A Second Hand Conjecture

Looks like the “Day Without a Gay” civil rights protest intended to send a message to the country about the importance of gay employees and consumers…had no effect whatsoever. Thus the congenitally counterproductive leadership of the gay rights movement can notch another embarrassing disaster onto their totem pole of failure.

Why can’t this movement find effective leadership? Flippantly shirking your presumably safe job for political messaging, when people of all sexual orientations are struggling to find jobs, was no way to inspire national sympathy for the cause. Would it not have been more logical and positive to have a ‘day with twice the gay’? Say, encouraging gay Americans to double their daily purchasing, or work twice as hard?

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In a Q&A session at the University of the Pacific in October, Dinesh D’Souza was asked about the moral dimensions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. I don’t agree entirely with the causality he posits exists between irresponsible consumer behavior and irresponsible governance, but it’s an interesting take. Particularly in how he adapts certain complaints more commonly associated with the political left, to serve a conservative argument:

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How many children does John McCain have? It’s seven including adoptions, but very few seem to know that. Easier question: how many children does Sarah Palin have? Five and I bet you knew that instantly. Welcome to sexism says liberal feminist Linda Keenan, in a profound and important confessional apology to Sarah.

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Because of my background in working with emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, and generally abused kids, I am often to drawn to stories about the results of extreme neglect of children. I saw some awfully hard cases with some of the kids I worked with, including a kid who was found as a toddler scrounging for food in a trash can with his younger brother before being put into the foster care system, and a young girl who, although not even ten years old, was “traded” by her mother for drugs on a routine basis. There are some really sick cases out there.

For example, a few years ago some foster parents were arrested and charged with aggravated assault and child endangerment after someone finally checked up on their kids and discovered a gruesome sight:

Two of the teenage boys were so badly nourished that they each weighed less than 50 pounds and stood about 4 feet tall, authorities said.

An investigation into the family began after police found the Jacksons’ 19-year-old son, Bruce Jackson, rummaging through a neighbor’s trash.

The young man, who was adopted in 1995, measured 4 feet and weighed 45 pounds. He also had apparent heart irregularities.

The three other boys, ages 14, 10, and 9, were removed from the home and hospitalized. The 14-year-old was 40 pounds and 4 feet tall.

Investigators said the couple received a yearly stipend of up to $28,000, but kept the boys locked out of the kitchen and fed them dry pancake batter.

Every state’s foster care system has a few stories like this, some more than others. The sad fact is that there are really bad people out there, for whatever reason, and some of them become parents and foster parents. How can these people become foster parents? Well, as bad as they end up being (and, it is actually pretty rare), they are still better than the home from which the foster kids are typically removed. For example, there’s the case of Danielle Crockett: (more…)

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Alan Finch, Helen Finch, Alan Finch the Revenge

Looking over our logs, it’s incredible how much global traffic we get from people searching for information on Alan Finch (August’s #1 ASHC keyword and a top-30 quantity since February). Perhaps a little odd for a blog that tends to focus on American party politics, economic theory and international affairs.

To recap you, Alan is an Australian man who had a double sex-change (first from male to female and then from female to male). He was the subject of a very brief AtW post by myself in February, and thereafter became the source of all this traffic.

(more…)

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For the last six months or so, one of the first things I did upon coming into work on Sunday mornings was to check Randy Pausch’s update page. Randy Pausch, if you will remember, achieved worldwide notoriety last fall when the video of his “Last Lecture” hit the internet and the Wall Street Journal noticed. Having been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, Pausch, 47, gave a lecture entitled “Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams” to an audience at Carnegie Mellon University where he taught computer science. Well this morning I selected Randy’s site from my bookmarks menu but the page was very, very slow to load. Too slow. Sure enough, when the page refreshed, it contained the news that Randy passed away Friday due to complications from his disease.

What made Pausch’s story so compelling to me wasn’t merely that he was close to my age and, like me, the father of young children, nor was it merely the fellow feeling that most of us past and present cancer patients have for one another. Rather it was his infectiously positive yet humble attitude, the geeky fierceness of his appetite for life, and his charmed and seemingly bottomless capacity for extraordinary achievement that convinced me that pancreatic cancer didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against this man, that this time death itself had fatally (ha!) miscalculated in even daring to touch someone so fresh and so vitally creative, so… Jedi. The Force was very, very strong in this one.

