Anne Wilson

Wednesday, July 31, 2002

 
Someone says,
"You're in the wrong place, my friend,
You'd better leave..."
And the only sound that's left,
After the ambulances go,
Is Cinderella, sleeping out on
Desolation Row.
- Bob Dylan, Desolation Row

While the Guardian is one of those "consider the source" papers, this account shows that British and American nationals looking for a quick buck slutting (excuse me, working) for the Saudis need to catch the next plane out. If they don't, US citizen girls guilty of having wahoobi morons for fathers won't be the only ones held hostage in that country.

Both Americans and Britons have been the scapegoats for a simmering Saudi revolution.

It is feared that the anti-Western bombing campaign has been sanctioned by Islamic factions in government plot ting to take power and break ties with the West. That, some observers say, is why the bombings have been blamed on Westerners. The real bombers have protection from some very high places.

Westerners are being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and best of all, asked by their respective governments to "work it out quietly through diplomatic channels." The Guardian says:

Yet such outrages have attracted little condemnation from Western governments, including Britain. Relatives of the jailed have been told to keep quiet in favour of 'behind the scenes' diplomacy. It appears that the wider interests of Saudi oil and Saudi support in the war on terror are of greater importance than the rights of expats. As far as diplomacy is concerned, the vital task of supporting the Saudi government in the face of growing domestic unrest is the only thing that matters.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Anne 1:53 PM

 
Go-see: K-19: The Widowmaker. Director Kathryn Bigelow of action-adventure expertise pulls it all together with suspense and art. Based on actual events, the film pits Soviet submarine commander (Harrison Ford) against his recently-demoted executive officer (Liam Neeson) in a 1961 race for survival in the Northern Atlantic as the flagship Soviet nuclear sub gets into some serious hot water during a missile test.

IK-19 is also mercifully free of the romance and "girls back home" heart-tuggers that blight so many military movies.

have a weakness for submarine movies; they offer the perfect setting for intense drama, because the realm of action is so tightly focused, with the fewer shifts back to the "outside world" the better. Bigelow utilizes the setting to its fullest.

If you go on a tear for sub movies, here are some of the better ones:

Das Boot, 1981: The trials of a German Unterseeboot during the rise in Allied fortunes during the Battle of the Atlantic. German subtitled directors' cut (DVD) and English-dubbed VHS, called "The Boat."

The Hunt for Red October, 1990: A Soviet sub commander wants to defect, but has to fight his own political officer, the Soviet Navy, and the misapprehensions of the CIA.

The Enemy Below, 1957: Two formidable opponents meet in the persons of an American sub and German U-Boot commander.

Silent Service, 1995. Japanese anime about an ultra-nationalist sub commander who hijacks the "super-sub" Seabat and renames it the Yamato, and then embarks on a rogue mission to restore the old Japanese empire.




Anne 9:46 AM

 
From the Everything You Know is Wrong Dept. Today's Wall Street Journal (dead tree edition, sorry) has an article in the Personal Journal section on how annual pet immunizations might be causing more veterinary problems in animals than they solve. (This "natural pet care" site has some of the same info as the WSJ article.)

Vets have noticed an increase in autoimmune diseases, and most significantly an increase in cancers and tumors at the site of injections. Ironically, this is receiving more notice in animals than people, where "alternative medicine" voices for years have been warning about autoimmune and tumor reactions from vaccinations.
Anne 9:18 AM

 
Cuban defector update: The World Youth Day communications director, Paul Kilbertus, has condemned the Cuban defectors who have applied for asylum in Canada, chiding them for taking advantage of a spiritual event and "potentially abusing trust." Kilbertus claimed that the WYD organizers had worked closely with the Cuban government.

Havana bishop Carlos Baladron offered his assessment:

In Havana, Bishop Carlos Baladron of the Cuban province of Guantanamo said the Church is not facing repression on the island, despite the defections.

Baladron, who led the Cuban delegation to Toronto, said he didn't think the incident would make it harder to get Cuban government permission for church groups to travel in the future.

"In order to do something like this (desert), you say things ... that aren't true," said Baladron. "We haven't had any religious persecution, neither there (in Canada) nor here."

The Globe and Mail gives us this reassuring news:

But a spokesperson for the Cuban Council of Catholic Bishops, an organization that signed visas for the young pilgrims, doubts their claims of persecution.

"I think they really are just young professionals, educated Cubans, who are looking for economic enrichment," said Orlando Diaz. Catholics in Cuba face neither threat of imprisonment nor violence, he said.

I'm glad these guys weren't standing against the Soviet Union's puppet government in Poland; we'd still be looking straight down the barrel at Soviet nuclear missiles today. Maybe we should go rebuild that wall in Berlin, just to keep the communist sympathizers in our own hemisphere happy. After all, the old USSR had "freedom of religion" in its constitution, too.

Anne 9:04 AM

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

 
Everything You Know is Wrong #42: First it was dinosaurs with fur. Then it was the carbs, not the fat. Now it turns out that early-morning exercise may be bad for you. Seems like the immune system isn't up to speed until a few hours after waking. It *likes* that long, slow perusal of the newspapers and a cup of coffee (or grapefruit juice) to get going. (Channelled through Midwest Conservative Journal.)
Anne 10:00 PM

 
This is just so cool... Juan Gato alerts us to a report that 23 Cubans have defected in Toronto in conjunction with World Youth Day celebrations there. Apparently the Toronto Cuban community helped. Way to go, guys.
Anne 9:53 PM

 
It's a long road to twenty-one for the Bush girls. They've been nabbed drinking again, only this time escaped with their drinks being confiscated and nothing worse.

When they finally (how long, O Lord?) turn 21, most everyone in the US is going to want to stand them one. They're the poster girls for repeal of 18-up to 21 year old Prohibition in this country.

Nice to know you can help land F-18s on a carrier deck for your country, or drop bombs on jihadi terrorists, or legally get married at 16 (with parental consent) and have four kids by the time you're twenty, but you can't have a Margarita.
Anne 3:35 PM

 
Islam Online claims that Islam is the predominant religion in Amsterdam, with:

• 13% Islamic
• 10% Catholic
• 5% Dutch Reformed Protestant
• 1% Jews
• 12% "Other religions"

Keeping the source in mind, a few observations suggest themselves. Holland is most likely like other European countries with "established" religions, where the state taxes people based on their official religious declaration, and "gives" the money to the specific denomination. If Islam is not a taxed religion, then more people would be willing to declare themselves Muslims as opposed to various kinds of Christians (who probably are taxed.)

The numbers also probably reflect the substantially higher Islamic birth rate, fostered by the Netherlands' generous socialist welfare provisions.

Last week, Partisan Review had an in-depth article by Bruce Bawar on the same subject: the "outbabying the enemy" strategy of European Muslim immigrants.

One of Bawar's more chilling points is that the lack of Muslim immigrant assimilation is fostered by the Dutch school system. While US conservative writer Marvin Olasky lauds Canada's subsidy program for private schools, one can see the end-game application in the Netherlands:

Yet many Muslim youngsters in the Netherlands attend private Islamic academies (many of which receive subsidies from the Dutch state as well as from the governments of one or more Islamic countries). These schools reinforce the Koran-based sexual morality learned at home–one that allows polygamy (for men), that prescribes severe penalties for female adulterers and rape victims (though not necessarily for rapists), and that (in the fundamentalist reading, anyway) demands that homosexuals be put to death. If fundamentalist Muslims in Europe do not carry out these punishments, it is not because they’ve advanced beyond such thinking, but because they don’t have the power.

In other words, they don't have a majority of voters - yet.
Anne 3:08 PM

 
A reader comments on vouchers: Bob Cavalli writes:

Some observations on your posting about the Florida voucher program:

It would seem to me that those students from "failing" schools whose parents take advantage of vouchers to send them to "better" public schools will be better motivated, and have better parental support, than those that remain. The fact that the parents are motivated to do so is evidence that they are willing to provide the kind of encouragement that permits the "better" schools to be just that.

If the author of the article believes that the pampered kids of North Palm Beach Elementary school are spending their spare time at the zoo, reading great books, and at museums, well, I've got some swampland to sell. Indeed, I would posit that they are more likely to be sitting in front of a video game that their "failing" school counterparts. If their parents 'lack formal education'....well, so did my parents; my father, son of Italian immigrants from NYC, my mother, a farmer's daughter from rural south
Georgia. I managed to graduate HS, get a college degree, and, though I ain't Rockefeller, do just fine.

I would also say that no small number of the NPBE parents, armed with college degrees, are two-career parents, and the kids spend most of their after school time in day care.

Finally, the entire article, and your comments that follow, hint of an elitism that is widespread among tony suburban neighborhoods. 'We don't want THOSE kinds "inundating" our school, changing our demographics,....if they do, we'll just take little Chelsea out and send her to private school'. That's offensive and, sadly, all too true. How about another theory...that going to better schools will result in the kids from the other side of the tracks doing BETTER, and if the snobs take their kids out, well,
good riddance.

