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IT CAME FROM CHINATOWN!: [Rod Dreher] The Asian snakehead fish threatening to devour Maryland came from New York's Chinatown. I saw a couple of the little bastids today, in a cooler outside a Chinatown fish market. I didn't realize what I was looking at, and thought, "Lookit that awful thing, those fins look like legs." Later, walking through the city, I saw the spotted culprit on the cover of the Daily News. No kidding, food shopping and eating in Chinatown is one of the most stimulating things you can do in NYC. I suspect you can get sweet-and-sour Sasquatch in one of those aromatic dens of great cooking. You can also get funky stuff on the street. "Fi' dolla! Fi' dolla!" barked a young woman on Canal Street selling silver-dollar-sized, emerald-green turtles as pets. Probably illegal. They'll probably escape, grow to the size of the Superdome, and swallow Rhode Island. Posted 10:39 PM | [Link] ANDREW...: [Lowry] ...that's a very interesting item about Jordan. I had written this little bit on exactly this possibility back in May: "With Jordan, it might not be a payoff, but payback that makes it a quiet member of the [anti-Iraq] coalition. If the Bush vision for the post-Saddam Iraq is a constitutional monarchy with a Hashemite on the throne, sign up the Hashemites ruling Jordan. They remember that a Hashemite king was hanged in a 1958 coup that eventually brought Saddam's Baathist thugs to power. King Abdullah would love to see a member of the family back in Iraq, even in the sort of figurehead role envisioned for the returning king in Afghanistan." Posted 6:01 PM | [Link] JORDAN CROSSING? [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a conference going on in London at the moment being organized by Iraqi exiles. The London Times is reporting that it has played host to an interesting - and unexpected - visitor. It's also worth remembering that, for centuries prior to the usurpation by the House of Saud in the 1920s, the Hashemites were the ruling family in Mecca. Posted 4:02 PM | [Link] THE STATE DEPT. FLACK....: [Lowry] ...who doesn't know what the meaning of "detain" is must be a Clinton holdover. Posted 3:38 PM | [Link] PROBABLY NOT TED WILLIAMS EITHER [Andrew Stuttaford] Mention of mummies brings me to poor old Ted Williams. I don't know the rights and wrongs of the dispute within his family, of course, and it seems obvious that his last wishes (whatever they were) should be respected. That said, it turns out that Mr. Williams was an atheist, which would make the selection of a frozen future a reasonably rational choice. Cryonics may, to put it mildly, be a long shot, but if he didn't believe in any other form of immortality what's the alternative, and where's the downside? As to dignity, well, a few years ago I visited the facility where Ted will be put to bed. The frozen bodies (or heads, for those who had chosen the cheaper option) were held in large metal containers. They weren't transparent. There was nothing to gawk at, and I'm not convinced that this is an any less dignified solution than incineration or being left to rot in the soil. If you want to see undignified, go to Tibet. Traditional Tibetan 'sky burials' involve the body being chopped into tiny pieces and then left out for the vultures. It's ecologically sound and crunchy enough to satisfy the most Dreher of granola conservatives, but it's not for me, a stick-in-the-mud, even in death. Posted 3:12 PM | [Link] NOT TED WILLIAMS [Andrew Stuttaford] Visitors to Sasha Castel's blog will also find a link to a London Times review of a new opera dedicated to Lenin and his embalmer. Now, I'm no opera buff (sorry, Jay) but this sounds like something to see. Fans of pickled Bolsheviks should also check out Lenin's Embalmers, a fascinating little book by Ilya Zbarsky and Samuel Hutchinson. Zbarsky writes, " During my years at the university I had been more interested in pure, rather than applied science: conducting experiments on corpses did not, therefore, strike me as a very attractive career". Rumors that a Doctor Lecter applied for the job cannot be confirmed. Posted 2:34 PM | [Link] BRUSSELS SPROUTS TERRORISTS [Andrew Stuttaford] Is Belgium part of the problem? There's an interesting article in this week's London Spectator that would suggest so (thanks to blogger Sasha Castel for pointing this out). The piece makes disturbing - and ironic - reading. Belgium was one of the countries most active in promoting the EU's sanctions on Austria for the "inappropriate" results of its last election. Belgium has also been busy in its extensive - and intrusive - application of international 'law' against those that it considers war criminals/human rights violators. It seems that the Belgians need to sort out their own difficulties before they start hectoring the rest of us. Posted 2:12 PM | [Link] MORE JOEL-GATE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Eli Lake's UPI piece on the incident at the State Dept. Posted 8:37 AM | [Link] SATIREWIRE CAN BE QUITE FUNNY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Here's an example. Posted 8:32 AM | [Link] WELL, OF COURSE [Robert A. George] On the Mowbray Incident: This is exactly the "slippery slope" that libertarians feared. National Review has only itself to blame. Consider, NR/NRO endorses the detention of American citizens if they are determined to be enemy combatants. A judge ruled earlier today that the U.S. can detain such an individual without access to a lawyer. NR also has a policy of being pro-drug legalization/"war-on-drugs" skeptic. As we know from the drug czar's ads on TV, anyone who takes illegal drugs is assisting the terrorists. Therefore National Review is assisting the terrorists. No wonder State picked up "enemy combatant" Mowbray!! Posted 8:12 AM | [Link] JOEL-GATE: [John J. Miller] Here's the Washington Post story on Mowbray's detention at the State Department. "I don't know what the meaning of 'detained' is," comments "a senior department official." Well, it's when you physically prevent a reporter from leaving the building because you want to intimidate him into revealing a whistleblowing source who has caused you a considerable amount of fully deserved embarrassment. Posted 5:38 AM | [Link]
HOLY FOOL [Andrew Stuttaford] When it comes to foreign policy, Rowan Williams, the over-promoted clergyman who is likely to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, seems never to have met a PC opinion he didn't want to embrace. Earlier this year he attacked the war in Afghanistan as "morally tainted" and an "embarrassment", an effort that he has, the London Daily Telegraph reports, now capped with a denunciation of plans to invade Iraq as "immoral and illegal". Much as he would like to be, Williams is not an original figure. With his ignorance concealed beneath a veneer of erudition and his self-importance masquerading as humility, he is a caricature of the leftist cleric. He will, doubtless, disgrace the Church of England for years to come. Posted 11:41 PM | [Link] EAT YOUR GREENS [Andrew Stuttaford] Rod, you don't remember being told that, after joining the GOP, you were "required to refuse broccoli that tastes like broccoli because rustic socialist composters think eating it is a good idea". Well, that's because you weren't. The reason to refuse broccoli that tastes like broccoli is because it tastes like broccoli. Posted 8:18 PM | [Link] GRATING VOICES [Andrew Stuttaford] There was a quote in Byron York's excellent piece on the Harken fracas that caught my eye. It came from Michael Lux, the former Clinton aide who heads 'American Family Voices', the nauseatingly-named and, apparently, well-financed group behind the new commercial attacking President Bush in connection with the current Wall Street scandals. Lux is quoted as saying that he "was outraged at the idea that Bush was going to do a big speech and pound his chest and say he is in favor of corporate responsibility when he is closer to the corporate world than any president since Ronald Reagan". And there, in one phrase, the prejudice of the liberal political class reveals itself. Being close to business is seen as an ethical stain in itself. By extension of this logic, no businessman should ever be elected or otherwise appointed to any government position that might have an impact on the corporate world. It is, obviously, a ludicrous and contemptible argument, and in the case of Mr. Lux, the boss of an organization that has received generous labor union funding, it raises an interesting question: Would it ever be appropriate for any one close to the unions to be given a job at the Department of Labor? Posted 7:51 PM | [Link] IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN'T WAHHABI? [John Derbyshire] Jonah: I can't think of anything coherent to say right now. I just wanted to post that subject line before anyone else did. Salaam aleikum! Posted 7:28 PM | [Link] ADAM SMITH SAVES YOUR COMMUTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I just noticed: Good piece from the crack Cato tag-team Jerry Taylor & Peter VanDoren in the Washington Post on a free-market solution to gridlock. Posted 7:09 PM | [Link] QUOTE OF THE DAY [John Derbyshire] "As soon as I understood the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of Mathematics; nor can I lament that I desisted before my mind was hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration so destructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence which must however determine the actions and opinions of our lives."---Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life Posted 6:41 PM | [Link] ANIMAL-RIGHTS IDIOCY [Jonathan Adler] Robin Roberts notes that a group of animal-rights protesters in Pennsylvania attacked a store displaying a coat with a fur collar. One problem, the fur was FAKE. Posted 6:39 PM | [Link] PROGRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTALISTS [Dave Kopel] Rod makes the excellent point that it is time to stop ceding the "environmentalist" title to groups who believe that greater government restrictions on personal freedom are the only way to protect the environment. I refer to Watermelons (green outside, red inside) -- who espouse the kind of failed, statist solutions which have so often failed -- as "paleo-environmentalists." Groups like the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) -- which are working on innovative, effective ways to protect the environment while also protecting human rights -- I refer to as "progressive environmentalists." Posted 6:12 PM | [Link] OLD BATTLE LINES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The InstaTap problem: that commission members would equate the life of, say Michael J. Fox, with a cloned embryo. Tapped refers to theoretical cloned embryos as “little balls of (potentially) human cells.” First of all, there’s nothing shocking here. Despite the long-held contention that the commission would be rigged by the Bushies from the start, the actual report clearly shoots that down. What they cite was in the majority opinion, and it’s not a surprise that that's where they come down. Secondly, can’t help to wonder if a little ball of cells would be viewed differently by couple at a fertility clinic—if you want to talk outside the womb—or, say, Fox and his wife each time they learned she was pregnant, the more natural way. Posted 5:50 PM | [Link] SORRY, NO NEWS HERE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Tapped (cited by Instapundit) has a good example of some of the silly reaction there’s been and will continue to be to the Kass Bioethics Commission. Tapped seem to think they’ve made a grand discovery. In reading the commission’s final report, Tapped says it was “shocked” to uncover this in the majority opinion of the commission’s final report. As much as we wish to alleviate suffering now and to leave our children a world where suffering can be more effectively relieved, we also want to leave them a world in which we and they want to live -- a world that honors moral limits, that respects all life whether strong or weak, and that refuses to secure the good of some human beings by sacrificing the lives of others. Posted 5:47 PM | [Link] NRO'S DETAINEE [Rich Lowry] Facts are still murky on the Mowbray/State Dept. detention--specifically, was he held in keeping with the strictures of the Geneva Conventions? We'll keep you updated.... Posted 5:37 PM | [Link] A READER COMPLAINS... [Jonah Goldberg] ""FROM WHENCE"??????? Puh-leeze don't do that anymore! The word "whence" means "from which" or "from where". One does not use the preposition "from" in conjunction with it - it is a redundancy. Ask Derb - he speaks and writes the King's English. I know this is a major league nit I'm picking here, but I recommend you to my aspiring writer of a daughter, and she quotes you all the time. I need your help if I'm to get her thinking and writing properly. Otherwise, a great Friday G-File. " Posted 5:11 PM | [Link] ALSO... [Jonah Goldberg] Now that I'e had a chance to catch-up, let me tell James: My column today is all Wahhabi Baby! Posted 5:06 PM | [Link] CAN I PLAY TOO? [Jonah Goldberg] My semi-response to Derb's column in defense of Islam is up. Also, in regard to all of the excitement surrounding Rod's defense of conservatives who eat cereal which tastes like Kitty-Litter, I would like to point out I made a similar case about conservatives taking ideology too seriously in my mag article defending Budweiser -- and I didn't have to say nice things about open-toed shoes to do it. Also, come to think of it, I've chimed in on the search for authenticity via organic food as well. Posted 4:48 PM | [Link] FREE MUMIA! [Andrew Stuttaford] Whoops, sorry...wrong website... Posted 4:18 PM | [Link] TED OLSON ON THE SUPREMES [Melissa Seckora] Just got back from the Federalist Society's annual Supreme Court Roundup. Some interesting tidbits from Solicitor General Ted Olson: --The Court's justices have been together for nearly eight years--longer than any group of justices in 200 years. The average age of the four oldest justices is 75. A vacancy could happen any time. --Justice Breyer replaced Justice O'Connor as the swing-voter in two cases: voluntary police searches on buses and student drug testing. --The U.S. government participated in 65 of the 78 cases heard by the Court--that's 83% of the docket. And of those 65 cases, the government was on the winning side of 54. The U.S. government also won all of the 14 criminal cases it participated in. Posted 4:17 PM | [Link] AND ANOTHER: [Rod Dreher] Sorry to be blogging the heck out of this topic, but I'm getting great feedback from NRO readers. Paula Graves writes: "I've been thinking about for a while, namely how Conservatism has been pigeon-holed by our own reactionary responses to the platitudes of the left. Why don't we talk about the fact that much of 'Red State America' produces and consumes its own food? (Quick quiz---are you more likely to find homemade preserves, jams and pickles in flyover country or in the urban centers that make up the blue parts of the electoral map?) Why don't we talk about the radical conservationists (aka 'responsible hunters and fishermen') who are equally ardent defenders of the Second Amendment right to personal firearm ownership? We ARE environmentalists, for who is more likely to actually enjoy and protect our wildernesses---socialists on the coasts or the people who actually live in the heartland and are most affected by whatever might cause damage to their immediate environment? Responsible conservation, however, isn't about saving every tree, squirrel and spotted owl in the forest. It's about finding the best way to manage our resources so that they will be self-replenishing while still seeking to improve the quality of our lives. That means that sometimes, we DO manage our food resources so that smaller fields can yield larger harvests, because it's better for the world and the environment. And other times, we simply grow our own food and catch our own fish dinners because it just tastes better when you do it yourself. I think we should talk about this subject much more than we do." Posted 3:51 PM | [Link] EXACTLY RIGHT: [Rod Dreher] Austin Bramwell writes: "I very much enjoyed your article on NRO today about 'the crunchy right.' I too have found many points of agreement with radical acquaintances of mine, but I am unconvinced that we share anything more than surface similarities. They conceive of 'authenticity' as being unfettered by the constraints of civilization--rather like the 'noble savage.' We traditionalists, on the other hand, prize civilization; if we oppose strip malls and tract houses, it is because they alienate us from each other our cultural patrimony. The proof of the pudding, in this case, lies in whether our radical chums are willing to embrace religion, hierarchy, manners, traditional families, and other 'infrapolitical' institutions. If not, then the statist uniformity they sometimes claim to resist is just around the corner." Posted 3:40 PM | [Link] FREE JOHN DERBYSHIRE!: [Rod Dreher] I have it on good authority that our intrepid Derb was briefly detained -- yes, detained -- for putting wheat germ on his Marmite in front of Terry Teachout, who made a citizen's arrest. This is a joke. Posted 3:35 PM | [Link] FREE