Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Friday, February 28, 2003
Why bother debating with the appeaseniks if the appeaseniks are talking about something completely different On Wednesday, I said that the appeaseniks can't be convinced that the Bush administration is right about the use of force in Iraq because they don't want to be convinced. London Telegraph columnist Daniel Johnson makes this same point today. Johnson wrote that "It is not that Blair and Bush have failed to 'make the case'," it is that "Blair and his anti-war critics, inside and outside the Commons, do not merely disagree: they do not argue on the same plane." Several weeks ago, Rich Lowry made the point on National Review Online's The Corner that everyone is in agreement that Iraq must be invaded: the Americans and their allies want an invasion by the military while the French and Iraq's other willing accomplices want an invasion of inspectors. I think Lowry, while trying to be cute, was entirely wrong. France does not want inspections; they want any alternative to an American-led armed conflict. The appeaseniks, meanwhile, don't see a great need to disarm Saddam Hussein because they view the U.S. as the source of all evil. Johnson's right -- not even the same plane. If Democrats had the decency Bush has, Estrada would have been confirmed by now President George W. Bush on how he chooses his judicial nominees: "I also want to talk to you about how to make sure our judiciary works well -- historically, with me naming good people to serve on the bench -- good, solid, honest, decent Americans who are willing to forego the private practice of law, the comforts of private life and serve on the federal bench. And that's exactly what I've done." In defending Miguel Estrada, Bush's nominee to D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Bush went on the offensive: "Yet, his nomination is being delayed and stalled by Democratic senators. His nomination has been stalled for two years. They're blocking the vote on this good man for purely political reasons. The senators are applying a double standard to Miguel Estrada by requiring him to answer questions that other judicial nominees, over time, have not been forced to answer. And that is not right, and that is not fair. By blocking a vote on Miguel Estrada, some Democrats in the Senate are flaunting the intention of the United States Constitution and the tradition of the United States Senate, itself. Alexander Hamilton wrote that, the purpose of the Senate confirmation was to prevent the appointment of unfit characters. No one can possibly call Miguel Estrada 'unfit'." For the full speech, some of which is nothing more than identity politics pandering to Hispanic voters, check out the White House news release. Thursday, February 27, 2003
Worth repeating The Feb. 22 issue of World (a news magazine with an evangelical worldview) has this little gem from Cal Thomas: "'Reading is Fundamental,' says the bumper sticker. 'If you can read this, thank a teacher,' says another. Whom do you thank, or blame, if you can't read or read well?" Keep the government out of our information superhighways Nothing needs to be added to this dispatch, the opening two sentences from a longer piece on Julian's Dispatch: "A recent column from the BBC asks Is Google Too Powerful? The proposal for some sort of regulatory agency to monitor search engines strikes me as... how can I put this politely... incredibly dumb." Wednesday, February 26, 2003
They don't want to be convinced John B. Judis, writing in the March 1 The American Prospect says: "When a country goes to war, one question that already should have been answered is 'why?' But many people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are genuinely perplexed about why the Bush administration is so determined, even at the cost of war, to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein." If the pacifists and appeasers are really still perplexed, they have not been listening to what President Bush and administration officials have been saying for the past six months. As the title on a recent Larry Miller column on the Weekly Standard's website had it, "No proof would be enough." The pacificist/appeaser crowd has its cliches and their sticking to them. Evidence is irrelevant to those who oppose the war. As Miller says, "facts don't matter to people whose favorite hobby is shouting." It's time to stop trying convince those who oppose the war -- domestic opposition, overly skeptical media-types, the Axis of Weasels -- and get on with the war. The opponents cannot be convinced. There are more important matters to be attended to, now. Bloomberg tries to have it both ways It does not matter much that the Liberal Party of New York is going out of business when Republicans go out of their way to alienate their conservative base. Newsday reports that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg intends to be at this Sunday's (March 2) "Inclusive St. Patrick Day Parade," which Newsday describes as a parade "that includes gays," but which is actually a gay parade. Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said of those who oppose his participation: "If they don't like it, they don't have to go." This is the second year that Bloomberg has taken part in the gay parade which was began four years ago because homosexual activists are not allowed to display their banners in the much larger St. Patrick's Day parade on Fifth Avenue, which will be held this year on March 17. Participation in the "inclusive" parade by the Democrat-turned-Republican Bloomberg is just the latest action to upset conservatives (smoking ban, higher taxes). "He's definitely thumbing his nose at the more conservative-moderate community," Patrick Hurley, president of the Woodside Republican Club, told Newsday. Meanwhile, gay activists are complaining Bloomberg isn't going far enough. Brendan Fay is glad the mayor will march with them this weekend, but he would prefer that the mayor not go to the Fifth Avenue event at all (in the words of Newsday) "in a show of solidarity with gays." Patriotic celebrity Boxer promoter Don King is the co-host this week on the Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC and tonight he came out wearing red, white and blue and waving not one, but two US flags. In a pleasant departure from the usual lib-celebrity nonsense, King is a truly patriotic American. He said a number of things worth repeating. (These are near as exact quotes as I remember them.) He said that "We (the US) have confidence in our leader, George Walker Bush" because of his leadership and faith. When reminded that he was a Clinton supporter, King responded that "I support America." Then King noted that "Black and white alike, we are all Americans." This, recall, coming from a man who has twice written checks to pay income tax bills in excess of $30 million. Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Pray for victory over evil, not mere peace Rod Dreher in the weekend's National Review Online's The Corner: "Pope John Paul II is calling on all Catholics to fast on Ash Wednesday (March 5) against war in Iraq. With all due respect to the Holy Father, I shall be fasting that day for victory over the tyrant, for the protection of our soldiers, and for the protection of the United States and its allies Islamic terrorism." Survivor of the fittest I am sure there is a tendency to ridicule not only those who watch Survivor but those who participate in it. But perhaps one contestant should not be made fun of. According the official website for Survivor Amazon, two of character/contestant Dave Johnson's favourite books is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. And to boot, the 23-year-old Johnson is a rocket scientist. The Catholic university post-Vatican II In its January-February issue, The American Spectator columnist Tom Bethell asks former Notre Dame president Theodore Hesburgh what his major concern about the future of Notre Dame was. Hesburgh replied: "That it might not be Catholic enough." Bowling for Michael Moore The latest The American Spectator (January-February) has finally made it onto the racks of Canadian bookstores. It was worth the wait for this zinger as editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. takes on Michael Moore: "...Mr. Michael Moore, during a club appearance in London, joshed that the passengers on American Airlines Flight 93 who overcame armed hijackers before crashing into a Pennsylvania field were 'scaredy-cats' because they were 'mostly whites.' Mr. Moore, of course, is also 'mostly white,' save for that line down his pink and flabby back, which is mostly yellow." Good riddance The wire services all report that MSNBC has finally put Donahue (the television show, not the host) out of its misery and cancelled it. Phil Donahue's last live show aired Monday night. That show featured another former liberal talkshow host, Rosie O'Donnell, talking about why the US shouldn't go to war with Iraq. The network will show re-runs for the remainder of the week. The Associated Press admitted "MSNBC hoped Donahue would provide a liberal counterweight to Fox News Channel's competing The O'Reilly Factor, but the ratings started poorly and didn't improve." AP reported that during the February sweeps, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor drew 2.7 million viewers compared to the Donahue's 446,000. CNN's Connie Chung has 985,000 viewers. When the Left humourously claims that conservatives dominate the media, they fail to make an important distinction: conservatives dominate the ratings game on broadcast media (television and radio, although newspaper and magazine sales still tilt in favour of liberal publications). It isn't that viewers and listeners don't have choices that includes liberal media outlets and commentators. They have made their choice. Liberals have to learn to live with it. Monday, February 24, 2003