But I guess at the end of the day it’s never strong enough. And of course I knew that, in that cold, data processing part of my brain, and I’m certain Pausch did too. But I’d still like to think Randy made death a little nervous, if only for a couple of years, or even a couple of minutes.

You can check out the video of his famous “last lecture,” as well as videos of his lecture on time management and his cancer activism, here.

Pausch’s Update Page documenting his cancer battle is here.

Carnegie Mellon’s obituary of Randy is here.

Unlike thousands and thousands of very lucky people, I never knew Randy Pausch in life. But like tens of millions of almost as lucky people, I will never forget him.

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Peg pointed me this way, and I really enjoyed nodding in agreement. Of course, I have long nodded in agreement with Megan. Especially on these:

2) Gay marriage. I’m basically pro, but I take the Burkean arguments seriously.

3) Immigration. Again, I’m pro–but while I think the anti-immigration side makes often ridiculously ahistorical arguments about how current immigration differs from past waves, I think that more-open-borders folks like me don’t give enough respect to the real cultural frictions that immigration causes.

[…}

5) Taxes. I don’t have any very well thought out position on the optimal level of taxation in society. I take seriously both the justice arguments of the libertarian absolutists, and the notion that anyone living in a wealthy society owes their prosperity at least as much to the wealthy society as they do to their own skill and hard work–and if you doubt this is true, I suggest you go try to deploy your rugged individualist talents in Zimbabwe. I think society has a duty to care for those who genuinely can’t care for themselves, but I am against an ever-expanding notion of what constitutes “can’t”.

6) Intergenerational equity. I don’t mean social security, which I think is largely a stupid program. I mean questions about how we should privilege the interests of people who exist now over those who will exist in the future. The environment is the most obvious, but not the only, area where these questions come up. To me, health care is another one; the core issue is that we can probably help some people by moving to a single payer system today, but only by destroying the innovation machine that will help many many more people down the road.

7) Humanitarian intervention. I am often tempted by the isolationist stance, the cool purity of its single-rule decision making. Then another Darfur rends my heart. I don’t mean to address the prudential, utilitarian calculus, but rather the question: if there’s a good chance that we could make things better, should we? And under what circumstances?

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Jesse Helms has died today. And I have lost track of the number of gay friends who have written me congratulatory or celebratory emails and IMs. It really is terrible—yes, the man opposed our right to an equal stake in society, the right to have a family, the right simply to live our lives without men like him imposing his views on us. But celebrating his death? Helms has been a non-issue for years—no matter what crimes one may pin on him, if people really think he could have spoken magic words and suddenly convinced people to stop condomless sex in the 1980s… well, that is simply delusional.

The amount of hate being spewed at a man we all condemned for hatred is simply despicable. And people wonder why I have such problems being associated with other gay men. His family is grieving, just as our families grieved when our loved ones die. To dance upon his grave, no matter how much you opposed his message—one friend even crowed that he was “rotting in hell, paling around with Hitler and Stalin”—is so far beyond the pale, I really am out of words.

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Yes, after extensive research I can now offer to the public an almost guaranteed way of decreasing the amount of gas used in a week. While YMMV (Your Millage May Vary) I saw a 13% increase this past week using this new breakthrough.

I’m so confident about this breakthrough, that I’m also going to thrown in another breakthrough, FOR ABSOLUTELY NO CHARGE!!!

The first breakthrough is, get this, driving slower.

I know, who would have thought, that driving slower would bring such incredible results. Yes, while YMMV, mine went up to 34MPG, from a paltry 30MPG. That’s right, by backing off on the skinny pedal, and setting the cruise control a whole 5 MPH slower then I normally do, I achieved such breakthrough millage.

But wait, I promised another breakthrough for decreasing the amount of gas used in a week, FOR FREE!!!

The second breakthrough is, drive less often.

I know, it’s an incredible breakthrough. Why, by planning our trips over the weekend, we only went on 3 trips for errands, where we could have easily made 5 or 6.

So, there you have it, two incredible breakthroughs in driving technology, which will, more then likely, reduce the amount of gas you use in a week. Of course, YMMV.

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Only in America’s Army:

KHOST, Afghanistan — Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.

Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation’s third-highest combat medal.

Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit — because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.

