the all searching eye

The beautiful city of Mar Del Plata has been a scene for protest and controversy, mainly because of George W. Bush’s participation in the summit meeting being held there. One of the protestors cited by Fox News may very well demonstrate the intelligence level of his fellows:

Santiago Zamora, a 30-year-old biology student from northern Argentina, sported a red Che Guevara (search) shirt.

He said:

“We are going to fight against all forms of imperialism…”

Sigh…

It’s almost as funny as, say, Venezuela practicing repelling a U.S. invasion.

A few weeks ago I posted commentary on Professor Alan Dershowitz’s optimistic view of the recent peace process in Palestine. One doubt I expressed was about those who would adopt the Palestine question as a symbol of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Sadly, the recent speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reinforced my fear. Several news agencies have reported on his words. Al-Jazeera gives many details, as well as Islamic Republic News Agency-the official state news organ. Some of the most disturbing comments include:

The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land.

This is a direct reference to the cosmic struggle I referred to.

As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.

And

There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world.

The Imam referred to is Ayatollah Khomeini.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, the President stated that a world without the US and Israel would be possible.

If anyone has any doubt about why we are pressing Iran so hard on the issue of nuclear weapons, this should provide ample answer. This is not the talk of a leader who is interested in diplomacy or negotiation. As stated in the articles summing up his speech, he has declared that any Islamic state that recognizes Israel as a state or participates in the peace process will incur Iran’s wrath. This president has declared Israel and the United States as historic enemies, and he has threatened any nation who makes peace with them. Any questions?

In response to the destruction of Hurricane Wilma, a resident of the affected area stated:

We didn’t expect this. This one got our attention.

The full story is found at CNN.

Imagine the owners of business with signs featuring Spanish or some other language. Now imagine those owners being arrested and fined for including the letter ñ in their signs. This is what happened in Turkey. There they have the equivalent of Jim Crow law for Kurds. One of these laws, which bans the use of any letters not included in the adapted Roman script used in Turkish, happens to make signs posted in the Kurdish language illegal. Here is the article from CNN on the recent arrests.

While I am not in love with George W. Bush’s recent Supreme Court nominee, I have been disillusioned with Ann Coulter lately. When it came to John Roberts, she argued that he was “unaccomplished,” and that being from Harvard was meaningless. I believe the exact words were:

“He went to Harvard! And Harvard Law! (Since when does that impress right-wingers? So did Larry Tribe. It is one of the eternal mysteries of the world that liberals are good test-takers.)”

Suddenly though, Harvard graduates go from being “good test takers” to:

“The average LSAT score at SMU Law School is 155. The average LSAT at Harvard is 170. That’s a difference of approximately 1 1/2 standard deviations, a differential IQ experts routinely refer to as “big-ass” or “humongous.” Whatever else you think of them, the average Harvard Law School student is very smart.”

Since being a Federal Court of Appeals judge and a veteran government lawyer is not quite accomplishment enough for Ann Coulter, I don’t know what is. In fact, Roberts had more experience on the Federal court than Clarence Thomas did at the time of his nomination–and we know that Thomas is one of her favorites.

Of course, I don’t need to tell her any of that. After all, she is has suddenly decided that Roberts is exactly the type of person suited for the Supreme Court of the United States:

“Being a Supreme Court justice ought to be a mind-numbingly tedious job suitable only for super-nerds trained in legal reasoning like John Roberts.”

Now Ms. Coulter is essentially making the same argument about Miers: that she is unaccomplished. Of course, add to that that she may not be a good test taker–which Ann now says indicates a “humungous” gap between her intelligence and that of an Ivey Leaguer (like Ann).

I’m also confused about what Ann wants in a Justice. Does she want one who will decide cases “our way” (In other words, the way of the majority party)? or does she want a Justice who will refrain from deciding social policy issues, and who will exercise a passive role (this is what she said she liked about Scalia). She wants them to lean with the majority on social policy issues, yet she wants them to refrain from deciding social policy issues.

So is Ann crazy? Schizophrenic? No. Unfortunately, it is much less exciting. In the end, she is proving to be full of hot air. She knows where her bread is buttered, and she knows the pulse of her readership. For that reason, she is not afraid to sacrifice ideological consistency and coherence to keep an exciting, well-read column. She relies on smear, and when the subject of choice becomes yesterday’s news, she turns her invective on the next flavor of the week.

Yes, Ms. Coulter is a good writer. Yes, she’s smart. She’s also funny, clever, and quick-witted. But, what does she really think? I don’t think we know from her writing. Therefore, I don’t think we conservatives can safely rely on her to make our arguments for us, or to chuck bombs at the left. In fact, we don’t even need her. The left has driven itself into near-obsolescence without anyone’s help.

I’ve decided to start a culture column. It will appear once or twice a month and will contain something drawn from the vast pool of human historical knowledge. To start it off, I would like to direct readers to the U.S. government’s “Basic Readings in U.S. Democracy.” The website contains many transcripts of pivotal documents in our country’s history, including the Declaration, the Constitution, landmark court cases, and historic speeches. Each transcript is a time capsule, and taken together they illustrate the trajectory that our country has followed. Great acts of heroism and sacrifice stand in contrast to dark hours of injustice.
I encourage readers to browse these writings and speeches. They tell a great deal about where we have been.

Here is an article summing up the events surrounding the suicide of Syrian minister Ghazi Kenaan. Knowing the tactics the Asad regime has employed, my first reaction was to wonder if this really was suicide. To be fair, no evidence suggests otherwise. Whatever the circumstances, al-jazeera’s observation that no comment or analysis has been forthcoming from Syrian official sources is typical of the secretive Baathist majority government. In any case, this development is interesting since it rises out of the investigations into the assassination of Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri. Minister Ghazi Kenaan has become another casualty in a highly controversial Syrian-Lebanese relationship.

Articles and editorials abound hyping the growing selectivity of elite colleges and of parents’ obsession with getting their children into one. However, this website of an admissions consulting firm will take you into the true twilight zone behind this craze. For example, the mission statement says:

IvyWise is an educational consulting company committed to providing comprehensive admissions counseling services to students and their families worldwide. IvyWise counselors are devoted to educating and guiding students through each step of the application process, enabling students to gain admission to the most selective nursery schools, kindergartens, secondary schools, colleges and universities, and graduate and professional schools

Well-to-do parents have so fallen off the deep end that they are paying five figures to get the upper hand in admissions processes. Unfortunately, this trend represents a growing materialism in our society. Yet, I do not want to give the impression that companies such as IvyWise are the problem. In fact, they derive their existence from the social factors that have created this ultra-competitive meritocracy which now reaches into the lives of toddlers.

At any rate, I was seriously disturbed at the concept of admission coaching for nursery school. I leave it to you to decide whether I am overreacting.
Abuzachary

In many of his writings, Religious scholar Hugh Nibley used scripture and other ancient sources to point out one of the great prevailing evils through all human history: Trading human life for money or profit.

The recent scourge of fraud in the wake of Katrina has angered me enough to actually make a post here about the hurricane–something I had decided not to do originally.

I encourage anyone making donations to the relief effort to read the article I ‘ve linked to above and to be very careful about where they send their money–especially through the internet. As in many other instances following a major disaster, corrupt people are spoofing the the Red Cross website and creating fake websites to take donation. This is a vile and revolting phenomenon, and I hope that as few people as possible will be fooled by it.

The above cartoon is from Al-Jazeera. The text at the top right reads: Israeli tunnels near the Aqsa (Mosque).
The bubble on the top left says: Oh Aqsa! Have Patience; He who digs a pit for his brother will himself fall into it.

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz has written an Op-ed column in the Chicago Tribune expressing his optimism for the current peace prospects of Israel-Palestine. He astutely points out some of the main obstacles to a prudent two-state solution:

There still are many barriers to a real peace. Some come from the Israeli side, others from the Palestinian side. The greatest barriers, however, come from outsiders: right-wing American Jews and Christians who are more Israeli than the Israelis, Islamic fundamentalists and left-wing European and American academics, politicians and church leaders who are more Palestinian than the Palestinians.

I would add to this list certain groups of exiled Palestinians. They often have not had to face the harsh realities on the ground in Israel and in the occupied territories that result from Israeli crackdowns and retaliations to terrorist threats. For this reason, their concept of the conflict is more abstract and idealistic, and it is less amenable to compromise.

These types of forces, combined with those in Professor Dershowitz’s list, are very powerful. Both the far Right and extreme Left comprise at least some elements who desire to make this a symbolic, cosmic struggle between Good and Evil. So while I would like to share the Professor’s optimism, I feel my hopes being tempered by the major variable, which is: How powerful will these uncompromising centers be?