Maggie's Farm

Brewton on Islam and the First Amendment

One of Tom's best essays, which precisely captures the dilemma of liberal democracies when facing a threat which is both internal and external. Samples:

This inherent conflict between sharia and the Constitution is compounded with resentment against the porosity of our borders that both floods us with illegal immigrants who impose huge welfare-state burdens upon tax-paying citizens, and provides undetected entrance for terrorists. 

Liberal-socialists cling to what amounts to a suicide pact.  They assert the illogicality of multi-cultural education, that the cultures of Muslims and other immigrants, are as good as, or probably better than, our 1776 Judeo-Christian traditions.  Without those 1776 traditions, however, the Constitution is mere words without meaning.

Liberals focus upon tolerance, meaning the absence of standards of right or wrong, which leads them to believe that Muslim jihadists hate us simply because we have hurt their feelings and failed to share our wealth equally with them.

Read the whole thing in Intell. Conservative: Click here: Islam and the First Amendment

New York, Bloomberg, and A Play

Spent the past two days banging around NYC, like a tourist, with visitors from California (who headed off last night to Brazil to tour that famous tourist trap, the Amazon River). All I can do is to offer kudos to Mayor Bloomberg. His polls indicate plenty of people agree (although his assertion that NY will not profile for terrorists is either ridiculous or disingenuous - I hope the latter). I thought Guiliani had done a good job with my favorite American city, but NY now looks and feels as wonderful as it did when I was a kid. NYC requires a world-class manager - not a politician - and that is what it has. There are millions of people on the streets til late at night, happy-looking cops walking their beats instead of prowling in cars, young familes and packed open-air restaurants everywhere, and a feeling of safety and festivity which is pure delight in a place that saw some bad times in recent history. The parks, large, medium, and small - are the most striking change. Rather than being filled with dog and human feces, drug addicts, criminals, winos, and the occasional dead person, with dead plantings and menacing vibes, they all look immaculate, with healthy lawns, musicians, tasteful plantings, great looking people, and a welcoming and civilized atmosphere. My poor shot of the eastern edge of Union Square Park here reminds me of what that park was like in the 1970s when I lived nearby on University Place, when you would cross the street to avoid getting near it. Now it is everything - and  more - than Olmstead could have imagined. Interestingly, four of New York's ten most popular restaurants are now in the recently-abandoned Union Square area.

Union Square is just a block from the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, where on Sat night we saw the world premiere of Patrick Feigelson's one-act play "World Premiere." Patrick is pals with our California friends, and now Patrick and the French playwright David Valayre have just completed translating their "Edellstein" into English, a dark drama set in German-occupied Paris. We wish them good luck with that play.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

G.K. Chesterton

Be merciful to me, O God,
Be merciful to me,
for in Thee my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of thy wings I shall take refuge,
til the storms of destruction pass by.

from Psalm 57

The three most enraging news items of today (thus far)

1. Big Pharoah has more details on the Egypt terrorism. Thanks, Instapundit. Our condolences to the Egyptian victims of the latest madness. But, to add to the tragedy is this comment:

Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as reported on Al Jazeera:

“The approach of the United States in the war on terror has made the world a less safe place. Every day we are seeing attacks around the world... it’s because of the incorrect and childish approach of the United States. “The United States must change its policy in the war against terror, give up its double standards and extend its hand to the international community, as the sole means of combating terrorism is through international cooperation.”

That is pure apologizing for terror, and the purest Grade A BS too. Surely he is well aware that he is spouting the latest Al Quaida talking-points - the latest propaganda excuse for the current Jihad, which he doubtless knows preceded the Iraq war.

2. Terrorists aimed shoulder-fired rocket at US military aircraft one month ago - in Oklahoma. Details as released by military in NIN.