It’s difficult to find a better summary of some of the fundamental contradictions of the Army today. Women can serve, and valorously, so long as they’re not lauded for it—then, they must be taken away from their units. But it’s the same thing for gays, too—serve your country, just don’t ever let anyone know what you really are. Sad.

I can remember being about 10 or 11 and hearing arguments about how we can’t use the military for “social engineering.” This was during the days when Bill Clinton was pushing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, when Tail Hook was the End of the Navy, and so on. I would think that same logic should apply now: the rest of society has moved on: like it or not, women are serving in combat duties, and they are doing so valiantly. The restrictions on their service, and in this case punishment for being too brave, make less and less sense every day.

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German “Gary” Talis of the 9/11 “Truth” organization “We Are Change” beat up a wheel chair bound girl with cerebral palsy yesterday. His compatriots also got into an argument with Secret Service after trying to verbally assault Laura and Jenna Bush at an event for their children’s book “Read All About It.”.

The assailant and his cohorts are currently seeking pro-bono or reduced fee legal representative to defend them and pursue legal action against the NYPD.

Also covering this is LauraW at Ace’s, though I don’t think she has figured out it was a truther yet.

UPDATE:

A truther has also posted the personal phone number and street address of the family in a comment on digg and asked for people to harras them. No, I’m not going to link to it, but I have reported it to digg.

by dnafrequency 1 hour ago
I think John Lovetro needs to be confronted about his out of control lying behavior. A little public humiliation works wonders but don’t get to close, he is an attack dog! You can contact him at: 718 ***-**** (number has been temporarily disconnected) and you can write or visit him at 1*************, NY ****. What a piece of filth! I’m sure his wife and daughter are very proud of him today!

UPDATE 2:

Just wanted to throw in a link to Pat at the Screw Loose Change blog. Those guys do some great work.

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Justice Antonin Scalia will appear on 60 Minutes this coming weekend. A preview of what he has to say is here.

“I say nonsense,” Scalia responds to Stahl’s observation that people say the Supreme Court’s decision in Gore v. Bush was based on politics and not justice. “Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two,” he says, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision that the Supreme Court of Florida’s method for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.

Furthermore, says the outspoken conservative justice, it was Al Gore who ultimately put the issue into the courts. “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question….We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts,’” says Scalia. “What are we supposed to say — ‘Not important enough?’” he jokes.

And–

Stahl asks how he can be a close friend of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, his liberal bench mate, despite the fact that they oftentimes disagree. “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people, and some very good people have some very bad ideas,” he tells Stahl.

Bravo, Justice Scalia! I have dear friends (and, dare I say it - relatives) whom I very much love and care for - yet, on some topics, they are utterly wrong. Of course, I myself have been utterly wrong on issues and at times in my life!

If we are looking for perfection in our friends, relatives, peers, associates …. we will assuredly be woefully disappointed in our lives. We also will have never ending battle.

I do not agree with Scalia myself on a number of topics. On what he says above, however, applause from me. And - get over it, those of you who have not!

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No, not that. We’re talking Weed Beer. I’m talking about a beer made in the city of Weed, California. A local brewer there has named his beer after the small town. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms however, wasn’t too pleased with their slogan on their bottle cap, “Try Legal Weed”.

Bureau spokesman Art Resnick said Monday that the bottle caps tell consumers to support an illegal drug

Since it literally says “legal weed” on it, I’m not sure how they think it refers to illegal weed. The owner of the brew counters with the fact that Budweiser is known as “bud”

“They sell Bud — we sell Weed.”

Just add this to another casualty in this ridiculous war on drugs.

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I’m often guilty of seeing connections between things that others seem to think make no sense at all. So bear with me and then tell me what you think.

The New York Times review of “Stop-Loss” explains the failure of Iraq themed movies in this way, “The commercial failure of last autumn’s crop of high-profile Iraq-themed movies — Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah” and Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” among them — has hardened into conventional wisdom about the moviegoing public’s reluctance to engage the war on screen.”

We’re tired of the war. We don’t want to hear about it. But does that even make sense?

(more…)

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One organization I send a lot of money to is the International Justice Mission. They are dedicated to ending human trafficking and exploitation through a novel approach: unlike the typical NGO scream (think Human Rights Watch), they build cases against the abusers using local laws.

