Category: Old Dish

The letter composed yesterday by the president of Hebrew University deserves a wider readership:

The forces of evil have struck yet again. For them, the entire State of Israel, its citizens, and its institutions are legitimate targets – this time, however, the target was chosen with much care. The attack required planning and determination in order to overcome the many layers of security and strike at the very heart of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This was not just an attack on our institution; it was an attack on a symbol of the rebirth of Israel in its own land, on a modern state that is rooted in tradition but embraces openess.

This attack was perpetrated against a university founded upon the principles of pluralism and tolerance, a university that seeks to understand the world in which we live and that – despite the wave of terror and murder we are experiencing – aspires to promote peace and understanding with its neighbors in this region. The aim of the terrorists responsible for the horrific scene that I witnessed several minutes after the explosion was to bring an end to those values that the Hebrew University embraces and embodies – understanding, tolerance, and the quest for peace.

The victims include many members of the University community – students, teachers, employees, and visitors from all parts of the world. They are Jews and Arabs, and citizens of the US, Korea, France, Italy, and other countries. This attack is a crime not only against Israel or the Jewish people; it is a crime against the free and enlightened world. As I stood facing the destruction, the pools of blood and the wounded, I was forced to ask myself how we can continue in our research, teaching and other vibrant activity while we mourn for the victims. The answer is clear and it is expressed by the Hebrew word davka, ‘despite everything’. The perpetrators of such heinous acts may kill those dear to us, but they cannot destroy our vision and our determination to continue to create a society that is based on reason and mutual understanding, and to work as a community of researchers and students which welcomes Israelis of all backgrounds and guests from all over the world. Above all, we will not let them kill our aspirations for peace.

Professor Menachem Magidor
President, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Like Mickey Kaus, I waded through the Jeff Gerth-Dick Cheney investigation, Rainesed on page one. Like Mickey, I can’t for the life of me see a single problem with Cheney’s conduct, as described breathlessly by Gerth. Except, as usual, with the Times’ fast-evaporating journalistic credibility. One small thought: if they can get the word asbestos in the same sentence as Cheney, they might milk this as successfully as the non-story about W and arsenic. At this point, the Times is simply throwing all they’ve got.

Doesn’t it tell you everything that Hamas bombed a university?

WHY NOT GRAHAM-SMITH? The money-quote from this New York Times story on Medicare drug coverage is from Senator Olympia Snowe. She opposed a sensible proposal to restrict a prescription drug benefit to the poor or to those who face catastrophic medical treatment. This means-tested benefit would help those who need help the most and keep costs down. So what’s the problem? “If we take the approach of low-income and catastrophic coverage as the sole type of benefit we will enact in the Senate,” Ms. Snowe said, “we are abandoning the principle of universal coverage under Medicare. I hope we don’t move in that direction. It’s the wrong approach – wrong for Medicare, and wrong for our nation’s seniors.” But why is it so wrong to provide help for those who need it most? Matt Miller’s latest column highlights a vital point here: under the current doctrine that Medicare and Social Security are universal non-means-tested benefits, we know what the future will be. We will have to pay much higher taxes or go bankrupt. So why not restructure the programs now to prevent such a crunch later? I’ve never seen a problem with having social security benefits either taxed or means-tested. What we’re buying with social security is “security”. It’s insurance that if we do end up indigent, we’ll be helped. What it has become instead is guaranteed middle-class welfare – a huge transfer of resources from the young, poor and working to the old, retired and rich. I wish one of the parties would get honest about this. But Democratic demagoguery on the subject all but prevents common sense from breaking out.

A DEMOCRAT WORRIES: Lots of positive press from the DLC meeting for the Dems, especially Hillary, but this Democratic state rep from New Hampshire, Peter Sullivan, begs to differ. Here’s his email:

Regarding Robert Borosage’s spin on the Democratic Leadership Council’s gathering in New York…we tried his approach. It was called the Mondale campaign. We all recall what a smashing success that exercise in squishy isolationism, neanderthal economics and racial resentment politics played out.
I attended the DLC event, and I noticed that a lot of people evidently took Borosage’s advice to go to the banquets, meet the money, eat the food, etc, but blow off the underlying message. The DLC made the mistake of offering any Democratic legislator in America asistance with either hotel or travel expenses. A lot of people who took them up on the offer were actually the very paleolibs the DLC (and we New Dem legislators) are trying to subdue. The delegation from my own home state of New Hampshire was riddled with an assortment of old school lefties, party hacks and educrats who view charter schools as the political equivalent of the West Nile Virus. There was also a large and annoying contingent of teachers-turned-politicians, who seemed to take a certain glee in badgering the moderators of the education policy workshops run by the DLC in New York on Sunday and Monday. I also suspect that these are the same folks responsible for the glowing reviews bestowed upon Hillary Clinton following her rather unremarkable address.
I hope that Borosage’s admonition falls on deaf ears. Otherwise, the Democrats will all too readily cede the political battlefield to a substantively vacuous but politically ruthless Bush machine.

THE BRITISH HACK: This little gem comes courtesy of another gem, the invaluable weblog, “Little Green Footballs.” It’s a poem by one Humbert Wolfe, whom I confess to know little to nothing about.

The British Journalist

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s no occasion to.

Ahem.

WHEN WEED CURES: Fascinating new evidence for the effect of marijuana on suppressing traumatic memories and anxiety attacks. More data suggesting that the prohibition is unwarranted.

SUPPORT FOR THE WAR AGAINST IRAQ: Matt Welch, in a flight of high-mindedness, says I provide no evidence for my claim that the American public supports a war to disable Iraq’s potential to deliver weapons of mass destruction. Well, a Newseek poll last October found the following:

Nine out of 10 Americans say they support the current military action in Afghanistan. Seventy-nine percent support the use of military force against suspected terrorist targets in other Middle Eastern countries, with 81 percent approving the use of direct military action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Seventy-one percent support the use of military force to combat terrorism outside of the Middle East, in countries like Sudan and the Philippines.

I’d say 81 percent is pretty decisive. The notion that Americans need to be apprised of Saddam’s threat, have not thought about the pros and cons of war, and need a thorough from-scratch debate about this is self-evidently silly. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a real discussion about how to unseat Saddam, an exploration of all the possible consequences, and a sober period of argument and decision-making. But the war’s opponents are acting as if this is a new idea, as if it has to be debated de novo, as if September 11 is irrelevant, as if the public is divided or confused, as if there’s no compelling evidence to warrant intervention. That’s baloney. Here’s what the Washington Post reported yesterday:

U.S. opinion polls indicate that more than 60 percent of Americans support the use of force to overthrow Hussein, “and that’s without the administration doing much selling of the idea,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.

And it is simply a fact that many people opposed to the war against Iraq are indeed “passionately opposed to using American power to defeat the forces of state terror.” They opposed using force when Saddam invaded Kuwait; they predicted quagmire and urged negotiations in Afghanistan. They want to stop this war. The job of war-proponents is to remind people of what last September showed was possible, assemble all the evidence to show how dangerous Saddam is, and make a strong case that we need to make his removal speedy, final and as casualty-free as possible.

WELL, AT LEAST HE DOESN’T MOLEST THEM: The Onion reveals the dark truth behind gym teachers.

HOW STRAIGHTS INTEGRATE GAYS AND LESBIANS: An important point. Just as miscegenation can help reduce black-white divisions, so can lots of interaction with straight people help gay-lesbian relations. A reader emails to add context to the notion that the Northwest music scene unites homos and lesbians:

What’s important to remember is that the music scene here, and the lesbians, gays and straights who part
icipate in and support it, are far from living in a sub-culture — this scene constitutes the dominant popular culture in the city. Lesbians and gays who attend these shows are finding common ground, but they’re sharing that ground with straight people too. What I’ve found so exciting and invigorating about this scene is just how mixed it is. Going to the swingiest gay club in town with pretty boys and pretty, sweaty bodies is disappointing in comparison…everyone seems to be doing their best to pretend they’ve just returned from a weekend on Fire Island, when everyone knows they’ve got to put on their raincoats at the door and hit the electric beach later if they’re going to maintain the image. There’s more genuine frisson around here when everyone’s mixed up in a group and you don’t know if the boy you’re checking out in the crowd at the show is gay, straight or…worth persuading.

In general, I think a lot of gay problems would be helped by greater integration. And the critical instrument for this, I think, is for gay men to have more interaction with straight men. Both groups would benefit – but both have to overcome their fears and awkwardness.

EVIL FORCES: If you want to discover what the inimitable Reihan Salam does when he isn’t editing your emails and posting brutal take-downs of yours truly on this site, then take a look at his collaborative blog, Evil Forces. And be afraid.

UNBEAUTIFUL MOVIE: I don’t know why we rented “A Beautiful Mind,” last night. It was boiling hot even here on the Cape and we huddled around the a/c. All I can say is that if that was the best movie in America last year then film-making is at an all-time low. Every scene a hideous cliche; the writing beyond bad; the cinematography straight out of a tv-movie; the treatment of a serious issue like mental illness alternately dumb and condescending. And Russell Crowe’s accent – more South Yorkshire than West Virginia – was the only comic relief. Is Hollywood that dumb? Don’t all answer at once.

Glenn Reynolds posts an email from Yehudah Mirsky, an old law-school class-mate of Glenn’s, who was near the Hebrew University bombing today. Read the whole email. But for my money, the end is the most poignant:

As it turns out I was reading Nietzsche today, and I wonder how much of this he is responsible for too, these crazy notions of self-actualization through violence that he spat into the culture and take on a life of their own, all over. I’m lucky, I have an American passport and in theory could head for the airport anytime I want. Where is everybody else supposed to go? And one more thing that makes me tired and angry, that like a nice Jewish boy I go on praying for peace not only for the Jews but for the Arabs too, while they keep praying to my God to kill me. Yours, without answers, but still praying for peace like a river, Yehudah.

The first part of our first IMterview – with Camille Paglia. It’s posted opposite. It made more sense to post what we have already before waiting for her to reply to your questions. Send more in if you want. I’m forwarding them to her and she’ll pick a handful to answer.

This important and detailed report from the Washington Post makes for unnerving reading. Yes, as the story details, we don’t know for certain whether the reports of defectors are completely true and our satellites cannot determine with complete accuracy whether new buildings and construction are designed to build weapons of mass destruction. So the question becomes: who gets the benefit of the doubt? A dictator who has used such weapons and declared the United States as an enemy or a democratic country that has already experienced terrorist catastrophe? Meanwhile, Tom Friedman balances the Times’ recent relentlessly dovish coverage with the counter-factual omitted from the Times recent story on the economic impact of an Iraq war. What if a victory in Iraq were to lead to far lower oil prices? And what if not tackling Iraq meant at some point we’d have to rebuild Washington D.C. or Manhattan? It seems to me that a critical element in this debate has to be September 11. We’re not discussing hypotheticals any more.

KERRY’S OBVIOUS FLAW: For all the Times’ puffery, isn’t it a critical problem for John Kerry that he voted against the first war with Iraq? If he couldn’t stand up to Saddam and the enemy after a brutal invasion of another country, why should we trust him to defend our security today? I’d say that’s a fatal weakness.

Why is it front page news that secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld thinks air-strikes alone can’t disable Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction? Hasn’t this been obvious for ever? We’ve been treated to several competing alleged leaks for ground invasions of Iraq over the past few weeks, as Jack Shafer has noted. Does the Times think that ground troops of 50,000 to 250,000 will be deployed from the air? Shafer asks the question of why these leaks are occurring but misses an obvious one: the doves in the Pentagon are allying with the doves at the major papers to wage a public campaign against the necessity of war against Iraq. The point of the Times story today is simply to get the following sentence on the front page: “A growing number of lawmakers from both parties are voicing concern that the administration is heading precipitously toward war.” The Los Angeles Times chimes in as well. Hearings begin today. But the campaign to protect Saddam’s weaponry began a long time ago. Those of us who think the majority of Americans decided last September that war with Iraq was essential to our present and future security had better be prepared. The opposition is determined and organized, and they are passionately opposed to using American power to defeat the forces of state terror. What if the U.N. opposes it or doesn’t endorse it? Many visceral doves in Washington will rally. If they can isolate the administration from the allies and the Congress, then there’s a good chance appeasement will gain even more momentum.

STOPPING THE WAR II: A central enabler of Serbian genocide opposes the war in Iraq. Figures.

STOPPING THE WAR III: King Abdullah of Jordan tells the British prime minister he mustn’t support the Bush administration’s war against Saddam. The pressure on Blair – internally and externally – is getting truly intense.

GEEKS ON ISRAEL: A useful statistical analysis from Tech Central Station on casualties in the Middle East.

Michael Ledeen writes to add some perspective on the prospect of legalized prostitution in Iran:

Andrew, your good cheer over the prospect of legal prostitution in Iran misses the whole point. Iran is so degraded under the mullahs that prostitution is rampant, this being the only way many women can–excuse the expression–make ends meet. It is heartbreaking and grotesque, not something to be celebrated. That the mullahs would permit such a debate to take place at all shows how events have run away from them. But no one, above all you, should be confused about what’s happening. The country is ruined, the people are desperate, and in their desperation they are selling their bodies.
It is absolutely not to be compared to Heidi Fleiss.

Point taken.

This is not a story from the Onion.

The anti-war coverage is getting really intense now. We’ve had the Powell puff-piece, the Powell editorial, the cover-piece on why the Kurds fear a war, and now a piece about how a war will hurt the economy. Here’s the classic editorial paragraph stuffed into a news non-story:

Already, the federal budget deficit is expanding, meaning that the bill for a war would lead either to more red ink or to cutbacks in domestic programs. If consumer and investor confidence remains fragile, military action could have substantial psychological effects on the financial markets, retail spending, business investment, travel and other key elements of the economy, officials and experts said.

Could it get any more obvious? One question: wouldn’t lots of military spending help the economy? Meanwhile, having blasted the market slide from the rooftops for days on end, the Times now buries the current rally inside. I guess when you have broadcast a bubble correction as the consequence of the Bush administration, it’s embarrassing when a rally gathers steam. When do you think Howell Raines will commission a poll to see if the public credits Bush for higher stock prices?

THE REAL TADPOLE: In a case in Washington State, a woman gets prison time for a sexual relationship with a fourteen year-old boy. Both families are wrecked; and a young life is in jeopardy. I wonder whether Anthony Lane thinks this is the best a kid can get. Or if Mary Eberstadt even noticed.

THE LEFT’S CIVIL WAR: Here’s a refreshingly vicious piece by paleo-liberal Robert Borosage attacking the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Put it together with Lieberman’s attack on Gore’s phony populism in the 2000 campaign and you have a real split emerging among Democrats about how to appeal to the country at large in November and beyond. Worth a real story, no? Certainly a more solid story than the cockamamie notion that the religious right is gunning for John Ashcroft. But my guess is you won’t see this debate fleshed out in, say, the New York Times.

IRAN WATCH: Wait for it. They’re gonna legalize prostitution. At least they’re discussing it. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Iran managed to achieve this sensible reform before America did?

THOSE SEXLESS BRITS: “The day I arrived in London, my American flatmate picked me up at the airport. During the drive to Hammersmith from Heathrow, she gave me a piece of unsolicited romantic advice. ‘The first thing you should know about English men,’ she said, ‘is that what they secretly want most in the world is to be with other English men.'” No, they’re not gay. They’re just English. A woman laments the erotic desert of London.

THOSE LESBIGAYS: Your responses were thoughtful. To enlarge the sample, I’ve been bugging random gay/lez friends here in Ptown. So far, there isn’t exactly a lengthy list of common cultural indicators between gay men and lesbians. Some lesbian comedians have gay followings: Sandra Bernhard and Ellen Degeneres, for example. But Bernhard, it seems to me, is really a gay man with left-lesbian politics. Someone suggested selling real estate as one area of common interest. That’s pushing it. Pets too – but that’s a little universal to make much sense and then you get into the whole cats/dogs debate. Then there’s HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” (I’ll ignore the smart-ass who wrote: Q: What do gay men and lesbians have in common? A: They are the only two groups on earth who care about what gay men and lesbians have in common.) Musically, one reader suggested the following:

There are a bunch of bands that gay boys and baby dykes both love. They are mostly girl-led rock bands like Luscious Jackson, Slaeter-Kinney, Cibo Mato and such. The last Luscious Jackson show I went to was almost all lesbians and gay guys under 30. Tori Amos also has a pretty huge base of gay and lesbian fans (miserable, whiney gay and lesbian fans, but they are united in their angst). Similarly, cool young gay boys and baby dykes are united in their contempt for Pansy Division, purveyors of gay themed elevator punk.

You learn something every day. But these gay men tend to be the Northwest types, united by Naderist crunch. They come from the kind of sub-sub-culture described here, and it’s not only West Coast:

There’re places all over the country with vibrant and mixed lesbian/gay communities – places like Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Northampton, Massachusetts; Portland, Oregon; and Ashville, North Carolina. In this new world, the bars and coffee houses have huge numbers of homos – boy and girl – and the non-gay folks blend in well enough so that even the trained eye can’t really tell them from the gay ones. The common currency is usually the music (Sleater Kinney, Sonic Youth, Johnny Cash, Gillian Welch) and a culture that celebrates what’s great about America–cookouts, softball, beer, beaches, frisbee. Practically every gay guy I know has a lesbian best friend. Another example is the Eastern Oregon town where I spent my adolescence. There, it was a small community of gay men and lesbians that took me under their wing. They invited me to their potlucks, hired me to babysit their kids, and helped me to meet my first boyfriend. They introduced me to their brand of good-humored, practical politics – we were fighting Measure 9 – and taught me how not to give up hope that people’s anti-gay attitudes can change. As for music, it was either Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, and Melissa Etheridge.

What interests me here is that lesbian culture can attract many politically liberal gay men, but it’s rare for that to happen the other way round. How many lesbians, for example, show up at a circuit party? Or a leather bar? Even at most gay male gyms, there are many more straight women than lesbians. Similarly, most gay-lesbian organizations have found that one way they can truly integrate gay men and lesbians in their membership is by being run by lesbians, or having strict gender-parity, even though gay men outnumber lesbians by two-to-one. The National Gay Lesbian Task Force, for example, hasn’t had a man in seven of its last seven executive directors. And the Human Rights Campaign has a mainly lesbian leadership. Why is that combination the most effective, I wonder?