From The Washington Post:
"Two weeks later, another e-mail arrived on the same topic. It was from a Howard University classmate, a friend of 47 years, former assistant secretary of the Air Force Rodney Coleman. A Democrat, Coleman has local roots, having worked for the D.C. Council and later the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. Bill Clinton appointed Coleman to the Pentagon post, in which he served from 1994 to 1998. Somehow, despite our running into each other over the years at various social occasions, Vietnam was never a serious topic of conversation between us. Until now. Coleman, who served in Vietnam for 13 months in 1971-72, wrote that he found disheartening the protracted mudslinging between Bush and Kerry and their respective camps about military records. But the favorable conclusion I drew about Kerry's service was, he stated, 'with all due respect, not mine!'
'Some of those 58,000 who died [in Vietnam] were at DaNang with me, and some were under my command, in the 366th Air Force engineering squadron,' Coleman wrote. Then he got to the heart of the matter.
'I vividly recall Kerry's antiwar testimony in April 1971. I was a White House fellow at the time, on a leave of absence from active duty, as were five of the 17 fellows selected. Two of them had Vietnam experience with Silver and Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts awarded for their heroism. In early April 1971, I volunteered to go to Vietnam after my year as a White House fellow. I could have very easily taken steps to forgo a tour in 'Nam, but as an Air Force captain committed to the ideals of the oath of office I took, Vietnam was the only game in town.' The oath of office was a serious matter for products of Howard's ROTC programs. I know. I was commissioned in the Army; Coleman joined the Air Force. Unlike some college campuses, Howard's ROTC programs were a source of pride, having produced, according to the school, more African American general officers than any other university in the country.
"When Kerry made those critical statements of the war," Coleman wrote, "my parents, God bless them, went ballistic about their son going in harm's way. My military colleagues in the fellows program who had been there and were shot up were incensed that a so-called military man would engage in such insubordinate actions. At the time Kerry made those unfortunate remarks, America had POWs and MIAs, among them my friend, Colonel Fred Cherry, the longest-held black POW of the Vietnam War. How could a true American fighting man throw away his medals, while thousands he fought alongside of were in the midst of another example of man's inhumanity to man?"
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Friday, September 24, 2004
Ballerina on the Boat
Last night we watched a DVD called Masters Of Russian Animation, featuring Brezhnev-era cartoons. It was a mixed bag, generally the films for children based on fairy-tales were more appealing than the propagandistic adult-oriented Soviet animation. Can't recommend the DVD overall, but a few short films really were excellent.
Ideya Granina's "Crane Feathers" is striking, Japanese dolls tell a sad story of trapped lives. Yuri Norstein's three shorts were also super: "Fox and Rabbit," about courage, "Heron and Crane," about marriage, and "Hedgehog in the Fog", about life. These are charming Aesop's-fable like morality tales, sweet for children, while bittersweet for adults.
My favorite was Lev Atamanov's "Ballerina on the Boat." A beautiful ballerina comes onto a boat, transforming everyone she meets, rescuing the vessel from a dangerous storm, literally floating away. It reminded me of "Steamroller and Violin," how much art and culture meant to people as an escape from the grim realities of the "Worker's State."
Ideya Granina's "Crane Feathers" is striking, Japanese dolls tell a sad story of trapped lives. Yuri Norstein's three shorts were also super: "Fox and Rabbit," about courage, "Heron and Crane," about marriage, and "Hedgehog in the Fog", about life. These are charming Aesop's-fable like morality tales, sweet for children, while bittersweet for adults.
My favorite was Lev Atamanov's "Ballerina on the Boat." A beautiful ballerina comes onto a boat, transforming everyone she meets, rescuing the vessel from a dangerous storm, literally floating away. It reminded me of "Steamroller and Violin," how much art and culture meant to people as an escape from the grim realities of the "Worker's State."
