Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing

Just finished reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, which contains the 1973 essay of the same name--an essay written at least one year before Robert Pirsig's application of the Koans to motorcycle maintenance.

I thought it holds up very well, especially Bradbury's main points: Don't write for money, don't write for critics, don't write for friends--write for yourself. Don't try to be highbrow, don't try to be crassly commercial--take the middle path. And do channel your emotions and personality and memories and imagination and obsessions and compulsions onto the page. When writing a story, let your characters drive the plot, not vice-versa. And listen to them, rather than tell them what to do. That's the Zen aspect, the conscious letting go that makes writing flow.

Finally, a word about discipline. Read a poem every day. And write every day. Bradbury wrote 1,000 words a day since he was in his twenties. He's now in his 90s. That's millions of words, hundreds of stories, and dozens of books.

Plus, he wrote the script for Melville's Moby Dick, directed by John Huston, in Ireland...so in a way, that makes Bradbury yet another Irish bard.

As Bradbury explains his technique: ""Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!""

Inspirational, simple, and fine. You can buy the book from Amazon, here:

Upstairs, Downstairs Returns to PBS

Upstairs Downstairs returned to PBS, on last night's Masterpiece Classic (the series formerly known as Mobil Masterpiece Theatre), as if to provide evidence for the widely-held belief that American public broadcasters have not had an idea in 30 years. But at least this had been a good idea originally, in the 1970s, and it withstood the test of time.

Upstairs Downstairs is likeable nostalgia, full of proper people doing the proper thing in the face of those who would do the unthinkable. Though not as good as the original ITV production, or ITV's Downton Abbey, this BBC sequel is still worth watching. Perhaps the broadcast might spark a revival of the classic serial form on American television. First go-round led to a number of American miniseries on commercial networks, many of which were pretty darn good...from ROOTS to NORTH AND SOUTH to WINDS OF WAR.

Ratings were high for the new Up Down in England, when broadcast this past Christmas, and I'm pretty sure PBS enjoyed a nice bump last night, as well. (UPDATE from TV by the numbers: "Arlington, VA, April 12, 2011 – PBS’ MASTERPIECE audience has increased by nearly 45% over last year. In addition,PBS’ most anticipated highlight of MASTERPIECE’s 40th season, 'Upstairs Downstairs,' was watched by an estimated 6.4 million viewers,based on Nielsen data from 53 metered markets.") Perhaps it could give network and cable programmers some ideas.

The theme music was familiar, but the set somewhat different, the cast somewhat different, the plot somewhat different, and the family completely different--the Hallam family, as opposed to the Bellamys. But this Son of The Forsyte Saga continues to draw, even with marked changes.

The current producers are no John Hawkesworth, whose deft and subtle touch was missed. The young leads were a little too gross in their behavior for this now older viewer to enjoy, but the seasoned troupers--Eileen Atkins & Jean Marsh from Upstairs, Downstairs (the original)--were hanging in there, chewing the scenery and providing a jolly good time for one and all. Art Malik makes a nice addition to the rep company, though the addition of Solomon the monkey may be gilding the lily, somewhat.

The little things seem to have been covered. Nice table settings, kitchen equipment, trays, sideboards, teapots, automobiles, and the like; as well as costumes--pornographic details that thrill Anglophile American audiences, and were a mainstay for Masterpiece Theatre.

I certainly felt a tingle of nostalgic longing when the theme music from Upstairs, Downstairs welled up on my television set in last night's production.

The script is not up to the original, but if it had been 13 episodes instead of 3, the writers would have had time to get up to speed. Miniseries tend to evolve over time.

The only off-putting note for this viewer was Laura Linney's introduction, which claimed that Upstairs, Downstairs almost didn't make it on the air at PBS in the 1970s because it dealt with the lives of upper-class and working-class Britons, which were thought not to interest American audiences. Complete rubbish!

Why PBS executives decided to raise their own sorry history, complete with a phony cover story, is beyond me. It detracted from my enjoyment of the show. Alistair Cooke would never have gone along with such a clumsy scheme...

In fact, I wrote about the case of the original Upstairs, Downstairs in my book, Masterpiece Theatre and the Politics of Quality (Scarecrow Press, 1999). PBS was opposed because they felt the series would be too popular, because it was too commercial. Here are the details:

Mobil bought Upstairs, Downstairs after chairman Rawleigh Warner--to whom the series was reportedly personally recommended by the Duchess of Bedford at a dinner party in London--suggested to [Mobil vp] Herb Schmertz that he consider the series for Masterpiece Theatre. Schmertz looked at it, liked it, and wanted to put it on the air. Frank Marshall, in his role as television consultant, also screened the series. He recalls recommended the series as "brilliant." Yet, Marshall says that getting the program broadcast on PBS was "a lot of work" because public television executives "had no confidence in the program." Richard Price--the salesman who represented London Weekend Television--said he had trouble because "CPB and PBS were extremely worried about the situation that commercial television programing was going to go into Masterpiece Theatre." [Producer] Christopher Sarson of WGBH was one of the doubters. When WGBH balked, Mobil dealt directly with Price and London Weekend Television to get around opposition within the Boston Station.

Herb Schmertz remembers WGBH refused "on principle"--because it would drive up the cost of other imports--to pay LWT [London Weekend Television] salesman Richard Price's asking price of $25,000 an episode. "I took care of Richard," he says. "GBH didn't know that. I took care of Richard because I thought he was getting screwed. That's true, I was willing to pay 25 [thousand], and GBH balked and said, "We can't. That'll screw up a lot of things." For them. Not me. So I said, "OK." But then I took care of Richard. I made a side deal with him."

There's more detail in my book, including copies of original documents from Mobil and PBS.

But aside from the shock of hearing Laura Linney's bright shining lie--which was part of PBS's filler and not really Upstairs Downstairs after all--I enjoyed the production thoroughly...

James Huffman: Disclosing Donors Destoying American Politics

From Today's Wall Street Journal:

The reality is that public disclosure serves the interests of incumbents running for re-election by discouraging support for challengers. Here's how it works.

A challenger seeks a contribution from a person known to support candidates of the challenger's party. The potential supporter responds: "I'm glad you're running. I agree with you on almost everything. But I can't support you because I cannot risk getting my business crosswise with the incumbent who is likely to be re-elected."

Sometimes he adds that he has matters pending before a federal agency. Or that she has been working with the incumbent on legislation that will benefit their company. Or that he has a government grant pending.

I heard these responses literally dozens of times in my campaign in Oregon. Sometimes I was told that someone on my opponent's staff had called with a reminder that supporting me was not a good idea. Once the call came while I was having lunch with the person from whom I was soliciting support.

A few people went on to say that they would find some way to get a check to my campaign, perhaps through an employee or a member of their board. I have no way to know if they did.

Disclosure makes threats possible, and fears of retribution plausible. Within weeks of a contribution of $200 or more, the contributor's name appears on the public record. Contributors know this, and they know that supporting the challenger can, should the challenger lose, have consequences in terms of future attention to their interests. Of course no incumbent will admit to issuing threats or seeking retribution, but the perception that both exist is widespread.

The reality of that perception alone should give us pause about disclosure requirements. And it would be naïve to believe that the perceptions have no basis in reality.

Twenty-five years ago in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court concluded that disclosure requirements are constitutional if they provide relevant information to voters, prevent corruption, and facilitate data collection to enforce election restrictions. None of these ends is served by existing disclosure requirements. With individual contributions capped at $2,400, it is hard to make the case that the names of individual contributors are helpful or relevant to voters. Given the fears of retribution, disclosure does more to facilitate corruption than to prevent it. And enforcement of election restrictions can be accomplished by the less burdensome means of mandating reporting without public disclosure.

The only clear case for requiring public disclosure of contributions in the small amounts permitted by federal law is that, like many other features of our election laws, it promotes the re-election of incumbents. Regrettably, that means it will be difficult, if not impossible, to change. But take it from one who knows: The disclosure requirement makes the mountain to be climbed by most challengers even steeper.

Leslie Gelb on Humanitarian Intervention

From The Daily Beast (ht Martin Kramer):

Let me be clear: I don’t question the sincerity of the humanitarian interventionists’ motives. I question their moral superiority, their priorities, and their carelessness about facts.

