Sean Penn gave me a college memory earlier this week: He was down in Argentina, pronouncing on “the Malvinas.” That’s what the Argentines call the Falkland Islands. And that’s what the people around me in college called them too.
Why would the Left have sided with a junta (Argentina) over a liberal democracy (Britain)? Well, mainly because they viewed the conflict as a brown-white thing. (Of course, many Argentines would die to think of themselves as brown.)
Sean Penn said, “The world today is not going to tolerate any ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology.” Would that include self-determination for people?
(For an article on Penn and the Falklands, go here.)
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I was not surprised at the news that Oliver Stone’s son had converted to Islam, while in Iran. Similarly, I would not have been surprised at news that Oliver Stone’s son had become a conservative evangelical Christian. Maybe you know what I mean.
Incidentally, Sean Stone converted in the city of Isfahan. Do you know the song by Fauré, “Les Roses d’Ispahan”? Beautiful thing, found here, for example.
Into my inbox yesterday landed an e-mail from National Review. It said, “Please find a special message from one of our advertisers, Santorum for President. Please note that the following message reflects the opinions and representations of our advertiser alone . . .”
Okay. The ad was a letter from Santorum himself. It began, “Dear Patriot.” “Dear Patriot”! And how do his rivals address their letters? “Dear Traitor”?
The letter continued, “This past Tuesday night, we did it again! We shocked the moderate establishment and pulled off what the media elites said was impossible . . .”
Yeah, that moderate establishment. Who would they be? People who endorsed Arlen Specter for president?
Regular readers know that I write a lot about laogai, the Chinese gulag, and the crimes therein. I also write about the extreme delicacy with which Free World governments treat the Communists in Beijing. Extreme delicacy is something different from diplomacy.
A PRC big named Xi Jinping is coming to tour America. Apparently, he will be the next No. 1. All I ask is that our governing officials do what Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, said we should do. He said (and I paraphrase), “When going about your engagement, pause every once in a while to ask yourselves, ‘How will it look to the boys in the camps?’”
This is an old story: When an important guest or guests are coming to town, a dictatorship clears out the rabble, making things look as nice, normal, prosperous, and harmless as possible. As I wrote about at length, the Chinese Communists did this before the 2008 Olympics. The dissenting, the sick, the poor, the unsightly — all banished.
There is a word for this, kind of a clunky one: Potemkinization.
The Cuban Communists are going about this now, in preparation for a visit by the pope. Read about it here. I don’t know about the visitors to the Beijing Olympics, but this pope strikes me as someone not easily fooled.
For years, I said, “When will the ‘international community’ get serious about genocide in Darfur? When there are too few Darfurians left, really, to matter.” I’m afraid I have the same bitter feeling about Syria.
A thousand here, a thousand there — ho-hum.
Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, made a statement in response to recent events: “The Iranians and Hezbollah are determined to disrupt Israeli life and to act against Israelis all over the world. They want to strike at Israelis, and we must act against this terror front and continue to brace for other challenges we face.”
We must act against this terror front and continue to brace for other challenges we face. Israelis have been able to say this — have had to say it — ever since 1948.
Bear with me while I walk down Memory Lane, because the walk will be relevant to today. Some years ago, I witnessed Vladimir Putin and Michael Dell (the computer magnate) on a stage at Davos. Dell asked Putin what the world at large could do to help Russians, especially students, get online.
Putin responded (I paraphrase), “We don’t need any help. We are a strong country. Invalids need help, children need help, developing countries need help. Our computer experts are as good as anybody . . .”
I happened to be sitting near some Russian journalists. They whooped with delight.
National pride is a very, very powerful thing. Now, as you may know, Americans have been adopting Russian children by the tens of thousands — just as we adopt from China and from Third World countries.
Did you see this news item? “Russia’s Foreign Ministry is asking the government to suspend adoptions of Russian children by U.S. nationals following an ‘incessant string of crimes’ allegedly committed by American adoptive parents.”
Uh-huh. This smells to me like wounded pride, rather than genuine concern at American pervs. Pride plays an outsize role in human affairs.
Myself an adoptive father, I don't find the possibility of 17 violent deaths among 50,000 adoptees to be surprising or disheartening. Child mortality from violence is about 20 per 100k population PER YEAR, thus 17 violent deaths could well be expected among the population of Russian adoptees in just a couple of years.
"....this Pope strikes me as someone not easily fooled" you say.
Well then why is he planning to meet with the Castros and not with the Ladies in White or other dissidents?
If that is his plan then I wish the Pope would publicly cancel his trip to Cuba instead.
Santorum was doing the "moderate" establishment a kindness, what he meant was "Big government progressive, spend the begeezus out of money" establishment. The same one's who thought Mr. Romneycare would have the anti-Obamacare crowd standing in long lines to vote for.
The same ones who are so quiet on Fast & Furious. The same ones who don't accuse the Dems of trying to aid & abet voter fraud with their opposition to photo ID. The same ones who don't attack the phony unemployment numbers. The same ones who aren't pounding the difference between availability of contraception and other people paying for your contraception.
The same ones who want to lose. I'm assuming they didn't get to where they are by being colossally stupid.
Jay,
"Pride plays an outsize role in human affairs" is quite an understatement.
Man's arrogance (outsized pride, one might say), has the interesting ability to believe it can do anything, is responsible for everything that happens, and must, because of the first assumption, fix anything bad that happens. Hence, we have an autobahn to Hades.
So, yes, pride does play an outsize role in human affairs, but unfortunately, it doesn't stop with only human affairs.
OK so the Falklands have been British territory since before Argentina was even a country. The island was an unpopulated grassy rock until the Brits populated it. The population is 100% British who wish to remain so. The Argentinean government which has impoverished its citizenry via its corruptocratic socialistic economy is employing the age old ruse of shifting public opinion from failed domestic policies to make believe foreign enemies. No sure this will work in Argentina, but it always wins support from the Commywood crowd.
Sean Penn and his idiotic liberal ilk infuriate me so! I shouldn’t let their child like ramblings upset me but the influence they hold over our impressionable youth is such that I want nothing more than to silence these clowns. Alas that would just make the left all the happier, ‘conservatives just want to censor free minds, blah blah blah…’
Sean Penn has an elementary school level education which has been further corrupted by his communist father. He knows not history, international law, sea conventions or even common sense. Just his puerile world view of white and rich = colonialism which is bad and all else is good. All else has suffered at the hands of the white rich colonialists.
Do these idiots ever stop for a moment to consider that ‘colonialism’ has been the way of the world since before recorded history? If Western culture didn’t win then western culture would have been colonized by Islam or others. Because the West won he is free to make movies, profit off them, spew ignorant nonsense free from harm. He’s free to hate his country and preach communist babble that if adhered to would only enslave those he sees to help. God help us all if anyone or idea Sean Penn supports is successful.
Rob L, great comment. I wonder if Sean Penn realizes that he's white and rich.
Is it my imagination, or does Sean Penn look suspiciously like the painting of the sleazy guy on the cover of my Dad's Jethro Tull album that had the song Aqualung on it?
Maybe my memory's going. That was a long time ago.
"Yeah, that moderate establishment. Who would they be? People who endorsed Arlen Specter for president?"
Priceless!
On Sean Penn, what is it about actors/actresses that make them this way? Is it that they know how little substance there is in their lives and they have to preach to the rest of us? If he wants meaning, go to church and work at a homeless shelter.
As far as "Harry Potter" goes, wanting recognition for "the hours put in"? Dude, check out your bank statement! You're 23 and have more money than 95+% of the people in the world will make in their entire lives. You just want a nomination? If you don't think the film (s) are worthy of WINNING, then they shouldn't be nominated! I have enjoyed the films that I have seen. Be grateful for the gifts you have been granted (don't worry, I probably wasn't all that grateful either when I was 23!).
Bulldog82, well put. What amazes me in the Hollywood elite set is that they make their living pretending to be someone they aren't, get paid ridiculously high wages for it, and assume that acting like someone intelligent or interesting makes them intelligent and interesting enough to venture an opinion on subjects they know nothing about. It's fun to watch good acting, but I hold real firemen, real policemen and women, real troops etc.. in higher esteem than someone who's just pretending.
Just to be disagreeable, there's a crumpled piece of paper in my garbage can mind that says there's a clump of Welshmen in Argentina. Which is interesting considering the start of your piece. I've heard "Irish diaspora" used in conversation, but maybe "Celtic diaspora" is more accurate--though Bretons aren't widely known for their mobility.
While we're waiting for Rhys Lwellyn Jones of Lincoln, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina to write in with "Yo soy, Senor Nordlinger, sin lugar a dudas!" I want to thank you for hipping me to the existence of Helen Rittelmeyer's blog. It brings me joy to read her. And if anyone could have set you straight on your preposterous ideas on the Global Distribution of the Welsh, it would have been her I'm certain.
On the one hand, corporations are just people, per Romney and the Supreme Court. Just a collection of people working together to do whatever it is they are doing. But when it comes to "giving back to the community" they are some abstract entity. Which is it? If a corporation has the right to free speech, doesn't it also have the civic responsibility to exhibit the other human virtues? This has also come up with Apple's actions towards its Chinese outsourcers? Should they only act to make the most money as possible for their shareholders or are they people who are concerned how they make such profits? Conservatives need to come up with a coherent view of what a corporation is, what its rights are and what its responsibilities are.
A little surprised to see Sean Penn in Argentina. The last time he was out in public, he was defending the old regime in Iraq. Does he consider the Iraq project finished? What is his view on the mass graves, the prisons, the poverty? Does he have any plans to help the victims of the old regime in Iraq? Any plans for a memorial at Saddam's grave?
One of the sillinesses about the Falklands/Malvinas issue is that of it being a brown vs. white issue.
Argentina is far more European in ancestry than the USA. All "racial minorities" together total less than 14%, with the rest, >86%, descended from Europeans.
European ancestry in the USA, OTOH, is somewhere only around 65% at this point in time, though the issue is greatly complicated by idiocies required by the Hispanic/Latino issue.
I was not surprised at the 