France Promises Israel Support
FromHaaretz :
"NEW YORK - French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier promised U.S. Jewish leaders Thursday that his country would wage an intransigent battle against anti-Semitic violence and improve its relations with Israel. Barnier met a group of U.S. Jewish community leaders to explain government measures to counter a surge of attacks on Jewish targets in the Paris region and the provinces. 'I told them of the total determination of the president [Jacques Chirac] and the government to fight all forms of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia,' Barnier told reporters."
"NEW YORK - French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier promised U.S. Jewish leaders Thursday that his country would wage an intransigent battle against anti-Semitic violence and improve its relations with Israel. Barnier met a group of U.S. Jewish community leaders to explain government measures to counter a surge of attacks on Jewish targets in the Paris region and the provinces. 'I told them of the total determination of the president [Jacques Chirac] and the government to fight all forms of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia,' Barnier told reporters."
Russia Atones for Stalin's Anti-Jewish Purge
From MosNews.com:
"One of the skeletons rattling in the former Soviet Union's closet was finally put to rest with honors on September 21--it even happened at a cemetery. A newly unveiled memorial at Moscow's Donskoye Cemetery commemorates the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The committee had been created to further Jewish culture in the USSR, but in the 1950s its members, including renowned artists and writers, were eliminated during Stalin's anti-Semitic purge. The story of the committee's end has been unraveled by historians as a stark, chilling testimony of Stalin-era horrors. The committee had been formed in 1942 to create support for the Soviet Union among Jewish communities in the West. Solomon Mykhoels, a well-known Jewish actor, was chosen to head the committee. Many other famous Jewish cultural icons of the time were also active in the committee, including actors, poets, writers, scientists, and others. The committee published a newspaper in Yiddish. It was the first Soviet organization of this kind. Obviously, in the Soviet Union, an atheist state, the uniting factor was Jewish culture, since religion was discouraged. After the war, the committee revived Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, helping preserve Soviet Jews as an ethnicity. The ties it established with Western Jews helped assemble and spread information about the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. After WWII, when the Soviet Union was becoming the center of one of two warring camps in a bipolar world, these ties to the West, which were the very reason the Committee was established, became a threat to the secretive, policing Soviet government."
"One of the skeletons rattling in the former Soviet Union's closet was finally put to rest with honors on September 21--it even happened at a cemetery. A newly unveiled memorial at Moscow's Donskoye Cemetery commemorates the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The committee had been created to further Jewish culture in the USSR, but in the 1950s its members, including renowned artists and writers, were eliminated during Stalin's anti-Semitic purge. The story of the committee's end has been unraveled by historians as a stark, chilling testimony of Stalin-era horrors. The committee had been formed in 1942 to create support for the Soviet Union among Jewish communities in the West. Solomon Mykhoels, a well-known Jewish actor, was chosen to head the committee. Many other famous Jewish cultural icons of the time were also active in the committee, including actors, poets, writers, scientists, and others. The committee published a newspaper in Yiddish. It was the first Soviet organization of this kind. Obviously, in the Soviet Union, an atheist state, the uniting factor was Jewish culture, since religion was discouraged. After the war, the committee revived Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, helping preserve Soviet Jews as an ethnicity. The ties it established with Western Jews helped assemble and spread information about the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. After WWII, when the Soviet Union was becoming the center of one of two warring camps in a bipolar world, these ties to the West, which were the very reason the Committee was established, became a threat to the secretive, policing Soviet government."
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Belmont Club on Terror Networks
Thanks to Instapundit again, here's an interesting link at Belmont Club:
"Vladis Krebs has a case study page examining how mapping social networks and understanding their properties can be used to take down of terrorist networks. Network analysis was used to take down Saddam Hussein. The Washington Post has some of the details."
"Vladis Krebs has a case study page examining how mapping social networks and understanding their properties can be used to take down of terrorist networks. Network analysis was used to take down Saddam Hussein. The Washington Post has some of the details."
Iranian Bloggers v.the Mullahs
From the BBC [tip from Instapundit.com]:
"Hundreds of Iranian online journals have been protesting against media censorship by renaming their websites after pro-reformist newspapers and websites that have been banned or shut down by the authorities. Many of the websites, known as blogs or weblogs, have also posted news items from the banned publications on their websites. The protest was started by blogger Hossein Derakhshan, a student at Toronto university in Canada. He told the BBC that although he felt the action was symbolic, he wanted to show Iranian authorities 'that they would not be able to censor the internet in the same way as they have managed to control other media.'"
"Hundreds of Iranian online journals have been protesting against media censorship by renaming their websites after pro-reformist newspapers and websites that have been banned or shut down by the authorities. Many of the websites, known as blogs or weblogs, have also posted news items from the banned publications on their websites. The protest was started by blogger Hossein Derakhshan, a student at Toronto university in Canada. He told the BBC that although he felt the action was symbolic, he wanted to show Iranian authorities 'that they would not be able to censor the internet in the same way as they have managed to control other media.'"
Samuel Marshak
In our Russian class yesterday, we read a short poem by Samuel Marshak, a renowned poet of the Soviet era, best known as author of a number of children's books. His collaboration with Vladimir Lebedev was legendary, resulting in some 50 works for young readers. Marshak translated Shakespeare, Keats, Blake, Wordsworth, and Kipling for Russian readers, as well.
From Marshak and Lebedev's 1928 About a Foolish Mouse.
From Marshak and Lebedev's 1928 About a Foolish Mouse.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Mark Steyn on John Kerry
From SteynOnLine:
"If it weren't for the small matter of the war for civilization, I'd find it hard to resist a Kerry Presidency. Groucho Marx once observed that an audience will laugh at an actress playing an old lady pretending to fall downstairs, but, for a professional comic to laugh, it has to be a real old lady. That's how I feel about the Kerry campaign. For the professional political analyst, watching Mondale or Dukakis or Howard Dean stuck in the part of the guy who falls downstairs is never very satisfying: they're average, unexceptional fellows whom circumstances have conspired to transform into walking disasters. But Senator Kerry was made for the role, a vain thin-skinned droning blueblood with an indestructible sense of his own status but none at all of his own ridiculousness. If Karl Rove had labored for a decade to produce a walking parody of the contemporary Democratic Party's remoteness, condescension, sense of entitlement, public evasiveness and tortured relationship with military matters, he couldn't have improved on John F Kerry."
"If it weren't for the small matter of the war for civilization, I'd find it hard to resist a Kerry Presidency. Groucho Marx once observed that an audience will laugh at an actress playing an old lady pretending to fall downstairs, but, for a professional comic to laugh, it has to be a real old lady. That's how I feel about the Kerry campaign. For the professional political analyst, watching Mondale or Dukakis or Howard Dean stuck in the part of the guy who falls downstairs is never very satisfying: they're average, unexceptional fellows whom circumstances have conspired to transform into walking disasters. But Senator Kerry was made for the role, a vain thin-skinned droning blueblood with an indestructible sense of his own status but none at all of his own ridiculousness. If Karl Rove had labored for a decade to produce a walking parody of the contemporary Democratic Party's remoteness, condescension, sense of entitlement, public evasiveness and tortured relationship with military matters, he couldn't have improved on John F Kerry."
DiploMad on the USA v. Europe
From The Diplomad:
"Among the features of EU anti-Americanism is lecturing the US about how superior Europe is because of its doles and pensions and, of course, because it's, well, not the USA. We poor American Diplomads have to sit through endless bloviating from Euro colleagues about how Europe has high taxes but excellent public services, unlike in the USA. Of course, that the reality is far different doesn't bother them. OK, yes, we'll gladly grant them that Europe has taxes that are higher than in the US, but, sorry, they don't get much for them: European public services are much, much worse than ours. This statement comes as a shock not only to Europeans, but also to many Americans of the NY Times variety who see high taxes as the answer to every question. Don't believe it? Go to Europe, get sick or hurt, call an ambulance. Then, wait and wait and wait. If that's not the week the ambulance drivers are on strike, when (if) the ambulance comes, you quickly will learn that an American hearse has more life support equipment, and that European paramedics couldn't teach a Boy Scout first aid course. The ambulance, however, will look good compared to the public hospital where you'll be delivered, and, if still alive, you will wish that you were in the hands of American Boy Scouts.
"Our 'friends' the French get upset when we say this, and immediately retort that their medical system is considered (by whom?) the best in the world. Yes, that's the very same system that when the temperature went up a few degrees in the summer let 15,000 people die. Imagine the scandal in the USA if 15,000 people died because the temperature 'shot up' to 95 degrees Fahrenheit! Imagine if we couldn't handle 95 degrees: LA would be a ghost town; Vegas never would have happened; Texas would be a howling wilderness.
"Don't want to get sick? OK, then get robbed on the street, and if you stay in Europe for more than a couple of weeks, there is a very good chance that will happen as crime is skyrocketing -- and the EU solution is to lie about the stats. Then deal with the cops. See where that gets you. See if you don't have the experience one Diplomad's mother-in-law had when her purse was ripped out of her hands in a Madrid street. At the police station bored, listless, unionized cops grumpily took her statement; one then asked, 'So what do you want us to do? Poor people have to live, too.'"
"Among the features of EU anti-Americanism is lecturing the US about how superior Europe is because of its doles and pensions and, of course, because it's, well, not the USA. We poor American Diplomads have to sit through endless bloviating from Euro colleagues about how Europe has high taxes but excellent public services, unlike in the USA. Of course, that the reality is far different doesn't bother them. OK, yes, we'll gladly grant them that Europe has taxes that are higher than in the US, but, sorry, they don't get much for them: European public services are much, much worse than ours. This statement comes as a shock not only to Europeans, but also to many Americans of the NY Times variety who see high taxes as the answer to every question. Don't believe it? Go to Europe, get sick or hurt, call an ambulance. Then, wait and wait and wait. If that's not the week the ambulance drivers are on strike, when (if) the ambulance comes, you quickly will learn that an American hearse has more life support equipment, and that European paramedics couldn't teach a Boy Scout first aid course. The ambulance, however, will look good compared to the public hospital where you'll be delivered, and, if still alive, you will wish that you were in the hands of American Boy Scouts.
"Our 'friends' the French get upset when we say this, and immediately retort that their medical system is considered (by whom?) the best in the world. Yes, that's the very same system that when the temperature went up a few degrees in the summer let 15,000 people die. Imagine the scandal in the USA if 15,000 people died because the temperature 'shot up' to 95 degrees Fahrenheit! Imagine if we couldn't handle 95 degrees: LA would be a ghost town; Vegas never would have happened; Texas would be a howling wilderness.
"Don't want to get sick? OK, then get robbed on the street, and if you stay in Europe for more than a couple of weeks, there is a very good chance that will happen as crime is skyrocketing -- and the EU solution is to lie about the stats. Then deal with the cops. See where that gets you. See if you don't have the experience one Diplomad's mother-in-law had when her purse was ripped out of her hands in a Madrid street. At the police station bored, listless, unionized cops grumpily took her statement; one then asked, 'So what do you want us to do? Poor people have to live, too.'"
Sayings of V.S. Naipaul
From his profile and interview in The Observer, last Sunday:
"On becoming a writer: 'It is mysterious that the ambition should have come first - the wish to be a writer, to have that distinction, that fame - and that this ambition should have come long before I could think of anything to write about.'
On multiculturalism: 'A man can't say, 'I want the country, I want the laws and protection, but I want to live in my own way.' It's become a kind of racket, this multiculturalism.'
On Hindu nationalism in India: 'Dangerous or not, it's a necessary corrective to history and will continue to remain so.'
On the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: 'An extreme form of literary criticism.'"
"On becoming a writer: 'It is mysterious that the ambition should have come first - the wish to be a writer, to have that distinction, that fame - and that this ambition should have come long before I could think of anything to write about.'
On multiculturalism: 'A man can't say, 'I want the country, I want the laws and protection, but I want to live in my own way.' It's become a kind of racket, this multiculturalism.'
On Hindu nationalism in India: 'Dangerous or not, it's a necessary corrective to history and will continue to remain so.'
On the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: 'An extreme form of literary criticism.'"
V.S. Naipaul: Destroy Saudi Arabia and Iran
From The Hindu thanks to Prashant Kothari's blog, this little reported statement from Nobel-prize winning author V.S. Naipaul:
"London, Sept 12. (PTI): Raking up a controversy, Nobel prize winning author Sir Vidia Naipaul has said countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran which foment religious war must be destroyed. The 72-year-old India-born author, in an interview published in 'The Observer' today, however had a word of advise to the people: 'hate oppression, but fear the oppressed.' Naipaul said the thing he saw in the current terrorism was the exulting in other people's death."
"London, Sept 12. (PTI): Raking up a controversy, Nobel prize winning author Sir Vidia Naipaul has said countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran which foment religious war must be destroyed. The 72-year-old India-born author, in an interview published in 'The Observer' today, however had a word of advise to the people: 'hate oppression, but fear the oppressed.' Naipaul said the thing he saw in the current terrorism was the exulting in other people's death."
PrashantKothari.com
I met Prashant Kothari a couple of years ago at the National Press Club. He had a successful business publishing corporate newsletters online. Now he has his own blog, and it is interesting. His company is String Technologies, which has an ad on the site, in case you need some work done...
Nikolai Getman Remembered
An obituary of the Soviet painter and former Gulag prisoner, by Robert Conquest, in The Wall Street Journal:
"Mr. Getman's death comes soon after that of Czeslaw Milosz, with whom I had warm, though not close, relations. He too, though stressing that his own experiences in Communist Poland were not at the Kolyma level, was very concerned that the Westerners he encountered should understand, should really understand, the extreme negativity of the Communist phenomenon. The implication was that the Western vision was still blurred. Mr. Getman has added what one would hope to be a final touch to our understanding."
"Mr. Getman's death comes soon after that of Czeslaw Milosz, with whom I had warm, though not close, relations. He too, though stressing that his own experiences in Communist Poland were not at the Kolyma level, was very concerned that the Westerners he encountered should understand, should really understand, the extreme negativity of the Communist phenomenon. The implication was that the Western vision was still blurred. Mr. Getman has added what one would hope to be a final touch to our understanding."
Our First Tip
We just processed our first donation via the Amazon.com tip jar (down below the links in the left-hand column), and would like to say our "Thank You!" to our contributor.
Daniel Wiener on CBS and the Presidential Debates
From Wienerlog:
"The Drudge Report claims that Bush officials want CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer removed as the moderator for the final (Oct. 13th) Presidential debate. If true, this would appear to be a clever move to keep the story about the CBS forged document scandal in the public eye, while simultaneously punishing CBS for it's biased and shoddy journalism. But characterizing it as merely a 'clever move' misses the underlying genius. It would be a BRILLIANT political move, simultaneously skewering CBS and the Kerry campaign..."
[link from RogerLSimon.com]
"The Drudge Report claims that Bush officials want CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer removed as the moderator for the final (Oct. 13th) Presidential debate. If true, this would appear to be a clever move to keep the story about the CBS forged document scandal in the public eye, while simultaneously punishing CBS for it's biased and shoddy journalism. But characterizing it as merely a 'clever move' misses the underlying genius. It would be a BRILLIANT political move, simultaneously skewering CBS and the Kerry campaign..."
[link from RogerLSimon.com]
Bruce Feirstein on Dan Rather's Forgeries
From The New York Observer:
"Yes sir, Dan-O: The "essential truth" is that your credibility is now lower than a piece of armadillo road kill, flattened by a blogger driving an 18-wheeler out on I-20 somewhere west of Abilene.
"Or, to use one of your more colorful Dan-isms from the last Presidential election: The chances of CBS and Dan Rather coming out of this with their reputations intact are somewhere between slim and none--and Slim just left the state.
"And with all due respect here, sir: All this--for what? To prove that a Congressman's kid got special treatment in the National Guard? Hell, that's not criminal. It's practically the American Way. Look at the news business, publishing, movies, union jobs in Detroit--even most of our recent Presidential candidates."
[link via Romanesko]
"Yes sir, Dan-O: The "essential truth" is that your credibility is now lower than a piece of armadillo road kill, flattened by a blogger driving an 18-wheeler out on I-20 somewhere west of Abilene.
"Or, to use one of your more colorful Dan-isms from the last Presidential election: The chances of CBS and Dan Rather coming out of this with their reputations intact are somewhere between slim and none--and Slim just left the state.
"And with all due respect here, sir: All this--for what? To prove that a Congressman's kid got special treatment in the National Guard? Hell, that's not criminal. It's practically the American Way. Look at the news business, publishing, movies, union jobs in Detroit--even most of our recent Presidential candidates."
[link via Romanesko]
Dan Rather's Forgeries = Journalism's Watergate
Says Eric Fettmann:
"LAST week, as the furor over Dan Rather's National Guard memos grew more and more intense, media critic Ken Auletta, appearing on PBS, criticized Fox News Channel for having 'treated this story as if it were Watergate. It's not Watergate.' Actually, in many respects, it is indeed broadcast journalism's Watergate."
[tip from powerlineblog.com]
"LAST week, as the furor over Dan Rather's National Guard memos grew more and more intense, media critic Ken Auletta, appearing on PBS, criticized Fox News Channel for having 'treated this story as if it were Watergate. It's not Watergate.' Actually, in many respects, it is indeed broadcast journalism's Watergate."
[tip from powerlineblog.com]
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Ernest Miller on CBS's Fraudulent Response
From Corante > The Importance of... > Incompetent or Unethical? The Story of CBS News' Response to Criticism Over the Killian Memos:
"I should also note that this isn't about Dan Rather. I couldn't care less about Dan Rather. This is about CBS News as an organization. Although Dan Rather has been the focus for attention for many, the majority of my criticisms are directed at CBS News as a whole.
"Whether you agree that the documents are forged, clearly credible and legitimate questions about their authenticity have been raised. CBS News has not responded to criticisms with transparency and responsibility we should expect from any news organization, let alone such a large and important one.
"The following is an analysis and timeline of CBS's response to their critics. It is abundantly clear that CBS's actions when questioned about the validity of their reporting are a breach of what should be fundamental journalistic practice. Either that, or CBS News is hopelessly incompetent.
If I've missed something or erred, please let me know."
"I should also note that this isn't about Dan Rather. I couldn't care less about Dan Rather. This is about CBS News as an organization. Although Dan Rather has been the focus for attention for many, the majority of my criticisms are directed at CBS News as a whole.
"Whether you agree that the documents are forged, clearly credible and legitimate questions about their authenticity have been raised. CBS News has not responded to criticisms with transparency and responsibility we should expect from any news organization, let alone such a large and important one.
"The following is an analysis and timeline of CBS's response to their critics. It is abundantly clear that CBS's actions when questioned about the validity of their reporting are a breach of what should be fundamental journalistic practice. Either that, or CBS News is hopelessly incompetent.
If I've missed something or erred, please let me know."
Roger L. Simon Calls Dan Rather A Liar
There, someone's finally said it, Roger L. Simon:
"But the question remains, had the anchorman done so, would he have had the intellectual capacity to have understood what he read. Maybe that's the secret to being a good liar. You can't comprehend what your critics are saying."
"But the question remains, had the anchorman done so, would he have had the intellectual capacity to have understood what he read. Maybe that's the secret to being a good liar. You can't comprehend what your critics are saying."
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