16 Blocks (2006)

16 Blocks (2006)

Saw this tonight. I'm making a concerted effort to blog on a movie right after I see it. As if...

16 blocks is a story of redemption, and I'm a sucker for those.

Bruce Willis plays a role that is familiar to anyone who has seen Die Hard, but his time he has a more interesting objective.

He must get Mos Def 16 blocks to testify in court. Mos Def is the best part of this film. He is a fine actor and this role proves it. I've not seen him in much but I loved his brief role in Monster's Ball. In this movie he is quirky, engaging and sympathetic.

David Morse is also in the film and he's pretty classic. I can't decide whether I like him better as a bad guy (as in this film and others like Extreme Measures, which a great moral conflict film) or as a good guy (as in Contact). He's got great presence, even if he plays the same bad/good guy in every film.

The movie has a sweetness born of redemption. People can change. If you believe this you will enjoy this movie. If you don't you will think it is silly.

There are some silly plot twists or rather far fetched devices to move the story forward.

It's not the best film in the world but it has noble themes and interesting dialogue, and these are a few of my favorite things.

My Rating: Rentable

One more way Men and Women are different...

CND: UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women: "The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic 'aha' moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health."

Good Man?

Don Surber: Abortion Rights For Men: "A 25-year-old computer programmer is ready to file suit to block a child support order to pay for a daughter he does not want. The National Center for Men plans to use the suit to establish that men, too, can choose whether they want to become parents."

Goose and Gander, enjoying the spoils of narcissism.

Why Jon Stewart isn't funny

Why Jon Stewart isn't funny - The Boston Globe: "Meet Joshua Goldberg, a fictional composite of the typical apostle of ''The Daily Show.' Born in Newton, Goldberg attended Newton South High School where he played an integral role in securing the school's debate championship. His 3.8 grade point average and impressive array of extracurricular activities earned him a scholarship to Vassar, where he majored in political science and joined a Jewish fraternity. Throughout his formal education, Goldberg stayed up-to-date on national politics through nightly coverage on ''The Daily Show' and even led a petition to protest the genocide in Darfur.

Many of Stewart's die-hard supporters might use this persona as proof that ''The Daily Show' engages disillusioned viewers who otherwise could not be reached. This argument, however, fails to consider the ultimate career path of Josh Goldberg: Upon graduation in 2004, he accepted a prestigious job as an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Although he no longer follows Washington's daily political squabbles, Goldberg gives a significant annual contribution to the Democratic Party.

The tragedy of this portrait is not that investment banking corrupts young souls (although one could argue otherwise), but rather that the students who abandon politics out of a naive self-consciousness often represent our country's most idealistic minds. Stewart's daily dose of political parody characterized by asinine alliteration leads to a ''holier than art thou' attitude toward our national leaders. People who possess the wit, intelligence, and self-awareness of viewers of ''The Daily Show' would never choose to enter the political fray full of ''buffoons and idiots.' Content to remain perched atop their Olympian ivory towers, these bright leaders head straight for the private sector."

This guy can't win for losing. He spends years ragging on the Bush Administration and he gets his chops busted from the left for doing it.

I've always thought that Stewart's comedy is funnier to the ignorant. I think he has great timing but he trades on a lack of information, or in other words the MSM.

I must say that I gained respect for Stewart at the Oscars. Instead of playing to the crowd assembled there by continuing his usual scoffing of GWB, he made fun of Hollywood.

I don't think he'll be invited back. But I actually hope he is. Here's to you Jon. At least your an equal opportunity punk.

The Big Truth

Confederate Yankee: The Big Truth: "Officials did not expect a breach of the levees before Hurricane Katrina, and still thought they'd dodged a bullet almost six hours after the storm made landfall.

That's the Big Truth of what was expected of the New Orleans levees, and the Big Truth about ten words that some opportunists would conflate into a disaster all their own."

Reporting of Hurricane Katrina has shaken my faith in the ability to believe anything that I read in a newspaper. Without links to primary sources (like blogs or footnotes) why should I believe anything on TV news or in a newspaper. Even when they have the source material (as in the story above) they still mess it up. It's like their trying to get it wrong. At least in one direction.

Remember, it's not news unless it hurts GWB.

Capote (2005)

Capote (2005)

This is another one that I saw weeks ago but have failed to post on.

I found this a very interesting film. Set in a color palette that seems black and white in the memory, and having almost no soundtrack, Capote feels like a desolate barren landscape, of the soul.

From one angle Capote is a crime drama with a bit of mystery for those who do not know the story of the brutal murders that inspired Capote's "In Cold Blood". From another angle the film is a character study of tragic flaws reminiscent of Oedipus or Hamlet.

Capote is portrayed in counterpoint to a brutal murderer and both are found to be intelligent, educated, amoral narcissists. Whether this judgment is too harsh can certainly be debated but this is not the story of savory characters.

The film is very engaging. It unfolds quietly, like a thief preparing to steal your neighbor's car in the early morning hours. You would stop it at all costs if you could but if you can't you are compelled to watch.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a truly fine actor. I've admired his work and as I look over his filmography I have many fond memories of his roles in Cold Mountain, 25th Hour, Punch-Drunk Love, State and Main and even Patch Adams. His performance in Magnolia is one for the ages.

Capote is a great performance as well, but his character is not a sympathetic figure, which I admit is evidence of a great portrayal.

Definitely worth seeing if you like intelligent character studies.

My Rating: Rentable

Brokeback China

More on the relationship of Chinese culture to Brokeback Mountain:

Entertainment News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "BEIJING (Hollywood Reporter) - 'Oscar honour brings joy to Chinese' read a front-page headline of Tuesday's China Daily, after 'Brokeback Mountain' director Ang Lee became what the state-run paper called 'the glory of Chinese cinematic talent.'

But Lee's film about romance between two men -- which made him the first Asian to win the best director Oscar -- is not likely to screen in China, industry critics say, and has turned the Taiwan-born filmmaker into something of a political football.

'China's a socialist country and, like in the Soviet Union before us, many subjects cannot break through in this system,' said Cui Zi'en, an openly gay filmmaker and professor at the Beijing Film Academy."

History, The Academy, Truth and Freedom of Speech

Deborah Lipstadt: "I fought this man's libel charge against me for six years. For over three months I had to silently sit in court in London listening to him say the most horrible things about Jews, people of color and survivors. He made fun of those who talked about gas chambers and sneered at survivors' accounts of what they endured. He was full of bluster about how he was going to demolish the myth of the Holocaust.

Quietly and meticulously, relying on the stellar work of a dream team of historians, we showed that every one -- not many, not most, but all -- of David Irving's claims were complete rot. They were based on lies, distortions and fabrications. They were, as the prominent historian Richard Evans and the leader of our research team, said, ``A tissue of lies.'"

A strong statement of the importance of freedom of speech follows. Read the whole thing.

Job Secuity Update

What Colleges Forget to Teach by Robert P. George, City Journal Winter 2006: "I’ll be the first to admit that the situation is dire. I sympathize when critics throw up their hands in despair. I sometimes feel that way myself. Darkness often prevails in places where the light of learning should shine. I often trade horror stories with my friend Hadley Arkes, a distinguished scholar of jurisprudence and political theory at Amherst. On one occasion, I explained that the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton was sponsoring a viciously anti-Catholic art exhibit—one that it would never even permit were some favored faith or cause, such as Islam or gay rights, its target. Every year, some outrage along these lines seems to prove that anti-Catholicism really is the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals, though anyone familiar with academic life today knows that anti-Semitism itself is making a run at being the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.

Professor Arkes listened sympathetically and said, “Things have gotten pretty bad here at Amherst, too: we’ve granted tenure in political science to a guy promoting a theory explaining the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush by reference to his alleged homoerotic attraction to Ronald Reagan.” “Well,” I replied, “Princeton has topped that. We’ve given a distinguished chair in bioethics to a fellow who insists that eating animals is morally wrong, but that killing newborn human infants can be a perfectly moral choice.” (This professor has since gone on to say that there would be nothing wrong with a society in which large numbers of children were conceived, born, and then killed in infancy to obtain transplantable organs.)

And so we go back and forth with each other, in a macabre game of one-upmanship."

Campus Crusade?

Mary Kathrine Ham: "An Iran-born recent grad of the University of North Carolina drives a rented SUV into a crowd of students in a popular campus gathering place, hitting nine and injuring six.

He calls 911 (audio of call, here) and tells the dispatcher why he did it: 'Really, it's to punish the United States government for its actions around the world.'

On his way to his hearing, he is asked by a reporter if he was trying to kill people. He answers very calmly, 'yes.'

In his hearing, he declares that he will represent himself with the help of Allah and that he is thankful for the opportunity to 'spread the will of Allah.'"

I'm glad this didn't displace the coverage of the Academy Awards because I was thrilled to see so many courageous films rejecting intolerance by Republicans (Good Night, Good Luck), Red States (Brokeback Mountain), and white people (Crash).

Who says Hollywood is out of touch? Except of course, George Clooney.

Word and Deed, Again and Again

Word and Deed, Again and Again - Christianity Today Magazine: "The collaboration between Christian groups has impressed Pass Christian's politicians. Christians represent 95 percent of relief volunteers, said Lou Rizzardi, Pass Christian's Ward 1 alderman who coordinates them.

'Faith-based organizations come in here much more organized, ready to go to work,' Rizzardi said. 'They don't ask for anything.' Mennonites re-roofed Trinity Church, an Episcopal congregation. The Assemblies of God donated a huge tent to shelter Crusade volunteers. Pass Christian's largest volunteer presence is Campus Crusade. Of Todd's efforts to mobilize manpower, Rizzardi said, 'I don't know what I would have done without him.'

Crusade volunteers mucked out Trinity's sanctuary and cemetery. They salvaged chunks of stained glass windows and bottles of Communion wine. They also unearthed Trinity's Communion 'breadbox' that vanished in Hurricane Camille of 1969.

At any given time, up to 300 Crusade volunteers are working. About 4,000 have become involved through Crusade recruitment and word of mouth. Crusade welcomes whosoever will: male or female, young adults, retirees, church groups of mixed ages, and their non-Christian friends. Some have returned to help.

Crusade volunteers share the gospel with every family they help. Nonbelievers are far more receptive to the message after seeing faith in action."

Jew Tortured, Times Fiddles by Stefan Kanfer

City Journal: "Five years ago, New York Times readers were shocked to read an indictment of the paper by one of its chief editors, Max Frankel. Entitled “Turning Away from the Holocaust,” the article looked back to the genocide of World War II, noting that “only six times in nearly six years did the Times’s front page mention Jews as Hitler’s unique target for total annihilation.”

Frankel continued, “No article about the Jews’ plight ever qualified as the Times’s leading story of the day, or as a major event of a week or year. The ordinary reader of its pages could hardly be blamed for failing to comprehend the enormity of the Nazis’ crime.”

Alas, despite honorable sympathies for victims in Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Kosovo, the same evasions and willful myopia still afflict the paper when it comes to crimes against Jews."

City Journal has become a frequent stop for me.

Autistic teen's hoop heroics hook Hollywood

ESPN.com - Video - Autistic teen's hoop heroics hook Hollywood:

If you haven't seen this, get the Kleenex and watch it.

This particular segment was so moving that Steve Levy, the ESPN guy who did the voice over, couldn't watch it without weeping so he turned away and waited till after the broadcast to watch it for the first time.

Brand: Good to Great and the Social Sector

Eric posted a review of this way before I had a chance to. Issue five is key in my view.

Eric Swanson: Good to Great and the Social Sector: "Issue five: Turning the flywheel--building momentum by building the brand
"By focusing on your Hedgehog concept, you build results. Those results, in turn, attract resources and commitment, which you use to build a strong organization. That strong organization then delivers even better results, which attracts greater resources and commitment, which builds a stronger organization, which enables even better results. People want to feel the excitement of being involved in something that just flat out works. When they begin to see tangible results--when they can feel the flywheel beginning to build speed--that's when most people line up to throw their shoulders against the wheel and push. This is the power of the flywheel. Success breeds support and commitment, which breeds even greater success, which breeds more support and commitment--round and around the flywheel goes. People like to support winners!" p. 23

[Now I found this particularly interesting] "I find it puzzling how people who clearly understand the idea of investing in great companies run by the right people often fail t carry the same logic over to the social sectors. In lace of the 'fair-price exchange' of the free market model, those who fund the social sectors can bring an assumption of 'fair exchange' that is highly dysfunctional: if we give you money, we are entitled to tell you how to use that money, since it was a gift..., not a fair-price exchange. Put another way, social sector funding often favors 'time telling'--focusing on a specific program or restricted gift, often the brainchild of a charismatic visionary leader. But building a great organization requires a shift to 'clock building'--shaping a strong, self-sustaining organization that can prosper beyond any single programmatic idea or visionary leader. Restricted giving misses a fundamental point: to make the greatest impact on society requires first and foremost a great organization, not a single program. If an institution has a focused Hedgehog Concept and a disciplined organization that delivers exceptional results, the best thing supporters can do is to give resources that enables the institution's leaders to do their work the best way they know how. Get out of the way, and let them build a clock!" p. 24"

Collins recommends this book to understand the importance of brands: Managing Brand Equity: David A. Aaker

Not just wrong, but wrong.

This is why I can't stand the MainSteam news Media.

I have to pray that this kind of thing doesn't make be bitter each day because there is enough of it to ruin any day ending in "y".

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Brokeback Mountain (2005): "Tagline: Love Is A Force Of Nature "

I consider it a professional duty to be aware of the issues of importance on the college campus. No issue seems more difficult than that of homosexuality and gender.

So I had to see Brokeback Mountain.

I actually saw this weeks ago but have been derelict on posting my thoughts. The passing of the Academy Awards and the end of a long road trip have made this moment a possibility.

What I saw was a surprise.

Nowhere in the film was the happy go lucky air of just another "alternative lifestyle", so often portrayed on TV sitcoms like "Will and Grace". This film is a very sad portrayal of the desperate need of the human soul for intimacy.

I'm frankly surprised that Ang Lee hasn't been taken to task by the gay community for directing such a negative account of homosexuality.

Ironically, if you read respectable Christian authors like Mike Haley and others, you hear them say that homosexuality is usually a result of a failure to bond with a Father:

"But growing up as a kid, Dr. Nicolosi talks about the importance of the disidentification with the feminine and the identification with the masculine. That didnÂ’t happen for me in my life. What happened was, my dad, his way of making me a man was that he thought that he was going to push me in areas of sports that I wasnÂ’t interested in and then when I would get frustrated, he would do such things as call me Michelle, call me his third daughter, different instances like that. So times with my father became very painful. So the disidentification process with the feminine never occurred because times of being with my dad and being involved in masculinity were times of pain. So that never happened for me. "

What does Ang Lee portray in this film? Two men who were emotionally rejected by their fathers. Fathers have great power to shape their children's lives for good or ill. Bitter and angry men are misery to their children. It's interesting that those that I hear addressing this issue with regard to homosexuality are Christians who call fathers to love their children with kindness and understanding.

The two men in this film have absolutely no healthy male relationships, except when they meet each other and spend the summer alone together in the wilderness. Not surprisingly, two young, virile, emotionally distant men when placed completely alone together in the same tent for months at a time strike out at each other for connection. This is hardly an endorsement of homosexuality as a normal lifestyle choice.

The relationship that they share is classically male (don't tell anyone at Harvard): primarily sexual, few words, rough bordering on violence, and of course lacking monogamous commitment. It would be difficult to summarize male sexual nature more succintly. These are real men. They have normal human hearts that are meant to experience intimacy with others. What is abnormal or at least unhealthy is the environment in which they are functioning.

This is why their relationship functions like an addiction. Jack and Ennis are fixated on one another. This is a result of their inability to experience anything close to intimacy with any other person in their lives. The famous line, "God, I wish I knew how to quit you!" is more than a coincidence in my estimation, it is a summary of the central conflict of the film. Men who cannot experience intimacy in non-sexual ways will confuse sex for intimacy and become trapped in a cycle of sexual addiction, seeking intimacy but gaining only "special access" to another through gratification.

Addictions arise from a deep need that is not being met in a healthy way and therefore is met in an unhealthy way and leads to a cycle of guilt, shame, and further acting out. This has nothing specifically to do with sexuality. Addictions come in all shapes and sizes but they are all related to the ineffective satisfaction of the needs of the human heart.

I spoke with a friend last week who spent more than 5 years living in China and we talked about he possibility of Ang Lee's interest in this film being related to similar societal issues in his home country. Emotionally distant men, a culturally opressive society, men living in close quarters, few women; all of these could be said of China. One wonders if rural America is really the target of Lee's creative agenda in this film.

Does anyone believe that the homosexual relationship portrayed in the film was healthy? I'm sure many will blame it on the homophobic pressure of a narrow minded society. Yet it seems unlikely that the men in the film would have lived happily ever after if they had been able to fully pursue their relationship. In the film, their marriages failed for many reasons that were unrelated to their sexual needs. And the one thing that we each take into every relationship is ourselves. Only someone with an adolescent view of love could look at their relationship and predict long term viability.

The one sliver of redemption comes as Ennis realizes that he must stop neglecting his own daughter the way his own father neglected him.

This movie is a very sad portrayal of human beings groping for real connection with others, finding little hope and ultimately ending tragedy.

I think it's popularity in Hollywood and elite circles stems from a misunderstanding of human sexuality and an ignorance of the real source of opression against homosexuals in today's world. Whatever the sins of rural America against homosexuals may be, the greatest threat of violence against gays at this moment in history is the threat of Islamic Fascism. Making a film to address that reality would require artistic and moral courage that Hollywood knows not of. I don't believe I have ever seen a tribute to Theo Van Gogh at the Academy Awards and suspect I never will. That might cause trouble.

The film is very good, but not great and not the Best Picture, but you know that already.

My Rating: Rentable

Teacher's Bush remarks investigated

CNN.com - Teacher's Bush remarks investigated - Mar 3, 2006: "Sophomore Sean Allen recorded about 20 minutes of Bennish's class during a February 1 discussion about Bush's State of the Union speech and gave the recording to his father, who complained to the principal, Amole said.

'After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate. There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view,' she said."

I knew this was going to happen sooner or later.

Pie

I love pie.

This became vitally apparent to me last thanksgiving while Dave Letterman was reading from the list of potential pies made by his mom. Every year when he reads those pies I remember how much I love pie. This year something changed.

Since that fateful day in November I have made pie a bigger part of my life. I have experienced much more pie happiness since then. I've also put on about 10 lbs.

I'm on a quest best described by a question from a colleague: "Ryan, what's your favorite kind of pie?"

Ryan: "That's I'm trying to figure out."

So far, I must say that cherry pie is unfailingly delicious. I'm a fruit pie man primarily.

Blueberry, marionberry, peach and Dutch apple round out the top 5.

Tonight was a special night because I had my first piece of sweet potato pie. It's not a fruit pie but it rules over pumpkin pie with an iron fist. I'm in South Carolina for a conference and this restaurant is amazing.

I love the word pie. I like saying it.

Pie.

I look forward to eating my first strawberry rhubarb pie.

If you have any suggestions on where to get a great pie in Colorado or Boston, please note it in the comments section.

I would be grateful.

Pie.

He then, who has ears to hear...

This has become my favorite hymn, praise song, whatever you want to call it.

I find that I am compelled to initiate a campaign to make this song known far and wide.

Drink deeply:

Before The Throne Of God Above

Cook, Vikki / Bancroft, Charitie Lees

Before the throne of God above,

I have a strong, a perfect plea,

A great High Priest whose name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart.

I know that while in heaven He stands,

No tongue can bid me thence depart,

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look and see Him there,

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free.

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me,

To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the Risen Lamb,

My perfect spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I Am,

The King of glory and of grace,

One with Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ my Savior and my God,

With Christ my Savior and my God.

One with Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God,

With Christ my Savior and my God.

Needing to wake up, West just closes its eyes

Mark Steyn: "In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi, also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran.

This time around, the French media did carry the story, yet every public official insisted there was no anti-Jewish element. Just one of those things. Coulda happened to anyone. And, if the gang did seem inordinately fixated on, ah, Jews, it was just because, as one police detective put it, ''Jews equal money.'' In London, the Observer couldn't even bring itself to pursue that particular angle. Its report of the murder managed to avoid any mention of the unfortunate Halimi's, um, Jewishness. Another British paper, the Independent, did dwell on the particular, er, identity groups involved in the incident but only in the context of a protest march by Parisian Jews marred by ''radical young Jewish men'' who'd attacked an ''Arab-run grocery."

I doubt that we'll see any Hollywood movies about this kind of social injustice, any time soon.

Jim Layman's: Students Changing the World

Jim Layman's: Students Changing the World

A new blog from one of my estimable colleagues.

Killing of Jew 'not anti-Semitic'

The Australian: "HE calls himself the 'Brain of the Barbarians'. But France's most wanted man, gang leader Youssef Fofana, has denied accusations anti-Semitism motivated the kidnapping, torture and killing of Ilan Halimi, a Parisian Jew.

The telephone salesman died on February 13 soon after he was found near a suburban Paris train station, naked, bound, gagged and suffering burns and torture marks to 80 per cent of his body.