3. 9-11 was intended to be much bigger, including the UK too. Jihad Watch

From Samuel Pepys IX

July 21, 2005

Up early to-day, and straightaway to the office.  All the
morning about a great deal of business, my wits being in a state
of disorder by midday. Dined with my protegee Miss G. at Mackay's, but two
blocks distant, a fine array of fowl and greens as I have ever
seen.  She being much vexed by her compensation of late, and I
beseeching her to plead her case to her Company, that she might
entreat upon them to make some increase in her salary.  Then she
went away, and I to the office, and endeavour to get a collection
of music which I have had a mind to.  From thence at the close of
business to the alehouse, where I met Mr. Smith.  We staid long,
but drank little, my stomach being ill-tempered on the evening. 
So home and to supper, and afterwards a pleasant discourse with
Mr. Bates, who of late is hard at his studies in the south of our
country, but afeard of the weather in that land.  So to my book
again, and to bed.

Hey, you Anti-War,
Pro-Jihad Lefties

These two boys being hung, for  homosexuality, in Iran. One under 18 - not that age matters. Is that a "civilization" anyone wants to respect? Sorry for the graphic reality, but real is real.

Let's find a limit to "multiculturalism", OK? Let's start having the self-respect to make some moral judgements, and quit with the anthropology. Relativism isn't cool anymore. Maybe it was hip in the 60s, but now it's a discarded old intellectual fashion. Never forget that only Christianity-based, individual-respecting Western Civilization could have invented Anthropology in the first place, not to mention free-thinking, not to mention relativism. This is Barbarism, and Evil too. Photo from Gay and Right, via Sullivan.

The Met's Own Mona Lisa

Recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for about 45 million, this 11"X8" Duccio, c. 1300, Madonna and Child, is one of the most dramatic and important acquisitions by the Met in decades.

Calvin Tompkins explains why, in The New Yorker.  A sample: "We are at the beginning of what we think of as Western art; elements of the Byzantine style still linger—in the gold background, the Virgin’s boneless and elongated fingers, and the child’s unchildlike features—but the colors of their clothing are so miraculously preserved, and the sense of human interaction is so convincing, that the two figures seem to exist in a real space, and in real time."

And he covers the interesting provenance of the painting.

(Sorry - you cannot go and see it -  it's undergoing minor renovations right now but will be back on display "soon".) Note the ancient candle burn-marks on the frame - they will remain.

Again

In London - here.

Of course, in London you cannot call them "terrorists", which is insensitive and prejudicial to our Jihadist brethren. (Laura I. had great fun with that last nite on the radio.) Here's their strategy: Force Britain to clamp down on Moslems, thus further radicalizing the Moslems towards the goal of the British - or European - Caliphate. Simple, and straight out of the playbook of the 1960s American Left - force the cops and the govt to deal with you, and then complain about oppression.  It's like a cancer that feeds on chemotherapy.

Thus the only treatment is the scalpel. Interesting that these four didn't feel in the mood for death - too bad they didn't.  This kind of warrior does not deserve British justice, which is not designed for the likes of them. Brit justice is designed for wayward Brits, not for alien soldiers bent on destroying the country, including its judicial system. What did the Brits do with Nazi spies and infiltrators? I am fairly sure they were a bit rough on them.

So... let's not worry about whether crackdowns radicalize Moslems - let's just hope England and Europe wake up. No more of this return to "business as usual." This is not about criminal justice. It used to be called "war."

Thanks to Morning Coffee blog - it is Dunkin Donuts around here. Rarely Starbucks.
But their House Blend, black, no sugar, is real coffee, I hate to admit.

The Dylanologist: Our own Samuel Pepys: July 20, 2005:

Up by 7, washed, and to the office by 9, and there commenced blogging on the breach with the Mohammedans.  At my office until departing for for supper at 1 with Mr. Smith, and discuss the late announcement of Mr. Roberts’ appointment to the high court.  Then to the office again, and dispatch much business, though not nearly as much as I should have intended.   That done, at the blog once more, until the necessity of settling our accounts with a client compelled me to attend to the matter.  Then home, an unpleasant walk through great heat, and to dinner.  Then to my book for a good hour’s time, and so to bed.

The V1

An excellent review of the history of the V1 buzz-bombs of WW2, with schematics, defensive strategies, and good detailed history of the V1 attacks on Britain.

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outta you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks alot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor,
Won't even say what it is I've got

from Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb Blues, on Highway 61 Revisited