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Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Bittersweet
It's the right thing, but you hate to have to think about the children growing up without one of their parents.
A bill offering need-based college scholarships to the children of those killed or disabled in the Iraqi war crossed its last legislative hurdle on Tuesday.
Legislation expanding the War Orphans Scholarship Program to include the dependents of those who have served in Iraq cleared the Ohio House unanimously, and headed to Gov. Bob Taft's desk for his signature. The Senate has already approved it.
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As of March 5, according to legislative analysts, 26 Ohioans had been killed in action in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, leaving behind 14 children. The first of those would not be expected to attend college until 2008.
The program will provide up to a 100 percent tuition waiver to attend a state college or university, or an equivalent amount to be applied toward a private college. If money is not available, a scholarship committee overseen by the Board of Regents would determine the amount applicants get.
It's Taken 5 Years?
Apparently there has been a law on the books in Ohio to allow Sunday liquor sales, if local voters say yes. It looks like there will be the first Sunday liquor sales.
Voters last week agreed to allow Huffman's Market in the city's Upper Arlington area to sell wine and liquor beginning at 10 a.m. on Sundays. The market's contract with the state had allowed it to sell wine after 1 p.m. and beer after 10 a.m. on Sundays.
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Individual stores have been able to petition local voters for Sunday liquor sales since 1999, but Huffman was the first to attempt the change, said Rae Ann Estep, superintendent of the state Division of Liquor Control.
Huffman said he began circulating a petition in January to get the measure on the March 2 ballot. About 85 percent of residents in the market's precinct voted for the Sunday sales.
Apparently, Ohio might actually pass a law allowing Sunday liquor sales. Ooooh. Way to move into the 20th century.
Withdrawl and Fencing
I'm now convinced the Israeli plan to build a security fence to along the West Bank and Gaza, while dismantiling and removing settelements in the area is a good plan. How? The Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board is vehementaly opposed to it.
What does Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gain from this dangerous gambit? A shaky parry and thrust into the West Bank, where he hopes to secure a permanent, expanded presence with U.S. benediction. The real result will be a victory for extremists everywhere and death to the peace process.
Umm, if Arafat and his Palestinian Authority are considered the moderates in the the West Bank and Gaza, then there is already a problem. Apparently the PDEB is only now learning of lawlessness and rampant violence within the areas as the terror goons are turning on each other. It's been going on for quite some time. Usually with an accusation of being an Israeli spy and spinning into a lynching from there.
U.S. officials talking up a Mideast democracy initiative instead of the peace process seem blind to the building danger. The White House must pressure both sides to talk and keep their options open on the peace process if they don't want to face a far bloodier situation in the fall.
And what pressure can be brought on the PA at this point, other than leaving them to their fate. In case the PDEB has forgotten, the PA has somehow managed to not find those responsible for killing Americans trying to work with Palestinians. Something The PDEB was quite upset about back in October.
I just love how in the context of the editorial they actually start by ranting that withdrawing settlements is bad. If you read just the first few paragraphs you would almost think they want Israel to expand further.
Read it All
One of the best mainstream personifications of a liberal hawk, Fareed Zakaria, has a great piece on the Islamists in Iraq.
If you're wondering how Al Qaeda and its type of militant Islamic groups are doing these days, there was interesting news last week. The tragic bombings of Shiites during their Ashura commemoration, apparently planned by one such group, exposed the weakness of the radicals. That Islamic extremist groups are now targeting Shiites is surely a sign of desperation. Unable to launch major terrorist attacks in the West, unable to attract political support in the Middle East, militant Islam is searching for enemies and causes.
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In political terms they have fared even worse. Support for violent Islam is waning in almost all major Muslim countries. Discussions from Libya to Saudi Arabia are all about liberalization. Ever since September 11, when the spotlight has been directed on these societies and their dysfunctions laid bare to the world, it is the hard-liners who are in retreat and the moderates on the rise. This does not mean that there will be rapid reform anywhere—there are many obstacles to progress—but it does suggest that the moderates are not running scared anymore.
All religious extremists need enemies to thrive. Christian fundamentalists used to rant against Jews and Catholics until that became politically impossible. Now they warn of the takeover of the country by abortionists, gays and secular humanists. And even that tactic is wearing thin so the latest round of fund-raising letters have a new enemy—Muslims.
Similarly, Islamic extremists are losing the battle against modernity. Few Muslims want a Taliban-style regime or life. The signs from Afghanistan to Iran to Jordan are clear. So militants are searching for new divisive tactics. Some of them, from Saudi Wahhabi preachers to the Qaeda-affiliated terrorist Zarqawi, have been highlighting another cause—the need to keep the Shiites down. It's a prejudice that Sunni extremists have long held. But it is unlikely to work.
The persecution of Shiites has been the dirty little secret of the Islamic world.
It's Just a Theory, But...
Why was it right to go into Haiti but not Iraq? An interesting line of thought.
The essential difference between Haiti and Iraq concerns continuity of leadership. In the case of Haiti, continuity of leadership was destroyed by internal forces; Aristide lost control of the country, and the identity of a successor who could restore order was not obvious. In the case of Iraq, continuity of leadership was never internally threatened. To the current diplomatic class, this is a very important distinction.
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Now, continuity of leadership is not the type of standard that the world's diplomatic elite likes to talk about. Preferred diplomatic dialogue concerns high-minded ideals and the processes for affirming them -- on paper. With regard to these standards, the international community has repeatedly shown itself to be interested in seeing that the proper papers are signed, but not particularly interested in seeing that what is agreed upon is carried out. This is no substantive penalty to a state that violates the most basic standards in the most brutal ways. As long as repressive governments pretend to be civilized regimes in the proper diplomatic circles, the international community is willing to turn a blind eye to blatant disregard of human rights and democratic freedoms. The international community will play the fool for dictators and oligarchs who are willing to hold occasional sham elections (see the recent events in Iran), sign the right covenants, and not call undue attention to their continuing violations of the principles in the covenants.
The international community is not so keen to play the fool, however, when the subject is a government's ability to maintain order. A leader cannot blithely deny losing control of his country in the same way he can blithely deny an anti-democratic record of governance. The situation in Haiti is a prime example of this. In Haiti, flawed legislative elections and government involvement in gang violence were documented by the Organization of American States and Human Rights Watch at least as far back as the year 2000. Despite this, the legitimacy of the Aristide regime was politely tolerated within the diplomatic elite. No meaningful action to protect Haitian democracy was called for by any of the present proponents of intervention.
If you think this is so, then surely issues in China regarding Tibet can be ignored.
Stick with acting
Tim Robbins may have kept his mouth shut at the Academy Awards, but his new play Embedded draws a rather withering review from The New Republic (via Roger Simon).
More important, it will prove once and for all the hypotheses of the late University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss, the cabal's hero and the production's villain, whose hapless visage is projected in the background.
What exactly are those theories? The cabal, despite its repeated shouts of "hail Leo Strauss!" (this, to a Jewish refugee from Nazism), doesn't give us much insight. Fortunately, the program for Embedded, which contains an essay by someone named Kitty Clark, does. (For the New York production at least, someone in Robbins's orbit had the good sense to expunge from the original essay, which I found on the Internet, several pointed references to the Jewishness of Strauss and his supposed adherents.) In the program's telling, Strauss believed that democracy "was best defended by an ignorant public pumped up on nationalism and religion. Only a militantly nationalist state could deter human aggression." As for Robbins himself, in an NPR interview earlier this week he explained that he could only figure out why the neoconservatives supported war in Iraq by looking to their association with "a philosopher named Leo Strauss that a lot of them studied with, who actually conceptually believes in a noble lie for a greater good, coming from Plato." Bull Durham, meet the New School for Social Research.
Leaving aside for a moment Hollywood's reading of Straussian political theory, there is the small matter that the principal architects of the war--Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the president himself--had in all likelihood barely even heard of Leo Strauss before James Atlas penned a piece in The New York Times last year explaining who he was (the piece clearly made an impression on Robbins, who quotes from it).
Here's the Kitty Clark essay unexpunged (PDF). I love Bull Durham, and nothing Robbins or Sarandon do or say will change that. I just wish I don't have to compartmentalize it quite so vigorously.
Sounds about right.
It might have been cooler to be Constantine or Custer, but this makes a bit of sense (of course the wife tells me she got the same result, and that's just wrong).
 You are Spider Jerusalem.
Spider is THE journalist of the future. He smokes, he does drugs, and he kicks ass. The drugs are going to eventually kill him but not before he gets his way. And his way is the demise of the failed American dream. Although full of hate, he cares about his city. All he wants to bring the world is truth. Spider Jerusalem, conscience of the City. Frightening thought, but he's the only one we've got.
What Gritty No Nonsense Comic Book Character are You? brought to you by Quizilla
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Before There Was Harry Potter
There were the Chronicles of Narnia. This was the series of children's fantasy books. I remember loving them when I was growing up.
Now, it looks like The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe will be done as a live action movie for December 2005. Disney is going to co-finance and distribute. The director of Shrek, Andrew Adamson, will be directing.
When I told the wife, she seemed surprised that I liked the books. She wondered why the "blatant Christian symbolism" of the books didn't turn me off -- me being Jewish and all. To be honest, when I first read them, I was quite young and more enjoyed the escapism and fantasy so I didn't notice. Also, what did I really know about Christianity in elementary school? Now, it doesn't really bother me. They are still great reads.
Mmmm, Beer
Looks like Great Lake Brewing is putting out a commemrative beer in honor of the blackout over the summer "complete with a label that depicts Cleveland neighbors gathering for porch parties." It's "Blackout Stout" and it went on sale this month in 4-packs. I'll have to pick it up sometime. Since the inlaws were visiting when it hit, maybe I'll take them some when we go see them in the next week. ( They don't like stouts. Okay, they can look at the bottles and I'll drink them.)
Nothing Wrong With Soft-Core
I scored a 26 out of 160 on the Libertarian Purity Test.
16-30 points: You are a soft-core libertarian. With effort, you may harden and become pure.
Guess I'm not ready for the revolution yet.
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