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MORE BAD TASTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Dave’s "Mao" restaurant reminds me of the murderer action figures ABCNews.com has a story on. Creator David Johnson, a sculptor by trade, has Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy for sale but not Charles Manson, because Manson owns the rights to his likeness and says he would stop short of doing a bin Laden toy ("I watched [Sept. 11] happen on TV … I have some personal qualms about that.."). And he won’t do the Columbine killers, because he lives in Denver, and would fear for his life. Posted 4:30 PM | [Link] FOR THE ROOM [Dave Kopel] As The Panic Room movie inadvertently illustrates, pure defense isn't as safe as defense combined with counterforce capabilities. So consider keeping a firearm in your safe room. Posted 4:07 PM | [Link] BEFORE YOU HEAD TO HOME DEPOT [Dave Kopel] Just in case you've been to the movies recently, and are considering spending a lot of money on a panic room...You don't have to be a millionaire to create a special safe room in your house. Skip the special oxygen supply, and focus on a sturdy door, strong locks, and a portable phone. Massad Ayoob's book The Truth About Self-Protection explains how to integrate a safe room into an overall home security plan. Posted 4:06 PM | [Link] BAD APPETITE [Dave Kopel] A businessman plans to open a Chinese restaurant in Denver named "Mao." It's too bad that naming a restaurant after a genocidal tyrant is considered chic. What's next, a German restaurant named "Adolf"? Posted 4:01 PM | [Link] WHO'S ON FIRST [Dave Kopel] Glenn Reynolds's latest article for TechCentralStation, "Democrats vs. New Media," details Terry McAuliffe's concerns that new media, such as weblogs and talk radio, have turned into fora for opponents of big government to bypass the old media. McAulliffe is scaring old media moguls into making huge donations to the Democratic party. Leading Senate Democrats are sponsoring legislation aimed at weakening the new media. Personally, I like the old Democrats such as Walter Mondale better; they considered the First Amendment a first principle, not an obstacle to suppressing the opposition. Posted 3:59 PM | [Link] HOLIDAY IN HELL: [Rod Dreher] A reader writes: "Saw your blog on the 'Ground Zero' merchandise, where you compared that stuff to Auschwitz merchandise. I was in Poland my last semester of school, and took a trip to that death camp. Do you know they sell postcards there with pictures of the camp? I was going to Notre Dame at the time and hated our administration. I thought of bying one and sending it to the dean with a hastily scribbled, 'Wish you were here!' across the back." Posted 12:25 PM | [Link] RAPPING REYNOLDS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Do note that in the Washington Post story on the recess appointments, a quote from a liberal activist suggests that the president didn't have the votes in the Senate for Reynolds. Rewind. There wasn't even a vote scheduled. Bush first put Reynolds's name on the table in July. See John J. Miller's piece from yesterday on the Reynolds appointment. Posted 11:03 AM | [Link] FIVE CHEERS FOR BUSH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] He made five recess appointments yesterday. Posted 10:55 AM | [Link] NOT EVERYONE LOVES MAGGIE[John Derbyshire] For some other perspectives on Margaret Thatcher's retirement from public speaking--and insight into the sheer cruel nastiness of the Left--see this. Posted 10:23 AM | [Link] HOORAY FOR CARDINAL EGAN: [Rod Dreher] The Jesuits who run a historic parish on Manhattan's Upper East Side tried to wreckovate their beautiful old church. Nothing doing, said Cardinal Egan, who put a stop to it. The Jesuit pastor has now explained it all to his congregation, and sleazily tried to associate the cardinal's order with the priest sex-abuse scandal. Contemptible, but typical for that lot. Here's the story, from Saturday's NYTimes (link requires registration). Posted 2:34 AM | [Link] ANGLO-AMERICAN VALUES: [Rod Dreher] "In the multicultural West, our values are that we have no values: we accord all values equal value -- the wittering English feminist concerned that her tolerance is implicitly intolerant or the Sudanese wife-beater and compulsory clitorectomy scheduler," writes Mark Steyn, in a first-class essay from last month's New Criterion. Posted 2:25 AM | [Link]
KEEP 'EM IN GITMO [Andrew Stuttaford] The London Times is reporting that the Taliban may be planning a fresh offensive in May involving as many as 300 suicide bombers. With even the lowliest foot soldier a potential agent of mass murder this is just another reminder why none of the Taliban now being held by the U.S. should be freed for the time being. There should not even be a thought of prisoner releases until this war can truly be said to be over. Posted 7:36 PM | [Link] SHLOCK VALUE: [Rod Dreher] Look, I understand that tourists who come to New York want to go see Ground Zero. And I understand that they want to buy FDNY and NYPD t-shirts; we've all done that, and it's good to show solidarity with the Bravest and the Finest. But I do not understand the people who sell and who buy caps and t-shirts that say "GROUND ZERO." Honest to God, you see them downtown. I passed some dippy tourist moron wearing a brand-new GROUND ZERO ski cap the other day, and I wanted to slap him. A site of atrocity, a mass graveyard, a place of war crime -- commemorated as a souvenir! I bet that guy also has a t-shirt that says, "Somebody Who Loves Me Went to Auschwitz, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." Hell, why not? Posted 7:34 PM | [Link] ARAFAT'S HANG UP [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I missed it, but Drudge is reporting that Arafat hung up the phone on CNN's Christiane Amanpour during a live interview tonight when she asked him if he was going to rein in Palestinean violence. He got angry, from his surrounded office. Before he hung up the phone he said: "You have to understand that it's the Palestinian people who are fighting this occupation, and I'm sure they will continue to,'' he said. "This is the real terrorism--of the occupation.'' And so 20-something dead at a peaceful civilian Seder dinner isn't real terrorism? Posted 7:23 PM | [Link] WHERE ARE THE REFORMISTAS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Maryland’s Senate voted today to give repeat felons the right to vote again after they've completed their sentences. Shouldn’t Alec Baldwin complain about this? I thought voting reform was his bailiwick. Maybe not...this was a project of the body's Black Caucus. Posted 6:43 PM | [Link] OPRAH’S NO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I’d be miffed at Oprah for saying no to the president’s request to visit Afghanistan if I wasn’t miffed at the White House for inviting her, knowing she’d likely say no. Posted 2:24 PM | [Link] SIGNS OF LIFE [Jonathan Adler] President Bush is showing a willingness to fight for his judicial nominees. According to the NY Times, the President told a Texas audience Thursday that "We've got to get good, conservative judges appointed to the bench and approved by the United States Senate." The night before in Atlanta, Bush said he would "put strict constructionists on the bench" and that "we're going to have more fights when it comes to the judiciary." He regretted the Senate Judiciary committee's rejection of Judge Pickering -- "a good man from Mississippi" -- and took a shot at Democratic Senator Max Cleland: "I don't remember the senior senator from Georgia defending this man's honor." Cleland is up for reelection this year, and Georgia's other Democrat Senator, Zell Miller, predicted that Pickering's defeat could cause problems for Democrats on the South. It appears Bush will test that hypothesis. Posted 1:59 PM | [Link] RE: K-LO AND LIBERAL CATHOLICS: [Rod Dreher] I'm cheating on my Holy Week fast from Catholic blogs to make what I consider a K-Lo-slash-media-criticism blog, related to how liberal Catholics are using the media in this crisis. I have no complaint about liberal bias on this story, at least from TV; I've been on TV a lot in the past month, and I'm always seeing some conservative Catholic on giving a Roman loyalist interpretation of events. What interests me about the liberals I've seen is how they don't seem to offer any sort of argument, just make assertions. On Hardball last night, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue and I asserted that the overwhelming number of teen male victims in the Church scandal points to out-of-control homosexual priests as key to this pederasty scandal. No way, said Roberts -- but offered nothing to support his strange assertion. Similarly, Mary Louise Cervone of the gay Catholic organization Dignity was on both O'Reilly and Alan Keyes last night, and her entire response to the unfortunate (for her side) fact of a grossly disproportionate number of homosexual pederasts in this scandal was, "Homosexuality has nothing to do with it." It's like watching CAIR drones assert that Islam has nothing at all to do with 9/11, that the hijackers were individuals who -- wonder of wonders! -- just happened to be Muslims. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Posted 1:03 PM | [Link] REYNOLDS WRAP: [John J. Miller] Breaking news! President Bush has ended months of Senate inaction by giving Gerald Reynolds a recess appointment to become head of the Department of Education’s civil-rights office, NRO has learned. Last July, Bush announced his intention to nominate Reynolds for the post, but it wasn’t until last month that Reynolds actually received a hearing before a committee headed by Sen. Ted Kennedy. Since then, no vote has been scheduled to confirm Reynolds. The recess appointment puts Reynolds in office at least until the end of 2003. “After the vote on Judge Pickering, the president wasn’t prepared to lose another nominee he cares about,” says an administration source. Reynolds has been the object of controversy because of his affiliation with conservative organizations such as the Center for New Black Leadership and the Center for Equal Opportunity. Posted 12:34 PM | [Link] MAD ABOUT ANWR [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Nick Schulz of TechCentralStation, in his always-smart weekly roundup, notes an LA Times editorial this week on President Bush’s "obsession" with drilling in ANWR. Schulz uses some of NRO’s own Jonah Goldberg’s award-winning photographs from his reporting trip to Alaska to make the case that the anti-ANWRers are the weird, obsessed ones. If you don’t believe us about the obsession, just catch the repeat of last Wednesday’s episode of West Wing. The press secretary’s fixation with ANWR made for an odd tangent—even for West Wing. Posted 10:45 AM | [Link] ONE MORE THING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Golway claims that "liberal Catholics" are not using this focus on the Catholic Church to their ideological advantage. I don’t know if it is Terry Golway’s agenda, but liberals certainly are using it to push their agenda on the news pages of the NY Times, etc. (Maureen Dowd is only the most rabid example from the Times.) The more pernicious are the editorials masked as news stories calling on an end to archaic sexual thinking as the solution that are the problem. Posted 10:41 AM | [Link] A "LIBERAL CATHOLIC"’S COMPLAINT[Kathryn Jean Lopez] In Salon’s premium section today, Terry Golway complains that the unity among Catholics who would normally be on opposite sides of the "political" spectrum on moral issues is crumbling because "liberal Catholics" are being unfairly scapegoated by "conservative Catholics." He cites Phillip Jenkins (who is Episcopalian), writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, as mentioning the influence of "activist, feminist and gay groups" and William Donahue criticizing Maureen Dowd for some of her ridiculous punditry on the Church. It seems to me a no-brainer that all Catholics would be upset and condemn criminality and want reform to ensure the crimes and coverups we have seen never happen again. However, it is also legitimate to say that dissention on a number of moral issues—especially in Catholic classrooms, on the altars, in the seminaries, in the parishes--are partly to blame for getting us to the point where we have such problems. Michael Novak says this much better than me in his NRO piece today. Posted 10:38 AM | [Link] MAN'S BEST FRIEND [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Jonah, interesting piece in the NY Times today about seizure-alert dogs. Posted 6:44 AM | [Link] NOT THE BAD GUYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The INS demoted two agents who complained about lax security at the Canadian border post-9/11. Um. Aren’t we punishing the wrong people here? Posted 6:37 AM | [Link] FALLING VS. STOPPING: [John J. Miller] A new federal report says the Twin Towers didn't collapse from structural damage caused by planes hitting them, but because 2,000-degree fires made it impossible for them to hold up their own weight. That's sort of interesting, but isn't it also a bit like saying it's not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop? Posted 5:24 AM | [Link]
END GAME: [Rod Dreher] This is why Binyamin Netanyahu should be prime minister in Israel's hour of crisis. May he soon be. Posted 9:53 PM | [Link] A LOVELY FUNERAL [John Derbyshire] This is apropos nothing in the news, but... There is an expression much more common in England than here: "A lovely funeral." My cousin Terry just died from an obscure form of cancer. This is from my sister's report of the funeral: "Terry was a stalwart of the Worcester Gilbert & Sullivan Soc. so while the front pews were snivelling into their hankies the back pews sang lustily and did him proud." How I wish I could have been there! Posted 5:51 PM | [Link] BILLY WILDER, RIP: [Rod Dreher] News just out of L.A. that legendary director Billy Wilder has died. He was one of the greatest of the great, and for once, it really is true that they don't make 'em like that anymore. My favorite Wilder film is "The Apartment," and I'd like nothing more than to go home and watch it tonight in his memory. Posted 5:11 PM | [Link] MORE NRO ON TV: [Rod Dreher] Stick around MSNBC after Hardball for The News with Brian Williams at 8pm Eastern, for more talk about You Know What. Posted 5:07 PM | [Link] CORRECTION [Jonathan Adler] Several folks have noted that in my earlier posting I confused Gilda Radner characters--Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella--in my earlier post. I stand corrected. I suppose my title should have been Emily Liltel-Lashof. Posted 3:07 PM | [Link] PLAYING 'HARDBALL': [Rod Dreher] I'll be on "Hardball" tonight (MSNBC, 7pm Eastern) with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, discussing ... oh, I imagine we'll be talking about springtime's fragrant daffodils or somesuch seasonal pleasantries. Posted 2:28 PM | [Link] ABOUT DUDLEY [Robert A. George] Hmmm...that's interesting. Presumably, the phrase "over the next decade" would include 1967--i.e. the VERY next year after Moore's first movie--when Moore and Cook wrote and starred in the absolutely hilarious Bedazzled. Cook played the Devil and Moore was the Faust-like Stanley Moon. Raquel Welch, by the way, had a brief, yet eye-opening role as Lust. The film included great throwaway lines such as when the Devil, infuriated that he can't get good work out of his employee Sins, deadpans, ‘It must bethe wages I pay them.’ I saw the movie while in college during the '80s. It's also popped up regularly on cable over the years--which can't be said about much of Moore's other '60s work. A vastly inferior remake was made two years ago, starring Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil and Brendan Fraser as Stanley. Now, I thought the Times prided itself in knowing things about popular culture--to say nothing of quality British product. How did they miss this one? Posted 1:12 PM | [Link] BAD TIMES [Robert A. George] Yet, another example of declining standards at the Old Gray Lady. And this doesn't even have anything to do with bias. Check out today's paper, the half page obit of Dudley Moore by one Peter M. Nichols. It includes Moore's early days in Beyond The Fringe--a '60s precursor of Monty Python and the '80s movie boomlet that included 10 and Arthur. But, note this passage: “In 1966 Mr. Moore made his first movie, 'The Wrong Box,' about a family's riotous, no-holds-barred scramble for an inheritance. Mr. Cook was also in the film, which starred John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Peter Sellers and Michael Caine. Over the next decade Mr. Moore made several more films, all of them unremarkable.” Posted 12:48 PM | [Link] GOD & WAR [Andrew Stuttaford] Those murderous cranks at al Qaeda are, according to UPI, apparently now claiming that the Northern Afghan earthquake is divine retribution for that region's opposition to the Taliban. "Calamities like earthquakes, wars and storms are signs to show that God is upset with the aggressors." Hmmm, using that logic I wonder what al Qaeda believe that their recent humiliation in Afghanistan has to say about God's political leanings. Posted 12:35 PM | [Link] PRO-CLINTON LURKERS [Jonah Goldberg] It's bizarre. I can go months on end without mentioning Monica Lewinsky or Bill Clinton, but the moment I do the pro-Clinton sleeper cells become activated and I get deluged with the nastiest email. I’m used to these people attacking my looks, my writing, my job, my credentials and most of all my mother. But what still amazes me is their persistence. It’s clear that some of these folks hang-out at NRO just waiting for me to write something negativeabout their idol so they can spam me with emails saying, as one did, "Why can’t get over your irrational Clinton hatred you untalented whore!?" Look: I’ve gotten over my Clinton hatred. I’m at peace with it. I hate him. It’s their irrational love for the guy which seems to be still eating them up. Posted 12:02 PM | [Link] ASO: [Rod Dreher] Andrew Sullivan is terrific this morning, on the subject of the Palestinian terror war against Israel. I wish the Administration had such clear moral vision about this war, and who is responsible for it. Posted 11:09 AM | [Link] Thanks! [Jonah Goldberg] Thanks to all for the quick response on the Defining Deviancy Down link. If you've never read it, here it is. Posted 11:00 AM | [Link] ANOTHER WAY NUCLEAR POWER STOPS GLOBAL WARMING [Jonah Goldberg] Turns out Gamma radiation can stop flatulence. Now that I think of it, the Hulk wasn't particularly gassy. Posted 10:55 AM | [Link] THE LIBERTARIAN IS A DRUID [Jonah Goldberg] No, that's not World War Two code or the title of the latest REM song. The Libertarian Party's candidate for California Governor is a Druid. Check it out. I take back everything I ever said about the Libertarian Party not being a serious, mainstream movement. Posted 10:26 AM | [Link] LITTLE HELP? [Jonah Goldberg] Does anyone know where I can find a copy of Moynihan's "Defining Deviancy Down" essay on the web? I know it used to be in Nexis, but it isn't now. Drop me line in if you know for sure. Posted 10:22 AM | [Link] JUDGING MOMMY [Andrew Stuttaford] ABC's Good Morning America has featured a nasty example of judicial overreach. A mother in upstate New York has been told that she has to stop smoking at home (and in her car) if she wants to retain visitation rights with her 13-year old. The poor woman does not, apparently, smoke while the boy is around, but this is not enough for her whiny offspring. The wretched child had, reportedly, complained that he could not stand the smell of cigarettes at his mom's place. NY Supreme Court justice Robert Julian, a man who obviously knows even less about science than he does about manipulative children, sympathised with the complaint, citing the "dangers" of secondhand smoking. The mother now has to decide what to do. From what I read about this case, she should stick with the smokes and drop the kid. Posted 10:17 AM | [Link] ROSANNE ROSANNA DANIEL LASHOF [Jonathan Adler] The Bush Administration met exclusively with industry representatives when drafting its energy plan. Environmental activists were excluded despite repeated efforts to sit down with energy department officials. That's why the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the administration for release of documents from the energy task force -- or so they said. Now the Washington Times reports that NRDC representatives, including energy guru Daniel Lashof, met early and often with folks from the energy department to discuss the plan. Never mind. Posted 9:47 AM | [Link] AND ANOTHER THING[John Derbyshire] Reader Murray Choran reminds me of one thing I forgot to say in my piece on Margaret Thatcher today, viz.: What an unpleasant irony it is that while Reagan and Thatcher fall silent, Jimmy Carter and Ted Heath are still bleating on. Posted 9:46 AM | [Link] A THEORY OF THE CASE… [Jonah Goldberg] I admit in advance, this is 100% conjecture and nothing more on my part. But did you see the buried story that Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief, Prince Nawaf, suffered a stroke at the Arab summit and had to undergo brain surgery? Now bear with me. Nawaf replaced Prince Turki last year as the head of Saudi intelligence. Turki ran the operation for 20 years and was widely seen as pro-American. Nawaf, meanwhile, is much more of a hard-liner toward the US and Israel. It's been reported by Tom Friedman that Crown Prince Abdullah floated the Saudi "peace plan" without consulting anyone inside the royal family. Friedman called this a "coup d'etat" on "Meet the Press" because there's no way the royal family would have supported such an initiative. There must be considerable ire among the royal family’s extremists over that. Also, Friedman seems to think that Abdullah understands the importance of the US-Saudi relationship and a need to bring peace to the Middle East. I don’t necessarily buy it, but this is a conspiracy theory, so I don’t have to. Could it be that Abdullah decided to do-in Nawaf at the summit in Beirut? Slipping him a stroke-inducing mickey back in Saudi Arabia might have been impossible for a host of logistical-security reasons. But taking Nawaf out, and hence heading off an anti-Abdullah counter-coup, would be comparatively easy amidst all of the hubbub. If I’m wrong, who cares? It’s just a first-cup-of-coffee conspiracy theory. But if I’m right, you heard it here first. Posted 9:00 AM | [Link] ONE FOR THE BOYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Cayuga County, N.Y. legislature has voted to shut down its $3.8 million account with HSBC bank because the bank closed its doors to Boy Scout meetings, in protest of the group’s policy on homosexuals, earlier this month. Posted 8:51 AM | [Link] DEEP SOMETHING: [John J. Miller] Marion Barry is demanding "a deep apology" (as opposed to a shallow one?) from DC mayor Anthony Williams because Williams suggested Barry "get the help he needs" following what was essentially a drug bust. Posted 8:32 AM | [Link] YOU'VE GOT MAIL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A Saudi paper received an email from someone claiming to be Osama bin Laden, blasting the Saudi "peace plan." If I just reply to those IAMBUSH@whitehouse.gov e-mails we've gotten, perhaps we can cosponsor a web summit. Posted 8:17 AM | [Link]
AAAAAAAUGH!: [Rod Dreher] Jesse Jackson is offering to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sometimes, life really is a cartoon. Posted 6:43 PM | [Link] DOES PRIVATIZATION = CHOICE? [Jonathan Adler] Yesterday, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission took another step toward transferring substantial management responsibilities in the Philadelphia school district to private firms, particularly the Edison Project. Some, such as the WSJ editorial page, strongly support such moves. Although I am a strong supporter of competition and choice in education, I am unconvinced. There is no question that public schools in Philadelphia (my home town) are in sad shape. But it seems to me that transferring control from a government monopoly (the current school district) to a government-sanctioned monopoly (Edison or any other private firm) might not produce much improvement. Protected monopolies are not known for their responsiveness and innovation. For this reason, I fear that Philadelphia's move could even undermine the case for real school choice in the future. Posted 5:26 PM | [Link] PASSOVER AIN'T RAMADAN [Andrew Stuttaford] A suicide bomber has killed 15 people at a hotel in Israel as guests gathered for a Passover Seder. That's just something to remember the next time you hear complaints about the fact that the US did not suspend military operations in Afghanistan during Ramadan. Posted 5:18 PM | [Link] EU FRIENDS & ENEMIES [Andrew Stuttaford] Do you remember how our friends in the EU have been extending the olive branch to North Korea? Well, they are not, it seems, always so accommodating. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Europeans are trying to avoid hosting a conference for Iraqi opposition forces. Yes, that's right. It's the opposition to Sadaam that is getting the cold shoulder from our European "allies." Posted 5:17 PM | [Link] A reader directed me to alsharpton.com. Once the animation is over you can read all of the great reasons he should be president on the second page. Posted 3:02 PM | [Link] DOG BITES MAN!: [Rod Dreher] The Boston Globe has a great front-page story about conservative Catholics and their reaction to the Unpleasantness. Buchanan, Buckley, Weigel, Bennett, Donohue and others come off very well in this fair and balanced piece. Those of us on the Right do so much bashing of the liberal media that it's important for us to praise when praise is due. So: yay Globe! Posted 2:35 PM | [Link] UNCONSTITIONAL? SO WHAT: [Rich Lowry] Bush’s statement signing CFR includes this: “Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R. 2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to political parties in connection with federal elections. I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment. “I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election. I expect that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.” Posted 2:09 PM | [Link] GOD BLESS…: [Rich Lowry] …Robert J. Samuelson. Posted 2:05 PM | [Link] THE CANDACE CAUSE [Stanley Kurtz] Last month, in “Candace Under Fire,” I wrote about the travails of Candace de Russy, the SUNY trustee whose criticisms of black studies programs led to calls for her ouster. Now Beth Henary has taken upthe issue, claiming that de Russy is right about the politicization of black studies at SUNY. Posted 2:02 PM | [Link] DOWD, REALLY? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rod, when Dowd does not have an "asinine" column explaining the latest "Catholic issue" in the news, that's when we should be surprised. That'll be news. And a conversion. Posted 1:50 PM | [Link] MO-RONIC: [Rod Dreher] I am on a Holy Week fast from Catholic scandal blogs, so I'm going to be a very good boy and not respond to Maureen Dowd's asinine column explaining the Church scandal to us. Instead, I refer you to the takedown accomplished by the estimable Amy Welborn, who, as usual, makes more sense on the scandal than just about anybody. This Midwestern stay-at-home Catholic mom has her head screwed on straighter than the flame-haired "Sex In The City"-style scribe who has one of the highest-profile jobs in American journalism. And now, thanks to the almighty blog, Amy has a public voice. Posted 1:36 PM | [Link] HENRY K. ON THE SAUDI "PEACE PLAN": [Rich Lowry] From Newsweek: "Welcome as the engagement in the peace process is--the first by an Arab state not having a direct national conflict with Israel--its specific terms represent a restatement of a position that has produced the existing deadlock. The pre-1967 "border" in Palestine--unlike the Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian frontiers with Israel--was never an international frontier but a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war. It was never recognized by any Arab state until after the 1967 war and has been grudgingly accepted recently by states that do not yet recognize the legitimacy of Israel. I have never encountered an Israeli prime minister or chief of staff who considered the '67 borders defensible, and especially if coupled with an abandonment of a security position along the Jordan River. The is because the '67 borders leave a corridor as narrow as eight miles between Haifa and Tel Aviv and put the border of Israel at the edge of its international airport. Moreover, Israel would have to give up settlements containing approximately 200,000 inhabitants (about 4 percent of its Jewish population)." Posted 11:37 AM | [Link] AMBULANCES AS BOMB-DELIVERY DEVICES: [Rod Dreher] The Israelis have caught the Palestinians trying to sneak a suicide bomber around hidden in a Red Crescent ambulance. Such delightful people, the Palestinians. Posted 10:31 AM | [Link] A LOAD OF BLARNEY: [Rod Dreher] Fr. Brian Jordan, a Franciscan who has for some time been ministering at Ground Zero, is traveling with Sen. Hillary Clinton in Ireland. He's telling the Irish that Bill Clinton was a great president, and that Hillary will be too. This is truly disgraceful. Three thousand New Yorkers perished in the World Trade Center. Two hundred thousand unborn New Yorkers are scalded or dismembered in their mother's wombs by abortionists every year, under laws the Clintons have fought hard to defend. Posted 10:29 AM | [Link] ALL THE LEFT HAS LEFT [Stanley Kurtz] Thanks Jonah, Heather MacDonald’s piece is terrific, and extraordinarily important. I’m struck by the juxtaposition of the Academy Awards and this debunking of the anti-racial profiling movement. The Academy Awards ceremony was has become a sort of religious service for liberals. Sidney Poitier’s speech was tremendously moving, and his award well-deserved. The problem is that the civil-rights paradigm is the only thing the Left’s got left to give it meaning in life. The challenge becomes, how can Halle Berry and all the folks watching her enter into Sidney Poitier’s struggle, even when that struggle is over and won? Things like bogus racial-profiling claims are the answer. They keep alive the sense that our society is still engaged in a colossal struggle against racism, a struggle that gives meaning to life in an age when the hold of traditional religion has weakened. I talked about this in a piece called, “The Church of the Left.” Posted 10:00 AM | [Link] BYE-BYE RACIAL PROFILING [Jonah Goldberg] Remember the report last week in the New York Times that the blacks stopped on the Jersey Turnpike (what I like to call "the traffic artery that hate built") may just have been disproportionate speeders? Well Heather Mac Donald drives it home. Check it out. Posted 8:26 AM | [Link] REAL CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Vic Matus of The Standard reports on the oddest of anniversary gifts for the Burger King Whopper: a veggie burger. Posted 8:15 AM | [Link] WELL, OF COURSE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Don't look for Speedy Gonzales, the cartoon character, on the Cartoon Network. He's been deemed an offensive Mexican stereotype. (Man, you mean all Mexican rodents don't wear sombreros?) That's not stopping a letter-writing campaign to free Speedy, though. A spokesman for the Network suggest they won't be swayed though: "We're not about pushing the boundary. We're not HBO. We have a diverse audience and we have an impressionable audience." Ay. Posted 6:04 AM | [Link] ENDANGERED HALL: [John J. Miller] The National Parks Conservation Assocation has added New York City's Federal Hall to its list of "America's Ten Most Endangered National Parks," due to structural damage suffered on September 11. It is the site of America's first Congress and George Washington's inauguration. The NPCA wants the government to come up with an extra $1.4 million. Assuming the money really is needed, why couldn't it come from the enormous pool of private resources donated in the aftermath of September 11? Posted 5:50 AM | [Link] NOT ESSENTIAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] We have a new surgeon general. What's that, you didn't realize the slot was vacant? You and the rest of the country. Someday a president will do the right thing and just nix the position. Until then, we'll have someone to tell us to exercise, not to panic ant the sight of anthrax, and, ocassionally, some more colorful thing (Jocelyn Elders). Posted 5:34 AM | [Link] FESTIVUS IN FLORIDA: [Rod Dreher] Amy Welborn, whose smart, sassy blog is one of my daily must-reads, has noticed that the nitwits who run the Tampa city government have renamed the traditional Good Friday city holiday "Spring Day." Catholic Amy is offended. "Here's what I say," she writes. "If you object to Good Friday being a holiday of sorts, then go on in to work. Be my guest." Posted 1:40 AM | [Link]
RE: KILL A JEW FOR ALLAH [Jonah Goldberg] John – Your (excellent) column reminded me of a point my father often makes. You write: "Why, when the whole thing gets sorted out, should there not be Jews living in Arab territory — as there were for centuries past? What, exactly, is wrong with the settlements? I don't see it." Arafat & Co. consistently demand the "right of return" and "reparation" for Palestinians. This would probably negate Israel even if the Palestinians were a democratic, peace-loving and philo-Semitic people -- which, as a generalization, they are not. While I doubt that Middle Eastern governments think about this much, a reciprocal doctrine of "right of return" and "reparation" would mean that the hundreds of thousands to millions of Jews expelled from Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere should have such a right too. While few Jews would want to move back to downtown Damascus, it would be fun to see Assad’s reaction when the Jews issued a bill for their expropriated holdings. Posted 7:21 PM | [Link] WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? Kathryn Jean Lopez] Remarkable coverage of a study that suggests women on "the pill" are more likely than others to suffer from cervical cancer (these studies are usually ignored or ridiculed). Some of the other harms of the pill might be good to mention too, of course. Just ask women would were promised the world by feminists and the sexual revolution in the '60s and '70s who found something very different instead. Posted 6:59 PM | [Link] It turns out that The Onion actually had the definitive piece on binge drinking. And, yes, it does contain profanity. Posted 6:29 PM | [Link] THE TRUTH ABOUT IRANIANS [John Derbyshire] In a humongous e-mailbag on my "Kill a Jew for Allah" column, half a dozen e-mails from Iranians (incl. 2 actually in Iran), all saying the same thing: We don't actually minds Jews that much, but we can't stand Arabs. Interesting--I didn't know that. Posted 5:33 PM | [Link] RAMESH'S MYSTERY FLAW [Andrew Stuttaford] Ramesh, either a gremlin or a clandestine operation by Ponnuru activists meant that an earlier post clarifying why you are so unkindly described as "flawed" never made it to prime time. In essence, I can see why you might think that a binge drinking rate of 36 percent is a relative success story for the abstainers' accommodation but I am not convinced. A pattern of "binge drinking" in supposedly "substance-free" housing is, like pregnancy in a nunnery, evidence of greater disfunction than the same condition would be elsewhere. Posted 5:26 PM | [Link] From a CNS story about a Sharpton speech at Georgetown: Sharpton also took a swipe at political analysts who say he "can't win," insisting that his chances are just as good as any other Democrats because "according to the polls, no Democrat can win, so the question is not who can win, but who can best lose." Posted 4:59 PM | [Link] Ever since I posted the item about the Jesus-stalker clip art, people have been sending me urls for wacky Jesus-related sites. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not going to be the guy known for constantly celebrating Jesus soap-on-a-rope etc. I appreciate the support, but it's not my chosen hobby. Posted 4:41 PM | [Link] YOU CAN GO, JUST DON’T COME BACK: [Rich Lowry] From MSNBC.com: “Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat decided not to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut this week, according to aides, rejecting new, stricter Israeli conditions for lifting a travel ban on him. The conditions imposed by Israeli leader Ariel Sharon included the right to veto Arafat’s return to Palestinian territories if there were terrorist strikes during his absence.” Posted 4:11 PM | [Link] WHAT OBL WAS REALLY DOING [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, John. Isn't it more likely that Bin Laden was calling to dictate editorial copy for The Guardian? Posted 3:31 PM | [Link] PRETTY USELESS Kathryn Jean Lopez] I can't let that last post from Andrew go by without linking to his Julia Roberts piece from a bit ago. Posted 3:29 PM | [Link] ENLIGHTENED JULIA [Andrew Stuttaford] In his "Impromptus" today Jay Nordlinger criticizes Julia Roberts for not wishing to be known as an "actress." That's harsh. It is better to see this as the beginning of self-knowledge. What we need now is for her to admit that she is not an actor either. Posted 3:25 PM | [Link] ON BINGES [Amdrew Stuttaford] Jonah, In marked contrast to the flawed Ponnuru (Ramesh, I'm only kidding) you are quite right. The real reason that we do not have to worry too much about those "binge drinkers" is that "binge drinking" is itself a meaningless term. Binge drinking is usually defined as the consumption of five or more drinks in a row for men, or four or more for women. What is meant by "in a row" is left unclear. It says nothing , for example, about the intervals between those drinks and the circumstances under which they were consumed. Enjoying five drinks in the course of a long evening over dinner is clearly not the same as ploughing through five vodkas in half an hour. Describing both occasions as a 'binge' may make for good neo-prohibitionist panic, but it has little to do with the truth. I shall be glad to discuss this important subject further with you and Ramesh: over a drink or two, of course. Posted 3:20 PM | [Link] Of COURSE Kathryn Jean Lopez] John, That must be it. Then the real clash of civilizations can be peanut butter & jelly vs. marmite. Posted 3:10 PM | [Link] GHADDAFFY SCOOPS THE ONION! [Jonah Goldberg]Damn, Kathryn beat me to the post. Still, one wonders why Kah-Daffy thinks the peace-loving Israstinians (I prefer Palsraelies) should have democracy when Libyans get dirt. Still, as Farrakhan tells us all the time, Ghadaffy is a great man of peace, so who am I to question him? Posted 3:09 PM | [Link] OSAMA'S PHONE LEGS [John Derbyshire] Let's not jump to conclusions, Kathryn. It may just be that OBL is trying to secure a regular supply of Marmite. Posted 3:08 PM | [Link] MORE DIRECT [Mark Krikorian] Here's a better link to the Mark Steyn column Derbyshire refers to in his "I Now Can Rest" item (12:21 p.m. Tuesday). Posted 2:59 PM | [Link] MONEY TRAIL [Mark Krikorian] Newsweek's Michael Isikoff is on the trail again, this time linking libertarian activist Grover Norquist to a Saudi-backed "charity" raided last week by federal agents. Though Norquist denounces any implication of impropriety as "incompetent McCarthyism" (as opposed to the competent kind?), the chain seems pretty clear: The SAFA Trust gave thousands to the Islamic Institute, which Norquist helped found and which operates out of the same office as he does. The point is not that Grover is defending terrorism but that in his zeal to attract Muslims to the GOP (which he made the case for in a now-hilariously inappropriate column for The American Spectator in June 2001), he appears to be blinding himself to the less attractive aspects of their agenda and worldview--which is a problem given the near universality of virulent anti-Americanism and lunatic Jew-hatred among Muslims in the Middle East. This just adds to problems that started with a November New Republic expose of Grover's ties with radical Muslims, including Abdurahman Almoudi, an open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. Posted 2:52 PM | [Link] PAX QADDAFI [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The peace plan to end all peace plans: Libya's Qaddafi proposes the establishment of "Isratine," where unarmed Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace (and, of course, there will be no Israel.) Because that, of course, is likely to happen. Posted 1:51 PM | [Link] BRITISH SURPRISE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Hey, Andrew, did you see where Osama bin Laden's phone records lead to? Posted 1:45 PM | [Link] THE OSCARS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Terrific column by Steve Sailer. Posted 12:59 PM | [Link] I NOW CAN REST [John Derbyshire] I have long been of the opinion that if such a thing as "genius of opinion journalism" can exist, Mark Steyn is an instance of it. I am therefore flattered beyond words to see myself quoted in his current National Post column. My work here is done. (And I further note that Mark has used my "Underperformin' Normal"--i.e. Mineta--tag in his recent Spectator piece. Though since Mark is, after all, a genius, this may be just great minds thinking alike.) Posted 12:21 PM | [Link] SAT & Race [Stanley Kurtz] As a follow up to my SAT piece from yesterday, readers might want to have a look at this excellent article by David Orland. It’s an important piece, because it sets the SAT battle in the context of U.C. Berkeley’s new moves to circumvent Proposition 209's ban on affirmative action. By adding criteria like “personal challenge” and “life experience” to their admissions requirements, U.C. officials have given themselves a free hand to restore affirmative action under another name. Corner readers might recall a brief blog I had up the other day about a New York Times scholarship that went out to kids who had “overcome disadvantage.” Even though, in absolute numbers, there are more poor whites than poor blacks, not one of the nineteen winners of that scholarship was a white man. The future of affirmative action now lies in the dropping of overt racial or sexual “goals and timetables” and the restoration of preferential treatment under the bogus heading of “overcoming disadvantage.” Just as southerners once resisted the law by maintaining segregation, America’s liberal elites are now resisting democratic and legal rollbacks of affirmative action, by any means necessary. Posted 12:14 PM | [Link] VOODOO, PART TWO: [Rod Dreher] A Corner reader writes: "You are dead on to point out that in certain ethnic groups voodoo is a powerful force. I observed first hand the steps necessary to confront this force several years ago when I was an intern in a DA's office in the Northeast. The DA's office had a 'consultant' voodoo priest they would use to help certain witnesses overcome fear of testifying. The priest's business card indicated that he was a specialist in removing curses and providing all encompassing curse protection. Without his help several cases simply could not have been prosecuted." Posted 11:16 AM | [Link] BINGE JOURNALISM [Jonah Goldberg] Ramesh, Andrew - not that you asked or care, but my position on all stories about alcohol-use in colleges is that they are not to be believed. I cannot, at the moment, make a coherent argument for this case (perhaps because I'm tanked). But, it seems to me that few subjects are more susceptible to the "you get what you measure" phenomenon. I do not believe that "binge" drinking (defined as "drinking more than you want your own kid to drink") is significantly higher today than it was ten or twenty or fifty years ago. If they started looking for evidence of bears crapping in the woods, the New York Times would report a "sudden and alarming rise in ursine fecal matter in America's national forests." Posted 10:04 AM | [Link] CONDI'S CONVERSION [Ramesh Ponnuru] Robert, there is such a thing as being "mildly pro-choice." People can favor bans on partial-birth abortion, or be willing to vote for pro-lifers, or be open to persuasion, or not care much about the issue, etc., while wanting some abortions to be legal. And John, does it really matter how sincere a conversion would be? A lot of people thought that the first Bush was insincere when he flipped to the pro-life side. I don't think he was. But either way, I'm glad he did it. What matters for political purposes about a conversion isn't how sincere it is, but how likely it is to stick. The sincerity matters only to the extent it affects the durability. Posted 9:55 AM | [Link] ADVENTURES IN MULTICULTURALISM: [Rod Dreher] Pro-union forces among Florida hospital workers, a large proportion of whom are Haitian, stand accused this morning of doing that voodoo that they do so well. You may laugh, but this stuff is deadly serious in Florida. The city of Miami employs someone whose sole job is to clean the chicken parts and other delectables left over from santeria sacrifices off the courthouse steps. Ah, the gorgeous mosaic... . Posted 9:31 AM | [Link] JAIL ONE, TEACH A HUNDRED: [Rod Dreher] The president of Peru has told President Bush that that case of American left-wing terrorist Lori Berenson is "totally closed." The aider and abetter of Maoist murderers will spend the rest of her life in jail. Good. Jail one Yanqui sandalista, teach a hundred that ideas and actions have consequences. Posted 9:19 AM | [Link] MEMO TO DEMOCRATS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Please, please take E. J. Dionne Jr.'s advice. Posted 9:14 AM | [Link] FLYING MONKEYS UNITE! [Jonah Goldberg] Here is a proud flying monkey blog. That is all. Posted 7:37 AM | [Link] SINCE THE TURNSTILES ARE GONE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Chinese are losing millions in Las Vegas. Posted 6:18 AM | [Link] MAKING IT A PC THING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] If you had not seen a movie in the last decade or two and had no idea who Denzel Washington or Halle Berry were and just read the press coverage of the Oscars, you would probably be pretty certain that they won this year because they are black. In a Washington Post piece this morning one commentator notes the judges finally said, “Okay, we surrender.” This is “hope” for blacks? (It says that too.) Posted 6:16 AM | [Link] NOT SO FAST [Ramesh Ponnuru] Andrew: The 36 percent rate of binge drinking in "substance-free" dorms would support the case that "demonizing" alcohol leads to alcohol abuse only if that rate were higher than at other dorms. But the rate at "regular dorms," according to the Times account, was 51 percent. So all we're justified in concluding is that "substance-free" housing is so more in aspiration than practice. Whether from the culture of the dorm or from the group that selects it, it has lower "binge drinking" rates than other dorms. The fact that it does not achieve perfection is no reason to abandon the goal if the goal is a sound one--which is another issue altogether, of course. Posted 6:00 AM | [Link] MILDLY, EH? [Robert A. George] Hmmm, Kathryn, I like to accept everything Jay Nordlinger says as gospel (as it were). But, you quote Jay as saying of Condoleezza Rice, "She calls herself 'mildly pro-choice' on abortion." Doesn't that sound a little bit like (pardon the expression in this context), "She calls herself 'only a little bit pregnant'."? Now, if that means she's in the Kay Bailey realm (pro-choice, but not loud about it and has no problem confirming pro-life judges), that's one thing.But, if not... Posted 5:59 AM | [Link]
PROFILES IN COURAGE: [John J. Miller] U.S. News & World Report writes sensibly about racial profiling at airports here. Posted 10:04 PM | [Link] CONDI'S JOB, PT. 2: [John J. Miller] Thanks, K Lo. That proves I've been reading my own magazine. It's also debilitating to the Condi-for-Veep cause. A conversion is always possible, of course: Some of the most eloquent pro-lifers have come over from the other side. Condi could make the switch and be embraced. But it would have to be sincere, not a political calculation. Posted 5:51 PM | [Link] NO SURPRISES [Andrew Stuttaford] According to the New York Times the latest college alcohol study from the Harvard School of Public Health will be published tomorrow. Amongst its more interesting findings is the revelation that 36 percent of the students living in what is described as "substance-free" housing admit to, ahem, "binge drinking." Life in such depressing-sounding housing is probably enough to drive anyone to drink. Nevertheless this is yet another reminder that, if there is one thing guaranteed to lead to the abuse of alcohol, it is its demonization. Posted 5:31 PM | [Link] REFINING THE QUESTION: [Rod Dreher] Referring to the gay/pedophile/ephebophile distinctions in my "Straw Man" blog, NRO reader David Bakin writes: "One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that it isn't even correct to discount the connection between homosexuality in general and incidence of (rate of) ephebophilia, because the homosexuals involved are a self-selected subset that might not have the same characteristics as homeosexuals in general. Specifically, they chose to be Catholic priests, went through the entire training, and adopted it as a career. Note that I'm not specifically saying anything about priests in general - but there may be some factor - at this time unknown or unquantifiable - that makes certain homosexuals with a prediliction for ephebophilia choose to become a priest and keep at it through the training, etc. It might have to do with personality factors that attract one to a structured restricted life - either a positive desire for that kind of life or through fear of the alternative, or the attractiveness of a job that involves dealing with a lot of people including young people as an authority or father figure, or anything else. So it is perfectly valid to suspect and investigate a link between homosexuality and ephebophilia in priests." Posted 5:08 PM | [Link] JOHN’S QUESTION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] John, last time I heard, our own Jay Nordlinger, in 1999, reported that “She calls herself ‘mildly pro-choice’ on abortion.” I can’t say I’ve heard anything since then. But maybe I haven’t been listening. Posted 4:52 PM | [Link] GOOD FOR THE ARCHBISHOP: [Rod Dreher] Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss has publicly apologized to the two Catholic laypeople to whom he'd sent letters of rebuke for publicly criticizing his decision to keep in ministry a priest who has a child-porn problem. Posted 4:50 PM | [Link] CONDI'S JOB: [John J. Miller] I like Condi Rice and am attracted to Andrew Sullivan's argument that Bush make her his running mate in 2004, if Cheney isn't up for another term (and that's a big "if"). Does anybody know if she's pro-life? I seem to recall hearing somewhere that she isn't, but I may very well be wrong. Posted 4:29 PM | [Link] CON JOB: [John J. Miller] Looks like erstwhile DC city council candidate Marion Barry has been set up by The Man once more: Over the weekend, police found evidence of cocaine and marijuana in his car. Barry denies that he's still a stoner. Posted 4:17 PM | [Link] AND ANOTHER THING. . . [Ramesh Ponnuru] For that matter, if the picture of the political world painted by McCain were true, shouldn’t his bill have been defeated? He triumphed over all the special interests. Why? Because his cause galvanized an outraged citizenry? Campaign-finance reform has never been an issue that most