One point about the "snobs" is that they are often the parents who are the most involved in the schools - who run the committees, the PTO; who do the lions' share of the classroom volunteering and run the fundraisers; who start and run the tax-exempt foundations which disburse grants to the local school. If that's "elitist," well, then it is, because my observation is that 20% of the parents do 80% of the work. Remove that 20%, and a school can change its character radically.


Anne 2:57 PM

Monday, July 29, 2002

 
A socialist I can agree with, on some points at least. UPI interviews Milwaukee socialist and school reformer John Gardner, who wants to see an end to the "Yale or jail" mentality afflicting high school programs which emphasize four-year college for students at the expense of anything else. When asked why high school students are so pressured into college, instead of apprenticeships or the skilled trades, Gardner listed some reasons which I summarize:

• People in the education world are all four-year graduates (or higher), and are increasingly culturally and socially out of touch with those in the skilled trades.


• A new approach is needed to replace the old "voc/tech programs," and cost-effective solutions are difficult to implement.


• The need for and support of skilled *domestic* labor has decreased as more manufacturing jobs move overseas or companies downsize. (What's unsaid is that the same things are happening to "white-collar" professions that require four-year degrees.)


• Colleges compete vigorously against each other and put enormous resources into marketing.

Gardner's Milwaukee "Pulaski Project" matches inner-city high school youth with apprenticeships in the skilled trades.

For that matter, why should apprenticing into a skilled trade follow along class lines? I see no reason why the children of middle-class engineers (whose work is being outsourced to Bangalore, ironically) shouldn't also be encouraged into welding or automobile repair if they have an aptitude for it.

Nor should the middle-class student have to pay for his own skilled-trade education at a private vo/tech post-secondary program. Even "better" public school districts should foster good programs that don't discriminate along class and sex lines, and students should be able to commence their studies at 16 or thereabouts, rather than 18.
Anne 7:57 PM

 
Most parents in Palm Beach, FL avoid vouchers and instead either keep their kids in "failing schools," or choose to send them to neighboring "better" public school districts. The state will pay for the transportation when a public school is chosen.

But what happens to those "better" public schools when they are inundated with transfer students from "failing schools?"

Traditionally, North Palm Beach Elementary's students have come from middle class families whose incomes have afforded children the associated advantages, such as books at home and parents who are well-educated and have time to spend helping their children with school.

"There were always exceptions, students with [learning disabilities] and low-achievers. But mostly, our kids were provided all the things they needed at home," [Principal] DePasquale said. "Our school, this coming next year, is going to change demographically drastically."

... Many of the transfer students ... come from poorer families that cannot buy them many books or take them to the museum or zoo, experiences that enhance what's taught at school. The parents of some don't speak English or don't have much formal education themselves.

What education reformers fail to address is what happens when these adjacent "better" school districts become seen as no longer desirable by middle class parents, who do *not* qualify for voucher money themselves to send their own children to private schools?

Anne 7:01 PM

 
Will another Arab-enthralled timeserver move upstairs in the State Dept.? That's what worries parents of US citizens held hostage in Saudi Arabia for the "crime" of being female. Apparently nominee Maura Harty, formerly of the State Department's Office of Children's Issues, ran an office that was "unresponsive and even callous toward [parents'] concerns."

Writer Deroy Murdock of FrontPage Magazine says about this nomination:

President Bush should not promote Ryan's former co-pilot to steer Consular Affairs. Instead, he should appoint a tough outsider who will repatriate kidnapped American children, sack those at our Embassy in Qatar who allegedly sold some 70 visas for up to $13,000 each and repel every visa applicant who dreams of slaughtering Americans.

This is so outrageous, so wrong, and so ultimately destructive of us as a country. These women and girls are American citizens. We should send *gunships* in there to rescue them, and God help any Saudi who gets in our way. Did we send the US Marines to the shores of Tripoli for nothing, that Islamist thugs can continue to capture Americans and keep them imprisoned and enslaved, and that an executive cabinet office, under the direct control of the President, allows them to get away with it?

Anne 6:41 PM

 
The Shi'ite Muslim practice of "temporary marriage" raises its ugly head again as Iran floats a plan to license brothels. In its endless and fruitless effort to hold the moral high ground over the decadent, Brittney-Spears-watching West, these brothels would also issue the "temporary marriage licenses" required to keep the transactions "legal" and "moral" under Islamic law. Womens' groups are screaming, "legalized prostitution," and they're right.

What doesn't seem to occur to the Shi'ites of Iran is that perhaps the economic conditions of women there are so dire because of their retrograde and barbaric practice of segregating women off in purdah.


Anne 6:31 PM

 
First it was Lyme disease, now it's babesiosis, which is also spread by deer ticks and sounds even worse than Lyme. Apparently it's more like malaria and is fatal 5% of the time.

The little deer ticks just won't stay where they should (in the upper Northeast.) Why not? One reason could be that deer in suburban areas have become like park rats. The deer stubbornly refuse to stay where they should (out in the country where people can hunt them.) Instead, they migrate into the 'burbs where they feast on $500 Japanese maples and the most expensive of shrubs.

They're everywhere in suburban St. Louis County, where people feed them, put salt licks out for them, and where shooting them is absolutig verboten.

Perhaps the hunting season on deer could be extended, more doe tags could be granted, and conservation officials could be permitted to kill deer captured in the suburbs, instead of releasing them only to have them return again and spread more tick-borne diseases.

Anne 6:22 PM

 
Over fifty whales beach themselves in Massachusetts. Maybe they wanted to sign on to the fast food fat lawsuit...
Anne 6:16 PM

Thursday, July 25, 2002

 
Saudi Watch: Little Green Footballs has had some incredible "Saudi watch" links over the past few days. But you read that one daily anyway, right?
Anne 1:45 PM

 
Let the games begin: Fat New Yorkers sue fast food companies. Yes, it's an evil thing when you innocently walk by and they shove those firehoses down your nose to quickly deliver the food against your will. Someone needs to do something about that.

One of the seven plaintiffs claims that he is an addict, that he was tricked, and that he thought fast food was good for you. Why isn't the stupidity of the plaintiff an acceptable defense?

I want to see the jury in this case. If it's composed of obese daytime-TV-watchers, the fast-food corporations are sunk.

You heard it here first: Next target will be the dairy and meat industries, for producing butter, cream, cheese, and meat with fat.

Look for taxes on the meat and dairy industries as well, although ironically I recall legislative fights in Illinois decades ago to *remove* sales taxes on food, as a form of indirect aid to the poor.

Never mind either that it's the carbs, not the fat. If the fat police want to tax anything, let them tax high-fructose corn syrup.
Anne 10:01 AM

 
Baptist college tries to evict mosque but runs into resistance when Islamic leaders on campus said they will not make plans to vacate the mosque.

Shaw University in North Carolina got its mosque when

the mosque and the building that houses it were built with a $1 million gift from King Khalid of Saudi Arabia in 1983.

During the early 1980s, the university's ties with the Saudi government — facilitated through a now-deceased Palestinian-born professor — resulted in an enrollment of as many as 500 Middle Eastern Muslims at the oldest historically black college in the South.

One wonders how a Baptist college got so deep in bed with the Saudis that they got a mosque out of the deal, although one Islamic professor commented that

[the university president] is under pressure from prominent Baptists on our board of trustees who have long wanted to do away with the mosque.

Good luck. While the university has no more Middle Eastern students, apparently African and US Muslim students use the mosque. Talk about the camel's nose getting under the tent...


Anne 9:50 AM

 
The roots of jihadi Muslim rage? Turkish physicians performed mass circumcisions in Kabul this week. Traditionally, Islamic boys are circumcised not shortly after birth, as in Judaism, but between the ages of 2 and 11, and almost always without anesthetic in less developed societies.

Thank God the Turkish doctors gave those boys anesthesia, and it's no doubt they "won friends" among the populace, considering how brutal the alternative is.

The cultural practice of circumcising boys that old, and without anesthetic, is really sick. No wonder "traditionalist" Muslim men are screwed up - you don't have to be a Freudian headshrinker to know that if a boy thinks other men are coming after his weenie with a knife, and *he's right,* he's going to be a terrorized, sniveling, woman-hating, sexually screwed up coward full of rage his whole life long.
Anne 9:28 AM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

 
Sonics in Yankee-land: Rod Dreher of NRO wants to know if they have Sonic Drive-Ins in Yankee-Land. (This begs the question of what a granola conservative is doing even *thinking* about going to Sonic, but that's another issue.)

If you define St. Louis as Yankee-land, then yes. If you consider St. Louis as still part of the South (because we were occupied by the Feds during the whole duration of the "War of Northern Aggression") then I guess not.
Anne 2:58 PM

 
The new Archbishop of Canterbury: No doubt we'll all read hundreds of column-feet about Dr. Rowan Williams' rampant liberalism. However, I found it interesting in this Times Online article that he watches The Simpsons and likes Roald Dahl's prose. He also hates Disney, child beauty contests, the commercialization of childhood, and over-sexualized girl fashions. Now go ahead - whale away...