McEwan admits war is justified Novelist Ian McEwan writes a compelling piece in the New York Observer about his ambivalence over whether a war with Iraq is justified. After going through the arguments pro and con -- mostly pro -- he concludes "So, the hawks have my head, the doves my heart. At a push, I count myself -- just -- in the camp of the latter." The whole article is worth reading. But two arguments against the usual arguments liberals use to justify appeasement (or as the French call it, "inspections") are worth noting: "Another empty argument I keep hearing is that it is inconsistent to attack Iraq because we are not attacking North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China. To which I say, three dictatorships are better than four. To the waverer, some of the reasoning from the doves seems to emerge from a warm fug of illogic. That the U.S. has been friendly to dictators before, that it cynically supported Saddam in his war against Iran, that there are vast oil reserves in the region—none of this helps us decide what specifically we are to do about Saddam now." For many liberals, they tired cliches are accepted dogma that they no longer see how empty they are. But McEwan raises three important arguments against a war with Iraq: that there is no evidence of a recent nuclear weapons program, that Hussein might unleash "unknown terrifying futures" on his own people and neighbours, and that hawks have yet to answer this important question: "Given the vile nature of the regime and the threat it presents to the region, how many Iraqi civilians should we allow ourselves to kill to be rid of him? What is the unacceptable level?" While there is no evidence now of a nuclear weapons program, such evidence may come to light after the regime is overthrown. But even if there isn't evidence of a nuclear weapons program is there is evidence of Hussein developing other weapons of mass destruction. That Hussein might use chemical weapons on his own people or neighbouring countries or destroy his own dams, killing his own people, cannot be a factor in the American decision to wage war. To do so would be the same as giving into terrorists. While such an outcome would be a tragedy, the US cannot be held culpable for it. Lastly, the issue of hawks not declaring what is an acceptable number of civilian deaths. Obviously, if there is legitimate concern for the people of Iraq, that number cannot be unlimited. But it may be substantial. I presume the Bush administration has a number is mind the releasing of which could undermine their military and political strategies. For myself, and others, the number is not easily ascertained but, like defining pornography, we'll know it when we see it. The intellectual honesty and moral seriousness of McEwan is most welcome. His words should be read by his fellow liberals and when they do, if they are intellectually and morally honest, will, at the very least, express similar ambivalence. Romper room diplomacy Like many, Prem Rawat, would prefer to avoid war. But somehow Rawat's puerile Times of India column descends into a silliness that even the naked protestors who formed the peace symbol had yet to reach: Wars happen when intolerance reaches epic proportions, when the reasons for war become greater than the sanctity of peace. Wars happen when we fail to realise the value of being alive. World leaders try to bring peace, but it is not an issue of institutions. It is human beings who start wars. Before a war begins outside, it starts inside. The war on the inside is more dangerous because it is a fire that may never be put out. Wars are being fought because peace is not being found within, because it is not being allowed to unfold. We are all searching for something, we may call it success, peace, love, or tranquillity. It is the same thing. What we are looking for has many names because we do not know what we need. ...The thing that we are searching for is not outside of us. It is within us. It always has been and always will be. Contentment feels good, and it is not an accident. It is not an accident that peace feels good. Peace is already here, and it resides in the hearts of all human beings. Peace is something that has to be felt. One of the most incredible powers we have is that we can feel. When we place peace in front of that power to feel, we feel peace. We are here to be filled with gratitude, love and understanding. I am sure this is much like the anti-bullying crusades, er, lessons provided by the growing bully awareness consultants that I wrote about recently. It doesn't make sense on the playground and it certainly doesn't make sense in the Middle East. What's French for completely and utterly unnecessary? Last week, the CBC -- the Canadian Broadcast Company for those of you lucky enough to not have to support it with your tax dollars -- reported that the New Brunswick government had appointed its first official languages commissioner. "Michel Carrier is responsible for promoting and policing language in Canada's only officially bilingual province." And its really, really important that Carrier, or at least someone, holds the post. According to the CBC, "Bilingualism is so important, the act requires hiring an expert to oversee language matters." If something is important, however, would it really need government to promote and police it? Would've Buddy Beaver stopped Harris and Klebold The Ottawa Citizen reported yesterday (no link) on the phenomenon of e-bullying. The Citizen says that bullying has "taken a high-tech turn": "A kid can turn on a cellphone after class and read a brief nasty text message on the tiny screen, or log on to a computer at home after dinner and digest a threatening email message from a bully." Gary Shaddock, president of the Canadian School Board Association and a trustee in southern Saskatchewan said e-bullying, increasingly a problem, is "in some ways ... easier for the perpetrators because they don't have to do it face to face." Which means ... what exactly? That we are to be concerned about bullies too afraid to face their victims. Wow, how scary. Thankfully, there is government to the rescue of these victims. Matt Labash explains in a recent Weekly Standard article, the extent to which bullying has become a public policy issue in Canada: "In Ottawa, Canada, justice minister Martin Cauchon, confessing he'd been bullied as a kid for a family name that sounds like the French word for 'pig,' launched a multi-year anti-bullying campaign at a three-day conference entitled 'ear and Loathing--a symposium on bullying.' The Canadian government supports about 100 anti-bullying projects, such as the one that uses positive role model 'Buddy Beaver' to combat the nefarious 'Punky' the skunk. So it is little surprise that Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty proposed $5million worth of anti-bullying programs after his son was mugged--not in school, but on the way home from work. In Edmonton, police asked the city council to enact bullying bylaws that would enable them to fine bullies up to $250--not just for stealing lunch money, but for 'name-calling and intimidation'." Labash also points out ridiculous anti-bullying measures in the U.S. also, but nothing Americans offer in the battle against this new epidemic comes close to the Buddy Beaver role model. By my reckoning, anyone relying on Buddy Beaver for comfort, quite frankly, deserves some good old fashioned bullying. Labash says that bullying took on public policy dimensions after Columbine, when Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold killed 13 of their schoolmates. But this wasn't bullying, it was sociopathic behavior. And the relationship between the bully and sociopath is a chicken and egg question. A great deal of punditry was committed linking the fact that the Columbine killers were outcasts and their acts of killing. But Labash asks us to put ourselves in their schoolmates' shoes: "If two guys came to your school in goth facepaint, boasting of mutilating animals, spewing hate toward blacks and Jews, and voicing praise for Hitler (all of which either Klebold or Harris is reported to have done pre-shooting), even from the vantage point of enlightened adulthood, you might not ask them to sit by you on the bus." Of course, bullying is not a new epidemic -- unless, as Labash says, "you remember Cain's bludgeoning of Abel as if it were yesterday." But there is a new epidemic of anti-bullying consultants and, not far behind, newspaper and television stories on bullying. Labash's jaundiced eye view of the bullying phenomenon is well worth reading; it is amusing and takes serious the problem of over-treating the problem. The cure, anti-bullying advocates claim, is to have students get in touch with their feelings and infuse the children with self-esteem (presumably of the right kind, considering the kids who bully probably have an over-abundance of the stuff). The other side of the cure coin is propagandizing children to detect bullying so it can be rectified. The result, says Labash is to make children less resilient and turn them "into human flypaper" in which "every insult -- even ones formerly sloughed off -- now sticks and gets reclassified and inflated, as children are encouraged to nurse the memory of petty hurts." This cannot be a good thing. As more teachers and parents become sensitized to the bullying cause, there is reason to fear that their solutions will cause more harm to kids than the bullying. Saturday, February 22, 2003
Is the toothpaste bilingual? According to the Cincinnati Business Courier, Proctor and Gamble will air a Spanish-language commercial without subtitles for Crest toothpaste during the Grammy Awards Sunday. It is the first such ad to appear on English-only television. According to the Business Journal, the "ad is part of P&G's campaign to reach out to Hispanic consumers, a minority group that is now the largest in the United States. P&G said it sees the consumers as increasingly important in light of the fact that Hispanics make up more than 12 percent of the population in states such as California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, New York and New Jersey. ... 'This spot is just one example of the many ways we are connecting with Hispanic consumers, including a variety of outreach programs addressing relevant concerns and issues facing Hispanic families,' said Rob Steele, P&G's president of North America." But as Jim Boulet, executive director of English First, said in National Review Online's The Corner, "These politically correct ads also have a nasty habit of backfiring" because "people who don't speak English aren't usually watching English-language television." And the message givent to English-speaking viewers is "this doesn't concern you. Go make yourself a sandwich." Furthemore as Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has noted many Hispanics speak English (up to 60% of Hispanic immigrants "arrive with a working knowledge of English") and many prefer to watch English television over Spanish television. Neilson Media Research has found that "60% of (Hispanic) children and teens watch primarily English-language TV." That would be the age group watch the Grammy Award, wouldn't it. So one must wonder: Is the P&G ad aimed at Spanish-speaking consumers or liberal, politically correct ones? Thursday, February 20, 2003
Great Chesterton quote In all my reading of G.K. Chesterton, I don't recall coming across this before, but Hilton Kramer quotes it at the beginning of an article in the current New Criterion. Chesterton said "… the false theory of progress, which maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass the test." This, to me, what liberalism is all about. Lib accepts war -- and for the (mostly) Right reasons An excellent feature in Slate asks various pundits, think tank-types and other wonky people to see if they support the Bush administration's position on Iraq. Jonathan Alter, a senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, wrongly asserted that "Bush's tone has been destructive to American interests," because there should be "more proving (with real, not trumped-up information) and less asserting in making his case," but still supports military actions for four basic reasons: Collective Security: Under U.N. Resolution 1441, which has been clearly violated by Saddam Hussein, military action would be in the context of nearly 90 years of collective security—an essential prerequisite for intervention in today's world. Nuclear Security: The national security policy of the United States should be encapsulated in four words: "The club is closed." While little can be done about those countries that already have nuclear weapons, we should focus great energy and attention on limiting entrance to the nuclear club, especially among rogue states. Colin Powell was not convincing on al-Qaida/Iraq connections, but he was persuasive on Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. We cannot afford to wait until Iraq obtains such weapons and blackmails the region—as North Korea is doing now. September 11: While war against Iraq may increase terrorism in the short run, it is, on balance, more likely to decrease it in the long