Indeed, slavery is a major, global problem—and the biggest it’s been in world history. Humans make up a not-insignificant part of the multi-billion dollar global shadow economy, which systematically undermines states as it trades in illegal goods.

Don’t think we’re immune just because we’re wealthy and Western. The UK has a big problem with girls being forced into marriages, and tens of thousands are hijacked for slavery in the U.S. every year.

Groups like IJM can help. Their donation page is here.

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I remember him most for his debates on the Firing Line in the 70’s. His style, full of respect and grace are what I’ll remember him by.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTE4NGRlOGM1NmYxYjdmNjk1MjliOTE2MTYxOWZkZjc=

I’m devastated to report that our dear friend, mentor, leader, and founder William F. Buckley Jr., died overnight in his study in Stamford, Connecticut.

After year of illness, he died while at work; if he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/02/27/breaking-william-f-buckley-dies-at-82/

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Private jets.  Multiple mansions.  Designer clothes and vehicles.  Dazzling jewelry.  Generally, these are the hallmarks of the uber-wealthy.

For one man, however, something beyond the glittering materialism of this world matters.  What is it?  Giving.

Read about a remarkable man who made a fortune - then gave it all away.

Feeney correctly foresaw a pent-up demand for foreign consumer goods, especially liquor. Over the years DFS opened dozens of duty-free shops across the world. Feeney learned Japanese and did deals with tour guides to divert travel groups through their outlets. “We caught a wave,” he said. DFS became a global retail empire, a moneymaking machine that made its partners super rich. In 1988, Forbes magazine included Feeney in the top 20 of its 400 richest people list, estimating his worth at $1.3 billion.

But Feeney did not belong on the list. In 1982, he had secretly and irrevocably transferred his entire 38.75 percent interest in DFS to a charitable foundation, keeping less than $5 million for himself. The decision to give his wealth away was not sudden, he said. “I did not want money to consume my life.” The decision to create a foundation came after Feeney made his first major bequest of $700,000 to Cornell University in 1981, and was besieged with requests. He turned to a legal friend, Harvey Philip Dale, a brilliant New York law professor, who advised him on setting up a mechanism to handle future donations. The foundation — in reality a number of separate foundations collectively known as The Atlantic Philanthropies — was registered in Bermuda to avoid disclosure requirements. To maintain secrecy, the organization did not bear his name — almost unheard of in the world of philanthropy. Feeney declined even to take personal tax deductions on his giving.

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…am I just not impressed by YOU?

Jules Crittenden responds to a column by Susan Jacoby The Dumbing of America. She concludes…

It is past time for a serious national discussion about whether, as a nation, we truly value intellect and rationality.

The short answer is… yes, we truly value intellect and rationality.

It just doesn’t look like what you want it to look like. In fact, I’m tempted to start quoting The Princess Bride… “This word? I do not think it means what you think it means.”

(more…)

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This is an extension of the commentary from this post from MichaelW.

Have you heard the truism that a person is smart, but people are dumb?

On the one hand it’s profoundly true. On the other hand we fail to understand that the opposite is also profoundly true. A person is dumb, but people are smart.

Dumb people, making sub-optimal individual decisions, somehow manage to combine in aggregate into communities that most often are remarkably robust and remarkably effective.

It works with a market, where individuals make poor decisions about what to produce and what to buy. Somehow, with all those individual mistakes the result is highly effective and highly responsive. Compare that flawed mish-mash of poor decisions to what happens when there is directed organization and decision making, usually by experts, and the unwashed masses directing their own lives come out on top. Waaaay on top.

It would also work in education, given a chance.

Do I trust my fundie neighbor to do the best possible job teaching her children? Do I trust the secular unschooler down the street? Do I trust the Muslim who recently immigrated and would rather not have his child in public school? Do I trust the Amish who don’t (I’m told) educate past 8th grade? Do I trust the polyamorist wiccan coven who wants to start a day school?

Not only no, but hell no.

But do I trust them in aggregate? Do I trust the robust nature of the way all of our various choices work together to optimize the end result? Do I trust the flexibility and diversity of knowledge and ideas to mesh into a whole that is by far the most desirable and effective totality of education to advance our country and perhaps our world into an unknowable future?

Yes, I do.

I trust people.

