places a burden on disadvantaged members of the electorate. I don't deny that possibility. But if such individuals really care about voting and participating in our representative democracy, they won't let fees, processing times or whatever else may get in their way deter them from complying with the law.

What is so wrong, so discouraging, about having to prove you're authorized to vote in the elections of the State you're residing in, by presenting a government-issued ID? Would you rather someone else appropriate your identity, and vote in your stead? Ask yourself, who would stand to benefit the most from the absence of a voter ID law in Indiana?

I can't help but wonder how many illegal immigrants are living in The Hoosier State; surely, without the need to prove their legal presence in these States united, Democrats - who often seem to care for the welfare of illegal immigrants more than native-born Americans - would be able to attract the votes of illegal residents in droves...or, as is more likely, gently coerce them to vote for the Jackass Party.

***

As I said in the first paragraph, those in Indiana who really want to vote - and who want their vote to count - will do whatever it takes to comply fully with the State's voter ID law, and won't let it "discourage" them. Those who don't want to vote...won't attempt to comply with the photo ID law - and I guarantee you they'll complain, bitch and moan, all whilst playing the part of the whiny "disenfranchised" victim.

As for those who have agitated against the voter ID law, and who will likely continue to do so in spite of the Supreme Court's Monday decision, I'd be interested to know whether they themselves intend on complying with the law, or will seek to somehow get around it. You know, break it.

This much is obvious: If opponents of Indiana's voter ID law could afford to pay lawyers to take this case all the way to our Nation's highest court of appeal, they can also probably afford to now help pay the State fees of those who - they say - would be prevented (or as they say, "discouraged") from voting due to their inability to requisition a legal ID, due a personal insufficiency of funds. They fought the law, and the law won...why not help the less fortunate in situation to comply with it? It's the least they could do.

A requirement to produce legal photographic identification - incidentally, a requirement in Arizona, too - prior to being given your ballot, and casting it, is not an undue financial burden nor an invasion of privacy; if anything, it should provide reassurance that only those who are authorized to vote in your State, or any State, are the ones who are doing the voting.

***

Since we are still, ostensibly, a country governed by the rule of law and not the rule of men, it seems to me that policies which strengthen our republican democracy rather than weaken it are preferable. After all, a healthy democracy has not simply free elections, but free and fair elections. Does it not?

When voters go to the polls in nascent democracies, or faux-democracies, elsewhere in the world, election monitors are meant to detect and speak out against vote-stuffing and other instances of voter fraud. Riots are known to have broken out in countries following elections in which one victorious candidate or another's claim of voter support is legally suspect. Are we to tolerate an eventual degradation of civilized political discourse and practice in our Republic as well? I certainly hope not.

Simply put, those who seek to hinder the ability of officials to detect voter fraud in America do our democracy a great disservice...and I applaud our High Court's implicit recognition of that fact.

Who's Calling the Shots Now, Eh? (Part Deux)

2008-04-25T15:23:00.003-05:00

To begin, I will quote - thrice - the character of Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), on CBS's How I Met Your Mother:

1. "Look at you, ya beautiful bastard! You suited up! This is totally going in my blog!"

2. "One of the 24 similarities between women and fish are they're both attracted to shiny objects. You really never read my blog do you?"

3. "HEY STUPID BLOG READERS!!! WHY DON'T YOU READ MY BLOG MORE?!?!"

The reason for those pointed quotes? (No, I don't think you're stupid, blog readers - I appreciate you)

Again, I realized called a shot. Again, I've come to realize I was ahead of the game. Again, I am confident that people should listen to me more often. Not because I'm incredibly wise, or psychic. Because I use reason. Common sense. I observe.

And I'm being proven right again and again. Not on everything. But on significant things.

Of course, I am humble - it would be the height of arrogance for me to assume I'm always right. Praise Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Thank Heaven! And I'm probably not the only one who thinks, or eventually advertises, such prescient thoughts. I wasn't entirely accurate - I put dollars into the coffers of Big Oil and Big Politics - but since the Arab-Islamic oil states conceivably are a part of Big Oil, I was certainly close enough.

What do I speak of?

In my blog post of 14 March 2008, We're Fueling Taxation Without Representation, I railed against the upcoming economic stimulus checks being sent to the American taxpayer by the Federal Government, not because I don't like free money...rather, it was because I didn't think it was enough of a gesture. It treats a symptom, not the ailment itself. Like Tylenol. Tylenol won't save your life during a heart attack. Aspirin just might.

To quote myself in the very first paragraph of that entry, "You know what I think would help the American people more than any unoriginal, unimaginative tax rebate checks? A repeal, or at least suspension, of the Federal Government's (and any State Government's) fuel tax. That makes infinitely more sense than just handing out money that, sooner instead of later, will inevitably be spent on gas. As anyone who owns a vehicle knows, that that money will probably end up mostly paying for gas (instead of a new flat-screen TV or Blu-ray player) isn't a matter of choice. It's a consequence of necessity."

Now, it is interesting to note that on that same day, 14 March, an article was published on CNNMoney's website making a similar point (mine was published a little after 3 a.m., AZ time...the CNN article was "First Published: March 14, 2008: 2:10 PM EDT". It is that same article, a bit updated, Gas bills ate your rebate, which I am boasting of having bested now...the same day Washington announced those rebate payments would begin to be distributed earlier than planned.

Heck, folks, I even beat Senator John McCain (by a month) in publicly calling for a suspension of Federal fuel taxes (can't claim the idea, of course...that's from 12 years ago - I can just claim a recent suggestion of a contemporary application in this election year). McCain is a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, so to that's not too shabby of me, if I do say so myself.

And I do. Erm...did.

To, again, quote myself, "But like I said...that money isn't going to go all that far, if gas prices continue to fluctuate (up and down, but mostly up) as they have. Big Oil - and Big Politics - will be the ultimate benefactors - not Mr. and Mrs. America." I don't need to stupefy with lots of numbers or equations, as do the "experts". If you want to see the "expert" projections, take a look at the article on CNNMoney.

Those employing big words and big numbers, in place of big ideas, I have little time for. As John Stossel has said, "Any government program that has the support of the political class and media commentators makes me suspicious."

And/or as John Lott, Jr. - senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park; author of Freedomnomics (as well as More Guns, Less Crime) - said in an e-mail to me in an exchange of messages around the time of (and serving partly as inspiration for) the first Who's Calling the Shots Now, Eh? blog post:

"You caught on faster than some of the rest of us."

Whaddaya know...I sure did....hmmm....

I think that means you people should really read my blog more!

No Imagination = No Good

2008-04-23T08:33:00.003-05:00

Once again, the imagination of our Federal Government stuns me into an intellectual stupor. Of all the many ways the Feds - both in the Legislative and Executive Branch - could help the American people and the environment, Washington's latest proposal is the one most expedient...and thus, the most lame-brained. I, of course, would love to see vehicles be more fuel-efficient. In theory I'm not against, as the Bush Administration has proposed, requiring automakers to develop 31 mile-per-gallon vehicles. I am, however, against the fuzzy-minded thinking which led to such a well-intentioned yet nonetheless naive proposal.

After all, that 31 mpg auto fuel economy average wouldn't need to be met by automakers until 2015 at the earliest. Not raising any eyebrows, or piquing curiosity? That's to be expected, until one realizes that what Washington is telling us is that fuel prices are only going to continue to go up without much help from our hundreds of representatives in the Federal City, and the only option available doesn't involve cutting or suspending fuel taxes, but letting prices rise and just...us coping with the consequences. What good, I ask you, does a fatalistic government do its people?

What we're being reminded of is, we lack leaders of vision and courage...not to mention imagination. A new bureaucracy would surely be created in order to track and enforce compliance with Federal standards, an incremental increase in national government the relatively ignorant - or informed-yet-resigned - masses will be paying for. I don't have any doubt automakers could meet the compliance deadline...but I feel deciding what will be seven years from now, based only on information known to us now...is stupidity for expediency's sake. It's "government by assumption" - and haven't you ever heard?

"When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME."

Far be it from me to suggest that cutting or suspending fuel taxes, so people won't have to choose between a gallon of milk and a gallon of gasoline, is a better idea - one that could conceivably be implemented in the near future and not in the middle of the next decade. No, I'm totally with the Federal Government on this. Let's waste more money, create more rules people and companies are going to find some way to get around, and exacerbate our problems rather than eliminate them. NOT! Come on, people...they're calling for an increase in miles-per-gallon, but not a decrease in gas prices.

Hey, here's an idea - why not increase fuel efficiency, cut fuel taxes, and set a cap on gas prices...so one day, people can fill up their gas tanks for cheaper, and have that gas last longer?

Nah, that makes too much sense.

We Should Do the Sovereign Thing

2008-04-22T07:55:00.006-05:00

Monday, April 21, 2008 brought with it the news that The United States of America and the French Republic were drafting a United Nations resolution authorizing governments to chase and arrest pirates operating off the coast of that despondently ever-failing and chaotic African entity going by the name Somalia. This development came after a rise in the frequency of incidents - including a recent one which caused the price of a barrel of oil to go up significantly - after years of piratical events being more or less tolerated by the international community, except when dumb pirates chose the wrong moment to hijack a ship and had the United States Navy suddenly - to the luck of intended victims - intervene.

One who pays little attention to news events, or gives the United Nations the benefit of the doubt, might be encouraged by a combined effort by Washington and Paris to address the issue. Even I, educated skeptic that I am, have to admit I'm slightly pleased. But only slightly.

What ever happened to sovereignty, that old fashioned principle by which nations were accorded the right to make and carry out decisions for themselves? By my observation, in our modern times the United Nations and other international entities (not to mention even certain American political parties) only see oppressive, dictatorial regimes as the rightful possessors of sovereignty; countries where representative government - in some form - exists and all citizens are theoretically equal under the law see their sovereignty no longer recognized. While dictatorships are permitted to keep in their country whomever they want, democracies can no longer be so picky when it comes to who they let in...we're just supposed to let in everybody, regardless of their respect for or understanding of domestic laws concerning our borders.

In the early 1800s, the American Republic did not need the permission of any other country or organization to go to war against the "Barbary States", whose pirates (the real kind...hardly the Johnny Depp romanticized versions) had for years afflicted international shipping and exacted tribute from supposedly strong, sovereign nations in Europe. These were the pirates, you may remember, who upon capturing non-Muslim sailors enslaved them. These were the Muslim pirates who conducted war not because there was any occupation by a "Western nation" of Muslim lands, but due to the concept of "al-jihad fil-bahr", in English "the holy war at sea" (I've written about this in a couple of previous blog postings). When going to war against Muslim terrorists 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson sought only the support of Congress - there was, after all, no corrupt international organization (such as the United Nations) to genuflect to at the time.

But these days, for the benefit of nations that wish us more ill than health, this so-called "superpower" known officially as The United States of America willingly submits itself to the superpower kryptonite that is the United Nations...paying a hefty burden of the UN's tab for the privilege of being insulted by feted dictators before an applauding General Assembly. As if that weren't enough, New York City time and again gets cheated out of millions of dollars in unpaid traffic violation fines racked up by visiting UN delegates (ain't diplomatic immunity grand?). This means, basically, that even with the most powerful Navy in the history of mankind, the American government must first beg for permission to defend our interests - among them, maintaining the "Freedom of the Seas" - rather than do "the sovereign thing," which if you ask me, worked pretty well for us in the past.

Imagine a world in which, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had to first seek the permission or support of the United Nations Security Council before taking retaliatory action? Thank God such wasn't the case, though the United Nations did come into existence around that time...the difference being, it wasn't the name of an organization so much as an alliance of countries opposed to the Axis powers.

Despite the best efforts of the Arab League, European Union and Russian Federation, the State of Israel doesn't wait for UN permission to bomb rocket-launching sites in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Thank God for that, too, though Prime Minister Olmert & Co. don't instill me with confidence in their ability to defend the Jewish state.

These pirates making "mischief" off the coast of Somalia don't care one way or the other what the UN thinks - whether the organization supports or opposes them, they'll keep doing what they're doing anyway...and endangering lives in the process. If they have no qualms operating outside of the arbitrary legal strictures set in place by the United Nations, we should have no qualms circumventing the Useless Nuisance ourselves and exercising our sovereign right to...well, quite frankly, to do what we feel is right. What we know to be right. This, after all, is our sovereign right.

I understand, mind you, the current belief that the international system as it now stands provides something akin to societal and diplomatic stability in an otherwise chaotic world. But claiming that we must always go through the United Nations' diplomatic channels before military actions can gain legitimacy is a cop-out, an excuse made by those too scared to confront - or even recognize the existence of - the various Big and Small Bads out there needing to be confronted by America (who else will confront them? Remember the "Barbary Pirates" example). Not every issue facing the United States needs to be referred to a committee first...this is especially so when that "committee" has a known anti-American bias.

Sometimes you have to operate outside of the law (in this case, "international law") in order for that law to be upheld for the people and kept by those who serve them. Why is it only comic book writers and illustrators seem to be the ones who have, decade after decade, truly and consistently understood this reality? Batman consults with Commissioner Gordon - but doesn't seek permission from Gordon to act. One acts outside the system, and the other acts from within the system itself. The goal is the same - only the methods, motivations and tools differ.

In general - not just when it comes to dealing with pirates off the Somalian coast - we should "do the sovereign thing" and let the rest of the world whine about it to their heart's content. Why? Other countries will thank us later...more often than not, they'll see we acted in their interests as well as our own. Even if they do so begrudgingly, even if they do so clandestinely, they will thank us. They say they don't want the U.S. to be the world's policeman, yet they also don't want to do the job of upholding international law and order themselves. Well...

Well, I'm sorry, but someone's gotta do it - you can't just talk about doing it, and expect everything to be hunky-dory...wait, I take that back.

Actually, you can...if you're at the UN!

Who's Calling the Shots Now, Eh?

2008-04-01T09:45:00.005-05:00

Folks, I gotta tell ya...I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now.

Why?

I'll tell you.

Did you harbor any doubts I would?

And no, this isn't an April Fool's Day thing.

Take a look at this commentary, written by John R. Lott, Jr. for FoxNews.com. It's called "The 'Recession' is a Media Myth", and it was published March 31, 2008:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343671,00.html

Now, assuming you haven't already done so, go back in time, in my own blog, and read "It's the End of the World (but it isn't)!"...written January 23, 2008:

http://therealslimslavin.blogspot.com/2008/01/its-end-of-world-but-it-isnt.html

If you haven't already gotten the point, I'll...point...it out to you.

I was ahead of the game, there. I hit the ball out of the park, and I knew where it would go. I paved the way.

Call me The Pioneer.

But that's not all, kids...

As I blogged on March 14,

"I would love to see millions upon millions of Americans purchase a hearty supply of fuel containers, fill 'em up with a month's - or even a week and a half's - worth of gasoline, and then let the oil companies squirm from lack of continued business. I'd love to see sit-in-car strikes at gas stations, where people fed up with ever-rising prices refuse to move their cars until something significant is done. Refuse to move their cars, and refuse to buy anything - anything at all from the convenience store. I'd love to see such things happen, but it likely won't."

Of course, as you surely remember, O Wonderful and Adoration-filled Audience O'Mine, that paragraph is from the blog entry written prior to the one you are reading now, and it was called "We're Fueling Taxation Without Representation". And while what follows is not, exactly, the same thing - and very well may be an April Fool's Day stunt - the undeniable fact is that I called for a "strike" in protest of rising gas prices before news broke of a possible strike, by truckers, sparked by painfully high gas (in this case, diesel) prices:

FoxNews: At Up to $1,200 a Fill-Up, Truckers to Strike Over Record Diesel Prices

NewsChannel 5, Nashville, Tennessee: Truck Drivers Threaten To Strike On April Fool's Day

USA Today: Truckers to protest fuel costs

I'm not, by any means, claiming to be a modern-day Nostradamus (though it is worth noting that his family had Jewish roots). Nor could I ever hope to have the sort of wisdom of שלמה המלך (King Solomon). I'm not even going to go much into how I called for Egypt to take back the Gaza Strip - at least, raised the suggestion - way back on June 15, 2007, in "Oh My, Gaza!" , half a year before noted Mideast commentator Daniel Pipes said "Give Gaza Back to Egypt" in The Jerusalem Post on January 30, 2008.

I'll just let you look on your own.

Anyway, when perusing the news on a Monday's evening, and you find that once again, you've been ahead of the game - ahead of others - in a manner most pleasing to yourself and your ego, well...as others catch up - 'cause that's what they're doing, chilluns - you can't help but feel justified in claiming that you are "Awesomeness" personified.

The word "Awesome" made flesh.

So help me - and endlessly Thank - God.

"What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey. Imagine the guy calling his shot and getting away with it." - Lou Gehrig, on Babe Ruth's famous "called shot" home run of October 1, 1932 during the 5th inning of Game 3 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs, played at Wrigley Field

We're Fueling Taxation Without Representation

2008-03-14T03:17:00.015-05:00

You know what I think would help the American people more than any unoriginal, unimaginative tax rebate checks? A repeal, or at least suspension, of the Federal Government's (and any State Government's) fuel tax. That makes infinitely more sense than just handing out money that, sooner instead of later, will inevitably be spent on gas. As anyone who owns a vehicle knows, that that money will probably end up mostly paying for gas (instead of a new flat-screen TV or Blu-ray player) isn't a matter of choice. It's a consequence of necessity.

I find myself reminiscing quite often these days about how my travel expenses - not counting the PATH train to work in New Jersey - were $76 a month whilst residing in New York City. $76 would get me thirty days of unlimited NYC Subway, NYC Bus, and even Long Island Bus trips. Sure, if I had wanted to take the Long Island Rail Road somewhere, that was an extra expense - but it was an extra expense well worth the price. Money that might otherwise have been spent on gas I was able to spend on books, and when I wasn't reading on the Subway, I was able to take pictures with my phone's camera of funny ads like this:

Okay, truth be told, money that might otherwise be spent on gas today is still spent on books...the only difference being that in Tucson, I have need of a car, and as I mentioned, in the days when I was living in Queens and gallivanting around Manhattan...I didn't. The way I see it, books are an investment while gas is a harassment. I enjoy every minute I spend in Barnes & Noble; as it was in NYC, so it is back in Tucson - you have to drag me out, or kick me out, of such stores. Not so with gas stations - at most, each visit is a very unsatisfying quickie.

Why are tax rebates the only thing Washington can come up with? We're the folks who landed on the Moon, shot down an errant spy satellite from a moving Navy ship, got the A-bomb before the Japanese or Nazis could, and put into practice what European intellectuals in the 18th century could only talk and dream about. We're the leaders of the Free World - whatever the foreign minister of France says. We should be able to come up with better ideas than this. And we - the people - do. It's our government that's unimaginative when it comes to such nonsense.

Okay, so it's not exactly nonsense - a lot of people, a lot, will be thanking their lucky stars when their rebate checks arrive in the mail. Of course, we can't count on them to do the smart thing, and save, because they've likely listened to the Federal Government's advice and heard Washington's hopes, and intend on spending away whatever money they get as soon as possible. But like I said...that money isn't going to go all that far, if gas prices continue to fluctuate (up and down, but mostly up) as they have. Big Oil - and Big Politics - will be the ultimate benefactors - not Mr. and Mrs. America.

I would love to see millions upon millions of Americans purchase a hearty supply of fuel containers, fill 'em up with a month's - or even a week and a half's - worth of gasoline, and then let the oil companies squirm from lack of continued business. I'd love to see sit-in-car strikes at gas stations, where people fed up with ever-rising prices refuse to move their cars until something significant is done. Refuse to move their cars, and refuse to buy anything - anything at all from the convenience store. I'd love to see such things happen, but it likely won't. And why?

Why? Because as we creep toward the 232nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we're ignorant of the fact - or maybe all too acutely aware - that we haven't the stomach for rebellion that we once did. We're no longer the nation of the Boston Tea Party. Not really. Not anymore. To dress up as Indians would be politically incorrect, and dumping gas would be environmentally damaging. We don't want to offend, and besides - we like driving.

And so, we take what handouts the Government gives us, disbelieve what the Government tells us (yet still listen to it), and pay tax after tax to our Government for the privilege of being bossed around by unelected Washington bureaucrats. We care more about American Idol, or America Ferrera, than we do about America, the country.

We'll bitch, we'll moan, we'll debate - but we won't do much besides that. We'll vote, but for a slate of candidates that is hardly the best that's ever been presented for our approval. We'll buy into the media's love affair with Barack Obama. And we'll still fill up our cars with gas, fuming the whole time as we smell the fumes and watch the total price of this or that particular fill-up eat away at our savings, our rebate checks, our 401Ks...etc., etc., etc. We'll look at stuff like the blog entry you're now reading, and then forget we ever did.

Unless...well, there are some of us who will do their utmost to spend more on books than they do on gas. Who will go out of their way to spend as little on petrol as is humanly possible, not because they are cheap individuals, but because they know that money can be better spent elsewhere (like, say, on going to see Cloverfield seven times in the month of February). Who will, after spending that money elsewhere, spend it once again on more and more books. And more books.

So long as gas prices head skyward, so long as Washington, Phoenix, Albany, Sacramento, etc. fiddle while our bank accounts burn and implement tax rebates rather than tax cuts, meaningful tax cuts...for all of America's Drivers....this is what we'll do. At least, people like me, people who still like to read.

I know we have our Congress, our President, our Governors, our State Legislatures and Assemblies, but if you ask me, "taxation without representation" in some sense still afflicts us today as it did in Colonial times.

The only difference between the late 18th century and the early 21st century is that instead of an overbearing, power-mad Parliament taxing us from thousands of miles away in England, we have a power-mad, overbearing, interested-more-in-our-vote-than-in-our-well-being Federal Government taxing-us-until-we-die-and-taxing-us-after-we-die from Washington (and our State capitals).

If we truly had representation, we'd know it. Believe me, we'd know it.

We'd feel it in our wallets. A lot more often than we do.

"To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government." - Henry David Thoreau

The Second Amendment: We Keep Arguing Over Bearing Arms

2008-03-10T08:28:00.015-05:00

On May 1, 1943, as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising raged, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels observed, "Of course this jest will probably not last long. But it shows what one can expect of the Jews if they have arms."

With that in mind, imagine what the Nazis might not have gotten away with if they hadn't been so zealously in favor of gun control, or hadn't succeeded in implementing it. Imagine a Kristallnacht in 1938 during which, when faced with massive pogroms, threatened German Jews had the guns and ammo (and gumption) to shoot at those seeking to do their families and their property harm. If you can imagine that, then you can imagine a world in which the Nazis found it very difficult to herd Jews into train cars and gas chambers. Insofar as applicability in the real world goes, it should be sufficient enough to note that Israel is still around nearly sixty years after its founding, despite numerous Arab efforts to destroy it.

Next week, the Supreme Court of the United States will for the first time since the late 1930s wade significantly into the "gun rights vs. gun control" debate in America. At issue is a Washington, D.C. law dating from 1976 (drafted in 1975) which banned residents from owning handguns; the District of Columbia's government instituted the measure in response to alarming levels of gun violence in the Capital of the Republic. Whether the law has been effective is arguable, since D.C. is hardly America's safest city nearly 32 years after the ban passed the D.C. council. I'm sure the ineptitude of the District's leadership has nothing to do with this, even though D.C. has yet to even master the "simple" art of snow removal in the three decades since home rule was instituted.

However the high court decides will obviously shape the course of our national discussion on the Second Amendment far into the future; after all, if Roe v. Wade is still cause for passionate argument "for and against" 35 years after it was decided, it's a good bet that District of Columbia v. Heller won't be any different. Already, several officials in Montana - including the Secretary of State - are beating their chests and threatening to "pull a South Carolina" (my wordsmithing - see this article on the Nullification Crisis for more info) if the Supreme Court decides in favor of the D.C. handgun ban. Don't forget, we're talking about an issue which - unlike abortion - has been discussed and debated since the days when the Articles of Confederation first established that 'The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America" '.

There are many people today who say that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was written for a different time and place, and thus no longer holds any meaning in today's world of rampant inner-city crime and Vice Presidential hunting accidents. I'm not talking about people who support Brady Law-type restrictions on firearm purchases. I'm talking about people who support the ACLU, who like to pick and choose which provisions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights should apply and which should be ignored simply because they don't fit in with their view of the world (which, I must say, is a view of the world not always wholly in touch with reality).

In my honest, humble opinion, the Constitution and Bill of Rights together constitute both a solid, firm set of rules and regulations as well as a flexible blueprint for dealing with future challenges and situations facing the American Republic. The Framers knew what they were doing in the late 1780s. With every oath taken to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," our elected leaders affirm that Constitution's status as a living document which guides us still today. And while Progress necessitates frequent reexaminations of the applicability of certain provisions from time to time, there is nothing "progressive" about attempting to repeal the People's right to keep and bear Arms.

Consider for a moment the fact that in their day, those who wrote the Second Amendment saw themselves as the defenders of a "Novus Ordo Seclorum" - a "New Order of the Ages". With the Constitution they created a new system of Government based on the idea, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that Governments derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed." Patrick Henry, that Revolutionary Virginian of "Give me liberty or give me death" fame, stated at Virginia's ratification convention for the Constitution that "My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights or of waging war against tyrants."

This, of course, was said before the Bill of Rights came into being.

At the Constitutional Convention, many State delegations refused to vote in favor of the new Constitution unless a Bill of Rights was drafted, a document of amendments which would spell out specific areas in which the new Federal Government would be legally restrained from trampling upon the rights and liberties of both the States and the People. Such worrywarts weren't, of course, against the sort of Government the Constitution spelled out per se. They just knew enough of human nature not to accept any arguments which said the Constitution provided more than enough protection as-is; they knew constitutional ambiguity could be used just as easily for evil ends as for good.

In "The Federalist" No. 51, published on February 8, 1788 in New York, the anonymous author Publius - now known to have been none other than the "Father of the Constitution" himself, James Madison - wrote, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." (my emphasis - J.S.)

A recognition of "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms..." and the affirmation that that right "...shall not be infringed..." was not a throwback to an earlier, more primitive developmental era of human civilization. The Second Amendment represented a break from the past, a break from a world in which a Government could tyrannize, oppress and disenfranchise the citizenry with impunity. In that it put in words and codified - some might even say canonized - a recognition of just how far the People could go to not just "...provide for the common defence...", but also "...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...", the Second Amendment was progressive in its day.

And it is entirely germane to, and progressive in, our day as well.

For if experience had taught mankind "...the necessity of auxiliary precautions," then a Second Amendment which recognized that "A well regulated Militia..." was "...necessary to the security of a free State..." (note the word free, and the State which follows) provided such "necessary precautions" in the event competitive elections can't or won't, and Government can't or won't, secure the People their liberties and freedoms. The Second Amendment provides both a means of equipping a well-regulated State Militia (don't forget, those in the Revolutionary era feared standing National armies - for good reason, given their experiences), and clearly, straightforwardly protects "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms...".

Now, don't read me wrong: The Second Amendment says nothing about the right to keep M-16s in your boudoir, and should not be blindly or ignorantly interpreted as giving to the American people free reign to maintain a fully-equipped arsenal in their garages or storage sheds. Suffice it to say that whereas regulation is concerned, I am of the view that common sense should prevail, and that going overboard in our interpretations of the right to keep and bear Arms is just as bad, and just as dangerous to our liberties and freedoms, as trying to revoke that right.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes." - Thomas Jefferson

"Where and when did freedom exist when the power of the sword and purse were given up from the people?" - Patrick Henry; June 9, 1788

They Want Israel to Be Proportional? Okay.

2008-03-07T09:53:00.010-05:00

"We are proud and happy, and everyone in Jabel Mukaber is proud of him..."

- Family member of terrorist Alaa Abu Dhein, responsible for shooting 8 at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem on March 6, 2008

----

Whether we're talking about a war started by Hizballah in 2006 or a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2008, the international community's advice to Israel on what sort of response is appropriate generally centers around this word and its many variations:

"Proportional"

"Proportionate"

"Proportionality"

Earlier this week, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman in Berlin said the Jewish state should "try to be proportional" in its approach to combating rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. During the Second Lebanon War in July-August 2006, the State of Israel was accused multiple times of using "disproportionate force" in response to Hizballah missile attacks and border violations. Even Israel has latched onto the word: A recent study conducted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem found that "A survey of international practice suggests that... [Israel's] approach toward proportionality corresponds to, or is more stringent than, that taken by most Western countries confronting similar threats."

At a February 25 "Rally for Sderot" held in Toronto, Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz said, "The world is waiting for one of those rockets to hit a school bus, God forbid, to hit a school room, God forbid, to hit an ambulance, to hit a hospital, to hit a group of children. Then the world will say it's OK for Israel to respond. As long as it's proportionate, and as long as no civilians are killed, and as long as it's done in a way that will have no impact on preventing it in the future. What other democracy in the world would wait until that horrible disaster occurs?"

This focus on proportionality in response to terror attacks and other acts of war, this request that any Israeli military actions should be proportionate to the threat posed, this requirement - which other countries, and the Palestinians for that matter, aren't obligated to hold to - that Jerusalem engage in proportional uses of force begs the question: What, exactly, do they mean when they use this term?

According to Professor Dershowitz, "[Hamas] has a culture of death, not a culture of life… We choose life. [But] the international community will not allow Israel to engage in proportional, lawful actions that every other country in the world facing comparable threats would engage in." Dershowitz makes a very good point: the world asks Israel to be proportional, but really would prefer that there be no response from Israel at all. The world, in truth, is afraid of allowing Israel to actually be proportionate in its response, because.....because why?

Because here's the thing:

A truly proportionate response to Palestinian rockets being fired at communities in Israel would be - as I suggested in a previous blog entry - a reciprocal firing of rockets at Palestinian communities in the Gaza Strip. A truly proportionate response by Israel to a barbaric terrorist attack carried out against teenagers studying the Torah at a rabbinical school - such as occurred Thursday evening - would be the targeting of Islamic religious schools in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, and the shooting of young men studying the Qu'ran. A truly proportionate response to attacks deliberately targeting Israeli civilians carried out by Palestinians would entail the deliberate targeting by Israel of Palestinian civilians.

Of course, there are those who claim that Israel already does target civilians, and they point to the higher death tolls of Palestinian civilians compared with the civilian casualties on the Israeli side. Israel, though, is not to be blamed for the Palestinian practice of basing rocket-launching sites and terrorist safe-houses in the middle of residential neighborhoods. If anyone, or any group, is primarily responsible for placing Arab civilians in harm's way, it is the Palestinians themselves, and Hamas. Israel certainly doesn't go out of its way to harm Palestinian civilians; if only the same could be said about the attitude of Palestinian "resistance" groups toward Israeli civilians.

There's a part of me which says, "If only Israel targeted their civilians like the Palestinians target ours." It sounds bad, and I know the very idea is on the whole repugnant. However, at the same time I can't help but wonder if the intentional targeting of Palestinian civilians would make a difference.

After all, what is really lacking is not common ground or a willingness to discuss difficult issues; what is lacking is a "balance of terror". Palestinians rely on terrorist groups to attack Israelis in the hopes that Israelis will in turn put pressure on their leaders to make concessions to the Palestinian leadership. Even the Palestinian Authority, whatever its differences with Hamas, has a soft spot for violence directed primarily against Israeli civilians; Fatah terrorists have plenty of Jewish blood to answer for.

Were it not for the "culture of death" and the celebration of "martyrdom" pervading Palestinian society, I would say a balance of terror would be possible for Israel to achieve. The sad truth of the matter is that Palestinians don't care about their kids as much as we do. They don't value the lives of their children as much as they say they do. As evidenced by the quote which started off this entry, you can't create a balance of terror by threatening the lives of those who not only want to die, but wish to take you with them to Allah.

Let's look again at that aforementioned quote which started off this entry:

"We are proud and happy, and everyone in Jabel Mukaber is proud of him..."

It's no secret, and it's nothing new: This is what we're dealing with. This is the mentality the State of Israel is supposed to make peace with. Israel is proud of its soldiers; the Palestinians are proud of their murderers. Israel focuses on "getting" those with guns; Palestinians focus on slaughtering those whose only defense is the volume of the Bible or Talmud in their hands. This is why, when I see those stupid "Coexist" bumper stickers utilizing the Crescent, Star of David, and the Cross as letters, I cringe...

We put those stickers on our cars.

They don't.

Following yesterday's attack in Jerusalem, residents of Gaza City went out into the streets - just like they did after they heard about the 9/11 attacks - and celebrated. They fired their rifles in the air, likely ululated, and demonstrated their solidarity with the murderist (a.k.a. terrorist) cause.

I know bombing such celebrations would be extreme. I know it wouldn't solve anything; mass slaughter on such a scale wouldn't convince the Palestinians of anything other than that they must fight on until the Jewish state is destroyed (which, by the way, they're already committed to doing anyway - even when no Israeli bombs are dropped). Bombing celebrations that honor acts of terrorism against innocents won't help strike a needed balance of terror between Israelis and Palestinians. It would only make angry Arabs angrier.

But it sure as hell would make me feel better. And since Hamas has taken responsibility for the attack, we'd have a pretty good excuse...

See, this atrocity, perpetrated against Jews at a religious school, was an act ordered by the Hamas government against innocent Israeli civilians in Jerusalem. Wouldn't it be proportional for the Israeli government to respond in kind against Palestinian civilians in Gaza? You probably disagree with me, but I say it would be entirely proportionate, entirely acceptable, to do exactly to them what they do to us. Or something similar.

Because that's what it's all about, my friends:

Proportionality.

Sisyphus Speaks Hebrew, Not Greek

2008-03-01T18:17:00.008-05:00

Israel has once again - after weeks of deliberation - undertaken operations to stop the rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip at her border communities. As of this writing, 47 Palestinians have lost their lives, and we can bet that if the raids continue, Israel will lose more than just the two soldiers she already did on Saturday evening. Once again, we shouldn't be fooled by there being more Arab than Jewish casualties; as it always does, the world will call for Israeli restraint (despite Israel's obvious restraint - remember we're talking about a nuclear-armed country) and the Palestinian leadership will accuse the Israeli leadership of orchestrating a massacre.

If it wasn't so sad, such predictability would be comical.

Until Hamas decides on its own to put the kibosh on rocket fire from territory it controls, rocket fire meant to scare, maim and slaughter Israelis, and so long as the "Purity of Arms" remains a core principle guiding the generals, commanders and ordinary grunts of the Israel Defense Forces, attempting to stop the rockets will be a Sisyphean task for the Jewish State. Soldiers will die unnecessarily because the politicians in Zion care more about protecting Palestinian civilians than they do about achieving tangible, meaningful results. The rockets might stop, temporarily - but rest assured, sooner or later they'll start flying toward Sderot and Ashkelon once again.

Cutting off power to the Gaza Strip didn't work. Blockading Gaza hasn't worked. IAF air strikes at launch sites, ex post facto, haven't done the trick. Hamas operatives demolished security barriers on the Egypt-Gaza border; God-only knows how many terrorists and their supplies poured into the Strip thanks to the breach. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are, once more (big surprise), on the verge of collapsing. Children - whose only crime was being born Jewish and Israeli - are still being wounded and killed in the streets of Sderot.

Personally, I think Jerusalem should risk the ire of Washington and refuse to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership so long as rockets are still being fired from the Gaza Strip and being deliberately aimed at civilian communities in Israel. Granted, the Palestinian Authority has no current say in the affairs or governance of Gaza, but Gazans are still Palestinians - Israel should not negotiate with Palestinians while Palestinians remain committed to war against Israel. It's common sense.

"Peace in '08" be damned; you can't force it and expect it to work.

I also think that Israel should take a page from the Hamas/Palestinian/Gazan playbook, and announce that for every rocket launched from the Gaza Strip at an Israeli town or city, Israel should launch a reciprocal number of rockets/missiles at Gaza City, Khan Younis, Rafah, etc. Since Gazans and Hamas are so fond of "random" acts of violence, I say give them random acts of violence in return. Let rockets beget rockets. Israel doesn't have to aim them at any specific targets; let 'em fly and let God handle the details.

As my good friend Avram has pointed out to me, the world would "shit a brick" if the latter course were to be undertaken; the way I see it, though, the world shits a brick anytime a Jew or Israeli picks up a weapon in self-defense anyway, so why worry over it? Ensure that there is enough mortar and/or toilet paper, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

Unfortunately, we're not likely going to see anything like what I suggest happen anytime soon, if ever at all, because Israel is like Hillary Clinton: She wants you to believe she can stand on her own two feet, but still needs ever-popular hubby Bill around to campaign for her. Israel wants into the clubhouse clique, and thus feels it can no longer afford to be militarily assertive or imaginative out on the course.

Israel's desire for approval on the world stage outweighs its desire for security; this means that unless it changes its tactics (or returns to its old school, black-eye-for-black-eye mentality, since a Six Day War-style KO is difficult to achieve these days) Israel will continue to be a Sisyphus...metaphorically confined to Tartarus for eternity, forced over and over again to push a boulder up a hill and then watch as it rolls back down. Peace will forever be elusive, so long as nothing really changes in Israel's defensive mindset.

This conflict has gone on for too long; it's time to make the enemy as war-weary as we are. Enough should have been enough long ago. If the game is to be played, let it be played for keeps.

Playing for keeps is the only way to win, after all.

Fuck You, Hizballah

2008-02-14T23:58:00.012-05:00

"Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you." - Deuteronomy 16:20

"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not celebrating, I'm goddamned rejoicing!" - Steve (Daniel Craig) in Munich (2006)

*
*

It's been nearly sixty years since the State of Israel declared its independence, and as Hizballah's warnings following the assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh clearly demonstrate, the world still has yet to be made safe for Jews and Judaism. Muslims can harp on all they like about Islamophobia, but when have they ever been as persecuted or pursued as we Jews have? In fact, I would say it is patently hypocritical of them to complain about anti-Islamism when the Arab-Islamic world is a bastion of anti-Semitism of the nastiest, Nazi-esque sort.

There are certain people the world is better off without. Saddam Hussein was one such individual, and Imad Mughniyeh was another. That one ended his life hanging from a noose in Baghdad while the other was blown to smithereens in Damascus makes no difference to me; each time, I've shed no tears over their passing from this world into the next...they've joined Hitler and Milosevic in Hell.

Would it have been better for "Hajj Imad" Mughniyeh to have been captured, tried in a court of law, convicted (as he surely would have been) and then executed? Maybe, but we'll never know - Syria gave the mass murderer sanctuary. Normal routes to justice could not be...pursued. By anyone but the Syrians. And unless they broke character, they wouldn't do in such a valued, revered ally (unless, of course, they could spin it a certain way).

Now, Hizballah has threatened to strike out at Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide in retaliation for Mughniyeh's death. "Let this war be open," Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah informed his supporters - and the world. He has not declared a new war, but rather issued a call to arms for the continuation of a war which began years ago (and not with the Second Lebanon War of 2006). As a result, security measures, which already tend to be high at Jewish and Israeli-connected locales, have been beefed up once again.

Once again. Once again, Jews are supposed to fear for their lives and the lives of their children. Jewish houses of worship, centers of learning and love of God, are once again in danger of being attacked by those waging a modern Crusade against the infidel Zionists and their compatriots. Once again, Israel has gone on high alert. Once again, we wait for the blood of innocents to be shed so that the blood of murderers can be seen as having been avenged.

I haven't the slightest doubt that Hizballah has the operational capabilities of striking anywhere it wants to: When you get right down to it, Tucson is just as vulnerable as Jerusalem (andy you don't necessarily have to remember the 9/11 terrorists' and Hamas connections to this city), or New York. My concern is not localized, though; a terrorist attack against Jewish targets in South America, or Africa, or Europe is really an attack against Jews everywhere.

We might not all agree on the applicability of certain religious laws or interpretations of Torah, and we may differ markedly when it comes to our support for, or affiliation with, the State of Israel. Our stand on intermarriage can cause serious rifts within our families, and end friendships with fellow members of the tribe.

Back in ancient times, in our own Promised Land, we Jews weren't immune from civil war.

In modern times, we've come pretty close to picking up where they left off.

However, those differences between us matter little to Hizballah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, et al. Just as it was with the Nazis, to them a Jew is a Jew - Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, unaffiliated or even atheist. Islamist bombs are blind to the arbitrary fault lines between and within a people. Terrorist-launched missiles can be aimed, but rockets don't discriminate as to who they kill and who they spare.

But while we're reminded once again that it's dangerous to be a Jew - if it's ever been safe - I can't say I'm not proud to be Jewish.

"Justice, justice shall you pursue..."

And justice has been done.

Fuck You, Hizballah.

I designed this flag, by the way. Months ago.

*
*

RELATED LINKS

Jews worldwide urged to be on their guard after assassination

Hezbollah Chief Declares War on Israel After Militant Commander's Death

Israel embassies on high alert following Mughniyah killing

U.S. Official: World 'Better Place' With Death of Hezbollah Figure

Whining About Winehouse, the Grammys

2008-02-11T18:55:00.000-05:00

In my honest opinion, celebrating Amy Winehouse is akin to democratic politicians celebrating dictators, or U.S. soldiers celebrating terrorists. Regardless of talent, when you reward a human for her self-destructive tendencies - call me cynical, but I seriously doubt Winehouse won those Grammys despite her erratic habits - the message being sent is that it's okay to be a druggie who skips shows, so long as you can write songs and sing 'em.

Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter, in the end. Except for all the musically-talented kids who'll OD because the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave 'em a pass to do so. We so frequently publicly reward that which we inwardly deplore, and still people wonder how it is that terrorists can scare us as they do. Gawrsh, it's a mystery!

And let me tell you something else: The years Norah Jones and John Legend won their Grammys, the hype surrounding them made those awards quite predictable. The same went for this year: I knew beforehand that the Recording Academy was going to set on a pedestal a singualr personality, and anyone who knew that could also read the tea leaves and would've been able to tell that someone was likely going to be Amy Winehouse. Remember, we're not talking about the people celebrating the music; we're talking about insiders celebrating insiders, just like at the Oscars.

They'll pick who they want, not who we want (even if, sometimes, those preferences do coincide).

You wanna know the great thing about the Recording Academy? They think we were born yesterday. Of course, we're too busy prostrating ourselves before them to take the time and use the energy to disabuse them of that notion. If you ask me, given what we know about her and the way she acts, Amy Winehouse was just as shocked as Captain Renault in this classic scene (one of my favorites in any movie) from Casablanca:

Obviously, I'm not all that impressed. I'm not saying those who win Grammys shouldn't revel in having won the acceptance of their peers on such a wide scale, an acceptance they feel they so desperately need even if they pretend to not care one way or the other. I am saying, however, that we shouldn't be celebrating them as much as we do, because we haven't any say. We change our schedules - organize our lives - around watching the Oscars or the Grammys or the Emmys...but does watching those events change our lives?

Do these awards shows celebrate our professed democratic ideals, or mock them?

In a Republic, we're all supposed to be in the same boat. But all the lights, all the smoke, all the mirrors of major awards shows such as the Grammys demonstrate not only that there is an elite, but how much they see themselves as being above ordinary citizens. Keep in mind, there's nothing inherently wrong about these shows, and I'm not advocating that we should do away with them. For all my cynicism on the matter, I'm still taken in by the spectacle on occasion. To a point.

I do think, though, that the time spent watching the Oscars or Grammys might often be better spent watching however many movies or listening to however many albums can be fit into the same amount of time those broadcasts take up. Or heck, read a book. Remember what books are? Go out for dinner. Something. You can always see the parts of the Oscars or Grammys you wish to see online anyway, or at least will be able to one day. Why let those "stars" who care little for you determine your schedule?

I guess, in the end, what I'm trying to say is think for yourself. Don't choose the music you listen to based on whether an album won a Grammy, or on how many Grammys an artist earned. Listen to what you like, and if it happens to have the elites' stamp of approval, so be it. The same goes for movies - just because a film hasn't won an Oscar doesn't mean you don't have a right to see it, or shouldn't see it. No matter how talented an artist, or innovative or pleasing an album, or entertaining and mind-blowing a movie, the only recognition that really matters is the one you award.

For all their faults, our politicians recognize this.

Why do you think John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama want your vote so much? Their legitimacy is judged by how much proof of our approval they can garner and show off. An endorsement from a prominent or respected political figure may be the equivalent of a Grammy or Oscar in the Industry of Politics (a.k.a. Government), but in a country of one man, one vote, getting the Kennedy clan to back you doesn't really matter unless Massachusetts likes you too.

Same goes for Arizona: Just 'cause the Governor says she likes you doesn't mean Arizonans will actually choose you.

Ain't that right, Barack?

What's So Different About Israel?

2008-01-24T10:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday in New York City, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss Israel's imposition of a blockade on the Gaza Strip, a meeting most vociferously called for by the Arab League but supported by much of the so-called civilized world. And as tens of thousands of Gazans poured over the Egyptian border into the Sinai Peninsula, following the destruction of security barriers by Palestinian terrorists at the Rafah checkpoint, in Geneva the troubled United Nations Human Rights Council decided to stick with tradition - the vilification of a single country, and a democratic one at that.

The Human Rights Council condemned Israel for the most recent measures it had taken to protect itself from rockets being fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza. Predictably, the UNHRC failed to condemn the rocket attacks which sparked the blockade. When it comes to Israel, the UN and its organizations rush to lynch the Jewish State without a second thought; when it comes to Sudan - you know, where genocide is taking place in Darfur - the UNHRC can only express "deep concern".

Why must Israel countenance what no other country is expected to tolerate?

Moscow last week reiterated its right to use nuclear weapons to defend itself against threats to the Russian Federation and its allies...serving us a possible reminder in the process that Russia doesn't believe it can count on its conventional forces to do the job. Even with all the noise these days about Iran's suspected nuclear weaponization programs and U.N. sanctions against Tehran, I don't hear above the din a questioning of the Islamic Republic's inherent right to self-defense. China has reserved for itself the right to take military action against Taipei should an already independent and democratic Taiwan publicly declare its independence from the Communist regime in Beijing.

When Argentina's military junta occupied the Falkland Islands in early 1982, Britain responded to that surprise invasion of a U.K. Overseas Territory by sending the Royal Navy to retake the islands. Just a little over a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States were in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Northern Alliance to overthrow a Taliban that had given aid and sanctuary to Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda operatives.

If rockets were being fired daily from Saskatchewan into northeastern Montana, you can bet the United States would consider sending warplanes against suspected launch sites if the Canadian government refused to act to stop the missile firing. If suicide bombers were flowing into Arizona from Mexico and blowing themselves up at the Tucson Mall or Arizona Mills, you bet your ass Washington would make demands of Mexico City that, if not heeded, would lead to an occupation of Mexican territory and checkpoints manned by U.S. soldiers charged with the task of preventing the entry of terrorists into America (but not the entry of illegal immigrants).

Continual Palestinian rocket fire against Israeli border towns, the Kassams emanating from the Gaza Strip which are aimed primarily at Israeli civilians, consistently fails to produce Security Council action. No one outside of Israel but America seems to care when the missiles are aimed at the Jews. But the world community almost immediately calls for UNSC action when an Israeli blockade against the Hamas-ruled territory is declared and enforced by the politicians in Jerusalem and the generals in Tel Aviv. The EU deplores Israel's "collective punishment" of Gazans, wilfully ignoring the 60+ years of "collective punishment" of Israelis and Jews by the Arab world.

"Hypocrisy" is too kind a word to apply to such phenomena; in this case I prefer the actual scientific-technical terminology, viz. "bullshit" or "complete bullshit."

***

Think I'm exaggerating about the United Nations Human Rights Council's tendency to single out the Jewish State at the expense of, well, its mandate? The United States' ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, spoke last year of the "council's relentless focus during the year on a single country - Israel," noting the Council had failed "to address serious human rights violations taking place in other countries such as Zimbabwe, the DPRK (a.k.a. North Korea), Iran, Belarus and Cuba."

Even the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, lamented the UNHRC's bias in June 2007, with his office releasing the following statement: "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world."

Now, I do give the world some credit - it pays lip service to an Israeli right to self-defense. But, but, it then condemns every measure Israel can come up with in service of that aim.

Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations states that "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

Since the current system of international politics results in the Security Council only very rarely taking measures "necessary to maintain international peace and security" as far as the "Arab War against Israel" is concerned (and UNSC decisions are more apt to exacerbate rather than alleviate the problem), I'd say that nothing in the U.N. Charter prevents the government at Jerusalem from defending the State of Israel - a Member of the United Nations - and its people, Jews and non-Jews alike, however that government prefers to do so, from all threats faced by the Jewish State.

Looking over the course of the past seven years or so, we see that the world thinks Israel shouldn't use missiles to defend itself, nor should it send troops into the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or southern Lebanon when its security is threatened. When Israeli soldiers are kidnapped, Israel is supposed to trade 100 or 200 living terrorists for the corpses of 2 or 3 Israeli soldiers - yeah, 'cause those kidnapped soldiers are usually killed before they're handed back over to the Jews. Israel isn't supposed to maintain checkpoints between Ramallah and Bethlehem, or build a security barrier - to keep out suicide bombers, see - on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

So many governments have a conniption fit when Israel actually does something to defend itself that its easy to suspect those countries secretly wish the world's only sovereign Jewish State - or, at least, its military - didn't exist. Without Jewish sovereignty, and Jewish nukes, it would be easier to kill us en masse, wouldn't it? Just ask the Nazis.

You know, it's worth remembering that the Romans weren't too keen on the idea of Jewish sovereignty or self-defense either, when they controlled Judaea, Galilee and the surrounding areas. Any time the Jews got uppity, the Legions went to work.

History is rife with examples: The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans (mocking him - or justifying his execution - as the "King of the Jews"), the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE (toward the end of the first Jewish War against Roman occupation), and the renaming of the Land of Israel as "Syria-Palaestina" by the Roman Empire (following the Bar-Kochba Revolt, the second major Jewish rebellion against the rule of Rome) in the 2nd-century CE.

That last one, boy...we're still dealing with its consequences, aren't we?

It's the End of the World (but it isn't)!

2008-01-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

I'm going to ask you all a question, and I want you to answer it honestly: Who has ever heard of "self-fulfilling prophecies". Wait, nearly all of you have? Good. It's as I expected, then. Hold on there - is it as I expected because I expected it to be that way? To be candid with you, I do believe that that is most likely the case. What the hell am I talking about? It's the economy, stupid. Duh!

Many of the Big Suits on Wall Street have let it be known they're expecting a recession in the early part of this year. The Federal Reserve has been feeling the jitters, too. Numerous jeremiads about the housing market and the fall of the U.S. dollar have already been shared with us. Bourses throughout the rest of the world (particularly in Asia, Europe and Australia) this past Monday - MLK, Jr. Day in America - recorded significant losses. Big news, or big surprise? Definitely the former, not so much the latter.

This morning, the main headline in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper reads as follows:

Wall Street, Main Street feeling financial crunch.

Beneath that, as if we needed the negativity reinforced, we see this all nicely laid out for us:

PIMA COUNTY: State crisis yields local spending cuts; layoffs possible
ARIZONA: Without action, state won't be able to pay expenses
NATION: U.S. government scrambling in frantic effort to avert recession.

Obviously, this is all meant to arouse a certain emotional reaction in a reader. Which reaction would that be? Why, "fear", of course. Fear keeps the people in line. Fear keeps the system in line. Fear sells newspapers. Fear let Rupert Murdoch start the Fox Business Channel.

We watch with trepidation as U.S.-Iranian tensions boil in the Straight of Hormuz, and as our mortgage payments empty out of our wallets so we can keep our cars running on $3+ a gallon petrol, disappointing updates about the unemployment rate in the United States are announced. But do we change the channel, or throw out the newspaper? No. Why?

Because we're addicted to bad news. We consume it like druggies shoot up crack.

We're on a steady diet of shitty news, and then have the gall to complain about the resulting "stomach troubles" later. Am I surprised that people are surprised when negative financial news is announced in this day and age? I suppose a little, but not too much: As lovable as humanity is, we're pathetically predictable. If there is a recession this summer, I don't think any of us will have any justification for saying we didn't see it coming. We're inviting the damn recession into our homes in the first place, aren't we?

The correct answer, my friends, is "yes".

Ah, you say, but is there anything we can do about it?

Of course there is!

One of my favorite books is "Testimony: France in the 21st Century," written by current French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Throughout its pages, "Sarko the American" (not exactly an affectionate nickname in Paris) reminds his target audience numerous times that "Nothing is inevitable". It's a nice thought, and on that principle it is okay to ask if the prophesied recession we're hearing about is inevitable. So...well...is it? Are we dealing with powers we cannot possibly comprehend?

I'm no financial expert, but I say not necessarily - and not just because I think President Sarkozy was on to something when he wrote those words. Because the ball is already rolling, it may be too late to prevent the start of the recession. I don't really believe the government is doing all it can, and even if it were, as Ronald Reagan reminded us in his first inaugural address, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

But if we could stop the recession, I would say the best way to start is by refusing to give in to the fear.

Those who buy newspapers, the single-copy purchasers and home subscribers, aren't the ones writing the news. The news, as I noted earlier in this entry, whether naturally or artificially (or arbitrarily) bad is crafted to instill fear in us. So what to do? Do we stop reading news? Some people, like Jeffrey Gitomer (author of books such as the Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude), would say absolutely, stop consuming news altogether.

In my mind, though, that's akin to trying to sweep unsightly dust under the rug. It's still there, and we know it's there, and we're going to be tempted to look at it. Especially the next time we pick up the rug to sweep more bad dust under it. So yes, consume the news if you wish. We are creatures naturally desirous of information, after all. Yes, read a newspaper. Watch Fox News, CNN, the BBC World News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc. Listen to the NPR news updates on the hour.

But don't take Big Journalism's spin on events at face value. Think for yourself. A recession - and all the attendant bad news accompanying the recession - is in Big Journalism's interest. Since the people fear a recession, yet love bad news, a recession is a potential gold mine for Big Journalism. How can I say that? I know that the New York Times didn't go out of business during the Great Depression. That's how.

Don't give in to fear. That's how you can stop, or at least shorten, any recession we're being told is due for us. That's how you can fail to help negative financial prophecies self-fulfill. The choice is yours. And you always have a choice - even when you think you don't.

Don't Hold My Imagination Against Me

2008-01-16T02:03:00.000-05:00

There are some songs, that when I hear them - whether for the first time or the fortieth - take me to the window seat of an airplane, with me looking out at the wings moving over the landscape below. Those wings press forward with the appearance of slow speed, but I know in the back of my mind how fast the plane actually is traveling. I'm not sure why this happens. I know I have an overactive imagination, and I'm proud of it. But there's no denying that certain songs which sound a certain way take me to that window seat without any conscious coercion on my part. And it's not even the case that these songs which sound a certain way have universally a similar beat or rhythm. Or maybe it is, and I'm just not able to sense the similarities in songs of completely different genres having the same effect on me.

I don't know if it is accurate to say that these songs have some inherent "grandness" or "grand sweeping sound" about them, a quality that makes them seem bigger than life in my imagination - even magical, I posit. A proficiency at "accuracy in guessing" is something I've yet to attain, so don't hold my imagination against me here. I do know, however, how I feel about plane travel. I love it. Though I am aware of the laws of science which keep an aircraft aloft, I still feel there is something...well, something magical, otherworldly, about flying. It doesn't hurt that, as Superman has pointed out more than once, "Statistically speaking, it's still the safest way to travel." But additionally, I find plane trips to be a source of inspiration. And to me, to be inspired - to feel inspired...that's a magical thing.

One thing these songs I speak of do, in their own way, is inspire me. Not always in a specific way, but in some way. In certain songs, it's the lyrics; in others, the music. In still others, both together work their unbidden magic on me and, wherever I am - even if my feet are planted firmly on the ground, or I am a passenger in a car - I'm taken to that plane seat. And not always immediately, of course - sometimes, it's the second listening that does the trick, though I know I connected with the song in some way or other during the first listening. Combine plane travel, which is one source of inspiration for me, with another, say one of those songs that I connect with in that special way, and the result is...or connection is...

If you haven't already caught on, I'm doing something habitual for me - I'm working out my thoughts on the matter as I write about that matter.

"Why planes?" you may wonder. "Why not picture yourself on a mountain top, or viewing a beautiful sunset on a beach?" If you recall, however, I noted earlier that when I "go" to this imaginary airplane, it is not due to any conscious coercion by me. It just happens. Many times I have myself wondered "Why planes?", but since I usually don't get an answer, I just accept that my "happy place" is in the seat of a jet airliner flying...flying somewhere. I can tell you, in any case, that this phenomenon has not always affected me. The first time I experienced it was sometime in the first half of 2006, as an Israel Railways passenger on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train line, while listening to - you guessed it - a song. No, not the song/video accompanying this blog entry.

And it's happened countless times since then.

What about those times when, either thanks to an airline's entertainment system or due to my having brought aboard my iPod, I get a chance to listen to one of my "imaginary plane flight songs" on an actual plane flight? Is it magical? Is it inspirational? Is it both? Does it happen often? Is the effect the same? Enhanced? Or does the experience, the reality, change things - and negate the imaginary? Tell you what: I'll leave it to your imagination to divine the answer(s). In the meantime, like I said, don't hold my imagination against me. It's done great things for me, and...who knows?...maybe it'll do something great for you one day, too.

Jerusalem

2007-12-07T16:19:00.000-05:00

You may have heard how the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was this week considering a law that declares Jerusalem to be a "Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city." Despite Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and being a bitter foe at the moment of Fatah, the political movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, any Fatah members who are opposed to the law aren't opposed to its message or spirit, but to Hamas (rather than Fatah) being the main sponsor of the bill. This would-be law is interesting in how much it differs from Israeli laws concerning Jerusalem, and the attitude and actions of the Arab states regarding the "City of Peace" (ha!). In sharp contrast to the Israeli view of its capital, the Arab world's narrative about Jerusalem is exclusive in the extreme.

Following the capture by Israel of the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem - along with the Old City and its holy sites - in June 1967 during the Six-Day War, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed the "Protection of Holy Places Law 5727". This law said, "The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places." The law went on to warn that "Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years."

All too easily forgotten by the world is that while the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ruled the West Bank and occupied the Old City, from the late 1940s to the summer of '67, Amman violated armistice agreements and prevented Israelis from reaching Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites in eastern Jerusalem.

In 1980, the Israeli parliament passed another law on Jerusalem, the "Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel," which set out once and for all the Jewish State's position on the Holy City: 1) Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel. 2) Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government and the Supreme Court. This "Basic Law" repeated the provisions of the 1967 "Protection of Holy Places Law", stating once again that 3) The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings towards those places.

Sadly, I've yet to see a single Palestinian or Arab law that recognizes not only the right of Jews to have access to their holy sites in Jerusalem, but that would protect the right of adherents of all faiths - other than Islam - to have free access to holy sites. While it is true that Israel has many times over declared Jerusalem to be the Eternal Capital of Israel and the Jewish People, being a country of true laws and not fatwas, Israel also recognizes the rights of all peoples to share in the holiness and history of the city. Such a policy, such a recognition, would be odd if Israel were anything like her neighbors - ruled by sheikhs and autocrats, narrow-minded, intolerant. As it is, Israel is and should always be a welcome exception.

Anyone who wonders what the situation would be like if a Palestinian government ruled over the Old City (or any other part of Jerusalem) can look not only to that aforementioned law about Jerusalem discussed this week in the PLC, not only to the Jordanian precedent set prior to the Six-Day War, but also to Saudi Arabia's example in its role as caretaker of the holy Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina. If you're not a Muslim, I wish you good luck in trying to visit those cities. Despite the fact that Jews and Christians once lived in (and helped to found) such places, if you're not Muslim, you're officially prevented access to them.

