Not only in Australia. Pretty much SOP in many western countries.
Winter came early to Cronulla and its chill is spreading, writes Paul Sheehan.
It was a 16th birthday party, a big one. About 100 teenagers were at a house in Clump Place, Green Valley, on Saturday night last week. Several adults kept an eye on proceedings.
At 9 o'clock came the beginning of the nightmare dreaded by anyone who holds a big party - several carloads of uninvited young men arrived and wanted in. Most of the guests assembled at the front of the house to watch the verbal confrontation unfold. The unwanted visitors, described by numerous witnesses as appearing to be Lebanese, withdrew but certain things were said and threats made.
With a depressing predictability, the Lebanese got on their mobile phones and began to gather numbers. More cars assembled. Police later estimated the size of the war party at about 60 men and 15 cars assembled in Clump Place.
At 11pm one of the Lebanese walked to the front door of the house and yelled inside: "Anybody who has got balls, get outside."
Once again, with depressing predictability. Once again, a large number of the party-goers went outside to see what was going on. A brawl soon erupted. The fighting spilled into nearby Stella Drive and Rodeo Drive. About 100 young people were involved.
Three were later admitted to hospital. Knives and broken bottles were used. Two 16-year-old guests were treated for stab wounds at Liverpool Hospital. With depressing predictability, the injured had been stabbed in the back after being swarmed.
Few of these details were released by the police, certainly not the disturbing scale and premeditation of the brawl. Yet it was the largest such attack since the Cronulla revenge raids by hundreds of young Lebanese men on December 11, 12 and 13.
Almost six months after those December revenge attacks, not a single significant arrest and conviction has been logged in response to the self-styled "intifada" by groups of young Muslims who assembled in Punchbowl and Lakemba - inside the electorate of the Premier, Morris Iemma - to launch attacks on eastern beach suburbs.
Even now, the Iemma Government remains in denial about the extent of what happened on those nights, as entire convoys were able to assemble, attack and escape while screaming racist threats. One woman, Wendy R, said she and her husband were driving along Canterbury Road on the night of Monday, December 12, when they encountered carloads of men with Lebanese flags hanging out the windows and heard one man screaming, "Do it for Allah!"
This left a deep impression, though not as disturbing as the inability of the police to notice what was happening, let alone deal with it. On Friday, police released an identikit photo of three "men of Middle Eastern appearance" wanted for the attack on Dan, a 26-year-old mechanic, stabbed five times and seriously wounded after four men leapt from a car outside Woolooware Golf Club on the night of December 11.
As usual, women were involved. The men had shouted insults from the car at two women leaving the club with Dan. As usual, the stab wounds were in the back. As usual, it was four on one.
The undertow of hate crimes and menace is continuing, with the proverbial "men of Middle Eastern appearance" (MOMEA) constantly appearing on the crime log of the NSW Police: May 21: a MOMEA charged with the murder of Bassam Chami and Ibrahim Assad, two Lebanese men who were known to police. May 21: a group of MOMEA involved in stabbings in Green Valley. May 26: an off-duty police officer insulted and assaulted by two MOMEA in The Rocks. May 26: two MOMEA arrested in Riverwood for possession of heroin and a handgun.
And that's just the past week, and only crimes logged on the police website.
In Cronulla itself, the impact is continuing. On Saturday, I met several former detectives at Cronulla. Two of them dined with me at Yasou, a Greek restaurant overlooking South Cronulla Beach. It is a good restaurant (the spanakopita, spinach and fetta pies, were superb) but also a sparsely attended one. When I asked the owner, Ray Bradbury (his wife is Greek Cypriot), how business had been, he said: "Normally, I have 30 staff during the summer season. After December 11, I had to go down to five or six because the place was empty ...
"Since December 11, most of the customers are coming from within five kilometres. The business from outside visitors is gone. There is a perception of danger here ... The police lock-down [after the revenge attacks] was the wrong thing to do. It created the impression they had lost control, and they barred everyone from coming into the area."
The former police at the table nodded in agreement. They described a culture of denial by police over innumerable incidents of sexual intimidation of young women by young Muslim men congregating at Cronulla, and also at Brighton-le-Sands. All the former police I spoke to on Saturday, and others I have interviewed, believe the civil disorder that eventually exploded was symptomatic of a larger, deeper problem: the politicisation of the NSW Police, accompanied by the systematic dismantling of elite and specialist units and a loss of esprit de corps.
It has been a long winter in Cronulla. It began on December 11.
The large numbers of Lebanese Muslim families who used to gather at Gunnamatta Park, and the young Lebanese men who gathered at the car park at North Cronulla, stopped coming on December 11. They have not returned.
On Saturday, I encountered five uniformed police at Cronulla station in mid-afternoon. On the promenade, two women police officers patrolled in a beach buggy. The stable door has been double-locked at Cronulla, but the horse bolted long ago.