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The current dust-up over the Cuban-Che flag (flags?) hanging in the Houston campaign office for Barack Obama (opened by supporters, with actual staffers intended to occupy by next week), has spawned some interesting commentary. Captain Ed advised:

Oh, my. Barack Obama may want to call his new Houston office and suggest some decorating ideas…No, that’s not a Texas state flag with a picture of Obama on it. It’s the flag of the Castro-led Cuba regime, with Che Guevara’s face superimposed on the side. A Fox report from Houston captured this image as it showed Obama supporters celebrating his momentum after Super Tuesday.

Does Obama know his Houston supporters honor a terrorist in his campaign office? I’m sure he doesn’t. However, it would behoove him to ensure that the flag gets taken down and that he renounces any affinity for Che and the Fidel Castro regime.

I really doubt that Obama has any idea either. But this is campaign season, and his refusal to wear a flag pin or put his hand on his heart during the pledge of allegiance opens him up to attack based on this sort of miscue by his supporters. I really don’t care about the flag pin (I don’t wear one either), but the hand-over-the-heart petulance does raise legitimate questions, IMHO.

In any case, the leftosphere is accusing the rightosphere of having apoplectic fits over this, and using “Rovian Swiftboaters,” with their prime target being Captain Ed (my emphasis).

Oh darn those college volunteers with their affinity for hacky-sack & Che Guevara!

It’s going to be another long, reality-deprived year from the GOP Operatives. Apparently, some young volunteer for the Obama campaign had the temerity to set up an office in Texas BEFORE Obama’s actual staffers arrived in Texas. This included someone taking something off their dorm room wall, a Cuban flag with a picture of Che Guevara on it. This sent Captain Ed to the nitro tablets and asthma respirator.

It seems someone hasn’t been on a college campus in thirty-five years. Where youthful affectation with revolucion long ago replaced pictures of “Happiness is a Warm Puppy”. Oh those kids today with their I-Phones, their I-Pods, and their I-deas.

Up next, college-age Hillary Volunteer wears “Bush Sucks” T-Shirt. Ed Morrissey faints.

James Joyner attempts to the split the difference:

[Captan Ed is] right that Che is a terrorist who shouldn’t be honored by decent people. Che worship (or, alternatively, the wearing of Che t-shirts as a statement without the slightest clue of who he was) seems to be a phase that certain left-leaning activists go through in their youth; it generally passes. Driscoll’s characterization of it as “juvenilia” is spot on.

But, surely, Obama doesn’t need to publicly weigh in on the decorating choices of every low level staffer? Let alone “renounce” affinities which he’s never shown?

I sure didn’t take from Captain Ed’s post (or Charles Johnson’s) that he wanted Obama to take a loyalty oath (as Joyner later suggests), and I’m not sure why suggesting that Obama distance himself from such an idiotic display of anti-Americanism is going beyond the pale. Captain Ed was simply encouraging Obama to have his Sister Souljah moment, which seems like pretty good political advice.

But the most irritating thing about the apologia is the persistent inference that this was a youthful transgression. First of all, take a look at the picture and point out to me where this “youth” is. Do you see any college kids in that picture? Are there no adults in charge there? Don’t the women in the picture bear some responsibility here?

Secondly, why should anyone be even remotely complacent about the seemingly accepted fact that “youths” have no compunction about displaying the likeness of a mass murderer in the dorm rooms, on the their chests, and in their volunteer headquarters? Have we just given up on teaching any semblance of what’s right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable? If the flag was instead a revolucion flag from Chile with Pinochet’s hirsute mug gracing it, would the left be as complacent about that? How about Mao or Pol Pot? Is Mugabe OK, or Hugo Chavez? Where exactly does the line get drawn for which statist terrorists may grace the clothing and walls of “youths” before it becomes a fashion faux pas?

