WSJ NPR Defender Steve Inskeep Hosted Anti-Israel Activists on Morning Edition

Steve Inskeep published a most biased, dishonest, meretricious, fraudulent, and peculiarly self-serving op-ed to defend NPR in the Wall Street Journal this morning. I wondered how this illogical, misleading, pathetic screed got by the editors, then googled the author. Of course, he himself had been accused of bias, for personally hosting anti-Israel activists (and accused anti-Semites) Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer on NPR's Morning Edition, by CAMERA, the pro-Israel media watchdog. Andrea Levin published her account of Inskeep's personal bias on July 21, 2006:

"Israel Lobby" Authors Find Friendly NPR Forum

Leave it to National Public Radio to give a helping hand to professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of the notorious study, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Assailed by scholars, policy analysts, pundits and diplomats for their crude disregard of fact and scholarly standards, the two have generally ducked open debate with their critics. They opt for exchanges in print or safe broadcast venues – such as C-Span – where they allege that supporters of Israel systematically and traitorously undermine American interests in the service of the Jewish state.

Now NPR too has given the duo an unfettered opportunity to air their slanderous claims without a word of substantive challenge or interaction with knowledgeable critics. On July 6 anchorman Steve Inskeep pitched soft-ball questions at his guests, neglecting to mention even one of the errors, false and selective citations or glaring omissions cited by the many commentators faulting their paper. In prime listening time, Walt and Mearsheimer leveled one distorted charge after another.

They alleged that President Bush was “humiliated by the Israel lobby” at the behest of Ariel Sharon when he declined to comply with American pressure and pull the Israeli military out of West Bank towns. Inskeep did not ask his guests why they omitted mention that Israel was then under siege by Palestinian terrorists, with over 130 Israelis murdered in the preceding month and the military had reentered the towns to root out terrorist bases. He didn't ask whether Sharon, a legendary general, had a right and responsibility to judge how best to deploy his army at such a time. Nor did he note the possible sense of humiliation of a small nation being instructed by a super-power to forfeit its own decision-making about self-defense. Nor, of course, was there any suggestion that allies inevitably disagree at times about specific policies.

Walt and Mearsheimer alleged that “neo-conservatives” who are “closely identified with Israel and have been pushing American policy for a long time to support Israeli objectives” drove the U.S. against its own interests into war with Iraq. Inskeep didn’t bother to mention any of the many counter-arguments to this scapegoating of Jews for the Iraq war, including, for instance, stories in the New Yorker, the New York Times the Washington Post and the LA Times that record Israeli ambivalence and even dismay at Bush administration intentions to invade Iraq. Israeli security specialists were far more concerned about Iran and feared focus on Iraq would distract from what the saw as the central regional threat. So outspoken were some Israeli military officials on the subject that Sharon called on them to mute their misgivings over action in Iraq lest the U.S. administration take offense.

Walt and Mearsheimer deplored U.S. backing for Israel in light of its alleged “continued occupation and control over the Palestinians, and the refusal to negotiate a long-term peace settlement with the Palestinians.” They charged “Israelis have essentially been unwilling to give the Palestinians a viable state since 1967." Once more, the NPR interviewer was derelict, permitting these absurd assertions to stand with only the non-specific observation that "Israeli spokesmen would dispute" such accusations.

There was no hint of the Arab agenda enunciated in 1967 predicated on the infamous three "no's" — no recognition, no negotiation and no peace. There was not even an allusion to the many Arab calls for the destruction of Israel. There was not a mention of the unprecedented offer by Ehud Barak at Camp David/Taba just six years ago that would have given the Palestinians statehood.

The professors also lamented that Israel distorts American policy regarding various regional problems in the Middle East, saying “we would have been adopting a much more flexible policy” there, “most notably [toward] Iran.” By “flexible,” the two evidently mean U.S. policy would benefit by downplaying, if not disregarding, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls to destroy Israel.

Inskeep concluded saying “this debate continues tomorrow, when we’ll talk with one” of the writers' critics, former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross. But this was not a debate; it was a platform for bigotry, indulged and abetted by the interviewer. And the notion of balance is mocked in suggesting interviewing one speaker a day later is an appropriate or sufficient response to a litany of anti-Israel – and anti-Jewish – defamation.

Dennis Ross was subsequently on the air for less than five minutes and Inskeep was notably more pointed with him, asking for instance: “Whatever you think of U.S. support of Israel, is it not a liability that the United States has allowed itself to be so closely associated with Israel over time as a major supporter, a liability in the Arab world?”

Having served as a senior State Department envoy, Ross could provide first-hand testimony to the actual nature of policymaking by the American administration and did provide broad refutations of the professors. He said in his experience in two administrations "we never took a step because we felt the quote 'lobby' was insisting we do it." He also noted that, “If tomorrow Israel wasn’t there, would we still have a problem with al-Qaeda? With the Jihadists? You bet. They object to who we are.”

But Ross was placed on the defensive; no one took apart the calumnies against Israel and its supporters, Jew and Christian, perpetrated by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

This was not NPR's first round of distortion on the issue. On April 21, the network reported on the controversy without hearing from the two professors who, according to the commentator, "say they will no longer comment publicly on their research and declined NPR's request for an interview."

In the lineup were three critics of the views expressed in "The Israel Lobby" and three who endorsed them. Professor Eliot Cohen of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University called the paper anti-Semitic, "an attack on the loyalty of American Jews." Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and Israel Ned Walker said the "history" presented was unrecognizable and Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose offered vague disapproval that the authors' case was too "strongly and over-broadly" framed.

On the other side, Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff under Colin Powell, and himself a believer in neo-conservative cabals, endorsed the paper as containing "blinding flashes of the obvious." Conspiracy theorist and former CIA member Michael Scheuer too lauded the "courage" of the professors whose dark views of Jewish manipulation are nearly identical to his own.

At a Council on Foreign Relations session in February 2006, Scheuer had explained how Israel allegedly controls U.S. policies. “Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress – that’s a clandestine activity, a covert activity.” He also lamented the effect of the Holocaust Memorial Museum on Americans in arousing feelings of guilt. This is the same writer who has lauded Osama Bin Laden as “gentle, generous, talented and personally courageous.” A Wall Street Journal essay bluntly termed him a cross between “an overwrought Buchananite and a raving Chomskyite.”

NPR enlisted one other rabid Israel-hater, Paul Findley. Elated at the appearance of the Walt-Mearsheimer study, he enthused: "You can't imagine how pleased I was." Findley is founder and chairman of the radical anti-Israel group, the Council for the National Interest.

CNI has long cozied up to Islamist groups, including those on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In early 2006, for example, CNI leaders met in Damascus with Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshal as well as with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. A CNI advertisement in the New York Times explained: "Many Americans do not understand that Hamas is a typical anti-colonial insurgency responding to an Israeli occupation and what amounts to government terror against Palestinian civilians."

Findley's bizarre claims also include his contention that Israel's Mossad was implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But NPR's Deborah Amos introduced this man as simply "a former Republican Congressman" with no hint of his wild theories and charges.

Findley's bizarre claims also include his contention that Israel's Mossad was implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But NPR's Deborah Amos introduced this man as simply "a former Republican Congressman" with no hint of his wild theories and charges.

NPR in its pandering to Walt and Mearsheimer did not interview another outspoken fan of theirs – former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke who warmly endorsed their study as "a great step forward." Had they enlisted the white supremacist, no doubt Steve Inskeep would have introduced him simply as a former Louisiana legislator.

Of Gods & Men

Just saw Etienne Comar's and Xavier Beauvois's new French film, OF GODS & MEN. Can't recommend it highly enough, very serious and moving drama about French monks trapped in the Algerian Civil War, killed in 1996 by Islamist guerillas. It is about the power of their faith, and their decision to remain even when asked to leave, so as not to abandon their mission. What was so refreshing was the commitment shown. They simply refused to surrender their beliefs. It is about honor and faith and charity and hope and all the corny virtues that "sophisticated" American filmmakers no longer seem to understand. Yes, the heroes of this film became Christian martyrs. And the French message seems to be: "Death before dishonor."

Wish we saw some American films along these lines. IMHO, it should have won the Oscar instead of THE KING'S SPEECH, it's even better than THE SOCIAL NETWORK--because the topic is more serious. If not the Oscar, at least Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It's the best film I've seen in years.

Five stars, plus.

Here's a link to the official website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/ofgodsandmen.

Who Are the Libyan Rebels?

Some links with different answers:

ABC NEWS: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/libyan-rebels-target-libya-missile-strike-war-us-president-obama-battle-13176688

THE FINANCIAL TIMES: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5bfb98b0-52fd-11e0-86e6-00144feab49a.html

NOLAN CHART: http://www.nolanchart.com/article8465.html

None of this is surprising. The leaked State Department memos describe Eastern Libya (2008) as an area of fervent Islamic sentiment, where "a number of Libyans who had fought and in some cases undergone 'religious and ideological training' in Afghanistan, Lebanon and the West Bank in the late 1970's and early 1980's had returned [...] in the mid to late 1980's". There they engaged into "a deliberate, coordinated campaign to propagate more conservative iterations of Islam, in part to prepare the ground for the eventual overthrow by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of Muammar Qadhafi's regime, which is 'hated' by conservative Islamists". While Qaddafi's position was perceived to be strong, the East Libyans sent jihadis to Iraq, where "fighting against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq represented a way for frustrated young radicals to strike a blow against both Qadhafi and against his perceived American backers".

