The Dish

Getting The Real Ebola Crisis Under Control

As the above chart illustrates, the epidemic remains a serious public health crisis in parts of West Africa. Nonetheless, Helen Epstein sees signs that the tide may be turning in Liberia, where “the number of new cases each week … is falling, not rising”:

In August, the streets of Monrovia were strewn with bodies and emergency Ebola clinics were turning away patients. Today, nearly half of the beds in those treatment units are empty. I’ve been here a week and have yet to see a single body in the street. Funeral directors say business is off by half. Of course, the situation remains very serious. More than two thousand have succumbed to the disease here since the outbreak began—along with thousands more in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the CDC—and Liberia faces looming economic and political crises. This fragile country urgently needs help—both for the well being of its own people, and for the safety of the rest of this interconnected world. But the epidemic is far from the cataclysmic disaster currently on display on American TV screens.

How did things get so bad in Liberia in the first place? Shikha Dalmia blames “a hopelessly dependent political class that stays in business by ignoring good governance and appealing to its Western benefactors”:

Unlike Nigeria, Liberia’s immediate reaction was not to marshal its domestic resources but to hold press conferences and appeal for international aid, points out Johannesburg-based Yale World Fellow Sisonke Msimang. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel peace laureate, even penned an open letter to the “world” this week, plaintively crying that Ebola wasn’t a domestic problem but a global one that “governments to international organizations, financial institutions to NGOs, politicians to ordinary people in the street in every corner of the world” had a “duty” to combat through “emergency funds, medical supplies, or clinical capacity.” But the “world” has been supplying all of this and more to Liberia in spades. Indeed, Liberia is among the largest aid recipients on the continent, with about 75 percent of its budget supplied by aid agencies. It receives $139 per capita in loans and grants, according to World Bank figures, compared with Nigeria’s $11 per capita.

If Liberia has indeed reached a turning point, that’s likely in part because the extremely poor communities where the virus has spread most rapidly, and whose residents often mistrust the government and aid workers (recall August’s attack on an Ebola treatment center in Monrovia), are becoming more knowledgeable about the disease. Abby Haglage profiles a UNICEF initiative called Adolescents Leading an Intense Fight Against Ebola, or A-LIFE, which has put some very dedicated Liberian teenagers on the front line of the information war:

UNICEF’s group was formed in 2012, with the intention of teaching young girls how to protect themselves from sexual violence. The worsening of the Ebola epidemic forced them to teach the girls about a new enemy. They learned what the disease is, how people get it, what happens then. Most important, they learned what they could do to protect themselves. Learning that gave them something the rest of their community, still reeling from the violent government-imposed quarantine, did not have: knowledge. So they walked. From house to house, day by day, teaching the community what they had learned. Ebola is real. It is deadly. Don’t shake hands. Wash them. …

The impact, to [UNICEF’s representative in Liberia Sheldon] Yett, is one only these girls have the authority to make. “They are far more powerful as spokespeople and educators than a public-health official could ever hope to be because they come from that community, they’re known by that community,” he says. “People understand where these girls are coming from, and people believe their messages.”

Yet even if things are looking up for Liberia, Keating cautions, there is still a ton of work to be done to get the regional outbreak under control:

All the same, we’re far from out of the woods in the fight against the disease that has already killed in the neighborhood of 5,000 people around the world. There have been no similar reports of drops in the other countries affected by Ebola. In fact, the number of cases has risen sharply in Western Sierra Leone this month. The disease also may have spread to yet another country—82 people in Mali who came in contact with a toddler who died of Ebola last week are currently being monitored for signs of the disease. The collateral damage from the outbreak—including the impact on the economies and political institutions of some of the world’s most fragile states and the setback in the fight against diseases like malaria—will continue to mount.

Update from a reader:

I work at a large hospital associated with a famous university and medical school. Both hospital and the university are routinely listed toward the top of all rankings of such institutions. My hospital has carefully laid out practice and policy set up for handling Ebola patients. Both my hospital and the university have long traditions of public service, and are not-for-profit. Both entities are renowned for commitments to humanity, education, research, and the elevation of the impoverished. Justice, beneficence, and respect for persons, as it were.

And both have explicitly forbidden any medical staff from traveling to West Africa to participate in Ebola treatment, public health, and eradication efforts. Nevermind quarantines and pay for time off. It is forbidden even if we have the time and don’t want the money (Though, I’m a researcher and not a clinician, so I’d have little to offer on the ground on site in West Africa.).

We talk about the need to prevent this epidemic from growing by addressing the situation at the heart of the outbreak. And it seems that people with the currently active strain of Ebola who are treated from the onset of symptoms with competent and comprehensive medicine are very likely to survive. Yet the death rate in Africa has been as high as 70% in places, because access to even basic medical care, must less excellent care as we have here (access to that care being a conversation for another day), is deplorably lacking. We will not contain this epidemic, and Ebola will become a daily fact of life in many places, unless more resources are brought immediately to bear at the source of the outbreak.

And yet, our esteemed institutions of medicine and science are issuing edicts that thwart any discussion of that possibility, regardless of our federal policies.

A “Great” Debate

Aaron David Miller’s latest book, The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President, makes the case that Washington, Lincoln, and FDR were America’s only truly “great” presidents, and as the title implies, we’re not about to get another. In an article adapted from the book, Miller lays out the rudiments of his argument:

Like the ghosts in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, great presidents continue to hover, to teach, and to inspire. And we have much to learn from their successes and failures. But there is a risk in thinking, let alone succumbing to the illusion, that we will see their likes again, even in an altered contemporary guise. The world and country have changed and so have we. And besides, we should not want to see them again. Greatness in the presidency is too rare to be relevant in our modern times and — driven as it is in our political system by big crisis — too risky and dangerous to be desirable. Our continued search for idealized presidents raises our expectations and theirs, skews presidential performance, and leads to an impossible standard that can only frustrate and disappoint. To sum up: We can no longer have a truly great president, we seldom need one, and, as irrational as it sounds, we may not want one, either.

In response, Julia Azari points out that assessments of “greatness” often rely on historical distance, which can make leaders look more independent and decisive than they really were:

In his book, Miller observes that we have no “real-time connection with greatness” in contemporary American politics. But I think someone writing in 1864 or 1935 might have said the same thing. In their times, Roosevelt and Lincoln were quite divisive, and often looked politically vulnerable. So our assessment of leadership may require some historical distance.

In particular, it’s easy to overlook the divisions of history once we know how the debates were resolved. Conventional wisdom says that polarization has eclipsed statesmanship. Here’s where the focus on the personal qualities of individual presidents is particularly misplaced. Accounts of presidents as lone statesmen, swimming against the tide and making Great Decisions is the stuff of hagiography and cartoons. Politics is not an individual enterprise; it is a collective enterprise. All presidents – great, mediocre and otherwise – have dealt with parochial interests, partisanship, and clashing ideologies. The ones who have been most successful weren’t acting alone; rather, they understood the political situation – the stakes of policy and the necessarily coalitions for passing and implementing new legislation. They also brought a sense of who the winners and losers would be, and used tools at their disposal – patronage, rhetoric, etc. – to make it harder politically for the losers to build their opposition, either by marginalizing them or finding a way to bring some of them on board.

A Rocket Launch Gone Wrong

On Tuesday, the unmanned Antares rocket exploded seconds after launching:

Ioffe highlights Russia’s reaction:

Russia Today reported that the Antares rocket was “American-Ukrainian,” and other outlets ran with it. The spectacular failure, wroteone Russian tabloid, “is the work of Ukrainian and American specialists.” The rocket, based loosely on the Soviet Zenit rocket, was designed by the originally Soviet, now Ukrainian, Yuzhnoe Design Bureau, according to various Russian news sites. … It would be perfect—if only the Russians were right about the Antares’ origins. But it turns out that the rocket’s engine, like the engines of other privately-made American rockets, was made in … Russia.

Justin Bachman provides more background on the rocket design:

The Soviet-era AJ-26 engine was designed in the 1960s as part of Russia’s space race with the U.S., originally envisioned as a way to propel cosmonauts to the moon. The engines are “refurbished and Americanized,” Frank Culbertson, the Orbital Sciences executive in charge of the NASA program, said Tuesday night in a news conference, defending the AJ-26 as “very robust and rugged” and with a successful track record.

At least one person in the industry disagrees.

Elon Musk, the founder of rival launch company SpaceX, ridiculed the Antares AJ-26 engine in an interview with Wiredmagazine two years ago. Musk said most commercial space companies seek “to optimize their ass-covering” by avoiding risk and employing antiquated but proven technologies. SpaceX builds an “octaweb” of nine of its own Merlin engines for its Falcon 9 rocket. Here is Musk’s riff on the AJ-26:

“One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences, has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the ’60s. I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s—I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere.”

Fox News interviewed professor John Logsdon of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. His take on the rocket:

“When Orbital Sciences decided to develop what turned out to be the Antares rocket almost ten years ago, it examined the supply of rocket engines from around the world and decided that the former NK-33 engines, which another U.S. company had already purchased from Russia, gave the best mix of cost and performance,” he explained, in an email. “One can criticize that choice in retrospect, but it was a commercial decision, not symptomatic of anything except the U.S. not investing for many years in new propulsion capabilities.”

Michael Lemonick expects “things will get dicier in 2017 … when two private companies, SpaceX and Boeing, begin carrying astronauts to the I.S.S.”:

[S]pace capsules and shuttles have never been more than experimental. There were fifteen Apollo missions, and the Space Shuttles flew just a hundred and thirty-five times—far too few to work out all the kinks. In this way, the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts on the ground in 1967, and the Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1986 and 2003, were, in a sense, inevitable. Problems were going to arise—the tragedy was one of timing, not of chance.

Similarly, no matter how carefully they focus on safety, Boeing and SpaceX will be operating experimental spacecraft. So will Virgin Galactic, if and when it begins flying tourists into space. Failures won’t necessarily happen at a greater rate than they have on government spacecraft; private space companies have at least as much incentive as NASA to keep mishaps at a minimum, but given the scope of vision of some of what’s been proposed, both by NASA and by private companies, there may be a point where great risk becomes impossible to avoid.

Politicians Don’t Control The Economy, Stupid

Charles Kenny delivers a reality check:

It’s not just that the link between growth and particular policies is weak—so is the link between growth and politicians as a whole, whatever their ideological persuasion. Bill Easterly and Steven Pennings of New York University looked for (PDF) evidence of the impact of national leaders on growth since 1960. Their findings suggest that, if national leaders matter anywhere, it’s in autocracies rather than in democracies like the U.S. and Europe. But even in autocratic regimes it’s hard to pinpoint the influence of individual leaders on economic growth—good or bad. Some leaders were in charge during periods of high growth and some during periods of low growth, but no more often than you would expect if random chance rather than leadership quality was driving the results. Across 50 years and 100 countries, they suggest, 2 percent of the variation in growth rates might be explained by political leaders—with 98 percent accounted for by other factors.

Leather Bound

Ever heard of a leather postcard?

Leather postcards were first made in 1903. They were a novelty that appealed to tourists. When stitched together, they could be used as a pillow cover or wall hanging. The holes along the edge could also be used to attach fringe. The cards were made of deer hide and the pictures burned in. The U.S. post office banned leather postcards in 1907 because they jammed postage-canceling machines. Leather cards continued to be made as souvenirs until about 1910.

An avid antiquer on Ebay elaborates:

During the Victorian Era, the term pyrography was coined to describe the artistic use of fire to create graphics on numerous materials such as wood and leather.

It was particularly popular during the latter part of the 19th century for ladies to create hand crafts using this technique. This process was often also referred to as pokerwork. It is out of this interesting creative movement that grew a brief and exciting period in postal history.

Beginning in about 1904, leather postcards decorated using pyrography became a popular novelty in the United States. After a decade, though, the excitement diminished and the fad had nearly disappeared by 1915. Throughout their short appearance in our postal history, though, the leather postcard had great influence. Artists such as W. S. Heal created wildly successful cards that were often based on humor derived from period stereotypes. His cards of this genre, as well as those of other artists, are among the most highly sought after leather post cards available. Categories that prove very popular among collectors also include souvenir cards, vice or sin cards, puzzles, and cards that express affiliation with organizations. Other unique qualities, such as color and odd shapes or calendars, add to the desirability of these wonderful historic relics.

The range of subject matter within the field of leather post cards is great as has been noted, but so is the process. The cards can be as simple as a piece of leather burned by an individual in their own home to production line pieces stamped in a heat press. Some leather post cards are even inked, and not burned at all. Purists will seek their own niche within the various forms. As with any collectible, condition is important with regards to the field of leather post cards. Surprisingly, however, many fine examples were made into quilts and pillows. Holes are not uncommon in these rare cards.

The leather postcard is an overlooked, but significant, art form remaining from the arts and crafts period in America.

Update from a reader:

Have I heard of a leather postcard? Why yes … I just mailed one to a friend!

I love “real mail” and mail about 5 postcards/letters a day, so this was “bound” to happen.

(Photo of leather postcards from the Albany Rare Book Fair taken by Chris Bodenner)

Did Non-US Citizens Elect Al Franken? Ctd

John Ahlquist and Scott Gehlbach take down the study that claimed they did, pointing out that its limitations “are, in fact, numerous”:

Their estimates rely on a key question from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study: “Are you registered to vote?” Notably, this is not the same question as “Are you registered to vote in the United States?” In principle, non-citizens could be registered to vote only in their home country and respond affirmatively, and truthfully, to the question on the survey.

(Respondents are asked for the Zip code at which they are registered to vote, but this could be interpreted as the Zip code at which non-citizens receive absentee ballots from abroad. Mexico, for example, has allowed absentee voting by mail from abroad since 2005.) If this sounds outlandish, consider that 20 percent (15 out of 75) of those non-citizens claiming to be registered in 2008 were in fact verified as not being registered to vote in the United States. Another 61 percent (46 of 75) could not be matched to either a commercial or voter database. That leaves only 14 out of 75 non-citizen respondents claiming to be registered in 2008 who were in fact confirmed as registered to vote in the United States.

This raises a more general point: The Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which focuses on the behavior of citizens, is ill-suited to examine the behavior of non-citizens, who make up about one percent of the sample. One consequence of this is that the number of respondents who report that they are not citizens yet vote or are registered to vote is quite small in absolute terms: in 2010, for example, only 13 respondents — not 13 percent, but 13 out of 55,400 respondents — reported that they were not citizens, yet had voted. Given the ever-present possibility of respondent or coder error, it takes a bit of hubris to draw strong conclusions about the behavior of non-citizens from such small numbers.

Update from a reader:

In your follow-up to the post about non-U.S. citizens electing Al Franken, it maybe worth noting:

1. The authors of the original study say a follow-up will be posted at the Washington Post any day responding to critics.

2. I investigated the study, specifically looking at the question of whether the public should be worried that Democrats will win tight 2014 elections because of noncitizen voters. On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being absolutely true, 0 being wildly false and 5 being half-true, I rated this claim a 4, meaning slightly false. Study author Jesse Richman responded that he agreed.

He said two things your voters may be especially interested in that are a bit of a walk-back from his original post: “Noncitizen voting might tip one or two extremely close races but is unlikely to tip the balance in the Senate, and certainly not in the House.” And: “More work is needed. We view our study as the beginning of the process, not the definitive work on the question.” You can read his full email reply here.

The Best Of The Dish Today

Another note on the swift descent of ethical journalism. One concern I’ve repeatedly voiced is that at some point, corporations will simply dispense with “sponsored content” on existing publications and create newspapers and magazines for themselves. Since the Fourth Estate has already abandoned any pretense of being independent of advertizers for their content, it’s a small jump. And here comes Verizon with a new website:

The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge while bringing in a potentially giant mainstream audience to beat those competitors at their own game.

There’s just one catch: In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.

It gets worse, doesn’t it?

Today, we revisited the plight of the Yazidis still facing the terror of ISIS; that “chickenshit” Netanyahu; and the broad definition of “sexual assault” that Ivy League higher-ups have signed onto, even if their students don’t quite agree. Plus: the campaign to shut down and even criminalize “toxic male culture”. I also re-engaged Ross Douthat on the issue of pastoral treatment of divorced and re-married Catholics.

Plus: a gorgeous video celebrating New York City and Paris.

The most popular post of the day was A Declaration Of War Against Francis; followed by Does The Self Exist? Many of today’s posts were updated with your emails – read them all here. You can always leave your unfiltered comments at our Facebook page and @sullydish. 24 more readers became subscribers today. You can join them here – and get access to all the readons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. Gift subscriptions are available here. Dish t-shirts are for sale here, including the new “Know Dope” shirts, which are detailed here. Below are images for the general design and the DC-specific one (also available are ones for Oregon and Alaska – the two other states voting on legalization Tuesday):

The final email for the day comes from a veteran programmer. I’m going to give her the last word on the gamergate furore:

This is regarding your post about gamergate. I have been a very loyal reader of your blog for more than 10 years now and have been a subscriber for two. I have always dearly admired and respected you. I know this email is long and harshly worded in places, but please take the time to read it. It would mean a lot to me.

Your readers were right to warn you about not writing about that debate. At the very least, you should have researched the industry you were covering before making comments about it. Perhaps you did by reading some extremely lazy leftist writing on the subject (of which there is unfortunately much) or because you’ve been hanging out with Breitbart, who seems to be your ideological bedfellow in this – I don’t know.

[Ed. note: Professional details written here are being left out “because my identity will be easy to determine and it may put my life and that of my family in danger (this happened to other women for much less).] Whom I know is not especially important – the industry is so small that anyone who has been there for as long as I have knows all these same people. (Gamergate doesn’t quite see things that way and continues to weave conspiracy theories about it.) What I mean to convey is how personal all this is to me.

I don’t actually want to bring up the ludicrous “both sides have been bullied” quote, considering that only “one side” has received credible death threats that are being investigated by the FBI. [Ed. note: that “both sides” line was clarified in a follow-up post the reader may have missed.] I don’t mean to complain, because much like all of the mature nerdy adults I know, I’m over it, but I have to ask: do you honestly believe that only nerdy white males exist, that nerdy girls don’t get bullied? (I know I was!) I also had to then deal with not being taken seriously as a “fellow gamer” by the “gamer culture” whose end you’re lamenting for some reason (worry not, it will continue to thrive as is).

And you compare it to gay culture, as if there has ever been any actual or remotely comparable discrimination of gamers! Recall all the gamers who were murdered when they were caught holding hands in public while arranging for DS Download Play on their DSes!

Let’s take a moment of silence for the gamers who bought the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare only to be brutally beaten the next day for talking fondly about it in school! Let’s remember that time the arch-conservative Jack Thompson was preaching about the harm people who buy games do to society – wait wait, my bad … that was the game industry he was blaming for school shootings and the like. Andrew, forgive me, but you are off your rocker.

On the contrary, the multi-billion industry that is video games have catered to gamers to such a degree that it’s had some regrettable side effects. For instance, it is not uncommon for game creators to receive death threats for changing a game mechanic (in an effort to improve the experience for their audience)! It’s been happening for some time! Writers have been harassed to the point of quitting the games industry for including an optional homosexual romance in a popular game (Dragon Age 2). The anxiety and the terror I feel that the other shoe could drop at any minute, and that my life or that of my family could be in danger, is very real and has caused me a lot of anguish and stress.

The truth is, this is an audience that is so used to being treated with velvet gloves and getting their way, that manipulating the creators via threats is actually seen by some as a perfectly reasonable way to register a complaint. Short of the awful harassment that George Lucas must have suffered for “ruining childhoods” (not that I disagree he made some poor films), can you imagine any other creative medium with this kind of audience?

The developer who has been the real subject of gamergate for some time created a game about depression that was more an “interactive experience” (not unlike the old text adventure games of the early video games, ironically) and was not seen as a “real game” by those now in the gamergate movement. She was harassed well before her ex-boyfriend tried to ruin her life and career on the internet by airing their dirty laundry with that callous post. Why? Because there are people who don’t want developers to make games they don’t want to play and for them, simply ignoring these developers and their games won’t do. It’s as if Britney Spears fans went on a hateful rampage because they could not live in a world where Mary Timony was producing records, simply because Pitchfork chose to write about Mary’s releases every once in a while.

Let’s talk for a moment about Anita Sarkeesian. I support her work in spite of disagreeing with much of it, because I believe that if video games are ever to be a respected medium, acknowledged for meaningful cultural commentary (which I believe it very much deserves), it needs to have a rich tradition of critique and criticism – whether the critique is something everyone agrees with or not. However, no reasonable discussion can take place when Sarkeesian is being harassed and threatened with sexually violent murder. It so happens that the only video I ever found compelling of the many she has made is this one:

Analysis like yours strokes the hateful mob’s egos and reduces it entirely to what both the far left and Breitbart find intriguing: “a culture war”. Imagine how much progress could have been made about our environment or global warming if it hadn’t become part of the culture war. All this kind of politicizing does is force people to take sides that have no nuance, and I want no part in it. I happen to be a woman developer (already suspect for gamergate) who happens to make quirky games that people in that movement would hate but may refuse to ignore by harassing me (something I’m extremely worried about). Much as I have little respect for the left’s handling of this garbage, they actually stand up for my personal safety! They denounce these jerks when they see them, even if it’s with ridiculous academic language.

From everything I’ve seen, gamergate is an angry mob bent on bullying game creators into making something other than what they want to make. It is an angry mob bent on bullying journalists into voicing opinions other than those they have. They bully not by name-calling, rude words, or insults, but with threats of murder, rape, and school shootings. If your heart was in the right place, as it usually is, you should be condemning these asshole reactionaries. For the first time in my life, you’re talking about an issue that DIRECTLY affects me and my livelihood, and you’ve taken the bullies’ side, Andrew. It absolutely breaks my heart. Why, why, why can’t you call them on their shit?

For the record, this was the second paragraph of my post:

The tactics of harassment, threats of violence, foul misogyny, and stalking have absolutely no legitimate place in any discourse. Having read about what has happened to several women, who have merely dared to exercise their First Amendment rights, I can only say it’s been one of those rare stories that still has the capacity to shock me. I know it isn’t fair to tarnish an entire tendency with this kind of extremism, but the fact that this tactic seemed to be the first thing that some gamergate advocates deployed should send off some red flashing lights as to the culture it is defending.

See you in the morning.

(Photo: Competitors take part in the Tough Mudder London South in Winchester, England on October 25, 2014. The world-famous Tough Mudder is a military-style endurance event over 10-12 mile obstacle course designed to test all-around strength, stamina, teamwork, and mental grit. By Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

The Complexion Of The Gun Rights Movement

Over the weekend, Charles C.W. Cooke urged Second Amendment activists to “consider talking a little less about Valley Forge and a little more about Jim Crow”:

Malcolm X may have a deservedly mixed reputation, but the famous photograph of him standing at the window, rifle in hand, insisting on black liberation “by any means necessary,” is about as American as it gets. It should be celebrated just like the “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flag. By not making that connection, the movement is losing touch with one of its greatest triumphs and forsaking a prime illustration of why its cause is so just and so crucial.

Francis Wilkinson finds Cooke’s argument wanting:

If you’re looking for a model of public engagement, it’s hard to do worse than “by any means necessary.” The slogan obliterates compromise — it doesn’t repel violence so much as demand it. And in the late 1960s era of romantic leftist rebellion, Weatherman and others delivered memorably, irrevocably, bloodily, on the promise. …

Ultimately, Cooke’s vision of welcoming blacks into the gun movement ends right where other visions of maximum gun rights end: before the trouble begins. The chief problem with the gun-rights movement is not that it makes distinctions based on race — although it does. The biggest problem is that it doesn’t make distinctions based on more meaningful criteria: mental soundness, personal responsibility, adequate training.

Update from a reader:

I wish that Francis Wilkinson explained further how Malcolm X and his defiance to white supremacy are so negative when it comes to gun rights. The way Wilkinson writes about Malcolm X makes it sound as if it was within Malcolm’s control not to be oppressed by white America. The slogan “by any means necessary” didn’t obliterate compromise; white Americans lynching African Americans did that. White Americans beating, shooting, and drowning a child did that. A racist judicial system did that. White America obliterated compromise over and over and over again for generations, yet today it’s unquestioned when people describe Malcolm X as “a man with a deservedly mixed reputation.”

Malcolm X spoke the phrase “by any means necessary” in a speech announcing the creation of a new organization after he left the Nation of Islam. A larger quote helps fill in the context:

That’s our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don’t feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don’t think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D. C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don’t think anybody should have it.

Note that he was not holding a rifle while giving this speech. The image and speech are combined by many, including both Cooke and Wilkinson to paint a picture of Malcolm X as irrationally violent rather than someone focused on personal and community self preservation.

I agree with Wilkinson’s overall point about distinctions over meaningful criteria for gun rights, but I wish he would keep in mind why there ever was a radical black nationalist movement.

Previous Dish on gun rights in black America here.

A Professional Peck On The Cheek, Ctd

A reader counters Bill Ridgers:

He could not be more wrong with the following statement: “Some rules of engagement are obvious: one would never peck on first introduction, for example, no matter where in the world you were.” I can only assume that Ridgers has never conducted any business in Latin America. Actually, you can go to certain parts of the business community in Miami and you’d get the same result – people meeting for the first time with a peck on the cheek. This is true for man/woman, woman/woman, and man/man. Men in Argentina, for example, routinely greet each other in a business context with a kiss. My wife is Latin, and she is confused when she meets “gringos” who act awkward when, upon meeting someone (man or woman) in a business or personal context, does not immediately gravitate to a kiss hello.

I’d add that, as a gringo myself, it took some getting used to this bit of culture. Now, I much prefer the kiss to a handshake, in part because I’m much less likely to get germs from a quick peck than a firm handshake. But I’d probably prefer fist bumps to kisses, if we could ever make that a standard greeting.

Face Of The Day

Members of some 30 families who live under a bridge rest amid candlelight after the illegal electric supply they were using was cut in Manila on October 29, 2014. Some earn money by selling flowers and collecting plastic bottles, earring an average of four US dollars a day. The Philippines announced in April plans to spend more on infrastructure and introduce other reforms to try to lift millions out of poverty. The revised Philippine Development Plan sets more ambitious economic targets to address persistent concerns that poor Filipinos are not enjoying the benefits of the country’s recent dramatic economic growth. By Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images.