Wednesday, October 26. 2005
More problems with pigs in England - it sounds like a joke, but isn't. Instapundit Bush names crony to Fed: Cafe Hayek Wellington Mara died. The eunuchs are really getting out of hand. Eunuch murders eunuch Buying black votes. Michelle Galloway and $600,000. Gee, I thought he was a money-hating socialist. Captain Ed Flaws in levees caused NO flooding Reporters staggering in the wind videos These bozos love this stuff. The Religion bogeyman: Click here: Townhall.com :: Columns :: The 'religion' bogeyman by Tony Snow
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
Proverbs (ch. XVI, v. 32)
Tuesday, October 25. 2005
Hedgehogs and Foxes What are the chances of two articles in one week both referring to Archilochus and Isiah Berlin writing on Tolstoy's philosophy invoking the hedgehog/fox idea upon the intellectual world? From Thomas Albert Howard's review of John Lukacs Book: A Hedgehog and a Fox, Remembered Past: On History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge: "Invoking an obscure line from the Greek poet Archilochus, Isaiah Berlin made famous
in an essay on Tolstoy’s philosophy of history the distinction between the hedgehog
and the fox. “The fox knows many things,” Archilochus wrote, “but the hedgehog
knows one big thing.” Some intellectuals are foxes, in Berlin’s interpretation, capable
of mastering “scattered or diffused [ideas], moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences.” Intellectual hedgehogs, by contrast,
“relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent,” which
derives from “a single, universal, organizing principle.” Part fox and part hedgehog,
always intellectually engaging, often unpredictable, John Lukacs bears witness to
the usefulness of Berlin’s distinction—and its limitations." Read the rest: "http://www.mmisi.org/ir/40_02/howard.pdf This piece from last week's Art section of the New York Times: "The philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously divided writers and thinkers into foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes are interested in many things, hedgehogs in one. Foxes move from one problem to another. Hedgehogs dig deep. Dante and Proust were hedgehogs. Molière and Pushkin were foxes. Einstein was a hedgehog. Shakespeare was a fox." Elizabeth Murray is a hedgehog. Stirring Up a Commotion on Canvas - New York Times 
His and Hers key holders Wild salmon vs. money: Env. Econ. A plug for Club ABC Tours: An affordable way to see the world
The Left and the Military: Further Comments on Imperialism, re Yesterday's Post
Remarkable, that Anatol Lieven review of the Bacevich book on American imperialism and militarism, just remarkable.
Lieven cannot stand “American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world.” One wonders whether this is in intentional contrast with the failure of Marxism and Communism to do anything more than enslave peoples unfortunate to be contiguous to the Soviet Union, which most earnestly, but so far unsuccessfully, has tried to “spread that system to the rest of the world.”
Lieven writes, “Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.” I suppose he is referring to the coercion of Kuwaitis when Iraq had occupied their country fair and square; or maybe he means Bosnia and is suggesting we consider the Serbs’ notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ when cleansing ethnics as having equal validity to America’s concepts. However, when someone with logic as pathetically shallow as Lieven’s refers to “the military coercion of other nations”, one longs to be able to ask for a list of just which nations we have “coerced”.
Lieven keeps on: “Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching ‘freedom’ at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than ‘voluntary’ conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.” Right. Those Kuwaitis and Bosnians must just HATE their restored ‘freedoms’. One wonders which word he finds objectionable: “rifle” or “American”. And don’t you just love it when British and Europeans talk about American Imperialism in speeches that could have come out of Pravda in the 1960s? Imperialism is what the Russians did – taking countries and not giving them back. Names like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan come to mind. Oh, wait! Maybe Anatol Lieven and Andrew Bacevich aren’t Russian (any more). Maybe Lieven is British! Does anyone in class remember that Britain was imperialist? Like, THE imperialist nation of all times (although Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Germany did pretty well too)? Children, can you name a British colony (other than the 13 in the USA)? No? How about Aden, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British Central Africa, British East Africa, British Guiana, British Honduras, British New Guinea (Papua), British Somaliland, Brunei, Burma, Canada, Cape Colony (South Africa), Ceylon, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East India Company, Fiji, Gambia, Kiribati and Tuvalu, Ghana, Ionian Islands, Grenada, Heligoland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Labuan, Lagos (Nigeria), Leeward Islands, Malacca, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mosquito Coast (Nicaragua), Natal, Nauru, New Hebrides, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, North Borneo, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Palestine, Penang, Rhodesia, Saint Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sarawak, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Australia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanganyika, Tasmania, Tonga, Transvaal, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Weiheiwei, Western Samoa, Windward Islands, and Zanzibar? Now THAT’s a KNIFE! Let’s see now, who did the United States conquer and keep? Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and neither of them are willing to go away. The other states (beyond the 13) as well. Who did the United States occupy and give back to their native peoples? The Philippines, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Italy, Panama, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and even Grenada. Add Iraq to the list - we're trying to give it to them, if they have the power to keep it. Who is the imperialist?
