Ana Kasparian: another change story

The New Neo Posted on by

Ana Kasparian is – or used to be until recently – a “progressive journalist.” But she’s had one of those mugged by reality experiences – literally [my emphasis]:

“The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian explained what drove her to ditch the Democratic Party while on Jillian Michaels’ “Keeping It Real” podcast on Monday.

The progressive media host described feeling “politically homeless” over the past few years, as she started seeing an intolerance to debate and the free exchange of ideas as well as an embrace of soft-on-crime policies by the left that she believed were detrimental to society.

She ripped efforts to “demonize and even dehumanize the other side” while admitting she used to be a person who believed you could not be friends with conservatives or someone who supported former President Trump. …

Kasparian said a turning point for her was when she was scolded by liberals after confessing she was fearful to leave her house after being sexually assaulted by a homeless man while walking her dog in Los Angeles in 2022.

I want to pause here and point out what grabbed my attention. The first thing is that, although I’m not familiar with her work as a “media host,” if she was on “The Young Turks” she was definitely to the left. So for someone such as that – who is publicly affiliated with that wing of the party and whose livelihood depends on it – to go through a political change experience, the incident that sparks it would ordinarily be fairly dramatic as well as something that hits in a very personal way. After all, the left has had a “strong intolerance to debate” as well as “soft-on-crime policies” for many years. And yet Kasparian only began her change journey after her 2022 experience.

That’s not a criticism by me, by the way. I applaud her for waking up to the situation rather than denying it, however late her change occurred. She goes on:

“Before I knew it, I started getting these messages, and it’s really, really harsh stuff, about how, ‘You are painting a picture of the homeless community. How could you be like this? These are your unhoused neighbors and they need help,’” she said of the negative messages she received.

“A few people accused me of being racist, even though I had never disclosed the race of the individuals who did this to me. And in fact, they were white,” Kasparian continued.

Does any of that ring a bell for you? It immediately reminded me of the story Barack Obama told in 2008 about his own grandmother, that “typical white person” who raised him and whom he casually threw under the bus in his effort to give a lofty speech about race in America. To refresh your memory, I wrote this at the time:

And along the way [Obama] managed to make what I felt was one of the single most revoltingly self-serving statements I’ve ever heard in a speech. …:

“I can no more disown [pastor Wright] than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

In addition, I wrote this around the same time:

And please read what actually happened to Obama’s grandmother as he previously related the story in his book. Turns out she was nearly mugged, and her allegedly racist comment was made not in front of Obama but reported secondhand by his grandfather. Obama’s grandmother appears to have mentioned to the grandfather that the aggressive panhandler who bothered her was black, and the grandfather told Obama that was the real reason she was afraid.

I’m sure you can see the parallels here, and the way Obama’s example of what counts as racist remarks set an example for the sort of reactions Kasparian got. Of course, it’s not just due to Obama. But I strongly believe that this sort of reaction became more common during his candidacy and presidency: that one cannot speak ill of a person from a leftist-protected group – be it a black person or an “unhoused” person or an “undocumented” person or whatever – even though that person has obviously acted in such a way that it is appropriate to speak critically of him or her.

So that’s what Kasparian ran into. It’s astounding that she was shocked by the reaction she got, but apparently she was. I think it’s because, until it happened to her, it was easy for her to just tell herself that other people – people on the right who said similar things – were bigots because that’s just how they were already defined. She knew she wasn’t a bigot, plus of course she also knew her assailant wasn’t even black and that it was merely an assumption of her holier-than-thou critics that he was. But they were treating her the way Obama spoke of his “typical white person” of a grandmother.

Here’s more of Kasparian’s story, which ends this way for now:

Today I’m less certain and more curious than I was four years ago. I’ve made humiliating mistakes while covering political news because I was previously unwilling to consider or understand the perspective of Americans who vote differently from me.

That’s quite an admission, and I admire her for it. Few people are capable of it. What’s more:

The point of this new project is the pursuit of intellectual freedom and open mindedness. I want to nurture curiosity without fear of offending the sensibilities of loyal partisans. I reject arguments about the evils of platforming people who are considered too naughty to converse with. I want to facilitate dialogue.

I don’t know what my political identity or label is, and I’m not even sure I want to be pigeonholed. This is my effort in pursuing extreme honesty and humility in the quest for common ground and truth without the constraints of a tribal identity.