JOEL MOWBRAY! [Rich Lowry] Our intrepid reporter was briefly detained--yes, detained--at the State Dept. this afternoon. This is not a joke. More details soon. Posted 3:22 PM | [Link] NOW, NOW: [Rod Dreher] James, I think you're overreacting to Mike's point. He was not saying (at least I didn't take him to be saying) that conservatism is about conformity. He was saying that the idea that one can pigeonhole conservatives (or, I would add, liberals) according to a rigid set of cultural markers just isn't true. I've been hearing from people all day who say that they constantly run up against lefties who can't believe that someone who shares their tastes in food, music, furniture, handicrafts, etc., can also be a right-winger. Shows how small-minded they are. Similarly, I have had many experiences with conservatives who cannot seem to process the idea that if you happen to like something that "they" (liberals) like, you might still be a card-carrying member of the conservative movement. The issue is not conservatism per se; it's about ideological blinders that keep folks from considering whether something -- an idea, a religion, a food, whatever -- might be worthwhile. The funniest (in a way) e-mails I'm getting come from readers who work for Republican politicians or conservative interest groups, and have to take all kinds of "yer-a-liberal" ribbing from their co-workers for doing things like putting flax-seed meal on their lunch. Posted 3:17 PM | [Link] YES, THAT WAR [James S. Robbins] Pakistani police report the arrest of Sheikh Ahmed Saleem, who was acting as a financial adviser for bin Laden in Pakistan, along with some other al Qaeda members. Saleem, a master of disguise (so they say) had evaded a dozen previous attempts at apprehension. He has been transferred to a U.S. Navy vessel for interrogation. Glad that's out of the way. Can we get back to talking about how we can now eat Tofu and listen to folk music? Posted 3:16 PM | [Link] THERE IS A WAR GOING ON [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Terry Teachout e-mails: "Marmite? Granola? You guys are as bad as The Weekly Standard on baseball. Bring back Wahhabism!" Posted 3:07 PM | [Link] FOR THE RECORD [James Robbins] The first person to eat a lobster was that fellow they recently unearthed in Chad. His motive was to have something to dunk in his melted butter. Posted 2:54 PM | [Link] OBSERVATION [Andrew Stuttaford] There is something about the mathematical precision of John Derbyshire's mind that is deeply, deeply unsettling. Posted 2:44 PM | [Link] TWO WEBSITES STUTTAFORD & DERB COULD HATE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Here and here. Posted 2:35 PM | [Link] SLOW NEWS DAY [John Derbyshire] There is a nasty logical paradox implicit in your last posting, Andrew. If the taste for Marmite can be acquired only in infancy, how did the product ever gain acceptance? At some point, some adult must have taken the decision to purchase Marmite for his or her tots. On what basis was that decision made? Extremely skilful advertising, perhaps? But then, Winston Churchill would also have been susceptible to that advertising, wouldn't he? While we are on the topic: Who was the first person to eat a lobster, and what were his motives? Posted 2:34 PM | [Link] I MAY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...name my firstborn James for that one, Jim. Posted 2:26 PM | [Link] FREE AT LAST! [James S. Robbins] Gosh Mike, isn't that at varience with Edmund Burke's lesser know yet timeless work, Conservatism: the high-schoolish in-group club where everyone parrots mindless slogans and shares the same lock-step tastes? Wow, think of all the worlds that are open to us now. Wheat bread. Tasseled loafers. Rap. Tie-dye. Birkenstocks. Soy milk. Plus I was getting tired of writing column after column of mindless slogans. What a relief to finally be able to break the lock-step tastes that have been forcing me to enjoy fine cigars, Thai food, and yachting. Thanks guys, I have been so misled all these years. I just never knew Conservatism had anything to do with individualism and freedom. Posted 2:25 PM | [Link] A WEBSITE RICH LOWRY COULD LOVE [Jonah Goldberg] MyCatHatesYou.com Posted 2:19 PM | [Link] POINT OF ORDER [Andrew Stuttaford] John, Winston Churchill was born in 1874. Marmite was invented in 1902, far too late for him to have acquired the taste in childhood (which is usually essential), so nothing can be read into the fact that his soldiers were Marmite-free. Posted 2:11 PM | [Link] HARSH REALITY [Andrew Stuttaford] Debate continues over whether the UN Security Council will deign to accept the Bush administration's surrender over the international criminal "court." The New York Times reports that Syria is a crucial swing vote. Yes, that's right: Syria. So, an unusually unpleasant dictatorship with more than a few terrorist links will be deciding on the legal rules applicable to American citizens. Welcome to ICC world, folks. Posted 2:10 PM | [Link] SORRY TO INTERRUPT THE GROUP HUG AROUND GRANOLA AND L.L. BEAN AGAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] But I like the point this reader makes: "In all the discussion of Rod's vegetables, one point becomes clear. Liberals have been effective in creating a myth that people with a conservative point of view actually want chemically damaged food, a damaged environment, etc., etc. When we act like Rod's revelation about eating organic veggies is some sort of deviation from conservative orthodoxy (and we do so by having this big discussion about it), we do ourselves an injustice. Obviously we all want healthy food and a clean environment. The difference between us and our liberal friends is that we actually make an attempt to weigh the benefits AND the cost. An we are much more likely to do so in a an honest manner that is not intended to create hysterical needs for increased government nanny policies." Posted 2:09 PM | [Link] ROD DREHER'S MARVELOUS COLUMN [Mike Potemra] I just got around to reading Rod's disquisition on "granola conservatism," and I think it's a very important contribution. Conservatism is not supposed to be a high-schoolish in-group club where everyone parrots mindless slogans and shares the same lock-step tastes. Rod's saying, let's leave shallow conformity to the lefties; and I say, hurrah for him and everyone like him.... Posted 2:04 PM | [Link] DELIGHTFUL LINE [Mike Potemra] I e-mailed John Derbyshire yesterday to congratulate him on his Islam column, and said, "You're doing God's work." He e-mailed back: "That's the trouble with New York--too much non-union labor...." Posted 1:35 PM | [Link] BIRKENSTOCK'D BURKEANS UNITE!: [Rod Dreher] Well, I'm floored. I don't think I've ever received this much e-mail on anything I've written. There are legions of us countercultural conservatives out there. More than half of the e-mails contain some version of the line "I thought I was alone," which suggests to me that we need to have a website, at least, to stay in touch. These letters y'all are sending are really terrific, and would make a sociologist levitate with delight. A typical line: "As a latte-drinking, brie-eating, Berkeley-graduating, fire-breathing Catholic traditionalist, I urge you to keep beating this drum loudly." A Virginia reader who grew up a "red-diaper baby" and is now a rock-ribbed conservative (she and her ex-Marine husband live in the country and organic-garden), discerned the difference between her interest in folk culture and organic things, and that of her leftist family: "I do this as part of my life, a part I think is important and pleasurable but not the most important. For them, it is the meaning of their life. It is their religion." That's exactly the distinction I was trying to get at in finding the difference between the crunchy-right and the crunchy-left. Keep writing, folks, because there are way more of us out there than I think any of us would have guessed. Posted 1:35 PM | [Link] ABOUT KLAYMAN [Robert A. George] A secondary (or tertiary) point is: Do conservatives really want to claim Klayman at this point? Should conservatives have ever been happy to claim him? MRC's other point -- that the media is even paying attention to Klayman -- seems to have more validity. Posted 1:21 PM | [Link] CHANGE OF TUNE [Robert A. George] Media Research Center--as well as a few posters at Free Republic and Lucianne--notes that the media has now stopped referring to Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch as "conservative." They just call them a "watchdog group" now, whereas JW was called "conservative" during the Clinton years. I know we're conditioned to look at bias in these things, but I have to ask: Isn't this what we've been looking for for some time? Heritage was actually happy a couple weeks ago when George Stephanopolous referred to information that he received as coming from "the Heritage Foundation," not "the conservative/right-wing Heritage Foundation." In fact, under the rules of liberal bias, having "conservative" attacked to Judicial Watch would actually serve the wishes of the "mainstream" media by allowing them to say repeatedly, "EVEN the CONSERVATIVE group, is attacking this administration." Now, it's just some generic "watchdog" group (like a million others). Posted 1:20 PM | [Link] NO WAY TO TREAT SOLDIERS [John Derbyshire] I cannot let Mark Steyn's and Andrew Stuttaford's astonishing misrepresentations of English culinary etiquette stand unchallenged. I would never put Marmite on my soldiers, and I don't know anyone that would. So far as I can make out from HBO's The Gathering Storm (of which a tape was sent to me by a kind reader I have probably forgotten to thank--THANK YOU!), Winston Churchill's breakfast soldiers were Marmite-free. I don't say that there might not be a school of thought that favors Marmite on soldiers, but such eccentrics are surely in a tiny minority, and respectable journalists should not be encouraging their bizarre and distasteful practices. Posted 12:12 PM | [Link] RE: ORGANIC FOOD KILLS: [Rod Dreher] Jonah, Jonathan, you'll note that in my piece, I didn't claim that organic food is better for you, only that it tastes better, at least compared to the vegetables available in my local Key Food. Which is why we buy it. Interestingly, the "organic" section of the Brooklyn Heights Key Food, the one a bit further from us, charges an arm and a leg for the stuff. I never buy their organic stuff, because I can't afford it. The veggies we get from the co-op and/or the farmer's markets in the city cost no more than the "normal" veggies at the supermarket; I'm guessing cutting out the middleman allows them to sell competitively. I'm dubious too about the general health claims made for organic food, so I'm not making them. The aesthetic case is as far as I feel comfortable in going. But I invite either one of you over one night for a taste test, to see which head of broccoli tastes more like broccoli, the one grown by the small farmer, or the one grown by the factory farm. I'm reminded of the great-tasting vegetables my dad had in his garden when I was a kid. He used pesticide, but his produce was still incomparably better than what you could get at the supermarket in town. Posted 12:03 PM | [Link] NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING [John Derbyshire] In e-mail, that is. I haven't prompted this many responses since I called on the nation to rise up against the menace of Chelsea Clinton. A slight majority of what I've read so far is thoughtful, well-reasoned disagreement; but, Mike & Jonah please note, "atavistic, puerile hatred of Islam" is alive & well in America. Lots of people want to refight the Battle of Hattin. Posted 11:45 AM | [Link] RE TACKY, TACKY [Andrew Stuttaford] Snooty, Rod, snooty. Super-sized, tacky, glorious excess has helped make this country great. I hope the cheesy chateau is rebuilt-- bigger, better and brasher than before. Posted 11:29 AM | [Link] ORGANIC FOOD KILLS [Jonah Goldberg] While I'm sure Jon Adler knows this already, it's worth expanding on his point on organic food. Some organic food can carry more diseases because it was grown with, er, organic fertlizer. It also can come with more critters because organic farmers don't use the most effective pesticides. Which brings up an even bigger problem with organic food: it destroys rain forests and other wildlife habitats. Organic food farming is much less productive than conventional farming. Modern technology allows farmers to use less land to produce more food. The push to force developing countries into organic farming means they will have to clear more land to produce less food. As populations continue to rise in the developing world they will need more food which means they will need more farm land if they don't make existing land more productive. So. if we want them to keep their rainforests we should want their existing farm land to become more productive. Otherwise the gorillas and tigers are going to lose their homes to ranchers and farmers who need the land. Posted 11:25 AM | [Link] GRANOLA CONSERVATIVES [Jonathan Adler] Rod's column is quite good. Believe it or not, I have nothing against buying local, produce -- even if it's organic. I would, however, caution folks against the health claims organic advocates like to make. The claim that organic produce is healthier has no foundation whatsoever, nor does the claim that organic food is better for the environment. So, if you think it looks better, tastes better, or is simply more fresh than what you find at the local supermarket, have at it. Just know that the only justification is aesthetic. Posted 11:11 AM | [Link] KINSLEY'S CONCERNS [Jonah Goldberg] Kinsley's column in the Post raises the perfectly legitimate point that we've collectively blundered by allowing the declaration of war requirement fall by the wayside. But his other point, that we aren't having a much-needed debate on a much-needed war on Iraq, strikes an odd chord with me. He seems to be -- I say seems because I'm not sure -- putting a healthy does of the blame on the hawks for the lack of a debate. I don't think this is fair. The hawks, I think, are eager for such a debate. It's the doves in hawk-suits, as Kinsley concedes, who refuse to have an argument. If the hawks honestly believe they are right and are willing to defend their position publicly, they are fulfilling their obligations. If one boxer gets in the ring on time, he's done all he can do. If the challenger doesn't show, you can hardly blame the boxer who does. But Kinsley is unwilling to get in the ring himself or to really go after the people who should be. Posted 11:08 AM | [Link] WHEN CAPITULATION IS NOT ENOUGH [Jonathan Adler] It appears the U.N. may reject the U.S. attempt to "compromise" on exposing American troops on U.N. peacekepping missions to I.C.C. jurisdiction. Posted 11:00 AM | [Link] RE RE GEORGE MICHAEL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rod, Michael seems to be arguing against a one-strike-you're-out policy on perversion. He said in his Brit-TV interview yesterday:"For some reason I don't have a right to talk about anything because I got caught four years ago ... in a Los Angeles toilet," he said. "Somehow that eradicates all possibility that what I'm saying might be for the best, or is worthy of being discussed. I can't fight that kind of homophobia." You can't beat the Post though: "past-his-prime pop pervert" has gone global. Posted 10:21 AM | [Link] RE: GEORGE MICHAEL: [Rod Dreher] K-Lo, you beat me to posting that George Michael tidbit. A reader points out I sorta spoke too soon in my Michael Jackson piece the other day. I said George Michael, in his contract dispute with Sony, called the company lots of things, but "homophobic" wasn't one of them. Now GM is saying that the negative reaction to his asinine attack on America and the war on terrorism is really about "homophobia." I'm sure it comforts the washed-up toilet-cruiser to believe that nonsense. Incidentally, gay journalist Mike Signorile is bashing the New York Post's Page Six for calling GM a "pervert," as if that were gay-bashing. Seems to me they're calling him a perv not because of his homosexuality, but because he was busted by police soliciting for sex in a public restroom. If that's not perverted, what is? Posted 10:16 AM | [Link] TACKY, TACKY: [Rod Dreher] A $45 million supermansion in Dallas has burned down. The cinders haven't yet cooled, but local wags are calling it "the insurance fire." The house was uninhabited. The funny thing about this story is what the house's name -- Chateau du Triomphe -- tells us about the moneyed hicks who built the thing. First, unless I've forgotten my college lessons, the French grammar is wrong, bringing to mind the sort of person who believes sticking any old accent mark, grave or aigu, over a vowel imparts Continental chic. Secondly, calling any house in Texas "chateau" is pretentious ("Latte, Jed?"). And finally, "Chateau of the Triumph"? Hooo-wee, the French have a term for this kind of thing: nouveau riche. Coming soon (I hope): a smart-ass Robert Earl Keen country masterpiece called, "Ballad of the Chateau du Triomphe." Posted 10:08 AM | [Link] ALTHOUGH, STANLEY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...a lot of your stars on CMT could qualify as members of the VRWC, as you