No secret it is that I consider myself to be a fairly flexible person, open-minded, welcome to hearing the opinions of others even if - sometimes, especially if - they differ from my own. When the moment is appropriate, I see the inherent value of compromise and cooperation. But if we're talking about the status of Jerusalem, you will find me inflexible, narrow-minded, and decidedly uncooperative and uncompromising.

I wasn't always this way, but...things long ago changed for me. Despite Jerusalem's deep, archaeologically provable Jewish history and nature (to say nothing of Biblically-based arguments), I believe the Holy City must always welcome and provide free access to holy sites for believers of all faiths who truly revere and honor the people, places and events which have occurred there. Above all, when it comes to my position on Jerusalem - a city I've lived in and love - I feel that being uncompromising, narrow-minded and inflexible is the best way to preserve religious (and political) liberty in Zion.

Hey, Iran is still Iran

2007-12-05T12:56:00.000-05:00

There are probably many people - of a certain political ideology - who are inclined to trust Iran a bit more now that we're hearing Tehran suspended nuclear weapons research in 2003. In fact, the people who are willing to trust Iran more now are probably less willing than ever to trust the Bush Administration, despite recent events being seemingly a softening of position as part of an effort to reduce tensions. But allow me to remind those people, if they didn't already get the message from the preceding paragraph, that Iran is no way vindicated - as IAEA head Mohammed El-Baradei stated - by our Federal Government's sudden turnaround.

It would have been much more to the advantage of the United States, and our stated goals, if the released intel on Iran had been kept quiet - not, that is to say, in order to justify war. But now America has lost practically all the leverage we had on Iran, and the rest of the world regarding Iran's activities. A change in position such as this represents leads me to believe that behind-the-scenes, something not entirely advantageous may be in the works. This isn't pessimism; it's pragmatism: it smells, to this landlubber, like a fishing vessel - returned from a trip out to sea - that has yet to be scrubbed.

Iran is not a dangerous country simply due to the alleged activities in pursuit of nuclear weaponry. Iran is still a supporter of Hizballah, which, let us not forget, provoked a war with Israel in the summer of 2006 that caused immense suffering for citizens of both Lebanon and the Jewish State. Iran is still, also, supplying insurgent Islamists in Iraq with weapons to use against U.S., Iraqi and other allied troops. It is still a theocratic dictatorship, and unless the Islamic Republic has suddenly changed its opinion about America being "the Great Satan", its messianic leadership is still committed to our ruination in one way or another.

Were there a U.N. Commission on Fighting State-Sponsored Terrorism, Iran - if that "august" organization didn't ironically vote the Islamic Republic to be such a group's chief - would be considered the planet's number one participant in supporting violence against civilians to achieve ideological gains. Iranian meddling in Iraq is directly responsible for the deaths of American troops - and whatever your opinion of the War, if you're more likely to blame Bush for GI's deaths than those who are actually doing the killing, you're a misguided fool.

Iran - and by Iran, I mean the Iranian theo-crazy government and those who prop it up - is still a bad guy. Let's call a spade a spade. The Islamic Republic represents an affront to all civilization, and the further it spreads its tentacles, the more it gains the potential to be the sort of Evil Empire that could put the Soviet Union - and the death tolls, internal and external, caused by the U.S.S.R. - to shame. No "peace" in the Middle East will ever have a chance at long life so long as Iran remains ruled by this incarnation of government, this Islamic Republic.

Those who assail all of the connections between religious groups and politicians in the U.S.A. should recognize that however many such connections exist in America, we are nowhere near the extreme amalgamation of religion and politics represented by the Iranian theocracy. There is a huge difference between President Bush stating he believes his faith guided him in deciding to change Iraq's government and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stating God is continually telling him to incinerate millions of Israelis (if not with nukes, then with Shihab-3s...does it really matter what he'd use?).

Among our closest and loyal allies, we can count the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia and Israel - democracies all. Who are Iran's closest partners? Russia, China, Venezuela, and Hizballah. Not exactly the "Super Friends", are they?

Perhaps this news about Iran is very similar to those medical findings we see released every few years - one study says eggs are good for you, the next says eating too many can kill you. You don't know who to trust, because the people issuing a warning today will be the same people who retract it five years from now. I'll admit the accumulation of more information, that may paint a clearer picture of reality, is a good thing. But sometimes, keeping it quiet is a better option than shooting yourself in the foot.

Happy Hanukkah!

2007-12-04T18:37:00.000-05:00

From Adam Sandler's HBO special...seems like ages ago...of all the versions of this song, the original is still the classic..

How I Am More Liberal than "Liberals"

2007-11-30T12:50:00.001-05:00

Today, I’d like to dedicate a blog entry to a great open-minded liberal who recently made a big impression on me, a left-wing freedom fighter who goes by the name of Gilbert Gonzales. Now, why am I dedicating a blog entry to this tolerant, compassionate individual, whose commitment to the acceptance of others having opinions other than his own surely exceeds my own meager, Reaganite view of humanity?

‘Cause the fucker deserves it, that’s why.

You may be wondering why I seemingly praise an individual and then refer to him as a “fucker”. I’ll ask you to "pardon my French" on this matter, for once you read – from the horse’s mouth, as it were – why this particular individual (and others of his ilk) has earned any nasty, derogatory epithet that may come to mind about him. If you know me and where I stand, what values I hold, what principles I stand by, and then can see his brazen hypocrisy, you too will think of Gilbert Gonzales as an asshole.

Allow me a disclaimer: I know plenty of people who hold clearly stated, if often irreverently so, views that greatly differ from my own. However, I do not judge them based on their ideology, but how they treat me. It is ever my hope that they, no matter how much they disagree with me, approach their relationship with me the same way. No matter their incidental hypocrisy or my own, it is generally the case that how you treat me is how I will treat you...regardless of your political or religious beliefs.

That being said, here we go.

To start off, take a look at Bruce Tinsley's Mallard Fillmore comic strip from November 24, 2007:

This 11/24 comic strip makes a very good point. I’ll let it stand on its own for the moment, and move along with the story.

If you aren’t already aware of it, now it’s your time to find out: I’m back in Arizona. I returned to Arizona on November 15, one day after taking a bus from Washington, DC to New York and deciding while on that Peter Pan lines vehicle that I’d had enough of homesickness: it was time for me to return to my home Grand Canyon State. But before I had that epiphany, I had convinced myself that I was returning to the Big Apple to stay…and so, I’d needed a place to live once again.

As I had when I returned to my native country, the United States of America - after living the experience of an immigrant to Israel - I was searching the website Craiglist for apartment rooms. I had had a mostly positive experience on Craigslist, having found my first room in New York City, and my first computer upon my return Stateside, on that site. I usually varied my inquiries to those posting ads for rooms, sometimes sharing more, sometimes sharing less, information.

One particular ad I responded to was for a place in Brooklyn. Knowing the political sensibilities of New Yorkers in many cases differed from my own, I knew that trying to search for a completely like-minded roommate or household would be a fruitless task – and considering I got along just fine with my first roommate in New York, who was a pot-addicted, NY-1 addicted, goofy and insecure left-winger from upstate New York, I was fine living with those whose views deeply clashed with my own.

This was my response to the ad, complete with the “signature” of my e-mail at the time:

***

Hi,

I'm interested in the small, converted room you have advertised on Craigslist for $400. Does that room have a bed, or no? And when is it available?

My name is Jeremy. I'm returning to New York tomorrow after being away for a few months, looking for a place ASAP. I've been back in the States for just about a year, after living abroad for a little over two years.

Thanks,

Jeremy

--
"It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions." - Charles Kettering

http://www.homelessyouthamongus.org/

Weblog: http://therealslimslavin.blogspot.com

***

If you haven’t already guessed, the poster of that ad was one Gilbert Gonzales. I didn’t know this at the time I sent my message, but it wasn’t long before I found out. I’d dealt with plenty of people like him before, but never to my knowledge had I ever been subject to a personal attack such as his. It made my blood boil.

Here’s what Gilbert Gonzales had to say in his response to my harmless, friendly inquiry:

***

On Nov 13, 2007 10:45 PM, gilbert gonzales <maudismnow@hotmail.com> wrote:

No, this room does not have a bed. Look, you might assume that supporters of immigrant rights and housing fairness would not want a racist, zionist supporter of oppression living with them. Fuck you and fuck off. You reply back and I will delete it immediately so don't bother.

***

Imagine the surprise this native-born American - who nevertheless had some personal experience as an immigrant abroad to another democratic country - felt upon the receipt of this message from a supporter of housing fairness and immigrant rights. I was speechless. My jaw literally dropped. I was shocked.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I had done to earn such opprobrium, and I’m still not. I made an assumption, yes, in responding to that ad: I assumed that Gilbert Gonzales, liberal extraordinaire, was actually "liberal". Though the adage goes that when you "assume", you make an "ass" out of "(yo)u" and "me", I think her it is the case that I assumed and in so doing, mostly just let Gilbert Gonzales make an ass of himself while giving me fodder for the weapon I know best how to wield: that of the written word.

I guess it’s a crime, in the eyes of Gilbert Gonzales, to support a democracy that gives a home to the freest Arab press in the Middle East and isn’t an Arab country, a country that has rescued black Ethiopians and given them a home as immigrants and which has taken in refugees from Darfur, Sudan. If Zionism is racism – as I suspect Gilbert Gonzales thinks it is – then I it’s a racism that gives a home to African Jews and African Muslims when they need it. That’s my kind of racism.

Gilbert Gonzales, whoever he is, has the open-mindedness of a Nazi. Disadvantaged immigrants to America, be they legal or even illegal, deserve better than the likes of him and his roommates. And I’m not entirely sure what housing fairness has to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, unless you consider the fate of Palestinians who, despite living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, are forced to remain in the squalor of refugee camps, prevented from building permanent housing.

Sadly, there are too many other liberals like Gilbert Gonzales out there.

One day, about a month or so ago, I was typing on my computer while sitting right in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. There were a bunch of anti-war, anti-Bush protestors nearby in pink shirts, some of whom were holding signs which said “Love your enemies”. I wanted to approach those protestors – who were screaming out at the top of their lungs and on bullhorns “Impeach Bush!” – and ask them if they loved their enemies Bush and Cheney, whom “their kind” tends to portray as evil incarnate and worthy of a firing squad. But I didn’t.

Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of the National Review, had this to say in his contribution to the book Why I Am a Reagan Conservative, a 2005 collection of writings by several different authors, edited by Michael K. Deaver, on…well, why they are what they are:

"I should also say that I was an anticommunist, and I thought that people who loved humanity should at least oppose those governments that killed humanity en masse: in China, in Cambodia, in the Soviet Union, and so on. How could lovers of humanity adorn their walls with posters of Mao and Guevara?”

Now, I’m not sure if Gilbert Gonzales and his roommates have posters of Mao Tse-Tung and Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the walls of their home, but it stands to reason that “supporters of immigrant rights and housing fairness” are people who think of themselves as lovers of humanity.

Left-wing liberals like to portray themselves as the sole torchbearers of this love of their fellow man against the evil, Zionist, racist oppressors represented by conservatives/neo-conservatives such as myself. But if it is the case that Gilbert Gonzales is a liberal, then he is like the “liberals” of Jay Nordlinger’s youth in Ann Arbor, Michigan, “…a decidedly ‘illiberal’ bunch: close minded, dogmatic, intolerant of dissent.”

I know this because, if you read my initial inquiry in response to Gilbert Gonzales’ ad, you’ll see that the only evidence of my political leanings would have to have been in my blog. How many close-minded people choose to live abroad, in a strange country or culture, after all? Gilbert Gonzales went out of his way to look up where I stand, so that he could judge me not on my merits, but on my beliefs.

Never in my life had I ever been so directly, overtly disrespected as I was on November 13, 2007, by Gilbert Gonzales, a man who advertised an available room in his apartment with this title: “$400 Room Available with a Great Household”. “Great Household” my ass.

It could go without saying that I - a "Reaganite" conservative who supports the spread of democracy in the Middle East, who feels a need to confront Islamist terrorism and those who support/finance it, who holds the Palestinians responsible for the choices they make, who knows what it is like to be an immigrant who has put himself at a disadvantage - am decidedly more open-minded, am less dogmatic, and am tolerant of dissent in a way that Gilbert Gonzales and other “liberals” like him could never be – or just flat-out refuse to be.

But…why let it go without saying, when I can publish the evidence on my blog and let hundreds, if not thousands, of people read it for themselves? Gilbert Gonzales, allow me to say this to you now: Thank You, Fuck You and Fuck Off. What else can I say? You're a poet, Mr. Gonzales, and your own words inspired me. I had to pitch 'em right back at ya. To everyone else, much love and thanks once again for reading...whether you agree with me or not.

Statement On Recent Violence in France

2007-11-27T14:17:00.001-05:00

If the children of disadvantaged Arab and black immigrants in France want to see positive changes in their situation, if they want the French Government with President Sarkozy at its head to be attentive to their plight and needs, the inconvenient truth they need to reconcile themselves with is that shooting at members of the police - and media - is counterproductive to their aims. Unless their goal is another revolution, one that would put the relatively newly-arrived in power over the inarguably long-established, then the appearance of "genuine urban guerrillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons" (to quote one French official) in the suburbs of Paris is a totally unacceptable escalation in the struggle for societal recognition and economic rectification in France.

In a democracy, it is usually only criminals who feel the need to fire upon agents of law enforcement. That being said, what with the history of violent, forceful agitation against one governmental structure or another in France going back hundreds of years, each outbreak of violence there is sadly much less surprising than it ought to be. Even so, whatever mistakes have been made by however many successive French administrations, the sort of violence which has recently broken out in the French Republic is particularly deplorable. A couple of youths riding an unsafe vehicle, without protection, accidentally crashing into a police car and dying is hardly a good enough excuse for destroying property and, as may happen, lives.

What do these people really hope to gain? If it becomes as easy for them to fire upon better-off civilians as it is for them to fire upon the police who are pledged to those - and all - civilians' protection, where does the violence end? And what will it lead to? Attempting to kill those you seek some sort of reparations from is a bully tactic, designed to induce fear, and almost inevitably results in the replacement of anger for compassion amongst the populace. Discrimination and racism should always be condemned in the harshest of terms, but what disadvantaged minorities in France need are not apologists for criminal acts, but activists who work with the authorities peacefully, not against them violently, to find solutions to pressing problems.

Islamic Car = Shortest Slavin Blog Ever

2007-11-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

This is one for the record books. One of my shortest blogs ever, if not the shortest. It was prompted by the news that a carmaker in Malaysia, "Proton", announced this week it is teaming up with manufacturers in Turkey and Iran to produce an "Islamic car". According to BBC News, "The car could boast special features like a compass pointing to Mecca and a dedicated space to keep a copy of the Koran and a headscarf." Apparently, "officials in Iran" first suggested the idea to a group of visiting Malaysian dignitaries.

What I'm wondering is, in addition to a Mecca compass and a Koran space, is there going to be an easily accessible self-destruct button that a driver or passenger can push? Come on, it won't truly be an Islamic car unless it facilitates more suicide-bombings-to-the-gallon than other vehicles on the road. And it has to have enough trunk space to carry katyushas, AK-47s, and bomb belts from Tehran, Iran, through Syria, to Beirut, Lebanon. And when you honk the horn, instead of a normal "beep", it has to go "Allah-u-akbar!".

