For the first time since I gave a dollar to Humphrey when I was a kid in 1968, I made a contribution to a presidential candidate this year, a substantial contribution actually. To me, the election was that important.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a breathless letter from the RNC informing me that I was eligible for inaugural ball tickets. I smiled, knowing that there was obviously some money involved. The letter came this week -- each ticket is $1,750. Wheeeeee!!! For that money, I could eat several times at Masa.
But that wasn't the sour note.
Tonight, I received an e-mail message from the Republican Jewish Coalition advising me that volunteers are needed for various inaugural events. Sounded a lot more appealing. I went to the inaugural committee's website and noticed that the application form required the obvious -- name, address, e-mail, phone, and also SSN (a security issue, undoubtedly). But it also required state of birth, country of birth, race (from a drop-down list; and a box "If Other, Please Specify"), and "gender" (male or female only; no funny stuff).
So I want to ask the President: Why do you want to know my race? Why do you care about it? Why is this relevant to your inaugural committee?
December 30, 2004
A sour note from the inaugural committee
What a relief!
"Doctors, Too, Ask: Is This Drug Right?"
Headline, New York Times, Dec. 30, 2004
Tasteless
The new big thing in New York, according to the New York Times, is a four star sushi restaurant called Masa. But for me, the biggest thing is its price: A lunch or dinner for two can easily run $1000. (That's a thousand; I didn't forget the decimal point.)
The review raises and refuses to answer two important questions:
Justifiable? I leave that question to accountants and ethicists. Worth it? The answer depends on your budget and priorities. But in my experience, the silky, melting quality of Masa's toro and uni and sea bream, coupled with the serenity of its ambience, does not exist in New York at a lower price.But I'll sleep well knowing that the rich liberals who eat there blame Republicans for what they call an increasing income gap between rich and poor.
December 26, 2004
Cheap links
This is a slow period for many people, including me. For your entertainment in the meantime, here's Dave Barry's round-up of the events of 2004, and although it's technically a little late, here's his 2004 gift guide (site registration required). The gifts are linked at the bottom of the page. Check 'em out.
December 23, 2004
Fiasco in the other Washington
I thought we had ballot problems in Maryland with the 1994 gubernatorial election, but we don't hold a candle to Washington state. For all you need to know about the shenanigans in the Northwest, go on over to Pull on Superman's Cape . . . and keep on scrolling.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to my Christian friends and readers.
With all the discussion about how the word Christmas and even minor acknowledgments of the holiday are being removed from public life, I just want to say Merry Christmas.
Christmas is not my holiday. I'm Jewish. But I agree with Charles Krauthammer and Rabbi Wohlberg (hat tip: Bob H.) that we should avoid secularizing our religions.
Now, the movement to secularize Christmas is mainly an effort of secular Christians, but some Jews are helping out, too. So for my fellow Jews, I have a few suggestions:
1. We Jews are fully equal to Christians in this country and have been fully equal since the creation of the Republic. That's what makes this such a wonderful country. However, we are now about 2% of the population and shrinking. Christians are, by various accounts, 75 to 85 percent. We are a minority, and we should respect the beliefs of the majority as much as we respect the beliefs of other minorities. If you're uncomfortable with being in a small minority, here are some ideas: Have more children; marry a Jew or encourage your spouse to convert; learn about your religion and find out what makes it beautiful; teach it to your children; show them its beauty. Look, I didn't say it was easy.
2. When Christians celebrate Christmas, it doesn't mean they are trying to convert you. Trust me -- when a Christian wants to convert you, you will not be in doubt. And when that happens, the correct response is a polite but firm "No, thank you." I get a lot of practice being polite when the Mormons knock on my door. Most Christians won't try to convert you, but those who do so think they are doing something for your benefit. You don't agree it's for your benefit. Say "No, thank you."
3. Bill O'Reilly is a jerk. A Jewish caller says he's uncomfortable with the celebration of Christmas, and O'Reilly tells him he should go to Israel. There's certainly an objective truth to this -- Christmas is barely a blip in Israel -- but it's gratuitously insulting. A person who is unhappy about something in this country may be over-reacting, but it's possible to point that out without advising him to leave the country. He could have reminded the caller that recognitions of Jewish religious observances are common here and that President Bush, a devout Christian, attended a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, without advising the caller to leave the country. So he's a jerk. That said, the people who are demanding an apology from him are being ridiculous, and they diminish themselves.
4. If your friends or associates or people you have contact with are Christian -- if you know they are -- then by all means wish them a Merry Christmas. Respect their religious holiday. If someone who doesn't know you're Jewish wishes you a Merry Christmas, don't correct him; that will embarrass him. Just say, "Thank you." The person who said it meant well, and it won't make you any less Jewish to be polite. (Of course, if someone who knows you're Jewish wishes you a Merry Christmas, there might be something a little strange about it.)
5. Does the celebration of Christmas make you feel unusually Jewish? Good! Run with it. Become more Jewish. And remember, as a general matter, it's a good thing for Jews when Christians in this country adhere to their religion. In the U.S., most anti-semitism has been social and now it's mostly political. This is different from Europe, where historically most anti-semitism was religious in nature. In the U.S., I have found a high level of philo-semitism among Christians, particularly those who are devout and politically conservative. I am touched by their support. These are people who look for the best in others, and I hope we Jews will continue to have their support.
6. The nicest thing a Jew can do on Christmas is to volunteer to take the place of a Christian who would otherwise be forced to work on the holiday. (See Krauthammer.) This year is a problem for observant Jews, because Christmas falls on Shabbat (the Sabbath). But if you're not Sabbath-observant, do it. If you can't do this, look for a blood drive to donate blood. Many synagogues hold them in the days immediately following Christmas.
7. Last, remember that we are all Americans, even if we do not share a religion. Be respectful of your fellow Americans.
December 21, 2004
Killer trees
Reagan was right!
"Tree-lined roads deadly, study shows"
headline, The Clarion-Ledger, December 18, 2004
December 20, 2004
Dog
Everyone knows about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac who stayed up all night unsure of the existence of Dog. Well, someone took the joke a little further.
I think if he had simply made a joke about having a "bark mitzvah" for his 13-year-old dog, it would have been (mildly) amusing. Somehow, actually doing it seems in really poor taste.
December 19, 2004
The feminists have won
The Washington Post reports: "Male fish that are growing eggs have been found in the Potomac River in Maryland, a federal scientist said last week. . . ."
And I liked this comment: "It's not good news that there's something that feminizes male fish in your water," said Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council."
Taking credit for Bush's victory
Q. Who claims credit for Bush's re-election? A. Moammar Qaddafi.
I guess the Hollywood crowd will just have to cross Libya off their list of places to move to.
December 16, 2004
Happy Beethoven's Birthday
Celebrate Beethoven's birthday by listening to the Eroica Symphony, the Opus 111 piano sonata, and the Missa Solemnis . . . and by sending your friends an e-card????
And take back your engagement ring, too
Well, it seems that Washington and Major League Baseball are splitsville. Little Tony Williams made some big promises to get MLB to agree to marry his city, but his older sister, Linda Cropp, stepped in to make some last-minute changes to the pre-nup. Brides just don't like last-minute surprises.
UPDATE (12/21): So the older sister decides that, having thrown her weight around to break up the engagement, she'll throw her weight around again to put it back together. The bride -- that's MLB, in case this metaphor has tanked -- obviously has known all along that she had a damn good deal in the first place and comes back to the engagement, all the while trying to stifle a grin.
A friend of mine in college broke up with a girlfriend more than 20 times in the course of a year, including 3 or 4 times in one weekend. He's now happily married -- to another woman. And the moral is?
December 14, 2004
December 13, 2004
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz......
Nominee for boring-est front page story in a major newspaper: Today's 39 column inches of filler (ha, ha) about how people are eating sandwiches for lunch in Washington.
Thank you
My 7th place finish in the Best of the Rest of the Blogs (6750+) category in the 2004 weblog awards was way better than I expected. Based on 4.4% of 2321 votes, I figure I received 102 votes. Between my own votes and those of my friends, I guess that's about 25 or maybe 30. Which leaves about 70 or 75 votes from real people. All I can say is "Thank you." I'm really touched that people actually voted for me.
A special thank you to Kin, whose comment "You so have my vote" made my whole week.
December 12, 2004
A farewell to John Ashcroft
The outgoing Attorney General gave a valedictory speech on Friday.
Considering the unrelenting hostility he has endured at least since his nomination, I want to link to an article written when Ashcroft was nominated in 2001. The article, which originally appeared in The New Republic, was written by an Orthodox Jew who had worked for Ashcroft when he was a senator.
December 11, 2004
Two requests
Two requests:
1. Please consider donating to the Spirit of America by clicking on the "Friends of Iraq" image to the right. It's a great cause. I've explained more about it here.
2. Tomorrow, December 12, is the final day to vote in the 2004 Weblog Awards. If you haven't voted in past 24 hours, please go to the category "Best of the Rest of the Blogs (6750+)" and consider voting for Pillage Idiot. I'm currently 7th out of 14th, approximately 20 votes behind 6th place. It would be nice to move up.
We thank you for your support.
December 09, 2004
OK, they're kosher. So what?
The fact that something is kosher doesn't mean you have to eat it.
Diversity on campus
At George Washington University in D.C., a potential scandal was avoided when the university reprogrammed its cable TVs so that CNN, and not Fox News, was showing at the student center. The student newspaper reports. You decide.
Televisions in the Marvin Center were tuned back to CNN this week after airing Fox News in what GW officials called a "mix-up."
Michael Peller, managing director of the Marvin Center, said the temporary switch to Fox News switch was due to human error because the cable company that serves the Marvin Center changed the channel number assigned to CNN, and then assigned CNN's old number to Fox News.
Some students said they were angered the University would air a station they thought was overtly biased. The station, which primarily features conservative analysts, has been criticized by liberals for pandering to the Republican Party."
Personally I think it is disrespectful to air a news broadcast specifically supportive of one party," freshman Rory Kraus said. "We are a diverse group of students. A network broadcast should cater to all students. An appropriate station would have been CNN."
Stan Dai, senior editor at the GW Patriot, a conservative newsmagazine, said CNN reporters don't understand that some people oppose liberal issues like gay marriage and joked that some people call it the "Clinton News Network."
Dai said Fox News commentary shows such as "The O'Reilly Factor" are not unbiased, but Fox is a "legitimate news organization" with objective reporting.
December 08, 2004
Latest frightening news
According to an article in the London Times, which you should read at your own risk, laptops can cause fertility problems in men. I'm already done in that department, but it's still very frightening. In fact, it's hard to pick which part of the article is the scariest, but I don't remember many other articles in which the phrase "caused scrotal temperatures to rise" has appeared.
Link via Drudge (would it surprise you?).
The Baltimore Sun and Governor Ehrlich
It may be a personality flaw with me, but I find these things immensely enjoyable. The Baltimore Sun, which is the 800-pound gorilla of the Maryland press (meaning Maryland, not D.C.), filed a lawsuit last Friday against Governor Ehrlich challenging his order that state employees not speak to a Sun reporter, David Nitkin, and a Sun columnist, Michael Olesker, as a violation of freedom of the press. The complaint is found here. Ehrlich contends that these journalists have made many misstatements of fact about his administration. Also, he's still angry at the Sun for editorializing during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign that Michael Steele, who ran with Ehrlich as Lt. Governor, "brings little to the team but the color of his skin."
I'm not going to don my "Volokh" hat and start expounding on the First Amendment. Nor will I weigh in about what the "experts" are saying about the suit. But I do think there are some interesting things about this brouhaha.
First, leave aside the legalities. Governor Ehrlich obviously thinks this is a political winner for him, beating up on the big boys in the press. Ehrlich has previously said publicly that "his directive preventing state officials from speaking with two journalists at The Sun was 'meant to have a chilling effect' on 'two writers who have no credibility.'" My view that this is a political stunt by the governor (who obviously feels wronged) was confirmed today in a Washington Post article, which said:
Second, the Sun's in-house counsel needs some public relations training. Here's her pronouncement on the suit:Donald F. Norris, a political science professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, said that he personally believes that Ehrlich's edict is "foolish" but that it probably won't cause any long-term political damage.
"This plays to his base very well," Norris said. "His conservative base doesn't like the Baltimore Sun, period. It sees the Sun as biased against Ehrlich. They're saying, 'Hurrah, Bob.'"
She sure makes it sound as if the Sun reporters generally write whatever springs to mind without thinking much about it."This is just a back-door effort to get a reporter who has published stories that the governor didn't like kicked off the beat and a back-door effort to get a columnist to be forced to write with one hand behind his back," said Tribune Co. attorney Stephanie S. Abrutyn, who filed the suit on behalf of The Sun, a Tribune-owned newspaper.
She continued: "On a broader level, this is not about just these two reporters. If the governor is allowed to do this, any reporter ... would be foolish not to think twice about what they say or write."
Third, the Sun comes out of this dispute looking like a schoolyard bully who starts whining when someone stands up to him. This is not an opinion on the legal merits of the case; it's an opinion about public perception. Governor Ehrlich is only the governor of the state. The Sun is, well, it's the Sun, the schoolyard bully.
Fourth, I think a more interesting lawsuit would be brought by a state employee who was disciplined for speaking to one of the journalists on a matter of public concern.
Oh, forget the legal stuff. Just sit back and enjoy the fight.
December 07, 2004
Requiem for Allah
Of course, I'm referring to the blogger -- former blogger -- Allah, not to the deity.
Fans of the blog Allah is in the House, which has been largely silent for two months, sadly will have to get on with their lives. Allah appeared today in a thread at protein wisdom and made it clear he's not returning, other to make an endorsement in the 2004 Weblog Awards vote (alas, not for me, and in a totally different category with real blogs). Allah linked to a comment he posted at American Digest in which he explained what led him to abandon his blog. Both the original post and Allah's comment are worth reading. (Incidentally, in case it wasn't obvious, I fall into the group of bloggers with no pretentions of journalism who are "content to spout off into the void while the medium leaves them behind.")
Although Allah played a large role in the unmasking of the fraudulent documents used by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes, I will remember him most for the many times he made me spit my drink out my nostrils. In loving memory of a master Photoshop artist and talented writer and humorist, I will provide a link to my all-time favorite Allah Photoshop, a series in which Kerry struggled with his decision picking a running mate.
December 06, 2004
More charities
A bunch of other charities for all your giving needs, courtesy of Noemie Emery on National Review Online. And, of course, don't forget the blogger challenge. Click on the image on the right.
A Rockefeller Republican
Last week, I was suggesting that Bush should proceed "full speed ahead" with judicial nominations and noting that deacon, at Powerline, had used the term "kick some ass."
In this week's Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes writes that Bush is an activist president that his opponents still haven't figured out. Barnes points out Bush's penchant for big plans: "One of his most stinging criticisms is to label a proposal 'smallball' -- in other words, not big or bold enough for serious presidential attention."
I am therefore naming Bush an honorary Rockefeller Republican. For the benefit of those too young to remember Rocky, he was a multi-term governor of New York, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, and, briefly, the Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford. But wait! you say. Wasn't "Rockefeller Republican" a term denoting a liberal Republican? It sure was, but let me explain the irony.
In September 1976, when Rockefeller was VP and Ford was running with Bob Dole as his running mate, Rockefeller went to New York State to campaign for the ticket. While at SUNY/Binghampton, Rockefeller was heckled by students, some of whom greeted him with their middle fingers outstretched. Rockefeller, with a huge smile on his face, flipped the bird back at them. The photo below immortalized this gesture.
The wheels of justice
Today's front page of the New York Times identifies a federal district judge in Manhattan whose caseload seems to be hidden under some musty old law books -- "there is one unchallenged king of delayed decisions: Judge George B. Daniels of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who, the latest statistics show, had 289 motions in civil cases pending for more than six months, by far the highest total of any federal judge in the nation."
I'm not here to mock Judge Daniels, although lawyers love to mock judges (generally out of earshot). But I was reminded of a story told by a partner at the firm I used to work at in New York. The partner had a case before Judge Constance Baker Motley, formerly a judge in the same federal district court. There was a summary judgment motion that Motley had sat on for nearly a whole year. The partner was in her courtroom for a status conference on the case, and when Judge Motley looked at the docket, she said to the lawyers, "There's a summary judgment motion that's been pending for eleven months." The lawyers confirmed this. Then Motley bellowed, "Why hasn't it been decided?"
Liberal war hawks
Peter Beinart is much smarter than I am. And so are all the people who have responded to Beinart's widely discussed article in The New Republic (site registration required) making the case for liberals to buy into the fight against Muslim extremism. I've read Beinart but not the people who responded to him, and my response here is not an intellectual one, which I am not qualified to make. It is a bitter, emotional one.
I'm a former Democrat. Formally, I switched parties in 1987, but the real switch for me was in 1980. I knew I was going to vote for Reagan a few months before the election, but I didn't realize until the morning after the election just how happy I was to have made that choice. And until I read Beinart's article, I had forgotten how angry I still am, as a former Democrat, at the party's foreign policy.
I have only two things to say about the article. First, Beinart's notion that Kerry and the party establishment's foreign policy advisors are liberal war hawks is absurd. Kerry is a dove through and through, from his disreputable efforts to undercut the American effort (and those still fighting) in Vietnam through his embrace of the nuclear freeze movement and his opposition to the Gulf War in 1991, all the way up to his crass, political decision to vote for the current war in Iraq because he knew he was going to run for President. The reason Kerry's pro-war position during the campaign was incoherent, in my view, is not so much that he was trying to cover his anti-war base at the same time (which is true) but that he did not actually believe in his own position.
Second, Beinart is deluded in believing that the military actions of the 1990s have anything to do with hawkishness. The unifying theme of Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia was altruism. While I fully believe there is an important place for altruism in American foreign policy, the peculiar form of altruism urged by Democrats in the 1990s made altruism the exclusive justification for American military action. If there could be found any possible American national interest in a military action, the moral justification for them was compromised. (This first dawned on me in 1993, when Anthony Lewis wrote in support of the action in Somalia.) What's different about the post-9/11 military actions we have taken, and what's different about the Bush Doctrine, is that we are taking action to protect American interests first and foremost. We make life better for the people living under Afghan and Iraqi tyranny by removing the national leadership that threatened the United States and by making institutions of freedom available to them. But we do this because establishing these institutions is likely to reduce the threat that these countries (and, optimistically, others) pose to us. If these near eastern nations were entirely peaceful, we would not invade to overthrow their governments, even if doing so increased the freedom enjoyed by their people (although I can imagine non-military means of trying to accomplish that goal).
Beinart's article simply reminded me of a big reason I left the Democrats behind. If his argument in favor of American power is the best that a Democrat can make, I have little hope for the party.
December 05, 2004
December 03, 2004
Meanwhile, a candle-lit dinner will have to do
From the NY Times:
"A federal advisory panel voted unanimously yesterday that the first drug to enhance the sex drive of women should not be approved because of a lack of information about its long-term safety."
Ledeen: the "death rattle" of the Left
Michael Ledeen writes in National Review Online (hat tip: Bob H.) that the "hysterical reaction" of the Left to Bush's re-election and the demonization of Bush and those who voted for him are the "death rattle" of the traditional Left as a dominant political force and an intellectual vision. Ledeen argues that leftists can no longer win elections absent unusual circumstances, because their ideology is "spent."
In fact, he claims, leftists were "doomed by their own success" in overthrowing the class-bound aristocracy in Europe.
In true dialectical fashion, they were doomed by their own success. As once-impoverished workers became wealthier, the concept of the proletariat became outdated, along with the very idea of class struggle. Then the manifest failure and odious tyranny of the 20th-century leftist revolutions carried out in the name of the working class — notably in Russia, China, and Cuba — undermined the appeal of the old revolutionary doctrines, no matter how desperately the Left argued that Communist tyrannies were an aberration, or a distortion of their vision.Ledeen explains that the biggest change was "the emergence of the United States as the most powerful, productive, and creative country in the world." There was never a serious workers' movement here; there was little class hatred, either, since American workers believed they could get rich themselves. The success of America was "devastating" to the Left, which could not understand that the world had changed with the advance of America and the defeat of the Soviet Union. Ledeen also argues that because the Left couldn't understand or transform the world any longer, it "predictably lost its bearings."
It was entirely predictable that they would seek to explain their repeated defeats by claiming fraud, or dissing their own candidates, or blaming the stupidity of the electorate. Their cries of pain and rage echo those of past elites who looked forward and saw the abyss. There is no more dramatic proof of the death of the Left than the passage of its central vision — global democratic revolution — into the hands of those who call themselves conservatives.Ledeen concludes with this line: "History has certainly not ended, but it has added a new layer to its rich compost heap."
December 02, 2004
2004 Weblog Awards poll
Pillage Idiot is a finalist in the 2004 Weblog Awards in the category Best of the Rest of the Blogs (6750+). The "6750+" refers to the blog's status in the TTLB Ecosystem. It's a measure ranking blogs in order of linkage and traffic. So when the category says "Best of the Rest," it means we're the bottom-dwelling scum-suckers of the blogosphere.
That said, I'm flattered to have been nominated (self-nominated, I should say) and I absolutely will not make any pitch for you, my loyal readers, to vote for Pillage Idiot. Absolutely, no pitch. None. I'm amazed that some people have already voted for Pillage Idiot without even being prompted. I'm humbled.
The rules on voting are found here. Basically, you can vote once a day in each poll category, and no cheating is allowed. The Kerry campaign may or may not challenge the results, but I have full confidence in the process.
While you're at the polls, check out the other categories and vote to reward the many fine bloggers out there.
Maryland-Israel high tech partnership
Israeli officials, including Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, were in Maryland this week to announce the start of the Maryland-Israel Development Fund. The Washington Jewish Week reports that "the $1 million fund will provide seed money of up to $150,000 for high-tech product development by pairs of Maryland and Israeli firms working together."
Maryland's Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich, of course, was there to sign an agreement with the Israelis. Whenever a Republican is involved with Israel or American Jews, suspicion is rampant. Can you imagine that a politician might be trying to gain support among potential voters? Ehrlich couldn't see what the fuss was about.
The WJW article quotes a local rabbi defending the governor.For his part, Ehrlich used the event to tout his pro-Jewish credentials and pro-business stance.
"I've loved my three trips to Israel," he said, citing his travels there as Maryland delegate, as House member, and last November, as governor.
"This is a pro-business administration," Ehrlich told the audience, adding, "We are about business and business development."
Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Potomac's Congregation B'nai Tzedek addressed concerns that the new program was simply a ploy to win Jewish votes in the already contentious jockeying for the 2006 governor's race.
"Anytime a governor does anything, it's possible there's a political motivation, but this governor has shown through his visit to Israel and his other actions his genuine interest in strengthening ties between Maryland and the state of Israel," Weinblatt said.
Entrance exam
Via Jay Nordlinger:
The Spectator publishes the entrance exam (site registration required) for King Edward’s School in Birmingham, England, in 1898. Topics are English Grammar, Geography, Latin, English History, and "Arithmetic." I put quotation marks around "arithmetic," because we're not talking about dividing 450 by 15. Algebra might be a better term, especially when using funny money:
12. A and B rent a number of fields between them for a year, the rent and other expenses amounting to £108 17s. 6d. A puts in 2 horses, 5 oxen and 10 sheep; and B puts in 4 horses, 1 ox, and 27 sheep. If a horse eats as much as 3 sheep and an ox as much as 2 sheep, how much should A and B each pay?I'll ask my teenagers.
December 01, 2004
Join the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge
[UPDATE: Bump. Challenge is underway.]
The Spirit of America is a charity with an excellent mission.
Spirit of America operates by fulfilling "requests from American personnel for goods that improve the lives of local people and thus help advance freedom and peace."Our mission is to extend the goodwill of the American people to assist those advancing freedom and peace abroad.
Our objectives are to:
• Increase the reach, scale and impact of the informal humanitarian activities that take place on the front lines in troubled regions.
• Contribute charitable goods that can have a positive, practical and timely impact in the local communities where American personnel are involved.
• Improve foreign perceptions of the American people and our presence abroad.
Spirit of America is a not-for-profit organization supported through private sector contributions and in-kind support.
It is operating under the auspices of the Cyber Century Forum, a 501c3 public foundation. Donations to Spirit of America and the requests we feature are tax deductible.
Here is a list of SOA projects.We have provided school and medical supplies, sewing machines, hand tools, water barrels, clothing, soccer gear and toys in response to needs identified by American personnel. We contributed equipment to Iraqi-owned television stations to establish a better alternative to Al Jazeera. We helped Iraqi men whose arms were amputated by Saddam Hussein get a new start on life.
