CAMERA conference: getting the word out about Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I attended the first day of a conference in Boston held by CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (see this for the list of speakers).

The usual crew of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators was there, bright and early, to greet the attendees as we arrived at 9:00 AM. Hoarsely shouting in a sing-song chant, and beating a rhythmic drum, they stood with unfurled banner as they serenaded us in the bright and chilly Sunday morning air.

Attendance was enormous, and security tight and visible. The theme? Truth is powerful—if you can get it out above the din of false information that is constantly generated and disseminated about Israel.

Alan Dershowitz began by stating another theme of the day, which is that criticism of Israel often features a double standard. The country is customarily judged by far stricter rules than apply to any other nation. He told the following story (about Jews in general rather than Israel itself) illustrating the way it works:

President Lowell of Harvard was going on about how bad Jews are and how their presence was not welcome at the university because, after all, “Jews cheat.” Judge Learned Hand, to whom he was speaking, pointed out that non-Jews cheat, as well. Lowell replied, “Quit changing the subject; we’re talking about Jews now!”

And so the world does—on and on and on.

A highlight of the conference for me was the appearance of Philippe Karsenty, the Frenchman who successfully defended himself against the charge of libel for helping to expose the lies of France2 and well-known French reporter Charles Enderlin in perpetrating the al Durah hoax. Four years ago I went to France to report on a related trial, and met and spoke with the intrepid Karsenty there (see this for some of my posts on the subject).

Karsenty is a charming and elegant speaker (the accent doesn’t hurt, either), but also a clear and incisive one. He is one of France’s modern-day Dreyfuses—a man on a mission, and with the heart to stick with it. One of the new developments he revealed is that Enderlin is still defending himself, having just written and released a book called (in French) “A Child Is Dead.”

Other highlights of the CAMERA conference were the remarks by Anne Bayevsky, who detailed the sorry record of the UN as well as its Orwellian Human Rights Council; Gerald Steinberg on the anti-Israel slant of NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, and how their “witnesses” are accepted as unbiased by the press; and Melanie Phillips, who spoke blisteringly of hardened anti-Israel attitudes in Britain and the general decline of Britain itself.

During the speeches and question-and-answer periods, I was struck by the descriptions of the depth and breadth of the deceptive demonization of Israel—not just in the Arab and Muslim world, where it has found an especially receptive home and eager practitioners, but in the press, academia, and among the international “peacemakers,” the NGOs, and many churches.

CAMERA has its work cut out for it.

Joan Sutherland: “The birds could trill,…

The New Neo Posted on by

…, so why not I?”

Joan Sutherland, Australian bel canto soprano, dead at 83.

I’m neither an opera fan nor knowledgeable about the subject. But Sutherland was one of the first opera singers I ever saw or heard, back on the old Ed Sullivan show, which brought culture—high and low—to us masses.

Paladino, religion, gay rights

The New Neo Posted on by

New York candidate Carl Paladino proves just how politically incorrect he is when he made remarks critical of gays and gay marriage, provoking a firestorm of outrage.

Paladino’s statement will probably lose him votes rather than gain them. Nor is his viewpoint one I share. But it was the mainstream attitude when I was growing up, and most religions in their stricter form still have a policy on homosexuality much like the one Paladino articulated.

As for the word “dysfunctional,” (which he never uttered, but which supposedly was present in an earlier version of the speech, although perhaps placed there by others) until 1973-4 (and even beyond; see this for some of the history) the American Psychiatric Association shared this view.

What do we really know about gay people and society at this point? Here is my own idiosyncratic summary:

(1) Being gay is neither is wholly biological nor wholly environmental, but most likely some roughly equal mix of the two.

(2) The predilection to be gay is not wholly a choice, but the act is. However, the only viable alternative for many or most gay people people is lifelong celibacy, an exceedingly difficult road.

(3) Some people hate homosexuals, by no means all who disapprove of gay marriage hate gay people.

(4) Religious education (which, after all, was the real subject of Paladino’s speech) today runs counter to the prevailing teachings about homosexuality in secular education, which is equality, tolerance, and even pride.

(5) Public schools—which ideally, in my opinion, could ignore the subject and leave it to parents to deal with—are often forced to tackle it due to the bullying and fighting that often go along with the phenomenon.

