7 August 2010 Old textbooks but a new stadium
“Putting Our Brains on Hold
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 6, 2010
The world leadership qualities of the United States, once so prevalent, are fading faster than the polar ice caps.
Go to Columnist Page »http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/bobherbert/index.html
We once set the standard for industrial might, for the advanced state of our physical infrastructure, and for the quality of our citizens’ lives. All are experiencing significant decline.
The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations.
At a time when a college education is needed more than ever to establish and maintain a middle-class standard of living, America’s young people are moving in exactly the wrong direction. A well-educated population also is crucially important if the U.S. is to succeed in an increasingly competitive global environment. “
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
This should be required reading. Herbert repeatedly homes in on the real needs that our nation refuses to address.
For instance, the emphasis of football and basketball by school systems. The article below appeared in our morning paper today. Roads and waste management are somehow found to be of less importance than running a training camp for national athletic franchise holders.
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=79695
“Schools’ athletic programs may be saved
By Heather Richardson
Press Staff Writer
hrichardson@johnsoncitypress.com
Several athletic programs in the Washington County school system may have been saved Friday morning as the Washington County Budget Committee voted to offer approximately $250,000 to the school system.
If approved by the full commission about $101,000 will come from the highway and solid waste departments’ budgets. The remaining will come from $275,000 to be taken out of the general fund — 44 percent of which, in compliance with state law, will go to Johnson City schools.
Last month the school board presented to the committee a budget $1.8 million out of balance. After hearing pleas from Director of Schools Ron Dykes, the committee approved giving the system an additional $564,500. Dykes returned to the committee Friday morning with a list of board-approved cuts and a balanced budget but was still pleading for more money.
“One more time mayor, as futile as it may sound, I’m going to plead on behalf of the Washington County School District. We need a little more money. On behalf of the faculty, the citizens, on behalf of economic development, on behalf of the children, we need just a little more money if you can find any way to do so.”
Part of the cuts presented to the budget committee included $200,000 from athletic departments across the system that did not financially support themselves. The cut would do away with pay supplements for coaches in baseball, softball, track, cross country, volleyball, soccer, wrestling and golf. Dykes said without those pay supplements coaches for those sports would be available on a voluntary basis only — a fact that could bring an end to any sport that couldn’t find a coach.
Mayor George Jaynes asked Dykes what he would do about the athletic pay supplements slated to be cut if additional funding was provided.
“It would be my recommendation to implement them,” Dykes said. “Nothing tops academics in my philosophy. But just as crucial and just as important to a child’s development, their creativity, their character building are the arts and athletics. They are crucial to a well-rounded curriculum.”
Telford resident Teresa Johnson agreed. Johnson gave a stirring speech to the committee and others in the room about how important the county’s children are.
“We need highways. We do. But you’re talking about kids and if you don’t take care of these kids — (with) textbooks, teachers, people to be there to take care of them when they get sick ... and these sports programs that will keep them in schools and out of drugs and out of courts ... you ain’t going to have to worry about your roads. You are going to build another prison. They’re not going to learn to read. We’re not going to have the textbooks that’s got the modern stuff in them. We are going to be so behind that we are going to be the East Tennessee people think we are.”
Johnson went on to say she understood that what the schools needed was a lot of money but she believed the children were worth it.
“My property taxes doubled on me a couple years ago, but I pay them just like every other citizen does. Yeah, we fuss about it, but we pay them. The biggest investment this county’s got is the kids. Take care of them.”
Immediately following Johnson’s remarks was a round of applause and a motion from Jaynes to provide the additional funds to the school system.
“Its not that much but at least it’s a start,” Jaynes said.”
I fail to understand the importance of football and basketball in any public school system. The concept of a “student athlete” derives from English public schools, where academic programs were the primary concern rather than athletics. The “sportsmanship” and “character building” which emanated from the fields of Eton failed to immigrate to American schools and universities. Sportsmanship is a myth in the U.S. Any coach who assures equal playing time to all who show up at practices and at games, in lieu of playing only the most aggressive and accomplished players in order to amplify the number of games one, will not have his contract renewed. Character building is another myth. Our students are, all too often, provided with assistance and with cheating aids in order to remain marginally academically qualified to play. Unless we are hoping to graduate corrupt lobbyists and used-car salesmen, there is no purpose to pretending we are educating “student-athletes.”
Our school systems have been conned into providing and paying for training camps for national franchise holders. Parents and others, who want to continually relive their youth through the efforts of their children and those of other families, have been convinced to support local gladiatorial contests.
The school system in the article above just built a new football stadium at public expense. The old one was “out of date.” So is the practice of soaking the public to pay for training a new and continuing crop of gladiators at the expense of education.
The local citizenry would never have lined up to demand that the money being shifted from the county’s budget be used to buy new textbooks. After all, no one wants to read about history and learn all those complicated rules about spelling and grammar. There’s no local glory in being a good student.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
6 August 2010 Telling time by aches and pains
6 August 2010 Telling time by aches and pains
I as did most of our age group grew up hearing the older family members and friends predicting changes in the weather by what body part hurt. Mostly, we gave it some credence but didn’t see it as our future.
The future is now the present, and the present we received is one we’d like to re-wrap and pass on to someone else. Now it’s us complaining that our injured joints, bones, and other anatomical features forewarn us of changing weather.
I’ve been able to do so for a long time courtesy of technical augmentation and repairs, followed by gratuitous shrapnel additions. So have a lot of other VietNam Vets. So have vets from more recent wars. Those shrapnel injuries and those injuries caused by more devastating and damaging insults really get your attention.
But now the aging process has caught up. Those bone growths caused by the various arthritic diseases and breakdowns are also sources of weather prediction. So are soft tissue injuries that heal, or not, at the pace of molasses rolling uphill in January. They tell us when storms are likely to roll through, when long damp stretches are likely to happen. I’ve learned to listen to them.
Today, I’m listening to an arthritic knee, to cervical and lumbar vertebra, to a bone spur or two, and to some soft tissue damage in both rotor cuffs that tell its August.
The neck and back tell me that it is after 0500 and that my pain meds level has fallen below the therapeutic range. The knee tells me that I’ve done my two-mile hike with Mike today and therefore it is after 1030. The lessened knee pain tomorrow will tell me that it is either Saturday or Sunday, when we don’t walk. The shoulders tell me that it is August and that both shoulders are due to be injected with cortisol. Those injections will let me buy some time to use the chain saw and splitter to lay in firewood and clean up some blow down.
The sting of sweat in my eyes tells me that it is after February and before October.
With all that time telling ability, the first item I put on in the morning is still my wrist watch. A lifetime of working in fields that demand being on-time as a way of life still drives my day. While I have no place I have to be, most days, I don’t want to be late getting there.
I just made reservations for dinner tomorrow night. We’ll work the gate at the dance again. Gloria’s champing at the bit to get back onto the dance floor. But she made the decision to sit this one out. I think it’s wise on her part to allow these new injections some time to settle in. But it’s not my knee. Looking back, given my non-dancing status when we met, I’m really surprised that she took a second look at me. Lucky me!
Shabbat Shalom!
I as did most of our age group grew up hearing the older family members and friends predicting changes in the weather by what body part hurt. Mostly, we gave it some credence but didn’t see it as our future.
The future is now the present, and the present we received is one we’d like to re-wrap and pass on to someone else. Now it’s us complaining that our injured joints, bones, and other anatomical features forewarn us of changing weather.
I’ve been able to do so for a long time courtesy of technical augmentation and repairs, followed by gratuitous shrapnel additions. So have a lot of other VietNam Vets. So have vets from more recent wars. Those shrapnel injuries and those injuries caused by more devastating and damaging insults really get your attention.
But now the aging process has caught up. Those bone growths caused by the various arthritic diseases and breakdowns are also sources of weather prediction. So are soft tissue injuries that heal, or not, at the pace of molasses rolling uphill in January. They tell us when storms are likely to roll through, when long damp stretches are likely to happen. I’ve learned to listen to them.
Today, I’m listening to an arthritic knee, to cervical and lumbar vertebra, to a bone spur or two, and to some soft tissue damage in both rotor cuffs that tell its August.
The neck and back tell me that it is after 0500 and that my pain meds level has fallen below the therapeutic range. The knee tells me that I’ve done my two-mile hike with Mike today and therefore it is after 1030. The lessened knee pain tomorrow will tell me that it is either Saturday or Sunday, when we don’t walk. The shoulders tell me that it is August and that both shoulders are due to be injected with cortisol. Those injections will let me buy some time to use the chain saw and splitter to lay in firewood and clean up some blow down.
The sting of sweat in my eyes tells me that it is after February and before October.
With all that time telling ability, the first item I put on in the morning is still my wrist watch. A lifetime of working in fields that demand being on-time as a way of life still drives my day. While I have no place I have to be, most days, I don’t want to be late getting there.
I just made reservations for dinner tomorrow night. We’ll work the gate at the dance again. Gloria’s champing at the bit to get back onto the dance floor. But she made the decision to sit this one out. I think it’s wise on her part to allow these new injections some time to settle in. But it’s not my knee. Looking back, given my non-dancing status when we met, I’m really surprised that she took a second look at me. Lucky me!
Shabbat Shalom!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
5 August 2010 Will the heterosexual divorce rate jump?
5 August 2010 Will the heterosexual divorce rate jump?
Yesterday’s court decision, blocking the implementation of California’s Proposition Eight has already provoked hordes of complaints stating that the sanctity of “marriage” is ruined and that the nation is now in grave danger.
The marriages that are somehow threatened are, of course, those heterosexual, church-performed events that are prime examples of the intrusion of religion into civil law in the U.S. The decision of the various states in the U.S. to allow religious entities – churches, etc – to license and officiate at the civil union of a couple; is a holdover from the days when churches controlled governments, crowned divine right rulers, and forced Christianity upon European nations and their colonial offshoots.
In today’s United States there should be no involvement of any religious entity in civil affairs. No laws should be written preventing the sales and use of birth control drugs and devices in order to please the Catholic Church. No hospital should be required to limit procedures or maintain dying people on needless life support systems to appease Christians. No church should have any say in who is defined as a unified couple for civil purposes. For Church, you may substitute Mosque, Temple, Synagogue, Synod, Convention or any other religious governing body.
For all legal purposes that might arise between two people sharing life as partners, civil unions, licensed by the states should be in force. There should be no difference between the civil unions of any state and all states should honor the licensed unions or other states.
Marriage is a church function, a throwback to the days when brides were purchased and only clergy could read well enough to keep records of who was married to whom. Marriage should not be a legal function, but should be a religious ceremony having no legal consequences. After all, if an Elvis impersonator with no clerical education can solemnize a marriage, how serious can it actually be?
The chorus of objections to the Prop 8 decision lament the damage to the sanctity of the lamenter’s marriage. Must have been an Elvis wedding. How can anyone else’ actions damage the strength or sanctity of anyone else’s marriage? Being married while drunk or stoned, on a whim, because one partner is suddenly pregnant, for fear of social condemnation, and other causes for a sudden marriage may weaken the marriage and damage its sanctity. But those are internal problems in the relationship of two people.
It is amazing how much power the LGBT populace has, to suddenly damage and place at risk millions of marriages formalized by the various Christian sects. If we draft them all into the military can they end wars?
The loudest objectors are behaving no differently than the Taliban. Of course, dehumanizing sub-populations and defining them as infidels and unacceptable to take part in cultural rituals is wrong whether it is done by our Christian Taliban or someone else’s Moslem Taliban.
It’s time to end the custom of “marriage” as a civil agreement and union. It’s time to relegate marriage rituals to the religions that spawned them and to remove any legal significance from the term marriage.
No American citizen should be denied civil union because fundamentalist Christians object to their lifestyle or religion/lack of religion. No church should be required to provide marriage ritual for anyone; but since the term will have no legal weight any longer, it should no longer matter. It’s time we enter the 21st century and free ourselves from the hold religions still have on our lives and our culture.
Yesterday’s court decision, blocking the implementation of California’s Proposition Eight has already provoked hordes of complaints stating that the sanctity of “marriage” is ruined and that the nation is now in grave danger.
The marriages that are somehow threatened are, of course, those heterosexual, church-performed events that are prime examples of the intrusion of religion into civil law in the U.S. The decision of the various states in the U.S. to allow religious entities – churches, etc – to license and officiate at the civil union of a couple; is a holdover from the days when churches controlled governments, crowned divine right rulers, and forced Christianity upon European nations and their colonial offshoots.
In today’s United States there should be no involvement of any religious entity in civil affairs. No laws should be written preventing the sales and use of birth control drugs and devices in order to please the Catholic Church. No hospital should be required to limit procedures or maintain dying people on needless life support systems to appease Christians. No church should have any say in who is defined as a unified couple for civil purposes. For Church, you may substitute Mosque, Temple, Synagogue, Synod, Convention or any other religious governing body.
For all legal purposes that might arise between two people sharing life as partners, civil unions, licensed by the states should be in force. There should be no difference between the civil unions of any state and all states should honor the licensed unions or other states.
Marriage is a church function, a throwback to the days when brides were purchased and only clergy could read well enough to keep records of who was married to whom. Marriage should not be a legal function, but should be a religious ceremony having no legal consequences. After all, if an Elvis impersonator with no clerical education can solemnize a marriage, how serious can it actually be?
The chorus of objections to the Prop 8 decision lament the damage to the sanctity of the lamenter’s marriage. Must have been an Elvis wedding. How can anyone else’ actions damage the strength or sanctity of anyone else’s marriage? Being married while drunk or stoned, on a whim, because one partner is suddenly pregnant, for fear of social condemnation, and other causes for a sudden marriage may weaken the marriage and damage its sanctity. But those are internal problems in the relationship of two people.
It is amazing how much power the LGBT populace has, to suddenly damage and place at risk millions of marriages formalized by the various Christian sects. If we draft them all into the military can they end wars?
The loudest objectors are behaving no differently than the Taliban. Of course, dehumanizing sub-populations and defining them as infidels and unacceptable to take part in cultural rituals is wrong whether it is done by our Christian Taliban or someone else’s Moslem Taliban.
It’s time to end the custom of “marriage” as a civil agreement and union. It’s time to relegate marriage rituals to the religions that spawned them and to remove any legal significance from the term marriage.
No American citizen should be denied civil union because fundamentalist Christians object to their lifestyle or religion/lack of religion. No church should be required to provide marriage ritual for anyone; but since the term will have no legal weight any longer, it should no longer matter. It’s time we enter the 21st century and free ourselves from the hold religions still have on our lives and our culture.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
4 August 2010 Our demagogues forget who won the Crusades
4 August 2010 Our demagogues forget who won the Crusades
“Do Muslims have equal rights?
By John Esposito
In recent weeks, Republican politics and attempts across America to block the building of mosques have underscored the impact of Islamophobia in American society.”
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_esposito/2010/08/do_muslims_have_equal_rights.html?hpid=talkbox1
Today’s local newspaper contained another group of letters, each of which is disturbing in nature and in content. The correspondents, recognizable names appearing frequently, all seem convinced that there is an effort on the part of Moslems world-wide to infiltrate the U.S. and to replace our Constitution with some form of Sharia. None of these correspondents have any real knowledge of Islam other than what they have been force-fed by the right wing demagogues and Christian theocrats. And judging from their commentaries, they have no better understanding of our Constitution than they do the inner workings of molecular microbiology or of coronal mass ejections.
The right wing demagogues have latched on to the practice of building mosques as monuments to political victories as if it is a practice unique to Islam. One can spend years touring the cathedrals built by Roman and Orthodox Catholic heads of state to commemorate their victories in various battles over the centuries. The practice of celebrating military victories is not unique to any particular religion.
The lack of separation of religion and state, often a complaint about Islam, is no less common in Moslem nations than it has been and still can be in nations which declare Christianity as their state religion. Look at any European nation and the remnants of Christianity’s long and brutal hold are still quite evident. Look at Latin America for the evidence of theocratic nations carved out of the New World.
Despite their wailing about the intertwining of religion and politics in those nations which are defined by Moslem faith, the Christian right and the GOP machine are just as willing to allow the U.S. to be defined as a “”Christian” nation. They fail to worry about such a violation of our Constitution’s 1st Amendment when they are urged on by fundamentalist Christians.
The Islamo-phobes complain about the militant history of Islam and would have us believe that all Moslems harbor the deeply hidden desire to conquer the world and forcibly convert all non-Moslems to Islam. They conveniently forget the very same actions which were carried out under the beneficent mercies of Christianity when the crowned heads of Europe ruled at the pleasure of the various popes. Millions of Native Americans were converted by force in both hemispheres. The Caliphate of Islam is not that different than the Holy Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire. The great mosques of Jerusalem and other cities all too often were Catholic cathedrals built atop Jewish houses of worship. The Crusaders had no compunction about destroying evidence of someone else’s faith in order to celebrate their own ephemeral victories.
Still, millions of Americans have been convinced by the lies and distortions of the GOP and Tea Party demagogues that we are at war with Islam. These are the same demagogues who will scream about a “war on Christianity.” They see no harm in allowing Christianity’s fundamentalist bottom feeders and theocrats to re-write the principle foundation of our nation while pointing out the “evil nature” of Moslems who have managed to slide religion into the legal systems of their own nations.
There is no war between the United States and Islam. We are currently involved militarily with nations that allow Islam a central part in their construction. There is no “war on Christianity.” But if American Christians persist in trying to force their beliefs into our government and lives; as they are currently doing with respect to personal freedoms, then there will need to be some action taken to make certain our 1st Amendment is protected, for all Americans.
I’m not worried about the infiltration of Sharia. I am worried about re-writing our Constitution to agree with anyone’s holy books. It is simply not acceptable.
“Do Muslims have equal rights?
By John Esposito
In recent weeks, Republican politics and attempts across America to block the building of mosques have underscored the impact of Islamophobia in American society.”
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_esposito/2010/08/do_muslims_have_equal_rights.html?hpid=talkbox1
Today’s local newspaper contained another group of letters, each of which is disturbing in nature and in content. The correspondents, recognizable names appearing frequently, all seem convinced that there is an effort on the part of Moslems world-wide to infiltrate the U.S. and to replace our Constitution with some form of Sharia. None of these correspondents have any real knowledge of Islam other than what they have been force-fed by the right wing demagogues and Christian theocrats. And judging from their commentaries, they have no better understanding of our Constitution than they do the inner workings of molecular microbiology or of coronal mass ejections.
The right wing demagogues have latched on to the practice of building mosques as monuments to political victories as if it is a practice unique to Islam. One can spend years touring the cathedrals built by Roman and Orthodox Catholic heads of state to commemorate their victories in various battles over the centuries. The practice of celebrating military victories is not unique to any particular religion.
The lack of separation of religion and state, often a complaint about Islam, is no less common in Moslem nations than it has been and still can be in nations which declare Christianity as their state religion. Look at any European nation and the remnants of Christianity’s long and brutal hold are still quite evident. Look at Latin America for the evidence of theocratic nations carved out of the New World.
Despite their wailing about the intertwining of religion and politics in those nations which are defined by Moslem faith, the Christian right and the GOP machine are just as willing to allow the U.S. to be defined as a “”Christian” nation. They fail to worry about such a violation of our Constitution’s 1st Amendment when they are urged on by fundamentalist Christians.
The Islamo-phobes complain about the militant history of Islam and would have us believe that all Moslems harbor the deeply hidden desire to conquer the world and forcibly convert all non-Moslems to Islam. They conveniently forget the very same actions which were carried out under the beneficent mercies of Christianity when the crowned heads of Europe ruled at the pleasure of the various popes. Millions of Native Americans were converted by force in both hemispheres. The Caliphate of Islam is not that different than the Holy Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire. The great mosques of Jerusalem and other cities all too often were Catholic cathedrals built atop Jewish houses of worship. The Crusaders had no compunction about destroying evidence of someone else’s faith in order to celebrate their own ephemeral victories.
Still, millions of Americans have been convinced by the lies and distortions of the GOP and Tea Party demagogues that we are at war with Islam. These are the same demagogues who will scream about a “war on Christianity.” They see no harm in allowing Christianity’s fundamentalist bottom feeders and theocrats to re-write the principle foundation of our nation while pointing out the “evil nature” of Moslems who have managed to slide religion into the legal systems of their own nations.
There is no war between the United States and Islam. We are currently involved militarily with nations that allow Islam a central part in their construction. There is no “war on Christianity.” But if American Christians persist in trying to force their beliefs into our government and lives; as they are currently doing with respect to personal freedoms, then there will need to be some action taken to make certain our 1st Amendment is protected, for all Americans.
I’m not worried about the infiltration of Sharia. I am worried about re-writing our Constitution to agree with anyone’s holy books. It is simply not acceptable.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
3 August 20 1st Amendment only applies to
3 August 20 1st Amendment only applies to…
In a poll conducted by the Johnson City Press – Johnson City TN – 31% of respondents feel it is alright to deny Moslems the right to worship freely.
Appearing on the editorial page of the same paper today were two letters to the editor claiming that Moslems are not entitled to the 1st Amendment rights, freedom of worship, assembly, and speech, that are promised all American citizens.
There are currently three gubernatorial candidates vying for the GOP nomination. One’s television advertising makes repeated mention of Christian faith as if such faith is among the qualifications necessary for election. Another has publically stated that Moslems are not entitled to 1st Amendment protections and that their citizenship rights can be diminished. He’s all but demanded the segregation and expulsion of Moslems from the body politic. Perhaps he wants to use those secret FEMA concentration camps his Tea Party mob backers keep inventing.
In an election which features an endless train of GOP candidates and propagandists demanding that the Constitution be “protected,” it is frightening how selective the protection is intended to be.
Below are two excerpts from a NY Times column concerning Newt Gingrich. The poor excuse for a Congressman is busily exporting hatred from Georgia to the rest of the nation. He is likely to run for POTUS based, if nothing else, upon his historical opposition to the Clinton administration. He needs to be exposed for the hatemonger he is and stopped cold.
“Newt Gingrich, pushing prejudice at Ground Zero
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, August 3, 2010”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080203721.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
“Newt Gingrich, his doctorate notwithstanding, has offered us an illogical and historical context to the ugly dispute about building an Islamic cultural center and mosque near Manhattan's Ground Zero. For a while, I thought that Sarah Palin and others would be the only ones to reap the political benefit of exploiting anti-Muslim sentiment, but Gingrich was not to be denied. With a preposterous solemnity, he expounded the schoolyard doctrine of tit for tat.”
“This mosque and Islamic center were approved by the local neighborhood advisory board and have the backing of the mayor. To an alarming extent, the opponents are mostly Republican politicians -- Palin, Lazio, Gingrich and even congressional candidates in other states. They pretend to have the courage of their convictions, but the truth is otherwise. When it comes to convictions, they have none at all.”
I am old enough to recall the McCarthy era, saw some of the hearings on television. What I remember is how much damage was done to the careers of countless writers, musicians, teachers, film makers, and others, based upon nothing more than innuendo and the gullibility of the American public. The power wielded by Senator McCarthy ruined lives for no reason. The supposed Communist 5th column that he claimed to be able to expose never existed. Like today’s Tea Party mobs, he sucked energy from a populace that was too lazy to read for itself, to willing to let inaccurate labels define who people and political parties were. The pointed finger and shrill scream, “socialists, communists!” is being used today, hurled by people who can’t define either term with any accuracy. They defame intellectuals and, in doing so, demonstrate their own lack of intellect.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/08/is_fear_of_islam_the_new_mccarthyism.html?hpid=talkbox1
“Is fear of Islam the new McCarthyism?
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Religious freedom and the right of free expression are the strongest source of power Americans have for combating radicals who use Islam as the excuse for their violent extremism. The struggle with such extremists will not, indeed cannot, be won with military force, but through the power of our values. If there is a "narrative" abroad in the world that justifies violence against the West because the West "hates Islam," the way to correct that narrative is with the practice of our cherished ideals of religious freedom and tolerance for diversity of opinion.
Instead, however, conservatives such as Newt Gingrich want us to reject not only violent extremists, but also Islamic ideas, especially ideas on religious law, that is, Sharia law. Gingrich believes that Americans are "at risk" as a nation, not only from the violence of a "militant Islam," but also from the cultural integration of Muslims in the West. The latter he calls "stealth jihadists." A close historical parallel, Gingrich argued in a lengthy address to the American Enterprise Institute entitled America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan, where he is now a senior fellow, is the struggle with communism.
“Newt Gingrich peppered his national security address about the threat of Islam with references to famous figures who fought Nazism as well as communism, though not Nixon. He quotes Harry Truman several times, but he does not quote Truman on the dangers of targeting ideas rather than acts in regard to fighting the threat of Communism. In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, and wrote this about his veto: "The basic error of these sections is that they move in the direction of suppressing opinion and belief. This would be a very dangerous course to take, not because we have any sympathy for communist opinions, but because any governmental stifling of the free expression of opinion is a long step toward totalitarianism. There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have." (Italics added)
There's another historical figure who was not featured in the Gingrich address, but whom we who venture into the media would do well to emulate: Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS newscaster and analyst, who took on McCarthy and his tactics. On March 9, 1954, Murrow said these words that rebuked forever those who would use fear to manipulate our political processes.
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember we are not descended from fearful men--not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."
In a poll conducted by the Johnson City Press – Johnson City TN – 31% of respondents feel it is alright to deny Moslems the right to worship freely.
Appearing on the editorial page of the same paper today were two letters to the editor claiming that Moslems are not entitled to the 1st Amendment rights, freedom of worship, assembly, and speech, that are promised all American citizens.
There are currently three gubernatorial candidates vying for the GOP nomination. One’s television advertising makes repeated mention of Christian faith as if such faith is among the qualifications necessary for election. Another has publically stated that Moslems are not entitled to 1st Amendment protections and that their citizenship rights can be diminished. He’s all but demanded the segregation and expulsion of Moslems from the body politic. Perhaps he wants to use those secret FEMA concentration camps his Tea Party mob backers keep inventing.
In an election which features an endless train of GOP candidates and propagandists demanding that the Constitution be “protected,” it is frightening how selective the protection is intended to be.
Below are two excerpts from a NY Times column concerning Newt Gingrich. The poor excuse for a Congressman is busily exporting hatred from Georgia to the rest of the nation. He is likely to run for POTUS based, if nothing else, upon his historical opposition to the Clinton administration. He needs to be exposed for the hatemonger he is and stopped cold.
“Newt Gingrich, pushing prejudice at Ground Zero
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, August 3, 2010”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080203721.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
“Newt Gingrich, his doctorate notwithstanding, has offered us an illogical and historical context to the ugly dispute about building an Islamic cultural center and mosque near Manhattan's Ground Zero. For a while, I thought that Sarah Palin and others would be the only ones to reap the political benefit of exploiting anti-Muslim sentiment, but Gingrich was not to be denied. With a preposterous solemnity, he expounded the schoolyard doctrine of tit for tat.”
“This mosque and Islamic center were approved by the local neighborhood advisory board and have the backing of the mayor. To an alarming extent, the opponents are mostly Republican politicians -- Palin, Lazio, Gingrich and even congressional candidates in other states. They pretend to have the courage of their convictions, but the truth is otherwise. When it comes to convictions, they have none at all.”
I am old enough to recall the McCarthy era, saw some of the hearings on television. What I remember is how much damage was done to the careers of countless writers, musicians, teachers, film makers, and others, based upon nothing more than innuendo and the gullibility of the American public. The power wielded by Senator McCarthy ruined lives for no reason. The supposed Communist 5th column that he claimed to be able to expose never existed. Like today’s Tea Party mobs, he sucked energy from a populace that was too lazy to read for itself, to willing to let inaccurate labels define who people and political parties were. The pointed finger and shrill scream, “socialists, communists!” is being used today, hurled by people who can’t define either term with any accuracy. They defame intellectuals and, in doing so, demonstrate their own lack of intellect.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/08/is_fear_of_islam_the_new_mccarthyism.html?hpid=talkbox1
“Is fear of Islam the new McCarthyism?
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Religious freedom and the right of free expression are the strongest source of power Americans have for combating radicals who use Islam as the excuse for their violent extremism. The struggle with such extremists will not, indeed cannot, be won with military force, but through the power of our values. If there is a "narrative" abroad in the world that justifies violence against the West because the West "hates Islam," the way to correct that narrative is with the practice of our cherished ideals of religious freedom and tolerance for diversity of opinion.
Instead, however, conservatives such as Newt Gingrich want us to reject not only violent extremists, but also Islamic ideas, especially ideas on religious law, that is, Sharia law. Gingrich believes that Americans are "at risk" as a nation, not only from the violence of a "militant Islam," but also from the cultural integration of Muslims in the West. The latter he calls "stealth jihadists." A close historical parallel, Gingrich argued in a lengthy address to the American Enterprise Institute entitled America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan, where he is now a senior fellow, is the struggle with communism.
“Newt Gingrich peppered his national security address about the threat of Islam with references to famous figures who fought Nazism as well as communism, though not Nixon. He quotes Harry Truman several times, but he does not quote Truman on the dangers of targeting ideas rather than acts in regard to fighting the threat of Communism. In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, and wrote this about his veto: "The basic error of these sections is that they move in the direction of suppressing opinion and belief. This would be a very dangerous course to take, not because we have any sympathy for communist opinions, but because any governmental stifling of the free expression of opinion is a long step toward totalitarianism. There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have." (Italics added)
There's another historical figure who was not featured in the Gingrich address, but whom we who venture into the media would do well to emulate: Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS newscaster and analyst, who took on McCarthy and his tactics. On March 9, 1954, Murrow said these words that rebuked forever those who would use fear to manipulate our political processes.
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember we are not descended from fearful men--not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."
Monday, August 2, 2010
2 August 2010 Where did the land and the love go?
2 August 2010 Where did the land and the love go?
There exists in movies, books, and other enterntainment, the myth of Arab solidarity and customary courtesy. I’m sure that the tradition has roots in older times and other places than today’s Middle East. For if it did exist today there would be a separate and possibly functional nation called Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
I’ve written about this previously. Far better, today, to allow someone with a professional view and better scholastic credentials than mine to explore the matter.
“The Palestinians, Alone
By EFRAIM KARSH
Published: August 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/opinion/02karsh.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
IT has long been conventional wisdom that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a prerequisite to peace and stability in the Middle East. Since Arabs and Muslims are so passionate about the Palestine problem, this argument runs, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate feeds regional anger and despair, gives a larger rationale to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and to the insurgency in Iraq and obstructs the formation of a regional coalition that will help block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.
What, then, are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71 percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? “This is an alarming indicator,” lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. “The Arabs, people and regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were committed to the Palestinian cause itself.”
But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the “Palestine question” has long been central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their own interests.
For example, it was common knowledge that the May 1948 pan-Arab invasion of the nascent state of Israel was more a scramble for Palestinian territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights. As the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdullah of Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon.”
From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. “We couldn’t care less if all the refugees die,” an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. “There are enough Arabs around.”
Not surprisingly, the Arab states have never hesitated to sacrifice Palestinians on a grand scale whenever it suited their needs. In 1970, when his throne came under threat from the Palestine Liberation Organization, the affable and thoroughly Westernized King Hussein of Jordan ordered the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, an event known as “Black September.”
Six years later, Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army, massacred some 3,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar. These militias again slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in 1982 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, this time under Israel’s watchful eye. None of the Arab states came to the Palestinians’ rescue.
Worse, in the mid-’80s, when the P.L.O. — officially designated by the Arab League as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people” — tried to re-establish its military presence in Lebanon, it was unceremoniously expelled by President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
This history of Arab leaders manipulating the Palestinian cause for their own ends while ignoring the fate of the Palestinians goes on and on. Saddam Hussein, in an effort to ennoble his predatory designs, claimed that he wouldn’t consider ending his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait without “the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Arab territories in Palestine.”
Shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaitis then set about punishing the P.L.O. for its support of Hussein — cutting off financial sponsorship, expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers and slaughtering thousands. Their retribution was so severe that Arafat was forced to acknowledge that “what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.
Efraim Karsh, a professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King’s College London, is the author, most recently, of “Palestine Betrayed.”
Enough said, today.
There exists in movies, books, and other enterntainment, the myth of Arab solidarity and customary courtesy. I’m sure that the tradition has roots in older times and other places than today’s Middle East. For if it did exist today there would be a separate and possibly functional nation called Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
I’ve written about this previously. Far better, today, to allow someone with a professional view and better scholastic credentials than mine to explore the matter.
“The Palestinians, Alone
By EFRAIM KARSH
Published: August 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/opinion/02karsh.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
IT has long been conventional wisdom that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a prerequisite to peace and stability in the Middle East. Since Arabs and Muslims are so passionate about the Palestine problem, this argument runs, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate feeds regional anger and despair, gives a larger rationale to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and to the insurgency in Iraq and obstructs the formation of a regional coalition that will help block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.
What, then, are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71 percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? “This is an alarming indicator,” lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. “The Arabs, people and regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were committed to the Palestinian cause itself.”
But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the “Palestine question” has long been central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their own interests.
For example, it was common knowledge that the May 1948 pan-Arab invasion of the nascent state of Israel was more a scramble for Palestinian territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights. As the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdullah of Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon.”
From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. “We couldn’t care less if all the refugees die,” an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. “There are enough Arabs around.”
Not surprisingly, the Arab states have never hesitated to sacrifice Palestinians on a grand scale whenever it suited their needs. In 1970, when his throne came under threat from the Palestine Liberation Organization, the affable and thoroughly Westernized King Hussein of Jordan ordered the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, an event known as “Black September.”
Six years later, Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army, massacred some 3,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar. These militias again slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in 1982 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, this time under Israel’s watchful eye. None of the Arab states came to the Palestinians’ rescue.
Worse, in the mid-’80s, when the P.L.O. — officially designated by the Arab League as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people” — tried to re-establish its military presence in Lebanon, it was unceremoniously expelled by President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
This history of Arab leaders manipulating the Palestinian cause for their own ends while ignoring the fate of the Palestinians goes on and on. Saddam Hussein, in an effort to ennoble his predatory designs, claimed that he wouldn’t consider ending his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait without “the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Arab territories in Palestine.”
Shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaitis then set about punishing the P.L.O. for its support of Hussein — cutting off financial sponsorship, expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers and slaughtering thousands. Their retribution was so severe that Arafat was forced to acknowledge that “what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.
Efraim Karsh, a professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King’s College London, is the author, most recently, of “Palestine Betrayed.”
Enough said, today.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
1 August 2010 It’s only history; how accurate does it have to be?
1 August 2010 It’s only history; how accurate does it have to be?
Why read the book when I can watch the movie?
"Tea party" activists drawn to Williamsburg and its portrayal of Founding Fathers
Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073103051.html
There is an unexpected influx of Tea Party mob members at the historic living museum Colonial Williamsburg.
While I applaud the effort to learn more about the history of this nation, I don’t believe that Colonial Williamsburg is the best source of political history pertaining to the United States. Nor do I believe that asking questions of actors who are hired to portray historical persons is the most reliable source of information concerning the political thoughts and actions of these persons or the support characters who populate the museum.
The American Revolution and events leading to it are very well documented. The political stances of those who fomented and managed the uprising and subsequent nation building are equally well documented. Those thoughts written by the founders have been well preserved and are available via libraries and via internet sources in word for word reliability. But it takes time and energy to read old documents and to figure out what the writers had in mind by studying the culture and technologic levels of the infant nation. Far easier to visit a historical museum who’s actors are provided with known source material to allow them to interact with the visitors; and to imagine that appropriating the words of an actor is the intellectual equivalent of actually studying the time, place, and people by means of books and letters preserved for exactly that purpose.
Like too much in today’s world, the easy answer/sound byte is sought after by those all too willing to accept it as actual source material. It’s easy to believe that an actor, trained to behave as an 18th century person and allowed to respond to questions by staying in a narrow character and offering what he/she hopes is an accurate response, will provide a valid answer to mob members hoping to find validation for the sound bytes and buzz phrases they hear repeated endlessly at Tea Party mob gatherings. It is also intellectually lazy and among the poorest of research methods. We might as well allow them to claim that historical novels carry equal weight with preserved archival documents.
The entire article is worth reading. I’m a fan of such “living” museums. There are lots of things to be learned in them about daily life in their particular time period. But they are decidedly not intended to replace scholarship. They are not going to provide the answers that the Tea Party mobs would like most to hear. Actors at Colonial Williamsburg will not tell right wing reactionaries and religious militias that it is time for them to launch armed uprisings. On the contrary, it appears as if the actor portraying General Washington provided a series of answers guaranteed to dumbfound the average Tea Party mob member.
Huzzah!
“Sometimes, the activists appear surprised when the Founding Fathers don't always provide the "give 'em hell" response they seem to be looking for.
When a tourist asked George Washington a question about what should be done to those colonists who remain loyal to the tyrannical British king, Washington interjected: "I hope that we're all loyal, sir" -- a reminder that Washington, far from being an early agitator against the throne, was among those who sought to avoid revolution until the very end.
When another audience member asked the general to reflect on the role of prayer and religion in politics, he said: "Prayers, sir, are a man's private concern. They are not a matter of public interest. And nor should they be. There is nothing so personal as a man's relationship with his creator."
And when another asked whether the Boston Tea Party had helped rally the patriots, Washington disagreed with force: The tea party "should never have occurred," he said. "It's hurt our cause, sir."
Why read the book when I can watch the movie?
"Tea party" activists drawn to Williamsburg and its portrayal of Founding Fathers
Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073103051.html
There is an unexpected influx of Tea Party mob members at the historic living museum Colonial Williamsburg.
While I applaud the effort to learn more about the history of this nation, I don’t believe that Colonial Williamsburg is the best source of political history pertaining to the United States. Nor do I believe that asking questions of actors who are hired to portray historical persons is the most reliable source of information concerning the political thoughts and actions of these persons or the support characters who populate the museum.
The American Revolution and events leading to it are very well documented. The political stances of those who fomented and managed the uprising and subsequent nation building are equally well documented. Those thoughts written by the founders have been well preserved and are available via libraries and via internet sources in word for word reliability. But it takes time and energy to read old documents and to figure out what the writers had in mind by studying the culture and technologic levels of the infant nation. Far easier to visit a historical museum who’s actors are provided with known source material to allow them to interact with the visitors; and to imagine that appropriating the words of an actor is the intellectual equivalent of actually studying the time, place, and people by means of books and letters preserved for exactly that purpose.
Like too much in today’s world, the easy answer/sound byte is sought after by those all too willing to accept it as actual source material. It’s easy to believe that an actor, trained to behave as an 18th century person and allowed to respond to questions by staying in a narrow character and offering what he/she hopes is an accurate response, will provide a valid answer to mob members hoping to find validation for the sound bytes and buzz phrases they hear repeated endlessly at Tea Party mob gatherings. It is also intellectually lazy and among the poorest of research methods. We might as well allow them to claim that historical novels carry equal weight with preserved archival documents.
The entire article is worth reading. I’m a fan of such “living” museums. There are lots of things to be learned in them about daily life in their particular time period. But they are decidedly not intended to replace scholarship. They are not going to provide the answers that the Tea Party mobs would like most to hear. Actors at Colonial Williamsburg will not tell right wing reactionaries and religious militias that it is time for them to launch armed uprisings. On the contrary, it appears as if the actor portraying General Washington provided a series of answers guaranteed to dumbfound the average Tea Party mob member.
Huzzah!
“Sometimes, the activists appear surprised when the Founding Fathers don't always provide the "give 'em hell" response they seem to be looking for.
When a tourist asked George Washington a question about what should be done to those colonists who remain loyal to the tyrannical British king, Washington interjected: "I hope that we're all loyal, sir" -- a reminder that Washington, far from being an early agitator against the throne, was among those who sought to avoid revolution until the very end.
When another audience member asked the general to reflect on the role of prayer and religion in politics, he said: "Prayers, sir, are a man's private concern. They are not a matter of public interest. And nor should they be. There is nothing so personal as a man's relationship with his creator."
And when another asked whether the Boston Tea Party had helped rally the patriots, Washington disagreed with force: The tea party "should never have occurred," he said. "It's hurt our cause, sir."
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