Morning Report: May 22, 2005

Oregon's Smith to Arab leaders: Freedom first. Debka reports: 'US senator Gordon Smith [R - Oregon] advised Arab leaders to first take care on injustices in their own countries before fixing Palestinian issue. Addressing World Econonic Forum panel in Amman, he said: “Obviously greatest US commitment is to Israel’s security”, he stressed, and justice for Palestinians “if possible.”' (Debka)

North Korean ship docks near Seoul. Incredibly, the North Korean government is experiencing a shortage of fertilizer. South Korea has agreed to provide the humanitarian aid during inter-Korean negotiations, CNN reports: 'For the first time in over two decades, a North Korean ship docked in a South Korean port Sunday, the start of a series of voyages to pick up fertilizer donated to North Korea by the South Korean government. ... South Korea pledged to send 200,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea during meetings last week between the two nations. ... North and South Korea ended rare bilateral talks on Thursday without agreement on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.' (CNN)

Stefania Hits Print in JPost

Congratulations to Stefania LaPenna of the blog Free Thoughts! Stefania has published an article on Iran in the Jerusalem Post. Read it here:

Deceive and Rule

Another Successful Meet-Up

PDX LiberalHawks had another meet-up in Portland Wednesday night. Five of us got together - Michael Totten, Michael W., Martin, Richard, and myself - over drinks and dinner. We talked about politics, liberalism, conservatism, and the "radical center". All agreed that liberals have better food.

One thing I mentioned is this: Now that we know one another in person, none of us can say "I don't know anybody else who voted for Bush." There's strength in numbers. The internet is a great way to share information, but meeting other people face-to-face gives you a kind of solidarity that the internet can't. Whoever you are, whatever your politics, there are probably other people out there who'd like to meet you. (Hannah Arendt argued that human activity can be divided into three realms: labor, work, and action. Labor is the stuff you do to survive; work is your creative activity; and action is your interaction with other people in person - the political sphere in its purest form. But I digress.) Anyway, it's always good to know you're not alone.

Thanks to all who attended - and to those who couldn't make it, we missed you. Hopefully we'll hook up soon.

We're set for next week's meeting, too - this one will be in my neighborhood.

MSH, Ian Curtis +25 Years

Today marks twenty-five years since the death by suicide of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the Manchester, England -based rock band Joy Division (previously known as Warsaw and Stiff Kittens, and subsequently re-formed as New Order); it's also the 25th anniversary of the eruption of the Mount Saint Helens volcano in southern Washington State, which killed 57 people.

Chrenkoff: Good Guys Wear Black

This is repulsive.

"Star Wars" director George Lucas says that although he wrote the original film during the Vietnam War, his six-part saga could apply to the war in Iraq.

''In terms of evil, one of the original concepts was how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship,'' Lucas told a news conference at Cannes, where his final episode had its world premiere.

''The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.

''On the personal level it was how does a good person turn into a bad person, and part of the observation of that is that most bad people think they are good people, they are doing it for the right reasons,'' he added.

Arthur Chrenkoff has a few choice words for Mr. Lucas; go read his "Open Letter" at the link.

Free Muslims Against Terror - Update 2

The Autonomist has a good post with photos.

Good comment from the thread at LGF:

the low crowd turnout had two causes:

1) muslems didn't show up, and...

2) people who claim to want to see moderate muslems to denounce jihad didn't show up.

the former, as pointed out, face ostracism and reprisals when they return home.

what was your excuse?

Now, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I didn't have the chance to fly 3,000 miles to "the other Washington" to participate. But I know that there are things I can do in my community, and I'm doing them. Perhaps the same is true for you. No, the turnout for this event wasn't great, but it was a start, and it tells us we've got our job cut out for us. Let's keep working.

Africa Report

YU students rally against Sudan genocide. A group of students at New York's Yeshiva University organized a rally against genocide in Sudan, reports Kesher Talk: 'It got a respectable crowd, considering that it took place on Mother's Day. The rally was generated by a group of students at Yeshiva University, and there were many references to Jewish values from the podium and many kippot and tzitzit in the crowd. (Of course, the so-called social justice groups that staged the May Day rally in Union Square were nowhere to be seen.)' Judith also reports some welcome - though out-of-character - words from a Human Rights Watch representative. Read the full article at the link. (Kesher Talk)

Sudan violence rises. A recent news item reports: 'Rape, kidnapping and attacks on civilians increased last month in Sudan's Darfur region despite a growing international effort to end the bloodshed, a senior United Nations (UN) official said on Thursday. Hedi Annabi, the deputy head of UN peacekeeping operations, said African Union (AU) troops were effective in helping to stem the violence where deployed but underlined the importance of the AU's plans to beef up the force. "Instability, violence and civilian suffering in this troubled region continue," he said to the UN Security Council, adding there were also attacks on aid and relief workers. He called the attacks a "worrying trend in light of the role played by the humanitarian community in sustaining the 2.45 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur".' A State Department report at AllAfrica notes: 'Because Jingaweit [Janjaweed]militia continue to attack civilians in Darfur and thus perpetuate a lack of security in the region, bringing short-term stability to the area will require considerable strengthening of the African Union (AU) mission in Sudan, a senior U.N. official said May 12. Assistant Secretary-General Hedi Annabi told the U.N. Security Council that organized violence continues and that attacks on civilians, rape, kidnapping and banditry actually increased in April. Although there was no evidence of direct involvement of regular government forces, there were widespread reports of abuse by the pro-government Jingaweit militia.' (AllAfrica)

Egelund: Horn of Africa crisis highlights neglect. United Nations Undersecretary General Jan Egelund cited Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as Southern Africa, as regions slipping beneath the industrial world's radar. According to a State article at AllAfrica: 'Speaking with journalists after a private briefing to the U.N. Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Africa, Egeland said, "In general there is too little attention and there is too little investment" in Africa's humanitarian challenges. "Today a majority of our activities in Africa are badly underfunded. The majority [of projects] are less than 20 percent funded so far this year." Calling the situation in northern Uganda "one of the worse humanitarian crises in the world," the U.N. aid official warned, "We will have a break in the food pipeline in June unless we get more resources." "Already in the Horn of Africa and in parts of southern Africa we are having very meager rations and decreasing rations. In Ethiopia and Eritrea we are not able to feed all [the people] we should be feeding," Egeland said.' (AllAfrica)

Ethiopia: Election observers arrested. A recent bulletin from Stratfor (subscription service) reports: 'Ethiopia's opposition parties said May 14 that many of their election observers were arrested across the country, in addition to one candidate from the opposition United Ethiopian Democratic Forces. The opposition parties said that more than 100 observers remain in detention ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for May 15.' (Stratfor)

Hair

Judith at Kesher talk has an excellent post in response to Andrew Sullivan's recent dishing on the subject of hair.

Sully quotes a reader who suffers from that horribly debilitating social affliction: a hairy back.

A very hairy back.
Like Robin Williams’ arm hair hairy .... There. I've said it. I've admitted it. The weight is off my shoulders, though the follicles remain. I feel much better. Knowing there are people out there like you, people who support folks with back hair almost makes life worth living again. I say almost because I do have a couple of other hurdles to clear. Like biting my fingernails rather than a manicure. And I like red meat and regular beer. But then, recovery is a process, right?"

The question then arises of people who use depilatories. Judith takes up the debate:

I personally find this fad repulsive. I haven't seen as many naked guys lately as I would like, but to whatever extent I have been exposed to the hairless pubes look, it grosses me out. If I wanted to lech on smooth hairless boys, I would be a pedophile. Men have pubic hair, pre-pubescent boys don't. Women have pubic hair, pre-pubescent girls don't. Any guy who would be turned off because I don't shave down there is going to be politely shown the door.

Judith then lets another genie out of the bottle:

I have never shaved, period. Anywhere. I have never been very hairy and as I've gotten older the body hair has gotten even thinner, so at this point it looks like I shave my legs and pits, but I don't. ...

Now, I have always wondered: Why is it that straight men have this fixation on women's armpit hair (or its absence)? Is a woman with - gasp - unshaved armpits some kind of freak? Apparently it is an abomination - nay, a crime against nature - for a woman to fail to shave under her arms. "Female armpit hair" appears to have replaced "bra-burning" the new cliche of the Scary Feminist. Or as Judith says:

What gets me is the extremes of emotion this subject generates. To listen to blog comments when the topic comes up, women who don't shave are the most repulsive civilization-destroying creatures out there, almost as bad as terrorists. And of course any woman who doesn't shave must be a brain-dead New Age antiwar moonbat hippie. ...

My social life isn't quite as glamorous as I might wish, but I can tell you one thing - I'm not going to judge a date on how scrupulously she shaves her armpits. Sheesh.

Free Muslims Against Terror - Update

Davids Medienkritik doesn't sugarcoat it - turnout at the march in Washington, DC by the Free Muslims Against Terror was disappointing. Coverage from the MSM was sparse and overtly hostile, but you already knew that. Tune in to Little Green Footballs for the inevitable snarky comments (as well as a few positive ones). Perhaps Adrenalyn says it best: The name should really be "Three Muslims Against Terror".

A Message About Iraq

This message was forwarded by Andrea "Pajamas" in Minnesota. This Ali is not Ali Fadhil of ITM / Free Iraqi fame, but another Iraqi.

I am sending you this message to thank you for your support to the Iraqi people. I would love to tell you that people like you give us a huge hope to live in a better condition. I know that things are not going very well in Iraq at the moment, but we are trying our best to defeat our enemies. The problem with us Iraqis is that the number of countries surrounding us have dictators, from the smallest security service man to the highest rank in the government. These people send their brain washed children and support them. They are countries like, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt etc. + many Palestinians who want to solve their problems in Iraq. I wish we can see better days in Iraq soon and hope your country men will be safer.
By the way I live in London at the moment and going to Dubai tomorrow for 2 weeks. I was a regular reader to the brothers blog and comment section for a long time, but was unable to keep up with them.
Thank you again for your support and I hope Mr. Coleman will kick George Galloway's and Kofi Anan's As*es. Keep in touch.

Best Regards,

Your Iraqi friend Ali

Thanks, Andi, for passing this on.

Culture of Life: The Reading Hour

We had television in our family while I was growing up, but we didn't have much of it. Mom and Dad were pretty strict about what got watched and what didn't: "Captain Kangaroo" and "Lost in Space" early on, but no Saturday morning cartoons; later, "All in the Family", "Mary Tyler Moore", and "Bob Newhart", but none of the other sitcoms, which Mom considered coarse and vulgar. Actually I should clarify that Mom set the TV schedule - Dad didn't watch television, period. And they never, ever used television as a "babysitter".

Instead of sitting in front of the television tube, the four of us (my parents, my sister, and I) would sit around taking turns reading aloud, usually a chapter at a time, from some book. Both my parents were literary people and had excellent taste in books. This ritual, which lasted throughout our school years, helped us to bond as a family (and believe me, we had plenty of problems, so we needed all the help we could get) and did wonders for my literacy and speaking skills. It is one of the main reasons I feel comfortable writing and (to a lesser extent) speaking.

The best writing reads well aloud; indeed, the best writing is meant to be read aloud. Even in modern times, novelists like Toni Morrison and Theodore Sturgeon have affirmed the value of live reading. I read silently a lot, but even then I am conscious of how a passage sounds when read out loud; sometimes I will read a paragraph or two to my empty living room just to enjoy the sound of it. Personally, I do not think it is possible to write well without an awareness of the sound of the spoken word.

The books we read:

Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle In Time
(I was too young to catch the Kennedy-era references - "Camazotz", indeed! - but I took its warning against cold intellectualism to heart; and I never forgot Meg's words, "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!" In retrospect, I think there must have been a strong anti-Communist message.)

Lucy Boston - The Legend of Green Knowe (series)
(Even though I was too old, I had nightmares about the trees near our house.)

Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising (series)
(Another wonderful fantasy series drawing on the lore of ancient Britain.)

Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist
(I remember being troubled by the constant references to Fagin as "the Jew"; but it didn't lessen my admiration for Dickens as a writer. "A Christmas Carol" is still one of my favorite works of literature.)

Louis Slobodkin - The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree (series)
(Delightful stories of first contact in small-town America. Among my favorite lines: "General Store? Who is this General Store?" The bond between Eddie and his ET pal Marty - who, like Eddie, was always getting into trouble - was very warm.)

Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
(The relationship between the cross-gendered Jo and Laurie fascinated me.)

... I could add a lot more titles to the list if I thought about it, but those are just the ones that pop up for me now.

If I could make just one request of today's parents, it would be: Read with your kids. Don't just read to them, when they're at the storybook age (do that, certainly); but also get in the habit of sharing good books with them as they grow up. That is a gift they will keep for a lifetime.

"The Accretion of Truth"

Doubt is the prerequisite of truth. I don't buy the Millite idea of inevitable progress. But I do believe that one by-product of a free society is the advance of science and a better understanding of human nature. So we do not view women as we did a century ago. This is not simply a random, relativist change: it's because we now know the truth about the equality of women, we experience it daily, and our blind prejudices and cruelties have far less power . . . Ditto with race. And, so some extent, with abortion. Our ability, for example, to see the development of a fetus, to understand its development with far greater precision and detail than ever before, has inevitably sharpened our awareness of its humanness . . . And the reason our view of homosexuality has changed is not because we are somehow losing our sense of what is true or false: it is because we have a better, more informed view of what is true and false. This is not relativism. It is the accretion of truth. - Andrew Sullivan, quoted at The American Scene (hat tip: Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner