“On the eve of our great national birthday party and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when millions of us turned to God and prayed for forgiveness of individual and corporate sins and asked for His protection against future attacks, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists.” – Cal Thomas, Washington Times.
CEO GREED: I’m with Gregg Easterbrook on pursuing the malfeasant CEOs who have essentially robbed shareholders while paying themselves exorbitant sums. Those of us who believe in free markets as the least worst way of organizing economies should be particularly incensed at this duplicity and larceny. But one reason for some restraint on the hype is precisely because so many liberals want to use these crimes as a rationale for enhancing government power over the economy, returning to the failed redistributionism and dirigisme of the past, and junking much of the free market gains of the last two decades. Gregg also fails to talk about bubble psychology as an essential context for these crimes. Such psychology excuses nothing. But it does help us understand why the last two years were particularly bad. On a minor note, am I the only one to object to setnences like the following: “Has conservatism reached the point that any development that transfers money to white male CEOs is deemed acceptable?” Why the “white male” interpolation? It’s factually accurate in the vast number of cases, but their gender and race is surely irrelevant to these CEO crimes. Can you imagine the New Republic publishing a similar phrase about “black males” in the context of, say, urban crime? Silly question.
THIS GUY’S SHIT DOESN’T STINK: In fact, it’s art. And worth more per ounce than gold. I kid you not. At least the artist, who died young, had a sense of irony about it. He wrote a friend, “I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. If collectors really want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit. That is really his.”
FISH’S REAL AGENDA: Here’s a good trip through a few of Stanley Fish’s more troubling statements. Here’s his defense of free speech:
‘Free Speech’ is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance…. Free speech, in short, is not an independent value but a political prize, and if that prize has been captured by a politics opposed to yours, it can no longer be invoked in ways that further your purposes, for it is now an obstacle to those purposes…. [S]o long as so-called free speech principles have been fashioned by your enemy . . . , contest their relevance to the issue at hand; but if you manage to refashion them in line with your purposes, urge them with a vengeance.
Now I know what Richard Goldstein has been reading.
RAINES WATCH: Even I was a little taken aback by the headline on Darcey Frey’s New York Times Magazine piece this weekend. It was: “The Bush administration is setting its oil-hungry sights on pristine wilderness areas beyond the Arctic refuge, some in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.” Well, I guess they’re not even pretending any more.
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: The weirdest use of the “What Would Jesus Do?” vulgarity just surfaced. And some thought minor abuse was just a Catholic problem.
STRAIGHT GUYS IN DENIAL: According to the Associated Press’s John Solomon, retiring Senator Fred Thompson is a real hottie. “Divorced since the mid-1980s,” Solomon wrotes, “Thompson has been one of Washington’s most eligible bachelors.” Check out the photo of the 59-year-old with his 35 year-old bride. What’s the betting that John Solomon is straight too?
The Dish 