Crucifixion seems... I dunno (words fail) uh... inappropriate? troubling? From UPI:

Saudi executed and crucified

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabian authorities Friday beheaded and crucified a Saudi national convicted of killing and robbing his mother.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted an Interior Ministry statement that said the convict was executed and crucified in public in the southern province of Baha.

Friday's beheading brought to 34 the number of people executed this year in Saudi Arabia, mostly smugglers.

Earlier this month an Iraqi and three Pakistani drug smugglers were beheaded in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

Executions of people convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are conducted in public, in line with Shariah, the legal code of Islam, which is applied in the conservative Muslim kingdom.

Some 52 people, including expatriates, were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

From a reader:

I think it was Leo Roston who told it this way:

What's red and wet and hangs on a wall? A herring.

"A herring isn't red." It is if you paint it.

"A herring isn't wet." It is if the paint hasn't dried.

"A herring doesn't hang on a wall." I just threw that in to make it hard.

(Personally, I think having it whistle is funnier.)

From Richard in Lakewood, California:

"A dyslexic man walks into a bra..."

My Dad writes, "If Derb can publish his bicycle pump 'joke' in the Corner, with nothing to do with math, then I think you should display the Lithuanian Yiddish herring joke, one of the oldest I know, and for some reason I think it would appeal to a professor of mathematics, or at the least a professor of logic:

"What's green, hangs on a wall, and whistles?"

"I don't know."

"A herring."

"But a herring isn't green."

"So, you paint it green."

"But a herring doesn't hang on a wall."

"So, you hang it on a wall."

"But a herring doesn't whistle."

"So, it doesn't whistle."

The history of Estonia’s remarkable recovery from a half a century of Soviet rule has been one of the more inspiring stories in Eastern Europe over the last fifteen years. Sadly, Estonia’s (perfectly understandable) decision to join the EU has meant that it has had to abandon some of the free market principles that have served it so well.

Johan Norberg has more:

“Estonia, one of the world’s most liberal countries, which had abolished all its tariffs and completely deregulated agriculture, has since 1999 been forced to implement more than 10 000 EU tariffs.”

So much for progress.

Via North Sea Diaries

For the way it’s helping democracy in the Ukraine

For the way it’s helping relief efforts in the aftermath of the tsunami.

Many useless donations of food and clothing may pile up, and public health authorities may devote too much time right now to vaccination drives, overestimate the danger of diseases like malaria, and underestimate more desperate needs, such as counseling for those suffering from mental anguish, they say.

From a reader:

Funny posts this morning - summing up for me that humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

You posted a link to a fellow who says there is no humor to be found in Animal House, one of the funniest movies ever.

Then Derb wants us to find humor in math jokes.

While not everything is funny to everyone, the Corner always makes me smile!

Happy New Year!

John Podhoretz makes a good point about anti-Bush opportunism in the wake of the tsunami, but I think he's dreaming if the anti-Bush crowd can be shamed on this score. Recall how just days after 9/11 folks like Joe Conason, immediately concluded that the important lesson of 9/11 was that SDI didn't make sense and that one of the greatest threats to our republic was the "real story" about the diversion of Air Force One after the attack? Of course, Conason didn't care about the real story at all once it was clear that it didn't hurt Bush.

As for John's main target, the New York Times, these were the same editorialists who immediately made Matthew Shepherd's death about the lack of a hate crimes bill in Washington. The political utility of tragedy is built into our political culture and I don't think it can be removed, particularly given the media climate we live in today

From a reader, without comment:

Jonah,

I took the Merriam Webster dictionary definition of "p$nis envy" and substituted every mention of it with "blog" and have come up with a suitable definition of blog envy. I think this applies to the folks at MS"DNC" and their "hardblogger" (Which, as Chandler from Friends would say, presents ... too ... many...jokes...)

Main Entry: Blog envy
Function: noun
: the supposed coveting of the blog by a human which is held in Freudian psychoanalytic theory to lead to feelings of inferiority and defensive or compensatory behavior.

And the Tolkien geeks thought they needed a hobby.

From a reader:

Jonah, I realize that the Corner has moved away from the discussion of
the origins of the phrase "The Constitution in Exile." However, I
believe that this phrase was first used by Douglas Ginsberg when
reviewing David Schoenbrod's book entitled "Power Without
Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People through Delegation."

The review appeared in Regulation Magazine in 1995. The link is below.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n1f.html

Best wishes for a Happy New Year.

I think Ed Kilgore's a smart guy and all that. But check out this site, by which I mean the design. The New Donkey: The Sharp Edge of the Vital Center. I don't normally think of centers having sharp edges, but I guess that's ok. But look at that donkey. It looks like the donkey version of Colossus from the X-Men, all covered in steal and crazy-angry serious. It's as if they want Republicans to say: Ooooo watch out for that Donkey! Better not mess with that donkey! That, my friends, is one tough donkey.

I was telling a buddy of mine the other day that a week or so into this people would start noticing the shellacking God has delivered to the Muslim world recently. Two Christmases in a row (the day after actually) we've had terrible earthquakes. Now, the email is starting. Some folks mention the locusts in allegedly Muslim Africa (I haven't fact-checked that), others the earthquakes in Turkey not too long ago. This all leaves out earthquakes and badness in non-Muslim areas in recent years, including four hurricanes in Florida in one year (in a Bush state!). Worse, I think it's a terrible talking point to get started when the web transmits this stuff so quickly. It also invites really, really, really bad karma.

I got a call from my buddy Scott who watched the ABC Evening News tonight. He says that "bloggers" were the "person of the year" or some such. The odd thing: No mention of the Dan Rather incident. Joe Trippi did mention how the bloggers took down Trent Lott which, duh, was not during 2004. And, of course, they included Howard Dean whose "internet revolution" was a complete fizzle, except for the fundraising. But as for the actual blogger story of the year and the bloggers involved (Powerline, Kerry Spot, et al.) nada.

I assume this is the transcript. (I can't play the video). But I'll check it out further in the AM.

From a reader:

First, I can't believe you linked to that silliness. Second, a brief perusal reveals other equally moronic pages, like the following about her voting experience:

"It is tragic that people who are incarcerated are unable to vote. They are probably the most important voices to listen to because they can tell us what we need to change. Yet they are arbitrarily silenced, as if forfeiting their right to vote punishes them. In truth, it punishes the rest of us because it turns the right into a privilege. Whenever privilege is introduced, there are problems. We cannot afford any more problems. "

I just can't even imagine what this means.

Over the critical period of the next several months, the U.S. should provide at least as much money to rebuilding southern Asia as it does to maintain the occupation of Iraq – a figure Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last year put at roughly $3.9 billion a month but that is, in reality, much higher. Committing as much to aiding southern Asia as is now being spent to occupy Iraq would signal that the U.S. wants to rejoin the world community.

While economic losses from the catastrophe are expected to exceed $13 billion, global insurers estimate their losses will be "in the low single-digit billions," says Matthew Josefowicz, manager for Celent Communications, a financial consulting group. By comparison, last fall's Florida hurricanes triggered 2.2 million claims and cost the industry more than $20 billion.

On the list of Things I Never Thought I'd Say this has to rank way, way up there: Margaret Cho should stick to comedy.

In a long, long, long post on her womanly issues, she manages to skid rapidly into self-parody and then lap the track several times.

Let us never speak of this again.

Wow:

SEATTLE (AP) — Some of the 300 passengers stuck on an international flight that was delayed 18 hours by fog, regulations and mechanical glitches said the passengers were almost ready to riot as the wait dragged on.

Food and water ran short, and the toilets stopped working before Northwest Airlines Flight 33 finally reached Seattle early Wednesday, 28 hours after leaving Amsterdam.
One man with an infant punched a wall, then ran up an aisle and "charged the cockpit with his baby," passenger Barry Wallis said in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today."
"At one point it seemed like we would have a riot towards the end," Wallis said.
The ordeal began when heavy fog had prevented the plane from landing in Seattle as scheduled Tuesday afternoon, forcing the pilot to circle the airport until fuel ran low. The plane was then diverted to Moses Lake, Wash., where it sat on a runway for hours while a fresh crew traveled from Minnesota. The airline regulates how many consecutive hours crew members may work....

From another reader:

Orodruin is actually mountain of fire, the translation of "mount doom" into elven is Amon Amarth,

I SERIOUSLY need a hobby

From another reader:

Jonah, your correspondent should forgo hobbies and head back to Tolkien Geek School. The "great river" is not the Brandywine/Baranduin, which is a glorified stream on the eastern border of the Shire, but the Anduin River well to the east, flowing from the Grey Mountains to the Sea.

1. Andrew Stuttaford
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 14 out of 17. 82.35%

2. Jonah Goldberg
Serious predictions (1-6, 9, 12 & 13) 6 out of 9. 66.67%
Humor/For sake of joke predictions (I hope that's what they were; 7, 8, 10, 11,14). 0 of 5. 0%

3. Kate O'Beirne
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 4 out of 8. 50%

4. Michael Graham
Serious predictions (1-5, 9, 14, 18, 19, 21) 4.5 out of 10. 45%
Humor/For sake of joke predictions (I hope that's what they were; 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 20). .5 of 11. 4.55%

5. Rick Brookhiser
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 3.83 out of 10. 38.33%

6. Kathryn Jean Lopez
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 1 out of 4. 25%

7. Hugh Hewitt
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 4 out of 18. 22.22%

8. Peter Robinson
Serious predictions (All of them, really) 0 out of 2. 0%

9. Clifford D. May
Warned "Some exceedingly unlikely predictions for 2004" and true enough, none of them happened. 0 for a slew. 0%

WASHINGTON Dec 30, 2004 — Sen. Joe Lieberman, traveling in the Middle East Wednesday, said there is strong support in Iraq for the Jan. 30 election, and postponing it would only be a victory for the insurgents.

In a telephone call from Tel Aviv, Israel, the Connecticut Democrat said conditions in Iraq, including an increase in trained Iraqi security forces, have improved since his last visit in July. And he said the escalating violence aimed at intimidating Iraqis to postpone the election or not vote is not working in most of the country.

The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of these Sabeans, i.e., the Shi'a. Despite their weakness, the Sunnis are strong-willed and honest and different from the coward and deceitful Shi'a, who only attack the weak.

From a reader:

Jonah, Hardblogger at MSNBC is still not listing the Corner in their blogroll. This is disconcerting to say the least since the only reason one visits MSNBC is to see whether Keith Olbermann has photos of a Yeti or if he has an affidavit from someone claiming to show that the election of Atarxerxes was fraudulent because Persian voters in Isfahan had to wait in long lines in the sun.

I think what you just wrote on the Corner could apply to Corner traffic and NR subscriptions..."That said, I think the phenomenon of the web generating so much support so quickly could be hugely significant" since MSNBC, while a mouthpiece for the DNC, still generates millions upon millions of hits.

Therefore, I am at a loss to explain why it is not there, or why we have been unable to get it there. However, I posit one question for all NRO'ers...Is there such a thing as "blog envy?" And if not, I think we should define it.

From a reader:

Jonah, Hardblogger at MSNBC is still not listing the Corner in their blogroll. This is disconcerting to say the least since the only reason one visits MSNBC is to see whether Keith Olbermann has photos of a Yeti or if he has an affidavit from someone claiming to show that the election of Atarxerxes was fraudulent because Persian voters in Isfahan had to wait in long lines in the sun.

I think what you just wrote on the Corner could apply to Corner traffic and NR subscriptions..."That said, I think the phenomenon of the web generating so much support so quickly could be hugely significant" since MSNBC, while a mouthpiece for the DNC, still generates millions upon millions of hits.

Therefore, I am at a loss to explain why it is not there, or why we have been unable to get it there. However, I posit one question for all NRO'ers...Is there such a thing as "blog envy?" And if not, I think we should define it.

From a reader:

Mount Doom is merely the translation of Orodruin from elvish (Sindar) into Westron, the common tongue of the West in Middle Earth. A true geek would be happy with either, much like calling the Great River either The Brandywine or Baranduin. The commenter is just betraying Elf-centricism.

Gods, I need a hobby!

Happy New Year!

Derb, Doesn't it depend on a lot more variables? I'm generally sympathetic to your point, but it kind of does depend on what you mean by aid and the like. Efficiencies must be taken into account. Private citizens cannot send rescue ships and helicopters at a moment's notice. Plus there's the public relations factor. I do think, for example, that Bush should have said something earlier, even though it would have been on the substance a largely meaningless gesture. Similarly, while we may sometimes wish to think that the President is merely an administrator of one of our many governments, the President is also the voice of a people and a nation and other nations pay attention to what our government does. This may be a shortcoming in their attitudes and the way the press covers things, but it is also a fact of life.

That said, I think the phenomenon of the web generating so much support so quickly could be hugely significant.

Amusing video.

The biggest story of the year happened just as big-thinking journalists went on vacation after filing their "Ten Biggest Stories of 2004" pieces. Life has a way of surprising us.... The biggest story of 2004 has come, has not yet gone, and will be with us for some time. Two thousand five begins on Saturday. For the new year, two thoughts. Remember it can all be swept away in a moment, so hold it close and love it while you've got it. And may we begin 2005 pondering how much we have in common, how down-to-the-bone the same we are, and how the enemy is not the guy across the fence but the tragedy of life. We should try to make it better. We should cut to the chase.

From a frontpage story in the Washington Post about a guy in Sri Lanka who runs an orphanage:

Not only was water cascading over the lagoon side of the peninsula but it was pouring in directly from the mouth of the estuary about two miles away. Sanders feared the converging currents would swamp the small craft. At that point, Sanders said, he recalled a line from the Book of Isaiah: "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against it."

He raised his hand in the direction of the flood and shouted, "I command you in the name of Jesus -- stop!" The water then seemed to "stall, momentarily," he said. "I thought at the time I was imagining things."

Secret European military intelligence reports indicate the transformation of the American humanitarian mission in Iraq into a profitable trade in the American markets through the practice of American physicians extracting human organs from the dead and wounded, before they are put to death, for sale to medical centers in America. A secret team of American physicians follow the troops during their attacks on Iraqi armed men to ensure quick [medical] operations for extracting some organs and transferring them to private operations rooms before they are transferred to America for sale.

"The reports have indicated that a number of those killed in 'Abu Ghraib' and other prisons were subjected to operations for extracting their organs. Following their mutilations, the bodies were discarded far from the prisons to conceal the facts. The reports revealed that that the American forces restricted the media by force to prevent them from getting near the scenes and recording the events. But the relatives of the Iraqis are aware of these facts. The reports have [also] indicated that the military forces of the European allies have noticed the absence of organs from the cadavers that were dealt with by the Americans and have reported to their high command, which instructed them to maintain silence and to avoid the discussion of the subject due to its gravity, while the military and intelligence high command have written secret reports about was observed by their forces and sent them to the European ministries of defense for their information.

Okay: John Hillen yesterday made the case that Lord of the Rings is a conservative book/movie. He then went so far as to say that he couldn't understand why liberals would even like LOTR. He then offered $100 to NRO if someone emailed him a persuasive case for what liberals would like about the movie. He also -- without consulting me -- declared I could be the judge.

I then posted something to the effect of "Damn you Hillen! Damn you to the fiery depths of Mount Doom!" This in turn elicited a response from at least one reader who found that this statement disqualified me as a judge because "true" Tolkien geeks call it Orodruin, not Mount Doom. Well just let that burn in the firery depths of a footnote.

Anyway, perhaps sensing my reluctance to be a judge from the whole "Damn you Hillen!" thing, he began posting more on the reader response himself. I think he summarizes all of the emails well enough and I see no reason to pick and choose between the different ones which pretty much all make the same point. What Hillen does with his money is his business. [You can scroll down to learn more about all of this]

But there is one answer I did get (Hillen forwarded me only some of the responses) which would have aroused great sympathy from me. In my mind, the #1 reason why liberals should like The Lord of the Rings is that it is a great damn book! (or movie). The rest is commentary.

The desire to strip out ideological points from works of non-political art vexes me. The Left, in my opinion, is much worse about this sort of thing than the Right. But the Right does this a lot too. Conservatives are supposed to believe that politics only describes a small slice of life. Much of the important stuff lives outside the realm of ideology. Woe-betide us all if bravery, courage, loyalty, decency, friendship, honor and sacrifice -- the true themes of LOTR -- become purely values, never mind virtues, of the Right, in our minds or in the Left's.

Here's a column on those who are determined to find racism and war propaganda in Lord of the Rings. I think it holds up pretty well and fleshes out these points a bit.

Ramesh- I guess I think it's a bit more than a terminological point but for reasons different from the legal substance of the issue. Personally, if someone asked me "Are you sympathetic to the idea that the pre-New Deal Constitution -- 'the Constitituion in Exile' -- should be restored?" I would answer, "Sounds pretty good to me." I would then ask some questions about how you do that exactly and how you keep certain rulings on the books.

But the fact, it seems to me, is that this phrase, if not the movememt, has been invented by liberals for the purpose of preemptively attacking it. In other words they create a simplistic doctrine, ascribe it to their opponents, and then whenever their opponents say anything unpalatable to liberals, liberals say "Aha! You want to turn back the clock!"

And turning back the clock really is the proper translation for the whole "constitution in exile" gimmick. What bothers me is that the media is such a willing transmission belt for these games.

A later version of the same story http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/29/tsunami.diver/index.html included a response from the embassy. They say on that day they had technical problems making photos and were saving the equipment only for those in desperate need while those who were able to pay for photos were asked to get them elsewhere. Does not sound totally unreasonable to me, especially considering that they must have also been very busy issuing a huge number of new passports, and they could not outsource THAT to some local street vendor (at least I hope they did not).

Ramesh - I meant to ask you about this very thing a couple weeks ago. I've only ever heard/seen this phrase from liberals like Rosen and Sunstein. I've known a lot of Federalist Society types over the last decade, and I'd never heard the phrase from them. I searched lexis-nexis for "constitution in exile" and only 27 hits came back. Only one of them was from a conservative publication -- NRO in fact -- in a piece by Mark Levin. But Mark was merely quoting Sen. Dick Durbin verbatim in his questioning of Viet Dinh. The exchange is telling:

SEN. DURBIN: And you are not familiar - or are you familiar, rather, with the term, "the court in exile - the Constitution in exile?"

MR. DINH: No, sir, I am not.

SEN. DURBIN: Okay.

If Viet Dinh can say under oath that he is not familiar with the phrase then it must be a myth that conservatives bandy it around. And if you and the Volokh guys don't claim it, who's left to claim it?

I don't know why I forgot to ask you about it. But I really do think it's a journalist device created by liberals. Linda Greenhouse seems convinced that conservatives use it all the time, but I see no evidence of it.

Now, for the record, I do think it would be nice to call the Constitution home, but that's another issue. More sleuthing required.

As for the Millman-Menashi idea: That award would be a good one for Sullivan to institute. But it should probably be named for someone other than me. Millman suggested it on the strength of my opposition to changing the Senate rules to end the possibility of filibusters against judicial nominees. But this was not a position adopted against partisan interest: Part of my argument was that leaving the rules alone would leave conservatives in a stronger position in the judicial wars. Nor does this position isolate me from my co-ideologues: It is the position taken by George Will and the editors of NR. I'm not exactly lonely. So name it after someone else.

On the other hand, writing this post is pretty clearly contrary to my personal interest in getting an award for pundit high-mindedness named after me. So maybe I can qualify after all?

I'm sure that political reality did more than I did to persuade the administration to drop the idea of comprehensive tax reform in favor of incremental policies such as exempting investment from multiple layers of taxation. Karl Rove knows perfectly well that expanding 401(k)s and IRAs got more than 400 votes in the House in 2001--and I suspect that he also knows that the tax break for employer-provided health insurance is not going to be abolished. (The administration's backing off, I suspect, has not yet stopped.)

As for Salam's own tax ideas: I think he is right to want a pro-family tax policy (or at least one that is less anti-family than the current one); I think he is wrong to join John Mueller in setting up investments in families and investments in stocks as each other's principal rivals. We should cut taxes on both kinds of investments. There are plenty of other taxes that could be raised to compensate. Even better, there is plenty of spending that could be cut.

Not to prejudice Jonah’s judging, but here are my thoughts on what has come into my mail box:

Lots of good tries coming in about why a liberal would really groove on Lord of the Rings:

- It’s anti-industrialization, anti-technology, pro- environmental themes (my take, I’ll buy it in part – but sort of side issue. If you’re really a first-rate GreenPeace’r then how do you get past all the other stuff (especially the violence) for a chapter or two of marauding Ents?) Lots of people made this argument (most cogently from Jonah’s ass-kicking guy) but to really believe it you’ve got to accept LOTR as an environmental manifesto and tract on the level of Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring.’ And it is definitely not that. I hear you, but for this book to become a cult classic for Hippies and yet not be listed on Friends of the Earth website or anywhere else in the green world sort of belies the enviro theme as driving liberal acceptance of LOTR. So there is a connection there – but too faint to justify liberal obsession (and hijacking in a way) with LOTR for so many years. My own sense is that Tolkein is green in that English yeoman sort of way – hunting, shooting, walking, etc.)

- It’s anti-power theme (i.e. the Ring). (my take – I guess in theory, but then how do you explain the modern liberal’s yen for collectivism and the all-powerful state?)

- Lot’s of weed smoking. (my take – creative and funny, but nobody actually gets high or acts high in the book. I’m a cigar smoker so I could relate to the smoking too. Lots of beer drinking too….ahem…Jonah)

- Liberals could compare all the nasty things to Amerika (my take - probably true – but I’m not buying it. I just don’t see how you can see Aragorn as a hippy – Even though Viggo Morgenstern tried his hardest to make the case. Thankfully his feebleness as an intellectual is inversely proportional to his talent in this role in the movie version).

- Anti-corporate. (my take - variation on a theme above and from a guy who saw Michael Moore in line in NYC to see the movie! Now that is research. And, he’s probably right. Perhaps for MM it’s Roger and me all over. Except in this version, I’m skinny, brave, and good with a sword).

- Revolutionary – a small group changing the world. (my take – good one. Except it’s us conservatives that are the minority revolutionaries. I guess that doesn’t stop a liberal from thinking he’s perpetually up against the Man).

- Pacifist. (my take – don’t confuse pacifism with reluctance. Pacifists refuse to fight. Many warriors kill with reluctance. BIGGGG difference. Everybody draws blood in this movie, Frodo least of all but he’s still sticking when needed)

- Paganism. (my take – see Jonah and Rod’s archived thoughts on Tolkien as a conservative catholic)

Finally, while Jonah is the judge, the response that most motivates me to donate $100 to NRO because it hit on the most cylinders – reprinted in entirety from Matt:

Reasons liberals like LOTR:

1.) No Christians, or mention of any God at all. The paganism of the elves
is probably appealing to them, as well (I am making the assumption that
there aren't many conservative Wiccan's out there, but whatever).
2.) They could choose to view it as an allegory on nuclear weapons. The
ring (the bomb) is sought after by one evil power (the United States), with
the only resolution being the destruction of the ring, to save the world
(disarm).
3.) It is referenced in a Zepplin song that many many many liberals got high
to in the 70's.
4.) Look, liberals play the pacifist, we hate violence game well. They talk
about how much they hate war, and killing, and so forth. But they're liars.
They're human, just like the rest of us, and LOTR (and other fantasy worlds)
allows them to vicariously experience the violence that they need so badly,
but can't ever express in public. It also allows them to disassociate
violence and humans, because who cares if orcs die?
5.) Viewing the book as a metaphor for the Vietnam war. Once again, the
evil (United States) monsters invade the unblemished paradise, and are
beaten back by wily underdogs through "jungle tactics".

See, you're thinking that liberals see themselves as we see them. They
don't They see themselves as the courageous, adventurous heroes, fighting
against the forces of darkness against overwhelming odds, but coming through
somehow in the end.

Several emailers have echoed John Miller's point about Tolkien's luddism. But let me offer a contrary view. Yes, of course, Tolkien liked the pre-industrial age (as I noted in my own piece about LOTR (scroll down)). But if we are going to stick to the Lord of the Rings, rather than Tolkien's personal policy preferences, I'm not sure the left can make peace with the book on this score. As I understand it the destruction of the Shire was in no small part a metaphor for Tolkien's sober understanding that change cannot be stopped and that, while lchange might be regretted, longing for a past frozen in amber is no excuse for doing nothing when action is required. Indeed, the whole point of the Hobbits departing from the shire is to show that these metaphorical British babbits cannot hide from the world. In the film they cut out the scouring of the Shire, but Peter Jackson did make it clear that at least in his internal life, Frodo could never be made like he was. Too much had happened. Similarly, all of the anguish about whether or not Theoden should come to the aid of Gondor is a play on the same theme.

Meanwhile, today's leftwing luddites are real luddites who believe you can turn back the clock. This gap between what you want in your heart and what intellect and duty demand of you is faced squarely by Tolkien while it is glossed over and denied in Romantic fashion by so many on the luddite left (and a few on the right).

Apparently several other Japanese readers take violent exception to the earlier post from the Japanese "expert." I wouldn't be posting insulting emails, but apparently no students of Japanese are capable of keeping things civil. Two of the cleaner emails:

#1 I lived in Kyoto for almost five years, much of it studying Japanese. I spent months just learning to use a Japanese dictionary. This bozo's interpretation of the characters for tsunami is utterly bogus, so laughably so that I think he is pulling your leg, Big Time. You should go with "harbor wave". Japanese Kanji characters usually have at least two readings, one from the original Chinese (borrowed by the Japanese over 1,000 years ago), and the other for the native Japanese word later "attached" to the Chinese character with the same meaning . Tsu is the Chinese reading of a character that means...harbor. The nami is.....the Japanese reading of the Chinese character for "wave". Written in modern Japanese, the readings Tsu (Chinese reading) and nami (native Japanese reading) are fused . Sounds confusing, but it happens. All that other stuff is just nonsense. 200 proof nonsense at that. I've got Kenkuysha's New Japanese-English dictionary here to back me up. [Name Withheld] p.s. : Kamikaze means "divine wind" or "heavenly wind" or the "wind of the gods".

and...

#2:

Mr. Goldberg,

Your non-Japanese-linguistic-academic correspondent has no idea what he's
talking about. The Japanese -- who, as mentioned in that Tsunami piece in
today's WSJ, have tsunami behavioral patterns ingrained into their own
genetic make-up -- call tsunamis tsunamis because the height of the wave
only becomes noticeable once it arrives in the harbor. When a ship is in the
ocean and a tsunami rolls by, the ship will rise a marginally noticeable
amount -- you might not even realize it at all. Only once this force of
water reaches the sudden rise of the continental shelf, announcing the
proximity of land, is the actual "wave" created. Think of how a ripple is
created when a streaming water on a sidewalk runs over some rocks...

Best,
[Name withheld]

"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
--J.B.S. Haldane

"Greek Tragedy is the tragedy of necessity; i.e., the feeling aroused in the spectator is ‘What a pity it had to be this way’; Christian tragedy is the tragedy of possibility, ‘What a pity it was this way when it might have been otherwise.’"
--W. H. Auden

Giving through Amazon passes the $2 mil mark.

Stingy? Feh.

The 1,700 foot wave in Alaska was from a landslide. The more famous earthquake one happened a few years later. From a reader:

The enormous 1958 Alaskan tsunami was caused by a landslide rather than by an earthquake. A landslide is the only thing that can cause a tsunami to be hundreds (or even more than a thousand) feet high. This is a very rare phenonenon. The Alaskan tsunami occurred in a remote bay, and was seen by only a few fishermen (some of whom miraculously survived). That's the scary thing about the volcano in the Canary Islands that has been mentioned in the Corner lately -- if the mountain collapsed into the ocean at once, it would produce a huge wall of water that could wipe out much of the East Coast of the United States. There is evidence that similar events have happened in prehistoric times.

Earthquakes are a much more common cause of tsunamis. The resulting water
surge may not be nearly as high as that caused by landslides, but as we saw
in the past week it can be very deadly. And this was one big mother
earthquake.

Amazing what one can learn from The Discovery Channel.

You might be interested in Catastrophe, by David Keys, a fascinating
account of the far-reaching effects of a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in
535 A.D., in present-day Indonesia.

From a reader:

Jonah,

First let me caveat the comments below with the statement that I am not a scholar of Japanese linguistics. I have some knowledge of the culture and of entymology that allow me to make the supposition below.