people care about, and supporters who argue otherwise are delusional. Besides, even if that explanation were true, it would still mean that public opinion matters more to politicians than campaign contributions—at least in cases where the public is engaged. Posted 3:25 PM | [Link] UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES [Ramesh Ponnuru] If it turns out that the new campaign-finance system benefits Republicans over Democrats—and that’s certainly a possibility—won’t that mean that, by voting for principle over crass self-interest, most politicians disproved McCain’s premises? Posted 3:24 PM | [Link] ACADEMIC ISSUE ADS [Ramesh Ponnuru] The campaign-finance bill headed for President Bush’s signature includes tight restrictions on “issue ads” run near an election. These are ads that might include the line, “Call Senator X and tell him to stand up to the polluters” but not a line like “On Election Day, send Senator X packing.” Current law restricts ads that endorse or oppose a candidate because such ads can reasonably be construed as a campaign contribution. John McCain et al argue that the issue ads are thinly veiled campaign ads and should therefore be restricted; the Mitch McConnells argue that there is a real distinction. But even if there is a real distinction, shouldn’t we be fighting for free speech for campaign ads too? Trying to influence an election is one of the things free speech is there for. Right? Posted 3:01 PM | [Link] WATCH THAT STRAW MAN: [Rod Dreher] In an otherwise good NYTimes Op-Ed article defending priestly celibacy today, Jesuit Father James Martin writes, "Conservative observers frequently, and wrongly, link pedophilia with homosexuality and imply that being a gay priest means that one is ipso facto sexually active." That's simply wrong. Conservatives merely observe the indisputable fact that the overwhelming majority of these cases involve priests seducing or attacking boys -- and almost always boys between the ages of 12 and 17, which doesn't qualify as pedophilia, clinically defined, but ephebophilia. Fr. Martin is technically right about pedophilia (which primarily is seen in heterosexuals), but he's shooting down a straw man. Second, no conservative I know says that homosexually oriented priests are ipso facto going to be sexually active with minors -- but the numbers do strongly suggest a connection, and this should be investigated. Semantic dodges won't make unpalatable facts go away. Posted 2:21 PM | [Link] WELCOME [Robert A. George] Jonah, where have YOU been hiding? They haven't said "...and the winner is" in years. I believe it's close to ten years that they've gone with "...and the Oscar goes to..." EVERYONE's a winner in Hollywood, didn't you know that? Besides, it's an honor just to be nominated. Posted 12:31 PM | [Link] JOB SECURITY [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, That's an interesting item on airport insecurity. What, I wonder, will happen to the (newly federalized) screeners who messed up? Not a lot--If the recent fiasco at the INS is any precedent. Posted 12:22 PM | [Link] KLEIN’S CLINTON BOOK [Ramesh Ponnuru] Did you all read William Kennedy’s review in yesterday’s New York Times? He makes some odd claims. Such as that Clinton got welfare reform “in his second term.” And that after the worst revelations of the Lewinsky scandal, “the electorate would have gleefully voted him a third term if only it had been legal.” I never saw a poll in 1998 or 1999 that suggested any such thing. All of them showed that Clinton would have lost a rematch with the elder George Bush (although he would still have beaten the hapless Bob Dole) and that the public would reject Clinton for a third term if given the option. What seemed to work most in Clinton's favor was public opposition to the disruption that the removal of a president would entail. People supported Clinton because they opposed impeachment--not the other way around. Posted 11:46 AM | [Link] THE LEFT-WING ETHICIST [Ramesh Ponnuru] Like Kathryn, I like Randy Cohen’s ethics column in the New York Times Magazine, and probably agree with his advice 75 percent of the time. (He’s no Carolyn Hax, though. She rules!) A lot of the other 25 percent is what you’d expect given the liberalism of New York. His recent essay in The Nation, however, seems to suggest that he has more ambitious ideological goals for his column than I had thought. His call for a left-wing ethics is not, I fear, well argued. Take this assertion, made while praising “civic life” (allegedly left-wing) over private life (right-wing): “The marketplace is where interests clash—the buyer's low price is the seller's lost profit.” In any voluntary transaction, of course, the buyer and the seller both think they will come out ahead—and many times both are right. Posted 11:29 AM | [Link] MORE SATs [Jonah Goldberg] Stanley, I ran into the SATs-stand-for-nothing factoid a while back while writing a syndicated column. My editor at Tribune Media even called the SAT folks in Princeton to get some clarification and the staffers there weren't sure what it stood for. I've heard, too, that they dropped aptitude and assesment because anti-testing folks won't accept that the SAT measures either. So now "SAT" is like "ATT"--a brand name that sounds like an acronym but isn't anymore. Still this hasn't changed the fact that to date, no one has ever devised a test on which dumb people score higher than smart people. Posted 11:27 AM | [Link] MORE OSCAR [Jonah Goldberg] I don’t know if this is a new policy or not, but did you notice that they didn’t say "And the winner is…" once last night? Instead, they say "and the Oscar goes to." I have to assume this is self-esteem-speak, which means it’s idiotic. Seriously, does anyone feel like less of a loser when the winner isn’t called a "winner"? If you play the lottery, will you feel a little better when none of your numbers hit but they say "and the huge pile of cash goes to…" Posted 11:21 AM | [Link] THE SIGNS WERE THERE [Stanley Kurtz] Readers of my piece today on the SAT test are pointing out that SAT no longer stands for “Scholastic Aptitude Test.” Some years ago the name was changed to “Scholastic Assessment Test.” More recently, the letters have ceased to stand for anything. I guess all that change was a portent of things to come. Posted 10:50 AM | [Link] BLOGERATI? [John Derbyshire] I commend the following Salman Rushdie article from the British press mainly for its containing the word "belligerati," which I like a lot. Posted 10:21 AM | [Link] BAD TIMING? [Jonah Goldberg] I didn't watch much of the Oscars last night. But I hear that Woody Allen (AKA Skinny Arbuckle) got a standing ovation from the crowd. You would think that during the Church-pedophilia scandal Hollywood might have chosen a different hero. Posted 10:08 AM | [Link] OH BARTENDER....? [Jonah Goldberg] Long time readers of my column know the story. When Marion Barry was re-elected Mayor of Washington DC -- largely by rallying his most loyal constituency, the "ex-offender community" -- my friends and I were at a bar. Convinced that Western Civilization was at an end, we decided to come up with a drink to commemorate Barry's victory. Mixing the most potent ebony elixirs we could – equal parts bourbon, Jägermaister, Kaluha and Coke (Coca Cola, that is) – we came up with the Marion Barry and the appropriate tag line: "So black not even The Man can keep it down!" It’s best not consumed at all but, if you must, order it as a shot. I bring this up because it looks like Mr. Barry is in trouble again, and right when he’s running for office. Posted 9:56 AM | [Link] MINETA MORNING BRIEFING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "Screeners at 32 U.S. airports failed to detect hundreds of knives, guns or simulated explosives in tests by government investigators in the months after Sept. 11," according to today's USA Today report on a Transportation Dept. investigation during the highest-alert days. Posted 9:20 AM | [Link] BUSH'S PROMISES [Ramesh Ponnuru] Dana Milbank has a good piece in the Washington Post today on Bush's recent willingness to depart from campaign positions. In general, Bush has governed pretty much as he promised--a point Milbank allows Bushies to make. (Pundits who complain that Bush was more conservative in 2001 than in 2000 have to be referring to the general mood of the campaign rather than to specific policy positions he took.) Bush can also say that some of his decisions that are under fire were, in fact, telegraphed in 2000--his imposition of steel tariffs, for example. But some of the arguments the Bushies make for these decisions are lame: The war on terror didn't force Bush to impose those tariffs or to say he would sign new campaign-finance regulations. Posted 9:11 AM | [Link] JUST AN OBSERVATION [Andrew Stuttaford] Am I the only person who thinks that Ron Howard without the baseball cap looks increasingly like Michael Milken without the toupee? Posted 9:10 AM | [Link] WE WON'T ALWAYS HAVE GERALDO & ASHLEIGH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A MIT researcher is working on a robot war correspondent. Posted 6:10 AM | [Link] WHERE'D THOSE PAKISTANIS GO? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] It seems to me everytime we see a major INS screw-up, there should be resignations, firings. Alas. Posted 5:52 AM | [Link] HOLLYWOOD TO HARVEY: DROP DEAD: [Rod Dreher] One way to look at tonight's Oscar results is Hollywood's big fat eff-you to Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, who has been a ruthless, successful campaigner for his films over the past few years. This year, though, he went too far. Though Weinstein said they were wrong, Hollywood believed he was behind the sleazy push to paint "A Beautiful Mind" as a whitewash of an anti-Semite. Apparently Academy voters decided to punish him. Miramax's big movie, "In the Bedroom," was expected to win a Best Actress Oscar for Sissy Spacek. It didn't. "Bedroom" had a decent shot at Best Adapted Screenplay -- which instead went to "A Beautiful Mind." The real sign that Harvey-hatred was on Hollywood's mind, though, came in the Foreign Language Film category. Miramax's popular "Amelie" should have won this one going away. Instead, the Oscar went to a film from Bosnia. The only thing the Academy didn't do is send Harvey a telegram. Posted 1:37 AM | [Link] OSCAR SHMOSCAR: [Rod Dreher] Boy, was I wrong about most everything, and the stuff I correctly predicted -- "A Beautiful Mind" taking the top two awards -- bummed me out. Biggest theft of the evening: Ian "Gandalf" McKellen losing Supporting Actor to Jim Broadbent (though truth to tell, Broadbent's a fantastic actor who ought to have won this award for "Little Voice," and should have been Best Actor for "Topsy-Turvy."). Posted 1:02 AM | [Link] THESE WOMEN WORK, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I caught Rep. Jennifer Dunn on C-SPAN talking to a group of women about Social Security last night, although the topic’s not what I am concerned about for this Corner note. In talking about her mother’s generation, she said, "Women didn’t work." Later on she referred to "working women." I don’t mean to pick on Dunn, who might have just slipped up, after all, it is the way we tend to talk. But it just isn’t right. Mothers home raising their kids are, of course, working, doing some of our most important work. It’s something not to slip up on; there are enough people who believe it. Posted 12:17 AM | [Link]
SOME PEOPLE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] \"The Ethicist" column in the NYT Magazine is worth reading for the purpose of seeing how the other half lives--the people who have time to worry about the ethics of closing the pop-up ads on websites before they load--and then to write in to Randy Cohen to ask him about it. I think I am hoping one day it will be revealed he makes them up. It'll be a tad comforting. Posted 6:50 PM | [Link] RE: RE: ONE SCANDAL POINT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] No Rod, I’m not calling for the suppression of the truth—far from it. All I am saying is that not every story in the Boston Globe or elsewhere is going to be true. And at some point--I quote Fr. Neuhaus again, only because it’s fresh in my mind, "Unbridled outrage can too easily become hysteria." There’s way more than enough that we know to be incontrovertibly true. I’d just be cautious in believing the worst every time. Posted 6:05 PM | [Link] SENSUM FIDELIUM: [Rod Dreher] Here's something unheard of at Sunday mass: a standing ovation for a homily. Why did Fr. Percival D'Silva of a prominent Washington, DC, parish get one today? Because he did something very brave: He called on Cardinal Law to resign. Posted 5:42 PM | [Link] RE: ONE SCANDAL NOTE: [Rod Dreher] That's fair comment, Kathryn, but I don't agree. Why should Law get credit for wanting to meet the guy now? And even though the priest is dead, why does that make the fact that five of his alleged victims have come forward now, and even a bishop admits parents complained to him 30 years ago about Fr. Birmingham. None of that is incontrovertible proof, but the fact that Fr. Birmingham has gone on to his reward does not oblige those who may truly have been molested by him to be silent out of some sense of fair play. Does it? Posted 5:29 PM | [Link] ONE SCANDAL NOTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I am making excuses for abuse, because I am not. However, reading that Globe piece you just linked to Rod, I can’t help but think a few things. First of all, a little credit to Cardinal Law, he is willing to meet with the man making the allegation about the funeral. I do pray that’s not how it went down, the way the Globe reports it. But then there’s a lot I wish didn’t happen in Boston and elsewhere that has. A second thought: These allegations are against a priest who is long dead, he can’t defend himself. Now, yes, the archdiocese is to blame for the culture of cover-ups that make us now believe all allegations, and for waiting so long for all this to explode, so that some of the priests accused are now, in fact, dead. That being true, there is something to be said for caution against hysteria, as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus warns in the new issue of First Things. Horrible evils have happened. The guilty priests need to be punished. Victims need to be cared for. But we’ve also got to bear in mind that not every allegation is true and not every settlement in the past was an admission of guilt. Yes, I don’t want my money going to "pay-offs" on the other hand, in some of these cases, maybe a diocese knew the priest to be innocent, but knew the cost of a settlement would be less than a trial would be. I hate the fact we’re at this point, and feel the anger too, but I have to remind myself that even while what we know to be true is as horrible as it is, the worst may not always be true. Posted 4:28 PM | [Link] UNSPEAKABLE: [Rod Dreher] There's scandal news today from all over, so I'm only blogging the most outrageous reports. This one, from the Boston Globe, qualifies. A man named Blanchette says he was among a number of young molestation victims of a Fr. Birmingham. When he went to Birmingham's funeral a few years back, he took Bernard Cardinal Law aside to tell him what Birmingham had done. "He laid his hands on my head for two or three minutes," Blanchette, who said his four brothers were also molested by Birmingham, said of Law. "And then he said this: 'I bind you by the power of the confessional never to speak about this to anyone else.' And that just burned me big-time. ...I didn't ask him to hear my confession. I went there to inform him." The cardinal's spokesman says Law remembers meeting Blanchette, doesn't remember what he said to the man, but would never tell anyone to keep quiet about such a thing. Uh-huh. Posted 3:00 PM | [Link] TELL ME THERE'S MORE TO LIFE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Evidently the Oscars are the "Super Bowl for Women." Says one woman looking forward to the "tacky and catty" event: "The guys want to watch Six Feet Under at 9 o'clock, like we watched Sex and the City during the Super Bowl." As it turns out, only about 35 million of the 103 American households that have TV sets subscribe to HBO. There are other ways to pass the time, fortunately. Posted 9:33 AM | [Link] JESUIT EDUCATION: [Rod Dreher] A couple of Jesuits in northern California have been molesting retarded men, and their supervisors have been covering it up, reports the L.A. Times. This is the same province of Jesuits that is persecuting the faithful, orthodox Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, as NRO's Stanley Kurtz has been reporting. Posted 8:59 AM | [Link] WINNING STRATEGY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Underage girls wanting abortions in Texas bypass certain courts, heading to Democrat judges who are more willing to skirt parental notification laws. Posted 7:28 AM | [Link] DO YOU THINK? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Seventy percent of Americans responding to a Newsweek poll think Yasser Arafat is "an obstacle to peace." Now, to make sure Gen. Zinni, et al, remember who they are dealing with. Posted 7:23 AM | [Link] |
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