The three-week hell allegedly inflicted on Halimi by Fofana's gang of 'barbarians' in a densely populated suburban Paris housing block where neighbours turned a blind eye has horrified France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe."

“UAE and American Ports: a Modest Proposal”

Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “UAE and American Ports: a Modest Proposal”: "Neither side has noticed that there is a fairly obvious compromise staring us in the face, which Big Lizards believes would resolve the very real security concerns without losing the equally real security benefits from this deal.

Both the actual national-security risk and also the political danger come, not from the ownership of the company, but rather from the day to day management -- the actual control of operations. The emirate wants the profits that accrue from ownership; rational Americans want to see control of the port, even the cargo areas, in friendly hands, preferably American.

This suggests a workable compromise: an American company should be chartered -- American owned and American managed -- that is a wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary of Dubai Ports... call it American Port Services, Inc., or somesuch name that makes clear the nationality; and then let all the actual management of the ports be handled by the American APS, not by Dubai Ports.

This will add a middle corporate layer, so Dubai Ports won't make quite as much of a profit as they would running the ports directly; but on the other hand, it's still better than no profit at all. And Americans can be assured that rather than shifting from British control to UAE control, we will in fact have shifted from British to American control of port operations."

Read the whole thing.

Mass Gender

Welcome to MassRight: "'Check here if sex designation has changed?' I couldn't believe what I was reading. Granted, I should have expected that a state that legalized gay marriage would normalize transgenderism by including such a question on an official state form... but this is just too much."

#1 Song on This Date in History

#1 Song on This Date in History: "What was the #1 song in the U.S.A. the day you were born? The day you graduated from high
school? The day you were married? Oh, don't be shy ... how about the approximate date you were
conceived?"

Hide and Seek

"Hide and Seek" - Imogen Heap: "1. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap"

This is a song that I discovered by using Rhapsody, the monthly subscription music jukebox. It's so great I can hardly describe it.

The harmonies on Hide and Seek are thick and gripping.

I need to get back into choir.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

Nanny McPhee (2005) was a delight.

My kids loved it and so did I.

It's a cross between Mary Poppins, and Cinderella.

A delight.

My Rating: Own it

Want to find those WMD's?

The American Thinker: "Only two weeks ago, General Sada, formerly Sadaam’s no 2 Air Force Commander, told the New York Sun that Sadaam’s WMD was moved to Syria just six weeks before the US-led invasion. Now Ali Ibrahim confirms this and explains the underlying strategy of Saddam:

I know Saddam’s weapons are in Syria due to certain military deals that were made going as far back as the late 1980’s that dealt with the event that either capitols were threatened with being overrun by an enemy nation. Not to mention I have discussed this in-depth with various contacts of mine who have confirmed what I already knew. At this point Saddam knew that the United States were eventually going to come for his weapons and the United States wasn’t going to just let this go like they did in the original Gulf War. He knew that he had lied for this many years and wanted to maintain legitimacy with the pan Arab nationalists. He also has wanted since he took power to embarrass the West and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. After Saddam denied he had such weapons why would he use them or leave them readily available to be found? That would only legitimize President Bush, who he has a personal grudge against. What we are witnessing now is many who opposed the war to begin with are rallying around Saddam saying we overthrew a sovereign leader based on a lie about WMD. This is exactly what Saddam wanted and predicted. "

Bode Miller: Imagine there's no defeat

NBCOlympics.com - Alpine Skiing - Austrian Raich wins men's giant slalom: "Miller now has failed to medal in all four races in these games, but said afterward that he could just as easily have four golds.

'One of the good things about my career is I have such extensive knowledge, so I always go as hard as I can,' Miller said. 'Some guys can go 70-80 percent and get results, but I wouldn't do that.

'If things went well, I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold.'"

Maybe Nike can start a new ad campaign slogan on the heels of Bode Miller's Olympic results: Just Pretend.

Advice for Traveling Workers 3

A continuation of an incredibly wise excerpt from the papers of John R. Mott regarding wise living during frequent business travel.

Part 1

Part 2

III. Let Us Religiously Keep a Weekly Rest Day

If this is not made a matter of religion all experience of our workers shows that it will not be done at all. If we are so situated that we cannot observe the same day each week. Let us preserve the average of one day in seven at all costs, and make the interval between rest days as nearly six as possible. I have found from experience that it is a help to keep a written record in my pocket notebook of dates of rest days, of places where they were spent, and how they were spent. It is desirable, and sometimes necessary, to spend the day away from the place where we have been working. Let us not use it as time to catch up on business correspondence or reports. Let us not use it as a day of railway travel. It is necessary not only to burn the bridges behind us, but also not to go swimming in the stream which skirts our regular work.

To make this day what it should be it is necessary that we make plans for it, and that these plans include some strong diversion. Each man must determine his own plans and must make them so flexible that they may be adapted to the environment in which his general program places him. Sleep longer than usual. Spend much more time than usual in exercise in the open air. We should get next to nature and fall in with her spirit and ways and laws. Devote from two to four hours to general reading and to study according to some plan. Do not count as lost an absolutely idle hour now and then. If the rest day falls on the Sabbath let us fall in with the observances and purpose of the day.

Summon the Heroes

Eric Swanson: Jeff's Homecoming from Baghdad: "While we were waiting for Jeff, Company Commander Ramos told us that they were returning from a difficult year of intense action and the 126th performed with excellence. His mission was to bring every man back safely and he nearly succeeded, only losing one man to a roadside mine. Their losses were minimal compared to the loses some companies suffered. After reuniting with Jeff we went to Denny's for breakfast and then drove back to Jeff and Ashlies house in Las Cruces were Jeff unpacked his treasures from Iraq--not exactly the spoils of war but great souvenirs--books on Iraq, stamp and money collections, a few silk scarfs and a bunch of dessert hats. Jeff told us a bunch of stories that he couldn't tell us when he was home on leave. Some were rather frightening and by the grace of God he returned unharmed. While we were at dinner late this afternoon, Donny arranged for a fraternity brother, 3 Star General Jan Huley to give Jeff a call. All we heard Jeff say was, 'Thank you sir.....Thank you very much sir.... It was a pleasure to serve my country sir.... I learned a lot sir and had some great experiences.' It was pretty cool.

Can we say we are thankful? When I think of great days in my life I think of the day Liz and I were married, the births of Andy, Jeff and Kacey, Andy and Jeff's wedding and this...Jeff--coming home in the company of other heros. Thanks Jeff. Great to have you home!"

I am honored to know Jeff and his family. He has served his country with courage and distinction. May God bless him and his family.

Remember

I finally realized and fixed this link.

Please don't forget.

PlayStation 3 Over $800?

Slashdot | PlayStation 3 Delayed, Over $800?: "'Cnet is reporting that a research report issued by Merrill Lynch suggests that the Sony PlayStation 3's American release may be postponed until 2007. From the article: 'The analyst firm proposed the idea that high costs and Sony's decision to use an 'ambitious new processor architecture--the Cell' is making it look like the company might not be able to meet its goal of getting the PS3 out in the U.S. this year.' Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.' The official report (pdf) would also seem to indicate that the console will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 when it launches."

Don't ever tell me that this is too expensive?

Advice for Traveling Workers 2

A continuation of an incredibly wise excerpt from the papers of John R. Mott regarding wise living during frequent business travel.

See Part 1

II. Suggestions on the Care of the Physical Life of the Traveling Secretary

Let us get a genuine vacation before the year's work begins. It is imperative, because in traveling work, more possibly than in any other, we need reserve power. One month spent in real vacation will do far more for us than two months spent in the ordinary so-called vacation. By real or genuine vacation I mean a complete change from our regular work. This involves cessation from speech-making, from executive work, from all efforts to move men, from receiving or writing letters and telegrams, from weighing problems and elaborating plans, from talking or thinking shop or associating with men whose presence makes it difficult tot keep from such talk or thinking, from close application to prolonged study, from working on schedule time. It would not be bad to imitate the German professor who stopped his watch and clock when he went on his vacation. It involves making special provision for agreeable physical exercise. This should include the real recreation, or the play element. It should be a form of exercise which affords intense pleasure.

It emphatically does not involve neglect of exercise for the cultivation of the spiritual life. Nor does it involve ceasing from all intellectual employment. I am convinced that if a man spends one solid hour each day on purely intellectual work, on an entirely different subject from those which command his attention the rest of the year, he will enter the new year with even greater freshness and grip and with less likelihood of breaking down than the man who gives his mind no solid work. Of course there may be exceptions to this rule, for example, the case of a man who has had a serious breakdown, or who is threatened with nervous prostration, or the case of a man who has been reading closely all the year. In a word, a vacation, such as I mean it, involves active, congenial, and healthful employment of body (chiefly), mind, and spirit on new lines, without any suggestion of pressure or driving or treadmill, and all in the midst of surroundings conducive to realizing thorough recreation.

Religion and Politics

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Loose definitions: "Not all leftwingers in the US are as frankly religious as Hillary Clinton, and many don't even realise that the ideas that they champion have deep religious roots. But even for these people, being leftwing has itself become a sort of religion, with those who disagree viewed as sinister, almost demonic forces, rather than simply as individuals holding different views.

The language of righteousness and sin, if not that of redemption and grace, remains a hallmark of the purportedly secular left, though I find it no more attractive than the language of the religious right.

I don't fit into the religious right or the religious left. But, in America, you don't get to choose a major political party that does not have some sort of religious strain to it.

And it strikes me that one reason why politics in the US have become so much more bitter over the past couple of decades is that two rather different threads of religiosity have come to dominate the two major parties in distinct fashion, where each party had previously incorporated major components of both. This has turned political battles into quasi-religious ones."

This quote is old but it came up at Instapundit recently.

I've believed this for years. Which is why it's so absurd when people say that we should keep religion out of school. There's plenty of religion in school today. It's just not Christianity anymore, as it was when Harvard and Yale were founded. And it has all of the intolerance and narrow-mindedness associated with the worst of religion, made worse by the delusion that it isn't one.

Jacobellis' Hard Knocks

ESPN.com: "Lindsey Jacobellis tried to show off and she got what she deserved: She fell on her tail.

Jacobellis had a 50-yard lead in the first women's Olympic snowboardcross final Friday in a dandy of a race. She had looked over her shoulder several times in the bottom section of the run to see where her opponents were on the course. Obviously, she could already feel the weight of that gold medal around her neck. She was excited. She was confident of her victory. And she tried to show off a bit, throwing a back-side method over the second-to-last jump. But she held the grab too long, lost her edge and tumbled to the snow.


While she was scrambling to get up, Tanja Frieden of Switzerland came around the final turn and blew by Jacobellis to steal what would have been Team USA's fourth gold medal in snowboarding at these Olympics. But then again, Frieden didn't really steal anything; Jacobellis gave it to her."

If you didn't see this, you missed one of the memorable moments in all of sports. I'll have it on Tivo for some time. In fact, if you want to see it, come on over.

At first I was stunned. I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a showboat move and her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I thought that she got what she deserved.

But as I saw Jacobellis interviewed by Costas last night on NBC, it became clear to me that she is a young girl, an amateur in the best sense of the word. Amateur: [French, from Latin amātor, lover, from amāre, to love.]

This girl loves to snowboard. She worked hard to win but to her it seems that the joy of the sport exceeds her desire to win.

And of course she learned, or can learn from this experience.

Proverbs 1:8-9 8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

I was talking to my son about this very passage yesterday, not knowing that a living illustration of the relationship between wisdom and success would materialize later that day.

This weeks sign that the apocolypse is upon us:

Nick Lachey Requests Spousal Support | Jessica Simpson : People.com: "Nick Lachey filed papers in L.A. Superior Court on Friday requesting spousal support from soon-to-be ex-wife Jessica Simpson, PEOPLE has learned. In her Dec. 16 divorce filing, Simpson, 25, had petitioned that Lachey, 32, not receive alimony. "

Mormonism History?

Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted - Los Angeles Times: "From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago.

'We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people,' said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. 'It not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental identity, an identity with God.'

A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East."

Of course, having grown up in LA, I have a hard time believing anything in the LA Times.

Cheney's Arrogance

I've been thinking this same thing all week.

I'm glad Krauthammer put it into print for me.

Quell Quailgate: "Arrogance? The media laying these charges are the same media that just last week unilaterally decided that the public's right to know did not extend to seeing cartoons that had aroused half the world, burned a small part of it and deeply affected the American national interest. Having arrogated to themselves the judgment of what a free people should be allowed to see regarding an issue that is literally burning, they then go ballistic over a few hours' delay in revealing an accident with only the most trivial connection to the nation's interest or purpose."

Sigh.

WebMD: Antichoice zealots?

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today:

Congratulations! The Radical Right Now Controls Your Body!
We've occasionally consulted WebMD.com for information on health and medicine, but imagine our shock when we learned that it had been hijacked--wittingly or unwittingly, we know not--by the radical right!

A page called "Your Pregnancy Week by Week: Weeks 9-12" is chock full of anthchoice propaganda. "By the end of the third month," it outrageously claims, "your baby is fully formed. Your baby has arms, hands, fingers, feet and toes and can open and close its fists and mouth."

They mean the third month of pregnancy, not the third month after the kid is born. That's right, what they're talking about isn't a baby at all but a fetus. In case the antichoice fanatics have you flummoxed, the following definitions are helpful:

• fetus: a clump of tissue.
  
  
• baby: one of those little--sorry, vertically challenged--persons that the village raises while his or her mother pursues a fulfilling career.

But the WebMD folks are either hopelessly confused or part of a sinister plot against reproductive rights. Look what it says under Week 10:

Congratulations! Your baby is now officially called a "fetus."

This is a contradiction in terms, a nonsensical statement. It's like saying, "Congratulations! Your accountant is now officially called a 'tumor.' " But of course the radical right wants to propagate the myth that a fetus is somehow "human" so as to further its agenda of heteronormative white male supremacy.

Are the folks at WebMD co-conspirators in this effort or mere dupes? If the guys at the National Organization for Women would get off the dime and file a RICO action, maybe we'd find out.

Man, I love when they do this.

End of the Spear (2006)

End of the Spear (2006)

I saw this a few weeks ago and I was moved by the courage displayed in this story, especially the courage of the woman.