Last night I happened upon this video, which is relevant. The topic is the difficulty of changing one’s mind, and the ways in which people deny evidence that would cause them to do so:

Kamala-Walz news du jour

The New Neo Posted on by

Now Chris Rufo picks up on allegations that there was quite a bit of plagiarism in a book written by Kamala Harris with a co-author:

At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

I doubt this will hurt her with anyone already planning to vote for her. And the fact that there is already a co-author dilutes the charges, as well.

There’s so much news on Harris and Walz every day that there’s no way I can cover it adequately, but suffice to say that the gist of it is that it’s going poorly for them. Just to take one example: Walz’s efforts to come across as a macho hunter (see this) – an effort that, to coin a phrase, has backfired. It puzzles me that anyone would think it a good approach in the first place, though. Do people really look at a photo of a person pheasant hunting and think, “wow, I hunt pheasants too, I think I’ll vote for this guy!”?

Along those lines we have this ridiculous ad. Was it meant to be funny, or what? I vote for “what”:

I’ve seen some very funny takedowns of it, and they’re all maximally unwoke. The ad strikes me as being tongue-in-cheek, but even if that’s true it falls incredibly flat. The tone is so off-putting and strange that it’s in the uncanny valley. Who on earth is this ad appealing to?

Nevertheless I counsel against false confidence. I have no idea who will win this election; about half of America would vote for a piece of seaweed if it was running against Donald Trump. Plus, there’s “rigging” and vulnerable voting security. But I must say that I’ve never seen a worse election campaign than that of Harris/Walz.

Hezbollah’s drones are a danger to Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

A drone fired from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah has caused many casualties in Israel:

Launched from southern Lebanon, a drone was able to penetrate Israeli air defenses undetected and hit the Golani Brigade’s base some 40 miles into Israel from the border. It struck on Sunday just after 7pm – at dinner time – and while the military has not released any details about the impact site, photos from the scene make it clear the drone hit the base’s dining hall. …

Both the timing and the location of the strike suggest that Hezbollah had gathered enough intelligence and possesses the capabilities to maximize the number of casualties. The Golani Brigade is regarded as an elite Israeli infantry unit and has been deployed to southern Lebanon as part of Israel’s ground operation there.

Four soldiers were killed, and more than 60 others were injured, eight of them seriously, bringing the total number of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation two weeks ago to at least 18.

Sunday’s assault is also the single bloodiest attack on IDF troops inside Israel since the beginning of the war last October.

If Israel didn’t have extremely good warning and interception systems, the death toll in Israel over the last year would have been far higher. But although those systems detect some drones, other drones can evade them and that’s what happened to the soldiers in the dining hall. They had no warning whatsoever.

More about the problem posed by drones can be found here:

Hezbollah has been operating drones, primarily for reconnaissance purposes, since before the Second Lebanon War in 2006. With the advancement of Iran’s unmanned vehicle program over the past two decades, Hezbollah, like other Iranian proxy organizations, has been equipped with a large number of cutting-edge Iranian-made tools for reconnaissance, attack, and target destruction.

The UAV that struck the military base was likely a “Mirsad” drone manufactured by the Iranians. It’s a small aircraft with an explosive warhead of about 44 pounds that can reach speeds of about 124 mph. …

Hezbollah holds an unknown quantity of heavy and large cruise missiles of the DR3 model, originating from Russian-made Tupolev drones converted into “suicide” vehicles that can reach ranges of over 124 miles with a heavy warhead of 661 pounds. These come with significant advantages but also clear drawbacks.

The heavy drone requires a massive launcher that must be placed in a building or on a truck and can be detected relatively easily. In recent weeks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has successfully documented the destruction of several such drones hidden in civilian homes in southern Lebanon. So far, there is no known successful launch of this weapon …

[The article goes on to describe other types of drones in Hezbollah’s arsenal, and then this] … The Shahed-136 has so far proven to be one of the most significant assets in Hezbollah’s drone arsenal. It has a quiet electric motor and an extremely low radar signature, making it very hard to intercept. It has a range of almost 500 miles and an armor-piercing warhead of about 18 pounds. Due to its difficulty in interception, it is relatively slow and flies at a speed of only about 75 mph, a fraction of that of other suicide drones in Hezbollah’s possession.

However, its relatively simple systems give it another advantage – it’s very cheap, costing only $20,000 per unit, which means it can be held in large quantities, as Hezbollah does. It’s very easy to launch and needs only minimal ground space for deployment. All these qualities make it a perfect drone for attacking in a swarm tactic, as Hezbollah has already demonstrated.

Drones of this type are relatively new and military defenses all over the world are struggling to keep up with the threat they represent:

Tal Inbar, a senior research fellow at the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, explains that the defense establishment is not surprised by this: “The problem starts with topography. The terrain in Lebanon is mountainous, unlike the plain where Gaza is located. It’s carved with mountains and valleys and makes it very difficult to detect aircraft flying low and using the terrain to hide in it.” In conclusion, Inbar says: “We don’t yet have a system that’s a game-changer. Our success will come from the systems and a precise concept of operation.”

A possible partial solution to the threat is a return to using Vulcan cannons, which fire small shells at a tremendous rate and can be placed at many key points throughout the north as a complementary part of the interception array.

Additionally, the entry of a laser system into operational service can at least partially assist in closing gaps during drone swarms and improving interception capabilities.

Oh Brave New World.

Columbus: Jewish?

The New Neo Posted on by

It was a long long time ago – perhaps fifty years ago – when I first heard the claim that Christopher Columbus was Jewish. In the intervening years I’ve also read that it’s not so.

But that’s why it was no surprise to read an article about a study that purports to prove through DNA that Columbus actually was of Jewish origin:

To solve the mystery researchers conducted a 22-year investigation, led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, by testing tiny samples of remains buried in Seville Cathedral, long marked by authorities there as the last resting place of Columbus, though there had been rival claims.

They compared them with those of known relatives and descendants and their findings were announced in a documentary titled “Columbus DNA: The true origin” on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE on Saturday.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the programme.

“And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

Around 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the ‘Reyes Catolicos’, Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country. Many settled around the world. The word Sephardic comes from Sefarad, or Spain in Hebrew.

Then again, who names a Jewish kid “Christopher”? When I read the report it seemed to me more likely that Columbus had some Jewish ancestry but did not, as we currently say, “identify” as a Jew. And I see that some experts agree:

“The recent DNA evidence regarding Columbus is very interesting and helps to illuminate his biography and the era in which he lived. I would offer one caveat, though: While it indicates that Columbus had Jewish heritage, it does not indicate that Columbus was a professing, Jew,” said Jonathan Ray, professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University. …

“For over a century, if not since his own lifetime, people have been obsessed with Columbus’s origins. He is a fascinating, flawed and enigmatic figure,” added Perelis, the author of the 2016 book Blood and Faith: Family and Identity in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic.

“I encourage people to read his own writings to appreciate his complex identity—he was an autodidact, who took advantage of the explosion of knowledge after the birth of printing to create an eclectic theology that had many Judaic elements—but in a deeply Christian, mystical vein,” Perelis said. “Genetics doesn’t make someone Jewish.”…

It sounds about right to me.

Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, goes on to say that he thinks Columbus’ ancestors were conversos. Perhaps. Of course, if Columbus was Italian as widely reported, it wouldn’t make as much sense although it’s also possible that his Italian-Jewish ancestors converted to Catholicism.

However, it is indeed the case that some of Columbus’ crew were conversos, and that the sailing coincided with the edict of expulsion issued by Ferdinand and Isabella.

Much more at the link.

NOTE: It’s also been known for quite some time that many Hispanics have a small percentage of Jewish DNA, unbeknownst to them. See this:

Now, unprecedented genetic research undertaken by dozens of professors from around the world has provided evidence that almost a quarter of Latinos and Hispanics have significant Jewish DNA. The study, published in Nature Communications in December 2018, revealed that the number of descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities is far higher than even the largest estimates previously suggested.

The last official approximation of the number of people in Latin America, conducted by the United Nations in 2016, resulted in a figure of over 650 million. Add to that assessment the 60 million or so Latinos and Hispanics in the U.S., as well as the data from earlier genetic research showing that around 20% of the current population of 60 million people in the Iberian Peninsula have Jewish ancestry and the statistic becomes staggering. There could be as many as 200 million descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities around the world today.

The Jewish DNA connection is even more pronounced in Italy in southern Italians, although Columbus is said to have come from Genoa in the north.

Pas de Quatre

The New Neo Posted on by

“Pas de Quatre” is one of the oldest ballets about which we have any knowledge. It’s from the Romantic era, when female ballet dancers first went up on pointe although in softer shoes than we have today. The aesthetic for dancers was to be an ethereal otherworldly being, gossamer-light and intensely feminine:

On the night it premiered in London (12 July 1845), it caused a sensation with the critics and the public alike. The reason for this was that it brought together, on one stage, the four greatest ballerinas of the time – in order of appearance, Lucile Grahn, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Marie Taglioni. …

The steps demand that each area of classical ballet technique is executed. These areas include adagio movements, petite allegro, grand allegro, fast footwork, graceful changes of position, and the elegant and fluid arm movements that have become a signature element of Pas de Quatre. Each ballerina has an individual variation, which are performed in succession between an opening and finale that are danced by all the ballerinas together. These variations were choreographed for the ballerina premiering in each role, and were designed to display the best features of each. …

The order of appearance of the ballerinas was done by age, from youngest to oldest, to squelch further confrontations between them.

Here is a lithograph from that 1845 production:

The original choreography is mostly lost. But in 1941 the British choreographer Anton Dolin recreated it at least in spirit. I see that in the original cast of the revival was the dancer Mia Slavenska. Strangely enough, when I was a young child in the late 1950s she was in a ballet class I took in Manhattan. She was not the teacher but rather a fellow student. She was slightly past her prime but could still dance up a storm and was a figure of high glamour. It was quite an eclectic class in terms of the students, but I think it’s safe to say that she was by far the best dancer although not the only professional dancer in the class, and I was the worst of all.

But I digress.

Dolin’s 1941 choreography was a conscious throwback to the older style, and the dancers of the mid-20th century were close enough to the 19th century that I think they were able to conjure up some of the feel of the original – although of course, how would I really know? But I doubt it could be performed effectively today because technique has taken over and the style is completely different. If you watch this video, you may come to appreciate the more delicate touch of the old ways – which, by the way, nevertheless require a steely technique, especially in the petit allegro of the small jumps. The old-fashioned approach is particularly challenging in the port de bras (arm movements) and slightly-forward lean of the torso.

I believe this was filmed in 1978 although I’m not certain. That would have made the Cuban dancer Alicia Alonso (the one with the sharpest features) around 58 years old here; she danced well into her 70s despite having only partial eyesight for most of her life. The video is somewhat blurry but not too bad:

Carla Fracci, who dances the Cerrito role (her hair is parted and she’s not wearing a wreath), is one of my favorite dancers of all time. She resembled the old lithographs come to life. This is an earlier production (1968) in which I think she’s especially fine. I’ve cued up her solo:

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) One of the strangest things about Obama’s scold on black men for not supporting Harris enough is that most polls still show a strong majority of black men supporting her. In fact, black men may just be the demographic of men supporting her most of all other ethnic groups of men. What Obama is really saying here is that Democrats should own black votes at about a 90% level, and that anything less is unacceptable.

(2) Iran hit with massive cyberattack on government and nuclear facilities, with information stolen. Good.

(3) Kamala Harris says the election is “packed with some stuff.”

I think this is Harris’ idea of a joke about her own inarticulateness. But like most of her jokes, an unfunny one.

(4) Bill Ackman, erstwhile Democrat, gives 33 reasons why he’s voting for Trump in 2024.

(5) Gretchen Whitmer attempts to explain her strange and offensive video. And Democrats call Republicans “weird.”

Remember the olden days of 2016, when it was okay to mess with electors?

The New Neo Posted on by

Back when it was the Democrats doing it against the dreaded Trump, they considered it a virtuous activity.

It seems as though there have been so many rapid-fire events starting with Trump’s 2016 election that it’s easy to forget many of the details. But I think it’s very instructive to take a little stroll down memory lane from time to time. The article is from 12/17/16 [my emphasis]:

On Monday, members of the Electoral College will cast their historic votes for the next president of the United States. In the meantime, they are under siege.

