Phyllis Chesler’s new book, An American Bride in Kabul, is described and recommended by John Hinderaker at Powerline.
Sounds interesting. Nothing like personal experience to drive a point home.
The BBC covers itself with shame…
…as it provides cover for murderous Islamist terrorists.
Zombie reports on the now-familiar inverted pyramid of the BBC.
Checking out the NY Times’ coverage of the same event (the terrorist attack at the Nairobi mall), I see that the paper does a somewhat better job than the BBC, but displays some of the same reluctance to name the religious affiliation of the perpetrators—so important to the terrorists, and yet so seemingly unimportant to our intrepid reporters. The Times article doesn’t mention terrorism in the headline (we just have some generic “gunmen”), but is faster than the BBC to get to the point, using the phrase “terrorist attacks” in the article’s first paragraph. But it isn’t until paragraph six that we get to the Muslim angle, with this:
Several witnesses said the attackers had shouted for Muslims to run away while they picked off other shoppers, executing them one by one.
And what of CNN? Nothing in the headline; the perps are “attackers.” The lede mentions “armed gunmen” (is that not redundant, by the way?). We find the first mention of the identity of these “gunmen” in paragraph six (are you noticing a pattern here?), where they are identified as belonging to “an al Qaeda-linked militant group.” Also in that paragraph we find the mention of escorting the Muslims out and sparing them; this time it is a quote from the “militant group” itself that makes the claim.
The AP headline mentions no perpetrators at all: “Kenya Minister says 59 Killed in Mall Attack.” The AP is the only one of the three that mentions “al Qaeda-linked” in the lede, but takes away a bit from that by calling them “militants” rather than “terrorists,” although if the latter term ever fit a situation, it would fit this one. However, in paragraph two we get the word “Islamic” (again, followed by the softening noun “extremists”). In paragraph six we finally get to the term “terrorists,” but interestingly enough it’s used in a quote from a former prime minister of Kenya. And finally, it is in paragraph seven that we learn the group “specifically targeted non-Muslims.”
Lastly, we have the Guardian, whose headline mentions the now-familiar “militants” and the lede says “gunman” and then “al-Qaida-linked militants.” In addition, the paper cuts to the chase by paragraph five rather than six, and is more forthcoming and detailed than the others in its description, as well as presenting the Muslim/non-Muslim selection as fact rather than merely quoting someone about it:
The heavily armed attackers pulled up in several cars and shot their way into the most upmarket shopping centre in Nairobi, ordering Muslims out if they could prove their religion by reciting a prayer or answering a question on Islam. They started killing those who failed the test.
So it’s the Guardian that uncharacteristically does the best job reporting this particular story. But there is no question all of these papers could, and should, do a lot better. How about reinstating the term “terrorist” as a starter? And then perhaps they could work up to “Islamist terrorist”?
Meanwhile, as we wage this war of words, the terrorists are marveling at (and exploiting) our stupidity.
Merkel and austerity…
But Merkel’s previous partner, the FDP (Free Democratic Party), a group defined as “classically liberal” and in favor of policies somewhat to the right, has lost enough votes that it will no longer be part of Merkel’s coalition government.
I can’t quite sort that out; perhaps someone more in tune with German politics can help (commenter “expat,” where are you?).
A few hints appear in this WSJ article. It seems that the FDP’s previous support was split by the emergence of a new, anti-euro party, and overshadowed by Merkel’s huge popularity. Plus, “squabbling among its leadership” weakened the FDP this go-round (sound familiar?).
First it was the toothbrush that was made an object of fear
Bad fruit
What’s been going on this summer with fruit? Has anyone else noticed that it hasn’t been as good as usual?
Mushy peaches cleverly masquerading as firm ones. Same for plums. And somewhat bland and tasteless, too.
It’s a pain in the butt to have to throw a bunch of fruit out after forking over so much money. The alternative is taking it back to return it—which can be very inconvenient—or eating it despite the fact that it just doesn’t taste like much.
So, what’s the deal here? Has the weather been odd in the major fruit-growing regions of the country? I don’t think it’s that my taste buds are atrophying, because everything else tastes just fine, and every now and then (at a farmer’s market, for instance) I’ve come across a really good batch.
And the jazz apples continue their wondrous way. Summer fruit time is over, anyway; tomorrow is the first day of autumn, otherwise known as the fall equinox. Cider, pumpkins, leaves turning, days getting shorter—I happen to love fall, except for that last bit about the darkness.
Obama refuses to negotiate…
…with Congressional Republicans.
As though he ever did. But he knows the MSM will preserve the fiction of his constant amiable efforts to reach out.
And what a vile piece of work Nancy Pelosi is.
Chaos and death at a Nairobi mall
There has been an attack by gunmen at an upscale Nairobi mall, killing at least 30 and wounding countless more. Hostages have also been taken.
An al Qaeda-linked Somalian-based group has claimed the credit—or the blame, depending on your outlook.
A mall attack on this scale has long been expected, since it would be relatively easy to get guns into the vast majority of such facilities and there is a huge concentration of unarmed potential victims milling about, including children who are perfect terrorist fodder. This particular mall catered to expatriates and the wealthy, all the more reason for terrorists to consider it a target-rich environment.
The CNN article I just linked is a long one with many details, including the fact that the deed was most likely perpetrated by Islamic terrorists. But it omits several items found in this article at Fox, such as the fact that the mall was owned by an Israeli company, a Children’s Day was being hosted there, and the terrorist group al-Shabab (the same one that had said the attack was their handiwork) had sworn in 2011 to attack Nairobi in retaliation for Kenya’s sending troops to Somalia to fight Islamic insurgents.
Also this:
Elijah Kamau, who was at the mall at the time of the midday attack, said that the gunmen made a declaration that non-Muslims would be targeted.
“The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims would be targeted,” he said.
I wonder how that would work, though. I understand that some Muslim people (particularly women and girls) might be wearing Muslim dress. But hardly all. And what about men and boys? (The CNN article, by the way, says the gunmen fired “indiscriminately”).
From the both articles, it also seems fairly clear that the attack began right outside the mall and then moved inside, and according to Fox there were armed police on the spot even at the outset. But there were multiple armed perpetrators; up to ten have been reported, and they also detonated grenades. They may have outnumbered the initial police on the scene, although backup arrived in the form of members of the military and/or more police, who then surrounded the mall.
[ADDENDUM: The Daily Mail also reports that at least one of the terrorists explicitly spared Muslims, asking people to recite a Muslim prayer in order to prove their religious affiliation. This reminds me of a report I once read (can’t recall where) of an interview with a Jewish girl from either the US or Israel, who many years ago was told by her parents to learn a Muslim prayer in case of just such an occasion.]
[ADDENDUM II: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]
Obama insurance exchanges rollout
Whatever could go wrong?
Things in heaven and earth
Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Case in point, the rainbow mountains of Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park in Gansu, China:
The vivid mountains are the result of mineral deposits and red sandstone from over 24 million years ago. Layers formed on top of one another, creating the colorful patterns of rock strata.
Some of the photos may be color-enhanced (such as this one, perhaps?):
But this one is probably bona fide:
On the Republican civil war over defunding Obamacare
I haven’t yet written about the fight that’s been going on for quite some time between Senator Ted Cruz and the more (for want of a better word) “establishment” Republicans in Congress.
I haven’t commented on it yet because it wearies and depresses me, as do most of the many other battles between these two factions and their predecessors, which we’ll call (for want of a better word) the beltway crowd and the renegades.
Or maybe we should call them the RINOs and the Tea Party. Or perhaps the Rockefeller Republicans (there’s some history for you) and the conservatives.
But that’s all semantics. The point is that this particular war within the Republican Party has been going on for a long, long time, although this is the latest skirmish in it and the latest case of players.
The battle weakens the Republican Party; its enemies are laughing and celebrating as they watch. Get out the popcorn and the beer; what could be a better spectator sport than seeing your opponents attempt to destroy each other?
Just take a look at today’s roundup at memeorandum. It’s sad, and bodes ill for the success of either faction. And yet it is not a fake battle; it’s a real one about real issues and principles, and it’s been going on since at least the middle of the twentieth century, perhaps longer.
One thing I do know: when a similar big showdown happened during the Gingrich years it ended up helping the opposition. People don’t like the specter of a government shutdown.
Nevertheless, I have no good suggestions for the warring factions. They can’t kiss and make up. Defunding Obamacare is a worthy goal, and not only is the “base” behind it but the majority of the public still does not like Obamacare. But unfortunately there’s no magical way to undo it; Republicans do not control the Senate, and Obama has veto power. These are facts, which are stubborn things.
I’m no hunter, but…
…this certainly doesn’t sound like “hunting” to me:
The gunman who slaughtered 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard stalked his victims as if he was “hunting” them, officials said Thursday as they painted a chilling portrait of how the carnage unfolded.
FBI Director James Comey told reporters that former Navy sailor Aaron Alexis had roamed the offices and corridors of the Navy Yard’s 197 building, blasting victims at random with a sawed-off shotgun before being shot dead…
He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes after 8:00 am with the shotgun and almost immediately started to shoot folks on the fourth floor in a way with no discernible pattern,” Comey told reporters.
“It appears to me that he was wandering the hall like hunting people to shoot.”
Poets of the right
British poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was a complicated man, like many poets. But unlike most of them these days, he was politically of the right, at least in some respects.
Larkin wrote in forms, which is inherently conservative. But his language, although direct and very accessible, was most assuredly not conservative (liberal use of the f-word, for example). There’s a tension between the traditionalism of his forms and the modernism of what he was saying, and in that conflict lay his uniqueness and a good deal of his appeal. He wrote about things people tend to understand and care about: love, death, time, country, religion, sex. And he wrote in a way that doesn’t need special training to understand, although he’s a good (and many think great) poet.
Here’s a poem of Larkin’s that I recently discovered. Seems that England went through a lot of things before we did, or simultaneously (the poem was written in 1969 and published in 1974, around the time of the wind-down in Vietnam):
HOMAGE TO A GOVERNMENT
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.
It’s a fitting coda to the warning voiced by an earlier British poet, Kipling, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. His foreboding has borne fruit (Kipling was a poet of the right, too):
RECESSIONAL
God of our fathers, known of old–
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine–
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe–
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law–
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard–
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard–
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
Kipling’s tone is much more archaic; he was a man of his time, after all. That’s not the only difference; another is that Kipling believes in God and invokes him to help a nation that is beginning to forget religion, but Larkin senses that religion has almost entirely deserted a land that once pulsed with it. We know this about Larkin because he wrote about the phenomenon, in one of his most famous poems “Churchgoing,” in which he reflects on his visit to one of England’s increasingly deserted churches:
….Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new –
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep…