Daniel Pearl's Dad v. Bill Moyers

In today's Wall Street Journal:

Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.

Tom Hayden Condemns Human Rights Watch--Wrong on CIA Rendition

From today's Huffington Post:

It is confirmed that one of the loopholes in the president's anti-torture orders allows the continuance of rendition by the CIA, which consists of secretly snatching suspects off the street without any due process and "rendering" them to jails in other countries. Rendition is at the heart of the state secrecy apparatus, and should be of concern to any civil liberties, human rights, or democracy advocates.

But Human Rights Watch and, apparently, other human rights groups signed off on renditions in talks with the Obama administration, saying publicly that there is "a legitimate place" for the practice.

That's not a position that represents most human rights advocates, and deserves to be reconsidered in the months of drafting the new administration's rules. Human Rights Watch could have celebrated Obama's presidential order while vowing to close the rendition loophole. Instead, according to the LA Times, the proposal "did not draw major protests" among human rights groups because of "a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism." [see LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009]

"You still have to go after the bad guys", says an Obama spokesman in defense of renditions, which have been condemned by the European parliament. A Human Rights Watch representative, Tom Malinowski, says he urged the administration to guarantee public hearings in the countries to which they are rendered, as a protection against torture and disappearances. That would be an important corrective, but leaves unanswered the purpose of the secret abductions in which the CIA is the judge, jury, and in certain cases the executioner.

Historic Lake City, Florida

In Lake City for a funeral last Friday, had lunch at Tucker's Restaurant in the historic Blanche Hotel (I recommend the fish fry with cheese grits). According to the Wikipedia entry, Al Capone and Johnny Cash were among the guests who stayed there in years gone by. We were told of its glory days as home-away-from-home to tobacco-buyers from up North. It's now an office building.

Earlier, we had enjoyed morning coffee and a cinnamon bun at Ruppert's Bakery and Cafe, a block away. It featured a photo of General Charles P. Summerall, an ancestor of football hero Pat Summerall (also of Lake City), as well as pictures of the original campus of the University of Florida (now a VA hospital), established in Lake City as Florida Agricultural College in 1853 (Lake City had once been known as Alligator City, hence Florida "Gators").

Toronto Globe & Mail: Israel Did Not Shell UN School

This article by Patrick Marting in January 29th's Toronto Globe & Mail about the Gaza crisis reminds us that in war, the first casualty is indeed truth:

JABALYA, GAZA STRIP — Most people remember the headlines: Massacre Of Innocents As UN School Is Shelled; Israeli Strike Kills Dozens At UN School [NOTE: The NY Times' headline read "Israeli Shells Kill 40 at Gaza UN School"].

They heralded the tragic news of Jan. 6, when mortar shells fired by advancing Israeli forces killed 43 civilians in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The victims, it was reported, had taken refuge inside the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, a facility run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The news shocked the world and was compared to the 1996 Israeli attack on a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in which more than 100 people seeking refuge were killed. It was certain to hasten the end of Israel's attack on Gaza, and would undoubtedly lead the list of allegations of war crimes committed by Israel.

There was just one problem: The story, as etched in people's minds, was not quite accurate.

Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.

Michael Radu on the Gaza Crisis

Also found this interesting analysis on the Foreign Policy Research Institute website:

Certainly some women, and all infants, are innocent victims of the conflict. But Hamas successfully makes all women and all “children” victims, knowing that the sob sisters/brothers of the West accept this for their own reasons. Those reasons may vary, from cultural anti-Americanism, historic anti-Semitism, or the peculiar European adoration of everything Third World.

All this being said, and concentrated in the simple statement that Hamas is not deterrable and its supporters are seldom real “civilians,” why does anyone—especially the Israeli government, elected to protect its citizenry and territory—pretend otherwise?

The answer, and a disturbing one, is that Israel, or at least its elites, are more “Western” than is good for them or their people. The implicit message of the Israeli officials’ claim that “regime change” in Gaza is not an objective of Operation Cast Lead is problematic. If sincere, Tel Aviv is wasting lives—Jewish and Palestinian—for very short-term success. If not, the problem is worse, because it only creates confusion—in Israel, among Palestinians, and elsewhere.

Ultimately, the only solution—itself limited in time because of the permanency of dysfunctional Palestinian political culture—is the physical destruction of Hamas in Gaza, by killing most of its militants and leaders, be they “political” or “military” (is there a difference, outside Western artificial legalistic and emotional circles?)

As it is now, Israel’s claim that the goal is not Hamas’ removal from power in Gaza is either dishonest, a PR statement, or delusional. The destruction of Hamas’ military/terror capabilities would make it unattractive to Gazans, who like winners (if they kill Israelis). Anything else would convince most Gazans, who are always ready to be convinced, that Hamas is the way to go, electorally or practically.

Ultimately, the total physical destruction of Hamas in Gaza and the introduction of PA elements, even and especially if that means renewed intra-Palestinian conflict, is the only stable, if not permanent, solution. Since Hamas cannot be deterred, dealt or “negotiated” with it, a fact Hamas itself admits, is a lost cause—it simply has to be destroyed. Hence all Euro-pacifist demands or UN pseudo-solutions are inherently irrelevant.

The whole idea, or so-called principle, of total protection of undefined “civilians” promoted by leftists supporting Hamas without the courage to say so (the perennial Bianca Jagger, etc.), is not limited to Gaza’s conflict. That is just the latest pretext of a peculiarly irresponsible phenomenon. Thus the government and people of Sri Lanka are on the brink of finally winning their decades-long war against one of the world’s worst terrorist groups—the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the “inventors” of suicide bombings and responsible of some 70,000 fatalities since 1984. The reaction from Amnesty International and associates? “Too many civilians” are being killed or displaced—not the rational question of how many civilians, Tamil or others, would be saved by ending the war.

But no, self-proclaimed human rights or humanitarian NGOs, when not actively encouraging irregular forces by treating them equally with state actors, push for regulations on states, since they cannot do so on Hamas or similar non-state actors. The result is always that the conflict between state and non-state actors, whether in Gaza, Israel, Colombia, Sri Lanka, or elsewhere, is prolonged—with more “civilians” and innocents, whatever their definition, falling victim to violence.

It may appear cynical or brutal to say that in some circumstances—the Gaza conflict now being an obvious one—more violence, if correctly targeted, means fewer real civilian victims and better long-term chances of calm, if not peace. If Israel and those who truly seek calm in the Middle East in the long-term are serious, they should support the total military defeat of Hamas, rather than spill tears over the loss of “civilians.” This is a lesson that can be applied to conflicts far away from the Middle East. However, the prospects of this happening are not good, and the result is likely to be more and more “civilians” such as infants sleeping in their cribs being killed from Kyber to Mullaitivu to Gaza. Lack of clarity and reason truly kills.

James R. Kurth on Samuel Huntington

From the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

It is historically fitting that Samuel Huntington called upon Americans to conserve America. In the seventeenth century, the first Huntingtons arrived in America, as Puritans and as founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the eighteenth century, Samuel Huntington of Connecticut was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In the nineteenth century, Collis P. Huntington was a builder of the transcontinental railroad. In the twentieth century, Samuel P. Huntington was for half a century the most consistently brilliant and creative political scientist in the United States. Huntingtons had been present at the creation for most of the great events of American history, and Samuel Huntington knew intimately and believed intensely in what America was all about. His ideas about America and its role in the world were simultaneously original, conservative, and consequential. He was a splendid exemplar of American creative intelligence and intellectual courage.

Will Be Offline For A While...

Attending a family funeral in Florida...

I've Joined Facebook's "Dump Geithner - No Tax Cheat Treasury Secretaries Managing Bailouts"

68 members, so far...

Someone who didn't pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes until audited, and didn't pay in full until approached about this position, can not be trusted to honestly administer billions of bailout dollars...

Doubt

IMHO Doubt deserves all the Oscars that Slumdog Millionaire is in line to receive. I just couldn't get over what a terrific job director John Patrick Shanley did in moving his stage play--which I saw in Los Angeles with Cherry Jones--to the screen. Meryl Streep is outstanding. She really has a Bronx (not Brooklyn, not Queens) accent. Phillip Seymour Hoffman also excellent. The sets are excellent, the costumes are excellent, the acting is excellent, the music is excellent. And the drama is likewise excellent. Thought-provoking, moving, and deep. The film is better than the play...best movie I've seen this year!