If all that's a little politically incorrect, who gives a darn? Not me. Given my experiences, I reserve the right to say such things. Even now, when I'm on the East Coast of the United States and no longer in the Middle East. By the way, for those who don't already know, I'm going back to New York City after nearly 3 months away. Just a heads-up. And, lest I forget, this coming Friday will mark a year that I've been back in the States.

Woe is We?

2007-11-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

It seems every day brings with it more bad news about the U.S. dollar: Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen recently refused payment in dollars while negotiating a deal, insisting instead that she be paid in euros. Last week, Jim Rogers, who is a former investor partner of business mogul George Soros, said he was selling his home and possessions so that he might buy beacoup amounts of the Chinese currency, the yuan (I guess he forgot that a huge majority of Chinese are still riven in poverty). Federal Reserve Notes are at unprecedentedly weak levels compared to the British pound and - dear God! - the Canadian dollar as well. Confidence is flagging, no two ways about it.

While there are very real, pertinent, unavoidably economic and political causes for the dollar's recent fall from grace, I can't help but wonder if all of the negative media publicity is only adding to the woes of Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant and all those Benjamins. Despite all those videos circulating on the net demonstrating the perceived stupidity and/or ignorance of average Americans, the truth is most people around the world who watch or read the news unquestioningly and uncritically are just as stupid and ignorant as the common folk in good ole' Uncle Sam. Just because they won't admit to it doesn't make it not so.

You see, there are a lot of people out there who don't simply want to see the United States brought down a peg or two on the Power, Strength & Arrogance scale; they want to see America marginalized, and it isn't out of some altruistic buddy-buddyhood with the common man or woman in the Third World. They want their own countries on top. Go ahead, you can deny it, but listen closely to the words of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and witness his actions. Have a seat, as an American, with two proud French citizens criticizing our Republic, and if you're able to keep from feeling backed into a corner (it isn't easy, when they can talk so fast!) and think clearly, you'll see their bashing us in order to make their country sound better.

Of course, Americans do this all too often. I, myself, am guilty from time to time of criticizing certain countries with the motivation solely being to show how we're better than "they" are. Then again, there are those other times - and I like to think of them as being the majority of the time - when I harshly criticize or call out undemocratic, intolerant, gleefully violent nations and societies because I feel that what their governments do is wrong, because I'm disgusted by what I see happening, and because I know to my core that our claim on the moral high ground is greater than theirs could ever be in their current governmental and cultural manifestations.

What does this have to do with the dollar? Am I not, even now, simply defending the dollar because I'm feeling threatened on its behalf? Yes and no. A lack of confidence in the dollar isn't simply a lack of confidence in the monetary power of the United States of America; it represents a lack of confidence in pretty much everything about America aside from, maybe, our entertainment offerings. And to say that President Bush is solely to blame would be to forget the dismal approval ratings of the Democrat-controlled Congress. All too easily, however, ordinary "everyday" Americans will go out, will watch the news, and believe what their told about the dollar's slide without actually thinking hard about it.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm going to remain optimistic about the dollar's future prospects. I know, thanks to my independent, casual research and reading, that getting excited about the rise of the Chinese and Indian economies is grossly premature (people are "utopianly" excited about what they think will happen ten or twenty years down the line, forgetting the very real obstacles and challenges facing both countries). I don't mind, really, whether the Canadian dollar is either still at a parity with the American dollar or is actually at a higher rate of exchange now. That means, probably, that more Canadians will take shopping trips down to the U.S. to take advantage of the state of things in the States.

Besides, nothing is permanent. In the wake of the Second World War, both Britain and the European continent were largely in ruins: incredibly and, some thought, fatally (in the face of expected Soviet expansion efforts) financially vulnerable. Today, thanks in part to the help given in the past by the U.S. to Europe in the form of more than generous Marshall Plan, the European Union has a strong currency union, and both the euro and the pound are, as we are continually being reminded each day, consistently blowing the U.S. dollar out of the water.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, writing in his book "Testimony" (I really enjoyed it) before he was elected to serve in the Elysee Palace, stated repeatedly that "nothing is inevitable." He meant, of course, that the destiny/fate of his country's economy, society, etc. was not solely up to uncontrollable influences. Throughout his campaign, and since his election, he's mentioned the need for France to adopt a serious change in attitude.

We would be wise, ourselves, to take this advice as our own when thinking about the State of our Union today, financially, politically and culturally. Our uncommon optimism about the future has long been a hallmark of the United States; there have been times, of course, when it seemed that tomorrow wouldn't or even couldn't be a better day than today...e.g., the Great Depression. Overall, though, we've been blessed to be able to have hope in the promise of tomorrow, the possibilities that - with a little hard work, and steadfastness - are within our reach.

Paying full mind to realities of the moment, we can nonetheless fundamentally reject the fatalistic pessimism about the future prospects of the U.S. dollar, and do our own small part to help it out of it's rut. In the meantime, I have no problem with Canadians, Britons, and Continental Europeans (among others) flying to America to go on holiday shopping spending sprees (much like they did last year) with currencies momentarily stronger than ours. I say let them help U.S. businesses big and small all they want. You might be embarrassed, but hey - they're doing our economy a favor!

Are the Red Sox the new Yankees?

2007-10-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

The last time the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, I'd stayed up with a select group of people - and no, not all of them were Americans - at Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem, Israel, to watch that history being made. This time around, on the day when it seemed that the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" had not only been lifted in 2004, but transferred to, oh I don't know, the Yankees by 2007, the history-making game I had my eyes and ears on was the Giants-Dolphins NFL game played at the new Wembley Stadium in London, England. To tell you the truth, a Red Sox victory seemed too easily won this time around - the magic of uncertainty had been replaced by a veritable Bostonian Blitzkrieg. To the victors go the spoils - and my congratulations.

Witnessing the incredible ease with which the Red Sox won this Series after very nearly being prevented from attending it by the Cleveland Indians is enough to make one wonder - had they been holding something back in the ALCS on purpose? Let's leave that as a highly unlikely possibility, but a possibility nonetheless, and consider this other notion - with two World Series rings earned by Boston in four consecutive seasons in this decade, and no World Series rings won by the Pinstripes since 2000, before they lost to, ahem, the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001, has America truly become the Red Sox Nation? Are they the new "America's Team"? Are - perish the thought, God forbid - the Yankees the new Red Sox, and the Red Sox the new Yankees?

Those witty "Do the Math"-type t-shirts sold in many a Times Square and Yankees souvenir shop, the ones that show the dozens of NYYankees championship rings won over the last 90 years or so contrasted with a single, solitary Red Sox ring, are going to have to be replaced with a more updated version. At one time or another, this was bound to happen, but that it should be so soon must be particularly painful for die-hard fans of the Bronx Bombers. Oh, not to worry - those of us more "casual" (i.e., not-living-and-breathing-only-for-a-Yankees win) Yankees fans know that the Red Sox aren't about to catch up with our 26 anytime soon.

But once "the House that Ruth Built" is replaced by the new Yankee Stadium, will the "magic" that kept the Big Apple ahead of Beantown in the MLB be that sort of Lady that Frank Sinatra admonished Luck not to be, i.e., the one that wanders all over the room blowing on some other guy's dice (take that any way you will)...in this case, the dice being no longer those of the Yankees, but those of the Red Sox? It is, of course, foolish to believe in such "curses", but we can't deny the psychological power they have, that makes them capable of being self-fulfilling whatever can be proven of their veracity. I mean, look what stories of an ousted goat have done to Chicago Cubs fans over the course of many decades.

If it is indeed the case that the Earth's magnetic field has shifted and that Lady Luck has pulled a Benedict Arnold against New York's venerable Continental Army in favor of the Redsox controlling Fenway Pahk (alright, how many got the Revolutionary War references on the first read?), I don't think it is the case that anything supernatural - aside from Divine Providence - is ultimately to blame. Arrogance and caution at the top of the Yankees organization are the culprits, and with all due respect to Messrs. Steinbrenner and Cashman, they more than Joe Torre are who should be held accountable not only for the Yankees failing again to achieve the Fall Classic, but also for God's having possibly decided to trade in His well-worn Yankees cap for a Red Sox one at the Lids branch in Heaven.

Am I saying anything new, here? I don't think so. Rationally-minded or "aristocratic" Yankees fans know for whom their anger should be primarily reserved; as for the plebs, they may be just enough satisfied with Joe Torre's absence from the dugout in 2008 to let the others off the hook for now.

Wondering about those NYY fans whose cold anger still simmers against the upper management? Bear in mind that it is usually from cold anger that grudges are born and that the memories of some species of fans are as long as the memories of the Jews - they'll tell their grandkids (and, God-willing, great-grandkids) just who it was that enfeebled the Yankees in the first years of the 21st century to such a degree that it enabled the Red Sox to win one World Series too many. And you have to remember, for some Pinstripes fans, even just one World Championship ring won and worn by a Boston Red Sox player in the post-Babe Ruth era was one too many.

But two such rings for the Red Sox, in four seasons, in the first decade of the 2000s?

Well, if that's not a nakba, what is?

U.N. sez Earthquakes, Tsunamis due to Global Warming

2007-10-26T10:07:00.001-05:00

26 October 2007 (RealSlimSlavin News): A new study financed by the United Nations and released today to the public reveals that one of the modern world's greatest tragedies, the Southeast Asian Tsunami of December 2004 that left hundreds of thousands dead and a teeming multitude homeless, was caused in fact not by a great undersea earthquake, but rather sparked by global warming. The study notes that while a massive disruption of water - sparked by an earthquake - was indeed the cause of the tsunami itself, the rise in global temperatures over the past 30 years has been found to be directly influencing the movements of tectonic plates under the Earth, thus negating the natural or "Act of God" nature of the historic event and placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of humankind.

This announcement, following a recent decision by the U.N. Human Rights Council that Israeli military actions against Palestinians are directly to blame for climate change and one by the U.N. General Assembly that "Zionism equals Global Warming", has already been praised by both Al Gore and the Arab League. The study, titled "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World", is already being touted worldwide as a landmark achievement in scientific research, common sense and objectivity.

"We now have definitive proof that global warming was responsible for the horrific tsunami of December 2004," the doctor who led the investigation says. "Having recently found a direct correlation between climate change and the prevalence of earthquakes, the explanation is really quite unremarkable in its simplicity. In fact, you could probably trace the occurrence of every known earthquake - and earthquake-inspired tsunami - back to some form of human-induced climate change. It explains a lot."

What exactly can be done about the connection between climate change and the sliding-plates-under-the-earth phenomenon remains to be seen; the study has already sparked fierce debate among academics and politicians. At the very least, this discovery vindicates the tireless efforts of activists to portray the infamous "Ring of Fire" as incontrovertible proof that humanity is responsible for every single rise in global temperatures, despite the effects of ash and soot from volcanoes whose origins are found deep beneath the planet's crust, as well as cattle methane emissions. Already we are hearing rumblings from the scientific community that an announcement is forthcoming on the relationship between climate change and those aforementioned volcanoes - perhaps asserting that global warming causes volcanoes, and not the other way around.

Another scientist who participated in the study's drafting had this to say: "Look, we already know that global warming killed off the dinosaurs - or, if you subscribe to Dr. Thomas Henry Huxley's theory of saurian evolution, it spurred the transformation of many dinosaurs into avian-like creatures, known today as birds. Though it's a stretch, we're pretty sure we can find a human connection between the meteor that slammed into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago and the disappearance of the 'terrible lizards' of yore. Perhaps even Halliburton had a relationship with the asteroid company that sent the big rock. Really, if you think about it, you can blame everything that goes wrong - or that we don't yet fully understand - on humanity, and especially America. Oh, and the Jews. Which is really alarming to me, because I am one."

Several institutions are looking into the many other areas it is believed that global warming could be influencing or which it has already influenced. Even as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, one private group in Switzerland is looking into whether climate change can be retroactively blamed for the genocide of the Jews during World War II, perhaps seeking absolution for the former Nazi regime in Germany. Next Tuesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the Netherlands, is set to hear arguments on behalf of deceased Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic that global warming, and not attempted ethnic cleansing, was to blame for the Kosovo conflict of the late 1990s. And a team led by a university professor in Ohio is investigating claims that climate change is directly responsible for America's ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Meanwhile, in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and along India's southeastern coastline, the finding that global warming caused the tsunami has created quite a stir. Questions abound about the effectiveness of new tsunami warning systems that have been installed in an age when global warming may spark sudden, massive earthquakes; people say it is all well and good that they now have the capability of receiving a heads-up when massive walls of seawater are heading their way, but that it is downright inhumane to be leaving these countries and their citizens without a qualitative means of predicting trends in climate change short of alarmist media stories, all-too-frequent NGO studies, and local weather reports and forecasts. And "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World" is not without its critics even in the region it speaks of.

"Enough of these bad news studies. We want to know exactly how the world will end, and when," one villager in Indonesia's Aceh province told a visiting reporter. "Otherwise, all we'll be doing is endlessly worrying without any clue of what, exactly, we are worrying about."

Compiled from Wire Reports of my Ever-Active Imagination

Dumbledore's Alleged Gayness Doesn't Matter

2007-10-22T09:19:00.000-05:00

Okay, I get that in this era where the push for "gay rights" has inexcusably been confused with being of the same importance as "civil rights" for blacks, any news of a "celebrity", even a fake celebrity, being gay is bound to garner major headlines. But I really don't see how author J.K. Rowling's revelation that Albus Dumbledore, the former headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series, is - or rather, was - gay is such a big deal. Since the news came out...ha ha...it is as if fans have been rushing back to their bookshelves to try and find all the little remarks and other clues in the book series which make you go "Hmmm..."

No doubt, there are certain people who, having no lives or common sense, are celebrating Dumbledore's "outing". Here's the thing: Unless there is a specific passage in any of the Harry Potter books where Dumbledore leaves no doubt as to his sexual orientation, J.K. Rowling's statement in New York last week - despite her authorship of the series - should be seen merely as just being her own opinion. It's not "canon", and since J.K. Rowling is not God, her word - her ex post facto word - has not and cannot earn the status of "gospel".

While I'm not the most cynical of people, J.K. Rowling's choice of "revealing" Dumbledore's "true nature" at Carnegie Hall appears to me to be - in no small way - a slimy attempt at appearing more tolerant than she actually is. Oh, she may very well have written the character of Dumbledore with the knowledge stored up in her head that he was gay. But since she declined to reveal this "fact" until several months after the seventh and final book in the series was released, there is more than just a reasonable amount of doubt in my mind about her motivations in doing so now.

You see, had J.K. Rowling "revealed" this news before the Deathly Hallows was released to the public (or before any of the other books were published), like it or not that may have affected whether parents would have allowed their children to read the series. Many parents who may have already been wary of the prevalence of "witchcraft and wizardry" in the books, but chose to buy the books for their kids anyway, would probably have been much more opposed than they would openly admit to their children reading books about children who attend a school whose headmaster is openly gay. But what harm, really, can be done by the author saying Dumbledore is gay after the fact?