#2
That can't happen in America, we own guns.
Also, if and when an Aussie kills one of these invaders, will the police do the right thing (flush the evidence down the toilet) ?
You cops out there gotta understand you are the front line on who will win this religious war.
553 years ago today, on 29 May 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire had been in decline for decades and the fall was inevitable. Some had tried to turn the tide. In 1374, when the Ottomans were only a nascent power, Prince Manuel, governor of Salonica and a son of the Byzantine Emperor, had tried to rally the inhabitants of his city against the Turks. But the Salonicans did not want to bear the high costs of defending their city and promptly threw him out. Out of fear of the Turks his father, Emperor John V, refused Manuel shelter within the walls of Constantinople and so did all the other Byzantine cities. Consequently the prince was forced to seek refuge with... the Ottomans, whom he served until 1394, when he became Emperor himself.
When the Sultan demanded a Byzantine princess from the Emperor, the latter gave away his daughter Theodora to spend the rest of her life in the Sultans harem. He also gave the Turks a church in Constantinople to convert into a mosque. All the appeasement was in vain, however, because in 1453 the Turks demanded that the Byzantines surrender Constantinople. This time the Byzantines refused. In their final hour they saved their honour. They fought for the city as they had never fought for the empire, writes Jason Goodwin in his history of the Ottoman Empire. After a siege of two months the city fell. Emperor Constantine XI, Manuels son, died with his sword in his hand.
I have been in Turkey for most of the past fortnight, attending a conference where I was invited to give a talk about my book. The trip, though planned long before, coincided with two hectic weeks in which the Belgian priest Father Leman, and politicians such as the Socialist Party leader Johan Vande Lanotte, demanded that I be prosecuted for allegedly inciting racial hatred.
Turkish (Muslim) friends who heard about this said I am always welcome in their country if the Belgian authorities should prosecute. They say they do not understand why the West European countries tolerate Islamist extremism to a degree that is not tolerated in a Muslim country such as Turkey, where female civil servants are not even allowed to wear headscarves to work.
On a tour of the town the daughter of our Turkish host showed me a banner by the gate of a local school, which bore a quote of Atatürk: Nations who do not know their national identity will become the prey of other nations. West Europeans would do well to bear this in mind. A young Turkish woman said that she is opposed to Turkey joining the EU because she fears that the Eurocrats will force her country to be tolerant towards Islamist fanatics, allowing them rights which in contemporary Turkey they do not have. Possibly an EU including Turkey would adopt more realistic, sensible and tougher policies with respect to Muslim extremism. Perhaps the current witch hunt in Western Europe, where everyone who worries about Islamism is branded as an Islamophobe and a racist, would stop if Turkish voices were heard.
During the past two weeks I also heard Turks expressing more sensible views on the relationship between church and state than I am used to hearing in Western Europe. Prof. Attila Yayla, one of Turkeys most outspoken liberatarians, said there is nothing wrong with religious conservatism. The latter is not an enemy of the free society. On the contrary, religious conservatives are our allies in the fight against state totalitarians, says Yayla. I agree, as would most Americans (but not, unfortunately, most Europeans). Where morality is no longer upheld by religion, the state steps in to fill the void and the state becomes God, obliterating all morality. Today the welfare state, both at the national and at the European level (the EUSSR), is becoming increasingly totalitarian, confirming Vladimir Bukovskys warning in this respect. It is no coincidence, I think, that precisely the fanatic proponents of a complete secularisation of European society, such as Belgiums leading politicians and intellectuals (including priests such as Father Leman) are harassing the so-called islamophobes and racists.
This weekend, upon my return from Turkey, I was in The Hague, where an American friend is trying to help Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Readers of this website know that I have been critical of Hirsi Ali, who tends to equate islamism with religion, while I believe that not religion but secularism is killing Europe. I have, however, always expressed admiration for Hirsi Alis courage. If ordinary Europeans had just a tiny bit of her courage, we would not be in the mess that we are in today. The Dutch authorities are no longer able or willing to guarantee Hirsi Alis safety, so she is forced to leave for America. She has been attacked by some of the Dutch leftist media in the most disgraceful way. Her Dutch passport has been taken from her, with the bureaucratic consequence that she currently cannot get an American visa. The Dutch seem set on making life hard for her, but I am sure the Americans will find a way to solve the problem.
Why have the Dutch turned against Hirsi Ali? Perhaps they are acting like the Salonicans in 1374 when they threw Prince Manuel out. Islamists threaten the Dutch with violence in response to what she says. And what do the Dutch do? They throw her out!
Last year Hirsi Ali was elected European of the Year. It is a bad omen for Europe when the European of the Year leaves for America. Let us hope and pray that history does not repeat itself and that Europe will not fall like Constantinople fell 553 years ago. Let us hope that Europe will save its honour and rediscover the will to defend the city, the way Constantine XI did. Many Dutch, however, do not seem to have much confidence in their countrys chances of survival. Last year a record number of 121,000 people emigrated from the Netherlands, the largest number ever, while only 92,000 immigrated in. This emigration figure is the highest figure in the entire history of the country so far. The Netherlands is today also the European nation with the highest proportion of emigrants. Since 2003 more people have been leaving the country than entering it. The numbers are rising. In the first quarter of this year 29,000 people left the Netherlands 5,000 more than in the same period last year. Now Ayaan Hirsi Ali is leaving too. The bell tolls for the Dutch, and those who do not hear it must be deaf.
#1
"...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."
-- John Donne, Meditation 17
#1
"At best, our border with Mexico will become a speed bump, largely erased, with little remaining to restrict the essentially free movement of people, trade, and capital."
That in itself is not the problem. The problem is that, increasingly, Americans (that's USers to you PC types), will be earning a living wage according to Mexican standards, not US standards.
Hope you all are ready to start doling out money to family members and friends, because you're likely to see more and more of that as their real income takes a dive.
If Bill Clinton had done it, we'd be shouting for impeachment. When President Bush ordered the sequestration of documents seized from the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La), he was trying to calm outraged House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert sided with the Democrats in demanding the return of evidence in a criminal investigation taken pursuant to a properly issued search warrant. It is only by the courage of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that the Hastert-Bush effort to obstruct justice wasn't immediately successful. Gonzales threatened to disobey an order to return the papers and to resign -- loudly -- if so ordered.
Dennis Hastert's tantrum over the Jefferson search is unforgivable but almost understandable, given the state of relations between House leaders and the White House. In just the past few weeks, Hastert saw his long-time friend, Porter Goss, removed from the CIA directorship in apparent violation of White House promises to Goss. On Iraq and illegal immigration, the two issues House Republicans fear most this November, Hastert hasn't gotten any help from the White House. To the contrary, with the House hanging tough against the Senate amnesty bill, President Bush sent Karl Rove to the Hill to lobby the House to give in to the Senate. Then came the search of Jefferson's office, and when Hastert objected to it, ABC reported that Hastert was "in the mix" of the FBI's Abramoff corruption investigation. When the Justice Department said the ABC report was fictitious, ABC stuck to it, indicating that someone in the Justice Department -- taking revenge on Hastert -- spoke to ABC only to smear the Speaker. When Hastert dug in, demanding return of the documents, the White House was about to surrender abjectly when Gonzales threatened to resign. Sequestering the documents for 45 days, out of reach of investigators, is the compromise reached so far. The sequestration should be lifted forthwith.
President Bush's action is equally unforgivable and not at all understandable. His relationship with House conservatives is in tatters. House Republicans are dug in hard to defend their approach to illegal immigration, which much more closely follows the American peoples' desire than the Senate bill. Poll after poll shows that securing the border is America's most urgent legislative priority. It's a problem that is not only on American's minds, it's a raw, exposed nerve that can't be salved by sending a few National Guard troops to the border. And yet Karl Rove goes to lobby the House to accept the Senate's outrageous amnesty plan.
When Hastert erupted over the Jefferson office search, Mr. Bush chose to intervene in a criminal investigation and possibly compromise its results merely to gain traction with Hastert. For that -- and not for all the other things on reporter Helen Thomas's list -- the President should apologize to the American people. Among the many things the President mistook is that he won't smooth the path of the Senate bill by interfering in a criminal investigation of a House member. The gap between Mr. Bush and the conservative base that elected him twice is growing so wide it may soon be unbridgeable. House members rightly fear that the conservative base will voice its disgust at the polls this fall. What they need from the White House is help. What they've been getting is the back of the President's hand.
There are only 161 days until the November election. Congress won't be spending many of those days in session, but it -- and the President -- could still do a lot. There is little reason to believe that they will.
Conservatives aren't ready to give up on George Bush, because we understand that the alternative -- Democratic control of Congress and the White House -- is the surrender of immigration policy to Vicente Fox, of foreign policy to the UN, and of Supreme Court nominations to the ACLU. It means disaster on all fronts. But the president is giving us nothing to work with. And he's about to lose the opportunity to do so.
We don't know what happened in the Iraqi town of Haditha on November 19, 2005. The allegation is that U.S. Marines, over-reacting to the death of one of their company, killed as many as two dozen innocent Iraqis, including women and children. Coverage of this story is accelerating, and will -- by week's end -- completely overshadow anything good happening in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter. Rep. Jack "Cut and Run" Murtha is already trying to manufacture a case against Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace for covering up the incident. The events of Haditha will put the President on the defensive for the foreseeable future. Congressmen and senators will be falling all over themselves to distance themselves farther and farther from him and from the war America must still fight.
