Philip Morrison, RIP

A nice obituary forPhilip Morrison, 1915 – 2005, on Space.com.

I met Morrison while in high school. He was really an inspirational figure. Our physics teacher, Mr. Burkhardt, was a fan, and took us to see him speak, I seem to remember, at both UCLA and Cal Tech. He talked about making the first atomic bomb, and about the search for intelligent life in the universe. He was really a charismatic guy, and after seeing him talk, and shaking his hand, I wanted to be a physicist. But, sorry to say, I somehow lost my math ability in college, and ended up studying television. While it was sad to read that he had died, it was good to see that I wasn't the only person to find him impressive and charismatic...

Federal Arts Bureaucrats Destroying Arts Education (Part I)

The "dumbing down" of America, thanks to federally-funded arts bureaucrats, continues relentlessly in the Bush administration, according to this fascinating account by Jackie Trescott in the Washington Post. Probably because they can't make any administrative overhead from grants for "arts education", administrators at the National Gallery of Art are going to put the wonderful volunteer docent guided tours for schoolgroups on "hiatus" (meaning cancellation, in the language of cowardly bureaucrats). Trescott should win a Pulitzer for her coverage of Washington, DC arts institutions and their stupid decisions. Here's here lede:

The National Gallery of Art is suspending its school tours for the next academic year as part of a general reevaluation of its educational programs. The guided tours served 34,000 students last year.

BTW, IMHO "Rusty" Powell, currently head of the National Gallery of Art, practically destroyed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during his tenure there. So this kind of destructive decision by his staff isn't surprising. The only surprising thing is that there hasn't been more of an outcry from Congress on this one.

But of course, who in the "arts community" or the "education community" actually cares about DC-area school children learning about Renaissance Art?

Vladimir Putin: This Year in Jerusalem

Putin Makes Historic Visit to Israel is the headline on today's AP story. It's Russian Orthodox Easter and Jewish Passover (not Western Easter, significantly). Putin is in Israel, reviving the Russian-Israeli relationship that began in 1948. As Frank Sinatra might have said, "this could be the start of something big." Stay tuned, I think Russia may end up with the warm-water Mediterranean port she's been looking for for a long time. Reason--linguistic and cultural ties, business relations, and a common enemy: Islamist fundamentalism and terror. Plus Russian oil companies are competing with Arab ones right now, and the enemy of my enemy is...

Putin Blinks on Khodorkovsky

News from Moscow that Khodorkovsky's verdict will come down after V-E Day celebrations means Putin was afraid to convict him before Bush shows up--which means Bush has to give that Reaganesque speech on May 9th, linking WWII victory to Khodorkovsky's fate (Reagan got Sharansky out of jail, after he was convicted of spying): "Mr. Putin, Let Mr. Khodorkovsky go!" (Putin can collect any outstanding liabilities in civil court, Bush can add, if he likes...). It will help Russia, help business, help civil rights, and help America, too. Is Bush up to this? Ask Secretary of State Rice.

Latest on the Khodorkovsky Case

Verdict is due Wednesday. Here's a link toKhodorkovskyTrial.com - Press Center for Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

I still think Putin should let him go, before Bush's visit on May 9th, even if he's found guilty...

Outing the Bolton Haters (Cont'd.)

First, Colin Powell, now fashion diva Diana Vreeland's son Frederick, according to Powerlineblog. Who will be outed next?

Interestingly, Vreeland is apparently an Israel-hater as well as a Bolton-hater, according to Powerline's analysis of an article Vreeland published in the International Herald Tribune in 2003 (thanks to LittleGreenFootballs for the link):

So Frederick Vreeland's opposition to Bolton, which is being promoted as a non-partisan critique by a "former colleague," throws the issue of Bolton's nomination into stark relief. John Bolton stands for a certain set of opinons and values, which mirror those of President Bush: he doesn't think America is to blame for terrorist attacks; he doesn't think the U.N. is morally superior to the U.S.; he thinks the job of an American diplomat is to advance the interests of the United States, not other countries; and he sees neither virtue nor advantage in treachery toward American allies, especially Israel. Bolton's enemies hate him because of these values and opinions, not because he lacks the suave manners of the State Department clique that, for decades, has gotten everything wrong about the Middle East.

