Hmm, are the usual busybodies going to take Iranian students to task for a lack of hospitality?
Don’t they know this only helps the whackjob in his own country? Don’t they know this goes against the traditions of a 7,000 year old country that values hospitality so much, it actually forces foreigners to be guests who never overstay their welcome, even if the visit lasts over a year?
Oct 8
I read in the papers about President Bush’s heartless veto of SCHIP — and that’s how it’s always described, heartless, like he’s taking money from orphans or is going to personally infect these nameless masses of kids with some horrible disease and then sit back and laugh in the White House as they aren’t treated because they don’t have “access” to health insurance – and I had a couple of thoughts.
First off, I thought after the Democrats raised the minimum wage in this country, nobody was going to be poor anymore. Silly me. Too bad they didn’t have a set of bench marks for that feel good but harm some while helping some others kind of non-solution. The way to raise wages isn’t by legislative fiat but by helping people to be more productive.
Secondly, where were all these handringers when President Bush was proposing tax cuts for parents? What a novel idea, let parents decide where they want to spend their money for the children, not Washington.
The crazy thing is, the fight is over just how much the program gets expanded, and oh by the way we’re already covering kids above “the poverty line”.
Before we get caught up in all the partisan back and forth, with deception the rule of the day, or go all gushy because children are involved, let’s think. What kind of healthcare system do we want – one with more third party pay, or one with less? And how do we want to pay for programs – with targeted taxes on one group to help another group, or with broad based taxes to help broad swaths of society? Do we want a battle over icons, another meaningless skirmish between two political parties, or do we want to think clearly about public policy? Because in the mangled words of a real political titan, here we go again — down the path of slogan wars and demonizing not just what we don’t understand, but what we don’t want to understand.
I don’t know who’s more shocked, me or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Lee Bollinger was Lucy to Ahmadinejad’s Charlie Brown last night at Columbia; both Mahmoud and I figured he was going to get a free kick, but President Bollinger to his credit pulled the ball away and Mahmoud took a tumble. When I read the front page article in the Post-Dispatch this morning, was I ever surprised. Not only did an American academic confront evil, the Post reported it!
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust deniers and raised questions about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in a tense showdown Monday at Columbia University, where the school’s head introduced the visitor by calling him a “petty and cruel dictator.”Ahmadinejad, appearing shaken by what he called “insults” from his host, sought to portray himself as an intellectual and argued that his regime had respect for reason and science. But the former engineering professor soon found himself drawn into the type of rhetoric that has alienated American audiences in the past.
He provoked derisive laughter by responding to a question about Iran’s execution of homosexuals by saying: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”
That was the lead of the article, not buried after the jump. Yowsa
Man, did I ever misjudge President Bollinger:
Bollinger drew strong criticism for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia and had promised tough questions in his introduction. But the stridency of his attack on the Iranian leader took many by surprise.”You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,” Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader’s Holocaust denial. “Will you cease this outrage?”
While I wasn’t the only one (pleasantly) surprised, apparently I’m in the minority. I admit it, I thought Columbia was going to roll over on it’s belly like a submissive dog, but instead the Hound of Cullan showed up.
It’s one thing to call people names when you know that person isn’t going to do a thing to you and you aren’t looking evil in the eye (yes, I include all those people who compare Bush to Hitler); it’s another to be on the stage with a man, President of a ruthlessly repressive government who doesn’t hesitate to order the torture and death of his own people, who murders via proxy (Hezbollah, Hamas) civilians in neighboring countries, and who is currently waging a proxy war with America in Iraq, look him in the eye, and call him out. Believe me, if that happened in Iran, Bollinger would be dead now. That takes both moral and physical courage, a couple of virtues that I thought was totally lacking in today’s Universities.
Lee C. Bollinger, you da man!
And no, I don’t think calling out Ahmadinejad, even though he’s the face, not the brains and muscle behind the current dictatorship, is disrespectful of Iran and it’s rich and ancient culture. Iran and Iranians deserve better than Ahmadinejad and the mullahs behind him, but I can understand their reluctance after being burned by the 1979 revolution that brought the current religious dictatorship to power to have another go at revolution.
The flying nun got everybody stirred up the other day by saying:
“May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised, and to especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait – wait for their children to come home for from danger, from harm’s way and from war. I’m not finished. I have to finish talking – if the mothers ruled the world there would be no goddamn wars in the first place.”
The left is decrying “censorship” because FOX cut the cussing (and the rest of the statement with it) out.
Personally, this underscores you’re on solid PC ground claiming women are superior to men (not just the flying nun, but entire women’s studies departments claim this), but you’re in trouble if you claim men are superior to women – just ask Larry Summers who was disinvited to speak by the University of California Regents after they were reminded of Dr. Summers remark that it would be worth researching whether the dearth of female professors in the hard sciences was due to innate sex differences. How is this different than saying mothers are more innately fit to run the world than fathers? Just asking.
I also have to wonder at the condition, if moms ran the world.
Umm, don’t they already?
Saint Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) famously observed “Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man”. I not so famously have observed that women in general, and mom’s in particular, have the children — boys and girls — to at least seven. I’d pay money to see a discussion between Mr. Jason Whitlock and Mrs. Sally Field on this subject do we have insufficient fathering in this country?
At the risk of raising ire from the right people, I’ll also point out that “momma’s boy” is not a compliment.
So my answer to the question What would life be like if moms ran the world, I have to say not much different. Actually, I take that back. If we mean only moms ran the world in a dictatorial fashion, then there would be more emphasis on reducing risk across the board – physically, economically, etc. And there would be more emphasis on religion. And we’d all wear clean underwear under penalty of law. I say this because these are two areas where men and women are different – women are more risk averse and more religious, and everybody knows about moms and clean underwear.
But an end to war altogether? No.
Sep 21
I’m not a fan of Ann Coulter’s an insult too far style of attention getting, but I did find this interview funny:
FB: Sexual harassment is a big issue in certain industries such as politics and the modeling business. Do you think people who trade sexual favors really get ahead?
AC: It seems to have worked for Hillary.FB: You are a brilliant self made and accomplished woman. Would you ever date a model?
AC: Is the model a Republican?FB: Which is the Bigger Disaster… a) Britney Spears at the VMAs… b) The New York Times.
AC: At least there’s hope for Britney.
The comments would be even more funny if they weren’t such a sad commentary on the current state of political discourse.
I think charges of hypocrisy are thrown around far more than warrented. The most common case is where someone who advocates what we shall call virtue is found not to always act in accordance with that virtue. For me the person would be a hypocrite not just because they sometimes failed to live up to their standards (only the standardless person would not then be a hypocrite), but the person who advocates something as a virtue they really don’t think is a virtue and who have no intention of living up to it as a standard.
So do I think for example that Senator Craig is a hypocrite as some have suggested for being a closeted conservative homosexual while not supporting a liberal homosexual agenda? No, I don’t think so. I think he should resign for soliciting sex in a public restroom, but I don’t think he’s a hypocrite because his politics don’t match someone else’s idea of what they should be because of his sexual orientation.
I think Al Gore is a hypocrite because while he tells us that because CO2 emissions are going to wreck the planet and kill millions, we need to change our lifestyles to reduce carbon emissions, he has not made any such changes in his lifestyle (nor is he alone in this).
Which brings me to Ed Begley Jr. I’ve seen his show on HGTV a couple of times (it’s on after Design Star) and he’s the anti-Gore. While I’m a global warming sceptic, I appreciate that making changes in the atmosphere’s chemistry may not be a good idea without a much better understanding than we possess. Begley seems to live the lifestyle he advocates, and he makes a fear free pitch. He doesn’t say you need to change everything or we’re all going to die; instead he tries to give practical advice on how you can save energy (and money) in a pretty non-judgemental way:
I think there will be a lot of takeaways; that’s the thing that we’re going to try and stress, that people should grab the low-hanging fruit first. Not everybody is going to buy a hybrid car, an electric car, put up solar panels, or maybe even do solar hot water – that may be out of people’s budgets – even though it’s a lot less than solar electric. But people can afford a light bulb. They can afford a thermostat if it’s going to put them into profit in six months. They can afford perhaps some insulation, if they have a little piece of dirt in their backyard or front yard, they can plant some vegetables, they can afford to compost, or ride a bike or take a bus. Those things are quite affordable; indeed they’re quite cost-effective.
Who gets better press coverage – Al Gore, or Ed Begley Jr. Who should? I’ll take Ed any day of the week.
David Bernstein asks a good question, Why should Larry Craig Resign? While he makes a good point, namely that other Senators have done far worse regarding their legislative duties — a critique I’m pretty much in full agreement with — one has to ask whey don’t the other Senators resign, and I have to wonder why incumbents are such heavy favorites for reelection given how badly so many of them perform. Why don’t we ever turn the bums out, and will the current catasprophically low approval ratings of Congress lead to fewer reelected bums?
I’m shocked, shocked to discover that politicians brazenly lie. Or that it would be Claire McCaskill this time.
Have you ever noticed how when it’s a Democrat in the White House, the credit for good news goes to his administration and blame for bad news goes to “the government”, but when a Republican is in the White House, just the opposite occurs?
Feb 10
I think Speaker Pelosi is being unfairly attacked over “Air Pelosi”. Just because I disagree with many of her political positions, that doesn’t give me the right to distort her positions or otherwise treat her unfairly. As Speaker of the House she’s supposed to get the use of an airplane – just like Dennis Hastert did. Maybe I’m just a fool, but I don’t believe the claims she demanded something bigger and better than what Hastert got – they play to the political dislike of her. I’m friends with many people who have political positions that I disagree with (some even to the right of me), and I’m no less their friend because of it. Why do we treat people who we have different political positions differently than those we do agree with? Why are we willing to believe the worst of those who have different politics?
And even if the worst were true – if Speaker Pelosi did demand Air Force 3 – the biggest jet after AF1 & 2 to ferry around her and her pals, would that somehow invalidate her political positions? Would the military campaign in Iraq be justified by that? Would hiking the minimum wage now be discredited? Universal Healthcare run and funded by the Federal government would have been just the ticket except Nancy Pelosi demanded an overlarge plane to fly around in? Of course not.
The United States has enough real enemies that we don’t need to treat each other like enemies.
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