Wednesday, June 13. 2007
 Robert Service in The New Statesman (via A&L Daily). It beings:
Communism destroyed millions of lives, but its critics are now branded "neocons". Why has the left's poisoned love affair with it endured? Communism, like nuclear fuel, has a long afterlife. In country after country across Europe - from Russia to Albania - it has been discredited for its record in power. No government in Africa or the Americas subscribes to it except the Castro regime in Cuba. In Asia, the communist flag is waved in Vietnam and China without anyone denying that the economic future lies with capitalism; only North Korea stands by the basic precepts of Marxism-Leninism.
Photo of the Berlin Wall via California Yankee
The Fjordman explains, with upsetting examples from the EU. Gates of Vienna.
 George Will reviews Brink Lindsay's The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture. A quote:
Lindsey rightly says that “today’s typical red-state conservative is considerably bluer on race relations, the role of women and sexual morality than his predecessor of a generation ago.” And “the typical bluestate liberal is considerably redder than his predecessor when it comes to the importance of markets to economic growth, the virtues of the two-parent family and the morality of American geopolitical power.” In “the bell curve of ideological allegiance,” the large bulging center has settled, for now, on an “implicit libertarian synthesis, one which reaffirms the core disciplines that underlie and sustain the modern lifestyle while making much greater allowances for variations within that lifestyle.” If so, material abundance has been, on balance , good for us, and Lindsey’s measured cheerfulness is, like his scintillating book, reasonable.
The whole review is here.
I have always appreciated Linda Chavez, especially when discussing education issues, but she took a low road, and a wrong road, to imply that those opposed to illegal immigration are racist. When people start name-calling, it means that their arguments on the merits have failed. Heather MacDonald took offence, and wins the bout, in my opinion. Michelle
Two profs suspended for criticizing "Laughing at the Disabled." Moonbattery. The profs made some darn good comments about it all, and so does Van Helsing.
 I do not care for cats, but that is one cool Savannah Cat in the photo. Story at Synthstuff. If that animal wandered around the neighborhood, somebody would lock up the kids and call Animal Control.
Evil, evil nativist requests that people speak English. Protein Wisdom. Personally, I demand that you speak English, unless I feel like practicing my French or German. A call to arms in Britain. About time. Confederate Yank, He talk like a white boy. LaShawn CAIR is a Potemkin Village. Powerline. 26 donors, and they put their spokesmen on TV? CAIR is now a proven scam. From "global warming" to "climate change." Shrinkwrapped thinks that change in wording heralds the end of that silliness. Menopause chic. Neo-neocon. Big Babies. The press wants special treatment. Dr. Sanity. They live in a dream world, like academics. It's not the economy, stupid. Viking. Find another issue. The grim truth about Darfur. Sometimes you have to let the fire burn, and wring your hands, and wish there were something to do, says Jeff Harrell. D-Day. Another badly mismanaged battle plan. Aren't they all, in retrospect? Every armchair general is a genius in retrospect. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Lincoln had left the popular McClellan in charge. For your convenience (but mainly for our convenience), we have added the following sites to our Blogroll of Honor: Memeorandum, Prof. Deneen's What I Saw in America, and Dumb Still Looks Free
Tuesday, June 12. 2007
 I was stumped today by a question about how a 9 year-old and an 11 year-old should address their divorced dad's new wife.
"Mom"? No way. "Peggy"? No. Children should never address adults by their first names. "Aunt Peggy"? Hmmm. Not sure. "Mrs. H." Seems strange. Maybe some invented nickname, the way some grandparents like to be called? Like Muffie or Buffy? (So they don't have to be called "Granny." Many modern women hate to be called Granny: it seems to detract from their sex appeal.) Ideas?
Gore bashes GHW Bush over Iraq. Youtube via Breibart via Drudge. Just amazing what lying hypocrites politicians can be.
 Now that we are in June, our birds would rather eat bugs than seeds. Regardless, I am continuing the feeder this summer to see who stops by. Today: Purple Grackles, Mourning Doves in droves, Goldfinch, Redwing Blackbird, Cowbird, House Finch, House Sparrow, Blue Jay, Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse. Oh - of course, Grey Squirrels.
