Category: Uncategorized

Wherein Michael Ledeen reveals how out of touch he is:

WHERE’S THE MEDIA? [Michael Ledeen]

In March, 2004, nearly two hundred people were killed and hundreds more wounded in suicide attacks on the occasion of the Ashurah, the holiest day in the Shi’ite calendar. The disaster led the news. last year Karbala was relatively calm, but there were bombings in Baghdad. Again, big news. This year, millions of people filled the streets of Karbala, and there was no violence. And Baghdad was also pretty calm. You might think this was newsworthy, but of course you’d be wrong. And you know why the MSM did not compare this year’s celebration with those of the recent past: the comparison would have suggested progress, and that’s taboo. Better to focus on Cheney’s TV preferences.

Or perhaps they are paying attention to how our Afghan-installed government is flirting with the idea of killing a man for the crime of worshipping Jesus Christ. Ledeen is looking forward to Iran while the rest of the West is looking with horror at Afghanistan and Palestine and wondering why on Earth anyone listened to the insane neocon theory about how democracy would save the Middle East.

From the New York Times:

Few of us sitting around the table were as talented and as directed at age 17 as this young woman. Unfortunately, her test scores and grade point average placed her in the middle of our pool. We had to have a debate before we decided to swallow the middling scores and write “admit” next to her name.

Had she been a male applicant, there would have been little, if any, hesitation to admit. The reality is that because young men are rarer, they’re more valued applicants. Today, two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women. Demographers predict that by 2009, only 42 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in the United States will be given to men.

We have told today’s young women that the world is their oyster; the problem is, so many of them believed us that the standards for admission to today’s most selective colleges are stiffer for women than men. How’s that for an unintended consequence of the women’s liberation movement?

The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of gender balance. Should it trump the qualifications of talented young female applicants? At those colleges that have reached what the experts call a “tipping point,” where 60 percent or more of their enrolled students are female, you’ll hear a hint of desperation in the voices of admissions officers.

First, a question for those who believe in gender equality. Why should colleges pay any attention whatsoever to gender? If there is no importance to gender, how can you justify admitting men on a different basis than women and why is it a problem if a college is 85 percent women or 85 percent men?

And if you believe it is acceptable for colleges to discriminate on a gender basis, why is it unacceptable for corporations to do so?

A more significant question is this: is the declining propensity for men to attend college a sign of increasing female power or the decreasing value of a college degree. Five years ago, I would have stated the former. Now, I am not so sure.

I’d never read the novella, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, so I thought I should rectify the situation. After reading it, I was sitting there in my reading chair completely mystified that Holly Golightly should have become such an icon, one of America’s Sweethearts.

Fortunately, a phone call to a friend who is a massive Audrey Hepburn fan – who isn’t, despite what the evidence would suggest, actually gay – settled the conundrum. He confirmed my supposition was correct and that the movie is not a particularly accurate rendition of the novella.

Not a bad little story and Capote is a very technically skilled writer, (if no patch on Tanith Lee), but I have to say that her fascination was completely lost on me. Nothing against psychotic, sexually available women, but I generally prefer them to be rather less cold and mercenary.

Ruth Coniff is apparently one of the few feminists capable of doing basic math:

Of course, there is one large segment of society that is still very interested in domestic and family life. But guess what? Their plan is not exactly warm and fuzzy either. In Foreign Policy Magazine–www.foreignpolicy.com–Phillip Longman, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes that liberals, secular humanists, and feminists are going extinct. The reason is that people with liberal values are having no children, or only one, while conservatives and fundamentalists are breeding like mad–and creating a far more conservative future.

“This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry,” Longman writes.

It’s an interesting and timely argument.

There’s not much we can do about the demographic trends. But at the very least, before it’s too late, we dwindling numbers of feminists and progressives need to get our act together and start arguing for a more humane, child-friendly society instead of taking the side of profit-mad business, which is in no danger of losing its hold on power, and certainly doesn’t need any help from us.