It is these same religiously and ideologically trained East Libyans who are now armed and arrayed against Qaddafi. Qaddafi's claim that all his opponents are members of Al Qaeda is overblown, but also not very far off, in regards to their sympathies. Anyone claiming that the Eastern Libyans are standing for secular, liberal values needs to overcome a huge burden of proof. First, what is the social basis of such a movement, when neutral observers have been characterizing East Libya as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism? Second, if the revolt has started on religious grounds, when and how exactly has it radically changed its character?

Caroline Glick in THE JERUSALEM POST (ht Martin Kramer)

Then there is Libya. One of the most astounding aspects of the US debate on Libya in recent weeks has been the scant attention paid to the nature of the rebels.

The rebels are reportedly represented by the so-called National Transitional Council led by several of Gaddafi's former ministers.

But while these men - who are themselves competing for the leadership mantle - are the face of the NTC, it is unclear who stands behind them. Only nine of the NTC's 31 members have been identified.

Unfortunately, available data suggest that the rebels championed as freedom fighters by the neoconservatives, the opportunists, the Europeans and the Western media alike are not exactly liberal democrats. Indeed, the data indicate that Gaddafi's opponents are more aligned with al-Qaida than with the US.

Under jihadist commander Abu Yahya Al- Libi, Libyan jihadists staged anti-regime uprisings in the mid-1990s. Like today, those uprisings' central hubs were Benghazi and Darnah.

In 2007 Al-Libi merged his forces into al- Qaida. On March 18, while denouncing the US, France and Britain, Al-Libi called on his forces to overthrow Gaddafi.

A 2007 US Military Academy study of information on al-Qaida forces in Iraq indicate that by far, Eastern Libya made the largest per capita contribution to al-Qaida forces in Iraq.

None of this proves that the US is now assisting an al-Qaida takeover of Libya. But it certainly indicates that the forces being assisted by the US in Libya are probably no more sympathetic to US interests than Gaddafi is. At a minimum, the data indicate the US has no compelling national interest in helping the rebels in overthrow Gaddafi.

The significance of the US's descent into strategic irrationality bodes ill not just for US allies, but for America itself. Until the US foreign policy community is again able to recognize and work to advance the US's core interests in the Middle East, America's policies will threaten both its allies and itself.

Juan Williams on NPR's Fall

From The Hill:

Liley’s revealing comment and Schiller’s arrogance are instructive because they provide a window in to the culture of elitism that has corroded NPR’s leadership. They're willing to do anything in service of any liberal with money. This includes firing me and skewing the editorial content of their programming. If anyone challenges them on this point, they will claim with self-righteous indignation to have cleaner hands than the rest of the news media who accepts advertising revenue or expresses a point of view.

I'm not just talking about conservatives but also the far left, the poor – anybody who didn't fit into leadership's marketing design of NPR as the elitist voice of comfortable, liberal-leaning, highly educated, upper-income America.

As Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, it was not until he saw the secretly recorded videotape of NPR executives that he understood the extent of political bias at NPR. “Of all the data that we’ve seen, we still had not absorbed the culture of NPR until we saw the video of that dinner.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor added: “Why should we allow taxpayer dollars to be used to advocate one ideology?”

That dinner tape and the Democrat’s fundraising letter set the table for a totally partisan vote with Republicans voting in opposition to public funding of NPR and Democrats voting for it. Last Thursday, 228 Republicans voted to defund NPR while seven Republicans joined with 185 Democrats to preserve it. The effort was largely symbolic as there is hardly any chance the Democrat-controlled Senate will go along with the House on this one. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is a huge NPR fan. When I was host of NPR’s afternoon talk show he once called me up to tell me how much he enjoyed an interview with soul singer Al Green. Sen. Reid is going to defend public radio.

The Democrat in the White House, President Obama, issued a statement of opposition to the House vote but stopped short of promising to veto any budget that eliminates NPR funding. And the White House did not make the case for why NPR deserves funding.

Before NPR’s top executive, Vivian Schiller, resigned her goal for NPR was to increase federal support to create an American version of the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. The BBC, which also began as a radio news service, is funded by a mandatory licensing fee paid by all British subjects. It is essentially a tax set by Parliament every year to support a national news operation.

At the moment the government funding for NPR is only one of many sources of revenue and a very small one in the grand scheme. Arguably, the appropriators of federal dollars are more important to the local affiliates who depend on that money to buy public broadcasting programming. To my mind, this is the underlying problem that connects the hidden camera episode and the funding issue.

Journalists should not be doing news to please any donors – private citizens, political parties or government officials – out of fear of losing funding.

LIMITLESS...

Reviewed by Jefferson D. Dunbar:

LIMITLESS...
...concerns a "blocked" writer, Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), who is unable to begin, let alone, complete his novel until he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who offers a rescue in the form of a new experimental, pharmaceutical drug called NZT, which is likely a stand in for the well known prescription drug Adderall. Desperate, Eddie accepts the pill. Reluctantly - at first. The effects occur within thirty seconds after we actually follow the pill down the inside of Eddie's throat. Seemingly unbounded, focused energy allow him to sanitize himself and his ratty apartment situated in a not so pleasant location in Manhattan's Chinatown. The bigger bonus is that he's able to finish his long overdue novel and turn it in to his publisher, who has long ago lost faith in Eddie.

An old saying goes something like: "...Nothing on this earth or in life is free..." Well, in "Limitless", it applies to Eddie. Because along with his new found success (financial freedom; the return of Lindy (Abbie Cornish), the girlfriend who dumps him early in the movie; a shave, haircut, and a hip new wardrobe), comes more than a few nefarious characters and wicked incidents that may lead some to believe Eddie sold his soul to Satan rather than swallowed a pill that contains more than one dangerous and deadly side effect. Not only does Eddie come near to losing his new life, he also places Lindy in harm's way.

There are a few surprising, enlightening twists - Eddie is not the only one who climbs the ladder of success taking multiple giant steps at a time. If one stops to consider the satirical subtext of "Limitless", some may come away wondering about or questioning the rapid rise to the room at the top of business icons such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg; Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin; and the sustained success of Apple's Steven Jobs. But see it for just what it is. A visually inventive and entertaining movie that utilizes more than its share of smoke, mirrors, and red herrings. "Limitless" opened nationwide Friday, March 18th. Neil Burger is the director and it is written by Leslie Dixon, based on Alan Glynn's novel, "The Dark Fields".

House Votes to Zero Out NPR 236-181

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

White House Introduces Chutzpah.gov (aka FOIA.gov)

I got a laugh when I saw this, given 3 wasted years and 2 expensive lawsuits, that produced zero documents from my own FOIA request to the CIA about its role in the Andijan, Uzbekistan violence of May, 2005...IMHO, the Obama administration has been worse than Bush in this regard. From the White House blog:

Introducing FOIA.gov
Posted by Melanie Ann Pustay on March 14, 2011 at 07:33 PM EDT
Ed. Note: This post originally appeared on The Justice Blog.

FOIA.gov is a site dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act, a law at the very heart of open government. Congress passed the FOIA in 1966 and since then it has been known as the law that keeps citizens “in the know” about what their government is doing. Any citizen can make a FOIA request about any topic.

FOIA.gov makes it easier than ever to find information about the FOIA. With clear explanations and short videos, we’ve explored all the major aspects of the FOIA, including how you can make a request and what happens when you do.

We’ve also gathered information on where to send a FOIA request into one location. Just click on the name of a department and you’ll see where to send your request and the names of the officials responsible for making sure your request is completed.

If you want a quick glance at an agency’s data – we’ve got that too. Select any agency and you’ll see top-line data, like the number of requests for the most recent year and the number of total and partial grants made.

For more detailed information from an agency, you can generate your own report.

Each year, every federal agency is required to report to the Justice Department, which oversees FOIA compliance, basic information about how they complied with the law. This data is compiled into an annual report. This includes data like:

How many requests were received?
How many requests were processed?
How old is an agency’s oldest request?
How much did it cost to answer requests?
FOIA.gov takes that data and lets you search, sort and compare the information. You can compare one agency to another. You can even compare the data from within the offices of a single agency.

Every year, we’ll add the numbers to the database, allowing users to see trends over time. Using the “FOIA Spotlight” we will spotlight some of the most interesting documents to be released under the law. We’ve invited every agency to submit their suggestions for this section of the site.

The Freedom of Information Act is a key part of open government. FOIA.gov celebrates that, while providing a deeper look at how agencies are striving to improve their compliance with the law. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve the site in the future. If you have ideas, e-mail us at: feedback@foia.gov.

Melanie Ann Pustay is the Director of the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the Department of Justice. OIP oversees agency compliance with FOIA directives and encourages all agencies to fully comply with both the letter and the spirit of the FOIA on behalf of the President and the Attorney General.

Not to be outdone, the US Department of Defense claims to still be "processing" a FOIA request that I filed in 2006--and given the lack of success in the last FOIA dispute, I haven't had the desire to spend any more money on attorneys to fight the delay. IMHO, they could call it the "Expensive Restriction of Information Act." The US government releases only what it chooses to release, to whom it chooses, when it chooses. We had better public information about our government before FOIA created the illusion of openness--thanks to people like Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson....

Ann Althouse's Madison, Wisconsin Updates

Glenn Garvin on the NPR Scandal

From the Miami Herald:

If just 2 percent of NPR’s money comes from the government, why not just tell Congress to take a flying frack at a rolling doughnut? Two percent, heck, you could make that up on doughnuts. Tens of millions of Americans have taken hits of more than 2 percent in this economy and lived to tell about it. And think of the inner tranquility that 2 percent nip and tuck would buy: Nobody from NPR would ever again have to listen to some braying reactionary complaining that NPR has more practicing witches on its staff than Republicans. (Even if it’s true: NPR reporter Margot Adler is a Wiccan high priestess, while any registered Republicans on the staff remain deeply closeted.)

The answer: NPR gets a lot more than 2 percent of its budget from taxpayers — perhaps 20 times that. It’s completely a creature of government subsidies and cannot possibly survive in anything like its current form if Congress plucks public broadcasting from the federal teat. NPR’s real costs are hidden in a system of back-and-forth payments quaintly known along the Bogota-Miami axis as “money-laundering.”

Here’s how it works: Congress gives money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which cuts off a small slice — the hallowed 2 percent — and hands it directly to NPR. The rest of the money goes out to public radio stations themselves, who then pay it back to NPR as programming fees. Other taxpayer money — from the Energy Department, state and local governments and state universities — also gets mixed into the pot.

In the end, something close to 40 percent of NPR’s budget has been extracted from taxpayers. And that doesn’t even include tax money spent on the operations of the radio stations themselves, without which there would be no audience for NPR programming. If NPR bosses look slightly twitchy when they talk about how insignificant their subsidies are, it’s probably because they’re glancing around for signs that the roof is about to fall in on them.

Juan Williams: End Federal Funding for NPR

He's finally said it. I hope Congress listens, and acts accordingly. From FoxNews.com:

I'm not being vindictive when I say that NPR leadership had become ingrown and arrogant to the point that they lost sight of journalism as the essential product of NPR. People like Schiller and Ellen Weiss, the head of news for NPR, who made it her life's work to fire me, came to think of themselves as smarter than anyone else. They felt no need to answer to any critic. No other point of view had any importance to them. They came to personify anti-intellectual resentment and arrogance in journalism. Any approach at variance with their own was considered traitorous and a basis for exiling them to the Gulag or in my case, firing me.

The recent videotape showing NPR chief fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation to Vivian Schiller) is just an open microphone on what I've been hearing from NPR top executives and editors for years. They are willing to do anything in service to any liberal with money and then they will turn around and in self-righteous indignation claim that they have cleaner hands than anybody in the news business who accepts advertising or expresses a point of view.

Ron Schiller's performance on videotape -- which included lecturing two young men pretending to be Muslims on how to select wine -- is a "South Park" worthy caricature of the American liberal as an effete, Volvo-driving, wine-sipping, NPR-listening dunderhead.

The work of NPR's many outstanding journalists is barely an afterthought to leadership with this mindset and obsessed with funding. NPR has many, very good journalists. But they are caught in a game where they are trying to please a leadership that doesn't want to hear stories that contradict the official point of view. I'm not just talking about conservatives but also the far-left, the poor, anybody who didn't fit into leadership's design of NPR as the official voice of comfortable, liberal-leaning upper-income America.

This just confirms my belief that it is time for our government to get out of the business of funding NPR. NPR's management had been wanting to not only maintain current funding but expand the network to create a much larger BCC-style institution in the United States. The idea to me of government-funded media doesn't fit the United States. No matter the good intentions about protecting journalists from the excesses of the marketplace such as sensationalism and the dominance of entertainment news, journalists should not be doing news to please any party or any elected official -- out of fear of losing funding. And the tremendous variety of sources for news -- in print, broadcast, on the radio and on the Internet, does not suggest that there's any reason for the U.S. government to make a priority of supporting NPR while cutting funding for school breakfast programs or college scholarships.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News may have budget struggles but they do fine journalism while accepting advertising. Over the last several years, NPR's leadership had become so obsessed with the money issue, as evidenced by Ron Schiller's behavior, that it had started to corrupt the news gathering process because non-profit fundraising has devolved into an underworld cesspool.

The result is that NPR's leadership under the likes of Weiss and the two Schillers has been diminishing their own brand. They created an anti-intellectual environment that took delight and pride in censoring journalists like me for honestly admitting that people dressed in Muslim garb make me nervous at airports. They had lost slight of promoting debates and providing information that is essential for people who want to be well-informed as citizens of a thriving democracy.

I am still insulted when I hear Ron Schiller, no doubt reflecting his boss Vivian Schiller, still making the case that my firing as a good thing, it was just handled badly. This was not a process problem. I said nothing, I violated no journalistic standard that should have resulted in me being fired. It's only in the very small world and small thinking of NPR's leadership that appearing on Fox News Channel and speaking about a feeling in the context of a larger debate somehow makes for a bad journalist who needs to be muzzled.

Sympathy to Japan...and a link to Google's Crisis Response Website

Our thoughts go out to our Japanese readers, and to those affected by the terrible earthquake, tsunami, and its aftermath. Here's a link to Google's Crisis Response Website, which includes a "people finder" to help locate missing persons:

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html.

Tim Graham Explains NPR Scandal to ABC Nightline

Althouse Reader Explains NPR Scandal

Tom from Virginia posted this parable to explain NPR's candid camera video scandal:

A man in Havana loses his parrot. He reports it to the Ministry of Lost Pets and tells them "if you find my parrot, please understand that I do not agree with any of his political opinions."

NPR Boss Quits

From NPR's website:

NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned, NPR just announced.

This follows yesterday's news that then-NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) was videotapped slamming conservatives and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding during a lunch with men posing as members of a Muslim organization (they were working with political activist James O'Keefe on a "sting.")

Vivian Schiller quickly condemned Ron Schiller's comments, and he moved up an already-announced decision to leave NPR and resigned effectively immediately. But Ron Schiller's gaffe followed last fall's dismissal of NPR political analyst Juan Williams, for which Vivian Schiller came under harsh criticism.

NPR just sent this statement from NPR Board of Directors Chairman Dave Edwards to its staff and member stations:

"It is with deep regret that I tell you that the NPR Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller as President and CEO of NPR, effective immediately.

"The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.

"Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR's mission, and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network.

"According to a CEO succession plan adopted by the Board in 2009, Joyce Slocum, SVP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, has been appointed to the position of Interim CEO. The Board will immediately establish an Executive Transition Committee that will develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership.

"I recognize the magnitude of this news – and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The Board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR's leadership team."

According to NPR's website, the new NPR boss apparently has a background in what Senator DeMint calls the "Muppet Lobby's" licensing business, marketing Barney, Thomas the Tank Engine and Sesame Street. In addition, she had been NPR's "Chief Ethics Officer" (sic)--therefore, logically responsible for the type of ethical problems at NPR revealed in James O'Keefe's hidden camera expose, which must have occured under her "ethics guidelines" and obviously on her watch:

Joyce Slocum joined NPR in July 2008 and serves as Senior Vice President, Legal Affairs, and General Counsel. She is responsible for directing all legal and business activities and the staff of the Office of the General Counsel. In addition, Slocum serves as NPR's Chief Ethics Officer and as Secretary to the NPR Board of Directors.

Prior to joining NPR, Slocum was Executive Vice President, Global Legal and Business Affairs, and General Counsel at HIT Entertainment, a leading provider of high-quality children's programming worldwide. There, she oversaw all legal and business affairs aspects of the company's content production, acquisition, and distribution businesses (more than 1,500 hours in its catalogue), directing a 23-person in-house legal team. Slocum assumed the role at HIT in 2001, when it acquired ownership of Lyrick Corporation, a privately owned entertainment company that she joined in 1994 to establish that company's first in-house legal department. Following the HIT/Lyrick acquisition, the combined companies' legal and business affairs worldwide were consolidated under Slocum's leadership.

Among her accomplishments, she was a key participant in bringing together HIT, PBS, Sesame Workshop, and Comcast Cable to establish the 24/7 pre-school children's channel PBS Kids Sprout. Launched in 2005, Sprout is now available on digital cable and satellite to over 45 million homes. Slocum also played a critical role in HIT's acquisition of Gullane Entertainment, a publicly traded UK company which owned the Guinness World Records and Thomas the Tank Engine properties, among others, and in acquiring representation rights for other famous properties.

From 1984 to 1994, Slocum was staff attorney for The Southland Corporation, where her work included international licensing and franchising, involvement with the company's business expansion, and serving as a liaison between the company and its licensees, franchise owners' groups, community groups, and government officials. Slocum's early legal career was as an associate at the firm Johnson & Swanson in Dallas.

She received her B.A. from Southern Illinois University and her J.D. cum laude from St. Louis University School of Law.

Saudi Opposition Calls for DC Protest

Ali Alyami of the Campaign for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudie Arabia sent the following email:

Freedom fighters, please join us
Tyranny is a threat to humanity
The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia invites you to join us on March 11, 2011 at 10 AM in front of the White House to show our solidarity with and support for the Saudi people in their noble struggle to liberate themselves and their country from the yoke of oppression, gender segregation, discrimination, exploitation, religious extremism and its byproduct, terrorism. Stand up and join us to demonstrate our universal commitment for what’s morally right.
Contact: Ali Alyami 202.413.0084, ali@cdhr.info

Why Didn't We See This NPR Hidden Camera Interview on 60 Minutes?

From the Daily Caller (ht Drudge):

A man who appears to be a National Public Radio senior executive, Ron Schiller, has been captured on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement.

“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, the head of NPR’s nonprofit foundation, who last week announced his departure for the Aspen Institute.

In a new video released Tuesday morning by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, are posing as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The men, who identified themselves as Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik from the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust, met with Schiller and Liley at Café Milano, a well-known Georgetown restaurant, and explained their desire to give up to $5 million to NPR because, “the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere.”

On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.

Here's a link to the Project Veritas NPR Investigative Journalism Website.
Here's a partial transcript from National Review Online:

On the Jewish influence of media coverage:

Fake Muslim: … The extent to which Jews do kind of control the media. I mean, certainly the Zionists and the people who have the interest in swaying media coverage toward a favorable direction of Israel. The Palestinian viewpoint since NPR is one of the few places that has the courage to really present it. It was kind of a joke that we used to call it National Palestinian Radio.

Lilely: Oh, really? That’s good. I like that.

Fake Muslim: I’m not too upset about maybe a little bit less Jew influence of Jewish money into NPR. The Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere …

Schiller: I don’t actually find it at NPR.

Fake Muslim: What exactly?

Schiller: The Zionist or pro-Israel even among funders. … I mean, it’s there in those who own newspapers obviously, but no one owns NPR. So actually, I don’t find it.

Fake Muslim: I just think what Israel does, I don’t think, can be excused frequently, so I’m glad to hear that. …

[Lilely talks about how one of NPR’s funders, the American Jewish World Service, doesn’t necessarily agree with NPR’s perspectives always.]

Schiller: Right because I think they are really looking for a fair point of view and many Jewish organizations are not. Frankly, many organizations … I’m sure there are Muslim organizations that are not looking for a fair point of view. They’re looking for a very particular point of view and that’s fine.

Fake Muslim:We’re not one of them.

Schiller: I’m gathering that you’re not.

Fake Muslim: Our funding comes from a place like the Muslim Brotherhood. You look at the way they are demonized and looked down on and shown as horrible, terrible people when they are simply just trying to help.

Lilely: Sadly, our history from the record … shows that we’ve done this before. We put Japanese Americans in camps in World War II.

On Juan Williams:

Schiller: In all of the uproar for example around Juan Williams, what NPR did, I’m very proud of. What NPR stood for is non-racist, non-bigoted, straightforward telling of the news. Our feeling is that if a person expresses his or her opinion, which anyone is entitled to do in a free society, they are compromised as a journalist, they can no longer fairly report. And the question we asked internally was can Juan Williams when he makes a statement like he made can he report to the Muslim population, for example, and be believed and the answer is no. He lost all credibility and that breaks your basic ethics as a journalist.

Happy International Women's Day!

In the former USSR it's Secretary's Day, Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day all rolled into one...

Paul Moyar: To Win Afghan War, Cut USAID Funding

After 10 years of fighting, someone finally publishes the obvious: USAID money has paid for the Taliban to fight the US Army. So says Dr. Paul Moyar, in a summary of his study, Development in Afghanistan's Counterinsurgency: A New Guide, posted on the Small Wars Journal Blog:

In the areas of Afghanistan beset by insurgency, development spending has done little to increase popular support for the government, casting doubt on the counterinsurgency and development theories that have inspired this spending. Practitioners, however, have lacked access to viable alternative theories or principles on the use of development in COIN. This guide offers a comprehensive alternative approach, derived from the leader-centric model of counterinsurgency and based upon a wide variety of counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and previous conflicts. According to this approach, the primary purpose of development aid in counterinsurgency should be to improve local security and governance, because development is less important than security and governance and is effective only where security and governance are present. Development aid should be used to co-opt local elites, not to obtain the gratitude of the entire population, and should be made contingent on reciprocal action by those elites. The elites must be selected carefully, as the selection of certain elites will empower malign actors or alienate other elites. The number of organizations involved in development activities should be kept as small as possible, and greater attention should be paid to the selection of leaders for those organizations, as leadership quality has a great impact on project effectiveness. In select districts and provinces, governors should be permitted to use development aid to bolster patronage networks. The current aid streams flowing into Afghanistan far exceed the capacity of leaders and development personnel to handle them, so aid levels should be reduced, and emphasis on quantity of aid spent should be replaced with emphasis on attainment of COIN objectives. In Afghanistan, senior leaders of USAID and other foreign development organizations still prefer long-term development to short-term stabilization, to the detriment of the counterinsurgency. If they cannot be convinced to change their ways, then their participation in Afghanistan may need to be downsized.

You may download the full report as a PDF file, here.

Agustin Blazquez's CHE Featured on Breitbart's Big Hollywood

You can read the article
at this URL.

Tom Gross on Libya's Lobbyists

From Tom Gross's Media Dispatch:

* No remorse from The London School of Economics (LSE) which agreed to take millions from Gaddafi
* Only 11 weeks ago, Gaddafi himself was invited to address LSE students via video link, with the help of a leading London PR firm

* Leading New York law firm White & Case took $1000 an hour to lobby for Gaddafi

* Among others who have written soft propaganda pieces for Gaddafi in the Western media in recent months: Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of Human Rights Watch’s Mideast division (the same woman who has helped run the HRW delegtimization campaign against Israel), and Stephen Walt (author of the best-selling conspiracy theory “The Israel Lobby”), and writers for The New York Times and Financial Times.

This dispatch concerns the situation in Libya.

Martin Kramer on the MIddle East

I have to admit that I don't know enough about the Middle East to have a reasonable opinion about what is going on. So, here's a link to Martin Kramer's blog, Sandbox.

House Votes to Zero Out Corporation for Public Broadcasting

I waited 20 years for this, since coming to Washington in 1991. Even if the Senate restores the money, the "sacred cow" status of public broadcasting has ended. This happened in 1995 with the National Endowment for the Arts. The agency is still around, but as "damaged goods." And you know what...the arts in America improved after 1995. My guess is that broadcasting should improve after 2011, due to similar factors--the beginning of the end of the official stamp of approval, the "imprimatur," that was what NPR and PBS had to offer (in addition to cash).

Look for alternate sources of news, informational, and educational broadcasting to emerge via the internet, cable, and who knows...maybe even Twitter. The Huffington Post-AOL deal may be a sign of things to come, in this regard.

Sen. Jim DeMint v. the Muppet Lobby

From the Charleston, South Carolina, Post & Courier:

WASHINGTON — The Muppets are in town. No, not for a show. They are in Washington to do business.

Inside the Beltway, 'Sesame Street' turns into K Street and Elmo is a lobbyist.

Last year, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was allocated $420 million by Congress. And President Obama is asking Congress to give a whopping $451 million to CPB in his new budget, even though the nation is more than $14 trillion in debt.

To put that in perspective, it would take Count Von Count more than 42 years to count the 451 million, one 'Ah! Ah! Ah!' dollar at a time.

But any talk of reducing or cutting the 'Sesame Street' subsidy is met with a Muppet revolt. PBS' Arthur the Aardvark was on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a Democrat press conference where Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, accused Republicans of 'silencing Cookie Monster.'

Behind the adorable anteater, aides held signs depicting Bert and Ernie being handed a 'GOPink slip.'

Make no mistake, public broadcasting's furry friends are political animals.

Elmo has been particularly busy. Elmo has testified before Congress about the need for more funding for the arts and participated in other press conferences to increase spending on public broadcasting. Elmo even went on the lecture circuit last year with Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genochowski to promote government-funded broadband Internet.

At this rate, Americans can expect Big Bird to start filming commercials to hype ObamaCare. If the FCC can borrow Elmo from PBS to build support for their plans, what's to stop the Department of Health and Human Services from feeding Big Bird some lines?

It's time to draw a clear distinction between the government and entertainment. Democrats shouldn't cast our children's most beloved creatures as characters for their big-government, big-spending causes.

Publicly funded media simply have no place in our modern, tech-savvy society. CPB was created by the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act to 'facilitate the development of public telecommunications.' Only a handful of television channels existed. More than 30 years later, Americans have thousands of choices in news, entertainment and educational programming provided by innumerable television, radio and Web outlets.

Shows like 'Sesame Street' are multi-million dollar enterprises capable of thriving in the private market.

According to the 990 tax form all nonprofits are required to file, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 — nearly a million dollars — in compensation in 2008. And, from 2003 to 2006, 'Sesame Street' made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales.

When taxpayer funding for public broadcasting ends, rest assured, Cookie Monster will still be fed.

Pajamas Media on Agustin Blazquez's ‘Che’

Pajamas Media » Cuban Filmaker Stonewalled in Trying to Tell the True Story of ‘Che’

Glenn Greenwald on FBI's Botched Anthrax Case Against Bruce Ivins

Serious doubt cast on FBI's anthrax case against Bruce Ivins:

In addition to reigniting doubts, the report has also reignited calls for an independent investigation into the entire FBI case. Yesterday, Rep. Holt re-introduced his legislation to create a 9/11-style Commission, complete with subpoena power, with a mandate to review the entire matter. Sen. Grassley told the Post: "There are no more excuses for avoiding an independent review." Ivins' lawyer added that the report confirms that the case against his client is "all supposition based on conjecture based on guesswork, without any proof whatsoever." All of that has been clear for some time, and yesterday's report merely underscored how weak is the FBI's case.

It is hard to overstate the political significance of the anthrax attacks. For reasons I've described at length, that event played at least as much of a role as the 9/11 attacks in elevating the Terrorism fear levels which, through today, sustain endless wars, massive defense and homeland security budgets, and relentless civil liberties erosions. The pithy version of the vital role played by anthrax was supplied by Atrios here and here; in essence, it was anthrax that convinced large numbers of Americans that Terrorism was something that could show up without warning at their doorstep -- though something as innocuous as their mailbox -- in the form of James-Bond-like attacks featuring invisible, lethal powder. Moreover, anthrax was exploited in the aftermath of 9/11 to ratchet up the fear levels toward Saddam Hussein, as ABC News' Brian Ross spent a full week screeching to the country -- falsely -- that bentonite had been found in the anthrax and that this agent was the telltale sign of Iraq's chemical weapons program, while George Bush throughout 2002 routinely featured "anthrax" as one of Saddam's scary weapons.

That there's so much lingering doubt about who was responsible for this indescribably consequential attack is astonishing, and it ought to be unacceptable. Other than a desire to avoid finding out who the culprit was (and/or to avoid having the FBI's case against Ivins subjected to scrutiny), there's no rational reason to oppose an independent, comprehensive investigation into this matter.

Sen. Grassley: Investigate FBI's Botched Anthrax Investigation

U.S. Sen. Grassley: Response to National Academy of Sciences Amerithrax report
2/16/2011

M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Reporters and Editors RE: Grassley response to National Academy of Sciences Amerithrax report DA: Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Senator Chuck Grassley released the following statement after a new report from the National Academy of Sciences raises questions about some of the science used to close the Amerithrax investigation. Grassley has conducted oversight of the FBI’s handling of the case since 2002.

“For years the FBI has claimed scientific evidence for its conclusion that that anthrax spores found in the letters were linked to the anthrax bacteria found in Dr. Ivins’ lab. The National Academy of Sciences report released today shows that the science is not necessarily a slam dunk. There are no more excuses for avoiding an independent review and assessment of how the FBI handled its investigation in the anthrax case.”

Background: During a September 17, 2008 Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing with FBI Director Robert Mueller, Grassley brought up the need for an independent review of both the science and the investigative work. Here is the text of that portion of the hearing transcript.

“…This is one of the longest and most expensive investigations in FBI history, and there will probably never be a trial. Congress and the American people deserve a complete accounting of the FBI’s evidence, not just as selective release of a few documents and a briefing or two. There are many unanswered questions the FBI must address before the public can have confidence in the outcome of the case, and a thorough congressional investigation is needed to ensure that those questions are answered. And I appreciate the Director referring to the National Academy, BUT I would like to also suggest that the National Academy would not be reviewing FBI interview summaries, grand jury testimony, internal investigative memos, other investigative documents. The Academy would only be reviewing the science, not the detective work. And, of course, I believe we need an independent review of both…”

Niall Ferguson on Obama's Egyptian Policy

(ht Althouse)

Yours truly on NPR and PBS - To the Point on KCRW

Here's a link to Warren Olney's To the Point on KCRW, in which I discuss NPR and PBS in relation to Juan Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, and quote from Glenn Garvin's seminal article about NPR.

PBS Pledge-Week Ads Violate Federal Law

Last night, Washington's WETA, our local PBS station, was running ads that urged viewers to call their congressmen to stop proposed Republican budget cuts for public broadcasting. The national campaign is coming from an organization called 170MillionAmericans.Org. Here's the Maryland Public Television version:



IMHO, these PBS call to action ads violate both FCC regulations on non-commercial broadcasting that prohibit "calls to action" as well as CPB legal requirements for overseeing "objectivity and balance" in coverage of controversial issues.

Here's the FCC rule:

B. Announcements containing a call to action are not permissible. Examples of such announcements are:
-- "Stop by our showroom to see a model";
-- "Try product X next time you buy oil."

SOURCE: In the Matter of Commission Policy Concerning the Noncommercial Nature of Educational Broadcasting, 1992 Reprint excerpted from Public Notice, April 11, 1986 (FCC 86-161),
which was published at 51 Federal Register 21800, June 16, 1986
7 FCC Record 827 (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/nature.html)

Here's the CPB rule:

From its advent more than four decades ago, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has had a legal mandate to ensure "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature." This principle is part of the bedrock of public broadcasting in America, a country built upon a foundation of lively and open political and social discourse.

CPB carries out its mandate by encouraging public comment on programming to individual stations and to CPB's own ombudsman. By promoting diversity in programming, CPB also ensures that a wide range of perspectives is available to viewers and listeners. Annual Open to the Public reports, as required by Congress, offer extensive detail on this important goal.

SOURCE: CPB's Commitment to Objectivity and Balance (http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/goals/objectivity/)

So far as I can tell, neither the FCC nor CPB has taken any action whatsoever to enforce these legal requirements. That the Republican Congress permits public broadcasting to violate both with impunity, in the middle of a funding debate, shows their lack of seriousness.

If CPB isn't enforcing the "objectivity and balance" law in this crystal-clear case, and the FCC turns a blind eye, what other laws are being broken by public broadcasters?

At the very least, Congressional committees with oversight responsibility for public broadcasting should hold hearings into the matter of how and why FCC and CPB have failed to prevent the hijacking of PBS and NPR for blatant political advertising on one side of this controversial issue.

UPDATE 2/16/2011

I just filed a complaint with the FTC, after viewing WETA's 30-second spot calling upon viewers to tell their members of Congress what they think--that the Republicans are trying to kill Big Bird, the only reasonable conclusion, from the false and misleading claims made in the ad. Here's what I received in response from the automated website:

Thank you for contacting the FTC. Your complaint has been entered into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies worldwide. Your reference number is:29264359

Here are links to the publications you may find useful:

No links available for selection

If you want to update your information or have any questions, please call our Consumer Response Center, 1-877-FTC-HELP. Keep your reference number handy.

I'm not holding my breath, since I don't see any evidence that anyone in a position of responsibility holds PBS to any standards of decency, whatsoever...I don't know that Congressman Lamborn even obtained a GAO audit of NPR's finances...

BTW, the type of lobbying by cartoon characters shown in the clip below strikes me as precisely the type of manipulative advertising aimed at children ("host-selling") that PBS was supposedly set up to counteract...

B.R. Myers on the Immorality of "Foodies"

From The Atlantic Online:

THE ROMAN HISTORIAN Livy famously regarded the glorification of chefs as the sign of a culture in decline. I wonder what he would have thought of The New York Times’ efforts to admit “young idols with cleavers” into America’s pantheon of food-service heroes.

With their swinging scabbards, muscled forearms and constant proximity to flesh, butchers have the raw, emotional appeal of an indie band … “Think about it. What’s sexy?” said Tia Keenan, the fromager at Casellula Cheese and Wine Café and an unabashed butcher fan. “Dangerous is sometimes sexy, and they are generally big guys with knives who are covered in blood.”

That’s Severson again, by the way, and she records no word of dissent in regard to the cheese vendor’s ravings. We are to believe this is a real national trend here. In fact the public perception of butchers has not changed in the slightest, as can easily be confirmed by telling someone that he or she looks like one. “Blankly as a butcher stares,” Auden’s famous line about the moon, will need no explanatory footnote even a century from now.

But food writing has long specialized in the barefaced inversion of common sense, common language. Restaurant reviews are notorious for touting $100 lunches as great value for money. The doublespeak now comes in more pious tones, especially when foodies feign concern for animals. Crowding around to watch the slaughter of a pig—even getting in its face just before the shot—is described by Bethany Jean Clement (in an article in Best Food Writing 2009) as “solemn” and “respectful” behavior. Pollan writes about going with a friend to watch a goat get killed. “Mike says the experience made him want to honor our goat by wasting as little of it as possible.” It’s teachable fun for the whole foodie family. The full strangeness of this culture sinks in when one reads affectionate accounts (again in Best Food Writing 2009) of children clamoring to kill their own cow—or wanting to see a pig shot, then ripped open with a chain saw: “YEEEEAAAAH!”

Here too, though, an at least half-serious moral logic is at work, backed up by the subculture’s distinct body of myth, which combines half-understood evolutionary theory with the biblical idea of man as born lord of the world. Anthropological research, I should perhaps point out, now indicates that Homo sapiens started out as a paltry prey animal. Clawless, fangless, and slight of build, he could at best look forward to furtive boltings of carrion until the day he became meat himself. It took humans quite a while to learn how to gang up for self-protection and food acquisition, the latter usually a hyena-style affair of separating infant or sick animals from their herds. The domestication of pigs, cows, chickens, etc. has been going on for only about 10,000 years—not nearly long enough to breed the instincts out of them. The hideous paraphernalia of subjugation pictured in The CAFO Reader? It’s not there for nothing.

Now for the foodie version. The human animal evolved “with eyes in the front of its head, long legs, fingernails, eyeteeth—so that it could better chase down slower, stupider creatures, kill them, and eat them” (Bourdain, Medium Raw). We have eaten them for so long that meat-eating has shaped our souls (Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma). And after so many millennia of domestication, food animals have become “evolutionarily hard-wired” to depend on us (chef-writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The River Cottage Meat Book). Every exercise of our hungry power is thus part of the Great Food Chain of Being, with which we must align our morals. Deep down—instinctively if not consciously—the “hardwired” pig understands all this, understands why he has suddenly been dragged before a leering crowd. Just don’t waste any of him afterward; that’s all he asks. Note that the foodies’ pride in eating “nose to tail” is no different from factory-farm boasts of “using everything but the oink.” As if such token frugality could make up for the caloric wastefulness and environmental damage that result from meat farming!

Naturally the food-obsessed profess as much respect for tradition as for evolution. Hamilton, in Blood, Bones and Butter, writes of her childhood dinners: “The meal was always organized correctly, traditionally, which I now appreciate.” Even relatively young traditions like the Thanksgiving turkey must be guarded zealously against efforts to change or opt out of them. Foreign traditions destigmatize every dish even for the American. In Best Food Writing 2010, one foie gras lover asks another whether he would eat tortured cat if there were sufficient Mongolian history behind the dish; the answer is yes.

How Potatoes Changed the World, by Eliyho Matz

TOWARDS PINK POTATOES

“A present-day teacher of philosophy doesn’t select food for his pupil with the aim of flattering his taste, but with the aim of changing it.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Peter Winch, translator
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980]; p. 17e.



The potato has been part of the diet of Europeans and North Americans for a long time, at least 400 years. This tuber can be baked, boiled or fried, and I assume that there are hundreds of other ways to prepare potatoes for human and non-human consumption. It seems that all modern life evolved with the vegetable tuber called “potato.” An old Yiddish folksong describes the weekly existence as including the daily consumption of potatoes; not a single day passes without the “kartofle,” or “bulbus.”

The potato enters into the European consciousness via the Peruvian Andes. (I am not going into the famous potato wars between Peru and Chile, each claiming the origin of the potato for its own sovereign state.) The Spanish Conquistadors brought the potato to Europe: Spain, France, Ireland and the rest of Europe from the early 1600’s. The Andes’ high elevation provided the ancient Incas with the agricultural opportunity to develop various varieties of potatoes that the ancient people of the region learned how to preserve so they could survive during the cold winter season. If historically we need to define the Inca civilization, we may as well call it “a potato civilization.” Of course, the Incas are no longer in existence; after a few thousand years of cultivating potatoes and potato products they mysteriously disappeared. Is it possible that the potato had anything to do with their disappearance?

The potato plant belongs to the “nightshade” family of plants, which indicates that the leaf of the plant is poisonous. Is it possible that the tuber itself is a bit poisonous? Or that it has some mind-altering chemicals in it that we do not know much about? According to botanist Judith Sumner, “the thin-walled cells that compose potatoes contain thousands of amyloplasts,” and potatoes were boiled for hours in order to get rid of the poisons.” Furthermore, “the early suspicion that potatoes are poisonous is in part correct; potato cells exposed to light synthesize solanine, a glycoalkaloid that interferes with activity of cholinesterase, and enzyme associated with activity of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.” [Judith Sumner, American Household Botany: A History of Useful Plants 1620 – 1900 (Portland: Timber Press, 2004), pp. 91-92]. The fact is, we do not really know much about the implications of the chemistry of the potato, and the Incas are not here to provide us with details about their historical/gastronomical association with potatoes. We can only guess.

Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Europeans perfected the production of potatoes with few obstacles. Bearing in mind the tragic Irish famine that is associated with potatoes, no such events appeared to happen on the European continent of such magnitude. As a matter of fact, because the potato provided such good nutrition to the continent’s inhabitants, the European population more than quadrupled over the past 200 years. “European populations increased in size as peasants began growing potatoes for their own use….” [Sumner, p. 89]. Moreover, according to historian Tom Kemp, “expansion of demand for agricultural produce, both within Germany and abroad, in the period after 1815 enabled the reorganized agrarian system to prosper.” He continues to say that a combination of political, social and agricultural factors in Germany, including the cultivation of the potato, “…brought a demographic revolution to Germany. Population rose by 59 per cent between 1816 and 1865. In 1820 it had been 25 million…and by 1910 it was almost 65 million. [Tom Kemp, Industrialization in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Longman Group Ltd: New York, 1985), p.85.] In the words of one David Ricardo, “You can make nothing of potatoes but more people, who…will only make more potatoes” [Catherine Gallagher & Stephen Greenblat, Practicing New Historicism (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2001), pp. 133-134].

It is obvious that the leaders in the production of potatoes were the Germans. At the turn of the 20th century, the United States imported huge quantities of potatoes from Germany. American researchers of that period Grubb and Guilford, reported that “during the season of 1911-1912, the United States has imported large quantities of potatoes from Europe. The [US] crop of 1911 was a good many million bushels short of the needs of the nation….’Germany, with an area not more than twice that of Colorado, can and does produce fully two billion bushels of potatoes annually….’”[Eugene H. Grubb and W.S. Guilford, The Potato: A Compilation of Information from Every Available Source (New York: Doubleday Co., 1913], p.3, 5). The Russians and the Poles kept up their own productions and ultimately the potato evolved into a liquid called “vodka.” Variations of spirits likewise appeared in diverse locales of Europe, thus the German potato “schnapps” and its similar versions all over the continent. Cheap food, inexpensive alcohol, and intense sex brought the European population to record growth, then in actuality to intensive and extensive national wars. I would like to propose that the causes of World Wars I and II were directly related to extensive potato production and consumption. One can even attach to the madness of these wars the secret influence of the potato’s ability to bring about mind-change (as mentioned above by Judith Sumner), of which we know very little. After all this is told, the reader is possibly puzzled by these grand strikes on the white canvas producing a watercolor of a picture that might seem fantastic: the Europeans’ consumption of potatoes, which led to their high rate of reproduction and an obsession with drinking potato alcohol, thus causing them to be a bit out of control mentally and producing wars that no one could manage and that begot millions of casualties and tragedies of huge proportions.

Since the history of Jews has been my interest for many years, I will take a detour here to talk about East European Jewry. The introduction of the potato into the diet of Eastern and Central Europe, southern Russia and Poland, where Jews had resided for at least one thousand years, resulted in a quick rise in the general population, and in the Jewish population as well. It is difficult to explain the numerical rise of the East European Jewish population without taking into account the cultivation of potatoes in the vast fields of the Ukraine, Poland and Russia where the Pale settlement Jews endured over many generations. In sort of a fantastical way inspired by a fabled miracle, the potato entered Jewish religious life via the latke, or potato pancake, which has been consumed voraciously on the Chanukah holiday since its introduction in the mid-18th century. Hopefully, no one is naïve enough to suggest that the Maccabees in ancient times ate potato latkes, or levivot, or any other potato products. So we eat potatoes, and we multiply. It is difficult otherwise to figure out the increase in the Jewish population without exploring the arrival of potatoes in Eastern Europe. Jews were in tune with the other Europeans. Of course, the drastic increase of the European population led to an increase in violence in general, and to the infamous anti-Semitism in particular, which came to a boiling point in the 1880’s and caused Jews to start immigrating to America and to other Central European states. Jewish Haskalah (education) and various ideologies, among them Zionism, evolved in Eastern Europe at that time. According to historian Barbara Kreiger, a Jewish man by the name of Meshullam who lived in Palestine and converted to Christianity in the 1850’s “…planted the potatoes, which some travelers assert were unknown in Palestine at the time….The success of Meshullam’s potatoes was a momentous occasion…” [Barbara Kreiger, Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-Century Palestine (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), p. 45] The introduction of the potato to what was then known as Palestine should be considered for its impact on the future population growth and the mental condition of the Palestinians and eventually the Zionist settlers who arrived in the 1890’s, and on the future conflict in the region.

By the early 1900’s, the potato revolution on the European continent was in full swing, and eventually, among other things, led to the Holocaust. But here an explanation is needed. The German love-affair with potatoes and potato production is a well known fact. The largest producers of potato crops by the turn of the 20th century, the Germans developed multiple uses of potatoes as food products, animal products, and alcohol and became the world’s largest consumers of potato products, all the while totally unaware of the consequences the potato would hold for them. For this population, i.e., one that was not hungry but rather well fed with potatoes, followed into the rise of Nazism led by Adolf Hitler, who advocated, among many other crazy ideas, lebensraum (in this case meaning expansion into the vast fields of Poland, the Ukraine and Russia) and the extermination of Jews. Of course, the conquest of the vast territories of Poland and Russia, especially the region where Jews were settled, ended with the Holocaust and the possibility of the Nazis (Germans) to grow more potatoes in this lebensraum. It may appear to be a bit naïve to look at the German experience during World War II and link it to potatoes, but it is inevitable in my mind not to ignore this connection. As a matter of fact, it is worthwhile to look at Gunter Grass’ renowned book and subsequently the great movie The Tin Drum to realize that his story begins with two people having sex in a potato field. I am not sure how Grass’ conscious and subconscious viewed the field of potatoes in the creation of this scene. Of course, Grass is controversial, especially recently, with his memoir, Peeling the Onion [Michael Henry Heim, translator (New York: Harcourt, 2007)], in which he admitted that as a youth, age 15 or 16, he became an SS volunteer. In any case, in the memoir, which I think represents a decent way for him to ask for forgiveness for his participation in the Nazi era experiment, he mentions potatoes at least 15 times. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for him to call his book “Peeling Potatoes” and thus close a chapter in German national and personal shame and consciousness.