Lurking happily in the rose bushes under the bird feeder: 2 baby Cottontail rabbits and a family of Chipmunks. The young bunnies are too tame and trusting for life, so I try to teach them basic survival fear by advancing menacingly when I am near them. Photo: Mourning Dove. These lovely, subtlely-colored birds with their soft cooing are now game birds in many states, but not in New England. They taste as good as they look. I was surprised to read that they are among the ten most common species in the US. Read more about Mourning Dove at CLO.
I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.  There is some psychological wisdom in this schoolyard defence against scapegoating, projection, and name-calling.
Libel and slander lawsuits have a long history of bouncing off the target and damaging the plaintiff. One example is Oscar Wilde's slander suit which landed Wilde himself in jail for homosexual conduct. The Islamic Society of Boston's recent libel suit provides another example. (They are the folks who got the cheap land deal from Boston for a new mosque.) The process of discovery uncovered many facts which the Islamic Society would not have wanted publicized - but which were, before they finally dropped the case to prevent further damage to themselves. Attorney Floyd Abrams discusses the case in Opinion Journal. Photo: Oscar Wilde
Everybody's talking about the 4th Circuit's Al-Marri v. Wright decision. Orin Kerr proposes a hypothetical situation to try to clarify the issues. My question is this: If Moslem terrorists - who view themselves as combatants - aren't combatants, then what the heck are they? Do we need a new category? If we need a new category, may I propose one? Let's call it "Jihadists," and make the laws which would apply. Waiting until after they kill people seems lame to me, as it did to Lincoln and to FDR. And besides, how do you arrest a successful suicide bomber anyway?
Seen this yet? Hot Air. It's funny, but I really have no problem with government being run by regular mediocre blokes. "Government of the people, by the people," right? It's the experts and bureaucrats that give me the creeps: less likely to have common sense. But Miller is right about Reid and the war. Reid is playing on the other team, so to speak.
 I happen to be one of the few people who dislike going to Whole Foods (except for their cheese department), but they will, no doubt, have an impact on Brit marketing of food. Samizdata. Brit marketing is like American marketing in the 1930s, from what I have seen.
America takes the art and science of Marketing very seriously. Americans can sell anything, from Snake Oil to Windows software to Ford automobiles to Global Warming Hysteria. America creates and invents like crazy, but our ace in the hole is our sales and marketing genius. What good is an idea if you can't sell it? Whole Foods, like the A&P's Food Emporium years ago, is all about Upscale Marketing: you take a little Balducci's, a little Food Emporium, plus a little Yuppie Health Food Store ethos to make the customers feel like they are eating wholesome stuff and therefore their precious selves will stay young and live forever - and stir. "Organic" is the "New! Improved!" of our era. The art of retail sales, I have been told by master salespeople, is all about appealing to people's narcissism - and never letting them admit that they have been "sold". "Let them feel good about themselves for choosing our stuff."
 A great Connecticut couple.
20 years ago today, Reagan almost did not say "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Will amateurs threaten the porn industry? Crittenden. I have always found it amusing that hookers refer to non-working girls as "amateurs" in the same way that cops and soldiers refer to others as "civilians." How Tyranny arrived in Zimbabwe. Kirchick in Weekly Standard. More evidence for the theory that delinquency has biological roots. "You can't base your immigration policy on a bad old poem on an ugly French statue." Small Dead Baby Seal. With Steyn. Richard Rorty and Pragmatism. Deneen, Chronicle of Higher Ed Evil, greedy Big Pharma. Attack Machine Slo-mo Kristallnacht in Canada? Driscoll
Monday, June 11. 2007
Steyn in The New York Sun. It begins thus: I forget where I was when I first heard the phrase "undocumented worker." Possibly it was after swimming the Rio Grande and emerging dripping on the northern shore to be handed a fake Social Security number and a driver's license. But I assumed, reasonably enough, that this linguistic sleight of hand was simply too ridiculous to fly even with the American media. I underestimated my colleagues, alas.
Sounds like a plan to me. Gateway
Moral equivalence, and, of course, Jihadi Etiquette. It's really about the NYT.
 Sweden, Today. It is getting depressingly Brave New World-ish. Teaching little kids how to be transvestites, however, seems illogical to me.
Captain Ed says the Fred campaign did not come out of nowhere. The elites hate to give credit for brains to folks with Southern accents...except for Bill Clinton. The NYT somehow manages to make the Eastern European enthusiasm for America look like less that what it is. Tried hard, too. How McKinsey blew it for AT&T. How did all of those smart guys imagine that people wouldn't want cell phones? Samizdata Cafe Hayek on Landsberg's fine piece in the WSJ. It's about human progress, and how it happens. Bank of America giving credit cards to illegals. (h/t, a piece at View from the Right) Schwartzenegger's spending spree. I guess he'd rather join 'em than lead 'em. Why Africa is difficult to help. Gee, it's the same reason everyone is difficult to help.
We have mourned, on these pages, the destruction of the great American downtowns during the 60s and 70s in the name of progress. And we have praised the liveable, human-scale cities which, for whatever reason, managed to escape the wrecking ball. Why does Savannah, GA always come to mind? Georgia on my mind, I guess. In 1950, Louisville was the 12th largest city in the US, and a thriving place. But the downtown lacked parking lots, so lots of buildings "had to" come down. Photo below: the 1920 Rialto Theater during the 1969 demolition, replaced by a parking lot. I'd be willing to bet they wish they had the Rialto now. An essay, Louisville after the Bombings, here. Our Dylanologist says the same essay could have been written about Nashville. 
Most remarkable African wildlife film I have ever seen. YouTube. Don't miss it.
From VDH at NRO (h/t, reader). A quote: The old postwar order is tottering on the brink of Islamism, oil-price hikes, energy shortages, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, Russian belligerency, global-warming concern and hysteria, and war.
Europe is at the edge of the chasm, despite its strong euro and strengthening economy. Once convinced that they would serve as a kinder, gentler Western answer to the United States, Europeans would offer humanity a sort of soft-power colossus that would check George Bush’s “dead-or-alive,” “smoke-‘em-out” America. They would fix through good works what we had botched. That welcomed alternative seemed attractive to many as we slogged it out in Iraq, and the “I told you so” Europeans felt justified that military power really does cause far more problems than it solves.
Read the whole thing.
I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America! A quote from Heather MacDonald's The Republicans' Hispanic Delusion at City Journal: Even Republican Hispanics are not particularly conservative on economic issues. A 2002 poll by the Pew and Kaiser foundations found that 52 percent of registered Latino Republicans supported a higher-taxing, larger state sector, a higher percentage for big government than one finds among white Democrats, reports Steve Sailer. As for the majority of Latinos—poor and poorly-educated—the more government services, the better. Mexican consulates across the country are busily signing up illegal Mexicans for all the free government-funded health care that the consulates can find—that would be American - not Mexican-funded health care, mind you. “We have the right to health services,” an illegal Mexican in Santa Clarita, California, told the Los Angeles Times. This attitude of entitlement—not only among illegal aliens but also among legal Hispanic immigrants and their children—extends to the full array of welfare programs. In fact, welfare use actually increases between the second and third generation of Mexican-Americans—to 31 percent of all third-generation Mexican-American households.
This wave of immigration arrives with different hopes from America than previous waves who, we are told, sought only opportunity and/or political freedom. Of course, that might have been different if there had been government programs at the time of the Southern Italian and Irish immigrations.
 Western soldiers like to collect souvenirs of war. As quoted in a scholarly essay by Michael Stevenson :
'Many soldiers in the 24th Division's tank companies and Scout platoons began to collect battlefield souvenirs - especially Soviet AK-47 assault rifles carried by the military. … In one instance, an elaborate Iraqi Defense Ministry compound was broken into by the 2-4 Cavalry, and, under the eyes of its commander … soldiers loaded glassware, trays, sterling silver, gun collections, oversized rugs, and a huge photograph of Saddam Hussein onto tanks and armored cars to take back to America. … The items were to be used … for a Cavalry Ball, to be held after the war…'. In the case of this war, a 'war-souvenir officer' was even appointed to gather war trophies - flags, enemy tanks and artillery pieces, two camels, etc - for display at the Fort Stewart Museum, back in Georgia.
Stevenson's essay takes a look at how widespread this was during the 19th Century wars in Africa. Why did people go to the trouble of collecting this stuff, what meaning did it have for the collectors, and what meaning does it have for later owners? The whole essay is linked above. Photo: Zulu shield and spear.
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