You may have been wondering: “Where are Chinese men going to get wives, what with female infanticide leaving such an imbalance between men and women?” One answer, as this article tells us, is Burma: Burmese girls are sold into slavery, or “marriage,” or whatever you wish to call how they end up.
Bear in mind that the U.S. vice president recently extolled the one-child policy on his visit to China. The White House’s backtracking cannot really efface that.
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So, I’m reading an article from the Associated Press, headed “Theology a hot issue in 2012 GOP campaign.” And I’m thinking, “No, it isn’t, not really. It’s a hot issue among the liberal media.”
Is that too fringy for you? Or just true?
In the current National Review, I have a piece on Saif Qaddafi, one of the dictator’s bad, bad sons. (Saif is complicatedly bad, however.) The funny thing is, Saif was one of the most interesting and incisive commentators on the recent war. (Is it over?)
For instance, here he is on the subject of NATO’s desire to get things over with in a hurry: “They want to finish as soon as possible, because they are hungry, they are tired. For them, Libya is like fast food, like McDonald’s. Because everything should be fast: fast war, fast airplanes, fast bullets, fast victory. But we are very patient . . .”
In the end, NATO was patient enough too, or so it seems.
You may enjoy reading more about this fellow, Saif — a piece of work, at a minimum (and now wanted at The Hague for crimes against humanity). (Saif called the ICC “a Mickey Mouse court.” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong there.)
Did you catch this, in the rush of daily life? “NATO and Afghan forces have killed a former Guantanamo detainee who returned to Afghanistan to become a key al-Qaida ally . . .”
Ah. The article continues, “The militant’s death was a reminder of the risks of trying to end a controversial detention system without letting loose people who will launch attacks on Americans.”
You don’t say? I thought the boys at Guantanamo were all innocent victims of the stupid Texan and his Torquemada vice president.
In the summer of 2001, a minor miracle occurred: Harvard named a president who respected the U.S. military. He was Lawrence Summers. He has an article in the current New Republic, recalling how it was.
“While university presidents are routinely called upon to be on hand to cheer athletic triumphs and to lend their presence to student cultural performances, no Harvard president spoke at an ROTC commissioning ceremony from 1969 until 2002.”
And I had forgotten — or never knew — this repulsive fact: “Harvard refused to permit undergraduates doing their ROTC training at MIT to note their service in the Harvard yearbook.”
You have to wonder whether these SOBs really deserved the protection of the U.S. military.
Needless to say, NR praised Summers for his words and actions. Was he embarrassed by that? Not that I could tell. When I met him at a reception in Davos, he said, immediately, “Thank you for your support.”
Would Summers have stepped up on the military if not for 9/11? Don’t know. Don’t know that it matters all that much.
"You have to wonder whether these SOBs really deserved the protection of the U.S. military."
You may wonder, but I do not. Imagine the eventual consequences if we who raised our right hands and took the oath performed our duties with a caveat in mind of who "deserved" our protection. In fact, in twenty-one years in uniform, I actually took a perverse kind of pride in knowing that I Soldiered on in the defense of those knuckleheads who neither appreciated nor even comprehended our mission and commitment.
Remeber that lady in the harbor? The one with the torch? She keeps holding that torch up, even for the ones who never bother to look up at the light.
"I thought the boys at Guantanamo were all innocent victims of the stupid Texan and his Torquemada vice president."
Ahh Jay, Jay, you just don't get it. You see, the detainees truly were innocent victims until those mean American right-wingers turned them into raving jihadis by wrongly imprisoning them in Gitmo. It's all out fault. Now for penance, write "Gitmo creates jihadis" 500 times.
Taiwan, with a culture in many ways similar to China's, has been importing brides for years. It seems to have something to do with prosperity, highly educated financially secure women, loosening attitudes toward sex, and a culture in which women getting married traditionally. China seems to be moving in the same direction.
A magazine rack in Taiwan - note all the Vietnamese women's magazines: External Link
In recent years Taiwan has also been importing a lot of brides from China. A few years ago about 1 in 4 new marriages in Taiwan involved a foreigner.
A few of the marriages are forced, but most seem to be economic arrangements that the woman enters into willingly. There are problems but there are marriages that work. NGOs/support networks have sprouted up to help the women deal with the cultural and language issues.
Arranged marriages have been around and successful for centuries. I know a guy in a very successful marriage arranged by the Moonies. American romantic marriages have very high divorce rates. I think successful marriage depends more on the attitude toward marriage than on romantic feelings between the couple. You need to find the person attractive of course, and you need to respect the person. Beyond that, the question is whether you are adult enough to solve problems in a mature way, and do care enough about marriage to stick it out even when you don't want to.
The "forced" aspect in the article Mr. Nordlinger links to is horrific, but in general finding foreign wives does not lead to bad marriage. The biggest defect I see with finding a wife in a poorer country is that is moves the problem rather than solving it. Now Burma, Vietnam, etc. are likely to face their own problems with young men unable to find wives.
As long as it's the correct diversity. Celebrate the wrong diversity and you're crushed. That phrase always makes me think of Orwell ... "Diversity is conformity".