Not much. The copies of books, the copies that have made J.K. Rowling one of the richest women in the world, have already been sold. Newcomers to the series may scrutinize the text more than those who patiently waited for and read the books over the course of several years, and their thinking about certain statements by the Albus Dumbledore character will undoubtedly be colored by J.K. Rowling's recent announcement about him, but nothing, really, has changed. And unless J.K. Rowling rewrites, revises, etc. one or several of the Harry Potter books, nothing will change about that being the situation, for the better or the worse.

Does J.K. Rowling's "outing" of Dumbledore change the way I view the Harry Potter series? Quite frankly, no. I don't think of myself as being thick-headed for "missing clues" about Dumbledore's sexual preference, because I don't recall ever being told (over the past six years or so) to look for such clues. That wasn't the point of the books, though certain idiots will likely now claim that it was.

Whatever J.K. Rowling says - non-canonically - about the late Albus Dumbledore doesn't erase the fact that millions upon millions of kids who might otherwise have had their faces planted in front of video game consoles or HDTVs instead sat down on couches, at kitchen tables, or in parks to read. And read. And read some more. And she didn't just get ADHDTV kids to read, either. One of my fondest hobbies this past summer was walking around Bryant Park in Manhattan at midday and counting how many adults had their noses buried in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I estimated, one day, that at least 70% of the people in the park were - and there were a lot of people - reading the book at that particular moment).

Celebrating J.K. Rowling's "don't ask, don't tell" policy about the character, a policy which lasted for the better part of a decade, seems pretty stupid to me (especially in this day and age, when "pride" in - and openness about - who you are is supposedly all the rage if you're gay or lesbian). We're talking about a fake wizard and an author's ability to turn that wizard into whatever she wants once the checks have been cashed. If Dumbledore being gay really "mattered", J.K. Rowling would have been open about it in the books, rather than coy. So no, it doesn't make a difference to me whether Albus Dumbledore was gay or not. Not really.

What does matter about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon in general is that however shrewd and selfish a businesswoman J.K. Rowling is, she got people not only to buy books, but to read them, and not only to read them, but to anxiously await the publication of another book year after year after year. That's pretty special, that's a big accomplishment, that's what's important, and if kids - and adults - should take away anything from the Harry Potter series, it's not questions about whether Dumbledore's queer. It should be that reading can be fun...and people should do a lot more of it.

How Al Gore is sowing the seeds of War

2007-10-12T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not much impressed with former Vice President Al Gore being recognized this week with the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at using scare tactics - rather than a mature approach, based on reason (even though he's written a book called "The Assault on Reason") - as his primary tool in his campaign to fight global warming. To tell you the truth, I think the Nobel Peace Prize is often about as meaningful as United Nations General Assembly resolutions. The committee that chooses who gets the Nobel Peace Prize means well, but it's frequently a poor judge of character. And not just in a small way.

I mean, arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat also won a Nobel Peace Prize once. Problem with that is, Arafat never wanted peace - and the committee responsible for handing out the Prize later tried to take it away from one of the Israelis, current Israeli president Shimon Peres, who won it at the same time as Arafat and, in stark contrast to the Palestinian terror leader, was then and remains now committed to peace. I wouldn't be surprised if, one day, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gets the Nobel Peace Prize - that's how compromised, I believe, the selection process is (Chavez is buying up arms like crazy from Russia).

Al Gore's dire warnings about a "global emergency" are hardly conducive to maintaining peaceful relations between governments and peoples. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in the past, "Fear is not a good political adviser." It seems to me, though, that fear is the only adviser we're really willing to trust these days. Just look at how readily we take Al Gore's assault on reason (his own, I mean, and not the book he wrote about it) connected with his global warming campaign (I don't doubt his passion for the subject, but his method of dissemination is disturbing) at face value.

***

A spokesman for Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, expressed Klaus's surprise at Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize, saying "...the relation between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct...It rather seems that Gore's questioning of the basic foundation stones of the current civilisation does not contribute to peace much." (BBC News) And coming as the Nobel Peace Prize did on the heels of a court decision in the U.K. which stated that there are at least nine different scientific errors in the film "An Inconvenient Truth", I can't bring myself to congratulate the former Vice President (in case you didn't know, the court called "An Inconvenient Truth" propaganda and set conditions for its being shown in British schools).

In addition to his hypocritical tactic of warning against demagoguery while being a demagogue, I remember that it was Gore who failed not simply to win the 2000 election, but to even carry his home State of Tennessee in that election. This is significant, if only because there are many like myself who don't yet discount the possibility of Al Gore running for president again in '08 - and who knows what impression a Nobel Peace Prize can have on naive or anxious American voters.

Climate change is a phenomenon that, in the seven score and seven years since the phrase "weather forecast" first came into being in 1860, has really yet to be fully understood; at the very least, we know that there have been previous Ice Ages which could only have ended via...global warming. We owe modern human civilization to climate change. And truthfully, we've only had the technology to track weather phenomena and temperature variations for a relatively short time. Rushing to judgment, and refusing debate, and even going so far as making children fearful about global warming is not the answer to the questions surrounding what can or should be done about human contributions to the natural process of climate change.

***

In closing, let us consider again the words about Al Gore spoken on behalf of the Czech president: "...the relation between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct...It rather seems that Gore's questioning of the basic foundation stones of the current civilisation does not contribute to peace much." You may disagree out of hand, but I say President Klaus makes a valid point here. You needn't be a rocket scientist, or political scientist, to see what it is. All you need is the ability to think critically, and realistically, about the world we live in. It is a far less peaceful place than it could be.

It is no secret - or shouldn't be - that in many of the most volatile, war-prone regions of the world (like, say, the Middle East) governments (like, um, those of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, etc.) are as apt to fight wars over natural resources as they are over borders, religious disputes or "refugees". Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, is worrying not only individual citizens around the world, but increasing the paranoia of their governments over their countries' natural resources, paranoia which could convince worried countries to gamble on "force diplomacy" getting them what they feel they need in terms of natural resource rights more effectively than "table diplomacy".

As stated in the third paragraph of this entry, "Fear is not a good political adviser." Fear can be both a product of, and a contributor to, insecurity. Expand this notion to international relations: Wouldn't you agree that an increase of international insecurity poses a danger to peace, increasing as it does the likelihood of war between nations and peoples? I would hope you would see that this is so. In short, I feel that Al Gore's activities on behalf of fighting climate change - based as they are on inducing fright, rather than on constructive debate - endanger the cause of peace, and that because of this, he doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Judgments on History and Diplomacy

2007-10-11T14:11:00.000-05:00

Rare are the moments in these our modern times when I'm inclined to praise Congressional Democrats, but this is one of those moments. The House Foreign Relations Committee voted 27 to 21 on Wednesday to approve a symbolic resolution condemning the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks which began in 1915, during the First World War. You see, it is doubtful that were Republicans in charge of Congress, such a resolution would have made it past a committee vote, thus enabling its consideration by the full House of Representatives - so lock-step have Congressional Republicans been with the White House in recent years that they would have been hard-pressed to go against President George W. Bush's request to the House not to consider the issue.

Turkey, for its part, has been condemning the vote, calling the notion that the U.S. Congress would even consider the matter "unacceptable". If you connect the words "Armenian" and "genocide" in Turkey, you're liable to be thrown in jail under the charge of "insulting Turkishness". When France last year made it a crime to deny the Armenian Genocide, Turkey responded in kind with a parliamentary bill accusing France of genocidal actions in Algeria. You ask me, I'd say Turkey may still be suffering from Imperial Withdrawal; it is as if we - the rest of the world, or at least the Free World - are vassal states of some unspoken, reconstituted Ottoman Empire, and in our so being we are thus prevented from saying things which upset Ankara's weak democratic government (like calling genocide "genocide"). Don't even get me started on northern Cyprus.

As far as I know, the rest of the world is not governed by Turkish law, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness". However, a symbolic gesture in the United States Congress that recognizes the Armenian Genocide for what it was is not an insult to "Turkishness"; on the contrary, it provides an opportunity yet again for modern Turks to rise above the crimes of their forefathers, just as Germans have done in the decades since the Holocaust, and not only own up to a shameful past but also start building a responsible future by establishing relations with Armenia (I mean, look how well Germany and Israel - a legacy of the Nazi Holocaust - get along these days). The Republic of Turkey should not be afraid of confronting its past, and should abandon the institution of denying it, especially if Turkey thinks it fit to continue to try for membership in the European Union - something I'm against, by the way.

But maybe resolutions in the House and Senate aren't enough. Maybe what's needed, to send a strong message to Turkey that we are governed and guided by our own morals and principles, and not those of the Turks, are multiple resolutions on a nationwide scale. By this, of course, I mean similar measures put forward in the several State Legislatures of America, particularly in any States which can claim a significant population of those of Armenian heritage. This is not to say that such measures are guaranteed passage; in fact, a good number of them may fail to pass. But again, just because Turkey has made it a domestic crime to even hint at calling the Armenian Genocide a "genocide" doesn't mean that the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, can throw a tantrum and that we over here in the United States, in response, must "capitulate" to his demands.

President Bush, and those in Congress who, like him, oppose this resolution, do so out of fear. They are afraid that America living up to its traditions, and embodying its principles, will anger the Turks enough and in such a way that our military operations in Iraq may be compromised. But I seem to remember, way back in 2003, that Turkey - which is now considering an armed incursion into the north of Iraq to go after Kurdish terrorists, much to the chagrin of...us - wasn't much help in our Iraq venture to begin with (they forbid the launching of ground operations against the regime of Saddam Hussein from southern Turkey). In hoping to restrain America's voice, these opponents of Justice wish to maintain the status quo, to maintain the balance of fear which guides relations between too many of the world's genuine democracies and Turkey's weak, prone-to-military-overthrow democracy.

You see, the problem - the continual enabling of Turkey's history-minded irresponsibility - isn't only due to America's reluctance to recognize the Armenian Genocide for what it was. In the interest of preserving warm military ties with an officially secular Muslim state, the State of Israel, a product of the Nazis' genocidal program against the Jews (and officially-recognized nation-state inheritor of that genocide's victims' intense emotional baggage), also doesn't officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. Sure, you can walk through the Old City of Jerusalem and see posters decrying the Turks' genocidal actions against the Armenians, but ask government officials in Jerusalem to speak out about the event and you'll be disappointed. This from a country that comes to a halt every Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, for two minutes as a siren sounds to mark the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.

That's shameful...and most heinously hypocritical. After all, this is the same Israel whose supporters denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ongoing denial of, and occasional questioning of the scope of, the Holocaust. How ironic is it that when Adolf Hitler is purported to have said, in justifying Nazi actions against the Jews and expressing his confidence the world wouldn't pay any attention to their disappearance, "Who today speaks of the Armenians?", it is the world's only Jewish state that, decades later, voluntarily doesn't speak of their (the Armenian's) tragedy at the hands of the Turks while at the same time urging the world to remember ours (the Jews') at the hands of the Nazis. What tzvi'ut (hypocrisy), eh?

To quote the great Will Ferrell in Elf (when he's speaking to a dept. store Santa Claus), the current system of international diplomacy sits "on a throne of lies". We in the "Free and Enlightened World" say we stand for one thing, but then rush to abandon our "firm" stance whenever we find it expedient to do so. Later on, we reclaim the moral high ground as our own while living with the undeniable knowledge that we're more than willing to divest ourselves of it - and cry out out that we're really not doing so - whenever the urge may again possess us to do so. By this method we hope to "keep the peace", and while we think it works well, all we're really doing is promoting an unstable "armistice" which allows future conflict(s) to brew.

We would be doing ourselves - and past, present and future (God forbid) victims of genocide, too - a huge favor if we were to abandon this dishonest, hypocritical philosophy of international (and domestic) politics and, after claiming the moral high ground, show that we're willing to keep that moral high ground even if doing so means earning the opprobrium of those who make no attempt to earn a place atop it and aren't likely to try to earn it in the future (though their hypocrisy is worse than ours when they do claim it). I know that the status quo isn't always easily changed. But to quote my own words, in my Facebook profile, "sometimes the status quo is nothing more than another outdated rule made - or needing - to be broken."

The Time to Do What's Right

2007-10-04T10:18:00.000-05:00

A long time ago - another lifetime, really, though only about a decade has passed - I was briefly involved in the "Free Burma" movement. What happened was, there was an article in a "USA Weekend" magazine (the one distributed with newspapers) which had a feature article about a prominent Burmese man directly affiliated with the pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi against the military regime in power in "Myanmar". The end of the article featured the guy's email, and me with my enthusiastic youthful inclinations to change the world for the better sent him a message (I'm pretty sure my email at the time was still "slavinosaurusrex@yahoo.com" - yay, youth!).

My email resulted in the start of a lengthy, albeit brief, correspondence with this prominent individual that eventually led to my receiving a package of "Free Burma" postcards in the mail, which I subsequently placed a great number of in an info booth at the public library branch in Tucson in a shopping center near my Dad's house. I had several left over, but don't recall doing much with the extras. I think the correspondence eventually died out out of pure lethargy; even so, in the months preceding my July 2004 departure for Israel, I would still, every so often, in a bag or box find one of the old postcards featuring a red silhouette of Burma and information about how one could help the movement toward freedom for the country's people.

Now, here we are over a decade later and I'm not sure how much progress has been made. Just this past week, a U.N. envoy was able to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi at her home twice, but does that mean anything, other than that an envoy of an organization which long ago abandoned the principles of democracy and freedom enshrined in the U.N. Charter was granted an audience with an effectively imprisoned (it doesn't matter if it's at home or another facility) freedom fighter by a military dictatorship that is a member in good standing with the U.N.? I don't think so. The U.N. likes to make a big deal about such "progress", even if - especially if - it's only imaginary.

And so long as China is one of Burma's benefactors, real change short of a popular uprising that irrevocably overwhelm's the junta's power to put it down, or air strikes against the "Myanmar" regime's infrastructure to help weaken it in the face of a less-powerful uprising, is unlikely. After all, let us not forget that another paragon of human rights in Asia, North Korea, is also one of Beijing's patrons. That regime, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon either. If only Team America was real...

The recent protests led by monks in Burma was heartening at first; upon my brief return to the Big Apple this past Friday afternoon, while on the subway from 33rd St. to my great-uncle's house in Queens, I spent a good portion of the ride reading the New York Post's coverage of events in Myanmar. Then, of course, the junta wised-up and shut down the internet - killing off a needed pipeline of information not only out of, but into the country. I'd like to think that popular will and international sympathy could win the day in Burma, but given the course of things already happened, I think it doubtful at the moment that such an end is possible.

What, in my opinion, needs to be done? I'm a big proponent of the idea that warfare is, rather than an alternative to diplomacy, actually an instrument of it. Economic sanctions against the military regime's leaders are one form of diplomatic protest; razing to the ground the regime's new capital city by the use of U.S. Navy aircraft and weapons is quite another. Saturating strikes against the junta's assets in Myanmar would, I think, go a long way toward showing the Free World's displeasure with the thugs in charge there.