The nation’s 538 presidential electors have been thrust into the political foreground like never before in American history. In the aftermath of a uniquely polarizing presidential contest, the once-anonymous electors are squarely in the spotlight, targeted by death threats, harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail. One Texas Republican elector said he’s been bombarded with more than 200,000 emails.

Trump had been elected, but it seems it was perfectly okay to try to harass his electors and even to threaten them, in order to get them to vote for Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the perpetrators should have been tracked down and charged with obstructing an official proceeding (or at least attempting to do so)? After all, that has been one of the most common charges against the J6 demonstrators of 2021, including peaceful ones. But back in 2016 Republican lawyers were nowhere near as creative as Democrat lawyers became in twisting statutes into something they never were meant to be, in order to charge the opposition with crimes.

More [my emphasis, and my remarks in brackets]:

In recent decades, the Electoral College had become such a reliable rubber stamp of Election Day results that it was viewed as an afterthought.

But with many Democrats desperate to block the all-but-certain ascension of Donald Trump to the White House, this long-neglected body has been gripped by turmoil, and its members have been subjected to pleas to upend centuries of tradition by casting their votes for someone other than the president-elect.

There have been ad campaigns targeting electors and op-eds assailing their role. One Democratic member of Congress has called to delay the vote for president while an investigation of Russian involvement in the election is underway [isn’t that very similar to requests from Trump supporters in 2020?]. Two others have pleaded with electors to consider Russia’s role when deciding how to vote. Progressive groups are preparing protests across the country at sites where electors will meet to cast their ballots [sounds like a planned “insurrection” to me]. Personal contact information for many electors has been posted publicly — and it’s been used to bury them with massive email campaigns.

There were indeed demonstrations, although they were pretty tame. But the people involved certainly tried to obstruct an official proceeding. For example, in Wisconsin:

There were demonstrations in other states, too, and of course this happened in Congress:

I consider today Columbus Day …

The New Neo Posted on by

… although it’s not officially till Monday. But October 12 is the real day, and it’s the one we celebrated when I was a child and before holidays were moved to Mondays.

I recently listened to a series on Columbus from “The Rest is History,” and I enjoyed it immensely. So informative and so engrossing!
There are four episodes, and here they are in order:

Walz, Kamala, and the Electoral College

The New Neo Posted on by

Walz said the quiet part out loud:

“I think all of us know, the Electoral College needs to go. We need a national popular vote,” Walz said Tuesday during a campaign fundraiser at the home of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Walz made similar comments at an earlier fundraiser in Seattle, as well.

While running for president in 2019, Harris said she was “open” to the idea of abolishing the Electoral College.

That seems like it’s on the Democrats’ agenda, although ordinarily it would take a constitutional amendment. There’s also the The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which wouldn’t abolish the Electoral College but would get around it and make the national popular vote supreme, and would have the advantage (if SCOTUS found it be constitutional, which is doubtful in the present court) of not requiring an amendment to be implemented.

However, much as Walz and Harris and their supporters might long for the national popular vote to be ascendant, they seem to have walked back overt statements of that sort:

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, remained silent Thursday on whether he still supports eliminating the Electoral College, after the Harris campaign insisted his position did not reflect that of the campaign’s. …

… [A]ccording to campaign officials pressed on the issue following Walz’s remarks, eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote is not an official position of Harris’ current campaign.

And here’s how they tried to undo what Walz said:

“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket,” a Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement sent to select media outlets like CNN and USA Today. “He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes. And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”

That doesn’t fit what he said.

And let’s hear from demagogue Jamie Raskin:

Just last month, Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin suggested there could be deadly consequences for Americans if the Electoral College was not done away with. Raskin said a national popular vote was a far better option than the current “convoluted, antique, obsolete system from the 18th century, which these days can get you killed as nearly it did on Jan. 6, 2021.”

The article also mentions that Walz signed a bill that made his state of Minnesota a party to The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That seems to be another indication of wishing to override the Electoral College, which is seen as an impediment to Democrat power.

I wonder, though, if abolishing the Electoral College outright would be a question of “be careful what you wish for.” In states such as California, where the Electoral College guarantees that all the electors will vote for the Democrat because the Democrat always wins the state, there probably are many people who would otherwise vote for Republicans but who just don’t bother. Those people might be more energized to get to the polls and vote if the Electoral College were to be eliminated and they would be contributing to a national popular vote that would determine the winner.