Of course, she still doesn’t grasp that “society” doesn’t pay anyone for anything, so if you want to get paid for taking care of your family, it’s your family that has to pay you. Now, it might occur to a more thoughtful woman that she has already been paid by being the recipient of such care for around 18 to 25 years herself, or that since the elderly are collectively the richest Americans that there’s no genuine barrier to elderly parents paying their daughters for time spent working on their behalf.

Of course, feminists like Ms Coniff would likely rather see Congress pass a federal law forcing everyone to pay the family caregiver rather than be put in an uncomfortable position of asking her mother for a reasonable weekly paycheck, but then, if they were capable of thinking straight, they wouldn’t be feminists in the first place. And as for the supposedly staggering amount of housework she mentions earlier in the article, the truth is that American women have never done less. Fewer of them are married, they have fewer children… where are all the single men complaining about the crushing burden of housework they are forced to perform without help in addition to having to work for a living?

The reason “civilized cultures” like France are on the decline and their continued existence is imperiled is simple. There Is No Free Lunch. There is always an opportunity cost. If would have a wealthy and functioning society, it is necessary that the women stay home raising children and managing households while the men work, invent things and defend against predators. It’s a simple but vital concept called the division of labor, and the more you depart from Adam Smith’s brainchild for whatever reason, whether it be the name of the worker’s paradise, gender equity or Sweet White Chthulhu, the less successful and less wealthy your society will be.

She may have intended it as sarcasm, but it is nevertheless interesting how Ms Coniff appears to at least recognize the possibility that feminism’s days are already numbered.

Zek asked for a list of my top ten non-fiction favorites. This is difficult, as I don’t read non-fiction in the same way that I read fiction, so it tends to sort of blur together in my mind. Plus, one has to fight the tendency to list the classics as a reflexive response.

But there are certain works that I turn to time and time again, sometimes because I am in search of insight and sometimes because I simply enjoy reading them. It’s a rather eclectic list; Spacebunny is encouraging me to try to put together a more organized one according to subject, but for now I’ll just eye a few well-worn favorites from my bookshelves. So, in no particular order:

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

The Second World War, Winston Churchill

The History of Economic Analysis, Joseph Schumpeter.

Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia

The World of the Shining Prince, Ivan Morris

State and Revolution, Vladimir Lenin

The Cambridge Medieval History Series

Daily Life in Ancient Rome, Jerome Carcopino

Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley

A History of Warfare, John Keegan

Hmmm, there should be something covering medieval Italy here, and one covering medieval England as well, but there’s no single volume that stands out. I also laughed when I saw a book on the Spanish Armada, which blew my mind more than any book I’ve ever read.

Not because of the content, but because it was given to me on a birthday that was marked by a particularly Dionysian celebration. Things had wound down by 4 AM but I was still wide awake, so I decided to peruse one of my new books as I waited for the room to stop spinning. When the very first word on the first page that greeted me was my name, I snapped the book shut and wondered if my mind was significantly more impaired than had previously been my impression.

As it turned out, there was a gentleman involved in the historical proceedings from whom I am apparently descended. But at the time, well, let’s just say that an accidental tumble into an alternate universe was the most rational of my suppositions.

The Original Cyberpunk misses the obvious analogy whilst contemplating Twain and the bygone lecture tour:

It’s an interesting synergism. The lectures drove sales of the books; the books in turn expanded the audience for the lectures. Sadly, the lecture tour was a 19th century phenomenon and I doubt we will ever see its likes again. As far as I can tell a Twain lecture was a combination of one-man stage show (if you haven’t seen Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight!, you really should find a copy and watch it), two-hour standup comedy routine, and socio/political monologue.

I keep casting about for a contemporary analogue, and the closest I can come is talk radio. But even Twain didn’t have to come up with a different two-hour show five days a week! And somehow, I find it hard to believe that 60 years from now, some well-respected actor is going to be touring with “Rush Limbaugh Tonight!”

I would say that the contemporary analogue is the modern preacher/televangelist/self-actualization guru. Sure, the preachers accept “love offerings” instead of ticket sales and the more successful ones broadcast instead of travelling from city to city, but the basic feedback loop remains the same.

