Chemistry lessons: a thing of beauty is a joy forever

The New Neo Posted on by

When I was in junior high school there was a huge poster of the Periodic Table of the Elements that hung in the science classroom in front of a little-used blackboard spanning the right side of the room, next to where I sat.

I’m not sure whether anybody in the junior high learned what the chart was about—we certainly didn’t. But it was a grim reminder of what awaited us in high school, when we’d be required to take Chemistry and Physics and Geometry and Trigonometry and a bunch of other subjects that sounded Hard, and sounded like An Awful Lot of Work.

I wasn’t looking forward to the experience. In my more bored moments in class (and I had quite a few of them) I would glance at that chart on the wall and idly ponder its arcane mysteries. It looked like a more old-fashioned and slightly yellowing version of this:


That chart was the sort of thing that made me nearly sick to my stomach whenever I looked at it, something like slide rules and drawings of the innards of the internal combustion engine, and the long rows of monotonous monochromatic law books in my father’s office.

But then time passed—as time often does—and I found myself a junior in high school, sitting in chemistry class and finally (and reluctantly) about to penetrate the secrets of the Periodic Table. The teacher, a small, elderly (oh, he must have been at least fifty), enthusiastic, spry man, explained it to us.

I sat awestruck as I took in what he was saying. That chart may have looked boring, but it demonstrated something so absolutely astounding that I could hardly believe it was true. The world of the elements at the atomic level was spectacularly orderly, with such grandeur, power, and rightness that I could only think of one term for it, and that was “beautiful.”

I did very well in chemistry, and even thought of majoring in it in college, although in the end I stuck to psychology and anthropology. But I never forgot the lesson of the Periodic Table (actually, it taught many lessons, although some of them I did forget). But the one I remembered most was that appearances can be deceptive, and that what lies beneath a bland and stark exterior can be a world of magic.

And now (via Pajamas Media), I’ve finally discovered a Periodic Table worth its salt—or, rather, its sodium chloride. Take a look at this, a Periodic Table nearly as lovely as the elemental wonders it illustrates:


If you follow the link to the poster at its source, you can click on parts of it to enlarge them and see more of the detail. And then you might say with Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,””that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

The Rover Conventions

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Sergey” has contributed a wonderful piece of folk wisdom about international law and its enforceability:

In old Russia there was a proverbial Yiddish saying on usefulness of formalities of law in dealing with those who do not respect law: “Scribe mit a Hund a Dogovor” (sign a treaty with a dog so it would not bite you).

Yes, indeed. Dip Rover’s paw in the ink and have him sign on the dotted line, and I’m sure everything will be just fine.

J’accuse: a case of libel, the blood libel, and the French press

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There’s a case about to begin in France that–according to blogger Richard Landes–could rival the Dreyfus case in importance.

I’ve written previously about the underpinnings of the present case: the misleading media coverage of the alleged death of 12-year old Mohammed al Durah. Those of you who read Augean Stables and Second Draft are probably quite familiar with the fact that a deception was most likely perpetrated by the French media in broadcasting the story to the world.

But now there are new wrinkles to the tale.

If anyone isn’t familiar with the original incident, here’s a quick summary: in late September of 2000, the boy Mohammed al Durah and his father were taking cover from an exchange of gunfire between Palestinian and Israeli forces in Gaza. Mohammed was either (take your pick, depending on the source) purposely gunned downed by the Israelis, or “caught in the crossfire” and accidently killed by them, according to Talal abu Rahmeh, a Palestinian cameraman who filmed the only video that exists of the supposed death scene; French correspondent Charles Enderlin; and the TV station for which they both worked, France2.

The incendiary footage of al Durah and his father was beamed all over the world. It was viewed with rage and condemnation of Israel, especially in predominantly Moslem and Arab countries as well as in Europe. The al Durah incident and photos of it were prominently visible in propaganda justifying the bloody and horrific Second Intifada against Israel, with its repeated terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, including many children.

But subsequent research and revelations have led those who have investigated the incident to the almost inescapable conclusion that the facts were not only not quite as reported (for example, the direction of the shots were such that Israeli forces could not have been responsible for hitting al Durah), but what is far worse–that it was bogus from start to finish. That is, that it was staged. The Second Draft site has a great deal of information on this subject; take a look for yourself.

Why am I bringing this up now? The first reason is that media misrepresentation in the recent war in Lebanon has highlighted possibly widespread media complicity in promulgating misinformation and propaganda favoring the Arab/Palestinian position in the Middle East. The al Durah case is an example from six years ago that makes one wonder just how long this has been going on, and how successful it has been in shaping anti-Israel opinions (the answer to both questions appears to be: very).

The second is the aforementioned trial about to begin in France over the al Durah case. The operative French law is one that was passed in 1881, aimed at protecting the press from defamation that “strikes at the honor and consideration (reputation) of ‘the individual or institution in question.'”

And who is France2 suing for defamation? Three French citizens who used their websites to publish internet critiques of the station’s coverage of the al Durah affair. As far as I can tell, this is the equivalent of the television station suing a blogger such as myself (who, fortunately, lives in the US rather than France) for pointing out that the France2 emperor has no clothes in this matter.

The hubris of France2 is astounding. What’s more, they might actually win, according to Landes, despite the fact that anyone viewing the video on which they based the al Durah story can only conclude that France2’s journalistic standards in airing the footage were abysmal and deplorable.

If one reviews the history of the coverage of al Durah by France2 with an open mind, it becomes clear that the TV station should be the defendant in a defamation trial, not the plaintiff. The truth appears to be that France2 has not just been duped, but that it has lied, especially in the persons of cameraman Tamal and Charles Enderlin, who asserted that they had respectively taken (Tamal) and personally viewed (Enderlin) twenty-seven minutes of corraboratory video showing the death throes of al Durah, footage that cannot be produced and that in fact never existed.

What does exist? A mere fifty-nine seconds of video, embedded in more minutes of other obviously staged material, filmed by a single Palestinian stringer (Tamal), and showing not al Durah’s death throes, but his voluntary movements after he had supposedly been killed by a strangely bloodless shot in the stomach. Take a look at the footage (click to download “Death of an Icon”) and see what you think. The egregiousness of the Big Lie must really be seen to be believed (or, rather, disbelieved).

Why does this matter? Al Durah has become both an icon and a rallying cry, a modern and non-Christian twist on an ancient deception, the blood libel. Both the old stories and the new are propaganda used for the same purposes, to ignite anti-Jewish feeling–or its modern-day incarnations, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish feeling. The repercussions have been vast, especially in Europe, in which both anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment has risen since 2000, the year of the al Durah incident.

I find the very existence of the French law under which this lawsuit is being brought to be astounding. Why would the media, of all things, need a special stature to protect itself against criticism? Moreover, why is the media so accepting of evidence that anyone with a grain of critical thought would view as suspicious? And why are these fakes so badly done?

The latter question gnaws at me, as it did when the Rathergate memos were exposed as fakes. It wasn’t just that they were fakes, it’s that they were patently obvious fakes. The inescapable conclusion is that the media on which we rely so heavily to shape our view of the world is either stupid or lying. There’s no other possibility, and both alternatives are almost equally horrendous in their consequences.

My other supposition is that we only have uncovered these particular fakes because they are so very obvious. But we can’t assume that all the fakes that have been perpetrated on us over the years have been so poorly executed. Are there in fact many others that have passed muster because they are technically far more competently done?

For example, in the case of Rathergate, what if the forgers had actually gotten hold of an old typewriter from the proper era (duh–not so difficult to do, after all)? Would we have ever known such a document was fake? And, with al Durah, what if they’d actually staged these scenes more carefully? It seems to me that it wouldn’t have been so very difficult to have done so; moviemakers do it all the time, do they not?

Even so–even with the amateurish and slipshod nature of these forgeries–they still worked, for a while, and still work for many viewers. Al Durah has worked much better and longer than the memos. I fear that, in the future, the perpetrators of such fictions will become more skillful, having learned their lesson from these cases.

There is some cause for cautious–very cautious–optimism, however. I agree with Landes that if the present case in France receives wide coverage, and if the video of al Durah is ever released to the public and receives wide dissemination, it could be a turning point. I like to think that, with repetition (including new incidents such as Reutergate), distrust of media coverage in the area will reach some sort of critical mass. Then, if that happens, even if a lie continues to get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on, maybe that lie won’t be so easily believed.

The Dread Pirate Bin Laden

The New Neo Posted on by

More on the subject of fear:

Dean Esmay, a fan of “The Princess Bride,” points out that the Dread Pirate Roberts of that movie was an actual historical figure.

Pirates have become almost comical these days, good for a laugh in a children’s movie, not to mention a classic costume for Halloween. That’s about it.

But in their day they were much-feared, and rightly so. This piece (also reached through a post linked by Dean) offers a discussion of the history of piracy and of laws against it, and suggests applying the concept to terrorists.

Pirates were once state-sponsored, hidden agents for nations to wage war against each other. Then piracy degenerated still further, into free-form nihilism:

…[latter-day pirates] struck indiscriminately in ferocious revenge against the societies that they felt had condemned them. Often these disenchanted sailors cast their piratical careers in revolutionary terms. The 18th-century English legal scholar William Blackstone defined a pirate as someone who has “reduced himself afresh to the savage state of nature by declaring war against all mankind,”…Perhaps the most telling statement of the pirates’ motives comes from a pirate named Black Sam Bellamy. To a captured merchant captain, he boasted, “I am a free prince, and have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a 100 sail of ships and an army of 100,000 men in the field.”

The laws against piracy rest on:

…the concept of universal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens, a conventional peremptory international norm from which states may not derogate. Those committing thefts on the high seas, inhibiting trade, and endangering maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani generis (enemies of humanity).

In the mid-19th century, the nations of Europe had finally stopped using piracy to further their own ends and got together to help weaken its hold on the world. A similar unity among the world’s nations right now against the current enemies of humanity might relegate terrorists of the future to characters in children’s movies, and to colorful costumes at Halloween. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen: terrorists still serve the interests of many countries, who use them as convenient surrogates and hidden agents.

Fraidy cats and fear itself: Left and Right

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s been a longstanding meme on the Left about the Right, one I’ve written about before. It’s a twist on the old schoolyard taunt, “Fraidy, cat, fraidy cat!”

The allegation is that the Right is motivated by fear–and unrealistic and wildly exaggerated fear, at that. My esteemed colleague Shrinkwrapped has written a recent and excellent piece on the subject.

Funny; when I look about me on the Right, I don’t see a whole lot of fear. Anger, perhaps, both at the Left and at the Islamist totalitarian enemy. But on the whole, the Right seems to me to be realistically facing and evaluating the threat before us, taking the enemy at its word about what it intends to do, and trying to learn the lessons of history. The Right wishes to take action against that enemy rather than wait in passive denial, wring its hands in fear, or pursue the false hope of appeasement.

One can disagree with the methods and approach of the Right without disagreeing about the degree of threat represented by the enemy. The Left, however, in choosing the “fraidy cat” argument, appears to be thinking along the following lines (excerpt from that previous post of mine about fear):

The legacy of Vietnam is that the left has a lingering mindset that considers national security concerns to almost always be mere excuses for government spying…The left, and many liberals, seem to feel that the raising of security issues in these situations is almost always bogus–a sort of screen, used by a proto-totalitarian government to cover its own misuse of power, with the goal of getting away with domestic spying on its enemies, and the further consolidation of its own power. If this is the conception, then national security concerns must be downplayed in almost all cases, and the role of fear as motivation for those concerns exaggerated instead.

I see the Right as motivated by realism about the goals of Islamist totalitarianism, and this leads to calls for action to block the enemy before the threat it represents becomes even greater, and the possibility of even more devastation looms larger.

But even if we are willing to grant, for the sake of argument, the Left’s charge that the main motivation on the Right is fear, we can say two things. The first is that in facing an enemy bent on one’s destruction and willing to purposely kill as many innocents as possible with all the weapons at its disposal, some element of fear (as in “apprehension of a danger”) is certainly warranted. The real question is whether the fear is realistic or whether it is exaggerated, and whether the person is paralyzed by that fear, or whether he/she takes appropriate action to forestall the feared consequences.

The left has its own fears, of course, and they are potent motivators, as well. As previously stated, they fear abuse of power by our own government in the pursuit of national security more than any foreign threat. To parse it even more finely, sometimes it seems that they fear abuse of power by a Republican executive branch more than anything; back in the days of FDR they liked a powerful federal government well enough, when it was run by a Democrat.

Speaking of FDR, it was he who famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The context in which he made that statement is interesting; take a look at his First Inaugural Address, delivered in March of 1933, when the nation faced the Great Depression, the subject matter of FDR’s speech.

FDR does indeed say, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (and, by the way, listen to the audio; what a speaker he was!). But this is the message in which his quote was embedded:

…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself””-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory…In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties [he follows with a long list of the problems the nation faced at the time]…Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Then, as now, the danger of fear is not really fear itself. It is, as FDR stated [emphasis mine], “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.”

I submit that those words define the stance of the Left today far more than that of the Right–in fearing, for example, warrantless NSA wiretapping of calls with terrorist foreign nationals more than the consequences of not using reasonable tools in our arsenal in order to fight an implacable and vicious enemy (and see here if you wish to revisit the complexities of the legal arguments concerning these wiretappings).

And I agree, along with FDR, that “only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.” I happen to think the Left fits the definition of “foolish optimist” in denying the dark realities of the present-day Islamist totalitarian threat. The Left, of course, thinks people such as myself to be foolish optimists in denying the dark realities of the threats posed by the would-be dictators Bush and Rove, and that we are timid and cowering fraidy cats in assuming that people such as Ahmadinejad mean exactly and precisely what they say.

[NOTE: And speaking of fear…]

Bloggers and vacations

The New Neo Posted on by

The Wall Street Journal is on to the not-so-well-kept secret of bloggers, which is that is that they tend to have some degree of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The ubiquity of the internet, laptops, and the like means that bloggers need never be very far away from their connections. Now, “connection” is a word with a double meaning, of course: it can refer to being hooked up to the Web, or simply to being hooked, as in “addicted.”

Yes, some would argue that blogging is an addiction–perhaps what’s referred to as a Positive Addiction, but an addiction nonetheless.

The WSJ article highlights the very special dilemma facing bloggers who want to take some time off:

In the height of summer-holiday season, bloggers face the inevitable question: to blog on break or put the blog on a break? Fearing a decline in readership, some writers opt not to take vacations. Others keep posting while on location, to the chagrin of their families. Those brave enough to detach themselves from their keyboards for a few days must choose between leaving the site dormant or having someone blog-sit.

According to the WSJ, even the biggest bloggers seem to mull over–or perhaps obsess over–the problem.

But me? No. Not moi. Not addicted, not at all. No siree. I have no difficulty whatsoever in resolving this issue. When I’m on vacation–and I’ve taken rather lengthy ones each of the two summers I’ve been blogging–I continue to post. But I take a middle road and lighten my load considerably. I won’t bore you with the secrets of how I do it, but I’ve managed to keep up the blog without ruining my vacations. At least so far.

The truth is that bloggers depend on addictions, both in themselves and in others. After all, aren’t we trying to form an addiction in our readers–an addiction to reading our blogs? Maybe a better word would be “habit”–makes us all feel better.

And, just to show how very unaddicted I am, I’m now going out to enjoy some of that thing known as “real life.” Till later…

More shameless self-promotion: Sanity Squad podcast

The New Neo Posted on by

The latest Sanity Squad podcast is up at the Politics Central site at Pajamas Media.

There are still a few technical kinks–every now and then, Shrinkwrapped’s voice goes all metallic and he gets stuck in a strange time warp. But I think you’ll find the group interesting and entertaining–although not as entertaining as you might have found them had the technical guy not decided that my joke about France was way lame, and edited it out.

What joke about France? Well, after Siggy challenges us all to name a nation under the sway of tyranny that isn’t a third-world country, I respond with, “France?”

Come to think of it, maybe the technical guy was right.

Conversations on conversion

The New Neo Posted on by

Alexandra is incensed at Bill Maher for making light of forced conversion to Islam.

Maher isn’t one of my favorites (surprise, surprise, you say), and I don’t really tend to follow his shows. But in a comedy routine (video here; starts at minute two), Maher said:

New rule: If converting to Islam is all it takes to get the terrorists off our backs, then all I have to say is, “Lalalalalalala! [ulalates loudly]”…Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Bill, if we convert to Islam, doesn’t that mean the terrorists have won?” Well, sort of, but it’s a win-win, because they get to declare victory, and we get to take hair gel on the plane. Plus, we’re not really converting to Islam. We’re just telling our enemies what they want to hear, and trying to convince them we’re something we’re really not…And, it’s so simple to convert this way. You know, if you want to convert to Judaism, it’s a huge hassle. You’ve got to find a Rabbi, study the Torah, get circumcised, go to dental school. But, Mohammed made joining his team easy: two line pledge, and you’re in.

Maher loves to be controversial, and this rant is no exception. He goes on to add that conversion doesn’t matter because Americans are Christians in name only and don’t fulfill most of the obligations of Christianity, and that one religious fanatic is much the same as another.

To treat Maher’s charges with a seriousness they perhaps don’t deserve, he ignores the fact that imperfection in religious observance (charity, for example, and other kindly acts) is the rule for humanity across the board, not just in the case of Americans. He also ignores the major differences between fanatical Christians and fanatical Moslems and fanatical Jews, especially in their attitudes towards conversion, but in many other respects, as well.

Most of us can agree with Maher, however, that allowing religious fanatics of any stripe to be in charge of government would be a bad thing. The disagreement arises in the definition of “fanatic.” Some, no doubt, believe that all Zionists are by definition religious fanatics. Some, no doubt, feel that the entire anti-abortion crowd–not just those who murder abortionists–are religious fanatics.

I happen to believe that not all religious fanatics are the same. And I think the evidence is clear that present-day Islamist fanatics are louder, more numerous, more powerful in their own countries, more willing to use coercion to force beliefs and practices on others, and more intent on killing very large numbers of people in their desire for religious hegemony.

That attitude towards religious hegemony–and the best means to go about achieving it, if desired–is another huge distinction between the three Abrahamic religions. Even though he’s not trying to be serious, Maher touches on a very fundamental and important difference among the religions as far as conversion goes, and it’s not a tangential one. The distinction goes to the heart of what each religion is in modern times–how it sees itself, its message, and its mission in the world.

Judaism makes conversion difficult for a reason. Islam makes it extremely easy for a reason. Christianity occupies a middle ground for a reason (the issues and history are far more complex than can be dealt with in this post, so the following is, quite naturally, a simplification).

Judaism has a “live and let live” attitude towards other religions. Here’s a statement of the Jewish point of view:

Judaism, unlike say Christianity and Islam, is not a proselytising religion. Because it teaches that the righteous of all nations shall enter the gates of heaven, it does not have any compelling urge to rescue non-Jews from hell and damnation. There is a requirement in Jewish law to ensure the sincerity of a potential convert. Essentially, [the religious authorities] want to be sure that the convert knows what he is getting into, and that he is doing it for sincerely religious reasons.

Christianity is a proselytising religion. In modern times it does so through nonviolent means–persuasion, preaching, missionary work–although in the past coercion was sometimes involved. The idea behind both the nonviolent and the violent conversions was that Christianity was the only way to salvation, and thus it was incumbent on Christians to spread the faith.

The same is true of Islam. Islam’s early tradition is one of jihad through martial conquest, giving defeated peoples “of the Book” (Christians, Jews) a choice: conversion, dhimmitude, or death. The choice for infidels was simpler: conversion or death. This was done despite verses in the Koran framing religious choice as something that should not be coerced. As in much of Islam, there are other contradictory hadiths–for example, the Verse of the Sword–that seem to prescribe forced conversion.

There is no question that Islam is a religion with a mainstream–not a fringe–belief that everyone on earth should ultimately become Moslem. In fact, it considers conversion to be a misnomer; the proper word might be reversion, since it is also believes that everyone on earth is actually born a Moslem. Islam is also the only religion of which I’m aware that considers death the punishment for renouncing the religion.

As a group that has been subjected to forced conversions for centuries–both at the hands of Christians and from Moslems–Jews have long pondered the dilemma of the reluctant potential convert. Should one resist to the death? Or is a far more serious version of Bill Maher’s suggestion (“We’re not really converting to Islam”) acceptable: pretended conversion, allowing the convert to live and to practice Judaism in secret, hoping at some future date to become openly Jewish once again?

The great Jewish rabbi-philosopher Maimonides pondered the issue in the twelfth century, writing his “Epistle on Forced Conversion.” Maimonides had an extremely personal interest in the topic, since he himself had been forced to convert to Islam in Spain in order to save his life, after which he fled that country, ending up in Egypt and returning to the practice of Judaism. His answer is that it is best to leave the area, if possible, rather than to convert, but that conversion is acceptable and forgivable in order to save one’s life, especially if the intent is to practice secretly and/or to ultimately emigrate and practice the religion openly once again.

Some who are not religious may find it hard to understand what all the fuss about forced conversion is. But most probably realize that forced conversion is an affront to freedom of belief and practice, which includes the freedom to not believe and to not practice. And even Maher, in his lucid moments–and I’m sure he has a few–would agree that any religious group bent on forcibly and aggressively imposing both its belief system and its practices on others is one that must be vigorously fought against and defeated. Conversion at the point of a sword–or a gun–is the unmistakable marker of such a religious group. And such conversion seems to be the exclusive province of Islamist totalitarians these days.

Can’t get enough of the voice of neo-neocon?: audio from down under

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m the guest interviewee on this podcast from Shire Network News, found at Blogmatrix. You can download through iTunes, or just download it directly from the Blogmatrix site, here.

The interview with me starts about a third of the way into the podcast. My voice can’t compete with the mellifluous British tones of Brian of London, who begins the podcast, nor can it measure up to the dulcet harmonies of Tom Paine, my Australian interviewer (love those accents, guys!). But on this podcast my voice comes the closest so far to sounding like my actual self. And the topic I’m talking about is one near and dear to my heart–my “change.” And, if you want to hear me at least attempting to make a few jokes, there’s a moment or two when I do just that.

Blogmatrix specializes in podcasts, and often injects humor into the proceedings. You might want to take a look at some of their previous efforts, as well.

Traveling without divisions, you don’t get no respect

The New Neo Posted on by

Iran and Ahmadinejad have once again demonstrated the great and awesome power of the UN and their fear of its sanctions, in Iran’s continued defiance of the UN’s call for limitations on its nuclear program. Although Kofi Annan made a special trip to Iran to discuss these matters, the Iranian leader might very well have paraphrased Stalin (instead of the historical tyrant he usually prefers to channel, Hitler) and asked: how many divisions does Kofi Annan have?

The answer? Quite a few, but unfortunately they lack the ability to fight, being either unarmed or lightly armed and only allowed to fire in self-defense. And the UN’s proposed sanctions, hardly frightening in and of themselves, are likely to be blocked by Iran’s buddies Russia and China, as Iran is well aware.

As for Annan himself, he well might paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield and say: I don’t get no respect, despite (or perhaps because) of Iran’s praise for his visit as “good, suitable, and positive.” In other words: powerless, meaningless, and suiting Iran’s aims to place a cooperative face on its nuclear ambitions.

Annan made a small gesture of relative defiance by criticizing Iran’s nose-thumbing announcement of a conference devoted to the fact that the Holocaust was an “exaggeration,” as well as the mounting of an exhibit in Teheran of cartoons mocking said Holocaust (or, rather, un-Holocaust).

Annan’s statement of the Holocaust’s historical reality is okay as far as it goes, which isn’t all that far. It illustrates the tepid nature of the UN response–or the diplomatic response in general–when faced with evil. Annan is typical of those groups in trying to reason with the unreasonable, and to plead with the inhumane. Such reasoning and pleas are doomed to fall on deaf ears.