All I can say is how proud I am that this was invented in the greater Boston area. With a terribly high concentration of true drinkers, as well as men and women of superior intelligence, it was inevitable that someone would sooner or later solve this age-old dilemma. ¶ 8:12 AM 0 Comments
Not long ago, everyone I knew including myself worked for a dot-com. And it was a great party while it lasted. Stock market bubbles were not new, but many of us could have been guilty of thinking that in our way of doing things, we were part of some great new experiment. The truth: It's all just a little bit of history repeating. So while not original, we were at least heirs to a great tradition, which persists still in smaller and more sensible ways. And some day it will start all over again, and we will laugh as people half our age sleep under their desks and run around spouting silly slogans, convinced that "old rules no longer apply." At least we got to see it while it lasted... ¶ 7:48 AM 0 Comments
This story on the progress of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's meeting on terrorism shows us well the moral relativism we are truly up against. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, perhaps the most moderate of the officially-Islamic nations, caused a real stir when he suggested that Palestinian suicide bombers fit his definition of terrorists because they are "people who attack civilians." But he also had this gem to add:
"The (Nazi) Holocaust did not defeat the Jews. A second Holocaust with Arabs for victims will not defeat the Arabs either."
Let's recap: The Israelis have killed several hundred Palestinians, most of whom were doing decidedly non innocent-bystander things like shooting at Israelis. The Nazis, by comparison, set as their goal the elimination of the Jewish people from the face of the Earth, and to that end killed 6,000,000 men, women, and children. In fact, in reading the official press, one sees that there are voices everywhere calling for what is in effect a second Holocaust against Israel and the Jewish people. If you want to find out for yourself, go to the excellent site of The Middle East Media Research Institute which carries translations of stories in the Arabic press, most of which is officially government-run. A choice clipping from an article in Al-Riyadh, the official paper of Saudi Arabia:
"First, George Washington, 'The Father of the Nation,' as the Americans call him. He said the following about the Jews: 'The destructive influence of the Jews over our lives and future is greater than the danger of all our enemies' armies combined. Indeed, this [Jewish danger is hundreds of times more serious and more destructive to our liberty and to the cause to which we are dedicated. What sorrows and pains [me] is that considerable time has passed, but our states, or at least each state on its own, have not attempted to fight and annihilate the Jews - even though [the Jews] have proven to be a group of lethal insects who [pose] the gravest of dangers to the U.S. and its security.'"
Actually, Washington did have some opinions on the Jews, though his tended to be ever so slightly different, as this letter shows:
May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.
What is saddest and most disappointing to me is the death of voices in what used to be a truly noble if occasionally naive movement for the promotion of non-violence. While armed resistance is truly necessary when confronting tyranny such as the Nazis or the Soviet Union, Israel is at worst a colonial power in the mold of Great Britain, whose rule over India was ended by a combination of exhaustion and shame. What sympathy the world should have for the real plight of average Palestinians caught in between Arafat and Sharon is scattered with each bombing. The deliberate attack on a group of senior citizens sitting down to a religious feast betrays the heart of darkness that threatens to burn up all of Palestine in a firestorm of ever-escalating hatreds. While some extremists within Israel may desire the maintenance of the settlements, how much greater a proportion would surely surrender all that land tomorrow if they thought it should buy them peace?
¶ 8:15 AM 0 Comments
It's not as though the Nanny mentality is new. In the 1600's the preferred form of purity was spiritual, and our friends in Salem enforced it with the hangman's noose. By the turn of the 20th century, though, the concept of cleanliness, in keeping with the times, began taking a decidedly more physical turn with good old Dr. Kellogg taking a rather fundamentalist position on the matter. Still, the Progessive movement which gave us the crowning jewel of Nanny-dom, Prohibition, saw their cause as being very much one of mens sana in corpore sano. Bodily health was a positive thing, but it still served higher goals.
Of course in our presently secular age, bodily purity, in the form of fitness and diet, has for many people taken on overtly religious tones. The "body as temple" concept motivates many to mind with great care what they put into their mouth, even as they fill their brain with reality TV and moronic slogans. So it is not the least bit surpirsing that, having thoroughly eviscerated the tobacco companies, the prohibitionists of today look for a new target, and find one unimaginably richer: Big Fat.
The first example I remember was a Yale researcher who suggested in the Journal of Addicitve Behaviors that a tax on fat might be in order. And before you think this guy is just an isolated crank, others have published similar things, including in the prestigious British Medical Journal. After all, a recent study indicated that obesity is worse than smoking, even though earlier studies found that smoking causes death, and I'm not sure what's worse than that. Ignominy?
Actually, there is a valid point in here. First, if obesity is in fact worse, we should hand out cigarettes as dietary aids, just like those ads used to say. Of course, that would require making a moral judgment of sorts, wouldn't it? In Japan, people smoke like trains, and yet outlive Americans who smoke far less, because they eat a lot less fat. This is like a radical leftist running up against the OJ trial: do you side with the battered woman, or the oppressed black man? Who knows.
Nonetheless, the War on Fat proceeds apace. Actually my favorite example is this story about some schools sending home "weight alerts." Actually, wouldn't it make more sense to send out a "get your frickin' eyes examined" alert? Chances are, and I speak from experience, fat parents equal fat kids, and the last thing you're going to do is convince a couple of human carbohydrate scupltures that something is wrong with their pride and joy . Why even bother?
In any event, when we have Columbine, Fight Clubs, fourth graders sexually abusing each other and so on, is obesity among the young really such a problem? Or, like smoking, is it merely the latest proxy problem, a holy war we can fight with impunity, assuring each other that it's For The Children and proving our deep and enduring concern for our feelow man, regardless of whether our fellow man would prefer to be left alone to his steak, cigars, and scotch, thankyouverymuch.
¶ 6:10 PM 0 Comments
California State Senator Don Perata has exercised his First Amendment prerogative to push for all sorts of regulations on firearms, including a "bullet tax" to pay for hospital trauma centers. This is like levying a tax on tires, because some people are injured in hit-and-run accidents. Still, Donkey Don knows that when your life is threatened, the helpful agents of the state aren't always close at hand, so he took matters into his own hand and got himself a concealed carry permit.
Of course, he may be oversestimating the problem. After all, the "anonymous use of the Internet" is probably responsible for more empty death threats than any medium since the advent of clipped-up newsprint. Actaully, it used to be that you weren't considered a Usenet verteran until someone had threatened to kill you at least once.
Still, as a firm believer is Second as well as First Amendment rights, I strongly support Sen. Perata's decision to exercise his right to self-defense. Of course, it'd be nicer still if he'd extend the same consideration to, say, Korean shop-owners who in 1992 faced either (a) losing their uninsured businesses to rioters let run amok by the LAPD or (b) do the job themselves. Sadly, Sen. Perata is hardly the only man in this country who has reason to fear for his safety, and he should extend to others the consideration he rightfully grants to himself.
¶ 1:54 PM 0 Comments
A New French bestseller claims the 9/11 attacks were plotted by the American establishment to hijack world opinion. April Fools! NOT.
It's worth mentioning of course that two major French dailies have published series of articles debunking the book's claims, so it's not as if French mainstream opinion is right in line with the Saudi public. If anything, France has a better appreciation for the difficulties America faces, having a large non-European immigrant population and its own history of middle East problems.
Still, things are strange and scary in Europe these days. France has undergone a series of anti-Semitic attacks, which represent the perhaps inevitable result of the increasing acceptability of anti-Jewish opinions. It is possible of course to protest the actions of Israel and not be anti-Semitic, but the line is thin and these days crossed with increasing impunity. Only in Germany, where even young people still live under history's shadow, is this separation still widely respected.
¶ 7:09 AM 0 Comments
John Lloyd writes in Britain's Observer on why the reflexive anti-Americanism now so common on the Left in fact discredits the movement's history. ¶ 3:36 PM 0 Comments
These guys obviously never read Lord of the Flies. As often as we find ourselves condemning American television for lowering the bar, it deserves mention that the Reality TV phenom started in Europe. ¶ 3:33 PM 0 Comments
The Saudi peace plan may yet prove the death of Israel. Given a shadow promise of "normalization," which perhaps means that the Saudis would allow an Israeli embassy in Riyadh while still printing blood libel of Judaism in their papers, much of the Western world jumped on this bandwagon to nowhere. Israel went through the motions until it became obvious that this treaty would only lease, and not buy, peace with the Arab world. The problem, as always, is Arab anti-Semitism, a distillate of hatred so potent as to be unrecognizable in Paris, Bonn, London, or New York. Arab governments, including the relatively pro-Western Egyptian and Jordanian, tend carefully to this hatred like a garden of beloved roses. Sitting on top of powder kegs of disaffected and impoverished populaces, these governments may or may not care about Israel, but they certainly appreciate the convenience of an external bogeyman their people can focus their anger on.
That being said, the Israelis are beginning to lose it, not that it should come as any surprise. A decent and honorable people can not remain so when under endless siege. Every day almost, civilians die in suicide bombings, themselves a most despicable and inhumane form of warfare, and the Isarelis must listen to European after European criticizing them for their "occupation of Palestine." One wonders what the French might have thought, had they been told something similar about Alsace round about 1920. And the real kicker- the Palestinian "Right of Return"- is the crucial piece in the whole puzzle. This proposal, which states that all the Palestinians who left their homes in 1947 when Israel was created, plus all of their descendants, should be allowed to return, is like saying that Manhattan should be given back to the Indians. For sheer clarity it has some appeal, but who in all honesty thinks it possible? By asking the Israelis to commit demographic suicide, the Arabs knew Israel would have no choice but to be cast as "rejecting peace."
What do the Arab countries have to lose? Absolutely nothing: they support Arafat's terrorism and the rest of the world practically agrees with them. The US alone regularaly questions this publicly, but at the same time calls for "peace" as if this were a war among equals. The Palestinians? No one really cares about them. Kuwait took the opportunity to ethnically cleanse itself of them in the early days after the Gulf War. The Saudis, who have money up the wazoo, contribute richly to mosques to promote radical Wahabbist Islam, but don't see fit to spend a few bucks to pay for plumbing in Ramallah. After all, if the Palestinians actually became the least bit comfortable with the land they have, they might be less willing to commit suicide.
¶ 2:41 PM 0 Comments
For the last frickin' time, quit asking me to lay you a chocolate egg! ¶ 8:11 AM 0 Comments
