The editorial board wonders what happened to the Reagan Republicans it loved (err, OK, maybe "admired in principle" would be closer to the truth) in Sacramento:
There was a time, not too long ago, when the state's GOP lawmakers would engage with Democrats to craft sustainable spending plans that helped the state pay its bills without simply pushing its problems onto future generations. But as Republicans veer toward endangered-species status in the Capitol, in terms of raw numbers, those who remain appear to have rebranded themselves. The prior insistence on fiscal conservatism has been replaced by a willingness to accept fiscal chaos -- as long as taxes never go up.
Click here to post your angry comments while the steam is still pouring out of your ears. Elsewhere in the stack, the board urges state legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who on fiscal issues does a pretty good imitation of a Reagan Republican) to support a compromise version of a bill to bar predatory lending practices. And it finds a silver lining for democracy in Pakistan amid the chaos likely to ensue now that Pervez Musharraf has stepped down as president.
Over on the op-ed page, columnist Tim Rutten urges the FBI to dispel the rumor and innuendo swirling around City Attorney (and occasional Times op-ed scribe) Rocky Delgadillo, whose wife reportedly has caught the bureau's interest. The editors compare 40-year-old snapshots that photographer Marketa Luskacova took during the Soviet invasion of her native Czechoslovakia with images from this month's Russian drubbing of Georgia. And author Andrew Meier, a former Moscow correspondent for Time magazine, defends the indefensible proposition of inviting Russia into the NATO fold. Who was it that said he wanted to keep his friends close and his enemies closer? Here's a snippet from Meier, on Russia's need for a group hug:
The end of the U.S.S.R. opened an era of unprecedented promise. But while Russians openly yearned for closer ties, the West only pushed back -- expanding NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet states.
Photo of Russian tanks rolling through Czechoslovakia Georgia by Marco Longari, AFP/Getty Images
As though Rome didn't have enough real things to see, here come plans for a Disney-style theme park, with the theme being -- Rome. This supposedly family-friendly park would have rides and attractions that are all about experiencing ancient Rome. Considering the subject, I can't help wondering exactly what those family rides and attractions would be?
"Family Gladiator Fights"?
"Lunch with the Lions"?
"Leader Assassination Pavilion"?
Other thoughts?
The image from the movie "Gladiator" -- Hollywood's vision of an ancient Roman playground -- is courtesy of Jaap Buitendijk/AP Photo.
Politicians lose certain (read: most) rights to privacy when they aspire to public office, but this particular breach makes me shudder a little. From the Guardian:
The rabbi of Jerusalem's Western Wall criticised an Israeli newspaper today after it published a private prayer written by Barack Obama and taken from the sacred site after he visited the city earlier this week.
It is a tradition for the millions of visitors to the Western Wall, one of the holiest locations in Judaism, to place inside the cracks in the stone written prayers or requests to God. The rabbi in charge of the wall collects the notes periodically and buries them on the Mount of Olives.
Yes, the underbelly of journalism involves chasing politicians out of seedy hotels in the dark of night, taping conversations and nosing through quasi-personal records, but it should most definitely not involve stealing personal appeals to higher powers. Political Machine even refuses to publish Obama's prayer, opting for its own rendition: "Dad, things are great here. Please send more money. Love, Barack":
It may seem paradoxical to make a joke about the prayer, then refuse to reprint, but there are two principles at work here. In comedy, nothing is sacred. In a democracy, privacy is sacred.
"Lord—Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
What if the same note had come from George Bush's pen? One can only imagine the headlines: President Sees Self as "Instrument" of God's Will!
To which I respond: private prayer, people! What he writes to his maker is his business and — in an ideal world — should be inadmissable in the court of public scrutiny. Besides, I'm willing to bet everyone secretly thinks they're at the center of the universe. Obama at least has the evidence on his side.
The editorial board urges Inglewood's police chief to answer public concerns about an officer-related shooting, and thinks a state constitutional amendment to ensure special-interest-free judicial races goes too far. The board also notes the end of nipplegate:
You'd think that policymakers would have learned by now that the government runs afoul of the Constitution whenever it substitutes its judgment about offensive content for a parent's choices. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.
On Monday, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission acted arbitrarily when it fined CBS $550,000 for airing a half-second shot of Janet Jackson's right breast loosed from its studded leather mooring.
Columnist Rosa Brooks says Radovan Karadzic fits right in with a long line of mass murderers before him, all convinced they were healers. Columnist Patt Morrison tells Angelenos to stop being grossed out by so-called toilet-to-tap water. University of Alabama bioethics teacher Gregory Pence notes the 30-year anniversary of in vitro fertilization. And Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says we should actually want a sales tax increase:
The political will is now here. We have the opportunity to create a greater Los Angeles no longer chained to its cars and dependent on foreign oil, and where we are making smarter investments to ease traffic congestion and improve our quality of life.
The measure other board members and I are proposing -- which will raise the sales tax from 8.25% to 8.75% -- would bring in $40 billion over 30 years while costing the average Angeleno less than the price of half a tank of gas per year.
On the letters page, readers discuss the impending increase in parking meter rates. Encino's Francine Oschin recalls a song: "Along with the recent series of hikes for trash pickup, this will be a tax way beyond what is reasonable or justifiable. As the song says, 'If you drive a car I'll tax the street ... If you take a walk I'll tax your feet.'"
The Open Society Institute's Laura Silber looks at Serbia's future after the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, and former deputy prime minister of Jordan Marwan Muasher pushes Arab moderate to pursue reform. Columnist Tim Rutten discusses the haves (Aaron Spelling's widow) and the have-nots (working women). And Chicago Tribune writer Mike Downey wonders where he can pick up an addiction:
New York Times reporter David Carr admittedly was addicted to crack and treated more than one woman horribly and then the mother of his children worse, so where is he now? On the cover of the NYT Sunday Magazine, promoting his new tell-all, that's where. Neil Steinberg got arrested for a spousal tussle and had his Chicago Sun-Times editors very concerned, but instead of going from bars to behind bars, the thirsty columnist quickly labeled himself "Drunkard" and turned his flaw into a nonfiction book, which the Sun-Times has been only too happy to help him toast.
I envy them. Oh, how I want to make a mess of my life so that I can profit by it. I long to tell my story, if only I had a story to tell.
The editorial board asks LAUSD to give charters fair funding if they get a multi-billion-dollar bond measure, and explores the space policies of John McCain and Barack Obama. Finally, the board thinks Flint, Mich. police are taking baggy pants too seriously:
Flint, Mich., has run out of crime. There are no statistics to prove this assertion, but it must be true. Only the total absence of lawbreaking can explain why the police department has turned to fashion enforcement. Flint, best known as the hard-luck, gritty town featured in Michael Moore's documentary "Roger and Me," is being mocked across the globe for its police chief's decision to arrest and ticket the wearers of sagging pants.
On the letters page, readers discuss the state's not-too-bright financial picture. Anaheim's Dave Lieberman suggests to California legislators: "Admit that you're not smart enough to balance the budget without passing more debt to the future, and resign, all of you...."
If you're one of the 22 million or so people who saw "The Dark Knight" this weekend, you probably noticed that the movie had some Serious Themes alongside the bombs, slick stunts, and brilliant performances. (And if you haven't read seen it yet, don't read on, and consider this your spoiler alert.) Sure, "Iron Man" had brown guys being blown up to a hard rock soundtrack, and American arms killing Americans. And at least the editorial board thought "The Hulk" could be considered an allegory for the war on drugs.
But Christopher Nolan's latest addition to the Batman canon is the most explicit and thought-provoking with its post-9/11-ness, starting with bursting skyscrapers in its first few minutes and at various points taking up torture (I think the sound of ringing steel is still in my head from Batman's slamming Joker's head onto a table), surveillance (complete with heavy-handed speechifying on privacy by Lucius Fox) and even directly calling the Joker a terrorist a handful of times (he does nearly knife privacy advocate and one-time anthrax target Sen. Patrick Leahy, who has a cameo).
Waldorf75: Do you think the telecom company that issued batman all those cellphone numbers will be pardoned? Statler76: Ah, yes. Batman is also the NSA. Lest we forget this particular Bat Fantasy is Culturally Relevant. Waldorf75: I bet Alberto Gonzales watched this and thought, "Oh, so THAT's how you do it -- just blow the equipment up afterward!" Waldorf75: He also thought, "I can make either the 11:30 or the 2:40 show, as I really don't have much else to do."
AP reports that the state parole board today ruled against letting the terminally ill former Manson family member out of prison during the final months of her life, as the editorial board urged last month. The board struck a careful balance between its official opposition to the death penalty and its belief that Atkins should stay incarcerated:
Our system of justice attempts three noble aims: punishment, protection of society and deterrence (some would add rehabilitation). Atkins poses no physical threat to society. Her sentence and time in prison undoubtedly have sent a deterrent message to any would-be Mansonite still lurking out there. And she may well have been rehabilitated: While serving her sentence, Atkins has written a book, explored religions, taught classes. Has she been punished? Yes, of course; 37 years is not trivial. But Atkins gravely wounded our collective peace, and society has the right, even the obligation, to exact vengeance. For some criminals, including Atkins, the crime is so great that the price should be imprisonment until death.
The editorial also noted that the board once broke its anti-execution stance by urging the death penalty be imposed on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. For more on the editorial board's death penalty stance, check out this Cold Copy, which takes up everyone from Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
*Photo of Susan Atkins in 1969, courtesy Associated Press.
Columist Jonah Goldberg says it's wrong to blame speculators for our energy problems, and Human Rights Watch's Sara Darehshori says the ICC did the right thing to indict Sudan's president. Author Nora Gallagher offers an ode to her dead Volvo, and Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. thinks voters will want a president who can pass an emotional IQ test:
You can't fake emotional intelligence, but it does require some of the same skill possessed by good actors. Ronald Reagan's screen experience served him well in this regard, and Roosevelt was a master "actor." Despite his pain and difficulty in moving because of polio, he maintained a smiling exterior and was careful about how he was photographed. Critics sometimes fault the Barack Obama or John McCain campaigns for trying to stage-manage their candidates' appearances, but this is nothing new. It has simply gotten much more difficult because unmanaged moments can so easily find their way to YouTube or the blogosphere.
The editorial board says the government's pledge to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is wise, but we should work to make it unnecessary. The board also urges the Department of Commerce to go ahead with a public hearing on the Foothill South toll road, no matter how large the expected crowd. Finally, the board chimes in on the New Yorker cover kerfuffle, wondering why everyone is so worried about Americans who can't grasp satire:
It may be that there are some spectacularly literal-minded Americans who will see the New Yorker's over-the-top portrayal of Obama as a confirmation of their worst fears. But then, they weren't going to vote for him anyway.
On the letters page, readers discuss Phil Gramm's comments about whiny Americans. Westchester's Dan Pellow says simply, "Gramm is a millionaire who is totally out of touch with reality."
Not since the map of a tribally categorized New York City has a New Yorker cover been the subject of such chatter (although this one will probably appear on fewer shower curtains). This week's issue features Michelle and Barack Obama doing the dap in the Oval Office, Michelle strapped with bullets and donning camo and an afro, Barack in vaguely Arab garb, which here is code for scary stealth Muslim. Cartoonist Barry Blitt hasn't avoided controversial covers before, but I guess no one minds when you make fun of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Larry Craig. Obama himself had no comment, though a spokesman called the supposed-to-be-satiric cover tasteless, as did a John McCain rep. Here's what bloggers have to say.
A lot of people won't get the joke. Or won't want to. And will use it for non-humorous purposes, which isn't the New Yorker's fault.
A problem is there's no caption on the cover to ensure that everyone gets the ha-ha-we've-collected-almost-every-cliched-rumor-about-Obama-in-one-place-in-order-to-make-fun-of-them punchline.
At Pandagon, Jesse Taylor agrees that the cover doesn't work as satire, particularly because it has to be explained:
It’s not actually satirizing the phenomenon of right-wing e-mail forwards, it’s just creating the ultimate version thereof. To put it in a different context, it’s like holding a satirized Klan rally by holding a Klan rally...with a laser show that makes a three-story image of a burning cross. A bigger, badder, better version of the thing you’re attempting to mock doesn’t constitute mockery, it just constitutes a gaudier version of the thing you’re addressing.
The non-profit news startup ProPublica (in whose service we wish former colleagues well) updates its joint "60 Minutes" report on al-Hurra ("The Free One"), the Arabic television network funded by about half a billion taxpayer dollars.
To this list ProPublica's Dafna Linzer adds another charge: propaganda against U.S. national interests. I'm going to disagree, however, and say that this is the one area where al-Hurra is actually performing up to expectations.
The editorial board takes a look at torture techniques imported from China, says L.A. could learn a lesson from how New York handled a hospital death caught on tape, and examines product placement:
..."The Biggest Loser" and "American Idol" each included more than 3,000 instances of "product placement" -- the conspicuous display of a brand-name item -- from January to March. That's more than 100 a show, a jaw-dropping number when compared to the number of products pitched in traditional commercial breaks.
Although placements and product integration (the practice of weaving brands into story lines) date to the earliest motion pictures, their use has grown rapidly in recent years...
On the letters page, readers discuss L.A.'s unprocessed rape kits. Long Beach's Jerry Scaefer says, "Men have their priorities; prosecuting rape is not one of them. In fact, rape is one of society's tools to keep women in place." Santa Barbara's Judy Malmoren notes that the Op-Ed "discourages potential victims from taking part in sexual assault evidentiary exams and possibly discourages reporting to law enforcement as well."
Government workers repeatedly snooped without authorization inside the electronic passport records of entertainers, athletes and other high-profile Americans, a State Department audit has found. One celebrity's records were breached 356 times by more than six dozen people....
The report documented a widespread lack of controls on the personal data of the 127 million Americans who hold passports, finding numerous "weaknesses, including a general lack of policies, procedures, guidance and training." The State Department had maintained that its system worked when the candidates' passport breaches were discovered.
That opening factoid is my favorite part of the story: which celebrity's whereabouts could be so valued that over 70 people broke the rules a few times each (on average) to get it? My guess is Angelina Jolie, or Madonna.
Next favorite part? The headline: "Celebrity passport records popular." You know, just like Perez Hilton's practice of outing people or tabloids' detailing medical records, passport records are just popular sources of information that we should freely be able to access.
It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine.
Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking.
Also yesterday, the World Health Organization released a not too surprising study that will allow me to extend the metaphor — just as the government wants to use the very same gamma poisoning that infects the very Hulk it's fighting, it turns out that Americans try drugs much more often than anyone else. Reuters reports:
The researchers said their findings shed light on drug, alcohol and smoking policy.
"The use of drugs seems to be a feature of more affluent countries," they wrote.
"The United States, which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies, as well as (in many U.S. states), a higher minimum legal alcohol drinking age than many comparable developed countries," they added.
So apparently "Hulk" really is fine, and prescient, satire, not just summer fun. And if you need more satire (and can handle relatively on-the-cheap explosions), I might suggest "War, Inc."
In case you thought only actual immigrants suffered by our kooky bureaucracy, give Erik K. Ward's story a read.
A staff member at the Center for New Community, Ward, an African American whose family moved to California over 100 years ago, explains how he went from born citizen to undocumented after losing his passport and social security card in an airport mishap. Lacking a driver's license because of a visual impairment, Ward needed to obtain a copy of his birth certificate. Try to follow along through the (insert your favorite pejorative adjective for bureaucracies) maze:
I contacted the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and was told that in order to receive my birth certificate, I needed to present a copy of my passport, or driver’s license, to verify I was, in actuality, Eric K. Ward.
Since it was obvious, after twenty minutes of discussion, that I didn’t own a driver’s license, a passport, or a social security card, they told me to fill out the proper forms in front of a notary public in Chicago.... But when I got there, the notary public said I needed a passport, social security card, or driver’s license to receive an official notary seal....
[S]ince I had a number of newspaper articles with photos documenting my identity, the notary public accepted my articles with somewhat dubious satisfaction....
Four weeks later my birth certificate arrived!
But when I arrived at the Post Office to pick it up, the attendant asked me to produce a passport, driver’s license and, most ironically, a copy of my birth certificate to obtain my birth certificate. After waiting an hour and pleading with two supervisors, I‘m proud to say that I now possess a certified birth certificate!
I wish I could say everything went smoothly from this point on....
If you can stomach it, there's more where that came from. But the kicker:
As African Americans we should be deeply concerned about the ongoing attack on immigrants and refugees. Why?
We know what it’s like to be second-class citizens -- and it’s about to happen again.
Columnist Jonah Goldberg wonders if a President Obama would make President Bush look good:
[I]f only a fraction of what [Bush] had to say was remotely accurate, then the conventional bleats about unilateralism, war lust and cowboyishness will go down in history as the excessive caterwauling of an imaginative and hyper-partisan opposition.
Indeed, President Bush's reputation is not as solidified as his detractors and fans think.
If Iraq becomes a stable and democratizing nation, his presidency will look much better than it does today. But if Iraq Balkanizes or Lebanon-izes, then Democratic rhetoric about the "worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history" will gain descriptive heft. Only time will tell.
Contributing editor Ian Buruma says soccer fans' rabid nationalism is transforming into a European spirit. Author Benny Morris says Israel's swap of live terrorists for dead soldiers might embolden terrorist groups. And author Dinah Lenney ponders what to tell her daughter as she graduates from high school.
The editorial board notes that today California will start ticketing drivers talking on cell phones without headsets, and warns everyone to look out for drivers fiddling with said headsets. The board also urges China to help save the dwindling wild tiger population, and says eight years and billions of dollars have done little to reverse coca production in Colombia:
It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine.
Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking.
On the letters page, readers discuss the Supreme Court's ruling on the D.C. gun ban. La Habra's Bobby Florentz is surprised: "Well, what do you know. Someone has forced a slim majority of the Supreme Court to listen to a reading of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino asks whether a constitutional ban would nullify same-sex marriages already on the books:
...I believe the amendment would void the marriages. For the same-sex marriages to survive, freedom-to-marry advocates would have to win at least one of two arguments in the courts. Both arguments would rest on the unfairness of applying the reinstated ban retroactively, but both would probably fail.
Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah Tofte says a backlog in testing rape kids in L.A. means many crime victims are still waiting for answers. And writer Margaux Wexberg Sanchez describes the journey of two men to call attention to the 100 million tons of plastic junk in the world's oceans.
Even if they managed to kill the AFTRA agreement, SAG's leaders would still have to persuade the studios to make concessions that the writers couldn't win after a 100-day strike -- a hiatus that cost many writers more in lost pay than they gained from the eventual deal. No matter how much leverage it has on July 9, SAG is unlikely to break the pattern established by the previous deals without putting everyone who works in and around the industry through considerably more pain.
On the letters page, readers discuss the Supreme Court ruling against executing child rapists. Kathleen Brown of Santa Clarita says, "Those whose loved ones are victims of violent crime might garner the wisdom in Coretta Scott King's words: 'Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.'"
It appears that the political logic of the candidates and their handlers calls for winning Jewish American support at the expense of Muslim American voters. This takes the shape of aggressive outreach to the Jewish community while Muslims go ignored. That strategy may be politically expedient, but it is inherently flawed. Muslims see their exclusion as a betrayal of American values, and many Jews are alarmed by the parallels to their own historical political exclusion.
Columnist Rosa Brooks says there's a new Condoleezza Rice in town, but nobody cares. Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash wonders what can be done about Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe's refusal to step down. And columnist Patt Morrison thinks it's been a good week for schadenfreude in L.A.
The plan is only an outline, but it has enough specifics to make one thing abundantly clear: By the time all its regulatory structures are in place in 2012, it will affect nearly everyone in California.
Over the next 10 years, it will probably change the kind of car you drive, the kind of fuel you put in it, the amount you pay for electricity, where that electricity comes from, the way you heat or cool your home and how you do business.
On the letters page, readers discuss John McCain's energy plans. Woodland Hills' James Dawson criticizes McCain's intention to give a $300 million cash prize for the inventor of a energy-saving car battery: "McCain just told every inventor in America to wait five months before doing something that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, cut pollution and keep our economy from imploding any further. Thanks for nothing."
The editorial board has two immigration-related editorials today, one urging the president to sign a bill that would streamline citizenship applications for soldiers, and another discussing Congress' compassion to one particular group of visitors to the U.S.: supermodels. The board also wonders what's in store for transportation in L.A.:
Who deserves a light-rail line more, the people of Azusa or the people of Santa Monica? Which line makes more sense, one that would serve the future needs of fast-growing communities to the east, or the current needs of the traffic-choked Westside?
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is faced with the unenviable task of answering these questions on Thursday....
On the letters page, readers remember George Carlin. Roza Besser of Calabasas remembers getting shut out of a comedy show as a college student until Carlin himself lent a hand:
Ten minutes before showtime, Carlin walked out of the theater's front doors and quietly said, "I hear you can't get tickets. I'm sorry there aren't student tickets. Here, take these." And he quickly turned and went back inside.
Orchestra tickets for everyone! We were stunned.
*Photo of an annual tribal ceremony in Montana, marking Custer's Last Stand, by Larry Mayer, Associated Press
Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains how isolationist Pat Buchanan was rehabilitated into a liberal darling for opposing the Iraq war:
Buchanan claims to be a man of abstract foreign policy rules -- in his case, the notion that we must act from objective national interest. As a result, he has earned a strange new respect among antiwar liberals and self-described realists for his opposition to the war in Iraq in recent years. He is a man of principle, we've been told.
In reality, Buchanan is a wonderful example of how those who claim to follow a strict set of abstract foreign policy rules are often just disguising their own biases.
National Interest senior editor Jacob Heilbrunn says Big Oil isn't the problem, and efforts to go after producers won't help us. LAPD chief of detectives Charlie Beck argues Sheriff Lee Baca was wrong to say race is the motivating factor for gang violence.
The editorial board urges action against Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, discusses the state Legislature's struggle to approve mortgage reforms, and remembers George Carlin:
Carlin, having begun his career as a clean-cut observational comic...enjoyed a long, lustrous career as the kind of beloved anti-establishmentarian you'd trust to play Thomas the Tank Engine's Mr. Conductor. His funniest routine -- a side-by-side comparison of baseball and football -- wasn't even dirty. The comedian didn't push the limits of free speech so much as explore the borders of our word choices and the ludicrousness of those who would regulate those choices.
On the letters page, readers discuss urban planner Vaughan Davies' suggestion for a Central Park for L.A. Len Frank of Los Angeles says, "Vaughan Davies appears to be adept at using other people's money." But Sherman Oaks' Mark Donnelly calls the idea "brilliant and innovative."
Over at his ArtsJournal music blog, the composer Kyle Gann applies his microtonal skills to finding the secret Nazi origins of — what else? — the Bush Administration's perfidy.
The evidence: Aldous Huxley writing in 1945 about how the Allies had to build up their own militarist muscles in order to fight the militarism of the Axis. It's all about the somatotonic ("love of muscular activity, aggressiveness, and lust for power; indifference to pain; callousness with regard to other people's feelings; a love of combat and competitiveness; a high degree of physical courage...."), but it's a truism that the United States emerged from the war a substantially more regimented, less freewheeling society.
Unfortunately for Gann's (possibly facetious) thesis, all this occured at a time when the Democrats controlled everything in Washington D.C. except one janitor's closet at the Smithsonian; and in the decades that followed, our battered nation took in quite a bit of muscular activity from the football-tossing Jack Kennedy, combat and competitiveness from LBJ, activity and aggressiveness from Scoop Jackson, and all those Democrat wars Bob Dole was always talking about.
Mike Gravel might even note that it was in gearing up to fight the Central Powers, not the Axis, that the United States opened its heart to pointless militarism. Pat Buchanan would take that back to the Spanish-American War; and me, I'm not too sure the U.S. heart was ever closed to pointless militarism in the first place.
I mean, isn't there a statute of limitations on this kind of They-saved-Hitler's-brain woolgathering?
Until now, it was the rural poor who often died of hunger or related disease, and they died quietly. But changing demographics are making this hunger crisis more visible. For the first time in history, according to a new U.N. report, half of the Earth’s population now lives in urban areas. When the urban poor cannot afford to buy food, they don't starve silently. Since 2007, food prices have triggered unrest in 30 countries and brought down the government of Haiti. As food and energy prices continue to rise, hunger is likely to foment more political instability, more resentment of Americans' burning food calories as biofuel, more babies stunted for life, more radical Islamism and probably more wars.
The board also supports the House-approved bill on warrantless wiretaps, even though it has some flaws.
On the Op-Ed page, Samuel Thernstrom of the American Enterprise Institute has a new strategy to combat global warming: geo-engineering. The Century Foundation's Morton Abramowitz says the U.S. has shortchanged Iraqi refugees. And columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes a look at a new exhibit of Los Angeles photographs that avoids the pitfalls of depicting L.A. as a sun-soaked paradise or a noir underbelly.
On the letters page, readers discuss suing OPEC. Tarzana's Richard I. Fine was part of the last lawsuit against it, and says, "Oil politics ruled over law."
*Photograph of Hollywood and Vine, 1969, by Garry Winogrand, courtesy of The Estate of Garry Winogrand.
Columnist Tim Rutten says that even if they made torture official U.S. policy, top-ranking members of the Bush administration shouldn't be tried:
It's true that there are a handful of European rights activists and people on the lacy left fringe of American politics who would dearly like to see such trials, but actually pursuing them would be a profound -- even tragic -- mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we've never criminalized differences over policy.
Author Julie Salamon notes that more nurses, doctors, and hospitals are saying enough is enough. Kim Holmes and Walter Lohman of the Heritage Foundation wonder who will lead Asia, and writer Neal Pollack says even though Angelenos are running out of water, they don't seem too worried.
The editorial board is pleased that Europe is finally stepping up sanctions on Iran, and that the state Senate is considering bills to prevent future housing market crises. But the board isn't too happy about the chance that Manson family member Susan Atkins may be let out of prison:
Atkins has written a book, explored religions, taught classes. Has she been punished? Yes, of course; 37 years is not trivial. But Atkins gravely wounded our collective peace, and society has the right, even the obligation, to exact vengeance. For some criminals, including Atkins, the crime is so great that the price should be imprisonment until death.
On the letters page, Cheviot Hills' Gordon Froede remembers receiving air-dropped aid from the Americans as a child in Berlin: "Today, like 60 years ago, we don't need government initiatives to reestablish the United States as a kind and humanitarian nation. Just let the American people do what they do best: share their wealth with those less fortunate in the world."
The editorial board continues its series on food diplomacy. Today it suggests a modern-day candy-bombing campaign:
In 1948, a first lieutenant in the Air Force named Gail Halvorsen began dropping candy bars attached to tiny handkerchief parachutes to the hungry children of Berlin. Many had never tasted chocolate before. The kindness of the "Candy Bomber” came to symbolize the spirit of American humanitarianism. Now the United States gives billions of dollars in humanitarian aid each year, yet the country is widely disliked by the publics of the largest beneficiaries, such as Pakistan and Egypt.
The global food crisis offers the United States a fresh opportunity to show the world its humanitarian mettle.
On the Op-Ed page, author Jeremy Scahill says no matter who wins in November, Blackwater's future is bright. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez argues that the more we live globally, the less we connect locally. And the New Republic's James Kirchick says Bush never lied about Iraq.
Readers discuss The Times' traffic series on the letters page. Pacific Palisades' Don Scott doesn't want more freeways: "We need a subway to LAX, not more freeways to Rialto."
The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.
Check out the editorial board's take on Zimbabwe from earlier this month, which begins, "It's a shame that the Iraq war has made it impossible to advocate regime change, because Zimbabwe's strongman, President Robert Mugabe, is such a deserving candidate."
Also see our post on violence in South Africa against Zimbabwean refugees, and frequent Times contributor James Kirchick's Op-Ed on what South Africa should do to help Zimbabwe.
The editorial board applauds the Supreme Court's decision confirming habeas rights for Guantanamo detainees, and asks the NBA to tell its fans the truth about accusations of rigged games. The board also says Judge Alex Kozinski is well within his rights to view porn, even if he should probably recuse himself from an obscenity trial:
Scolds who argue that judges should uphold a higher standard of decorum than the common citizen and should somehow be prevented from engaging in such private activity as gathering subjectively amusing or even appalling smut should recall that the 1st Amendment is not limited to high-minded endeavors.
Jewish Journal of Los Angeles columnist Tom Teicholz notes that former Nazis remain free because no country will accept them. UCLA School of Law's David Kaye says Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in the Guantanamo case makes it harder to solve the problem. And columnist Joel Stein decries the language of wine snobbery: "When wine drinkers tell me they taste notes of cherries, tobacco and rose petals, usually all I can detect is a whole lot of jackass."
On the letters page, readers discuss The Times' editorial on immigration. Donald Hirt of Paso Robles asks, "Is it the position of The Times that enforcing our laws is irrational?"
After four weeks without food, Indian guest workers ended their strike on Wednesday (we blogged about it at the start).
The workers, who came to the U.S. on H-2B visas, had alleged poor working conditions and false promises of residency. They end their strike without a resolution to their demands -- it's unclear whether they'll be allowed to remain in the U.S. while the Justice Department investigates and while allies in Congress (including a trio of California representatives) try to help them. The Times' Nicole Gaouette explains why the visa holders don't have more protection:
The Labor Department monitors how employers hire and house farm workers, but Congress gave it no direct authority to supervise H-2B visa holders. The Department of Homeland Security watches over the immigration aspects of the H-2B program, but "it's not our job to check whether they have overcrowded living situations or health situations," said spokeswoman Sharon Rummery.
Lawmakers who support the Indian laborers complain that H-2B visa holders do not get protections given to foreign farm workers, who carry an H-2A visa. Those workers get free housing and workers' compensation benefits, must be reimbursed for the cost of travel after working a specified number of hours and must receive at least 75% of the payment promised in their contract. They also are eligible for federally funded legal services.
None of those protections apply to H-2B workers.
Justice Department reps plan to meet with the workers next week.
*Quick update: I asked Kevin R. Johnson of the UC Davis School of Law (he blogs here) about the discrepancy between H-2B and H-2A visa holder protections. He responded by email, "There is no good reason in my view for the differential protections. Sorry but Congress responds to the lobbyists on this kind of thing." (I imagine that H-2B visa holders, scattered through various industries, don't have the unified voice of agricultural workers.)
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says race is central to understanding the county's violence:
We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.
Some people deny it. They say that race is not a factor in L.A.'s gang crisis; the problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members (and yes, they acknowledge, sometimes the gangs are race-based).
But they're wrong.
Author David A. Nichols asks if Barack Obama should neutralize Hillary Clinton by offering her a spot on the Supreme Court. Columnist Rosa Brooks knows which candidate could best handle high gas price (hint: not the one who sang "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran"). And columnist Patt Morrison heads to Bakersfield to find out what people are saying about the gay and straight marriage stoppage in Kern County.
The editorial board looks at two state measures that would weaken the security of prescription records, and urges readers not to drive with dogs in their laps. And editorial writer Karin Klein hears former Bishop Geoffrey Robinson speak about sex abuse in the church.
On the letters page, readers react to LAUSD's teacher walkout and the budget crisis. Sherman Oaks' Joe Tishkoff says, "Our children did not create this budget crisis, so why should they have to pay for it?"
The editorial board wrote today that a whole lot of immigration policy is hitting the enforcement side of the matter, but missing the big picture:
He may be a reluctant immigration restrictionist, but Michael Chertoff is remarkably diligent. The secretary of Homeland Security is one of the Bush administration's most enthusiastic lobbyists for immigration reform, willing to highlight the "negative economic consequences" of tougher enforcement. Yet on items from the border wall to workplace raids to heavier burdens on employers, Chertoff delivers for the enforcement-only crowd.
Here's a small something for the other crowd. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced a bill to stop the deportation of 17-year-old Arthur Mkoyan, a high school valedictorian set to go to UC Davis unless he gets shipped to Armenia. He hasn't seen his native country since he was a toddler (and his parents have been seeking asylum since about that time).
But the fine print, as CNN reports: "Of the 21 private immigration bills introduced last year, none was enacted. None of the 117 introduced was enacted in 2006. The year prior, 98 were introduced, and four were enacted."
In other words, Mkoyan can stay, but he can't get a green card without the bill passing. As Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag notes, Mkoyan and other students like him wouldn't be put in this situation if the DREAM Act had passed:
Mkoyan is one of the emblems — there are thousands of others — of a self-defeating immigration policy that prefers to deport talented young people at a time when the nation faces a desperate need of skilled workers to replace the millions of baby boomers who are about to retire....
Passage of the federal Dream Act last year, which would have put thousands of young men and women on the path to legal status, would probably have allowed him to stay here. But the act was blocked in Congress by immigration absolutists who'd rather punish children for the sins of their parents than cash in on the talent and ambition they represent.
But Ruben Navarrette Jr. says the law is the law (even if its cruel, counterproductive, myopic, unnecessary...one could go on), and even if enforcement-side folks can get a few bones from the federal government, the other side can't. But he leaves on a more stinging point, wondering why so few advocates rushed to defend another student, Jesus Apodaca, in 2002:
Why the double standard? I believe it's because, while Mkoyan may not have a leg to stand on legally, he at least has the benefit of not being Mexican. Much of the immigration debate is fueled by a fear of a changing culture, competing languages, an altered landscape, and what loopy Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist calls the "colonization" of the United States by Mexican immigrants.
Arthur Mkoyan isn't considered a party to any of that. For some people, that makes all the difference. And, in some respects, that's the saddest thing about this story.
Documentary producer Craig J. Nevius thinks tabloids have finally gone to far when they try to violate celebs' medical privacy:
The National Enquirer proudly proclaimed a worldwide exclusive on its website on May 16, 2007: "Farrah's Cancer Is Back!" (Please note the excitement and enthusiasm indicated by the exclamation point.) Adjacent to this attention-grabbing headline was an advertisement offering this inducement in bold, colorful type: "GOT GOSSIP? WE'LL PAY BIG BUCKS."
Just 48 hours earlier, actress Farrah Fawcett had received the devastating diagnosis from her doctors at UCLA Medical Center. The Enquirer's story ran before she was able to tell her son or her closest friends about the recurrence.
Columnist Gregory Rodriguez dissects Vice President Dick Cheney's West Virginian incest insult. Hastings College of the Law professor George Bisharat denounces a new neoconservative term to describe the actions of Iran: "national suicide."
The editorial board urges the U.S. to pursue food diplomacy, and examines the FCC's plan to provide free Internet for all. (The catch? It's slow and porn-free.)
On the letters page, readers discuss the editorial board's "Lakers love" piece. See why Santa Cruz' Mike Futch says, "I found your editorial strange and bizarre for a hometown newspaper. I couldn't tell if you were praising the Lakers or damning them."
Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.
Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961.
Columnist Rosa Brooks compares Hillary Clinton's failed campaign with President Bush's Iraq strategy. And columnist Patt Morrison wonders why L.A. didn't preserve the site where Bobby Kennedy was shot 40 years ago.
The editorial board urges Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas to focus on real issues in the five months before their run-off election for Board of Supervisors. The board also thinks an LAUSD teacher walk-out is a bad idea, even if it's born of legitimate grievances. Finally, the board doles out some Lakers love and waxes nostalgic about the last time the team faced off against the Celtics.
On the letters page, readers discuss Joel Stein's column urging old people to get over their squeamishness and support gay marriage. Huntington Beach's Betty Holden says, "I resent Stein's denigration of senior citizens," but Camarillo's Sean Ragan thinks, "Stein definitely has me pegged."
*Photo of the site of the Kennedy shooting, courtesy The Times.
What are the pundits saying about Hillary Clinton's speech? Even if she's dividing the party, she's clearly uniting the chattering class against her:
The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias writes reluctantly: "I think if I were to try to express how I really feel about the people who've been enabling her behavior, I'd say something deeply unwise. Suffice it to say, that for quite a while now all of John McCain's most effective allies have been on Hillary Clinton's payroll."
The effect was to inject a sharply negative and divisive element in the already bitter race at the very moment that Obama was making history by becoming the first African-American to win a major party's presidential nomination. Her goal, from all indications, is to force him to choose her as his vice presidential running mate. And her tactic is political hardball.
And perhaps the media, with their least favorite candidate out of the way (not yet, but almost) will toughen the coverage of Obama a bit. He is the nominee and they, to their chagrin, must report the facts now and then. Even the New York Times concedes he is largely an unknown quantity who has “stumbled and fumbled” a number of times.
Once again, it's all about Hillary Clinton, who delivered the most abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate political speech I've heard in a long time. And I've left out some adjectives, just to be polite....
[E]ven if you want to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, it's hard to give him the benefit of the facts.
As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama said he would "unequivocally" oppose President Bush on the war. But once in office, he voted for every war-funding bill -- until he decided to run for president.
Contributing editor Ian Buruma wonders if "Asian values" are stopping Burmese leaders from helping their citizens. Writer A. S. Hamrah remembers a forgotten anniversary -- the day Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol. Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards asks why Congress acts like it serves the president rather than the Constitution.
The editorial board remarks that the Universal Studios fire may have destroyed sets, but the movies they're in thankfully survive. The board also urges Israel and the U.S. to allow Palestinian scholarship students out of Gaza. Finally, the board reminds readers to vote today.
On the letters page, readers discuss the Michigan and Florida vote. William T. Fidurski of Clark, N.J. says, "On Saturday, in exemplification of its own worst traditions, the Democratic Party trashed both the sanctity of the vote and the principle of one person, one vote."
*Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson, Washington Post Writers Group
Columnist Rosa Brooks asks why John McCain has credibility on war despite being consistently wrong about:
In poll after poll, about two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the war in Iraq, believe things in Iraq are going badly for the United States, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war.... Yet -- and here comes the mystery -- polls also show that more Americans trust presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than either Democratic presidential candidate when it comes to handling the war in Iraq.
Go figure.
Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash says we have a responsibility to help the Burmese, but not with military action. And UC Santa Barbara's Nelson Lichtenstein looks at the new battle for labor's future and the man at the center of it, SEIU president Andy Stern.
The editorial board asks why a disciplined LAPD officer still got paid, and says a proposal to increase FDA funding deserves approval. Finally, the board notes that a deal with Hezbollah may avert civil war in Lebanon, but it makes official the group's growing power.
Readers discuss L.A.'s red light cameras. Venice's Bonnie Y. Modugnol says:
I wonder at the simple-minded assessment of a traffic engineer who assumes no danger if an accident is a "sideswipe at most." He fails to consider the collateral damage -- lost time for both parties and everyone backed up behind the accident, insurance or out-of-pocket costs for repairs and a pervasive disintegration of trust on the road.
The Labor Department announced today that it wants to streamline the process of handing out H-2B visas [pdf], meant for workers entering the country temporarily to perform non-agricultural jobs.
It seems like a good move, considering that the Senate nixed two riders to the war spending bill — one for agricultural labor and one for other workers — that would have made it easier for workers to stay in or return to the country. And it shows that Labor, like Homeland Security, is making whatever regulatory moves it can in the absence of broad immigration reform (which would presumably either raise the 66,000-visa cap or let it vary year by year depending on demand).
And ideally, broad immigration reform would link H-2B visa increases with an increase in opportunities for permanent residency, or at least renewable visas. The editorial board made a similar point with regard to H-1B visas:
Visa holders who seek to become lawful permanent residents face enormous backlogs that will only grow if more H1-B visa holders who seek to become lawful permanent residents face enormous backlogs that will only grow if more H1-B visas are granted. Ideally, an increase in H1-B visa quotas would be accompanied by an increase in the quota for green cards. Skilled workers are also more likely to stay and contribute to the U.S. economy if their immediate families can join them here; currently, family members also face severe backlogs.
Without such a comprehensive approach, including enforcement of fraud, the U.S. would be saddled with more illegal immigrants (if visa holders simply let their visas run out) or labor trafficking horror stories. One such story is unfolding now — Indian workers launched a hunger strike last week in Washington D.C. As the Hindustan Times reports:
The five workers who began the "water only" protest at Lafayette Park opposite the US presidential mansion Wednesday were among more than 500 Indian welders and pipe fitters who allegedly paid up to $20,000 apiece for false promises of green cards and work-based permanent residency in the US.
Instead, the workers, who have been joined by six others, say they received only H-2B visas and poor working conditions.
(Incidentally, I quite like that paper's reference to the White House as the presidential mansion. Of course, one might note that "mansion" is probably too humble a term for the Indian President's home.)
Environmentalists are keen to insist that their movement is a secular one. But using the word "secular" no more makes you secular than using the word "Christian" automatically means you behave like a Christian. Pioneering green lawyer Joseph Sax, for example, describes environmentalists as "secular prophets, preaching a message of secular salvation." Gore too has often been dubbed a "prophet." It's no surprise that a green-themed California hotel provides Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" right next to the Bible and a Buddhist tome.
American University's Nancy Polikoff explores a little-noted 1960s revolution -- when children born out of wedlock stopped being outcasts. Author Donna Foote rewrites the story of Locke High School, focusing not on violence but on poverty and poor education. And editorial pages' copy desk chief Paul Whitefield tells the harrowing tale of trying to mow the lawn with his sons.
The editorial board applauds China's disaster relief efforts, particularly compared to Myanmar's response. The board urges mandatory health standards at immigration detention centers to prevent unnecessary and cruel fatalities and other problems. Finally, the board discusses the plight of female farmworkers facing sexual harassment.
On the letters page, readers react to Bush's comments in Israel on appeasement. David DiBello of Lakewood, N.J., says:
Rather than wasting energy acting appalled, Democrats should spend their time declaring why their policy of troop withdrawal is the better option. Democrats should talk about Bush's appeasement of oil companies, of catering to the wealthy over the middle class, of a failed war plan and of not capturing Osama bin Laden.
The Times reports some bad news from South Africa. Immigrants there, particularly those hailing from Zimbabwe, have been targets of attacks by South Africans (whose grievances sound familiar, though of course they're being expressed more disastrously):
[H]undreds of Zimbabweans and other foreigners fled their homes in Alexandra, a teeming crime-ridden township, on Sunday and Monday to escape xenophobic attacks. Some hid in the nearby bush or in police compounds.
"They were saying, 'Go back to Zimbabwe, we don't want to see you here, you're taking our jobs,'" [immigrant Isaac] Moyo said Tuesday. "They said, 'Go back to [Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe.' They took everything, saying, 'You didn't get this from Mugabe; this is our property.' "...
[S]ome township dwellers who believe that Mugabe is a cruel leader say it is because of something innately cruel in Zimbabwe's society. They tend to blame South Africa's high crime rate on the influx of Zimbabweans.
As the article notes, 100 foreigners were injured and at least two people were killed. Zimbabweans trying to escape economic woes and violence in their country have entered South Africa by the hundreds of thousands. Many of them work for a few dollars a day, and are adding to the burdens of a country which already suffers 40% unemployment.
The mass migration was already creating problems for South African President Thabo Mbeke, who has been attempting to influence Mugabe with a "quiet diplomacy" rather than denouncing outright his human rights abuses and political power grabbing. The violence may make his position more precarious.
For more on the politics between the two countries, and a debate over whether Mbeke is right to be "quiet" on Mugabe, see New Republic assistant editor James Kirchick's Op-Ed, "South Africa's unseemly alliance" and Philip L. Christenson's Blowback response, "Defending Thabo Mbeke."
In a cover story for the Jewish Journal, Brad A. Greenberg gives a long, fascinating profile of Kevin MacDonald, the Cal State Long Beach professor whose, um, particular interest in The Jews has created a dilemma for the college. The piece is well worth reading in its entirety, but I'll just note that praise is due to: 1) Cal State Long Beach, which is doing a creditable job of balancing MacDonald's academic rights (if you believe such rights exist, as I don't) against the need to protect itself against both anti-Semitism and lawsuits; 2. Greenberg, who seems to maintain a perfectly dry tone in the face of some pretty hair-raising stuff (and I only say seems because I'd never heard of MacDonald before reading this piece and have nothing against which to measure it); and in a strange way, 3) MacDonald himself, who blends creepiness, crackpottery and a surprising forthrightness into a weird form of amiability that I can sort of respect. I hate to use such a hoary cliché, but he's a quintessentially American type of oddball, the kind you don't want to listen to because he occasionally makes you say "Hm, he's got a point." In particular, check out his case for why David Irving's biography of Goebbels should be put back on the shelves; if the book is as he characterizes it, then... Hm, he's got a point. (Experts alert: If it's not as he describes it, the comments are open!)
As I said, I'd never heard of MacDonald before this piece, but in the way of such things, once you're aware of him, he startsshowing upeverywhere. Interestingly, his real pillars of support are not just among white supremacists. (MacDonald, don'tcha know, isn't against other ethnicities; he's just supportive of his own European roots.) Instead, he attracts some pretty broad interest for his particular case on immigration:
MacDonald's core complaint is Jewish influence on immigration laws. He blames passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, which abolished national origin quotas and made immigration easier for non-Westerners, on a Jewish desire to oust European Americans from the majority.
"European people in this country will be a minority in a few years," MacDonald said. "I don't think that would have happened if we had had a sense of ourselves as a culture worth defending. Now, everything is up for grabs."
Which is weird, because I thought building secure border fences was one of those areas where The Jews and the proud European-Americans were in perfect harmony. This stuff gets so confusing so fast you can drive yourself crazy. And then you get tenure, I think.
Whatever your race, creed, color or religion, enjoy this beautiful weekend.
Newsweek correspondent and author Michael Hastings knows too well that war is more than statistics:
While I was in Iraq covering the war for Newsweek for two years starting in 2005, the woman I planned to marry was murdered in Baghdad by insurgents on Jan. 17, 2007. Her name was Andi Parhamovich; she'd come to Iraq to work for the National Democratic Institute, an NGO....
We -- Andi, me, Jeff, Greg, Scott, Ferris -- all chose to go to Iraq, volunteers for our respective causes. We were under no illusions about the risks, though that's a glib way of putting it. I don't think anyone can fully grasp the risks until whoosh, wham, through the looking glass you crash on the way to the rehab center at Walter Reed or a funeral parlor in Ohio.
Iraq often gets treated by pundits, writers and politicians -- all those thoughtful cheerleaders turned war critics -- as an intellectual exercise. It's not.
Columnist Gregory Rodriguez reports that people will often ignore their self interest if they can get a fair deal. And New Republic assistant editor James Kirchick says South African President Thabo Mbeki shouldn't stand by as Robert Mugabe ruins Zimbabwe.
On the letters page, Long Beach's Iris Ingram says to those who would ask Hillary Clinton to quit the race: "The primary season ends in June. So suck it up and stick it out."
What would the U.S. do if this happened here? AFP reports:
Authorities have lost track of 41,000 people ordered to leave Canada, and in most cases have stopped looking for them, said a federal watchdog Tuesday.
In a scathing report, Auditor General Sheila Fraser said most of the missing were failed asylum seekers allowed into the country on temporary permits while their immigration or refugee cases were assessed.
However, some of them "may pose a threat to public safety and security," she added.
Oh, wait -- it did happen here.
A Homeland Security Inspector General report (pdf) released last year said that the backlog of immigration cases involving immigrants ordered to leave the U.S. had reached 600,000 -- and the whereabouts of many of those, whether criminal offenders or non-criminal deportees, couldn't be determined. It's important to note that this number represents the backlog, not the number of people missing, as in Canada.
The report put the blame for the backlog, which had been increasing since 2001, on insufficient detention space and systems, along with inadequate staffing. (This focuses on ICE rather than CIS, so it doesn't take into account the long lines legal immigrants face to get in or change their status if they're already here.)
There hasn't been an internal assessment of where the "fugitive" backlog stands more recently. And though Homeland Security has received more beds and staff, it has also stepped up its enforcement efforts, so the backlog may very well still be rising, if at a slower pace.
The Canada case gives occasion to recall that this country's ad-hoc enforcement-first approach doesn't necessarily work as smoothly as advocates hope. And, as the editorial board would argue, it isn't the best approach for the country even when it works as intended.
Whether you're for or against immigration reform, some issues transcend those political borders. The NY Times' report on deaths in detention is one of them:
Word spread quickly inside the windowless walls of the Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey: A detainee had fallen, injured his head and become incoherent. Guards had put him in solitary confinement, and late that night, an ambulance had taken him away more dead than alive.
But outside, for five days, no official notified the family of the detainee, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in a coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why.
Twelve of the 66 deaths occurred in California, and some of the listed causes are frighteningly vague (from "internal injuries [self-inflicted]" to "unresponsive"). You can view the full list here.
While at the San Diego Correctional Facility, he notified immigration officials that he had a large, painful, growing lesion on his penis.
Despite recommendations from several doctors, the cancer was never biopsied and Castaneda received no treatment except for pain pills during his 11 months in detention, government records indicated.
A doctor at the Division of Immigration Health Services would not admit Castaneda to a hospital, saying her agency considered it "an elective outpatient procedure."
Castaneda was released last year, went to a hospital and was diagnosed with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. He died in February.
The pressure seems to have spurred some action: California's own Zoe Lofgren is sponsoring legislation that would set standards for healthcare and require all deaths to be reported to the Justice Department and Congress. While we're waiting for meaningful reform, check out this interactive map courtesy of the Detention Watch Network.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:
Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....
Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.
The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.
On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."
Columnist Jonah Goldberg says issues that may seem irrelevant actually give us clues about the candidates:
Whatever the true import of Obama's relationship with Wright may be, or whatever the proper weight voters should give to his view that poor whites "cling" to guns and religion because they've suffered under bad economic policies, or, for that matter, what Clinton's "sniper fire" story says about her, it strikes me as absurd to argue that these data are meaningless but their stance on a gas-tax holiday is of enduring importance.
Pacific Council on International Policy adjunct fellow Joshua Kurlantzick profiles China's educated, wealthy next-generation nationalists who aren't afraid to be aggressive toward the West. And USC's Sara Catania has an idea for the Silver Lake Reservoir: a new kind of urban park.
The editorial board thinks a tax on services might work for California if done right and explains why Yahoo and Google's teaming up on advertising would be bad for consumers. The board also responds to the death of racehorse Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last weekend:
As we explore the limits of physical performance, sports trend toward the more extreme, even if it harms rather than enhances the athlete's health. Steroids in baseball, eating disorders in prepubescent gymnasts, whatever it takes to win, until there's a public pushback that threatens the sport. Without industry reform in the near future, it's easy to imagine such a pushback against the biggest athlete of all -- the racehorse.
On the letters page, readers discuss May Day. Chino's Raul Perez asks, "How is it that I have to have a passport to enter the country in which I was born, raised and served in the armed forces while others come and go as they please?"
After more than a month of studied silence, the reverend has stepped into the public spotlight to defend his controversial remarks on race in America -- and make veiled criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama in the process. On Obama's repudiation of his incendiary statements, the minister had this to say: "He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician."
Obama reacted angrily to his former pastor's comments, calling them "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth." Jonah Goldberg gleefully celebrated Wright's coming-out as "every bit as radical as his detractors claimed."
They're not the only ones with choice words about Wright's recent performances:
The Times' own Top of the Ticket blog asks, "Was Jeremiah Wright's speech set up by a Clinton supporter?"
... we should have been paying a little less attention to Wright's speech and the histrionics of his ensuing news conference and taken a peek at ... who was sitting next to him at the head table for the National Press Club event.
It was the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds ... an ardent longtime booster of Obama's sole remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.
Jeffrey Weiss over at the Dallas Morning News' religion blog wonders why pundits can't take Obama out of the equation:
After the NAACP speech, the all-news networks talking heads were mostly falling all over themselves to do political analysis about whether or not the speech would help or hurt Barack Obama, rather than attempt even a moment of thought about the meaning of what Wright actually said.
The Caucus over at the NY Times does a roundup of its own, observing:
Voices around the blogosphere say they’re tired of the media kerfuffle surrounding Barack Obama and his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., but they certainly keep writing about it.
They also say they’re sick of the expression “thrown under the bus,” but they keep using it.
For some Wright-Obama commentary with both local and international flavor, Ha'aretz's Shmuel Rosner invokes the "Bradley Effect," but also snarks at the minister's comments about Israel:
At moments he came off as mocking and somewhat vain, but made an effort to soften the hardliner perception his speech had left behind. He was also asked about his views on Israel. "Apartheid?" he asked, adding that Jimmy Carter used this term, not him.
Israel, Wright said, "has a right to exist". His only desire was that the Israelis and Palestinians live in peace. He made no reference to the sermon in which he connected the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the September 11th attacks, but he did make sure to emphasize his "Jewish friends". As it turns out, Jeremiah Wright also has a couple of those.
Daniel Nichanian at the Huffington Post compares Wright's position to one of the 2000 presidential election's most beleaguered political players:
Wright has no obligation to put Obama's interest above his own; dragged through the mud for news, the pastor has an opening to make people listen to him and hear the full context of his theology. Those who today profess themselves appalled that Wright would throw Obama under the bus miss the point that Wright does not think of himself as having any allegiance to Obama or to his election, just as Ralph Nader had no any allegiance to the Democratic Party making it hard to understand why 2004 was "a betrayal."
He's blowing open the racial politics that Obama wants to close and claiming that Obama is insincere when he rejects Wright's "extreme sermons"; he's trying to balance a deserved self-defense with the collateral damage that that brings on Obama. He has an ego. Most importantly, he's just some old preacher and not Obama's surrogate father. He can say whatever he wants and Barry will just have to deal with it. Individual people have a right to defend themselves, and politicians have a right to disown them. That's all, goodnight.
While Sen. McCain had the plug pulled on the North Carolina Republican Party's ad highlighting the Obama-Wright connection, it seems the state party leaders will be getting the airtime they wanted for free.
According to a New York Times article, “Pants May be Touted as the Coming Thing, but Women Seem to Prefer Dresses.” Included as evidence? Quotes from the 1941 classic “Citizen Kane” and allusions to a decades-old short story, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses.”
If you assumed the piece to be an old nugget from the archives trotted out for amusement (like we do here, on occasion), you’d be wrong. Here’s a choice bit:
I am not eager for women to become “a little more hard-core, a little more androgynous, a little more butch.” Yes, gender play is fun, and trousers are a useful wardrobe default for the woman in business. But unless you are Thomas McGuane and find nothing sexier than a woman with crow’s feet, tight Wranglers and suede chaps, you will have to concede that, for flattering a woman’s body, nothing is quite like a dress.
The sentiment alone—men like women in dresses—is too obvious to be objectionable. That the story tries to couch the sentiment as advice for women is plain silly, as is the idea that New York City women would wear summer dresses in winter, or the dreaded “trousers” in summer (we in L.A. can pull both off a bit more easily).
But there are some objectionable things here: the peeping-tom creepiness; the weirdly old-fashioned gender ideals; the patronizing slide-show title, “Enjoy Being a Girl”; the clear and cruelly-put preference of the writer for the young and full-figured; and the dismissal of successful women in the fashion industry. (How dare those power-grubbing witches anoint pants trendy and ruin it for the men!)
Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore explains why China sees Tibet quite differently than the West:
Chinese history records dominion over Tibet as far back as the 13th century. China's control has ebbed and flowed -- but this is equally true in many other parts of China. Central control by the capital has never been consistent, shifting with the strength of the central government. But this much is certain: China has been in control of most of its territories longer than some Western nations have existed.
More important, the Chinese recall that the latest efforts to separate Tibet from China came as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, when British and U.S. agents were seen to be encouraging Tibetan independence while the new People's Republic was still weak.... Virtually no Chinese believe that Western governments have a strictly moral interest in Tibet. They are convinced that their efforts are only the latest efforts to dismember or derail China.
Author Carolyn See navigates Santa Monica sans car, and columnist Joel Stein finds a place for thoughts that aren't even well-formed enough to be blogposts: the tumble and the twitter.
The editorial board encourages Congress to extend unemployment benefits, urges California to fight proposed federal fuel emissions rules, and says there are small signs of a thaw in Turkey-Armenia relations.
Readers discuss McCain's disability pension and whether it raises questions about his ability to serve as president. L.A.'s Anthony Filosa says, "I'd like to remind The Times that Franklin D. Roosevelt's significant disabilities did not affect his ability to successfully lead this country through some of our most tumultuous times and be remembered as one of our greatest presidents."
And Long Beach's Barbara Hubbs hopes that "McCain is donating that money to the disabled veterans who were not able to put their lives back together."
Right-wing Dutch politicos-turned-producers watch out — free speech cuts both ways. From NPR:
A video portraying aggressive behavior by Christians matched with verses from the Bible is gaining traction on the Internet.
Raed al-Saeed, a young businessman from Saudi Arabia, is the creator of Schism, a six-minute video response to Fitna — a short film released last month that portrays Islam as a violent, fascist-like ideology. "Fitna" provoked anger in many parts of the Muslim world.
Nonetheless, it's interesting to see a response to Wilder's celluloid screed — the point being that you can find nasty bits in many different religious texts, including Christianity. Unfortunately, Saeed didn't find footage of many nasty people saying those verses out loud — and his substitution of the political for the religious (such as images of the bombing of Baghdad and the beating of prisoners) detracts from his point.
But, to my utter surprise, Saeed did strike darkly comic gold with some unassuming Christians whose rhetoric runs pretty close to that of radical Islamists. One woman — who looks like she could have run my preschool daycare — explains , "I wanna see [young people] as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are in over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, because we have — excuse me, but we have the truth!"
And later, at the center of a roomful of kids, upper arms jiggling with righteousness: "Take these prophecies ... and make war with them .... This means war! This means war!"
But Saeed is quick to point out that this video isn't an attack on Christianity or any other religion. The final text of the video reads,
It is easy to take parts of any Holy book that are out of content and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written. This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology. To create schism.
A fair observation, spelling errors aside — and yet, according to NPR,
A day after Saeed posted his video on YouTube, it was taken down for having "inappropriate content." He immediately reposted it with a message arguing that if his video was inappropriate, then Wilders' Fitna also should be removed. For now, both videos are available on the site.
And it still is. Go check it out — there are a few versions up, but the most-watched one has racked up more than 350,000 views so far, and more than 4,000 comments. Looking through what people had to say about Islam and Christianity made me wonder: How many viewers who made generalizations about Islam based on 'Fitna' were fully prepared to give Bible-lady's comments a pass?
And while the film means to make a point about not judging a religion by radicalism, I have to say, those angelic-looking children dancing around with what looks like warpaint on their faces is a little too Lord-of-the-Flies for me to handle.
Remember that Red Sox jersey that a construction worker — who also happened to be a Sox fan — dropped into the wet concrete of the New York Yankees' fresh, new stadium? And how the Yankees spent a cool fifty grand to dig it right back out, fearing a Red Sox curse embedded in their home field — a decision the editorial board called "a reminder that for all of humanity's pretensions to modernity and reason, we are essentially just bald monkeys who wear shoes"?
Yeah, now it's on eBay. Just posted yesterday — and as further demonstration of humanity's supersitious nature and penchant for totems, it's already racked up 116 pre-approved bids and is sitting pretty at $37,600. But if you think it's going to go to cover the Yankees' deconstruction costs, you don't give the baseball industry enough credit: Proceeds go to the cancer-fighting nonprofit Jimmy Fund. Proof that while you couldn't make this stuff up, that doesn't mean there can't be a happy ending. Or at least, a face-saving one.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says the science of intelligent design is science fiction:
If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors....
But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense.
Columnist Joel Stein compares the cost of home cooking to restaurant dining.
The editorial board argues for food labels to include country of origin, says the Supreme Court's lethal injection ruling raises some questions, and wonders how much we should blame a candidate for his or her friends:
We can learn about a candidate from the people who have had demonstrable influence on his or her thinking. Such people include personal and political mentors, business partners and major donors, lovers, spouses, close friends and, especially, advisors. It's certainly fair to judge politicians by who they've worked for, hired, appointed or fired.... But it's unfair and unwise to judge a candidate by family members (remember Roger Clinton?), or by constituents they're sure to rub shoulders with, or by casual associates who run in the same crowd.
On the letters page, readers discuss The Times' editorial on California's tax system. Valencia's Patrick Lewandowski says, "Why do The Times and many politicians feel a need to blame Proposition 13 for California's financial woes and to tinker or even eliminate it so that unaffordable, if not unwarranted, pet projects can continue?"
Hey would-be Beijing protestors, watch out for Jackie Chan. The Hong Kong action hero isn't putting up with any lip, as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reports:
Chan told me he's also going to be part of the torch relay once it nears Beijing. Demonstrating one of his famous kung fu moves with his hands, he quipped, "Demonstrators better not get anywhere close to me" -- a clear challenge to those who might want to disrupt his and the torch's progress.
How would Chan hold up in a head-to-head with a certain celebrity Tibet champion? No, not Steven Spielberg, but Steven Seagal. The two martial artists are friends, or at least so says IMDB, but to settle this subject, they might have to take it outside. Who'd win?
Jackie Chan
Steven Seagal
Winner?
Best move
Glass-shattering, bus-top-running fight scenes in the "Police Story" movies
Became the first foreigner to open an aikido dojo in Japan
Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.
Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps.... But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.
Columnist Tim Rutten analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's State of the City address. Internist Albert Fuchs says the only way for a doctor to do a good job and make a living is to reject insurers. And contributing editor Gustavo Arellano notes that Fullerton's efforts to paint over murals is par for the Orange County course.
The editorial board maintains its anti-execution stance as the Supreme Court considers whether to allow the death penalty for rapists, and comments on the start of SAG negotiations. Editorial writer Lisa Richardson writes in from San Francisco, where Chevron Corp. faced off against a couple Ecuadorean environmentalists.
Readers discuss Irvine's Great Park. L.A.'s Danila Oder says, "The American 20th century experience was an anomaly and should be treated by governments and builders as such. The environmental factors that are assumed to underpin bonds for the Great Park project are no longer operative."
Columnist Joel Stein makes New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson work for the money:
Impressed by his confidence, his integrity and this vague threat of being around "possibly nationally," I offered Richardson $20 if he'd record my outgoing answering machine message. He immediately agreed. Unfortunately, callers to my house now hear a long speech about how they should give Richardson money instead of the little speech I asked for, which said that even though I wasn't home, he fully endorsed me.
Yale's Laura Frost says forget about FIA president Max Mosley's Nazi role-playing S&M romp, and focus on the post-coital cup of tea. MIT's Lester C. Thurow thinks solutions to high oil prices, the housing crisis, and outsourcing will require some sacrifice.
The editorial board considers the costs of the Iraq war, explores how airlines can get safely back in flight, and praises Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for taking up immigration again.
