Sometimes you notice dogs not barking — and I thought of a particularly fierce bark the other day. At some point in 2008, Rev. Jeremiah Wright went absolutely silent. You heard no more peep from him. I thought — and I think I wrote — that he would remain silent until Election Day. And, once Obama was safely elected, he would be back at it.

But no. Reverend Wright is off the public stage, as far as I can tell — and we are several months into the Obama presidency. Curious. Just sayin’.

Of course, he does seem to have a kindred spirit in Justice-to-Be Sotomayor: They both believe that “physiology” (the justice’s word) determines belief and understanding. Great.

‐I was reading, here, about Mike Judge’s new sitcom, about an enviro-Left family. The part I especially liked? The dog’s name is Che.

‐When the position of director of national intelligence was created, I was a little confused. Who would be our intelligence chief? This new guy or the DCI (the Director of Central Intelligence)? I remembered my confusion when reading this news story, headlined “CIA, intel director locked in spy turf battle.” The first paragraph reads,

“The nation’s two intelligence chiefs are locked in a turf battle over overseas posts, forcing National Security Adviser James L. Jones to mediate, according to current and former government officials.”

And may I give you my favorite line of the story? “The DNI’s office has traditionally relied on the power of persuasion to further its mandate of fostering cooperation between the 16 disparate intelligence agencies.”

“Traditionally”! That office is about two seconds old. “Traditionally”!

‐One after the other, the lights go out in Venezuela. Soon there will be none left. Consider the news from this article: “Police and soldiers on Thursday raided a property belonging to the head of Venezuela’s only anti-government news network amid a growing confrontation between the station and President Hugo Chavez’s government.”

I’m afraid we know who will win that confrontation.

Some weeks ago, our President Obama referred to Chávez as his friend — “mi amigo.” Chávez is certainly no friend of democracy, freedom, and decency. But you know who is? The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. And we learn the following, in another article: “. . . Vargas Llosa vowed Wednesday to speak his mind at a pro-democracy forum in Venezuela despite an official warning not to criticize President Hugo Chavez’s government.”

The story continues, “Vargas Llosa was stopped by authorities for more than an hour at Caracas’ main airport, and said he was questioned and told ‘that as a foreigner I don’t have the right to make political statements.’” But “nobody,” asserted Vargas Llosa, “can put limits on free thinking.”

Bravo, Mario. Thank you. There is a man whom an American president should call his friend.

‐Get this, folks (although it will be hard to stomach): “Fidel Castro criticized former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for defending American interrogation methods against terror suspects, saying in comments published Wednesday that torture should never be used to extract information.” That is the opening of this AP story. You can see Castro’s point, too: He has always tortured people, not to extract information, but for the sheer sadistic pleasure of it.

Bastard.

‐According to reports, Queen Elizabeth is miffed that she has not been invited to the upcoming D-Day ceremony in France. My reaction? She can always entertain and comfort herself with the Obama speeches our president so thoughtfully placed in the iPod he gave her . . .

‐This is an old, old conservative point. Ready? According to many liberals, images, thoughts, and scenarios in movies, TV shows, and songs have no negative effects on children whatsoever. Anyone who alleges otherwise is like the fogies who decried “Elvis’s pelvis.” But the sight of Joe Camel on a billboard? That will hook the younguns on nicotine for life.

We conservatives ask, Well, which is it? Choose.

I thought of this when seeing a sign the other day on a New York City bus. It showed cigarettes and said, “They don’t belong in PG-13 movies either.” (The sign was brought to us by the State of New York.)

Uh-huh. Can’t we just all agree that the popular culture does influence people — young and old, but especially the young — and get on with mature debates?

‐Here is a question I’d like to pose: When do we stop laughing at political correctness and become alarmed by the harm it does? Or do we do both at the same time?

I thought of this when reading about Brown University. (I know, it’s funny already.) Brown’s faculty voted to change the name of Columbus Day to something “safe”: “Fall Weekend.” Ha, ha — sure. But, again, when does the laughter stop? One of our elite faculties has voted to efface the name of a man who should be perfectly uncontroversial: an explorer, a daring and great man, who launched this project called America — from which all of us, including Brown professors, have benefited.

“Columbus” is not a name to be ashamed of, or to blacken, but to esteem. To teach students that Columbus is indeed a shameful figure is to cheat them, and transgress against the country more broadly, as we lose a healthy sense of our patrimony and past (warts and all).

Look, I like to laugh at PC inanities as much as anyone does. Sometimes half my column is taken up with that, it seems! But I just wonder (and I’ll say it for the third time): When should the laughter stop?

‐Communist countries have something in common — well, many things, but I’m thinking of one in particular: loudspeakers, over which propaganda is broadcast. Blaring, ear-splitting, soul-hurting propaganda. You hear about this from the refugees you meet. You read about it in their memoirs: whether those memoirs concern Czechoslovakia, China, or Mozambique.

So I was particularly interested in this story, which comes out of Hanoi. A local official is suggesting that the loudspeakers be put to rest; instead, the propaganda would be placed on the Internet. People should be allowed to “choose to listen,” he says, “rather than be forced to listen.”

To choose rather than be forced? It that catches on, you will have no more Communism.

‐We call him KAT, and he is one of the most valuable journalists in the world — not just the Middle East, but the world. I’m speaking of Khaled Abu Toameh, the Palestinian who writes for the Jerusalem Post and other publications. He gave a speech in Geneva, during that Durban II deal. Go here. And I was particularly struck by the final paragraph:

“Israel is a wonderful place to live and we are happy to be there. Israel is a free and open country. If I were given the choice, I would rather live in Israel as a second class citizen than as a first class citizen in Cairo, Gaza, Amman or Ramallah.”

‐Probably the only thing better than David Pryce-Jones’s voice in prose is DP-J’s voice, period. Hear him in the interview John J. Miller conducted recently, here: beautiful, wise, completely trustworthy. See — hear — for yourself.

‐A little language? According to this article, Sen. Robert Casey (D., Pa.) was in Israel recently, and he had something to say about Israel, the U.S., and settlements: “I think there is a way to meet in the middle, and obviously the articulations and definitions are going to be important. It is too early to prejudge.”

Too early to prejudge! I guess that’s pretty early.

‐A little more language? I often say that I don’t know how a foreigner ever learns English, as inconsistent as we are. Kids in Little League say, “I swang at it.” And why shouldn’t they? We have sing, sang, sung. We have ring, rang, rung. (We have hung and hanged!) But we have swing and swung — no swang.

How about this, from Revelation, KJV? “And they sung a new song.” Kind of interesting, the evolution of English.

‐I said something in yesterday’s Impromptus about June 18th — and I suppose I will say it a few more times, ’tween now and then. I will be in Phoenix, at the Goldwater Institute, speaking on President Obama, etc. For more info, go here. The public is welcome, and I hope to shake NRO-reading hands (so to speak)! (Not sure we have a Braille edition.)

‐Have I ever teased Ann Arbor, my dear hometown, or groused about it? No, never. Anyway, want to close with three items, A2 related. Reader writes,

Mr. Nordlinger,
I don’t know if you’re a fan of the TV show Lost, but recent episodes have reminded me of you because of your stories about Ann Arbor. There’s a group of people on this island — the island where everyone is lost — called The Dharma Initiative. They’re generally shown as being hippie-ish (as the name suggests), and their headquarters is reported to be in Ann Arbor. I thought you might like that.

I do.

Another reader writes,

Jay,
Saw a bumper sticker in — where else? — Ann Arbor. It said, “Dear rest of the world: We tried our best. — Half of America.” Definitely left over from 2004, and definitely obnoxious.

But not peeled off yet!

Finally, I noticed a story out of New Delhi:

An Indian man who fathered seven daughters has not washed for 35 years in an apparent attempt to ensure his next child is a boy, newspapers reported.
Kailash “Kalau” Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a “fire bath” every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva . . .

Hey, I knew people like that!

#JAYBOOK#