pointed out earlier this week. The more authentic country guys (I'm not talking blue-grass territory here, I was born in Chelsea Manhattan, afterall)--not Garth and Shania pop-ers--probably voted Bush. Posted 9:46 AM | [Link] ME, TOO [Stanley Kurtz] Well Rod, I may not make my own apple butter, but I am a staunch believer in liberal food. And along with CMT, I listen to plenty of jazz and international music on the local lefty Pacifica radio channel. We conservatives need to poach liberal food, if for no other reason than to live longer, thereby maximizing our voting potential. For those with no time to make their own granola, I recommend cereals from Nature’s Path, especially Millet Rice and Mesa Sunrise. Posted 9:38 AM | [Link] ARAFAT MAY NOT BE A SOLDIER, BUT HE IS A SUPER-VILLAIN [Jonah Goldberg] See for yourself. Posted 9:00 AM | [Link] THE RIGHT WORDS [Andrew Stuttaford] This is what National Security Spokesman Sean McCormack had to say about the administration's, er, change in negotiating stance over the ICC: "This is not a reversal. The idea that somehow there was a reversal really couldn't be further from the truth," He's quite right, of course. The U.S. concession was not a "reversal." It was a climb-down, a cave-in, a capitulation, a surrender, and a disgrace. Posted 8:44 AM | [Link] PLEDGE- CASE GIRL BELIEVES IN GOD [Jonathan Adler] And recites "under God" willingly. Posted 8:44 AM | [Link] CARELESS WHISPERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] So, George Michael is afraid to return to his U.S. home because of his criticism of his latest release attacking the war effort (critics of it are homophobes, by the way). He says he cannot return to the U.S.--where his boyfriend lives--because Americans are so "reactionary" post-9/11. So, is that a promise? Because Alec Baldwin promised to leave the country when Bush won and he's still here... Posted 8:15 AM | [Link] STEYN'S ERROR [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, much as I would enjoy breakfast--or any meal--with Mark Steyn, I have to say that the great man has slipped up on this one. A piece of buttered toast, covered in Marmite, and dipped in a soft-boiled egg is known among English gourmets as a "soldier." Yasser Arafat is not a soldier. Posted 7:59 AM | [Link] ANDREW IS HAVING BREAKFAST WITH MARK STEYN THIS MORNING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From Steyn's latest column: "Yasser Arafat isn’t just toast, he’s buttered, covered in Marmite and being dipped in the soft-boiled egg of history." Posted 5:49 AM | [Link] IN DEFENSE OF SESAME STREET [Kathryn Jean Lopez] It's the South African version, Takalani Sesame, that's doing this. Given the disease's prevalence on that continent, I'm not sure it fits in PC outrage category. While the dude says in the piece you link to that there is talk about introducing on on the original Sesame Street, that's not happening now (despite constant rumors about poor Bert and Ernie). Posted 5:34 AM | [Link]
ADVENTURES IN DIVERSITY: [Rod Dreher] Sesame Street is going to introduce an HIV-positive Muppet soon. A Corner devotee asks, "Does this mean the Muppeteer has to wear a rubber glove?" Posted 10:20 PM | [Link] I KNOW... [Jonah Goldberg] There are more important things going on, but I am totally hypnotized by the Ninja site. I can't decide if it's a portal into the mind of an 11 year-old horny geek, or a parody of same. The history timeline is particularly fascinating. For example, did you know that in 4,500,000,000 BCE Ninjas "discovered flipping out and thus God [gave] them dominion over everything totally sweet." Posted 5:30 PM | [Link] NO HIV VACCINE SOON: [Rod Dreher] Though I couldn't find a link for it, there's a story in today's Wall Street Journal reporting that AIDS researchers have discovered a major setback to the possibility of an HIV vaccine. An HIV+ Boston man's system was doing a good job of fighting off the virus within him -- then he had unprotected sex with another HIV+ man. The first man became infected with the particular strain of HIV in the second man, and this second strain is "running rampant" in his body. HIV is one of the most mutable viruses around, so as long as HIV+ people are going to have unprotected sex, even if they restrict it to other HIV+ partners, we are probably going to have the AIDS scourge with us. Posted 5:19 PM | [Link] THEY CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES: [Rod Dreher] Deep in this story, Patrick Bateson, the Provost of King's College, Cambridge, was trying to explain to a New York Times reporter why so many British academics want to shun their Israeli colleagues over the Palestinian question. He said that all academic research occurs in a social context. Well, said Bateson, if some of our scientists had been asked to do research with Dr. Josef Mengele, we couldn't really have done that, could we? The "Israel = Nazi Germany" equation, it seems, is not limited only to Arab fanatics. Posted 5:08 PM | [Link] NINJAS ARE TOTALLY COOL! [Jonah Goldberg] They have the real ultimate power!The banner ad is pretty nifty too. Posted 4:50 PM | [Link] WHO'S MINDING THE BORDER? [Jonah Goldberg] These Frenchmen come to our country, take our best jobs, ridicule our coffee, and then drop their pants in front of our doe-eyed, corn-fed American youth? War! I tell you! This means war! Posted 4:45 PM | [Link] NPR'S MAXIMA CULPA: [Rod Dreher] National Public Radio apologizes for defaming the Traditional Values Coalition by implying in a broadcast report that the conservative lobbying group might have something to do with sending anthrax to the Senate. TVC is not satisfied. Posted 4:29 PM | [Link] MOWBRAY EXPRESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Joel's talking State visas the Big Story with John Gibson at 5pm on Fox News, and then later after that on Hardball at 7pm on MSNBC. Tomorrow, it's Hannity & Colmes. Posted 4:23 PM | [Link] VALUABLE DISTINCTIONS [Mike Potemra] Our friend Jonah Goldberg asks how many people have, after all, called for "atavistic, puerile hatred of Islam"? And in doing so, he reminds me of a crucial point: the basic decency of the American people. We beat the Nazis, and the vast majority of the American people know this doesn't mean we have to have an undying hatred of Germany. Similarly, we beat the Communists, and this doesn't mean we have to hate Russians. Americans hate evil: Nazism, Communism, Islamofascism. We defeat it, and then help bring out the good in our fallen foes. A tiny handful of Americans get a little carried away, and nurse broader racial and religious hatreds; all I'm pointing out is that there's a better way, one in the American tradition.... Posted 4:16 PM | [Link] ALIEN CONCEPT OF JUSTICE: [Rod Dreher] The European Court of Human Rights, which arrived on our planet in a groovy-looking spaceship, has ruled that British law violates the human rights of a transsexual who wants to legally marry a man. Posted 4:03 PM | [Link] THE OTHER BIOETHICS ISSUE BEFORE THE PRESIDENT TODAY[Kathryn Jean Lopez] Ted Williams's daughter is pleading for his intervention in the Williams's freeze debate. Posted 3:58 PM | [Link] PAPABILE?: [Rod Dreher] John Paul has transferred Cardinal Tettamanzi, the archbishop of Genoa, to the archdiocese of Milan -- a sure sign that he is a favorite of the current pope, and that he has to be considered a leading candidate to replace John Paul. Tettamanzi's star has been steadily rising. He is considered to be fairly conservative, and close to Opus Dei, but not divisive -- which could mean that he's a charismatic consensus builder, or a squish who won't confront the Church institutionalized culture of dissent. One bad sign: in Genoa, he gave his public blessing to the anti-globalization wackos, who went on to trash the city. But the Catholic hierarchy has never shown much real understanding of economics, and are reflexively left-wing on economic matters, so this error tells us nothing about his orthodoxy. Posted 3:51 PM | [Link] SEND IN THE RED CROSS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The State Dept. is talking about sending a note through the Red Cross re the status of missing Nacy Pilot Scott Speicher. Seems like the Red Cross is definately the wrong army to be using. Posted 3:38 PM | [Link] TIME, AGAIN [Andrew Stuttaford] CNBC is reporting that a familiar--and depressing--landmark has returned: New York's National Debt clock is back up again--and running. Posted 3:28 PM | [Link] HERE'S SOMETHING I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY: [Rod Dreher] Seattle resident Dan Savage, who is openly gay, writes a popular syndicated sex column which is pretty funny, but more