The humanitarian interventionists think their worries trump everyone else’s. They think their morality excuses their willful ignorance and carelessness—their unwillingness to address tough questions about what we know and don’t know in Libya. They say that if the U.S. doesn’t get rid of Col. Gaddafi, it would represent the death of America’s core values and beliefs. I think American values will survive. I think we are doing enough now in a supporting role. I believe we are facing but not addressing first-order problems in the Mideast and at home. To me, both Americans and Libyans will survive Col. Gaddafi, but Americans will not survive a failure of their leaders to devote top priority, attention, and resources to Mideastern turmoil and to America.

Shutdown Blame Game: Tell DC Government to Pick Up Trash--or Else

It's pretty clear, living in Washington, DC, that the Obama administration has decided that a shutdown would help Democratic chances in 2012, because an angry electorate would blame Republicans for the inconvenience. To that end, in Our Nation's Capital, the city has announced that no trash would be collected during a shutdown, since it would not be considered an essential service. No doubt the White House thinks piles of garbage would make a charming visual on the TV news...

IMHO, this type of punish the public p.r. campaign is outrageous and irresponsible. It hurts innocent members of the public to score partisan political points. It is a cheap trick that must be turned against those who would attempt to use it.

So, someone I know has suggested that the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee responsible for the District headed by Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) tell Mayor Gray to pick up DC trash--or else, no appropriation for the District of Columbia in 2011. I'd suggest raising the matter as well of a bill to end DC home rule, on the basis of hearings that lay out the city's history of corruption and failure to provide essential services to its citizens.

Pictures of large piles of uncollected garbage should help make a convincing case on C-Span...

More on the Muslim Brotherhood-Nazi Connection

Herbert Eiteneier reviews Djihad und Judenhass: Über den neuen antijüdischen Krieg, by Matthias Küntzel, on the Jewish Center for Public Affairs website:

Küntzel also discloses the widely unknown fact that it was the Mufti who first made overtures to Nazi Germany, which at first was reluctant to accept them for fear of offending the British. The German Foreign Office only began to respond after the Peel Commission's plan made a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine seem possible, something it sought to prevent at all costs. Subsequently, the Mufti prevailed, first by fomenting terror in Palestine, then by broadcasting propaganda to the Arabs from Berlin, setting up a Muslim SS division, and opposing leniency toward the Jews by countries that belonged to the Axis but were not under direct Nazi rule such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy. When he could, he also sabotaged all attempts at rescue, including children.

Also not widely known are the lasting effects of the Nazi ideology in the Middle East. Nasser had strong sympathies for Nazi Germany, as did many of his compatriots in the Egyptian military. After World War II, as mentioned, Egypt welcomed Nazis who continued their war against the Jews. They helped distribute anti-Semitic writings and broadcasts to foster hatred not only of Israel, but all Jews, using and supplementing the language and thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood. One such achievement was the translation of Mein Kampf into Arabic.

Depicting the manifold relationships between leading members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and political as well as terrorist leaders of the Middle East, Küntzel demonstrates that the ideological origins of present-day terrorism were in Egypt - not in Saudi Arabia, as many now believe. It was in Egypt that the Brotherhood laid the groundwork for today's Islamist movement. Despite changes in strategy - from fighting mainly the "infidel" Arab establishment since the mid-1950s to switching priority to the "Zionist entity" and the United States since the 1990s - one aim always prevailed: extermination of the Jews. This was not linked to Israeli policies but to the very existence of the Jewish state in what Islamists believe is an integral part of the House of Islam.

Küntzel also points to the ties between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and major political and military figures of the Palestinian movement, and notes that today's Palestinian leaders' genocidal attitudes are identical to those of Arab leaders in the past. Thus, both for Yasser Arafat and Sheikh Yassin, Oslo was only an interim stage toward Israel's destruction. Palestinian maps, including in textbooks, do not show Israel at all; Palestinian sources omit the Mufti's role in Nazism and deny the Holocaust, while viewing jihad as the only means to defeat Israel. A mostly overlooked point is the Palestinian Authority's explicitly authorizing the dissemination of the 1999 edition of Mein Kampf, whose preface by the translator declares that Hitler was one of the few great men in history and that National Socialism did not die with its founder.

German Misperceptions

Although relating to the subject throughout the book, Küntzel devotes the last chapter to German perceptions about the Middle East. In Germany, the Left as well as the extreme-Right and neo-Nazi camps support terror against Israel and the United States as a struggle for freedom. The Left - and increasingly, mainstream groups - mistakenly view Islamist terror as expressing the frustration and desperation of a progressive anticapitalist movement. They do not seem to grasp that an anticapitalist mass movement could be of a fascist character, instead ignoring or denying the blatantly fascist aspects. In reality, common fascistic and anti-Jewish themes led neo-Nazi groups to embrace Islamists as brothers-in-arms against the "Jewish world conspiracy." Küntzel shows how both Left and Right embrace anti-Semitism by supporting Islamism without understanding its aspirations to world dominance.

Although Küntzel's study is well documented, he demonstrates what is not esoteric, but denied: that the Islamist mass movement must be understood in a societal context, not in terms of political and economic postulates. Küntzel's special contribution is to provide this context that is missing from the perceptions both of Germany's ideological fringes and its mainstream.

John Loftus' Primer on the Muslim Brotherhood, Nazis & Al Qaeda

For background on the Muslim Brotherhood groups being brought to power in the Middle East with American help, this 2006 article by John Loftus is still relevant:

Let me give you an example. This year a friend of mine from the CIA, named Bob Baer wrote a very good book about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it's called Sleeping with the Devil. I read the book and I got about a third of the way through and I stopped. Bob was writing how when he worked for the CIA how bad the files were.

He said, for example, the files for the Muslim Brotherhood were almost nothing. There were just a few newspaper clippings. I called Bob up and said, "Bob, that's wrong. The CIA has enormous files on the Muslim Brotherhood, volumes of them. I know because I read them a quarter of a century ago." He said, "What do you mean?"

Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this, too. I said, "Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word "Banna," B-a-n-n-a. He said, "Yeah." Type in "Nazi." Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said, "Oh my gosh, what have we done?"

What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda.

Here's how the story began. In the 1920s there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930s, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.

The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.

When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.

The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man -- The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the "Handjar" Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa -- grand dreams.

At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened.

Instead of prosecuting the Nazis -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel.

What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll.

Here's a video of John Loftus, from The Military Channel website:

Robert Spencer on Koran-Burning and Free Speech

From Human Events:

Obama found the burning of the Koran, and the burning of any book, distasteful, as do I. But that was why he should have stood up for Terry Jones. Speech that is inoffensive needs no protection, and those in power can all too easily use “hate speech” codes to restrict speech they find politically inconvenient or challenging. Obama could have said: "While I disapprove of this Koran-burning, in America we believe that freedom of expression is a fundamental bulwark against tyranny and the hallmark of a truly free society, and it requires us to put up with things we don't like without responding with violence."

He could, in short, have used Jones’ barbecued Koran as a teaching tool to demonstrate why free societies are preferable to sharia states. But instead, Obama and the media are effectively reinforcing the principle that violent intimidation works: They knew that somewhere in the world Muslims were going to behave like rabid dogs because of the burned Koran, and instead of telling them to grow up and act like civilized people, they are demanding that free people change the way they behave to adjust to this case of rabies.

Obama could and should be telling these rioting Afghans and Pakistanis, and those who are defending them, to realize that if someone burns a Koran in Florida, it doesn't harm them, or the Koran, or Allah, or Muhammad. He could and should tell them that to respond with irrational violence against people who are not involved with the burning (or even against the people who are involved with it) is just savagery.

People like Obama and Seaton have forgotten, if they ever knew, that one's response to someone else's provocative action is entirely one's own responsibility. If you do something that offends me, I am under no obligation to kill you, or to run to the United Nations to try to get laws passed that will silence you. I am free to ignore you, or laugh at you, or to respond with charity, or any number of reactions.

Everyone in the world is so busy condemning Terry Jones that they have forgotten about freedom of expression, and why it is so important to reinforce even when we find the expression detestable—indeed, especially in such cases. And so, if we continue down this path, one thing is certain: That which is not understood or valued will not be protected, and so it will be lost.