run. Even if al-Qaida is not operating in Iraq right now, Iraq has been friendly with terrorists. Generally speaking, the fewer rogue states, the fewer places for terrorists to hide. Until 9/11, stability was preferable to upheaval in the Middle East. Now, change is the best option. War is always a leap in the dark, but even the chance of greater regional democracy—and thus less of the displaced anger that fuels terrorism—makes the risks worth taking. Credibility: If Saddam disarms now, war should be avoided. But if he continues to cheat and retreat in the next few weeks, a decision by the United States to back off and delay would be interpreted as weakness in the Middle East. Osama Bin Laden hit us on 9/11 because he thought we were soft and would not respond. Weakness now would further embolden Saddam Hussein. While missing some nuances, Adler is fairly right. Hussein must be stopped for reasons of collective security. Iraq supports terrorists and is developing WMD and regime change will stabilize the area and make the world a little safer. Alter approaches but ultimately misses an important point that few journalists, politicians and academics understand (or have at least addressed): punishing Hussein for his support for terrorism may increase terrorism in the short term but deter it in the long term for two reasons. Alter notes one, namely the increased possibility of democratization in the Middle East which will reduce tensions that fuel terrorism. More importantly, it signals to would-be terrorists and their sponsors that there will be severe ramifications. This reason for regime change is, I think, the most important reason for going to war Iraq. It is independent of September 11 and WMD and I think President Bush errs by refusing to make this most convincing argument. For every surprising answer such as Alter's there is the typical pap from the Left such as this from Eli Attie, former chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore and a co-producer of The West Wing: "We can all agree that Saddam Hussein's a bad guy. But last time I checked the U.N. charter, invasion of sovereign nations wasn't a popularity contest." Cutesy answer but doesn't address the real issues. But for those who say that "Hussein is a bad guy but ...," shouldn't hawks answer with "...but can't we agree that some of the bad guys must be removed from power?" Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Saddam by any other name Wonder why some media outlets refer to the Iraqi dictator as Saddam and others as Hussein ? Then the CBC article on the issue of using the first or last name might be of some interest. The Associated Press, Canadian Press, Reuters, Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean's, CBC, BBC and others, use Saddam. The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post use Hussein (or as the New York Times and Globe and Mail, Mr. Hussein). CBC has gotten some flack from (presumably liberal) viewers who protest that while the Canadian broadcaster uses Saddam to describe Hussein, they would never consider calling President Bush George. (Unless you are the Times of India, in which case, Dubya will do.) The CBC skirts the why, but offers a fascinating lesson on Arabic names: Hussein is not Saddam's family name. It's actually his father's given name. This is a common Arabic tradition, which is why terms like "son of" (ibn or bin, depending on the country) and "father of" (abu) are sometimes part of a person's identification. His full name is something close to Saddam Hussein al-Majid al-Tikriti, depending on the Middle Eastern authorities you consult. Taken apart, it really means that he is "Saddam, son of Hussein al-Majid, part of the al-Tikriti tribe." To complicate matters, the closest term to what westerners would consider a "family" name is not actually represented here. Technically, it would be "al-Khatab," which is the designation of his clan, whose members belong to the larger al-Tikriti tribe. Tikriti, by the way, represents a geographical location – the town of Tikrit along the Tigris River about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, not far from the village where Saddam was born. None of this is terribly helpful in determining what name to use. As a conservative, I generally prefer the use of last names; as a hawk seeking to discredit Iraq, I prefer Saddam. In the final equation, I am sympathetic to the view of New York Times columnist William Safire, who wrote in December (and whom the CBC quotes): The Times continues to indulge me, as well as my fellow columnists, in this first-name familiarity, while our editors properly hold other writers to our stylebook's discipline except in quotations and letters. It troubles me to learn from the Associated Press that the dictator prefers my usage, but at this stage I refuse to change it to 'Hussein.' Not only is there a certain sassiness bordering on profound disrespect in using the first name only, but 'Saddam' is also the moniker readers have come to know and despise him by. The best reference, though, will be "former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussei,." preferably as Saddam Hussein, RIP. Monday, February 17, 2003
We advertise, you cancel The New York Times reports that after the Fox News Channel took an $8,100 back-page ad in the extreme left-wing birdcage liner The Nation, the magazine received "roughly 250 vehemently angry letters, e-mail messages and phone calls, and more than 50 subscription cancellations." Do the readers of The Nation take offense at what they consider, in the words of the Times, an outlet "considered to fall in the enemy camp," or is that, as William Buckley once said, liberals talk about respecting other points of view but are always shocked to find that there are other points of view? Ellen Bollinger, vice president of advertising at The Nation, said "The words that they're [those making complaints] using are outraged, shocked, confused, absolutely appalled, dismayed and dumbfounded." That is the whole gamut of liberal reaction to conservatism. For their part, Fox is taking everything in stride. Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for the network said "We're fair and balanced. Why wouldn't we advertise in The Nation?" It is certainly more fair and balanced than the average reader of The Nation. Sunday, February 16, 2003
Inauspicious beginning and a ringing endorsement The Des Moines Register reports today that 13 people were at former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun's campaign stop in Iowa on Saturday. CMB is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination for 2004, the smallest lightweight in what New York Times columnist William Safire has called a campaign of the seven dwarves, at least until Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich officially enters the race tomorrow. Of the 13 people at the event, "half a dozen" were media types and another half dozen were event coordinators. One supporter, a friend from her days at the University of Chicago law school showed up. Admittedly, it was snowing in Des Moines this weekend. But Tom Hanson told CMB, "It's a tough show," for the campaign for Iowa's precinct caucuses. "But there's nobody here who's exciting us," he said of the other Democrats seeking the nomination. Even CMB's supporters say the best thing she's got going for her is that she is the best of a bad bunch. Gershwin ain't what he use to be, but neither is music The Washington Post misled me to an article on the marketing of music by this lead paragraph: "Look who's hanging out with the teen-pop stars and gangsta rappers on the Billboard album chart these days. Nestled just a few spots below Christina Aguilera and a few higher than Snoop Dogg, there's a composer who rarely mingles with the world of bared midriffs and pimp talk: George Gershwin." Well, sort of. Read further and you will find that it is Gershwin (and Cole Porter) performed by Rod Stewart. The Post says "The man who wrote Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 gets a songwriting credit on the latest Rod Stewart album, a collection of pre-rock classics called It Had to Be You . . . the Great American Songbook." Other so-called oldies but goodies making their way back up the best-seller lists include Elton John, James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Chicago, none of whom should be considered anything but pop, albeit older pop. The Post noted, the "target audience is about three times the age of the typical Britney Spears fan." All which brings me to a recent episode involving my friend Eli Schuster and his condemnation of the town of Napanee (near Ottawa) honouring pop sensation and high-school dropout Avril Lavigne. He wrote in the Ottawa Citizen: "Today, thanks to a best-selling album and five Grammy nominations, Napanee is in the grip of an embarrassing hysteria of Avrilmania. Had Ms. Lavigne wound up working in the local IGA [grocery store], it's doubtful that Napanee District Secondary School would induct her into its new 'hall of fame,' or that a local restaurateur would market his establishment as the 'Home of Avril Lavigne's Favourite Pizza.' ...Why has Napanee gone bananas over Avril Lavigne? The same reason that half-wits line up to humiliate themselves on so-called "reality" shows such as Blind Date and The Fifth Wheel, and why O.J. Simpson has no trouble finding lovely models who must have at least an inkling of what happened to poor Nicole: Everyday existence seems dull in comparison to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and lucky Avril now gets to date movie stars. ...[T]hat's the reason Ms. Lavigne is the toast of Napanee at the moment: her record company cultivated a contrived skater-girl image for her that convinced a multitude of gullible 15-year-olds to buy her puerile pap." Schuster's complaint boils down to one issue: it is wrong to excuse the irresponsible choice of not completing high school just because it happened to work for Lavigne. As Schuster asked, how many parents would suggest to their teenagers to dropout of high school and pursue a music career? None, or at least no responsible ones would. But Lavigne has her defenders, fans and followers. Those words are chosen carefully. Half the letters to the editor page one day in the Citizen were devoted to people taking on Lavigne's characteristic music style -- the whine -- and transferring it to the medium of the letter. Several others went out of their way to find Schuster's email or home phone number and let him know what they think. One girl, evidently not a high school graduate and unlikely to be one (well, who knows with today's rigorous standards), emailed to say Schuster was jealous. She implied he insulted Lavigne and "everyone who likes her" with his "selfish sarcastic jealousy." Then the emailer heaves on a heavy dose of puerile pap: "Just because she is more accomplished then you ever will be doesnt mean you have to pick her and her hometown apart. If you don't like her, just suck it up and don't listen, instead of whining to everyone who reads the ottawa paper. Its not her fault that she's famous and rich and popular and everything ur not. And why would she need a high school education anyway? She's already set for life and old enough to make her own decisions -- like staying in school or not. She doesn't need sad people like you to b**** about her and their own failing lives. What is wrong with her music anyway? Half the people in north america like her and the other half probably don't like the s*** you listen to anyway. Her music isn't obnoxious its just that you aren't good enough to accomplish what she has and ur jealous." Thus the Washington Post was right to suggest that the connoisseurs of certain kinds of music are three times the age of the Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Avril Lavigne listening crowd, but should have gone further to note that they also probably possess three times the IQ. And in the end, there is no Gershwin revival. Just a matter of perspective National Review Online's The Corner contributor Rod Dreher saw this sign draped around the neck of some kid at the peace rally in New York: More candy and ice cream, less war and bigotry. I'm against using kids as props in political demonstrations but I'm all for the tyrants of this world such as Saddam dispensing sweets instead of death and hatred -- naively assuming the message was for Saddam and his ilk. Saturday, February 15, 2003