I don’t see how this will translate very well for the average fiction writer, but it helps explain the otherwise mysterious success of the Left Behind books, especially in light of the failure of other Christian fiction – including my own – to hit the bestseller lists. It’s interesting to note that an unusually high percentage of bestselling Christian books are penned by pastors to whom this feedback loop is applicable, while the pure writers like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker seldom crack the top ten.

The answer, quite obviously, is for the OC to form a new cybertronic religion and begin selling books at his travelling “Release Your Inner Robot” symposium. Hey, it worked for Tony Robbins and L. Ron Hubbard.

So much for that much-ballyhooed removal of mercury from children’s vaccines:

At the end of last year, President Bush signed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA), granting blanket immunity to pharmaceutical companies for vaccine-induced injuries. The measure is a carte blanche for industry, allowing it even to reintroduce mercury in vaccines that are currently clean, and under the behest of the World Health Organization, to continue shipping tainted vaccine to the “developing world.”….

It removes the right to due process and judicial review for persons injured by vaccines, thus granting a virtual license to kill. Under the new law, companies making vaccines can be grossly negligent and act with wanton recklessness and still escape liability as long as they can show that their misconduct wasn’t “willful.”

It is impossible to conceive of a lower standard for the drug companies or a higher burden of proof for injured parties.

The refusal of the drug companies to take responsibility for the products they produce, and the complicity of the highest levels of government in their refusal, will diminish public confidence in the entire US vaccination program…. The PREPA also preempts the laws of states like California that have passed legislation outlawing mercury in childhood vaccinations. Meanwhile, the CDC continues to send its henchmen into state legislatures around the country in attempts to abort measures banning mercury.

If vaccines were actually safe for children, then why is it necessary to excuse manufacturers from the the same liability for which manufacturers of every other consumer product are responsible? If vaccines were safe, why would it be necessary to forbid those who have demonstrably been injured by them from exercising what is supposed to be their unalienable right to due process of law?

The grassroots of the progressive left are hopelessly wrong about their prescriptions, advocating as they do more of the disease as its prospective cure. It is ironic that they nevertheless manage to correctly identify high-ranking Republicans here as fascist villians who are using claims of the collective good as an excuse to channel vast sums to their friends in the pharmaceutical industry. But if they think that Democrats would handle the situation any differently if they were in power, they are sadly mistaken.

Angelbeast expresses a degree of annoyance:

Forgive me for venting my frustration on you, but I’m finding you very long on pointing out the problems, but short on issuing forth viable solutions. If there are no viable solutions, why waste the time to vent? Why not just broker deals for nice houses in Beliz to those who see the coming sunami of doom ?

Or is there another reason you continue to point out the latest fallen brick from our nation’s spiritual wall? Are you trying to pull the last few out as firebrands from a fire? Do you even know why you post what you post?

While I am very sympathetic to Angelbeast’s point here, I take some issue with the notion that it is of no value to diagnose problems, regardless of whether or not one has a solution to offer. Considering how very few people currently agree with me with regards to the mere existence of the problems, still less their nature and extent, I don’t think that a continued focus on the problems is inappropriate.

While I have given a few solutions to various specific problems over the past few years, I find that I very much dislike the natural tendency of people to argue about solutions they find distasteful, especially when the solutions are largely theoretical anyhow. In any event, I believe that the larger problems we currently face are usually caused by the public and government reaction to perceived and pre-packaged crises, therefore the correct solution to most of these problems is to do nothing.

For example, the best short-term solution to the Iraqi problem is to knock off the heads of the various parties struggling for power and then pull out. The internecine strife will keep the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Iranians busy for at least three years and quite possibly more. The best long-term solution to the terrorism problem is to admit that there is no solution for it, nor will there ever be as long as the existence of the terrorists gives our government an excuse to do what it seeks most, expand. (Umberto Eco wrote an essay about the symbiotic nature of terrorists and supranational interests called Striking at the Heart of the State back in 1983, describing it as a natural biological consequence of multinational rule.) The only aspect of it that can reasonably expected to reduce the terrorist “risk” is addressing the immigration issue (intermediate-term) and the demographic issue (long-term). Just to give two examples, anyhow.

Do I know why I post what I post? Not always. I don’t even know why I write the columns I write most of the time. Next week could be anything from an overdue interview with Tucker Max – except I still haven’t sent him the questions – to a critique of Ricardo’s defense of free trade based on comparative advantage.

I don’t have any particular goals here except to perhaps persuade a few people to open their eyes to what is happening around them. If history moves on waves of mass human emotion as the evidence suggests is the case, then there is very little that any individual can do except to pay enough attention to avoid sitting where the next big wave is going to land. Libertarians are supposed to be idealists, but I feel more akin to Juvenal than Jefferson, not so much dreaming of a better world as providing mordant commentary on the last gasps of a murdered Republic.

Divorce is easier the second time around:

The modern “family issues” are actually about a century old. The first openly “pro-family” president was a Republican, Theodore Roosevelt. Between 1900 and about 1912, he wrote and spoke often, and eloquently, about the dangers of a rising divorce rate and a falling birth rate. He celebrated motherhood and fatherhood as the most important human tasks, and described the true marriage as “a partnership of the soul, the spirit and the mind, no less than of the body.” He blasted as “foes of our household” the birth control movement, equity feminism, eugenics, and liberal Christianity.

However, the Rough Rider was the only prominent Republican of his time to think and talk this way. The dominant wing of the GOP tilted in favor of the banks, the great industries, and–perhaps more surprisingly–the feminist movement. Indeed, as early as 1904, the National Association of Manufacturers had formed an alliance with the feminists, for they shared an interest in moving women out of their homes and into the paid labor market. When the feminists reorganized as the National Woman’s party in 1917, the manufacturers’ association apparently provided secret financial support. More openly, Republican leaders embraced the feminists’ proposed Equal Rights Amendment, first advanced in Congress in 1923. The GOP was also the first major party to endorse the ERA in its platform.

Social conservatives have been getting suckered by the Republican Party as long as I can remember, but this is what comes of putting your faith in government rather than the hearts of men. As Teddy Roosevelt was ultimately led to leave the Republican Party and openly oppose it, Christian conservatives will either find themselves following his example or finding themselves opposed to national sovereignty, individual freedom and the family.

It was interesting to note how the author brings up the same wage stagnation created by middle class women entering the work force en masse I have mentioned in the past. He approaches the matter from a different angle, but the result is the same. For a single 75k median wage earned by the husband, we have substituted two wages combining for that same amount, less the annual cost of child care and an additional commute. A fool’s trade-off, to be sure, but there is copious evidence that representative democracy is a system designed to take advantage of the short-sighted and the unwise.

Illinois decides that 13 years of indoctrination is insufficient:

By the time they start kindergarten, many children are already 18 months behind. That – along with studies showing that money invested when kids are 3 or 4 years old helps them graduate or keeps them out of jail – is one reason states are starting to take a much harder look at funding education before they get to kindergarten.

Last month, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) proposed an initiative that would make the state the first in the US to offer universal preschool to 3-year-olds.

They’ll barely be able to read or do math, and they’ll be useless for anything but mindless office servitude, but at least they’ll graduate from high school! The next step, obviously, will be universal college, in order to keep children safely ensconsced in their propaganda cocoons from three to twenty-three.

After this long pupation they will emerge at last into the light of the worker’s paradise as a pretty, pretty, red butterfly, and with about the same attention span and ability to think as the insect variety.

In case this is too subtle, let me spell it out for you. If you sentence your children to public school, regardless of how “excellent” your local one is supposed to be or how “wonderful” the teachers and the facilities are, you are an idiot. And not having an easy alternative because you’re a single parent or whatever doesn’t make you any less of an idiot, it just means your idiocy is dictated by circumstance instead of choice. Those circumstances may or may not be your fault, but it’s not as if a literal idiot asked to be born that way either.

I am growing increasingly unsympathetic towards my fellow Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike. This ploy by Illinois is only one of the many, many examples of how Americans so richly deserve what they are getting now and what they will be experiencing in the near future. Run to the man on the white horse; he will trample you with hooves shod with blood and iron and you will call it salvation.