Idiocracy

When Judith Warner mentioned the 2005 film Idiocracy in her March 7th New York Times op-ed, I knew that I just had to order it from Netflix. Last night I watched it with someone I know, and the tears were streaming down my cheeks from laughter. Mike Judge & Co. made Office Space, which satirized corporate life. This is just as good. It takes on the contracted-out, super-sized, incomptent nightmare that is America under President George W. Bush through a Swiftian parable of time-travel to a world 500 years in the future--which is, of course, Washington, DC today...

I can't begin to describe it--just watch it, and enjoy.

Robin MacNeil: Fight Islamic Fundamentalism With Art

According to a reporty by Philip Kennicott in today's Washington Post, ex-PBS Newshour anchor Robin MacNeil delivered his call to arms at the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture for arts advocates at Washington DC's Kennedy Center:

And the guest of honor was Robert MacNeil, the journalist, who gave a bold and perhaps even controversial speech that included sustained criticism of religious fundamentalism.

Speaking to about 1,000 of the fervent at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, MacNeil lamented the influence of fundamentalism on science education, individual freedoms and the larger public dialogue about the hot-button moral and political issues of the day. Since he left PBS's "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" in 1995, MacNeil has been chairman of the board of the MacDowell Colony, a tony artists' retreat in New Hampshire. And so, no surprise, he leapt to the defense of artists, in particular, from the influence of fundamentalism and the perils of the culture wars....

..."I think art can be an important weapon in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism," MacNeil said.

I can't find the transcript online yet via google. If and when the text is posted, I'll try to link to it...

Michael R. Winston Remembers Frank M. Snowden, Jr.

A moving tribute to a legendary Howard University professor from Sunday's Washington Post:

The obituary of Frank M. Snowden Jr. noted his pioneering scholarship on blacks in the ancient Greco-Roman world. As important as that is, it is a small part of his achievement as one of the remarkable educators of his time. For close to 50 years he shaped the thinking of thousands of Howard University students.

I can still remember vividly the day in September 1958 when he charged into a seminar room in Founders Library (he never merely walked into a classroom), dropped his green Harvard book bag on the desk and announced without preliminaries that we would begin our discussion of Homer by considering the quotation by Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things." For the next 50 minutes you could hear a pin drop as he masterfully spread before callow freshman honors students the agenda of timeless issues of character, fate and freedom that we would explore in Homer, Plato, Sophocles and Thucydides.

In the succeeding weeks, students observed a professor whose passion for teaching a subject that he regarded as a key to Western culture and history was obvious. He not only opened a world to us, he also inspired confidence in the value of intellect, the indispensability of excellence in work and in life. In that racially segregated era, his teaching and example were crucial resources for students who understood that American society placed them, by law and custom, on the margins and expected them to stay there.

Could anyone be his student and emerge with a feeling of marginality? I doubt it. He believed at the core of his being that a liberal arts education was liberating, in every sense of the word. He quoted the Roman dramatist Terence: "I am a man and I consider nothing human foreign to me."

When Frank Snowden succeeded George Morton Lightfoot in 1940 as the lone teacher of Latin and Greek at Howard, classical languages and literature were dying in American higher education. The revival of the field at Howard was attributable to Snowden's energetic teaching and his advocacy of the classics. In the 1950s and 1960s he emerged as a national leader in the effort to stem creeping vocationalism in liberal arts colleges, insisting that the general education program required of all freshmen and sophomores include classical literature in English translation, to be followed by serious study of foreign languages and literatures.

The Cricket World Cup

You can follow it here, on the ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies website.

Rudy Giuliani's CPAC Speech

Full transcript here. An excerpt:

We’re not a country of one ethnic group. We’re not French or German or Italian or Spanish or whatever group. We’re not Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or anything like that.

We’re all different religions. And we’re all different races.

Since we’re not identified that way, what identifies us as Americans? The thing that identifies us as Americans are our ideas. And our ideas are wonderful ideas. And they’re ideas that the world is moving toward.

Ronald Reagan understood that. He understood that and he was able, therefore, to make very difficult decisions and to stick with them even when they were unpopular.

I remember when he deployed the cruise missiles and pointed them at the Soviets. Very, very unpopular. ABC did a documentary about the end of the world when he did that.

And then I remember when he walked out of Reykjavik —very, very unpopular.

A typical politician wouldn’t have done either of those two things. Maybe even a typical president wouldn’t have done either of those two things, because they made him unpopular. His unfavorability went up; his favorability went down.

So why did he make those decisions? He made those decisions because he could consult something broader than just public opinion. He could consult a set of ideas, a set of principles, a set of goals. And he could say: Well, right now public opinion actually isn’t correct.

Abraham Lincoln had to do the same thing during the Civil War. The Civil War was very, very unpopular. Draft riots in New York in 1863. Three generals that turned out to be failures.

Lincoln was viewed by many, many people as an incompetent president. The war took too long.

Well, Abraham Lincoln actually didn’t have to listen to polls on CNN. They didn’t have them then. (Laughter)

But I suspect, even if they did have polls on CNN, and ABC and NBC, Abraham Lincoln would have made exactly the same decision, which is: It’s my goal to keep this union together. It’s my goal to end slavery in order to extend freedom. And I’m not going to cave in to the immediate pressure of public opinion because, if I do and we end this war and we entreat frustration, we’re going to have two separate countries and they’re going to go to war with each other who knows how many times in the future and we’re going to lose a lot more lives.

And those are the calculations that leaders have to make. And when you do nonbinding resolutions, you’re trying to escape the responsibility of making those decisions. (Applause)

There’s another thing they learned from Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan used to say, "My 80 percent ally is not my 20 percent enemy."

What he meant by that is that we all don’t see eye to eye on everything. You and I have a lot of common beliefs that are the same, and we have some that are different.

You just described your relationship, I think, with your husband, your wife, your children. We don’t all agree on everything.

I don’t agree with myself on everything. (Laughter)

And the point of a presidential election is to figure out who do you believe the most, and what do you think are the most important things for this country at a particular time?

Happy International Women's Day!

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
At a Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, an International Women's Day of no fixed date was proposed to honour the women's rights movement and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. Over 100 women from 17 countries unanimously agreed the proposal. 3 of these women were later elected the first women to the Finnish parliament.

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.

1913-1914
On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1914 further women across Europe held rallies to campaign against the war and to express women's solidarity.

1917
On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for "bread and peace" in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. The date the women's strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.

1918 - 1999
Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women's Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike. For decades, IWD has grown from strength to strength annually. For many years the United Nations has held an annual IWD conference to coordinate international efforts for women's rights and participation in social, political and economic processes. 1975 was designated as 'International Women’s Year' by the United Nations. Women's organisations and governments around the world have also observed IWD annually on 8 March by holding large-scale events that honour women's advancement and while diligently reminding of the continued vigilance and action required to ensure that women's equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life.

NY Times Magazine: Belief in God is Part of Evolution

A very interesting article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, by Robin Marantz Henig, argues that religion is hardwired into our genes--by evolution:

Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.

If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?

New Chief for US Propaganda Board

According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration has chosen AEI scholar James Glassman (author of Dow 36,000, former Washington Post business columnist and Roll Call publisher) to succeed Ken Tomlinson as head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Marti, and Al Hurra's Arabic broadcasting, among other operations.

Reading between the lines of Tomlinson's January resignation letter, it seems Tomlinson could not get the US Senate to confirm his reappointment--no doubt due to scandals swirling around him. Here's the BBG press release:

Broadcasting Board of Governors Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson has asked President Bush not to put his name in nomination for another term. Tomlinson said he serves at the pleasure of the President and plans to remain in office until his successor is confirmed.

In a letter to President Bush dated January 9, Tomlinson said he is proud of his record of service and “appreciated deeply your repeatedly submitting my name to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for reconfirmation to this position. However, I have concluded that it would be far more constructive to write a book about my experiences rather than to seek to continue government service.”