Oh, and for the record, here’s a little history on the source of that flag:

I came across a flag which is very usual in demonstantions and events of the youth organization of the portuguese communist party (J.C.P. / P.C.P.). It consists of a cuban flag defaced with the likeness of the mythical communist hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara. A similar flag, all red with black elements and bearing at times the cuban slogan “hasta la victoria siempre” (”towards the victory, always”). I’m not sure if any of these are used by communists anywhere else, namely in Cuba, but it is most likely.
Antonio Martins, 26 December 1999

This non-Cuban “Che flag” is or was, according to Jaume Olle’, used by a ultra left guerrilla group in Guatemala. I used darker colours because flags appear with darker colours. These flags are, of course, unofficial, so the shade here is basicaly a matter of taste, but they are usually used with darker colours than those we have in the Cuban national flag.
Jorge Candeias, 27 December 1999

Getting back to the genesis of this story, I really doubt that this will have much of an effect on Obama’s campaign. Those whom are already against an Obama presidency, aren’t going to be any further swayed by the fact that he has the support of communist sympathizers. By the same token, neither are those on the left with an affinity for Obama (even if they are voting for Hillary) going to be moved, since they seem to have little problem with communist sympathizers being in their midst (to their eternal shame, I might add). And anyone who is part of the undecided middle in this race, probably isn’t even going become aware of this little fiasco, since they likely don’t pay much attention to politics outside what they here on the evening news.

Indeed, the only real eye-opener here is that apparently a number of people think that mythical-Marxist hero worship is nothing more than a college kid fad, and they’re okay with the next generation being that stupid. I guess I’m just not.

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Or: What I Learned About the World from Reading Historical Romances.

I learned that sometimes people get *more* uptight over time rather than less.

Victorians, according to custom and any number of novels, were concerned with propriety above all. Certain things were not spoken of and certainly the rougher aspects of life were hidden from young ladies. They were prudes.

Read enough novels and eventually a consumer of these delightful escapes will come across one that isn’t Victorian at all, but set in the Georgian era or earlier, or at the very least has a foul mouthed old grandmother who insists on wearing her wig and powder and scandalizing her adult children with accounts of her wild youth.

What brought this to mind (in a rather random fashion, which is typical for my brain) was this post of mine and what Joshua said about History. (more…)

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(Originally posted at What if?)

From the moment I purchased “Managing Your Money” software many years ago, I realized that Andrew Tobias is a very smart and very amusing fellow. Later, I discovered that Andy is also warm, friendly and has a huge heart. Despite being a huge business and DNC celebrity (he’s the DNC’s treasurer), he frequently takes times to email-correspond with lil’ ol’ me.

Often, Andy and I disagree on a multitude of policy issues. Nevertheless, on at least one issue, we are quite in agreement: gay folks deserve the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of us.

While Andy happens to be gay, I am not. Neither is Jon Kislak, a Floridian active in Republican politics. Mr. Kislak, Andy, I and many others appreciate that your sexual orientation should not be an obstacle to enjoying the same civil rights that heterosexuals have. While I seem unable to put in an excerpt at what if?, please do go to Andy’s site to see what Mr. Kislak has to say. (Just a little warning; you’ll have to scroll down a lot of pro-DNC stuff before you get to it. Forewarned is forearmed! :))

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There’s a moment in Mark Steyn’s book America Alone, where he relates the truism that we’ve all experienced conversations with a mild-mannered, educated and seemingly rational person from the Arab world, where quite unexpectedly they say something nutty in the most casual way. “Of course the Jews planned 9-11″ for instance. As Steyn notes, when this happens it’s a peculiar form of media and culture-shock, and you’re not quite certain what to say in response. But this strange cultural dissonance can also be experienced between Europeans and Americans just as easily on certain issues.

(more…)

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After their success getting the Muhammad cartoons banned, some Muslims have now set their sights on wikipedia. Recently a large group of Muslims have started an email campaign asking wikipedia to remove their images of their holy prophet Muhammad, even going so far as to start an online petition that has received over 80,000 signatures.

“It’s totally unacceptable to print the prophet’s picture,” Saadia Bukhari from Pakistan wrote in a message. “It shows insensitivity towards Muslim feelings and should be removed immediately.”

Thankfully wikipedia says they are staying true to the idealism the site was founded on, and doesn’t find it “unacceptable” to “[show] insensitivity towards Muslim feelings”.

“Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.”

I can only hope that this stays a peaceful online protest and doesn’t descend into an online version of the violence that the cartoon controversy did.

(edit)

I also want to add what I think is a much larger point about these types of protests. From the Paul Cobb, who teaches Islamic history at Notre Dame, “The idea of imposing a ban on all depictions of people, particularly Muhammad, dates to the 20th century”. This is a very recent phenomenon and does not represent any consensus of world wide Muslims. It isn’t some ancient commandmet being violated, it’s a politicization of a cultural taboo, if you can even call it that.