The movie is a bit amateurish in spots but is well done on the whole.

The story is very moving. The fact that it is true is almost unbelievable.

A friend forwarded me details about the lead actor who is a gay activist. This story offers some background.

When I got home from watching the film, I read some of the online reviews. I was amazed at the hubris and bias present in many of the mainstream media reviews.

This review from TV guide is a prime example:

Jim Hanon, a former ad exec who had previously dealt with the Saint family's story in his first film, the 2005 documentary BEYOND THE GATES OF SPLENDOR, never once mentions the name of Jesus Christ in the course of his film, but clearly He is what the Waodani, whose complex culture and religion are completely overshadowed here by their violence and pounding jungle drums, need in their lives. When a fearful Steve asks Nate whether he'd ever use a gun against the Waodani, Nate piously replies, "We can't shoot the Waodani. They're not ready for heaven. We are." Hanon neglects to mention more secular causes for the increase in killings among the threatened Waodani, such as outside oil exploration and the introduction of new diseases, all of which can be tied to the kind of foreign interference that's represented here only in its most benign form. -— Ken Fox

I'm sure Ken Fox at TV guide is more of an expert on this indigenous tribe than the people who lived with them for decades and died in their service.

Sheesh!

Can you imagine Fox trying to justify the murder of a homosexual in Texas (Brokeback Mountain), a race murder in LA (Crash) or the persecution of communists (Good Night, and Good Luck).

Neither can I. But those Christian missionaries had it coming.

Some are worthy of understanding and compassion, others are not. I guess that's what passes for tolerance at TV guide.

This article is about the echo chamber of Hollywood and the Academy Awards. Apparently the narrow minds include critics as well.

Update:

I forgot my rating.

My Rating: Big Screen

Advice for Traveling Workers 1

I recently read an incredibly wise excerpt from the papers of John R. Mott regarding wise living during frequent business travel.

Since I haven't been able to find it online, I wish to add it here in sections.

Part Five
OUTLINES EMPLOYED IN THE COACHING OF WORKERS

THE PHYSICAL LIFE OF THE WORKER

I. Why do men break down physically in the Traveling Secretaryship?

I do not know of any who have broken down primarily because of indigestion, although there is need in such a work of exerting common sense and resolution as to simplicity of diet; as to having meals as nearly as possible at regular hours, in avoiding speaking right after meals, in avoiding committee meetings at meals. I do not recall any of our secretaries who have been incapacitated chiefly as a result of bad air or water, although vigilant care should be taken to secure sufficient good water and air. I emphasize sufficient, because probably not one in ten of us drink on-third as much water as he should and because few if any of us practice deep breathing sufficiently. Moreover, men are not being obliged to leave our work because they have not learned the desirability of adapting their clothing to the constant climatic changed, characterizing this country, to which one engaged in such a work is subjected, or because they have failed to use care in this respect after meetings and at other times when they are exhausted.

God has marvelously shielded our force through all the years so that not one of us has been physically shattered by accident or pestilence. Again, I don not think of any man in this work who has broken down by rusting out, that is, as a result of idleness. Why, then, do men break down in the traveling work? There is no question that not a few of them have done so. We recall nearly a score of men and women who have been thus set aside either temporarily or permanently. We are convinced that in the great majority of cases the direct cause is overwork, or the too exclusive employment of certain parts of the brain or nervous system. The indirect cause, and this is the vital point, is insufficient rest and exercise. The chief fault is not with our work or calling and its necessary and peculiar conditions, as it is, for example, in the case of miners. The fault is chiefly with ourselves. It is on this main point then - that of suitable rest and exercise- that we would concentrate our suggestions on the physical life.

More to come...

"Munich" and revenge

My review of Munich is here.

Prager, as always, has interesting commentary.

Townhall.com :: Columns :: "Munich" and revenge by Dennis Prager - Jan 10, 2006: "But what could be more just, more moral, than Israel targeting only the murderers for death? Though the film attempts to portray the Israeli response as morally useless -- with 'cycle of violence' and 'it accomplishes nothing since they just substitute a new terrorist for the one last killed' arguments -- the film is nevertheless a tremendous compliment to the Israelis.

First, it shows how careful the Israelis were to kill only the murderers (though the Israeli hit team did in fact kill one innocent Moroccan in Norway, which is not shown in the film).

Second, while the Israelis are constantly asking themselves if they are doing what is right, there is not a hint of moral self-inquiry among the Palestinians. For good reason.

So while the film is dedicated to the proposition that men involved in killing murderers become themselves morally inferior beings and therefore pay a great personal price for their war on evil, the facts of the film, as opposed to the made-up dialogue, suggest quite the opposite: That the world is a better place when revenge and justice are the same."

Olympic Pride

BREITBART.COM - Miller accepts combined disqualification:

"'I don't tend to get that disappointed. At least I don't have to go all the way down to Turin (for a medal) tomorrow.'"

That's the spirit. Citius, Altius, Whatever.

Campus Christians face hardships

Washington Square News - Christians face hardships: "The round-faced, faux-hawked Australian is the pastor of a church called “Origins” that’s just starting out in the basement of a bar on the Upper East Side, and this night he’s the guest speaker at the weekly meeting of Campus Crusade for Christ, or “Cru.” After praises are sung and prayers are said, Tyson encourages everyone to think of a picture that describes his or her own life. Tyson’s is a famous 16-year-old picture of a lone man with a bag in his hand staring down a line of tanks while a crowd of protesters stands aside in China’s Tiananmen Square.

If ever there were a metaphor for being an evangelical Christian at NYU, said Cru President Ted Sangalis, this picture is it."

Too Inclusive?

Christianity Today Magazine: "Carlton Pearson, a high-profile pastor who lost 90 percent of his church's 5,000 members after publicly teaching that everyone will eventually be saved, held the final service in his church building on New Year's Eve."

This same kind of thing is going to hit the fan when they make a movie of the C.S. Lewis book "The Last Battle".

"Navigating the college transition" by Derek Melleby

Comment Magazine - "Navigating the college transition" by Derek Melleby:

"Welcome to the world of the university.

There is much cause for alarm in this introduction. We should be concerned with the contemporary landscape of higher education because of its cultural influence on society. 'As the university goes, so goes the culture' may not be entirely true. There are many factors that influence society, but there is some truth to this statement. Institutions of higher learning affect culture. If you are looking for a strategic mission field, colleges and universities are a good place to start.

But there is another reason to be concerned. The world of the university has not been an accommodating place for young Christians to nurture faith. According to Barna Research, less than one third of all teenagers are likely to attend a Christian church once they are living independently of their parents. Many students are not ready for the intellectual and personal challenges to the Christian faith they will experience in college"

Josh McDowell Confronting the 'Code'

Confronting the 'Code' - OrlandoSentinel.com: Entertainment: "As a conservative evangelical leader, Josh McDowell is one of the last people you'd expect to urge young Christians to see The Da Vinci Code, the upcoming movie based on the phenomenally best-selling novel. After all, the book argues that Jesus sired a line of royalty before he died on the cross, because Mary Magdalene was pregnant with his child -- and that all of it was covered up by religious leaders through the centuries.