I have to disagree (with you and Merriam-Webster). The Japanese word tsu means steal. Nami does in fact mean wave and is one of four words that means wave. But tsunami does not mean harbor wave anymore than kamikaze means Divine Wind (the colloquial English translation). The word harbor is an English word introduced to Japan for which the Japanese equivalent is ha-ba (sort of like basuboru means baseball in Japanese). As near as I can find there is no actual Japanese word for harbor.

In researching (granted in a limited way as I don't have tons of Japanese resources at my fingertips) the word breakdown the word tsunami can be broken into the two words tsuna and mi. Tsuna means either tuna (probably a modernization, see basuboru) or rope, while one meaning of mi is sword and it is the most appropriate in context. A rope can be fluid when in motion, and a sword causes great destruction, hence this is, in my opinion and based on what I know of Japanese culture and general etymology, the more likely candidate for a sword that moves like a rope.

It's a shockwave, it's a shockwave. Someone tell the folks at the nightly news to be more clear about that!

My favorite explanation: If it was the same column of water, it wouldn't be a wave, it would be a current.

Anyway, here's the tsunami FAQ.

Here's a coloring book on Tommy tsunami.

And here's the National Weather Service's backgrounder.

Supposedly the biggest tsunami of the century -- in Valdez, Alaska (where I've been fishing with my father-in-law a couple times) -- was 1,700 feet tall! Apparently, right before they saw it, many residents stood there wondering, "Hey, where'd the ocean go?"

That's some scary stuff.

First of all, why do we have to call them tsunamis? Yes, I know tidal waves -- or tsunamis -- have nothing to do with the tides. But tsunami means "harbor wave" and last I checked a tsunami need not show up in a harbor to be a tsunami.

Second, I would like more clarity on this 500 MPH wave thing. I'm very reluctant to bring this up because A) I don't know a lot of physics and B) I don't want a deluge of email from people who do (I've learned the hard way that engineers and physicists are relentless emailers of technical information given the slightest provocation) and C) my wife has already called me a dork for thinking about this as much as I have. But am I crazy for thinking that the mainstream media has conflated two kinds of "waves" into one?

Here's my question: Does the actual, specific, ontologically exact column of water making up the tsunami-wave travel for the full thousand miles all the way to shore or does the shockwave do the travelling? Everytime I think about it I conclude it has to be the shock wave and not the actual water column.

By illustration: if I line up three (or, theoretically, three thousand) soccer balls so that they are touching in straight column and I kick one at one end into the next ball over, that kicked-ball will barely move. But the third soccer ball will go flying because the force transferred (think of those desktop space-wasters with the knocking balls suspended by string).

So isn't that what happens with the tsunami? The shock wave travels through the water, not the particular water molecules that were once 1,000 miles away right? I mean if the water immediately around the focal point of the quake had been died yellow would you be able to see a wall of yellow water moving through the blue ocean for hundreds of miles until it washed up on shore?

I know this might be hair-splitting but I'm genuinely curious. And if it's not a shock wave but the actual specific water molecules, then what happens to the water it moves through?

I will be monitoring email closely for a short amount of time. Please watch this space for a plea for no more emails on the subject, once I have my answer.

Update No more emails on point number 2 please. See post above.

Michael Kinsley's proof that privatization of Social Security is a certain failure is anything but logical. His argument rests on two false assumptions: that any increase in returns for people who buy stocks must come at the expense of bondholders and that diversified investment in stocks is riskier than investment in bonds in the long term.

The returns long-term stockholders earn are the result of real increases in value of the underlying share of a company's assets. If people who buy stocks earn higher returns, those returns reflect a more productive use of capital rather than winnings in a zero-sum game at the expense of bondholders. Transactions in the stock market enable the businesses which are best able to make productive use of funds to receive them from the investors best able to forgo current consumption in favor of future returns. While the issuing company only receives funds from the initial issuance of stock, subsequent sales and purchases by investors provide liquidity (making the initial stock offering less costly to the businesses) and ensure that businesses have use of adequate capital from the people best suited to provide it. Gains in the stock market come at the expense of other investors (in stocks or bonds) only in short-term arbitrage not relevant to the privatization of social security.

For long-term investors, stocks can actually be less risky than bonds. Even bonds with a negligible risk of default carry risk because during times of high inflation bondholders earn a less-than-market interest rate. Stocks are less subject to inflation risk because they represent shares of underlying assets and the revenue streams they generate. If inflation rises, the underlying assets retain their value in real terms, and their prices in dollar terms by and large follow the prices in the rest of the economy. Investment in a widely diversified portfolio of stocks sharply reduces the risk that any one business will fail and deprive retirees of their savings. A well-thought-out privatization plan could address individual stock risk and short-term market risk by requiring participants to invest in broadly based mutual funds rather than specific stocks and by mandating a shift from stocks to bonds as individuals approach retirement age.

To the Editor:

It's easy for George W. Bush to express sorrow and to send condolences and even some aid for the Indian Ocean tsunami devastation, since he appears to bear no culpability, as he does in other situations in other parts of the world.

But the next time there is a severe offshore earthquake and resulting tsunami, the sea level will be just a little bit higher, and the water and destruction will go a bit further inland and kill even more people. And for that, he will bear some culpability for not even wanting to consider global warming, much less do anything about it as the leader of the country most responsible for man-made warming and ice-cap melting.

Pierre E. Biscaye
Palisades, N.Y., Dec. 27, 2004
The writer is a special research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

From a reader:

your post on NRO said: "...conspiracy theorists, for example, tend to assume there are conspiracies everywhere precisely because if they were in power they would be hatching conspiracies themselves."

YES YES YES! This thought haunts me every time I hear the Dems make Bushitler accusations. What does it say about them? (Didn't Hillarycare remind you of the Italian run-on-time train system?)

This is component of human nature is observed by the Patriarch: "[the guilty] flee when none pursue" and the Bard: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." (Heady company, eh?)

Ever since I mentioned it, I've been getting about two emails an hour asking me where I got the factoid that Sumatra moved 100 feet in the quake. I got it from the LA Times. But it's been mentioned in a zillion outlets. Some people don't believe it. Some people point out it was really the tectonic plate that moved. Fine, fine, fine. I wasn't trying to fact check the whole thing. But if someone wants to debunk it, be my guest.

Or am I rightly surprised that I've yet to receive a single spam from someone pretending to be a victim of the tsunami who also is in a position to transfer "$100,000,000.00 millions dollars to my account if only I contact them most urgently?"

From a reader in response to today's syndicated column:

To say the United Nations is "an odius institution" is not obvious, it is completely ludicrous.

I can't believe people like you have some influence among the citizens. The United Nations has done a tremendous amount of good working through UNICEF and its various aid agencies.

If self-styled conservatives such as you acted in something other than an obstructionist and reactionary manner, and if they demonstrated more of what they claim to have, compassion, the world would be a much better place. Unfortunately, the true conservatives have receded, and now we only have your ilk.

You still apparently cling to the illusion that the United States will be able to act as it wishes for the long-term future. One thing I am certain of: There will come a time when we must work with other countries, like it or not, on terms that are not wholly acceptable to us. And when that time comes, all the chickens that have not yet come home to roost will arrive.

I think I posted this before. But just in case. I mean I'd hate for you to get some work done when you didn't have to.

John, Cliff -- I too waded into the Lord of the Rings and its conservatism. Indeed, this review , got me invited to do special commentary for the release of the Return of the King DVD. But those selfish, cruel bastards decided my wild, soul-pawning, sycophancy wasn't worth including in the final cut. Fortunately, I'm not at all bitter. Anyway, an excerpt:

Now, if you need to go get in line for the movie, you are excused. But I'd like to say a few more words about Tolkien.

Tolkien was one of the great unheralded conservatives of the 20th century. Oh don't worry, I'm not going to try to score ideological points by saying Tolkien opposed nationalized health care or anything like that (though it is hardly insignificant that one of Tolkien's dearest friends and closest colleagues was C. S. Lewis).

No, Tolkien's conservatism was deeper than even the deepest dwarf-mine in the hills of the White Mountains. Tolkien despised modernity and disliked technology. He made a concession to the existence of factories, but only because they collected all the machines in one place and kept them hidden from view in out-of-the-way buildings. A widely respected scholar of the English language who could debate in Greek and Latin and speak fluent Gothic, Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (he also worked on the "W" section — one of my favorite chapters, far better than the thin gruel to be found in the "L" section — of the Oxford English Dictionary).

A man after my own heart, Tolkien despised the French, but not for their brie-spined capitulation during World War II or any of the usual reasons (though he hated French food). According to his biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, the Norman invasion of England in 1066 "pained him almost as much as if it had happened in his own lifetime." In a very nice essay in a recent issue of The New Yorker, Anthony Lane points out that Tolkien's "view of English literature, incidentally, ended more or less where the current view begins; he rarely ventured later than Chaucer, and thought Shakespeare to be pernicious nonsense."

Now, that's a conservative!

I should also note that John Miller has written extensively on the subject as well. That's right, we're Rings geeks around here. Tell me, who's surprised?

Look, I'm fine with folks who want to make the case that Iraq is this, that or another thing. If you want to argue it's a disaster, argue it's a disaster. If you want to make the case it's going swimmingly, that's cool too.

But can we please just drop the Vietnam analogies? It was a jungle war. It was a proxy conflict in the Cold War. It was a war in a country with a wildly different culture. We had a different politics. We had a draft and draftee army. The Civil Rights movement was in full flower. The domestic Left was more powerful, more radicalized and more listened to. Al Jazeera did not exist. Our media was controlled by a monopoly symbolized by Walter Cronkite's "the war is unwinnable" statememt. We had different weapons in Vietnam. Nor did satellite television and 24 hour cable news. Islam wasn't an issue. We didn't occupy the whole country. Some of these factors could easily be argued against our presence in Iraq. That's not the point. The point is that Vietnam is different. Our experience there illuminates, at best dimly, and often not at all what is happening today. Get over it.

What also drives me nuts about the Vietnam analogies is that there are obviously better examples in one sense or another from our own military history (the Phillipines perhaps?) and certainly from the British experience (everywhere). But either because the authors of op-eds don't want to do that sort of homework or because editors think Vietnam moves copy for the historically illiterate like stories about dogs and Britney Spears do for everone else, they don't want to run that stuff. There is of course the larger cultural background radiation of babyboomer obsession with Vietnam as if no obsession with it is unjustified.

I don't know where these guys from
Slate fall into that picture, they seem like smart and decent enough folks. And others can take apart what seems to me just so much statistical legerdemain. But personally, I have just stopped taking seriously any argument which hinges on Vietnam analogies.

I mean even if Iraq was like Vietnam in one sense or another, what exactly does that mean? Are the lessons from Vietnam so clear-cut that given everything else that has changed -- technology, the demise of the Soviet Union, military strategy -- we must still follow the liberal anti-Vietnam protestor's advice and cut and run? There is no nostalgia more myopic and infuriating than liberal nostalgia.

Ross Douthat has a long-but-interesting post about the "paranoid style" (or mostly about that as it applies to George Lakoff of Berkeley). I don't disagree with anything he says, but I would put my own view on the subject a bit differently: Paranoid people tend to assume other people have their own motives. Obviously this can get more complicated, but at a basic psychological level conspiracy theorists, for example, tend to assume there are conspiracies everywhere precisely because if they were in power they would be hatching conspiracies themselves. It never surprised me that Sidney Blumenthal was concocting crazy, often absurd, theories about other peoples' schemes because he is by all accounts precisely the sort of person who -- given the slightest opportunity -- hatches similar schemes himself. Similarly, when men are put in confined areas with limited food or water, they almost instinctively form coalitions and schemes to prevented others from doing the same thing to get the resources first because they assume that's precisely what the other guys are doing.

I agree with Ross that conspiricism is a desire to make conflicting facts and events rational and coherent. But the one thing the paranoid conspiricist always assumes is that discordent facts are connected by a deliberate will on the other side. "You think it's a coincidence the Ohio recount came out the same week as the tsunami!?" Once you accept that everything bad that happens to you is the result of someone else willing it to be so, it's an easy leap to assume that person is not only your enemy but that he's got incredible forces at his disposal to make bad things happen to you.

Sri Lankans wonder why there are ... no... dead ... animals. For the Freaky-if-true file:

COLOMBO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals.

Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.

"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he added. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."

Most of the pro-France email I've gotten has been profoundly silly and not worth reprinting or responding to. This guy at least puts some thought in it and deals with facts. I'll just let it stand for now because I don't have time for a response:

Dear Mr. Goldberg:

I'm a long-time fan of your writing generally (and of the NRO) and so have watched with a special horror as the rising tide of "France-bashing" has become a tsunami on the NRO site over the last 6 or 8 months. You take matters to a new low, however, in your 12-23-04 essay.

I will prepare a more detailed response in the next few days. Suffice it to say for the moment that your essay is factually challenged, not to mention simply vicious. It has no place on the pages of the National Review. I suppose that you agree with me that French policy towards the US over Iraq since 2002 has been profoundly wrong-headed, just as you would agree with me that the identical views of US liberals on the matter are equally ill-founded. But do you launch ad hominen attacks against "Americans" because you disagree with the foreign policy prescriptions of liberals? More to the point, does a vicious, ad hominen attack on 60 million people further -- or harm -- your ability to work with those among the 60 million who might actually agree with you on the substance of policy before you gratuitously insulted them?

One hundred and fifty years ago, the United Kingdom supported the Confederacy far, far more than did France. Will you write an equally vicious essay attacking the British?

Or "Let's not count how many Frenchmen supported the Germans" you suggest. Huh? The number of French who supported the Germans during WWI was probably far, far fewer than the number of Americans who supported the Germans under "Lucky" Lindy's leadership in 1940. One in every 28 French citizens was killed by Germans 20 years before, which would be something like 1 in every 14 men of all ages. You figure out the casualty rate for men of combat age! Has the US suffered 21 million combat deaths while continuing to counterattack? And you insult this sacrifice with "cheese-eating surrender monkeys?" and then imply that most French "supported the Germans"? What planet were you on when you penned those lines? I also take it that do not have French family members who were imprisoned by the Germans during WWII (a 22 year old woman) or who fled occupied France in 1942 to fight the Germans as part of the allied effort (a 22 year old man). I do. If I read your comments to them, I think that would be in utter disbelief that a respected conservative American intellectual could write such claptrap.

". . .count how many Frenchmen supported . . . the Holocaust?" While there were shameful deeds done by the Vichy government as all those familiar with that period know, it is a libel to say that "the French" supported the Holocaust. There were shameful deeds done by other governments as well. C'mon Goldberg! You know better than that and you WRITE better than this! Since the Quisling government in Norway supported Germany, why don't you "count how many Norwegians supported" the Holocaust?

And what has all of this to do with developing policy for contending with Islamic fundamentalism and its terrorist spin-offs?

This is tawdry writing, Mr. G. You are capable of much much better analysis than taking cheap shots like this.

On a more positive note, I suggest you read through Mr. Sarkozy's new book (I'm not sure whether it's available in English yet). A thoughtful review of that book from an NRO perspective would be an IMPORTANT contribution to political discourse (assuming that there is still space for Franco-American political discourse after your essay. . . . ).

I so regret finding that this is the first time I have occasion to write you. But the problem has been growing and growing and your essay broke this old camel's back and I found I had to take time to write.

By Ed Driscoll.

Thank goodness the left has been pushing the Ohio recount so hard! Were it not for these great champions of democracy and the rule of law we would not know that Bush had won with 118,457 votes instead of 118,775 votes.
Shwwwwweeeeeeoooooooooooooooooo!!!!

I for one would not want to live in a "democracy" that would countenance such perfidy.

Thank you Jesse Jackson! Bless you Susan Sarandon!

Update: Several readers complained that I didn't include Keith Olbermann when expressing my gratitude to those who would not go quietly into the dark night of a slightly smaller margin of victory for GW Bush in Ohio. I think most people will understand that I'd forgotten him. But yes, thank you Keith!

You know the website, choosetheblue.com? It's set up to support companies and products which are from "blue" states. Without studying it much, it seems to compile the data on political giving. This is clearly a fairly crude technique since according to their own data The Weekly Standard, Fox News and the New York Post are all "blue state" companies and therefore politically virtuous and acceptable for liberals to patronize.

I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts this'll be on Brit Hume's "Grapevine" by the end of the week.

Here's a shorter one:

Jonah,

The Noble lie, as distorted by the left, is a lie. Plato's
Seventh Letter said it best -- "you don't write down the highest
things" -- Plato had seen Socrates executed by the Athenian state,
and he knew what the Leviathan was capable of if inflamed -- Plato
wrote knowing that straightforward condemnation would get him killed.

If you want to read the greatest piece of Political Philosophy on this
Topic, then you simply must read the great elder statesman of Political
Philosophy, James Schall, SJ of Georgetown and his wonderful tribute
To Eric Voegelin called, appropriately, The Death of Plato.

http://www.morec.com/schall/docs/dieplato.doc

I return to the eternal mantra: We have very smart readers.

Here's a long defense of Plato from one of them:

The whole "lying" question has been frightfully misunderstood in relation to Strauss but even more fundamentally in relation to Plato. This misunderstanding of Plato is at the root of the vilification of Strauss. In other words, you can't really deal adequately with the the question of lying in political philosophy without an understanding of what 'lying' means in the Republic.

Here is the best short piece I know on that subject. It is from John Wild, Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law, 1953. The book itself is primarily a critique of Popper's gross misunderstanding of Plato. pp51-52

"As a result of our intellectual heritage, of which Plato and Platonism are important parts, we have attained a respect for reason and truth, and a deep sense of the need for an educated and informed electorate, if democracy is to be maintained. Hence, the idea of rulers who deceive the people rightly offends us as undemocratic. Plato's defense of the "noble lie" at Republic 414B strikes us as peculiarly obnoxious and even reminds us of unscrupulous totalitarian propaganda. This objection has been singled out for special emphasis by political thinkers like Crossman and Popper. Thus, Crossman interprets the passage as an approval of noble lies for "cajoling the civilian masses into obedience."

Popper's accusations are even more violent. He compares this procedure to the activities of the nefarious Nazi Propaganda Bureau, and attacks the noble lie of Plato as an attempt to infuse racialist doctrines of blood and soil and the master race into the innocent inhabitants of the republic. I am not prepared to defend Plato's concept of the noble lie in all respects; but I believe that these charges rest on serious misunderstandings.

First of all, Plato has a somewhat elaborate and complex doctrine concerning the lie (382 A-C, 535E) which may be summarized as follows: The worst kind of lie, according to him, is "the lie in the soul," the belief by one's self of what is not so, whether or not the truth is suspected. Such lying to one's self is involuntary, for no one really wishes to be deceived. Hence, it is utterly indefensible, unmitigatedly evil without exception. Socratic education--radical questioning of self--is required to root it out. What we commonly refer to as a lie is something quite distinct. This consists in telling someone else what the teller himself knows to be false, because he knows what is really true. In Plato's view, this is secondary and derivative, for at least someone knows the truth. Hence, he calls this merely a lie in words. Such a liar is not deceiving himself, unless he is using the lie for a mistaken or immoral purpose. If so, it involves a lie in his soul, which is a disastrous evil. Sometimes, however, the lie in words is justifiable. This is when those to whom we are communicating are not in a position to understand or gain any benefit from the truth which we understand.

Thus, at the beginning of the Republic, Socrates brings up the case of someone who has lent us a deadly weapon and suddenly returns to demand it from us in a fit of homicidal minia. In such a case, it would seem reasonable for us to say that we had left it somewhere else or had misplaced it. Another less extreme case is that of children who may ask us questions, the abstract answers to whch they are not as yet able to understand. When they ask, we usually give them some concrete story or picture, which may convey something of the truth to them, but certainly not the clear, abstract truth as we understand it. We do not refer to such practices as lying. Plato, whose standards in this respec t are very high, calls this "a lie in words." He says that the guardians of the ideal republic are in a similar situation . They possess a coherent body of abstract knowledge concerning human nature and the obscure notetic powers of man--the source of human unity--which they cannot explain in full detail to the artisans and auxiliaries, who see radically different functions being performed by different members of the community.

No society can live in a healthy state unless there is an underlying sense of unity and a feeling of devotion to the common purpose. The full nature of this purpose and the complex doctrine on which it is based cannot be fully explained. So the guardians simplify it and clothe it in the concrete imagery of a patriotic myth of common origin and of different natural endowment fitting men for different functions in the co-operative living of human life. This is the "noble lie"--a simplified version of the truth concerning diversified endowments and common origin, like simplified heroic versions of past history, and other symbols capable of eliciting group loyalty and common aspiration.

I believe that Plato overemphasized the need for such patriotic mythologies, but it is at least true that all human communities so far have developed them. In any case, this is the noble lie. The guardians know that it is not exactly true. Nevertheless, in a simplified version it does convey the gist of the truth. Men are bothters, though the earth is not their common mother. Souls are not gold and silver; this is mythological language. But that some are endowed with superior intelligence is true. The purpose is morally sound, though not exactly and abstractly stated. So this is a lie in words, a noble lie.

Popper claims that this myth is the expression of racialism. "These metals are hereditary, they are racial characteristics." This is a non sequitor. We may grant that the metals refer to what Plato held to be hereditary tendencies toward greater or lesser intelligence. But from this it does not follow that these differences are racial. Racial traits are hereditary, but all hereditary traits are not racial.

According to Popper, the purpose of the myth is to emphasize these differences, and to strengthen "the rule of the master race." As a matter of fact, Plato makes it quite clear that the purpose is rather that of emphasizing a unity of race, so far as race means common ancestry, and thus of eliciting a loyalty to the whole community which transcends differences of intelligence and social function.

If, as Popper supposes, the guardians were using this myth as political propaganda to support their own unjust rule, they would be guilty, on Plato's view, of ignorance and self-deception concerning the most important matters--the lie in the soul."

Good luck in your research. If I may presume to offer advice, I would suggest treading very carefully in this area, as misunderstandings are very widespread and very destructive. I would love to see you with the lying question, as it is important, but I would hate to see you become yet another victim of a mugging by the ignorant.

I've been noodling on some stuff about the role of lying in political philosophy. These days the case is made most often that Leo Strauss favored lying about the reality of things because the masses couldn't handle the truth. Of course, other philosophers were explicitly guilty of this charge. Nietzsche and Sorel come immediately to mind. Anyway, I was curious if anybody's read anything straightforward, not too jargony, on the whole issue. Did it all start with Plato's noble lie? Did all of the others who advocated such measures invoke Plato? Where does the common assumption that lying to the public is immoral come from? How do these issues break ideologically? I have my own ideas on this stuff, but if there's a really good essay or chapter along these lines, I'd love to know about it. If philosophically-minded bloggers want to take this up as an issue for discussion, that'd be great too. I'm probably gonna write a Goldberg File on it sometime soon.

Moves from 4 to 0 on the Torino scale. Shweeooooo.

Yes, yes, I've seen the story. I'm working on a syndicated column which touches on this now.

A reader pointed me to this interesting story. Iraqi refugees are returning to Iraq regardless of the security situation and against the wishes of the UNHCR. I take this as a fairly encouraging sign. What you do and where you go is surely as important a statement as what you say.

The missus and I saw it yesterday too. I liked the atmospherics, for want of a better word, but at the end of the day I was kinda peeved. I don't mind silly movies and I don't mind jokey movies. But movies that don't take themselves seriously annoy me to no end. This was the downfall of the Star Wars films: the producers couldn't take their own storyline seriously. The same thing happens in Ocean's Twelve. It wasn't quite Cannonball Run II, but you do get the sense that these guys thought they were so famous, so funny and so pretty that they could simply get away with anything they wanted, script-wise.

Vincent Philip Muñoz argues in the January edition of First Things that the Senate should "quietly kill" the Pledge Protection Act that passed the House last year. The bill would block the federal courts from ruling on the constitutionality of the pledge.

Muñoz argues that if the bill passes, state courts will feel compelled to follow Supreme Court precedents--and these precedents cast doubt on the constitutionality of the Pledge. "The result could be a myriad of confusing and conflicting state court decisions with 'under God' constitutional in some states and unconstitutional in others." It would be better, he suggests, for would-be Pledge protectors to get the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the Pledge (which they can't do if the bill passes and is respected). Muñoz thinks that Justice Kennedy might vote for the Pledge. Muñoz helpfully supplies Kennedy with some rationales for reaching that result without having to rethink his church-state jurisprudence from the bottom up, while making it clear that he, Muñoz, doesn't believe those rationales.

The possibility that there might be "confusing and conflicting" rulings from state to state seems much less horrible to me than it does to Muñoz. (This isn't my primary reason for downplaying this worry, but it should be noted that the theoretical possibility of reaching a uniform national rule has not prevented the Supreme Court from creating confusing and conflicting rulings all by itself.) If kids in California recite the Pledge differently from kids in Texas, the republic will survive.

Nor does the upside from Muñoz's alternative seem compelling. All he is offering is the possibility of a modest improvement in the Court's church-state jurisprudence--and not even an intellectually satisfying one. And let's be clear about how modest that improvement would be. If the Pledge won, it would almost certainly be with the help of a doctrine good for that ruling only. The Court would find some way to distinguish the Pledge from every other issue under the sun, no matter how similar, in order to preserve its freedom of action in the future.

Reclaiming the power of the political branches to set limits on the federal courts, on the other hand, would be a pretty big deal. In the long run, it offers more hope not only for saving the pledge from the federal courts, but for reining in an imperial federal judiciary, than doctrinal improvements from the Supreme Court do. They would, that is, advance a project of saving the Constitution as well as the Pledge. Muñoz should reconsider.

The earthquake moved the island of Sumatra 100 feet. I looked it up. Sumatra is 182,859 square miles. It has a mountain chain. California is 162,707 square miles.

It moved 100 feet.

A reader informs me that this means the probability of a huge rock smashing into Earth has been upgraded from 2.2% (1 in 45) to 2.7% (1 in 37).

I'm getting lots and lots of email from folks who agree everyone should lighten up about Christmas. I don't necessarily agree with this guy's argument that Christmas today should really be considered a pagan holiday, but I really did like his subject header: "O! Rosenbaum, O! Rosenbaum! My lovely internist!" Anyway, his email:

Yeah... like you, I come from a mixed family. And like you we celebrated
all holidays. But I'm coming to disagree with the practice. Not because
of the religious dogma associated, but the number of holidays which seem
to require my presence at my parents' house. "What do you MEAN you're not
coming home for Christmas?" This from my Jewish mother, who also lords
over me Rosh Hoshanah, Yom Kippur, Easter, Passover and Divali, the Indian
festival of lights. All right, no. But I hope to never do this to my
children.

I also consider it a fallacy to call Christmas a Christian holiday. As a
matter of fact, we're now the caretakers of the original Christmas, the
festival of Zagmuk in Mesopotamia. This lasted for the 12 Days of
Christmas, and unlike the tame celebrations of today, ended with the death
of a criminal, which is nice.

But it also stems from the Roman Saturnalia, and the Greek Sacacea, all
involving a lot of nice drinking (good for your Episcopalian side) and a
lot of lovely eating (good for the Yid within us). It wasn't until 350CE
that Julius I changed the celebration of Jesus' birth to December 25... in
an attempt to dampen down the drunken loons with a more somber occasion.

It didn't work. It gave us the office party. Cheers! Now where's my
Manhattan?!

One of the books Poppa Goldberg gave me for Christmas is the official court proceedings in "The Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rights and Trotkyites,' published by the Peoples Commissariat of Justice of the USSR.

In english: it's the verbatim transcript of a round of show-trials. As my dad says in the inscription to me, "What a patehtic travesty for browsing!"

He bought it from an oddball street-seller in his neighborhood. I must be the only kid on the block who got one of these.

Now that America's urbane sophisticates have had to acknowledge their status as a fringe group so out of touch with mainstream moral values, tournament bass fishing, Nascar and Christian rock that their electoral and cultural clout is marginally less than that of Casper, Wyo., legions of self-doubting highbrows are asking themselves how this decline into decadence occurred.

Because of what enfeebling bad habit did the proud and potent thinking class that gave us F.D.R. and J.F.K. fade into a cynical, ironic, smirking bunch of spiritual weaklings headed up by Al Franken and Michael Moore? Was the problem attending movies instead of church? Deserting Burger King for Whole Foods Market? No, I've concluded. The blame lies elsewhere. The seduction of America's elites by the vices of humanism and skepticism can only be blamed on the New Yorker cartoon, an agent of corruption more insidious than LSD or the electric guitar.