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INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (2) [Andrew Stuttaford] In Afghanistan the habit of shooting guns in the air as a form of celebration is so widespread that (the Financial Times reports) the Afghans have a word for it: "Khwakhidazzay". Who knew? Posted 10:20 AM | [Link] ANGLOSPHERE ACCESSORIES [Andrew Stuttaford] Chris Patten may not like it, but it's difficult to believe that an EU 'patriotism' will ever replace Anglo-American friendship. Here's one small (and not very scientific) piece of evidence. My father claims to be trying to buy me a specific set of cufflinks for my birthday (which was, Dad, quite some time ago) - one link will feature the British flag, the other the American. The London store where he went to find them told him that they have sold out, and that there is a waiting list. No word on whether many Brits are buying EU-themed cufflinks, but somehow I doubt it. Posted 10:11 AM | [Link] INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE [Andrew Stuttaford] Generic Marmite has arrived. Shopping this morning in a Tesco supermarket in central London, I was shocked to see that the retailer was offering a Tesco's 'yeast extract'. The faux Marmite's container had been designed to resemble the legendary 'true' Marmite jar, but its contents, I like to think, will be unable to compete. Naturally, I didn't buy any. I begin to understand why John Derbyshire has so irrevocably abandoned the motherland. Posted 10:01 AM | [Link]
OH YES, PAUL O'NEIL [Andrew Stuttaford] Does anyone know what exactly it is that Paul O'Neil hopes to achieve from his African trip with Bono? It looks like pandering of the worst kind. What can we expect next, a Rummy-Britney defense review? If O'Neil wants to look at the question of aid to the Third World, the best place to start is the work of the late Peter Bauer. Lord Bauer (who died earlier this month in his late 80s) was the first winner of the new Milton Friedman prize "for the advancement of liberty". He was a believer in free markets rather than free hand-outs. His best comment on aid was to note that it had proved "an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries". Posted 8:11 PM | [Link] PIZZAS, LIFE, PAUL 0'NEIL [Andrew Stuttaford] 8pm? Hey, Robert, you should check out what time it is in Europe : it adds a whole new dimension to the notion of 'no life' . As for the reader you mention, Kathryn, I'd just like to say that if there's one thing worse than writing e-mails at ridiculous times, it is reading them then.. On the pizza question, I'm not going back to that subject. The other Mrs Stuttaford is a vegetarian - an unknown word in Anglo-Scottish cuisine. Enough said... Posted 7:54 PM | [Link] HAVING A LIFE...WITH SEX [Robert A. George] Hmmm...after 8 on a Friday evening and The Corner is still active--proving I guess that conservatives REALLY have no lives! On the sex vs. teen sex debate, Oliver does make a good point, on which conservatives will agree: "Teen" sex is a relatively recent phenomenon because the "teenager" is a recent phenomenon. For all intents and purposes, teenagers are a 20th century creation, maybe even second half of the 20th century at that. Consider Teddy Roosevelt and George H.W. Bush were men doing manly things (like going off to war and such) well before their 20th birthdays. "Teendom" is a conceit of the post-war suburban leisure class. Furthermore, there is an interesting tension in society's where we insist that teenagers be treated as children when it comes to sex, but as adults when it comes to murder. Of course, this is not to say that people should murder only after they are married. Posted 7:33 PM | [Link] OUCH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Bet you're not going to get anymore Mom-made pizzas, Andrew! Maybe the other Mrs. Stuttaford has a recipe? By the way, get a life. This, from a reader. I am pretty certain he's talking about me, but could apply to globe trotters like you, as well: "Dilbert could tell you that if you work late or come in early, the first or last thing you do is send out lots of emails so everyone knows what a martyr you are. Denizens of the Corner are evidently no different." Posted 7:28 PM | [Link] PIZZAS FOR ISRAEL [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, delighted to hear that the pizzas are still getting through to the IDF troops. Could you tell them, however, to be careful of any pies from my mother? Made according to the finest traditions of Anglo-Scottish cuisine, they are guaranteed to bring any army to its knees... Posted 7:24 PM | [Link] BROCK BACKROUND [Stanley Kurtz] Last week I put up a piece about David Brock on NRO, for which I drew upon an article in Slate by Tim Noah. Readers interested in a more detailed treatment of Brock’s lies can consult the article by Will Harper in the East Bay Express, upon which Noah’s piece was based. Posted 7:16 PM | [Link] THE SAUDIS, AGAIN [Andrew Stuttaford] Russia's involvement in Chechnya is not, to put it mildly, one of the more glorious chapters in Moscow's history. Russia's appalling subjugation of the Chechen people has varied between the classically imperial approach taken in czarist times to the near-genocidal horrors of the Stalin era. The nightmare continued beyond the old dictator's death and, indeed, the collapse of the USSR. Yeltsin's policies in that region are the darkest stain on his record. That said, the Chechen cause has itself been severely tarnished by terrorism, banditry and, increasingly, Islamic extremism. Who is responsible for the lurch in the direction of religious fundamentalism (something that is not a tradition in the Caucasus)? Well, it's interesting to note that one of the most prominent Chechen leaders (he was killed last month) was a man known as Khattab - a man born in that well-known center of moderation, 'Saudi' Arabia. Suddenly Russia's recent decision to remove quotas on its oil exports becomes even more understandable. Posted 7:14 PM | [Link] MORE FROM OSLO [Andrew Stuttaford] Rod, San Francisco, Amsterdam - that's just parochial. If you want to know what's really going on, Norway is the place to be. Take Oslo, for example: not too far from the city's railway station there is a section of town where a number of luckless buildings play host to a large amount of leftist scribbling, graffiti and other 'artwork'. You would, probably, find much of the same nonsense near many American universities. It was interesting to see, nevertheless, a large (and well-executed) mural of a stern looking lady, resplendent in her keffiyeh, and with the Palestinian colors flying behind her. No big deal, I suppose, but it's yet another reminder how uncritical support for an Arafat-defined 'liberation' of Palestine has become part of Europe's conventional left-wing orthodoxy. Posted 6:54 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF PIZZA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Pies are still getting to IDF troops, despite security concerns. >Here’s the site . Posted 6:52 PM | [Link] FISH FROM HELL [Andrew Stuttaford] Fair enough, Kathryn, but nothing what that guy says is going to make anchovies taste good... Posted 6:48 PM | [Link] PICKING ON PIZZA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Junk-science knight Steve Milloy exonerates pizza from aspersions cast by the Center for Science in the Public Interest . Posted 6:44 PM | [Link] FIGURE THE ODDS [Rod Dreher] Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., was in the news recently for the unusual $100,000 severance package he offered to a married triathlete who served as his communications director, and who says the bishop sexually harassed him. In today's Trib, Lynch defended his decisions in recent years to offer $30 million in no-bid contracts for diocesan construction projects to a male contractor with whom he frequently socializes and takes pleasure trips. Posted 6:44 PM | [Link] ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] You know who you are. If you asked a question, had a story idea, submitted something, and have not heard back, please, please, nudge (this includes family and friends with wedding, shower, and other invites and queries!). The NRO e-mail influx has been particualrly high the last month or so, and you