Month: June 2001

I was worried at the appearance of nepotism in the appointment of Michael Powell to run the FCC, but I had no doubts about his abilities. Everyone I spoke to about him at the time – and everything I read about him – showed him to be a competent, smart guy. Now he’s been unfairly savaged by the press, I feel even more supportive of him. His most recent sin was the following quote, printed in several papers, about the so-called “digital divide” in which only the wealthy and white are allegedly on the Internet: “I think there’s a Mercedes divide. I’d like one, but I can’t afford it.” A good line – and true, which is why, in Washington terms, it was a gaffe. But then look at the context. Here’s the full quote, reprinted in the Washington Post yesterday: “”I also think the term [“digital divide”] sometimes is dangerous in the sense that it suggests that the minute a new and innovative technology is introduced in the market, there is a divide unless it is equitably distributed among every part of the society, and that is just an unreal understanding of an American capitalistic system … [Mercedes Quote here] … I’m not meaning to be completely flip about this — I think it’s an important social issue — but it shouldn’t be used to justify the notion of, essentially, the socialization of deployment of the infrastructure.” Amen. A serious and good point, leavened with a gripping illustration. All unforgivable in D.C. Depressed yet?

I guess it had to happen, but UCLA has initiated separate victim group graduation ceremonies. There are now individual ceremonies for gays (sorry, members of the “LGBT community”), Iranians, Asian Pacific Islanders, Latinos and, of course, blacks. At the All African People’s graduation, they have dropped “Pomp and Circumstance” in favor of the theme from the “Panther” movie soundtrack. They also sing the Black National Anthem and have a libation ceremony for their racial ancestors. Yes, they can all go to the main graduation ceremony as well – and these do not replace the big one. But this is a sad development – a version of separate lunch-tables taken to a logical conclusion. No word yet on whether white students want their own ceremony as well. But I see no reason why not. They’ll be a minority soon in California. Come to think of it, if you’re going to have separate graduations, why not just have separate colleges altogether? Or separate high schools? Didn’t they once have that in this country? Oh, never mind.

AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA: Guess what the opposition groups in South Africa are now campaigning for? They want the Pretoria government to abolish taxes on HIV medications. First you’ve heard of such taxes? Well, the Western media would rather demonize the manufacturers and inventors of such medications than criticize African governments. It turns out, in fact, that in some cases, taxes amount to 60 percent of the shelf price of medication, according to Kobus Gous of the opposition Democratic Alliance. Of course, this would be relevant if the government had actually allowed the medications even to be distributed – but Pretoria is remaining firm in its emphasis on HIV prevention rather than expensive treatment. Don’t expect to read much about that either. It would be off-message in the war on the life-saving pharmaceutical companies.

“I think we launder our views through our “objective critics” and certainly the press is pretty green, the press is pretty pro-environment. And I don’t think there’s any question that they, as a body, feel that Bush is wrong on the environment, with varying degrees of willingness to give him credit, and I’m excluding the conservative press, “The Weekly Standard” and so forth. But, generally, the rank and file press is pretty green and they’re going to use the Europeans to take the Bush’s to task.” – Evan Thomas, Washington Bureau Chief of Newsweek, admirably telling the truth, on CNN’s Reliable Sources Saturday.

The op-ed printed by the Washington Post on Sunday was an eye-opener. It was about the influx of black people into a traditionally white neighborhood, and the views of some whites employed by the Post about it. “We damn sure are not about to let black folks buy up all the property,” wrote the Post’s employee, Natalie Hopkinson. “There is a real sense among white friends that the city is slipping away from us. A few months ago … a gentleman passed me a flyer. It invited me to a community meeting where residents planned to debate the question, “Is our White City turning Chocolate?” I pocketed the flyer, but didn’t bother going to the meeting. I already knew the answer: Not if I have anything to say about it.” Now, would you or would you not regard those statements as blatantly racist? I ask because I have changed them a little: the piece was actually written by a black middle-class woman bemoaning white people moving into Washington D.C. But all I have changed are the racial identifiers in those statements. For the full context, check out the entire story. It brings to mind a recent public meeting in my own neighborhood when some local residents objected to renovation of neighboring buildings because, “we don’t want any more white people living here.” The Post clearly believes it is fine to publish a baldly racist piece condemning racial integration, by one of their own employees no less, and merely because she is black. If you doubt me, can you imagine for a second the Post allowing a white employee to write an identical piece in reverse? And people wonder why some of us are disenchanted with what passes for the civil rights movement. In many cases, that movement is now little more than a vehicle for bigotry and racism. And it’s aided and abetted by newspapers that surely should know better.

BUSH VS. HELMS?: Buried in the fine print of this story in the New York Times is the fact that president George W. Bush is opposed to the Helms amendment to the Education Bill, a specious piece of unwarranted federal intervention in the autonomy of local schools and school boards. Good for Bush. Just don’t expect any gay rights organizations to give him an ounce of credit.

EASTERBROOK AGAIN: My colleague at The New Republic, Gregg Easterbrook, has long waged a lonely battle for sanity among liberal environmentalists. He’s a Democrat and pro-environment. But he also has a brain and intellectual honesty. Check out, if you missed it, his piece in yesterday’s New York Times about European attitudes to America. Here’s the best paragraph, delivered with Gregg’s usual thoroughness: “Indeed, despite European protestations, American ecological standards are far more strict than European rules, and have been for 20 years or more… Paris today has worse smog than Houston; water quality, especially of rivers, is lower in Europe than in the United States; acid rain reduction has been more rapid in the United States than in Europe; European Union nations like Greece, Italy and Portugal still discharge huge volumes of untreated municipal waste water, a practice all but banned in America. In addition, the European Union did not act against leaded gasoline till more than a decade after the United States; the forested percentage of the United States is higher than the forested percentage of most European countries, while America has fewer threatened species than Europe; and many other environmental indicators favor the United States.” The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

BUMPER STICKERS 2002: The San Francisco Chronicle debuts some slogans for Gray Davis’s re-election campaign. My favorites:
Ich bin ein Bulb-dimmer
Power to some of the people
The tunnel at the end of the blight
A thousand points of light, give or take a thousand
Ask yourself: Are you better off today than you were 438 years ago?

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT … EVENTUALLY: Good piece in Saturday’s New York Times about AIDS in New York City. John Tierney finally points out that the epidemic was grotesquely exaggerated in the 1980s by many of the same public health authorities that are now telling us we are seeing another explosion. Tierney reports that in July 1988, health authorities reduced their estimation of people infected with HIV in New York City from 400,000 to 200,000 over night. Subsequent estimates have put the number at 120,000. In other words, the estimates were off by over 300 percent. When Stephen Josephs, the New York City health commissioner, had the courage to tell the truth, he was hounded by the usual gay thugs, had his home picketed and spray-painted, and was personally harassed. When journalist Michael Fumento dared to write the obvious in 1990, in his book, “The Myth of Heterosexual Aids,” many stores refused to order or sell it for fear of gay terrorism. Funny how this legacy is almost never mentioned in the press lauding ACT-UP, the group behind these know-nothing tactics. Fumento and Josephs, of course, were right. New evidence can be found in the latest report from the American Council on Science and Health. I recommend its sane conclusions, and its skepticism about current statistics. Maybe soon, we will find out some hard data, because HIV is now (since June 2000) a reportable condition in New York City. And if we discover there is a real upsurge, we should do all we can to counter it. But in general, I second the judgment of Elizabeth Whelan, A.C.S.H.’s president: “AIDS was a genuine crisis in the 1980’s, but today it’s no more a crisis than any other chronic disease suffered by New Yorkers. We need to put AIDS in context and give it the proportionate share of resources. It shouldn’t be getting more than its share because we’ve been brainwashed into thinking the numbers are greater than they are.” Amen, sister. Amen.

MR. POT, YOU HAVE A MR. KETTLE ON LINE TWO: Anthony Lewis says George W. Bush has a closed mind.

Does the candidacy of Michael Portillo for leader of the British Tories presage anything for conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic? Check out my new TRB opposite for the answer.

CORRECTIONS: It turns out that Michael Portillo’s father was Spanish, not Portuguese. Also the Independent Florida Alligator is officially independent of the University of Florida, though affiliated. The faculty can’t do anything to discipline it. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t say something though.

I’m a First Amendment fanatic, but I have to say the request by a Florida College newspaper and an Internet site to gain access to the autopsy pictures of Dale Earnhardt is one of the most sickening things I have ever come across. Do these people have any decency? There is no, repeat no, public interest, apart from evil prurience, to see the remnants of Earnhardt’s body. The newspaper is absurdly claiming that the photos will show NASCAR’s lack of safety procedures and head braces. But that information – and its relevance in the Earnhardt case – can easily be gleaned without subjecting the Earnhardt family to seeing Dale’s broken body sent out to the whole world on the Internet. Check out this story for the gruesome details of the case. To violate the privacy of a marital bond at a time of extreme pain for Teresa Earnhardt is simply wicked and cruel. To subject Earnhardt’s young daughter to this is, in the judges words, “unspeakable.” We’re learning more and more, aren’t we, that evil is still with us, and that in the Internet age, it has simply found more outlets for its expression. The only response we can have is to pass laws like the one in Florida protecting such things as autopsy photographs, and to try to shame those who abuse privacy for political or simply malicious or prurient ends. So let’s name the perpetrators of this evil: Michael Uribe, who runs a disgusting website devoted to the pictures of the dead and injured; and the Independent Florida Alligator, the University of Florida newspaper. What on earth are the faculty and administration at that university doing allowing their students to perpetrate this sickness? There will now be an appeal: more trauma and grief for Earnhardt’s family; more disgusting publicity for these media outlets who shame the profession of journalism.

The New York Times pooh-poohs the way Irish voters have told Brussels to take a running jump in their recent referendum on the Nice Treaty, seeking further extension and integration of the E.U. The Times regards the vote as ingratitude, since the Irish have benefited so much from European integration. But the truth is the Irish have benefited from economic integration, free trade and freedom of movement within the E.U. These are separate issues than further political integration. The Irish aren’t being bad Europeans by taking a stand. They just have a different – and far saner – view of Europe than Brussels or the New York Times. Interestingly, the Irish are the only country to demand voter assent to the new treaty. Who knows how many other countries would say no to a greater E.U. if they were ever given the chance to vote on it?

THE OFFICIAL D’OH!: Homer Simpson finally makes it into the Oxford English Dictionary (Last item). Woohoo!

WHERE’S THE DONKEY DUNG?: The Onion’s take on a new shockingly unshocking art exhibit.

The incomparable Mickey Kaus notices Elizabeth Shogren’s Los Angeles Times piece on the Bush administration’s quiet efforts to deal with global warming in a more effective manner than posturing about Kyoto. Devastating quote from Eileen Claussen, the Clinton administration’s point-woman on climate change: “The Clinton administration agreed to ambitious targets in Kyoto but didn’t try to put in place a program at home that would allow them to meet the targets. This administration is doing the reverse.” That from a Clinton official? Ouch.

COULD IT GET ANY WORSE THAN CLINTON?: Buried in the news a couple of weeks ago were the latest figures on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the signal contribution of the Clinton administration to gay rights. The final year of Clinton’s term saw discharges on grounds of homosexuality increase by yet another 17 percent. This was at a time when the Gallup poll found a record 72 percent of Americans saw no reason why gays shouldn’t be hired by the military and when every other NATO country quietly ended their bans – to no apparent ill effect. All this helps put Clinton’s mixture of betrayal and incompetence in a starker light. The former president succeeded in more than doubling the rate of gay discharges in the military in a mere six years, as well as presiding over two brutal murders of soldiers believed to be gay by other servicemembers. I didn’t notice any major statements by the main gay organizations protesting this record – except for the admirable and dogged Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network. No surprise there. The other groups were busy complaining that George W. Bush hasn’t signed any Gay Pride declarations. Good to know the main gay rights organizations have their eyes on the ball.

POSEUR ALERT: “Above all else, Suck was a dream. It was a pretty good dream, too — a rock-and-roll dream, a pirate dream — about how a couple of kids maxing out their credit cards could grab eyeballs all over the world. How guerrilla publishers could flummox the old-line media mastodons no matter how massive their antique printing presses. How the primordial Internet was truly different — not the same-old same-old. It was particularly a Generation X dream. It rewrote the narrative for twenty-somethings. No longer would they be remembered as losers and slackers destined to sweep up behind the elephants. The Net became the defining moment for these young, their identity forever reshaped by those who slept
beneath their desks, invented a new world and — if their timing was lucky — got to keep their Porsches. This dream was also about telling the truth — especially when the truth sucked, hence the name — because you had nothing left to lose.” – Joel Garreau, The Washington Post, June 13.

BEGALA, DERBYSHIRE, POSEURS, ETC: One of the good things about having so many new readers is that some of you don’t know what the hell we’re talking about. To recap: the Begala Award is occasionally given for statements from liberals that are hyperbolic, excessive, dumb, unfair and unnecessarily inflammatory. It’s named after Paul Begala, for obvious reasons. We give a similar award, called a Derbyshire, for similar statements from the right. This one is named after John Derbyshire, the always entertaining and often wacko commentator for National Review Online. We also give an occasional mention to pretentious over-writing under the rubric, Poseur Alert (see above), a shameless rip-off of Private Eye’s “Pseuds’ Corner.” I look out for nominees all the time but the best ones often come from readers. Keep ’em coming.

“Defense attorney David Baugh said al-‘Owhali’s engaged in “killing to stop killing,” referring to the million Iraqis who have died from Gulf War airstrikes and food and medical shortages created by U.N. sanctions. He told jurors it would be wrong to order an execution. “Each of you will have to decide whether to kill someone,” Baugh said. “If state sanctioning makes killing OK, I want you to know the Holocaust was state sanctioned.”” – CNN.com’s report of the arguments of the defense attorney, David Baugh, in the case of Mohamed al-‘Owhali, who was convicted of bombing the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Baugh’s arguments are almost enough to make me support the death penalty.

FLORIDA AGAIN: Since I often criticize the New York Times and since they’re still kind enough to publish me regularly, it behooves me to point out that in the case of the report about Florida’s election issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the Times was not suckered like the Washington Post into publishing the leaked report without comment on its bias. One of the reasons I often criticize the Times, I should add, is that it’s still, in my view, the finest paper in the world, and therefore all the more worth criticizing. They’re so good at times, it pains me when they’re not. Here endeth the suck-up.

“Had George W. Bush conducted a charm offensive when his daughter was hospitalized for an emergency appendectomy at Christmas – rather than fleeing for golf in Boca Grande, Fla. – would she be in open revolt now? By engaging in two underage-drinking ruses in one month – a “crime” likely committed by more college students than not – Jenna Bush has made herself into the No. 1 poster child for the lack of compassion in her father’s conservatism.” – Frank Rich, New York Times, last Saturday.

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?: Find out in my new piece for Time magazine on the politics of fatherhood.