Most Americans hadn’t heard of the Uyghurs until a small group of them, unjustly imprisoned in Gitmo and whose release was ordered by the Bush Administration, became a political hot potato for the Obama Administration. As you may recall, these unjustly imprisoned and innocent men were labeled “terrorists” by conservative Republicans who thundered at Obama’s plan to attempt to resettle them in the United States, since they faced persecution at home in China. Ultimately Obama was forced to bribe the island nation of Palau to take the Uygurs – giving dishonest pundits yet another cheap shot to take.
(incidientally, I really must repeat myself here – Chris Muir’s comment on the Uyghurs’ resettlement was a despicable low point, even for him. I personally respect my ideological opponents like Dave, Kevin, CC etc here, and I think Muir isn’t fit to share the same web page with you fine folks.)
My fellow blogger Scott Ott, the man behind the inimitable “Scrappleface” but in real life the executive director of a non-profit organization serving children, is seeking to become the next Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Executive. His campaign is premised on the idea that his years of business experience have prepared him to take bold action to reduce taxes, cut spending and lead to what he calls “a customer service revolution in county government.” Without knowing more, most of us agree that almost any disemployment of any incumbent is good for American these days.
Scott makes his case in much more detail on his site. Like you, I haven’t been to Lehigh County too much lately. But I do know Scott and his work and his view of things, and I think this moment presents a great opportunity to see what the righty-side blogosphere can do for one of its own and for the common weal. In the process we can also make a little history by demonstrating what bloggers and their readers — whether we think of ourselves as “citizen journalists,” soldiers in an “army of Davids,” or just mainly a bunch of wiseguys — can actually do politically, in a focused and local way, and perhaps take us to the next step of initiating real change from the very grass roots up.
I’m involved in this because Scott and I have been shmoozing about his campaign (we met while on Pajamas TV duty ever so briefly) and I was amazed he didn’t have a blog-support strategy mapped out. Well, maybe now we do. It’s not fancy. He needs buzz, he needs moral support, but guess what — most of all he needs money. So:
There are essentially three ways that a blogger can participate in this campaign, and, of course, one way a blog-reader can do so. Read more..
It’s remarkable to contemplate how different Biblical studies would have been back then. The vast majority of the populace was illiterate; because there was no paper and no printing press, every copy had to be done by hand on parchment or vellum. Books–any book, of any kind–was so valuable it was worth the equivalent of an average person’s wages over a period of years, and if they were available to the public they often had to be chained down so they wouldn’t be stolen and sold.
Remarkable how books have gotten so cheap that they literally give them away these days. That would have been unthinkable back then.
While reading this article on unemployment among the young (found via Instapundit), I was carried back to the days of my youth, circa 1983, when the economy was similarly dismal.
And, yes I am sounding exactly like my father (and his father), but I was just telling one of my younger co-workers that they just don’t know how bad things are, and how much worse they could be still.
They’ve never seen anything like this in their lifetimes. And in some cases, it hasn’t even happened in their PARENTS lifetimes.
Americans under the age of 40 or so haven’t experienced anything quite like this before, and it’s not a given that it will all be over and back to normal by the end of summer.
Oh well, enough of the preaching.
I also noticed a tidbit about one of the youths in the story. I’m surprised Glenn didn’t notice it too, since the 21 year drinking age seems to be a peeve of his.
“… Will Ehrenfeld, a political science major at Tufts, who worked at a think tank last year and this summer was aiming higher: a White House internship. When the White House didn’t come through, and neither did the State Department or dozens of companies he applied to, Mr. Ehrenfeld, 20, moved back home to Vernon, Conn. Even the local Boston Market had no work.
Mr. Ehrenfeld, a top student who has always held leadership positions in clubs and academic groups, loafs through days, rolling out of bed around 11 and reading or playing trumpet or guitar. Nights, he sometimes meets up with friends who also have nowhere that they have to be in the morning, and they share a few cheap beers. “At worst, misery continues to have company,” he said.”
So not only did poor Mr. Ehrenfeld miss out on his White House internship, but now he’s admitted to committing a crime….
I can’t say I blame the kid for enjoying an adult beverage before age 21. I might have crossed that line a bit early myself back in the day. But I never talked about it in the New York Times!
As everyone has no doubt heard by now, Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of Alaska. I actually think that this is a good move on her part, in terms of strategy for her obvious 2012 ambition – even though I think the way she went about it, in essence admitting that she couldn’t handle the investigations and pressure – are fatal to her bid. What do you all think? Did she do the right thing? I’m pretty obviously not a political fan of hers but I am curious what the many diehard supporters of Palin here think of her 2012 chances now.
It’s the 4th of July weekend (most businesses and government offices are closed tomorrow, so the weekend starts now) and we’ll undoubtedly be posting some patriotic stuff later, but this is the open thread and I’m in the mood for something different:
Besides, is there anything more American than that?
By the way, the Elder Prince and I were there just a few hours ago. So what have you been up to?
Can we blame Obama for the economy now? Or is it still all Bush’s fault?
(I’m being ironic. I have maintained for decades now that Presidents have far less control over the economy than people want to acknowledge, and that in any case it takes a minimum of a year if not more for anything they do to have any effect that you can really point your finger at. But hey, it’s been six months now, and Obama’s in office, so…)
So, I have a new job. I’ve been there two weeks now. I’m not really happy with it. I could list the reasons but that isn’t important. What’s important is that I realized I need to be in a place I’m not happy.
I’ve been unemployed for over a year and I keep saying I want to be a writer. What have I accomplished in this past year? Nothing. I have nothing to show for 365+ days of free time.
I’m in my new job and I start looking for a new one immediately. I also start writing. I’m contacted about a job doing IT at a bank for $22-$24 an hour. This is what I should be making right now anyway given my experience but I’m not. I tell myself that the additional money and (surely) better work envrioment is something God would want me to have. It’s only logical, right?
It’s not that I interviewed and didn’t get the job. I didn’t even get past the stage that would get me to the interview that would get me to my God-given job. I get angry. I give God the metaphorical finger (because I’m 12 and throwing a tantrum) and I write a little more.
Then I notice a pattern. It’s a pattern that goes back years. I want a thing, I say I want only what God wants for me (and I convince myself this also happens to be that thing), and when I don’t get it I get angry.
Well, I don’t have to stub my toe fourteen-hundred-and-ONE times to realize I should maybe look down at where I’m walking.
Then I see that BioWare Austin is hiring desktop support. “Ah-ha!” I say. I love BioWare. I really, really do. And I can do desktop support to boot! And it pays more than what I make more. This is something God would want me to have. It’s only logical, right?
I say to God, “Father, I want only what you want in My life. You know I want this job. You know I really like the games they make. But if You don’t want me to have it then I don’t want it.” But what’s different this time I that I mean it. I have a strong phone interview and I give a strong face-to-face interview.
I found out today I didn’t get the job.
I wrote the lady in BioWare HR a nice note, thanking her for her time and expressing my graditude for even getting the opportunity to interview. And I realized that while I was disappointed, sure, I wasn’t angry. Here I was, being told I wasn’t going to work for a company I really liked and I was less upset about that than I was about not getting a job for a bank I never heard of.
And it clicked for me. I’m where God wants me to be. I don’t like it but I keep asking Him to put me where He wants me to be and He’s listening.
I think too many of us assume that God wants us to be rich, happy, and healthy as we define it. We see a high paying job at a nice place to work as something universally good. And maybe it is. But what if that’s not what we need right now? What if we need to be in a place that is uncomfortable because He needs to get us to a place we won’t get to otherwise?
If we can be happy in that place, then we can be happy in any place.
I’m not happy where I’m working. But you know what? It’s a paying job and I’ve written more in the past three hours than I’ve written in three months.
I have been absent here for a long time because I was taking Dean’s advice and finally starting my own website. I’d now like to invite you all to drop by. We’ve been publishing for a couple of months, and the concept is to tell stories that illuminate… something. Rants, confessions, poetry, fiction, essays, photography, interviews, love stories, and more.
I miss you all and regret that I didn’t invite you sooner but I was too busy tinkering with it. We’ve been covered in Last Exit Magazine and mentioned in the New York Times. For those of you who were fond of Christine Maggiore, we have a beautiful drawing of her that Robert Crumb sent us as a gift, to help induct The Truth Barrier.
The site is co-hosted by my good friend John Strausbaugh, author of many books including “Sissy Nation.” Be sure to catch his marvelous interview with photographer Michael Lesy, and his essay “Father Knew Best.” Other contributors include: Jim Knipfel, James Greer, Petros Arguriou, Bob Guccione Jr., Richard Davis, Caryl Johnston, and many more.
It’s a cross between a literary magazine for outsiders and Radio Free Europe. The latter is something we have yet to develop–the capacity to break stories in a way the various elites would preclude in mainstream media.
Fareed Zakaria (whose Future of Freedom is a must read) has this to say about the possibility of revolution in Iran:
It’s possible but unlikely. While the regime’s legitimacy has cracked — a fatal wound in the long run — for now it will probably be able to use its guns and money to consolidate power.
