Shiva in the Shenandoah Valley?

Last weekend, someone I know and I went to Luray Caverns in Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and were surprised to discover tour groups of Buddhist monks in saffron robes, as well as what looked like a large number of tourists from the subcontinent, among the middle-American types. "What would bring Buddhist monks on a pilgrimmage to a tourist trap on the outskirts of Washington, DC?", we wondered on the drive home.

A few minutes googling the internet provided the answer--stalactites, stalagmites, and the columns they form are sometimes considered to be naturally occuring lingams, representations of Shiva's power and the male principle (in some formations, the male + female principle). It seemed that the monks and visitors from the subcontinent were looking at an American variant of the Amaranth temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, located in Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Instead of garlands and milk, the only religious symbolism in Luray was the "Stalacpipe Organ" (really sort of a xylophone) that played "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" with its hammers tinkling the hanging stalactites. (You can listen to "Red River Valley" here. Or another tune here...)

The whole experience was somewhat supernatural--Luray Caverns are well worth a visit, for both the natural wonders and the human beings who experience them. There's also a car museum, which has a nice collection of sleighs, carriages, and vintage Hudsons, DeSotos, Model Ts, Stanley Steamers, as well as Rolls-Royces that belonged to Pola Negri and Rudolf Valentino--of all things, in all places...

360 degree views, here. And here.

Roger L Simon on PBS's "Islam v. Islamists" Ban

In the New York Post (ht RogerLSimon.com) :

I HAVE to admit the first thing that attracted me to Martyn Burke's "Islam vs. Islamists" was that PBS had suppressed it. As is now well known, the network rejected Burke's documentary - produced with Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev for the network's "American Crossroads" series - on the film's completion. PBS's initial explanation was that the film was not good enough, aesthetically.

Well, yes, I thought, that could be. Most things aren't. As a filmmaker, I know that well. Only one of the films I have written - "Enemies, A Love Story" - can I even watch today. Most PBS documentaries I find so stultifying I'd rather read the phone book.

So I assumed the criticism of Burke's film was valid. Still, I was curious. I had not been entirely satisfied with previous documentaries I had seen on related subjects - "Islam: What the West Needs To Know" and "Obsession" - because, like Al Gore's global-warming film, they were made in the old-fashioned, didactic style of the conventional documentary that always teeters on the edge of propaganda or special pleading. I assumed "Islam vs. Islamists" would be like that.

Boy, was I wrong. Burke's doc is a riveting and creatively made film about the most important subject of our time: What to do about radical Islam?

It confronts this dilemma in a sly, novelistic manner, inter-weaving the stories of good, moderate Muslims with the imams and supposedly "true Muslims" who, not surprisingly, accuse the moderate Muslims of not being Muslims at all.

Soon enough we learn these imams are apologists for terrorism and for the worst kind of medieval religious sadism. (One of them enthusiastically endorses the stoning to death of adulterers by holding up a Koran. "I didn't make this up," he says proudly. "It is written here.") The mostly mild-mannered moderate Muslims are shown to be at risk for their lives, some of them accompanied everywhere by bodyguards.

All this is done with the people talking about themselves and revealing themselves (including the imam responsible for the bloody Danish Cartoons riots). There are no so-called "terrorism experts" or other talking heads interpreting reality for us.

In other words, this is a film, not another one of those didactic docs referred to above...

...I hereby call on my fellow Motion Picture Academy members, whatever their political leanings, to protest this cowardly and un-American act of censorship. As artists, we should be appalled by such blatant disregard of our First Amendment rights. Public funding of PBS should be reconsidered if such reactionary behavior continues.

Happy Mother's Day!

On this holiday, Mark Steyn explains a song that means the world to him:

With Mother’s Day coming up (in North America, anyway: in Britain, it’s the fourth Sunday after Lent), a young lad’s heart naturally turns to thoughts of serenading his mom. And, when it does, he quickly discovers the heyday of mother songs was a century ago. From the Gay Nineties to the Great War, mother songs were a Tin Pan Alley staple and among the biggest hits of the day: “Always Take Mother’s Advice”, “A Boy’s Best Friend Is His Mother”, “Your Mother Is Your Best Friend After All”, “That Old Fashioned Mother Of Mine”, “That Wonderful Mother Of Mine”, “That Old Irish Mother Of Mine”. Old Irish mothers were a thriving sub-genre all by themselves – “Mother Machree”, “Ireland Must Be Heaven For My Mother Came From There”. So were songs for southern mammies, for whose smiles one would walk a million miles. There are songs about dads with excellent taste in mothers: “Daddy Has A Sweetheart And Mother Is Her Name”, “I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad”. There are mother songs about mothers who sang songs, like “Those Songs My Mother Used To Sing” (1912). And songs about elderly mothers – “There’s A Mother Old And Gray Who Needs Me Now” – and even a few that hint at senile decline - “Baby Your Mother As She Babied You, Back In Your Baby Days”.

Other people’s mothers are a different matter. One of my favorite mother songs is by Ivor Novello and Dion Titheradge, and was introduced with appropriate rueful resignation by Jack Buchanan in the 1921 West End revue A To Z. Although it’s brimming with period detail, most fellows of whatever age will have encountered this situation at some time or other. As the verse says, “There may be times when couples need a chaperone/But mothers ought to leave a chap alone”:

My car will meet her
And her mother comes too!
It’s a two-seater
Still her mother comes too!
At Ciro’s when I am free
At dinner, supper or tea
She loves to shimmy with me
And her mother does too!
compare...

I like the way Titheradge keeps the conceit going:

We lunch at Maxim’s
And her mother comes too!
How large a snack seems
When her mother comes too!
And when they’re visiting me,
We finish afternoon tea,
She loves to sit on my knee
And her mother does too!

And he caps the thing with a twist in the final line:

She simply can’t take a snub
I go and sulk at the club,
Then have a bath and a rub
And her brother comes too!

Call Your Nana, May 16th

From Cousin Lucy's Spoon:

Plugging in to the World--my Family

After Plugging into the World, and joining Fausta, Judith, and Noam in an impromptu podcast from my "blogging room," I got word from my cousin Miriam's granddaughter Hilary that she and Miriam will be doing a weekly show on blogtalkradio, Call Your Nana, starting this coming Tuesday, May 16, at 1PM Los Angeles time. If you want to hear it live, and have the opportunity to call in and be part of the show, you can tell blogtalkradio now to send you an email reminder then, based on your very own time zone. All shows are archived, so you can just listen any time after the broadcast. I listened to Hil and Miriam on their pilot show and it was really weird to realize that anyone on the Internet will be able to participate in the conversations we used to have in each other's kitchens.

Welcome to my cyberspace family!

Tony Blair Congratulates Nicolas Sarkozy

On YouTube:

And Now For Something Completely Different...

From The Telegraph (UK) report on Russian riot police (ht Drudge):

Techno music filled the air as officers formed a circle, picked a partner and then demonstrated dozens of different ways to disarm, disable and then finish him off with a gunshot to the back, an exercise that was accompanied by theatrical grunts.

With lengthy demonstrations of Kalashnikov firing, grenade tossing and Chechen killing, the sensitive bit of the exercise seemed in danger of being drowned out.

But then Ajax the attack alsatian appeared and Omon's cuddly side suddenly shone forth.

An officer placed a cat on the ground just yards away from the panting dog.

If Ajax's soul was tormented by this feline temptation, it did not show. After all, this was a dog on whose shoulders lay the responsibility of reshaping Omon's battered reputation.

To the orders of his handler, Ajax proceeded to lick and nuzzle the cat, whose expression of nonchalance only started to slip when the dog lifted it into the air in its jaws, carried it several feet and then gently placed it back on the ground.

"You see," said Maj Gen Alexander Ivanin, commenting through a microphone, "our service dogs wouldn't threaten a thing."

Then it was back to what Omon does best: crowd control.

Judith Miller on George Tenet

From the NY Sun (ht JudithMiller.org):

Mr. Tenet repeatedly tries to distance himself from catastrophes he helped create. While acknowledging that he "did not oppose the president's decision to invade Iraq," he hints that he considered this decision unwise. Yet invariably, he portrays himself, in the words of one national security expert, as "the cat that drops the mouse on the doorstep and then walks away."

While his portrait of the factionalism and distrust within the Administration's inner circle is depressing, so, too, is Mr. Tenet's alleged self-serving passivity in the guise of intelligence neutrality. He was never a policy maker, he contends, merely a provider of intelligence — "just the facts ma'am."

In some cases the claim is simply incredible. Mr. Tenet, after all, was a member of the policy-making "Principals Committee" — the White House inner circle. Though the word "torture" never appears in his index, he was an architect of the CIA's notorious interrogation techniques that have mocked America's claim to be a civilized democracy that abides by national and international law. Although he defends the procedures by arguing that, after September 11, the CIA was on "new ground — legally and morally," he fails to explain what precisely the agency has done to detainees in its custody, or how such repulsive, counterproductive, and illegal conduct was instrumental in "preventing the death of American citizens."

This is an angry book, written after the White House blamed him for the mess it created. Mr. Tenet portrays himself as the latest in a series of "fall guys." But where was he when those policies were being adopted and implemented? Why did he do and say so little at the time? And why, if he could not bring himself to criticize the president he served, did he not quietly resign? He contemplated resigning earlier, he now says, but the president asked him to stay. Only those who remain silently loyal, or at least avoid a ruckus when they go, receive Medals of Freedom.

Juan Gonzalez Documents Ken Burns' Anti-Hispanic Record

In the New York Daily News:

Worse, this is not the first time Burns has inexplicably erased or minimized Latino contributions to American society.

The same thing happened with "Baseball" and "Jazz," says Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who runs an oral history project on World War II Hispanic veterans.

"Burns has done it again," Latin jazz musician and New School music professor Bobby Sanabria told me this week. Sanabria has criticized for years the distorted history of "Jazz," the 19-hour blockbuster film Burns produced in 2001.

"Burns doesn't even acknowledge we [Latinos] existed in Jazz," Sanabria said. "He's a serial eraser of Latinos."

"When you have 19 hours, you'd expect the definitive work," Sanabria said. "Latinos were there from the freakin' beginning of jazz in New Orleans, and he gave us less than three minutes."

From Louis Moreau Gottschalk in the 1850s to Perlops Nunez and Jimmy (Spriggs) Palau, who played with Buddy Bolden in the early ragtime bands, Mexicans and Cubans were major figures in New Orleans music in those early years. None were mentioned by Burns.

Then there is the legendary James Reese Europe, leader of Harlem Hell Fighters Army Band that electrified Europeans and Americans during and after World War I. Burns pays much attention to Europe's band, but never mentions that half the members were Puerto Rican and Cuban. They included Rafael Hernandez, the greatest composer and singer in Puerto Rican history.

Those Latinos created a pipeline of musicians that fed all the great jazz and Broadway bands of the 1920s and 1930s in New York City. But you find none of that in "Jazz," not Mongo Santamaria or Tito Puente or Chico O'Farrill or Machito or all the great Afro-Cuban musicians who so influenced American jazz.

But perhaps the greatest Burns revision of history occurred with his 1994 film "Baseball." In 18 hours of gripping drama, guess how much time Burns devoted to Latino ballplayers?

Six minutes: four to Roberto Clemente, and two to all the other Latinos.

As Milton Jamail, an expert on Latino baseball players, noted in a blistering criticism of the film back in 1994, Burns claimed Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were the two dominant pitchers of the 1960s. Juan Marichal, the Dominican Hall of Famer who was their main nemesis, did not rate a mention. Marichal had more 20-win seasons and a lower earned run average than Gibson and 86 more career victories than Koufax.

Burns simply erased him.

Same for Luis Aparicio, the great Venezuelan shortstop, and Fernando Valenzuela, the Mexican wonder.

But this time around, even the mighty Ken Burns could not ignore the outcry from Latino politicians, national organizations and veterans groups who bombarded PBS with letters and phone calls.

BTW, Here's a link to a website memorializing one Hispanic Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War: Able Seaman Philip Bazaar.

Richard Holbrooke: Honor Heroic Diplomats

In a review of Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust by Mordecai Paldiel in Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Holbrooke draws attention to the significance of saving refugees during World War II--and today...

Imagine that you are a consular officer in the middle of a diplomatic career that you hope will lead to an ambassadorship. There are two rubber stamps on your desk. Using the one that says "APPROVED" would allow the desperate person sitting in front of you to travel to your country legally. Using the other stamp, which says "REJECTED," could mean consigning that person to prison or even death.

It sounds like a simple choice, but there is a catch -- a very big one. The person in front of you is Jewish, and your boss has told you to devise ways not to use the "APPROVED" stamp. Your government does not want these people -- these people waiting outside your office, milling around in the street, hiding in their houses -- in your country. Approve too many visas and your career will be in danger. Follow your instructions and people will probably die.

What would you have done if you had been faced with this situation in 1940? Or if you faced a version of the same situation today featuring, say, refugees from Iraq?

In a movie, the hero would stare out the window, the music would swell, and he would do the right thing (like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, with the famous "letters of transit"). But in the real world, there are few heroes in such situations. Government service is based on the well-founded principle that career officials must follow instructions, lest anarchy prevail. But what happens if those instructions have horrible, or even fatal, consequences -- and not heeding them means jeopardizing your career?

We mocked the defense of many Germans after World War II when they said that they were just following orders or did not know about the death camps. But a similar rationale was used by an overwhelming majority of non-German diplomats in Europe during the 1930s to deny Jews entry into their countries. For every diplomatic hero, there were hundreds of consular officials who played it safe by following orders to restrict Jewish immigration. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Jews whose lives could have been saved were left to fend for themselves; most later died in concentration camps. And this was not just a case of officials passively following instructions. Some were enthusiastic in their rejection of Jewish visa applications. Take, for example, the Brazilian consul in Lyon, France, in 1940, who proudly wrote to his foreign minister that the people swarming around his office were "almost all Jewish or of Semitic origin, and only a few of them may be of interest to us. I therefore believe that by my categorical refusal to grant the visas they request, I will have done Brazil a great service."

Yet a handful of Brazilian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swiss, Turkish, Vatican, Yugoslav, and even Japanese and German diplomats risked their careers, their reputations, and sometimes even their lives to save those who were endangered, mostly Jews whom they did not know, because they believed that their instructions were immoral. Tens of thousands of lives were saved by these heroes. Were it not for the careful investigations carried out by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, in Jerusalem), we would probably not even know most of their names.

PROFILES IN COURAGE

As Mordecai Paldiel points out in his new book, it was not the Germans who punished these brave men and women. It was often their own governments. Yet in the face of such risk, a few diplomats showed great moral courage, knowing full well that they might pay dearly for it.

The most famous of these was Raoul Wallenberg, whose courage and creativity are now legendary. He paid with his life, not at the hands of the Nazis but at the hands of the Soviets, who thought that he was a U.S. spy. Wallenberg, a member of an aristocratic Swedish family, had been sent to Budapest on a special humanitarian mission by President Franklin Roosevelt, which he expanded to include an unauthorized crusade to save Jews.

Most of those in Paldiel's narrative had been given more routine consular or diplomatic assignments, only to find themselves in an unexpected moral dilemma of historic dimensions. Consider, for example, the astonishing story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux. After the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar prohibited the issuance of transit visas to stranded Jewish refugees, Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic, visited the stranded Jewish refugees on the streets, then retreated to his house and tossed and turned in his bed for three nights, sweating profusely. Then he emerged and, according to Paldiel, "flung open the doors to the chancellery, and announced in a loud voice, 'From now on I'm giving everyone visas.'" Sousa Mendes later told his sons that he had "heard a voice, that of his conscience or of God." For a few weeks in June 1940, Sousa Mendes was in a frenzy, issuing visas as fast as he could, even going to the Spanish border to make sure that skeptical border police would honor them. He knew that he was racing against his own government. In July, he was removed from his post and subjected to a nasty investigation personally supervised by Salazar. But Sousa Mendes was unrepentant. "My desire is to be with God against man rather than with man against God," he told his superiors, one of whom later told the investigating tribunal that Sousa Mendes had gone crazy. He was dismissed from government service and, although supported by the Jewish community in Lisbon, died in poverty. Not until after the fall of the Salazar regime did the Portuguese restore his good name and honor to him. Today, there are schools and streets named after him in Portugal. Sousa Mendes' story is typical of those remembered in Paldiel's book -- but these are so few.

Full disclosure: A transit visa from Sousa Mendes saved my mother's family from Hitler...

Congress Grills Spellings Over Education Department Scandals

Will Margaret Spellings be the next Bush Cabinet secretary to fall? That's the implication of this account of her congressional testimony yesterday, from Inside Higher Ed:

Defiant where others might have been contrite, Margaret Spellings largely defended the Education Department’s handling in recent years of perceived wrongdoing in the federal student loan programs at a House of Representatives hearing on Thursday. Her defense did not go over well with the House panel’s Democratic leaders, who subjected the education secretary to intense and sometimes hostile questioning.

It’s possible that nothing Spellings might have said could have produced a different outcome; the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), has been stepping up his criticism of the department’s oversight of the loan programs in recent weeks, and his opening statement — written, obviously, before Spellings uttered a word — asked whether the department’s “monumental ... oversight failures” represented “simply laziness,” “incompetence,” “a deliberate decision to look the other way,” or “a failing more sinister than that?” Not exactly a tone suggesting that Miller and other Democrats were looking for a way to make nice with the secretary.

Even so, Spellings’s stance — vowing to work with lawmakers to fix the problems going forward, but insisting that the department had done pretty much all it could in the past — almost seemed designed to turn up the antagonism level in the room. It certainly had that effect.

Christopher Hitchens on Londonistan

In Vanity Fair (ht lgf):

They say that the past is another country, but let me tell you that it's much more unsettling to find that the present has become another country, too. In my lost youth I lived in Finsbury Park, a shabby area of North London, roughly between the old Arsenal football ground and the Seven Sisters Road. It was a working-class neighborhood, with a good number of Irish and Cypriot immigrants. Your food choices were the inevitable fish-and-chips, plus the curry joint, plus a strong pitch from the Greek and Turkish kebab sellers. There was never much "bother," as the British say, in Finsbury Park. Greeks and Turks might be fighting in Cyprus, but they never lifted a hand to one another in London. Many of the Irish had republican allegiances, but they didn't take that out on the local Protestants. And, even though both Cyprus and Ireland had all the grievances of partitioned former British colonies, it would have seemed inconceivable—unimaginable—that any of their sons would put a bomb on the bus their neighbors used.

Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.

Until he was jailed last year on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, a man known to the police of several countries as Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque. He was a conspicuous figure because, having lost the use of an eye and both hands in an exchange of views in Afghanistan, he sported an opaque eye plus a hook to theatrical effect. Not as nice as he looked, Abu Hamza was nonetheless unfailingly generous with his hospitality. Overnight guests at his mosque's sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001. Other visitors included Ahmed Ressam, arrested for trying to blow up LAX for the millennium, and Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who planned to don an explosive vest and penetrate the American Embassy in Paris. On July 7, 2005 ("7/7," as the British call it), a clutch of bombs exploded in London's transport system. It emerged that one of the suicide murderers had been influenced by the preachings of Abu Hamza, as had two of those attempting to replicate the mission two weeks later.

Ken Burns Surrenders--Again...

According to this press release (ht Current):

THE AMERICAN GI FORUM, HACR, AND FLORENTINE FILMS
AGREE ON INTEGRATING THE VOICES OF HISPANIC
VETERANS INTO “THE WAR”

WASHINGTON, DC / May 10, 2007 – The American GI Forum, the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility (HACR), and Florentine Films reached an understanding yesterday that recognizes legitimate Latino concerns about Ken Burns’s upcoming documentary series, “The War,” and equally recognizes that the artistic decisions of what appears in his film are is and his alone to make. They announce today that the narratives and voices of Hispanic World War II veterans will be incorporated into Ken Burns’s artistic vision for his film “The War.”

The upcoming 141/2 hour documentary, due to air on PBS in September during Hispanic Heritage Month, tells the story of WWII from the perspective of veterans from four different American towns. “The role of Hispanic American veterans in WWII is one that lends itself to the universality of this film,” said Mr. Burns “and merits being included in my film.”

After listening to the concerns of the Latino community and political leaders about the lack of Hispanic stories, Mr. Burns and his team set out to find personal Latino stories and include them as supplemental material following the documentary. The proposed placement embodied in this approach, however was universally rejected by Latino groups.

Yesterday in New York, Ken Burns met with Raul Tapia of the Washington, DC-based C2 Group; Mr. Tapia represents the American GI Forum, the largest and oldest Latino veterans group in the United States, and the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of the fourteen largest Latino organizations. At the meeting, Mr. Burns said he had collected interviews with Latino veterans that he considers very powerful and agreed to include their on-camera testimony, personal archives, and combat experiences into “The War.” As he did in the series, Mr. Burns will personally direct and produce the creation of this new material.

“I believe these additional stories will enhance our series and deepen the nation’s understanding of the sacrifices made by so many Americans during the war,” said Mr. Burns. “And I am confident that they can be incorporated in a way consistent with the film’s focus on individual experiences and in a way that means nothing in the film that already exists will be changed. This has never been about changing my vision for the film. It is adding another layer of storytelling that will only enrich what we already have.”

“We appreciate Ken Burns’s filmmaking skills and are pleased that he will apply his talent to include the narrative and voices of Hispanic veterans into his series,” said Antonio Morales, National Commander of the American GI Forum. “Latinos have never been an addendum to American history. They always have been, are and always will be an integral part of our nation’s military.”

Manuel Mirabal, chairman of the board of HACR, said: “Together, corporate America, Latino leaders and visionary artists can leave a lasting imprint on American culture that will resonate with the vast majority of Americans today and for generations to come.”

Contacts:
On behalf of the American GI Forum and HACR:
Lorena Chambers
Chambers Lopez & Gaitan LLC
(703) 527-8482
lorena@chamberslopezgaitan.com

On behalf of “The War”:
Joe DePlasco
Dan Klores Communications
(212) 685-4300

On behalf of Florentine Films:
Dayton Duncan
(603) 756-3038

Ann Coulter on Nicolas Sarkozy

From AnnCoulter.com:

In celebration of France's spectacular return to Western civilization, I bought a Herve Leger dress on Monday, and we're having croissants for breakfast every day this week. This delicate French pastry, by the way, is in the shape of a crescent to commemorate the Crusaders' victory over Islam. Aren't the French just peachy?

"Sarkozy the American," as he is known in France, called Muslim rioters "scum." Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

He explained his position on Muslim immigrants in France, saying: "Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn't practice female genital mutilation on one's daughters, one doesn't slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules."

Sarko never issued an apology or entered rehab. To the contrary, he said: "I called some individuals that I refuse to call 'youth' by the name they deserve. ... I never felt that by saying 'scum' I was being vulgar, hypocritical or insincere."

Is there a single American politician who would speak so clearly without then apologizing to Howard Dean?

It looks like the Democrats are going to have to drop their talking point about Bush irritating the rest of the world. Evidently not as much as Muslim terrorists irritate the rest of the world. The politicians who hate Bush keep being dumped by their own voters.

At the Democratic presidential debate a few weeks ago, B. Hussein Obama carped that Bush had "alienate(d) the world community" and vowed that he would build "the sort of alliances and trust around the world that has been so lacking over the last six years."

Democrats are terrific at building alliances. Remember how Jimmy Carter won the love of the world by ditching our ally the Shah of Iran, allowing him be replaced by a string of crazy ayatollahs? Since then, we haven't heard a peep from that area of the world.

The smartest woman in the world sniped that she would "create alliances instead of alienation."

Yes, it was spellbinding how her husband charmed North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his sociopathic son Kim Jong Il by showering them with visits from Jimmy Carter and gifts from love-machine Madeleine Albright. And that was that: No more trouble from North Korea!

As I understand it, the center of the supposedly America-hating world is France. But now it turns out even the French don't hate America as much as liberals do.

Au contraire! (We can say that again!) Our Georgie is the most popular American with the French since Jerry Lewis.

Tony Blair's Resignation Speech

From the UK Labour Party website:

I have come back here, to Sedgefield, to my constituency. Where my political journey began and where it is fitting it should end.

Today I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party. The Party will now select a new Leader. On 27 June I will tender my resignation from the office of Prime Minister to The Queen.

I have been Prime Minister of this country for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world today, that is long enough, for me but more especially for the country. Some times the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.

It is difficult to know how to make this speech today. There is a judgment to be made on my premiership. And in the end that is, for you, the people to make.

I can only describe what I think has been done over these last 10 years and perhaps more important why.

I have never quite put it like this before.

I was born almost a decade after the Second World War. I was a young man in the social revolution of the 60s and 70s. I reached political maturity as the Cold War was ending, and the world was going through a political, economic and technological revolution.

I looked at my own country.

A great country.
Wonderful history.
Magnificent traditions.
Proud of its past.

But strangely uncertain of its future. Uncertain about the future. Almost old-fashioned.

All of that was curiously symbolized in its politics.

You stood for individual aspiration and getting on in life or social compassion and helping others.

You were liberal in your values or conservative.

You believed in the power of the State or the efforts of the individual. Spending more money on the public realm was the answer or it was the problem.

None of it made sense to me. It was 20th century ideology in a world approaching a new millennium. Of course people want the best for themselves and their families but in an age where human capital is a nation’s greatest asset, they also know it is just and sensible to extend opportunities, to develop the potential to succeed, for all not an elite at the top.

People are today open-minded about race and sexuality, averse to prejudice and yet deeply and rightly conservative with a small ‘c’ when it comes to good manners, respect for others, treating people courteously.

They acknowledge the need for the state and the responsibility of the individual.

They know spending money on our public services matters and that it is not enough. How they are run and organized matters too.

So 1997 was a moment for a new beginning; for sweeping away all the detritus of the past.

Expectations were so high. Too high. Too high in a way for either of us.

Now in 2007, you can easily point to the challenges, the things that are wrong, the grievances that fester.

But go back to 1997. Think back. No, really, think back. Think about your own living standards then in May 1997 and now.

Visit your local school, any of them round here, or anywhere in modern Britain.

Ask when you last had to wait a year or more on a hospital waiting list, or heard of pensioners freezing to death in the winter unable to heat their homes.

There is only one Government since 1945 that can say all of the following:

More jobs
Fewer unemployed
Better health and education results
Lower crime;
And economic growth in every quarter.

This one.

But I don’t need a statistic. There is something bigger than what can be measured in waiting lists or GSCE results or the latest crime or jobs figures.

Look at our economy. At ease with globalization. London the world’s financial centre. Visit our great cities and compare them with 10 years ago.

No country attracts overseas investment like we do.

Think about the culture of Britain in 2007. I don’t just mean our arts that are thriving. I mean our values. The minimum wage. Paid holidays as a right. Amongst the best maternity pay and leave in Europe. Equality for gay people.

Or look at the debates that reverberate round the world today. The global movement to support Africa in its struggle against poverty. Climate change. The fight against terrorism. Britain is not a follower. It is a leader. It gets the essential characteristic of today’s world: its interdependence.

This is a country today that for all its faults, for all the myriad of unresolved problems and fresh challenges, is comfortable in the 21st Century.

At home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but confident of its future.

I don’t think Northern Ireland would have been changed unless Britain had changed. Or the Olympics won if we were still the Britain of 1997.

As for my own leadership, throughout these 10 years, where the predictable has competed with the utterly unpredicted, right at the outset one thing was clear to me.

Without the Labour Party allowing me to lead it, nothing could ever have been done. But I knew my duty was to put the country first. That much was obvious to me when just under 13 years ago I became Labour’s Leader.

What I had to learn, however, as Prime Minister was what putting the country first really meant.

Decision-making is hard. Every one always says: listen to the people. The trouble is they don’t always agree.

When you are in Opposition, you meet this group and they say why can’t you do this? And you say: it’s really a good question. Thank you. And they go away and say: its great, he really listened.

You meet that other group and they say: why can’t you do that? And you say: it’s a really good question. Thank you. And they go away happy you listened.

In Government you have to give the answer, not an answer, the answer.

And, in time, you realise putting the country first doesn’t mean doing the right thing according to conventional wisdom or the prevailing consensus or the latest snapshot of opinion.

It means doing what you genuinely believe to be right.

Your duty is to act according to your conviction.

All of that can get contorted so that people think you act according to some messianic zeal.

Doubt, hesitation, reflection, consideration and re-consideration these are all the good companions of proper decision-making.

But the ultimate obligation is to decide.

Sometimes the decisions are accepted quite quickly. Bank of England independence was one, which gave us our economic stability.

Sometimes like tuition fees or trying to break up old monolithic public services, they are deeply controversial, hellish hard to do, but you can see you are moving with the grain of change round the word.

Sometimes like with Europe, where I believe Britain should keep its position strong, you know you are fighting opinion but you are content with doing so.

Sometimes as with the completely unexpected, you are alone with your own instinct.

In Sierra Leone and to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, I took the decision to make our country one that intervened, that did not pass by, or keep out of the thick of it.

Then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic. September 11th 2001 and the death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New York.

I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally.

I did so out of belief.

So Afghanistan and then Iraq.

The latter, bitterly controversial.

Removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban, was over with relative ease.

But the blowback since, from global terrorism and those elements that support it, has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. For many, it simply isn’t and can’t be worth it.

For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists, who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up.

It is a test of will and of belief. And we can’t fail it.

So: some things I knew I would be dealing with.

Some I thought I might be.

Some never occurred to me on that morning of 2 May 1997 when I came into Downing Street for the first time.

Great expectations not fulfilled in every part, for sure.

Occasionally people say, as I said earlier, they were too high, you should have lowered them.

But, to be frank, I would not have wanted it any other way. I was, and remain, as a person and as a Prime Minister an optimist. Politics may be the art of the possible; but at least in life, give the impossible a go.

So of course the vision is painted in the colours of the rainbow; and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, white and grey.

But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.

I may have been wrong. That’s your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.

I came into office with high hopes for Britain’s future. I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain’s future.

This is a country that can, today, be excited by the opportunities not constantly fretful of the dangers.

People often say to me: it’s a tough job.

Not really.

A tough life is the life the young severely disabled children have and their parents, who visited me in Parliament the other week.

Tough is the life my Dad had, his whole career cut short at the age of 40 by a stroke.

I have been very lucky and very blessed.

This country is a blessed nation.

The British are special.

The world knows it.

In our innermost thoughts, we know it.

This is the greatest nation on earth.

It has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short.

Good Luck.

Vladimir Putin's Victory Day Speech

I don't see anything on this Kremlin.ru post directed against the USA--but do see phrases that might refer to a threat from Islamist extremism. Decide for yourself:

Speech at the Military Parade Celebrating the 62nd Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War

May 9, 2007
Red Square, Moscow Printer-Friendly Version


PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: Citizens of Russia,

Veterans of the Great Patriotic War,

Comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and warrant officers,

Comrade officers, generals, and admirals,

I congratulate you on this celebration of our great victory, on this occasion of tremendous moral significance and unifying force. I congratulate you on this date that is imprinted forever on the destiny of Russia and the heart of every Russian citizen.

The Great Patriotic War was an unprecedented tragedy for our entire people, sweeping its fiery way across our country and leaving scars in our families and hearts that have still not healed to this day.

But the war did not break our people’s spirit and it gave birth to numerous examples of mass heroism. Even as they faced all manner of torment and hardship, even as they saw their comrades fall, our soldiers nonetheless retained their faith in Victory.

Millions of people defended the independence and dignity of their country on the fronts and in the rear, under occupation and in underground resistance, and they proved that a people fighting for its freedom and its very right to live is invincible.

We bow our heads before their fearlessness and will, before the memory of those whose courage and unity defeated the aggressor and stopped Fascism in its tracks, before those who gave our country and the entire world a future.

This is an occasion to reflect on the destiny of our world, on its stability and security, and on the lessons of that terrible war which are gaining ever greater meaning and significance with every year.

Today we pay tribute to the countries that fought together against Hitler. We shall not forget their contribution to the defeat of Nazism.

Victory Day not only unites the people of Russia but also unites our neighbours in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. We are deeply grateful to the generation of people whose difficult fate it was to face this war. They have passed on to us their traditions of fraternity and solidarity and their truly hard-won experience of unity and mutual aid. We will preserve this sacred memory and historical legacy.

Those who attempt today to belittle this invaluable experience and defile the monuments to the heroes of this war are insulting their own people and spreading enmity and new distrust between countries and peoples.

We have a duty to remember that the causes of any war lie above all in the mistakes and miscalculations of peacetime, and that these causes have their roots in an ideology of confrontation and extremism.

It is all the more important that we remember this today, because these threats are not becoming fewer but are only transforming and changing their appearance. These new threats, just as under the Third Reich, show the same contempt for human life and the same aspiration to establish an exclusive dictate over the world.

It is my conviction that only common responsibility and equal partnership can counter these challenges and enable us to join forces in resisting any attempts to unleash new armed conflicts and undermine global security.

Dear veterans,

Through your tremendous endeavours, you vanquished Fascism and brought freedom to millions of people. And after the Victory was won, you toiled heroically to raise towns and villages from the ruins and rebuild peaceful life.

We bow low before you and express our gratitude to all who fought for and deserved this Victory. We cherish the eternal memory of all who gave their lives, all who fought to bring us peace.

Russia will always remember this great Victory and the great deeds of our fathers and grandfathers. Like them, we will selflessly defend the interests of our Motherland. We will work together to build a prosperous and peaceful future for Russia.

Glory to you, soldiers of the Great Patriotic War!

Glory to the victorious people!

Congratulations!

Happy Victory Day!

Alex Alexiev's Testimony About PBS Censorship of "Islam v. Islamists"

Another producer spoke out in Anchorage, Alaska, about PBS's "barely concealed sympathy for the Islamist point of view."

Alex Alexiev
Comments to Board of Directors
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Anchorage, Alaska
May 7, 2007

Madam Chairwoman, ladies and gentlemen of the CPB board

On behalf of ABG Film Inc., Iíd like to thank President Pat Harrison and the CPB board for this opportunity to present our views with respect to the current controversy regarding our film' Islam vs. Islamists; Voice from the Muslim Center' and hopefully dispel some of the misconceptions surrounding it.

Among such misconceptions for instance, are PBS' continuing claims in written responses to public inquiries that our film is 'still in the production and editing process.' This is simply not true. Our film is completely finished and we have no intention of doing any additional work to it. It has been submitted and rejected by PBS for what we believe are political reasons or ñ as Congressman Jim Walsh has put it succinctly--censorship.

And it was deliberately censored not because it was not finished or did not meet PBS technical standards, but because PBS/WETA did not like its central message. By doing that, PBS/WETA overturned the judgment of CPB, which approved of both
the message of this film and our cinematographic rendition of it, through two years of vigorous Crossroads competition against 440 other projects.

My colleagues Martyn Burke and Frank Gaffney of ABG Films will shortly discuss the process of spiking this movie by PBS in greater detail. I'll just focus on one aspect of it ñ the PBS/WETA treatment or rather mistreatment of the filmís message regarding the struggle for the soul of Islam between moderate Muslims and their radical Islamist co- religionists

What was the message that PBS/WETA did not like? Very simply it is our belief that moderate, anti-Islamist Muslims who believe in the values of democratic society are presently subjected to unprecedented pressure, intimidation and threats by the Islamists- dominated Muslim establishment in America and throughout the West.

Examples of the highly negative attitudes by PBS/WETA producers to the message of our film abound throughout the written critiques we have received from them, but, in the interest of time, Iíll mention only a few of the more telling ones:

• Thus, we have been taken to task for believing that Muslim 'parallel societies' operating according to their own norms as enclaves within Western society are incompatible with the basic ideals of secular democratic society.

• Accused of 'demonizing' Islam by showing the intimidation tactics used by the Islamists against the moderates.

• Asked to provide 'objective clarity' why shariía jurisprudence and 'blood money' settlements are not compatible, and even positive contributions, to the basic norms of democratic society.

• Told that 'extremism and moderation depend on where you stand,' implying that for PBS/WETA officials there is no objective reality to extremism and itís all a matter of opinion. This is exactly what extremists and terrorists have been
arguing.

The expressed attitudes of PBS/WETA toward 'Islam vs. Islamists' betray a barely concealed sympathy for the Islamist point of view, which makes a mockery of their public obligation to fairness.

In conclusion, let me say that this is an attitude that finds a direct and forceful practical expression in the hiring of two individuals with strong Islamist sympathies as advisors to the Crossroads series and commissioning without competition and than airing Robin McNeil's film Muslim Americans which, in our view, is little more than a puff piece for radical Islamist organizations and individuals in America. In both the case of McNeil's film and the Muslim advisors, we have the individuals involved acting as both key referees of what Crossroads films key were to be aired and interested parties in one particular film and point of view. This is a blatant conflict of interest, to say nothing of an egregious violation of the PBS's own much touted goals of fairness, objectivity and transparency in public broadcasting.

Thank you for your attention.

Frank Gaffney's Testimony on PBS Censorship of "Islam v. Islamists"

He testified at a hearing held by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Anchorage, Alaska (ht Free The Film.net) (no wonder I didn't see an article about this in the Washington Post):

Frank Gaffney
Comments to Board of Directors
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Anchorage, Alaska
May 7, 2007


We are grateful for the opportunity to produce a film about what is, arguably, the most important issue of our time: the nature and future character of the Muslim faith.

At a moment when ideologues called Islamists are seeking to determine both, too little is known by non-Muslims about these issues and too few Muslims are exposed to the voices and ideas of anti-Islamists among their ranks.

We believe CPB did a real public service by selecting our documentary as part of a rigorous competition conducted for the Crossroadî series. The thousand or so people who have seen our finished film to date - including Members of Congress, film industry leaders and experienced journalists ñ-have uniformly described it as powerful and compelling.

Unfortunately, the subsequent treatment of our film by PBS and WETA, which has been described to you by my colleagues, has seriously disserved the American people who paid for this film.

This is true not just because our film has been suppressed. Worse yet, the Crossroadsîseries broadcast, as part of its initial roll-out, a film produced by series host Robert MacNeil -- a film that provided a grossly misleading picture of Muslims in America.

MacNeil's film -- which was awarded on a sweetheart deal basis outside of the competition -- amounts to a propaganda windfall for the Islamists in this country. It exclusively portrays, legitimates and even lionizes organizations and individuals closely tied to the ideological movement whose oppression of moderate Muslims we chronicle.

It was appalling that MacNeil's alternative view -- which can only be described as 'highly one-sided'-- was aired without ours at least being aired at the same time. That was precisely the sort of variety of viewpoints Crossroads was supposed to showcase. The failure to do so represents an abdication of the public broadcasters' responsibility for fairness and balance in what they disseminate.

Under these circumstances, we request that CPB release the distribution rights to our film without further delay or impediment so as to enable others who share our view that it should be widely and promptly seen by the American people--the mission of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting-- to disseminate it as soon as possible.

Based on our hard experience, moreover, it seems clear that -- in the absence of systemic reforms -- it is very likely that such abdications of fairness and balance will continue to be the norm in the future. Unless changes are made, filmmakers whom the PBS system is prepared to blacklist will be unlikely even to have documentaries considered, let alone aired.

We respectfully submit that, as a necessary corrective, CPB should create a mechanism modeled on the Independent Television Service (ITVS). As you know, ITVS is allocated $12 million per year and 26 prime-time slots on PBS for filmmakers who can only be described as far Left in their political orientation and subject matter. Filmmakers who represent viewpoints, and can produce programming that appeals to, the roughly fifty percent of the American taxpaying public who own the public airwaves and who are disserved by ITVS ought to have similar vehicle for facilitating and disseminating such productions.

Jorge Mariscal: Fire Ken Burns!

From Scripps Howard News Service:

PBS and Ken Burns still don't get it.

After months of negotiations with Latino advocacy groups, academics, veterans and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the powers that be at PBS and their house director, Ken Burns, fail to understand the real issues at stake in his exclusion of the Latino experience in his World War II documentary "The War."

In an article published May 5 in The New York Times, Burns continued to make self-aggrandizing and ignorant statements.

According to the Times, Burns called his 14-hour series, scheduled to be shown during Hispanic Heritage Month in September, "a sort of epic poem and not a textbook."

He must be kidding. Several weeks ago, Burns compared his film to the U.S. Constitution. Now he says it's sort of an epic poem.

If he knew anything about epic poems, he would know that they were composed with the goal of representing an entire community's historical experience. They had nothing to do with an individual artist's personal vision. The singer of the Iliad or the Poem of the Cid was simply a vehicle for a shared collective experience.

Clearly, Burns is not interested in any of these things. He has his individual "vision," which cannot be tampered with. He is a self-righteous romantic who has no business and not enough knowledge to chronicle an event as momentous as World War II.

No one in the group that raised questions about the film asked Burns to turn it into "a textbook." Let him be as lyrical and non-narrative as he wishes. No one wants to deprive him of his artistic freedom. But he has no right to invent a history of the war that excludes a community that paid a very high price for its participation.

The Times article stated: "Mr. Burns, who was not at the meeting (between PBS executives and Hispanic leaders), said he found it painful that the controversy was erupting over a film in which he explores an episode of American history that brought citizens together."

Burns is pained by the controversy. Then why doesn't he stop his pain by doing the right thing? Is his "vision" more important than an inclusive account of the war? It was his flawed "vision" and sloppy research (not those who raised legitimate questions) that created divisions.

While it is certainly true that World War II brought the American people together, Burns needs to go back to school to learn about events like the Zoot Suit Riots and the Felix Longoria case. World War II was not as utopian for some communities as Burns thinks it was. He didn't do his homework.

Burns should either fire his researchers or fire himself. As long as PBS continues to take money from the public treasury, it should fire all of them.

Sneak Preview of Ken Burns WWII Film Exposes Anti-American Message

From this account on The Bostonist, it sounds like Hispanic veterans won't be the only audiences unhappy with Ken Burns' upcoming marathon meditation on World War II:

In the Q&A, moderated by Lisa Mullins of PRI's "The World," an audience member expressed that Burns was too "rah rah" about the role of American troops. Burns responded with, "If you saw the whole film, you would take that back, I promise you." In the introduction and during the Q&A, Burns stressed what he felt was a major theme of the documentary: "War is horrible." And at one point he said that he wanted the whole audience to realize what it was really like to fight: "We wanted to put you uncomfortably in the battle."

Your tax dollars at work...

Daniel Pipes: Support Turkish Secularists Against Islamists

From DanielPipes.org:

The first march took place in the capital city, Ankara, on April 14, organized by Şener Eruygur, a former general who is president of the Atatürk Thought Association. An estimated 300,000 secularists (i.e., moderate Muslims) held up banners with pictures of the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, chanting slogans along the lines of "We don't want an imam as president," "We respect belief, but not radicalism," and "Turkey is secular and will stay secular!"
A young woman carrying a huge Turkish flag, Muge Kaplan, explained that the crowd is Muslim and believes in Islam, but it doesn't want Islam "to become our whole way of life." A farmer, Bülent Korucu, asserted that the crowd is defending its republic "against religious fundamentalists."

Repeating these themes, a second march on April 29 in Istanbul boasted 700,000 marchers. On May 5, smaller marches took place in the western Anatolia towns of Manisa, Çanakkale, and Marmaris.

Nor are the masses alone in resisting AKP's Islamists. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer warned that, for the first time since 1923, when the secular republic came into being, its pillars "are being openly questioned." He also inveighed against the imposition of a soft Islamist state, predicting that it would turn extremist. Onur Öymen, deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party, cautioned that the AKP's taking the presidency would "upset all balances" and create a very dangerous situation.

The military – Turkey's ultimate powerbroker – issued two statements reinforcing this assessment. On April 12, the chief of staff, Gen. Mehmet Yaşar Büyükanıt, expressed his hope that "someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic—not just in words but in essence—is elected president." Two weeks later, the military's tone became more urgent, announcing that the presidential election "has been anxiously followed by the Turkish Armed Forces [which] maintains its firm determination to carry out its clearly specified duties to protect" secular principles.

This resolute stand against Islamism by moderate Turkish Muslims is the more striking when contrasted with the cluelessness of Westerners who pooh-pooh the dangers of the AKP's ascent. A Wall Street Journal editorial assures Turks that their prime minister's popularity "is built on competent and stable government." Dismissing the historic crossroads that President Sezer and others perceive, it dismisses as "fear mongering" doubts about Prime Minister Erdoğan's commitment to secularism and ascribes these to petty campaign tactics "to get out the anti-AKP vote and revive a flagging opposition."

"Even if Erdoğan walked on water, the secularists wouldn't believe him," observes a former American ambassador to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz. Olli Rehn, the European Union's "enlargement commissioner," instructed the Turkish military to leave the presidency election in the hands of the democratically-elected government, calling the issue "a test case" for the armed forces to respect its political masters, a position the U.S. government subsequently endorsed.

Is it not telling that great numbers of moderate Muslims see danger where so many non-Muslims are blind? Do developments in Pakistan and Turkey not confirm my oft-repeated point that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution? And do they not suggest that ignorant non-Muslim busybodies should get out of the way of those moderate Muslims determined to relegate Islamism to its rightful place in the dustbin of history?