At the instigation of M.E. of Stand in the Trenches, I've joined a team of bloggers (more accurately, I've hitched my a** to others) for this fundraising challenge. The team is led by The Truth Laid Bear (a/k/a TTLB). Bloggers can click here to join the TTLB team. Readers can click here to donate.
November 30, 2004
Allawi found no WMDs in Ottawa
"Bush Defends Iraq Decisions in Canada"
Associated Press, Nov. 30, 2004
Sweating the little things
When I was in private practice some years ago, a partner in my firm told me that when I got the transcript of our client's deposition, I should have him correct the big mistakes but not the small ones. The idea is that if you focus on small mistakes, it means you've looked closely enough to make sure to correct the big mistakes. In lawyers' terminology, you can't weasel out of inconsistencies by saying you missed something.
I was reminded of this by the news stories, of which this is the most recent, about a Palestinian boy who allegedly was forced to play his violin at a road block, to his humiliation. We'll leave aside the obvious jokes about Carnegie Hall. If this is what you're complaining about, there really can't be anything important that's wrong.
Retirees leaving Florida
When the NY Times isn't discussing the frontiers of plastic surgery, it's talking about retirees who are leaving the Sun Belt to be with their northern families.
The typical retiree in this article, judging by the name, is Jewish and from Florida. So my question is (drum roll), how will this affect the Jewish vote?
Frontiers of plastic surgery
I could tell you it was on the front page of the Sunday NY Times Sunday Styles section, and you'd read it. But that would be wrong.
If you're at all squeamish, DON'T CLICK ON THIS LINK.
And why in the world would this woman pose for a photo, which accompanied the article on the web? Did she imagine that the mirror would not reflect her face?
photo by Cindy Karp, NY Times
Rhonda Gaynier again
Since a lot of people are reaching my blog by searching for Rhonda Gaynier -- I posted about her experience with an intrusive pat-down search 4 weeks ago and did an update last week -- and since AP had another story about her today, I thought I would address her plight again.
Comments seem to fall into two basic camps. First, this is an outrage because it touches women in places where they should not be touched (namely, the airport). Second, she should live with it because we want to stop terrorists.
My position, as I think is clear from previous posts, is that it's the wrong way to stop terrorists. It inconveniences innocent women to make us feel we're being kept safer. The right way is to be more aggressive in ethnic profiling. I haven't done the research on the legalities of ethnic profiling -- a thoughtful analysis by Roger Clegg may be found here -- but our policy should be to profile to the maximum extent of the law. As I noted in the previous update, it's our government's policy not to engage in profiling. This is a serious mistake.
Meanwhile, the rest of us submit to searches that may be perfectly legal but are also perfectly stupid. The women who apparently smuggled explosives onto Russian airliners weren't elderly black church-going ladies or even Rhonda Gaynier. They were people affiliated with Islamic terrorists. Why waste the time of TSA personnel when they could be focused on actual threats to our safety?
UPDATE (12/1/04): Charlotte Allen of the Independent Women's Forum agrees with me.
There’s a more effective way to do this, of course. It’s called terrorist-profiling. Remember that it was Chechen women--women who hated the Russians and had bought into the Islamo-fanatic ritual of suicide-killing--who seemed to have blown up those Russian planes. Not an American-born woman flying in America on business like Rhonda Gaynier. If we focused our searches on those most likely to bring down airplanes, we could leave the lawyers and the babies and the grannies alone.
But of course we can’t have that--it’s politically incorrect. And while Barry Steinhardt screams about groping to the TSA, his technology and liberty project continues adamantly to oppose terrorist-profiling. So, ladies, just grit your teeth and steel yourself for more indignity at the airport.
November 29, 2004
Hanukkah in Santa Monica
I have a lot of respect for Binyamin Jolkovsky, and I've linked to his Jewish World Review site on my sidebar. But what's going on with his opposition to Adam Sandler's song about Hanukkah?
According to the Washington Times, Jolkovsky thinks the song is an "embarrassment." "Hanukkah is about a lot more than menorahs or potato latkes," he says. "It's childish when you take a minority that doesn't take itself seriously and then you see what they're offering."
I'm not sure what that's all about. Hanukkah is not a religious holiday in the mold of Christmas, which it coincides with, but a holiday celebrating political freedom. Of course, there's a strong religious element to it -- the purification of the defiled temple and the miracle of the oil -- but mostly, it's a fun holiday. As the joke goes, They tried to kill us; we won; let's eat. Besides, Sandler's song is amusing.
All of which reminds me of Tom Lehrer's classic Hanukkah song, Hanukkah in Santa Monica. While Lehrer's politics are vershtunk, he's an unusually clever lyricist. Here are the lyrics. I've made minor changes in the Hebrew transliteration.
I'm spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica,
Wearing sandals, lighting candles by the sea.
I spent Shavuos in East Saint Louis,
A charming spot, but clearly not the spot for me.
Those eastern winters, I can't endure 'em,
So every year I pack my gear and come out here til Purim.
Rosh Hashana I spend in Arizona.
And Yom Kippah way down in Mississippah.
But in December there's just one place for me.
Amid the California flora I'll be lighting my menorah.
Like a baby in its cradle I'll be playing with my dreidel,
Here's to Judas Maccabeus, boy if he could only see us,
Spending Hanukkah, in Santa Monica, by the Sea!
A novel worth reading twice (and more)
Hugh Hewitt asks which modern novels are worth reading twice. I don't read much fiction. So why am I responding at all? Fair question. It's because the obvious answers are sometimes overlooked.
I don't mean to put on airs -- I have previously quoted this novel in the same post in which I quoted Get Smart -- but I strongly recommend making the effort to read and re-read and re-re-read Joyce's Ulysses. I used to try to re-read it each Bloomsday, but now I just randomly pick a section, a few pages even, to read and smile about.
The full text may be found here. My two favorite passages are these: the first, an amusing anecdote told by Lenehan with a sympathetic treatment of Bloom; the second, a hilarious spoof of different styles of writing, including biblical, in a confrontation between Bloom and an Irish patriot.
First, the Lenehan anecdote.
The second:Lenehan linked his arm warmly.
--But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing glees and duets: Lo, the early beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.
He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:
--I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. Know what I mean?
His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.
--The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that's only what you might call a pinprick. By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark.
Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft laughter.
--I'm weak, he gasped.
M'Coy's white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy.
--He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one of your common or garden ... you know ... There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom.
And says he:
--Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.
--He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.
--Whose God? says the citizen.
--Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me.
Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.
--By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.
--Stop! Stop! says Joe.
A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid farewell to Nagyas gos uram Lip¢ti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime of Sz zharminczbroj£guly s-Dugul s (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great ’clat was characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob agus Jacob. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come Back to Erin, followed immediately by Rak¢czsy's March. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. Visszontl t sra, kedv’s bar tom! Visszontl t sra! Gone but not forgotten.
Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's royal theatre:
--Where is he till I murder him?
And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.
--Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel.
But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other way and off with him.
--Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!
Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.
The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously pleased to decree that a special missa pro defunctis shall be celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of d’bris, human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I.
You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths after him.
--Did I kill him, says he, or what?
And he shouting to the bloody dog:
--After him, Garry! After him, boy!
And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you.
When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And He answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.
November 28, 2004
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
I tried, but I couldn't say it any better than deacon at Powerline, who captioned his post "To Break the Stalemate Kick Some Ass." Deacon was commenting on Norman Ornstein's piffle in today's Washington Post. Ornstein argues that life tenure for the Article III judiciary was meant to insulate judges from politics and that this entire structure is broken. So far, so good. But Ornstein argues further that we should amend the Constitution to provide for a single 15-year term for federal judges, like what we have for the non-Article III judges on the Court of Federal Claims.
Deacon shreds this nonsense in a second: "I can just imagine Senator Leahy explaining to Nan Aron that she will only have to put up with Miguel Estrada for 15 years." But he is even more correct about the practicalities of the situation. With the addition of new Republican senators in the recent election, the potential vulnerability of some red-state Democrats, Bush's strength coming out of his re-election, and (I would add) Arlen Specter's partial neutering, why engage in the Republicans' favorite strategy of pre-emptive surrender?
We've got some big nomination battles coming up. Let's come out fighting.
One more thing: Go, Miguel!
If Jeff Goldstein designed road signs
Or maybe Al Goldstein, I'm not quite sure.
Fred Barnes explains it all (to the Jews)
Why is this so difficult for Jews to understand?
Fred Barnes spoke at the annual meeting of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Rockville, Maryland, about Bush's plans for his second term and his support for Israel. Barnes spoke as well to a primal fear of American Jews -- that evangelical Christians are out to get them.
Barnes went on to make a suggestion for Jews who are afraid of these Christians, and he did it far more tactfully than I would have.Barnes also addressed the strong support of evangelical Christians for Israel. Identifying himself as a member of that group, Barnes said he had "never heard a single" evangelical Christian say that his or her support for the Jewish state is based on prophecies of the apocalypse -- as some often claim.
They support Israel because it's a religious country, a democratic country, an outpost of Western civilization and America's greatest ally, he said.
He did concede that some evangelicals may want to convert Jews, and that the best response is to "say sorry, not interested." But he said many others understand that attempts at converting Jews are inappropriate, disrespectful and wrong.See? We can learn from the gentiles. If someone wants us to convert, we say, "No, thank you." And we remain friendly enough to continue our political alliance in support of Israel, which has very few friends these days, especially on the Left, where so many Jews find themselves.
Gratuitous gender stereotyping
M.E., of Stand in the Trenches, was liveblogging Thanksgiving. The thought had absolutely never occurred to me. So I figured I'd engage in what comes more naturally to me -- blatant gender stereotyping.
M.E. is a lovely woman, and she has given me encouragement in my first couple of months as a blogger, so I hope she won't take offense at this.
A male blogger who liveblogged Thanksgiving would probably focus more on this kind of activity (check the photos). And whatever you do, don't leave that site without clicking on the "download the movie" link at the bottom.
November 26, 2004
Some profound thoughts on dial-up
Dial-up = teh suck
I'm about twice as old as I should be to say that. See you back in Maryland Sunday morning.
Drudge imitates Pillage Idiot
This morning, Drudge links to the Fox News article on the diktat of the Maryland schools that students not be taught that the Pilgrims were thanking God at Thanksgiving. I wrote about that three days ago and mentioned it again on Erev Thanksgiving.
This is what happens when you're a path-breaking, red-hot blog: the followers follow you. [Red hot? You're well up in the 8000's in the TTLB rankings. -- Ed. Shut up, he explained.]
November 24, 2004
Thanksgiving
When you offer your thanks tomorrow, make sure you don't mention God if you live in Maryland within 1000 feet of a public school. But when you do offer your thanks, don't forget to thank the members of the American armed forces, especially those fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (I hope) in other unknown regions of the Middle East. I can't begin to offer enough thanks to the people who have acted with almost super-human ability, determination, and honor, at risk of their own lives, to help make us safe here at home.
I made a contribution yesterday to Operation Gratitude, which provides care packages to the troops. On my sidebar are links to USO and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Take a moment to read about their good works and send some money their way. It's the least we can do.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Another estimate of Jewish retiree vote
Via Newmark's Door, Patrick Ruffini, the webmaster of the Bush-Cheney campaign, writes about the Berkeley study of the Florida vote. The single most interesting thing to me is his estimate of the increase in the Bush vote of retired Jewish voters in Palm Beach:
Holding the percentage of precincts constant between the two years, the numbers look much, much better for Bush: the President got a 10.8% swing overall in majority-senior precincts. I also estimate that President Bush received a 14-16% swing among Jewish retirees specifically.If this is true, if there was this kind of increase among Jewish geezers, how did Frank Luntz come up with a total Jewish vote of 25% in Florida and Ohio? My usual answer.
Tech guy
We're up here at the Attila family homestead north of New York City, where we return every year for Thanksgiving. And when we return, I immediately turn into the tech guy. Because in my family no one has any clue technologically.
A few months ago, there was an amusing thread in a computer forum I frequent. A forum member was complaining that his father really doesn't know anything about computers but thinks he does. A long fight ensued between father and son, with father (according to son, the forum member) totally "borking" the computer. (As an aside, one of my continuing grievances against Arlen Specter is that he actively participated in creating the term used in the computer field to mean "screwing up.") So the guy was complaining about his father, and others were chiming in. One member then posted what I thought was a very sensible idea -- that he realized his mother wasn't computer-savvy, and he simply made sure that each of the several times a year he visited, he updated and fixed her computer. No complaints. That's just the way it is.
So that's what I do. Several times a year, I update and fix my parents' computer. Today, I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2, updated anti-virus files ("Mom, your anti-virus files are five months old!"), and ran anti-spyware software.
Look, my parents have done a lot for me over the years. This is not a big deal. Happy Thanksgiving.
You mean, it isn't?
The following unbiased caption accompanied an AFP photo of the U.N. Headquarters:
The United Nations (news - web sites) headquarters in New York. A right-wing Republican group launched a television campaign calling for the UN to be kicked out of the United States, alleging the world body is a 'safe harbor' for terrorism(AFP/File/Don Emmert)You mean, it isn't?
November 23, 2004
Whose "Peace in the Middle East"?
A full-page ad ran in the New York Times today, with essentially this text. It was called "Peace in the Middle East: An Open Letter from American Jews to Our Government." I wouldn't have paid any attention to it if it were not for the presumptuous way in which the ad claimed to speak for "American Jews." (Mrs. Attila and I have discussed publishing an open letter from American Jews; there are two of us, after all, and we can use the plural.)
What's added to the text is a preface stating that "three major things" have occurred since the original publication of the ad -- the adoption of the ad's principles in the Geneva Accord; Sharon's "push[ing] forward with misguided and counterproductive policies"; and the American government's undermining "fragile peace prospects" by supporting Sharon.
The ad asks that checks to help publish elsewhere be sent to "Prof. Bruce Robbins, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University."
By coincidence, I came across Prof. Robbins's name yesterday in this article in Sunday's New York Daily News entitled "Hate 101." The article is subtitled "Climate of hate rocks Columbia University" and discusses several professors who subject students to "harassment, threats and ridicule merely for defending the right of Israel to survive." One of the "firebrands" is Prof. Robbins. Here is the Daily News's summary:
This man wants your check to help with peace in the Middle East.Bruce Robbins, a professor of English and comparative literature. In a speech backing divestment, he said, "The Israeli government has no right to the sufferings of the Holocaust."
Elaborating, Robbins told The News he believes Israel has a right to exist, but he thinks the country has "betrayed the memory of the Holocaust."
It's groping all around
Three weeks ago, I wrote about "lawyer-groping" after an article in the New York Times discussed the experience of a female lawyer with an intrusive pat-down search at airport security. I concluded my post with the following TSA motto: "Better that 100 innocent lawyers be groped than that one suspicious Arab be inconvenienced."
According to the front page of today's New York Times, in an article by Joe Sharkey (who seems to be making a career out of groping women -- not by him, of course, by the TSA), this policy of groping women at airport security is not limited to lawyers.
In dozens of interviews, women across the country say they were humiliated by the searches, often done in view of other passengers, and many said they had sharply reduced their air travel as a result.
The new security policies on body searches were put into practice in mid-September, after a terrorist attack in Russia a few weeks before that destroyed two planes, killing 90 people. Two Chechen women were thought to have carried nonmetallic explosives onto the planes, officials said. It is not known whether the explosives were hidden in the women's clothing, or whether the women merely boarded unimpeded, carrying the explosives.
But the Transportation Security Administration in the United States, already worried that metal detectors could not pick up nonmetallic explosives, issued new regulations requiring airport screeners to conduct more frequent and more intense secondary searches and pat-downs.
Apparently, this groping is pretty widespread.
What's even more alarming about this is the reason many women believe the policy singles out women: "a belief that bras are good places to conceal nonmetallic explosives."Jen McSkimming, a manager with a domestic airline, said the numbers were "severely underreporting" the extent of the problem. She said she was recently at an industry meeting attended by a senior representative of the security agency who said, when the issue of pat-downs was raised, "Well, I only get about 15 complaints a week on this."
Ms. McSkimming said about half of the 30 people at the meeting were women and she asked the group how many women had had a bad experience with the new procedures. "Every single woman raised their hand,'' she said. "So I told him, 'Well, you'd better add 15 to this week's total.' "
Most of the women interviewed said they did not make formal complaints, most saying that they assumed it would be futile to do so. Ms. Maurer said she and some other women she had spoken to are wary of complaining in writing, both because of the presumed futility and from fear of being singled out when they travel in the future.
The fact that pursuing this concern would require intrusive searches of close to half of all adult air travelers is a great reason that ethnic profiling absolutely must come back. Isn't it about time for Norman Mineta to resign?
UPDATE (11/23/04): After shooting my mouth off, I decided to fact-check myself. TSA is actually a part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Transportation, of which Mineta is the Secretary. However, I adhere to my view that Mineta should resign for opposing profiling of air travelers. Here's what he said on the subject about 3 years ago:
UPDATE (11/30/04): Another post on Rhonda Gaynier.Mineta's Japanese-American family was interned during World War II. He implies at every opportunity that by standing in the way of ethnic profiling, he is preventing a similar enormity today. "A very basic foundation to all of our work," he says, "is to make sure that racial profiling is not part of it."
Asked on 60 Minutes if a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach should receive the same level of scrutiny as a Muslim from Jersey City, Mineta said, "Basically, I would hope so." Asked if he could imagine any set of circumstances that would justify ethnic and racial profiling, Mineta said "absolutely not."
No divine thanks on Thanksgiving in Maryland
We've done it again in Maryland. The schools are teaching kids about Thanksgiving, but while they can learn that the Pilgrims thanked the Indians, they can't learn that the Pilgrims thanked God, even though the Pilgrims were freakin' religious Christians for crying out loud. (Hat tip: Just Moi)
No one's asking the schools to proselytize kids in Puritanism. It's just a question of historical accuracy.
A former colleague once asked me, "What does a right-winger like you think about prayer in public schools?" I responded, "I'm against it. I think the public schools should be privatized." And today, I feel I'm being vindicated.
November 22, 2004
More hidden Jews
Thanks to Kesher Talk, I've been pointed to a comment at Roger L. Simon that I had missed. Like my evidence for the hidden Jewish vote, this is anecdotal but very telling. I will quote the relevant part.
Here's what I get out of this anecdote: Jewish Bush voters are "discreet." The incident occurred about a week after the election, after the time when my Jewish Bush voters started "coming out" to me. So, as I've said, I can't prove that the exit polls under-counted Jewish Bush supporters, but I think the anecdotal evidence is beginning to pile up.Roger, on another very interesting note concerning the Jewish vote? I just returned from a business/trade gathering and did some homework for you. I talked to 38 fellow Jews, mostly from Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. (in other words Northeast Establishment Jews) and all were willing to answer my questions about their vote. The following is who they voted for in 2000 and 2004. Amazing, here it is...
2000)
Bush 6
Gore 30
Nader 22004)
Bush 18
Kerry 19
Nader 1----
Whoa!
All but 3 were somewhat discreet about it and did not "chest beat" in public about it (2 were more enthusiastic then I). I think your "secret source" is not only right, but from the above I actually believe the shift was even stronger in some of the "I-95 Terror Corridor". Now this group was decidedly male and businessmen, but I think if we ever truly dig to the bottom we will find a very big shift in support of historical proportions. I believe Bush indeed lost much support among fiscal libertarians, paleo conservatives, and others, but he more than made up such losses with "War On Terror Neo-cons" and "Big Government Social Conservatives". Roger I am truly take aback by the numbers, amazing. I take great heart from this.
Yoga
I've been taking a beginning yoga class. Actually, this is the third beginning class I've taken; you can't just progress to the next level after one set of classes.
I came home yesterday and mentioned to Mrs. Attila, who's taken quite a bit more yoga than I, that some of the positions and methods are easier for men and some are easier for women. She retorted that yoga positions were invented by men. I said, OK, then why (and I'd like to be delicate about this) do you, if you're a man, have to, uh, rearrange body parts for some yoga activities? My class typically has 5 or 6 students and the teacher, all of whom are women, except me. Yesterday, we had 5 or so extra students, all of whom were women. I just plant myself on the side of the room and hope no one notices.
I realize that there are some yoga activities that require more upper body strength than the average woman has. Being able to do them when the others in my class can't doesn't exactly provide a lot of satisfaction. But at least they don't involve, uh, well, never mind.
Pillage outage
My apologies to readers who tried to view the blog between noon and 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time today.
I have a day job and make it a practice not to post from work, for obvious reasons. Sometimes, though, I stay at my desk during lunch and tinker with the template. Today, when I saved a minor change, Blogger (motto: "we suck major eggs") saved nothing but, oh, about the first two dozen lines, leaving Pillage Idiot a blank background and little more. This happened to me once at the very beginning of my blogging, when I was able to re-create the blog without much trouble. Since then, I've saved a backup of the template on my computer at home every time I've made changes. Today, Mrs. Attila, despite having undergone nasty dental work this morning, was able to e-mail it to me at the office, and we're back up and running. I hope this is the last time I post from work.
November 21, 2004
"Gullible," not "naive"
From Martin Kramer we learn about the current president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Laurie Brand.
Brand didn't have a reputation as an over-the-top propagandist—until the lead-up to the Iraq war. In the spring of 2003, Brand was in Beirut on sabbatical leave. As Operation Iraqi Freedom got underway, she penned an anti-war letter (scroll to last item) addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell, on behalf of "Americans living in Lebanon." The letter cited various far-out predictions (e.g., over a million Iraqis might die because of damage to Iraq's water supply), added that "'regime change' imposed from outside is itself completely undemocratic," and ended in these words: "We refuse to stand by watching passively as the US pursues aggressive and racist policies toward the people around us. We reject your claim to be taking these actions on our behalf. Not in our name." Seventy Americans signed it.But what's truly funny is this:
Brand and a dozen of her colleagues then scheduled a meeting with Vincent Battle, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, to deliver their letter. But on the appointed day, the road to the embassy was closed because of raucous anti-American demonstrations by Lebanese students. Brand and five other Americans would not be deterred. "Intent upon doing something, we took to the median strip of the Corniche," Beirut's seaside boulevard. "We stood near Beirut's International College with our protest signs identifying us as Americans and calling for an end to the war." According to Brand, passersby greeted them with thanks and blessings. It must have been quite a spectacle: the president-elect of MESA, literally walking the "Arab street" at the head of a honk-if-you-hate-U.S.-policy protest.
Just another day in Middle Eastern Studies.To return to Brand's pounding the Beirut pavement in a sandwich board: she admitted she was surprised when an elderly gentleman drove by and told her, in English, "You are so gullible." "I have given this sentence some thought," wrote Brand, "wondering exactly what ideas or beliefs prompted it....Perhaps this gentleman thought our gullibility lay in an expectation that our protests would end the war." Now old gentlemen in Lebanon who speak English are quite likely to use the language with precision (unlike most American professors), and he didn't say naive. He said gullible. Yes, it would have been naive to think that protests would end the war. But to be gullible is to be subject to easy manipulation by others, and I'll bet the old man meant this: you're a dupe, for standing in the median strip of the "Arab street" to demonstrate in defense of the Arab world's most despicable regime.
The Times's draft dodger utopia
The New York Times has a lengthy piece on Nelson, British Columbia, home to many Vietnam-era draft dodgers, or "resisters," as the Times would have it.
(Almost full disclosure: I drew approximately 150 in the second-to-last draft lottery, which meant that there was little chance I would be drafted. I would tell you the actual number if I wanted you to be able to track down my birthday. I still carry my extremely worn draft card in my wallet. Don't ask me why.)
The only amusing part of the story is that the self-absorbed pseudo-moralistic views of these folks came into conflict with reality:
More:What happened was that a local peace activist proposed a monument to honor the "courageous legacy" of American draft resisters. The idea provoked outrage in the United States, where the presidential election had reopened wounds of the Vietnam era. Then came calls to boycott Nelson.
"The negative reaction was so immediate and so forceful that everyone was stunned," said Don Gayton, a former high school football player from Seattle, who raised five children in Nelson after immigrating to Canada during the Vietnam War. Rumors that the United States might reinstate the draft because of the Iraq war have made the expatriates wonder if they might find a whole new wave of resisters on their doorsteps and whether they will be as welcoming as an earlier generation of Canadians were to them.
Mr. Romano held a news conference to announce his idea for a large bronze monument in the form of a man and a woman greeted by a Canadian with outstretched arms.
He expected to get a small write-up in The Nelson Daily News. But the announcement found its way to American television, and within days Nelson was inundated with hate mail, much of it in the guest book section of the the town's Web site. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, with more than two million members in the United States, demanded that President Bush take up the issue with Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada.I don't know. Maybe this is just a red state thing that hasn't penetrated Nelson or 43rd Street.
A radio station in Spokane, Wash., three hours' drive south, called on Americans to boycott Nelson. Some skiers canceled trips to the area, said Roy Hueckendorff, the executive director of the local chamber of commerce.
"I've talked to people who lost fathers, brothers in Vietnam," Mr. Hueckendorff said. "The very idea that you would celebrate this is beyond their comprehension."
The Jews did it
My bachelor's degree in math was in pure math, so I fled from anything having to do with the real world, like statistics.
That's why I don't really understand the statistical analysis that blogger Craig Newmark develops to show that some portion of the supposedly unusual results in Florida that the folks at Berzerkley have alleged may be attributable to the Jewish voters in three large Democratic counties. But here's what he says:
Do you think at least some Jewish voters who normally voted Democratic might have voted for President Bush? I do. (This story in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel is mildly supportive.) Do you think that this is a more reasonable (partial) explanation for the excess in these three counties, whereas the twelve other counties that used electronic voting collectively produced no "excess" Bush votes? I do. (I don't think that the number of Jewish voters is high enough to account for the entire 130,733 excess, but it could reasonably account for part of it.)Could these be some of my hidden Jewish voters?
The Jewish vote and Puerto Ricans
Jay Nordlinger (11/8/04):
Jewish Americans voted in huge numbers against President Bush, giving him only 24 percent. (This was after it was predicted that Bush would soar among Jews.) I thought, "Well, Milton Himmelfarb's old quip still holds true: that Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans." Then I thought, "Hey — is that fair to Puerto Ricans? What percentage of their vote did George W. Bush get?"Last week's New York Times (11/14/04):
More:Evangelism is flourishing not just in the red states of the nation's heartland, but in the urban, liberal stronghold of New York City, where thousands of evangelical churches are anchored in working-class neighborhoods. Whether it will evolve into a local political force, as it has nationally, remains an open question. But a range of interviews with pastors, congregants and religious experts suggests that a new debate - and perhaps a political conversion - is taking place in parts of the city's minority neighborhoods, swaths that Democrats have long claimed as their own.
It is a conversion that prompted Jeanmarie Salazar, a Puerto Rican mother of four in the Bronx, to vote for President Bush even though his economic policies troubled her. And a conversion that caused Harold Thompson, an African-American from Flatbush who lived through the civil rights movement, to part with a lifetime of voting Democratic, citing the "immorality that is destroying our country."
"I am a conservative Democrat," [State Senator Rubén] Diaz, 61, said in a telephone interview from Puerto Rico. "When it comes to education, when it comes to health, when it comes to jobs, I'm a Democrat. When it comes to moral issues - marriage, abortion - I'm not a Democrat."And more:
As I said a few days ago, in the Democratic Party, the Jews will sit alone, in the dark.While Hispanics and African Americans in New York City have traditionally voted Democratic, those who attend evangelical churches may feel a different pull. José Casanova, a professor of sociology who specializes in religion and politics at New School University and has studied evangelicals around the world, said that even if they are poor, they tend to vote for conservative candidates.
"They do not so much identify with their economic position right now, but with the one they ought to have with the help of God," he said. "They are very conservative and pro-market and do not expect the government to help them."
November 18, 2004
Advertising the Clinton Library
This is an actual screen capture (reduced in size) of a photo from a New York Times slide show on the opening of the Clinton Library. Note the ad for the Kinsey movie. I caught the first half of it.
November 17, 2004
Dear Miss Blogmanners
Dear Miss Blogmanners:
I use the free version of Blogger for my blog, and I was wondering whether, given my freeloading, it's appropriate for me to mention that Blogger sucks major eggs.
Tonight, I lost a post because the servers crashed, and I had to redo the whole shebang. This was the second time this has happened in the past two weeks. Each time, I had to interrupt myself at several points to "save as draft," just to be safe.
I've always known that you get what you pay for, but does that deprive me of the right to make the aforementioned disparaging remark?
Sincerely,
Attila,
Pillage Idiot
My long-lost cousin
I received an e-mail from a blogress (James Taranto's term) who blogs under the name "Little Miss Attila." We had both posted at protein wisdom, and she was concerned that there might be some confusion because of our names.
We discussed it and seem to have concluded that:
(1) on our own blogs, there was no likelihood of confusion;
(2) when we post at other blogs, she will post as "Attila Girl" or "Miss Attila," and I will post as "Attila" or possibly "Pillage Idiot";
(3) she would remain on the West Coast and I would remain on the East Coast;
(4) she would be a woman and I would be a man;
(5) she would be a real blogger and I would remain something of a hack;
(6) she would have lots of blogger friends in various alliances and I would be a pathetic lone gunman; and
(7) we both would be ignored by Glenn Reynolds (although I once received a return e-mail from him that read in its entirety, and I swear I'm not making this up, "Heh.").
So thanks, Cuz', for being so easy to get along with, and welcome to my dysfunctional family.
I've added you to my blogroll, without any expectation that you would feel the urge to reciprocate (wink, nudge). I can't promise you any traffic, but you California folks have enough traffic already.
November 16, 2004
Virtual windows
These are very cool. I wish I'd had them in my old windowless office.
(Link via Maximum PC Magazine, Dec. 2004)
The changing black vote
OK, so it's even more premature to find a change in the black vote than it is in the Jewish vote, but Rich Lowry sees room for movement, especially on social issues. Social issues? That'll drive Jews deeper into the Democrats' quagmire than they're already in.
So will the last voting block to leave the Democrats please turn off the lights? The Jews will sit alone. In the dark.
Today's political quiz
A major political party's presidential campaign is run by a Jew, who then is appointed to head the party's national committee.
Democrat or Republican?
Your call.
November 15, 2004
The hidden Jewish vote
Five hundred years ago, during the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews pretended to convert and hid their secret practice of Judaism from the authorities. This year, in an ironic twist, some American Jews have felt the need to hide their vote for Bush, even though they were voting for the same presidential candidate favored by a majority of their fellow Americans.
The conventional wisdom now is that President Bush received only about 25% of the Jewish vote in this election. I'm firmly convinced that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The exit polls are doubtful, and anecdotal evidence, both in the blogosphere and from my own personal experience, suggests that the Jewish vote may have been up to 5% higher. Whether Bush received 25 or 30 percent of the Jewish vote may seem like bupkes (nothing), but if I'm right, it's actually a very big deal.
* * * * *
The first thing to understand is that the Jewish vote is historically a liberal, Democratic vote. No Republican presidential candidate has won a majority of the Jewish vote at least as far back as 1916. In the past seven presidential elections, the Jewish vote for the Republican has varied from nearly 40% in 1980 to just 11% in 1992. So dramatic is this propensity to vote for Democrats that it has become a bitter joke for some Jews. Cathy Seipp informs us that her friend, frustrated at the early pro-Kerry vote coming out of Florida on election night, quipped that "Bush could convert to Judaism, then complain about his colonoscopy over diet soda and knishes, and those old Jews still wouldn't vote for him."
There are many explanations for the Jewish vote, but here, the old adage applies: Three Jews and four opinions. Many liberal Jews feel they are engaging in a quest for "social justice." And there is no doubt that redistributionist principles are found in traditional Judaism, but these principles are intended for relatively closed Jewish societies trying to follow God's law. No one has adequately explained why Jews (particularly secular liberal Jews) are justified in using the power of the American government to apply these redistributionist principles to Americans in general -- not just to Jews but also to the other 98% of Americans.
A second explanation, along the same lines, cites the Hebrew prophets as the inspiration for contemporary liberal social policies. I once heard a prominent Reform rabbi on the radio praise his movement's decision to officiate at gay "marriages" by saying that the decision grew out of "prophetic Judaism." The image tickled me: the prophet Elijah at Mount Carmel taunting the prophets of Ba'al . . . because they didn't allow gay marriages.
My own partial explanation of Jewish liberalism is that American Jews still have a shtetl mentality. They fear that, just as on the shtetls of Eastern Europe, they are somehow at risk of being attacked by the local gentiles. Of course, I don't mean physically attacked; the fear is of what one official called "stealth evangelism." Many Jews feel more comfortable with a secular society in which religious beliefs are kept private than with open religiosity. This is not surprising for members of a minority religion, but many Jews have taken it to such an extreme that they rationalize rejecting evangelical support for Israel by denigrating the evangelicals' good faith. They also have expressed fear of the "moral values" of Christian conservatives, even though those values are in large part consistent with the moral values of traditional Judaism. (Liberal Jews who actually respect traditional religious teachings tend to "compartmentalize" them.)
The fear of Christians may have made sense in the "old country," or in Europe, but it verges on the absurd in contemporary America. Give an American Jew the following multiple choice question: A Jew should be afraid of (a) Christians, or (b) Muslims. The answer "(a)" deserves no credit.
* * * * *
Whatever the explanation for Jewish liberalism, the lopsided vote of Jews in favor of Democrats is not much of a surprise when you consider that fully 75% of American Jews live in "blue" states. (Add Ohio and Florida, the two largest almost-"blue" states, and you get seventh-eighths of the Jewish population.) If Jews simply voted the way the majority voted in their states, the vote would be 75% to 25% for Kerry. I've described this 75-25 split as the "equilibrium point" for the Jewish vote. I've hypothesized that we might have to shift our traditional 50-50 benchmark to measure Jewish voting in order to have a realistic basis for comparison.
In fact, this 75-25 split is almost exactly what occurred in the 2004 elections, at least according to the conventional wisdom. Three exit polls (AP, CNN, and Frank Luntz) placed the Jewish vote for Bush at 23%, 24%, and 25%, respectively. As a result, Republicans see an increase in the Jewish vote and are pleased. Democrats see an overwhelming vote for Kerry and are all but spiking the ball in the end zone. But this conventional wisdom is entirely based on exit polls, and I'm convinced those polls don't tell the true story.
To begin with, in an election cycle in which exit polls were so famously off the mark, why would anyone accept exit polling as the gold-standard in determining the Jewish vote? Stanley Greenberg, a pollster for Democrats, claims that the numbers were later adjusted to take turnout into account, but let's face it: You just can't make that pig kosher.
Even the poll taken by Luntz, the most respected among these exit pollsters, doesn't tell us much. Luntz limited his survey to Jews in Ohio and Florida, using a sample of 484 voters. Although that sample size is probably large enough for the vote in those two states, the national Jewish population is eight times larger. A quibble? Maybe. But Luntz also undermined his survey by drawing broad conclusions about subgroups like Orthodox Jews, who could have constituted only a small fraction of those 484 voters. Let's assume 10% to 15% of respondents were Orthodox. How does one draw valid conclusions about Brooklyn based on 48 to 72 responses in Ohio and Florida?
The far more important point, however, is that polls depend on truthful responses and representative sampling. We've always heard stories about how Republicans don't respond to telephone polls, but there's more to it than that. Pollsters have finally begun to admit that there are whole groups of people they may not be able to reach -- for example, people whose only phone is a cell phone. What we haven't yet heard from pollsters is that some people they call are reluctant to tell the truth. These respondents either refuse to respond at all or, if they do respond, give false answers (which the pollsters would be hard-pressed to recognize).
How could anyone lie to a pollster? Isn't that un-American? I don't think so. We all get so caught up in watching the polls that we tend to forget that we have a secret ballot in this country. There's a good reason for it, too.
* * * * *
This was as bitter an election as I can remember, particularly on the Left, a large part of which never accepted the validity of the 2000 election results. The Left did more than just repeat the mantra "Re-Defeat Bush"; it equated Bush with Hitler. Michael Moore's infamous film, which many Democrats endorsed, portrayed Bush not just as stupid but as utterly evil. And numerous Bush-Cheney campaign offices were targets of vandalism and violence, including gunshots in more than one case.
This hostility translated into unfriendly, even uncivil, political discourse, and Jews were hardly immune from it. For example, there were ongoing battles in what Judith Weiss of Kesher Talk (who collected many of the following anecdotes) called the "condo wars." An article in the Jewish Week about two weeks before the election was headlined "Passions Rising in Palm Beach/Jew vs. Jew animosity at record levels in South Florida as GOP seeks inroads." The article quoted the executive director of the local branch of the Republican Jewish Coalition: "There's almost a new anti-Semitism within the Jewish community because of the lack of tolerance [for opposing views]."
My own experience in the Washington, D.C., area was perhaps not so bracing, but it confirmed the general tenor of political discussion. Although quite a few people who know me realized that I was strongly pro-Bush, I avoided political discussions with my fellow Jews, unless I was certain they were at least open-minded on the subject. There was no point in my alienating friends and acquaintances and becoming angry at them at the same time. And I was not alone in keeping quiet. A member of my synagogue sidled up to me at a bat mitzvah a few weeks before the election, looked around, and said confidentially, "I want to tell you something. I'm voting for Bush." After the election, a surprising -- almost alarming -- number of Jewish Bush voters "came out" to me. And, of course, every Jewish Bush voter knows others who were hounded by friends, family, and even distant relatives after mentioning they were planning to vote for Bush. This type of intimidation kept some Jews from disclosing their intentions to anyone else.
This intimidation was particularly a problem for liberal Jews who supported Bush because of his response to terrorism. Apart from Ed Koch, Ron Silver, and a few brave souls in the blogosphere, liberal Jews had every reason to shut up if they were going to vote for Bush. Judith Weiss has a liberal Jewish friend who wrote a widely read anonymous essay explaining why she, the friend, had decided to vote for Bush (with a follow-up here). Because the friend worked in the entertainment industry, however, she refused to reveal her identity.
The same was true among older Jewish voters in Florida, like Rosita Bard, a retired accountant from Lake Worth.
In Los Angeles, Jews were quietly talking to a local Jewish Republican:"Everybody I know is for anybody but Bush," she said. "And they are so hostile. … I’m afraid to tell people I’m Republican. When I do, they say they can’t believe I’m Jewish." Bard, 67 and a native of Honduras, said she is "afraid to put anything on my car that says Bush-Cheney because we have friends who had their car scratched and the Bush-Cheney bumper sticker ripped off. And it happened in the parking lot of a synagogue in Delray Beach! I can’t believe this is going on."
"When I first supported the president in 2000, I got nothing but jeers and hate calls," said [Dr. Joel] Strom, a Beverly Hills dentist and a professor of ethics at USC Dental School. "Now, I have people coming up to me in synagogue and quietly whispering, 'Hey, I can’t believe I’m going to vote for him.'"The comments sections of various blogs abounded with personal stories about closeted Jewish Bush voters. In one story I came across recently, the writer was among a group of Jewish women in Los Angeles who were discussing how much they hated Bush. After one woman announced that no sane person could support Bush, the writer horrified everyone by contradicting her. Later, some of the women's husbands quietly told the writer that they planned to vote for Bush because of terrorism and tax cuts but were afraid to tell their wives.
* * * * *
In short, the reason I think that Bush actually did better among Jews than the equilibrium point of 75%-25% is that some Jews were hiding the fact that they voted for him, and their votes and the votes of those like them were not picked up. The only question is how many.
My experience has been that closeted Jews for Bush would generally disclose their plans to vote for him or their actual vote only to people they felt comfortable with. For that reason, I seriously doubt that they would speak openly to a stranger conducting an exit poll. I realize we are no longer in the realm of science (as if polling could be called scientific without eliciting laughter), but anecdotal evidence coupled with reasonable logical inference can legitimately undermine the validity of these surveys.
Faced with a choice between faulty polls and the anecdotal evidence I have described, I have no hesitation in going with the latter. But what of the figure I've given for the secret Jewish vote (up to 5%)? This is my best guess; a hidden vote from one out of 20 Jewish voters doesn't seem terribly unlikely. Nevertheless, I'm the first to admit we'll simply never know the real Jewish vote.
One thing I'm confident of is this: In 2000, with something like 19% of the Jewish vote, Bush was on the wrong side of the "equilibrium point." This year, he has moved to the right side, above the 25% benchmark. By most standards, looking to whether a sitting president can beat 25% lends new meaning to the phrase "soft bigotry of low expectations." In the case of the Jewish vote, it marks significant progress.
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