Why "war"? Spare me the "neo-con" accusations. I'm advocating decisive action, whereas those who fancy themselves human rights activists yet counsel inaction - or "neutrality" - merely empower rulers who violate human rights, enabling them to continue their oppressions and abuses of human rights and dignity under the cover of tacit permission from those who should be their loudest opponents. Though it is only a line from a movie ("Air Force One", 1997), the following is nevertheless true: "Peace isn't merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice."

In other words, I, Jeremy Slavin, am saying that where there is an absence of justice, we have a duty to be in conflict with the forces restricting its emergence. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," but "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

I suggest "war" because, like with their help for Iran, Russia and China feel inclined to back up the military dictatorship in charge of Burma at the U.N. Security Council in New York. Anyone who thinks that Moscow and Beijing proffer this support out of some higher-minded sense of morality is, quite frankly, an idiot. Chinese and Russian obstructionism - hey, did you hear that Russia wants to help the military government of "Myanmar" develop nuclear power? - at the U.N. means that little can be achieved by that compromised body. One is always open to surprises, though, or rather, should be. But I'm not counting on it.

Unlike with other peoples living under dictatorial regimes - say, those in the Arab world - the folks over in Burma are willing to take to the streets, to risk their lives, to try and change their government and thus their country's destiny. Unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, the thirst for democracy in Burma has been strong and remains strong, meaning there would be little need to "impose" democracy on the populace as existed in the Afghani and Iraqi examples. And while I'm no regional expert, the risk of a wider regional war breaking out following the "softening up" of "Myanmar's" military regime by Uncle Sam isn't as big as it would be were we to take the same course against the "Norks", the North Koreans in charge over in Pyongyang.

To let the Burmese people decide for themselves what to do with their land, their resources...whether with their principle trading partners like India and China, or the U.S., or whomever they wish...this is the goal. Forgive me for thinking that weakening a military government can be accomplished, or at least begun or aided, by military action. Forgive me for suggesting that if the U.N., Russia and China - tainted entities all - are unwilling to do what's right, we must then do it ourselves. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "The time is always right to do what's right."

Like I did a decade ago, the United States and the rest of the Free World have - the Iraq and Afghanistan examples notwithstanding - become lethargic in our defense of democracy and freedom. Why should we worry about Burma when there is American Idol to watch? Who cares about connecting U.S. economic aid to Egypt with meaningful democratic reforms there? It's more important to know whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died, isn't it? Where can we find the time to be unequivocal in our opposition to rollbacks of democracy in Thailand and Venezuela? In between commercial breaks? When our iPod playlist has run its course?

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson

If I could go back in time and tell one thing to my 16 year old self, it would be to not abandon the work on Burma I'd just then begun. Then, maybe, today I'd have a little more credibility than a 26 year old who, rediscovering his interest in the matter, can only now be ashamed at his dropping of the ball back when he did. That I was young is little excuse, and that we - as a civilization, as a nation - are "busy" is hardly adequate either. Even if your voice goes unacknowledged, adding it to the din it is far better than remaining silent. If anything, my belated recognition of my shameful silence about this issue - following the briefest of shouts - has taught me that.

Why I Will Be So Wise

2007-10-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

One of these days, I'm sure I'll be one of the wisest people I know. It's not because I have any inherent gift for dispensing wisdom, nor is it due to a request by me to the Lord (a la King Solomon) to, more than anything else, grant me wisdom. Nah, the reason I'm going to be so wise - in my own way - is best summed up by one of my favorite quotes, from George Washington: "If we cannot learn wisdom from experience, it is hard to say where it is to be found."

And what, pray tell, is experience? According to Oscar Wilde, "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." I agree with that, to a point: Mistakes contribute to experience, sometimes are experience, but there is far more to experience than just the mistakes we make. After all, it is not only our mistakes and failures, but our successes, our explorations, our experiments which play a part in creating the experience of life for us.

Do I need to tell this audience that I've made some mistakes? I seriously doubt it - sometimes, if there are mistakes I've forgotten, certain of my loyal readers will only too quickly jump up and remind me of them. If you detect a hint of bitterness, be mindful that it is tempered by sweetness. It is a bittersweet reflection, and while I would rather it were butterscotch, every now and then I deserve the ribbing more than a little bit. Unlike others who reap what they sow, I recognize that I'm generally the one planting the seeds.

Blessed with mind, body and soul, I'm often inclined to take actions which embrace the desires of the latter two but which leave the mind struggling to catch up and deal with the consequences later. This is not always the case, but is frequently enough that it deserves an honorable mentioning. I say honorable mentioning, and mean it, because if I hadn't been this way I wouldn't have seen much - or any - of what I've seen, met the people I've met, or gained the experiences and the wisdom that came and still comes from experiencing them.

A couple of days ago, I realized that I have much in common with the character of Mr. Toad from one of my favorite books, The Wind in the Willows. Like Toad, I can be stubborn and impulsive. I can be fickle. I'm adventurous, but not always willing to let the common sense I know I possess guide me. Then again, as you might've guessed from the last sentence in the preceding paragraph, I'm not exactly upset that the comparison with Mr. Toad works.

Toad was all about experiencing life, whatever the consequences - and even those, you can get over. If you don't like one course, there is always another open to you.

***

"Once, it was nothing but sailing," said the Rat. "Then he tired of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him in his house-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It's all the same, whatever he takes up; he gets tired of it, and starts on something fresh."

"Such a good fellow, too," remarked the Otter reflectively; "but no stability - especially in a boat!"

- from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908

***

I readily acknowledge that this personality trait of mine has helped to create for me more than a few regrets, but you know...they really are too few to mention. My regrets are, by and large, merely questions revolving around "what might have been", and if I spend too much time on frivolous speculation of what wasn't and thus will never be, I miss gaining insight into what was, which in turn can help me to decide what can be.

If I could sum up my personal philosophy, it would best be done by combining the sentiments of the following quote I once saw, "I'd rather be sorry for something I did than for something I didn't do," with those of the entirety of the text of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". For having this philosophy, I make no apology - and I don't regret living my life by it one bit. Again, like Washington said,"If we cannot learn wisdom from experience, it is hard to say where it is to be found."

In Defense of the Yawn

2007-10-01T22:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've got something near and dear to my heart to talk about at the moment. It's with the idea that yawning, a natural process, is somehow disrespectful. I was out on Long Island this weekend, for a bar mitzvah. My Grandma and my Dad had flown in from Arizona, and in the off-moments, back at the hotel, when I would yawn my Grandma would snap at me "Cover your mouth!". There isn't anything really new there: my Grandma has been chastising me for that for...decades. And I'm sure many of those reading this have, in one way or other, experienced the same thing from parents or others.

But I'm wondering why it is that when a person sneezes, sending air out of their nose - and sometimes mucus out of their mouth - at hundreds of miles an hour, they get a "God bless you!", but when a person yawns - committing a silent, harmless act - they get yelled at. Don't throw science or biology at me - this is a cultural thing. A societal quirk. I know why we say "God bless you." But why isn't there some similar expression of concern, or encouragement, after a yawn?

I mean, think about it - how many people do you know who have gotten sick from someone else's yawn? I don't doubt that it can happen - germs can escape, and it's a bit more complicated than just "air going in and out in a weird way" I'm willing to bet you, though, that a sneeze spreads germs in a far more effective spray - erm, way - than an intake of air scientists are still hard-pressed to discover a definitive reason for (is it to cool the brain?, provide oxygen to a tired brain? God only knows - 'cause doctors...don't).

Yeah, I know - little droplets of saliva can go out of your mouth during a yawn. Those little droplets can get on other people. But did you mean to do it? I doubt it. It is a reason to cover your mouth if you're concerned about getting your mouthy fluids on others by accident, but the failure to do so - especially when you're in a hotel lobby with no one walking by - should not be construed as you being disrespectful, deliberately or otherwise.

Have you ever seen those National Geographic, Discovery Channel or Animal Planet documentaries filmed in Africa, featuring lions? When I see a lion yawn, either on TV or at a zoo, I don't see any of the lionesses in the pride chastising him, telling him to cover his mouth with his paw. I happen to think that, in general, when a normal house cat (wait, is there such a thing as a "normal" house cat?) yawns it seems incredibly relaxing to the feline. And, to my knowledge, no kitten has ever been denied a suckle from her mommy cat's nipples for yawning in the presence of other cats - or humans.

Personally, I know that yawning on an airplane helps to clear my ears if they're plugged - that's a good. I know that, after a yawn or two, I can be more alert not just toward another person, but in general - that's a good. Yawning, while someone else is talking, is not necessarily a bad thing - it identifies you as tired, but in no way does it or should it imply that the talker is putting you to sleep. And since yawning is a natural process - everyone does it, at one time or another - it is hardly a sign of disrespect. It isn't as if humans only yawn when we're around others. We do it when we're alone, too. Should I be yelling at myself, for not covering my mouth when yawning and alone?

Hell no! And why should I apologize for being tired, or make excuses for a process I don't understand yet know is, somehow, beneficial? Does an infant deserve a slap when she yawns in her bassinet as her parents look at her? To quote the great Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, "I don't think so." We tend to think of it, I think, as pretty cute, actually. And since I mentioned sneezing earlier, why should a person who sneezes - who has allergies, who doesn't go out of his way to sneeze - feel they need to say "Excuse me!" after a sneeze? It's not often someone walks up to another person just to purposely sneeze in front of them.

This self-flagellation thing about natural processes is unbecoming an enlightened, modern civilization, or even a Third World, developing civilization. Take farts, for example - I've mentioned before, in this blog, that it is estimated that some 25% of methane gas emissions contributing to global warming come from cows. But we're not killing cows because they're ruining the planet. We're killing them, usually, because we're members of PETA - "People Eating Tasty Animals" (gotta love those Facebook causes). I wonder, truly wonder, how human farts affect modern global warming. That, my friends, is a discussion for another day.

We make fun of each other when we fart - and farts do sound funny. The principle of "whoever smelt it dealt it" is still accepted in my mind as, in some sense, valid (especially when someone else "accuses" me of the "silent but deadly" act). Again, though, farting is a natural process. It's one that smells bad, for sure it is, but unless you're in Syria and you're farts are being captured, with the gases being weaponized and turned into chemical or biological weapons to be used against Israel, farting doesn't make you a bad personal. It makes you an animal, whether you're inclined to agree or disagree with Charles Darwin. Ever smell a dog fart? It's no more pleasant than a human's.

But back to my point - if I haven't lost too many people due to the last two paragraphs. This is about yawning. I'm not going to apologize for the yawn I just experienced while typing this - I doubt my computer was offended by the act. If I yawn in front of others, and fail to cover my mouth while doing so, and get "yelled" at for doing so, I'll refuse to feel ashamed. If I cover my mouth, it will be because I don't want to be reamed out for allowing my human body to do its own thing, naturally.

And, maybe, it will be because I can be selective about who gets to share in my saliva. Pretty girls - them I'm pretty open to sharing my saliva with. That about covers it.

And who knows? If I'm criticized for failing to cover my mouth during a yawn, I may just end up pointing out that my "forgetfulness" could, in fact, be a very natural omission. How, you ask? Easy. One would think that if humans were meant to cover their mouths for each and every yawn, God in His wisdom would have fashioned human beings' bodies in such a way that hands going to our mouths during a yawn would be as involuntary, as automatic an event, as natural an occurrence as yawning itself is.

In other words, if I yawn and forget to cover my mouth - I don't mean no disrespect, y'all, y'hear?

Thinking Reasonably About Reason

2007-09-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

The technology to actively, accurately and effectively study climate change hasn't been around all that long. We can estimate, but cannot be sure of, what the Earth's temperature was like 1,000 years ago. One can look at the archaeological evidence in Jerusalem, say the Temple was destroyed, and point to the Roman victory over the Jews nearly 2,000 years ago as causes for the latter's dispersal around the civilized world, but that's because we have evidence, a lot of historical material to work with that backs this up. It's not so simple with global warming. That the Earth is warming, I'm inclined to agree with - I've stated that many times.

However, as I've also stated many times, I also think global warming is natural - how, after all, did past Ice Ages end but for global warming? Anyone who observes the planet Mars will note that the Martian polar ice caps expand and retract seasonally - is the industrial advancement of Little Green Men to blame, or natural processes affecting the Red Planet? And, hello, anyone thought about the planet Venus lately? That world is the poster-child for extreme global warming, and humanity is not even one whit to blame.

I find it incredibly funny that it is often the same people who accuse Israel of collectively punishing the Palestinians, and decry the Jewish state for this perceived slight, are the ones so inclined to place collective blame for climate change on the human race, letting Mother Earth off scot-free. If only these people held the Palestinians as collectively responsible for voting in Hamas and reaping what they've sown as they hold Israel for its defensive actions, or humanity for global warming. The world would be a much better place by far than it already is were they to do that.

There is an absence of reason in the world today. Former Vice President Al Gore, who has emotionally urged us to fight global warming by calling climate change an emergency that must be dealt with immediately (or else), is the author of a book titled "The Assault on Reason". I thumbed through it once; it seems like ages ago now, in New York. I put it down, hopefully never to open it again unless absolutely necessary, when I saw that Mr. Gore, in accusing others of the very same crime - demagoguery, scare-mongering - he is guilty of, was not inclined to admit guilt of it himself.

As I will urge time and time again, we have to think logically and reasonably about global warming, not rush to judgment about climate change. We are not experts on our world; there is still so much we do not know about it. We can take frozen cores out of Antarctic ice shelves, compare what we find in 10,000 year old air bubbles to the air and temperatures of our own time, and come to whatever conclusions we like. But while inherently correct in hard data, those conclusions could very well be wrong - because we're not looking at the world as it was 10,000 years ago from the viewpoint of 10,000 years ago. We're looking at it with our preconceived notions, our biases, of today.

Look at it this way: Those who claim to be experts about planet Earth, who are seemingly all-knowledgeable about its processes - even the ones yet to be understood - have only been around a number of decades. Widespread use of the automobile has only been around about as long; jet airplane travel is, when compared with the history of the wheel, still remarkably new. Massive factories belching out toxic smoke are, as well, a relatively recent occurrence in the long span of recorded human history. Climate-change demagogues are, furthermore, accusing those who probably haven't been alive as long as they have of being the ones primarily responsible for the ruination of our planet.

We are not the Masters of the World. We are not the Masters of the Universe. We live on the planet Earth, we wish to defend it, yes, as if it were our own Creation, but we cannot in a correct state of mind actually posit that we are the owners of it. We are merely caretakers, inseparable participants - wherever we go - of an ecosystem created for us; we influence the conditions of that environment, but we are responsible only for how we ourselves, in our own time, interact with it.

This self-flagellation regarding global warming does nothing to heal the planet, but much to polarize the people living upon it. We should not hold ourselves guilty for the "crimes" of our parents, our grandparents, or our great-grandparents; the Federal Republic of Germany may pay reparations to the State of Israel and the Jewish people for the Holocaust, but not because it is guilty of the crimes of Nazi Germany.

Like the Germans, we too can be remorseful for what past generations of our kind have done, and "pay reparations" if we so choose (if it soothes our consciences, and helps us be mindful of the egregious mistakes humans can make), but doing so in the case of global warming only makes sense if we are mindful that when it comes to climate change, Nature, and Nature's God, are fully-engaged participants in the affairs of Man and the Earth.