[NOTE: Paladino’s full statement is here, in case you’re interested:]

The logo Gap

The New Neo Posted on by

Old tried and true Gap logo:

oldgap.jpg

New Gap logo for which the company probably paid a gazillion dollars:

newgap.png

No one seems happy about it. As for me, I tend to be oblivious of logos in general. If you had asked me to describe the old Gap logo before this, I would have been hard-pressed to do so, despite having seen it around for decades. But viewing the old and new in juxtaposition, I can easily say that Gap should have left well enough alone. If it ain’t broke…

Prediction from FredHJr

The New Neo Posted on by

I happened to have been looking back at some old threads last night, and I ran across this, from our sorely missed late commenter FredHJr, who has been gone now for over a year. It was written on April 1, 2009, only two months into Obama’s presidency [emphasis mine]:

Let me reiterate the view I will not move from without a very compelling counterview…[Obama] already knows he’s likely a one-termer. In his gut he knows, as do Pelosi and Reid, that they have to get this stuff they want done before 2010. In fact, they want to try to get it all this year, because they know that in 2010 a lot of Democrat representatives are going to see their party’s “accomplishments” as a millstone around their necks. What they hope for, I think, is that in 2013 and beyond they can hold to just enough seats in both houses to prevent the total rollback of much of what they will have rammed through this year.

Deep down I think these people knew that most of the Middle Muddle they cajoled over their way, starting in 2006, was based upon an effective public shaming of and destruction of President Bush. The Alinsky Rules for Radicals to “freeze it, personalize it”¦” (and you all know the rest of that). Most of these people are not Far Left. The inroads of cultural Marxism are uneven in the body politic and culture of the nation. So, when they have to run on results the game is up. There is only so much the mainstream media can do to jazz up this shit sandwich and cover up its stink…

This guy [Obama] is not a realist. I spotted that right away about him as soon as he was on my radar screen. He’s an idealistic Marxist who is drunk on power and has no F_ing clue as to how to govern. This guy is toast in 2012, and his party will dwindle to a slender majority in both houses in 2010.

I think it holds up pretty darn well. My only quarrel with it (and I hope I’m right about this) is that I don’t think the Democrats will be holding onto a majority next year, even a slim one—at least not in the House.

Lewis: quitting the physics club

The New Neo Posted on by

Professor Harold Lewis has resigned from the American Physical Society in protest over AGW and how it has been treated by the organization. Lewis—who has been a member of the Society for sixty-seven years—doesn’t pull his punches:

The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’éªtre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it.

Lewis is an elderly man who has had a long and distinguished career, mostly in the field of nuclear physics. One would imagine he has the capacity to understand the science involved a little better than a few journalists and politicians such as Al Gore. But one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that what he is arguing against here is an anti-scientific attitude that refuses to entertain valid threats to its belief system, and that such a stance on the part of scientists is antithetical to the spirit of scientific inquiry itself.

Individual mandate’s constitutionality upheld in district court

The New Neo Posted on by

District Court Judge George C. Steeh has upheld the government’s right to force people to buy health insurance or face a hefty fine. But, as Randy Barnett writes at Volokh, this is just the first step on a long road that will probably (although not certainly) end with the Supreme Court. Barnett also makes some predictions:

First, that some, perhaps all, federal district judges considering these challenges would uphold the statute was foreseeable. When these challenges were brought, no one believed that all constitutional challenges would be upheld by every district court judges who would consider them. Few believed that any district court judge would have the fortitude to strike down the mandate, regardless of how the Supreme Court might ultimately rule. Heck, many doubt that the Supreme Court has the fortitude to strike down so major a piece of legislation…

[A future] circuit split [would make] a Supreme Court decision far more likely. Indeed, because one circuit would have had to strike down the Act, a circuit split guarantees a Supreme Court decision doesn’t it? However, given the high profile of this Act among the American people, I think it would be hard for the Court to duck the issue even if the Courts of Appeals all uphold the act. If the act continues to be unpopular, would that not be widely perceived by the public as an abrogation of the Court’s responsibility? Indeed, would the Justices not reasonably fear that it would undermine the popular legitimacy of the “Supreme” Court to refuse to decide so highly publicized a constitutional controversy about which so much depends?

Judge Steeh ruled essentially that Congress can do whatever it wants as long as there is some connection to commerce. This seems to be an excessively steep and slippery slope. According to Steeh’s ruling, the individual mandate:

…qualifies as an example of “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce”—the standard that the U.S. Supreme Court set for Congress’ compliance with the Commerce Clause, the New York Times reports (Sack, New York Times, 10/7).

“Far from inactivity, by choosing to forgo insurance, plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance, collectively shifting billions of dollars, $43 billion in 2008, onto other market participants,” Steeh wrote.

I am hard-pressed to think of a personal economic decision that doesn’t affect interstate commerce, according to this ruling. That’s some penumbra.

[NOTE: More here and here.]

Obama the continually likable

The New Neo Posted on by

I missed this poll when it first came out about two weeks ago, indicating that, although only 38% of respondents say that Obama should be re-elected, 65% still view him favorably “as a person.”

My question is: why? I confess I am puzzled by this continuing “hate the sin, love the sinner” attitude towards Obama.

Perhaps Americans don’t want to be called racist, and have learned that any criticism of Obama automatically opens them up to that charge. Some may continue to have a favorable impression of Obama as a person because they are thinking of his family life, which seems fine. I have no problem imagining that he’s an exemplary father, or an attentive and faithful husband, or a great owner of companion animal (otherwise known as “pet”) Bo.

But that’s his private life, which is not the primary way I evaluate any president “as a person.” It is, after all, unknown because it is private. It is an indication of character, to be sure—especially when flawed, such as Clinton’s behavior as a husband. But still, it’s not enough, not nearly enough, to give a POTUS a favorable personal rating in my book.

And I will hereby go on record as saying that I, for one, have never had a favorable view of Obama as a person. I would not want to have a beer with him, even if I drank beer. I find him humorless, cold, sneaky, prevaricating, whiny, blaming, narcissistic, insular, and cutthroat. And if ever I had been inclined to like him, my exposure early on to the story of what he did to Alice Palmer, one of his first political mentors, would have disabused me of that notion.

Here’s the tale of Obama and Alice Palmer again, in case you missed it the first, second, or third time around. Most of America did—unfortunately. Do a survey of your friends, just for fun, and asked them whether they have ever heard of Alice Palmer and what Obama did to her in 1996, when he was cutting his political teeth (to coin a phrase). My guess is that—unless they happen to live in Chicago, or are political junkies—virtually all of them will draw a blank.

Pity. Because it’s an anecdote from Obama’s life that’s especially revealing about his character. Not a very likable guy, to say the least.

[NOTE: If any on the left read this piece, no doubt the predictable, empty, and repetitive charges of “racist!” will be brought out once again.]

[ADDENDUM: In a related matter, David Paul Kuhn wonders whether Obama can regroup after the election and win back the center:

Obama must win back independents to win reelection. The more interesting question is, therefore, how can Obama retake the electoral middle ground?…Clinton returned home. Not to the place called Hope. He returned to the moderation of the New Democrat platform. He took up Republican causes and took on Democratic sacred cows. The president who pushed healthcare reform and gays in the military was gone. This Clinton was fighting for a balanced budget and welfare reform. He was once more the centrist-reformist.

Kuhn goes on to write that Obama will have a more difficult time of it because his pre-presidency persona was a great deal more vague than Clinton’s. And this is true; Clinton had a moderate track record as governor of Arkansas, whereas Obama only has some moderate rhetoric during the campaign. Clinton had been a leader of the New Democrats, who represented a counterforce to the liberal drift of the Democratic Party of the time. Obama had been (albeit briefly) one of the most liberal senators in Congress.

The significance of this is that Obama, unlike Clinton, is seen by many as a liar and betrayer in his public life. Clinton was actually both in his private life—which bled over into public life when he said “I did not have sex with that woman.” But the people he betrayed were his wife and daughter. Obama is perceived as a public and political liar and betrayer by those very moderates and Independents who voted for him and whom he must woo again in order to be re-elected. Unless their memory is shorter than I think it is, this is likely to cause some trouble for him in any attempt to convince them in 2012 that he’s changed his errant ways.]

Obama meltdown?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “physics guy” asks:

As has been predicted by others: when do we see the full-blown BHO in total meltdown?

I don’t pretend to have the inside track on this, so my answer is just a hunch, but this is it: never

I see Obama as very emotionally controlled. Yes, intermittent signs of trouble and stress leak out, especially in his ad lib remarks or attempts at humor. But a meltdown is not in the cards.

Narcissists such as Obama (and many other presidents and politicians, although he is one of the most extreme examples) tend to be very well-defended. After all, that’s one of the basic points of narcissism—to defend the ego against threats—and it is usually very successful in doing just that.

This is especially true when, as is the case with Obama, a person has attained heights of power undreamed of by ordinary men and women. That person’s narcissism has been rewarded and reinforced time and again. When there’s a rough patch in the road, it’s the fault of others. Blaming may increase, but not self-blame, which seems foreign to Obama’s nature.

Obama has the added advantage of the insulation of the presidency. He moves in a bubble of admirers and sycophants. In this he is not unique; it’s true of most presidents, unless they have the foresight (and the strength of character) to make sure there are critics and outsiders in their entourage. Obama has surrounded himself with an unusually insular group and is unlikely to hear much true criticism from them.

No, between his iron emotional control and his group of advisers, don’t expect any kind of meltdown from him. Interesting also that Obama plans to be away quite a bit after the November elections (see this and this), perhaps the better to distract himself with more important things than what has happened to his Congressional majority. And, if Victor Davis Hanson is correct, he will weather the post-election storm quite nicely.