"White Trash" Culture Oppresses African-Americans

Today's Wall Street Journal has a really fascinating column by Thomas Sowell. He analyzes racial myths, and comes to the conclusion that African-American progress has been hindered by the acceptance of "redneck" cultural values which discount the importance of education. Sowell argues that what is currently presented as "authentically" African-American culture is nothing of the kind, rather the remnants of a "redneck" environment in the American South. Sowell's thesis is sure to be controversial, but it seems to me that he is onto something significant. It makes me curious to read his new book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

Here is a sample:

The culture of the people who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produced far lower levels of intellectual and economic achievement, as well as far higher levels of violence and sexual promiscuity. That culture had its own way of talking, not only in the pronunciation of particular words but also in a loud, dramatic style of oratory with vivid imagery, repetitive phrases and repetitive cadences.

Although that style originated on the other side of the Atlantic in centuries past, it became for generations the style of both religious oratory and political oratory among Southern whites and among Southern blacks--not only in the South but in the Northern ghettos in which Southern blacks settled. It was a style used by Southern white politicians in the era of Jim Crow and later by black civil rights leaders fighting Jim Crow. Martin Luther King's famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was a classic example of that style.

While a third of the white population of the U.S. lived within the redneck culture, more than 90% of the black population did. Although that culture eroded away over the generations, it did so at different rates in different places and among different people. It eroded away much faster in Britain than in the U.S. and somewhat faster among Southern whites than among Southern blacks, who had fewer opportunities for education or for the rewards that came with escape from that counterproductive culture.

Nevertheless the process took a long time. As late as the First World War, white soldiers from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi scored lower on mental tests than black soldiers from Ohio, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Again, neither race nor racism can explain that--and neither can slavery.

The redneck culture proved to be a major handicap for both whites and blacks who absorbed it. Today, the last remnants of that culture can still be found in the worst of the black ghettos, whether in the North or the South, for the ghettos of the North were settled by blacks from the South. The counterproductive and self-destructive culture of black rednecks in today's ghettos is regarded by many as the only "authentic" black culture--and, for that reason, something not to be tampered with. Their talk, their attitudes, and their behavior are regarded as sacrosanct.

The people who take this view may think of themselves as friends of blacks. But they are the kinds of friends who can do more harm than enemies.

Putin: "Russia should continue its civilising mission..."

In his address to the nation, (online at http://www.kremlin.ru), Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin made a moral and intellectual case for Russia's equal partnership with the USA in the global war on terror, reminding the world of Allied victory in WWII (and silently contrasting that unconditional victory with the current uncomfortable stalemate Bush and the West currently faces in Iraq and against Al Qaeda).

Putin quoted from three Russian authors: Ivan Ilyin, Sergei Witte, and Lev Petrazhitsky. Kremlinologists might take note of the significance of these citations. All the authors are well-known to Russian intellectuals.

Ilyin is a renowned exiled Slavophile philosopher. Dmitri Trenin has an interesting study of Russian Pan-Slavism and territorial expansion on the Moscow Carnegie Center Website that discusses Ilyin's idea of Russia as a "living organism" that must grow or die. Ilyin is apparently popular today with a number of different political tendencies, ranging from Zhirinovsky's nationalists, to Zuganov's communists, to Russian liberals.

Count Witte was a brilliant yet tragic modernizer who built the Trans-Siberian Railway and negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War at the Portsmouth, NH peace conference sponsored by President Teddy Roosevelt. Appointed by Alexander III, after a number of ups and downs, this advocate of a parliamentary democracy was eventually moved aside by Nicholas II in 1906. The failed 1905 Revolution was his undoing.

Finally,Lev Petrazhitsky was mentor to Mikhail Reisner, a leading theorist of Soviet law, according to Sergei Golunsky & Mikhail Strogovich, in "The Theory of State and Law," He was an idealist, who believed " . . . law is only a psychic phenomenon. . . It exists only as spiritual experience -- emotions -- in the psyche of human beings. Legal norms themselves, statutes, etc., have no real existence; they are merely figments of imagination, fantastic notions, 'phantasmata' in Petrazhitsky's terminology".