Readers discuss protests following the Olympic torch. Claremont's Daniel A. Guthrie says, "China's behavior toward Tibet is no different from our behavior. I wish Americans would be as concerned about their own disgraceful past as they are about the behavior of other countries."
Columnist Rosa Brooks reminds everyone that despite the attention on the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton mudslinging, it's the GOP that's losing ground:
Although Democratic Party infighting makes good copy, the intense media focus on the Obama-Clinton battle obscures the fact that it's the Republican Party that's in deep doo-doo. The very factors that make us wish we could forget about the war in Iraq are driving a seismic shift in the American political landscape: the likely reversal of years of GOP electoral dominance.
Speaking of the GOP's losing ground on war issues, former NATO commander Wesley K. Clark and Iraq vet Jon Soltz wonder why John McCain isn't stepping up to support a new GI bill. Columnist Patt Morrison remembers when ethnic campaigning was as simple as eating a knish and spinning pizza dough. And author Daniel Imhoff says the farm bill is too porky.
The editorial board hopes for stronger rule of law in Pakistan, takes a look at shocking inmate conditions in Orange County jails, and says the Senate's housing relief plan is a mixed fix:
The tax breaks in the Senate bill would help home builders that profited handsomely during the boom. They would also prop up the price of foreclosed properties with $7,000 subsidies for the purchase of those homes. But the goal isn't to stop the boom-and-bust cycle from running its course or causing losses. It's to prevent the bust from being so sudden and severe that it chokes off credit, stifles consumer spending and wrecks the economy.
Readers react to Gen. David H. Petraeus' and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's testimony before Congress. Bob Constantine of Placentia has a suggesetion: "Next time Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are scheduled to report to Congress, skip the personal appearances and merely play the tape of the previous testimonies."
Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that a narrow definition of genocide often lets mass murderers off the hook:
This can lead to a dangerous way of thinking in which people who are perceived to be standing in the way of progress -- middle-class farmers opposed to collectivization, aristocrats, reactionaries -- can be more forgivably slaughtered than ethnic groups because they're allegedly part of the problem, not the solution. After all, you've got to break some eggs to make an omelet.
In general, the Soviets and the Red Chinese elude the genocide charge -- and hence the status of ultimate villains -- despite having murdered scores of millions of people in the 20th century, in large part because their victims stood in the way of progress.
Historian Martin Meredith laments that Robert Mugabe's hunger for power prevented him from becoming another Nelson Mandela. And contributing editor Max Boot says the U.S. can still win in Iraq if the troops just stay put.
The editorial board encourages Congress to approve a trade pact with Colombia, observes that the Supreme Court will once again consider a display of the Ten Commandments, and wonders if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both obscuring their true feelings on trade.
Readers react to columnist Patt Morrison's piece on billboards in L.A. Culver City's Gene Rothman updates Ogden Nash:
I see again an outdoor panel It's another from Clear Channel If from its stock we all withdrew Perhaps we'd hear another view.
Considering that other than the occasional round of Wii Tennis, I haven't played a video game since I failed to beat "Legend of Zelda" in the late 1980s, I'm not the best person to comment on the medium.
But an educational immigration game arrived on the Internets not too long ago, so I gave it a try. (OK, actually, it was kind of long ago, it got some news last year, and an official release came out in February.)
The game is from Breakthrough.tv and it's called "I Can End Deportation," or ICED, for short (a play, of course, on the agency in charge of said deportation). You pick one of five characters -- from an undocumented Mexican immigrant to a Japanese student to a girl who thinks she's a citizen -- and try to avoid getting deported, while learning about what trials immigrants, legal or not, have to suffer.
It's a conversation-starter about an aspect of immigration policy avoided by many moderates, who need to be tough on enforcement or who may simply assume that the deportation process works well enough (unlike, say, actual worksite or border enforcement). They don't worry much about the process, unless it goes seriously awry.
And though the game may be criticized as such, it isn't a primer for anyone who's actually evading authorities. Of course, the name alone makes it clear that the game makers weren't exactly trying to avoid controversy. (See what the game's creator has to say about the reaction she has received here.)
This post updated as of 12:10pm Thursday. See below:
I'm a fan of vestigial cultural survivals, but even I reacted to news of the shutdown of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio Orchestra with an incredulous "There are still radio orchestras?" To give some perspective, the legendary Arturo Toscanini-conducted NBC Radio Orchestra was disbanded way back in 1954, and there may be a reason that the Vancouver-based CBC outfit has long held the dubious distinction of being the sole extant radio orchestra in North America. *
Now the life of a working musician is tough, though arguably no tougher now than it's been for the past, say, 10,000 years. And I get the impression that a belief, realistic or not, that Canada's cultural attainment is high has always been a favorite bragging point for our friends to the north. So a little expression of regret is understandable. But take a look at the protests that followed the announcement of the orchestra's closing and you may ask what eon these people are living in. CBC has a little coverage, with video, and the Globe and Mail gives more detail. "No Kitsch! No Philistines! Don't Mess With Our Music!" reads one protester's sign. A music teacher brags of having canceled her class with the following message to her students: "I said this is the most important assignment you could possibly have; to rescue the great culture of your country."
Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq....
At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist.
Writer Andrew Gumbel knows why Hillary Clinton is fighting so hard to stay in the race -- because it works. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Americans have a habit of hero-worshipping candidates, and it tends to backfire. Euro Pacific Capital President Peter Schiff argues that we need to hit bottom before we can recover from the housing crisis.
The editorial board wants better beef tracking, and more nuanced exploration of the links between race and gangs. The board praises the FCC for taking a broad view of media competition in approving the XM/Sirius merger.
Readers react to a shift in John McCain's rhetoric. L.A.'s Susan North says:
Listening to McCain's speech before the World Affairs Council made my brain hurt. In the speech, he admonished America to listen to our democratic ally nations. Would that be all those same nations that have been crying out, for months now, "Surge? Are you people nuts?"
Contributing editor Ian Buruma says Tibetan culture may not survive China's modernization, except among the diaspora:
The Chinese have exported their version of modern development to Tibet, not just in terms of architecture and infrastructure but people, wave after wave of them: businessmen from Sichuan, prostitutes from Hunan, technocrats from Beijing, party officials from Shanghai, shopkeepers from Yunnan. The majority of the people living today in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, are no longer Tibetan. Most people in rural areas are Tibetan, but their way of life is not likely to survive Chinese modernization any more than the ways of the Apaches did in the United States.
George Washington University's Jonathan Turley wonders why you can be competent to stand trial, but unfit to represent yourself. And Hope College's David G. Myers says primal urges are to blame for March madness.
The editorial board warns taxpayers that they'll face new risks as Fannie and Freddie buy more mortgages thanks to a rule change. The board also wants to know where scientific exhibits got their cadavers, and thinks the Supreme Court erred by not giving Jose Medellin, a Mexican national on death row in Texas, another day in court.
Readers discuss discussing race. Torrance's David Nelson says, "The article begins: 'How do we start a national dialogue on race?' A better question is: Why should we?"
On the heels of the Iraq war's fifth anniversary comes another somewhat arbitrary but far more grim milestone: 4,000 American soldiers have now died in the conflict, though casualties have been low so far this year. The editorial board didn't remark on the death toll when it hit 2,000 (in October 2005) or 3,000 (at the end of 2006), even though those points coincided with some other big events -- the ratification of a draft constitution and Saddam Hussein's execution.
The board did write when the death toll hit 1,000, highlighting the randomness of marking a number of dead (sorry, no link):
Six U.S. soldiers were killed, two Italian aid workers were kidnapped and warplanes bombed a Sunni enclave in Fallouja, a city mostly off-limits to coalition troops. It was just another day in the war Tuesday, except for the numbers. By this morning, Iraq time, the Associated Press count of casualties stated that 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq, aside from more than 100 other coalition soldiers and thousands of Iraqi noncombatants. And many thousands more have been wounded.
It is an obvious point at which to ask: To what end are U.S. personnel continuing to die? What is it that commanders should tell their troops as they head into lethal streets?
It's not just the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. It's also the fifth anniversary of misleading or plain wrong statements about it and the war on terror. Here's a few.
"This long-term struggle [against terror] became urgent on the morning of September 11th, 2001. That day we saw clearly that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home.... Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends, or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans." --Vice President Dick Cheney (Making the 9/11 connection is a more delicate dance than it was five years ago, but Cheney keeps finding ways to make the leap.)
"I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you...in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks." --President George Bush (Warfare as romantic? No one's bought this line in five years, or for that matter, five decades.)
"Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate." --John McCain (Iran certainly trains extremists and ships 'em to Iraq, but they're not affiliated with Al Qaeda.)
"The surge is working. And as a return on our success in Iraq, we've begun bringing some of our troops home. The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror." --George Bush (Salon doesit better than I could.)
For a few bloviator blasts from the past, see Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky's Op-Ed.
Columnist Joel Stein asks the question on everyone's mind -- what exactly do you get for $1,000 an hour?
I called a high-end escort in Las Vegas who charges $500 an hour -- but gives, according to her website, a discount to educators and political activists. The escort , it turns out, is a huge fan of Spitzer, particularly his prosecution of Wall Street crimes when he was New York's attorney general. "I liked him. And I don't like many politicians. I have nothing but respect for him," she said. "It's a shame politicians can't have sex like everyone else."
The roughly $1,000 an hour that Spitzer paid for time with "Kristen," she told me, was not, as I assumed, to guarantee secrecy.... And the exorbitant rate wasn't a premium for weird or talented sex.
Former soldier and military historian Ed Ruggero notes near the 40th anniversary of the My Lai massacre that war is never simple. And the Center for American Progress' Lawrence J. Korb and Sean E. Duggan argue that if Gen. David H. Petraeus testifies alone, we'll never get the full picture of Iraq.
The editorial board examines new mortgage regulations proposed by the Bush administration, and says that after 136 years, it's really about time for a new mining law. Finally, the board urges the state to do away with another historical relic -- loyalty oaths.
On the letters page, readers react to Max Boot's take on Adm. William Fallon. Escondido's Blaise Jackson cracks, "So armchair-admiral Boot crawls out from under his ideologue rock to toss dirt at the departing Fallon; what a surprise."
Several immigration stories arising this week should remind candidates, congressional reps, and voters what's the bottom line when it comes to immigration policy.
Yesterday came news that a bailiff in Arkansas left one undocumented immigrant woman locked in a cell at a courthouse for four days without food or water, a bathroom, or any bedding. The bailiff, who has since been suspended, said he simply forgot her when he locked up for the weekend. Earlier, she had pleaded not guilty to selling pirated DVDs; the judge had required her to be held because she was an illegal immigrant. Though it was probably an honest, if awful, mistake, the woman's lawyer, for one, says its symptomatic of a wider problem: "They treat Hispanics like cattle, likes less than human," Roy Petty told the New York Times.
Today, The Times reported that 15 illegal immigrants were found adrift offshore near San Diego, after a failed smuggling attempt, languishing for a day and a half without food or water. Worse still is another account from today's Times, of immigration officials' alleged refusal of medical tests and treatment demanded by doctors for a detainee who later died of penile cancer. The officials allowed only antihistamines, ibuprofen, and extra boxers. A Los Angeles federal judge ruled [pdf] that Francisco Castaneda's family can seek damages, and had scathing things to say...
Columnist Rosa Brooks explains what the Spitzer scandal means for the Clinton candidacy:
This gets to why this scandal has the potential to be more than just distracting and uncomfortable for Clinton. Spitzergate -- and Hillary's ambivalent response so far -- reminds us that Bill wasn't the only member of the Clinton family who let women down when he was in the White House.
Remember 1992? Hillary got in hot water for telling "60 Minutes" that "I'm not ... some little woman, standing by my man like Tammy Wynette."
But later, as Bill's career became mired in scandal after scandal, it became all too clear that Hillary was willing to tolerate pretty much anything he did.
George Washington University's Patty Kelly thinks Spitzergate could have another effect -- convincing Americans it's time to decriminalize prostitution. Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash says Britain needs to define what it means to be British. And columnist Patt Morrison argues for our right to gripe.
The editorial board explains the battle of the brass that may have felled Adm. William J. Fallon...
Whatever you've got to say about the murder of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw or the arrest of 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza for the crime, start your engines. Please keep it clean: no threats, bullying, bogarting or unamusing ad hominems will be accepted. I'll approve as fast as I can. Some scenes from Shaw's funeral may give the conversation a little focus.
The editorial board examines global insurgency after a violent few weeks around the world:
Last week's news underscored the problem. In Afghanistan, Taliban fighters, who enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan, blew up a fourth telecommunications tower as part of a campaign to silence cellphone service at night. In Pakistan, missiles of unknown origin smashed into a Taliban compound in what appeared to be the second unacknowledged U.S. Predator strike into that country this year. Turkey struck at Kurdish rebel enclaves over the border in northern Iraq. From Gaza, Hamas pelted Israeli towns with increasingly longer-ranged missiles. And Colombia, fed up with attacks by guerrillas from jungle camps in Ecuador, staged a cross-border raid and was denounced across Latin America for violating Ecuadorean sovereignty.
Wiping out terrorist sanctuaries after 9/11 wasn't supposed to be so difficult -- except that it always has been. The Bush administration assumed that swift and massive U.S. military might, followed by democracy and massive infusions of money for development, would sweep the terrorists into the dustbin of history. It hasn't happened anywhere.
The board also looks at California's electricity deregulation ten years later, and says a new cap-and-trade plan could be just as disastrous.
As if global insurgency weren't bad enough, author Philip Jenkins thinks conditions are ripe for home-grown terrorism. And East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice director Angelo Logan says that a firm that wans to expand port service isn't as green as it claims. Craving more bad news? The University of Vermont's Robert Costanza says the latest recession is small fry compared to the three-decade decline in the American quality of life. Finally, some levity: Columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders if appearing on "The Colbert Report" to hawk his book makes him a sell out. (If you missed it, watch it here.)
On the letters page, readers react to the latest false memoir scam, this one by a white Sherman Oaks woman writing as an African American surviving foster care and gangs in South L.A. San Diego's Michael Bolger gives her some comeuppance: "I was in three foster homes, a continuation of the hell I lived with my mother in the San Fernando Valley. Having survived to become a high-functioning member of society, I have thought often of writing a memoir. But morally bankrupt individuals like [Margaret] Seltzer make it harder for others to tell their stories of survival."
In the eternal struggle against The Jews, there can be no deserters.
That's pretty much the takeaway from this astounding interview that Norman Finkelstein, the historian, communist provocateur and academic-without-portfolio, gave last month to Lebanon's Future TV. Among many other Finkelsteinian aperçus: Any Arab who fails to resist the Israeli juggernaut to his last bullet will become a "slave of the Americans" reduced to "crawling on your knees"; interviewer Najat Sharafeddine reveals herself as neither a serious nor a level-headed person for suggesting that the 2006 attack on Lebanon could have been avoided; Hitler would have prefered to achieve his goals through peaceful means (I am not making that up); anybody who prefers survival to glorious death in service of the international Shiite jihad deserves no respect; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a "human freak"; any Lebanese who is presently alive has "no self-respect"; and of course, every situation everywhere always is exactly analogous to Hitler and the Nazis.
It's a mind-bogglingly arrogant, condescending, creepy, ill-informed performance. And in fact an overtly imperialist one that erases all marks of local politics and individual choice in order to make room for great-power conflict. In true Leninist fashion, Finkelstein does not believe in bystanders; any Arab who chooses not to engage the international struggle against the Zionist/capitalist enemy is not only expendable but beneath consideration. (Allah only knows what Fink made of Future TV's founder, the late rentier oppressor of the proletariat Rafiq al-Hariri.)
I've never given much thought to Finkelstein, who seems to have done some interesting historical (or at least historical-debunking) work, and my view of his long-running feud with Alan Dershowitz has never gone beyond a vague wish for both sides to lose. But at least Dersh contents himself with being a stateside nuisance of no danger to anybody except the wives of insulin-happy bazillionaires. Finkelstein, however, is speaking in the context of a goodwill tour of Lebanon on behalf of Hizbollah — whose views, don'tcha know, have been too long ignored in the United States. (Speak for yourself, Norm!) This is where the cesspool of leftwing extremism eventually flows, into a full-hearted alliance with any scuzzbucket willing and able to kill people. At Reason, Michael Young (who has had his own apparently bruising exchange with the no-nonsense Sharafeddine) expands on the pathology at work:
This behavior comes full circle especially for the revolutionary fringe on the left, which seems invariably to find its way back to violence. In the same way that Finkelstein can compare Hezbollah admiringly to the Soviet Red Army and the communist resistance during World War II ("it was brutal, it was ruthless"), he sees in resistance a quasi-religious act that brooks no challenge, even from its likely victims. What is so odd in Finkelstein and those like him is that the universalism and humanism at the heart of the left's view of itself has evaporated, to be replaced by categorical imperatives usually associated with the extreme right: blood; honor; solidarity; and the defense of near-hallowed land.
Six weeks ago, 29-year-old Culver City Internet copy writer Christian Lander started a blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, on a whim, thinking he'd poke fun at himself and fellow white people....
Lander, who arrived in L.A. from Toronto 2 1/2 years ago, came up with the idea for the blog after talking to a Filipino friend about how much they both liked the HBO police drama "The Wire." For some reason he's already forgotten, they both wished that more white people watched the show. Which got him thinking: What exactly do white people like?
Author Christopher D. Cook says mass recalls show we're all playing meat roulette. Writer Jim Henley argues that an $8 million program isn't enough to get Americans reading again. Yale Law School student Ronan Farrow explores a growing conflict in Ethiopia, where the army is attacking its people.
The editorial board launches a series on water in Los Angeles and around the world:
The early history of Los Angeles was defined by its struggle to get water wherever, and whenever, it could. William Mulholland and his colleagues did such a good job of securing water supplies...that those of us living here today take for granted our lush gardens and year-round blooms. They appear a native bounty when they are, in fact, a work of man. We offer pious lip service to the notion that water is scarce when the weather is dry, only to forget our concerns at the fall of the first raindrop. Implicitly, we behave as if water will always be available and unlimited.
This must change.
Readers react to the city's plan to require homeowners to pay more for sidewalk repairs. Sherman Oaks' Gerry Swider says, "Is the city also going to grant homeowners the right to control usage of their sidewalks as a way to limit possible damage?"
THE STATE COLUMN ONE Freedom's Test, or Just a Pest? * Gadflies deemed out of order are arrested or ejected from some public meetings. The 1st Amendment and decorum are at odds.
Home Edition, Main News, Page A-1 Metro Desk 53 inches; 1834 words Type of Material: Column
By Hugo Martin, Times Staff Writer
After greeting the San Bernardino County supervisors with a mock Nazi salute, Jeff Wright, a homeless Air Force veteran, stepped to the public microphone to complain about being arrested at a regional transportation meeting a few months earlier.
Board Chairman Dennis Hansberger told him to stay on the topic under discussion, which was the salaries of county attorneys. Wright then threatened to seal the supervisor's mouth with duct tape, which he had brought with him.
Hansberger responded by ordering sheriff's deputies to eject Wright, who was led out of the building in handcuffs, screaming about police brutality.
It was nothing new -- for Wright or for the board of supervisors.
The March incident was among the more than 100 arrests or ejections deputies have carried out at meetings of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors since 1989, according to an unofficial tally by one local activist.
Although law enforcement officials say they cannot confirm the exact number, they put the tally in the dozens.
In 2000, reports of those arrests earned the Board of Supervisors the "Black Hole" award, a dubious distinction given by the California First Amendment Coalition to public agencies and officials that the group says show disregard for open government and 1st Amendment rights.
In the past year, the pace of arrests and removals at San Bernardino County supervisors' meetings has increased to about one per month, with most speakers being removed for failing to stick to the agenda and then refusing to surrender the lectern.
The editorial board says it's time for the world to live up to its promises to Sudan:
Appeasement and negotiation from a position of weakness have not and will not stop the thuggery of the oil-rich Sudanese regime. Only muscle will do. But the "civilized" world has done next to nothing to enforce meaningful economic sanctions, hasn't even moved to arrestthe indicted war criminals and, disgracefully, has yet to provide even one of the helicopters that U.N. peacekeepers need. It's time to face facts: Unless the U.N. gets far more political, economic and military support from its posturing but so-far feckless members, it may as well pack up its blue helmets and go home.
The board also examines the bipartisan "stimulus package" for the economy, and reacts to state schools chief Jack O'Connell's annual education address.
"Beasts of No Nation" author Uzodinma Iweala argues race is still a problem in supposedly "post-racial" America. Voices and Faces Project founder Anne K. Ream asks if a rapist deserves a military burial. And columnist Tim Rutten says the City Council should let LAPD reform go forward.
On the letters page, readers react to a court's decision to deny experimental drugs to the terminally ill. Encinitas' Steve Weller says, "This is yet another instance of compassionate conservatives killing people in order to protect them. Iraq comes to mind."
[T]here are heartbroken families begging the courts time and again to intervene on behalf of loved ones who won't take medicine, won't see doctors. Spears' family's frustration, if the tabloids are to be believed, is the same: How can we get help for her if she refuses?
Proposition 63, which is generating upward of $2 billion since the law passed, can accomplish a lot -- but it can't change that conundrum. Laura's Law was passed to try to strike a balance. It's named for honor student Laura Wilcox, who was working in a California mental health center when she was killed by a delusional man who couldn't be forced to take medication. Thanks to the law, judges now can order outpatient treatment for people after medical and legal hearings.
What, I wonder, would a Britney's Law look like? Would it make it easier to require treatment, especially if the outburst gets 100,000 hits on YouTube?
Columnist Rosa Brooks says race and sex don't matter for Gen. Y voters. Author Barry Gottlieb thinks it's time you pimped your fridge. And Sacramento State University's Tim Hodson has a litmus test for ballot measures.
The editorial board looks at Pakistani public opinion and finds little support for a U.S.-manned operation against Osama bin Laden. The board says a state gender discrimination law for students should stand, and it evaluates a state plan to ease the public employee benefits mess.
Readers respond to an editorial proposing ways to end the city's gridlock. Studio City's Gary Aminoff objects to a plan to make solo drivers pay: "This is not New York or Washington. If the destination is not within a few blocks of a bus or subway stop, people still have to get there by car. Solo drivers are not the cause of the problem; ineffective planning is."
The editorial board is grateful that Liberia's Charles Taylor is finally on trial:
Taylor is just one in a depressingly long line of deposed African leaders who bled their countries dry in brutal wars against their own people and plundered their national treasuries. Yet while most of his fellow vampires have died in luxurious exile, Taylor finds himself in a detention center in Holland, stalking quarters formerly occupied by ex-Yugoslavian strongman Slobodan Milosevic....
He is on trial not for the circus of murder in Liberia for which he was ringmaster during his presidential term — a conflict that shocked the world as child soldiers loyal to Taylor, high on amphetamines and other drugs, charged into battle naked or wearing women's ball gowns — but for his role in the gruesome civil war in next-door Sierra Leone that ended in 2003.
The board asks for the recall of Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, and examines a voter identification case before the Supreme Court.
Readers react to the presidential campaigns on the day of the New Hampshire primary. San Francisco's James Keefer says, "Are we Californians or are we sheep? We have more votes than many small states combined — are we to be prevented from voting our choice? Let's wait until Feb. 5 and not be intimidated by these early indicators."
Particularly to the guilty, austere American mind, France has served as a sophisticated and less uptight oasis in a way that other more illicit and gritty getaways -- think Tijuana or New Orleans -- could not. It is the French who have given us terms for the things we lust after but rarely indulge in -- like femmes fatales or ménages à trois. They have been the baroque to our utilitarian sensibility. And by example, they have given us the sense that there is more to life than work, and that some "sins," ritualized and accepted, may protect us against even more destructive cycles of self-denial and excess.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the glories of smoking. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I even agree wholeheartedly with smoking bans in workplaces and restaurants. But I do find it absurd when smoking is banned in nocturnal haunts where adults commonly repair to imbibe known-to-be toxic beverages and otherwise indulge in (lightly) supervised, socially acceptable self-abuse.
California Chief Justice Ronald M. George says letting state appellate courts review death penalty appeals would ease backlog, and Elizabeth Larsen asks if Guatemala's adoption reforms will help kids.
Readers offer their views on activist Ted Hayes appeal to African Americans on illegal immigration. L.A.'s Yuisa Gimeno says, "In my experience, the African American community opposes immigrant-bashers like Hayes because it knows well what it is like to face racism and economic hardship."
The editorial board has a New Year's resolution for Hollywood -- get a new revenue model:
So as a new year begins, the studios seem to be approaching that same fateful point that the music industry did in the late 1990s: People love the product, but there are signs that they're not willing to spend as much on it as they used to. That's all the more reason for studios and their guilds -- writers, directors and actors -- to collaborate on new ways to make money and attract viewers. Collective bargaining has often yielded just that sort of partnership in other industries.
The board advocates quick action on Kenya to prevent ethnic warfare, and urges Congress to proceed with caution in the CIA tapes case instead of forcing testimony.
Columnist Joel Stein takes his act to the City Council. California Assemblyman Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance) says the answer to LAX's runway woes are fewer flights. And University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill law professor Scott Baker thinks federal judges shouldn't get a raise (the editorial board thinks otherwise).
I'd known her for years, on and off -- mostly off -- since we'd been in college together, and her brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, had been a good friend of mine there too. To be a Bhutto seemed -- to us outsiders -- the essence of glamorous progressivism. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, their father, was the democratically inclined president of Pakistan, and we thought of the Bhutto family as Pakistan's Kennedys. Benazir, in jeans and sweaters with her straight black hair, was a torrent of energy; she was garrulous and articulate, skinny as a rake, unfailingly present and engaged, intellectually curious and as ready as a teeny-bopper to chase after every little piece of life she could get.
"Those were fun days, nice days," she said to me this fall.
Pro-dog readers defend their pets against Will Beall's Op-Ed. Pacific Palisades' Rita Burton says, "Before Beall has a doggy meltdown, perhaps someone should remind him about obnoxious parents and their equally obnoxious children in restaurants, theaters and shopping malls."
Praise for Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is coming in from every corner. President Bush said that Bhutto, who was assassinated today, "bravely gave her life" for Pakistani democracy. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called her an "outstanding leader who worked for democracy." U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said "she believed in democracy and the rule of law while opposing extremism and terror."
We must be realistic about the history and politics of Pakistan. In a perfect world, perhaps the military would not play a role in politics. But Pakistan is less than perfect in this regard. The security forces fundamentally have served as a political institution in Pakistan, ruling either directly, through generals, or indirectly, by manipulating and ultimately sacking democratic governments.
I know that some people have been surprised that I have been negotiating a transition to democracy and talking about the future of Pakistan with Musharraf. On dictatorship, there can be no compromise. The parliament must be supreme....
I go back to Pakistan this autumn knowing that there will be difficult days ahead. But I put my faith in the people and my fate in the hands of God. I am not afraid. Yes, we are at a turning point, but I know that time, justice and the forces of history are on our side.
My father was Benazir's younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a "much higher" political authority.
I have personal reasons to fear the danger that Ms. Bhutto's presence in Pakistan brings, but I am not alone. The Islamists are waiting at the gate. They have been waiting for confirmation that the reforms for which the Pakistani people have been struggling have been a farce, propped up by the White House. Since Musharraf seized power in 1999, there has been an earnest grass-roots movement for democratic reform. The last thing we need is to be tied to a neocon agenda through a puppet "democrat" like Ms. Bhutto.
And click here to see what The Times editorial boards of old thought of Bhutto while she was in charge.
The challenge for the presidential candidates is to explain how they plan to defend the United States, particularly how they would combat international terrorist networks and how they would restore American prestige and leadership in the aftermath of the Iraq war. Most are struggling to do so while trying mightily to avoid awkward truths. It's not politic to admit that the U.S. is weaker than it was a decade ago. And there is no campaign advantage to acknowledging that our current troubles cannot be blamed solely on either the very real failures of President Bush (as the Democrats would prefer to do) or on the very real dangers posed by Islamist terrorists, nuclear proliferators or oil-flush anti-American strongmen (the preferred targets of Republicans).
We believe that the restoration of American leadership amid rising global anti-Americanism requires an explicit repudiation of the exceptionalism that has soured this administration's dealings with other nations, and so hindered the collective defense of the world's democracies.
The board also reacts to a report on how to safeguard the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Readers react to the death of leukemia patient Nataline Sarkisyan. Calabasas' David Hurwitz says, "Nataline's chances of long-term survival went from slim to zero as soon as Cigna meddled in her medical care."
The book ["Heaven"] is 533 pages long, so I decided to just call [author Randy C.] Alcorn at his ministry in Oregon. He's one of the foremost non-dead experts on heaven, having also written "50 Days of Heaven," "In Light of Eternity: Perspectives on Heaven" and "Heaven for Kids"....
The clouds-and-harp version came about for two reasons, Alcorn told me. One is Satan. The other is the early church fathers who tried to blend the Bible with Greek philosophy and wound up with a Platonic version of the afterlife stripped of the physical. In the heaven in Alcorn's book, he imagines we'll be riding on the backs of brontosauruses and throwing baseballs with Andy Pettitte. This does not sound like it will be heaven for brontosauruses or Andy Pettitte.
But that's actually the heaven on Earth that only gets going after the return of Christ.
Author Alex Frankel remembers to thank the miracle workers who make Christmas happen -- store staff and deliverymen and women. Bob Stone and Rick Cole say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's across-the-board cut would be too painful.
The editorial board says the EPA's decision on California emissions was a politicized one, and explains why Bush finally yielded on an investigation into CIA tapes. The board also notes that Kiefer Sutherland, unlike most convicted celebs, will serve a fairly long time in a Glendale jail.
Readers react to the EPA ruling. Temple City's Robert C. Lutes says, "Under this irresponsible administration, the EPA should be renamed the EDA -- the Environmental Destruction Agency."
Biotechnology has left the domain of 'weird' and planted its feet firmly in the realm of 'kind of scary.' NPR takes a look at some bizarro bio-art:
During a recent workshop, hosted by the Machine Project in Los Angeles, Zurr guided a small group of aspiring bioartists through a "painting" exercise. First, [artist Ionat] Zurr sawed open the femur of a freshly-slaughtered cow. After choosing which cells she wanted, she "painted" them onto a three-dimensional scaffolding made of degradable polymer — a type of plastic. Over many weeks, the cells will grow over whatever shape the scaffolding takes, turning into a living sculpture of skin.
And now, according to the Loh Down, scientists have created creepy, crawly biobots:
...bio-engineers grow heart muscle cells, harvested from rats, onto thin plastic skeletons. The skeletons are patterned with protein blueprints that guide the cells into alignment. Once deposited, the cells mold around the plastic to form working muscle tissue.
The robots can flex their home-grown muscle tissue and move independently -- like living creatures. One such tissue robot, invented at Harvard, creeps across its Petri dish like an inchworm. Another one has a tail like a fish and can swim. A group at National University in Korea has designed a crab-like version that sidles about on six legs.
Because they're partly alive, these machines don't need external power. They just need food -- a simple sugar solution.
Seriously, haven't these guys seen "The Matrix"?
Granted, the art above probably raises more objections than the science, but it won't be long until scientists incorporate artificial intelligence and these half-living vessels -- and then the moral issues are bound to get messy.
Notice, stem cells feature somewhat in the first of these projects -- but neither one really needs them to push the limits of bioethics. As the editorial board notes in 'Life,' part two of its American Values series:
Last month's news that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin had modified adult skin cells to behave as embryonic stem cells seemed at first to have resolved this issue, but that's only true if you believe that the debate over stem cells, cloning and genetic modification is a subset of the debate over abortion. It is not. It is, or could become, the central life debate of our time, and depending on your perspective, the questions it raises are either exhilarating or horrifying.
Columnist Rosa Brooks wonders who's to blame for the destruction of CIA tapes -- and for the interrogation methods they recorded:
If I had to guess, the tapes were destroyed because obstruction-of-justice charges are no big deal compared to war crimes charges.
After we find out who authorized the destruction of the tapes, the true who-done-it will remain: Who gave the CIA the green light to use interrogation methods that the agency surely suspected were criminal? Who decided to let the U.S. adopt the interrogation methods of a hundred tin-pot dictators?
Answering that one will be far more uncomfortable. It would be nice to find a scapegoat (Aha! It was Dick Cheney!), but the unpleasant truth is that the blame is pretty widespread.
USC's Charles Fleming finds poetry in e-mail spam, Columbia University's Trey Ellis wants to dispand the race police that keeps asking if Barack Obama is too black or not black enough. And columnist Patt Morrison explores the unintended consequences of Megan's Law after the murder of a sex offender.
The editorial board wants more helicopters for Darfur, new anti-torture rules in response to the CIA tape throw-away, and better regulations to prevent prosecutors from making race-based jury selections.
Readers respond to The Times' editorial series on American values. See why Northridge's Vincent De Vita says the editorial is "perfect," while Pasadena's Jordan Snedcof says it "reflects everything that can go wrong with editorial writing."
Is it just me, or has this season of giving been filled to the brim with unhappiness?
For one thing, the accelerated primary season means campaigning during the holidays, and it seems to be getting to people. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee broke his rule of not commenting on other candidates' religious beliefs (read: Mitt Romney's Mormonism). In an upcoming New York Times Magazine article, he's quoted as asking, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" He's since apologized and Romney has accepted, but still. Wow. First, defending his decades-old talk of quarantining AIDS victims, then going full-arsenal on Cuba, and now this ... can't wait to see what other rhetorical gems his newfound popularity inspires.
In the news, it's hard to escape the two tragedies that have stained both the commercial and sacred sides of Christmas. First was the shooting massacre in an Omaha mall, and more recently, at a Colorado missionary school and church.
And now, a fight on a New York subway over season's greetings. From CNN:
Friday's altercation on the Q train began when somebody yelled out "Merry Christmas," to which rider Walter Adler responded, "Happy Hanukkah," said Toba Hellerstein. [...]
Two women who were with a group of 10 rowdy people then began to verbally assault Adler's companions with anti-Semitic language, Hellerstein said.
One member of the group allegedly yelled, "Oh, Hanukkah. That's the day that the Jews killed Jesus," she said.
When Adler tried to intercede, a male member of the group punched him, she said.
But wait! Unlike our other holiday dramas, this bruising tale has a heartwarming ending ... sort of.
Another passenger, Hassan Askari -- a Muslim student from Bangladesh -- came to Adler's aid, and the group began physically and verbally assaulting him, Hellerstein said.
"A Muslim-American saved us when our own people were on the train and didn't do anything," Adler said.
Adler got stiches and Askari got a black eye, but still, can't you just feel that ChristmasHanukkahEid holiday spirit?
The editorial board continutes its series on American values and the next president with an installment on 'Life':
For all of the habitual attention to abortion and the death penalty, it's the weird cousin of the life issue that is the most intriguing from a societal standpoint. Last month's news that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin had modified adult skin cells to behave as embryonic stem cells seemed at first to have resolved this issue, but that's only true if you believe that the debate over stem cells, cloning and genetic modification is a subset of the debate over abortion. It is not. It is, or could become, the central life debate of our time, and depending on your perspective, the questions it raises are either exhilarating or horrifying.
The name, the toggle coat, and the obsessive marmalade consumption might have fooled us all, but it turns out that the adorable anthropomorph Paddington Bear is not an English native, or even a legal immigrant.
After a three-decade-long hiatus, Paddington Bear will return to children's lit only to find he's not as welcome as he was in 1958. Back then, Paddington managed to enter quickly into British society, stepping off at a train stop after leaving his home in "darkest Peru" by stowing away. Since he looked sufficiently cute and helpless, labeled with a tag reading "Please help this bear," he immediately won the affection of an ordinary British couple who took him in, launching several stories' worth of wacky intercultural and inter-species misunderstanding.
In a new set of stories by 81-year-old Paddington creator Michael Bond, the refugee bear will face questioning by British immigration authorities. But Bond promises that all will turn out well in the end for Paddington who is, of course, a model immigrant, regardless of his legal status. The first words out of his mouth in the television series happen to be "Can I help you," which of course charms his soon-to-be keepers, the Browns. (And English natives, or American ones, could learn from the Browns' response -- "We were wondering if we could help you.") Then, of course, he happily adopts the name "Paddington," since his Peruvian name is apparently too difficult to pronounce, setting a precedent for at least one present-day politician. Paddington joins Mr. Brown for tea, and despite not quite understanding the custom and making a mess of his food, the bear quickly volunteers to clean up. Within a few decades, after winning the affection of generations of kids, he's even doing what only true Brits can handle -- eating marmite.
The editorial board begins a series on the values that will shape the 2008 elections, beginning with a discussion of what it means to aspire to "a more perfect union":
Every election is an exercise in perfecting our union. We seek leaders with talent, experience and wisdom who will guide the nation through demanding times while upholding its values. As we sift through presidential candidates and platforms in the 2008 campaign, we will examine the basic American principles and challenge ourselves — and the candidates — to articulate how as president they would work to perfect the nation in the service of its inhabitants' unalienable rights. We begin those examinations with this editorial, to be followed in coming days and weeks by elaborations on the issues that define this campaign in the context of the values that shape this nation.
The board also notes the launch of a conference today that aims to bring green — environmentalism and dollars — to Los Angeles, and notes that even if American students aren't as smart as their international counterparts, they think highly of themselves.
Morris D. Davis, a former chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions, explains why he resigned his post. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders if environmentalism is our new religion. Author Paul Roberts explains why markets value oil at a price higher than the rational one. And comedy writer and actress Annie Korzen asks what was so wonderful about life in Bedford Falls.
On the letters page, see why Kevin Powell of Long Beach has this message for Ron Paul supporters: "If the tinfoil hat fits, wear it."
Congress has dropped its plan to expand the "hate crimes" category to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. The Senate had attached the measure to a defense authorization bill; the House didn't. Now, during negotiations, conference committee members have stripped away the hate crime measure, hoping that will ensure timely passage of the defense package. Too bad, because although the White House issued a veto threat against a similar House measure (which wasn't attached to the defense bill), it was prepared to back down before the Senate plan.
Some cold comfort: hate crimes fell in California and Los Angeles. (Too bad they went up nationwide.) And maybe no hate crime law is the best hate crime law.
Any season of the year, Angelenos touch up brown lawns with green paint or transform our semiarid landscape into English country gardens. Come Christmastime, our frontyards evolve into personal movie sets. We can tinker with reality even more, creating a rugged, snowy wildlife narrative, even though it might be 92 degrees on Christmas Day with kids splashing in the pool.
Sometimes I wonder what the real deer think when they come down from their hillsides and catch a glimpse of their electronic brethren. Do they recognize the simulacra of themselves? Does Bambi nuzzle up to its wire mother?
Columnist Rosa Brooks has an idea -- using our intelligence, for once, by extending an olive branch to Iran. Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash suggests asking Serbians to trade power over Kosovo for better relations with the EU. Columnist Patt Morrison says fire-season parking restrictions do less for fire safety and more to hamper canyon and hillside dwellers.
The editorial board says the Senate should start climate repair at home if Bali doesn't produce results. The board also has recommendations for stopping another Balkan crisis, and reminds the country of the three American hostages held in Colombia.
Readers respond to The Times' criticism of the LAUSD's new image consultant. Pasadena's Virginia Olive Hoge holds no punches: "This editorial proved nothing except that The Times can dish out bash journalism at its worst -- and this one packed a knockout punch."
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) has released a new ad, just as bloody as his last, and the similarities don't stop there. Both spots tie immigration policy to scary and indefensible scourges of American life — first terrorists, now gangs. And both ads conclude with vote-for-Tancredo-or-else-risk-brutal-violence ultimatums. The new spot says only Tancredo "dares say what must be done" (deport 'em all, that is).
The ad came out the same day Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that, in fact, it's actually doing what must be done. ICE fugitive operations teams arrested over 30,000 people in fiscal year 2007 — twice as many "criminal aliens and immigration fugitives" as it nabbed the year before. The Fugitive Operations Program, launched four years ago, targets illegal immigrants whom everyone from Tancredo to The Times agrees should get the boot, like child sex exploiters, convicted violent criminals, and suspected gang members.
Suspected is the key word there, unfortunately — reports have shown that many of those arrested turn out to have no gang involvement. (And The Times said in a 2005 story that deportation has actually helped one of the most dangerous gangs to flourish.)
ICE is, fortunately, softening its policy on raids. After a report showed the negative impact on children of detaining adult illegal immigrants — especially breast-fed babies — ICE drafted new guidelines with Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) help. It's good to see Kennedy, a co-sponsor of the mother of all comprehensive immigration reform bills, getting back in the game, since most every non-legislative effort to fix immigration policy has focused on security concerns, at the expense of humanitarian ones.
The editorial board considers whether it's time to let USC run the Coliseum:
The Times has long promoted the Coliseum as the best place for an NFL team. Still, we have to hand it to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for recognizing the truth: The NFL and the stadium broke up long ago and aren't getting back together. At least, not as long as the commission acts as a marriage broker.
USC, of course, wants everything: the ability to run the Coliseum for the next four decades, lucrative naming rights, power to bring much-needed seating, lighting and facility improvements. And it wants it for a very long time. Would USC be able to demolish part of the stadium or to alter the look and feel of the historic structure with renovations?
The board doesn't like the GOP's new compassionless conservatism, on display at Wednesday night's debate. And the board wonders whether Lebanon's new leader can bring in democracy.
The University of Richmond's Carl Tobias takes a look at the newest member of the 9th Circuit. Mansoor Ijaz thinks neither Nawaz Sharif nor Benazir Bhutto would make for good Musharraf replacements. Columnists Joel Stein plots world domination, one drink at a time. And columnist Ronald Brownstein says there's still some fight left in the GOP.
Readers react to USC's proposal to leave the Coliseum for the Rose Bowl. Calabasas' Jonathan Kotler notes a trend of teams leaving the Coliseum: "The Los Angeles Chargers: gone. The Los Angeles Rams: gone. The Los Angeles Raiders: gone. The Los Angeles Lakers: gone. The Los Angeles Kings: gone. UCLA football: gone. USC basketball: gone. USC football: one foot out the door."
What to make of reports from Kenya that more and more (old, rich, white) women are traveling to the country solely to cavort with (young, poor, black) locals?
According to Reuters — which follows two white English women, aged 56 and 64, as they troll for “big young boys who like us older girls” — the country’s tourism board isn’t pleased with the “unwholesome” situation, wherein women exchange gifts for sex. Officials stopped short of condemning it in the way they have male sex tourism, however. And the women Reuters interviews seem to see it as a far lesser crime — comparing it to ordinary courtship rituals like a man buying his female date dinner.
It’s certainly not so tame, despite sugar-coated terms for the trade like “romance tourism” and a slew of films that neuter the sexual fantasies and fetishes which many female pleasure-seekers want to fulfill. Before “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” there was “Shirley Valentine,” a British housewife bored of preparing her husband’s meals, who wins a vacation and finds her groove with a Greek man. Even the gritty, straightforward “Vers le Sud” — featuring the ever-experimental Charlotte Rampling — explores what happens when the female sex tourist feels romantic and even falls in love.
Responses to the female sex tourism trend vary from disgust to vague unease. No one’s willing to make this out as a victory for feminism, even if it’s a case of women acknowledging sexual desires and having purses of their own to gratify them. (Heidi Fleiss would be proud, and possibly annoyed that her future clientele can find the frisson they seek for cheap overseas.) And it's older women at that—not the ones who are usually chided for "having sex like men."
A few years back I was working on a story about gay asylum that never came to anything, partly because I couldn't get any documentation for the juiciest bits I was hearing about — tall tales of immigration bed checks, pamphlets circulating in the "community" that instructed asylum seekers about how to femme up their performances for credulous ICE and CIS agents, and so on. But the bigger problem was that what the story really wanted to be was not a trend piece but a sitcom: A pair of Saudi terrorists pose as a committed couple to get into the United States and blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. They settle in the Castro; a series of ludicrous mishaps keeps thwarting their terror scheme; Andy Dick shows up as a wacky neighbor; Kathy Najima puts in an electrifying performance as the anti-heroes' flamboyant "gal pal;" the two earn the enmity of a fire-breathing, gay-hating local Imam; and so on. In short, wackiness ensues.
Art, life, imitation, etc. CNN reports on how a group of alert soldiers manning a checkpoint near the Iraqi capital foiled the Cary Grant/Ann Sheridan routine of a group of insurgents:
Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride's dress and veil.
Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.
Are we getting punked by CNN? The photos of the ill-shaven Bahadli (credited to the Iraq Defense Ministry) are ludicrous enough to make you think so. Why didn't he shave? What kind of lazy terrorist would put up such a halfhearted effort? I'm no expert on terrorism, but I know one thing: Men are always finding plenty of pressing, important reasons why they really need to wear women's clothes, and that's because men want to wear women's clothes. Even in Iraq, where the fashion options are so much narrower, and the opportunities for two men to follow their bliss are so few.
Energy efficiency is the fastest, safest and cheapest method currently available for cutting carbon emissions. It's also one of the least understood, because it involves a lot more than adding insulation to buildings or installing power-sipping air conditioners. To make really hefty efficiency gains, the U.S. must follow California's lead in restructuring incentives for utilities, and regulatory agencies should do much more to encourage important innovations such as cogeneration plants.
The University of Nebraska's Eric Berger notes that states defend lethal injection procedures, even if they know it causes excruciating pain. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez goes to Wilmington Middle School to see how students are improving their vocabulary during P.E. And the Woodrow Wilson Center's Aaron David Miller says the Annapolis Middle East summit is just the first step to peace.
Readers react to Jonah Goldberg's column saying Ron Paul isn't scary. Pittsburgh's Kris Sanders disagrees: "Wouldn't any candidate who supported the freedom to kill the innocent be truly scary?"
Megan was contacted on MySpace by a boy named Josh Evans.... Josh went into detail about his own difficult life and immediately struck a chord with Megan. For six weeks they corresponded. Then, when her infatuation was at its peak, Megan received a well-planned, well-timed blow. Josh suddenly told her, "I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I heard you're not a very nice friend".... However, according to her father, the last message from Josh was the worst: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a s----y rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."
Megan fell apart. She went to her room, tied a cloth belt around a support beam in her closet and hanged herself.
Perhaps the only shock that could rival Megan's death was the news (given to her parents by a neighbor) that Josh had never existed -- he had been created by adults who lived nearby.
"Shock Doctrine" author Naomi Klein explains how global economic jolts push people out of the picture. And Milton Viorst writes in from Beirut to say that U.S. policy could push Lebanon into another civil war.
The editorial board asks Wal-Mart why it pursued a lawsuit against a severely disabled former employee for a relatively small sum. The board also advocates a shift in LAPD schedules from a three-day to a four-day work week. Finally the board remembers a time before Arnold Schwarzenegger set the fundraising record, when he promised to spend his own cash and avoid special interests.
Can just anyone draw the lenses of the paparazzi if they walk down the red carpet slowly with their head held high? I wanted to know. So I persuaded my lovely wife, Cassandra, to walk the carpet at the Pink Party, a huge, star-packed annual fundraiser for breast cancer research that always provides lots of visual fodder for the celeb mags. Cassandra had no interest in doing this, but agreed to participate for the sake of this crucial sociological research. Also, there may have been some talk of needing new shoes.
I called Phoebe Price for advice.
Former Tokyo-based correspondent Michael Zielenziger examines why the once so strong U.S.-Japan alliance has frayed. The Center for Responsible Lending's Paul Leonard tells Schwarzenegger what to do about the subprime problem. And columnist Ronald Brownstein says that Barack Obama bridges the red-blue divide.
The editorial board says the city salary system works, even if elected officials' raises seem too generous, and says the city's Ethics Commission needs to stay neutral as it gains two new appointees. Finally, the board praises the Los Angeles Police Department's about-face on Muslim mapping.
Readers respond to a Column One on bilingual Americans negotiating which language to use when. See why La Quinta's Marty Schwimmer says, "This article feeds on and fosters Americans' xenophobia."
From the Holy Land, 24-year-old guy Lior Amsterdamski is relieved by the sanity:
Hello..
my name is Lior, and I'm a 24 year old guy Israel.
i just wanted to thank you, for the wonderful column you wrote about atheism. i read it first thing on Thursday morning, and it really made my day :)
it's great to hear such good arguments, and so well written as well.
I apologise upfront for my horrible English, but as you've probably guessed English is not my native language. anyway, i wanted to let you know that your article meant a lot to me.
I've heard that in the united states there is a wide spreading open discussion about religion these days, but i must say that in Israel atheists remain a quiet majority. ironically, in a country torn apart by religion, and threatened daily by religious fanatics, most secular people think they should mind their own business and hope that everything will turn up OK, and religion remains a taboo.
since being Jewish is also a nationality for Israelis, one shouldn't even mention religion if he doesn't want to hurt the status Que.
strange place to be living in, i guess.
anyway,
thanks for an island of reason and logic, in the sea of superstitious lunacy that is out there,
sincerely yours,
Lior.
In the biggest feat of overpromising since Jesus told an audience at the Bellagio that he could get a camel through the eye of a needle, Robert Landbeck says he's got a piece of writing worth waiting 2,000 years for:
The players of contemporary God wars now have something to really worrry about. Apodictic Certainty which could blow them all right out of the water. The first new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teaching of Christ is spreading on the web and it has teeth. Check the link.
Did someone say Hitler? Unfortunately yes, and Judith Abeles replies:
Hitler was not, in fact, an atheist. "Mein Kampf" contains Hitler's declaration that his mission of destroying the Jews is in the name of god. I don't have the exact cite handy, but it is easy enough to find.
Cordially,
Judith Abeles
Finally, Sharon says don't just remember Hitler for the bad stuff:
How I feel?
After learning what atheists did, murdering 110,000,000 in the past century. Their opinion means nothing to me anymore. Their belief system is dirt.
It was these murderers and monsters who stood in judgment of their enemy -- the one which could have brought Communism to an end: Hitler.
I have no respect for Communism and its decades of lies, deceits, frauds, bloodshed, rape (6 year olds - 80 year olds raped as Red Army poured into Germany, -- est. 2 million women raped.)
Charles Bukowski is the consummate, and possibly the only, poet of Los Angeles. He grew up in the city, suffered his adolescence in its public schools, labored in its institutions (including a short stint here at The Times), lived in many of its bungalows, occasionally risked being run over to sleep on its streets, and of course, recorded the lot of it in his poetry.
Selecting one spot to place a plaque for Bukowski may thus seem random, or even limiting, to the legacy of a man whose writing shaped the city's image. But many Angelenos and the editorial board have advocated saving one former Bukowski home — 5124 De Longpre Ave. — from the wrecking ball by deeming it a historical landmark. The Cultural Heritage Commission had been scheduled to rule on the property today, but that hearing has been delayed at the behest of the property owner's attorney, who says the owner didn't receive notice of the hearing by certified mail (thanks to LAist for the info).
But the owner had a few choice words about Bukowski, too...
Thanks to Hollywood and a tireless campaign by human-rights activists, many people have heard of "blood diamonds." An international outcry over the sale of diamonds to fund atrocities in African countries such as Sierra Leone led to a gemstone certification process that has helped quell the problem.
Today, rubies are the new diamonds, and this time the atrocities are happening in Myanmar.... With much of the world searching for ways to pressure the Myanmar regime to stop killing and imprisoning its political opponents, Human Rights Watch has a sensible suggestion: Don't buy Burmese gems.
The board also cues the Ghostbusters theme song and hails the return of L.A.'s Drought Busters, and wonders if Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' extends to protecting gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination.
Columnist Rosa Brooks says Bush made the wrong choice by befriending Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf. California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and UC Davis law professor John Oakley want to freeze college fees for the state's students. R. James Woolsey, a former CIA director, explains why companies cooperate with the CIA, and why they should be protected. Author Jeremy Scahill points out that prosecuting Blackwater for shooting Iraqi civilians might be impossible.
Readers discuss the writers strike on the letters page. Frank Pierson, a former president of the Writers Guild and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and an Oscar-winning writer of "Dog Day Afternoon," says, "The law says that in 'work for hire' the employer is 'deemed to be the author.' If you follow this logic, Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria wrote Wagner's operas and the pope personally painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling."
Here's what we've had at Opinion L.A. over the past few days:
Pakistan's and the stock market's unhappy upheavals prompt some digging through the old archives.
Past boards on healthy international relationships:
It comes hard to blame the Pakistanis for breaking off their affair with the United States.
Pakistan has given the United States whole-hearted support from Korea on, siding with us in hot and cold crises.
We have failed to back Pakistan as stoutly in the dispute with India over Kashmir. India's Nehru has broken his pledged word to allow a decision by plebiscite in Kashmir. He has temporized, brushed off the recommendations of neutral commissions, and still hangs on to the province.
On nationwide money woes:
This country has withstood graver dangers than the present, and when it was not half as strong. Stand fast! The Republic lives! Long live the Republic!
Scripturally, the basis of Christian condemnation of abortion comes not only from the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" as Wills asserts, but from the fact that the Bible considers children a supreme gift and blessing from God. One does not reject a gift from God lightly. Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knew us in the womb, and Exodus 21:22-23 imposes a penalty for those who cause the miscarriage of a fetus.
Web editor Tim Cavanaugh, in a Swift turn of logic, argues for restrictions on problem-breeders like himself. Editorial researcher Paul Thornton, meanwhile, bonds with Stalin over their shared atheism.
Finally, LAPD superstar Chief William Bratton joins the editorial board to chat about overtime, drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and, or course, crime. Some candid remarks on that last topic:
I don't think it has anything to do with warmer weather, it has nothing to do with lead poisoning, it has nothing to do with abortions, and if it does those are very minor influences on the crime rate. What does influence crime is people deciding to break the law, or unintentionally finding themselves in violation of the law.
Or take Stephen Colbert, host of a fake cable news show, "The Colbert Report," itself a spinoff from the fake newscast "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Colbert was recently a guest on "Meet the Press" -- the Thunderdome of real news -- as he was trying to mount a bogus campaign for president (abandoned Monday). Colbert stayed in character. So did Tim Russert, grilling Colbert as if he were a real candidate, of sorts....
Indeed, while the network news broadcasts are sustained by the consumers of denture cream, adult diapers and pharmacological marital aides, it's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" that have a grip on the hip, iPhone crowd. And plenty of those younger viewers seem to believe that they can deduce what's going on in the real world from jokes on a fake newscast. It's no longer funny because it's true. It's true because it's funny.
Boston University's Andrew J. Bacevich offers five steps to help the U.S. move on after the failed war on terror. Journalist Mona Eltahawy says Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf provides a striking example of why the West shouldn't support dictators. The Brookings Institution's Henry Aaron explains why health reform always fails.
Until "V for Vendetta" came out two years ago today, Guy Fawkes was only a household name for British rabble-rousers, history buffs, and comic book geeks (OK, sorry, graphic novel geeks). Now many Americans — or at least Wachowski Brothers watchers — know about the Catholic man who was executed for trying to kill England's Protestant King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. And today's the day to celebrate the foiling of Fawkes' plot. Brits do it with bonfires (and hedgehog burning) but Americans have joined in with their own festivities.
Ron Paul is using Fawkes as a fundraising gimmick. (The Spoof, a British satire publication, has its own take, and Wired blogger Adrienne So loves it.) The presidential candidate managed to gain $3.5 million, according to the Associated Press and beat Mitt Romney for the biggest one-day fundraising total among Republican candidates.
But as Andrew Sullivan notes on the Daily Dish, Americans are actually barred from celebrating the holiday by none other than George Washington:
At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.
And The Observer's Barbara Ellen says, who needs Guy Fawkes day when we should be burning Britney in effigy?
Columnist Rosa Brooks takes attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey to task for being vague on whether waterboarding is torture:
On Tuesday, Mukasey "clarified" his views in a letter that still offers no opinion on whether water-boarding (or any other interrogation technique) might or might not constitute torture. According to Mukasey, water-boarding is "repugnant," but he can't say whether it's illegal because, among other things, it would depend on the circumstances, he's not sure if the CIA actually uses it, and he wouldn't want any CIA interrogators who might have used it to think they could be in legal trouble.
This is garbage.
UCLA's Edythe London defends her use of animals in her medical research. Novelist Amos Oz explains how literature can help bridge the gulf between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. And columnist Patt Morrison asks if we're all punchlines for Stephen Colbert.
Readers respond to columnist Jonah Goldberg's thoughts on small government. Toluca Lake's Terrence Hartwell says, "Jonah Goldberg takes a very long-winded tome of Gipper nostalgia to claim that Americans simply don't want smaller government, so better to have big Republican government than big Democratic government. His simplistic theory misses the nonpolitical truth: People really just want a government that works."
Columnist Rosa Brooks has figured out why the Bush administration seems eager to start a new war:
Forget impeachment.
Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.
Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash praises European multi-party democracy. Blogger Garin K. Hovannisian says the timing may actually be right for the Armenian genocide resolution. Columnist Patt Morrison is sure people don't go to fast food joints to eat healthy, so companies shouldn't mind posting nutritional charts.
The editorial board thinks the Senate's cap and trade plan to address global warming is second rate. It's also not wild about Countrywide's attempt to ease sub-prime loan pains. And finally the board explores why the Michael Mukasey confirmation process is growing more rancorous.
Readers react to the specter of another war on the horizon. L.A.'s Anthony Shay says, "If I were an Iranian official, I can think of no greater spur to developing nuclear weapons as quickly as possible than having the world's greatest war-mongering power threaten me...."
Truly, I did not think we made 'em that dim any more.
I was driving out of a Los Angeles hillside neighborhood today and I stopped for a red light. The driver of the car in front of me was smoking, languidly hanging his cigarette hand out of the window between drags.
The wind was up and dry leaves were stirring in the street. I watched his hand, his cigarette, the way the fellow in the crow's nest on the Titanic must have watched the looming iceberg.
And then he did it. He dropped the burning cigarette butt in the street.
No other word for it: I was gobsmacked. The radio was reporting more houses, more miles of land chewed up by fire. The sun was caramelized by the haze of smoke. The ash was still blowing in wisps off my windshield wipers. And this man flicked his lighted cigarette out of his car.
I leaped out of my car and hurried to stomp on the smoldering butt, grinding it out in the street. ''Are you nuts?'' I asked him. ''The state is burning up around here, and you toss out a lighted cigarette? That's how these fires start! Be careful!''
I half-expected a ''Geez, I'm sorry, I just wasn't thinking.'' Instead, I got a torrent of obscene abuse. Then the light changed.
I called the cops to report it, but they said they couldn't do anything. Yes, it's a misdemeanor, but they had to see it happen.
Something of the same happened to me in February, in stopped traffic on the Golden State Freeway — a man dropped his burning cigarette out of his truck. When I told him that he'd get a ticket if the CHP saw him, he assured me that they'd let him off — he was a sheriff's deputy.
I wonder about that deputy now. Is he out directing traffic as people evacuate their smoky neighborhoods? Does he live in Canyon Country or Santa Clarita, and is his own home threatened by fire?
And what do you suppose he'd do if it turned out some idiot tossing away a glowing cigarette butt had started the fire that burned down his house?
Loyola Marymount's Rubén Martínez discovers that in its haste to build a border barrier, Washington has forgotten how much cowboys hate fences:
It's a new political convergence in the borderlands: environmentalists, social justice advocates and a cohort of new border activists who are apparently driven less by ideology than a simple Western love of open vistas -- and plain common sense.
This loose coalition bridges a long-standing political gap.
Historically, some who called themselves environmentalists were more likely to complain about litter on the migrant trail than migrant deaths, or say that population control was preferable to immigration reform. In the borderlands, the sheer dimensions of the human tragedy make such thinking morally reprehensible.
David Schenker, a senior fellow in Arab politics at the Washington Institute, explores a targeted assassination campaign that's killing pro-Western politicians in Lebanon. Howard A. Rodman, a board member of the Writers Guild of America, West and a USC professor, argues that media companies making billions from writers' work should share the wealth.
The editorial board says there are two questions the Senate Judiciary Committee should be sure to ask attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey. The board says the California legislature's failure to put together a water bond could actually be a good thing, and offers solutions for poor lending practices that continued in early 2007 despite the downturn in the housing market.
Readers consider the Armenian genocide resolution. Alberto Marrero of Salas says, "Why should one American soldier be put in harm's way for an Armenian who died in 1915?"
It's a silent but deadly source of greenhouse gases that contributes more to global warming than the entire world transportation sector, yet politicians almost never discuss it, and environmental lobbyists and other green activist groups seem unaware of its existence.
That may be because it's tough to take cow flatulence seriously. But livestock emissions are no joke.... Seldom mentioned is that cows and other ruminants, such as sheep and goats, are walking gas factories that take in fodder and put out methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases that are far more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane, with 21 times the warming potential of CO2, comes from both ends of a cow, but mostly the front. Frat boys have nothing on bovines, as it's estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of methane a day.
Columnist Niall Ferguson notes that labeling the Armenian genocide as such won't accomplish a lot, and won't stop a potential genocide in Iraq. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez has finally laid to rest the image of Mexican American politicians as working class heroes. Writer John Kenney offers cocktail-napkin TV pilot ideas that could compete with 'Cavemen' and the New Republic's James Kirchick argues that it's unfair to use affirmative action against Clarence Thomas.
Readers respond to the Southern Baptist Church's take on women. Los Angeles' Don Belcher says, "Just one more little thing is missing -- burkas."
United Nations undersecretary general John Holmes says it's time to act to stop the Congo conflict's brutal sexual violence:
I cannot find the words to describe what I heard from the
girls and women in Panzi Hospital, located in South Kivu province in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the epicenter of one of the
world's major humanitarian crises. What I do know is that I am not the
same person now as when I walked into that hospital.
As a
United Nations official with a special brief for humanitarian affairs,
I have seen many people around the globe suffering under truly tragic
circumstances. But Congo is different. Its long-running conflict has
always been a brutal one, having claimed nearly 4 million lives between
1998 and 2004 -- the equivalent of five Rwandan genocides. And although
the war formally ended years ago, fighting has continued in the eastern
part of the country, where the national army is battling local and
foreign militias in a struggle involving unresolved ethnic conflicts,
regional power dynamics and the powerful tug of greed, with all sides
vying for a slice of Congo's rich mineral resources.
Columnist Rosa Brooks wonders who exactly the White House is protecting when it says it has a secret. And columnist Patt Morrison asks why kids obsess over athletes and not intellectuals.
The editorial board believes torture victim Khaled El-Masri deserves an apology and compensation, if not a day in court. It reviews the Los Angeles Police Department's latest post-controversy report, this one on the May Day rallies. And it applauds the Nobel Prize winners in physics, who have made ever-smaller gizmos possible.
Readers react to a former Jay Leno writer's critical take on his boss' inability to abide by innocent-til-proven-guilty in the case of accused celebrities. Monterey Park's Arnold Wong says, "Dickson's true hypocrisy is bleeding these unfortunate incidents for
all his paychecks, then complaining bitterly about his material being
unfair to the subjects."
It's been a while since we hit the mailbag. Some recent correspondence from you, the fabulous little people:
If you go weak in the knees anytime somebody uses the magic words "Looney Left," you'll love Delta Max president Robert Swanson's salty rejoinder to "Boys, girls and 9/11," my take on Susan Faludi's new book:
Why do some pundits yearn to seek "meaning" in an event beyond the obvious?
The USA was attacked by religious extremists who want to bring our country and culture down, nothing more nor less.
The most shocked among us were those to whom the idea of another culture hating ours simply because of who we are, goes against all of their idiotic Pollyanna platitudes that "...we are all the same...!"
In other words, the Multi-culturist, Citizen of Planet Earth, Looney lefties.
Regarding R. Stephen White's opinion, Nukes still work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, the point is not if renewable energy is intermittant. Obviously, it is. The point is that renewable energy is desirable and, arguably, nuclear energy isn't. In fact, one produces horribly toxic byproducts and the other doesn't. One mankind could use forever with few consequences, the other leaves perpetual poison. One is, potentially, available to everyone, the other is extremely expensive and, potentially, deadly. Take your pick.
David Sears
Robert Greene writes about the "Return of the Westside lefty" and everybody's favorite nun in the Federal Reserve says Amen:
It is refreshing and consoling to read Robert Greene's cogent and concise analysis of the "pragmatic-left development of Los Angeles on the part of builders and politicians pursuing complementary interest"
This may be the beginning of real down to earth housing.
Thank you!
Sister Diane Donoghue
Why will we miss the opinion stylings of Ronald Brownstein? Because he got people talking! In response to Brownstein's "Republicans run right," one reader appeals to a higher authority:
Enjoyed your article.
However, you are, once again, neglecting the importance of Family and Moral Values.
Conservatives have the formula for real peace in the world--"Listen to, and obey, the Word of God."
The Word of God emphasizes strong family and moral values--conservative values. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe in one God, the same ONE AND ONLY GOD; and all try to live up to these family and moral values. Many fail!
When they fail, they sin; and the wages of sin is death!
They fail when they tolerate, promote or commit the deadly, and equally abhorrent, sins of Abortion, Homosexuality, Euthanasia, and cold-blooded murder of innocents by means of terrorism. Unless we can all agree to stop all of these violent and atrocious sins, there will never be peace in the world.
This is why all Americans must, and will, make Family and Moral Values the most important issue in the Presidential Race of 2008.
Tom Balish
Another reader finds it is possible to be less popular than President Bush:
Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer for Guantanamo detainees, is surprised by how routine mistreatment has become:
I had a morning meeting scheduled with Sami Haj, the Al Jazeera
journalist, no more a terrorist than my grandmother.... On the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial, his patience
wore thin and he went on a hunger strike, the age-old peaceful protest
against injustice....
Sami's strike began 271 days ago. Medical ethics tell us that you
cannot force-feed a mentally competent hunger striker, as he has the
right to complain about his mistreatment, even unto death. But the
Pentagon knows that a prisoner starving himself to death would be
abysmal PR, so they force-feed Sami. As if that were not enough, when
Gen. Bantz J. Craddock headed up the U.S. Southern Command, he
announced that soldiers had started making hunger strikes less
"convenient." Rather than leave a feeding tube in place, they insert
and remove it twice a day. Have you ever pushed a 43-inch tube up your
nostril and down into your throat? Tonight, Sami will suffer that for
the 479th time.
Columnist Joel Stein considers a world turned upside down by global warming, making Ed Begley cool. Columnist Rosa Brooks congratulates the Bush Administration for finally discovering that diplomacy works. Contributing editor Bill Stall discusses the state's great unknown water giveaway.
The editorial board laments Vladimir Putin's intent to make himself prime minister of Russia, and notes that the iPhone's first upgrade rendered some devices into useless "iBricks". Finally, the board expresses dismay at arrest contests in the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
The editorial board welcomes back Homeboy Bakery, a gang outreach effort, eight years after a fire shut it down:
As the ribbon-cutting neared, young men and women scurried through the
building, pushing mops and polishing glass to the tune of a mariachi
band playing outside. Workers handed out gift certificates and programs
and showed off their new ovens, tattoos peeking out from beneath their
uniforms. The mood was festive -- the air wafting with a blend of
cleaning solution and freshly baked bread -- but with hints of tragedy.
Too many of those in attendance navigated in wheelchairs.
Homeboy
is mostly about work -- it thrives on the idea that "nothing stops a
bullet like a job" -- but Boyle's creation also rehabilitates its
clients with tattoo removal, counseling and classes.
The board wonders if making the death penalty more humane will actually encourage executions, and cautions Orange County against building a toll road through a state park and wildlife preserve.
Inter-American Dialogue's Daniel P. Erikson notes that Latin America--and especially Hugo Chavez--are giving Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a far warmer welcome than New York did. Contributing editor Max Boot says contractors may need more oversight but there's no getting rid of them in war. Cecil Fergerson, an L.A. Living Cultural Treasure, argues that an African American firm's art auction betrays its legacy and the community.
On the letters page, Chatsworth's David Holland reacts to presidential candidate John McCain's claims that the U.S. is a Christian country: "As an agnostic, I am not a part of McCain's 'Christian nation' and will
resist all efforts to make the United States a theocracy."
• The death of dead-tree media has not been greatly exaggerated, as yet another web-only feature — our Primary Source with Jack Cole and David Fleming discussing the failure of the war on drugs — grabs a spot in the hall of fame.
• You may score big numbers with immigration and affirmative action, but you can never go wrong making fun of Dan Rather.
Keep those cards, letters and clicks coming. Here are the numbers:
The schools involved are dozens of law schools in California and
elsewhere, and the program is the system of affirmative action that
enables hundreds of minority law students to attend more elite
institutions than their credentials alone would allow. Data from across
the country suggest to some researchers that when law students attend
schools where their credentials (including LSAT scores and college
grades) are much lower than the median at the school, they actually
learn less, are less likely to graduate and are nearly twice as likely
to fail the bar exam than they would have been had they gone to less
elite schools. This is known as the "mismatch effect."
The mismatch theory is controversial.
Former New York Times correspondent Barbara Crossette says that while industrialized nations worry about their declining populations, developing countries face a bigger problem -- uncontrolled growth. Columnist Ronald Brownstein wonders if Bush will veto a bill to expand kids' health insurance, which was once a priority of the president's.
The editorial board says speeches at the U.N. by Bush and other leaders revealed that the new big debate in the world is between liberty and inequality. The board also asks Gov. Schwarzenegger to save the condor instead of pandering to the gun lobby, and argues that companies should have to ask consent before selling customer data.
Letter writers react to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches and the editorial board claim that the audience was rightly laughing at him, not with him. Santa Monica's Edward Singer says, "There is no humor when a leader who has the power, means and intent to
bring about evil speaks. Both Columbia University and your editorial
board need to grow up."
The editorial board thinks up a few ways to spend what another year in Iraq will cost:
How about spending $20 billion on anti-poverty and education programs in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, to give the population a reason to fight the Taliban? Or distributing $20 billion in emergency support to impoverished Iraqi families? Wouldn't $10 billion help repatriate the 2 million Iraqi refugees abroad and resettle the 2 million inside Iraq who have fled sectarian violence? Would $10 billion for child-health programs in Islamic nations help demonstrate that Americans are not, in fact, at war with Muslims?
The board asks what a new study that says liberals are more adaptable means for people who switch sides. And finally the board thinks L.A. students should have a wide choice of electives instead of doing teachers' chores for credit.
Columnist Ronald Brownstein says Washington needs to change its partisan style before asking Iraqis to learn to compromise and reconcile. The Humane Society's Michael Markarian praises soccer star David Beckham for wearing synthetic cleats instead of kangaroo leather ones. Writer Richard A. Viguerie and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) both write about choosing an attorney general.
Readers react to Gen. David H. Petraeus' report to Congress. Los Angeles' Doug Wichert says, "War is still too important to be left to the generals."
Now that's some true Native American warrior skills. It must take generations of ancient lore, tribal wisdom and manly virtues to be able to kill a whale -- with a .50 caliber machine gun.
Don't be surprised if someone trots out a cultural defense argument, along the lines that if machine guns had been around 200 years ago, the Makah would have killed whales with them, so why not now?
People tried some to mount a sort of cultural defense for Michael Vick's repugnant hobby, as if torturing and killing dogs has some anthropological value. Whoopi Goldberg recently came to Vick's defense, claiming that where he comes from -- the South -- "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country." That sounds especially creepy when you remember that about 150 years ago, the same part of the country -- the South -- was passionately defending its "peculiar institution" ... that little cultural quirk known as slavery.
Members of the Makah tribe are allowed to hunt California gray whales for cultural purposes. But as the man with the National Marine Fisheries said, the recent machine gunning and harpooning of this whale off Washington State, apparently by tribal members, " ... does not appear to be of that nature ... "
to extend health benefits to more than 2,300 part-time cafeteria workers at an estimated annual cost of $35.5 million.
The move came over warnings from staff and Supt. David L. Brewer that no money was budgeted to pay for the benefits.
It also came over the objection of both the Editorial Board ("The district's budget is already in trouble, and neither the board nor administrators know where to find this money") and op-edder/LAUSD parent L.J. Williamson, who made a similar argument:
Part-time food service employees are seeking the same health benefits -- including coverage for their families -- that their full-time counterparts enjoy. Extending these benefits to cafeteria staff who currently work only three hours a day would cost an estimated $40 million a year, according to school board calculations. [...]
This is fat that the food service's too-lean budget simply doesn't have. If health benefits were extended to these part-time workers, the CFPA estimates it would mean that the per-plate meal budget would be reduced from 85 cents to 49 cents. Making healthy food available for that amount would take a miracle of biblical proportions. So we'd be improving the healthcare of nearly 2,000 part-time workers at the expense of the 500,000 children who eat in public school cafeterias every day.
But lefty bloggers, beginning with an uncharacteristically ranty Kevin Drum, smelled a heartless rat:
I would happily pay for universal healthcare just so I never had to read an op-ed like this again. It's not that Williamson doesn't have a point, it's just that this beggar-thy-neighbor attitude is enough to make me retch, and I see it all the time. I don't get dental coverage, so why should grocery workers? My copay went up last year, so why shouldn't everyone else's? I don't pay for healthcare for my housecleaners, so why should I pay it for school cafeteria workers? Our wretched private healthcare system has turned us into a nation of spiteful and small-minded misanthropes.
It's true that the growing gap between public workers and private workers is a real problem. In the past, there was something of a tradeoff: public sector workers generally got paid less than private sector workers but made up for it with job security and benefits. Today, though, public workers generally get higher salaries and better benefits and more vacation and earlier retirement and more lucrative pension packages compared to comparable private sector workers. And private sector workers are understandably annoyed by this. But their annoyance would be better directed not at the lucky public sector workers, but at the mahogany row executives and conservative politicians who pretend that the only possible use for the mountains of cash generated by decades of economic growth is to give it all to mahogany row executives and the billionaires who contribute to conservative politicians.
More where that came from, and a bit of a response, after the jump.
The editorial board deconstructs the Vietnam analogy in President Bush's latest Iraq speech:
The president's Vietnam-Iraq analogy begins with a large kernel of truth, but goes astray. First, no serious Iraq expert believes U.S. withdrawal would end the killing.... It's true that millions of Iraqi civilians have already paid a terrible price and may suffer even more as fighting may well worsen after a U.S. withdrawal -- whenever that occurs. But it seems equally clear that the civil war cannot be suppressed indefinitely unless the U.S. plans to occupy the country for decades. Killing fields? Iraq's already got them: A dozen or two corpses are found dumped in the streets each morning, and bombs go off daily. Boat people? Two million Iraqis have already fled the country, and perhaps 50,000 more leave each month. Could it get worse? Absolutely.
The board also explains how California's budget battle ended up helping the environment, and what Congress can do to stop Bush from cheating poor kids from having expanded health insurance coverage.
Newt Gingrich challenges presidential candidates to debate in the traditional Lincoln-Douglas way: with no rules or moderation. Contributing editor Arianna Huffington probes deeper into Utah's mining disaster. University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone asks if hate crimes legislation makes it impossible to preach that homosexuality is a sin. And columnist Patt Morrison tells the story of Chauncey Bailey, who, like Daniel Pearl, was killed for what he did for a living.
Readers react to The Times' homocide reporting. Jackson K. Eskew of Norwalk asks, "Why depersonalize murder? Is The Times now so captive to the tyranny of political correctness that it can no longer face reality because that harsh reality might offend many?"
Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.
What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up....
The editorial board calls Vice President Dick Cheney to task for contempt, and says it's high time to fix runways at LAX. The board also encourages Hollywood studios to let consumers decide between video formats Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Readers react to a Column One about a cruel trend of killing farm animals for fun, and getting a slap on the wrist. Hiram, Ga.'s Michelle Shamasneh notes, "Despite our carnivorous desensitization to the suffering of these animals, the violence that they should have to face needs to have clear legal limits."
They call themselves sexual revolutionaries, but that might be something of a misnomer: In their world, abstinence is the order of the day and female virtue is the best way to ensure female safety.
The faith-based website purefashion.com, which encourages teen girls to "live the virtues of modesty and purity," instructs young women to be "helpful at home . . . obedient and happy." What's troubling about this language is how neatly it anticipates the findings of a Yale University study showing that men who get angry in the workplace are admired, while women who express displeasure are seen as "out of control." So much for the idea that well-behaved women rarely make history. Apparently, it's far more important for girls to make nice....
Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that conservatives will make a comeback online when liberals are in power. Author Nic Dunlop assesses what a former Khmer Rouge figure's indictment means for Cambodia. And public relations consultant Jon Harmon comments on the crisis communication skills of mining company CEO Robert E. Murray during the Utah disaster.
The editorial board praises the Federal Reserve for worrying about Main Street instead of just Wall Street, and reemphasizes that Congress is going to have to repair its own FISA fix. But, the board acknowleges, Congress, or at least the House, did do well to remove a subsidy for loggers in Alaska.
Readers react to California's budget delay. Culver City's Linda Winters suggests: "In the future, every obstructionist legislator should be fined $1,000 every day he holds up the budget...."
For Pol Pot, it was Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall," the single from the album of the same name. They say that when he was in an especially good mood, Pot (Polly-O to his friends) would phone colleagues -- sometimes total strangers -- saying only, in a high-pitched whisper, "Tonight, gotta leave the 9 to 5 up on a shelf and just enjoy yourself . Groove. Let the madness and the music get to you. Life ain't so bad at all if you live it off the wall." Then hang up.
Columnist Patt Morrison discusses city efforts to stop letting trashed styrofoam pile up, and author Kirkpatrick Sale marks the 200th anniversary of the steamboat journey that started the age of steam. Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky says California must reject the U.S. attorney general's attempt to hasten executions.
Readers comment on Karl Rove's departure. Santa Barbara's Rod Hersberger says, "The real shame, though, is that all these voters were gullible enough to fall for his brand of trickery."
Times' national correspondent Stephen Braun thinks the U.S. shouldn't have enlisted a notorious arms dealer in its Iraq effort:
Consider the case of one particular bad guy, Viktor Bout -- a stout, canny Russian air transporter who also happens to be the world's most notorious arms dealer.
When the U.S. government needed to fly four planeloads of seized weapons from an American base in Bosnia to Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in August 2004, they used a Moldovan air cargo firm tied to Bout's aviation empire. The problem is that the planes apparently never arrived....
The missing Bosnian weapons could simply be a paperwork problem (and it's not certain that they are among the missing weapons the GAO discovered; they may be an additional loss). But Bout's involvement as the transporter raises bleak possibilities far beyond bureaucratic error -- including the possibility that the arms were diverted to another country or to Iraqi insurgents killing American troops.
Geoff McKee, a clinical professor of neuropsychiatry, explains "pregnancy denial," the affliction that may explain why some women kill their newborns. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez explores what a new study by social scientist Robert Putnam means for diversity.
The editorial board wonders why city officials don't practice what they preach when it comes to water conservation. The board also argues for wider availability of experimental drugs for the terminally ill, and asks Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop trying to prevent the sale of violent video games to minors.
USC's Josh Kun hails the arrival of Starbucks in Tijuana:
Unlike other Mexican cities where Starbucks has outposts (Puebla, Toluca and even Mexico City), the presence of U.S. culture in Tijuana is nothing new. TVs and radios pick up English-language broadcasts from San Diego, and it's not tourists shopping at the local Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Indeed, the first Tijuana Starbucks is housed in a former Pizza Hut, right in front of a statue of beloved hero of Mexican independence, José María Morelos y Pavón. It's a prime corner in the bustling Zona Rio commercial district, across the street from the massive luxury gym Sports World ($120 a month), where the coffee chain's opening was the buzz of treadmills and Pilates classes all last week.
So why are so many Tijuana locals riled up about Starbucks?
Former Times reporter David Smollar notes today's anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Lewis & Clark Law School's Robert J. Miller explores how countries lay claim to new territory, as Russia did by planting a flag and a capsule in the Arctic Ocean. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders if Internet shaming means everyone can be Big Brother.
The editorial board praises a court's decision to invalidate Hazelton, Penn.'s harsh anti-illegal immigrant laws while decrying a panel's decision to raise some school board salaries and keep others the same. And editorial writer Dan Turner offers his take on the Getty antiquities.
Letter writers aren't pleased with USC's decision to sell a historic parcel of land. North Hollywood's Zsa Zsa Gershick, a USC alum, notes, "That the school 'cannot find a proper use for the property' is lame and unimaginative. How about using the ranch as a site for its popular cinema school summer intensives, which draw students from around the world? "
From beautiful Butler County, PA (home of the Living Dead!), David Brown invokes Godwin's Law in his very first paragraph and presumes that the Dust-Up appears in the print paper (if only, David, if only) but still manages to write a really entertaining and thought-provoking letter:
Dear editor,
I realize that the ultimate point of the "Dust-up" section of your editorial page is not to enlighten anyone, but instead to create straw-man collisions of controversy in the hopes of hustling a couple of newspapers. Goebbels would have been truly grateful for the free publicity you would have provided for the Reich. I can see it now: "Jews: Too pushy for their own good?" "Mormons: Polygamist freaks of nature?" But I digress...
I want the removal of marriage from all laws immediately. As a homosexual, I don't want "equality" with non-homos because their structures and habits disgust and bore me. I don't want them to have their "special rights" anymore. Marriage should truly be for churches and other social structures, not government.
We have enough people on planet earth and don't need to reward people for blind procreation (just because "they can") or marriage for that matter. We hear so much whining from the righteous ones about how their precious existences are somehow in jeopardy just because people like me breathe the same smog and drink the same polluted filth from the tap they do. In fact, they need to have all of their so-called "inalienable rights" removed immediately so we can all taste the same bitterness.
Every section of the tax and legal code that refers to married people in some kind of different light from the rest of us should be disconnected. Do away with legal marriage, divorce and sharing of assets. No more "special" visitation rights at the hospital. No more tax breaks for dumping out more children, or for marrying in the first place. Nada, zippo, zilch.
Marriage was a religious institution for millenia before all these "special interest" groups got involved, and it should be returned to that status. Let's deny them the ammunition for their bigotry today, not tomorrow. How interesting that so many of these wanna-be moral dictators talk out of one side of their mouths about doing away with big government, and out of the other when the privileges and breaks go their way and they want to maintain not parity but superiority.
A.S. Hamrah asks why the White House's torture policies sound sexually perverse:
In April, former CIA Director George Tenet appeared on "60 Minutes," telling interviewer Scott Pelley -- between swigs from a tiny bottle of Evian and his insistent, repetitive bark that "we don't torture people" -- that the reason he has never personally seen the evidence of the interrogation techniques he refuses to talk about is because he is "not a voyeur."
Tenet's reference to voyeurism -- which the dictionary defines as "the practice of obtaining sexual gratification by looking at sexual objects or acts, especially secretly" -- would seem to imply that these unmentionable techniques are sexual in nature and therefore inappropriate. But Tenet can never know if that's the case because he, not being a voyeur, claims never to have seen them. So why bring up voyeurism at all?
Colby College's Paul Josephson says the nuclear industry has never proved itself, and columnist Niall Ferguson thinks Malthusian theory is set to make a come back, thanks to global population growth and dwindling resources. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders why academia nurtures less-than-objective scholars like Ward Churchill.
Letter writers take issue with Democrats' abortion stance. Los Angeles's Margaret Daugherty says, "For more than a generation, Democrats have stood for the principle that personal reproductive choices are not the business of government. Shame on any candidate who discards this principle purely to grub a few more votes."
You, the FLP, continue to shower us with white-hot reactions to our Opinion Dailies:
Michael McGough's "Unions labeled" draws a flinty rejoinder from a man of the cloth in Chatsworth, CA:
Sir:
Michael McGough writes in "Unions Labeled" that the Employee Free Choice Act would ". . . give unions an unfair--one might even say un-American--advantage." Implicit in this statement is that unions and employers are on a level playing field.
The number of union-affiliated employed workers has fallen from one-third in 1945 to 14 percent in 1998. Although there are many suggestions for the decline, employer anti-union tactics--often illegal--have included: firing union activists, captive indoctrination of workers, showing anti-union videos, intimidating supervisor one-on-one meetings with workers, bribing of workers, open or veiled threats to close the business or facility, and actively supporting anti-union committees of workers. These tactics typically are designed, promoted, and managed by a growth-industry of high-powered anti-union consultants.
The facts are well-documented: the playing field is not level, and organized employer opposition to unions is the principal explanation for the decline in union membership. Much of this is true because of the incredible weakness of U.S. labor law and NLRB practices. Given this scenario, it's hardly unfair--or un-American!--to allow unions an advantage that would barely begin to level the playing field.
I block any bad content. I just wish also that they get a dedicated fm channel. Even NPR overpowers them. Regular radio needs only one FM station just one not 2.
This article is a sad statement on the perverse and tortured logic that guides the thinking of the press. All deaths caused by terrorists are lamentable. The cost to society in the lost potential of those lives is incalculable. However, to pretend that the information gap is caused by the deaths of reporters is simply journalistic narcissism in its most dangerous and deceptive form.
The true cause of the information gap in the United States and throughout the world is not the deaths of reporters on the front line in war zones. The information gap is caused by the death of integrity in the reporters and editors in the news rooms thousands of miles behind the front the lines. It is the fallacious concept that the newspeople have the ability and the duty to shape the news that is responsible for the information gap.
The article refers to reporters asking impertinent questions of those in power as if this is an everyday occurrence. The problem is that the media only questions those in power who disagree with their predetermined story line. The public needs and deserves a media that will step back and report the story without the bias and backhanded remarks of the enlightened journalists.
War is tragic and its toll in lost lives and suffering is enormous. The only thing worse than having to fight a war against terrorists and fascists, be they Islamic, Nazi or any others, is to lose that war because the media undermined the Nation's will to win through its biased, one sided portrayal of the issues. That is the only thing that can truly render the sacrifice and suffering of all the victims of this war meaningless.
Patrick D. Clonan Police Advisor, Herat, Afghanistan
...while a reader in our nation's capital sees ominous similarities between being killed in Iraq and paid by Rupert Murdoch:
There are many disturbing points made in this article. All made me cringe for the horror of possibilities.
As I read this I also thought of Rupert Murdoch’s probable takeover of Dow Jones. The imminent launch of Fox News Channel?! Where can you find the highly-regarded news sources (of the near-future)? We seem to be racing toward a global society where pertinent, objective, reliable information will be available to fewer and fewer people—if it can be found (and recognized).
Is there anyplace left where the determination or the essential aspect is ruled by something other than the ability of the highest bidder?
DJH in Washington D.C.
Finally, the eternal revolutionaries come out to denounce my own "Semper Fidel." Larry Maxcy provides some biting wit:
Hi,
You have to admit that Fidel and Hugo have quite a bit in common. The United States has failed on multiple occasions to kill them. I imagine this promotes a certain camaraderie.
All best,
Larry Maxcy
From Belize, bestselling author Cervantes sets quill to paper:
Dear Mr. Tim Cavanaugh,
I believe that the system that has not worked is the system that shamelessly left many poor and black people in New Orleans homeless and left to die like animals after hurricane Katrina. Fidel's system has succeeded in giving every citizen of Cuba dignity and a decent life as human beings for almost 50 years consistently. Of course, Fidel's system is very unlike the American capitalist system in which only a tiny portion of the population enjoy and control the greater mass of the wealth of a nation. Katrina exposed the American system for what it is in its raw form. And we, the whole world, saw it disappointedly and dejectedly.
People like Chavez, Morales and Correa are rightfully looking to Fidel for guidance because the his system puts the welfare of the society first, over the welfare of just one or a few privileged individuals. The American system is based on money and the accumulation of wealth regardless of who is stepped on or at whose expense, as long as the victim is not an American. America follows the doctrine of arrogance through power and right through might. It is there for everyone to see.
Fortunately, the people in Latin America have realized that while they were being blinded by the glitters of the promised wealth through the capitalist system, they were being robbed of their nation's wealth and intelligence by the empire and its local collaborators. Please realize that when you speak of Hugo Chavez, you are speaking of man that is democratically supported by the popular will of 2/3 of Venezuela's population and a man that as fairly won about 8 elections and referendums in 8 years, so unlike George Bush and Felipe Calderon, who both had to cook and concoct many questionable deeds to beat Al Gore and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively.
Definitely, you, nor anyone high up in Washington, cannot deny the fact that those same leftists, that you criticize for investing the nation's wealth back into the development of its citizens, have the overwhelming support of the people of their nations. After all, is this not true democracy? The only thing wrong with these true democracies is that the fair and open democratic process did not deliver the preferred outcomes and results that the empire so much desired.
The people are speaking. You must listen to us. Any other way is definitely anti-democratic.
Sincerely,
Ramon Cervantes Belize
And from the great white north, Heather manages to bring the subject around to why Canadians are better than Americans:
I was in Cuba three times in the past year Tim. How many times have you been there? I cycled from Santiago to Havana, three quarters of the island. How much of Cuba have you really seen up close, Tim? How many real, everyday Cubans have you been able to speak with at length? Get their heartfelt views, etc. That sort of thing.
You didn't mean Canada in your reference to the "Cream of the Global Left", did you? After all, we have stayed friends and invested in that brave little country these past 50 years or so." Google " Ian Delaney's recent comments about how much more money Sherritt International is going to invest there in the near future. Course he isn't allowed in the United States due to the Helms Burton Law. He says it hasn't produced a dent in his lifestyle. Some of us non-americans just have this chip on our shoulder about other nations trying to tell us who we can associate or do business with. Go figure.
Want to know what is always surprising to most of your "socialist neighbours" up here in Canada? ( Yikes! We even have universal health care here, just like the Castro Regime!) It's when you watch some television show and they are interviewing americans, and the interview subject says something like " I just don't know why the world is so angry at the United States...why bad things like 911 happened. We americans are good people...", etc., etc. No one wishes bad things to happen. But anwser me this:
We in other countries just wonder why the average american, with a reasonable level of intelligence does not see what the rest of the world sees: that your government is run by big business and lobby groups like those folks down in Miami Dade who sponsor terrorism themselves. You can make all the jokes about Fidel you want. He will pass on one day. When he does the world will show their respect at his funeral. No one from the US government had better dare show theirs.
Heather Canada
That's it for this installment. Keep those cards and letters coming!
Was Farfur, the Hamas TV Mickey Mouse ripoff immortalized in story and song by the L.A. Times, just a piece of Mr. Mike's Mondo Video-type performance art all along? Take a look at the tragic final hours of the Pioneers of Tomorrow mascot and you won't be so sure.
Now I'm not saying that the death of Farfur has been faked, but the production value on this thing, which plays like a mutant offspring of Pink Flamingos and Mrs. Falbo's Tiny Town, doesn't make a very persuasive case for the official Hamas story that the squeaky-voiced spokesmouse was killed by an Israeli torturer while defending the land entrusted to him by his 12-year-old "grandfather." That the Israeli torturer looks suspiciously like some Beirut club kid makes the whole thing as hard to swallow as a knockoff Mini Mickey cheese blintz served at GazaDisney. It's just pretty hard to believe this thing isn't a crude prank, is all I'm saying.
Because the only other alternative is that good folks of Hamas are not just terrorists; they're seriously weird terrorists. And when Farfur gets his 72 Minnie Mice in heaven, he's going to be pretty disappointed to learn what the rest of us have always known—that Minnie hasn't been a virgin for a long, long time.
Writer John Kenney pens the Paris Hilton prison diaries in today's op-ed pages:
Gandhi went to prison. So did Martin Luther King Jr. So did Robert Downey Jr. and Martha Stewart Jr. and I think Nelson Mandela Jr. Mandela was imprisoned for, like, 50 years or something for being black and also for driving an uninsured vehicle, if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly. Nicky often mentions me and Gandhi and how incredibly thin we both are and how she wonders if he used bronzer.
On the letters page, see what three Southern Californians think of regional officials' plan to ban wood-burning fireplaces. Jeff Camp, for one, asks, "What's next? Banning barbecues in the summer?"
This week's dust-up on police disciplinary hearings continues as lawyers Kelli L. Sager and Alison Berry Wilkinson debate state Sen. Gloria Romero's bill to open hearings.
And two blowbacks respond to a previous blowback: Lou Cannon writes in response to what he calls a "compendium of falsehoods and innuendos," and former Santa Barbara News-Press editor Jerry Roberts laments his old paper's declining sense of ethics.
We had Democratic Delaware Senator and perennial presidential longshot Joe Biden into the Editorial Board the other day, to talk largely about Iraq and the state of his campaign. At the very end of the meeting, we asked about the enduringly controversialSenate resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide. Here's how the conversation went:
Times: Do you have a view on the Armenian genocide resolution?
Biden: Yeah -- I'm the guy that originally introduced it years ago. And it is a very difficult time to re-introduce it again; it's been reintroduced again by Durbin, and I support it. And the reason is simple: I have found in my experience that you cannot have a solid relationship with a country based on fiction. It occurred. It occured.
And to continue with this fiction that it never occurred -- let's shove it down their throats, that it never occurred -- means that you never get to the place where you have a relationship based on a factual set of norms. And they've got to get over it.
Times: Do you think it'll pass?
Biden: Uh, probably not. I support it; Dole and I used to be the ones that carried it for years, it was the Dole-Biden initiative, and it is one of those things that right now, I have very serious staff. My staff says, "You sure you want to do this, Senator? Because look at the circumstance right now, with Gul being denied the presidency [...] and a real nervousness out there that the Army may very well take over. [...]
My view is, it's the same way I think we oughtta be dealing with Russia and every other country: If you want to be a member of the international community in good standing, it's got to be based upon historical fact. You can't pretend. And we've allowed Putin lately to pretend, and we're gonna pay a hell of a price for it. We have not in the last six years made clear that we want you part of Europe, we want you part of us, but there are certain basic ground rules.
It's one thing when Islamic militants conspire in Jersey City, but when they get all the way down to Burlington County, nobody is safe. The Trentonian, my favorite New Jersey newspaper, runs an alert as Fort Dix military base adjusts to news that a group of alleged Islamists planned to shoot the old place up in what sounds like a fairly crackpot scheme. The Washington Post has some details:
Greg Reinert, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, said that four of the men are from Albania, one is from Jordan and one is from Turkey...
The suspects had been discussing the plot during the past year and had gone as far as conducting training in the Pocono mountains, WNBC reported on its Web site.
Before settling on Fort Dix, the group had scouted several other possible military targets, the station said, including the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and New Jersey's Fort Monmouth.
As a South Jersey story, this one has it all: pine barrens, Cherry Hill and a pizza-delivery angle. It's with mingled gladness and dismay that I learn the sylvan Army base is not—as I'd thought years ago—closed, but still lingering like its neighbors McGuire Air Force Base and Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station. Indeed, in the most densely populated state in the Union, Dix provides a capacious 10 acres per employee. How half a dozen alleged attackers thought they could launch a serious attack on such a large tract is an open question. Fortunately, the assault on Fort Dix remains in the realm of the hypothetical.
Protesters waved Iraqi flags as they marched in Najaf, south of Baghdad, to demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Event security was handled by Iraqi troops and police officers, and there were no reports of violence.
(The California version of the print edition, by the way, reads "Iraqis tore an American flag at a protest rally in Najaf called by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr on the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall.")
So, the other night in Skid Row a guy points a handgun in the general direction of my brains and yells "BOOM!! BOOM!!" And then the story really gets weird.
LA Weeklysprays one last gallon of water on the dying coals of the Tennie Pierce/LAFD/dog food scandal. If you followed the original story—or even the voluminouscriticisms of the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the story—there won't be much new here, but it's a pretty effective dismantling of Pierce's case and the city government's aborted $2.7 million settlement. Special mention is given to attorney Genie Harrison's OpEd for the Times. The common story that Pierce's alleged harrassers were "all white" also gets taken apart, and there's some nicely detailed play-by-play with unimpressed expert witnesses and less-than-forthcoming city council members.
But the takeaway for me was the whole irrepressible hazing culture of the Fire Department. Maybe it's just because I'm generally creeped out by people who make a big deal about rites of passage. But I have not been stinting in my praise for the LAFD in the past, and I'm open to the argument that effective public safety might require all sorts of weird group dynamics. Still, these are not young men we're talking about, and they're playing a bunch of little pansy pranks on each other. The whole thing is just really...off in a way that isn't helped by one of the many photos the anti-Piercians have dug up, showing the Big Dog and his male camaradoes on some Cabo road trip of yore, doing their best impressions of Lt. Jim Dangle:
First it lost Sonni Efron. Then it infuriated the Iranians. Now last week's box office hit 300 (which I still think is called Zoo when I look at the poster) has brought a strongly worded letter from reader John H. Handy, who takes issue with Efron's thumbs-down:
I must have sat in a different theater then Sonni Efron, and perhaps read different history as well. I recall Xerxes not being well regarded for his benevolence and I doubt (Ms?) Efron spilt much ink in complaining about much more gruesome fare such as Saw 1 - 3 or other slasher flicks. The problem with "300" is not the oft cited gore, but the sacrifice. Ticket buying Americans instinctively understood the message - certain things are worth fighting for, such as freedom. 300 Spartans stood firm and all died but they bought time for others to come to their senses. In the marketplace of ideas, this film soared because the American public understands sacrifice for a worthy cause. Unlike your reviewer, our general public always respects those who fight and sometimes die for freedom, ours and others. As with the film's not very subtle message, pundits, critics and the press have universally misread the 2006 election. Americans have never shied away from sacrifice, but they will not abide ingratitude. Do Americans want to abandon Iraq because of our sacrifice? No - we are ready to quit the fight because of their ingratitude. Just as we will never again defend France, why we quit Lebanon and Somalia, and why we may soon cut Iraq adrift. That is the message of the election.
Leaving aside whether Sparta could be called free as Americans understand the term (and in fact leaving aside the countless historical examples of people who fought just as hard or harder against freedom), I've been puzzling like Columbo over just what the 300 version of the UCMJ entails. Call me a deep-denial projection case, but since Handy writes to us from a .mil address and the issue has been back in the news lately, I can't help noting that there's something a bit don't ask don't tell in the advertising iconography of this movie. I won't see 300 because 1) I refuse to watch any more shakycam pictures and 2) any director who'd desecrate the sainted memory of Dawn of the Dead with a fast-moving, angle-cheating remake deserves never to have another one of his movies seen. But clearly Zack Snyder isn't the first man to go gaga for Spartan hunks wearing the emperor's new clothes, as this detail from Jacques-Louis David makes clear.
A critic at AintItCoolNews, who true to that site's form goes to considerable lengths to establish his bona fides as a one-handed heterosexual, hints at the naked truth. While he enthusiastically praises 300 as the movie that "will probably be the King of 2007 unless someone makes a movie where a pair of sentient boobs fights a werewolf," reviewer Neil Cumpston points to one "Not so good thing":
Zack Snyder's Spartan gore-fest "300" made over $70 million on its opening weekend, a record for a March release, and has found fansfarandwide. Editorial board member Sonni Efron already raised her concerns about the film's fetishistic, beautified violence and now Iran is playing the "cultural aggression" card. Sticking up for Iran's Persian forebears, the Islamic Republic News Agency--Iran's official mouthpiece--argues that the film fabricates history. But IRNA clearly has no problem with the grotesque violence, since it makes sure to include this tidbit:
The movie has fabricated the history with depicting a war between Iran and Greece, whereas, no Greek king dared to stand up to the Persian Empire or the Emperor Xerxes. Though Sparta's King Leonidas cherished such a dream, but, he lost his head and Iranian fighters threw his head before Emperor Xerxes's feet and told him that he had attempted a suicide attack to Persian Army.
The IRNA promised that Iran's culture makers would respond in kind, so I assume we can expect a bloodthirsty refashioning of the Thermopylae battle--a multinational version of Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima"/"Flags of our Fathers" duology but with more guts and fewer facts. Pass the popcorn!
For those of you who tired of eco-tourism when it became the pastime of ditzy celebrities on MTV, there's a new vacation trend. The New York Times reported last week that a Mexican organization takes intrepid travelers on a mock illegal border crossing -- including faked police chases and tour guides who have actually crossed the border -- for the low price of $18.
But Russia really seems to be the epicenter of extreme tourism. Be a Volga boatman for a day, or get bullied by request at an army boot camp. One mayor wants you to visit his gulag for $150 or so a night (though you can suffer for less in neighboring Latvia, where a night in a KGB prison camp is about $20). If shadow-puppeting the travails of those who lived and died under Soviet repression makes a faux flight across the Rio Grande seem like harmless fun, keep in mind a policy brief released this month by the University of Arizona. It argues that the border gets deadlier with each new enforcement effort, since it "funnels" immigrants to the most dangerous routes.
Offensive or not, Americans could cash in on the burgeoning freako-tourism industry. Perhaps a faked extraordinary rendition? One way flights only, of course.
Want to see your tax dollars at work, in a demonstration more incandescantly revealing than the light of a thousand suns? Get out there and find an uncut video of Saddam Hussein's execution, which looks like nothing so much as a gang killing befitting the legendary Godfather fanatic. (On the off-chance killing of Saddam finally eliminates the Godfather pictures as a cultural touchstone, it will all have been worth it.) After all the blood and treasure we've spent in Iraq, this is the most professional job we can get? The ski-masked hangmen, according to one eyewitness, danced around the corpse. Remember: These are the good guys doing the killing here.
No Rocky Sullivan waterworks for the bully of Baghdad, by the way. Saddam takes it like a man for the duration of the ordeal available here. I just wish we could see the whole thing. At times like these I wish for Arab TV news, which knows no coyness when it comes to delivering grisly death. I also wish our own state-sponsored killing were done with this kind of brio. The more we dress up execution with humane cocktails of poison and gas, the more horrific it is revealed to be. Our own executions could stand a little more honesty about the sacrament of human sacrifice and everything that it entails.
Praise Allah for the pre-Copernican Islamic holiday calendar, which by divine accident means we may get a Saddam-free 2007. The imperative to get the ugly business of killing a man over with before the haj really heats up has spared all of us a Mumia-style limbo of pleas and appeals that might have dragged on well into President McCain's first term. Specifically, Eid-al-Adha (which ironically celebrates Abraham's narrowly averted sacrifice) is dawning over Iraq right now, and Saddam Hussein's execution is scheduled to come off in the early morning hours—bad news for Saddam, for those of us who believe the state should use a minimum of force to protect its citizens, and for Jerry Haleva (pictured at right), Hollywood's Saddam of record. (He's played the doomed dictator in six films.)
It's a customary copout at times like these to note that, well, we're opposed to the death penalty, but in this case we'll make an exception. Another factor in favor of the copout is that an execution backed by the full faith and fanfare of the state may contribute in some small way to stability in Iraq (or do just the opposite, or most likely have no effect at all). But let's dispense with the copout: State-sponsored execution is a loathsome, outdated practice that tarnishes everybody connected with it—including the citizens who approve it through their participation in the workings of the state. It would have set a greater example for Iraq and for the world to let him rot in prison, his signal (already grown so faint after just three years) fading into oblivion.
Is the great za'im of Tikrit even now conferring with some Father Jerry counterpart, an old friend and cleric trying to persuade him to go to the gallows bawling like a yellow coward, so that kids may learn from his example and stick to the straight and narrow path? Unlikely, but tales of Saddam's behavior in his final moments will almost certainly be with us for many years—even if the Iraqi government makes public its promised snuff videotape. Maybe the most regrettable thing about the execution is that it re-dignifies Saddam Hussein as somebody important enough to kill. For the millions of survivors of Saddam's victims in the three gulf wars and the bloody maintenance of his 24-year reign, that importance was never in doubt, and I hope they get some comfort from his end. But Iraq has had few enough examples of living former leaders that it's too bad the courts have ignored the wisdom of James T. Kirk: "The problem with the Nazis...wasn't simply that their leaders were evil, psychotic men—they were!—but the main problem, I think, was the Leader Principle."
Will the Leader Principle (which for my money is too strong everywhere at all times, but is particularly pronounced in Saddam's little corner of the world) lose some strength from the spectacle of a bloodthirsty tinpot swinging from a rope? I'd doubt it. People love their strong men—including, as it turns out, many fair-weather supporters of the Iraq war, who now welcome the prospect of building up some new sub-Hussein tyrant to enforce a cold peace in Baghdad. This is the kind of mad logic that results when we measure out our progress in the termination of human lives.
AP reports