Glassman hosted a 2004 AEI conference, Selling America: How Well Does U.S. Government Broadcasting Work in the Middle East?, which may be related to his appointment as BBG topper. He said this:

The BBG, in its earlier incarnations and this one, has done fine work. But Ambassador Djerejian's advisory group, of which I was a member, made two recommendations regarding broadcasting.

First, we urged that the BBG, like all other elements of public diplomacy, be "brought under the strategic direction" of the White House--through an office headed by a special counselor to the president with Cabinet rank. Today, BBG spends nearly as much money on public diplomacy as the State Department, yet it operates outside the broader policy agenda.

Second, we urged that the BBG, again like all other agencies that practice public diplomacy, set clear objectives that can be measured. The objective should not merely be to build audience, but to "move the needle"--to change attitudes toward the United States. Evidence of the success or failure of broadcasting entities to meet objectives needs to be publicly disseminated.

There should be no fear that journalistic integrity and credibility will be compromised if these recommendations are followed. The point is to set strategic goals, not to interfere with the way specific news or entertainment is broadcast.

Think of it this way: a broad international security strategy is set; then a public diplomacy strategy is set to help implement it. Then the BBG, as part of the public diplomacy apparatus, operates within that strategy.

As an example, it is our strong national interest is to promote democratic regimes in the Arab and Muslim world. That may be the main reason we are in Iraq. Public diplomacy should follow this same track, even--and, in fact, especially, if it means criticizing existing non-democratic regimes. Public diplomacy can often do that when official diplomacy cannot. We will know Al Hurra is succeeding, says an Egyptian born friend, when Sec. Powell is besieged with complaints from heads of government in the Arab world complaining of mistreatment.

As for the prison abuse scandals, public diplomacy should not merely show what Americans have done wrong and what we are trying to set right but should also highlight prison abuse throughout the Arab and Muslim world. It is not an isolated problem.

If I sound disappointed with the greeting the Djerejian report--and others like it--have received, I am. Yes, many of our enemies will never approve of our policies in the Arab and Muslim world, but many others, given a clear and forceful explanation, will. We need to get serious. That was our message. The best sign of seriousness would be establishing the office and the structure we suggest and to fund public diplomacy adequately. It would not be difficult.

IMHO, I do hope Glassman is better at selling America to the world than at predicting the Dow Jones industrial average--currently 12,290.90...

Did Scooter Libby Want To Get Caught?

One of the cliches of Washington is: "It's not the crime, it's the coverup."

In the Scooter Libby case, they may not have been any crime at all prior to the cover-up, but the jury found that there was indeed a criminal cover-up. So, in the aftermath of this guilty verdict, one is moved to ask: "Did Scooter Libby Want To Get Caught?"

He had every incentive to leave the administration, but without appearing disloyal. This conviction enables him to get off a sinking ship--with a clear conscience.

First, Libby is not stupid. He's a Yale graduate and a Columbia Law School alumnus, who had a career at the highest levels of government. He knew better than to lie to a grand jury.

Second, the Libby defense seems to have skipped a number of chances to strike harder--for example, by permitting 11 jurors to decide the case, instead of insisting on 12, which would have thrown a monkey-wrench into the deliberations. Libby must have told his lawyer to "forget it"--strange, given that a new juror might have tipped the balance in what was obviously not an open-and-shut case.

Third, the now-discredited Libby cover-story dragged in Washington reporters--"Bigfoot" reporters like Tim Russert and Judy Miller--apparently against their will. Reporters who were sure to gossip, leak, squeal. Judy Miller went to jail to protect her source, it is true--but in the end, she testified against him...

Who would put top national correspondents in such a difficult position, except a person with a "death wish" who wanted to be caught?

My speculation--and there is no evidence for it other than the results so far--is that Libby may have felt guilty about something going on in the White House, and wanted out, at least at a subconscious level. He couldn't quit, out of loyalty to his superiors and perhaps a personal ethos of service. So, he constructed a complicated scheme that he knew at some level would result in the end of his career as a political operative--he lied.

When he lied to the Grand Jury, Libby sealed his fate (he beat one rap on lying to the FBI). He was then out of the game, and would no longer be involved in US foreign policy failures like Iraq and Afganistan--no doubt under his purview as Vice President Cheney's "go-to guy".

