GO GET'EM, LEE ANN! Spinster.com eats up the Southern-hating Brit of Olive Garden fame, who this time is chomping on Mississippi.

WHY THE SAUDIS COULDN'T WIN A REAL WAR. They could, however, launch a fairly competent "funniest home videos".

I SAY BIAS, YOU SAY BULL: San Francisco Chronicle journalists Debra Saunders, a conservative, and Stephanie Salter, a liberal, go at it in columns published in the Chronicle yesterday. Fascinating.

Saunders identifies story selection as the primary location of bias, and gives excellent examples - worth the article themselves. But then she adds:

About the only journalists who won't admit that the news media are filled with liberals are lefties whose big beef is that the media are liberal instead of ultra-left.

Salter then proves that Saunders is right in more ways than one. She laughs at the concept of liberalism in mainstream media, pointing out all the “real liberals” at “alternative, left-wing news Web sites and periodicals ranging from mediawhoresonline.com to the Nation” [can you say, “ultra liberal”?]. She pokes at the capitalistic, money-grubbing bent of the powers in media. She devotes ink to the research American Prospect's Geoffrey Nunberg did on how many times the terms “liberal” and “conservative” were used in specific media outlets. Nunberg found that actually the media is biased in favor of conservatives, a conclusion that has been soundly debunked in the blogosphere. But Salter proves Saunders’ point definitively with this phrase:

…moderate Democratic [Senator] U.S. Dianne Feinstein

I rest Saunders’s case.

(Links via Romenesko).

JOURNALISTS SAY “NO COMMENT”: The two top administrators of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Iowa State University have been relieved of their duties, but retained as faculty. The reason headlined by Romenesko, and the Ames Tribune, is racism – three junior faculty are leaving, and two of them are minorities.

The text of the article is a little clearer; the university provost said:

…the problems at the school are broader than racism. The school has a structure that pitted senior faculty against the department chair and junior faculty against senior faculty, he said.

"As far as I could tell John Eighmey [the head of the school] did everything he could to make the department as open and welcoming of a place as he could," [Provost] Richmond said.

So where’s the racism? Nobody’s talking. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but the spin creates that impression without any real support. And then, from this journalism school, we have this:

Dick Haws, an associate professor of journalism…said faculty members were advised not to talk to the media because it would look bad for the department.

Now, just how crucified would, say, the business department or the sports teams be if they said the same thing?

I love journalism.

FEMINISTS THEN AND NOW: Ann Marlowe in Salon makes a case for why women shouldn't allow men to "pay" for them:

Transfers of money are more powerfully charged in our culture, and as long as we construe gender as being about the flow of funds from men to women, in some deep but inescapable way all women are prostitutes, and all men are johns.

I think Ms. Marlowe needs to unwad her panties and get a life. Ann, honey, it's lunch. Just because your sense of worth is tied up in parsing your way through life doesn't mean all women are prostitutes who don't follow your example. This is the Maureen Dowd School of Bitter Feminism.

I prefer feminism as defined by the high school Suburban Princess who writes the charming Life as a Vole.

Even if it doesn't go over well at a Catholic school.

LOW POSTing today. Work is very busy, and I didn't get going this morning in time for my usual blogging. Likely I'll post during lunch, and then tonight. But if you weren't on over the weekend, there's still a bunch to read.

CARVALA CUTTHROATS: DailyPundit Bill Quick agrees with me. Mostly.

DEVIL IN DETAILS: FoxNews' PC Watch has details from the CAIR report that anti-Muslim threats increased in the US last year; they include a woman who thinks low fluid levels in her car's engine which caused the engine to seize is a result of anti-Muslim sentiment at her local garage. It's near the middle of the list, under "One Man's Abuse..." The other items are funny too.

SUBWAY HUMOR: I understand the concern, but it's still funny.

VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY EXPOSED: Some of you may have seen this before, but today I discovered the site dedicated to tracking and exposing the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy: Media Transparency. It's absolutely amazing; webmaster Rob Levine dedicated apparently large amounts of time and money investigating various non-profit organizations and how they have (supposedly) interconnected to form this huge financial system to support conservative initiatives, publications, think tanks, faith based groups, etc, all over the country.

This may not be new to some of you, but it's very new to me. And, actually, pretty funny. Another Oliver Stone acolyte at work. Here's an excerpt:

For more than three decades, conservative strategists have mounted an extraordinary effort to reshape politics and public policy priorities at the national, state and local level. Although this effort has often been described as a "war of ideas", it has involved far more than scholarly debate within the halls of academe.

Indeed, waging the war of ideas has required the development of a vast and interconnected institutional apparatus. Since the 1960s, conservative forces have shaped public consciousness and influenced elite opinion, recruited and trained new leaders, mobilized core constituencies, and applied significant rightward pressure on mainstream institutions, such as Congress, state legislatures, colleges and universities, the federal judiciary and philanthropy itself.

Media Transparency is a subsite of Cursor.org, in the Twin Cities. It's been around a while, so I'm sure there are stories to tell about its proprietor and its antics. So, I'm all ears.

And, if the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is watching, that's two n's and no z's in the first name, no e after the t's in the last. Any amount is fine.

THIS IS A BIT MUCH. I mean, really.

BENNETT DISBELIEVES: I just heard Bill Bennett interviewed on Glenn Beck’s radio program, on WABC 770 in NYC. Bennett isn’t buying the rope-a-dope concept at all; he thinks current attitudes in the Bush administration are “muddying” the moral clarity that Bush had last fall, and that Bennett thought Bush had regained early last week. He said he didn’t like the visit to Crawford by the Saudi prince, and he called the efforts by the UN to investigate the Jenin site “hypocrisy”. He said the UN didn’t investigate the suicide bombers to see if there was PLO involvement, which he said of course there was, so this effort was clearly biased. He said, I don’t know what this draw is to move to the middle.

Bennett said Americans should be much less concerned about moral equivalence, and more concerned about the fact that we were bombed, and how we feel about it.

Bennett also doesn’t think the Israeli/Palestinian fighting is distracting or diverting attention from Iraq, or lessening either the ability or likelihood of our “toppling” that terrorist regime. He thinks the fact that Israel has made such a strong showing, and is our ally, actually opens the door for an attack on Iraq, and puts the United States in a stronger position.

Interesting interview. I was in my car when I heard it so I couldn’t get exact quotes, or take notes to remember more. But it gave me new insights. I have a lot of respect for Bennett, and certainly he knows more than I do about this situation.

Bennett has a new book out called Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism. Here is the review at National Review.

BAD NEWS IS THE ONLY NEWS? David Nieporent at Jumping to Conclusions notes a bit of good news that made it into the NY Times - buried, but there. Have I mentioned before that omission is as much a bias issue as inclusion or skewing?

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE: James D. Miller at Conservative Economist has an excellent suggestion for the NY Times.

GUNS, BRITS AND COPS: Interesting thoughts from firearms instructor James Rummel on his Handbasket blog.

THERE'S A HONEY of a new blog poking its head out of the jar down the way. It's bearly started, and its permalinks list looks suspiciously like a cut-and-paste from the Blogfather's template, but who am I to complain since I'm on it. Check it out.

CAN YOU SPELL "ARROGANCE"? One of the drumbeats we heard regularly from the American and European press after 9/11 was "We need to understand what we've done to cause this! If we've become the focus of such negative behavior, there must be a just cause!" It's a light the journalists apparently refuse to shine on themselves.

Last Monday's print edition of Editor & Publisher, a journalism industry newspaper, carried an article about apparent efforts to shut down the press even in and by democratic countries; it was posted on their website Friday. This was in celebration of World Press Freedom Day.

The article shows amazing arrogance. Or, given what we know of the elite press, maybe not so amazing.

No liberty so defines the fault lines of our conflicted world as freedom of the press. Newspapers, radio, and TV now bring the world to houses and hovels with an unprecedented immediacy and impact. Even as nations, rebels, and criminals have stockpiled weapons that would terrify Moloch, tyrants and thugs still quail before the power of the word.

I agree that freedom of the press is essential to freedom of people, and for civil rights. No argument there. Although I can see soft men who've never faced harder times than deciding what to drink at the Press Club feeling the surge of righteousness and warrior spirit at the term "power of the word". "WE ARE POWERFUL! YES! I'll have the vodka and tonic, please."

And so the enemies of the press use methods both modern and medieval to lash out at journalists, sometimes literally. Just two weeks ago in Tabriz, Iran, authorities shut down the weekly newspaper Shams-e-Tabriz and sentenced its publisher, Ali Hamed Imam, to seven months in jail -- and 74 lashes for "insulting leaders of the regime." The murderers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl videotaped their butchery with the same sort of camcorder toted around by Americans in T-shirts and shorts padding through Disney World.

This is pretty awful, and I'm not quite sure what imagery they were going for to juxtapose Pearl's death with Disney World. Maybe a poke at ABC? Or just to start the segue from totalitarian regimes to the United States as oppressor.

The assault on the press is hardly confined to the Islamic world. The press faces nearly daily violence and intimidation in Asia, in Africa, and in eastern Europe.

Edging closer... we don't feel that connection to the Islamic world, they say... but how do you like seeing it in Asia? Now Africa? Now eastern Europe? Drumbeat moving closer...

But perhaps we should be far more chilled by what is happening in those nations that claim to love liberty. Israel, the Middle East's only truly free nation, has arrested and roughed up Palestinian reporters without justification.

Ah-ha! Now we get to it. Israel is guilty of third world intimidation methods, and for the same reason - suppression of honest reporting by Palestinians! Of course the Palestinian journalists could not have another agenda, because journalists are given a pill when they become journalists that from thenceforth prevents lying, misrepresentation and, of course, collaboration with the enemies of those whom they are purporting to cover. What is the context, when did this happen, what justification did the Israelis give? We don't know. It's flatly stated. Good reporting, yes? Just what you'd expect from an article on journalism written by journalists at a newspaper for journalists.

In case you didn't realize, what we just saw here was guilt by association. Because we see the Israeli "roughing up" following the atrocities listed before, we are to assume that the Israeli behavior is just as wrong for just the same reasons. Realize here that I'm not saying the Israelis were right and the Palestinians wrong in the instances referred to - I don't know. And you don't either. Because we aren't given enough information, we're just given conclusions.

It gets better.

On April 5, the Israel Defense Forces felt free to fire rubber bullets and stun grenades at a group of 25 mostly U.S. reporters waiting for the visit of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni's visit to Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound.

And there you go. When a group of mostly U.S. reporters gets in the line of fire in a war, when they are actually changing the nature of a confrontation by their presence, when they refuse to go away when told by the combatants in control to do so, they are shocked when force is used to remove them. What about our press badges! They are a magic shield! Well, baby, press badges don't deflect bullets and apparently are no guarantee of good sense.

The United States, too, has caught this contagion: Several times during the fighting in Afghanistan, American soldiers pointed weapons at American journalists to thwart their reporting.

There's your point. The journalists were thwarted! I usually associate "thwarted" with a small child who isn't getting his way. Apparently that is the same meaning the journalists have for it. So we've moved the horrors of journalistic oppression from the Islamic world right into that bastion of press freedom, the United States. And in all of this, there is no discussion of what the journalists' behavior meant in the full context of the battles being fought. No effort to see that perhaps having 25 journalists with their busy little cameras and their intrusive microphones and their shouted questions and their assumption of immunity from harm might actually result in the deaths of soldiers, journalists or both. And given the quality of reporting on, say, the Jenin "massacre", or the fact that journalists helped fugitives escape Arafat's compound, the soldiers could be forgiven for assuming that having the journalists around was a bad thing, not a protection of democracy.

Interesting as well that the article does not mention that an American journalist was shot by a Palestinian gunman.

Then we land firmly in the United States, within our own borders.

Let's remember that Vanessa Leggett, a novice journalist protecting the rights of all reporters to shield confidential sources, was spending her 52nd day as a prisoner in the Federal Detention Center in Houston when Islamist fanatics dressed in the business-casual attire of Corporate America steered passenger airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Leggett spent half a year in jail -- and now that she is out, the U.S. Supreme Court shows no interest in her case.

I agree that the incarceration of Leggett was pathetic and wrong. I fail to see, however, that her case covers any wartime journalist with glory. The situations are vastly different, and using this case to support the contention that wartime correspondents are suffering government crackdown is ridiculous, and the sign of a mind that thinks Oliver Stone is a crack historian.

The failure in all of this is the journalists, not the soldiers. I'm not saying that there aren't any instances where journalists were improperly treated. Certainly Daniel Pearl gave his life, and from all accounts was a fine journalist. But a war is not Entertainment Tonight, and Arafat's compound is not Jackie O's summer home. The journalists would do well to understand that it is their arrogance, their condescension and their overwhelming sense that THEY are the most important part of any story that has undermined their credibility world wide and that will keep their cries of "foul!" from gaining any purchase among the people. If they were reporting accurately, behaving responsibly and showing even a tiny, itsy, molecular-sized respect for the intelligence of their audience, they might find the situation was different.

I think Ernie Pyle would be ashamed to see what war-time journalism has become.

CAN'T YOU SMELL THAT SMELL! This is old news, but I hadn't heard of it until yesterday afternoon via a radio talk show. Any opportunity to make a buck no matter how ridiculous, right? I don't know if they still make it, though. I couldn't find it on the home page.

WHAT DO DOMESTIC GUN OWNERSHIP and eating potato chips have in common? Find out.

THIS IS A FRIGHTENING WAY to start your week. And you thought your family was bad!

CATHOLIC SCANDAL EXCHANGE: Tony Adragna responded via email on Monday to my post on the Catholic church scandal that is on my writings page. I've been slow to post it, mainly because I meant to respond with the post, but it's up now. I'll let you know when I respond to it.

UPDATE: Apparently the link wasn't working originally. This should; it's at the top. If you're reading this sometime way long after May 5, then you might have to scroll down for it. But then, if it's long after May 5, where have you been all this time?

SYNCHRONICITY: There must be some symbolism in a Saudi-owned horse named "War Emblem" winning the Kentucky Derby. This year of all years.

It was a beautiful run. It always is. I might find the pseudo-Southernism of the Derby a bit trying, but I love the horses, and the almost musical grace of their running.

SCROLL DOWN: Don't miss the update to the post on the Israeli/Palestinian dead. Reader Matt Johnson did a yeoman's job figuring out what the percentage of civilians vs fighters is. Not definitive, but the best I've seen. Check it out.

BEYOND THE PAGEANTRY: Today is the Kentucky Derby. I usually try to watch it on television, but despite having lived in the Louisville area for 4 years and just two miles from Churchill Downs for one of those, I’ve never seen it in person.

What I have seen is the media coverage, the Louisville hype, the stars streaming in, the way everything shuts down. The year I lived on Fourth Street, which is the straight shot from downtown’s posh hotels to the Downs, I sat on the front steps of my apartment building and watched the stretch limos go by. They closed the street so only the A list could use it. The people inside probably don’t come to Louisville except at Derby time, and they hang out with the same friends at The Brown Hotel that they spend time with in Saratoga or New York City, Miami Beach or Los Angeles. They climb into a stretch limo, drive down a street of lovely old renovated Victorian homes, past the University of Louisville, and into the eye of the pageantry. They drink mint juleps, wear gaudy hats, laugh at the antics of men in Colonel Sanders garb, and have A Southern Experience.

Because, after all, the Kentucky Derby is the quintessential southern experience… isn’t it?

I’ve lived in eight places in Kentucky, from Murray to Manchester, two of those places in or near Louisville. In my judgment, the Kentucky Derby isn’t a Southern Experience, it’s a Horse Racing Experience, a Party Experience, a Commercial Experience. There's even a Louisville Experience. And that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great party; not my kind of party, but anything that gave rise to Derby Pie can’t be all bad. But I’m tired of it being described as a Southern thing, merely because it happens in Kentucky. It’s a chance for the local economy to ring up millions in sales and advertising value, and everyone to get tanked. The same thing happens on the other two legs of the Triple Crown; they just don’t wear hats the size of an umbrella, serve mint juleps or use fake southern accents at those venues.

The “literary” version of the Kentucky Derby belongs to Hunter S. Thompson, in his The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. The 1970 essay holds up surprisingly well today, despite the mentions of Cambodia and Kent State. This image is juxtaposed in many people’s minds with the list of stars who are there, and who attended whose pre-Derby Party the night before. The Derby is big in Lexington too, where I also used to live, because that’s where most of the state’s horse farms are, and where Derby winners tend to live out their stud years. The pre-Derby parties are legend, with articles for weeks beforehand about what local hostesses will wear, and what this year’s theme will be. And many “little folk” get together on Derby Day for a barbeque or a tented garden party, complete with – yes – mint juleps. Even in some cases non-alcoholic ones.

I’ve been to a few of those backyard parties, and they’re fun. But I am annoyed for Kentucky that the opportunity for class, history and fun degenerates into money grubbing, self-mocking displays and fawning over celebrities who say things like this:

Former Seinfeld star and current KFC pitchman Jason Alexander said, "I didn't know there were this many people in Kentucky. I thought there were only cows and chickens."

Hahaha.

I know I’m being curmudgeonly about this. There really is something for everyone at the Derby celebrations, and it’s probably no better or worse than other festivals – the Mardi Gras in New Orleans comes immediately to mind. And I’m glad that Kentucky is associated in the minds of many with beautiful horses, great food and a fantastic world-class pageantry. But it’s an overlay. It’s a part of Kentucky because it evolved there, but today’s Kentucky Derby is no more a Southern celebration than the Beverly Hillbillies was a documentary on Appalachia.

WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS? I've heard a lot about how many have died in the current intifada, how the Palestinians have lost more than the Israelis. Jak of Jak's View from Vancouver had this to say:

From the beginning of the renewed Intifada on 29th September, 2000, until now (9:00am PDT May 3rd, 2002), the total number of Palestinians killed is 1,457. In the same period, 463 Israelis were killed. This year so far, 546 Palestinians and 214 Israelis have been killed.

Well, I want to know - how many of those were combatants? My response (in part) to Jak, in the Comments section:

Compare apples and apples. Say "X number of Palestinian civilians and Y number of Israeli civilians were killed" if you want equivalence. And make sure the Palestinians you list ARE civilians, and not un-uniformed fighters (like, say, a suicide bomber).

Jak again:

How can we compare, susanna? Is a 10-year old Palestinian throwing a stone at an invading heavily-armed soldier a fighter or a civilian when he is shot dead?

Are the wife and children of Palestinian gunmen civilians or fighters when they are blown up in their car by missiles from helicopters aimed at the gunman?

Your definitions or mine?

And me again:

If you'll give the source of your data, I'll check it out. FYI, anecdotal information is not statistically sound; I did not claim that no Palestinian civilians died, so giving several *very sad* examples is not compelling. I'm not even saying you're wrong. I'm questioning your use of undefined, aggregate data to make a point when data disaggregated along combatant/civilian lines could tell a very different story. As for definitions, I'd be satisfied with an international definition of "combatant" and "non-combatant", if you'd like to take the time to put this on solid ground instead of using shocking stories.

I, of course, had a few other little things to say, which you can read if you go look at his comments section. But those are the argument parts.

So I ask you. Do we have that data? Is it possible to know who were combatants and who were not? And in this intifada, how do we define combatant, especially when that little boy could have been been wearing dynamite, or throwing grenades instead of rocks?

I don't know the answer. Do you?

UPDATE: Reader Matt Johnson in Atlanta, GA, sends this excellent response:

I have also spent a lot of time looking for the information you asked for:

So I ask you. Do we have that data? Is it possible to know who were combatants and who were not? And in this intifada, how do we define combatant, especially when that little boy could have been been wearing dynamite, or throwing grenades instead of rocks?

As for the exact numbers you are looking for, it is rather difficult to find the data. I did find a couple of websites that 'answered' the question to my satisfaction, however. Since whether or not men/boys are combatants seems to be arguable out to infinity, I just looked for websites that have the number of women/girls killed. This can give us a proxy for how much targetting of civilians each side does. This was easy to find for Palestinians, harder to find for Israelis. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of women and girls killed are non-combatants, especially for the time frames of the two sites I found. It should be noted that some of the Israeli women (but likely very few) may be IDF, and it is unlikely that any of the Palestinian women (in the timeframe given) were combatants. (Women didn't achieve the 'right to blow themselves up' in Palestine until shortly after this period, I think, though the struggle for gender equality is long and hard in Arab-controlled areas. Yes, Virginia, there is a Sarcasm Clause.) Time frames are difficult to match up, but I did my best:

For the Palestinian female dead, we have:

From Sept. 28 2000 - Oct 31 2001

Total number of Palestinians killed: 800

Number of Men and Boys* killed: 761

Number of Palestinian Women and Girls killed: 39

*The article calls 18-year-old men 'boys', a characterization I would dispute

Less than 5% of the Palestinians killed by Israelis are women or girls. You can see by the rest of the statistics that the website clearly has a pro-Palestinian view, so I think it is safe to say that if there were more girls and women killed during the time period, they would be listed here.

For the Israeli female dead, we have:

From Oct 2000 - Present (Practically the exact same start date, but not the same ending date.)

I counted at least 90 women and girls killed by Palestinians on this page. (I stopped counting because some of the pictures aren't very good and I can't tell the difference between some male/female Israeli names.)

Many (all?) of the pictures have dates, so it should be possible to get a near-exact count of women and girls. It should be possible to do a much better job than I did with this comparison (with near-identical time intervals) for anyone who's interested. The 39 vs. 90 was enough for me. (Even with the different time scale) Or you can compare the 5% to the near 20% female (thus most likely civilian) casualties. I would try to do a better job, but this website crashes my browser.

(NOTE: This is unedited except I cut out the URLs he sent in the text and instead gave them as links where appropriate. Everything he sent is included.)

NEWS FLASH: BELLESILES EVEN WRONGER THAN ORIGINALLY THOUGHT. NATION SHOCKED.

(ok, I know I posted it as something else originally. I like this better. It's my blog.)

RESURRECTION?

The IDF released a videotape Thursday showing the apparently staged funeral of a Palestinian in the Jenin refugee camp…the film shows someone who is supposedly dead - and on the way to burial - falling off his stretcher and then running away.

And what do the Palestinians claim?

…the footage showed wanted Palestinians fleeing.

Okay. So either the Palestinians are faking funerals to fool the UN, or they’re faking funerals to help killers escape. Take your pick. Either way, that’s a lot of “civilian” complicity, isn’t it? And what if, say, two or three or 10 terrorists were interspersed in the crowd, and the Israelis fired on the group? Wouldn’t they be pilloried for shooting at civilians?

We know Jak would take that tack. Right, Diane?

I like Happy Fun Pundit’s report best. It even puts it in context.

REGENCIES ARE BEST: After following a link from the always cutting-edge Tony Woodlief, I came across this post at Curmudgeonry, by Jordana Adams:

CONFESSIONAL: I'll admit it. I like to read romance novels. After undergraduate and graduate degrees in German literature, I like to read fluff books where everyone ends up happy and alive in the end. When I read, I like to escape reality and I also like delving into my favorite period of history -- Britain around the turn of the 19th century. So a recent IWF Hotflash on Harlequin's new line of romance novels, Red Dress Ink, caught my eye. But this new, "modern" genre of romance novels, "aimed at the modern gal more likely to hit the town in a push-up bra and a G-string than a chastity belt," definitely isn't for me. Then again, I've never been able to relate to Sex And The City either. I just hope my Regency novels won't start disappearing off the shelves of bookstores any time soon -- that would depress me almost as much as reading too much Kafka in one sitting.

Jordana, me too, me too, me too. Straight down the line (well, no degrees in German, but I had three semesters of it. Guten tag! der Kugelschreiber!). I think we need to talk.

Even if I only read one Kafka story. But it was in real, untranslated German, does that count?

SHOOTOUT IN THE OK COCKPIT: Pilots wanting guns in the cockpit. Flight attendants sobbing, "what about usssssss...!!!!" Nonvoting member of Congress stridently invoking gun control propaganda in a steady underlying drumbeat.

Is this a movie yet?

It's a serious subject, but the apparent circus going on around it in Congress is all about special interest groups and not about honest planning, evaluation of risk and identifying the ultimate goal - keeping the most people alive. The pilots have signed a petition saying, we need guns in the cockpit. The flight attendant union says, only if you either give us stun guns or promise to come out of the cockpit to defend us if there's a problem. Various experts are piling on saying it is or isn't a good thing. My favorite is the gun control mouth, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton:

"We know guns in the homes are more likely to be used for killing relatives and for suicide," she said. "We have to consider guns in the cockpit might be used for more than the purpose intended."

Actually, Eleanor, they're most likely to be used for sport hunting and for show/collection, but we hate to interrupt your fantasy. And if a pilot is intent on suicide, he has a MUCH BIGGER weapon at his disposal. Remember? He's in a plane.

There are some legitimate issues and concerns here, but it requires an honest assessment of the dangers and how to respond. No one needs to have guns just because it will make him or her feel better; it needs to be a part of an overall approach. As we've seen, passengers and flight attendants are going to leap into the breach when efforts are made to hijack a plane; unless someone has a bomb that he just detonates with no warning, at least some attempt will be made to stop him. But that's not the picture the flight attendants draw:

"...said Jeff Zack, spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants[,] "If there are no tools or training for flight attendants to protect themselves and passengers, what we end up with is planes getting to their destination with a bunch of dead people in the back."

Well, Jeff my love, if the hijackers get into the cockpit what you're going to end up with is the people in the back just as dead, and possibly a lot of innocent people sitting in their offices reading their email will wind up dead too. Think of someone other than yourself, ok?

There are some valid complaints, among the most serious that the cockpit isn't secure anyway so giving pilots guns could be dangerous just because hijackers could get in there and get them. If we're going to go all out for security, then the pilots need to basically be sealed in their cockpits, with their own restroom facilities and food for the trip inside. I don't know how you'd have to reconfigure the plane for that, but if you couldn't, you'd need to change procedure so if a pilot steps out, the cockpit is sealed behind him.

And what about the air marshalls? Aren't we going to start having them in the planes as a deterrent and rescue operation? They'll have guns.

Here's my plan, developed just right now but still more reasoned than what appears to be emerging from Congress:

1) Give pilots guns. Evaluate danger to the individual models of the planes, and adjust calibre accordingly.
2) Seal pilots in their cockpits in whatever method works.
3) Train flight attendants in negotiation and non-lethal methods of responding to threats. Any actively damaging implement, such as a stun gun, could be taken from them and used against them or the passengers. Do not give flight attendants anything but knowledge.
4) It has to be assumed that any hijackers would hold the passengers and attendants hostage, trying to compel compliance from the pilots. It must be established that as soon as a hijacking is attempted, pilots will seek clearance to land at the nearest airport and will not in any way comply with hijacker demands.
5) Include in the flight attendants' inflight chat about seatbelts and life vests, a little instruction on how to use the blanket and pillow provided, or any implement to hand, to subdue someone who is threatening the safety of the passengers. Even if someone dies in the process, throw books, purses, apples, whatever, because the hijackers can't overpower everyone, all they can do is grab a few and use our fear that those people will be hurt as a means to get acquiescence. Needed realization: they may want everyone dead. Refusing to pile on won't save anyone. Everyone piling on at once may save everyone.
6) Evaluate the airline's liability in the instance of likely false alarms where someone is attacked for pulling off his shoe. Reassess program and include benchmarks for concluding that the plane is threatened.
7) Include air marshals randomly on flights. I'm not sure if they should be made known to the pilots, the flight attendants, both or neither. My instinct is, don't tell anyone, because the knowledge could change behavior to a less self-protective mode.
8) Don't let the costs for this burgeon out of control.

And that's my early morning assessment of inflight safety. I'm flying at the end of the month, and I anticipate feeling safe. I also will take a nice big book to attack someone with, and I have a standing decision to be aggressive if I need to be in protecting myself or others.

Too bad they won't let me bring my knitting needles.

UPDATE: For more insight, check out DPM and Den Beste.

INAPPROPRIATE RETURN: Moira Breen is back, and all gussied up in new threads. She celebrates her return with this insightful look at Arafat's unheralded "release" and the Church of the Nativity.

Moira, looking good from here.

KILL YOUR TV is back from the dead! Celebrations held worldwide! Film at 11!

WHY LIBERTARIANS should not be sent to prevent someone from committing suicide.

LET'S GO TO THE PATIO, DEAR: Martin Devon, our accomplished and erudite Patio Pundit, has many posts of interest and amazement, as well as a deeplink to the D(e)M(o)N newspaper, which he neglected to tell me about so he's just now getting linked for it. He says he's tired of posting about Israel, and explains why, which is interesting as he always is, but I'm glad he posted this even though it breaks your heart to read.

SEE SEA Cs: Gulfport thieves can't be charged with armed robbery. (Link via Max Power.)

WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ON. Film at 11 (or maybe not). Interest dancing across blogosphere.

NO WATERMELONS, but lots of sense, this time in looking at evolution as theory, not fact. And he's an agnostic, so stop with the preconceptions already.

BILL CLINTON: MYSELF - a preview of his talk show, courtesy of (who else) HappyFunPundit. Go for the show, stay for the rest. Very cool.

FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS is not about high school girls in thongs. Would be funny if it was, though.

EVERY WORD SHE WRITES: Sting would write a song about The Last Page, if he knew her. She's threatening not to post again until Monday, but she wrote a LOT today, which makes us happy because everything she writes is funny or wise or clever or, often, all three. I suggest reading a post at a time, maybe two, each day, until she gets back to it on Monday, so the wait won't seem so long or so devoid of her wit.

(Page, I'll take that in twenties, used bills, non-sequential numbers.)

HONOR DUE: While we spend time thinking about what memorial should go at the WTC site, we should take some time to think about the crash site of Flight 93. Joe Katzman at Winds of Change (link via Random Jottings) has a poignant posting reminding us of who those passengers were, and how much honor from us they are due. Yesterday, through what linkings I can't remember, I came across this site about Flight 93 and cried about 9/11 for the first time in a few weeks. Spend some time there today.

Memorials are an essential part of remembering history. My family always made historical sites - from presidents' homes to battlefields - a part of our vacation meanderings. When I visit war memorials, I try to take the time to read the plaques, to focus on at least some of the names and try to imagine the lives they left behind - for me. We can't forget that. I am living in this country, which for all its flaws is the best and greatest the world has ever seen, because of those people who's names are engraved on thousands of monuments throughout the country. Gettysburg comes to mind, and the myriad state and unit memorials in the battlefield near Chickamauga, GA. The Vietnam War Memorial is overwhelming, but necessary, as is the memorial by Andrzej Pitynski at Exchange Place, in Jersey City - a soldier, his hands bound behind him, in that startled death-moment when someone stabs him in the back with a bayonet. That commemorates a different war, in a different land, but always for the same hope - freedom and democracy.

In an office where I work, there is a large photo of this statue with the World Trade Towers reaching tall behind it, just across the river. The imagery is chilling:

...(T)here is the local monument at Exchange Place to Katyn Forest Massacre of 1940. It was erected to commemorate the execution of Polish army officers by the USSR during the period of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The area is a historically Polish neighborhood, so this theme was a reasonable choice. The monument itself is not. At 25 feet tall, including the plinth, it features a huge statue of a cavalry officer with a bayonet thrust through his back and out his chest. This sculpture dominates one of the world's great urban vistas: the Exchange Place plaza in the new financial district opens on the Hudson River and looks directly across to the World Financial Center and to what had been the World Trade Center. On 911 and for days thereafter, that image of a man being stabbed in the back dominated the thunderhead of smoke billowing up from the Center. The juxtaposition of bronze grievance and fiery malice was a vision from a damned world.

Katzman includes this quote:

"You do not know what freedom is," Herodotus reports a Greek saying to a Persian. "If you did, you would fight for it with bare hands if you had no weapons."

Remember again Flight 93 and the day those Americans showed the world what they were made of. And then think about how we will tell generations to come, in a way that will bring tears to their eyes, and resolve to their hearts.

UPDATE: Links to photos of the Katyn memorial, with and w/o the WTC towers, in the Comments section courtesy of lakefxdan.

SLIGHT OF HAND? I listened to Rush on my lunch hour today talking about a column by Jim Hoagland in today's Washington Post, which is an "inside Ariel Sharon's head" rumination on what the Israeli and US actions in the last couple of months have been. Rush thinks the column is not Hoagland creating conversations in his mind, but a rhetorical tool to bring together actual interviews with Sharon, Kissinger and officials in the State Department without quoting any of them. That's a pretty interesting theory, certainly illuminating if it's true. And while Rush said he believed it, he also said he couldn't say with 100% certainty that it was true. Worth reading, in any case. Rush is still buying the Bush rope-a-dope as well.

This situation is so complex that sometimes I just turn off the computer, the radio, the television and the telephone, and go read something that never happened, couldn't happen, where everyone is happy, life turns out well, and we all have a good time on the way. Usually accompanied by chocolate.

I recommend (pick your category): David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Mallorean series; Stephanie Laurens' Bar Cynster series; Lucy Maude Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series; Weis & Hickman's Dragonlance series (not the Legends); Piers Anthony's Xanth; Dean Koontz; Stephen King; Tami Hoag and Patricia Cornwell's early works; Anne Perry. If you're of a more literary turn, try Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, any fiction by Wendell Berry or Russell Kirk, or Beowulf (bring tissues).

If you MUST go nonfiction, try these: The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson; Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson; The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken; Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein or The Design Inference by William Dembski. All of them will give you a nice sense of order in the world, by the time you're done.

Because, in the long run, this too shall pass, and we will have our part in it. We'll do what we must do better if sometimes we step back to regain our perspective.

ROPE-A-DOPE DALLAS? Bryan Preston at JunkYardBlog sees something deeper in the DMN's deeplink blustering.

TROY AIKMAN PASSES DEEP AGAIN as Mark Byron joins Deeplink Dallas Day.

ARE WE HAVING FUN? Tony Woodlief puts Sand in the Gears of the Dallas Morning News with his deeplink. And while you're there, read the rest of his blog. Classic.

BRAIN DEAD MORNING - not sure if it has any connection to Deeplink Dallas Day, but I can't seem to formulate any lengthy discussions of anything. So I will point you to a variety of interesting and worthy information, which I recommend you check out, while I go take a nap.

PASSING: Asparagirl and ZenFlea talk about their Jewishness in a time where there's reason to fear. You'll have to scroll down a bit for ZenFlea's, but it's worth it.

HULK FOR ISRAEL: Meryl Yourish has a super-hero solution to the Israeli conflict.

NEW BLOG: Justin Sodano is in a linking frenzy as he gets off the ground with his new blog, The Weigh In. It's worth going to if only because his URL begins with "jsoda".

ANARCHY IN ARIZONA: Desert Pundit pithily pummels a group of smelly students.

AMERICAN ICON IN TROUBLE: Sneaking Suspicions reports from Philadelphia. I'll have the swirl, Fritz.

UPDATE: I changed the link on Zenflea's post, because Eve The Owner sent me the link to the posting at a dedicated site. However, I encourage you to go to the rest of her site and read around; she has a great post about choosing majors and getting advanced degrees (for obvious reasons a topic of fascination for me), and some other good stuff too. Just an all-round great site to permalink, which I think I will. Her wedding photos are fun too!

I'M WAITING TO SEE what Instapundit and the other lawyer-bloggers think of this article. My response is typically hawkish, but then as an individual rights advocate I'm torn... glad I'm not the judge.

UPDATE: Well, that clarifies things!

LILEKS FOR SECTY OF STATE: This short screed says exactly what I think about Israel/Palestine, only he's better at it and knows more. Scroll past the discussion of concrete steps to read the screed, but come back to the steps later. Very funny.

DD #3: TEXAS COLLEGE COSTS GO UP 63% - but that's still not as expensive as New Jersey's. Wouldn't you know I'd pick the most expensive state in the nation to live and go to school in. Intellectual brilliance has always been a trait of mine.

DD #2: WRESTLING STUDENTS IN KENTUCKY DIE, and not from an arm lock. Sad. It happened at the University of Kentucky.

Weird that Dallas had this, and Lexington's newspaper didn't. Well, on the other hand, given the quality of the Lexington Herald-Leader, maybe it's not surprising after all.

UPDATE: The Lexington H-L finally has the story, but it's not on the front page, not even a headline; it's under "breaking news", two clicks from the front, and the story is an AP news release. Now, the H-L offices are MAYBE two miles from UK's campus, right down Main Street, turn left on Upper, and in a few blocks there you are. How difficult is it to send a reporter to the scene? To even CALL THE POLICE for information? Useless, useless. It's an important story; I'd say most of the students at UK have family and friends in the Lexington area, and it's incumbent on the local paper to get information out as fully and quickly as possible. It is NOT incumbent on the H-L to have their front page on the website given over to the Kentucky Derby. I think we need to rename the Herald Leader - henceforth it will be the Lexington Hardly-Local.

STATE TAKES GIRL, LOSES HER: The Florida Department of Children and Families took 5-year-old Rilya Wilson from her grandmother 15 months ago - and they don't know where she is now.

Rilya's grandmother, Geralyn Graham, has told police that a woman claiming to be a Children & Families worker took the child from her house in January 2001, and that two other people identifying themselves as agency employees later visited and indicated they knew the girl had been removed. The state agency says it has no record of the visits, and no idea where Rilya is.

They think the child is dead. It seems likely.

This is scary because Florida is one of those states that is particularly sure that it can raise your children better than you. They're aggressive about taking children out of the home, and reluctant to give them back. A friend of mine was investigated once and it was a nightmare. And now this?

How do you lose a child?

Heads will roll, should roll, but that won't bring back Rilya. Maybe Florida should reconsider where children are safer - at home, or lost in their system.

DD #1: HAGGARD HAGGARD OVER THEFT:

Country music icon Merle Haggard won a court order Wednesday to stop an eBay auction of some of his original music – a tape of unreleased music allegedly swiped from his tour bus and offered for $325,000 by a Texas concert promoter.

Did this guy think Haggard wouldn't find out?

IT'S DEEPLINK DALLAS DAY! Declared yesterday, in support of BarkingDogs.org, today is the day as many bloggers as we can commandeer will be blogging stories deep in the Dallas Morning News website. Here is the reason why. So far, DailyPundit and Ipse Dixit have done so; Mark Byron is gearing up to do so. Go check them out, and be sure to follow their links. If you're a blogger who's deeplinked Dallas today, let me know and I'll tell everyone here too.

Is this fun or what?

By the way, if we all get in trouble for this (we're hoping!) Dodd at Ipse Dixit got sworn in as an attorney in Kentucky yesterday, so he's the real deal and we'll get him to represent us. And he promises to leave the dueling pistols at home. But what about the swords?

THOUGHTFUL ANALYSIS of a country not living to its potential, from Norwegian blogger Bjørn Stærk. He's speaking of his country, but at times he could be speaking of ours:

Our nanny state has created irresponsible citizens, whiners instead of builders.

It's short. Read it all.

WHY I WANT TO BE A ROMANCE WRITER, or at least own stock in Harlequin Romance.

They’re the best at marketing.

I started reading little Harlequin romances when I was 10, because my sister would read them and smile, or laugh out loud, or get all weepy, then refuse to tell me why. They cost 60 cents then. Now they’re $3.99. But that’s not the reason I want to write them.

I read in cycles. I may read 10 romances – or mysteries or science fiction or action or bestsellers or or or – in a row, and then not pick one up for months. For me, romances fall basically into two categories: read it all or read just the good parts, when the plot won’t support more attention. Sad to say, the majority of romances these days merit only a “good parts” read which is why I buy them mostly in used book stores. A wonderful Saturday morning for me is spent curled up under a blanket while it’s raining outside, a stack of “good parts” books at the ready, Enya on the stereo, a sleeve of saltines and a glass of orange juice (I never said I was normal) close to hand.

Always in that stack of books are ones by Diana Palmer, who has been a favorite for many years. All her heroes are tough but wounded inside, all her heroines are feisty and vulnerable, but she does great good parts. She’s a favorite of a lot of women, so how she is packaged by the romance industry is illustrative.

She started as a “little book” writer – one of those who does the numbered books of a certain line, like Harlequin or Silhouette (now owned by the same company), where six or so are published a month. Over the years, she’s written dozens of these. A few years ago she went “big book”, publishing several thick romances that cost more and ostensibly have a more complex plot (rarely true, but whatever. More good parts.). She’s done a few short stories and things. Mainly what she’s done is become an industry.

First they reissued her older titles under a “classics” line, which is to say I now would pay $3.99 to get something that originally sold for about $1.50. Then they packaged the ones that took place in the same town with interconnecting characters (a big marketing tool in romanceland) into books with three reprints per book. Then they packaged other books of hers in sets of three with new authors, so you’d buy it for the Palmer and stay to read the others, maybe finding new authors you’d then go out and buy. You have to be careful though, and check the publication dates – a lot of times, the Palmer book will be from 1992, say, and the other two from 2002. The cover would coyly say something like, “Classic Palmer with two sizzling new reads!” The latest is just hilarious – Harlequin is now taking its back list, editing a 180-page story down to about 30 pages, putting 5 such abridged versions into one book, and sell it for $5. “5 for 5!” They made a good parts version!

I don’t know of another genre that could get by with this, and I’m not sure why they do. The “good parts” abridgements are pretty choppy, but hold together ok which begs the question – why was it 180 pages to begin with? Shouldn’t have been, is the usual answer.

And that’s why I want to be a romance writer. There’s never an end to ways to repackage for more money. Somebody in marketing is making millions.

(And if you care, my current “read it all” authors are Stephanie Laurens and Julia Quinn.)

THE ANSWER IS YES.

Thanks to Shiloh Bucher for the link. Free registration required to view. All previous contracts voided. As is. No refunds.

MEDIAMINDED ON THE RAMPAGE:

You'd think the mass murder of civilians on our soil by fanatics sworn to destroy our nation would finally force the American media to question whether it was proper to continue viewing U.S. military policy through the lens of Vietnam. You'd be wrong.

And he's a journalist! Gives us heart that at least some in the media "get it" - read it all. MM, think you could open a j-school?

Ok, just kidding.

DEEPLINK DALLAS DAY: I'm declaring tomorrow as Deeplink Dallas Day in honor of BarkingDogs.org. If you don't know why, the Professor has the scoop. All bloggers, tomorrow we must each find an article somewhere in the Dallas Morning News website other than the front page, and link it. Also link BarkingDogs. I'll do my part, will you?

I'D LIKE TO THANK MY THERAPIST... Matt Welch is against awards for bloggers, but it may be too late.

I'M ORDERING SEVERAL OF THESE to send to leaders of various Middle Eastern countries. Like, Iraq. And hats. I'm sending hats.

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDIA BIAS: Daily Pundit William Quick asks - and answers - them.

NEWSDAY IS GULLIBLE too, printing the info from CAIR without any comments about its likely validity. Thanks to reader Mark Garbowski, who sent me the link. Mark finds it odd that the LA Times doesn't have it since Newsday and the Times are owned by the same people. If anyone finds it in the LA Times, let me know and I'll check it out.

ONE MORE THING before I go - industrious criminals:

The man and woman who robbed a Monroe [Washington state] Starbucks yesterday morning apparently weren't satisfied with what they found in the safe. After cleaning it out, they worked the store's drive-up window for about a half-hour, pocketing the cash, Monroe police say…

In all, 18 to 25 cars pulled up while the robbers worked. There was no indication customers thought anything was amiss, O'Neil said.

But "we heard that he makes a crummy cup of coffee," she said of the male robber.

Ahhh, Starbucks. Criminally good.

THIS BLOG IS TAKING A BREAK while the blogger figures out how to reset the default for her browser. Because I know how much it will amuse those of you more techie than me, I will tell you how I got to this place.

When I switched to Verizon DSL as my ISP, Netscape was the default browser. I managed to get so I only got IE instead (don't ask me how, it's been two months and who remembers?), but I still got the Netscape "do you want ME to be your default browser? Huh? Huh? PLEASE?!" little window each time. Inadvertently this weekend I clicked the "yes" box, and then suddenly everytime I clicked something on my button bar or my links lists Netscape would open. Do you KNOW how awful Netscape is?? I'd have to close it and then drag the link to my IE address window. That quickly got old, so I whined to a materials scientist friend who is a techie researcher type. He suggested I uninstall Netscape, so I did. And now when I click on a link, I get a window saying it can't find a browser.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

But never fear. I'll get this figured out. Or you'll hear about me on the evening news.

UPDATE: I RULE! I reinstalled Internet Explorer, complete with security patches, and now all the links and clicks and buttons work. Finally.

THE CAIR REPORT is available in full here. And the data is from self-reports to CAIR. Any takers that the data is statistically sound?

GULLIBILITY WATCH: After posting about the CAIR report below, I decided to see if any newspapers or news services reported it. I went to the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Seattle Times, the Detroit Free Press, the Boston Globe, the Tampa Tribune, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FoxNews. I looked at the news wires Reuters, AP and UPI.

The Tampa Trib was the only one who bit, but they swallowed it whole:

American Muslims Targeted After Sept. 11, Study Finds

A man named Mohammed who was kept from boarding his flight at Tampa International Airport.

A Muslim woman who was strip-searched by airport security personnel in Fort Lauderdale after she refused to remove her head scarf.

Another Muslim woman who works at a company in Bradenton and was told by her boss that she would have to hide her head scarf under a wig.

All were examples detailed in a report released Tuesday by a Washington-based Muslim advocacy group showing a threefold jump nationwide last year in bias-motivated harassment of and violence against Muslims.

The rest of the article gives numbers, percentages, allegations, explanations as to why this is happening - all without a single effort to explain how the information was gathered, what the statitistical soundness of the study was, or if anyone disagrees or challenges the information. Pretty shoddy reporting from the Trib. Apparently reporter Birusk Tugan doesn't read The Weekly Standard, or understand the concept of "factual" or "balanced". There is this little caveat at the end, though:

The report added, however, that ``incidents reported to CAIR may not represent the full scope of bias encountered by American Muslims, simply because many people do not report their experiences.''

I get it. The numbers are likely low. Good job, Birusk, you're right on top of things.

HONESTY INTERNATIONAL, also known as CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), has released a report about treatment of Muslims in the US post 9/11:

The number of "anti-Muslim incidents" nearly tripled during the 12-month period ending in March 2002...

The report stressed that the individual freedoms of nearly 60,000 US Muslims were "negatively impacted by government policies" instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks...

Interesting. Where did their data come from? It doesn't say, nor does it give statistics, margin of error or any sign of basis in reality. There is, however, a survey on their website. And we know how trustworthy CAIR surveys are.

As for the bulk of the 60,000 negatively impacted,

It also includes 50,000 other people who donated money to Muslim relief organizations that were declared illegal and shut down by the US government after Sept. 11.

Ahhhh... so these people can no longer donate to Muslim relief organizations so they're harmed? Wait... they have phones, don't they? Then they can just call at the next telethon-for-terror.

And all this awful mistreatment has happened when Muslims aren't even implicated in the attacks! In fact, no one is!

...Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted Robert Muller, director of the FBI, as saying US officials have not yet gathered any evidence on how the terrorists carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, despite the massive investigations carried out by the FBI.

"The hijackers did not leave any written evidence. We have not found even a single paper related to the Sept. 11 attacks during our investigations either in the United States or in Afghanistan," he said.

Yeah. We don't know how it happened. We don't know who planned it, who carried it out, why it was done. No evidence. Nada.

Pretty sad.

We're still coming for you, though, House of Saud. You can't hide behind the skirts of your religion, or the advertising money I provided you by driving my car.

Survey that.

IT'S A ROUGH LIFE:

At least Australian heiress, socialite and former housekeeper Rose Porteous thinks so:

"When the going gets tough the tough get going but this time the tough is not just going to get going but the tough is going to enjoy the toughness."

THE WTC IS STILL GONE. The Manhattan skyline was silhouetted beautifully against the sky as I drove down the hill from Bergen Avenue on Montgomery in Jersey City, heading toward Jersey Avenue in Jersey City. I always loved driving there because the World Trade Towers seemed so close and the skyline so amazing. Today, what I noticed was that the Towers are still gone.

Still gone.

Still hurts.

WHEN YOU HAVE NO ABSOLUTES, nothing is absolutely wrong. In that type of setting, all it takes is continual exposure to an idea, apparently reasonable people espousing it, and a lack of moral standards based on absolutes for an idea to gain increasing purchase. The moral equivalence pervasive in our society continues to open the door to more and more behaviors once deemed inexcusable – such as pedophilia. That’s the social mood the NY Times tries to take advantage of, in this time of scandal over abusive Catholic priests, in this article offering implicit support for the views of a professor who supports sex between adults and children (it isn't defined what age "child" covers):

[Prof. Harris] Mirkin argued that the notion of the innocent child was a social construct, that all intergenerational sex should not be lumped into one ugly pile and that the panic over pedophilia fit a pattern of public response to female sexuality and homosexuality, both of which were once considered deviant.

Mirkin claims his article is about opening “dialogue” about social taboos, and disconnecting “moral panic” from the cost/benefit analysis society makes of sex between teenagers/children and adults. He even tries to establish that "innocence" is neither a useful designation or a necessary one for children.

"Though Americans consider intergenerational sex to be evil, it has been permissible or obligatory in many cultures and periods of history," he wrote.

So has slavery, abuse of women and murderous totalitarianism, but I don’t see many defending those constructs. The NY Times and others are conflating the good – freedom of speech, openness about sexuality and its impact on people and society – with the bad – sex between adults and children. And I don’t think Mirkin’s fantasy about making it as a 12 year old with a woman on his paper route is compelling evidence that sexual activity between adults and children could be a good thing.

The article is mainly about how the Missouri state legislature is punishing Mirkin’s university for his “ideas” by cutting its budget $100,000. It’s a gesture and everyone knows it. The legislature is making it clear they despise his stance on pedophilia; Mirkin and his supporters are making it a free speech issue complicated by people with closed minds. The NY Times is on Mirkin’s side.

The ability to explore the moral, social, physical and intellectual impact of ideas and behavior is a cornerstone of a free society. That doesn’t mean that disagreeing with a particular idea, and trying to show its moral bankruptcy, is the result of a closed mind. This article pulls out most of the stops used to engineer societal agreement in modern times in an effort to equate our moral disgust with closeminded puritanism – which our society has already identified as anathema. The cues are numerous (my interpretation in parentheses):

Prof. Harris Mirkin could not have devised a better test for his controversial theory of sexual politics. (You nitwits are showing that he’s right.)

In 1999, Dr. Mirkin published an article in an obscure academic journal likening the "moral panic" surrounding pedophilia to the outrage of previous generations over feminism and homosexuality. (This behavior is just the latest taboo to come out of the closet; it has the same legitimacy as these other, now accepted, behaviors.)

As the expanding sexual abuse scandal engulfs the Roman Catholic Church, Dr. Mirkin has become an object of outrage. (The problem is really the church, not Mirkin; he’s a misunderstood innocent bystander.)

Dr. Mirkin, 65, said through a sly smile: "The article is meant to be subversive; the article is meant to make people think…” (We’re sophisticated, we understand the truth here. It’s those brain-dead moral absolutists who are the problem – we know they don’t think.)

Dr. Mirkin is being celebrated as a hero for academic freedom. (Or at least, should be. [The article is strangely devoid of any true celebration other than other academics.])

The chancellor here, Martha W. Gilliland, issued a strong statement supporting "the right to hold unpopular views”… (We’re attaching this construct to a known value, “free speech”, without passing judgment on its content. Of course, we would neither offer support or withhold judgment if the construct was, say, that feminism hurts society or that racial preferences harm minorities.)

"Today's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy." (We’re on the leading edge, here, too bad you’re in a “moral panic”. We’ll be seen as pioneers and morally brave when pedophilia is a normal part of society, sometime in the future.)

For the record, Dr. Mirkin, who has grandchildren 2 and 7, said he had never had sexual contact with a child. Incest and rape, he said, are always wrong. He agreed that priests and teachers who touched children sexually were abusing their authority. (See? He’s a good guy, he’s managed to be around young children without molesting them, and he agrees with you pat pat that the priests are awful.)

But he questioned whether some people accusing priests these days were making up stories in search of a payday… (The claims of harm from the intergenerational sex are just exploitation of the system for money; if we looked closer we’d see that in most cases the sexual activity was a healthy part of growing up.)

…he said he believed that much of what was called molestation was really harmless touching. He said he resented that teachers were leery of hugging children for fear they might be accused of abuse. (Let’s trot out the fears that everyone has, that expressing genuine and non-sexual affection for children will be mistaken for inappropriate advances with abusive intent. Let’s soften the edges of pedophilia by making it something any of us could be accused of, just for loving physical contact.)

"This particular issue is distasteful. I don't even like to think about it," said [Chancellor] Gilliland (Would that be pedophilia, ma’am?) "We got out of the Dark Ages when we said we can challenge belief, we can investigate." (Ahhh… no, the distaste is reserved for those who would stifle debate, not those who would bugger or fondle children.)

"I don't think it's something where we should just clamp our heads in horror," he said of pedophilia. "In 1900, everybody assumed that masturbation had grave physical consequences; that didn't make it true." (That’s right, we’ll compare pedophilia with something we know everyone does, as a moral equivalent that is unrecognized as such just because we’re in a “moral panic” and unable to see clearly.)

"These things that you're sure of," he added, "you really ought to check out and test." (Because, obviously, if you check out and test pedophilia, you’ll find that it is in fact a good thing for society, for the 12 year old paper boy and who knows who else.)

I don’t advocate shutting Mirkin down. But I do advocate mocking him at every turn, showing his efforts at taking child sex into the mainstream for what they are, and exposing his intellectualization and moral condescension as tools for accomplishing his goal. And I advocate castigating the New York Times for being willingly involved – either as a credulous sycophant at the altar of “science”, or a knowing conspirator with no moral compass.

REPUBLICAN WOMAN AS PRESIDENT? Dodd at Ipse Dixit makes a great case for it; be sure to read the comments because the debate continues in there.

EUSELESS: Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, berated Britain on Monday for its apparent preference for the United States over the European Union. British officials, meanwhile, said he is full of it, the EU is a bloody mess, and somebody on that side of the pond had better be friends with the US to save Europe's sorry hide.

Sounds about right to me.

FROM INSIDE THE COLLAR: Catholic priest Thomas Buffer thoughtfully and poignantly describes what it’s like to be an honorable priest during the current Catholic scandal. And most priests are honorable, which we should not forget or ignore. Buffer also gently but clearly takes down the media for their often shallow, shrill coverage, which has done much harm beyond what was done by the scandal itself.

Naturally I especially enjoyed his surgical evisceration of Maureen Dowd:

…Dowd is the Old Testament prophet, hurling thunderbolts of righteous rage. She makes Dr. Laura sound like Mr. Rogers. In her column “Father Knows Best” of March 20, Dowd manages to lump together, as a single criminal class, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Catholic priesthood, Afghan warlords, the Taliban, and the “boy’s club running Enron.” Funny, I never felt I had much in common with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, who will not even allow a Catholic priest to say Mass in their country. But Dowd explains that all these groups are wicked because they are dominated by dominating men. Having no need for scholarly backup, she relies on her own experience of having grown up Catholic.

The good priest shows her and others for what they are, and gives interesting commentary on the state of our society in the process. Excellent.

TALES OF THE SERIOUSLY ODD:

A reporter who wrote a story about a diesel spill in his newspaper's building has been charged with failing to notify the fire department about the accident...

[Deseret News reporter Jerry] Spangler wrote a story critical of his newspaper and its building managers after diesel fumes circulated throughout the nine-story tower's ventilation system. The spill was caused by a supplier who mistakenly pumped 400 gallons of diesel fuel into a tank that already was full. The delivery was meant for a building next door.

Spangler interviewed a state environmental quality official, who told Spangler to report the spill by calling 911. Spangler said he told his supervisors of the spill, wrote his story, and went home...

How do you sit in a building full of diesel fumes, interview a state official about it, write a story and go home, without making sure the authorities come to fix the problem? What part of "Call 911" didn't he get? Obviously a man who takes his journalistic observer role seriously.

SOMETIMES TECHNOLOGY IS NOT GOOD. Since I have DSL, I can take calls while online. One of my favorite things is my hands-free telephone, which has a headset like the ones used by order-takers at your local Taco Bell, only mine has a cord. It makes washing dishes bearable. Tonight, I was surfing while talking to my sister on the telephone, using the headset. My brother logged onto MSN IM, and I started talking to him too. Then my cell phone rang - it was my mom. So I have a phone to each ear, my mom is saying "Do you want me to call back? What are you doing?", my sister is saying, "Put mom up to the phone, see if I can say hi! to her!" and my brother is typing away making rude comments about my sister.

It was nearly enough to send me screaming into the night.

SUPREMELY RIGHT: Disabled workers aren't entitled to a position more suited to their disability if it means someone with greater seniority is done out of the job, the Supreme Court ruled today. It was a 5-4 ruling, but two of the dissenters - Scalia and Thomas - were against it because they didn't think it gave the employers as much protection as it should. Not surprisingly, Souter and Ginsberg thought the ruling unfairly restrictive of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the law under consideration.

The LA Times voted with Souter and Ginsberg:

Companies' seniority policies almost always trump the demands of disabled employees, the Supreme Court ruled...

Such policies obviously being in place for the sole purpose of abusing already disabled employees.

When choice jobs go to those with the most seniority, employers do not have to upend that system to accommodate a disabled worker...the divided court ruled.

In fact, they can likely kick the disabled employee in the teeth and toss them down the stairs without repercussions.

The court has ruled for employers and against a disabled employee each time it has examined the scope of the ADA in the workplace. Today's decision is no exception, although the court did not give employers everything they wanted.

Although they probably had to grind their teeth to resist it.

I agree that people with disabilities should be employed to the fullest possible extent of their physical ability and talent. I encourage efforts to make sidewalks and public buildings handicap accessible. However, hurting your back is not sufficient qualification for a promotion, and the integrity of a merit system cannot be destroyed out of sympathy. If a person who has seniority, is qualified and is physically capable of a job isn't promoted because of a non-related disability, then that's a problem. But disability alone shouldn't lift you above the rest.

THIS IS NOT VERY COMFORTING, given the recent train accidents.

SEND A FEMALE JEWISH AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA, says Conservative Economist James D. Miller. Wish I'd thought of that.

ANOTHER KIND OF MEDIA BIAS, which journalists tend to discount but which is a big reason why many of them went into the profession, and what often keeps them there, is: The Big Story. The rush of being In The Know. Jack Dunphy in NRO gives it a glancing blow in his article about why the Blake case is no OJ, no matter how much the media wishes it was:

...the Simpson trial was the Big Show, and for a reporter who covered it it must have been like an addict's first hit from the crack pipe: a high so intense that it can never be equaled, yet against all reason he continues to seek the euphoria of that first indescribable rush. And that hydra-headed creature we call "The Media" is still in search of the sublime buzz it got way back in '95, when for nearly nine months it was almost as much a star as Mr. Simpson himself but without the accompanying risk of life imprisonment.

The journalists can make all the noise they want about how they are providing what the public wants, but they are often in the business of creating as well as satisfying their market.

GLAD TO KNOW YOU’RE UNBIASED: You just have to laugh, sometimes, at how many journalists just don’t get it. Matt Welch, who always gets it and is always fun when he gets to talking about journalism (or anything else, for that matter), gives an insider look at a book fair panel discussion where excessive self-congratulations were exchanged amongst journalistic mavens. One comment in particular caught my eye:

[Journalism professor Ann Louise] Bardach bemoaned that kids nowadays get into journalism for the wrong reasons (money and fame, dontcha know), unlike her generation, which wanted “to change the world.”

Look at that carefully. Bardach would likely be amongst the first to get huffy if someone told her that journalists are biased. But what is bias? A preferred direction of thought. What is Bardach saying here? Her generation of journalists wanted “to change the world”. Now, do you think they wanted to change the world just for the sake of change? That any change would have been acceptable? First, a desire for change in and of itself is antithetical to the concept of neutrality – “we just report, ma’am”. Second, a preferred direction of change implies an ideological preference, thus, bias. Hmmmm…

Hoist on her own petard.

Also, don’t miss Welch’s analysis of the LA Times’s “It was a dark and stormy night” writing style. Priceless.

TIPS FOR ALLEVIATING DRIVING BOREDOM:

0-10 mph (traffic jam) or traffic lights: Reading anything, crocheting (quilting requires too much concentration)

10-45 mph (light traffic): Reading popular fiction and magazines; allows for frequent looking up

45-65 mph (light traffic): Reading popular fiction, only in paperback. Magazines and hardbacks too difficult to handle and still maintain proper grip of the wheel at this speed; "important" fiction and non-fiction require too much attention.

65 mph + (any traffic): Car dancing with loud music, preferably with windows down. Especially fun in West Virginia with “he done me wrong” songs. Reading at these speeds should be done only when you're the only one on the road and you're almost done with a chapter you just have to finish and the nearest rest area is still 40 miles away.

THE SHOPPING PAGE: Somewhere in a boutique in Washington, DC... The Last Page succumbs resentfully to a friend-of-the-bride dress, with the hapless help of a Him. I love The Last Page. That girl has talent. And now a new dress. That she kind of likes, despite herself.

She even manages to explain the deeper meaning of this blog's name, all fully in context. That girl's talented.

But then you knew that already. Go read. Now. I'll wait.

CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS have been down since 9/11 because so many gave to the funds for those victims and families of victims, but articles like this show why that trend may continue rather than reverse: The United Way of Washington not only has apparently been mismanaging and misusing funds, but the management is trying to hide it. This on top of the Catholic Church scandal, and revelations of misuse of funds by international relief agencies as well as clear ideological preferences and goals accompanying their "relief" decisions. Any non-profit agency (excluding churches) which receives tax-exempt status should have to reveal what percent of its funds are used for administrative costs, and I as a donor wouldn't contribute to those with a huge, money-guzzling infrastructure.

LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS is meeting opposition from...local law enforcement. I need to spend more time with this, but it seems bizarre to me. The situation is this: Currently illegal immigration is considered a civil matter, and those in violation can only be apprehended by the INS except in cases where local law enforcement (state, county or parish, and municipal) has entered into an agreement with the federal govt to enforce the immigration laws. Local law enforcement is resisting taking on this role for two reasons - budget and philosophy. I would understand the budget issue if they were required to proactively enforce the law. But they wouldn't - it would just be another set of violations they could toss in the mix. It wouldn't necessarily even be a "must arrest" situation - i.e. they would have the discretion to decide whether to arrest for that violation. The other reason given is that it would impede the local police from having good relations with the local illegal immigrant community. Huh?

I've never quite gotten the illegal immigrant situation in this country, and I've known illegal immigrants personally whom I liked a lot. And I thought they should have gotten here legally. I've seen a lot of pointing fingers and sage nodding on blogs lately talking about the growing immigrant populations in Europe and what a dangerous change they have wrought there. So why isn't there any pointing and nodding going on here? I think it likely that the majority of illegal immigrants in the US are hard-working people who want a better life and came here to earn it, not to live off the fat of the land at my expense (even though more often than I appreciate that winds up happening). I'm not against immigration per se; that would be rather hypocritical given that my family too were immigrants, way back when. But we need a clearly articulated, reasoned approach to immigration, we need to enforce it and we need local law enforcement empowered to help with that. If it's not a must-arrest situation, a good local law enforcement department is going to be able to do its job without spending all its time and good will hauling away illegal immigrants. But this situation was crying out for attention before 9/11, and post-9/11 we should see that it's even more important.

I also don't get this tension between the Justice Department and the White House. Bush is CEO and President of the country, and Ashcroft is Vice-President of Justice in this organizational structure. He serves at the pleasure of Bush. End of story. And I thought Karen Hughes wasn't gone yet - so why the leaks from the White House? Sounds suspicious to me.

MORE ON CATHOLICS and the priest sexual abuse issue. I posted a comment on QuasiPundit's site in response to a post by Tony Adragna, and he has responded. My response to his response (I know, it waxes ridiculous after a while) is posted on my writings page, because it is very long and also not precisely the type of thing I cover here. If you go read, you might want to read his original post, my response and his response first.

KEEPING ABREAST OF BARBARA BUSH, the Abigail Adams of our generation. At least she's got a sense of humor. I wonder if the reporter got fired?

HE GOT HIS TICKET PUNCHED, and both Tony Woodlief and his professors lived to tell about it, although it was a close thing, a few times.

JUST WHEN I NEEDED TO KNOW, I found a Blogtionary to explain those little bloggish words that keep popping up that I don't know but am afraid I'll sound silly and downright clueless if I ask - like, for instance, meme. What's a meme? A self-referring stutter? Someone can't spell memo? Short for memorex? Who knew? Certainly not me. But I have been saved by Dave Worley and his Blogtionary:

meme: An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. Coined by Richard Dawkins (see source2) SOURCE1 - SOURCE2

Meme, by the way, has apparently spawned a whole discipline called memetics. I have just revealed the depth of my uneducated ignorance by admitting I didn't know about it, but any sacrifice of ego is worth it for the benefit of my readers. As for finding out what Source 1 and Source 2 are, you need to go check out the Blogtionary. But then, you needed to check it out anyway. So go, already!

STINK BOMBS, BORING BOMBS, MONEY-MONGERING BOMBS: HappyFunPundit has a rundown of possible directions for military weapon research.

GOOD, BAD, UGLY: The killings at a school in Germany has brought out the good, bad, and ugly:

GOOD:

The rampage apparently ended when a teacher ripped off Steinhaeuser's mask and pushed him into a classroom, police spokesman Achim Kellner said. Startled, Steinhaeuser locked himself in the room, then shot himself some time later as police commandos entered the school.

BAD:

Authorities believe Steinhaeuser's motive was revenge: The gun enthusiast was angry over being kicked out of school recently after faking a doctor's note in an attempt to avoid final exams, Kellner said.

UGLY:

"So-called 'American conditions' have reached us. We cannot let these excesses of violence become a part of our daily life," said Konrad Freiberg, the head of Germany's police union.

The teacher should – and probably will – be hailed as a hero. That was an act of bravery and selflessness. On the other hand, Steinhaeuser (photo here) was a self-absorbed, lazy young man tragically taking his own inadequacies out on others. I'm glad he's dead. Finally, Freiberg needs to seriously get a life. “American conditions” didn’t cause this behavior; more “American conditions” would make their country a better place.

And the only impact “gun enthusiast” has on this horrible massacre is in the choice of weapons and the success of the killer’s evil intent.

THIS JUST IN: SEATTLE IS STUPID - Racial preferences are under fire all over the country, and with good reason. Apparently a Seattle school district is amongst the battlefields, and the combatants are, well, showing their colors:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an injunction to stop the Seattle School District from using race as a tiebreaker in student assignments while the district challenges a legal ruling last week that held its policy illegal.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled last week that the district's use of race as a factor in school assignments violates state Initiative 200, which was passed by voters in 1998 and prohibits racial preferences in public-school admissions, hiring and contracting.

Okay, sounds like the voters were heard, and the courts are upholding the law. Straightforward enough.

But the school district had said that in the absence of a direct court order, it would continue using the tiebreaker. Race is one factor used in determining which students are assigned to the district's most popular but racially imbalanced schools.

Nice example for the kiddos - disobey the law even when it's been voted on by the community, and totally in absence of any numbers showing support for the cries of discrimination. Notice that the articles says the schools are "racially imbalanced", but offers no evidence.

Of course, facts, law and democracy are immaterial to these social engineers:

The ruling was seen by many in the district as a blow to attempts to keep Seattle schools integrated.

District Superintendent Joseph Olchefske denounced the ruling, saying racial diversity is a "core value" for the district.

The 9th Circuit ruling also led popular Ballard High School Principal David Engle to resign Thursday, saying Ballard High's ethnically diverse student body would become "mono-cultural" as a result of the ruling.

In announcing his resignation, Engle invoked the memory of civil-rights activist Rosa Parks and encouraged students to act on their own moral convictions.

Still no facts, still no support. All emotion and crying buckets of horrified tears. Oh, wait, here is a little bit of data:

But Seattle attorney Harry Korrell, representing Ballard High parents who challenged the district's policy, said that calling upon "images of the old South" is little more than "posturing to scare people that the consequences of the ruling will be dreadful."

"Using the tiebreaker, Ballard is 43 percent nonwhite. If you take out the tiebreaker, it drops to 40 percent. Is that a segregated school?" Korrell asked.

Okay, I grant that the data comes from the "opposition" (or, er, the ones wanting to uphold the law). However, it's data, it's checkable, and it's totally unchallenged at least as far as this article goes. I hope this omission is journalistic incompetence, but I suspect it isn't completely. But then, why let facts spoil a good liberal chest-pounding celebration?