This is one of the most encouraging signs of all in Iraq.
Shh, don’t tell: progress in Iraq
This TimesOnline piece points out that things are going relatively well in Iraq today, and yet many people have their own reasons for refusing to acknowledge that fact:
The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as almost an embarrassment in certain quarters.
The article goes on to say that there are too many people who have staked their reputations, and their political campaigns, on the fact that Iraq is a failure, end of discussion. To reopen and re-evaluate that topic would be much too threatening in personal and party terms. Therefore it’s much easier to ignore the good news from Iraq.
I found the TimesOnline article at Real Clear Politics, where there was another piece featured today, an interview with Natan Sharansky that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The Sharansky piece alludes to the fact that to many, it’s a foregone conclusion that Iraq is a disaster, one that proves democracy is not a possibility in the Middle East:
But [Shransky’s] side is today on a back foot. The war in Iraq and the rise of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, aided by the ballot box, are Exhibits A and B in the case against the Bush Doctrine and its contention that democracy can put down roots in Arab soil.
But Sharansky—without specifically mentioning the recent promising developments in a Iraq—points out that those who forecast doom and gloom in Iraq are the same people who have been wrong so many times before:
Mr. Sharansky says of his adversaries among the Western intellectual elite: “Those people who are always wrong–they were wrong about the Soviet Union, they were wrong about Oslo [the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace deal], they were wrong about appeasing Yasser Arafat–they are the intellectual leaders of these battles. So what can I tell you?” Continue reading →
Getting married: what’s in it for me? (Part II)
[Part I here.]
Marriage is an institution that is virtually universal across all cultures and throughout recorded history, but for most of that time it was an institution far different than it is today. One constant in Western (and many other) cultures was that it was an economic arrangement of major importance and even of necessity for most people.
Think about the ramifications of that fact. It meant that marriage had clear benefits to each party that made it a rare thing for a person not to be married. Whether the marriage was de jure or only de facto (so-called common law marriage), whether a civil ceremony or a religious sacrament, the roles of husband and wife were more clearly differentiated and defined, and more necessary to each other. Continue reading →
Getting married: what’s in it for me? (Part I)
I like to think I have a lot of experience on the subject of marriage, including divorce and child custody.
I’ve studied it academically, both the legal issues and the psychological ones. I’ve worked in the field, approaching it from many angles: law, public policy, mediation, couples therapy. I’ve lived it: a long marriage, parenthood, and a divorce. I’ve seen clients, both couples and individuals, married and never married, divorced and separated. I have many friends—both male and female—who confide in me about their marriages and their divorces, their joys and their tribulations. I’m a fairly keen observer, as well, and I’m old enough to have seen a lot and to have observed many changes in society regarding marriage and divorce.
But I have to say that the level of vitriol expressed in the comments section in response to this article by Dr. Helen at Pajamas Media surprised me and disheartened me, even though I’ve read similar discussions before online. The general flavor of comment after comment there—mostly from men—can be summarized as follows: “The bitch screwed me” with the corollary, “Women are all like that.” The formerly married say, “Never again,” and the never-married merely say, “Never.” Continue reading →
Beware of conservative speakers on campus—they might actually change a mind or two
Dennis Prager was on the college lecture circuit recently. The occasion? “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week.” The Left’s response was to spearhead a drive to discredit him and the other speakers on the subject with a favorite insult: racist bigots.
It’s interesting to see how charges of racism and bigotry, once reserved for those who unfairly targeted an entire group of people on the grounds of race, religion, and/or ethnicity, have now come to be leveled at those who fairly target part of such a group. As far as the Left is concerned, it has become almost impossible to speak in terms of any such ethnic, racial, or religious categories for any reason—unless, of course, the group in question is being pitied and/or rewarded for victimhood.
But Prager persevered. Strangely enough, he found that he was well-received at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he addressed 300 students on the subject, about a fourth of whom were Leftists originally opposed to him. Afterwards, he received apologies from some, including a student journalist who had written a column (prior to hearing him speak) that compared him to members of the Ku Klux Klan. Continue reading →
The worm turns: NY mourns
I watched all four games of the World Series, and it was somewhat of a bore even to me. Winning in four may be satisfying for the team, but the almost total lack of suspense doesn’t make for great baseball theater. To the best of my recollection, at no point were the Rockies even in the lead.
In 2004, when the Red Sox won the Series for the first time in eighty-six years, even though that win occurred in a four-game blowout as well, there was the built-in suspense of thinking the team would choke as in olden days. The only real question was in what new and creative manner they would manage to do so. So it was an astounding surprise, almost umimaginable, when they won at last.
But this time that spell had evaporated, and winning seemed a foregone conclusion. Continue reading →
Sanity Squad at 8 PM on Blog Talk Radio
The Sanity Squad is trying a new format. We’ll be on the air, live, at Blog Talk Radio at 8 PM this evening. Here’s the link, with a call-in number. The podcast can also be listened to after the fact.
9/11, racism, and history: Krugman and playing the fear card
For quite a while now the liberal/Left position vis-a-vis 9/11 has been that those on the Right are a bunch of namby-pamby fraidy cats, motivated by an unwarranted and pathological fear of terrorists.
Or, alternatively, that the Right is not really afraid but is strategically engaged in a hypocritical and Machiavellian attempt to drum up fear where it needn’t exist in order to increase both their own power and their chances of election, because people trust Republicans more on national defense.
Or perhaps both at the same time, oxymoronic though that might be.
Paul Krugman’s latest riff on this old theme is featured in his column in today’s NY Times. In it, Krugman pronounces that “there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism—it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination.” Well, what a relief!
Quibble if you must over the term itself—I have here, and then again here —but surely it describes an actual phenomenon that is not a figment of anyone’s imagination, and to think otherwise is denial.
This is not a new tune of Krugman’s, however; not at all. He’s the same man who, shortly after 9/11, declared that Enron would come to be seen as a greater turning point in American society than 9/11. Granted, Krugman is (or was) an economist, but that’s a rather extreme case of tunnel vision. The man is nothing if not consistent in his downplaying of 9/11. Continue reading →
What’s your first memory?
I’ve always had an excellent recollection for early events in my life, with the peculiarity that my memories tend to be visual as well as auditory and emotional. That is, not only can I remember a great many incidents occurring at a very young age—what happened, what was said, how I felt—but there’s also a sort of theatrical scene-setting. I can often recall where I was standing in relation to the other players—and, more oddly, what everyone was wearing at the time.
It took me a while to learn that most people don’t remember things that way. I would be reminiscing with a friend and would say, “Don’t you remember? You were standing over there, and you were wearing that black and white suit with the red silk blouse,” and the friend would gaze at me in puzzlement, wondering what I was talking about.
Of course, no independent corroboration exists to tell me whether I’m right or wrong. So perhaps I’m full of it; there’s no way to know for sure. Continue reading →
I dreamed I was oh-so-fashionable in my…
…underwear.
Maybe they should rename it, though. Apparently, underwear isn’t so very “under” any more. It’s come out of the closet, as it were, according to the NY Times, which reports that “showing off your lingerie has become very much a fashion trend.”
And by “showing off,” they don’t mean in the time-honored sense of showing it off to your love object of choice. No, they mean the following, as seen recently on fashion runways:
I’ve witnessed the equivalent of the sight on the right walking the streets—a black bra displayed with a top with a scooped-out back. Usually, for some reason, it’s being worn by a young woman who also sports tattoos down the entire length of her slender arms. Continue reading →
Giuliani and the Red Sox: strange bedfellows
Ah, the compromises politicians will make.
Now it turns out that New Yorker Giuliani, the quintessential Yankee fan, is rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series. This has earned him no end of condemnation.
It’s also a bit puzzling in political terms. Surely he doesn’t expect to wrest Massachusetts from Hilary.
Giuliani explains his turncoat act as a pitch for the American League vs. the National. But to diehard Yankee fans, cheering for the Red Sox is treason, no matter what the reason.
Hillary, of course, tried to establish her Yankee bona fides back when she was running for New York Senator against none other than Giuliani. She claimed at the time that she’d been a long-term Yankee fan: since her beloved Cubs were in the National League, she’d picked the Yankees as her American League team. Many were exceeedingly skeptical.
In the end, Giuliani dropped out of that race for health reasons, but not before he had the following to say about Hillary:
Funny, I haven’t seen her at a Yankee game,” the mayor said yesterday. “I’ve been at Yankee Stadium maybe 1,000 times and I haven’t seen Mrs. Clinton.”
At least Giuliani isn’t claiming long-time Sox fan status. As for the Sox, they’re doing just fine, thank you very much—not that I’m counting any chickens, knowing Red Sox history.
‘Twas ever thus: the press vs. the military, and vice versa
As Exhibit A, we have the exquisite sarcasm of General Robert E. Lee:
It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late.
“Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the
Cause by writing editorials – after the fact.
And then there’s Exhibit B, the more direct approach of General William Tecumseh Sherman:
I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.
It seems the journalistic tradition of second-guessing, error, and disclosure of sensitive information in war is a long one. The needs of the press are antithetical to the needs of the military. The first seeks “scoops” and sensational information; it’s just too boring to be supportive cheerleaders. The press has its macho need for bravery as well, and that is defined quite differently from the valor of the military. Perhaps some members of the press are even envious of the latter, and seek to challenge it with their own feats of daring.
The press serves a needed function, of course: to inform the public. But during a war, this is a delicate balancing act. Too much emphasis on the death, destruction, and setbacks that inevitably go with any war can hamper the war effort in a way that serves neither the country nor its people. Unfortunately, all too often, the press errs on the side of being oppositional in a kneejerk manner, rather than achieving the balance that would be most beneficial to everyone.