Archbishop Williams update: (7/24/02) The British pro-life organization, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, claims him as a member. From the SPUC website:

The Archbishop has been a life member of SPUC for many years; we are delighted to see that someone of such positive pro-life views has been recommended for the most senior position in the Church of England; the example he gives of Christian witness to the sanctity of human life whether unborn or born will inspire other Anglicans throughout the world to recognise that society must foster a loving and supportive environment for the weakest and most vulnerable of the human race.

Wow. Hopefully he will be an inspiration to the ECUSA.
Anne 2:53 PM

 
Credit for today's blogging goes to my husband, who sent me lots of links to these stories & brought up good points about them.
Anne 10:15 AM

 
More on Pakistani Christians: A reader with personal knowledge of Pakistan writes:

While the contents of your posting correctly indicate the jealousy of local mullahs towards richer Christians, I believe it does give a false impression of the state of Chritstians over there. Most of the local Christians are from the lowest "castes" (technically not in practice, though in practice it's moderately present)-- the sweepers. Only a few of the Christians are from the upper classes, and that tends to be a remnant of more influential families converted during the British rule.

Further, I don't believe the snippet you quoted is correct when it says "Christians in Karachi control some 60 per cent of the largest businesses" -- it has mistaken Christians for a different, also-hated minority, the Mohajirs. Those Mohajirs are *Muslim* refugees from the separation of the united British colony into India and Pakistan in 1947. Not all Muslims left India, but the ones who left tended to be the more well-to-do, selling their holdings to finance the trip. Any leftover cash after the trip went into investments in their new homeland, which bootstrapped them into a better position economically. Not surprisingly, this has caused widespread resentment among the
local, poorer, Muslims, and sectarian violence has been widespread in Karachi and its surroundings for 20-30 years.

Further, with an average of 4.11 children born per female (2001 CIA World Factbook), Pakistan's population is growing faster than the economy to really support. Thus, a large body of un/underemployed youths are present.

Christian-run businesses in Pakistan are few and far between. When a convert is (at best) permanently exiled from their extended family, or (at worst) tortured and/or killed, there is little support for a business. Local mosques broadcast sermons on loudspeakers heard for blocks, and an instamob ("just add hatred") could be formed quite
quickly to lynch/rampage/loot any business suspected of being Christian.

So, with widespread persecution, such as the early church faced in Roman times, things might be turning out the same, right? Unfortunately, no. In the Church of Pakistan (splitoff from Church of England), a Karachi bishop's election took place in the late 1990s. That election made Florida 2000 look like a clean, undisputed election, to put it mildly. Charges of vote fraud, miscounting and the like were rampant. The disputes dragged on for years, even ending up in local (Islamic!) civil courts. This certainly did not reflect well on the church.

Anne 10:09 AM

 
A funny State Department story: A reader contributes the following:

Oh, the State Department. The British have their equivalent, the Foreign
Office. They tell the story about the confused foreigner walking down Whitehall, looking up and down and across the street and finally asking an English passerby: "Please be excusing me, sir, but on which side is the Foreign Office?" The Englishman shakes his head sadly and says, "Yours, probably."

Anne 10:00 AM

 
The birth of the Instrumentality: Science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith in the late 1950s and early 1960s wrote some of the best "biological" science fiction of his day. Smith was the pen name of Paul Linebarger - Asian scholar, CIA intelligence operative, and High-Church Episcopalian whose Christian views permeated his short but brilliant science fiction career. He created a world in which a dictatorial and virtually all-powerful "Instrumentality" governed the worlds throughout space by a utilitarian ethic that undermined human dignity in every respect and created literal "hell on earth."

In Smith's world, biological manipulation created a race of "underpeople" - beings who looked somewhat human, but who were produced from animal stock. Possessed of sentience, reason, and language, they nonetheless formed a vast and oppressed slave caste artificially bred & devoid of rights and accorded no dignity. In the shadows of the Instrumentality's utilitarian hell lurked wide but secret network of those who worshipped "the Three," and who drew no distinctions between underpeople and "real" people, and who, it is hinted, would eventually bring the Instrumentality down.

Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality came a little closer to realization as Wisconsin scientists produced cloned cows that possess human DNA. Today the human DNA component is only 0.1 percent, but what next? One percent? Ten? Forty? At what point does the cow cease to be a cow in every sense, and become Smith's "underperson?" At what point do the laudable ends (relief of human disease) no longer justify the means?
Anne 9:50 AM

 
Dems can pander for Hispanic votes too: US Congressman Dick Gephardt floats his own "legalize the illegals" plan, which would allow those who have lived in the US for five years and have two years work experience to become permanent residents. Illegal immigrant opponent Dan Stein calls it "green cards for votes."

Gephardt delivered his remarks to a Hispanic "advocacy group" called "National Council of La Raza." "La Raza" means "the race" in Spanish. I presume they're talking about biological race and not track & field events. Does this appellation strike anyone else as a bit racist itself? Since when are "Hispanics" a race, and if so, why are Spaniards from Spain not considered part of it?
Anne 9:34 AM

 
Boston Archdiocese scorns donations: Cardinal Law doesn't want the lay Catholic group Voice of the Faithful's money because:

... the group's approach to donations "does not recognize the role of the archbishop and his responsibility in providing for the various programs and activities of the church."

The statement went on to say that it was refusing the Voice of Compassion funds out of "a sincere effort to maintain the proper relationship between a bishop and the faithful."

So in other words, accepting tax money for Catholic Charities, etc. *is* showing "the proper relationship" and "recognizes the role of the archbishop?" Money from taxpayers is "worth" more than money from Catholics who decide to take some initiative in setting up their own free association, and their own private foundation outside of archdiocesan control?

Where's the concern for the poor here? What VOF should do is say, Fine, you don't want our money - there are dozens of other charities that could use it. Give it to the power company's "Dollar Help" plan (where donations go to pay the utility bills of poor customers.) Give it to ecumenical crisis pregnancy centers or homeless shelters. I don't think the poor family sweltering in 90 degree heat is going to care if their AC bill is paid by the Archdiocese or VOF.

For that matter, why should anyone give money to VOF's charitable fund either? Why give charitable donations to yet another clearinghouse? It makes more sense to give charitable contributions to those organizations who work closest to the bone and closest to the services provided - those which have the *minimum* administrative overhead. Why maintain a charitable "superstructure" when one can give directly to the agencies directly "in the trenches," so to speak?


Anne 9:25 AM

Friday, July 19, 2002

 
Conditions for Christians in Pakistan deteriorate: Since the US commenced bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, persecution of Catholic and Protestant Christians in Pakistan has continued apace, including armed jihadi gunmen breaking into a Mass and murdering 15 worshippers back in October.

Christians are executed for "blasphemy" for stepping on a discarded newspaper. (You would think the one who threw the paper in the street would be equally indicted.) Then there are the daily indignities and discrimination of living under Islamic law.

Muslim hatred of Christians may be rooted in economic resentment as much as religious hatred:

As a whole, Christians in Pakistan tend to be wealthier and better educated. Comprising a fraction of the population, Christians in Karachi control some 60 per cent of the largest businesses. Though the Catholic Church in Pakistan is by no means wealthy, increases in church-owned land have increased jealousy among the mullahs.

One point not often mentioned when the poor economic conditions of Islamic societies comes up is how economically counterproductive is their treatment of women. Early and forced marriage; little or no education for girls; compulsory child-bearing; brutalization; economic and social isolation all create conditions where "human capital" (i.e. the talents and skills every person brings to their society) is severely depressed and under-appreciated in the Islamic-law states. Maybe there's a *reason* why Christians are so successful even in a third-world economy like Pakistan's.


Anne 10:21 PM

 
A nurse writes: Your comments on nursing and on Kurtz's article are right on target.

I am a BSN, currently at home with my toddler, and I don't want to go back to bedside nursing EVER -- those days of frantically running from room to room, of not getting lunch, of not having time to go to the bathroom, of knowing that the cream of my time and attention was going to the job while my husband only saw an exhausted, cranky wife, of knowing that I would never see a significant raise for the rest of my career. I loved nursing (I cared for patients who had had cardiac, vascular, and thoracic surgery) but resented that I didn't have time to do it well and REALLY resented being treated by the administration like a warm body instead of an educated professional.

I'm not sure if there's ever been a golden age for professional nurses. In times past, nursing students provided most of the care in hospitals, as part of their "training." They might work a couple of years after their graduation before they left to marry.

I do agree with Kurtz that the nursing profession is suffering in part from a lack of a sense of vocation. There is no esprit de corps -- it's just a job. The feminists have stipped away the "nurse as handmaiden" idea but haven't replaced it with anything.

Anne 10:07 PM

 
Corn and Saudi co-dependence: Today's New York Times has an article on the role of corn farming in modern agriculture. Most of the corn we produce (at a high level of government subsidy, by the way) goes into high-fructose corn syrup, corn for fattening animals to ready them for slaughter, and junk food.

But one of the more significant points comes last:

To produce the chemicals we apply to our cornfields takes vast amounts of oil and natural gas. (Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas, pesticides from oil.) America's corn crop might look like a sustainable, solar-powered system for producing food, but it is actually a huge, inefficient, polluting machine that guzzles fossil fuel — a half a gallon of it for every bushel.

One doesn't have to be a pointy-headed eco-whacko to realize that all this reliance on fossil fuel for agriculture only digs us deeper into the hole of Mideastern oil dependence. And for what?

No one *needs* to eat high-fructose corn syrup. In fact, eliminating it from one's diet requires a lot of effort, even if it is worth it. No one needs to eat fattened beef. People have been cooking and eating venison, rabbit, and lean red meat for millenia and if it's prepared properly (i.e. with enough fat in the cooking process) it's very tasty. Let the cattle graze; turn the grass into milk, and skim the cream from the milk for butter or sauces for meat.

Taking an animal that's healthy, and turning it into an unhealthy one in the last stage of its life seems stupid and counterproductive at best. At worst, if it makes us more dependent upon the Saudis and other Middle Eastern oil providers, it's worse than a recipe for obesity: it's dangerous to the entire world. More petrodollars to Mideast oil providers means more money directly fueled into terrorism.

"If you buy high-fructose corn syrup, you're funding terrorism!" That would make an interesting PSA.
Anne 11:30 AM

 
Wall Street Journal sums it up on the US State Department in a great print-edition editorial, which you can read here.
Anne 11:16 AM

 
The US State Dept. issues mea culpas for its employees' e-mails, where US Senator Dan Burton (R, IN) was referred to as a "McCarthyite," and a staffer feared State high-ranking official Mary Ryan's replacement would be a "neo-Nazi."

All well and good, but is the Saudi Visa Express program still operating? If so, when will it stop?
Anne 10:48 AM

 
EU hypocrites: Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute writes a "Friday Fax" on the United Nations and policy issues on family planning and population control, from a conservative Catholic standpoint. While I don't agree with everything therein, his latest (Vol. 5, No. 30, not yet posted on the website) has an interesting proposal put forth by some European Union members to cancel the Vatican's official status at the UN.

Yes, they're all mad at the Vatican for being anti-abortion (old news), but what struck me was how one proposal

"... stresses that the principle of secularity implies the total independence of public institutions and their sphere of competence from ecclesiastical and religious influences and organizations." The resolution seems to be calling for the exclusion of religious-mindedpeople of all denominations from participation in the political process.

I find this very curious as a position from which to argue for the removal of the Vatican from debates on population and family planning policy. Two things have to be considered. First, since the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the Vatican has been considered by the entire world as a *sovereign nation.* It may only be a few miles square, and it has no divisions (as mass murderer Josef Stalin pointed out) and is defended instead by the Italian military, but it's a country. Like any other country, the Vatican has a right to send representatives to various UN meetings and have its say on policy issues.

Second, do these Eurosquirts really want to eliminate *any* country from the UN whose public institutions are not "totally independent from ecclesiastical and religious influences?" While there might be about the same number of Catholics and Muslims in the world as a whole (about 1 billion), the pictures are very different regarding their "religious influences," especially when it comes to enforcing one's religious views with police and military power, and the infliction of terrorism. The Vatican is one tiny state that you could walk across in 15 minutes. As stated above, it has no military power whatever.

By contrast, most of the world's Muslims live in either Islamic-law states or states on their way to becoming Islamic-law. When a country adopts Islamic (sha'riah) law, there is no difference whatever between the ecclesiastical power and the secular.

By this (non-)reasoning, if the Vatican is thrown out of the UN, every Islamic-law state should be thrown out of the UN as well. In addition, states that are deliberately *non*-religious (like Communist China) should go as well, because dogmatic state adherence to atheism should be as reprehensible to these tender EU sensibilities as Islamic law.

Maybe an even better idea would be for the US to send the UN packing. They could relocate in Riyadh, and the UN building on the East River would make a lovely condominium. They could put on musical theater in the big meeting room - it would be a better use for it and it would make money, rather than sucking it from US taxpayers.


Anne 10:24 AM

Thursday, July 18, 2002

 
Goliard and granola: He wonders whether granola conservatism is simply another example of Boomer "pomp and works:"

Meditating upon this point [that granola-ism is too expensive for many young conservatives] helps to explain some of the visceral dislike for granola-ism one finds in conservative ranks. And it goes double, I think, for conservatives of my age cohort or slightly younger (I am 31), as we cut our ideological teeth despising Boomerism and all its pomps and works. The wealth that many folks my age despair of ever attaining, the conspicuous consumption (and something needn't be hideously expensive to be flaunted, mind you), the politicizing of commerce and equation of virtue with making the right purchases, the mad dash after the latest trends, the uncontrollable impulse to reject the America of the Boomers' parents and resulting mania for reinventing everything, the disdain for the hoi polloi in Red America, and just the damned preciousness of it all—many of these were already present when Boomers were snapping up BMWs and Cuisinarts in the 1980s, and they are all very much on display today at your local Whole Foods Market.

Anne 10:57 PM

 
Strange sex scandal story in NY Times: A few days ago the NY Times reported on a sex scandal at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The rector had apparently pled guilty to child pornography possession charges back in 1991. Two relatively new vestry members (who were not on the original vestry which called the rector in the first place) exposed the conviction.

Officials of the Episcopal Diocese of New York say the members were made to resign because they had "cruelly and unfairly" maligned the priest, Canon John H. Backus.

Something doesn't pass the smell test here. I served on a vestry some years ago, and the "home office" just does *not* throw out duly-elected vestry members in the Episcopal Church. There are canonical procedures for solving irreconcilable differences between rector and vestry, and it would have been nice to know if they had been invoked here.
Anne 10:42 PM

 
Saudi prince indicted for drug smuggling: He's accused of flying over 4,000 lbs. of cocaine around, but the Feds don't know where he is, and don't know if they can even prosecute him because of his "diplomatic immunity." Why do all these guys have diplomatic immunity? They have what, 5,000 or 6,000 members of the "royal" family? Are they all "diplomats" or something?
Anne 10:22 PM

 
State Department plays the "McCarthy card:" If you criticize the US State Department for its "carte blanche to Arabs" visa program, you're just a nasty McCarthyite, persecuting the poor State Department the way those old Commie-hunters did back in the bad old Cold War Days. So say e-mails obtained by the Washington Post.

Consul general Chuck Keil wrote:

"All of this smacks of the days of Senator Joe McCarthy, when a witchhunt conducted in the name of protecting Americans from the communist menace ruined the careers of Foreign Service Officers who had allegedly lost China to the Reds, or else helped Communist and Communist sympathizers obtain visas to enter the United States..."

He was a little sensitive to the charge that the 9/11 attack occurred because of a lack of State Department "due diligence" in allowing the terrorists into the US on visas.

Well, guess what, Chuck - there *were* real Commies in the State Department. Maybe a good high-colonic witchhunt is just what we need right now, with the revival of a new version of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to look into exactly what the relationships have been between Saudi Arabia & other Islamic states and the US State Department.

Columbia Barrosse, another consular official, complained about the firing of long-term State official Mary Ryan and raised the rhetorical stakes even higher:

"We assume Mary's replacement will not be a career officer with a balanced approach but a neo-Nazi who views us as incompetent or criminal..."

Ooh, those Neo-Nazis. Just like in Sum of All Fears. Who says life doesn't imitate art?
Anne 10:18 PM

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

 
The Crunchy Debate continues: Joshua Claybourn confesses all his leftish cultural leanings. I'll play too.

Music: In a choral setting I'll sing just about anything, but have a special love for Ralph Vaughn Williams. In the pop department, I started listening to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen in high school and still do. Cohen has aged particularly well... I also play the mountain dulcimer chicken-bone style (not fingered like a guitar.) That alone should get me enormous numbers of granola points.

Joshua mentioned jazz and blues - they've gained wide acceptance now but at one time were considered extremely risque and lascivious. Jazz used to be a verb, you know. Same with ragtime, which was basically bawdy house background music (which doesn't detract from its exquisiteness one bit.)

(Rank stereotype alert: The non-granola conservative listens only to classical music... Further, why does Ben Domenech think that Brittney Spears is "forced" on anybody? Last time I went to the theater, no one chained me to the seat when the obligatory soft drink commercial came on. My radio "off" switch still works. It's the free market, baby.)

Movies: The weirder, the artsier, the fartsier, the better.
(RSA: Only movies made before 1964 and the collapse of the Legion of Decency are worth watching...)

Visual arts: Poor Joshua has taken so much grief for liking Thomas Kinkade. While Kinkade's not my cup of tea either - I like surrealism, dada, anime and manga, outsider art, etc., - the light and the cute little cottages he paints really do exist up and down the coastal towns of northern California, especially in Carmel. That's why people pay eight figures to live there.

Suburban living: Suburbs are OK as long as they're at least a century old.

On nature: Ben Domenech says: “Whoever said anything about hiking not being conservative? It's only liberal if the act is seeking to be ‘at one with nature’ as opposed to exploration.” Too much scrutiny of motives here ruins the fun. Last time we did serious hiking it was because the Athletic Child led the charge up Elephant Rock in the eponymous state park. Children do tend to simplify one's motives...
Anne 10:58 AM

 
On the blogwalk: A young Louisiana Roman Catholic priest named Fr. Brice Sibley writes The Saintly Salmagundi. (I had to look it up: apparently it's a form of cold chicken Caesar salad.) He had some nice words to say about this humble real estate, likes Wim Wenders too, and has a taste for the offbeat. Check him out.
Anne 10:17 AM

 
A reader comments on vouchers: Bob Cavalli writes:

I believe it is a red herring that voucher programs are always "public funding of private/parochial schools", one which has been perpetuated by voucher opponents. One need only "follow the money"....in a properly structured voucher program, government doesn't provide voucher money to ANY school; it provides the funds to the taxpayer (from whom, I might add, it was taken in the first place), who in turn funds the child's education. It is the parent who spends the funds, not government. Thus one can make a vigorous argument that private schools are not bound by the often silly and dangerous strictures placed on schools by government. Finally, one could also make the case that this doesn't matter in the end; "We The People", it can be argued, precludes the concept of "public funds". But that's another issue.

As the argument goes, parents who send their children to private schools are "doubly taxed," first by paying tuition and then by paying the real estate, federal, and state income taxes that go into supporting the public school system. For the sake of argument, leave aside the question for now of whether or not public education should exist at all. It does; 90% of kids go to public school, so let's put that question aside, as Bob points out.

The problem with the argument is that by the above definition, *no* voucher program is "properly structured," because as it currently stands, *voucher recipients generally don't pay taxes.* Why not? Because voucher programs are means-tested. Only the poor receive vouchers. Generally, those poor enough and in bad enough school districts are not paying real estate taxes, and if they are, their tax base is very low - far lower than what would support the school district. ("Failing" school districts usually have hefty infusions of federal and state money. By contrast, a good school district usually gets by on what it brings in from local real estate taxes.)

Not only that, those poor enough to get vouchers are probably poor enough to not pay any federal income tax at all, and are most likely eligible for another wealth-transfer plan, the Earned Income Tax Credit. If they pay state taxes at all, they are probably paying very little. While those eligible for vouchers do pay gasoline and sales taxes, in most areas those taxes do not go into public school coffers.

By the above reasoning, only those who pay real estate taxes in a local school district should be eligible for a voucher. But since *non-taxpayers* are receiving the voucher funding, government accountability is called for, since vouchers are funded with "other people's tax money," and *not* the money of the parents actually receiving them.


Anne 10:05 AM

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

 
How about some life in prison with your tea, dear? The Saudis supposedly have offered to allow two female US State Department representatives to meet with the now-adult daughters of Pat Roush at a tea party in Riyadh, according to Rod Dreher of NRO. Presumably over tea and crumpets the girls will profess their undying loyalty to the Saudi Gulag.

It doesn't matter whether this lame-brained attempt at damage control was hatched by the State Department or the House of Saud. In any event, the *minimum* Americans should demand is that every US citizen held against their will in Saudi Arabia be immediately returned to the United States.

This isn't just about the Roush girls, but all the other US citizens literally imprisoned. Bring them back to the US. If adult, they would make their decision free of Saudi coercion. If they choose to go back, let them. If children, they would be placed immediately under the guardianship of the appropriate Family Court so that the *real* custody disputes could be resolved.

But this nonsense about "well, they just can't leave the country without a Saudi exit visa" has got to stop. For women, Saudi Arabia is a prison country. It would be nice to solve their problems and I wish we could. Right now, however, we have our own fish to fry - that our own citizens are being held captive, forced to adopt another religion, and bought and sold like cattle to keep them from leaving the country.
Anne 9:49 PM

 
The "Achilles heel of school choice:" That's what NRO's John Miller calls the NEA's heavy artillery of "accountability" as it's rolled out and aimed at the voucher movement.

Miller leaves out several points. First, it's not just the NEA which has concerns over "accountability." As a conservative, I'm concerned about accountability too. I don't want to see private schools regulated, or forced to submit to mandatory state or federal testing programs. Private education should stay free and private. But once public money is accepted, the public has every right to have its voice be heard in the reporting, accounting, and governing of private institutions receiving tax money.

Public school boards are open to any voter in the district who chooses to run. Public school board meetings (except for personnel meetings) are open to any member of the public and must conform to state "sunshine laws." In other words, public school boards are amenable to the political process. If people in a community *choose* not to get involved with school boards, that's one thing. But the political option is there.

This is *not* the case with private school boards, which are often made up of people appointed by priest or pastor, or are self-perpetuating boards whose members name their successors. There is no public political opening in the operation of a private and/or church school.

Regarding other aspects of private and church governance, we are often told, "The Church (whether Catholic *or* Protestant) is not a democracy." But it can't go both ways. Public funding has to be governed by republican principles, of which representative government is foremost.
Anne 9:29 PM

 
What college "gender gap?" More like a "common sense gap." The Seattle Times moans about the dearth of men at private liberal arts colleges. Perhaps men have better economic sense than a lot of women, and have figured out that overpriced, politically correct programs in no way help their employability.

Anne 9:07 PM

 
What if he were a voucher student? A Baptist private school kicked out a 15-year old Catholic student who regularly prayed the rosary. (He was going to the Baptist school because a Catholic school was "too far away.")

For the record, I think religious schools should be able to pick their students on the basis of religion, even if I don't agree with it personally. Question is: under a federal voucher program, would the Baptist school still be able to do that?
Anne 8:59 PM

 
Arab / Muslim merchants in Brooklyn boycott NY Post: That's free enterprise at work. Of course, if people want to boycott the merchants boycotting the Post, that's their right as well...
Anne 8:55 PM

Monday, July 15, 2002

 
A reader writes:

This is just a quick note to say that I love your spot.

Since you write quite a bit about Islamists, take a look at Ali Sina's site. Dr. Sina is a former Muslim who has come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as moderate Islam (though there may be moderate Muslims - but they are not following Islam). He asserts that Islam is the most dangerous threat to civilization ever. He makes his case in a variety of articles and debates. Also, there is a forum for debate which is populated largely by former Muslims. I find news and opinions there that are quite unique and fair due to their particular point of view.

Like Ibn Warraq's Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS) group, this one seems to be atheist in focus. I don't know if atheism is a "normal" phase of leaving Islam or not.

Your Working Girl also made it onto one of their Forum pages here.
Anne 9:08 PM

 
De-Talibanization calls for a Turkish approach: Turkish forces are apparently having some success policing Kabul in its transition to a (relatively) free country after 13 brutal years of Taliban rule.

The 14-man Turkish patrol prowls through the streets equipped with assault rifles, night-vision goggles and distinctive green berets.

The scene is in contrast to the situation in the daytime where the streets are full of people who want to engage with the Turks.

"In the daytime, we often stop along the streets or on the corners and people approach us naturally," said [Turkish Lieutenant] Sehirli. "We talk with them to find out if anything is going on or if they need the help of the police."

The lack of helmets and heavy weaponry is designed to make them appear more approachable. ...

As far as [Afghan police chief] Itcha was concerned, there was little doubt that the response would be positive. "As long as the Turkish battalion remains here, they will be very useful for they are an enormous help for us in maintaining security," he said. His view was echoed by people questioned on the streets of the capital.

"It is very reassuring when I hear the sound of ISAF vehicles around my house," said paint shop owner Abdulmatim. "They behave well with the people and you feel secure with them as they discourage the thieves."

I just bet they do.


Anne 4:43 PM

 
The Once and Future Bin Laden? Now the Germans say he's alive and recovering from a shrapnel wound. We'll see.

This whole thing is beginning to sound a lot like the "Magic Sleeper" legends so prevalent in the West. The three Queens put the mortally wounded Arthur on a boat and ferried him to the island of Avalon, where he was miraculously healed and is just waiting to come back as "The Once and Future King."

The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa is said to sleep under the magic mountain in Thuringia; when ravens no longer fly over the mountain Barbarossa will awaken and the day of Judgement will be at hand.

Fifty years from now (long after Bin Laden would have died either way), they'll probably be telling stories about how he was spirited away mysteriously by djinns, only to return someday to lead jihads anew...

Anne 4:33 PM

 
More lies from State: Midwest Conservative Journal links to these natterings from the State Department's Richard Boucher on the "Saudi custody cases" (read *kidnappings*) where US citizens are held against their will in Saudi Arabia, for the crime of their mothers' bad judgment for marrying Saudi citizens. Only these aren't custody cases in some instances anymore. The girls have been held for SO long that they are now adults.

As I recall, one of the inflammatory acts leading to the American Civil War was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. This federal law made it a crime for even free states to rescue and succor slaves fleeing Southern state enslavement. Citizens of free states watched in horror as federal marshalls returned slaves to their owners, and deputized local men to help them. People in Boston and New York rioted when federally-protected slave catchers stuffed slaves on ships, attempting to return them to their Southern owners.

When will Americans wake up and realize the *same* thing is happening here? US girls are being taken *as slaves* by their fathers into Saudi Arabia and other Islamic-law states, and the US government *refuses to rescue them,* claiming "we have to follow the laws of the country." In other words, if another country makes US citizens slaves, the US government will do nothing about it - just as the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act empowered the government to return slaves to their owners.

It was American abolitionists who pointed out the moral evil of any cooperation whatever with slavery, and who at great risk helped Southern slaves escape to Canada. But what serves as Canada today for American slaves in Islamist countries? What underground railroad will help them flee their chains?

President Abraham Lincoln once said about the moral reality of slavery, "You can say that a dog has five legs, but calling a tail a leg doesn't make it so." Calling these *abductions* and *imprisonments* and *enslavements* "custody disputes" makes about as much sense as calling a tail a leg. It doesn't make it so.
Anne 11:53 AM

 
No matter how lousy a news day, there's always a little ray of Florida sunshine peeking in from somewhere. Hasta la vista, Janet.
Anne 11:36 AM

 
Time for Congress to take off the gloves: National Review reporter Joel Mowbray was detained by eight guards at a US State Department daily briefing this past Friday over his criticism of a Saudi visa program "designed to coddle the Saudis," as he says. NRO said: "But for at least a few minutes, Mowbray had a harder time leaving the State Department than many Saudis have had entering the country."

It's time for the crap to stop. We need a high-colonic Congressional investigation of the US State Department regarding the Saudi fiasco. Not only have Saudi nationals been given a virtual carte blanche to come into the US, but crimes committed by Saudi citizens on US soil have gotten slaps on the wrist. Saudi Arabia has dictated to the US military for years the *terms of defense,* like applying their outrageous female-apartheid rules to US women in uniform. US citizens are kidnapped and held captive in Saudi Arabia while the State Department blathers on about "custody disputes" and refuses to demand exit visas for them, or fly them out of this prison country themselves.

It's too bad that it's taken the beginning of a war to expose what crawls out from under the rocks of the Saudi desert, but better late than never.

Nor should the possibility of war against Saddam Hussein hamstring a Congressional investigation of Saudi corruption within the State Department. It's time to resurrect the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and this time investigate the role of undue Saudi influence on US policies. HUAC was trashed for years by liberals, but guess what - there *were* Communists operating within American institutions. Similarly, the American people have a right to know to what degree the State Department's Saudi policy compromises our national security, and we have a right to US policy that puts American interests first - especially the interests of Americans imprisoned for no reason other than their sex, and the Constitutional right to freedom of the press when American reporters ask uncomfortable questions about those policies.
Anne 11:31 AM

 
Johnny Taliban cops a plea and finally admits that he did it:

"I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to November. During the course of doing so I carried a rifle and two grenades," he said.

He'll get twenty years, but they'll be a long twenty.


Anne 11:00 AM

 
Iran continues to simmer as pro-American demonstrations across the country are ignored by the "major media." Michael Ledeen of NRO comments on the samizdat Iranian youth who continue to flaunt the repressive Islamic-state dictatorship:

Travelers recently returned from Iran tell me heart-rending stories of both material and moral disintegration, of young women driven to prostitution because there are no jobs and there is no future; of young people openly flaunting the strict moral code against sexuality and alcohol, daring the security forces to arrest them; of police and security forces protecting demonstrators against the regime they are paid to protect; of foreigners who do not even speak Farsi being imported to maintain order. It all reminds me of the final days of the Soviet Empire, as the people awaited signs that the Kremlin lacked the will to crack down yet again.

Who are the "foreigners," one wonders? Arabs? That's hard to believe, because the wahhabists hate the shi'ite Muslims about as much as they hate Sufis. "Flaunting the codes against sexuality" probably mean things like being seen on the street with a woman not one's wife, before anyone jumps to the conclusion that there's any sort of "common ground" here between conservative sexual morality and the kind of brutal flogging, torture and imprisonment that normal and innocent relations between the sexes engender in an Islamist state.

Ledeen also mentions something I've advocated for a long time: Farsi-language propaganda beamed 24/7 into Iran, to encourage revolution against the Islamist state. Is Colin Powell up for it?
Anne 9:36 AM

 
Paul Wolfowitz makes nice with Turkey: Good. Only disadvantage I see here is Turkey in the European Union. While Turkey no doubt has a right to be in the EU, the question is, who would *want* to? I know it would be enjoyable for any potential Turkish members on the EU food commission to vote against the Greeks on the feta cheese issue, but still.

We need some kind of economic consortium ourselves, with the US, Australia, Great Britain, and some Asian and Eurasian countries like Singapore, India, Japan, Russia, and Turkey. Forget the EU and let them keep arguing about what the definition of "a leek" is. The aforementioned countries could unite in a truly economically powerful coalition.
Anne 9:27 AM

Sunday, July 14, 2002

 
What kind of conservative are YOU? Granola conservatives are coming out of the closet en masse over at Free Republic.

Meanwhile, the Teenage Computer Guru is a self-proclaimed Pocky Conservative. (To see what Pocky is, go here.) Pocky Conservatives like technology, computers, Japanese pop culture and music, video games, anime, manga, and of course, Pocky. Politically they are small-l libertarian in philosophy but vote Republican because they believe that "divide and conquer" is best applied to the Left (by encouraging heartily encouraging just enough Green Party voting to split the Democrats.)

Now we must go on a Pocky run...
Anne 11:58 AM

 
Go see Reign of Fire: It's not just a big dumb monster movie. It's a funny, supple film with some interesting symbolism made by Rob Bowman, director of the X-Files movie, and who also directed some of the best X-Files episodes ever made (like Wetwired, Paper Clip, and Jose Chung's: From Outer Space.)

Not much more can be said without spoiling it, but I think a case can be made that the dragons symbolize jihadist Islam (whether the director intended it or not.) I think it has a definite "post 9/11" sensibility. It makes a great Saturday matinee, anyway.
Anne 11:44 AM

 
Why are Americans fat?

In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2001, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music --- combined.

--- Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, 2001, 2002

I firmly believe it's the carbs, not the fat, but the criticism stands.

Consider this, however. We spend so much on fast food because *we no longer have servants.* In 1970 (when my husband was still a child) his family, which was by NO means wealthy, had a housecleaner. Growing up on the East Coast, I knew people who had both housecleaners AND cooks (who would come in, cook dinner, then leave.)

The "Great Society" welfare programs, the IRS, and immigration laws made servants basically impossible in the US after the 1960s/1970s. Fast food has taken the place of servants: instead of the individual cook coming in and cooking for an individual family, the cooking function has been given over to chains and franchises, and the "economy of scale" produced has resulted in fast food being cheaper than what servants go for these days.

In my own community a small business popular among empty-nest upper-middle class women is to have a dinner-catering service. They charge by the week or by the month; they have a different dinner every night which you contract for in advance. Then that late afternoon you drive by their storefront, pick it up, take it home, and eat it. They specialize in "gourmet"-style meals that look pretty healthful, from the ads I've seen. The cost is more than fast food but still cheaper than one's individual cook.

The untold story here is that modern society (defined as Civil War-era on) is addicted to some kind of hired help around the house. The difference is that now it's been jobbed out to big business, or just doesn't get done anymore.

One of the major points of the "back to the land/ back to nature / back to the basics" movement is that it encourages people to do things themselves, rather than relying on hired help of any kind (be it restaurants or food processing companies, factory farms etc.) In truth, however, very few people have the time or inclination to do it - you either have to be very wealthy, or willing to accept a level of poverty that many in this society find unacceptable. So instead we call for take-out or go grab some fast food.
Anne 11:34 AM

Friday, July 12, 2002

 
"Misunderstood Nurses:" Moira Breen writes:

Excellent review of Kurtz's comments on nursing. His comments made me roll my eyes, and I'm sure any of the nurses I know would have fits if I referred them to the article. I would bet even Florence Nightingale's nurses needed more knowledge and skill than he's willing to acknowledge.

One expects one's doctor to be caring and compassionate, too. Kurtz is confused about the necessary and the sufficient in nursing.

She also has some "inappropriate comments" regarding the article and my reactions on her eponymous blog.

Anne 4:50 PM

 
The long-neglected "granola conservatives" are taken out of the closet and given some fresh air and sunlight by Rod Dreher of NRO. It's *about time.*

I am an old granola maker from way back when. (Well, at least I was until I got onto the low-carbs, hi-protein bandwagon.)

I was one of those hippie chicks in high school who frizzed their hair by braiding it into a million tiny little braids; tie-dyed my own t-shirts with Rit dye (it never looked very
psychedelic, though); embroidered my own jeans; cut the jeans up the outside seams and sewed triangles of paisley cotton in to make really wiiiiide bell bottoms, and of course ate brown rice, seaweed, and an occasional lunch at the Hare Krishna temple. Never was tempted by the religion but I did try to periodically recreate the recipes.

Unfortunately I was a liberal, too, but largely because I was young and stupid. I reformed in college after encountering Atlas Shrugged, and looking at exactly how much was removed from my meager student job paychecks.

But I never lost my hippie-chick tastes. I've had the passages through home birthing and other birth alternatives, and our midwife was also a "granola conservative" who believed in both the Bible and the "natural" lifestyle. My first introduction to homeschooling, like Rod's, came not from fundamentalists but through reading *every* back issue at the time of John Holt's homeschooling newsletter.

I wonder how many people there are out there calling themselves "Independents," who sporadically vote Republican but can't commit to the politics, because they're "granola conservatives" not comfortable with moussed- and pantyhosed- Republican culture?

Anne 4:49 PM

 
Is the Saudi visa debacle to blame for the departure of the Head of Consular Affairs at the State Department, called "the most senior US career diplomat and a 36-year veteran of the foreign service?" Inquiring minds at WorldNet Daily want to
know. Is this possibly a shakeup at State over French-kissing with the Saudis? Are the prayers of US citizens being held captive in Saudi Arabia ("It's just a custody battle, after all") finally being answered?

Anne 4:47 PM

 
"Just an opinion:" hating Americans is OK: Some Saudis get nervous at American reactions to incendiary jihadist propaganda (i.e. the Arab media):

"We have to confront a lot of things that we thought were normal," said Khaled Batarfi, the managing editor of al-Madina, a daily newspaper pushing the limits of what can be published. "We have to examine the opinions that resulted in these bad actions and see if they are wrong, or people just took them out of context."

"Before Sept. 11, it was just an opinion, 'I think we should hate the others,' " he said. "After Sept. 11, we found out ourselves that some of those thoughts brought actions that hurt us, that put all Muslims on trial."

I can imagine what "pushing the envelope" in this context means.

Another Saudi interviewee reassures us:

"Well, of course, I hate you because you are Christian, but that doesn't mean I want to kill you," a professor of Islamic law in Riyadh told a visiting reporter.

He must be the moderate one. I want a copy of the "Greatest Hits of the Fatwas," myself.
Anne 4:46 PM

 
No remedy proposed as yet for "Saudi Shockers." Mona Charen wants to know what the US government is going to do about them:

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi. Osama bin Laden is Saudi. Saudi money finances the madrasas in Pakistan and mosques around the globe, including in the United States, that preach belligerent, America-hating, anti-Semitic Wahhabi Islam. American citizens in Saudi Arabia are held as prisoners. And Saudi Arabia declines to cooperate in the war on terrorism.

We are, we keep hearing, the most powerful nation in the history of the globe. Why, then, are we permitting ourselves to be so abused by a primitive, cruel, uncivilized gang who happened to have the good luck to plant their tents over an oil field?

Why indeed?

Anne 3:43 PM

 
Saudi "royal school" resigned its accreditation when it refused to cooperate with the Virginia Association of Independent Schools, according to the Washington Post. The VA school, which is primarily funded by the Saudi government and which has been described as "part of the royal court," has also been a source of concern over its curriculum content:

The sources also said that some board members were concerned about aspects of the school's curriculum. The Washington Post in January reported that some Islamic studies classes at the school use Saudi Arabian textbooks that promote hatred of other religions. However, the curricular concerns were not part of the questioning that led to the withdrawal, sources said.

The upside is that this is one Islamic academy that probably won't be trolling for voucher money (if Virginia offers any), since it's hard to imagine voucher payments going to a non-accredited school.

On the downside, this school illustrates the grave difficulties associated with vouchers for "Islamist" schools.
Anne 3:40 PM

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

 
They can't be that stupid ... can they? Supposedly Al-Qaeda wanted to take out the Vatican before 9/11. Consider the source - it IS the Times of India, after all, but even so.

Such an action would pit the Islamic-state world literally against everyone else. Catholics and Protestants would forget their quarrels, and it would give the Israelis every excuse to flatten the mosque on Temple Mount, and start mounting the search for the perfect red heifer in earnest.
Anne 9:03 PM

 
SD Judge takes custody of wife's five-year old child after mother converts to Islam & plans to take the child to Egypt.

Sally Barakat's recently acquired hubby of two years is an Egyptian national who is back in Egypt (doing what?) and mother planned to join him with her child acquired from a previous assignation (marriage, whatever was not specified.) In other words, the Egyptian she met online isn't even the kid's daddy, but she wants to move to Egypt with Osama (yes, that's his name), and take the child with her.

The grandparents sued for and were granted temporary custody, and the court confiscated the child's passport.

While conservatives are rightly concerned about overzealous judges taking custody from parents considered "odd" or of "minority religions" (homeschoolers, fundamentalist Christians, etc.) in this case it seems the judge did the right thing. US citizen children being spirited out of the US to Islamic-law-states should be of great concern to everyone, even though boys probably have more freedom to eventually return to the US than girls.
Anne 5:11 PM

 
Deadly diversity lottery gets appropriately ripped to shreds by Michelle Malkin, who notes that it was sponsored in 1990 by Senator Teddy Kennedy (and signed by President George Bush Senior.) Ironically, it had the intention of attracting more *Irish* immigrants. (What, for more IRA sympathizers in Boston?)

As Malkin bitterly points out, eight children would have their father today and a widow her husband, and two parents their beautiful daughter, had it not been for the "diversity lottery" that allowed Egyptian LAX terrorist Hesham Hadayet to stay in the US. Hadayet was due to be deported until his wife won - thus allowing him to stay in the US. (By the way, if Hadayet wasn't a terrorist, neither was Tim McVeigh.)

Malkin concludes:

How many more Hesham Hayadets are lurking among us? Among those who drew winning numbers in the most recent visa lottery, whose results were announced by the State Department last month, were 1,551 individuals from Hadayet's native Egypt; 38 from terrorist hijacker-spawning Saudi Arabia; and 2,259 from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya and Syria -- all official state sponsors of terrorism. The next lottery drawing is planned for next fall. Blinded by deadly diversity worship, our government has no plans to bar al Qaeda strongholds from the lottery. [Emphasis mine. -AW]

How many more people have to get murdered by jihadis before our government wakes up and smells the hummus?


Anne 4:47 PM

 
What is it with jihadis and strip clubs? Three were arrested in San Antonio after staff complained that the men "of Middle Eastern descent" threatened to to carry out the work of the Sept. 11 terrorists by attacking local military bases, according to a police report.

What I want to know is, what was their immigration status? Why were no federal charges filed? Finally, what is it with these jihadi hanging out at strip clubs? Does it have anything to do with the Koran's Surah 23 that makes it legitimate to take sexual liberties with the slave girls purchased or "won" in battle?
Anne 4:35 PM

 
Nursing: It's not just about caring and sharing: Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online bemoans the demise of ethnic Catholic neighborhoods (and the priestly vocations they generated), nursing as a "caring profession," and soldiering. I'll leave the discussions of Catholic parish life and soldiering to others, but the nursing remarks deserve some comment.

Nursing was once built around a spirit of feminine compassion and sacrifice. In the new, feminist world, that is unacceptable. Nursing has therefore attempted to transform itself into an androgynous, knowledge-based career. It hasn't worked.

The elephant in the living room of Kurtz's article is that women now become doctors, where women in previous days became nurses often for lack of opportunity. Those opportunities, especially for lower-middle-class women, simply did not exist in the "golden age" of the 1950s.

If Kurtz thinks that nursing today is emptying bedpans & soothing brows, he's in dreamland. Nursing is a scientific, high-tech career. The problem is that the pay and the respect are not commensurate with the knowledge. Women can become physicians' assistants, advanced nursing practitioners, or nursing managers *and* get the commensurate respect & pay. Staying an ordinary BSN will just get you overworked and underappreciated because people think you're a "caregiver" rather than a scientifically trained professional, and we know how well this society likes to pay "caregivers."

Men are still reluctant to become nurses (even as they enter teaching or become airline "stewards")...

Those in the profession can correct me if I'm wrong, but nursing friends tell me there are more men entering nursing than ever before. According to this article, the federal Health and Human Services Department claims that the number of male nurses has increased 226% from 1980 to 2000.

What I hear is that these men go to nursing school, work a few years in hospital, and then go on to become specialists in assisting at surgery, physicians' assistants, etc. through graduate training. The same opportunities are open to women but they don't take them, usually because they have family responsibilities.

... and no distinctive body of knowledge on which nurses can base their expertise exists.

This is one of the most peculiar remarks of the entire article. I have a good friend who is a highly experienced surgical nurse. Her job isn't about reassuring patients; most of the patients she sees are heavily sedated or unconscious. She has done several highly specialized types of surgical nursing, and her work *did* involve a "distinctive body of knowledge," as well as precision, accuracy, the ability to communicate well with the physicians on long, grueling surgeries.

When I was in childbirth education I had several friends who were Ob/Gyn nurses with whom I talked often about hospital deliveries. These nurses practically ran the deliveries; the doctor showed up to do the honors at the end. These nurses weren't doing labor support; that was the job of the husband or a paid doula. These women had lots of women on anesthesia to monitor; lots of machines to watch, and if a baby went into distress it was on their watch. These nurses probably could have delivered 75% of the babies themselves if some physicians didn't have a vested interest in restraint of trade. "No distinctive body of knowledge." That is exactly the kind of slur that discourages women from going into nursing.

New women disdain nursing for its retrograde femininity, and women who embrace its caring ethos are burned out by bureaucratic requirements and cost-cutting measures that leave little time for the rewards of compassionate service.

Nursing is not "compassionate," because medicine is *high-tech.* That's why people come here from Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, etc, for medical care and not the other way around. It's not for the hand-holding. Yes, there should be more hand-holding, but nurses aren't necessarily the ones to do it.

People admitted for surgery may be on a dozen different kinds of medicine; on monitors; have catheters, drains, IVs, etc. Assuredly the hospital bean counters have largely wrecked the profession, but NOT because "the women don't get to care." They've wrecked the profession because they've claimed that an aide with six weeks training can care for a very sick post-op patient (who may not even be conscious most of the time) as well as a BSN with post-graduate coursework and professional CEUs.

Yes, there are "bureaucratic requirements," and not just due to risk management. Does the author want to be in hospital with someone who is "caring" but doesn't take the time to document and monitor all the medications, procedures, and patient reactions, and who can meaningfully communicate all this information to the physician?

In the days when most women were married and mothers, nursing was thought of as ideal part-time work. There were no pretensions to special scientific expertise, and little danger of burnout.

No special scientific expertise! God help me if I ever have neurosurgery or heart surgery. Mr. Kurtz can live in his ideal world. I want the nastiest, most professional, most *scientific* nurses and surgical assistants in any operating room I find myself in. I want nurses like my great-aunt, the ex-World War II Army nurse who worked for the blood bank supervising donors after her retirement. She never married, had a face like a granite wall and not a scrap of "femininity." In our age she would have probably become a surgeon.

Doctors respected nurses for the personal care that they delivered, understanding how important it was, yet also knowing that they themselves could not provide it.

Doctors respected nurses for the *medical* care they provided. The jobs were *different,* but even in the "Golden Age" nursing was still as technical as the standards permitted.

In short, the feminist reform of nursing has failed. The attempt to purge the profession of the feminine compassion and sacrifice upon which it has traditionally been based has yielded no satisfactory alternative. And the collapse of the traditional family system (itself deeply related to the rejection of the ethic of sacrifice) has forced nurses into a trap - trying to make economic and emotional ends meet as poorly paid professionals, and as single mothers. The result is the collapse of the vocation at the very moment when a rapidly aging population stands most in need of nursing.

In short, what he's calling "nursing" is really the "nurse's aide" today, or the nursing-home worker who can change dressings, drains, take BP, and call the doctor.

The crisis in patient care is not due to the "feminist takeover" of nursing. It's due to bean counters in hospitals and insurance companies who believe that a nurse's aide can do a nurse's job for half the salary. It's due to hospital work environments that are at odds with the *scientific* and *technical* ends of nursing training. Nurses are taught what good patient care is and how to deliver it; they aren't allowed in many hospital work environments to exercise it.

Anne 11:18 AM

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

 
De-Nile has a lot of boats on it these days: as Middle-East expert Daniel Pipes helpfully prepares a list for us of other suspicious events labelled as Anything But Terrorism. The interesting question now is not whether there's some "anger management" going on, but why?

Easy. It's Psychological Warfare 101.

Three reasons come to mind. The first is the government desire to forestall anti-Muslim rioting India-style, where large crowds take to the streets and pound Muslims. This is a good goal in general; on the downside it makes it easier for potential terrorists to move about freely in our society.

The second is to blunt the fear terrorism causes. If individual acts can be labelled as "lone gunmen" or "individual nut cases" then the primary aim of individual terroristic acts is deterred, since people simply aren't as afraid. We are sadly too used to nutbags losing it in offices or crowds because their prescriptions were off, and the more single-perp terroristic acts can be blamed on "despondency" or "domestic crisis" the better.

Third, if individual terrorist acts don't achieve their aims (race war against Muslims & terror in the general population), that forces terrorists to plan larger and more dramatic events (9/11 redux.) These plans are potentially more devastating but also far more difficult to organize and carry out, and *ideally* when the US is on "full alert," also easier to detect and prevent.

If this indeed is a government "strategy," it has one significant pitfall. Far more people are killed annually in car accidents than in the 9/11 attacks; however, we consider car accidents an "acceptable risk," but not death by terrorist. The danger with continuing to minimize single-perp terrorist attacks is that they too will come to be seen as the "acceptable risk" of Life in the USA. When something is seen as an "acceptable risk," we decide that it's part of the landscape and try to "manage" it, rather than eliminate it.
Anne 7:48 AM

Monday, July 08, 2002

 
Scooby-Don't: says Mindless Bureaucrat.

There's no way I could see the Powerpuff movie - I've had to sit through too many episodes at home. And the Scooby-Doo horror topped off my limit of kindness to children for a while . . .

But if you want to see an utterly enjoyable, virtually flawless, movie, catch The Emperor's New Clothes. I discuss it at my own blog. It's in limited release, so you might have to travel some. I'm beating the drum for this because it's soooo much better than the rest ...

What a coincidence: it's going to be in St. Louis on July 12th. It's got Ian Holm in it as Napoleon - wait, didn't he do that one already? "I want to see the little people ..." Anyway, this is a serendipitous heads-up.

The Bureaucrat's got an interesting & intelligent blog - so go visit.

Anne 9:43 PM

 
There's a wahhabi in the lobby... The Congressional lobby, that is. This righteous rant by Stephen Schwartz compares the lobbying, social propaganda, and even assassination efforts of the US Communist Party to the Arab Muslim lobbies like CAIR and the AMC (American Muslim Council.)

But inquiring minds want to know: is Stephen Schwartz still a Sufi Muslim? If so, why isn't it mentioned in bios attached to his articles, or something? Don't get me wrong - I have nothing whatever against Sufis. They write beautifully; I don't know if Doris Lessing for instance is a Sufi but she writes like one. There is the late Idries Shah, and of course Rumi and co. from medieval Islamic days. They have their own saints and sacred places, and have a sacramental sense that normally we would recognize as Islamic - IF the wahhabi lobby hadn't hijacked the whole notion of what Islam is in the American mind.

Wahhabi persecution of Sufis has been going on ever since the beginning of the wahhabi sect. Founded by an ex-Sufi, in fact, it arose in the 18th century largely as a puritanical, Jansenistic overreaction to Sufism.

Today, it's probably fair to say that Sufi Muslims are the legendary "moderate Muslims" everyone's been searching for since 9/11, and at least some notables in their ranks have been forthrightly pro-American.



Anne 6:18 PM

 
More straw-man voucher commentary provided by Donald Lambro of the Washington Times. Lambro ends with:

This will launch one of the most intriguing domestic policy battles in U.S. politics today. On one side are Mr. Bush and the Republicans lobbying for wider use of school-choice plans to help poor inner city minorities climb the educational, economic and social ladder.

On the other side are liberal Democrats, the American Civil Liberties Union and public school unions fighting to preserve a system that has imprisoned poor minorities in failing ghetto schools.

Guess which side will win?

Lambro distorts the opposition by failing to mention some significant voucher opponents not affiliated with the NEA, ACLU, or educrats. He fails to mention the *homeschoolers* like Cathy Duffy and Philip Troutt, as well as the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Nor is homeschooling opposition to vouchers limited to conservative Christians. As this US News article points out, "unschoolers" (pedagogically "liberal" homeschoolers who reject conventional curricula, "school-at-home," and standardized testing) are "skeptical" of vouchers. Home Education Magazine has been a flagship publication for these homeschoolers, and has in the past published critiques of vouchers as pathways to mandatory standardized testing for homeschoolers, and against the federalization of homeschooling in general.

Lambro also neglects conservative Christian organizations like the Baptist General Convention of Texas and other Christian groups who oppose vouchers because they see greater regulation and eventual liberalization of their own private schools.

He leaves out the *suburban Republican parents* who oppose vouchers because they LIKE their local public schools and do not want to pay more taxes to pay for someone else's entitlement program. This is probably the most significant block of voters in opposition to vouchers, and those attempting to get state voucher legislation passed ignore them at their peril.

I don't like the NEA, the ACLU, or inner city educrats either. But failing to clearly identify *all* the opponents of school vouchers while accusing "school-choice opponents" of lying seems to be an odd way to make the case.
Anne 4:09 PM