Fast-food and slow food restaurants serve huge amounts of fried, baked and mashed potatoes. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the largest producers of potatoes are the Chinese and the Indians. We are not going to analyze here these nations’ mental conditions with such vast production and consumption of potatoes. There are a few more issues concerning potatoes. The American society is absolutely committed to the consumption of potatoes. In a vast product line as well as distribution, the potato has had an impact on our waistlines as well as our mental capabilities of thinking. Since the potato belongs to the night-shade family of plants, in which the leaves are poisonous, is it possible that the spud that produces the leaves has some poison in it, or, as botanist Judith Sumner and others suggest, at least some kind of mind-altering chemicals? Is it possible that in the future we will be able to produce organically a new type of potato that will be pink and will not have the toxic chemicals associated with the current potato? The future is pink.

I would like to apologize to the readers of this article for not having the time to use major libraries in my research on potatoes. Following is a short list of sources of interest about potatoes and potato usage:


Adam, Hans Karl. The International Wine and Food Society’s Guide to German Cookery. Publisher: Bonanza Books, 1967.

Bernand, Carmen. The Incas: People of the Sun. Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Bushnell, G.H.S. Ancient Peoples and Places: Peru.

Conan, Terence and Kroll, Maria. The Vegetable Book. New York: Crescent Books, 1976.

Lemnis, Maria and Vitry, Henryk. Old Polish Traditions in the Kitchen and at the Table. Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1979.

Midgley, John. The Goodness of Potatoes and Root Vegetables. New York: Random House, 1992.

Nelson, Kay Shaw. The Eastern European Cookbook. New York: Dover Publications, Inc; 1977.

Roberts, Annie Lise. Cornucopia: The Lore of Fruits and Vegetables. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1998.

Rysia. Old Warsaw Cook Book. New York: Roy Publishers, 1958.


**************************************
A Note:

For the past eighteen years I have resided in the Berkshires of Massachusetts in the town of Great Barrington, and I must apologize for my fixation on potatoes. However, I always remind myself of another author who lived in this region many years ago who had his own fixation. His was on whales, his name Herman Melville. It seems like this mountainous region produces writers with fixations. Unlike Melville, who did not tend his own whales, I do grow my own potatoes, especially Yukon Gold.

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Barry Rubin: Robert Kagan Really Is Muslim Brotherhood's Useful Idiot

From the American Thinker:"What are we going to do -- support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East?" Thus spake Robert Kagan in advocating regime change in Egypt.

But that raises an interesting question. How many dictators is the United States supporting in the Middle East? Not many. Of course, to the Islamists the kings of Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and all the small Gulf sheikdoms are dictators. Do we regard them as such? If not, there aren't many potential dictators left.

The United States gives some help to Algeria, but that country isn't an American client. So what's left in the dictator category? Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority (though its government has outstayed its term)  and some others have governments picked in free elections. That's about it.

So with Tunisia gone, and the regime's fall welcomed by the United States, Egypt was the only dictatorship the United States was supporting. And indeed, the U.S. government overthrew two dictatorships -- in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and helped make them into (imperfect) democracies.

So was one remaining dictatorship too many? At any rate, Kagan's charge is false, unless he'd like to see the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood overthrow the monarchy with U.S. help.

On the other side, of course, there are a lot of dictatorships:  Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, and the Gaza Strip. Those dictatorships have proven to be pretty durable. Their number is increasing.

Almost everyone has forgotten how the regime that rules Egypt got started in the first place. Kagan's argument parallels what American policymakers said then: Why support a corrupt monarchy when there are these shiny young idealistic officers who will win over the people and thus be more effective bulwarks against Communism. I don't want to give the impression that the 1952 coup was mostly America's doing, but U.S. support was a factor.

The result was disastrous: Gamal Abdel Nasser became leader of the radical Arab faction and turned the Middle East upside-down for two decades.  

In Iran in 1978-1979 the administration of Jimmy Carter applied what we might call Kagan's rule:

"What are we going to do--support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East?"

And so the United States helped push the Shah out of power in the belief that a popular democratic government would emerge, the Iranian people would be happy and they would thank America. There was no need to be afraid of Islamists "taking their share." The resulting regime has turned the region upside down now for three decades. 

Now the United States is doing the same thing. Fearful of being tarred with supporting a dictator (King Farouq, the Shah) it wants to get rid of the old ally and bring in a new democratic model. Certain that the old regime's fall is "inevitable," Washington helps it along. Scoffing at the fear of radicals (nationalists in Egypt's case; Islamists in Iran's case), the United States opens the door wide to them, certain it will be rewarded for that generosity.

Is Robert Kagan an Agent of the Muslim Brotherhood?

After reading this Washington Post column threatening to punish Egypt if it successfully puts down the current Muslim Brotherhood coup attempt, one might reasonably think so...

Of course, Kagan may not be a conscious agent, or in the pay of the Muslim Brotherhood. In which case, he must be be a fellow-traveller, dupe, stooge, or useful idiot.

Andrew McCarthy on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

From National Review:

But we have to mind that. History is rarely a Manichean contest between good and evil. It’s not a choice between the pro-Western shah and Iranian freedom, but between the shah and Khomeini’s ruthless Islamist revolution. It’s not a choice between the pro-Western Musharraf and Pakistani freedom, but between Musharraf and a tense alliance of kleptocratic socialists and Islamists. Back in the 1940s, it was not a choice between the British-backed monarchy and Egyptian freedom, but between the monarchy and a conglomeration of Nasserite pan-Arab socialists, Soviet Communists, and Brotherhood Islamists. And today, the choice is not between the pro-American Mubarak and Egyptian freedom; it is a question of whether to offer tepid support to a pro-American dictator or encourage swift transition to a different kind of tyranny — one certain to be a lot worse for us, for the West at large, and for our Israeli ally: the Muslim Brotherhood tempered only, if at all, by Mohamed ElBaradei, an anti-American leftist who willfully abetted Iran’s nuclear ambitions while running the International Atomic Energy Agency.

History is not a quest for freedom. This is particularly true in the Islamic ummah, where the concept of freedom is not reasoned self-determination, as in the West, but nearly the opposite: perfect submission to Allah’s representative on earth, the Islamic state. Coupled with a Western myopia that elevates democratic forms over the culture of liberty, the failure to heed this truth has, in just the past few years, put Hamas in charge of Gaza, positioned Hezbollah to topple the Lebanese government, and presented Islamists with Kosovo — an enduring sign that, where Islam is concerned, the West can be counted on to back away even from the fundamental principle that a sovereign nation’s territorial integrity is inviolable.

The Obama administration has courted Egyptian Islamists from the start. It invited the Muslim Brotherhood to the president’s 2009 Cairo speech, even though the organization is officially banned in Egypt. It has rolled out the red carpet to the Brotherhood’s Islamist infrastructure in the U.S. — CAIR, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Society of North America, the Ground Zero mosque activists — even though many of them have a documented history of Hamas support. To be sure, the current administration has not been singular in this regard. The courting of Ikhwan-allied Islamists has been a bipartisan project since the early 1990s, and elements of the intelligence community and the State Department have long agitated for a license to cultivate the Brotherhood overtly. They think what Anwar Sadat thought: Hey, we can work with these guys.

There is a very good chance we are about to reap what they’ve sown. We ought to be very afraid.

BTW, the Muslim Brotherhood has it's own English-language website: http://www.ikhwanweb.com.

US State Department Discusses Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Role

From today's daily press briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

QUESTION: Yeah, what about the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, again --

QUESTION: How about Ayman Nour?

QUESTION: Are you talking to the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: This is not our process. This is not our list. We do not have a favorite candidate or candidates. We are not going to anoint any successor to President Mubarak. These are decisions to be made by the Egyptian people as part of a transition that occurs in Egypt. Our point is this transition, this process to fundamental change needs to begin now. If any figure wants to play a role in this process, they can come forward. If any group --

QUESTION: Does that include the Muslim Brotherhood? Does that include the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: If any group wants to come forward and play a role in a democratic process, a peaceful process, that is their right as Egyptians. It’s not for us, the United States, to dictate this.

QUESTION: What about the Muslim Brotherhood? Can you talk about the Muslim Brotherhood and whether there have been any contacts with them and whether you think that the Muslim Brotherhood should be part of any political process? You say you’re not going to anoint anybody, but what if a figure from Muslim Brotherhood emerges as the primary candidate to lead the country?

MR. CROWLEY: Again --

QUESTION: Specifically on the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: We have not met with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: Have you spoken to --

QUESTION: Okay. Can – no, but what if – should they be part of a political process?

MR. CROWLEY: No, we have had no contact with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: But should they be part of a political process? They obviously have a following in the country.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, again, that is up to them. They are a fact of life in Egypt. They are highly organized. And if they choose, and if they choose to participate and respect the democratic process, that is a – those are decisions to be made inside Egypt. The army obviously will play a role in this transition. There are a broad variety of political figures, political groups, political actors that can participate if they choose. These are decisions to be made inside Egypt.

QUESTION: Have you met – have you asked to meet the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: No.

QUESTION: Why not?

QUESTION: Wait. P.J. --

QUESTION: Well, it’s obvious that the --

QUESTION: I mean, you’ve met with other opposition members. Who – can you say who you’ve met with? Ayman Nour, you’ve met with – can you give a decent --

MR. CROWLEY: I don’t have a list here. We are doing an aggressive, active outreach to a broad range of figures. We have always done that. We’re going to continue to do that. We’ve been very active in the last few days. I can’t detail all the people we have and have not. You asked a specific question. We have not had contact with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: But why don’t you meet with the Muslim Brotherhood? What’s the reason not to meet with them?

MR. CROWLEY: I’m – we will meet with figures. If we meet with anyone along those lines, we’ll let you know.

QUESTION: Do you give conditions before you meet with people?

QUESTION: Are you saying that the reports about the meeting with – that Ambassador Wisner has had with the Muslim Brotherhood representatives is false?

MR. CROWLEY: I was in touch with Ambassador Wisner on the airplane as he was coming back. He had two meetings, one with President Mubarak and one with Vice President Suleiman.

QUESTION: So is the report false or is it not false?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, I’m just telling you he had two meetings. So if you’re saying, "Did Mr. Wisner meet with the Muslim Brotherhood," the answer is no.

QUESTION: Why is it obvious that the army is going to play a role in this transition? This is a democratic transition. Shouldn’t it be led by civilians only?

MR. CROWLEY: Again, it’s not for us to determine who wants to participate. The army is a respected institution within Egyptian society. You’re going to go through fundamental changes in Egyptian society. The army, as a respected institution, can play a role in this. But again, these are decisions to be made inside Egypt.

QUESTION: P.J., could you share with us the future --

QUESTION: But why didn’t – wouldn’t it have made sense – wouldn’t it make sense to leave Frank Wisner on the ground a bit longer? You keep talking about the private advice you’re giving the government. You sent this trusted emissary over, he had two meetings, and he came back. Was there nothing more for him to do?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we have an Ambassador, Margaret Scobey, who conducts our day-to-day business with the Government of Egypt. She is doing a brilliant job. She is engaged with members of civil society. She is engaged with political figures every day. And she will be our point person on a day-to-day basis as --

QUESTION: Should we --

MR. CROWLEY: -- Egypt goes through this transition.

QUESTION: Should we interpret that, then, to mean that Wisner accomplished what he was sent there to do? Or that the response was such that there was no point in him staying any longer?

MR. CROWLEY: Ambassador Wisner has a longstanding relationship with President Mubarak and other key leaders within the Egyptian Government. We thought it was useful for Ambassador Wisner to go over and have a two-way conversation as a means of providing his perspective to President Mubarak given their friendship, and also to bring back his judgment as to what the situation is at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government. He will report back to the President and the Secretary when he lands.

Martin Kramer: Obama's Egypt

From Martin Kramer's Facebook response to a recent story on The Atlantic online:

Did White House staff really get a briefing informing them that "Egypt wasn't a Muslim country" and that "Hosni Mubarak was a Coptic Christian of a certain sect"?

US NGOs Become Haiti Election Issue

As a result of the election, Haitians have begun a revolt against NGOs, according to today's Washington Post:

Haitian officials speak of being "overrun" by "an invasion" of NGOs. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said that foreign NGOs operate in Haiti with little regard to government planning and that their presence, while necessary, can actually undermine long-term recovery efforts. By funneling most aid dollars through the NGOs rather than the government, which struggles with a legacy of corruption, the NGOs condemn the country to a cycle of dependence, he said.

Michel Martelly, the popular carnival singer who has become a top contender in the chaotic presidential election, promised that if elected, his government would rein in the NGOs and change how they do business in Haiti.

"We will allow them to function, but I will tell them what to do and where to do it," Martelly said in an interview. "We are going to impose a system to oversee what is done. We are going to get control of them."

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman Tells It Like It Is

The National Endowment for the Arts Chair himself has said it...and it's greatly to his credit:

Examine our arts infrastructure. There are 5.7 million arts workers in this country and two million artists. Do we need three administrators for every artist? Resident theaters in this country began as collectives of artists. They have become collectives of arts administrators. Do we need to consider becoming more lightly institutionalized in order to get more creativity to more audiences more often? It might also allow us to pay artists more.

BRAVO ROCCO! BRAVO!

More at Linda Essig's CreativeInfrastructure blog.

Groundhog Day Verdict: No Shadow This Year

Via the Huffington Post:

Punxsutawney Phil emerged just after dawn on Groundhog Day to make his 125th annual weather forecast in front of a smaller-than-usual crowd who braved muddy, icy conditions to hear his handlers reveal that he had not seen his shadow.

Including Wednesday's forecast, Phil has seen his shadow 98 times and hasn't seen it just 16 times since 1887, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, which runs the event. There are no records for the remaining years, though the group has never failed to issue a forecast.

Two years ago, Phil's forecast also acknowledged the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl XLIII win the night before. This year, Sunday's game was mentioned in the forecast but no winner was predicted between the Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, who meet in Dallas for Super Bowl XLV.

"The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl," Mike Johnson, vice president of the Inner Circle, said just before the forecast was read, drawing cheers from the clearly partisan crowd gathered on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in this borough of about 6,100 residents some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.

In reality, Pennsylvania's prophetic rodent doesn't see much of anything. The result is actually decided in advance by 14 members of the Inner Circle, who don tuxedos and top hats for the event.

Marc Ginsberg on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

From the Huffington Post:

Given its status as an illegal organization, there are only rough guestimates how many Egyptians would identify themselves as either members or support of the Brotherhood until its cells emerge from their secret hiding places.

That poses a real dilemma for anyone trying to accurately predict the Brotherhood's political strength in any free and fair election, of which there hasn't been any in Egypt.

Moreover, since 1928, its virulent paleo-jihadi salafist ideology remains a cornerstone of its political charter. It's Arabic motto remains unchanged: "Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope... Allahu akbar!"

And despite efforts to sanitize its salafist rhetoric, the Brotherhood is patently undemocratic in its rigid orthodoxy. Although banned, it fields candidates for Egypt's parliament as "independents" and have, by objective observers, accounted for garnering at least 20% of the parliamentary vote in 2005. No one knows what would happen if it were permitted to field more candidates in a free and fair election.

It's preoccupation with Egypt's parliamentary elections is merely a means to an end. The Brothers have been consistent in their goal to use whatever political avenues avail themselves to monopolize power, and then, pass whatever man-made laws are necessary to usher in Allah's ultimate law on the land.

Also, let us not forget that the Muslim Brotherhood is the primary benefactor and best friend of the terrorist organization, Hamas, which it spawned. However it may be cloaked in inoffensive-sounding language, the Brothers share Hamas' unmitigated hatred of Jews and Israel. And it is the hub of a largely underground radical Islamist political wheel, with many spokes in each major Arab nation... a true transnational Islamic political apparatus.

This is just the tip of a deep, foreboding iceberg. It would be short-sighted and naive for anyone to assert that as currently constituted, the Brotherhood has defanged itself to accommodate its future to a globalizing, more peaceful moderate Islamic institution.

Nonie Darwish on Egypt

From the Huffington Post:

I am therefore not optimistic that the current uprising will bring democracy. Many Egyptians believe they can combine democracy with Sharia Islamic law. That is the first unrealistic expectation. Sixty percent of Egyptians want to live under Sharia law, but do not understand the ramifications. Many chant "Allahu Akbar" and "Islam is the solution." But the truth is, Islam can be the problem.

The most dangerous law in Sharia that stands in the way of democracy is the one that states, "A Muslim head of state can hold office through seizure of power, meaning through force." That law is why Muslim leaders turn into despots in order to survive. When a Muslim leader is removed from office by force, we often see the Islamic media and masses accept it and even cheer for the new leader who has just ousted or killed the former leader, who is often called a traitor to the Islamic cause.

That was what happened to the Egyptian King Farouk in 1952. The assassination of Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, followed many fatwas of death against him for having violated his Islamic obligations to make Israel an eternal enemy. He became an apostate in the eyes of the hard-liners and had to be killed or removed from office. This is the reality of what Sharia has done and is still doing that causes political chaos in the Muslim world.

Many in the Muslim world lack the understanding of what is hindering them, as well as the foundation for forming a stable democratic political system. I fear that my brothers and sisters in Egypt will embrace extremism instead of education. I worry that they will continue to rise and fall, stumbling from one revolution to another and living from one autocrat to another while seeking the ideal Islamic state that never was. The 1,400 year old Islamic history of tyranny will continue unless Sharia law is rejected as the basis of the legal and political systems in Muslim countries.