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This morning, I read a column from the Wall Street Journal about race.

Just when we thought we’d heard everything from the diversity police, here they come trying to prescribe even the color of charity. The California Assembly last week passed a bill sponsored by state Representative Joe Coto to require foundations with assets of more than $250 million to disclose the race, gender and sexual orientation of their trustees, staff, and even grantees. Look for this to arrive in a legislature near you.

A Berkeley-based advocacy group called the Greenlining Institute hatched this idea because, allegedly, racial minorities aren’t well enough represented in California policy debates. John Gamboa, Greenlining’s executive director, blames foundations for failing to donate enough money to “minority-led” think tanks and community groups and businesses, and he hopes this legislation will “shame” them into giving more. What counts as a minority-led organization? According to Greenlining, the board and staff should both be more than 50% minority.

Obviously, some people find this to be a good idea; it would not have passed otherwise. I, however, find it frightening.

Not long after the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC opened, I visited. While some of the focus, obviously, of the museum is Europe’s Holocaust, much of the museum also highlights the varied offshoots of classifying human beings by their race and religion. Several of the exhibits are immensely powerful. One of those is a photographic explanation of how Nazis classified humans by race.

The exhibit shows photographs of people from all over the world - and describes how Nazis classified them. Measure the skull, look at how the eyes are spaced, judge the pigment of the skin …. That’s how they ultimately selected between people who were worthy of being part of their “Master Race” - and those who should be shunned, tortured - and/or murdered.

While I know that the intentions of those who pass a law such as the one above are intended to do good, I am confident it will achieve anything but. Ultimately, the simple classification of humans into these separate races creates a pernicious cloud above all of us.

Who is the ultimate judge of someone’s exact racial DNA? Why should that make a difference in the charitable work that those individuals are doing?

We are - every one of us - members of the human race. I implore these lawmakers to revisit their despicable law harkening back to the thoughts of the Nazi era and junk them. The shape of someone’s nose; the curl of their hair; the color of their skin. Absolutely none of it should have any bearing on their worth as a human being.

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(Cross posted at What if?)

Did Rudy lose because the purportedly “ruthless” candidate was too nice?

Most critical in the closing days of the contest, when he desperately needed to reinsert himself into the narrative, was Giuliani’s inexplicable refusal to draw contrasts with his rivals, especially the surging McCain, whose votes were coming directly out of the former mayor’s hide.

“Within the campaign, there was broad strategic consensus to engage the opposition,” shared a frustrated adviser. “But whether it was subtle or aggressive or stuff in between, the reality was that it was his decision, and his opinion was that that was not the way he wanted to run campaign.”

“He just didn’t want to do [contrast ads],” said another source close to the campaign. “He rejected a lot offers.”

“You see what that gets you — maybe McCain will send him a thank you note.”

And

“I’m proud that we chose to stay positive,” Giuliani said after the Florida results were known. Even beyond his unwillingness to launch negative ads, in fact, Giuliani declined to raise direct contrasts with his rivals on the campaign trail.

Of course, I do not know if this evaluation is accurate or not. If it is, however - those of us who bemoan the nastiness and brutality of some campaigns should realize: we get what we pay for. If we do not reward candidates who attempt to run above board, based-on-the-issues campaigns, then we will not see more of them in the future.

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Are you a liberal who foams at the mouth about the immorality of big business?  Are you a conservative who rails about giving ten cents to government employees who will waste it or steal it?

Turns out you are all right!

Let’s face it.  People are people.  Some of us rise to the occasion magnificently.  Some of us are utter low lives.  Most of us are in the middle; we basically live a decent life, but have our moments of acting poorly.

No matter where each of us falls, however, the bottom line is that government and the private sector has its share of bad apples.

The study, released yesterday by the nonprofit Ethics Resource Center, found that nearly 60 percent of government employees at all levels — federal, state and local — had witnessed violations of ethical standards, policy or laws in their workplaces within the last year.

Observed misconduct was lowest at the federal level, with 52 percent of federal workers surveyed saying they had witnessed problems such as conflicts of interest, abusive behavior, alterations of documents and financial records and lying to employees, vendors or the public within the last year. . . .

The sooner we all recognize this simple fact, the more rapidly we can get to