often than not just plain gross. I am against much of what he stands for, and I tore into him in my former New York Post column during the 2000 Republican primaries for a cruel, juvenile stunt he pulled in Iowa, in which he attempted to infect religious conservative Gary Bauer and his staff with the flu. He wrote some nasty things about me too, but hey, that's showbiz. Now I read a non-sex-related Savage column ripping the hell out of the pacifist left on the coming war with Iraq, and I gotta say, "You go, boy!" The Pim Fortuyn of the Pacific Northwest really outdoes himself here. I should also say that despite the ugly words that passed between us in public, after the September 11 attack, Savage wrote me privately to say he was thinking of me and all New Yorkers, and to wish me well. It was a menschy thing to do, and I appreciated it. Posted 3:23 PM | [Link] THE TEXAN SOCIALIST RESPONDS [Jonah Goldberg] Some of you might remember the UT professor of communications who wrote the parody-like version of the pledge of allegiance I linked to in the corner a week or so ago. Well, she's written a piece responding to her many critics. Here it is. Posted 3:15 PM | [Link] LET'S NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES [Jonah Goldberg] Mike, I haven't finished Derb's piece yet (I have to finish my syndicated column), so I will withhold judgement on whether or not it is one of the "best conservative articles ever written." It's certainly more than plausible given his talents. However, let's not create too much of a straw man, or woman, here. Have there really been that many people -- conservative or otherwise -- making the argument that the war on terrorism requires "puerile, atavistic hatred for Islam?" Also, I think you're absolutely right that religions can change, like people. But the potential for change hardly means we should not recognize what is true. A murderer may be redeemed but until he is we should still call him a murderer, should we not? I'm not saying Islam or Muslims are akin to murderers. But saying "Islam means peace" doesn't make it so either. Posted 3:08 PM | [Link] EARTH IN THE BALANCE [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonathan, the New York Times piece on the ICC posted by you is a classic example of that newspaper's idea of balance. The views of the international 'court's' supporters are described neutrally, while US opposition to the court's jurisdictional grab is 'brusque' and 'aggressive'. Readers are informed that the court is held in disdain 'by conservatives'. True enough, but it's not just by conservatives: no mention is made of the Senate vote rejecting participation in the ICC by a 78-21 majority. Best of all, perhaps, is the comment early in the article that the American stance "has generated unusually fierce and united international criticism of the Bush administration". Well, up to a point. Only towards the end of the piece are we told that the US arguments have found some support - from such minor countries as, oh, India, Russia and China. Posted 2:35 PM | [Link] ISLAM [John Derbyshire] Like my Aunt Muriel, I have come to the conclusion that Islam will not go away by our wishing it to. The world's billion-odd Muslims are not going to disappear. Nor, pace Ann Coulter, are they going to convert to Episcopalianism any time soon. Since common experience suggests that a lot of Muslims are very nice people, there must be much good in there somewhere. Let's try to find it, and appeal to it, and advertise it, and promote it. Remember the old catch-phrase about Ireland: "Too much religion, not enough Christianity..." Posted 2:20 PM | [Link] I'M PUZZLED [Ramesh Ponnuru] Everyone is saying that Harvey Pitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has to go because he's too compromised by the his past representation of accounting firms. John McCain is now on the warpath against Pitt. But McCain and co. are willing to tie the Senate in knots to force Ellen Weintraub onto the Federal Elections Commission. How's Weintraub spent the last few years? Working as a defense attorney in campaign-finance cases. So isn't she compromised too? Posted 2:19 PM | [Link] CANDICE BERGEN ADMITS DAN QUAYLE WAS RIGHT [Emmy Chang] Posted 1:56 PM | [Link] AN ANALOGY [Mike Potemra] Religions, like people, are internally complicated-and are capable of changing for the better. Five hundred years ago, Catholics wanted to burn Martin Luther; now, even very conservative Catholics are looking to Luther as a model for how to reform the Church in response to the pedophilia scandals. And even Luther himself was complicated: He was a really bad guy in many ways (for example, he was a virulent anti-Semite), but he fought courageously against corruption and helped set the whole world on the path to greater political freedom. Posted 1:00 PM | [Link] JOHN DERBYSHIRE, HERO FOR PEACE [Mike Potemra] In one of the best conservative articles ever written, our John Derbyshire explains why the war on terrorism does not require puerile, atavistic hatred for Islam, which is after all one of mankind's spiritually richest religious traditions. We in the West must continue to fight the evildoers within Islam, and thus help Islam to become a more positive and peaceful force in the world. Posted 12:59 PM | [Link] NORDLINGER OPENS THE FLOODGATES [John Derbyshire] Oh, we can write about the darnedest things our kids say? Thanks, Jay! Daniel Oliver Derbyshire, aged four, liked to drink milk with strawberry-flavored goo mixed in. Liked to watch the mixing--to see the milk turn pink. That goo was thick, though--took some stirring. One time I reversed direction, from the normal counter-clockwise to clockwise, halfway through stirring. Daniel: "No, don't do that, Daddy! It'll go back to white again!" Posted 12:46 PM | [Link] ACCOUNTABILITY BAD FOR STATE DEPT. MORALE: [Rich Lowry] From Wash Post: "Ryan's abrupt dismissal infuriated career State Department officials, who said that Powell had badly undercut his pledge to lift the morale of the department. `We had high hopes when he came in,' said one official. `But most of my colleagues have not been impressed by the way he handled this. He hurt his reputation by making her a scapegoat for the failings of others.'" Posted 12:33 PM | [Link] FUNDAMENTAL CAVE [Andrew Stuttaford] The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. has abandoned its attempts to secure permanent exemption from prosecution by the international criminal "court" for those American soldiers unlucky enough to be sent off to act as U.N. peacekeepers. The Europeans apparently "dug in their heels" and refused to compromise on something (the powers of the ICC) that was "fundamental" to them. Well, that's their right. By caving in to them, however, the Bush administration has indicated that there are a number of things that are not of "fundamental" importance to it, including, it appears, the constitutional protections that are meant to be the entitlement of all Americans. As for U.S. troops, there's a clear signal from the Bush White House: So far as the U.N.'s kangaroo court is concerned, you're on your own. That would be a pretty remarkable message at the best of times. Ahead of any invasion of Iraq, it is simply lunacy. Posted 11:49 AM | [Link] FREE AT LAST? [Jonathan Adler] The Post reports that Daschle's out of the way. Now if we could only do something about McCain. Posted 11:45 AM | [Link] THE U.S. BLINKS FIRST [Jonathan Adler] How else should one interpret our latest concessions to potential International Criminal Court jurisdiction over U.N. peacekeepers. Of course, it appears that the Europeans are still unsatisfied. Posted 10:56 AM | [Link] DON’T WORRY, BE MARRIED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] According to a new study from the Institute for American Values, the commonly held assumption that divorce is a key to happiness is false. "Staying married is not just for the children’s sake." Some divorce is necessary, obviously, and best, but the real-life evidence suggests that "the benefits of divorce have been oversold," says lead researcher Linda J. Waite. Posted 10:46 AM | [Link] BOB HERBERT KREMLINOLOGY [Jonah Goldberg] As Andrew Sullivan notes today, Bob Herbert's column amounts to self-parody. Psychoanalyzing columnists for their motivations is never a great idea, but this reads so much like an editorial in Pravda I can't help myself. Oh, when I say it reads like a Pravda editorial, I don't mean it smacks of Stalinism or is brimming with references to five-year plans. No, I mean it reads like it's not written for actual readers. Rather, it reads like it was written by a Party boss to instruct fellow ideologists what is permissible to say and think this month. Which is where the psychoanalyzing comes in. I can't shake the feeling that Herbert wrote this for the benefit of all the people who attended the NAACP meeting or perhaps for the benefit of his fellow columnists. After all, there are no new ideas, arguments or sentiments in it. It's just a collection of cliches. Perhaps Herbert wants to send the signal that it's okay for white liberals to say stupid things about Bush now. Or, maybe, Herbert wants to prove to the professional blacks of the NAACP that he's on the reservation by mouthing the propagandistic boilerplate typically found in their newsletters. In a sense, I'm paying Herbert a compliment. I can't actually believe the text alone reflects his honest best effort. There must be more to it. Some subtext which justifies this embarrassing display of liberal nostalgia. As William Buckley once said, "I'd take you seriously but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence." Taking this column at face-value would be an insult to Herbert’s intelligence. Posted 10:42 AM | [Link] CLONING REPORT FILED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The president's bioethics commission has their report up here. Leon Kass has a Journal piece today calling for a four-year moratorium on all human cloning. Posted 10:30 AM | [Link] CHANGING THE LETTER "O" IN O.J. [Jonah Goldberg] Apparently the "Juice" is searching for the real killers by exploring the porn industry. Posted 10:05 AM | [Link] IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE [James S. Robbins] In today's Washington Post Mary McGrory slams the Yucca flats nuclear-waste storage facility: "Yucca's storage capacity of 70,000 metric tons of waste will be oversubscribed even before it opens for business in 2010. Right now, the waste from 103 nuclear plants amounts to 50,000 metric tons, and with 7,000 metric tons of military waste, no space will be left." Except, I guess, those other 13,000 metric tons? Posted 10:02 AM | [Link] VIDEO KILLED THE ANTI-AMERICAN STARS [Stanley Kurtz] What a pleasure it is every time Toby Keith’s new video, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” comes onto CMT. Even greatness has its flaws, so I guess we’ll just have to learn to live with the fact that Rich Lowry is all wrong about country music. Yesterday, “Courtesy” was number one on CMT’s “Most Wanted Live.” The audience gave it the longest ovation I’ve ever seen for a video on MWL. I went crazy myself when I saw it. It’s very simple--mostly just soldiers and Keith together, building up to the moment when Keith promises to put an American boot up Osama’s backside. There are pictures of Keith’s father, who lost an eye in battle. I’m struck by the contrast between Michael Kinsley’s bewildered inability to find anyone with an ounce of enthusiasm about an attack on Iraq and the excitement on CMT over Keith. (Yeah, I know the Keith video isn’t about Saddam per se, but I don’t doubt that the enthusiasm for striking back at the terrorists will carry over onto the move against Iraq.) Talk about Red America vs. Blue. I’ll be writing more about country music soon for National Review, by the way. I don’t know what this country would do without the South--or without country music, whose fans extend way beyond the South. I’m one of those late-coming northerners who jumped on the bandwagon in the nineties. When I watch CMT, I see a nation by no means untouched by the Sixties (with its mixture of good and bad), but also a nation connected by bands of iron to the America of WWII and the Fifties--an America in which patriotism and fun went together naturally. I’m still not used to it. Posted 9:58 AM | [Link] FISHY STUFF [Stanley Kurtz] For those who can’t get enough of the battle over Stanley Fish and postmodernism post-9/11, you can find a great Fish debate in the Summer issue of The Responsive Community, the journal of Amitai Etzioni’s communitarian movement. (The symposium isn’t Net accessible, but you can order the journal through The Responsive Community website, or by e-mailing comnet@gwu.edu ). The symposium features Fish’s, “Don’t Blame Relativism” (for 9/11) and is followed by comments and critiques from Richard Rorty, Benjamin Barber, Cass Sunstein, William Galston, Simon Blackburn, Amitai Etzioni, and others. Then Fish replies to his critics. And don’t miss Etzioni’s editorial footnote complaining about Richard Rorty’s claim that, “the terrorists are about as representative of Islam as the Mafia is of Christianity.” And of course, if you somehow missed it, there’s Peter Berkowitz’s takedown of Fish (not to mention Jonah's column from the other day). Posted 9:54 AM | [Link] JORDAN STEPS UP [Jonah Goldberg] Jordan is going to let us launch attacks on Iraq from their soil. Good for them, good for us. Posted 9:53 AM | [Link] RIGHTEOUS READING [Stanley Kurtz] For those interested in the church- state issues raised by “God & Man at the Founding,” my piece yesterday on NRO, have a look at Noah Millman’s long and thoughtful discussion on Gideon’s Blog. Millman sets up a useful typology for thinking about these questions. (By the way, Gideon’s Blog is always worth a look.) It’s not Internet accessible without a search registration (or Nnexis), but Richard Samuelson has an extremely impressive and useful article on the differences between Jefferson and Adams on the question of religion. It’s called, “What Adams saw over Jefferson’s wall,” and it appeared in the August 1997 issue of Commentary. Samuelson successfully shows that our current culture war over religion has deep roots in the Adams-Jefferson debate (the Adams half of which our secular academics have lost track of). Samuelson illuminates the anti-religious animus behind Jefferson’s understanding of church state issues, and shows how and why the dispute has come to a head in our day. Definitely worth a read. Posted 9:51 AM | [Link] 5,000? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] That's how many al Qaeda Bill Gertz reports are suspected to be in the U.S. currently. Posted 5:35 AM | [Link] IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME FOR ARCHAEOLOGY: [Rod Dreher] French archaelogists digging in Africa have discovered a seven million year-old skull they say is the earliest ancestor of humans. Whaddaya know, it appears that we're all descended from Ben Grimm. Posted 12:32 AM | [Link]
'ENLIGHTENMENT' SAUDI-STYLE [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's a recent piece from Saudi-based Arab News featuring a discussion on conditions in Makkah (Mecca). Thanks to blogger i330 for pointing it out. Arab News, of course, recently ran commentary by David Duke. Posted 11:46 PM | [Link] WHO'S WORSE? NAZIS OR ISRAELIS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] You can guess the answer coming from the Saudi ambassador to Britain. Posted 8:04 PM | [Link] THE STATE BRIEFING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Here's the whole transcript of a very confusing press briefing about Mary Ryan's retirement. Posted 7:53 PM | [Link] SEEMS A LITTLE QUICK [Kathryn Jean Lopez] We're releasing one of those fraudlent visa holders (the Qatar case). Among other things, bad timing, folks. Posted 6:59 PM | [Link] IT'S OFFICIAL: MARY RYAN'S OUT OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] State Department Deputy Spokesman Phillip Reeker opened his press briefing today with this: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the State Department. I do apologize for the delay. I myself am just getting back into the swing of things, so it takes a little while to try to get up to speed. I did want to mention one thing at the top of our briefing, and that is that yesterday our assistant secretary for Consular Affairs, Ambassador Mary Ryan, announced her retirement early this fall, after 36 years of truly extraordinary and distinguished service, including over nine years as the assistant secretary for Consular Affairs.bassador Ryan is the most senior U.S. career diplomat and, as I mentioned, a 36-year veteran of the Foreign Service. Widely respected and admired throughout the government for her professionalism, her personal integrity and devotion to duty, Ambassador Ryan has served her country with great distinction. She will certainly be missed. She's been a terrific colleague and, if I may say so, personally, an excellent mentor and indeed a valued friend. And so, as she said in her own statement -- and I quote what she sent to our colleagues in the field -- "all of us in our careers will eventually face the decision about when to move on, and for me, that time has now arrived,"unquote. Unsurprisingly, Joel Mowbray's name came up in the questioning later.... Posted 6:51 PM | [Link] BOOKS AND BLACK FOLKS: [Rod Dreher] Curious about Michael Jackson's contention that bookstores carry titles about white artists, but not about black ones, reader Mike Manning did a search of his favorite black and white artists on Amazon.com. Here are his results; the numbers in parentheses are the number of books on offer about the artists in question: Duke Ellington (47), Louis Armstrong (41), George Gershwin (41), Charlie Parker (33), Miles Davis (26), Billie Holiday (22), John Coltrane (15), Irving Berlin (13), Richard Rodgers (13), Aaron Copland (10), Dizzy Gillespie (10), Cole Porter (9). Writes Mike, "Looks to me like the representation is just about right. By the way, Jacko = 35; Elvis = 317. About right." Posted 3:16 PM | [Link] POST-MODERN EXAMPLES [Jonah Goldberg] I've gotten some grief from some readers for not giving examples of the damage caused by post-modernism in yesterday's G-File. They seem to think I can't when I fact I think the perils of post-modernism have been the subtext of like 200 G-Files. Anyway, here's an email from a reader offering a depressing example: I was checking out the site (specifically your article) right before I went to my first day in a new class, Education in American Society. I'm 24, just got out of the Navy (7 years), and studying to be a high school math teacher. Point being, in this new class, my professor spent the whole first day telling us how the whole American education system is a sham and nothing more than an indoctrination to life in America. It's where kids learn teachers are white and the lunch ladies are Hispanic. She went on with that point, threw in some womens lib, and then made it clear she believed that there is no truth, its all ideologies, and we should understand that, although we teach certain things, every other theory has a place and should be presented. My jaw was on the floor. But hey, the last 6 months in a real college have been more of a culture shock than anything else. What's one more example? Posted 3:08 PM | [Link] OSAMA SPEAKS? [James S. Robbins] Pakistani police have arrested a courier who is carrying what is allegedly OBL's latest speech. We wait breathlessly... Posted 2:47 PM | [Link] ANOTHER READER . . . [Mike Potemra] Sent in a delightful parody entitled "How Intellectuals Pick Up Chicks." It goes "Dear Penthouse Forum, I'm a brainy editor of a conservative Web site. I never thought it would happen to me, but one day while riding a city bus and contemplating obscure Roman poets...." Thank you to this reader from Savannah, Georgia, and to all the others who have been kind enough to write in! Posted 2:46 PM | [Link] CONCRETE BLONDE [Mike Potemra] I have been deluged with queries about why I didn't get the number of the young woman I met on the bus today. The answer is simple: I honestly wasn't trying to pick her up. I have had only one moment of regret since this morning: A reader wrote in saying that a woman like that "is begging to be asked out . . . beware though . . . when she gets older she will probably own a lot of cats." I love cats, and thinking back, she does seem like the type who owns them . . . . Posted 2:45 PM | [Link] POT LUCK [Andrew Stuttaford] The UK is timidly--and belatedly--taking a small step in the direction of marijuana decriminalization. The Labour government is to propose reclassifying cannabis as a "Class C" drug under British narcotics legislation. Possession for private use will no longer be an "arrestable" offense. This means less than it may seem : pot-smokers can still be jailed (for up to two years--although any jail time would be highly unusual), they just can't be dragged off to the police station when first caught. Britain's leaden Conservatives appear set to oppose the new rules: the prospect of attracting any voters under the age of 65 was, apparently, too awful to contemplate. The fact that the existing legislation had been a miserable failure made no difference to Tory "thinking." Posted 2:17 PM | [Link] MORE THOUGHTS FROM THE 'KINGDOM' [Andrew Stuttaford] Here is some historical 'insight' from the Saudi ambassador to London. Posted 2:08 PM | [Link] MY OPEC TIES HAVE BEEN REVEALED! [Jonah Goldberg] I bet even Alec Baldwin could figure out which picture seems out of place here. Posted 1:54 PM | [Link] JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, you are too naive. Mike's just not saying, that's my guess. What's more, I've heard a rumor that the cunning Potemra spelled Catullus P-O-T-E-M-R-A. (that pesky Latin pronunciation) and claimed to be descended from the great man. Posted 1:53 PM | [Link] AM I THE ONLY ONE [Jonah Goldberg] ....wondering why Mike Potemra didn't get digits from the cute blonde? I mean when I was a single guy I laid awake at night hoping for the opportunity to translate a classical Roman motto tatooed on a hot chick. It was a fantasy which ranked right up there with an underwear model saying to her super-hot friends, "You know, if I could just find a nice waspy-looking Jewish guy who likes to drink beer and watch TV who understands that Friedrich Hayek was a deeply Burkian thinker, I'd cash in my huge trust fund and settle down." Mike, I know the quote is 2,000 years old, but opportunities like that come along even less frequently. Posted 1:37 PM | [Link] MORE JACKO [Jonah Goldberg] Since we're on the topic, here's my syndicated column on the Jackson Two. Posted 1:29 PM | [Link] JACKO: BEYOND WACKO: [Rod Dreher] It just keeps getting better. Check out the New York Post's account of Jacko's press conference at Al Sharpton's "House of Justice" yesterday. Jacko is claiming that a "complete conspiracy" of white people in the record business destroyed his reputation by spreading rumors that he was a pedophile. Why would these powerful white people do that, and risk spoiling an investment of tens of billions of dollars? "I broke Elvis' record and the Beatles' record" in sales, he mewled. Jacko, who probably cannot read, also claims that bookstores don't carry books about black artists, only white ones. The story says Sharpton's rent-a-crowd of yahoos cheered wildly at Jacko's paranoid ranting. You watch: Jacko'll come out as a Black Muslim by Labor Day. Posted 1:16 PM | [Link] NEW YORK STORIES [Mike Potemra] A cute, amiable young blonde on the crosstown bus had a tattoo on her wrist saying "odi et amo." I asked her if she was a fan of Catullus, and she admitted she had never heard of him; she was then delighted when I informed her that a Roman poet had coined her motto some 2,000 years ago. She asked me how to spell his name so she could look him up. Posted 1:15 PM | [Link] WORLDCOM Vs. ENRON [Jonah Goldberg] Now that all of the liberals gleefully recognize that the current wave of business scandals is "part of a culture of corruption," an "epidemic," "more than just a few bad apples," etc, I wonder if they'll offer Bush an apology for Enron. After all, when Enron collapsed the media and the Democrats treated it as a unique instance. It was a special case attributable to Bush's close connections with the Texas-based energy company. We were told -- almost always with no evidence whatsoever -- that Enron failed because it gave money to Bush or because Bush was from the oil patch or some other unsubstantiated assertion. Well, now that Enron is just the first of many, are we supposed to believe that Bush had close ties with WorldCom, ImClone, Tyco, K-Mart, Global Crossing, Xerox et al? Or perhaps this sweeping trend demonstrates that everyone who tried to peg the whole thing on Bush were simply being cynical opportunists regardless of the facts? Posted 12:27 PM | [Link] LACKEYS & FASCISTS [Andrew Stuttaford] In another possible sign of coming instability in Iran, a prominent cleric has announced his resignation. Details in this UPI report. Notice the reference to the "ignorance and madness" of "lackeys and fascists" connected to the "centers of power." That sounds a lot like "Saudi" Arabia too. Of course, where the Riyadh regime is concerned, the U.S. has aligned itself firmly in the lackey and fascist camp, thereby ensuring that when the upheaval comes--and it will--it will be anti-American. Posted 12:14 PM | [Link] HEY JACKO, YOU'RE NOT WACKO [Andrew Stuttaford] The good news for Michael Jackson: There's someone out there prepared to say that the singer is "not wacko." The bad news: that person is Al Sharpton. Posted 11:51 AM | [Link] BUT... [Jonah Goldberg] If you're curious about where I come down on police brutality stuff generally, here's the G-File I did on a police beating in | ||||||||||||||||||||
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