This is no longer about George Bush. It's a useless rhetorical exercise to ask, "What would Reagan do?" because the Gipper isn't here to do it. With the White House neutered and Congress choosing among the many paths of retreat, there won't be much good coming out of Washington between now and November. It has to come from us.
The conservative base that elected George Bush has become the second-class citizen of Washington. We need to stand up and tell the Republican White House and Congress -- long, loud, and continuously -- that we want some things done (and some not done) before November 7. The things that should not be done are more important than those that should be. Two things top the list of things that should not be done: first is any illegal immigration legislation that doesn't postpone guest worker and citizenship programs until after the borders are closed; and second is any effort to condemn the Marines or their leaders until the legal process -- not the political process -- reaches a conclusion justifying such condemnation.
The New York Times continues to astonish us with its relentless spin and condescension toward blacks and others it regards as victims. Todays example falls into the category candidate for the worlds smallest violin created by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journals online Best of the Web column.
Representative William Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, has reportedly been photographed accepting $100,000 of cash, $90,000 of which was discovered in his freezer. Does the Times thunder in outrage over this betrayal? Not a bit. It offers excuses, in this article by Christopher Drew and Robert Pear. Some excerpts:
Representative William J. Jefferson has always liked to talk about growing up in an impoverished farm community, picking cotton for $3 a day and hitting the books hard enough to win his ticket out a scholarship to Harvard Law School. [....]
...a remarkable ascent from the deepest poverty and a quest for the comforts his family never had. [....]
Mr. Jefferson was raised, along with eight brothers and sisters, on a small farm in northeast Louisiana, where, he said earlier this year, our whole life revolved around that cotton field. His father left school after second grade, and his mother attended only through eighth grade. [....]
After he graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1969, Mr. Jefferson has said, he won his mothers blessing to go to Harvard Law School she had never heard of it only by explaining that it had been John F. Kennedys college
When the modest backgrounds of GOP leaders like Tom Delay or Dennis Hastert are mentioned at all, usually it is in a sneering fashion. Dick Cheney worked as a youth on electrical power lines, a demanding and hazzardous task. Does the Times ever mention this?
Presumably, Rep. Jefferson enjoyed a scholarship to Harvard Law School, since his family would have been unable to help him with tuition. If so, his turn toward avarice and greed would be all the more worthy of condemnation.
The notion that poor people are somehow exempt from the same ethical strictures as the rest of us is poisonous condescension, robbing the poor of their human dignity as moral actors. At its root, it regards poor people as permanently inferior.
#1
I'll never be poor again, so help me God!
/Scarlett Jefferson
Posted by: ed ||
05/30/2006 14:44 Comments ||
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#2
Well, at least he had a cotton field.
I used to pick kitty lint all summer to afford enough to buy my November carrot. And those were the good years, 12 dollar lint times! Good times indeed. Then the cats grew older, wiser as cats will do, I don't harbour any anger, but the fact is they became difficult to catch. One year I had no carrot, made do with a celery stalk. It was a long time ago, things were different then.
#8
sheeeeeeit. We usedta smear pollen all over our bodies and when completely covered with bees, they'd throw a sack over us. Used to catch 30000-50000 bees at a time, sometimes a Queen. My eyes were taking longer and longer to quit swellin - once it reached 4 months, I said : "Hey! I want at least a dollar an hour pay..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/30/2006 22:28 Comments ||
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By AHMED RASHID As unprecedented Taliban violence sweeps across southern Afghanistan, four players in the region Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and NATO are locked in a tense standoff rather than cooperating to defeat the terrorists. At stake is the future survival of Afghanistans moderate government and stability in Pakistan.
To prop up Afghanistan and combat the Taliban, the US and NATO may have to make major concessions to Pakistans military regime, but any concessions would anger the Afghans, encourage the extremists and allow the unpopular military to dominate Pakistans political scene for another five years.
More than 200 people were killed and hundreds wounded in fierce fighting that swept four provinces in southern Afghanistan starting May 18 and continued for the next three days. It was the worst bout of violence since the defeat of the Taliban in December 2001 and the opening shots in a promised Taliban offensive this summer to deter some 9,000 NATO troops from deploying in southern Afghanistan.
However, it was the Talibs who took the heavy casualties. They knew they were going to take them, of course, but the offensive was for political purposes so that the Western press would think there was something serious going on.
"NATO will not fail in Afghanistan .the family of nations will expect nothing less than success," said General James Jones, the head of US and NATO forces in Europe, adding that NATO will double its deployment in Afghanistan to 18,000 troops. Jones also made an impassioned plea for NATO governments to end the caveats that they impose on their troops, making it next to impossible for commanders to run a proper military campaign. The caveats number 71, and Jones calls them "NATOs operational cancer and "an impediment to success."
They're NATO's foot in a bucket, and they render NATO operations useless. Either they'll fall by the wayside under combat conditions, or the NATO countries will one by one withdraw their troops, leaving the job to the Americans, the Aussies, and the Afghans. I put NATO as a force in almost the same category I put the Pak army.
President Hamid Karzai and the Afghans worry about NATO. Unlike the US-led combat force, some NATO countries contribute troops only for reconstruction.
Posted by: john ||
05/30/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I would disagree. While the Pak army's fighting effectiveness has been degraded by the involvement of the officer corps in civilian affairs (corruption and other ills), they remain quite an effective and ruthless fighting force.
Those killed in Waziristan are paramilitary troops, associated with the army and local amry units (non-Punjabi) recruited from the local population. Neither group is especially well equippped or trained.
There is a lack of will.
A real move against these groups would entail destruction of Pak's jihadi infrastructure, needed for reasserting control in Afghanistan and grabbing Kashmir from India.
Posted by: john ||
05/30/2006 8:18 Comments ||
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#2
above comment in response to It's a parade ground army, good for impressing the girlies and oppressing the citizenry if they're unarmed, but not much else.
Posted by: john ||
05/30/2006 8:19 Comments ||
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During the last week of May, thousands of Iranians demonstrated in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and the previous week there were protests at universities in five cities. The protests were triggered by the official government newspaper - the Islamic Republic News Agency's Iran - publishing a cartoon which depicts a boy repeating "cockroach" in Persian before a giant bug in front of him asks "What?" in Azeri.
Azeri-Iranians - who make up approximately one-quarter of the country's population - were particularly offended by the cartoon. These disturbances come at a bad time for the Iranian government, which is stressing national unity in the face of international concern over its nuclear program.
Ethnic Persians make up a little more than half the total population of 69 million, but there are sizable minorities - in addition to the Azeris there are ethnic Arabs, Baluchis, and Kurds, for example. Some of these groups, furthermore, practice Sunni Islam instead of the Shiite branch of Islam, the state religion. The Iranian Constitution guarantees the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, but in reality the central government emphasizes the Persian and Shiite nature of the state.
The recent incidents of ethnic tensions are only the latest examples of what has been escalating for more than a year. In mid-March in the southeast, which is home to many of Iran's 1.4 million Baluchis, a Baluchi group called Jundallah took responsibility for an attack on a government motorcade in which 20 people were killed. Jundallah seized a number of hostages and claimed that it executed one of them, a member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps. At least 12 people were killed in a similar attack in the second week of May. Nobody has taken credit for explosions May 8 in Kermanshah, which is home to Iran's 4.8 million Kurds, but the July 2005 shooting of a young Kurd by security forces led to demonstrations in several northwestern cities and the deaths of civilians and police officers. Since April of last year, there have been a number of violent incidents - including bombings that have targeted government facilities and which also have killed innocent bystanders - in the southwest, where many of Iran's 2 million Arabs live.
The central government typically reacts to ethnic unrest with a combination of repression and scapegoating. For example, two men were executed in early March for their roles in fatal October bombings in the southwest. They "confessed" on state television the night before their executions that Iranians in Canada and Britain instructed them to create insecurity.
The government commonly blames foreign agitators. Violence in the southwest is usually attributed to the Britain for historical reasons and because British forces are stationed near that part of the Iraqi border with Iran. In the May 19 Friday Prayers sermon in Tehran, which was broadcast across the country by state radio, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani pinned southeastern violence on the United States and Israel. He added that the most recent killings are meant to create tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. This would, he continued, undermine the country's security.
Official reactions to the unrest caused by the cartoon of an Azeri-speaking cockroach followed the familiar pattern. Although the cartoonist was arrested and the newspaper suspended, foreigners received the blame nevertheless. According to Reporters Without Borders, furthermore, two Azeri journalists were detained without charges.
Tehran's method of dealing with the ethnic issue will ultimately backfire. It can successfully employ overwhelming force against geographically isolated groups, but it would be much more difficult to handle angry Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, and other minorities if they act against the state simultaneously. If such an occurrence coincides with other forms of disorder, such as the violent student demonstrations that took place in Tehran May 23 and 24, then the regime could find that it has more than it can handle.
However, Iranian minorities are not pursuing separatism or special privileges. They identify with the Iranian nation - many defended the country in the Iran-Iraq War, and others serve in the government and legislature. When minorities protest they are not making unreasonable demands, they are just insisting on their constitutionally guaranteed rights. Such rights include use of their languages in local media, as well as the absence of discrimination. They also object to levels of unemployment and underdevelopment that affect their regions more severely than other parts of the country. The Iranian regime ignores minority rights and dismisses their concerns at its peril.
When viewing the Islamist enterprise as a real, human project instead of the stuff of stories to scare little children, it's essential to look at their strategic goals.
The strategic struggle of Islamism is a struggle to create a connected 'counter-core' just as functional as the global Core but distinct, disconnected from that Core, and in contention to integrate the Gap to it rather than the Core which it views as infidel dominated.
The project seems to have hit a few snags in Iran where apparently President Ahmadinejad cannot even keep a campaign promise to visit every province in Iran to address local problems. The visits were supposed to all take place within his first year in office. Not only has that not taken place but the danger to national government figures has meant that some provinces are unlikely to be visited at all during Ahmadinejad's term of office. Counterinsurgency operations do take a long time as we are learning all over again in Iraq. Iran has similar issues, but inside its own borders.
These restive provinces constitute a Gap within the very heart of the Shia counter-core. They are a weak point that can be exploited by any outside agency that cares to because they are real problems, sore points that can be easily exacerbated at whim. Pushed hard enough, they can even form the basis of a "firm kill" solution where the regime is overthrown due to flames started in this counter-core Gap.
. . . on Saturday I read: sat outside in the gazebo and hammered my way through The Da Vinci Code. If Angels and Demons was a Tom Clancy novel for Art History majors, Code is 24 for pagans, I suppose. The writing, as others have noted, is bad not unbearably so, but reading the book is like being borne along by a rushing stream of flat ginger ale. Youre certainly going somewhere, but the medium of your conveyance lacks distinction. Some moments were laughable I could not imagine the character Teabing as anything other than Teabag, and almost imagined a bottom-heavy wet man with a string tied to his head. I did put the book down, laughing, when the author suggested that Walt Disney was in on the conspiracy to bring forth the truth about the Goddess. Why? Because of The Little Mermaid, which was just full of Piscean symbolism. Because the ancients, you know, revered fish, or crabs, or water, or something or other.
Those ancients: they revered everything. They worshipped the circle! Also the square. And, according to a 10th century French monk, the rectangle had certain mystical connotations as well, and thats why our beds are rectangular. Up until the Council of Sealy, convened by King Quoil, everyone slept in circular beds like the ancient Zoroastrans, beds from which no one ever fell. But rectangular beds were easier to fall out of, so the Council mandated such shapes so people would be reminded of the Fall of Man, preferably on a nightly basis. And so forth. On and on. The wisdom of the ancients. They believed the moon was the Breast of the Goddess of Night! All well and good, So-crates, but weve been there, and its a rock covered in dust.
Blasphemer! You no, sorry, only the evil horrible CHURCH accuses people of blasphemy, we pagans are a come-one-come-all sort of people, accepting of all beliefs. Except for Christians, who go straight to the Coliseum for lion appetizers. Anyway, the moon has mystical goddess powers! It affects the tide and the cycle of a womans womb!
Well, gravity will do that. All due respect, you guys didnt have the whole story back when you were assembling cosmologies based primarily on observation. I mean, you made a nice start, but you were also poking through bird guts to see if the augurs were good. Nowadays weve come to believe that half-digested seeds are an insufficient means for predicting likely outcomes. The financial industry hasnt used them for decades.
But we believed in the Goddess, and you, the patriarchal Western evil sex-denying female-fearing popish testosterone-intoxicated tool user has utterly removed the Holy Female from your spiritual realm!
Right. Exactly. Women, all gone. No sacred dames. Aside from that Mary, Mother of, but shes just a footnot, and you hardly hear anything about her. Youre quite right; Western civilization is bound up in a cinched surplice of denial and prudery, and we spend our days in fear of the Holy Sexual Whatever. I hold on, the TiVo just bonged whoa! "G-string Divas" marathon on HBO tonight! Alright. Anyway, youre quite correct; we do have a certain veneer of civilization draped around sex, inasmuch as the Twins do not open with the pitcher rutting with a consort on the mound. Which Im sure is named after some part of Venus anatomy, and if only we knew it, we would be amazed at how some of our words and terms were derived from ancient cultures, man! Did you know George Washingon was a Mason and a hemp farmer? They'll never let you know that. How do I know? I read it in a book in the library. Anyway, pass the bong.
You are missing the point! At this very moment, self-mortifying Opus Dei monks are plotting to suppress the old and ancient ways!
And more power to 'em. A bloody albino shows up at my door tomorrow, I'll put him up, with gratitude. The alternative worldview postulated in The Da Vinci Code does not exactly give us anything transcendent and wonderful, friend; the most sacred ritual described consists of some old French grandfather, nagoy and panhandled, moaning under some grindy-hipped fleshy woman with long silver hair, while observers yes, observers! stand around in masks holding orbs, chanting. I met her in the grotto and she sheathed my sword, da doo ron ron, da doo ron ron. This may be why the interminable Latin mass became popular: absolutely zero chance of seeing Granny get it on in front of the bridge club.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/30/2006 13:03 ||
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I'd been thinking of posting this, and I have a few comments. Some background: Gene is a writer whose work I have always enjoyed. I first "met" him when he was the editor of the late, lamented "Tropic" Sunday magazine in the Miami Herald when I lived there in the 80's. I must note here that the Miami Herald in those days was a fantastic paper, and many of their writers and photographers went on to fame and fortune in Washington and New York (back when reporting for the NYT was an honorable profession). Gene discovered Dave Barry, and collaborated with Joel Achenbach, who is another all time favorite of mine. Tropic magazine was brilliant and funny, and I still miss it. Somewhere in my files I have a letter sent to me by Gene, thanking me for the letter I sent to him welcoming him to Washington.
But after reading this screed, I can only shake my head sadly. His reaction to the blowing winds of change shows that he is rapidly turning into the dinosaur his generation railed against.
Bad News
J-school graduates, commence worrying
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, May 28, 2006; W28
From a commencement address I delivered last week:
I want to congratulate you all upon your graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, and wish you luck as you prepare to embark on exciting careers in telemarketing or large-appliance repair.
A quick note here: U-MD has or had one of the finest J-school programs in the country. They graduated fine upstanding journalists like my sister, and also the cancer formerly known as Jayson Blair.
My point is, this is a challenging time for journalists.
But not for the reasons Gene is about to enumerate.
And because you are word people, you understand that "challenging time" is a euphemism often used to describe disasters of epic proportions. For example, Richard Pryor was facing a "challenging time" when he ran down the street half-naked and on fire.
Gene showing off his 'hip' factor here. Gene can Relate to Today's Youth. Do you think the Class of '06 even know who Richard Pryor iswas? He's just some dead guy, right?
What are your challenges, specifically? Let us begin with, quote unquote, getting a job. Good jobs in journalism have become scarce as newspapers shrink and die, broadcast media fragment to smaller niche audiences and the public appears more and more willing to receive its "news" online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants. But, it's not like there is no hope. There are still high-prestige, well-paying positions in journalism. Unfortunately, they are filled by tired old coots who aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Me, for example. It'll take a hydraulic winch to pry me loose from this gig.
Gene is leaving something important out of this whine. The Washington Post has been offering its newsroom vets an unprecedented and very lucrative buyout to their lifers to take early retirement. Most of their columnists are leaving, and a good chunk of their veteran beat reporters. Gene may not have enough seniority to qualify for this offer, and that may be why he's staying around an increasingly empty newsroom.
Two decades ago, I worked with your dean, Tom Kunkel, at the Miami Herald. Back then, the Herald was a newspaper the thickness of the Singapore telephone directory. Today, when carriers fling the Herald onto suburban driveways, it settles to the pavement gently, like a sycamore leaf in the breeze. When Tom and I worked there, the Herald was the flagship of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, which no longer exists, having recently been purchased by the McClatchy chain, which sold some of the papers to the MediaNews chain, which sold some of the papers to the Kmart chain, which is using them as packing material for Scooby-Doo sippy cups. My point is, and I mean this sincerely, this is a challenging time for newspapers.
But enough with the bad news. There's plenty of good news, too. Vitally important accountability journalism is still being practiced by fearless men and women who question authority and speak truth to power, right up until the time power incarcerates them. The public doesn't seem to care. Our industry is not exactly riding a crest of support. The most recent job-approval rankings place journalists between "loan shark" and "ho'-bag skank."
We are not without blame for this. It seems as though every week we hear stories about some journalist somewhere who has gone bad -- plagiarizing someone, making something up, extorting cash from sources, robbing a convenience store and pistol-whipping the clerk. As a columnist, I am particularly dismayed by the smug, self-congratulatory attitudes exhibited by some of my brethren. We columnists should know better, inasmuch as we are the only people in America intelligent and principled enough to tell people what to think and how to behave.
Most of all, it is imperative that we journalists state the truth, without fear or favor. We must be prepared to take unconventional, unpopular positions on grave matters of public interest. Accordingly, I would like to leave you with four points to ponder.
(1) We need more Jews in the media. You can never have too many Jews, is my position.
Gratuitous swipe at the Jews. Why is this necessary in a college graduation speech?
(2) Objectivity is a good thing to strive for in journalism, but not at the expense of failing to confront the obvious. My own newspaper, for example, has written extensively about Vice President Cheney without once pointing out the self-evident fact that he is -- and I offer this as a trained professional observer -- Satan.
Gene knows that no proper journalist ought to believe in God. God is for ignorant superstitious tribals and of course the Noble Palestinians. With no God, there can be no Satan. And again my quibble here is that journalists are s'posed to be reporting facts, not interpretation. And I've yet to see any facts that establish Cheney as Satan. Again, this does not belong in a college graduation speech.
(3) You know that guy, Anderson Cooper, the CNN correspondent with the elegant white hair and the really sincere attitude who manages not only to report the news but also to feel the news resonate deep in his soul? Can't we put him in jail?
Whatever.
And, lastly:
(4) Our field is changing rapidly. Technology is overtaking us at an unheard-of pace. The journalists of tomorrow may not look anything like the journalists of today. I mean, literally. For all we know, they might have gills and three buttocks. That's how fast things are changing. But rest assured that, however dizzying the rate of change, when what's at stake is the sacred art of truth-telling, there is always one constant. One thing will always stay the same: Your editor is going to be an idiot.
And so will your college graduation speaker, Class of 2006. Mr. Weingarten gave you absolutely nothing in his speech that will make you better journalists or even remotely employable. You *will* be world-class whiners, however, a skill which seems to work well in Mr. Weingarten's dying ecosystem. Good luck, graduates.
#2
I've read Dave Barry and this guy is no Dave Barry.
Posted by: ed ||
05/30/2006 13:16 Comments ||
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#3
Amazing. On second thought, this is probably not an uncommon rant among the old hands of "journalism", but delivered as a graduation speech? What did these kids do to deserve this massive dose of self-pity and deranged bullshit? Just as Seafarious is shocked and saddened by the fall, so must be the fool who invited this cretin to speak. Or so I hope.
This is what you'd expect to hear mumbled or screamed into the seat cushions in the back booth at the seediest bar in town - The Losers Club.
Sometimes the trip from sanity to insanity can be very short. Especially if you haven't the perspective and honesty to recognize you're completely full of shit and most of what ails you and embitters you is self-inflicted.
#4
We columnists should know better, inasmuch as we are the only people in America intelligent and principled enough to tell people what to think and how to behave.
If Dave Barry said this, it would be funny. I suspect this guy means it.
Unfortunately, given the recent spate of heart-wrenching stories about non-existant people, misrepresentation and misinterpretation of facts and the inability of journalists to separate news from editorials, we doubt both your intelligence and your principles.
#5
Bloody, self-indulgent nonsense all through. Nice fisk, Seafarious. As for his concerns about the employability of the graduates looking up at him, so wide-eyed and enthusiastic, as far back as the 1980s the only way a space opened up was when a sitting journalist died. It was easier to find a job as a chemical engineer during the oil bust.
#6
We columnists should know better, inasmuch as we are the only people in America intelligent and principled enough to tell people what to think and how to behave.
Intelligent? I don't know in America but here in France you become journalist when you aren't good enough at maths and physics for an engineering carreer and not good enough at litterature to either become a writer or a teacher.
And for principled, let's just recall the name of Dan Rather
His name's Weingarten - this might be a little joke on himself.
This would have been a big improvement over the snoozefest I got from Chuck Robb at my graduation. It's a series of jokes, people! Although you're right, he's nowhere near as good as his protege Dave Barry.
#9
If this guy was the best they could get to deliver the commencement address, I got a feeling U-MD's J-school isn't nearly prestigious as it used to be.
And not only that, he uses it as the basis of a "mail it in" column...
#11
A long time ago, you could go to school and learn. And when you graduated, you had learned. And commencement was not a political rally but rather just a "Get them on their feet with a good attitude" speech.
This entire education system is so shameful now. I do not know if it is surviveable at this point. Maybe the loss and bankruptcy of this mess is needed. Or not.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/30/2006 22:10 Comments ||
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#16
I'm contemplating another masters degree... possibly in Irish American Cultural Studies. Headed to the frig just now to begin with a ice cold Guinness.
#17
Actually he wrote a pretty good book a few years ago about his battle with Hepatitis C.
His commencement speech was fairly status quo and true to his 'style'. The point of my rant is that it was inappropriate for a commencement address.
The 'jews' thing still bothers me, it's another one of those *wink wink* Jews secretly run the planet conspiracy statements, and ought not to be foisted on impressionable students about to grapple with paying their school loans. It's more subtle reinforcement of the academia/media party line, and I think it sucks. Note it was the *very first* item on his list.
From the musical South Pacific (yes, written by Jews):
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The New York Times continues to astonish us with its relentless spin and condescension toward blacks and others it regards as victims. Todays example falls into the category candidate for the worlds smallest violin created by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journals online Best of the Web column.
As unprecedented Taliban violence sweeps across southern Afghanistan, four players in the region Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and NATO are locked in a tense standoff rather than cooperating to defeat the terrorists. At stake is the future survival of Afghanistans moderate government and stability in Pakistan.
"NATO will not fail in Afghanistan
.the family of nations will expect nothing less than success," said General James Jones, the head of US and NATO forces in Europe, adding that NATO will double its deployment in Afghanistan to 18,000 troops. Jones also made an impassioned plea for NATO governments to end the caveats that they impose on their troops, making it next to impossible for commanders to run a proper military campaign. The caveats number 71, and Jones calls them "NATOs operational cancer and "an impediment to success."
