The Dish

The issue won’t go away. Are Jews genetically smarter than other races ethnicities genealogical communities with connected DNA? Will Saletan tackles the question:

The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100. This gap and the genetic theories surrounding it stirred discomfort in the room. Zoloth, speaking for many liberals, recalled a family member’s revulsion at the idea of a Jewish race. Judaism is about faith and values, she argued. To reduce it to biology is to make it exclusive, denying its openness to all. Worse, to suggest that Jews are genetically smart is to imply that non-Jews are inherently inferior, in violation of Jewish commitments to equality and compassion…

But what if Judaism as a genetic inheritance is compatible with Judaism as a cultural inheritance? And what if the genes that make Jews smart also make them sick? If one kind of superiority comes at the price of another kind of inferiority, and if the transmission of Jewish values drives the transmission of Jewish genes, does that make the genetics and the superiority easier to swallow?

I like the fact that asking these kinds of questions is also part of the Jewish inheritance. But the Blank Slaters will have their usual cow.

"You don’t build community cohesion by throwing out our history and denying the fundamental contribution Christianity has played and does play to our nation. "As a British Muslim I can see that – so why others can’t just staggers me," – Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative Party spokesman on community cohesion in Britain.

This overwhelmingly Catholic country adopts civil equality for gay couples. The Church’s influence has collapsed after the sex abuse crisis. And deservedly so. Stateside, Fred Thompson says his personal belief is that me and my husband should have no civil protections for our relationship. But he adds this:

"I do think that states have the power under our constitution to make their own determination with regard to those matters … (I) think the federal government’s powers ought to be limited to what’s set out in the Constitution – and states, with regard to matters that are traditionally state matters, ought to be free to make those decisions themselves, even if Fred Thompson might disagree with them."

It says something that it is so refreshing to hear a leading Republican talk about the limits of the federal government’s powers.

A reader writes:

While I enjoyed Troy Paiva’s wonderfully spooky and evocative photographs of the old Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard here in San Francisco, I must take exception to his description of the old base as "out of the public eye for decades… abandoned and forgotten." It’s true the base was decommissioned, with some facilities abandoned or locked down (for many reasons, including radioactive contamination in some buildings), and it’s also true that the place is in transition, from the Navy to the city and now slowly on to the developers.

But for years the "abandoned" base has provided a low-cost home to hundreds of creative artists, non-profits and small businesses of all kinds.

And even though many of those businesses have had to close or relocate in the last couple of years as sections of the base are closed for remediation and redevelopment, Hunter’s Point is still the largest art colony in the country.

I know, because I kept a studio out there myself until just a couple years ago – not in the colony itself, but down on the flats, in one of the gigantic old Navy warehouses.

Hunter’s Point was – and is – a spooky place in many ways, but it was also the only low-cost art space left in this city of sky-high rents. We’ll miss it when it’s gone. But resistance is futile. Can you imagine what 500 bayfront acres in San Francisco is worth?

At least we’ll have Troy’s photos to remember.

"So leave [Clinton] alone, let her cruise her way to the nomination so we Republicans can have the pleasure of dissecting her in the general election campaign.

And she is about as dissectible as a politician can get, starting with her health care reform fiasco, her sleazy involvement in the White House travel office firings, her use of private detectives to smear and harass the women who accused her husband of sexual misconduct, and her most recent campaign finance shenanigans… She likes to boast that she has faced the worst the so-called Republican attack machine can throw at her and has survived. Let me tell you, she ain’t seen nothing yet. We have long memories and a huge arsenal of ammunition to fire at her when the time comes," – Michael Reagan, Townhall.com.

A Clinton fundraiser? Sleaze? Pressured into giving money? Ah, nineties nostalgia.

It’s over?

Michael Hughes goes around the world putting himself – and various souvenirs – directly into the photos he takes. The full gallery is here. I loved the Abbey Road one.

A reader writes:

I certainly don’t blame any foreign service officer for not wanting to go to Baghdad, but Juan Cole’s assertion that State Department employees “cannot easily get good life insurance that covers death from war,” and that their families “are in danger of being reduced to dire poverty if they are killed,” are without any factual basis.

I’m a federal employee (and non-practicing attorney) who has 16 years experience working with workers compensation and other employee benefits and entitlements. After 9/11, I provided benefits counseling to the survivors of the attack on the Pentagon. So I know what I’m talking about, and plainly, Juan Cole doesn’t on these matters.

The Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA) is the federal workers’ compensation statute administered by the Department of Labor that covers all federal civilian employees, including those at State.  It provides very generous benefits to survivors of employees’ killed in the line of duty, which of course would include a terrorist attack in Iraq.  Under the FECA a surviving spouse with minor children receives 75% of the employee’s salary tax free, so actually the spouse’s “take home” pay is often greater than when the employee was alive.   These benefits are reduced when the surviving children reach adulthood, but the spouse is eligible for 66% of the employee’s tax free wages, plus annual inflation adjustments, until he/she remarries or dies.  The FECA also provides for compensation for funeral expenses.

The Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) Program provides basic life insurance protection to all federal civilian employees automatically, unless the employee waives coverage.  The cost is minimal to the employee, and the basic benefit is slightly more than one years’ salary.  Many federal employees also elect more generous life insurance plans (which pay up to five times the employee’s annual salary).  These are available to State Department employees, and there are no exclusions based death in a war zone.

Under the Foreign Service Act, the State Department may also authorize payment of a “death gratuity” equal to one year’s salary to survivors of employees’ killed in the performance of duty.   A surviving spouse would also receive any unpaid wages and leave due to the employee, as well as the balance of the employee’s federal Thrift Savings Plan (i.e., the federal government’s equivalent to a 401(k) account).

What other facts doesn’t he bother to check?