But McDowell, author of The Da Vinci Code -- A Quest for Truth, not only urges a trip to the theater, but also advises everybody to read the novel.

Then, he says, read his book.

"I don't attack [Da Vinci Code author] Dan Brown. I don't attack the book," says McDowell, who is on the staff of Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ. "Let's see where fact leaves off and imagination begins. It's a marvelous opportunity to be positive. The main purpose of my book is to reinforce their belief and placate their skepticism. If you look carefully, truth will always stand."

McDowell and Campus Crusade, a worldwide ministry with more than 20,000 staff members and volunteers, seem to have accepted this truth: The movie, starring Tom Hanks and set to open May 19, almost certainly will be a blockbuster. So instead of fighting the wave of popular culture or urging a boycott, Campus Crusade is pushing McDowell's book, which is aimed at young moviegoers and tries to spin their interest in an evangelical direction.

McDowell says he wrote the book after distraught parents told him their children had read the novel and, as a result, walked away from their faith.

The evangelist's rejoinder is a short paperback written in the form of a series of dialogues between a college graduate student and several of his friends. They meet for coffee on a weekly basis to discuss the book after seeing the movie together. The tone is neutral regarding Brown and his motives, and complimentary to his storytelling, but the grad student systematically refutes the way biblical and church history are portrayed in the story.

"It's about engaging with people on their spiritual journey," says Mark Gauthier, Crusade's national director for U.S. campus ministry. "A picture such as The Da Vinci Code and the book raises questions about spirituality. This obviously presents a great opportunity to engage with people as they explore the very spiritual issues that [surface] in the book and movie.

"We see our role in this is not to encourage or discourage people from seeing the movie," Gauthier says. "Our goal is not to promote or to dissuade people from going. This is the world we live in. This is what people are thinking about. There's a real desire of people to grapple with serious spiritual issues, not to point fingers."

Quest for Truth's publisher, Green Key Books, is considering a first printing of 100,000 copies. Crusade is also planning to print 500,000 copies of a mini-magazine version of the McDowell book, complete with stills from the movie. Like other evangelical groups, Crusade is preparing Web-based study guides to the film."

First Grader Suspended for Harassment

BREITBART.COM: "A first grader was suspended for three days after school officials said he sexually harassed a girl in his class by allegedly putting two fingers inside the girl's waistband while she sat on the floor in front of him."

This is what I had in mind when I quoted a "biologically disrespectful model of education" the other day.

Shocking that this happened in Mass. Shocking.

The NSA Flap: Explained

In case you've been wondering what this whole NSA wiretapping business is about, the following post will help explain it in detail. It explains a lot actually.

Power Line: A Liberal Speaks: "We get a great many emails, a considerable number of which are from liberals. A few of these are thoughtful and informative. The vast majority are not. Today we got an email from a Democrat named Matt Mullen. It's above average for an email from a lefty--more coherent and less profane than most. He was responding to this post, where I related a story that Debra Burlingame told yesterday:

One of the most telling moments is when Debra Burlingame points out that prior to the September 11 attacks, the NSA was surveilling an al Qaeda member in Yemen who placed or received more than a dozen phone calls to and from a number in San Diego. Because these calls involved someone in the United States, the NSA didn't listen to them. It turned out that the "Kahlid" who was receiving the calls in San Diego was one of the September 11 hijackers. In fact, he was one of the hijackers who murdered Debra's brother, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77.

This is what Democrats and the news media call "domestic spying." Do the Democrats really want to return us to the days when al Qaeda could call its American operatives with impunity?

Mr. Mullen took offense at my question, and responded:

No dumbshit. We want the president to spy on al queda, BUT we want him to follow the damned law too!

Oh, I'm sorry, is that too nuanced for you thick headed fools?

If Hillary Clinton were doing what Bush is doing you guys would be going ape-shit.

Respectlessly, Matt Mullen

This is what passes for argument on the left. Note, first, that if the NSA program were terminated, as some have demanded, we would be right back where we were before September 11, with phone calls from terrorists into the U.S. going unheard. This can fairly be described as "call[ing] American operatives with impunity."

But Matt, like many other Democrats, admits that President Bush is doing the right thing. He agrees with the President's decision to order the NSA to intercept international terrorist communications, including those with one end in the U.S. He wants the NSA to listen in on al Qaeda calls to the U.S., but he wants the President to "follow the damned law too!" As Matt no doubt knows, we have written extensively on the legal issues surrounding the NSA terrorist surveillance program. At least five federal appellate decisions stand for the proposition that the President has the constitutional authority under Article II to order warrantless surveillance for foreign intelligence gathering purposes. This means that the NSA program is legal. Matt offers no argument or authority to the contrary.

Presumably the "damned law" Matt wants NSA to comply with is FISA. But the Constitution, as well as FISA, authorizes the President to carry out electronic surveillance. As the FISA court of appeals wrote in 2002, if FISA tried to limit the President's Article II power to conduct warrantless surveillance, it would be unconstitutional to that extent. Matt offers no comment on these legal principles. Probably he is unaware of them.

Section 109 of FISA also says that FISA does not apply where surveillance is "authorized by [another] statute." The administration argues, supported by the Hamdi case, that Congress's Authorizaton for the Use of Military Force authorizes intercepting enemy intelligence, which, like detaining enemy combatants, is a "fundamental and accepted incident of war." If the administration is right, FISA does not come into play at all. Matt must know about this argument, since it has been widely reported, but he makes no attempt to rebut it.

The essence of Matt's rather surly communication, I think, is the suggestion that the administration could "follow the damned law"--i.e., FISA's procedures--without negatively impacting its ability to intercept enemy communications. (If that were true, one can only wonder what the fuss is all about!) Like many liberals, Matt apparently doesn't understand that obtaining a FISA order is a very complicated matter. A large amount of information must be assembled, and legal opinions must be obtained. If you doubt that assembling the necessary package to place before a judge would take days, if not weeks, read 50 U.S.C. Sec. 1804.

Matt has no doubt heard on the mainstream media and left-wing web sites that FISA's onerous procedures are really no problem, since the statute contains a 72-hour "emergency" provision that would allow surveillance to begin immediately, as long as a judge signs an order within 72 hours thereafter. This, however, is wrong. As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has patiently and repeatedly explained, surveillance cannot begin until the Attorney General makes a finding that 1) an "emergency situation exists," and 2) "the factual basis for issuance of an order under this subchapter to approve such surveillance exists." That means that even in an emergency, the same onerous factual showing that is normally made to a judge must be made to the Attorney General--legal opinions, "minimization procedures," and all. In the meantime, as the days tick off the calendar, the al Qaeda henchman overseas can continue calling his American contacts "with impunity," as I put it in my original post.

Matt, of course, knows nothing of this.

Judging from his writing style, Matt is young, probably a teenager, so there may be hope for him. But our email inbox confirms what we see when we read the newspapers: liberalism is the philosophy of the ill-informed; the intemperate; the marginal."

This last line explains, of course, the popularity of The Daily Show and Jon Stewart.

Jimmy Carter: Give Hamas a chance - Feb 1, 2006

CNN.com - Feb 1, 2006: "Hamas deserves to be recognized by the international community, and despite the group's militant history, there is a chance the soon-to-be Palestinian leaders could turn away from violence, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday...