The hypocrisy of the peace mongers Kathryn Jean Lopez notes on National Review Online's The Corner, that on the local news one police officer and his horse were both beaten and kicked in the head by peace protesters. Lopez wonders, "And so that's just peace for dictators?" So we could surmise from the actions of the peace protesters that a tyrant with weapons of mass destruction and track record of human rights abuses should be negotiated with ad infinitum, but a police officer doing his job is a legitimate target for the use of force. From the halls of injustice The National Post has brief report on a four-month sentence given to two gang members who hit a 10-year-old girl in the leg with a bullet in a drive-by shooting. The victim's mother called the sentence "pretty sad," but when you consider that Inderjit Singh Reyat got only 5 years for the 1985 killing of 329 people, four months for a single leg injury isn't that bad. Perhaps it is judicial inflation. Proposed "international anthem" for liberals Liberals, who substitute wishful thinking for rational thought as a basis for their worldviews, should adopt I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony) as their anthem. I include the lyrics below and for those fortunate enough to not be familiar with the tune -- or those masochists who might want to hear the song again for some reason) click onto here or, if you prefer to see children of different races holding hands while the music plays, here. I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony) I'd like to build the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves I'd like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I'd like to hold it in my arms and keep it company I'd like to see the world for once All standing hand in hand And hear them echo through the hills "Ah, peace throughout the land" (That's the song I hear) I'd like to teach the world to sing (that the world sings today) In perfect harmony I'd like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony Id like to build the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves The intellectual poverty of moral posturing Tommaso Palladini, 56, an Italian protestor quoted in a USA Today article on the global protests said "You don't fight terrorism with a preventive war. You fight terrorism by creating more justice in the world." Is he really that naive? As Mark Steyn answered those preposterous enough to claim that income equality between the West and the rest was the impetus for the attacks: What is the GNP of Saudi Arabia? Liberals will never offer serious answers to the world's problems because they utterly fail to understand that sometimes there a just bad people and bad regimes. Saddam Hussein is one such person, his Bathist government one such regime. Correcting injustice is a good thing, but it is as likely to end world conflict as Archbishop Desmond Tutu yelling "Peace! Peace! Peace!" in front of the UN headquarters. Hard to take seriously The Times of India editorializes on the "Shattered World Order" that a possible war on Iraq may cause. The editorial -- or, being a former British colony, "leader' -- certainly views the conflict as a clash of civilizations, with a Christian west, or at least a coalition led by a Christian president, taking on Iraq and others. The ToI crticizes "Dubya" for transforming a possible just war into a "righteous war." The analysis of that the paper provides is certainly flawed, if not hysterical. But who can take seriously a criticism of the U.S. administration when the publication refers to President Bush as Dubya. The French do something right (partly) This post is a little late, but on Jan. 30, France's Senate passed legislation that banned both reproductive and so-called therapeutic (read: research) cloning and it is expected to take effect in June after the Assembly approves it. Nicolas About, president of the Social Affairs Commission in the French Senate and author of the bill, explained that, "since reproductive cloning interrupts the normal process of the human species in its natural progress, it seems appropriate to punish it as a crime against the human species." About added, "Cloning would violate our uniqueness and our human evolution and its perpetrators will be punished under French law." Violating the ban could land cloners 30 years in prison and fines of 7.5 million euros. But in typical French style, the ban on therapeutic cloning is a soft one. If scientists can prove through animal experimentation that cloning will aid in the development of cures for human disease, "cellular therapy" will be permitted. About said cloning "will remain banned until scientists prove that they will not cause more human catastrophes than healing." Considering the French penchant for compromise, I don't imagine it will be difficult for scientists to prove a "need" for human clones. Unless, of course, we allow the UN weapon's inspectors to determine necessity. They can't seem to find anything. Friday, February 14, 2003
Bye, Bye Dolly The Associated Press reports that Dolly the cloned sheep was euthanized today "after premature aging and disease marred her short existence and raised questions about the practicality of copying life." The six-year-old sheep was put down at about half her breed's normal life expectancy. The Roslin Institute, the British lab in which she was created, decided that the latest ailment from which Dolly suffered, a progressive lung disease, would be her last. This comes two weeks after Matilda, the first Australian cloned sheep died. Whether Matilda died of cloning-related ailments will never be known; as Reuters reported at the time: "[Matilda] died despite being in apparent good health, but any chance of getting to the root of the mysterious death was lost when its decomposing carcass was cremated." Dolly's creator Ian Wilmut went out of his way to assure the public that Dolly's demise was not the result of cloning but rather catching the bug of a fellow pen-mate. Nonetheless, it raises one of the moral issues of cloning. The AP reported: Researchers had previously cloned sheep from fetal and embryonic cells, but until Dolly, it was unknown whether an adult cell could reprogram itself to develop into a new being. The Dolly breakthrough heightened speculation that human cloning inevitably would become possible. But one of the biggest fears was that Dolly might have been born prematurely old. It was feared that using adult genetic material to make a clone might produce an animal whose cells were already aged. On the other hand, scientists hoped the genetic clock might be "wound back" to its starting point. Richard Gardner, a professor of zoology at Oxford University and chair of the Royal Society working group on stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, said that the post-mortem will show if there is a link between her ailments, which also included arthritis, and her clonal genesis. "If there is a link, it will provide further evidence of the dangers inherent in reproductive cloning and the irresponsibility of anybody who is trying to extend such work to humans." The inherent risks or increased likelihood of disease, premature aging, etc... are moral issues that are but one argument against allowing its use on human beings. Perhaps in secular cultures, such as those in the West, these may be most persuasive. But this utilitarian concern is hardly the most important moral concern. Cloning is wrong because it turns human beings into commodities. As Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, wrote in the July 11, 2002 Wall Street Journal: By enabling parents for the first time to predetermine the entire genetic make-up of their children, it would move procreation toward a form of manufacture. It would confound family relations and personal identity; it would create new stresses between parents and offspring. And it might open the door to a new eugenics, where parents or society could replicate the genomes of individuals (including themselves) whom they deem to be superior. Put another way, in the words of Dean Clancy, executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics, "Cloning, in short, would be unjust to the cloned child, degrading to the cloning parents, and debasing to the society that permitted cloning to take place." Talking orifices Ok, the title is a rip-off from a discussion on the Vagina Monologues in National Review Online's (The) Corner of the blogosphere. Citing the Cardinal Newman Society, Kathryn Jean Lopez has noted that 42 American Catholic colleges are hosting the play the Vagina Monologues. After a number of posts, Rod Dreher had this to say about VM script: "It's as vulgar and stupid as you might imagine. It's like reading a concentrated issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, except Cosmo doesn't have pretensions to art." I have picked up a copy of the script and read through parts of it, and parts is all I could stomach. It seems silly. I cannot put myself in the shoes of a vagina-bearer but I can't imagine how sitting around discussing part of my anatomy is liberating, or even gratifying. I remember listening to Jane Hawtin, a radio talk show host in Toronto a number of years ago, talk about how she loved attending the play with her mother but it made her a little uncomfortable when the performer got the crowd to yell the "c" word in unison, although she appreciated it's purpose. Which was ... what? Thursday, February 13, 2003
The bad old days weren't that bad In the Globe and Mail today, Adam Daifallah writes about the troubles of new NDP leader Jack Layton and he compares the struggles of the neophyte leader with Stockwell Day when he succeeded Preston Manning to become leader of the official opposition, the Canadian Alliance, in 2000. Daifallah goes into some detail about the bad old days of Day's leadership: Although Mr. Day's time as leader is almost forgotten, his gaffes are not. But looking back on Mr. Day's "disastrous" tenure at the helm of the Alliance, it almost makes you nostalgic. When he was elected in July, 2000, the Alliance enjoyed the support of 21 per cent of Canadians, according to the polling firm Environics. The party reached close to 30 per cent before the November, 2000, election, where it got 66 seats and 25.5 per cent support, beating Reform leader Preston Manning's best-ever election result by almost one million votes. In fact, Mr. Day had the best electoral performance of any right-of-centre leader in more than a decade, better than Kim Campbell, Jean Charest, Mr. Manning (in three separate elections) or Joe Clark. As late as March, 2001 -- even after many of Mr. Day's supposed screw-ups and before Manning loyalists Chuck Strahl and Deborah Grey resigned their senior posts in the caucus, setting off a revolt -- an Ipsos-Reid poll still had the party at 19 per cent nationally, the highest level ever attained by Mr. Manning. Looking back on that unhappy episode now, it's clear how much damage was done by the MPs who quit the Alliance to protest Mr. Day. The party has recovered from its low, which hit the 10-per-cent mark just as Mr. Day was resigning. But every poll since Stephen Harper's election puts the Alliance in the mid-teens (Environics' latest poll pegs the party at 17 per cent nationally). It is important for the anti-Day media, Alliance dissidents and disenchanted conservative voters to remember that for all the controversy and supposed ineptitude of Day, the Canadian Alliance was polling better under his leadership than Stephen Harper's. Many Canadian conservatives, including myself, believe Harper can lead the Alliance to a respectable showing in the next election. But we're also waiting to see him perform better than he has over the past year. Actions have consequences Reuters reports actor Sean Penn is whining that producer Steve Bing (who was recently involved in a paternity suit with Liz Hurley) canned him from a part in Why Men Shouldn't Marry, claiming that he lost the part due of his public opposition U.S. policy on Iraq and is suing the producer for $10 million. Penn outrageously claims Bing is "borrowing a page from the dark era of Hollywood blacklisting." Penn says they had an oral contract. Bing is responding with a $15 million suit, saying Penn is trying to extort money form him. Penn's legal challenge looks a lot like his trip to Iraq -- a pathetic publicity seeking stunt for an actor whose career is on the skids. But even if it isn't, Penn should know that his embarrassing shilling for Saddam Hussien has consequences. Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Are Jews now a majority The Des Moines Register (Feb. 11) says that Al Sharpton, a candidate Democratic presidential nomination, is "the only minority candidate to officially enter the race so far." This illustrates that the mainstream media considers only blacks minorities. Certainly Jewish Senator Joseph Lieberman (D, CT) qualifies as a minority. And the nominally Catholic Senator John Kerry is a minority -- although the nominal types make up the majority of Catholics -- although a fairly sizeable one. But to many in the media (mostly liberals, but their thinking has infected the general public) a person is to be judged by the colour of their skin. So it may be accurate to say Sharpton is the only visible minority candidate to officially enter the race so far. Two views on Kerry There are two camps on what being treated for prostrate cancer will mean for Senator John Kerry (D, MA) and his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Boston Globe offers a on-the-one-hand, on-the-other type of analysis that will leave readers wondering -- it will, in the words of the Globe, "no doubt raise some doubts in the minds of people who hear the word cancer and instinctively flinch." The paper says that health issues are legitimate issues (indeed they are) and said that health concerns have dogged candidates Democrats seeking the nomination in the past: Paul Tsongas' non-Hodgkins lymphoma and Bill Bradley's irregular heart beat. The Globe raises the issue of Vice President Dick Cheney's heart problems and (very briefly) raises the possibility that he will not be on the Repubican ticket in 2004. On the other hand, abcnews.com's The Note says Kerry's trip to the hospital may not hurt: "Kerry's name recognition has grown over the past few months, and the widespread coverage of his surgery will give it another boost, though we wonder how it will play out that many Americans just now getting introduced to Kerry are learning about him as a cancer patient." Overall, in the long term, it is not likely to hurt him although it slows the momentum he has had in recent weeks (a point also made in the Globe story). I for one think that the surgery and cancer hurts him if it 1) slows his momentum, 2) prevents him from getting his name and message out among Democrats, and 3) hampers his ability to raise money in the next few weeks. It doesn't appear it will do any of these things. Kerry is expected back in the Senate within a week or so and (I recall reading somewhere) is making a west coast trip later this month. The most important difference between Kerry's case and Tsongas or Bradley is that the health issue was raised almost one full year before the primary, not amidst them. Kerry will continue to rise and, I think, win the nomination unless Senator John Edwards (D, NC) does something big, gets rolling and absolutely dominates in the south. (I have broken a promise I made to myself when I began blogging, which was to not make predictions. Oh, well.) And the dishonour goes to... The Razzies (Raspberry Awards -- Oscars as if former Weakest Link host Ann Robinson handed them out) announced earlier this week clearly shows that singers -- or perhaps, more accurately, "singers" -- should not act. Four of the six nominations for worst lead actress went to three such crossover stars: Jennifer Lopez (Enough and Maid in Manhattan), Madonna (Swept Away) and Britney Spears (Crossroads). The Razzie press release noted that "Madonna, with 4 previous Worst Actress “wins” and 4 nominations this year alone, plus a Worst Actress of the Century award, is now the undisputed Female Razzie Champion." J-Lo was nominated for two Razzies last year also but lost to singer Mariah Carey (whose Glitter, didn't). These singers should be convinced to give up acting. And then, if we are really lucky, they'll give up singing also. And liberals call conservatives mean I shouldn't be shocked at the depths to which liberals will sink in their personal comments about conservatives, but this a new low for Eric Alterman. In the March Esquire, he says: "I hate to say it, but I wish the guy would have gone deaf. I shouldn't say that, but on behalf of the country, it would be better without Rush Limbaugh and his 20 million listeners." What a classy guy, that Alterman. A conservative's repugnant views In a bewildering and rambling column ostensibly on how government policy failed the seven astronauts killed in the Columbia tragedy, Paul Craig Roberts expresses this horrible view: Space isn’t important enough for the policymakers in Washington. It is not a program politicians can use to buy votes. Better to pour the money, as President Bush proposed in his state of the union address, into a rat hole of sexual promiscuity by going to war against AIDS in Africa. A truth-teller could say that the war against AIDS consists of keeping infected people alive longer with expensive drugs so that they can continue to be sexually active and further spread the disease. Roberts is often on the mark. At other times, he is just plain silly. In this case, he is offensive. Whether or not the U.S. can do much or even try to do anything about AIDS in Africa is certainly a debatable point. But Roberts adds nothing to the debate. Imminent threats The Des Moines Register reports that Al Sharpton, the race-baiting poverty pimp who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said during a visit in Iowa that ""There is still not in my judgment evidence of imminent danger" in Iraq. How imminent must the threat be? The prudent course -- the course President George W. Bush is taking -- is to ensure imminent threat never becomes a imminent reality. Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Not convinced by Powell Maybe Secretary of State Colin Powell can't walk on water. James Carroll, whose ramblings appear in the Boston Globe, is not convinced. He recently wrote: Don't be fooled by Colin Powell. With testimony before the UN Security Council last week, the secretary of state brought many formerly ambivalent politicians and pundits into the war party. But that is a measure of how callow the entire American debate over war against Iraq has been. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein is up to no good. Powell's indictment confirmed the Iraqi's malfeasance, although with no surprises and no demonstration of immediate threat. The question, rather, is what to do about Saddam's malevolence. Don't be fooled by Donald Rumsfeld, either. The secretary of defense said in Munich on Saturday, ''The risks of war need to be balanced against the risks of doing nothing while Iraq pursues weapons of mass destruction.'' Just as Powell fudged on what the question is, Rumsfeld fudged on there being no alternative to war. Ongoing and ever more robust inspections, like those proposed by France and Germany, are an alternative to war. Containment is an alternative to war. And an aggressive application of the principles of international law is an alternative to war. What this Franco-German accomplice fails to recognize is, as Slate's Timothy Noah says, "What little restraint we can impose on the world's thugs and terrorists is due to the belief that the international community and/or the world's biggest superpower will only let killing and territorial aggression go so far. Having threatened retribution, we have to follow through." The Carroll-Chirac-Schroeder position is a green light to flaunt international law, endanger neighbouring countries and infringe human rights at home. Storm'n Norman on-side for Iraq The Washington Times reports General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. forces in Iraq in 1991, has changed his tune on the use of force this time around after after hearing Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation before the United Nations Security Council last week. "I found it very compelling, and I found it a very, very good rationale," he told Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. It should be noted that there are a number of pro-war (please recognize this is a rather crude shorthand) converts. Powell himself being one of them (assuming the published reports of his dovishness were true). According to the Times, Schwarzkopf also said: "Saddam Hussein is a monster. The mere thought of Saddam Hussein with a nuclear, biological, chemical capability is frightening to me because the difference between him and some of the other nuclear powers is the fact that he'll use them, and that's what makes it scary." Regarding Osama bin Laden, Schwarzkopf said: "It's necessary to bring him down, one way or the other. Someone asked me, 'Can we forgive him?' and I said, 'Forgiveness is up to God. I just hope we hurry up the meeting.' That's the way I feel about him, really." Abortion-loving liberals Garth George writes in the New Zealand Herald about a discussion he had with an American friend over the issue of capital punishment. His (un-named) American friend wrote: The American right wing and the American left wing (and this applies to the left and right anywhere) are politically at odds over everything, but nowhere as contradictorily as on the matter of death. The right advocates the death penalty but hates abortion; the left loves abortion but hates the death penalty. I will not address why this is so except to say that those who oppose abortion and support capital punishment (as I do) oppose the murder of innocent people (recognizing that due to The Fall, none of us is truly "innocent"). There are any number of legitimate uses of deadly force: self-protection, just wars, capital punishment. The more important point that George's correspondent makes -- whether intentional or not -- is this: conservatives hate abortion as liberals hate the death penalty, but conservatives advocate the death penalty whilst liberals love abortion. (Of course, these are generalizations. Many pro-lifers do, in fact, oppose capital punishment, just as there are some capital punishment advocates who support the right of women to kill their babies in utero.) But the fact is, many liberals love abortion. It is a sacrament in the Church of Feminism, a rite of passage into True Free Womanhood. While, no doubt, there are some people who find abortion unseemly or even wrong, but don't want to tell women what to do with their bodies, many pro-abortion advocates see abortion as a good thing and worry when abortion numbers decrease. If this latter group truly advocated choice, they would not make a fuss when more women choose not to kill their unborn children. That is why the term pro-abortion is more accurate -- at least for many, especially feminist, supporters of abortion -- than pro-choice. I would reserve pro-choice as a descriptive term for pro-abortion libertarians. That is, I would take into account not merely the result of the policy they support, but the motivation. So, for many liberals, love of abortion, not mere advocacy of choice, is accurate. Lest we forget Joseph Stalin said one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic. Regarding the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182 that killed 329 people -- of which one of the (alleged) co-conspirators was plea bargained down to one count of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison -- it is easy to forget the victims. B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Brenner said, "It is important on a day like today we not forget those who are not present." Here are some statistics -- statistics which help us understand the scope of this tragedy a little better -- from the National Post's website about the passengers who perished that day: Religion: Hindu, 187; Sikh, 18; Christian, 20; Roman Catholic, 15; Presbyterian, 3; Anglican, 5; Muslim, 10; Pentecostal, 1; Parsi, 1; Jain, 4; Protestant, 2; Zoroastrian, 1; Bahai, 1; Not Available, 61. Nationality: Canadian, 156; Indian, 122; British, 2; American, 22; Not Available, 27. Age: 1-10, 60; 11-20, 65; 21-30, 28; 31-40, 39; 41-50, 47; 51-60, 9; 61-70, 9; 71 & above, 2; Not available, 70 Of course, these mere numbers tells us very little about the victims. Each of them had names, families, friends, jobs and hobbies. Whatever their stories, their were victimized again by Canada's injustice system yesterday. What's Sikh for jihad Addenda to the previous story: The Vancouver Sun reports that "A psychological report on Inderjit Singh Reyat from 1994 said if he was guilty of the charges against him, he would have participated "as an act of war to help his people." The National Post reports Reyat "sympathized with the struggle for Khalistan, the independent homeland in India sought by Sikh extremists." Canadian injustice Canada's contribution to the war on terror is to hand out ridiculously lights sentences to convicted terrorists. Inderjit Singh Reyat was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of manslaughter in a terrorist attack that killed 329 people -- a tragedy that according to the Globe and Mail, it is the "deadliest crime in Canadian history." Reyat admitted he acquired material for the bomb that downed Air India flight 182 from Canada in June of 1985. The Globe says "In exchange for his admission, prosecutors have accepted that he did not make the Air India bomb, did not intend to kill anyone and does not know who placed the bomb on the plane." His lawyer claimed Reyat did not know the bomb he built was going to be used in a terrorist attack or have human victims. Reyat has been in custody since February of 1988 and has served 10 years for manslaughter for making a bomb that killed two baggage handlers for an Air Indian flight in Japan less than one hour before the Air India bomb. Chief Justice Donald Brenner of the B.C. Supreme Court, said the Air India bombing had "consequences which were tragic almost beyond description. It is important on a day like today we not forget those who are not present. There are 329 of them and they should very much be on our minds." If he truly believed his own words, he wouldn't have accepted the plea bargain. Justice Brenner put his stamp of approval on a deal that was itself tragic beyond description, forgetting the the 329 victims. As Christie Blatchford noted in her National Post column today (no link), the sentence gives Reyat 5.5 days per life taken. One wonders what was on the mind of the prosecutors and judge when accepting this deal; apparently, anything but justice. Monday, February 10, 2003
Paris on the Mississippi The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorializes -- notably under the scare title "Five minutes 'til midnight" -- that "France and other Security Council skeptics are right to urge that the Security Council expand and toughen its weapons inspections, demand more cooperation from Saddam, and work in concert to disarm Iraq without war." The Post-Dispatch concedes that it might be necessary to back up the threat with U.S. military might, but stops just short of endorsing the use of such force (which would, for all practicable purposes, demonstrate that the threat is not serious). Explaining the paper's support for the French position, Christopher Johnson says in his fine Midwest Conservative Journal blog that: St. Louis is, in many ways, still a very French town. There is a fleur-de-lis in the city's flag. St. Louis considers itself the Paris of this region and has the same scornful, contemptuous relationship to Missouri that Paris has to the rest of France. And the deliberate blindness, blind faith in UN diplomacy, blithe assurances and craven cowardice of this St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial suggest that it was written at the Quai d'Orsay. Powell kills Picasso -- for a day The Toronto Star's Peter Goddard says the first casualty of war with Iraq is art, specifically the tapestry reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica" at the UN. The Picasso work is a piece of anti-war art that depicts the "April 27, 1937, bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German warplanes sent by Hitler to aid the fascist side in the Spanish civil war" was covered up during U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the Security Council last week. Goddard insinuates that its anti-war themes led officials to censor "Guernica" so not to offend Powell or the U.S. But the official explanation seems true enough: the needs of accommodating a larger-than-usual media contingent required the tapestry to be covered. Can anyone really think the UN would not want to embarrass the U.S. through "the mural's tormented images of writhing, twisted shapes" reflecting Picasso's "outraged reaction" to the bombing. The true shame is that Picasso's mess is hanging on any wall at all. My opposition is not political but aesthetic. Take a look at the "art" here. It is unusually bad, even for a Picasso. We are all invasionists now ... or so National Review editor Rich Lowry argues in The Corner: Everybody is now in favor of invading Iraq. The only question is what kind of invasion. A U.S.\British\Coalition of the Willing invasion to topple Saddam and, one hopes, work toward changing the status quo in the Middle East, or an Franco-German\U.N. invasion of peacekeepers and inspectors to preserve Saddam in power and maintain the current geo-political balance in the region. In other words, a pro-liberalization invasion or a pro-autocracy invasion, an invasion that increases American power or one that reduces it. The choice seems obvious. Nicely put, and true for the countries at the UN, or at least its Security Council members. I assume Iraq, for one, would prefer neither "invasion"; other axis of evil countries, not to mention other countries that support terrorism or develop WMD, may not want the precedent set. And it fails to account for the "peace" movement. That movement increasingly views not Iraq, but the U.S. as a threat to world peace. Many in the peace/appeasement/America-is-evil crowd dismiss concerns about the dangers of Iraq and would probably oppose the French/German/Russian proposal -- or at least support it only to prevent U.S. action against Iraq. Comments? I haven't been able to put up a comments link on Sobering Thoughts. For now, you can email me at soberingthoughts@hotmail.com. Blog awards Rightwingnews.com has the first annual blog awards. If nothing else, it is an excellent source of links to other blogs. Some of the awards did not go to blogs or bloggers but are important because they are a window on the thought of (right-wing) bloggers. Two interesting categories to note. Most Annoying Celebrity: 4) Susan Sarandon, 3) Sean Penn, 2) Michael Moore, 1) Barbra Streisand Favorite Editorial Writer Who's Not A Blogger: 3) George Will (Tie), 3) Christopher Hitchens (Tie), 3) Thomas Sowell (Tie), 2) Charles Krauthammer, 1) Mark Steyn My only change would be moving George Will up (tied with Steyn at number one). Other than that, it seems on the mark. The Powell Mystique Jonah Goldberg recounts on National Review Online's The Corner the following exchange on CNN’s Capital Gang from Saturday. Mark Shields: Bob Novak, two questions. Did he -- did Colin Powell make the case of material breach? Two, did he make the case for war? Robert Novak: I don't think he made either case. And as a matter of fact, I think if anybody else had been making that presentation, they would have said, Hey, what's there? Goldberg says, quite correctly, that Novak is “decidedly against the war and I think he's wrong. But arguing that the war isn't in America's self interest can be intellectually and morally defensible ... but Novak seems to be so decidedly anti-war at this point that he's willing to make the absurd statement that Powell didn't prove material breach. That's simply goofy if you ask me and makes it difficult to take Novak's substantive objections to war seriously.” All true, but Goldberg is missing a more important point: Novak correctly notes that themedia and Democratic politicians are treating Powell’s presentation at the United Nations last week with kid gloves because it was Powell who made the presentation. Does anyone believe the Washington Post’s Mary McGory would be convinced if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield had made the presentation? Sunday, February 09, 2003
It's not the bias but dishonesty that grates Patrick Ruffini on his blog -- "Political honesty and ideological frankness is always to be preferred. Bloggers wouldn't have nearly the problems they do with the Gray Lady if they just changed the masthead to The New York Times—A Democratic Newspaper." What a great line and wonderful advice. Odds that it will be heeded: infinity to one. Speed-skaters, 007 and geopolitics In an article on how younger South Koreans don't view North Korea as a menace, but rather a pitiable regime, US News and World Report talks about increased unease among South Koreans and the U.S.: Last year, a South Korean speed skater was disqualified in a Winter Olympics race, losing his gold medal to an American competitor; the incident still riles people here. Some younger Koreans also tried to organize a boycott last month of the latest James Bond film, Die Another Day, which shows 007 being tortured by a loony North Korean colonel. Some contend that Hollywood is stereotyping Koreans and inciting inter-Korean hatred. First, could speed skating incidents and Bond flicks really affect or even accurately reflect South Korean-U.S. relations. Second, Die Another Day is a British-made movie. There are serious issues about which the U.S. and South Korea must deal. Seoul's increasingly accommodationist, or at least appeasing position toward its communist neighbour complicates matters in dealing with the one-third of the axis of evil that is most likely to have nuclear weapon capability. US News and World Report does a disservice including skaters and movie-plots in a story about this grave matter. LA to get Riordan treatment (again) The Christian Science Monitor reports that former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan (RINO), "wants to add color and contrast to the nation's second-largest media market, which has close to 70 radio stations but only one major newspaper, the Los Angeles Times" by launching the new Los Angeles Examiner. The Los Angeles News and Orange County Register may disagree with the CSM's one major paper comment. But what criteria does CSM come to its conclusion? Anyway, Riordan says "I'd like to have a paper that is pro-honesty, which doesn't let reporters espouse their [own] ideology unless they can prove what they are saying is right." Riordan fought with the Times, whose reporters are 98% liberal, according to the former mayor. (That's funny, because Riordan was almost 98% liberal, too.) According to the CSM, managing editor Ken Layne explained the need for the new tabloid: "I read the Los Angeles Times and think, this is a bunch of East Coasters who are trying to imitate The New York Times." The Examiner is describing itself as centrist or non-politically correct. It certainly isn't conservative. The first edition is slated to have columns by actor Billy Crystal, movie producer Lynda Obst (Sleepless in Seattle) and Susan Estrich, a USC professor who ran Michael Dukakis's failed 1988 presidential bid. Riordan hopes to launch the paper June 5. Rumsfield lectures Germany, France The Washington Post reports today on U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's trip to Europe. Rumsfield said the French and German position is undermining NATO. According to the Post: Rumsfeld told a largely European audience at a conference on international security that "diplomacy has been exhausted, almost." "A large number of nations have already said they will be with us in a coalition of the willing, and more are stepping up each day. . . . Clearly, momentum is building," he said. Rumsfeld also warned that the United Nations is on "a path of ridicule" and that NATO could be in danger of heading the same way. He said France and Germany face diplomatic isolation with their opposition to an attack on Iraq. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose speech immediately followed Rumsfeld's, seemed taken aback by the relentlessness of the U.S. defense secretary's criticism. On the question of attacking Iraq, Fischer asked several times: "Why now? . . . Are we in a situation where we should resort to violence now?" The Post reports that Portuguese Defense Minister Paulo Portas reminded the Germans of the failures of European pacifism, beginning with its inability to counter the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Nice touch, Mr. Portas. Nonetheless, this all points to a problem that will have to dealt with after the Iraqi operation. What to do about Europe? I still contend that France will be on-side once the fighting starts -- it cannot afford not to, if it wants its oil interests in Iraq maintained (those who think that the U.S. position is about oil should consider that France's oil interests are best maintained -- for the moment -- by not disrupting the Iraqi status quo) and if it wants to gain some political influence in the Middle East. But Germany is another issue, so perhaps it is better stated that the question is what to do about Germany? For starters, the U.S. and U.K. must oppose German attempts to gain a permanent seat on the Security Council. It should also give pause to pro-U.S. Europeans -- such as Portugal and Romania -- who might be tempted to have the European Union work under a united foreign and defense policy. I'll address more of these issues in a later post. Friday, February 07, 2003
Will same-sex unions be foisted on the churches? Canadian homosexual advocates speaking before the House of Commons Justice committee looking at whether or not to extend marriage recognition to same-sex unions claimed that any change in the definition of marriage would respect the rights of churches to not contradict their own religious teaching. Right. John Fisher of EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) and Keith Norton, a homosexual activist and chairman of the governmental body, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, tried to assure the committee that religious rights would not be violated. When asked by Canadian Alliance MP Monte Solberg, "Can I have your personal guarantee that you will not oppose the rights of religious institutions?" both Fisher and Norton responded that religious institutions need not worry. Fisher said "The rules set by particular faiths are protected by freedom of religion." Norton said "It would still be discrimination, but it would be lawful." Unfortunately, the past actions of Fisher and Norton make their assurances not very reassuring. Both Fisher and Norton helped lead the court battle last spring to force an Oshawa, Ont. Catholic high school to permit Marc Hall, a 17-year-old homosexual student, to bring his same-sex partner to the prom. EGALE backed the court battle and Norton took the unusual step of commenting on a hypothetical case by suggesting Hall would win a human rights complaint if he brought it before the OHRC. Last year, Norton told the Toronto Sun it "might be difficult" for faith-based schools to argue religious freedom while denying homosexuals equal rights to heterosexuals at school functions. Is not the Catholic high school a religious institution? If Norton and Fisher felt it necessary to force the Catholic high school to bend to the wishes of homosexual activists, why trust that they would respect a Catholic church's desire to not "marry" a same-sex couple? In the past, before the courts and before human rights tribunals like the one Norton leads, EGALE and other homosexualist groups has fought against the rights of religious institutions and people of faith. In the Vriend case (1998), a Christian College in Alberta that fired a homosexual worker because his lifestyle contradicted the religious values the college upholds, was found to have improperly discriminated against Delwin Vriend. In the Brockie case (for a good background, see The Interim), Scott Brockie, a Christian printer, was found guilty of "discriminatory conduct" by the OHRC -- Norton's extra-judicial tribunal -- because his printing company refused to do work for the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Brockie said he found the promotion of homosexuality offensive and would not accept the job because it would violate his religious convictions. The human rights commission cared little for Brockie's rights of conscience. EGALE challenged the rights of religious parents who successfully banned homosexualist material from elementary schools in parts of British Columbia in the Surrey book case. In her majority decision on Surrey, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin said the "Religious views that deny equal recognition and respect to the members of a minority group cannot be used to exclude the concerns of the minority group." Chief Justice McLachlin indicated that when religious rights conflict with other rights (what she called "a human rights dimension"), religious rights would automatically be superseded. It is disturbingly clear that if same-sex unions are recognized as legitimate marriages by the state, there will be no stopping homosexuals from using the courts to have such "marriages" performed and recognized by the churches. Regarding the moral stature of France Arguing that UN weapon's inspectors should be given more time, French President Jacques Chirac said "War is always acknowledgment of failure." But what about surrender? A case of worst coming to worst Former President Bill Clinton was on CNN's Larry King Live last night, a scene I use to describe hell to my children when they are misbehaving. Nothing to report on their exchange except this reaction on the blog Random Thoughts. Someone named Susan says "Larry King was teeth-grindingly stupid, as usual." So far, Sobering Thoughts and Random Thoughts has consensus. Then she goes on to say, "Clinton kept talking about people like himself and LK shouldn't get tax breaks because they didn't need it. King, of course, sounds like a typically stupid GOP stooge." Larry King a GOP stooge -- what is Susan smoking? Leaving on a low note I wasn't blogging until very recently so I missed the opportunity to comment on former Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan's last-minute commuting of the death sentences of all 167 people on the state's Death Row. The outgoing governor said he was concerned about the fairness of the implementation of the death penalty and that a "demon of error" permeated the state's justice system. He thus exonerated death-row prisoners who were not contesting their guilt. National Review (print edition, February 10) says that "Ryan's sweeping exoneration shows that he acted instead from a characteristic insight of liberalism: the recognition that the liberal has less moral stamina than a killer. Out of passion, or will, or weak-mindedness, one man will take an innocent life. Out of self-doubt, another man will refuse to take even a guilty life." Ryan did not run for re-election because he was mired in a corruption scandal, but nothing was as scandalous as this, his last act in office. Thursday, February 06, 2003
Worth checking out Washington Post columnist George F. Will has an excellent column today on those who refuse to be persuaded by President Bush, Secretary Powell, etc... ("People committed to a particular conclusion will get to it and will stay there"), France (its foreign minister "de Villepin may have begun exercising the skill France has often honed since 1870 -- that of retreating, this time into incoherence") and the UN ("...if the United Nations, having passed 1441, now refuses to authorize war, the United Nations will essentially cease to exist. There is the outline of a satisfactory outcome: Saddam Hussein removed, the United Nations reduced.") How many Polands is Germany worth? Earlier this week on CNN's Crossfire, Tucker Carlson once again questioned his co-host and former Clinton advisor Paul Begala on his huffing when mentioning that Bulgaria is backing the U.S. on Iraq. Before last fall's midterm elections, Vermont's socialist Congressman Bernie Sanders made light of U.S. allies such as Poland and Portugal saying that they were not significant players compared to France and Germany. What kind of geopolitical calculus finds France and Germany more important than the 18 European countries now backing the U.S.? Tech Central Station editor Nick Schulz notes that the combined population of France and Germany is 141.9 million. The eight countries who signed a letter of solidary with the U.S. in late January have a combined population of 234.4 million people (Britain 60.2m, Czech Republic 10.3m, Denmark 5.4m, Hungary 10.1m, Italy 58.1m, Poland 38.6m, Portugal 10.4m, Spain 41.3m). And Schulz admits, "This list doesn't include Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia and Latvia (among others) - with a total population of more than 20 million - that also support collective action with the United States." Why do Germany and France hold so much weight? Because France has a permanent Security Council seat? That begs the question, does France have a permanent SC seat because it is important or is it important because it holds that seat? The pacificist left finds Germany and France important merely because those two countries share their (the pacificist's) view of American foreign policy. When France finally does come on board later this month (in order to not antagonize the U.S. and to ensure France has input on the post-Saddam Iraq), will the peace-mongers still believe that U.S. foreign and defense policy should be dictated by Paris? I strongly doubt it. One of those countries that surely won't measure up to Sanders' and Begala's standard of sufficient importance is Turkey. The New York Times reports that Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul intends to go the legislature February 18 for the passage a resolution allowing U.S. troops to be stationed in Turkey. Gul told Turkish reporters, "We believe that in line with our national interests, we should act together with our strategic ally, the United States ... It was a very hard decision, we had sleepless nights, but there was nothing left to be done for a peaceful solution." For those who don't think Turkey is a significant ally, the Times reports "As a secular Muslim democracy, a member of NATO, and Iraq's neighbor, Turkey occupies a unique place in the crisis over Iraq." Wednesday, February 05, 2003
My dear, a Catholic apologist at a Catholic university LifeSite News reports that Professor Mark McGowan, principal of the University of St. Michael's College, a Catholic college affiliated with the University of Toronto, has denounced a lecture by Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft. Kreeft spoke at St. Michael's last November at an event organized by USMC Students for Life because of a controversy raging at the college the past year over whether or not a homosexualist group should be officially recognized by the administration. In an open letter published in the student newspaper The Mike, McGowan, complained that "The Kreeft lecture greatly detracted from the inclusive and respectful environment we are trying to nurture at St. Michael's." The letter was signed: "Principal's Advisory Committee of Sexual Orientation & Professor Mark G. McGowan, Principal of SMC". Kreeft, a Boston College professor of philosophy, addressed the sinfulness of homosexual acts and the Christian response to those afflicted with homosexual inclinations. In short, hate the sin, love the sinner. McGowan claims that "Many members of the audience felt belittled, patronized, and excluded from membership in the Body of Christ because of their sexual orientation." It must be noted (although not reported by LifeSite) that a number of homosexual activists were present at the lecture -- one person I talked to estimated that they composed one-third of the audience -- in order to harass Kreeft. So, let's see: A Catholic group invited a Catholic speaker to a Catholic college to address Catholic teaching and the principal of the college has a problem with that. I would suggest that the problem is not Kreeft's lecture or the hurt feelings of homosexuals in the audience but the presence of McGowan at the University of St. Michael's College. LifeSite reported that he had a rainbow triangle affixed to his office door. There are rumours circulating around USMC that the application by the homosexualist group for official recognition has been accepted and not announced. It is time for St. Michael's to reassert its Catholicity. Poverty by any other name, isn't Today, Statistics Canada released its Low-Income Cutoff information. The Ottawa-based information collection agency says "LICOs are income thresholds, determined by analysing family expenditure data, below which families will likely devote a larger share of income to the necessities of food, shelter and clothing than the average family would." Social activists, liberal politicians and the media routinely equate the LICO with a poverty line. Statistics Canada emphasizes, "Although LICOs are often referred to as poverty lines, they have no official status as such, and Statistics Canada does not recommend their use for this purpose." Chris Sarlo, an associate professor of economics at Nipissing University and an adjunct fellow at the Fraser Institute, is Canada's expert on poverty. In Measuring Poverty in Canada (2001), Sarlo noted that "Conventional measures, such as LICO, tell us about inequality and the lack of ‘social comforts,’ but very little about the true nature of poverty.” Sarlo came up with a "basic needs index," to determine how many Canadians cannot afford the necessities of life (which Sarlo defines more narrowly than LICO's basket of goods). LICO looks specifically at the percentage of household income spent on necessary goods but that is not the same as saying that the family is having a difficult time purchasing those necessities; an individual or family may be relatively low-income but hardly impoverished. Sarlo estimated that in 2000, a single person would need $8,900 Cdn. to avoid poverty. The LICO for a single person in 2002, (after taxes) is between $10,429 and $15,907, depending where the person lived. Sarlo said "A basic needs index provides more relevant information about the nature and extent of poverty in Canada,” and indeed, the number of people living in poverty is more than halved according to the BNI, from the commonly bandied-about approximation of 17% of the population to 8%. Those who practice kindergarten diplomacy are doomed to repeat history Time.com explains that Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal has a plan to prevent war in Iraq. (Let's stop calling it peace, for, as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus explained recently in First Things, war is more than the absence of conflict: "peace is the product of a good, or approximately good, order that is grounded in justice and freedom, and that that order must be protected, sometimes by military means.") Anyway, employing the kind of language used by affirming kindergarten teachers who hope to direct students to a predetermined outcome all the while having the child believe he made the choice himself, the Prince explained: "The best way is to provide amnesty to the government of Iraq, [telling it] to continue to perform its duties to keep order. Instead of constantly harping, 'If you don't do what we want, we will pursue you,' say the reverse: 'If you do what we want, you will not be pursued, you will secure yourself and your future.' I fail to see how Iraqis wouldn't accept this approach in the face of certain destruction." The Prince misses the point, but that is perhaps because President George W. Bush erred in labelling his goal "regime change" instead of "regime elimination." The point isn't that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy -- which he is -- but that the Iraqi government is irredeemably rotten and must go. There is no evidence that the Bathist regime that would remain in place even if Saddam was exiled is any less committed to the country's program of procuring weapons of mass destruction. Nor is there evidence that it will no longer continue to support the network of terror against the West -- al-Qaeda or otherwise -- with someone else at the helm. If the U.S. allows Saddam to co-operate and stay, or even allow the regime to co-operate with no other consequence than having Saddam live in some luxurious foreign condo, we will have Chamberlainian peace in our time. Surprise! Bush agenda angers lefties The Nation rants -- it never never just editorializes -- that Bush is increasingly exposed as a leader out of his time. In a war against stateless terrorists, when America needs global cooperation, he offers imperial arrogance. In a gilded age, he peddles elixirs that exacerbate inequality. In a healthcare crisis, he defends profits over patient needs. At a time when security requires energy independence, he is wedded to a program that drives us toward occupation in the Persian Gulf. The state of the union is precarious indeed. In a time of 'great consequence,' Bush's plans are a menace to this nation's security and its prospects." Bush is not a menace to American security. He is, however, thankfully, a menace to liberalism at home and tyrannies abroad. Waiting for the UN Speaking before the House of Commons last week, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said, "We want Saddam Hussein to know that the United Nations is demanding once more for him to disarm, and of course if he refuses to disarm, he will have to face some very severe consequences." Look at that sentence closely again -- the UN is "demanding once more for [Saddam] to disarm." Once more. Chretien is happy to have the UN play the role of the British police officer in Robin Williams' old skit about the powerlessness of British police officers: "Stop or I will say stop again." At some point, the UN must stop just saying stop and make Saddam stop. The United States is willing to enforce the Security Council resolutions and the UN is not. Adding to the clutter The need for yet another political/cultural blog, especially one from the conservative perspective, is certainly far from established. There are many good ones -- Mystique et Politique, Instapundit, National Review Online's The Corner, the Ashbrook Center's No Left Turns and Evetushnet.com -- all come to mind. I have no illusions that Sobering Thoughts will match them in quality. Nonetheless, I not-so-humbly offer my thoughts -- from the short quip to longish essays -- on the issues of the day. On this page's mission statement, I say Sobering Thoughts is a web version of standing athwart history, yelling "stop." That, of course, is a blatant rip-off of National Review's first editorial. (The title, by the way, is a blatant rip-off of George F. Will's first collection of columns, The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts.) In a less quoted part of that same NR editorial, the new magazine said "National Review is out of place, in the sense that the United Nations and the League of Women Voters and the New York Times and Henry Steele Commanger are in place." In the tradition of proudly being out-of-step with the United Nations, New York Times and their ilk, I offer the occasional thought, sometimes sobering, sometimes humourous, on those people and institutions that would have us march happily into Scandanavian-type "utopias." Sometimes, all that need be posted is an original quote, with the theory that all the Left needs is a little rope. Several years ago, before blogs were popular, I offered a semi-regular emailed concoction of observations, quips and commentary entitled Notes on the Human Tramedy (a hybrid of comedy and tragedy, which someone kindly pointed out bares a disturbing similarity to trammies, the details of which you should be spared) that was sent to several hundred people on my email list. This is, in some ways, a continuation of that project. The tramedy hybrid was inspired by a quote by Horace Walpole, who said that the world is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think. But human beings feel and think, so the reactions -- oh, what a conservative virtue -- posted will emanate from both the heart and the head. I hope you enjoy. |