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快樂

Today marks the start of the Year of the Ox in the Chinese Calendar...

I Walked Out On Slumdog Millionaire

Not that it will stop the manipulative roman-a-clef about English boarding school sadism from winning a bunch of Oscars. Danny Boyle's direction reeks of British Imperialist Condescension. Surprised it wasn't called "You're a Better Man Than I Am, Gunga Din." No wonder some people in Mumbai are mad...it is indeed insulting. Better to read Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)to which this film pays homage--uncredited, of course...the British apparently are still good at stealing from Indians.

Frost/Nixon's Piano Concerto

Finally saw Ron Howard's film adaptation of Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon yesterday afternoon. I was struck by the scene where Frank Langella plays Nixon's Piano Concerto Number One--best thing in the picture, IMHO. Plus the "drunk dialing" scene was very well done, plus the follow up "checking" familiar to AA and Alanon veterans.

Otherwise, a little bit cardboard cutout, by the numbers, Peter Morgan strikes this blogger as a British author who only knows Americans from the outside. Frost/Nixon is definitely not The Queen.

The Frost=Nixon doppelganger angle was taught to us as an obvious gimmick in my first screenwriting class at You See LA film school. Hey, the hero and the villain are two sides of the same person divided in two! That's deep. Get me the Joseph Campbell coverage!

Guess what, Peter Morgan? As Lloyd Bentsen would say, I wrote about David Frost and Richard Nixon for my PhD dissertation, and David Frost was no Nixon. And, Frost was no lightweight--he founded London Weekend Television, hosted That Was the Week That Was on NBC as well as British TV, as well as the David Frost Show and was known as the wittiest and most intelligent man on TV. Nixon wasn't going downmarket from Mike Wallace--he was going upmarket. But how could a Britisher be expected to know that (on the other hand, Ron Howard should know better)?

IMHO, Nixon was an Anglophile as well as a keen student of the snobbery and pretentions of Ivy League dopes, who no doubt correctly concluded that a confession to a big-shot Briton would redeem him...which it did. Plus the money was good. And he enjoyed being with big shots, which the film did capture. The self-pitying aspect played true. Checkers, You Won't Have Dick Nixon to Kick Around Anymore, Resignation, Frost/Nixon. The same act worked time after time...not that Morgan noticed.

Nixon wasn't finished by his on-air confession, he was just beginning another act--senior statesman. Doesn't anyone remember Bill Clinton asking Nixon's advice? So the storyline rang false. The acting was good, though. And some of the blubbery Checkers speech characterization from Langella worked, too. I couldn't get past Michael Sheen's Tony Blair to see him as Frost, though he's a good actor and gave it a try. I don't know how they could have made Frost look more different, but maybe someone could have thought of something. And where were the Hollywood feminists at Universal and Imagine entertainment on this one? The women--Pat Nixon, Diane Sawyer, and Caroline Cushing--have nothing to say or do except stand around and look pretty! Yet Pat Nixon, who studied acting and worked in the movie industry; Diane Sawyer, who went on to co-star with Mike Wallace; and Cushing, who went on to set up a marketing and PR firm are mere eye-candy. Before feminism, they would have had parts like Barbara Stanwyck's, Bettye Davis's, and Lauren Bacall's. Does Peter Morgan hate women?

In any case, thanks to google and YouTube, I quickly found this video of Nixon performing his composition on the Jack Paar show in 1963...thought it worth sharing:

FOIABlog on Obama's New Freedom of Information Policy

Thoughts on FOIA Executive Order [NOTE: Corrected to "Presidential Memorandum"]

Now that I've had some time to digest President Obama's Executive Order on the FOIA, I have some thoughts on it.

The biggest implication, I believe, is the signal it sends. This Executive Order states that there is a presumption of disclosure of government records and it was sent on the first day of the new administration. It tells the Attorney General to issue guidelines consistent with the Executive Order. I believe it is an instruction to the Department of Justice and all agencies that past practices need to be revisited and the withholding for the sake of withholding days are past.

I think the Reno memorandum of October 1993 will be the place the Department of Justice will start in making the FOIA more open. However, I hope that Justice doesn't stop there and listens to open government groups that have circulated ideas about improving the FOIA.

My advice to the Department of Justice is to be bold and rethink underlying assumptions about why certain records should not be released pursuant to the FOIA. As an example, does the release of pre-decisional documents always chill the decisional process of the government? I don't think it is always true and the use of exemption 5 on every pre-decisional document should be rethought.

On the whole, I think yesterday was a great day for the FOIA, but there is much work to do in the months ahead.

You can read the complete text of the memorandum at this permalink.

Geithner's Record Raised Questions BEFORE Meltdown

It's not just unpaid taxes, statues of limitations, and Lehman Brothers. In a Bloomberg article about his appointment to the NY Fed from 2004, his regulatory (in)abilities were already raising hackles:

Other Fed watchers were disappointed that someone with an established reputation as a regulator didn't get the job.

``Geithner's appointment raises questions about the willingness of the New York Fed to aggressively supervise financial holding companies in its territory because there is very little in Geithner's resume that shows experience in regulatory issues,'' says Tom Schlesinger, 55, executive director of the Financial Markets Center, a Philomont, Virginia-based nonprofit group that monitors the Fed.

`Tough Cop'

``The New York Fed could have sent a message by appointing a well-known tough cop with regulatory experience and a professed willingness to crack down on financial crimes,'' says Schlesinger. ``Geithner may prove to be that kind of individual, but it is improbable at this time.''

Not the right guy to restore confidence, IMHO.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery's Inauguraton Benediction

Find an Inauguration Event Near You

A couple of our friends have come from Chicago for the inauguration...they're at Union Station waiting for Barack Obama's Amtrak train right now...so this blog may not be a going concern till Wednesday. Meanwhile, you can find an inaugural event near you with this handy dandy website from Barack Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee at http://events.pic2009.org/page/event/search_simple.

There's also a YouTube Inauguration Channel.

David Czerny's EU Art Unveiled in Brussels

Kelly Hutchinson v Hans Hoffman

Why pay more?
I stumbled into Kelly's Art and Frame while on my way to art class in Alexandria, VA. Not only does she own the gallery and do her own framing, Kelly is an artist from Buffalo, NY who paints abstractions that to my amateur eye seem just as nice as Hans Hoffman's. Can you tell which of these is by the famous German artist? Believe it or not, Hutchinson sells her original canvases for $150...sometimes in person at Eastern Market on weekends in DC...

You can find her gallery at: http://www.kellysartandframe.com/

BTW, Hoffman is on top, Hutchinson below.

Yes, He Could!

Yes, he did!
Maybe this event will give New York City back some of its mojo lost after 9/11....US Airways flight 1549 Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger not only deserves a tickertape parade and key to New York City, he's hopefully a harbinger of the Obama era...instead of everything going wrong, maybe things will go right.

How many times have we been told how to prepare for a water landing before takeoff? I never believed it was possible, thought it was only PR to reassure frightened passengers. Now--I believe. If Chesley Sullenberger can land a jet without engines in the Hudson river, without hitting a building, a bridge, or a boat, and if all those boats came to help rescue without worrying about liability or other excuses, my faith in America is restored. There is nothing Americans can't do.

Obama Wants Your Ideas

Another email from the transition team:

Dear Laurence,

We wanted to tell you about a new feature on Change.gov which lets you bring your ideas directly to the President.

It's called the Citizen's Briefing Book, and it's an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we'll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors. If you participate, your idea could be included in the Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

Visit the Citizen's Briefing Book now and share your ideas.

Throughout this Transition, a truly inspiring number of citizens have gotten involved. We hope that you remain involved through the Inauguration and beyond.

Thank you,

Valerie

Valerie Jarrett
Co-Chair
Obama-Biden Transition Project

Please note that replies to this email will not be answered.

I have only one idea to share:
Lead by example...