Reading Jennifer Rubin at Commentary’s blog — always a worthwhile thing to do — I came upon an extraordinary interview. It was conducted by CNN with an Iranian student protester named Mohammad. (Find the interview here.) The interviewer is wrapping up when Mohammad says, “Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?” The interviewer says sure. And Mohammad says,

Americans, European Union, international community, this government is . . . definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message . . . to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly — how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help, international community. Don’t leave us alone.

What an amazing statement. And similar statements might be made by Cubans, Chinese, Burmese, and others. And reflect on what Mohammad said about the mullahs’ regime and nukes: “Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person?” That is smarter and franker than five Davos conferences and ten New York Times editorials.

ADDENDUM: I saw, after writing this column, that Rich Lowry cited this interview on our Corner. Glad the word has spread around. This column has done a bit more spreading. That fellow Mohammad was a voice for many millions.

‐Maybe it was my mood, but I found this headline from the AP pretty funny — inadvertently funny: “India reportedly urges Pakistan to stop terrorism.” Ah, really? (The “hed,” as they say in the business, was over this article.)

‐John McCain is prized for his graciousness toward Democrats. Indeed, some people have long wished that the senator were as gracious toward Republicans — particularly conservative ones. In any case, he has told the press that President Obama has “done well” so far in the White House. Did McCain mean, “He has gotten much of what he wanted”? Or did he mean, “He has done genuinely well — on the merits”? If the latter, one might wonder whom McCain voted for in last fall’s election.

Graciousness is great, but — geesh. (Forgetting the economy and foreign policy: What about Obama’s Supreme Court nominee? What about his — their — view of the Constitution?)

‐So, I was reading, one more time, of Israel’s release of some terror big. This time it was a Hamas leader named Abdel Aziz Duaik. Israel is always releasing such people. One seldom reads of the Arabs’ release of any Israeli. Of course, sometimes they release corpses in exchange for real live people — lots of them. And then some of us wiseacres say, “What about the doctrine of proportionality?!”

Anyway, I was struck by something in this news article:

An Israeli military court sentenced Duaik to 36 months in prison for belonging to Hamas. Duaik is in his early 60s and suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes. His lawyer, Fadi Kawasmi, said inmates’ terms routinely are shortened by several months for good behavior.

And I had a mischievous thought: Maybe tell the boys back in Gaza that Duaik was released for “good behavior”? How would that go down?

As I said, strictly mischievous.

‐Every now and then, you read an article about the Holocaust, and your head spins and your heart revolts yet again. At least I find so. Take this, from last week. The headline is “Jews’ jewelry from Holocaust donated to memorial.” And the story begins,

As a slave laborer in Auschwitz, Meyer Hack was forced to sort through the tattered clothing stripped off inmates before they were sent to the gas chambers. He gathered valuable belongings hidden inside the clothes, stuffed them in a sock, hid them and later spirited them to freedom.

The man, now 95, is quoted as saying, “I was not human. I was a piece of meat, a robot. But I said, ‘I want to survive’ . . . My heart told me, ‘I will survive.’ I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t die, don’t die, don’t give up.’”

‐Hey, speaking of genocide, what about Sudan? Wanting to come to grips with Darfur, I wrote an article called “About Sudan: What has been done? What can be done?” That was published in National Review four years ago: in the May 23, 2005, issue. I have checked in on Sudan from time to time since. And I really see no need to revise that piece, or to write another one. Hardly anything has changed. Last week I read, “The human rights situation in Sudan is ‘critical,’ an independent U.N. expert said Tuesday, accusing the nation’s government of cracking down on its critics and shielding those responsible for gross violations such as rape, torture and murder.” (For the article, go here.)

Yeah, well when is the “human rights situation” not critical? It has been so for a very, very long time. We all know the drill: After a genocide — Rwanda, say — we say “Never again,” and then after the next one “Never again,” and then after the next one . . .

It would be more seemly, I have often thought, simply to stop declaring “Never again.”

‐On to something cheerier — Che! A reader tells me that the old goon’s granddaughter, Lydia Guevara (beautiful name, actually), is the new spokes-model, or something, for PETA. Consult a Guardian article, here. The lissome gal sports a “revolutionary” beret and a bandolier of carrots, rather than bullets. Cool!

But this is something really cheery (truly cheery). A reader writes me — another reader writes me –

Jay,
My now husband, then fiancé, had an e-mail exchange with the marketing department of a chocolate company. Steve noticed a Che shirt for sale in a specialty chocolate catalogue that we order from. In addition to mouthwatering descriptions of chocolates, the catalogue offers messages of peace, love, social responsibility, and so on. The presence of Che seemed so at odds with this that Steve took it upon himself to begin a sincere letter-writing campaign. He politely but firmly requested that the company cease and desist.
The campaign worked, and they removed the tees from the catalogue. They had bought into the glamor of Che — the myth of Che — without really knowing anything. As Steve said, “Do you really want to promote a murderous thug along with saving the planet?” Anyway, a small win for our side.

Always glad to hear about a win — whether large or small! And some of these Che-wearers — most of them: They really know not what they do. (Some do.)

‐More Cuba news (in a sense — because Che worked the bulk of his evil in Cuba. For instance, he set up the labor-camp system, which amounts to a Caribbean gulag): The National Endowment for Democracy is invaluable. And, today, they are honoring five democracy activists — who will not be able to attend, needless to say. One of them is Antúnez, that sterling former political prisoner and tireless champion of liberty. He’s black, by the way — for those who care. And I mention this only because one of the great lies of the revolution is that it is a triumph for black people. Odd, then, that so many dissidents are black (including the heroic prisoner Oscar Biscet). Odd, too, that the Communist nomenklatura is lily-white.

Anyway — hurray for NED. And those Cubans.

‐Before going on, may I quote from NED’s press release?

The honorees are Jorge Luis Garcia Pérez (aka “Antúnez”), José Daniel Ferrer García, Librado Linares García, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo and Iris Tamara Perez Aguilera. All five are relatively young, in their 30s and 40s, three are Afro-Cuban, one is a Christian Democrat and another is a Social Democrat, one is a trade unionist and another is a women’s leader. All of them espouse the philosophy of non-violent resistance and activism and, together, the five represent a broad spectrum of opinion and activism. García, Linares and Carrillo are in prison; Antúnez was released in 2007 after 17 years in Cuban jails. Antúnez and Aguilera are living under virtual house arrest since beginning a hunger strike in March of this year.

Just so you know.

UPDATE: And a sad update, at that. And an outrageous one: The Directorio Democrático Cubano (Cuban Democratic Directorate) is reporting that five democracy activists have been “unjustly detained by totalitarian Cuba’s repressive apparatus. . . . The arrests came on the eve of the official ceremony for the National Endowment for Democracy’s prestigious Democracy Award, which will recognize five activists of Cuba’s democratic resistance. Two of the honorees are among the detained: Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners and Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera of the Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights.” Sure.

‐Okay, want to take a walk down Memory Lane. When I was growing up, teachers were exalted as maybe the best and most important members of society. And many were! Their union, in turn, was held up as a noble organization. Whenever there was any dispute between the teachers and administration, the teachers were the good guys, wearing the white hats, and the administrators were the bad guys, wearing the black. Opposing teachers was akin to opposing saints.

As I got older, however, I started to change my mind: because it seemed to me that the union was making unreasonable demands, and that the teachers, sometimes, were less interested in education than in their own perks and unfirability. Which is understandable, of course. My point is, as I matured, I began to see more gray, and less black and white. This happened in my late teens, I would say.

I thought of this when reading this story from two days ago. The headline is “700 NYC teachers are paid to do nothing.” And the article goes,

Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.
Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its “rubber rooms” — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.
The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.
“You just basically sit there for eight hours,” said Orlando Ramos, who spent seven months in a rubber room, officially known as a temporary reassignment center, in 2004-05. “I saw several near-fights. ‘This is my seat.’ ‘I’ve been sitting here for six months.’ That sort of thing.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t care whether you’re liberal or conservative, libertarian or Rastafarian: That’s a lousy way to run a railroad — a lousy way to run a school system — don’t you think?

‐I have written about Steve Cohen before. There are thousands of Steve Cohens, but this one is a congressman from Tennessee. And he plays a part in America’s ongoing racial drama — or racial-political drama, more specifically. Get this:

Cohen, 60, is one of just two white members of Congress representing predominantly black districts and the only one to follow an African-American into office. He is the first white congressman from Memphis since 1974 and the only Jewish member of Tennessee’s congressional delegation.
Voters in the August 2010 Democratic primary will face a sensitive question that has dogged Cohen since his first House election in 2006: Should Tennessee’s only majority black district have a black representative in Washington?
“I think all along, Steve Cohen has known that’s his vulnerability,” said political scientist Marcus Pohlmann at Rhodes College of Memphis. “It’s not so much that he’s disliked because he’s white, but he’s running in a district that was created to elect an African-American.”

(For the complete article, go here.) How about people just elect representatives they want, race aside? How about evaluating candidates on beliefs, experience, and character? How about seeing candidates as Americans, or even mere human beings, rather than as bearers of a skin color?

I know, I know, dreamy, naïve, head-in-the-sand, pie-in-the-sky stuff. Still . . .

