The Dish

Yesterday I linked to an art exhibit, depicting the lynching of the confederate flag. A reader sends in a link to this site, "Without Sanctuary," that documents the countless postcards and photographs of torture and lynchings of African-Americans in the past. It’s brutal brutal stuff.

They’re on the case:

Last Friday, the UN surpassed itself as it finished its annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women by singling out Israel and only Israel (which actually has a very good record on women’s rights) as being the only state "found in violation of women’s rights."

The hundreds of thousands of women who have been killed, raped, mutilated and displaced in Sudan, the women whipped in Saudi Arabia, hanged for ‘adultery’ in Iran, forced to abort in China, murdered in honor killings in Holland, England and elsewhere, all these were ignored by the UN as it attacked only Israel. The vote against Israel was 40 for and 2 against, with only the United States and Canada voting against. Amazingly (or perhaps not) Germany, on behalf of the European Union, voted against Israel.

More here. Yeah, I know.

An interesting insight from someone who’s been there who’s just venting on a message board:

I’ll just take my old stomping grounds in Baqubah, and create a fictional 10 man terror cell operating in the area to illustrate my point.

Habib has his 9 insurgents, plus himself as the "sheik". In the immediate vicinity, there are over 1,000 American troops, producing round the clock patrols of the city of Baqubah and the surrounding highways. He cannot hope to do damage to so many soldiers by fighting them directly, so he plans ambushes of small convoys, roadside bombings, and suicide bombings. His only problem is the fact there are so many Americans watching these areas at such random times that he can’t accomplish much without risk of losing his people.

So here’s what he does…

He targets the poor families with men of fighting age (and with lots of mouths to feed), and he approaches them to guage interest in the insurgency. If the people reject him, he threatens to kill the family, and fades off to the next target. If the people waiver, or express interest, he will innundate them with propaganda, and eventually make an offer of cash for doing some "small" task. This might be something like wiring a roadside bomb, or firing an RPG at an American convoy. The men of the starving family are eventually swayed to the insurgency through the fear, or the money, the latter being the most common. In this case, we’ll say they’ve been asked to fire an RPG at an American convoy for $100, which is a small fortune to these people.

So a man and his son then take the RPG, and find an area that they feel they have the best chance of success, and they set up there. This is usually a rooftop or an alleyway, and they wait for the convoy. The Americans don’t disappoint. They arrive on their convoy, which is likely a combat presence patrol designed to project force, and deter action in a sector. They choose the vehicle they want to shoot (usually a command vehicle, which is rather stupidly identified from the pack by virtue of having multiple antennae on them for better communications)and fire.

Usually, panic and lack of training account for a missed shot, but on occasion they will hit the mark. The Americans in the convoy then must identify the source of the attack, and engage the threat. In this case, they will dismount, and enter the building chosen by the insurgents for their attack. They will leapfrog through the building, clearing each room until they find the man and the son, and they will engage and kill them.

The family lost two men, and did not earn a dime. The Americans may or may not have taken casualties, but engaged and killed two "insurgents". The insurgency, however won the day without doing a thing. They protected their numbers, and through the inability of the Americans to discern who or what the threat was or wasn’t, they didn’t even lose a hundred bucks.

That’s how the insurgency works … They use the Iraqi people to fight for them, and so we must hunt and kill them instead of those who oppose us.

And how exactly are we supposed to win?

(Photo: Seen through splintered bullet-proof glass, US soldiers from 2-12 Infantry Battalion examine their damaged Humvee after an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated on the vehicle, following a patrol in the predominantly Sunni al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad 19 March 2007. By David Furst/Getty.)

The Taliban get even with Afghans cooperating with the central government and coalition forces. They remove the Afghans’ ears and noses.

A scientist argues for their compatibility.

Here’s a lively dialogue on Baruch Spinoza. Money quote from Rebecca Goldstein, author of "Betraying Spinoza":

Showing the passionate side of the most abstract thought—mathematical logic, quantum mechanics, metaphysics— is sort of my beat, in fiction and non-fiction. I’m a novelist who certainly knows the tug of pure reason. Literary types, if they deal with the mathematical personality at all, often present it as being in terrified flight from the passions. What often is missed is that abstract thinking itself can be the most intoxicating passion of all. Of course, it can also be a terrified flight from the passions.

Japan innovates a family home on 350 square feet.

Did the French president advise Israel to attack Syria last summer? The Jerusalem Post reports:

Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war.

the Israelis insisted that it was Iran that was the real culprit.

It seems genuine to me:

I live in a small world – the world of entertainment, musicians, writers – in which gayness is as common as having brown eyes. Ever since I was in college, gay men and women have been friends, associates, heroes, adversaries, and in that small world, we talk openly and we kid each other and think nothing of it. But in the larger world, gayness is controversial. In almost every state, gay marriage would be voted down if put on a ballot. Gay men and women have been targeted by the right wing as a hot-button issue. And so gay people out in the larger world feel beseiged to some degree.

In the small world I live in, they feel accepted and cherished as individuals, but in the larger world they may feel like Types. My column spoke as we would speak in my small world and it was read by people in the larger world and thus the misunderstanding. And for that, I am sorry. Gay people who set out to be parents can be just as good parents as anybody else, and they know that, and so do I.

Maybe if Keillor had mentioned his own three marriages in a swipe at gay marriage, the humor would have been more self-evident. By the way, this was essentially Ann Coulter’s defense as well – "some of my best closeted gay friends use the word ‘faggot’ ironically." But she could not say it as Keillor has – because it would deeply alienate the people she needs to buy her books, and because she is an enthusiastic part of a movement that wants to keep gay people marginalized and stigmatized. Keillor has an escape clause. Coulter can’t use hers.