Opinion: In today’s pages: Ahmadinejad at Columbia, Rudy at the NRA, a year without China
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Sara Bongiorni tells what it’s like to boycott Chinese goods for a year:
China makes 56% of the household kitchen appliances, such as toasters, 86% of the lamps and 80% of the luggage imported into the country, according to 2006 U.S. International Trade Commission figures. The commission may have found that only 56% of small appliances were imported from China, yet when I scoured the store shelves for an ordinary coffee maker, I couldn’t find one that wasn’t. During our yearlong boycott, those numbers translated into futile searches for birthday candles, flip-flops and cheap sunglasses. The boycott rearranged our lives in little ways. We boiled water and poured it into a filter over mugs after our coffee maker quit and we couldn’t find an affordable non-Chinese alternative. The kitchen junk drawer was jammed shut all year because the part to fix it was made in China. We found the words ‘Made in China’ in unexpected places, such as on a box of discount candy canes and on wedding dresses in the J. Crew catalog.
Jonah Goldberg dissects Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to pander to the National Rifle Association. Jamie Court of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights thinks mandatory health insurance isn’t true reform. And Georgetown University’s David I. Steinberg parses the latest protests in Burma.
The editorial board is all for letting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak at Columbia University because he’s his own worst enemy. The board praises San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders for his change of heart on same sex marriage, and notes that a congressional hearing on rap is only going to give the genre more credibility than it deserves.
Readers think Israel should try for peace. Benjamin Solomon of Evanston, Ill. puts it in context: ‘Israel has gained a valuable slice of the West Bank but at the cost of the intensified hostility of the region and the impossibility of attaining peace.’