"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath." From King Lear (III, vi, 19-21)
Monday, October 24. 2005
Is Forgiveness good for your health? It is certainly good for the spirit and soul, but it's not an easy thing to do and most people need a little or a lot of God's help to achieve it. It might be good for one's health, too, thus supporting the idea that forgiveness is more of a gift to the forgiver than a gift to the forgiven.
Leaving the Left Front Page held a symposium for those who have had second thoughts about their Leftist beliefs. Symposium here.
The Bill of Rights It's time for me to re-read them.
 The Left and the Military
Lieven in his review of Bacevitch's new book: The New American Militarism, in the excellent London Review of Books, suggests an approach for the American Left in which they can be both pro-military, and anti-imperialism. Lieven assumes that the war in Iraq is an imperialistic enterprise, which I believe is an error, unless he seeks to re-define imperialism as intellectual or cultural imperialism rather than territorial: I do not believe that the US wants to occupy Iraq, but that we want outta there ASAP. And Lieven, and Bacevitch, see Iraq as evidence of American "militarism" - which I do not: one data point does not make a pattern. The US is in Iraq in an effort to stabilize and civilize the Middle East by creating a successful popular government which hopefully will not threaten the US, or aid enemies of the US. I believe that is an entirely justifiable and worthy and debatably moral use of force by a great power which is facing a global battle with an imperialistic Jihadist movement which has already made great inroads in Europe (via immigration/invasion) and around the world, but only time will tell whether the theory works. I hope it works: the Left hopes it won't. One further word about that "imperialism" word: When, since our own Civil War (definitely an imperialist venture), the Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War, has the US Government behaved imperialistically? We have been mainly anti-imperialist in our military ventures: saving Europe from imperial Germany twice, defeating an imperialist and expansionist Japan once (with no thank-you from China), and attempting to save many parts of the world from an imperialist, expansionist Soviet Union. And now, we are anti-imperialistic against a multi-national Jihadist movement. The Marxist propaganda, or Marxist "interpretation", does not hold up to reality. Like many Leftists, Lieven concludes his piece by suggesting that the US reduce its military potency, which is of course what Bill (Make love, not war) Clinton did as President, and become isolationist. Why do "progressives" always want to disarm themselves in a dangerous world? I think that is the key question. Read the piece and see what you think. Update: See further comments posted on Tues, Oct. 25
Evolution and Religion 51 percent of Americans do not accept the theory of evolution, and believe that God simply made man. Only 15 percent believe that God played no role in the evolution of man. New CBS poll here. I find those numbers startling, but not disturbing. People think whatever they want, but I have never experienced any conflict between science and religion, and I assume we have been given a brain to use the darn thing. Robert Pollock, a molecular biologist at Columbia and a re-born Jew, if one can use that term, wrote an excellent essay on how his faith and his science come together: Why do we ask what is right? How do we know which answer to believe? What difference can any answer make, in the span of a necessarily mortal life? Those non-scientific questions did not then appear, nor do they now appear, to be mysteries that may yet be resolved by molecular biology. Rather, they seem to emerge in most of us in what is a wholly unscientific but necessary way; in their absence a person will be freed from the necessity to ponder them, at great risk to one and all. Molecular biology must nevertheless continue to ignore these matters of moral norms, which leaves science with a gap that bothers many molecular biologists and others who cannot see why these questions of norms are not being acknowledged. Any current issue of molecular biology or any other science, placed in the context of moral norms, is therefore no longer simply a problem in science, but rather, it becomes a problem in science and religion. There are two ways for this to happen: either it becomes a problem in religious science, or in scientific religion. The latter seems to me much less interesting than the former. A good example of scientific religion would be the futile attempt to pin religious meaning and purpose on the facts and evidence of natural selection, even though the mechanism of natural selection is demonstrably devoid of moral content. Religious science on the other hand is simply what happens when one introduces the notion of moral norms to any current scientific agenda, and sees how that agenda might change. Neither compulsion nor certainty are embedded in the choice to expand the agenda in this way. One may turn away from one's science for guidance, not because molecular biology still knows too little, nor because of religious dogma, but simply because molecular biology cannot approach these questions at all, even to ask them. And in turning elsewhere one might reasonably be interested in the remarkable emergence in all cultures at all times of systems of thought and insight that address precisely these questions, systems we call religions.
Read entire in Crosscurrents.
Truth about Colleges From a review of several books, by Hacker, at NYReview of Books: "Higher education in America is no longer the preserve of a privileged elite, with more than seven million undergraduates now enrolled in the roughly 2,600 colleges and universities that grant bachelor or higher degrees. In 2002, the most recent year for which figures are available, 1,291,900 students received bachelors' diplomas and 606,958 completed graduate programs. The latter figure is worth noting, since it tells us that almost half of those who are completing college believe that a single degree won't suffice for what they want to do or be. A census study last year found that among adults aged thirty to thirty-four, only 41 percent had attended high school without going to college. These high school graduates, moreover, represent a dwindling part of the population. Another 32 percent had earned at least a bachelor's degree, while 27 percent had spent time on a campus, whether a community college or a four-year college, without finishing. Viewed one way, that figure shows a high attrition rate. Many of the colleges and community colleges, moreover, fail to provide more than perfunctory courses. The claim that almost six in ten Americans in their early thirties have had some kind of college experience thus needs further scrutiny. The experience can range from small seminars in philosophy at Colgate to lectures in motel management at Southwest Missouri State. Some colleges have rigorous core curriculums: students elsewhere must choose courses from huge catalogs in order to amass the 128 credits needed for a BA. Reed College in Oregon limits its enrollment to 1,312 students, while at Michigan State University an entering student would be one of 34,617. In fact, there are places open for anyone who wants to pursue a bachelor's degree and can pay for it, and many colleges must work hard to attract students. In a study published this year, James Fallows concluded that for all but the richest ten or twenty universities, an important part of managing enrollment is simply being sure that enough paying customers will show up each fall.[1] "
Read entire interesting review.
4/10 of New Orleans residents say they will never return. Smart. The Week. And thousands of demolitions are scheduled. Lebanon and Syria update: Publius The Milestone Watch: 2000 coming up: LGF Norm updates his country music classics list: The Momma and Daddy Archives. A Brit who loves country music? What a great guy, even if he is a socialist at heart. Pigs and PC in Britain: Cao. Be careful Brits, or you will lose your culture and your country and your freedom. Don't be suckers like Canada - be proud. Happiest countries: Lonely Centrist Bush approval down in SC, abortion poll numbers change. Does the Left believe anything is worth dying for? RWNH Gal Wars: Dowd vs. Miller - Buzzmachine A Modest Proposal: Kill Whitey
There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. … Men will more and more realize that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights.
G. K. Chesterton
Sunday, October 23. 2005
For the next few weeks, and hopefully longer, we will post guest author Nathan Szajnberg M.D. each Tuesday, a medical pal and the son of an Auschwitz survivor, who moved to Israel from California two months ago and is doing his "aliyah" - the long path to becoming an Israeli citizen. I hope he makes his diary into a book, and I hope we can post a good bit of it here, first. It is casually written and not edited yet. Aliyah 10-7: Fri.
A very trying day and would like to tell you about the cab driver in Jerusalem who tried to teach me g'matria and David Vincent on the bus up to Jer., a 21 yo. oleh from England who is now in the army. Both of whom lifted my spirits and remind me of why I want to be here. To paraphrase Bill Clinton (of wayward putz-heit, have shlong, will
travel) , "It's the people, stupid.)
And even before this, got a call from Moishek of Glil Yam. Few of you (in fact none of you ) will know that for years I have had a photo of Moishek in my office from Oct. 2000, when I went to israel for a child psych conference and to interview soldiers for the first time, and ended up working on glil yam with Moishek (and interviewing
soldiers for the first time). Nu, Moishek is now perhaps in his late 60's and head of chakal'ut, agriculture. at kibbutz glil yam. a ben meshek, a true son of the kibbutz, born and raised there. At first, perhaps dubious of my fine hands, he has me removing sticker'im from the large fruit crates on pallets and putting new ones on as they are
harvesting (persimmons, the smooth-skinned, rosy fruit about the size of small grapefruit, from Asia, I think). When he returns, he comments that whereas he had tossed the first old label on the ground, I had collected the old ones in order to toss them out. I mumble something about honoring the earth, but really thought, "My father would have castigated me if I threw things on the ground." Next day, I get promoted to transferring the saplings in the nursery from one pot to the other, adding the wonderfully rich, moist earth and fertilizer. And by day three, I am way up the ladder, (only figuratively) pruning the fig trees in the natan. By the fourth day,
Moishek was teaching me about cambium layers and how to partially strip tree bark to control growth; and going with me to the hadar ochel to have coffee at 9 am (and lamenting how since the kibbutz decided to contract out the food services, they now have to eat kosher. Haval). When we drive to the natal, his five year old granddaughter is marching by with her nursery, perhaps to pick pecans from the ground. She waves. He explains how much she wanted a dog, and her mother unable to tolerate it, sends it over to Moishek. Who now cares for the girl's pup and gives her daily opportunities to come by after school to play with it, walk and feed it. This is the fellow, who until I moved was pinned on my office wall, standing astride (like
Hercules did to bear Atlas's burden temporarily), arms hanging awkwardly at his side, blue-shirted with sleeves rumpled up above the elbow, unpatched dirt-soiled jeans, gray, tightly curled gray hair; behind him a tractor, pails of dirt and the former macadamia nut nursery.
Continue reading "Guest Author: Aliyah Diary, No. 1"
Saturday, October 22. 2005
Beginning tomorrow Maggie's Farm will have the honor of publishing a weekly Tuesday feature from a guest author, our dear pal Nathan, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst professor, co-author of Lives Across Time, the son of an Auschwitz survivor, who moved from San Francisco to Israel two months ago and who is undergoing "aliyah," the long path to becoming an Israeli citizen. He can write and he can observe detail, so it makes for a good and true tale. As Editor Dog in Chief, my only challenge is to teach him brevity, which is the soul of wit, as I believe Donald Duck famously said. At the same time, I must understand that many stories come from such adventures, and all stories must be told.
Scary Federal Prosecutors What can be terrifying about Federal prosecutors is that, having spent time and money trying to build a case, but failing to do so, they will look to indict on something else - something peripheral - anything, really, in order to justify their effort. The measure of the success of prosecutors is their ratio of indictments, not justice and fairness. They really cannot stand to let anyone out of their clutches - it makes them feel like they have failed. Eg Martha Stewart: No underlying crime, but a problem with her ill-advised testimony which she innocently delivered without benefit of counsel. I've seen this sort of thing all too many times, and people's lives destroyed by it. Giuliani was a master of this when he was a prosecutor, and who remembers how many of his famous Wall Street arrests were followed by dropped charges, or Wall Street convictions were reversed, leaving a swath of human destruction behind? Yes, he had few reversals, but his reversals were the front-page arrests. Watch Fitzgerald try to do this with Rove and Libby now that they will not be charged with violating national security laws. They could get indicted for jaywalking while crossing the street to the courthouse. No-one's life can withstand the kind of scrutiny these guys can put someone under, and they do not think twice about sacrificing some poor soul when their careers are at stake.
The NYT vs. Halliburton, 9/2004-9/2005  (NYT is the dark line)
Boston Globe closes its national news offices. This is actually a big deal. Lots of unemployed reporters. Why do it? Because parent NYT is losing $. MassRight Paternal nonsense, in England: Samizdata Details of the War: Good source - Fourth Rail Should Catholics attend Protestant services? Curt Jester More on PC and football team names. Sensible Mom Seen Harriet Miers' blog yet?
Friday, October 21. 2005
Loss and Grace: A good piece by Dr. Bob Compassion as a way of life: "What would it look like if we could see others as Jesus see them? How would our daily interactions be different?" Real Meal.
The New York Times Keeps Fumbling the Ball In WaPo, by, guess who? Tina Brown: "You have to feel sorry for Sulzberger. Like every spirited young man who inherits a newspaper, he hankers after something more exciting than sitting in the front office fretting over the price of newsprint. He wants to feel as real in his role as valiant publisher as his reporters -- those driven, passionate, sometimes reckless seekers after truth -- feel in theirs. When he threw his support behind Miller's fight to protect her sources, he didn't think he was in a bad reality show. He thought it was an Oscar-winning movie -- "The Pentagon Papers 2."" I'd say that is exactly right. Piece here.
GuatemalaWomen matter little in Guatemala and as for the rest of Latin America, well let's just say most of those countries aren't very good on statistics. NYT investigates a scary situation: "At least a thousand women have been victims in the past five years, and only three killers are in prison. Guatemala is still a country where a rapist can escape charges by marrying the victim, and domestic violence cases can be prosecuted only if the victim can still show bruises 10 days later. Sexual harassment is not illegal. When the body turns up, the crime is often dismissed with comments that the dead woman must have been a gang member or a prostitute, or killed by her partner - as if these were justifications for failing to investigate." Full story here: Guatemala's Murdered Women - New York Times
Anti-semitism in Sweden. Atlas More avian flu fears. Who is responsible for gun crimes? Confed. Yank No free boners for Gramps. Ex-Donk Language matters in politics. Protein Wisdom is always on that story.
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