may have gotten lost in the shuffle. Thanks! Posted 5:21 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF WFB... [James S. Robbins] William F. Buckley's essay on the smoking police visiting NR's offices reminds me of a John P. Roche anecdote. He was a persistent cigar smoker, and I have term papers he graded 15 years ago that still bear the aroma of Dominican tobacco. At some point in the 1990s smoking was outlawed in all the buildings at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. I stopped by John's office one day shortly thereafter and he was behind his desk, reading, and puffing away. I mentioned the smoking ban. He gave me a sideways look and said, in heavily accented Brooklynese, "Let 'em come an' get me. You want one?" Of course I joined him. Once a radical, always a radical. Posted 5:15 PM | [Link] NRO ON THE ROAD: [Rod Dreher] Holy Gomorrah, Derb's in San Francisco, and I'm headed out early next week on assignment to Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands. Do they let people like us into such locales? Believe it or not, there really are true conservatives in Holland, and they've organized around the newly-established Edmund Burke Institute (this link should take you to their English-language webpage). Put the Grolsch on ice, jongen, and let us conspire to make merry and denounce the perfidy of the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys. Posted 3:55 PM | [Link] THE SUMMER READ [Kathryn Jean Lopez] WFB's new Nuremberg, a fictional account of the Nuremberg trials. I know we're not alone in The Corner anxiously awaiting our copies. . . (which you can order here). Posted 3:38 PM | [Link] FRIDAY POSTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Just making sure the folks stay with us and read those afternoon pieces we got up in the last hour or so--G-File and a mega books list with Tom Ricks, Victor Davis Hanson, Terry Teachout, and a load of other stars. It should be said that our piece postings will be limited on Monday, since we figure most of our readers might actually have lives outside of NRO (ok, SOME). Anyhow, everyone should check in in The Corner over the weekend---we'll be here off and on at odd times. Posted 3:10 PM | [Link] LOADING UP FOR THE WEEKEND? [Jonah Goldberg] Fellas, what's up with the blistering pace of posts? Look at the post-times. Very impressive. Posted 3:03 PM | [Link] "SOCIAL SECURITY CHOICE" [Ramesh Ponnuru] The other day I noted that "privatization" does not really describe a free-market reform of Social Security based on private investment. In response, Dennis Logue, Jr., e-mailed me the above. It's not bad, and it has the added virtue of stressing the voluntary nature of participation in the new system. Posted 3:00 PM | [Link] WHEN BLONDES ATTACK [Jonah Goldberg] Swedes Versus Danes on immigration. Best quote: "If they (the Swedes) want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg, or Malmö into a Scandinavian Beirut with clan wars, honour killings, and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Öresund bridge." Posted 3:00 PM | [Link] WHAT DID HE KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT? [Ramesh Ponnuru] Encyclopedia Brown, that is. Posted 2:58 PM | [Link] CIA CYA [Ramesh Ponnuru] Richard Miniter has a terrific article in The New Republic about that August CIA memo on al Qaeda--and on why the CIA might have leaked the news about the memo. Posted 2:58 PM | [Link] UNSETTLING START TO MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND [Kathryn Jean Lopez] An apartment-building explosion outside L.A. Posted 2:56 PM | [Link] PANHANDLING INC [Jonah Goldberg] Ramesh, this must warm your heart. The homeless are being privatized. Posted 2:54 PM | [Link] ONE REASON…: [Rich Lowry] ..the military is reluctant to go after Iraq, according to WPost, is that Saddam has WMD, specifically bio and chem. Didn’t all the anti-missile defense people argue that we would never let a dictator’s WMD keep us from attacking him? That it would just make a slam-dunk case for pre-emption? Robert Wright call your office… Posted 2:53 PM | [Link] MORE HOT TEEN DISAGREEMENT [Jonah Goldberg] As for the rest of Oliver’s assertions I say, fair enough. But his discussion still strikes me as ahistorical. For proof that young women’s sexuality was seen through a different light I could quote all day from Richard Brathwait's The English Gentleman and The English Gentlewoman, dated 1630 and 1631 respectively, in which Brathwait told young women that "bashfull modesty" was a woman's ticket to salvation: "Modesty must be your guide, vertuous thoughts your guard, so shall heaven be your goale." There’s a reason such books were aimed primarily at young people and young women especially. But the main reason why teen sex was seen as distinct from adult sex is that teenage girls (the only players who really matter here) were considered property. Teenage women simply did not "own" their autonomous selves in the libertarian sense during the Middle Ages or even until quite recently. Daughters may have married at very early ages (again, marriage, sweet marriage), but marriage was a transaction between father and groom or between father and the father of the groom. The whole idea of romantic love is a recent development. In this context the useful phrase "get your greasy mitts off my daughter!" has particular salience because the word "my" still had the connotation of actual ownership. Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] MORE Arming Pilots: [Rich Lowry] E-mail: Saw the weekend talk shows with the undersecretaries defending the decision not to arm pilots. Was obvious that none knew the slightest thing about aircraft in general ,airliners specifically. Case in point: they are recommending the pilots place the aircraft in violent maneuvers to prevent the perps from gaining control of the plane! 1. Who will catch the highjacker, George Jetson? Won't all the other passengers be tossed about and clobbered as well? 2. Ho will he know when the perp is good and subdued? Run back and check, then run up to the cockpit, jerk about some more, then check again? Sounds like Julia Child making scrambled eggs. 3. What phase of flight is this going to happen? When the plane is most full of fuel and least able to maintain altitude? At cruise altitude where sudden maneuvers can tear the airplane to pieces? What will happen to the cargo and other stuff in the hold? Violently shifted loads could make the plane uncontrollable. There are Glaser type bullets that disintegrate on impact with any surface, even cardboard, and would not penetrate aircraft skin, yet will stop even a large attacker (e.g. Reid) wearing body armour. Posted 2:38 PM | [Link] I LEFT MY HEART [John Derbyshire] In the city by the bay. Every time I read a news story about San Francisco (BIZ TAXES DOUBLED TO PAY FOR LESBIAN POETRY WORKSHOPS), I think: "Why on earth would anyone want to live there?" But every time I visit the Bay area I find myself thinking: "Why don't I live here?" (NB: Today's column was written on Tuesday, whn I was packing. It was a flying visit.) OK, OK, back in the saddle with 2 comments to The Corner. (1) Mark Steyn. I actually got to meet Mark for the first time a few days ago. As a major fan of Mark's, I was of course tongue-tied, could only mumble: "I am not worthy, not worthy..." And didn't mind very much when he said: "Oh, yes, I recognize you from your pistol license photograph." Now here is Mark in the National Post calling me, with no irony I can detect, a "distinguished conservative commentator." Oh boy. My cup overfloweth. (2) Teen sex in Old Russia. See Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Bk.3, xviii: "Da kak zhe ty venchalas', nyanya? -- Tak, vidno, Bog velel. Moi Vanya / Molozhe byl menya, moi svet, / A bylo mne trinadcat' let." Ask a Russian. Posted 2:38 PM | [Link] HOT TEEN SEX [Jonah Goldberg[ Blogger Charles Oliver has a long lecture on my teen sex post earlier. Apparently, Glenn Reynolds thinks Oliver’s "giving what for" on teen sex. I’m not sure why. At first, Oliver makes it sound like he disagrees with me about a great deal. But the more he writes, the more clear it is he agrees with me on most of the important stuff. Our one total disagreement: I offer "no proof" that Western Civilization used to see something distinct about teen sex. "Indeed," he writes, "I don't think he can prove that." Oh come on. I don’t think Oliver can prove Western Civ didn’t see something distinct about teen sex. Indeed, everything else he writes in his blog demonstrates that Western Civ saw teen sex as something distinct. He talks a lot about "trial marriages" and early marriages which is all very interesting, but the key word here is "marriages," which gives away the whole game in that everyone understood what the ideal is while kids boinking each other at raves aren’t even paying lip-service (pun intended) to the idea of marriage. Posted 2:30 PM | [Link] MAYBE ADD A COLOR? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 1:45 PM | [Link] AIDING ILLEGALS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] We're safeguarding the borders. No, not to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking in to the country, but to make sure they are safe passing through the Arizona desert! We're talking panic buttons on six 30-foot-tall "rescue beacons." The beacons have been working since March, and INS head Ziglar was touting them while in Arizona and California this week. Posted 1:34 PM | [Link] JOINT CHIEFS UNDERMINING IRAQ WAR?: [Rod Dreher] This Washington Post story was something of a shocker. "The uniformed leaders of the U.S. military believe they have persuaded the Pentagon's civilian leadership to put off an invasion of Iraq until next year at the earliest and perhaps not to do it at all, according to senior Pentagon officials. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have waged a determined behind-the-scenes campaign to persuade the Bush administration to reconsider an aggressive posture toward Iraq in which war was regarded as all but inevitable." Posted 1:28 PM | [Link] 747—MY WEIGHT WAS WRONG: An e-mail: “I hate myself for being this boring and pedantic, but you're way off on the weight of a 747. A 747 without fuel or payload weighs about 400,000 pounds. Question: how many email did you get from aviation nerds pointing this out?” One—so far…. Posted 1:23 PM | [Link] "DESPERATELY SERIOUS": [Rod Dreher] The British military are making plans for the aftermath of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The Tiimes of London reports that Tony Blair has informed his cabinet that conditions are "desperately serious." The casualties, experts estimate, will run into the millions. Have a nice weekend. Posted 1:14 PM | [Link] E-MAIL FROM RED SOX FAN: [Rich Lowry] "I sat in the seventh row behind the evil Yanquis dugout last night. The fastball was moving, the curve ball was snapping, and the change up was devastating (ask Jason Giambi). Yanquis fans are a little less sure of themselves this year. Of course, you are still arrogant and obnoxious, but the swagger isn't there. There is a lot of whistling past the graveyard going on in New York." Uh, maybe--but it's also still May. Posted 1:07 PM | [Link] WHAT DID THE PRESS KNOW AND WHEN DID IT KNOW IT? [Jonah Goldberg] Bush is still getting beaten up for" what did he know and when did he know it" about 9/11. Congress, the CIA, the FBI, the INS and Bill Clinton & Co. will all get a drubbing before this is all over. But, here's a quick question to ponder over Memorial Day Weekend, how come the media didn't take al Quaeda more seriously? I didn't hear much about it in the presidential debates, for example. If the New York Times and the Washington Post can connect the dots so clearly after the fact, how come they didn't do more before 9/11? Sounds like a job for Howie Kurtz! Posted 1:03 PM | [Link] WHAT AGAIN WAS THAT COLOR SYSTEM FOR? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] (We’re at “elevated” yellow at the moment.) Posted 12:33 PM | [Link] NOTE TO THE VATICAN PR DEPARTMENT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] You probably want to avoid this appearing the same day as this. Posted 12:21 PM | [Link] RE: STEYN WORRIED ABOUT THE WAR: [Rod Dreher] He's not the only one, Kathryn. President Bush's telling the Germans that there were no Iraqi invasion plans on his desk made my heart sink. I can't imagine why he would say such a thing, even if true. That's not leadership. If Bush wusses out on this, he'll make things that much easier for John McCain in 2004. I've been getting lots of mail lately from self-identified Bush voters complaining about the administration's handling of the war, and saying they'll be ready to vote for a more hawkish challenger if the president forces their hand. Posted 12:07 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE [Mike Potemra] One of the most valuable advocates for interreligious understanding is Pope John Paul II. In his speech in predominantly Islamic Azerbaijan on Wednesday, he praised the Muslims, Jews, and Christians of that country for their religious witness: "From this country, which has held and still holds tolerance as a primary value of all wholesome life in society, we wish to proclaim to the world: enough of wars in the name of God! No more profanation in His holy name!" The pope's comments are worth reading in their entirety. And note, especially, that he did not say, "Enough of wars in the name of the Islamic God." He said, "wars in the name of God," period. We can and should be (lower-case-c) crusaders for freedom in the war on terrorism, but not (upper-case-C) Crusaders against particular races or religions. Posted 12:02 PM | [Link] GOOD ARMING…: [Rich Lowry] …pilots point. E-mail: “How it is perfectly okay to arm an armored truck driver who spends a good quarter of his day out hauling funds around in public but it is not okay if it is a pilot transporting humans?” Posted 11:41 AM | [Link] THANKS FOR…: [Rich Lowry] …all the column suggestions. Wrote about arming pilots. Here’s the beginning. To get the rest you have to harass your local paper for being too biased, venal, and short-sighted to run my column: “A pilot flying a 747 is in control of 147,000 pounds of metal, 57,285 gallons of jet fuel, and the lives of roughly 400 passengers. You would think he could be trusted with a handgun. Not according to Undersecretary of Transportation for Security John McGaw, who recently announced that the Bush administration opposes arming pilots, on the theory that pilots are for flying, not defending, airplanes….” Posted 11:39 AM | [Link] SHOE BOMBER & HAMAS: [Rich Lowry] According to LA Times: “It is Reid's potential involvement with a terrorist group other than Al Qaeda--or in conjunction with it--that has authorities scrambling. They said in interviews that Reid's visits to the Gaza Strip and other locations during his extensive travels, the particular type of explosives he possessed when arrested, his own comments and other information gained in their investigation have all raised significant questions about whether Al Qaeda or another group was the primary force behind Reid's planned attack… But in an interview, the federal law enforcement official confirmed that authorities are now looking particularly hard at whether two Palestinian terrorist organizations--Hamas and Hezbollah--were also somehow involved, which would mark a dramatic shift in the agendas of both groups.” Posted 11:25 AM | [Link] POSEUR ALERT: [Rich Lowry] Uh, that would be me. I went to a party downtown last night for “Mugshot Magazine,” which I don’t recommend unless you are really, really into Old School hip-hop (whatever that is). I think the magazine is a New Yorker Talk of the Town piece waiting to happen, since it is run by a couple of skate girls on no budget, but seems to have quite a following among the kind of people who know what Old School hip-hop is. I spent most of the party cowering from the kind of people who know what Old School hip-hop is, although I did—amazing enough—meet two Mark Steyn fans. They were Aussies. I learned: 1) that Aussies don’t actually drink their beer in those huge Foster’s “oil cans”; 2) that Aussies call red-haired girls “blues.” And that concludes my report from the Old School hip-hop scene… Posted 11:13 AM | [Link] MORE TIMMERMAN: [Rich Lowry] “May 23, 2002. In an oped in today's Washington Times, "Eiffel Tower terror and fantasy," Ken Timmerman takes on the latest myth of the "gotcha" press seeking discredit the Bush administration's handling of pre-September 11 terror warnings. The press has been claiming that a foiled December 1994 attempt to crash a French airliner into the Eiffel Tower “proves” the Bush administration was asleep at the switch. Ken interviews the French judge to get the real story from the horse’s mouth... Posted 11:10 AM | [Link] WE'LL WIN THIS [Dave Kopel] Brink Lindsey republishes the full text of Patrick Henry's greatest speech, warning against temporizing in the vain hope that if we retreat, our enemies will demur: "There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!" Two-and-a-quarter centuries after Henry spoke, the tyrants who occupied our planes of Boston are infinitely more evil than were the Redcoats, and they would impose on us the tyranny and slaughter they have always imposed wherever they can. We will cower and die from nuclear, chemical, biological, and explosive attacks, or we will live and fight "armed in the holy cause of liberty," knowing that America will prevail because "There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations." Posted 11:07 AM | [Link] BAD SIGN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Mark Steyn doesn’t like the way the war is going. Posted 11:05 AM | [Link] NICE JOB [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Another attack thwarted in Israel. But imagine had this one and this one been successful Posted 10:50 AM | [Link] RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE [Mike Potemra] A politician's brother has given a speech, and sends the politician a copy. The politician responds: "I had a chance to read the talk...I think it is very fine indeed and I have one suggestion only. You speak of the 'Judaic-Christian heritage.' I would suggest that you use a term on the order of 'religious heritage'--this is for the reason that we should find some way of including the vast numbers of people who hold to the Islamic and Buddhist religions when we compare the religious world against the Communist world." A New Age, multi-culti, hippy-dippy cult of diversity comment, right? Nope. The writer was President Dwight David Eisenhower, March 11, 1957. Posted 10:41 AM | [Link] MORE TEEN SEXXX! [Jonah Goldberg] I knew that'd get your attention. More proof why Reynolds is wrong. In Shakespeare's day, they were worried about teen sex too. A reader sends me this bit from The Winter's Tale: "I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting--Hark you now! " Posted 10:17 AM | [Link] DUMBING DOWN AIRLINE SECURITY: [Rich Lowry] USA Today reports that the TSA is dumbing down standards for those vaunted air marshals who make armed pilots unnecessary: "The source estimated that as many as three-quarters of marshals deployed today were not required to pass the advanced marksmanship test. The source said that many of the proficient marshals are reluctant to team with marshals who haven't passed." Posted 10:00 AM | [Link] NEW CAUSE…: [Rich Lowry] …for anti-smoking advocates—water. Posted 9:56 AM | [Link] WHERE’S THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO WHEN YOU NEED IT?: [Rich Lowry] Pedro really looked good last night. Posted 9:49 AM | [Link] ARAFAT'S NOT POPULAR [Jonah Goldberg] Should have been obvious all along. John Podhoretz has the details. Posted 9:00 AM | [Link] WHO KNEW? [Jonah Goldberg] Richard Berke has been promoted to the post of Washington Editor of the New York Times. I suppose this means even more stories about how abortion and gay rights are tearing the Republican Party apart. But here's an item that begs for further clarification. In the Times announcement, we're told "Mr. Berke first won national recognition for his journalism when he was a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. There, as editor of the high school newspaper, he and a co-author wrote an article disclosing that in 1959, Richard M. Nixon, then vice president, was exposed to microwave radiation beamed at the United States Embassy in Moscow when he was staying there for the "kitchen debates" with Nikita S. Khrushchev." Posted 8:42 AM | [Link] IT DIDN’T START WITH BABYBOOMERS [Jonah Goldberg] I am all for beating up on baby boomers, but Reynolds thinks this "obsession" is a new phenomenon. The idea that Western Civilization, American culture or any modern culture for that matter, doesn’t see something distinct about "teen sex" strikes me as plainly false. Yes, people used to have sex at a younger age, but they also used to get married at a younger age too. Reynolds surely knows that for most of humanity’s non-prehistoric history, society thought ill of folks who got it on before marriage, especially very young people. That doesn't mean such things never happened, but the standard was real. We aren’t allowed to worry about pre-marital sex anymore – and you wouldn’t necessarliy catch me getting on a soapbox about it. But teen sex is premarital sex with a host of problems piled on top. Glenn, if it makes you feel better, think of "Teen" as a catchall phrase for poorly-educated people with raging hormones and bad or no jobs, little life experience and few life skills, who mostly live with their parents. People -- of any age – who fit this description shouldn’t be having too much sex, if you ask me. Posted 8:30 AM | [Link] WHAT’S IN A NAME? [Jonah Goldberg] Glenn Reynolds has a sex problem. Over at InstaPundit he writes: WHAT'S WRONG WITH TEEN SEX? The U.S. News cover story is about a perennial bogeyman, teen sex. This reminds me of something.Well, maybe so. But for nearly all of human history we called "fire" something like Garunga! (Translation: shiny hot stuff). We called murder and robbery "shopping." We called mastodons "dinner." And, even today, in many parts of Europe they call a Big Mac "le Big Mac" and they call a quarter-pounder with cheese a "Royale with Cheese." So what? Posted 8:27 AM | [Link] IT HASN'T BEEN SCHEDULED BECAUSE... [Jonah Goldberg] ...it will probably be a segment on "Ripley's Believe it or Not." See the man talk about Edmund Burke as he stuffs thirty seven cheese curls into his mouth! Posted 6:37 AM | [Link] WITNESS THIS: [John J. Miller] C-SPAN will air a special program on Whittaker Chambers this Sunday at 3 pm (it repeats next Friday, at 8 pm). On June 30 and July 5, it will turn its attention to Russell Kirk and WFB. The Jonah Goldberg episode has not yet been scheduled. Posted 4:30 AM | [Link]
GERMANY, AGAIN: [Rod Dreher] Reader Pat Tyler found some good, pro-American commentary from the German press, including this heartening editorial from Die Welt, which begins, "The great majority of our people are definitely not on the side of the protesters. On the contrary: We are with you in the sober realization that it is our duty to combat tyranny and terrorism with courage and clarity of purpose." Danke, y'all. Meanwhile, reader Sandy Callendar writes to recall her Texas father being interviewed about the death penalty (which he favors) by a German TV crew over to cover an execution at the nearby state prison. Sandy says the German reporter asked, very dramatically, "Don't you feel bad knowing that basically everyone else in the world disagrees with the United States position on executions?" Sandy's dad had the best possible comeback: "Well, Germany actually has a long history of being on the wrong side of things." Posted 10:44 PM | [Link] RE: EU ON BIN LADEN: [Rod Dreher] Andrew, that EU document is more than just infuriating: it's scary as hell. Why? As the Daily Telegraph reports in the story to which you have provided a link, "The issue is highly sensitive because the crimes of xenophobia and racism, which do not exist as such in Britain, are among the offences covered by the EU's new arrest warrant, and Europol has a mandate to launch Union-wide xenophobia inquiries. The report was compiled before Pim Fortuyn rose to prominence in Holland with warnings that militant Islam was a threat to liberal society." Think about that. Fanatical Muslims can call for jihad and treason in Europe, as they certainly have done, particularly in England, and one may not criticize them for it or face arrest and prosecution by the European Union authorities. Why on earth does anyone in Europe stand for it? Posted 9:01 PM | [Link] EU ON BIN LADEN [Andrew Stuttaford] The London Daily Telegraph is reporting that an EU watchdog is criticizing the BBC for referring to bin Laden as an "Islamic fundamentalist" and an "Islamic terrorist". This terminology is said to be inappropriate as bin Laden's acts were, apparently, "un-Islamic". Well, that's interesting, to say the least. Presumably we can now expect the same body to call on the US authorities to cease respecting the supposedly "Islamic" needs of Guantanamo's al-Qaeda detainees. Posted 7:30 PM | [Link] HIVE MIND [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a nice description (reported in this week's London Spectator) of the scene at Google's HQ, where all queries to the Google search engine are projected onto a screen as they arise. "This is the nearest one can get to peeping into the world's brain." Posted 7:01 PM | [Link] BUT PERHAPS WE SHOULDN'T COMPLAIN[Andrew Stuttaford] At least different EU countries, however misguided they may be, can still agree to differ. As is noted in Thursday's Financial Times the EU Commission is now calling for "the center of gravity" for foreign policy initiatives to be moved away from the EU's member-states to the unelected Brussels bureaucracy. To understand what this could mean, imagine, post 9/11, Tony Blair having to defer to Chris Patten. Posted 6:53 PM | [Link] EU FARCe [Andrew Stuttaford] Do you remember EU Commissioner Chris Patten lecturing America on the virtues of European civilization? Well, here's one thing to remember: the EU has recently refused to add Colombia's leftist FARC guerillas to its official list of terrorist groups. France and Sweden objected, apparently. FARC's recent atrocities include the murderous shelling of a church (even the UN's Human Rights Office has described this attack as a war crime), the use of cooking-gas cylinder bombs on civilians and the kidnapping of presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Posted 6:42 PM | [Link] "ASHAMED TO BE CANADIAN": [Rod Dreher] A reader writes that she's "ashamed to be Canadian, for many reasons, many of which you've mentioned on The Corner. Just to complete the picture, though: We've had rallies in Toronto of PLMs [Peace-Loving Muslims] screaming 'Death to the Jews'; teenagers refused service in Ottawa coffee shops and restaurants for wearing a Star of David on their necklaces, or embroidered on a backpack; synagogues burned down in Saskatoon, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City (the latter two in Canada's mini-France, Quebec) and here in Winnipeg, threats of arson against my synagogue for hosting a speech by Daniel Pipes. Guess how much attention the police pay to the burnings? If you guessed that so far they have made no arrests, you'd be correct." Posted 5:42 PM | [Link] POOR GAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Here's my just-posted piece over at The American Enterprise's website on Barbie. The Iranian government has a different take on the doll. Posted 5:20 PM | [Link] I HADN'T HEARD OF THIS: [Lowry] An e-mail: "You might find interesting the current flap at Harvard over a student commencement speaker who has ties to charities shut down by the State Dept. for funneling money to Hamas. Check out Matthew Yglesias’ blog for more details: http://yglesias.blogspot.com/ This strikes many of us conservatives on campus as grossly inappropriate, but has not been extensively covered yet .The Harvard faculty need someone to show them that is unacceptable. Posted 5:14 PM | [Link] WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEANUT FREE?: [Lowry] A thoughtful e-mail regarding my earlier peanut-free sections post: "And your point is? For peanut allergic people, peanuts are as toxic as cyanide. My 11 year old daughter is one of the peanut allergic people mentioned. Her first reaction, when she was 2, almost killed her and probably would have if I hadn't recognized the anaphylaxis immediately and gotten her to her doctor at illegal speeds. The spread of peanut allergy in the US is serious and mysterious. We are heading to 5% of the school age population having this allergy, which is one of the rare food allergies is not outgrown. Now here we have a business and a private group (probably a branch of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network-which gets no federal funding, and relies on cooperation and persuasion rather than cooercion) cooperating so that the business can expand its customer base and the interest group's members can do something they would otherwise be unable to do. Peanut eaters are not banned from the game. Peanuts are a subsidized crop (hey, you're against that, right?) and have a potent marketing organization. So . . .what exactly is the big deal?" Posted 5:08 PM | [Link] BUT I LOVE THIS.... [Jonah Goldberg] From the ESPN piece below. "The Republicans, apparently, have been trying to reach out to women. Well, this would be a leap back to the 18th century. I cannot think that the members of congress will stand by and allow him to do this." Really? The 18th century? Just curious: Are we talking the late 1700s here or are we still under British rule? Because I am unclear on where King George came down on women's athletics compared to the Founding Fathers. Posted 4:43 PM | [Link] CANADA NEEDS A FIRST AMENDMENT: [Rod Dreher] Political correctness continues to run amok in Canada. Recently, a Canadian court ordered a Catholic school to allow a gay student to bring his boyfriend to the prom, ruling that the school was in violation of Canada's human rights law. Now the human-rights commission in Alberta has made a positively insane ruling against a newsmagazine called The Report, which was sued on entirely spurious grounds by a Jewish extremist. Here's an open letter by the publisher to the commission, protesting the ruling. What a chilling document. In Canada, it appears, any words critical of a favored minority group can be criminalized. This is not a left-wing liberal-arts college; this is a major Western nation! Posted 4:41 PM | [Link] SAY IT AIN'T SO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A fact error on the Internet!...another good Onion piece. Posted 4:40 PM | [Link] I DO LIKE... [Jonah Goldberg] "OPERATIONS: Defend Freedom." Posted 4:26 PM | [Link] I DUNNO.... [Jonah Goldberg] This looks both pretty cool and sort of brave new worldy in a Tron/War Games kind of way all at the same time. Posted 4:23 PM | [Link] ESPN Vs. THE MISSUS [Jonah Goldberg] I guess it's better to be hated than ignored. Posted 4:05 PM | [Link] DEATH PENALTY AGONISTES [Jonah Goldberg] Yesterday’s column has elicited a lot of interesting email from readers across the spectrum. Most of it is very thoughtful, especially from the more learned of my ultra-utilitarian readers (who knew I had any?). I am going to have to revisit the topic of jury nullification because it makes so many people so surly. But one thing I would like to make clear: I was not trying to write a piece for or against the death penalty. I keep getting email from people wanting to "point out" pro or con arguments about capital punishment that they think I "missed." That’s all fine, but beside the point. Yes, I am in favor of the death penalty and would gladly argue my position again and again. But I was trying to make a point about democracy not the death penalty. I guess I failed, for some of you at least. Posted 4:04 PM | [Link] NO ACTUALLY.... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] How about not an idea to Jonah or Rich before I've passed on it to commission from someone for NRO. No offense to flyover-country newspapers.... Posted 3:49 PM | [Link] BY ALL MEANS.... [Jonah Goldberg] Throw an idea or two Rich's way. Just make sure I've already taken a pass on it. Thanks. Posted 3:46 PM | [Link] NAMING NAMES [Ramesh Ponnuru] Virginia Postrel has a fun column in the Times about fashions in naming children. No word on the popularity of "Ramesh." Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] HELP: [Rich Lowry] I have recently joined Jonah as a syndicated columnist. The only things I find hard about it are meeting deadlines, writing substantive pieces at 650 words, and deciding what to write about. When it comes to the latter, if you have any ideas for topics that are timely, important, but not yet extensively written about, please let me know. (Also: it should be something I can master in about an hour!). I wrote one column today, and have to write another tomorrow by noon, because I can’t file on Monday. Thanks… Posted 2:34 PM | [Link] THEY'RE MESSIN' WITH TEXAS: [Rod Dreher] Some jackasses in Germany, a country that ruined much of the 20th century with its war-making and Jew-slaughtering, have decided to protest the terrorism policies of the United States, a country that had to save civilization by kicking Germany's ass twice -- by mocking Texas. Said one protester, wearing a cowboy hat: "We picked the western theme so when Americans see the photos they'll feel a bit ridiculed and maybe will think a bit more about what their Texan president is doing." The most low-down drunk out of the skankiest trailer park in Lubbock is worth infinitely more than these spoiled-brat Dieters. I don't feel ridiculed (Texas = Willie Nelson; Germany = Nena" -- I mean, come on, who's kidding whom?); rather, I feel utter contempt for these cowardly ingrates. Over to you, Jonah. Posted 2:34 PM | [Link] NO PEANUTS, NO CRACKERJACKS HERE!: [Rich Lowry] A reader points out that peanuts are now banned from certain sections of ballparks. Posted 2:33 PM | [Link] BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU E-MAIL YOUR MOM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 2:16 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF TRAGICALLY SAD… [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In New Jersey, a couple received $1.65 million in a (an all too familiar) “wrongful birth” settlement. Their son is seven years old and cannot walk, talk, crawl, or sit up, according to his mother. (A terrible hardship for a child and a family, without question.) But, speaking to the press, Mrs. Fields, the mother, actually said: "The doctor took away my rights,'' she said, referring to her right to an abortion. "If I had known she had a birth defect like this, in the blink of an eye I would never have had her.'' This, from a mother. It’s been heard before and will be heard again. But it's frequency makes it no less tragic--only more. Posted 2:12 PM | [Link] LIFE IN A CULTURE OF DEATH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Earlier this year, an elderly Australian woman, suffering from terminal cancer, set up an Internet diary to document her suicide. Earlier this week, she posted her last entry, and in the presence of friends, killed herself. Since Jack Kevorkian is in jail, the world’s most outspoken and hands-on advocate of “mercy” suicide and assisted suicide is an Australian “doctor” named Philip Nitschke (who I interviewed for NRO last summer), who she reportedly saw shortly before her death. Her diary is an effort to exonerate him and her friends—in fact, she speaks directly to a potential courtroom jury at times. It's a tragically sad story. Posted 1:57 PM | [Link] A SUSPICIOUS FIRE: [Rod Dreher] So the Israeli Embassy in Paris burns down, and the ambassador says for now, it looks like an accident. Right. Renovation work had just begun on the building, which was guarded around the clock. French police had better be questioning the work crew. If they care, that is. Posted 12:36 PM | [Link] DOUBLE STANDARD [Mark Krikorian] What's most outrageous is the double standard, wherein Mexico's sovereignty is inviolable, while ours is negotiable--a kind of Inter-American Brezhnev Doctrine. Another example: In 1999, U.S. Marine Sgt. Brian Johnson, in uniform and on duty, accidentally got in the wrong lane at the San Diego border crossing and ended up crossing a few yards into Mexico. When he was asked if he had any weapons, he pointed out the two disassembled weapons in his truck, and was promptly arrested and held in a Tijuana jail on a weapons charge for nearly two weeks. The only reason he was released was because southern California congressmen personally confronted Mexico's attorney general about the issue. Is this the way a friendly nation behaves? Posted 12:17 PM | [Link] WHY TANCREDO? [Mark Krikorian] The reason he would have called Rep. Tancredo is that he's the only person in Washington willing to talk about Mexican government violations of our border--Colin Powell certainly isn't going to bring it up. Tancredo wrote to Mexican President Vicente Fox earlier this month to ask for an explanation of the 21 confirmed incursions across our border by Mexican soldiers or federal police in the past year, and the only response he received was from the Mexican embassy, telling him to get lost. Posted 12:17 PM | [Link] BORDER? BORDER? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BORDER [Mark Krikorian] It seems that Mexican soldiers in an army Humvee crossed the border into Arizona last week and fired on a Border Patrol agent, hitting his vehicle. It took the INS until Tuesday to acknowledge what happened, and even then apparently only because an anonymous Border Patrol agent called Rep. Tom Tancredo. Posted 12:16 PM | [Link] WISH WE'D THOUGHT OF THAT SOONER! [Jonah Goldberg] Hotline's quote of the day (originally from the Washington Times), is hillarious. Here's Fritz Hollings' solution to the whole guns-in-the-cockpit debate: "Just keep the cockpit door closed. You can put up a sign in Arab - this is, say, type-casting, but say 'Try to hijack, go to jail." If only those 19 suicidal maniacs from September 11 had known they could go to jail for hijacking! Posted 11:44 AM | [Link] I JUST WROTE A SYNDICATED… [Rich Lowry] …column based on this new Center for Immigration Studies report on how the 48 Islamic terrorists who have operated in U.S. since 1993 got and stayed in the country. It is fantastic. Read it. It makes the case for enforcing the laws on the books, and reducing the overall flow in a very powerful way. Congrats to NRO-nik Mark Krikorian and especially, of course, the study’s author, Steven A. Camarota. Posted 11:39 AM | [Link] HERE ARE A COUPLE OF MY FAVORITE…: [Rich Lowry] …bits, both involving the Saudis, who got kid-glove treatment when it came to visa applications because, well, isn’t it written somewhere in the State Dept. charter that the Saudis always get kid-glove treatment? "Perhaps even worse, some terrorists were never interviewed by a consular officer at all. The December 24, 2001, issue of U.S. News and World Report reported that three of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas using a system called “Visa Express,” which is used by the American consulates in Saudi Arabia to speed up the visa application process. Those seeking a visa submit their applications and supporting documents through a designated travel agency. Although the application is reviewed at the consulate and the names are run through the watch list, the applicants are never interviewed by a consular officer. According to U.S. News, hijackers Abdulaziz Alomari, Salem al Hamzi, and Khalid al Midhar all used the Visa Express system. By not having an in-person interview, the issuing officer cannot be sure that the person applying for the visa is actually the person in the submitted documents and application. Moreover, by not meeting with the applicant, it makes it much more difficult to detect deception and fraud. The entire Visa Express system seems to have been set up with the intent of making things easier for applicants and to reduce the workload of the consulate." Posted 11:38 AM | [Link] SECOND BIT: [Rich Lowry] "Consider the case of Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 hijackers. Michael Springmann, a consular officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from 1987 to 1989, was quoted in the November 25, 2001, St. Petersburg Times as saying he issued more than 100 visas to unqualified applicants after pressure from his State Department bosses. “Keep the Saudis happy,” Springmann said he was told, apparently because they are America’s biggest supplier of crude oil." Posted 11:33 AM | [Link] I WOULD…: [Rich Lowry]. …just copy the whole 60-page report into a post, but I don’t want to provoke Jonah into another of his notorious short-post tizzy fits. Posted 11:31 AM | [Link] COMEDY UP NORTH [Andrew Stuttaford] This may, quite possibly, be the first ever Corner posting from Oslo airport, but I thought that readers might want to learn about some of the inflight entertainment available on Scandinavian Airlines, in particular, the Norwegian comedy Scars. Scars is, according to SAS, a "funny, slightly sad film about three buddies Viktor, Arnor and