We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Mothers Day special: Osama's wife left OBL's cave for home but returned to him once in mansion in Pakistan.
Yes, we men would all live in caves if not for women; and, in Osama's case he might still be living!
And, OBL's current roommate isn't too pleased with him in paradise. (Careful of language, and hilarious from Iowahawk.) A clean language sample: "So it's been pretty much like that here since Mumbles showed up. Every day, it's calisthenics, fwip-fwip-fwip SEAL time, human shield time, pa-papp pa-papp, zwip-zwip-zwip, Excedrin headache #1. Just like that infidel movie of yours, Groundhog Day, except you really don't want to know what they use the groundhogs for. Trust me."
A quip I saw: Osama gets killed, and we get 72 versions from Obama.
No, the Chairman of the City University of New York did not say that Tony Kushner, a la praise that was given to Mussolini, "made the trains run on time." Instead, Benno Schmidt Jr. -- formerly of Yale -- says something similar (Reconsidering, CUNY Likely To Honor Kushner):
“But it is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here,” he wrote. “The proposed honorary degree for Mr. Kushner would recognize him for his extraordinary talent and contribution to the American theater. Like other honorary degrees, it is not intended to reflect approval or disapproval for political views not relevant to the field for which the recipient is being honored.”
A meeting is to be held Monday to overturn the rejection by the CUNY Trustees to not grant Tony Kushner an honorary degree. The venue is a smaller Executive Committee, which Mr. Schmidt apparently feels he controls.
Of course, anything Tony Kushner gets is intended, as he always makes clear, to honor his politics as well as his playwriting, which is indistinguishable from his politics. Just see any Kushner play, and try treating it as a non-political vehicle."
Tony Kushner is an extremist, libeling Israel and Catholics, and even taken to task by other gays for shoddy literary/political work, as Andrew Sullivan points out (before Sullivan proceeds to himself libel Israel, using edited and false quotes from an anti-Israel hate site):
To say I am embarrassed to be defending Tony Kushner is an understatement. I was one of very few gay men with HIV who found Angels in America to be pretentious, boring propaganda, and like most propaganda, endless and laden with stereotypes and cartoon figures. In the internecine fights in the gay movement in the 1990s, we were on opposite sides. I'd rather have pins stuck in my eyes than attend his new play, ominously titled "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures," which like other Important Plays, clocks in at four hours. His sad attempt to exonerate traitors like the Rosenbergs was once perverse; now it just seems at odds with reality. I have no beef with him personally, I should add, although after writing all that, he may feel somewhat differently toward me.
And, as pointed out in the Heidegger link above, Kushner's literary works aren't that great, except to liberals who go in for Kushner's bashing of others they dislike.
Mr. Schmidt says, "“Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name.” So are standards, Mr. Schmidt.
Letter from CUNY Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld in the New York Times:
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, remembers Tony Kushner's words about Catholics:
As a general rule, objections to anyone being considered for an honorary degree take on weight only when there are serious reasons for doing so. An honorary degree is a statement from an academic institution that meritorious service should be recognized, but it is also a statement, ineluctably so, about the characterological attributes of the honoree. For example, a gifted orator may properly be denied if what he espouses is hatred.
Tony Kushner is a talented creative artist, but he is also someone who espouses hatred. CUNY trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld correctly identified Kushner as a man whose relentless assaults on the democratic state of Israel effectively disqualify him from being honored by John Jay College, a CUNY institution. On that account alone, Kushner is not deserving of an honorary degree. But there is more.
When the Terrence McNally play, "Corpus Christi," was performed in New York in 1998, Kushner not only defended this vile work—it portrayed Christ having sex with the 12 apostles—he lashed out at the Catholic League for exercising its First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Never did we call for censorship. All we did was hold a demonstration.
When Matthew Shepard, the homosexual from Wyoming, was mercilessly killed by anti-gay thugs, Kushner blamed the pope! "Pope John Paul II endorses murder," he wrote in the Nation.
Kushner's vitriol against Israel, coupled with his Catholic bashing, make him unworthy of receiving a CUNY honorary degree. It may be that Kushner deserves to be in a Playwright Hall of Fame. But CUNY represents the norms of the academic community, and they do not counsel bigotry. Jeff Wiesenfeld raised the right issues, and made the right call.
Military executes brilliantly. The usual nincompoops around White House err, and err, and err. PowerLine:
Military and intelligence professionals executed an important mission brilliantly, carrying out their assigned task of killing Osama bin Laden and dumping his body into the ocean. Ever since, the administration has undercut the professionals' achievement with a succession of now-inoperative accounts of the raid's climactic moments....
All of these narratives--apart from the disadvantage, in some instances, of being untrue--share a common defect. They assume that the SEALs are in the dock as accused murderers, and need to be seen as acting in self-defense. This is ridiculous.
Were Martin Heidegger alive today, would he be granted an honorary degree from the City University of New York (CUNY)? We might consider that question in the matter of whether playwright Tony Kushner should be granted an honorary degree from CUNY.
Perhaps so. Honorary degrees are granted for many reasons, influence – academic or political, fund raising, agreement with the honoree’s views, to get a cheap graduation speaker. The defense of granting honorary degrees to some whose non-academic writings or speech or activities are controversial is that these are separate matters from the influence of the person. On the other hand, an honorary degree honors the whole person, unless the granting writ specifically excludes certain aspects of that person’s works and describes why others are more important. Not done, so it is the person who is being honored. (Update: Statement by CUNY Trustee below.)
(See below re: Tony Kushner and why he shouldn't be honored.)
Here's the official reaction of the Mormon Church to the South Park crew's take-off on Mormons, "The Book of Mormon", that liberals love on Broadway -- with strike outs to insert the reaction that won't be issued by Imams, Hamas, Fatah's military wing, the Moslem Brotherhood, et. al. to photos of Osama bin Laden's final pose.
The production photos may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon Koran as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ Mohammed and virgins.
President Obama KOs the photo entertainment. "It's who we are." -- Moral equivalence with Muslims heralding 9/11 photos and our soldiers and other innocents. - Question awaits: Will President Obama and Michelle have a date night on Broadway for the Book of Mormon?
Is it all about the 2012 election or about national security?Without a doubt, the domestic economy will weigh most heavily. But, the question and peril in the background will be whether matters abroad make the US safer or not and whether our leadership is up to the challenges.
President Obama is, to say the least, conflicted between his leanings toward disengagement from prior foreign commitments and realities on the ground. Potential Republican candidates are, to say the least, also conflicted between Republicans’ ordinary strong suit of sticktoitness abroad and most Americans’ war weariness.
The restrained, many say half-way and too weak or too unfocused, administration path in Libya has highlighted the divide. It comes down to attitudes of do the least, or if doing it do the job. Not even doing the least in Syria, comparable to a comparatively stronger involvement in Libya, further argues for the weakness at our helm.
Nonetheless, the potential Republican candidates as well as the administration’s loyalists continue to spin their PR as if the choices are similar to the 2008 election, if not the 2006, in the case of the Democrats wanting withdrawal, or not important enough to take a strong stand, in the case of Republicans.
Let’s step back, then, to President Bush’s courageous decision to surge in Iraq in 2007. This game changer accomplished our core objective, to set up an Iraq that would not be a sanctuary for terrorists or home of WMDs.
President Obama reluctantly approved a surge-light in Afghanistan while at the same time announcing a quick drawdown and withdrawal. What the American press has presented the public with since is the bravery of our troops operating under highly restrictive rules of engagement, the corruption and backstabbing of Afghanistan’s Karzai, and the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. No wonder most Americans want free of the mess.
News reports (Washington Post, for example) have the Obama administration using the death of Osama bin Laden, though anymore a figure-head, as justification to speeding our withdrawal from Afghanistan. But, our core objectives are not met by that, setting up an Afghanistan that isn’t a source of terrorists or a Pakistan whose real nuclear weapons won’t fall into the hands of evil doers.
Peter Bergen, who has long studied bin Laden, national security analyst for CNN and the liberal New America Foundation, delivers a read-it-all analysis in the liberal New Republic of where we’re really at in Afghanistan, “Can We Win in Afghanistan.” Bergen’s article is full of useful background and current information.
In war, perceptions tend to lag behind reality by a considerable distance. In Afghanistan, our efforts were widely thought of as successful for several years after things had clearly begun to deteriorate on the ground. Today, it appears that we have the opposite problem: improvements on the ground that are widely dismissed amid a narrative of defeat.
Bergen believes that President Obama will stay the course. His article was likely written before today’s reports of the Obama administration trying to speed disengagement.
Regardless of whether Bergen will fall into line with this latest Obama administration gambit, his article stands as strong argument why President Obama more hastily trying to retreat should be confronted by those who care more for the US national security than pandering to war weariness for 2012.
Our neglect of national security challenges during the 1990s fed into our being forced to face harsher realities during the past decade. Will we repeat that grave error?
The Arab world is experiencing a series of convulsions resulting in the quotidian slaughter of citizens in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, and elsewhere. Yet the reaction on American college campuses is comparatively muted.
Muted compared to what, you ask? Compared to the tragic shedding of one life in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Having directed Jewish Studies programs in universities for most of my career I can assure you of this: If Israel were to inflict the type of violence on Palestinians that Arab regimes (and Iranian ones) casually inflict on their own dissenting populations in the course of one day, many colleges across America would be virtually shut down....
I am struck, however, by the relative calm on American campuses as each day brings forth fresh and repulsive evidence of civilian massacres in the Arab world. No demonstrations. No “teach-ins.” No “die-ins.” And there is less calling out of professors who support(ed) these regimes than I would ever have imagined possible.
This is not to say that faculty and students are unconcerned. It’s more as if they are speechless, unworded. They are not protesting, as much as they are trying to puzzle this catastrophe through (and let me be the first to say that this is precisely what people on college campuses should be doing).
Their speechlessness confirms a truism: The old dominant paradigm for explaining Mideast dysfunction is not working. It is hard to understand what the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has to do with Muammar el-Qaddafi strafing his own citizens or Bashar Assad unleashing his goons on protesters (though whether all of those protesters are offering more democratic alternatives is a conversation I will leave for another day).
No, sorry, not a new paradigm on campus, rather the same old one. Ignore the atrocities of the supposedly downtrodden or former colonized, and don't forget to bash the West and Israel. The "old dominent paradigm" never worked, in reality, but reality has little to do with the penchants of the leftists on campuses.
The appointment at Brooklyn College of an adjunct, Kristofer Petersen, to teach Middle East politics in the Political Science department was defended as academic freedom. This was despite his involvement in touting Gazans as virtual lambs and Israel as a beast, and his heavily slanted reading list.
He continues. In brief, Petersen tells us, Israel is limited to some degree in its oppression but it is “beyond the threshold of atrocity,” and Israel’s oppression of Gazans is largely to maintain its own false identity “myth”, to create cohesion within Israel by creating and demonizing an “Other.”
Is anyone in Brooklyn College’s administration seeing, and is the Political Science department embarrassed? We’ll see, if he is re-appointed.
Kristofer Petersen’s latest is his posted draft of a paper he is to deliver at the American Political Science Association. Petersen asks that his draft not be quoted or cited without his permission. Sorry, Kris, but you posted it and there is a legal concept called “fair use.”
Wrapped in a discussion of two radicals' views of nationalism, Petersen’s piece titled “Beyond The Threshold Of Atrocity: Nationalism, Biopower and Israel’s Occupation of Gaza” offers us this:
While one may desire the Other’s total annihilation, it is impossible to do precisely because the Other helps the nation to imagine itself. The Other tells juridical society in part who they are as a group, as a nation, as an idea – but only insofar as they are permitted to exist as an idealized object of hatred.
Thus,
For late-modern society to derive any value at all from racial oppression, its enemies must be brought to a condition as close to total eradication as possible – without either crossing into conventional genocide or manufacturing suffering in such a way as to contradict myths of the national self-image.
Israel needs Hamas and Gaza to justify its existence!
In his other utterances, Petersen does not support terrorist acts by Hamas. But, Peterson does defend the Gazans who perform them. Rather a thin veil for, in effect, supporting terrorist acts. I’ve read almost all I can – or can stand -- of Petersen’s comments and writings I could find online, and nary a critique of Gazans. Rather he concentrates his focus on single-minded attacks upon Israel.
Israel did not create an “Other” nor does Israel oppress Gazans to serve its racist, colonialist needs.
Brooklyn College, indeed any even semi-credible academic, should recognize that Kristofer Petersen represents the rot within that must be reversed if academia is to retain any self-respect or respect from society or taxpayers.
President Obama takes over all the TV networks and other media to tell us that Osama bin Laden is confirmed dead. Osama bin Laden is reported to have been in a mansion outside Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
Yaaay! And, what difference did it make when we captured Saddam Hussein? The evil had metastasized. And, Hussein was hiding in a hole in the ground.
In this case, as if any more evidence is needed, the evil metastasized into Pakistan's highest levels. -- Why the US Acted Alone
The credit is owed to the perseverence and dedication of those in our extraordinary intel and military in the region. -- And, getmo' Gitmo, or wherever they're being held, some of the intel came from detainees.
The question is whether President Obama has the intestinal fortitude and focus to follow through, and deserve credit. The Pakistan government has loudly complained about US actions, but has been playing both sides, including some help to the US behind the scenes. The double-play must end and not be tolerated, and the sanctuary of Taliban in Pakistan's border with Afghanistan be more heavily penetrated by US and Afghan forces. The Pakistan sanctuary is key to the prolongation of the war in Afghanistan. Pakistani ISI intelligence has been critical to the Taliban's emergence from out of the mujahideen that fought the Soviet Union, and often shelters its deemed asset.
Al Quaeda is much diminished, but its tentacles and their plans for terrorism in the West continues. Western security forces are on alert. Islamabad should be on alert for far less tolerance from the West.
Instead, there's speculation that Pakistan offered up bin Laden -- a figurehead, anymore -- as a sweetener to speed US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Charles Krauthammer just speculated similarly, on Fox, that President Obama may well use OBL's death as an opportunity to decare victory and withdraw.)-- Actually, administration officials say the US did not tell Pakistan before going in. -- I'm purely guessing that's cover for Pakistan's government to so many Pakistanis who supported bin Laden. -- Hope: Pakistan better get hopping in the NW provinces; Reality: Don't hold breath. -- Confusion about Pakistan. -- Afghanistan's Karzai points finger, at US and Pakistan.
President Obama takes credit, saying he directed our CIA to make the taking or death of Osama bin Laden our priority. That had been a priority before his presidency. Typical Obama. Followed by President Obama reminding us that we are not at war with Islam but with mass murderers. Those mass murderers hide among a sea of many Moslems who smile at the murders.
A suggestion: embalm Osama bin Laden, no cosmetics, and display -- next to a urinal -- at the memorial at the World Trade Center. -- Muslim "scholars" say burial at sea only benefits the fish. I say, flushing his ashes is another way to the sea. I feel sorry for the fishes.
Update: More operational details. The guy was truly hiding in plain sight, next door to a police station.
All members of the team that put a bullet into Bin Laden's cranium and then took the body out with them deserve honors, medals, ticker-tape parades, and all bar tabs covered for life.
Yom Hashoah Ve Hagevurah (Devastation and Heroism Day) is each year on the Hebrew calendar the 27th of the month of Nissan. When it occurs on Sunday, as this year, technically it is observed on Monday. However, as most people are off work on Sunday, most observances will be today.
Yes, there was heroism among the devastation. Most of the heroes died in battle or revolt, as in Warsaw. Most died unsung as they gave of themselves to make others' last moments more comfortable; there's a special recognition for some survivors who helped others survive. Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum and documentation center, each year highlights the stories of some of the survivors. Here's a fighting hero, for example, and here's one saved by one of the caring Righteous Gentiles.
Here's a photo of Jews collected in one of the ghettos before their slaughter. Just look at each individual face, then multiply: the future and contributions of 1 1/2 million children and 4 1/2 million adults wiped out.
A popular singer and group in the 60’s was Jay and The Americans. Jay Black (Real nameDavid Blatt) was from an Orthodox Jewish background. His most famous song was Cara Mia. They had many top hits. His voice had an operatic/cantorial quality.
He recorded a famous Yiddish song called “Where is the little street?” (Vi iz dus geseleh?) in 1966. Jay adapted it into a version to demonstrate his feelings about the Holocaust. After a long struggle with the record company, he convinced them to let him record it. While recording it he worked with Artie Butler to help him with the arrangement. He added Chagall’s paintings to provide sentimental visions of the Jewish villages in vivid colors.
Hope you enjoy this! The Chagall pictures are spectacular.
The song is performed in English and Yiddish.
Excellent essay on the distinctiveness of the Holocaust from other genocides or everyday intolerance.
Mark Steyn reports that his childrens' Kinder Eggs were seized by US Customs as he and they crossed the border from Canada to the US. According to Customs: "Many of the toys that have been tested by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the past were determined to present a choking hazard for young children....Last year, CBP officers discovered more than 25,000 of these banned chocolate eggs. More than 2,000 separate seizures were made of this product." As Steyn states, however: "And yet oddly enough generations of European and Latin American children remain unchoked."
If you don't know what Kinder Eggs are, they are hollow chocolate eggs with ingenious little assembly toys inside.
Each Summer, my wife and boys visit grandma in Germany. My wife brings back two egg cartons of twelve Kinder Eggs in each carton. Throughout the year they provide exceptional motivational rewards for the boys. My wife is as paranoid as most mothers about her childrens' safety, and as prone as most to believe most scares. The boys have collected several hundred of Kinder Egg toys. They reacted with deep disappointment this morning when I told them they are now illegal to bring into the US , then asked Mom if they could eat them all before getting on the plane home. My wife is trying to figure out something else as powerful a motivational reward as Kinder Eggs.
There's someone in Washington smiling that another motivation for individual effort has been broken and outlawed.
Credible, mainstream foreign policy analysts express dismay that President Obama’s foreign policy actions are so often contradictory, misdirected from commonly perceived national interests, and counterproductive to even stated goals.
Such critiques, seeking sanity and to avoid extremism and conspiracy theories, just stop there. In these analysts further defense, the facts of foreign policy failures are enough to indict. In their limited purview, that is sufficient. However, if one is searching for deeper explanation in order to avoid or prevent the repetition of such wrong-headedness impaling the US national interests, another additional approach is needed.
In the lack of extensive internal documents (a la, to some extent, the “Pentagon Papers”) a functional analysis of President Obama’s foreign policies looks at outcomes to discern cause(s). When the outcomes are similar, there is more reason to look for common cause. In other words, the outcomes are either consciously purposeful and may have a common purpose and cause, or highly likely due to conditioning. These two can come together when the structure of justification for the conditioning is verbalized and then used by the actor. President Obama’s leftist worldview is that conditioning and conscious purpose.
The caveat must be raised that functional analysis is, like any theory when applied to real life, unable to explain or predict every cause or action, and can be abused to impose an inadequately supported structure. For example, most wizened observers of human affairs agree that “stupidity” is usually a better explanation than “mendacity” in understanding the foibles or mistakes of men.
For example, this criticism was tellingly made by critics of the Cold War revisionist historians who ascribed its origins to exploitive and rapacious capitalism and the consequent purposeful expansionism of America’s leaders, downplaying the role and actions of the Soviet Union’s leaders as well as the gaps in information upon which our leaders had to act or react. Further analyses of the Cold War revisionist historians’ works more simply showed poor historiography. More measured contemporary historians, now with access to more Soviet archives and Western, see some less adventurous motivations and choices by Stalin, communist ideology at work alongside any realpolitik, and more confusion and reserved responses by and among Western leaders in the Cold War battles.
The Marxism underlying the Cold War revisionist historians’ world view was, as is Marxism, a form of functional analysis. From the outcome of post-war global dominance by the US and the conflicts with spreading communism, the cause was ascribed of a “mendacious,” conniving US pursuing resources and seeking the subjugation of colonial peoples.
There will be more future transparency into President Obama’s foreign policies that will expose greater confusion and reservations than seems the case now. The confidence of Americans after World War II, the expansion of our economy, and some racism may have been among causes for some US excesses. President Obama’s foreign policies appear almost the reverse: lack of confidence in US exceptionalism – our deserved heightened confidence in our good motives and actions, neglect of maintaining or growing the US economy, and siding with those opposed to states aligned with or benign toward US foreign policies. In this, President Obama is acting out his leftist upbringing and education.
As with the Cold War revisionist historians, and the wider leftist critique of America, President Obama basically takes and acts upon their view that the US and the West is mostly at fault for conflict and the unreached aspirations of those seen as oppressed.
President Obama was raised and educated in this leftist view. Yes, he is limited by others in our society and politics. But, he has been both consistent and determined in pursuing his view. His half-measures of continuity in Iraq and Afghanistan are compromises with contrary facts and views, but his half-measures are likely to fail and still, thus, further his view. Functionally, President Obama is the foe of the US.
In the Middle East, this functional analysis of President Obama’s foreign policies is most evident. President Obama buys that the source of conflict is the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, and that Israel – the stronger – is at fault. The Palestinians are oppressed by Israel. The other states in the Middle East – all autocratic or despotic -- that have come to terms with Israel or whose policies don’t really threaten Israel are viewed negatively. The states that more actively oppose and threaten Israel are viewed as whom we should favor. Islamist ideology is either ignored or seen benignly as a spur to violence and conflict. Arab states and Iran’s internal policies of corruption, exploitation and repression are not viewed as the source of their backwardness or hostilities.
In short, in functional analysis, President Obama really acts to lessen the power of the US and its exertion and to increase the power and exertions of those opposed to the US and its allies. The rationalizations he has inculcated from his leftist past try to publicly justify this in evasions and euphemisms. Indeed, he may not consciously want the defeat of the West and victories by its foes. But that is the result and it is all rooted in his leftist world view.
Those, of whatever political orientation, who avoid calling him out as, functionally, the foe of Western values and US national interests are doing their listeners a serious harm by reducing the justified wholesale rejection of President Obama’s foreign policies. Worse, they mask the cause and its rejection, allowing it to reappear among others and further harm the US, its values and its allies.
The administration has sat on its hands despite the fact that the Assad regime is one of the most implacable U.S. adversaries in the Middle East. It is Iran’s closest ally; it supplies Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip for use against Israel. Since 2003 it has helped thousands of jihadists from across the Arab world travel to Iraq to attack American soldiers. It sought to build a secret nuclear reactor with the help of North Korea and destabilized the pro-Western government of neighboring Lebanon by sponsoring a series of assassinations....
Yet the Obama administration has effectively sided with the regime against the protesters.
Professors in the Brooklyn College political science department continue to amaze me with their doings. Today's example is by Corey Robin, writing in the left's The Nation.
The politics of freedom does not dismiss the value or importance of state resources. But rather than conceiving of them as protections against the hazards of the market or indices of public compassion, it sees them as sources of power, as the tools and instruments of personal and collective advance. Armed with universal healthcare, unemployment benefits, public pensions and the like, I am less vulnerable to the coercions and castigations of an employer or partner. Not only do I have the option of leaving an oppressive situation; I can confront and change it—for and by myself, for and with others. I am emboldened not to avoid risks but to take risks: to talk back and walk out, to engage in what John Stuart Mill called, in one of his lovelier phrases, “experiments in living.”
Uh, no mention that taxpayers and those who create wealth are to pay for his "freedom" to do what he pleases or to attack their selfishness. Robin would benefit from a bigger dose of freedom, by striking out on his own, without the tit that feeds him -- as do real entrepreneurs.
The first seder ("order" of the prayers, recitation of the Exodus, and feast) of Passover begins tonight. Some find the printed "order" and its rituals long, especially when hungry. So, here's what the short version might have looked like, if Moses had the Internet.
For those interested in Passover and the seder, you'll find this cinematic telling and interpretations easy, informative and interesting. "Corresponding to the individual steps of the Haggadah, each short video offers unique, visual, commentary on the Passover story, allowing viewers to engage with this ancient and much revered text in new and compelling ways."
"The number of foreign companies are up 35 percent," to 496 out of the total 1,550, he said.
He said that despite UN sanctions and bilateral punitive measures by the United States and the European Union against Iran, "Germany is present with 64 companies, Italy with 36, Britain with 37, Spain with 14, France with 15 and South Korea with 33 companies."...
"The strong participation of foreign companies is a response to the illusion of (Western) sanctions," quipped the oil official.
While Iran forments trouble throughout the Middle East, and arms and directs Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, Western and Chinese companies supply the cash to do so.
Hollywood propagandist fimmaker Robert Redford has his latest revisionist history film, The Conspirator, torn asunder in the Washington Post review. Excerpt:
Replace “post-Vietnam” with “post-Iraq” and you get a pretty good description of how the U.S. military is portrayed in “The Conspirator.” Rather than a principle worth fighting for, or a fragile democracy still vulnerable to dead-enders who would reignite the war, the Union is painted as the nest that hatched the egg of an overweening state and arrogant abuse of power.
The San Diego Union-Tribune sent a reporter to the northern suburb of Oceanside last night. The headline in the print paper: “Tax Concerns Spur Two Rallies: Tea party, nonpartisan groups stage separate Oceanside events”; online’s headline more honest: “Two political rallies raise their voices in Oceanside.”
The same story in both presentations: “more than 1500” showed up for the Tea Party rally, “more than 100” for the raise taxes rally. The one-hundred, riding on the publicity backs of the work by the 1500, given as much space as the 1500. The tax raisers, calling themselves “Rally for America”: “the nonpartisan group stood behind public service employees and unions and blamed government bailouts of big business, corporate tax breaks and cuts to services for hurting the middle class…”
Yeah, “nonpartisan”! The Associated Press’ April poll says that’s the stance of 29% of Americans. That means the other 71% are partisans. Yes, partisans of reversing the US descent into bankruptcy and destroying the wealth producing citizenry that pays the taxes and benefits all.
As a little boy I would sing Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons" along with my hard-working father. The song lastingly impressed me at how difficult it can be to get ahead if under an exploitive thumb. Thank you Iowahawk for this updated version. I'll play it for my sons tonight.
On the way back from picking up my six-year old, Gavin, from break camp at the Y, I had the radio on to Hugh Hewitt. The guest, Mark Steyn, said "America is broke." Gavin asked me, "We're broke!?" Yes, I said, President Obama spent all your money and you'll have to pay it back to China. Gavin said, "there'll be nothing in the stores, and we'll be poor like Africa." Gavin then started crying. As we pulled into the driveway, Gavin asked me if I have President Obama's phone number. I said, "yes." Gavin said, "I want to call him and set him straight." That's my boy!
P.S.: We just returned from a restaurant. Gavin kept asking all through dinner when he can call President Obama to tell him he doesn't want to be poor or lose his country. -- I told Gavin that maybe there's a chance after next year's election he won't have to spend his life paying China. Gavin said OK. So, now we have to make that happen, for all the Gavins.
I really don’t get up in the morning asking myself “Who can I piss off today?” It just seems to work out that way, many days.
How does that happen? Closest I can figure, it’s because I study many issues, form conclusions, and am willing to share them, regardless of whose ox is gored. But, how did I come to be like that? Ah, that’s the real question, I think.
Indeed, I think is part of the answer. I don’t tend to react so much as to try to think ahead, seeing the consequence of current events, particularly in light of training, experience, and history.
This served me well in business, frequently clearing new paths and accomplishing remarkable goals, often necessarily undiplomatic and forthright, while others filled their pockets and defended their comfortable positions. This also served me well in politics, raising issues that others didn’t until I did, then the matters going viral. I usually didn't receive rewards, many times the opposite, but I was satisfied to accomplish something.
But, why me?Others are smarter or stronger or smoother or richer or better positioned.
Others say it’s because I came up ballsy through the scrappy streets of Flatbush. Others say it’s because I came up poor and learned to succeed. Others say it’s because I grew up surrounded by immigrants from the carnage of WWII who shared their painful lessons about the consequences of allowing evil to spread.
On the other hand, others say it’s because I’m a schmuck who puts my ego before possible relationships or personal gain.
I say, “whatever.”I don’t try nor care to try to self-analyze nor to care if others analyze me. I’m just me. I really don’t feel I have any other alternative. I believe, at core, that there’s a very simple and measurable way to know whether I am me.
If I’m unhappy, it’s because I’m not thinking or behaving like me but as someone else wants me to be, or it’s because I’m goofing off.
Back in the ‘50s there was a very popular TV show, The Millionaire, where weekly an anonymous million-dollars was delivered to a deserving person, changing their lives. The following morning, across America, people discussed what they would do with a million-dollars. Then and now I couldn’t come up with an answer for more than a few tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve always been satisfied with whatever I’ve had, however meager, always loved a good hot dog, and been happy to sit in whatever seats in the sun at a ball game. So, being me seems to be just being satisfied with whatever I have, not being obsessed with what I don’t.
The rough and tumble upbringing may have contributed to my spine, but we all know many who didn’t rise above their really or perceived tough childhood. We try to help them, with a boost or inspiration, and some do rise to their potential. We also know many who had every advantage and squandered them or who feel they’re entitled, with little care for their impacts on others in further feathering their own nests. Despite disdain by most, they live in insulated circles, usually blithely going on about their ways. Sometimes they earn their comeuppance, but whine the loudest when they do.
So, what makes the difference for the majority of us? I say it is fortitude and resilience. At 10 my grandfather asked whether I was lazy. That struck me hard, and I never quit at anything again. In Vietnam, although I was rarely in real danger, I made a deal with G-d: Get me out of here in one piece and you’ll never hear another complaint from me. We both kept that deal.
Fortitude and resilience come down to that, making a promise to oneself and keeping it to rise above circumstances. To do so requires paying attention to what’s happening, outside and inside, and doing something about it. Passivity and timidity are the enemy, to be overcome.
So, I don’t wake up asking myself, “who can I piss off today?”I wake up asking myself, “what can I overcome today?” And, “how can I help others to overcome?” It just doesn’t occur to me to ask, “what’ll be the consequences for me?” When I hear myself or someone else describe their “reason” for avoiding difficult choices, I substitute the word “excuse”, and that’s usually more accurate.
Gov. Jerry Brown faced growing pressure Tuesday to raise taxes without asking voters, which would require him to break his campaign pledge.
The head of the California Teachers Association, David Sanchez, said Tuesday that state leaders should extend higher sales, vehicle and income taxes through a legislative vote rather than passing the question to the electorate....
"I believe that as much as our governor has been extremely transparent and honest in doing what he told folks he'd do – which is let the people decide – it's too late for that," Sanchez said in a phone interview. "Once you put it on the ballot after June, it's no longer an extension, it becomes new taxes. And once they're new taxes, the people won't support that. I think the Legislature ought to do that themselves."
Pastor Jones should write a stage play in which he burns the Koran and mocks Islam and then apply for a government grant.
Presently, the piety of Mormon faithful is being mocked with song and dance blasphemy, but most reviewers assert that if they dare be offended they are not in on the joke. Many go out of their way to show that the stage show actually supports true piety, because play reviewers know all about true piety.
Evidently mocking a thing your neighbor loves is acceptable in the name of art, but horrific in the name of religion.
President Obama takes over all the TV networks and other media to tell us that Osama bin Laden is confirmed dead. Osama bin Laden is reported to have been in a mansion outside Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
Al Quaeda is much diminished, but its tentacles and their plans for terrorism in the West continues. Western security forces are on alert. Islamabad should be on alert for far less tolerance from the West.