Further evidence is found in Libby's reputation. Almost everyone who has met him says he's a nice guy, a smart guy--not malicious. He wrote a novel that took 20 years to complete: The Apprentice: A NovelSuch a character might have felt uncomfortable doing the heavy lifting for others who may not be so nice.

With a conviction on his record, he's definitely not coming back to work in the Bush administration. Even if he's pardoned, it unlikely that he will be able to resume a legal career. Supposing that he is jailed until 2008 (President Bush might pardon him on his way out of town, without any repercussions), he will have plenty of time to write another book--and no responsibility whatsoever for the fall of Baghdad, should it happen on the watch of his superiors...

You can buy The Apprentice here, from Amazon:

Libby Juror Worked for Washington Post

Talk about trying your case in the press, according to Editor & Publisher, Libby juror Denis Collins used to work at the Washington Post:

Denis Collins, the juror in the Libby/CIA leak case who delivered a lengthy post-verdict commentary for the press, spent about a decade at The Washington Post, where he covered both metro news and sports, and spent time on the copy desk, according to editors at the paper.

The longtime journalist, who has also written for The Miami Herald and the San Jose Mercury New, is recalled as smart, hardworking and energetic, although not always "coloring within the lines."

The jury convicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief aide to Vice President Cheney, on four of five counts today, including perjury and obstruction of justice. Collins, whose identity was not known until today, came out of the courthouse and spoke to the press, saying that as a former reporter he felt this was the right thing to do.

Cable TV news commentators noted the irony of a former reporter becoming chief jury spokesman -- at least today -- in a trial where reporters played such a central role. Some also wondered how someone who had written a book on spying (including the CIA variety) had made it on this jury.

In the jury selection phase, before Collins name came out, he was identified as having worked with Bob Woodward at the Post and being a neighbor of NBC's Tim Russert. Both would later testify in the case.

Washington, DC sure is a small town...

Byron York on the Libby Verdict

From National Review:

So now Libby has been convicted. His lawyers say they will ask for a new trial and, failing that, they will appeal the verdict. “We have every confidence Mr. Libby ultimately will be vindicated,” lead attorney Ted Wells told reporters. “We believe Mr. Libby is totally innocent and that he didn’t do anything wrong.” If Libby loses again, he could face a maximum of 25 years in prison.

What is next? Libby’s—and Cheney’s—enemies have always hoped that a guilty verdict would result in Libby flipping, in fingering the vice president for some still-unspecified crime for which Cheney would then be tried and convicted, or, even better, impeached and removed from office. “Mr. Libby, are you willing to go to jail to protect Vice President Cheney?” shouted MSNBC’s David Shuster as Libby walked away after his lawyers’ statement. That question will undoubtedly be heard many times in the days to come.

After Libby Conviction, Cheney Must Go...

Because of White House statements like this, when the Valerie Plame leak case first came up several years ago:

"I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." [Bush Remarks: Chicago, Illinois, 9/30/03]

"The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." [White House Briefing, 9/29/03]

Even if the case was a "perjury trap," Libby fell into it--interestingly, juror Denis Collins told the press that he and other jurors felt sorry that Libby appeared to be a fall guy for the Vice President. Given President Bush's 2003 statements, Cheney must go now--or he will surely bring further troubles upon the Bush administration...

Christopher Hitchens on Ayaan Hirsi Ali

From Slate(ht lgf):

W.H. Auden, whose centenary fell late last month, had an extraordinary capacity to summon despair—but in such a way as to simultaneously inspire resistance to fatalism. His most beloved poem is probably September 1, 1939, in which he sees Europe toppling into a chasm of darkness. Reflecting on how this catastrophe for civilization had come about, he wrote:

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analyzed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

"The enlightenment driven away … " This very strong and bitter line came back to me when I saw the hostile, sneaky reviews that have been dogging the success of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's best seller Infidel, which describes the escape of a young Somali woman from sexual chattelhood to a new life in Holland and then (after the slaying of her friend Theo van Gogh) to a fresh exile in the United States. Two of our leading intellectual commentators, Timothy Garton Ash (in the New York Review of Books) and Ian Buruma, described Hirsi Ali, or those who defend her, as "Enlightenment fundamentalist[s]." In Sunday's New York Times Book Review, Buruma made a further borrowing from the language of tyranny and intolerance and described her view as an "absolutist" one.

Now, I know both Garton Ash and Buruma, and I remember what fun they used to have, in the days of the Cold War, with people who proposed a spurious "moral equivalence" between the Soviet and American sides. Much of this critique involved attention to language. Buruma was very mordant about those German leftists who referred to the "consumer terrorism" of the federal republic. You can fill in your own preferred example here; the most egregious were (and, come to think of it, still are) those who would survey the U.S. prison system and compare it to the Gulag.

In her book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says the following: "I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation. After making this voyage I know that one of these two worlds is simply better than the other. Not for its gaudy gadgetry, but for its fundamental values." This is a fairly representative quotation. She has her criticisms of the West, but she prefers it to a society where women are subordinate, censorship is pervasive, and violence is officially preached against unbelievers. As an African victim of, and escapee from, this system, she feels she has acquired the right to say so. What is "fundamentalist" about that?

Washington Times: USAID Supported Hamas Terrorism

Why am I not surprised by Joel Mowbray's report in today's Washington Times?

Millions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid have been given in the past several years to two Palestinian universities -- one of them controlled by Hamas -- that have participated in the advocacy, support or glorification of terrorism.

The funding -- principally in scholarships to individual students -- is being eyed by several members of Congress and their aides, who say it may violate U.S. law.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided more than $140,000 in assistance to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza -- including scholarships to 49 of its students -- since Congress changed the law in 2004 to restrict aid to entities or individuals "involved in or advocating terrorist activity."

No U.S. assistance was directed to Islamic University last year, but USAID continues to fund multimillion-dollar programs through American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which is building a high-tech facility for the school. U.S. law requires that any recipient of U.S. aid have no association with terrorists.

USAID also gave $2.3 million in aid last year to Al-Quds University, which has student groups affiliated with designated terrorist organizations on campus and last month held a weeklong celebration of the man credited with designing and building the first suicide belts more than a decade ago.

"It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayer dollars are going toward institutions that support terrorists," said Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

Melaine Phillips on the "Dialogue of the Demented"

From her March 1st Quadrant Lecture in Sydney, Australia, published on MelaniePhillips.com:

Multiculturalism has produced furthermore two particularly lethal effects. First, it has left all immigrants abandoned, and none more lethally so than young Muslims. For if there is no longer an overarching culture, there is nothing into which minorities can integrate. Many young Muslims, stranded between the backward Asian village culture of their parents and the drug, alcohol and sex-saturated decadence that passes for western civilisation, are filled with disgust and self-disgust – and are thus vulnerable to the predatory jihadis recruiting in youth clubs, in prisons and on campus, who promise them self-respect and a purpose to life based on holy war.

Second, and worse still, multiculturalism has reversed the notions of truth and lies, victim and victimiser. Since minorities can do no wrong, they cannot be held responsible for acts such as suicide bombings which must instead be the fault of their victims. This key confusion, which has caused intellectual and moral paralysis in the west, plays directly into the pathological Muslim victim culture which makes dialogue impossible. Because so many Muslims genuinely believe they are under attack by the west, which is a giant conspiracy to destroy Islam. So they perceive their own aggression as legitimate self-defence, and the west’s defence as aggression.

This fundamental untruth has created a dialogue of the demented. But instead of treating it as the mad discourse that it is and refusing to play along with it, Britain regards it as an extension of its own multicultural, minority rights doctrine which routinely reverses victim and aggressor. So the untruths driving the terror are merely deepened – particularly since the left, which controls British culture, demonises America and Israel. So the central Islamist perception of the Big and Little Satan, America and Israel, is echoed in mainstream British discourse where anti-Americanism is rampant and Israel is well on the way to being delegitimised altogether. This acts as an echo chamber for Muslim prejudice, reinforcing it and fuelling the sense of paranoia and victimisation. And it has also released the virus of Judeophobia.

Since Londonistan was published last summer, there has been a shift in British thinking. Things are now being said which only six months previously would have been considered unsayable. Public opinion has been steadily hardening as a result of a continuing series of events, including the discovery of the transatlantic airliner plot last August and an al Qaeda training camp in an idyllic village in the heart of rural England. People were also appalled when the Home Secretary John Reid visited east London to urge Muslim parents to look out for the ‘tell-tale signs’ that their children were being turned into potential suicide bombers, only to be greeted by a tirade from an Islamist extremist, Abu Izzadeen, who screamed: ‘How dare you come to a Muslim area when over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested?’ This assumption, that there are now ‘Muslim areas’ of Britain where non-Muslims are not welcome, has been allowed to take root, and there have been instances where non-Muslim women walking through such areas have been stoned.

In the face of all this, public opinion is hardening. Last October, the government deliberately provoked a debate about whether it was right for women to wear the full face niqab veil in public offices. That was before we discovered that a prime male suspect for the murder of a police officer had walked unchallenged through Heathrow airport and escaped to Somalia because he was wearing such a veil. And there was uproar when British Airways refused to allow a clerk to wear a small cross on chain round her neck even though it allowed Muslims and Sikhs to wear hijabs, turbans and bangles.

The government is making tougher noises, but progress is still very fitful. It is still appeasing Islamist radicalism. So MB [Muslim Brotherhood] radicals have been brought into government — as advisers on Islamist extremism. We now have sharia compliant mortgages, with a policy to make London the centre of global Islamic banking — even though global Islamic banking is controlled by Saudi Wahabbis, who use the money to radicalise British Muslims and Islamise Britain. And a blind eye is turned to polygamy and to the forced marriage of 14 year old girls.

"Wise Fool" Sweeps Russian Oscars

The Washington Post's Nora Fitzgerald explains why Pavel Lungin's The Island, starring Pyotor Mamonov, is the surprise hit of the this year's Russian movie season:

At the Golden Eagle awards last month, "The Island" won in the categories of feature film, director, actor, cinematography, supporting actor and screenplay.

Mamonov's portrayal of Anatoly "is half-acting and half-Mamonov," Lungin said.

The actor is known in Russia for his unexpected appearances and y urodivy, or wise fool, ways. His rambling acceptance speech for his Golden Eagle -- during which he called Putin a "sissy," told Russian women to make babies and worried that his grandchildren would be speaking Chinese -- was yanked off the air by programmers but became a sensation on the Internet.

"The yurodivy speaks out what everyone else thinks and would like to say," said Ivanova, the film critic. "But the freak is the only one who can say it and get away with it."

Lungin, who is working on a biography of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, said the film "was the opposite of mainstream, and then it was accepted by the mainstream. This was absolutely surprising, and it says something about how people are feeling."

More on Mamonov from Wikipedia.

Happy Purim!

Here's a link to Wikipedia's entry on the meaning of today's Jewish holiday, which celebrates a historic victory over an ancient Persian plan to exterminate the Jews, the triumph of Mordechai and Queen Esther over Haman:

The events leading up to Purim were recorded in the Megillat Esther (the Book of Esther), which became the last of the 24 books of the Tanakh to be canonized by the Great Assembly. The Book of Esther records a series of seemingly unrelated events which took place over a nine-year period during the reign of King Ahasuerus. These events, when seen as a whole, reveal that the "coincidences" are really evidence of Divine intervention operating behind the scenes. This interpretation is developed and explained by Talmudic and other major commentaries on the Megillah.

The holiday of Purim has been held in high esteem by Judaism at all times; some have held that when all the prophetical and hagiographical works are forgotten, the Book of Esther will still be remembered, and, accordingly, the Feast of Purim will continue to be observed (Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1/5a; Maimonides, Yad, Megillah).

Like Chanukkah, Purim's status as a holiday is on a lesser level than those days ordained holy by the Torah. Accordingly, business transactions and even manual labor are allowed on Purim, though in certain places restrictions have been imposed on work (Shulkhan Arukh, Orach Chayim, 696). A special prayer ("Al ha-Nissim"—"For the Miracles") is inserted into the Shemoneh Esrei during evening, morning and afternoon prayers, as well as is included in the Grace after Meals.

The four main mitzvot of the day are:

*listening to the public reading, usually in synagogue, of the Book of Esther in the evening and again in the following morning
*sending food gifts to friends
*giving charity to the poor
*eating a festival meal

Here's a link to Purim Gateway, and another link to Mordechai Housman's English translation of the Book of Esther.

This Just In...

KINO INTERNATIONAL RELEASES ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARY WHO SHALL LIVE AND WHO SHALL DIE? (1982) ON DVD

"There's never been anything quite like this small, spare independent production."
– David Ehrenstein, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

Released to great acclaim and controversy over 25 years ago, Kino International is proud to finally make available on DVD the Holocaust documentary WHO SHALL LIVE AND WHO SHALL DIE? (1982). This penetrating documentary about America's knowledge of the Holocaust during the Second World War dares to ask, "Could the Jews of Europe have been saved?"

Coming with the 21-minute short DEATH MILLS, produced under the supervision of Billy Wilder, Kino’s WHO SHALL LIVE AND WHO SHALL DIE? DVD has a prebook date of March 6, 2007, with a SRP of $29.95. This gripping documentary about America’s complicity in the Holocaust will become available to the general public on April 3.

"A devastating political story" (Annette Insdorf, THE L.A. TIMES), WHO SHALL LIVE AND WHO SHALL DIE? boldly confronts the issue of governmental complicity by exploring the actions and inaction of the Roosevelt Administration and American Jewish leaders. Laurence Jarvik’s “searing” (Yaacov Rodan, THE JEWISH PRESS) film also exposes the political tradeoffs that kept doors closed to Jewish emigrants fleeing the Nazi regime. Requests were made to bomb Auschwitz, set up a Jewish army and construct rescue havens, yet no action was taken.

Containing previously classified information, contemporary interviews and rare newsreel footage, this film is a unique chronicle of important decisions made by the American political and Jewish establishments during World War II. "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? provides a much needed history lesson for all who are either too young to know, or who were never told the facts." (Neil Barsky, Jewish Students Press Service).

SPECIAL FEATURES

DEATH MILLS (1946, 21 Min.)
Produced under the supervision of Billy Wilder.
This War Department Information film forced the German people to face the grim realities of the concentration camps.

WHO SHALL LIVE AND WHO SHALL DIE?
U.S. 1982 85 Min. B&W Not Rated 1.33:1
[Produced by James R. Kurth & Laurence Jarvik]
Directed and edited by Laurence Jarvik
Photographed by Reuben Aaronson, Elliott Davis & Steven Weinstock
© 1981 Blue Light Film Company
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Rodrigo Brandao, Director of Publicity
Kino International
333 W. 39th St. #503
NYC, NY 10018
http://WWW.Kino.com/press
(212) 629-6880, ext. 12

You can buy it from Amazon.com, here:

Giuliani Speaks to CPAC Convention

Hizzoner is in Washington, DC today. Giuliani was introduced by George Will, significantly. Here's what he had to say, according to The Washington Times:

During his lunchtime speech today at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Rudolph W. Giuliani made an important distinction that will resonate among the Republican Party’s core supporters.

“I have no doubt that America will prevail over the Islamic terrorists,” Giuliani told a standing-room only crowd.

A longtime complaint of many conservatives has been the Bush Administration’s unwillingness to identify the essential Islamic nature of the threats posed by Osama Bin Laden, Al qaeda and other terrorists.

Mr. Giuliani was introduced warmly and enthusiastically by newspaper columnist George Will, who recounted the former New York City mayor’s accomplishments.

BTW, Here's a link to a Giuliani fansite

General Fired at Walter Reed...

...shortly after we posted Fire the Generals! Wonder who's next?

You can read the New York Times story here.