Roger." Amongst the highlights of the movie " Arnor stops three centimetres from the Big Kiss...Roger gets Arnor's grandmother drunk at their church's midsummer party. Viktor touches the wrong girl's boobs at Nadine's party..." Garrison Keilor does not, it seems, make everything up. Posted 11:01 AM | [Link] ALTERMAN’S READING LIST [Jonah Goldberg] Here’s what Eric Alterman (my old landlord, by the way) had to say about National Review and National Review Online to the Columbia Journalism Review. "I look to The Weekly Standard to find out what the right is thinking," he says. "I look to The Wall Street Journal to look at how the right is framing the debate. National Review is a movement magazine. It’s aimed at shoring up the troops. But the Web site seems to be a wise guy-operation." Now, I’m not annoyed by Alterman’s reliance on the Standard. It’s a perfectly fine magazine, though even Standardites would concede it hardly provides one-stop-shopping for the panoply of conservative thought. But I am a bit annoyed when he says NRO "seems to be a wise guy-operation," not because we aren’t a wise-guy operation. We are. But, "Seems to be"? It makes it sound as if he doesn’t read NRO, when we know he does since he’s quoted from it before. It’s typical Alterman. He tries to make it sound like NRO’s beneath his notice while at the same time taking a shot at it. Funny, that’s how I actually feel about his new blog. Posted 11:01 AM | [Link] MORE EVIDENCE FOR THE MARK HELPRIN DEFENSE PLAN: [Rich Lowry] The military is telling the Bush admin, according to USA Today, that it is too busy to fight a war in Iraq soon. I guess we’re supposed to get back to them during the next war on terror. Disheartening… Posted 10:48 AM | [Link] MEMO TO MINETA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Do check the monks. Posted 7:48 AM | [Link] WANNA BE A SUICIDE BOMBER? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Online recruitment. Posted 7:37 AM | [Link] A GRANDMOTHER’S HEART [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader just phoned in after reading Ann Landers this morning: “Mom in Iowa” writes, “Last week, while cleaning my 19-year-old daughter's bedroom, I came across material that made me think she has had an abortion. I was devastated. I believe in a woman's right to choose, but this was my grandchild, Ann. I am grieving for the loss and have been unable to talk to my daughter about it.” "My grandchild?" Indeed. (Do you lose your NOW card for that kind of slip into honesty?) Posted 7:37 AM | [Link] TEN-YEAR-OLD HOMESCHOOLER WINS WORLDWIDE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BEE[Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 4:43 AM | [Link]
SHOUT OUT FOR BUCKSKIN BILL!: [Rod Dreher] NPR reports on a new book that's a history of local children's programming. If the book doesn't include Buckskin Bill, I'll whop somebody. I grew up on Buckskin Bill, on WAFB Channel 9 in Baton Rouge. The Monday Morning March, baby, that's where it's at! It's funny when you think about it, because I bet the production values would seem so cheesy now. But when I was a kid, Buckskin Bill's Storyland Cabin was very real to me, and a dear place for any child to visit every weekday morning and afternoon. He hasn't been on TV in years, but I wonder if Bill Black is still around? If so, I can't thank that man enough for the good memories. If you're a Buckskin Bill groupie, send me your favorite memories (but not if you liked that damn What's-Your-Name puppet, truly the low point of the program). RDreher@nationalreview.com. And remember, you're never completely dressed till you put on a smile. Posted 10:48 PM | [Link] WONDER IF THIS GUY WOULD HAVE MADE IT ON A PLANE WITH THAT SHOTGUN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 10:27 PM | [Link] JONAH, THE WAY TO GET YOUR KIRK CHAIR [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From the unrivaled Instapundit: BIZARRO WORLD, CONT'D: It's not just TAPPED praising Jonah Goldberg, it's the Columbia Journalism Review, too. What next? Bill Moyers funding the G-File? Posted 10:16 PM | [Link] A GOOD WORD FOR SOME GOOD PEOPLE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Just got back from a dinner held for a young group of Catholic sisters called the Sisters of Life. They were established by the late Cardinal O’Connor to be servants of the Culture of Life. Moving was the speech by a woman who has worked with the order from their start, she herself a survivor of post-abortion-stress syndrome, a depression that most don’t even know exists and others—those most adamantly for abortion—try to ignore. Anyhow, I mention them because—whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, or agnostic, they are a wonderful witness to, yes, the mercy of God and joy you can do when you do his work, but also, for those who do not believe in him, just an example of wonderful people doing wonderful good. There are others the world over doing glorious work, too, of course. It’s just we don’t always mention these types. So, anyhow, there’s a mention. (And here’s a piece I recently wrote for another publication on them, if you are interested.) Posted 10:10 PM | [Link] SHAMELESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I'm giving into shameless self promotion I guess, but here's my piece in the Journal a few months back on Fr. Sudac, who Rod mentioned earlier. Posted 10:00 PM | [Link] REBIRTH [John J. Miller] If someone eventually rebuilds the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, this is probably how it will be done. Posted 8:19 PM | [Link] READY TEDDY [John J. Miller] The Senate Judiciary Committee held an oversight hearings of the Department of Justice's civil-rights division yesterday, and Ted Kennedy made reference to a story I wrote for NR. Here's what he said, based on a friend's transcription: "These concerns are heightened by recent personnel moves and changes in long standing hiring practices in the division, changes which bear a disturbing resemblance [to] those called for in a recent National Review article. That article states, and I quote: 'Republicans should work to gain more control over the civil rights division and its renegade lawyers ... four or five new section chiefs would do a world of good... ' I can only hope that the civil rights division is not and will not make policy and personnel decisions based upon the wishes [and] recommendations of National Review." I would have given anything to hear Ralph Boyd, the man sitting before Kennedy, to reply this way: "Mr. Senator, we in the Bush administration intend to uphold this nation's civil-rights laws with the tireless vigilence of the Chappaquiddick police department." Posted 8:04 PM | [Link] A PROPHET?: [Rod Dreher] This past spring, New York buzzed about Fr. Zlatko Sudac, a young Croatian priest who claimed he had stigmata, and other mystical gifts. He spent the season in the NY area, holding prayer services. He just left for Croatia, and unsettled folks at his farewell mass by what many in this anxious city are taking as a dire prophecy. I went to a Sudac prayer service a few months back, and I have no idea whether this guy is the real deal or not. But I will tell you this: I have a friend, now in his late 50s, who was repeatedly raped by a priest when he was young. He led an adult life of alcoholism and promiscuity until a couple of years ago, when he returned to the Church, sobriety and chastity. He is still deeply wounded by what happened to him, and went to a Fr. Sudac prayer service in Queens a month or two ago, seeking some kind of inner healing. Not a soul knew him there, and, of course, no one knew what had happened to him all those years ago. After the service, he stood in line to receive Fr. Sudac's blessing. When he approached the priest, he didn't get a word out before Sudac took his hand, leaned over at once and whispered to him, "The Blessed Mother knows what you suffered in that rectory. She and Our Lord suffered with you. They love you, and want you to know they are with you." My friend left in tears of joy. Posted 7:19 PM | [Link] DEFENSIVE POSITION [Dave Kopel] Israeli Defense Forces have blocked the main north-south road in the Gaza Strip, as a tactic against terrorist attacks, such as mortar shelling of recent weeks. The blockade is at Gush Junction (where the Gush Katif Road meets the Medrashah Junction)--a site of numerous attacks on Israelis, including in March 2002, February 2002, October 2001, May 2001, December 2000, November 2000, October 2000, September 2000, October 1998, and February 1998. The area was previously blockaded in February of this year, after a terrorist attack, as well as in May 2001. Passage will be allowed in humanitarian cases, and for persons possessing special permits. Posted 4:23 PM | [Link] CJR ON NRO [Jonah Goldberg] The Columbia Journalism Review profile of NRO is finally on the web. It's generally positive but leaves out the indisputable fact that without the work of Kathryn Lopez and Chris McEvoy and the rest of the gang, NRO would be little more than an internet placemat with occasional posts from me asking, "Does anyone out there know how to treat bed sores?" Posted 4:17 PM | [Link] AL SHARPTON, WHERE ARE YOU??? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Howard University has just announced that they are discontinuing, immediately, their varsity baseball and wrestling programs. They cite space as the reason. Of course, space is often an excuse used by schools who really mean that they need to play a federally imposed numbers game to make feminists happy. More details to come on the Howard situation. Could this be just the thing that will get black activists interested in Title IX and the males--many black, inner-city males--being hurt by it? Posted 3:32 PM | [Link] IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT BAD [Melissa Seckora] Check out the Arab dating scene. Posted 3:31 PM | [Link] ON THE WTC [Mike Potemra] I, for one, would be proud to work in a skyscraper on the old WTC site. It would be a daily reminder of the promise of America, and of some of the good people that have gone before me in this country. And you know what else? If some terrorist bozo wants to try it again, I'd say, "Bring it on, a**hole-we're bigger, better, and bolder than you are. We are free, we are the world's future, and we will prevail." Posted 2:37 PM | [Link] RE: REBUILDING THE WTC BIG: [Rod Dreher] Sorry, Jonah, can't agree with you and yer pal Bailey on the need to build an even grander successor to the World Trade Center on its rubble. My heart swoons at the romantic gesture that would entail, but my head says, "No way!" It would be an office building, not a sculpture, and thus would have to have people working in it, or maybe living in it. After September 11, who is going to want to do that? I saw the south tower come down with my own eyes, and I don't think I'll ever be able to take a job in a skyscraper likely to be a target. Some would, but many, probably most, would not. Besides, how affordable will it be to insure a taller, grander successor to the WTC? It just doesn't make economic sense, it seems to me. Posted 2:18 PM | [Link] LOTR, TRY MONTY PYTHON! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I hate to think what I have started here, but a reader raises your Lord of the Rings lego masterpiece one Monty Python lego movie. Posted 2:16 PM | [Link] THE WAGES OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS [Roger Clegg] I just got a phone call from a friend of mine who works in the federal bureaucracy. He points out that there is an obvious reason why the FBI’s “Phoenix memo”—by an agent suggesting that Middle Easterners in flight schools be looked at very carefully—never saw the light of day until after September 11. What agent, or agent’s superior, is going to want it on his record that he favors “racial profiling”? That would be the kiss of death for any future promotions, and probably grounds for immediate discipline. The wages of political correctness are death … Posted 2:14 PM | [Link] JUSTIFYING SUICIDE BOMBING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Gotta love the Arab News. Posted 2:13 PM | [Link] PROGRESS IN FLORIDA [Roger Clegg] An Associated Press story this morning reports that Jeb Bush and his cabinet have decided to end a particularly ugly state policy. In order to get into a public school’s “gifted and talented” program, you had to pass an IQ test—but the passing grade was lower if you were black than if you were white. Rather insulting, wouldn’t you say, even if done for the greater good of “diversity”? The change in policy was prompted, it seems safe to say, by a lawsuit filed with the backing of Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute and an aggressive series of letters sent this year by ACRI and the Center for Equal Opportunity to a number of Florida school districts. The letter—now posted on CEO’s website, www.ceousa.org—informed the school districts of the lawsuit and their districts’ legal vulnerability if they didn’t stop discriminating. Posted 1:38 PM | [Link] WHAT SHE SAID, YO!: [Rod Dreher] Anne Wilson gets off a fine rant (scroll down her blog a bit, to the Tuesday postings) at the US Government over the recent terror warnings. She says if the risk of terrorist attack is as serious as our leaders tell us, then they should be taking serious measures to protect us, the Saudis and the multiculti whiners be damned. Writes Anne: "I'm sick to hear the head of the FBI call US genocide bombers 'inevitable.' No, you pusillanimous excuse for a public servant, they're not inevitable. It's your JOB to make sure they're not inevitable." Posted 11:42 AM | [Link] GOOD TO HEAR [Jonah Goldberg] Mike - good to know that Pacino and Williams aren't insufferable in Insomnia. I simply assumed that the two most acclaimed graduates of over-acting school would be intolerable. Posted 11:35 AM | [Link] THE SEPTEMBER 10 MENTALITY: [Rod Dreher] A reader writes, and I couldn't agree more: "What do you think it will take before America really wakes up? I work in public affairs for the Air Force Reserve, and I have made a concerted effort to keep the war in people's minds in the local area. I have been amazed and disgusted at the disinterest shown by the media and the community at large. The only people who want to hear about it are those who already have some connection to the military. People don't seem to know or care about the war or the nature of our enemy (ruthless, murderous barbarians). They support the war--so long as it doesn't affect them and someone else fights it. I'm afraid it will take another Sept. 11--or two--before they really accept what this war really means." Personally, I believe the Bush Administration, and other national, state and local officials, should be doing a lot more on the public-relations front to put the country into a wartime state of mind. It has been remarked this week in NYC that the city has done nothing to mobilize the public in advance of the next attack. It seems that everyone wants to get back to "normal," because the alternative is too disturbing to think about. Dangerous, this. Posted 11:33 AM | [Link] LEGO LOTR [Jonah Goldberg Kathryn - how's this for a cool site? It's the Lord of the Rings as told in Lego! Posted 11:30 AM | [Link] CHANDRA LEVY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Police saying her remains may have been found in Rock Creek Park. Posted 11:21 AM | [Link] TAPPED GOES NUTS [Jonah Goldberg] They like my syndicated column. I did get the syphillis thing wrong though. Stupid error. Posted 11:20 AM | [Link] DECENT AMERICAN MOVIE [Mike Potemra] There aren't many of them, God knows, so we should point them out when they occur. I went to a screening of Insomnia last night, and it was a highly suspenseful film. Al Pacino is a cop on loan from the LAPD (where he himself is under suspicion of corruption) to an Alaska murder investigation; Robin Williams is the killer he's after. Williams is outstanding-there are no showy antics from him here, just low-key menace. (The Williams-haters have a point: Over the years he has done some terribly cloying work. But in the right role, as here, he's great.) Posted 11:12 AM | [Link] KIRK'S CHAIR [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Great idea, Jonah. I'm sure Corner readers would be willing to foot the bill. Posted 10:56 AM | [Link] RENDELL BEATS CASEY: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Patrick Ruffini has a sharp analysis of the Democratic primary in the | ||||||||||||||||||||
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