I don’t know why anyone thinks they need money. Regimes from Cuba to Burma to Cambodia to North Korea stay comfortably esconced with only the power that flows from the cracked barrel of a rusty gun, proving again what can be observed since the dawn of human history: leaders need neither legitimacy nor coin to quell internal uprisings, they need only force of arms and the will to use them.
Soon after the revolution, Iraq attacked Iran, and the mullahs again wrapped themselves in the flag. The United States supported Iraq in that war, ignoring Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iranians — something Iranians have never forgotten.
You know what’s odd? Every time I hear this assertion, propagated by the mullah tyrants and treated as gospel by American leftists, that Iranians are holding a grudge over American “support” for the Hussein regime during the Iran-Iraq war — which support amounted to a handshake and a smile, during a period when Iraq was the world’s largest importer of arms — I never hear any mention of the possibility they might be grateful we spent much more time and effort containing and ultimately removing Saddam. Shouldn’t this net out to a giant positive in their attitude toward the U.S.?
And wouldn’t it make more sense for them to resent the French, Germans, and Russians who were arming Iraq (at considerable profit) and who opposed Saddam’s removal?
The situation under Saddam is a bigger deal than many people realize. For decades, Iranians were cut off from Najaf. Since Saddam’s fall, millions of them visit Iraq on holy pilgrimage every year — where they now see real democracy, which is probably a large part of why they’re now taking to the streets and demanding their own.
But while we’d all like to see the mullahs overthrown and a liberal democracy in Persia, the truth is there’s very little chance of that happening as long as the regime believes it has the moral right to brutally suppress dissent — and with the current U.S. administration’s avowed strategy of enabling and apologizing, there’s little chance of that changing.
So, the Democrats now have a liberal firebrand to add to their stable, and, in theory, a filibuster-proof majority. I say “in theory” because they’ve got at least two Senators who have health issues and can’t always be counted on to show up for a cloture vote (Byrd and Kennedy), and because there are a number of members of their caucus who are known for an independent streak and breaking party ranks on various issues. Still, their ability to stave off anything perceived as pure obstructionism is quite strong now.
Which is fine by me, by the way. No, I’m not a Democrat, I’m a swing voter who most years leans Republican. I just believe in our Constitution and our system of government, and I believe that people who win elections get elected to do things. One party now has nearly unlimited ability to put its agenda through and live with the results. I’m fine with that. Whether it works out for good or ill, I believe in this country and its system, and its ability to correct if things go wrong, and to acknowledge if things go right.
Congratulations, Senator Franken. I used to be a big fan of your comedy, I eventually came to pretty much hate your politics, but you won fair and square. Good luck.
[Note that in this entry, "social conservative" is used to refer to personal moral beliefs, which may or may not translate into public policy preferences . Public policy preference are not directly relevant to the topic under discussion.]
I’ve repeatedly encountered the following social conservative meme, most recently in an argument over the Mark Sanford affair:
We’ve got to stop acting like hypocrites are the worst thing in the world. At least hypocrites have moral standards; they’re just not living up to them. All the war on hypocrisy really accomplishes is to give people a strong incentive to become libertines, people who openly flout traditional moral standards. What could be worse?
I could argue that traditional moral standards are a mixed bag of truth and error. But I don’t have to. Even if traditional moral standards were infallibly correct, ardent social conservatives should still prefer libertines to hypocrites.
Caplan goes on to make a good case for his proposition, but I’m reminded of a commentary on hypocrisy made by a character in Neal Stephenson’s novel Diamond Age:
You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others-after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism? … Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour-you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.
[…]
We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy,” Finkle-McGraw continued. “In the late-twentieth-century Weltanschauung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception-he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course, most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it’s a spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing.”
“That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code,” Major Napier said, working it through, “does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”
“Of course not,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It’s perfectly obvious, really. No one ever said that it was easy to hew to a strict code of conduct. Really, the difficulties involved-the missteps we make along the way-are what make it interesting. The internal, and eternal, struggle, between our base impulses and the rigorous demands of our own moral system is quintessentially human. It is how we conduct ourselves in that struggle that determines how we may in time be judged by a higher power.”
It’s my feeling that Caplan is right about the kind of hypocrite whose hypocrisy is driven by a fundamental dishonesty. That hypocrite is a libertine flying false colors, and a true social conservative should prefer the honest libertine to the dishonest libertine.
However, for a flesh-is-weak hypocrite, a social conservative’s response should probably be one of understanding and forgiveness. The weak fleshed hypocrite wants to be moral and makes an honest attempt at it, but falls off the wagon from time to time. If you want to spread your values, you need to help those who are trying to live them but wind up falling short.
And for most social conservatives in the US, their values derive from Christianity, of which one of the fundamental premises is that all flesh is weak, but God’s capacity for forgiveness is infinite. Love and forgiveness are among the highest virtues in the moral codes of most interpretations of Christianity, and there is a moral imperative to offer forgiveness to a repentant sinner.
[Disclosure: Most social conservatives would consider me something of a libertine, but I'm much more mellow in my personal behavior than most of my full-out libertine friends. Like most libertines of my acquantaince, I have a strong moral code of personal behavior, albeit one that departs significantly from traditional conservitive mores. Short version: do what you want, but be honest about it, don't hurt others doing it, and take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. From my perspective, I respect the honest social conservative as someone who shares and lives my core values of honesty and responsibility despite following a very different code of behavior; I feel sorry for the weak-fleshed hypocrite who is suffering for his failure live up to a moral code I don't share; and I have nothing but contempt for the intentionally dishonest hypocrite.]
Look, you can say a lot about Galileo’s scientific support for his heliocentric perspective, but to argue that because he thought the sun was the center of the universe that he was just as wrong as those who put the earth at the center of the universe is staggeringly disingenuous (or staggeringly ignorant).
Not only does it ignore the significant improvement of our view of the LOCAL universe, it also ignores the PROFOUND impact of moving the earth out of the center of the universe had on this planet from a RELIGOUS and PHILOSOPHICAL perspective.
There is a REASON Galileo’s heliocentric “proof” is held up as one of the VERY FEW fundamental worldview shattering moments in world history. That’s because it WAS WORLDVIEW SHATTERING. To argue that it was somehow less important because he was “wrong” about the rest of the universe outside the solar system is EXACTLY the same thing as to sneer at Newton’s Laws because he was “wrong” about anything moving near the speed of light.
The “faith vs. reason” dichotomy which rose up around the Galileo/Pope confrontatoin was ENTIRELY REAL and PROFOUNDLY IMPORTANT to science, to society and to our understanding not just of our unverse, but of OURSELVES.
Now I do agree that the confrontation has been played up for dramatic purposes and Galileo was not seriously inconvenienced by his “house arrest.” But to deny the actual IMPACT of the event itself is to call hundreds of years of the history of science and the church wrong.
It mattered. It was important. It was a critical science-defining moment. It led to further discoveries by Brahe, Kepler, Newton and others which TRANSFORMED the modern world.
brilliant and absolutely right in every particular. Cosmic conservative, indeed
Tom Bevan and others say that those claiming that services like Medicare are more cost-efficient than private insurers are way off the mark.
I’ve long suspected so; I’ve been hearing for years now that government-run health care runs extraordinarily low administrative costs. It makes perfect sense that the reason for that would have more to do with how much money is spent on treatment for your typical Medicare recipient than your average person.
Have no doubt, I am 100% in favor of health care reform and of moving to having every American insured. This is fully in keeping with the Constitution and with the traditions of this country, and it’s both a moral and practical necessity. Period. It’s also just plain a good idea; the burden on private employers is ridiculous and distorts the market in multiple destructive ways.
Nevertheless it would be irresponsible to eliminate private insurers. Consumers should have a choice and government shouldn’t run everything itself–in fact, it’s almost always a bad idea to have the government run everything itself in any area. Besides, it would be a political non-starter to try to destroy the country’s private medical insurers: they’ll fight back, hard, to try to save themselves, and you can bet that most of their employees and many of their customers will join them in that fight. Demonizing them and trying to destroy them does no good at all. Whatever reform we have–and I pray we have real reform soon, because we *do* need it–it would be foolish to try to destroy the private sector.
Although, by the way, has anyone else noticed how, on the other side, we currently have people desperately trying to sell us the notion that, because recent surveys have found that most Americans are satisfied with their health care we have no need for reform? That’s just as much statistical trickery as trying to claim that programs like Medicare are “more efficient.” Just because people are satisified does not mean that they feel secure, that they feel confident that they’ll be able to keep their insurance if something bad happens, that they feel that everyone who’s important to them gets the care they need and is reasonably secure, and so on. It’s statistical dishonesty to say to an individual, “well, you’re reasonably satisfied with what you have at the moment… and therefore I assume you think there is absolutely no need for reform anywhere in any way.”
As regular readers here will recall, I used to write a lot on men’s rights issues at my personal blog, now gone forever. I really did try to steer away from the topic entirely, especially after a feminist operative from some unknown org showed up at my son’s house last year, claiming to be CPS and demanding entry. From what I could gather, this person was allowed to go in and look around. Well. Not knowing any different, what could they do?
The kicker was that this person claimed I had filed a complaint. Using a name, and identifying the complainant is something that the real CPS does not do. (I do know a little about these agencies, having worked among ‘em for a couple of decades.)
Anyway, once the dust settled, (and believe me, it was a sandstorm!) I promised myself never to write on those issues again. For a long time, I couldn’t look at the many photos of the grandchildren we have around the house without shedding a tear. I was deeply saddened by the trouble my work had caused them, and didn’t want to cause them any more.
Thing is, I was still online, and still watching TV, and still couldn’t stand the stark hatred expressed against men at every turn. Only a few ever objected, and even on the generally egalitarian FOX News Network I saw Marc Rudov being belittled and denigrated by an educated woman who should have known better. This kind of treatment would never be given to a woman talking about the same things.
Dear friends still phoned, lamenting their heavy-handed treatment in what should have been uncomplicated divorce proceedings.
I was writing and link-curating at the Examiner on Arizona stuff, when in April ‘09, Sandra Cantu was arrested for the murder of a child. I couldn’t let that horror go as it was being reported by the MSM – blaming Christianity, as there was no convenient man to blame. I posted a comment piece about it, and was stunned by the response. Literally tens of thousands of people read the column.
For awhile I’d seen my favorite people “of the movement” writing about other things, and it seemed men’s issues were being overshadowed by other issues. While I initially proposed a more-general Men’s Rights column to my Channel Manager at Examiner, he suggested domestic violence as a focus, reminding me that it was the core issue from which most of these other problems developed.
So that’s another thing I’m doing now. I haven’t mentioned it before here, because the assignment came at time when I was working serious full time doing a survey for NASS. All I could do then was post some reconstituted earlier works.
I am back in the game.
Since then I have had quite a number of phone calls and “nice notes” by e-mail from people whose names you’d recognize encouraging me to keep on keepin’ on. I had no idea my presence was missed, let alone noticed at all. Guess there’s still a lot left to say.
As far as protecting the family goes, I am counting on light and air driving out things like mold and infection. Should any problems result as a result of my online activity regarding domestic violence, it will be immediately, and widely reported. We are at a time in history where weasels and freaks cannot simply go back to their holes and hide. The previous feminist strategy of battery, assault, intimidation and libel simply won’t play anymore, in these connected times. This is not to mention I’m still in Arizona, which still recognizes the 2nd amendment. ;>)
I do want our beautiful grandchildren – who are all girls – to grow up with the respect for men that I came to naturally, as the youngest sibling in a family of four, and the only girl. I was fortunate to observe boys growing into men in a traditional family setting. Our parents were only married once, and their marriage lasted 61 years, until the death of our mother in 1993. As a result, I understand that men are people, every bit as much as women are.
Neither sex is any better or deserving, for any reason. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. I can’t keep silent, as the feminist jihad claims friend after friend.
“Shes a natural law, and she leaves me in awe
She deserves the applause, I surrender because
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply irresistible”
Talk about well-crafted, creative, kick-ass ’80s pop–and there’s not a damned thing wrong with pop music when it’s all these things–that’s got to be my favorite. (More here.)
I’m trying to figure out what to do with myself this weekend besides move. Although in general, lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been getting my mojo back, in a way I haven’t in a long time. It’s kind of a good feeling, y’know?
This the kind of innovation that efficiency geeks like me just love, love , LOVE!
The amount of time and effort and energy saved by barcodes is truly impossible to calculate.
I’m old enough to remember standing in the check out line at the grocery store with my parents, waiting (and waiting….) for the cashier to read each price sticker and punch it into the cash register. And before we left the store, my mother would go through each line on the receipt, searching for errors. She found a lot.
This blurb claims a typical error rate for human input is 1 mistake per 300 characters, so I guess a mistake or two per grocery cart full of items wouldn’t be unusual.
I also recall some hard core holy roller types of the day preaching from the pulpit that this was surely the “mark of the beast” warned about in the book of Revelations.
And who can forget George Bush, the elder, staring with a gee whiz look at the laser scanner in 1992, and the MSM media spin that followed?
Gee, some of that stuff sounds so familiar….
Anyway, here’s a tip o the hat to those anonymous geeks who, 35-40 years ago, worked this stuff out for us all !