Apparently Putin is calling upon both Russian and Soviet traditions here, to build a base for his own vision of Russian society--a democracy that still will be uniquely Russian--in a Russia that is tied closely to Europe and the West, splitting the difference between Tsarist and Soviet eras.

Some excerpts:

Very soon, on May 9, we shall celebrate the 60th anniversary of victory. This day can deservedly be called the day of civilisation’s triumph over fascism. Our common victory enabled us to defend the principles of freedom, independence and equality between all peoples and nations.

It is clear for us that this victory was not achieved through arms alone but was won also through the strong spirit of all the peoples who were united at that time within a single state. Their unity emerged victorious over inhumanity, genocide and the ambitions of one nation to impose its will on others.

But the terrible lessons of the past also define imperatives for the present. And Russia, bound to the former Soviet republics – now independent countries – through a common history, and through the Russian language and the great culture that we share, cannot ignore the general desire for freedom.

Today, with independent countries now formed and developing in the post-Soviet area, we want to work together to correspond to humanistic values, open up broad possibilities for personal and collective success, achieve for ourselves the standards of civilisation we have worked hard for – standards that would enable us to build a common economic, humanitarian and legal space.

We will stand up for Russia’s foreign political interests, but we also want our closest neighbours to develop their economies and strengthen their international authority. We would like to achieve synchronisation of the pace and parameters of reform processes underway in Russia and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. We are ready to draw on the genuinely useful experience of our neighbours and also to share with them our own ideas and the results of our work.

Our objectives on the international stage are very clear – to ensure the security of our borders and create favourable external conditions for the resolution of our domestic problems. We are not inventing anything new and we seek to make use of all that European civilisation and world history has accumulated.

Also certain is that Russia should continue its civilising mission on the Eurasian continent. This mission consists in ensuring that democratic values, combined with national interests, enrich and strengthen our historic community.

We consider international support for the respect of the rights of Russians abroad an issue of major importance, one that cannot be the subject of political and diplomatic bargaining. We hope that the new members of NATO and the European Union in the post-Soviet area will show their respect for human rights, including the rights of ethnic minorities, through their actions.

Countries that do not respect and cannot guarantee human rights themselves do not have the right to demand that others respect these same rights.

Let's see how Bush answers Putin's offer on May 9th.

Putin & Bush Celebrate Allied Elbe Anniversary

No doubt Condoleeza Rice worked on this statement. Could it signal the rekindling of a beautiful friendship?

MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) - Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush made a joint statement on the 60th anniversary of Soviet and US troops meeting on the Elbe, Germany, toward the end of World War II, reports the Kremlin press service.We are offering an unabridged text of this statement by the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America. "Soviet and American troops met on the Elbe river sixty years ago this day, April 25, 1945. "The two nations will ever remember epoch-making handshakes on the Elbe, which came among the most spectacular symbols of our countries' martial fraternity as they were together fighting Nazi tyranny, oppression and aggression.

We bow to the feats of martial valor performed by Allied soldiers. We shall never forget the sacrifices they made for the sake of Allied victory.

"The sixty years since that day have seen reconciliation in Europe, overcoming the Cold War aftermath, the fall of barriers that used to divide countries and nations, the increase of affluence, and progress of liberty and democracy.

"The century starting now has seen new challenges to our countries' security, terrorism and mass destruction weapon proliferation among them. However, the chances are building up to achieve lasting peace based on the law and on shared values of freedom and democracy. Russia and the United States are working for ever-closer partnerly ties. In this situation, the meeting on the Elbe reminds us of the vast benefits we can provide to our two countries and to the whole world, when we are at one in the face of global challenges to use our newfound opportunities for progress and partnership."

Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Italian Liberation

at Harry's Place.

Bill Kristol: "Only girlie men need apply..."

President George W. Bush can't afford to fold on Bolton without becoming, in the analytic of George F. Will, an instant "lame duck." Kristol expands on the political significance of the Bolton fight in The Weekly Standard:

But it is ridiculous to spend time dealing with these charges. Indeed, I suspect even the anti-Bush Doctrine Republican senators on the Foreign Relations Committee will ultimately be too embarrassed to hang a "No" vote on such flimsy scaffolding.

And do the Democrats--the party of Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright--really want to have as a new standard for exclusion from high office whether an official has ever lost his or her temper? For future government jobs, perhaps the Democrats should add to the job description: Only girlie men need apply.

But to dismiss the assault on Bolton as farcical and inconsequential is to miss its real meaning, and its impact if successful. True, if Bolton is not confirmed, another Bush-doctrine believer will be nominated for U.N. ambassador, and, under Condoleezza Rice's direction, the Bush foreign-policy caravan will move on.

But that's not all this fight is about. Bolton's accusers want to send the message that it's okay, perhaps, to agree with a conservative president's policies--but it's a career-ender if you take on the bureaucracy or the establishment aggressively on behalf of the president.

Internet Haganah

Today's Washington Post had a cover story on Aaron Weisbrud, the blogger who tracks down pro-terrorist websites.

Weisburd, 41, a half-Irish, half-Jewish New Yorker, said that like other Americans he was deeply affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He wanted to enlist in the military, but his age and health issues made that impossible.

Then, about a year later, he saw a news story about a Web site that showed what appeared to be a kindergarten class in the Gaza Strip acting out terrorist attacks. He was outraged and went to his computer to do some research, eventually discovering the name of the company hosting the site. He e-mailed the owner of the Web-hosting company at 6 a.m. By 8 a.m. the site was down.

From that success, the former philosophy major from George Washington University set up "Internet Haganah,"-- the latter word in Hebrew means "defense" and was the name of the underground Jewish militia in British-controlled Palestine from 1920 to 1948. The site, dedicated to fighting back against Islamic terrorist sites, has more than 30,000 unique visitors each month.

On another morning that same week in early April, Weisburd called up an e-mail informing him that someone on a Yahoo bulletin board was soliciting donations to go on a "jihad" somewhere. Within a few minutes, Weisburd is able to find three of the messages and trace their origin -- from cable modems at someone's home and at a New England school district. He hit the forward button and sent the information off to a law enforcement contact.

For some reason, Post editors didn't seem to want to put a link to the site in their story's lede, so, here's a link to Internet Haganah (http://haganah.org.il/haganah/).

Still More Pathetic Bolton Charges

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

In her letter, Ms Finney said she was a lawyer-adviser working on policies when Mr Bolton called her into his office in late 1982 or early 1983. She wrote that he asked her to persuade delegates from other countries to vote with the US to weaken World Health Organisation restrictions on marketing of formula in the developing world.

She said she refused because improper use of the formula can be deadly. Mr Bolton then 'shouted that Nestle [one of the biggest producers of formula] was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan'.

'He yelled that if I didn't obey him, he would fire me,' she wrote. 'I said I could not live with myself if even one baby died because of something I did ... He screamed that I was fired.'

The State Department would not comment. But on Friday, a spokesman said once the allegations were explored, it would lead to the 'inescapable conclusion that Mr Bolton would be an excellent ambassador'.

Guess what? Once again, Bolton didn't fire her because he couldn't fire her. All he did was move her to another office...

We really will need a full set of hearings to decide this question. Fairness to Bolton and Bush means the nominee must have a chance to face his accusers publicly.

Art of Afghanistan in Washington, DC

Now on display at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, a show of Afghan treasures from the Timurid dynasty. The show got a rave review from Paul Richard in today's Washington Post. Exhibits include artifacts from Iran and Uzbekistan, as well as Afghanistan. The collection will be on display until August.

My Dream Seder

Reality meets the dream in Cousin Lucy's Spoon's story of this year's Passover celebration in Israel.

China's Role in Crushing the 1956 Hungarian Revolt

An interesting analysis of Chinese accounts of the 1956 Hungarian revolt has been posted on Far Outliers. It is based on Chinese sources, and reveals that Krushchev had been quite ambivalent about the 1956 Hungarian revolt. At one point, he was willing to let Hungary go. Only after consulting the Chinese, and reportedly at their urging, did Moscow send tanks into Budapest to preserve Russia's grip on Eastern Europe. The article sort of puts Tienamien Square into historical perspective.

Vladimir Vladimirovich on the New Pope and Condi Rice

The Moscow Times runs a pretty funny satire of the Putin lifestyle from Vladimir Vladomirovich.ru. Today it is all about Putin's reaction to Condi Rice's visit and the election of a new Pope.

Is This The Future of the Movie Business?

Roger L. Simon's link to JibJab's comedy Matzah short led me to explore the Atom Films website, which seems to have a selection ranging from porno to drama to comedy for downloading. And I wondered, is this the future? What Blogging has done for news and idea junkies, what Napster and iTunes have done to the music business seems almost here for visual communication. I think I understand all the excitement about the Grokster case. The long-awaited merger of the PC and TV may be closer than we think.

BTW, there is a link to the P2P lobby's website (yes, Virginia, there is a P2P lobby...) here at P2P United.

Pioneer Publisher Donald E. Herdeck Remembered

Matt Schudel published this interesting obituary of Washington, DC publisher Donald E. Herdeck, founder of Three Continents Press, in today's Washington Post:

Donald E. Herdeck, 80, whose small Washington publishing house brought worldwide attention to dozens of Third World writers, including two winners of the Nobel Prize for literature, died April 20 of congestive heart failure at his home in Pueblo, Colo.

A onetime State Department diplomat, Dr. Herdeck was on the faculty of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service when he decided that the easiest way to obtain the books he wanted to teach in his classes would be to publish them himself. He launched Three Continents Press in 1973 and found his greatest acclaim 15 years later when one of his authors, Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Donald Herdeck's Three Continents Press published the works of two Nobel Prize winners.

Despite scant critical attention and little commercial demand, Dr. Herdeck had published Mahfouz's works in small editions since the 1970s. But the Nobel proved to be a mixed blessing for Three Continents, which had just one employee beside Dr. Herdeck.

The entire stock of Mahfouz's novels, translated into English from Arabic, sold out in one day, and it took weeks to reprint them. Dr. Herdeck received a call at home from an angry bookseller, who scolded him for being "a terrible businessman."

He recounted the conversation to The Washington Post's David Streitfeld: " 'Here you have this wonderful Nobel Prize winner, this wonderful author, and you don't have copies of his books! What's wrong with you?'

"Herdeck responded with something like this: 'And where have you been for the last 12 years, when we had thousands of these books sitting in our warehouse and they sold only in trickles? What was wrong with you?''"

Mark Steyn on John Bolton

This column too good to pass up (thanks to LittleGreenFootballs for the link):

The weak bromides touted by the Dems in lieu of a policy -- a legalistic approach to the war on terror, greater deference to the U.N. and America's ''friends'' -- were defeated at the polls. Since then, they've been further discredited: The failure of terrorist prosecutions in Europe underlines how disastrous John Kerry's serve-'em-with-subpoenas approach would be; the sewer of the Oil-for-Food scandal and the attempts by Kofi Annan to castrate the investigation into it demonstrate yet again that there is no problem in the world today that can't be made worse by letting the U.N. have a hand in solving it; and America's ''friends'' -- by which Kerry meant not allies like Britain and Australia but the likes of France and Canada -- turn out to be some of the countries most implicated in the corruption of U.N. ''humanitarianism.''

Republican voters understand this. Why don't Republican senators? The rap against John Bolton is that he gets annoyed with do-nothing bureaucrats. If that's enough to disqualify you from government service, then 70 percent of citizens who've visited the DMV in John Kerry's Massachusetts are ineligible. Sinking Bolton means handing a huge psychological victory to a federal bureaucracy that so spectacularly failed America on 9/11 and to a U.N. bureaucracy eager for any distraction from its own mess. The Democrats' interest in derailing Bush foreign policy is crude but understandable. But why would even the wimpiest Republican ''moderate'' want to help them out? Who needs capuchin monkeys in the Senate when GOP squishes are so eager to tap-dance for Democrat organ grinders?