Mark Steyn on Lindsey Graham

From National Review Online:

Andrew, ever since I ran into a spot of bother in Canada, I’ve found myself giving speeches in defense of freedom of expression in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, etc. I did not think it would be necessary quite so soon to take the same stand in the land of the First Amendment against craven squishes of the political class willing to trade core liberties for a quiet life. I have no expectations of Harry Reid or the New York Times, but I have nothing but total contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham.

A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?

I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. The good news is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar e-Sharif to chop his head off because he’s already walking around with nothing up there. And, as for his halfwitted analogy with World War II, he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.

The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood and treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal heroin cartels, and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the absence of cultural confidence at home, we are sending the message that the bedrock principles of free, pluralist societies will bend and crumble in a vain race to keep up with the ever touchier sensitivities of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.

In Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of General Napier. I would urge any visitors to London to see it before it’s taken down, as it surely will be one day soon. Imagine what our world would look like if it were Lindsey Graham up on that plinth. A society led by such “men” cannot survive, and does not deserve to.

West Backs Mass Murderer in Ivory Coast

From the Telegraph (UK):

Charity workers who reached Duekoue said it appeared the killings had taken place in a single day, shortly after the town fell to troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the man internationally-recognised as having won last year’s presidential election.

The apparent massacre came despite the presence of United Nations troops and - if confirmed - will cast a shadow over Mr Outtara’s assumption of the Ivory Coast’s presidency after a four-month battle to oust Lawrence Gbagbo, the former president who lost the November election but refused to step down.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “gravely concerned” by the violence and loss of life in Ivory Coast and added: “I am determined that all alleged human rights abuses... must be investigated and those responsible held to account.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said its staff discovered more than 800 bodies of people who were clearly local civilians. They were mainly men who had been shot and left where they fell, the organisation said, either alone or in small groups dotted around the town, which lies at the heart of Ivory Coast’s economically crucial cocoa producing region.
Patrick Nicholson, a spokesman for the Catholic charity Caritas, said his team had counted 1,000 bodies, adding that some had been hacked with machetes. The UN said that it already logged 430 killed in Duekoue and was still investigating reports of more dead in the town.

Eliyho Matz: The Last Bergson Boy

Profiled in The Jewish Week by Lehman Weichselbaum:

Telling his story, Matz pauses for the occasional customer. A woman, thwarted in her request for use of the shop’s broken copying machine, is consoled by the gift of three manila envelopes. “Don’t tell anybody I did this,” says Matz. It’s a pet line.

At some point in the conversation Matz produces a small, self-published book with a cover portrait sketch of Peter Bergson against a white background. “Who Is An Israeli?” which features interviews and articles by Bergson, along with an account of Matz’s own brief career in the Israeli army. There are musings on the obsolescence of the Law of Return, the purported role of the legendary Khazars in the making of the Passover Haggadah and the real secret — Bergson’s promotion of an American-style constitutionalism — behind President Harry Truman’s support to the nascent State of Israel.

Though Bergson himself reportedly called his life’s work a failure, Matz grandly calls him “the most important Jew of the 20th century.” To spread the gospel, Matz couples his slim paperback, which he sells or gives away to All-Boro customers and new acquaintances, with a string of e-mail broadsides streamed to a select list of politicians, fellow historians and State Department officials.

In previous years Matz had landed articles in journals of influence like Midstream, placed letters to uncountable editors and contributed research to David S. Wyman’s iconoclastic study of the Holocaust, “The Abandonment of the Jews.”

Harsh backlash killed prospects for further publication, Matz contends, ultimately bringing him to his current role of hunkered-down polemicist and his wholesale-stationery day job (“I needed the money”).

Matz’s wife Barbara fills in as the shop’s bookkeeper. The couple has a son, David, a filmmaker. Another son, Michael, given “Bergson” as a middle name, died of cancer in 2008.
After a term in the Knesset in the 1950s, a frustrated Bergson left Israel for permanent settlement in New York, making a small fortune in the commodities market. Yet if anything, claims Matz, the recent turmoil sweeping the Arab world opens a tempting door to reconfigured relations between Israel and its neighbors, proving Bergson’s vision more vital now than even in his day.

“Ironically, both Egypt and Jordan have constitutions,” he says. Lacking a similar road map, he asserts, “Israel can’t figure out how to deal with the Palestinians and its own Arabs. How can it find a peaceful way to deal with the Egyptians and others?”
He stresses that other proposed constitutions have not, like Bergson’s version, carved out a secular foundation.

“What is Israel today?” scoffs Matz, who like Bergson calls himself a “pragmatic centrist.” “Kibbutzim, yeshivas and goats. They built themselves a ghetto bigger than anything in Europe,” says Matz, flouting the prevailing view of Israel as a vibrant if flawed society.

University of Wisconsin Releases Cronon Emails

Here's a link to the lawyer's letter...

The The Chronicle of Higher Education has more:

The university's response could set up a battle over what public records it must divulge.

The open-records request made by Mr. Thompson and a similar request directed at Michigan's three largest public universities by the free-market-oriented Mackinac Center for Public Policy are being denounced by the American Association of University Professors and others in academe as likely to chill academic freedom. But the phrase "academic freedom" appears nowhere in any state's list of allowable reasons for public colleges to turn down records requests, according to a database maintained by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Citing a need to protect "academic freedom" is, in itself, unlikely to help the universities avoid complying with requests for e-mails under state open-records laws, according to several national experts on academic freedom and records laws contacted this week by The Chronicle.

Although federal law prevents the disclosure of much information on individual students contained in such e-mails, and many states' records laws have exceptions for e-mails that are purely personal in nature or deal with unpublished research, closed meetings, or personnel decisions, there are no blanket exceptions intended to protect faculty members from efforts to obtain the sorts of e-mails covered under the Wisconsin and Michigan open-records requests.

April Fool's!

Cronon's Blog Included This Whopper...

Thanks to HSG campaigns for tweeting the link to Scholar as Citizen, which contained this statement from The Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:"My concern is rather to promote open public discussion and the genuine clash of opinions among different parts of the political spectrum, which I believe is best served by full and open disclosure of the interests of those who advocate particular policies."

Richard Vedder v Paul Krugman on the Cronon Affair

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

I laughed reading this, because Krugman shows here a lack of perception that almost equals that shown in his views on the economy. Remarkably, like Cronon, I have been forced, by a  public records request, to make available vast numbers of e-mails to a critic. A former student who became a minor Ohio political operative—and a Republican one at that—with whom I publicly disagreed once accused me of being “a slobbering, drunk old fool.” When a newspaper reporter asked me to comment, I replied, “I don’t slobber.” The critic got mad and tried to intimidate me by demanding my e-mail records.

I would agree with Krugman that this sort of tactic is an inappropriate way to deal with critics, and even is inconsistent with academic freedom broadly defined. I certainly agree that Cronon has a right to speak his mind. But Professor Cronon, like me, is subsidized in his speaking and writing by the public, including taxpayers, and they believe that they have a right to know what the people subsidized by them are doing. I don’t like it, Krugman doesn’t like it, and Cronon, no doubt, doesn’t like it, but that happens when public employees start speaking up on policy issues on what some taxpayers perceive to be their dime. The more higher education is dependent upon government support, the more the freedom of expression of those within the academy is likely to be subject to scrutiny.

Professor Cronon Calls His Center's Website "CHE"

The website says that C-H-E stands for "Center for Culture, History, Environment." But somehow, I don't think that as a University of Wisconsin historian, Professor Cronon would be oblivious to the nickname used by Ernesto "Che" Guevara...

The more you know about Professor William Cronon, the more questions...

Finally, A Reasonable Discussion of the Cronon Affair

By Peter Wood, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, no less, who finally points out that responding to a FOIA request need not compromise academic freedom:

I don’t know of any evidence that Professor Cronon did in fact violate any laws. It may be that the Wisconsin Republican Party is simply fishing. If so, its action is further unwelcome, not as a violation of academic freedom, but as a demonstration of small-mindedness. The better way for the Wisconsin Republican Party to answer a critic is by answering his arguments on their merits.

If Professor Cronon were in jeopardy of losing his job for what he wrote on his personal blog or published in the Times, I would agree with the AAUP and the AHA. Academic freedom in that case would be at risk. He faces no such risk. Separating the ostensible motive of the Wisconsin Republican Party (i.e. political reprisal for his public writings) from its chosen tactic (the Open Records Law request) may seem a fine distinction, but it is a necessary one. It’s necessary because the doctrine of academic freedom will lose legitimacy if it is allowed to become an excuse for breaking the law.

The Cronon affair has prompted widespread commentary, including articles by Paul Krugman, Jonathan Tobin, KC Johnson, and Mitchell Langbert, and an editorial in the Times. Some of this is hyperventilating. Krugman, for example, compares the e-mail request to “the ongoing smear campaign against climate science,” and asserts that there is a “clear chilling effect when scholars know that they may face witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn’t like.”

What’s needed is some level-headedness and clarity about what academic freedom can and cannot protect. Unfortunately higher education’s traditional watchdog for academic freedom, the AAUP, has recently mislaid its once sturdy understanding of this key concept. The AAUP’s recent pronouncements on academic freedom have served mainly as a rationale for further left-wing-inspired politicization of the university. As a result it is unable to offer trustworthy guidance in a case where a university has been served with a legitimate legal request.

Cronon & Supporters Violate AHA Standards of Professional Conduct...

Have Prof. Cronon or AHA officers even read their own statement of principles? IMHO, this should apply to the current Open Records Law controversy at the University of Wisconsin:

Furthermore, the different peoples whose past lives we seek to understand held views of their lives that were often very different from each other—and from our own. Doing justice to those views means to some extent trying (never wholly successfully) to see their worlds through their eyes. This is especially true when people in the past disagreed or came into conflict with each other, since any adequate understanding of their world must somehow encompass their disagreements and competing points of view within a broader context. Multiple, conflicting perspectives are among the truths of history. No single objective or universal account could ever put an end to this endless creative dialogue within and between the past and the present.

From the University of Wisconsin IT Regulations...

Did Prof. Cronon violate this rule?

Persons may not use University IT resources to sell or solicit sales for any goods, services or contributions unless such use conforms to UW-Madison rules and regulations governing the use of University resources. University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum. No one may use University IT resources to represent the interests of any non-University group or organization unless authorized by an appropriate University department.

(Source:Nicole Stockdale, Dallas Morning News) From the same source, a useful link to Wisconsin's Open Records Law:http://nxt.legis.state.wi.us/nxt/gateway.dll/Statutes%20Related/Wisconsin%20Statutes/840/857?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$3.0$q=[field%20folio-destination-name%3A%2719.31%27]$uq=$x=Advanced$up=1#LPHit1.

New Yorker Commenter Understands FOIA Better Than AHA President

...or New Yorker writer Anthony Grafton, for that matter, viz.

As a reporter myself (in San Diego, California), I use this state's open records law all the timeto request emails . This article states: "After all, Cronon’s mails, like those of most professors, include materials meant to be confidential: messages to and about students or colleagues. The only reason to compromise the protection these materials enjoy would be evidence of wrongdoing on his part, and there is none." This is a silly point that mis-characterizes the process of responding to such open records requests. The university could very easily run a search for the queries submitted by the Republican Party "fishing expedition," then redact any such confidential or sensitive emails from the pile it gets back, as I'm sure is allowed under Wisnonsin's public records law. Besides, it's unlikely that any emails containing the terms being searched for would be sensitive anyway, since the professor's unlikely to mention, say, Rob Cowles, in an email counselling a student. On another note, the notion that "fishing expeditions" of this kind are in some way nefarious or underhand bothers me as a journalist anyway. If the professor has, indeed, been using his university email account, and his publicly-subsidized position at the university, to engage in political activities, then the public that's footing the bill for his salary has a right to know that. Indeed, that's exactly what public records laws are designed for, isn't it? The university should accurately and in a timely manner respond to the request, while redacting any sensitive or confidential emails to the extent legally allowed. Then the public can make its own mind up about whether this was, indeed, a misuse of the professor's time and resources.
POSTED 3/29/2011, 4:46:18PM BY WILLCARLESS