Category: The Dish

It’s back up, selling books. Here’s the link.

"It astonishes me to find … [that so many] of our countrymen … should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty … which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries," – Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, 1788.

Yesterday, president Bush signed into law the suspension of habeas corpus for people he alone decides are "enemy combatants." It is a dark day for freedom. And for America.

The history of rock and roll – in animated album covers.

He makes his point about the separation of church and state in an argument about – yes! – marriage:

The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question – how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a  Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammendans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. 

My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, and the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought be to quite sharp, so that a man know which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.

It’s from "Mere Christianity." I should maybe point something out here about my own writing on the subject. I have always been very clear that I am in favor of civil equality in marriage. I am not at all sure that the religious sacrament of matrimony ought to be open to gay couples. My instinct, in fact, is that it should not. The Roman Catholic church’s view of marriage is so linked to heterosexuality and procreation that including gay couples within the same sacrament might violate its theological meaning. I’m open to debate on this theologically. But I make the same distinction Lewis makes: the civil and the religious spheres are very distinct and we need to make the distinction "quite sharp". The great blasphemy of Christianism is that it wants to erase the boundary altogether.

There’s a fascinating open letter to the Pope, posted at Islamica Magazine here, that grapples with the question of Islam’s relationship to reason, warfare, religious compulsion, and other hot topics. I am struck by the unequivocal statement by a phalanx of leading Muslims about the importance of no compulsion in faith. One is even from Saudi Arabia, where the death penalty for apostasy is still in place in Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. The discrepancy is unaddressed. Are these countries anathema to Islam? Here is the argument about war and Islam:

The authoritative and traditional Islamic rules of war can be summarized in the following principles:

1. Non-combatants are not permitted or legitimate targets. This was emphasized explicitly time and again by the Prophet, his Companions, and by the learned tradition since then.

2. Religious belief alone does not make anyone the object of attack. The original Muslim community was fighting against pagans who had also expelled them from their homes, persecuted, tortured, and murdered them. Thereafter, the Islamic conquests were political in nature.

3. Muslims can and should live peacefully with their neighbors. And if they incline to peace, do thou incline to it; and put thy trust in God. However, this does not exclude legitimate self-defense and maintenance of sovereignty. Muslims are just as bound to obey these rules as they are to refrain from theft and adultery.

If a religion regulates war and describes circumstances where it is necessary and just, that does not make that religion war-like, anymore than regulating sexuality makes a religion prurient. If some have disregarded a long and well-established tradition in favor of utopian dreams where the end justifies the means, they have done so of their own accord and without the sanction of God, His Prophet, or the learned tradition. God says in the Holy Qur’an: Let not hatred of any people seduce you into being unjust. Be just, that is nearer to piety (al-Ma’idah 5:8). In this context we must state that the murder on September 17th of an innocent Catholic nun in Somalia ‚Äî and any other similar acts of wanton individual violence ‚Äî ‘in reaction to’ your lecture at the University of Regensburg, is completely un-Islamic, and we totally condemn such acts.

I presume they also condemn the bombings of mosques, rampant Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Iraq and the murderous violence of al Qaeda. But they do not use this occasion to do so. I fervently hope that the arguments of this letter are indeed what Muslims believe. Given the empirical evidence in many Muslim countries, I fear this is not the case.

(Photo: Antonio Melina/Agencia Brasil.)

Man, that kid set off an email firestorm. Here’s a few selected goodies:

I am 25, old enough to know your reader is either a cultural idiot, a loser, or both. Large swathes of the 20-30+ generation have 80’s parties regularly, mostly because people really honestly love the music. Yes it is cheesy, yes much of it is over-synthesized, yes the singers had huge hair, and yes, they wore horrible clothing. Also, by cheesy, over-synthesized, huge, and horrible, I meant totally awesome. There is nothing not to love about what has survived of the 80s.

There’s more:

I read the sage counsel of your 23 year old reader. The horrors of 80’s music pale in comparison to the ennui-sodden banjo playing that has been foisted on us for the last 10 years. The moment I hear "Cold Play" I run screaming for the nearest bottle of antidepressants. Your 23 year old reader knows nothing!

I tend to share this guy’s perspective:

I was 23 in 1988.  Let’s see, what was I listening to then? Erasure, Smiths, Prince, Berlin, Pogues, Indigo Girls, Proclaimers, XTC … And we’re talking the WHOLE ALBUM for each of them (and some several times over). What do I listen to now? Erasure, Smiths, Prince, Berlin, Pogues, Indigo Girls, Proclaimers, XTC.  The only CD that I’ve bought in 00s and listened to all through, was John Mayer’s debut. 00 pop is crap. I mean if the Killers could find a singer who was in tune I might go whole hog and buy their album on iTunes, but other than that it’s a dearth out there!

There is indeed no pop on the radio any more. Just hip-hop drivel and godawful indie crap or whiny, lesbian complaint-rock. Look at the top ten in any other advanced Western country and pop is alive and well. But in America? Murdered by payola and hip-hop. But maybe that just shows what an old codger I’m becoming. Speaking of which …

Yes, the 80s, unfortunately, might as well be the 40s. I spent the day with my 15-year old nephew a few weeks ago. We went to a record, I mean "music", store in Berkeley. He steered me over to the rap/hip-hop area and expounded at length about the various artists. As far as I can tell, they seem mostly to have died violent deaths. And none has a proper first name, or last – I can’t really tell. In an effort to bridge the 15-40 gap, I mentioned "Eminen".  My nephew gave me the same patronizing-but-patient look as I did when my grandmother would say something about Elvis.

A final word:

OK, the kid was funny. I have kids that age. Let’s remind them we control the money!

Not according to the advertizers we don’t. Still, my main point is: the PSBs are not ’80s pop. They may have begun in the 1980s, but their output has spanned twenty years of consistently excellent musical craftsmanship. Yes, they use electronic sound. Does that make Stuart Price an ’80s producer? Some things are timeless. Actually.

For the second time in a week, a technical glitch has removed "The Conservative Soul" from availability for purchase from Amazon.com. Try Barnes and Noble instead. I’ll let you know once Amazon is back and functioning. Apologies. But at least the pages are now in the right order.

He believes that the war is going "remarkably well":

"Well, I think there’s some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn‚Äôt over instantaneously. It‚Äôs been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don’t think it‚Äôs surprising that people are concerned.

On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They’re off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we’ve now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They’ve had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.

It’s still very, very difficult, very tough. Nobody should underestimate the extent to which we’re engaged there with this sort of, at present, the "major front" of the war on terror. That’s what Osama bin Laden says, and he’s right."

If you were at all concerned that this administration has no grip on reality, then you need to become more concerned.

A reader writes:

I am 23 years of age, and certainly not the only person my age who enjoys your blog. Therefore, I must warn you that the mere mention of 80s pop music has approximately the same effect on us as pouring a bucket of water over the Wicked Witch of the West. It is hard enough for most of us to maintain the tranquil illusion that Madonna, Whitney Houston, Roxette, Richard Marx, and countless others never actually signed recording contracts, and that any music we hear on the radio or television that suggests otherwise has no basis in reality, but is actually a manifestation of a severe psychotic episode. Post photographs taken out of every window in the world if you must, phone each of us personally and repeatedly until we agree to buy your book if you must, but please don’t revisit the horrors of 80s music on us ever again.

What have I? What have I? What have I done to deserve this?

Irwin Stelzer has a must-read piece in the Weekly Standard. It’s about how the Bush administration’s fiscal policy has left the U.S. so indebted to China that we have no leverage over North Korea. Money quote:

It is indeed true that the Bush tax cuts were key to ending the recession the Republicans inherited from the Clinton administration. And it is also true that some of the tax cuts have proved to be revenue generators for the Treasury. That has enabled the administration to gloat over a 22 percent reduction of the budget deficit from last year’s $319 billion. But in a booming economy, a continued deficit of $248 billion is hardly chopped liver, as the analysts in New York’s delis say. And when those deficits result in stacks of IOUs held by China, America’s diplomats are forced to walk softly, lest they antagonize so large a creditor.

It is this fiscal situation, this unwillingness to rein in spending so that the boom in tax receipts can be used to provide support for American diplomacy, that has made it impossible for America to have an effective foreign policy. Indeed, it is arguable that George W. Bush has presided over the largest decline in America’s ability to influence world events since, well, since the 1920s, when we decided it was in the nation’s interests to let the world take care of itself while we partied at that era’s equivalents of today’s discos – the jazz joints and speakeasies that offered solace to the Wall Street crowd after a hard day of share-price manipulation.