Hamas, which has called for the destruction of Israel and has long been considered a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department, was expected to fare well in last week's elections. But it dominated them, winning 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council."

A friend of mine recently told me that Carter is very critical of religious fundamentalism in his new book.

One wonders if Jimmy Carter would be as supportive if Pat Robertson had won the election in Palestine.

Sex at Yale

FemmeFantastic: "The annual Ivy bachannal, subtly dubbed "Sex Week at Yale", is back again starting February 13 in celebration of Valentine's Day (as in SAINT Valentine--the Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity-- for anyone who was wondering...)

Ron Rosenbaum attended the Week's inaugural year for Atlantic Monthly in 2003 and wrote this telling piece from his experience. He dubs Day 4 the "Spiritualization of Sex" which is a theme I find particularly interesting and particularly prominent in most best-selling novels these days.

Which, incidentally, reminds me of Dan Heimbach and his relatively new book "True Sexual Morality" that talks about this rising trend in American culture.

For more on this sex-week-like phenomenon, check out this short article by Federica Matthewes-Green, "What to Say at a Naked Party""

This is a great blog.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) just came out on video and if you haven't seen it, you really should consider it.

It's part court room drama, part horror film, part religious and philosophical dialogue.

It has a superb cast and is very well made.

Every few years comes a film that is an excellent starting point for interesting discussion of religious issues. This film is winner on that score.

It's scary but not like most R rated horror flicks.

Definitely worth seeing and thinking about.

My Rating: Big Screen

Campus Scholarship

Chicago Tribune | NU rips Holocaust denial: "Northwestern University President Henry Bienen said Monday that a professor's recent comments denying that the Holocaust happened are 'a contemptible insult to all decent and feeling people' and an embarrassment to the university.

Bienen commented days after tenured engineering professor Arthur Butz commented in the Tribune and in the Iranian press that he agreed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertions that the Holocaust is a myth.

Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and the English-language Tehran Times have published Butz's comments, promoting the Northwestern professor as one of the world scholars who support the Iranian president. Ahmadinejad, who also has called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map,' recently ordered the restart of uranium enrichment, raising fears that Tehran could try to build a nuclear weapon."

If you're not oppressed, you ain't Shiite

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: " The Boston Globe wades into the Danish cartoon controversy by urging more sensitivity toward Muslims:

Freedom of expression is not the only value at issue in the conflict provoked by a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons satirizing Islam's founding prophet, Mohammed. . . .

The original decision of the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, to solicit and publish a dozen cartoons of the Muslim prophet was less a blow against censorship than what The Economist called a schoolboy prank. . . .

Publishing the cartoons reflects an obtuse refusal to accept the profound meaning for a billion Muslims of Islam's prohibition against any pictorial representation of the prophet. Depicting Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb with a sputtering fuse is no less hurtful to most Muslims than Nazi caricatures of Jews or Ku Klux Klan caricatures of blacks are to those victims of intolerance.

Blogger Eugene Volokh wondered if the Globe was equally solicitous of the feelings of Christians offended by various government-sponsored artworks in the U.S. It would appear not. Volokh digs up an editorial from 1999 praising a judge who ordered New York City not to withhold funding for a museum that displayed "a painting of a black Virgin Mary spotted with elephant dung," as well as two editorials from 1990 denouncing then-Sen. Jesse Helms and others who had criticized the National Endowment for the Arts over artworks including Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ."

These earlier editorials, Volokh writes, make "eminently plausible arguments." What they do not do is acknowledge that Christians have any reason to find the depictions of Jesus and Mary "hurtful."

A similar double standard is on display at the Washington Post. Agence France-Presse quotes Fred Hiatt, editor of the Post's editorial page, as saying: "If I were faced with something that I know is gonna be offensive to many of our readers, I would think twice about whether the benefit of publication outweighed the offense it might give."

But here is Hiatt, quoted a day earlier in his own paper about his own cartoon kerfuffle:

Fred Hiatt, The Post's editorial page editor, said he doesn't "censor Tom" and that "a cartoonist works best if he or she doesn't feel there's someone breathing over their shoulder. He's an independent actor, like our columnists." Hiatt said he makes comments on drafts of cartoons but that Toles is free to ignore them.

Asked about Sunday's cartoon, Hiatt said, "While I certainly can understand the strong feelings, I took it to be a cartoon about the state of the Army and not one intended to demean wounded soldiers."

What accounts for the difference? A combination of fear and ideology. Muslim fundamentalists, or at least some of them, express offense by torching embassies and threatening terrorist attacks. By contrast, U.S. military leaders write firm but polite letters to the editor, and Christian fundamentalists ask their elected representatives to stop spending tax money on offensive stuff. (Never believe a liberal when he professes to find Christian fundamentalists "scary.") There is no need to appease an opponent who respects rules of civilized behavior.

There is also an ideological component, which goes back to the essay we noted last week on "folk Marxism," or liberal multiculturalism. This ideology sees the world as a series of class struggles--not between economic classes, as in proper Marxism, but between racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or other identity groups, which are defined as either "oppressors" or "victims."

Generally speaking, multiculturalists consider Christians to be an oppressor class, while Muslims are a victim class. A victim class's grievances must be taken seriously and can even trump free expression, while the same is never true of an oppressor class's. (The multicultural worldview sees Jews as an intermediate class--victims of Christians, oppressors of Muslims--which is why liberals can be outraged by anti-Semitic imagery in "The Passion of the Christ" but unperturbed by terrorism against Israelis.)

In this regard, Hiatt's staunch defense of the Toles cartoon, which offended members of the military, is particularly telling. As we've noted, those on the antiwar left often talk of soldiers as if they were a victim class. We haven't heard any of them, however, side with the soldiers who find the Toles cartoon offensive. This suggests that the soldiers-as-victims trope is purely cynical."

Who cares if boys are hurting?

Dr. Helen: "Did you know that 86% of all adolescent suicides in the U.S.are comitted by boys? And the real problem? Nobody gives a damn."

Read the whole thing and ask yourself why.

Tony Dungy voices the pain & lessons from his son’s suicide

Tony Dungy voices the pain & lessons from his son’s suicide - (BP): "DETROIT (BP)--An emotional Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, in his first speaking engagement since his son’s funeral, headlined the 19th annual Athletes in Action Super Bowl breakfast Saturday morning at the Super Bowl XL headquarters hotel in Detroit."

My sources tell me that one NFL owner and one head coach indicated decisions to follow Christ at this event.

Closed Minds on Campus: CS Lewis

ChristianityTodayLibrary.com: "Lewis's statements concerning the purpose of the Oxford University Socratic Club, of which he was the president from 1942 to 1954, shed additional light on his involvement in the apologetic enterprise.

'In any fairly large and talkative community such as a university,' he explained, 'there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into coteries where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumour that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other groups can say.'

Lewis perceived that each side misunderstood the other's position because the two sides never had a truly honest encounter with each other."

Clearly Lewis lived before the advent of Hate Speech Codes and politically correct "sensitivity". As noted in the post preceding this one, Harvard is so unaccustomed to debate that faculty nearly swoon when confronted by opinions that differ from their own.

Lewis is prophetic, describing the general feel of academia in our time: "The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility."