Elizabeth Warren’s DNA results

The New Neo Posted on by

Elizabeth Warren’s claim to have Native American ancestry hasn’t been a question I’ve dealt with on this blog except very briefly, in passing. I’ve left that to others, in particular Legal Insurrection, which has gone into it many times in some detail.

Well, now Warren has released a summary of the results of a DNA test, and Professor Jacobson at LI has covered that, too:

Elizabeth Warren is not Native American. Her ancestry has been traced by Cherokee genealogists back to the early 1800s, as far back as there are records, and there are no Native American ancestors…

If Warren can show she truly is a descendant of the original peoples of North America via a DNA test, that’s the start, not the end. She will not have proven she was justified in claiming Native American status for employment (and career advancement) purposes. She still would have to prove the second part of the test, that she maintained cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.

…I’ve also argued that the focus on a DNA test was a mistake, because Warren likely either had taken or would take a DNA test that would show some miniscule markers from original North American peoples, and she would then declare she was right.

And so it has come to pass. The Boston Globe, Warren’s go-to outlet, reports on a DNA test Warren took. It does not show she is Native American. It shows “strong evidence” of a single ancestor going back 6-10 generations. It’s a very thin analysis, and does not support the headlines being generated that Warren is Native American.

(added) Yet the Globe ran a headline in the print edition (unlike the online edition) suggesting the results proved Warren’s ancestry. Warren has tweeted that print edition headline—“Warren Reveals Test Confirming Ancestry”…

Much more at the link.

The gist of the actual findings is that Warren’s native American ancestry is less than that of the average American of European origin, and probably somewhere between a possible high of 3% to a low of under 1%. Here’s a chart from this site explaining what a 6th generation back percentage would be; 6th generation is the most recent Native American ancestor Warren might have according to her published results, and it could be as far back as 10th generation.

Here’s the chart:

To put that in further perspective, most non-African people have more Neanderthal ancestry than 1%, and some have more than 3%. In fact, non-African people have a Neanderthal contribution that is “usually somewhere between 1 and 4 percent.”

In addition, here’s what percentages as low as Warren’s generally mean:

In general, DNA showing ethnicity below about 5% is viewed as somewhat questionable and below 2% is often considered to be “noise.”

So Warren’s tests indicate no meaningful Native American ancestry to speak of at all—basically, it’s meaningless noise, and her Native American heritage could easily be even less than that of the average American of European origin, rather than more. And yet she’s trumpeting it, as is the MSM (at least in the headlines, although the fine print might have some caveats).

As for the MSM, it’s become far worse than meaningless noise.

NOTE: Sometimes when I’m bored and get into YouTube surfing, I’ve looked at videos of people opening their DNA results and reacting to them on camera. Often, black Americans state that they’ve been told family legends of having Native American ancestry. Every single video I’ve seen so far features the person who said that opening the results and being surprised at having no significant Native American ancestry at all. I have little doubt that, till that moment, the people involved believed their family legends, which seem rather common. Perhaps that was also originally true for Warren, although she may have just been cynically using the claim to advance her career. But all she had to say was that she believed the family legend and is now learning it’s not true, and I think that would have been the end of it. Instead, she’s apparently trying to prove her ancestry with completely meaningless results.

[ADDENDUM: The Cherokee Nation is not impressed, to say the least:

…Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, who ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is prove[n]. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.

Ouch.]

[ADDENDUM II: I used to think that Elizabeth Warren was smart. I disagreed hugely with her politics and her tactics, but long ago she seemed intelligent. I can’t say I’ve been paying all that much attention to her in recent years, but today’s DNA caper seems an indication that if she ever was smart, being in DC so long has caused her to lose whatever savvy she may once have possessed.

In other words, why on earth would she think that releasing these DNA test results would help her cause? On the contrary, the move makes her look like an absolute fool. In doing so, she also robs herself of the “Well, I sincerely thought I was a Cherokee because my family told me that, so it was an innocent mistake” defense. There was nothing mistaken about releasing those tests—she must know they disprove her claims rather than proving them—unless she’s become so stupid she doesn’t even know what percentages mean.

Alternatively, she thinks the American public is abysmally stupid. I certainly hope that particular bet turns out to be wrong.]

The ballet “Concerto Barocco”: different dancers bring something completely different

The New Neo Posted on by

“Concerto Barocco” is a Balanchine ballet that was created in 1941 as an exercise for his students. But it is an indisputable masterpiece that seems nearly as fresh today as when it was choreographed. It has the dancers interpreting and reflecting the intricacies of its Bach score without parroting the music slavishly, or doing anything clichéd. The ballet is one of those rare and perfect marriages of music and movement.

The steps themselves are not all that difficult; after all, Balanchine only had students to work with at the time, and technique in general was nothing like as advanced as it later became. The ballet depends on other elements for its beauty and charm: its intense musicality and its inventive, complicated, and somewhat mathematical patterns.

“Concerto Barocco” has been performed by many dancers over the years. As with all ballet choreography, the quality of what the viewer sees—tone, feeling, emphasis, attack, beauty, pace—depends on the dancers of the hour, and not just their technique by any means. I plan to demonstrate that by cueing up the same short segment (about a minute and a half long) done at three different times by different casts so that you can compare and see what I’m talking about. I’m going to show them to you in reverse order of time, to show what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost.

But first here’s a short overview of the role of the corps, which is onstage for the entire 20 minutes of the ballet and dancing up a storm the whole time. Here’s just a little except (a bit over a minute) to show you what I mean, featuring a 2012 version done by the mother ship, the New York City Ballet. As the narrator says: “Hear the dance; see the music”:

Next we have the segment I’m using to compare different versions in different years. It features the two female soloists. I couldn’t find a recent New York City Ballet video that contains this particular passage, so I’ve used the following one, which showcases what appears to be the Paris Opera Ballet. I don’t have the year, but it seems fairly recent (two of the dancers have only very recently retired and one is still performing, so I’m guessing it’s some time between 2005 and 2015). It’s not atypical of the sort of thing you often see today. Here, the solo dancers emphasize their technique and a sort of twisted off-balance esthetic. I’m really not sure what’s going on in terms of what they’re trying to convey, but it’s my least favorite version of the three. I get a sense of strain, stress, and rush, and although they’re dancing on the music they don’t let it flow through them:

This next video is of the New York City Ballet, and it is exceptionally beautiful. It was made in 1966 (a bit blurry, but well worth bearing with that). It features one of the greatest dancers of all time, Suzanne Farrell, when she was 20 or 21 years old. Commentary is almost superfluous here, but I’ll just say that Farrell brings to this (as she brought to virtually all things she danced) a very rare spiritual quality and a spectacular technique that is masked by her exceptional fluidity of movement and her surpassing musicality. She is the second soloist to enter, from the right of your screen, the sweet Apollonian calm in the eye of the storm:

Lastly we have one of the ballet’s very earliest casts. This is Balanchine’s company the New York City Ballet again in 1951, just a few years after the ballet was created. Note the complete absence of strain. Nothing is forced, all is gentle, charming, restrained, and smooth as silk, and yet the movements remain clearly defined (particularly with Le Clercq):

[NOTE: If you want to watch the entire ballet instead of the short segments I’ve selected, just click on the YouTube logo for either the first or the second videos, or both, and you can watch it. Unfortunately, for the third segment, that’s all there is.]

Women lied, black men died

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democrats thought Brett Kavanaugh was a safe target. Accusing a white prepster named “Brett” would be a great way to achieve several goals: stopping him from changing the balance of SCOTUS in favor of conservatives, and showing solidarity with women and with #MeToo. Who on earth would identify with Kavanaugh except other white preppy guys on the right, and they weren’t going to vote for Democrats anyway, so no great loss.

Well, it turns out that some women are concerned about the men in their lives, too. False accusations can ruin nearly anyone (women included, although I’m not sure how many women consider that aspect).

However, another obvious group that might look at the Kavanaugh hearings and become concerned about what was happening to him is black men. If that sounds counter-intuitive to some people, it certainly doesn’t sound counter-intuitive to me. It occurred to me, while watching the proceedings, that black men might not take too kindly to this little exercise in Believing Women No Matter What.

After all, Clarence Thomas—the man whose position during confirmation for SCOTUS presented the closest analogy to what Brett Kavnaugh faced thirty years later—didn’t call his own hearings “a high-tech lynching” for nothing. Thomas was reminding the country of a terrible past in which black men were lynched not metaphorically but actually, and to whom unspeakable atrocities were committed, merely on the word of a white woman accusing them of rape or other more minor sexual advances. This is not ancient history, either. It is a history that the majority of Americans—and certainly virtually all black Americans—know about.

Why didn’t it occur to Democrats that their approach to Kavanaugh might bother black men as well as white ones? My theory is that Democrats now think so completely along racial lines that it probably wouldn’t occur to them that a black man could identify with something happening to a white man, and a preppy white man at that. That must be why writer Jemele Hill of the Atlantic could write something like this [emphasis mine]:

On Tuesday night, I was in an auditorium with 100 black men in the city of Baltimore, when the subject pivoted to Brett Kavanaugh. I expected to hear frustration that the sexual-assault allegations against him had failed to derail his Supreme Court appointment. Instead, I encountered sympathy. One man stood up and asked, passionately, “What happened to due process?” He was met with a smattering of applause, and an array of head nods.

Hill, who is a black woman (formerly a sportswriter), assumed that these black men would identify with the woman’s story of sexual assault, rather than the man’s story of false accusation. She thought they would accept and perhaps join in with the Democrats’ ridicule and demonizing of Kavanaugh’s rage at being falsely accused.

I’m not a black woman; Jemele Hill is. I don’t pretend for a moment to have my finger on the pulse of the black community or the feelings of black men, and yet I’m not the least bit surprised at their reaction. Anyone with even a smattering of historical knowledge, or a particle of imagination and empathy, should probably have expected it. I am virtually certain that Hill has enough historical knowledge (since I don’t know her, I have no idea about the imagination and empathy part) to have predicted it herself. And yet she did not; her politics blinded her.

David French (a man, but not a black man) has written this piece on the topic, in which he points out that it’s not just knowledge of history that drives this reaction on the part of black men, although that’s part of it. Black men are also the disproportionate targets of a tremendous percentage of the rape and/or sexual abuse accusations today, particularly in Title IX proceedings which have virtually eliminated due process. Between their history of having been lynched (the very definition of the lack of due process) and the reality of being accused of sexual crimes in the kangaroo courts of today’s colleges, is it any wonder that the black man speaking up so “passionately” (Kavanaugh spoke with passion, too) in that meeting Jemele Hill attended was “met with a smattering of applause, and an array of head nods” from the assembled group?

Hill was obviously shocked, however [emphasis mine]:

If you think Kavanaugh receiving some measure of support from black men in inner-city Baltimore is as strange as Taylor Swift suddenly feeling the need to become a modern-day Fannie Lou Hamer, then brace yourself: The caping for Kavanaugh does make a twisted kind of sense. Countless times, black men have had to witness the careers and reputations of other black men ruthlessly destroyed because of unproved rape and sexual-assault accusations.

Why “strange”? And why “twisted”? There’s nothing strange or twisted about it unless your mind is so set along separatist racial and class lines that you think black men can never empathize with the plight of a white man, and vice versa.

Hill continues [emphasis mine]:

Kavanaugh’s emotional defense of his reputation against the claims of a sympathetic white woman resonated with these unlikely allies. And it wasn’t just in Baltimore, at the town hall organized for Ozy Media’s “Take On America” series. This bizarre kinship was something I noticed in my Twitter mentions, too, where black men were tossing out examples of how white lies had wrecked black lives.

“Unlikely.” “Bizarre.” Hill can’t stop being gobsmacked by the common principles that unite this group with Kavanaugh and the obvious similarities. Race and class make it nearly impossible in her mind; that’s all she sees.

And yet she continues to make the case for exactly why these black men would identify with Kavanaugh:

A report released last year, examining 1,900 exonerations over the past three decades, found that 47 percent of the people exonerated were black, despite the fact that blacks make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population. In sexual-assault cases, blacks accounted for 22 percent of convictions, but 59 percent of exonerations.

Hill’s article is titled “What the Black Men Who Identify With Brett Kavanaugh Are Missing.” But basically, she makes a very weak to nonexistent case that they’re missing anything at all. She seems to be saying that because a higher percentage of black men than white men are accused of sexual assault and a higher percentage are convicted or exonerated, that somehow makes a difference and they shouldn’t identify with Kavanaugh. That’s a preposterous argument.

I’ll close with this video I found on YouTube, in which an eloquent black man explains how he feels about what happened to Kavanaugh:

[NOTE: I think the title of this piece would be a good slogan for the GOP to get into the public domain before election day.]

Brunson, US pastor held in Turkey, released

The New Neo Posted on by

This is very good news:

A Turkish court freed American pastor Andrew Brunson on Friday after he spent nearly two years in jail and more time under house arrest on charges related to terrorism and espionage. Brunson had become entangled in a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States and American officials had been pushing hard for his release…

“We’re grateful to the president, members of Congress and diplomatic leaders who continued to put pressure on Turkey to secure the freedom of Pastor Brunson,” lawyer Jay Sekulow, who represents Brunson’s family, said in a statement received by the Reuters news agency. “The fact that he is now on a plane to the United States can only be viewed as a significant victory for Pastor Brunson and his family.”

It also seems to be a victory for President Trump, who has a good track record with this sort of thing, although I have no idea how much the pressure from the US caused Turkey to decide to releave Brunson. My guess is that it certainly had some effect.

Why was Brunson imprisoned in the first place? After all, he’d been in Turkey for two decades.

He was caught up in the post-coup sweep by Erdogan that Erdogan used as an excuse to lock up a host of people he thought represented a danger to him or an opportunity for him. The coup occurred in the summer of 2016 and I wrote about it several times (see this, for example). I had never heard of Brunson when I wrote this post about Erdogan’s plans, but it seems to me in retrospect that the reason Brunson was included in the sweep was to attempt to use him as a bargaining chip for Gulen, whom he blamed for the failed coup and who resides in the US.

Erdogan rounded up many thousands of people, using the failed coup as an excuse. But to Obama’s credit, he didn’t turn over Gulen to Erdogan. However, Erdogan explicitly suggested that the US accept a prisoner exchange in which Brunson would be released in exchange for the US turning over Gulen. This was not done; Brunson is on his way home, and Gulen stays here as well.

[NOTE: By the way, Erdogan is not exactly the duly-elected leader of Turkey, certainly not in any conventional way. He had been banned from running again by a term-limits law, but he got around that in a very clever manner, and then consolidated his power still further. Meanwhile, during the summer of 2016 coup, Barack Obama supported Erdogan against those who would overthrow him.]

Apparently Kanye West’s embrace of Trump represents a temptation that Democrats can’t resist

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s puzzling to me why the left doesn’t just ignore Kanye West, because all their over-the-top race-based criticism of West draws attention to—and actually validates—his message that the left and the media want black people to think only one way, their way. Mocking and reviling West by calling him crazy, a house negro, a minstrel, and (in probably the most absurd and offensive accusation of all) a white supremacist, isn’t really designed to win over the legions of Kanye fans, is it?

The people making these statements have turned what would probably have been a relatively minor photo-op for Trump and West into a cause célèbre, and by playing West’s rambling and yet totally comprehensible message over and over again they force people to pay attention to it.

I can’t see how they would imagine this to be a good move. And yet their hatred and fear drives them inexorably towards it like moths to a flame.

Weinstein revisited

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the charges against Harvey Weinstein has been dropped:

The behind-the-scenes drama spilled into court, with Weinstein looking on, as the Manhattan District Attorney’s office elected to drop the lone charge stemming from Lucia Evans’ allegations that he forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004, when she was a college student and aspiring actress.

Charges made by two other women are still included in the case against Weinstein, but I wonder how this news will affect the trial as a whole:

Prosecutors said in a letter unsealed Thursday that they learned weeks ago that a woman who was with Evans the night she met Weinstein had given the police detective a contradictory account of what happened, but the detective had instructed her to keep quiet, telling her that “less is more.”

The woman, prosecutors said, told the detective in February that Weinstein had offered them money to flash their breasts during the restaurant encounter. They initially declined but Evans later told her she had gone ahead and exposed herself to the film producer in a hallway.

The woman also told the detective — identified by Weinstein’s lawyer as Nicholas DiGaudio — that sometime after Evans’ office meeting with Weinstein, she had suggested what happened was consensual. Weinstein had promised to get her an acting job if she agreed to perform oral sex and she agreed.

According to the witness, who was not named in the court filing, Evans had been drinking and “appeared to be upset, embarrassed and shaking” when she told the story.

Evans was among the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual assault.

In the court of public opinion—the only court in which Weinstein has been tried so far—the charges against him have been almost universally considered so strong that his guilt is pretty much assumed. And yet he has not had his day in court.

Of course, the fact that one woman may have lied—or been mistaken, because perhaps she was drunk—about the nature of their sexual contact does not mean they all have lied or been mistaken. As I’ve said before, each accusation must be taken on its own merits (although few people seem to do that): even assuming that the weight of accusation indicates that Weinstein is guilty of some violations “does not mean that all his accusers are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

I also hark back to this post I wrote during the initial furor over Weinstein:

I don’t automatically believe or disbelieve anyone. When I hear charges of abuse, I try to evaluate the truth or falsehood of those allegations in a systematic way. I consciously try to apply the same standards to all, and to be consistent.

Here are just some of the elements I think people ought to take into consideration in terms of seriousness and/or truthfulness (most of these relate more to adult victims than to children):

Was the coercion overt? What was the age of the victim? Was “no” communicated by the victim (for adult victims only; for a child it’s irrelevant)? Was it just a verbal proposition by the accused with no behavioral follow-up? Was the offender a therapist or teacher or priest or parent? When did the victim report it—was there an enormous time lag? Does the victim have a separate grudge against the accused that might have motivated a false accusation? Is there any other evidence to back up the victim’s report? If so, how persuasive is that evidence? Was there any violence involved? Is the accused a politician who is currently running for office—and has the revelation come out right before the vote, with very little time to evaluate its truth or falsehood? Does the accuser have a history that indicates she/he is a habitual liar? Does the accused have such a history? Are there other alleged victims, and (this next part is very important and not often taken into account) did all the other victims tell their stories only after the initial accusations got a lot of publicity, or had their stories been told earlier? If the latter, was the story told to the police or other authorities, or to some friend or relative whose word we have to take for it? If we have one or more very credible accusations and then a new accusation comes out, is the new one in the mold of the old ones or does it up the ante dramatically? Has each accuser’s story remained consistent, or has it morphed?

There’s much more, but I think you get the idea. Since we don’t usually have a smoking gun (Anthony Weiner’s emailed photos, for example), we have to rely on this sort of thing.

I hate to see abusers go undetected and unpunished, free to continue their abuse with others. But I also hate to see people empowered to make false accusations that are insufficiently scrutinized and could ruin the life of a possibly innocent person. I’ve described the best way I know to try to figure out how to minimize both of these occurrences. Despite its flaws, I can’t think of a better way.

With Weinstein, there are so many stories that it is easy to think that most of them must be true. But that temptation must be resisted. The trouble is that truth and falsehood can be fiendishly difficult to ascertain in cases such as this. And here I’m going to say something that might be surprising—I’m not so sure that even Lucia Evans knows whether she gave consent or not.

Are people usually that clearly in touch with their own behavior, thoughts, and feeling around complicated situations of a sexual nature, in which fear mixes with desire to advance one’s career, and in which all of it is mixed with the liberal consumption of alcohol or other substances? The vagaries of memory are part of the problem as well, and revisionism can occur either much later or very shortly after the act in question. Regret, confusion, trauma, forgetfulness, defensiveness, rationalization—all can play into it in various ways for the alleged victim.

I have no idea what really happened between Harvey Weinstein and Lucia Evans. I have no idea which time she was telling the truth and which time she was lying or mistaken. Even further, I’m not at all sure whether we’ll ever be able to find out. And what’s more, I’m not so sure that either Harvey Weinstein or Lucia Evans themselves know the correct answer, either.

Rethinking Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

One aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings is that quite a few NeverTrumpers on the GOP side have decided Trump’s not so bad after all, and have said so in print. Public declarations of having changed one’s mind about something important and basic are unusual, particularly for well-known pundits.

A mind is a difficult thing to change, indeed. And yet minds do change.

Those who follow this blog probably recall that during the primaries I was not a NeverTrumper, but I was very negative about Trump and would have preferred almost any of the other candidates (almost—I drew the line at Kasich) to have won the primary instead. This was for several reasons: I thought Trump had no political track record, I noted that his previous statements on politics were inconsistent and many were liberal and some were alarming, he had character flaws that were quite obvious, and I felt he was very likely to lose to Hillary Clinton and the prospect of her presidency filled me with dread.

But I always understood Trump’s appeal (for example, see this). And once he became the GOP nominee I always said that if he were to win I’d be happy, very happy, to be proven wrong about how he would perform. Since Trump has become president I feel that I’ve evaluated him fairly and objectively, and most of the time I’ve been pleasantly surprised. In fact, at this point, I’m no longer surprised to be pleasantly surprised when he does things of which I approve (which does not mean I approve of all things he does).

But one group I’ve never seen change their minds about Trump has been the Democratic Party and of course the left. It’s been total opposition and ridicule from the get-go. That’s why this article by Devin Stewart, a self-described Democrat and an adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University and New York University, surprised me.

Here are some excerpts:

Like most Democrats, I reacted to the stunning 2016 election of Donald Trump with a combination of confusion and dread. After all, Hillary Clinton was the favorite and, to Democrats like me, a Trump victory seemed to portend certain economic disaster, nuclear war, and pretty much the end of America as we knew it.

But now nearly two years into his administration, Trump has presided over a “winning streak” that includes a booming economy and stock market, an unemployment level at a nearly 50-year low, two Supreme Court appointments, no new foreign wars or domestic terrorist attacks emanating from abroad, a significant degree of progress on trade relations with Canada and Mexico, a “needed reset” on the China relationship, and the prospect of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Perhaps it is time that even his opponents reconsider Trump…

Trump’s presidency marks a return to realpolitik and great power politics. No one knows what goes on in Trump’s mind or if even he believes he has a strategy. What matters is what Trump does, so this essay looks at his actions, considers the bias of his critics, and seeks a new way to understand his policies. It considers the possibility that Trump has a method to his madness…

Of course, the verdict on Trump’s effort with North Korea is not yet in. But much of the press has not paid sufficient attention to the progress Trump has already made. His approach has secured the remains of some American troops lost during the Korean War, contributed to successful inter-Korean talks, and promised a follow up U.S.-North Korea summit. He is trying an unorthodox approach, but it is too soon to render conclusions about them because we are right in the middle of it. Experiencing the discrepancy between mainstream coverage of North Korea and my own analysis was eye-opening….

Like many Gen-Xers who studied politics or international relations in the 1990s and 2000s, I absorbed this gospel of liberal internationalism almost completely. But Trump’s early successes have already caused me to question those tenets of my education.

The Trump Doctrine takes previous policy assumptions and turns them on their head. Trump’s “America First” approach is a reversion to the idea of realpolitik and great power competition. It is better suited to a moment in which American power is much less dominant. The president takes each state-to-state relationship on its own terms. That’s why he’s often antagonistic with allies and friendly with threatening dictators. The consequences of insulting friendly countries, such as Canada, might be hurt feelings in exchange for better trade terms, while souring relations with an antagonistic one, such as North Korea, could result in serious security threats. He pursues the optimal outcome in a utilitarian sense rather than follow previous rules about diplomatic etiquette.

The entire article is worth reading.

The author appears to still be a Democrat, but he’s clearly an open-minded one who thinks for himself. Writing an article like that is no small act of courage.

Ever wonder what’s happening in Iraq these days?

The New Neo Posted on by

Austin Bay tells you:

After four months of vote recounts and bitter negotiations following May’s indecisive election, in September Iraq’s strife-ridden Council of Representatives voted to form the nucleus of a stable government when its parliamentarians agreed to select Barham Salih as president…

The three main posts are still distributed according to an ethnic-sectarian formula. The largely ceremonial Iraqi presidency has been reserved for a Kurd and Salih is a Kurd. Adel Abdul Mahdi, in the prime minister’s power position, is a Shiite Muslim Arab. The Speaker of the Council of Representatives is Mohammed al-Halbousi, a Sunni Muslim Arab.

All three have flaws and possess complex political backgrounds, but then Iraq is a complex place. Iraqi media regard Salih and Abdul-Mahdi as “consensus” political leaders, meaning they have worked with almost everyone.

When Iraq is relatively quiet, that’s a good thing. It’s been relatively quiet lately, as far as I can tell. Good.

Here’s an article from last March, not long before the election:

Iraq has defeated IS [ISIS] and avoided the wave of Shia-on-Sunni violence that many predicted would follow. The number of civilians killed each month in fighting is a fraction of what it was in 2014. The government in Baghdad saw off a premature Kurdish push for independence last year. Oil production is up and the state has money. The power of foreigners, including Iran and America, has diminished as Iraqi politicians have learnt how to play one off against the others. In six weeks Iraq will hold an election, affirming its status as the only Arab democracy east of Tunisia.

Good.

Thanks to everyone who donated to thenewneo!

The New Neo Posted on by

I want to thank everyone who donated during my recent funding drive. I really cannot express how grateful I am. Every single contribution, small or large, is important to the continuation of this blog. All are deeply appreciated.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for me to ask. You can donate any old time, and there’s also a mechanism for monthly donations. And now that it’s October, don’t forget to use my Amazon portal if you are Amazon shoppers. That’s a big help to me, as well.

It’s my readers who make this blog possible, and also make it rewarding in the personal sense, whether you donate money or not. I don’t think I’d be writing this blog if I didn’t get to read your comments and receive your emails. Yes, getting some money is great, and it helps me to continue on, although so far I certainly haven’t gotten rich on writing this blog. But the interaction is what it’s really about for me.

A friend of mine keeps teasing me about my “seething cranium.” And it’s true that I’ve always had a lot of thoughts swirling around and little outlet for expressing them. My friends not only often disagree, but for the most part they’re not interested in the topics that fascinate me. This blog has given my seething cranium an outlet, and provided a bunch of readers with seething crania of their own. It’s been hard work, but it’s been a pleasure, too.

Greece’s old Jewish city: Salonika

The New Neo Posted on by

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline has written a post about the Greek city of Salonika (also known as Thessalonki) and the fate of its Jews during World War II. It’s a beautiful piece, unusually personal because his father-in-law was a Jew born in Salonika, who was fortunate (or prescient) enough to emigrate to France during the 1920s and to live out WWII in Casablanca, thus surviving the conflagration.

I had heard of Salonika before, in the context of the Holocaust, particularly in the writings of the late great Primo Levi, who encountered the Greeks of Salonika at Auschwitz. Continue reading →