Jack Sock is a good tennis name, but Will Power - who just won the innaugural Indy Car road race in Baltimore - is even more aptly named.
As for John Cleese - say what you will about the Pythons' sense of humor but they are thoughtful, relatively brilliant men with Oxford and Cambridge roots, and at least a couple of them did some respectable historical scholarship. They may be absurdists but they are not absurd people.
Jay says, "So, I’m reading an article from the Associated Press, headed 'Theology a hot issue in 2012 GOP campaign.' And I’m thinking, 'No, it isn’t, not really. It’s a hot issue among the liberal media.'
"Is that too fringy for you? Or just true?"
The liberal media can knock themselves out trying to make GOP candidates look like "theocrats" or some such thing. But the lovely fact is that all the plausible GOP candidates and most of the implausible ones really are people who take their faith very seriously. (And the funny fact is that the most ecumenical-seeming sort of guy among the plausible candidates is the Mormon.) There is an excellent chance that our nominee will be a person who is an out and proud evangelical Christian with no apologies, and, given Obama's plummeting popularity, there is an excellent chance that our nominee will win. Meanwhile, as the media try to slime our candidates with their "concerns" about religion, the media just make our candidates' comfort with their religious convictions appear more and more mainstream.
It's always risky to interpret someone else's words but what I think Mr Cleese was saying is that the kind of diversity that enhances English culture is beneficial, the kind that replaces English culture is not. Our own melting pot has been replaced by, first, a salad bowl (cultures together but distinct) and now more frequently by compartmental trays and plates (leaving us with a form of self-segregation where cultures are not even together).
If that is the price to be paid for diversity then it is too high. I miss the melting pot from earlier times even if it wasn't all it was "crocked" up to be (puns are SO difficult to resist). ;)
Jay, you write "Saif called the ICC 'a Mickey Mouse court.' That doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong there."
Yes, actually, it does. If we agree that the ICC is not legitimate, not a valid court (which has been and should continue to be our policy), then we can't claim it is valid for some bad guys but not others.
As an example of why we can't like the ICC some of the time, just this most recent “complaint” filed against President Bush, et.al., should be sufficient.
I always look forward to a Jay Nordlinger piece, but in this one he offended me. He writes of the racial violence at the Wisconsin State Fair, but he puts "racial violence" in quotes.
People were beaten, knocked off both motorized and pedal cycles and then beaten, and pulled out of cars for a beating based on race. This was not "racial violence." It was racial violence. NO QUOTES. It was not pretend violence, nor random violence. It was members of one race targeting members of other races for violent attack.
And as a white resident of Wisconsin, I'm glad SOMEONE is pressing this issue. Too bad it's the Klan, but better someone than no one. For if it's no one, whites who cannot afford to live far from blacks will avoid their black neighbors, think the worst of them always, and arm themselves. One of the rules of life my father taught me was to be very careful around someone who is scared and armed.
Of course it seems so obvious, but I have to say it. Imagine if the races were reversed.
Why is a diverse city more worth celebrating than a homogenous one? Why would either condition be more worthy of celebration than the earth's rotation or photosynthesis?
I imagine that Tokyo is not the most diverse city in the world, but when is the last time you read about riots and arson there?
And wouldn't the lack of such things be worthy of a bit of celebration? At least moreso than whether or not the shopowner I buy a big can of Fosters from hails from Pakistan?
John Cleese made some perfectly sensible observations; but he's the wrong guy to be making them. Cleese was the ultimate rabble rouser on Python: ridiculing, making scathing criticisms for decades about the English establishment and in particular the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, any church. The message was loud and clear -- English culture was corrupt, there was NOTHING special about it. Christianity was for MORONS; Christian culture was stupid. But Cleese didn't realize the consequences that would follow when the liberal bureaucrats in government agreed with him. They allowed the Muslim, African & Asian hordes to immigrate by the millions into England because: All Cultures are Equal! Diversity Good! Don't look at that Muslim man at the airport counter! Nothing to See There! (Tories/Republicans/Sara Palin, evil!)
And now, in his 70s, he doesn't like what London has become, mystified why there aren't any "English" in London anymore. In an interview readily available on-line, Cleese called Sara Palin an idiot, someone who didn't even understand the words she was saying (a "parrot" is what he called her). But it's Cleese who never understood the consequences of his words. And he got what he seemingly wanted, the destruction of Christian culture in the heart of England. It's what he asked for, begged for, for decades. And so it's pathetic that he's now complaining, however "sensible" his observations may be.
"For years and years, David Pryce-Jones and John O’Sullivan warned us of something: If the mainstream parties in Britain, particularly the Tories, did not address pressing issues, such as immigration and Islam, they would leave the field to fascists — and that would be a terrible and dangerous development. "
The English Defence League is expressly not fascist. This lazy or PC libel unbecoming in a "conservative" publication.
The British National Party, which is fascist, may well capitalize on the treason now affirmed and continued the Wet Tory regime. There is, however an alternative, the UK Independence Party. UKIP is not fascist.
So, I’m reading an 