‐All right, let’s see where you stand on this: According to this article, “a Florida city is cleaning up with a new dress code that requires city workers to wear underwear and use deodorant.” The city council in Brooksville, which is north of Tampa, “recently approved a dress code that instructs employees to observe ‘strict personal hygiene.’”

The council approved the code 4 to 1 — with the lone no vote coming from the mayor, Joe Bernadini. “He said the underwear edict ‘takes away freedom of choice.’”

Hmmm. How much choice should city workers have? They certainly don’t have the right to smoke (at work). (Should they, if only in some designated area?) How about going au naturel, underneath? And what if a person is allergic to deodorant? And what if a person views himself as rather . . . French, where hygiene is concerned? And how much personal expression, or quirkiness, should co-workers have to accept? Etc., etc.

Bill Buckley once observed that within every conservative is a streak of libertarianism. How wide is your streak? In most people, I think, it expands and contracts, according to the issue. We go case by case, applying common sense (although we don’t want to be so elastic as to lose overarching principle altogether).

In the Brooksville case, my judgment is: I dunno. Although I appreciate the spirit of the dress code. Because city workers ought to represent something higher, and more collective, than themselves.

I will think further . . .

‐In a recent Impromptus, I quoted Tiger Woods, which is one of my favorite things to do (even though he doesn’t win every tournament he enters, the hack). Here is something from this article: “Woods told a few jokes about his struggles with calculus and physics during his freshman year at Stanford, then made fun of the notion that everything comes easy to him. ‘Anybody who took a class with me there should send me a check,’ Woods joked, ‘because I lowered the curve in every one.’”

You know, I kind of doubt it.

‐Some years ago, I met a man who ran the Metropolitan Opera press office, who rejoiced in a wonderful name: François Giuliani. Interesting French-Italian combo, huh? (Made all the more interesting because Rudy G. was mayor.) Fittingly, François was from Corsica — the only real-live Corsican I have ever met, to my knowledge. He had worked at the U.N., and now he was at the Met. I liked him. And I bring him up because a friend informed me he passed away last week. I was glad to know François Giuliani — a Corsican in New York, a man of the world.

‐Share a letter with you, re music? Kind of tickled me. Reader writes, “I find music by Kurt Weill challenging. In my mind he’s like Christopher Hitchens: Sometimes you want to throw flowers and sometimes you want to punch him in the nose.”

Just so.

‐Man, I’ve gone on, haven’t I? How’d Impromptus get so long? Same as always, I guess. Want to close with an FAQ. The other week, I addressed three FAQs, here. (On Che, music, and how to break into journalism.) I was reminded of another one when on the radio last week. The interviewer — the splendid J.D. Hayworth, former Arizona congressman, present-day talk-show host, and future officeholder again, I hope — said, “Could you explain the name of your column?”

I could indeed, and have done so before. Let me reprint something I wrote in this space eons ago — in 2003, when Barack Obama was still avowing Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright, and the ownership of GM was just a gleam in his eye:

I got a note from a fellow saying, “I eagerly await your next ‘Impromptus’ — by the way, is that the name of some kinda Roman emperor?”
“Impromptus” is simply the plural of “impromptu.” It should be pronounced “Im-PROMP-tooze.” An “impromptu” is, among other things, a piece of music, improvisatory and spontaneous in character. Also brief. Like these items. Sometimes.
A handy musical dictionary says, about impromptu, “A title used for single-movement piano pieces; it implies a free, casual nature to the composer’s inspiration. Among the earliest examples [of impromptus] are Schubert’s; later composers include Chopin, Schumann, Skryabin [or Scriabin, as I transliterate it, more normally] and Fauré.”
Also, a plain old English dictionary defines impromptu — adjectivally — as “made or done without previous preparation.” I’ll say!

‐Oh, and one more thing. In our talk, J.D. reminded me that I had written about his grandfather, way back even before 2003 — in 2002:

I read with great pleasure the obit of Ray Hayworth, who died last week at 98. (You know what I mean by “great pleasure” — not that the man was dead.) He was the oldest living ex-major league ballplayer. He was also the grandfather of Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R., Ariz.), which I never knew. The Times noted that he was the last surviving teammate of Ty Cobb.
Four years ago, Ray Hayworth was asked how the Georgia Peach “would fare in the modern game.” He answered, “Oh, he’d love to play today. With some of the pitching I see on television, Ty wouldn’t hit .400 — he’d hit .500.”
And that reminded me of a famous, beloved old baseball tale: The year is about 1950. Two old baseball writers are talking, and one says to the other, “What do you think Cobb would hit, if he were playing today?” And the other writer answers, “Oh, about .300, I would think.” And the first man says, “Really, is that all?” And his friend replies, “Well, you have to remember, Cobb is almost 65 years old.”

And now I’m really done, dearhearts. Thanks for joining me.

#JAYBOOK#