PEACE IN OUR TIMES
Re: George Neumayr’s Pledge
Week Islam:
At long last — a bit of fresh air. Well done to George Neumayr
and his willingness to write the truth.
— Paul Liptz
Yes, well, it must be said that PBS has on more than one occasion
propagated a world view that is somewhat less than wholesomely
realistic. Fine article.
An excellent source of wisdom about Islam, and the Arab culture
which it has shaped and in which it is ineluctably imbedded, may be
found in the culture of Oriental Jewry. The Jews, after all, knew
the Arabs long before the Arabs knew Mohammed. Jewish communities
in what are now Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen
predate the arrival of the conquering Islamic armies by nearly
1,000 years, and persisted until uprooted in the late 1940’s by
Islamist pogroms driven by the founding struggles of the State of
Israel.
These Oriental Jews’ collective memory of the Arab/ Islamic
world might be summarized thus: nice clothes, great entertainment,
good produce, swell laid-back lifestyle except that every so often
they go nuts and come, as an ecstatic mob, to cut your throat, rape
your wife and daughters and burn your house and shop. Keep your
bags packed, your sword sharp and your powder dry.
One might politely suggest to the current crop of Islamic
scholars such as Secretary Powell, Shimon Peres, Prime Minister
Blair and George W. that maybe, just maybe, they ought to make all
possible inquiries of the folks who have accumulated 25 centuries
of hands-on experience in those precincts which are now so
vexing.
Religion of peace ? Oh, dear, how embarrassing it is when smart
people say such silly things.
— Paul Kotik
IT’S OVER
Re: Ben Stein’s The
Quality of Mercy:
Lott’s apologies seem sincere, perhaps even overwrought. No
charitable person should refuse to forgive Lott in his capacity as
a human being. Nevertheless, he has demonstrated that he is not fit
to lead the Republican party. Furthermore, by fighting on as long
as he did to save his job, Lott demonstrated a greater interest in
preserving himself than the principles the party is supposed to
stand for. The supreme irony in this episode is that one of the
party’s core principles, abolishing financial and educational
entitlements based on race, will inevitably suffer.
Forgive, yes. Overlook, no.
— Scott A. Browdy
Chicago, IL
How tiresome. Ben Stein trumpeting his civil rights advocacy by
citing a scar on his rear from some unidentified presumed redneck
racist Marylander.
I’m an ordinary American, I think. I didn’t march in any civil
rights demonstration any time, at any place, and I won’t pretend I
did. But I also never tried to deprive anyone of their civil
rights. And I think the law should treat everyone the same,
regardless of race.
None of my forefathers, though they lived in the South, enslaved
anyone. At least one I know of fought for the South in the Civil
War. He was a sharecropper in North Carolina, and fought simply to
protect his home.
I did serve in my country’s military for 20 years and I fought
in the Gulf War alongside other Americans of many races and creeds.
Today I would not trade that experience; that common bond with my
fellow soldiers, with complete disregard for their race or belief;
for a thousand of these self-righteous civil rights
pomposities.
And I really damn tired of people beating a racist drum every
chance
they get to further their own agenda.
— John Mercer
Alexandria, VA
Trent Lott’s unfortunate remarks have landed him in trouble. I
argue that Lott’s problems are greatly exacerbated by the fact that
the Republican base does not like him. The overwhelming sentiment
on the many conservative websites is a general dislike of Lott with
his recent gaffe being the opportunity the chance to oust him.
Republican voters out here in la-la land have wondered for about
forever why this man without an ounce of charisma, but a modicum of
charm and in need of a spine transplant, is continually re-elected
by his fellow Republican senators to such a visible position of
Senate majority leader. His gutless behavior in the matter of the
impeachment of Bill Clinton didn’t help. Nor did his so-called
“power sharing” with the Democrats when the Senate was at 50-50.
His pork barreling for Mississippi is looked upon with disdain by
the Republican base….
In short, we never liked him anyway.
—- Pat Fish
IN CHARACTER
Re: John R. Dunlap’s Protestations
on Campus:
John Dunlap’s lament on the absurdity and unfairness of student
evaluations of professors is on target. If students had sufficient
judgment to evaluate their professors, they would likely be smart
enough not to need the courses. To the extent that important things
such as tenure, promotion, and salary are based at all on student
evaluations, they are an incitement to craven sucking up on the
part of professors. They are among the driving forces behind grade
inflation and the dumbing down of college courses.
Perhaps it’s a good time to refresh ourselves on what the late
Walker Percy had his protagonist say about college students in his
splendid 1971 novel, Love in the Ruins, written at a time
when college professors were lurching from merely dotty, where they
had been content for decades, to something a good deal worse.
Percy’s character, Dr. Tom More: “Students are, if the truth be
known, a bad lot. En masse they’re as fickle as a mob, manipulable
by any professor who’ll stoop to it. They have, moreover, an
infinite capacity for repeating dull truths and old lies, with all
the insistence of self-discovery. Nothing is drearier than the
ideology of students, left or right.”
Later in the same chapter: “People talk a lot about how great
‘the kids’ are, compared to the kids of the past. The only
difference in my opinion is that kids now don’t have sense enough
to know what they don’t know.”
Just so, Walker.
Yours for fewer students and more John Dunlaps and Walker
Percys,
— Larry Thornberry
Tampa, FL
DEAREST ENEMY CENTRAL
Re: Enemy Central’s Patty
Cake:
God bless you, and please continue to pass the ammunition. Just
one note re Patty Cake — or better yet, Patty Nut-Cake Murray. You
indicated that she made her comments from Canada. Please note, she
made her comments from Vancouver - WASHINGTON, not British Columbia
(of which I am — as an expatriate American — a current resident.)
We have enough socialists here without importing, or supporting an
American Senator of Patty’s renown, unless — of course — she is
seeking to dodge the draft. Again, Blessings On Your — and keep up
the good work!
— Lyle Schrag
It looks as though Senator Murray overlooked all that the U.S. has
done via foreign aid and the peace corps when she said we haven’t
done enough around the world.
— Dick Melville
Ozone Park, NY
(clap-clap-clap) Thank you … thank you very much
…aaand good evening. Time now for our Big Championship
Round. Let’s get to it:
1. Republican senator Trent Lott makes an ill advised comment at
the birthday party for 100 year old man Strom Thurmond. Lott loses
job. Republicans are bigots and racists.
2. Democrat senator Patty Murray praises Osama bin-Laden for his
good works. Murray keeps job. Democrats are compassionate and
thoughtful.
Now — for 200 points and the right to move on to our “Big Bonus
Round” — which of the above stories will end up getting the most
coverage from the New York Times-Washington Post and
Hillary’s website? PLUS — for an additional 100 points — and a
shot at our “Jumbo Jackpot” — which state senator from Washington
will still have her job in ‘03?
Take your time. And gooood luck.
(tick-tick-tick…)
— Dave
Elk Grove, CA
GETTING FRANCE
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Darkest
France:
I’d like to address the article you wrote about France and its
attitude toward Jews. I’m half French, but I won’t spend much time
arguing that we’re not a bunch of cowards. (Still, you try losing
1.3 million men, a bigger proportion than any other country in
World War I, only to have to fight the same invader a little more
than twenty years later; most Americans don’t get it.)
I do want to talk about anti-Semitism in France. First of all,
French people on the whole are much less religious than they were
fifty years ago — so, while there is a dislike of Jews, it’s often
by different people and for different reasons. I suspect that it’s
fashionable to speak out for France’s Muslim minority and that
Parisian students are likely to sympathize with Palestine for this
reason. Also, don’t forget how many Muslims there are now in France
— and, if the government in Paris decided to speak out strongly
against militant Islam, it could find itself being targeted as
badly by terrorism as London has probably been by the IRA. In the
U.S., we don’t have to worry about that issue as much.
— Matthew Clavel
RACE TO THE FINISH
Re: Mark Goldblatt’s A
Wake Up Call:
Your point that what’s good for white America is good for black
America is an interesting one, particularly now. In the last couple
decades, a lot of African-Americans have emerged into the middle
class, which together with the profound infusion of blackness into
mainstream pop culture has helped the separation of race from
class. This is an excellent development, and makes the idea that
many African-Americans will do well in a setting promoting
individual initiative very timely. Do, however, be careful not to
get ahead of where we are: less than 40 years past the end of laws
enforcing racial discrimination. So it’s perhaps unfair to demand
that people change their entire worldview and trust a whole new set
of people in the space of one generation. We have made profound
progress on race, but there’s much more to be done. I also agree
with the sentiment that portraying African-Americans as victims is
to patronize them, and to see them as ultimately limited. I went to
a majority-black high school, and saw this kind of patronization
foreshorten the dreams of a lot of my smart black classmates.
On the other hand, there is the persistent problem of class: a
large fraction of African Americans are still poor, and with meager
opportunities. Whatever role the psychology of not thinking one has
opportunity plays in this lack, the reality these people live in is
one of being firmly convinced, with a lot of hard knocks to back it
up, that they’re in a dead-end back alley. They are not alone:
being poor sucks, whatever your race. And here’s where the
individual-initiative ideology has a big ugly hole. What do you do,
now and at all times, about the people who don’t succeed for
themselves? The people who are beset with difficulties and don’t
manage to overcome them? Or worse, the idiots, whiners, obnoxious
blockheads, and helpless self-defeaters of all races, classes, and
political stripes? What do you do when they don’t succeed? Just
calling them jerks, and leaving them starving on the sidewalk
doesn’t improve anyone’s situation — not yours and not theirs. As
a nation that likes being able to idle its cars at stoplights
during the day, much less at night, we would do well do make
arrangements of some sort for them. Ask the residents of Rio and
Mexico City, and Bogota about this. Yes, LBJ’s Great Society may be
outdated, and it may have promoted some excesses, but it’s a lot
better than the destitution that preceded it, and I sure don’t want
to go back to those days.
It’s disheartening to see politics in this country divide
cleanly along the lines of people who think the hard-luck people
need a hug, and those who think they need a spanking. Somewhere in
here there’s got to be a decent, humane combination of carrot and
stick. They’re not exclusive: we’ve gotta learn to use them both. I
would love to hear Republicans addressing what to do here and now
to help the little guy, the middle guy, and the big guy at once
that involve more proactivity than just cutting taxes — again.
Kudos on an interesting take on race in America. It was bold to
write a book inhabiting an African American, and that’s as far as I
can comment, as I have not yet read it. Best wishes for the
holidays.
Cheers,
— Eric Ellsworth
