Deafening Silence

Sympathy for the Devil

    Human self-righteousness and justice do not naturally go together.  When they are combined by force, the result is usually neither righteous nor just.

    We are living in a time of moral confusion caused by the forcing together of self-righteousness and justice.  Here is my anecdotal evidence:

    The past few weeks have been enlivened by the release of the 'torture memos' created during the Bush administration.  A large part of the 'to prosecute or not to proscecute' angst has centered around the definition of torture itself.  In addition to waterboarding, we have been told that slamming people into walls, face slapping and sleep deprivation are also torture.  Such techniques violate international treaties, we are told, and could result in trials in international courts.

        Well, fine.  But what about the other torturers?  For if the definition of toture now includes face-slapping, wall-slamming and sleep deprivation, thousands of men, women and children are tortured in this country every single year.  Some are even subjected to 'simulated drowning,' their faces pushed into toilets.

    Only they don't get to call it torture.  For them it's only "domestic abuse." 

    I find this wearily interesting.  If an alleged terrorist is subjected to the same torment in a government holding cell that thousands of other Americans quietly endure at home, it's suddenly torture.  It's worthy of newspaper headlines and official Red Cross inspections.  It must be investigated and debated by the finest legal minds in the land.  It could tarnish whole nations and destroy powerful politicians.

  But if my husband slams me against the wall in my own home, slaps my face and forbids me to sleep for nights on end, it's "domestic abuse."  I'm supposed to call a cop.

    If I can get to a phone.

    Sorry, but to me that is not equal protection under the law.  What is torture for a detainee cannot suddenly become 'domestic abuse' for everyone else.  It must be considered torture for the men, women and children of this country as well.

    But in a fit of self-righteousness some people have decided there are two kinds of slapping.  Slapping detainees is torture.  Slapping a wife, husband or child is not.

       I am also told that this week the House has passed H.R. 1913, otherwise referred to as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

    Let me be clear: I think ethnic, religious, and other bigoted forms of hate are wrong.  I think committing violence due to such bigotry is disgusting.

    But, barring psychosis, I never yet heard of any violent crime committed out of love.  Rape, robbery and murder are never acts of love.  They are at least acts of dislike, if not hate.

    In their zeal to prove that our society despises bigotry, the self-righteous have decided that certain victims are more raped, more robbed, more dead if their rape, robbery or death was motivated by bigotry.

  I believe that our society by and large does despise bigotry.  But hate crime laws are not a way to stop it.  They are a way to grow it.  They create another group who can consider its members 'persecuted': those prosecuted under special Hate Crimes laws.

    Does anyone doubt that misleaders like David Duke would miss the opportunity to leverage such a conviction for publicity and recruitment?

    Prosecuting someone for their alleged motivation instead of their actions also opens the door to corruption on a frightening scale.  How do you 'prove' what a person was thinking? 

    I'm reminded of a scene in the movie Witness.  An Amish grandfather tries to warn his grandson away from handguns, saying they are only made to kill people.

"But I would only kill a bad man," says the grandson.

"Oh," says the grandfather. "And you can look into their hearts and see this badness?"

    Better we should work harder at challenging and changing the bigotry- before it can figure into a crime.

    Or do we want to do even that?  One final anecdote to show how deeply we have confused ourselves.  Kate Winslet won the Best Actress Oscar this year for her role in The Reader.  She played Hanna Schmitz, an unrepentant Nazi guard.  The entire film hinges on our developing some sympathy for Hanna.  We are asked to pity her illiteracy, which supposedly led her to join the Nazis for the sake of a job.  Never mind that she regards letting dozens of prisoners burn to death in a locked building as perfectly reasonable.  She is young, she is pretty and she is disadvantaged.  We must see that.

    But as Hanna herself puts it at the end of the film: "The dead are still dead."

    We just need to figure out what to call them.

Stupid, Just Stupid.

There is just NO EXCUSE for this nonsense.  Federal officials deciding to buzz New York City!

The site of these panicking people just wrings my heart.  How many lost friends or relatives on 911?

This is inexcusable.  Nasty letters should be written.

With friends like these......

(Via Instapundit)

UPDATE:

From an NYT story on the obnoxious, insensitive, boneheaded incident:

In unusually harsh language, the mayor criticized the Defense Department for conducting the exercise and the Federal Aviation Administration for being secretive about it.

Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination. Poor judgment would be a nice ways to phrase it, but they did. I also think that once they had told us, we should have done a better job. Had I known about it, I would have called them right away and asked them not to. It is the federal government and they can do in the end what they please, but I would have tried to stop it. I don’t know there’s a lot else to say other than they shouldn’t have done it.

 

Unaware of the planned exercise, scores of office workers flooded out of buildings, worried about the prospect of terrorism.

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Gibbs was clueless, as usual:

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Monday afternoon that he was unaware of the flyover. At his daily press briefing, Mr. Gibbs initially referred questions to the F.A.A. and the Air Force. When told that those government offices were referring questions to the White House, Mr. Gibbs said: “I have no information on this other than what I saw.”

Mr. Gibbs, pressed by reporters, said he had seen news reports of the flyover, but declared: “I was working on other things. You might be surprised to know that I don’t know every movement of Air Force One.” Later, he added that he would look into the matter.

President Obama (who was not on the plane)is said to have been furious at the snafu.

Americans have not forgotten:

Johnny Villafane, 42, of the Upper West Side, said, “The plane did a 360. There was a vibration. The glass in the skyscrapers was shivering.” He added, “It sounded like the building were cracking, everything started shaking. I thought the plane was coming down.”

...

A group of financial services workers, who were gathered outside the same building but declined to give their names, described their reactions. “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Another said: “There were people in my elevator, sweating and shaking. There were women
crying. It was not an experience to be taken lightly.”

Andrew Burke, 49, a T-shirt vendor from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said: “People panicked and ran into the streets thinking the worst.” He added, “It’s a real shame they couldn’t tell the city what they were going to do.”

Check out the pictures with the article.  It's easy to see why people were upset.

My Apologies.

Who gets bronchitis in April?

I mean, other than me?

I've been pretty floored by this for the past few days, so no chance to blog.  I expect (hope) to be back at it next week, when my body temperature reverts to normal  and you can't hear me breathe all over the house.

In the meantime,  please accept my apologies and enjoy this picture from Rick Lee:

 

And do visit the blogroll.  Lots of interesting places to see there.

Zounds!

A little bird tells me that CNN says it's Talk Like Shakespeare day!

Which reminds me of Talk Like a Pirate Day!

What if there was a Talk Like Shakespeare Talking Like a Pirate day?

Or a Talk Like a Pirate Talking Like Shakespeare day?

Imagine the possibilities.....all of which would probably require a bit of wine.

Aaarrrghh, wheyface!

Statement, one/love.

I Have Come to Believe...

...that blogging your personal life brings out the worst in people. 

I realize that the blogosphere is generously seeded with larger-than-life characters who draw traffic to their blogs by the sheer force of their screen personalities.  There are blogs I myself visit just to see what so-and-so has to say on a topic.

But over time a certain rot tends to set in. 

We're all subject to it.  I have often been tempted to blog more extensively about myself when covering a topic.  I have had a rather unusual array of experiences in life that would explain some of my opinions.

So far I have managed to overcome the temptation. 

We're all human.  A daily, thousands-strong stampede of strangers to read about Me! Me! Me! would eventually affect anybody.

Eventually, standing very still while that tight, shiny bubble revolves around you will cause anyone to say something---less than worthy.

This is what leads to 'big' bloggers sniping at each other.  And, though I know it won't be popular, I'm going to use an example.

When Ann Althouse first announced her 'blogmance', I was charmed.  As an middle-aged woman I was delighted to see a lady in mid-life find romance.  I was charmed as well by the warm well-wishes displayed in her comments section.

I still wish her well.

But then the New York Times decided to run a story on the relationship.  I was shocked.  Millions of people fall in love every day- and that's a good thing. But I didn't see then- and I fail to see now- what made this particular Boy-Meets-Girl story worthy of national coverage.

And I think that's when the rot set in.  At least for me.

Suddenly, there were minute-to-minute descriptions of snippy BloggingHeads comments.  Then Andrew Sullivan weighed in with some truly surreal nastiness, and readers were treated to that in detail.

Back and forth.

And then, in the middle of all this Front-Page-Romeo-and-Juliet stuff, Ms. Althouse puts up a post on Kathy Ireland's new diet book and says she's sick of celebrities saying "Look at me!  Look at me!  I'm losing weight!"

Well, ok, but- hasn't Ms. Althouse been shouting "Look at me! Look at me! I'm in love!" for the past several weeks?

Am I missing something here?

Of course, anyone who ever fell in love- and that includes me, I'm happy to say- is convinced that their love is earthshattering and deserves global notice.  So I gave her that one and moved on.

Today she lost me.  Here's why.

She put up a post titled: Susan Boyle: What's the Big Deal?

To which I nearly responded: Ann Althouse's Romance- What's the Big Deal?

Now, if Ms. Althouse simply doesn't like the way Susan Boyle sings, that's her privilege.  She can blog about how much she dislikes Ms. Boyle's voice all day long.

She quoted Adam Markovitz in the post:

 But Susan, because of her looks, because of the fact that people were snickering at her before she opened her mouth, becomes a sensation simply by being able to carry a tune. She has a decent voice, sure. But let's not get carried away. She's no LuPone, and her talent is only really shocking if you've already counted her out as a squawker on account of her granny hairdo and pre-fame Julia Roberts eyebrows. Once the element of surprise is gone, we're all going to be stuck with the fact that she's a capable, but by no means extraordinary singer. And is that really worth all the fuss?"

Let's change this paragraph around just a little:

But Ann, because of her blog traffic, because of the fact that her readers like to guess about her personal life, becomes a sensation simply by getting engaged.  She has a decent blog, sure.  But let's not get carried away.  She's no Hemmingway, and her romance is only really shocking if you've already counted her out as a confirmed bachelorette on account of her previous statements.  Once the element of surprise is gone, we're all going to be stuck with the fact that she's a capable law professor, but by no means Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  And is that really worth all the fuss?

Let me put this another way.

When Andrew Sullivan (among others) began using the blogosphere to denounce, deride and decry Ann Althouse's engagement, her commenters stuck up for her.  No matter how snide or hurtful other bloggers were, she could rely on a steady stream of positive support.  And, beyond that, she has the security of knowing she was a signifigant figure in the blogosphere, a person with a certain status.

Compare that to Susan Boyle's situtation.  After a lifetime of being ignored, Ms. Boyle found the courage to submit herself to the tender mercies of Simon Cowell, of all people. (Imagine what Mr. Cowell might do to, say, Andrew Sullivan.)  Ms. Boyle has no job, no romance.  If she should fail- and there was a good chance she would- Cowell would eviscerate her in front of an audience of millions, and she would be left with only her cat to console her.

But she stood up to it.  And she kicked ass.

How is that not a big deal?  Why does that make Ann Althouse more worthy of public notice?

  It's not that I think Ann Althouse is a terrible person.  I don't.  It's not that I disagree with her opinion of Susan Boyle's performance.  I don't really care.

The point is that any blogger who puts their personal life front and center in the blogosphere courts narcissism. You risk reducing the blogosphere to that tight coterie who follows your every move with breathless fascination.  And you risk overestimating the size of that coterie.

   You risk becoming desensitized to other people and their stories.

You risk becoming less than you might be.

This entire post is a cautionary tale- to myself.

Please remind me of it, as needed.

Just When You Thought It Wouldn't Get Any Better...

...Dang, this lady can sing. 

Where has Scotland been hiding her all this time?  And how?

I hope there's plenty more like this to come.  Shucks, she might be Judy Garland in sensible shoes.

Go here and enjoy.

Ok, I confess...

...I'm a complete sucker for this kind of thing:

Susan Boyle - 47-letnia śpiewaczka z brytyjskiej wersji "Mam
by luloczek

 

Bless her heart.

 

As I've said before, most of the entertainment industry is a field of unmarked graves.  I have no idea what happens to Ms. Boyle after this, but hey, at least she has this.

 

I don't watch TV- I heard about this via radio- but I suppose most people are aware of Simon Cowell's reputation.  To paraphrase one commenter, take a look at Cowell's face around minute 4:00- good heavens, he could be in love.

 

Some observers have pointed out that they can't think of a place for someone of Ms. Boyle's appearance in musical theatre, and I can understand that argument.  But to me she seems like a sweeter-voiced descendant of, say, Ethel Merman.  Maybe she'll do this tune for an encore:

 

Some people can get a thrill

Knitting sweaters and sitting still

That's ok for some people

Who don't know they're alive...

 

I think she could sell it, don't you?

 

On the other hand, my cynical side says that perhaps the producers already knew they had an impressive voice on their hands and set up the judge's comments and reactions for maximum effect.  Be that as it may, the lady still sang her fanny off.

 

Not something many people could do.

 

As a 46-year-old female, my hat is off.  You really know how to take a chance, Ms. Boyle.

Well.

I never thought I would hear Glenn Reynolds (the Instapundit) interviewed on NPR, but there he was, discussing today's Tea Parties with Robert Seigel.

Heh, as Mr. Reynolds might say.

More discussions like this, please, NPR.  We need them.

The Tea Party discussion begins at about minute 12:42. 

I should note that absolutely nothing on the program page indicates that the Tea Parties are on the agenda.  If I had not heard the discussion on the radio myself this afternoon, I would not have realized it was included in the show.

Cheesy.

Tuesday Roundup

Welcome to the Tuesday roundup!

Hystonoia of the Month:

Jenny McCarthy (who apparently doesn't even bother to clean up her act when interviewed by Time magazine) thinks we should all get polio just to teach the Evil Vaccine Makers a lesson:

Your collaborator recommends that parents accept only the haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) and tetanus vaccine for newborns and then think about the rest. Not polio? What about the polio clusters in unvaccinated communities like the Amish in the U.S.? What about the 2004 outbreak that swept across Africa and Southeast Asia after a single province in northern Nigeria banned vaccines?

I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.

What if she just did us all a favor and got lockjaw instead?  We could send her a vial of tetanus vaccine just so she could publicly refuse it.  So there!

As the economy continues to look bleak, Kelly Sedinger at Byzatium's Shores remembers a strange job interview he once endured:

You walk in the front door, into the reception area. Here you are greeted by a receptionist who looks barely old enough to drive or vote, and she is bundled up just shy of still wearing her parka because the office is kept quite cold, despite the sounds of air blasting from the vent overhead. Her desk appears to have nothing on it save one (1) binder, a few file folders and clipboards, a fax machine, and a phone. No computer, no photos of the dog or boyfriend or goldfish or mother or parish priest.

You look around at the reception room. There are some chairs -- standard waiting-area chairs that will be found in any dentist's office or LensCrafters. There is a table with the requisite selection of magazines, none younger than one year and none remotely interesting. There is a single potted tree that looks like it needs water, and the sole decoration is a map of the United States from National Geographic, complete with fold-lines, pinned to a dingy-looking bulletin board. The map sports a collection of pushpins inserted over every major metropolitan area in the United States, conveying the impression of a wide-ranging, national company. And yet, this office has no company literature of any kind to be found anywhere. Nor is there a logo to be seen.

Why am I reminded of that sequence in Men in Black when Will Smith walks past a single guard sitting in front of a giant exhaust fan?  And it gets weirder.

From Jurist:

Sitara Achakzai, an activist for women's rights in Afghanistan, has paid for her courageous stand with her life:

The Taliban [JURIST news archive] have claimed responsibility for the Sunday killing of Sitara Achakzai, a women's rights advocate in Afghanistan [JURIST news archive] and a member of Kandahar's provincial assembly. Achakzai, who had returned to Afghanistan to pursue women's rights after living in Germany during the Taliban's rule, was shot outside her Kandahar home [AP report] after being approached by gunmen on motorcycles. The killing [Kuwait News Agency report] comes in the midst of controversy over the Afghan central government's Shi'ite Personal Status Law [JURIST news archive], which reportedly requires a woman to seek her husband's permission before leaving the house and effectively condones rape within a marriage. The text of that law has not been officially published.

Killing unarmed women and children is a favorite hobby of the Taliban.  The Shi'ite Personal Status law has been reported on by Religion Clause:

Yesterday's Washington Post reports on the furor that has been ignited over a new law in Afghanistan that was supposed to have been the vehicle to recognize the religious beliefs of the country's minority Shiites. However the law has been widely denounced by human rights activists, Western governments and some Afghan cabinet members. The new law:

codifies proper behavior for Shiite couples and families in the most intimate detail. It requires women to seek their husband's permission to leave home, except for "culturally legitimate" purposes such as work or weddings, and to submit to their sexual demands unless ill or menstruating.

I wonder how this sits with the new Human Rights Commission created by the Organization of Islamic Conference? (Also covered at Religion Clause.):

 OIC Secretary-General Eklemeddin İhsanoğlu said that the new Commission will: "promote tolerance, and fundamental freedoms, good governance, the rule of law, accountability, openness, dialogue with other religions and civilizations, the rejection of extremism and fanaticism, and the strengthening of the sense of pride in the Islamic identity." He also sid that this step would promote intellectual and political reform in OIC countries.

Really? We shall see.

Frank Warner has a multi-post roundup of the recent Somali Pirate defeat here, here and here.  And there'smore, too.

Michael Totten reports that banners depicting mushroom clouds have begun appearing at Hezbollah rallies and speculates on what that could mean:

Hezbollah isn’t broadcasting this to the world. If Hitchens and Kirchick hadn’t written about it, few would know the mushroom-cloud banner even exists. It’s not so much a threat as it is a revelation of Hezbollah’s dark psyche. But perhaps Hezbollah’s not shouting “nuclear war” for all to hear means its threats are more dangerous than public taunts from the Iranian government. Empty threats and hyperbole are rife in the Middle East. Death threats are rarely carried out anywhere. Most assassins don’t announce their intentions. They kill their victims without warning. Whatever Hezbollah’s mushroom-cloud banner means, we know this much: intimations of nuclear war with Israel are now coming from Lebanon as well as Iran. The worst case scenario — a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv — might be slightly more likely than some of us thought.

As usual, it's worth reading all that Totten has to say on the subject.

So, what do you think?  Better a quick case of Polio right now to satisfy Ms. McCarthy, or would you prefer to hold out for Hezbollah's mushroom cloud?  Both choices give the last laugh to someone I'd rather not satisfy.

Perhaps Ms. McCarthy could give Hezbollah polio and then they could nuke her.

Sounds fair.

 

 

 

 

 

Do Not Fear the Crepes of Wrath

The Crepes of Wrath is a wonderful food blog I happened onto a few weeks ago.  (I'm quite jealous I didn't think of such a clever name myself.)  It is your source for fun, inventive entrees- and some of the most decadent cookie recipes I have ever seen.  (We made the Oreo Fudge Bars this past weekend and they are a fabulous indulgence.)

 

Most of the recipes use simple, off-the-shelf ingredients and ordinary techniques, so you can whip up something wonderful without having a nervous breakdown.  The blogmistress is a 20-year-old college student in Arizona who is, surprisingly, studying American History, not cooking live on Cable TV.

Well, she's young yet....