April 29, 2006

UNITED 93 AND THE WAR AGAINST TOTALITARIAN ISLAM

        Horsefeathers has no plans to see United 93. We were in Manhattan on that terrible day and need no reminder. However, the film may be useful for those who have forgotten why we're fighting a war at home and abroad. We were dismayed however, and made skeptical about the movie when we heard from its director, Paul Greengrass. During a radio interview on Rush Limbaugh's program, when given the chance to describe the message of the film he said:
"..Here's the thing. I think what they managed to do in this film, <the actors> something I'm so proud of them for doing, they convey something I think is really important for us. There were two hijacks on the morning of 9/11. There was the hijack that we know about, the hijack of the airplanes, of the innocent people, that flew into the buildings and all that terrible death and destruction that occurred as a result. But there was a second hijack that took place that day. The hijack of a religion by a bunch of young men who twisted and perverted it in order to create a creed and an ideology to justify the slaughter of innocent people, and that's a hijack that is still out there today. It's still going on today, and it's going to be very hard for us to work out what to do to deal with that..."

        Thus the message of the film, at least the intended message, is that the noble religion of Islam was 'hijacked', suggesting we should not connect the crime with its animating ideology. In fact, we should appreciate and empathize with Islam and accept that killers chanting praise to Allah are a small group of individuals guilty of misunderstanding their own religion. This is politically correct, condescending cant. I suppose we will next have docudramas from the likes of Mr. Greengrass deploring the 'hijacking' of Communism by Stalin and Mao, a crime equally as deplorable as murdering millions of innocents. I can see the ads now; "they tried to kill the dream. Help keep it alive." What next? I suppose we'll learn that the majority of fascists and Nazis were ordinary individuals who didn't actually kill anyone and just wanted to be left alone, yet their beliefs were 'hijacked' by Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, so let's not fault their belief system. The notion that Islam is a religion of peace, rather than a totalitarian ideology, is the fantasy of cowardly appeasers. The more the Jihadis proudly declare their deeds are motivated by the requirements of Islamic jihad, the more liberal utopians profess to find beauty in Islam. Andrew Mc'Carthy, in a review of Robert Spencer's courageous book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), comments: "...The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam..." See the rest of the review here.

        It may well be that Mr. Greengrass has made a marvelous work of film art. After all, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot wrote some pretty poems when they weren't fawning over totalitarian tyrants. And we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, since artists are often clueless about their own work. Let us hope the p.c. appeaser stance did not intrude on a story of a few brave Americans who actually fought back against the Jihadis.

A CONTEMPORARY LYRIC

Courtesy of Michael Ledeen at The Corner
To the tune of American Pie:

Long long time ago, When you took hostages for show, You believe Allah told you to, Blame everythin' on those "evil" Jews
You're a fascist and a nut,
Must hang the queer, and stone the slut,
You're insecure and narcissistic,
Trying to make nukes to go ballistic

The U.N. won't do nothin',
But go around huffin' and puffin',
China, Russia have your back,
That is until the U.S. attacks

We know your plan and intentions,
To disavow all Conventions,
Threatenin' the world with suicide martyrs,
Wrong administration, this ain't Carter's

Bush's numbers may be south,
So Mahmoud just runs his mouth,
But when the hour comes to pass,
The U.S. is gonna kick your ass

And you'll be singing
Bye Bye Uranium Pie,
Thought the world would just turn a blind eye,
Ayatollahs send out their suicide guys,
Chanting "Allah Tells Me to Die"

April 28, 2006

NOBODY ASKED US BUT

"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion."
--William Inge

        Horsefeathers returns after a sabbatical from the blogosphere’s world of dueling ideologies, during which time we enjoyed some of the pleasures of popular culture: baseball, lively conversation with friends, 24, movies and jazz--and more baseball. After all, if our civilization is embarked on a downward slide, why not enjoy it while we can? As we advance in age, we better understand the appeal of fiddling while Rome burns. Especially now that the fiddling can be downloaded to your ipod.

        After celebrating Billie Holiday’s birthday with our annual ritual of listening to all of her available recorded music, we were gripped by nostalgia for another, mostly forgotten, jazz-blues, pop singer. We were reminded of her by the sound track of a movie, The Best of Youth, which will commend itself to those who want a break from the hyped up pace of modernity. Turn off your computers and sink into this 6 hour epic Italian film which traces the fortunes of a family over 40 years. It unfolds in a leisurely way, like a slow baseball game in midsummer, but packs a cumulative power that made this viewer wish it were longer. The perfect voice to complement the story is Dinah Washington’s. Her piercingly true singing, with its never since equaled diction, singing a 1947 Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne song, Time After Time, makes that tune hauntingly melancholy and profound. Somewhere back in the ‘60’s singers forgot how to deliver lyrics so as to be understood. We next created a playlist of Dinah Washington songs on our ipod and settled in for more musical enjoyment; then we reflected on the possibility that such peak expressions of Western Civilization are at stake in World War IV, and a substantial number—the leftist Fifth Column-- in the West seem not to care.

        Refreshed and feeling mellow, we caught up on the news of the day. Most of it is, by now, unsurprising. The wolves are snarling louder than ever, and we in the West are passing resolutions in favor of vegetarianism. A Persian Hitler issues threats and the West dithers, as it did in the 1930’s. 9-11 seems long ago, and the West has fallen back to sleep. Nothing further need be said, so with acknowledgment to the all time best sports writer for the New York tabloids, Jimmy Cannon-

Nobody Asked Us But:
When an academic writes something critical of Israel and then insists he’s not anti-semitic, he probably is.

When did intellectual cowardice become a requirement for tenure in academia?

We prefer outspoken Jew haters, like Mr. Ahmadinejad, to dissemblers like Tony Judt who argues that the Jewish state should cease to exist---for the good of the Jews, naturally.

When Mr. Ahmadinejad detonates an atom bomb over Tel Aviv, completing the second Holocaust, will the New York Times welcome the end of the ‘cycle of violence’?

If Axis Sally were alive today, how many Pulitzers would she receive for news commentary?

The test of an Italian restaurant is linguine with white clam sauce.

We’d rather listen to Dinah Washington sing the phone book, than Ella Fitzgerald sing the Cole Porter Songbook.

I assume that if the noise level in a restaurant is high, they're trying to distract you from the food.

Jack Bauer's girlfriend Audrey sounds like she has been taking whining lessons from Mo Dowd. She needs to have an 'accident' so Chloe can make her move.

April 12, 2006

NYTIMES TO WOMEN LAWYERS: WE DON'T KNOW UP FROM DOWN

Guest blogger, friend and counselor to Horsefeathers, Arnold Roth, assesses the NYTimes's empathic concerns for another class of victims of the patriarchy: women lawyers.

"...To write news in its perfection requires . . . a combination of qualities . . . [A] news-writer is a man without virtue, who lies . . . for his own profit . . . To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness; but contempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary. He who by a long familiarity with infamy has obtained these qualities, may confidently tell today what he intends to contradict to-morrow; he may affirm fearlessly what he knows that he shall be obliged to recant . . ." Samuel Johnson: Idler #30 (November 11, 1758)

Horsefeathers has frequently decried the unthinking, often near-hysterical, always absurd liberal/feminist drive to unman America, and the efforts of various groups (e.g., the Harvard faculty of arts and sciences) and media organizations (e.g., the New York Times) to achieve that end. Continuing that quest to ferret out and diminish manliness wherever it may be found, the Times now pretends to have discovered, and in an anxious article written last month by reporter Timothy O’Brien, frets about the allegedly “anomalous” fact that there are “So Few Women” as partners in “Big Law Firms” (Sunday Business Section 3/19/06 p. 1; see also Letters in 3/26 and 4/2/06 Business Sections). Mr. O’Brien’s article is typical liberal/feminist nonsense.

The Article. -- Using the Times’ current anecdotal style of introducing topics, Mr. O’Brien’s article showcases Bettina Plevan, who is an “accomplished” woman partner with over 30 years experience at “big [New York] city law firm” Proskauer Rose, and is photographed on an upper landing of Proskauer’s long, steeply-ascending internal staircase (in case you don’t get it, she has successfully made the steep climb to partnership). But, alas, says Mr. O’Brien, Ms. Plevan is “an anomaly”, because “after [most women] begin to climb into the upper tiers of law firms”, something “unusual happens” and “[t]hey disappear” – thus, assert the article’s headlines, Ms. Plevan’s stairs are really “The Down Staircase For Women”.

Mr. O’Brien’s assertions of “anomalous” and “disappearing” women are based on data allegedly showing that, while “for years” law school graduating classes have been “almost evenly split between men and women” and while law firms have been absorbing “new associates in numbers that largely reflect” that 50-50 split, only “about 17 percent of the partners at major law firms nationwide were women in 2005, a figure that has risen only slightly [from 13%] in 1995”. He also claims that some believed that “once law school graduation rates substantially equalized between men and women” the law school pipeline “would fuel [law] firm diversity and cause partnerships to equalize as well”, but the “pipeline has been gushing for about two decades and partnership disparity remains”.

Mr. O’Brien and his sources (all but one women) concede that his “partnership disparity” is not a result of sex discrimination, noting that law firms have passed “way beyond [the] discrimination” and the “discriminatory . . . practices” of many years ago (the Times nevertheless could not resist publishing a woman lawyer’s Letter (4/2/06) claiming that 70 years ago, in “1936”, a law firm rejected her because it then didn’t “even hire female secretaries”). Moreover, neither Mr. O’Brien nor his sources have any other definitive explanation for their “partnership disparity”, although they talk, without any factual support or analysis, in stale and misleading generalities (which they call “biases”, whatever that means) about men’s “hands on the levers of power”, women not “being adequately mentored”, women “enjoy[ing] less access to the networking and business opportunities that flourish in largely male playgrounds”, “'glass ceiling' issues”, and the “maternal wall”. But whatever the reason, or lack thereof, Mr. O’Brien and his sources would have law firms adapt their business practices so as to attain more women partners – they would, for example, have firms measure attorney achievement by some standard other than “billable hours”, reassess “the role that women play in the family” with more of “a sense of shared [husband-wife] responsibilities”, and make it easier for women to “re-enter the legal world” after “temporarily giv[ing] up their professional dreams to pursue child-rearing or other personal goals”.

Mr. O’Brien’s article is thus based on two major premises: first, that women partners are “anomalies” and women are “disappearing” in “Big Law Firms”, and second, that “Big Law Firm” partners should be 50% women. Both of those premises false, and Mr. O’Brien misstates and misrepresents his allegedly supporting data.

My Interest. – I come to Mr. O’Brien’s article after having practiced law in New York City for over 40 years, and been a partner in a “Big Law Firm” for over 30 years. I have had numerous women partners, one of whom became a partner in normal course after about 8 years as an associate, during which time she gave birth to three children. I have worked with innumerable associates, male and female, including excellent, good, mediocre, and incompetent attorneys of each sex; have been actively involved in associate recruiting, hiring and termination, training, evaluation, and accession or non-accession to partnership; and have participated in the consideration, adoption, and implementation of maternity-leave programs, and seen how they have been used, and not infrequently abused, by female associates. I also know from long experience that the practice of law in a “Big Firm” is largely hard, dull, repetitive, unpleasant and uninteresting work – so much so as to make one wonder why anyone, man or woman, would want to do it; even Mr. O’Brien notes that “depression and dissatisfaction rates among both female and male lawyers has [sic] grown” and “many lawyers of both genders have found their schedules and the nature of their work to be dispiriting”, and a Letter (3/26/06) wonders, in light of the “grueling, lengthy commitment demanded of would-be law firm partners and the long odds against success”, why “so many intelligent men and women make the attempt at all”.

Mr. O’Brien’s First Premise Is False. – Mr. O’Brien’s premise that women partners are “anomalies” and that women “disappear” as they “climb into the upper tiers of law firms” is disproved by his own data. While it is certainly true that not all women associates become partners, it is also an incontrovertible fact that women are, and have been, becoming partners in very substantial numbers in “Big Law Firms”. Thus, as Mr. O’Brien’s data make clear, as many as 13% of all “major” law firm partners were women in 1995, and 17.3% were women by 2005. His 2005 data further shows that law firm partners in individual cities ranged from 8.7% women (Salt Lake City) to 23.7% women (Miami), with at least four cities averaging over 21% women (Miami, New Orleans, Denver, San Francisco), and that at least one firm in Dallas presently has 38 women partners, about 25% of all partners, and is seeking more. Clearly, whether one is using as a benchmark the 13% or the 17.3% or the over 21% or the 23.7% or the 25% women partners (or even Salt Lake City’s 8.7%), it is an outright mischaracterization to call Ms. Plevan an “anomaly”; rather, as a truth-telling reporter would have said, she is just a single example of the substantial and steadily-increasing number of presently existing women partners throughout the United States who not only have not “disappeared”, but have successfully climbed their own partnership stairways.

One of Mr. O’Brien’s statistical tricks, in his effort falsely to minimize the very substantial number of women partners, is to assert that women partners increased “only slightly” from 13% in 1995 to 17.3% in 2005 – tricky not because an ardent feminist supporter might not see the increase as “slight”, but tricky because a so-called investigative reporter ignores factors that would permit a more objective reader to determine the increase’s actual substantiality. For example, while it is true that 17.3% is 4.3% more than 13%, it is statistically more significant that (i) the 4.3% increase is about one-third (33.1%, to be more precise) of the 13% base from which it emanated, and (ii) therefore the 4.3% rise in women partners in absolute terms was a 33.1% increase over 1995 in percentage terms (hardly just a “slight” increase), or a percentage increase of over 3.3% per year for the 10 years. Mr. O’Brien doesn’t talk about that substantial 33.1% increase, or that steady decade-long annual 3.3% increase, because it gives the lie to his false claim of “disappearing” women lawyers and his mischaracterization of Ms. Plevan as an “anomaly”. Mr. O’Brien is also tricky in failing to consider the likelihood (if, as he says, percentage trends in graduating classes and new associate hires were truly relevant in telling us what ought to be happening with women partners) that the annual 3.3% increase in women partners since 1995 will actually begin to “soar” in coming years; such likelihood is seen from the fact, for example, and as Mr. O’Brien himself points out, that the percentage of women in law school graduating classes, which was just “creeping up slowly” after 1960 and was “only about 9%” in 1970, “began to soar just a few years” later to the 50% level.

Mr. O’Brien’s Second Premise Is False. – Mr. O’Brien’s premise is that it would be better for law firms if they had more women partners, and if the percentage of women partners more closely matched their roughly 50% of law school graduating and incoming associate classes. But Mr. O’Brien and his sources never give any clue, let alone provide any evidence, of any law firm benefit that would result from having more women partners. For example, there is no showing that having more women partners would increase the quality and efficiency of legal work performed by firms; no showing that more women partners would improve delivery of legal services to clients; no showing that more women partners would raise the amount and competence of pro bono work for the poor; no showing that having more women partners would enable firms to win more cases, close more deals, write more wills, dispose of more tax problems, or make more money; no showing that more women partners would enable firms to get more clients, or improve their client services; no showing that more women partners would attract, or help retain, more or better associates; no showing that more women partners would raise ethical standards or improve the generally lousy (except among themselves) reputation of lawyers; and no showing that more women partners would improve firm governance and administration. And, most interesting, there is no showing that more women partners – that is, the greater feminization of firms -- would in any way ameliorate the fighting, arguing, back-stabbing and back-biting all too common among ambitious, aggressive and egocentric “Big Firm” partners of both sexes.

Having no such evidence, Mr. O’Brien’s only argument is that more women partners would benefit law firms by creating “diversity”, and he cites Ms. Plevan’s opinion that “diversity is a beneficial thing”. Of course, even assuming that there should be “diversity” and that it is “beneficial” does not help Mr. O’Brien because significant “diversity” already exists, and has existed for years, in the “Big Law Firms” – witness, for example, the “diversity” resulting from the 17.3% women partners nationwide, the 23.7% women partners in Miami, the 22.8% women partners in New Orleans, the 22.3% partners in San Francisco, and the 25% in a Dallas firm

In light of that already existing, and incontrovertible, substantial “diversity”, the real question posed by Mr. O’Brien’s article is how much more “diversity”, if any, is desirable and/or appropriate. Mr. O’Brien asserts that it ought to be about 50-50 men and women, but he doesn’t (and can’t) tell us, for example, why a Dallas law firm would be better having 50% women partners instead of 25%, or why law firms nationally would be better having 50% women instead 17.3%, or even why Salt Lake City firms would be better having 50% women instead of 8.7%. Here again, all Mr. O’Brien is saying is that law firms ought to have more women partners, and here again, as pointed out above, he has not a shred (in legalese, the “least scintilla”) of evidence to show that law firms would be better for doing so.

Moreover, Mr. O’Brien is statistically and logically wrong in arguing that there should be 50% women partners simply because 50% of graduating classes and 50% of new associates are women (I guess he hasn’t heard of the post hoc fallacy). His argument reflects a complete ignorance of the multifaceted non-statistical factors that determine whether an associate is a success in real-world law firm, and whether he or she becomes a partner – for example, the talent and ability properly to investigate and research matters that will have real-life effect on people’s interests; the talent and ability effectively to work on and ultimately to be responsible for real and highly complex real-life civil and criminal litigations, contract negotiations, corporate transactions, real estate deals, trust and estate matters, tax problems and other firm business; the ability to work effectively on multiple matters at the same time; the ability to work with partners and other associates; the talent and ability to work with and attract real clients; the ability and willingness to work as long as required, and to perform properly under extreme pressure; the talent and ability to learn and develop into partnership material through actual experience; the desire and drive to be a partner; and the firm’s real-world need for, and ability to support, an additional partner. Those factors are, as Mr. O’Brien obviously does not understand, totally different from factors that enabled the associate to navigate the academic arena, the classroom situations, the moot courts, and the primarily theoretical and make-believe environment of a law school successfully enough to get himself or herself hired as an associate. And it should also be obvious, as I have seen from long experience, that the proportion of men and women in a law school graduating class or in an incoming associate class, whether 50-50 or something different, is not determinative, or even relevant, as to which of those men and women (if any) will become partnership material, or in what male-female proportion.

So what is left of Mr. O’Brien’s argument for more women partners, when his construct of a law firm world in which women partners are “anomalies” and “disappearing” is so clearly a creation out of whole cloth, when the percentages of women partners are actually substantial and growing, when such percentages already create the “diversity” he finds so beneficial, and when he can show no evidence of any law firm benefit beyond such diversity from having more women partners? Stripped of his misrepresentations and misinterpretations, the argument boils down to the contention that more women should be partners simply because they are women – a contention founded on the tired old, politically correct, liberal/feminist position that women simply are better than men, that we ought to have more women and less men (and less manliness) wherever we can, and that one of those places is “Big Law Firms”. And that is why, for me, Mr. O’Brien’s article is nothing but liberal/feminist claptrap.

The Alleged Disadvantages To Women. -- Mr. O’Brien does not advance his argument by asserting that (i) women are being disadvantaged by men’s “hands on the levers of power”, lack of “mentoring” and “networking” opportunities, a “glass ceiling” and a “maternal wall”, and (ii) firms’ business practices should be changed to make women’s partnership path easier. The short answer to such talk is that women, already a substantial and growing percentage of law firm partners, are obviously not being held back either by those alleged “disadvantages” or by existing firm business practices.

Moreover, the alleged “disadvantages” (or “biases”, as some of Mr. O’Brien’s sources say) are largely speculative and unsupported by any evidence. Talk of men controlling “the levers of power” is typical conspiracy-theory nonsense and does not demonstrate any bias against women; men didn’t have any trouble using their “power” to make partners of Ms. Plevan and the other 17.3% women partners nationwide, and the only direct evidence of men’s attitude toward women partners is Mr. O’Brien’s reference to Dallas attorney Michael Boone, whose law firm already has 25% partners, and who “intends for that percentage to increase”. With respect to the alleged lack of “mentoring” and “networking” opportunities, and aside from the fact that there is no evidence that such lack kept any associate, man or woman, from becoming a partner, my experience is that there generally is no such lack and that, to the limited extent that there might be, the affected associates are as likely to be men as women; as one of Mr. O’Brien’s sources points out, “male associates aren’t particularly well mentored at all firms either, and there’s pretty widespread dissatisfaction with that”. The talk of an alleged “glass ceiling” for women in the law is just another way of characterizing what Mr. O’Brien calls “The Down Staircase For Women In The Law”, and the allegation of a “glass ceiling” is as wrong and silly as the allegation of a “Down Staircase”, for the reasons already discussed.

The claim of a so-called “maternal wall” is an odd one for a feminist sympathizer to make, for it does emphasize (contrary to usual feminist dogma) that women are innately different from men in important physical attributes that affect their ability and commitment to climb the partnership stairway. In any event, there is no evidence that a “maternal wall” has prevented any woman from becoming a law partner, and there is substantial evidence that it has not – for example, Ms. Plevan’s children, my woman partner’s children referred to some paragraphs ago, and the children of the woman partner whose letter is quoted at the end of this paragraph, and the pregnancies relating thereto, did not keep those women (just as a “maternal wall” did not keep the 17.3% women partners nationwide) from becoming and performing as partners. But most importantly, the “maternal wall” problem demonstrates that, contrary to what Mr. O’Brien would have us believe, men partners have long been sensitive to the unique needs of women associates and have sought to accommodate both their child-bearing needs and their career goals. For example, my firm and all other firms that I know of, and I believe all “Big Law Firms”, have long had, and are constantly updating, maternity leave plans designed to achieve such accommodation. Of course, those plans may not work perfectly for one or another woman associate, but no plan can fully reconcile for all women the inherently incompatible needs of child-rearing and a meaningful law practice; this is reflected in a Letter (3/26/06) from a former woman law partner, who points out that she “came up through the ranks of a firm with all the benefits to which [Mr. O’Brien’s] article refers – including supportive male mentoring and extensive business development opportunities – and . . . made partner when my oldest child was 2”, who found that for “most women, pursuing a legal career while raising children presents the classic meeting of an irresistible force and an immovable object: both clients and children are enormously demanding, and both expect and deserve reliability and nearly full-time dedication”, and who after 13 years left her firm not because of any “bias or . . . roadblock referred to in the article”, but because she finally “realized that I could not at the same time serve as the lawyer my clients deserved and the mother I wanted to be to my children”.

* * *

Thus, when all is said and done, there are plenty of women partners in the “Big Law Firms”, and there are no “biased” impediments or business practices that keep women lawyers from climbing up that same staircase to partnership that Ms. Plevan successfully mounted. In fact, had Mr. O’Brien wanted to present an accurate and truthful picture, rather than confirming Dr. Johnson’s view that a necessary qualification for a reporter is “indifference to truth”, he would have added many women to that partnership landing on which Ms. Plevan is photographed.

The Irony. – There is a real, obviously unintended, irony in Mr. O’Brien’s article. Even though a patent effort to help feminize “Big Law Firms”, and make them less manly, Mr. O’Brien’s article actually seems to assert that (oh, horror of horrors!) it is the less feminine, more “manly” women who are most likely to become partners. For example, noting that “men . . . more aggressively self-promote” and are more willing to say “I want”, he points out that Ms. Plevan, his prototypical woman partner, has “a lot of drive”, is “competitive”, wants her “talents and skills . . . recognized”, and has “never been shy about saying 'I want'” (and, her photograph atop the Proskauer staircase pictures her in a drab brown, manly-looking suit). Mr. O’Brien further quotes one of his sources as emphasizing that, like men, “women need to learn how to be comfortable saying 'I want' and how to say it effectively”. Thus, ladies, if you want to make partner in Mr. O’Brien’s universe, you better have balls.

April 11, 2006

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN: OPENING DAY AT THE HOUSE THAT DEREK JETER RESTORED

"...There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air...
--John Keats, Lamia.

        Horsefeathers enjoyed a perfect spring afternoon, the day before Passover, at his own house of worship, Yankee Stadium, attending the home opener of the baseball season. The long winter of our sporting discontent is over. No more clock driven sports, like football and basketball, as substitutes for the real thing. The game was preceded by a superb rendition of the National Anthem by the West Point glee club while the flag was unfurled by the Corps of Cadets after they were introduced as representing the American ideals of honor, courage and patriotism. Two fighter jets roared low over the Stadium, Yogi Berra tossed out the first ball, and the game began. During a moment of silent remembrance for the troops fighting to defend our freedom, we thought of the absence of any such heartfelt tribute at this year's Super Bowl. Say what you will about George Steinbrenner, he surely understands that baseball would be the target of Islamo-Nazi fanatics, as a representative creation of infidel America. To give a jihadi paraphrase of Jacques Barzun "Whoever wants to destroy the heart and mind of America had better destroy baseball".
        The game began and the early Yankee lead faded as their starting pitcher, Chien Ming Wang, struggled. Kansas City extended its lead and the Yankees' bats seemed to slow down and turn leaden. How many summer hours have we wiled away, watching slow grounders to short and weak popflies to short right field? How many pages of newsprint have we devoured, in vain search of explanation and prediction? It was deja vue all over again. 27 outs and now we were at 21, 22, 23---and here came the Captain, Derek Jeter with the Yankees trailing.
        Lately Jeter has been under severe scrutiny by science---the science of Sabermetrics. We are grateful to these researchers who have quantified and rendered statistically intelligible athletic performance that had been subject to superstition and fantasy. They have lately told us that Derek Jeter's actual skills, as opposed to his image with the public, are limited. His range at shortstop is nowhere near the range of most of his major league peers. He can't go to his left. His at bat power numbers are less than great. He's a singles hitter, far less potent with the bat than his teammate, Alex Rodriguez. Still, we know there's something that does escape the statistical eye; anyone watching Jeter over the years has become familiar with the extraordinary baseball intelligence that puts him always in the right place at the right time. There are those singular artistic defensive plays he paints on the green canvas. Jeter from nowhere, taking a relay throw from right field and backflipping it to prevent a run from scoring. Jeter spotting a fly ball over his shoulder, not looking back and gloving it while diving over a tardy outfielder. Jeter catching a foul pop up and diving headlong into the seats. Today, as the sun was concentrating its rays on left field, the crowd was leaving and the Captain had taken the collar, going a harmless zero for three. Derek Jeter, the singles hitter, now, according to the laws of Sabermetrics, at 30, starting the downslope of his career. Derek Jeter, whose name seems more suited to a Professor of Post-Modern literary studies, than a major league shortstop; Derek Jeter, whose graceful acrobatic leaps and throws from deep short, are deemed of little or no utilitarian value; Derek Jeter, whose numbers will never come close to A-Rod's, but whom every Yankee fan would prefer to see up there with the game on the line. Derek Jeter who stands now, in the late afternoon, under the declining sun, delicately at the plate with one foot on tip toe like a pinstriped Baryshnikov poised to leap free of gravity, but not to uncoil in the most violent sudden way, which he now does- his bat, with a flick of the wrists, flashing through the air like a magic sword, lashing out at an advancing and dangerous foe. His body turns violently as his hips rotate and the bat collides with the tumbling baseball. And now, there's a brief hush in the crowd as the ball leaves his bat, not violently at all, but lazily, languidly, a pop fly, a spheroid rainbow, drifting towards left field, surely bound for the glove of the left fielder. In the stands we turn our heads disappointedly to watch its beautiful slow, slow flight, while time seems to suspend itself. There's the ball and look now, amazingly it's carrying away, away, away, as the left fielder first starting in, now suddenly realizing, turns his shoulder, puts his head down and runs desparately and helplessly towards the outfield wall. The hushed crowd also realizes and now erupts as the lazy fly ball carries well beyond the reach of the left fielder, into the eager grasp of a fan. It's the decisive winning moment, Opening Day.
        As the late great Jimmy Cannon might have said: "You're Derek Jeter, who once wanted to be like all the other guys, and now all the other guys want to be like you."

April 10, 2006

GIVE THIS MAN A POSITION ON THE HARVARD FACULTY

Saudi intellectual Awadh Al-Qarni:
Neo-Cons Are the Closest Thing There Is to Nazism

Awadh Al-Qarni: "The real causes for the American invasion of Iraq are: First, the Zionist gang that has colonized America and the American people.

Interviewer: What proof do you have?

Awadh Al-Qarni: Look at the number of Jews in the American administration - I mean the Likud Jews, the extreme right wing over there... Some of the top American officials have Israeli citizenship. Some of them were top officials in Israel, such as Wolfowitz and others. Scores of them...The Zionist gang is now toying with the fate of America, and consequently, with the fate of the world, for the sake of the Jewish biblical greed and hatred. [...] Part of the American administration is not religious. They are neither Evangelists nor Jews, but they have a new ideological theory regarding international policy. They are called the neo-cons. Fifteen years ago, the American intellectuals used to call them crazy, but now they are surprised to find that those crazy people are ruling America, and controlling the entire world. They say: We do not want America to be the leader of the world. We want it to rule and Americanize the world. [...] They are the closest thing there is to Nazism. The neo-cons are identical to the Nazis..."

April 08, 2006

YOU TOO CAN BECOME A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

        We all know that liberals, unlike conservatives, are empathic, good, smart and not uptight about sex, race or gender. You too can become a self-congatulating member of the faith, even if you are a Republican. All it takes is shedding your archaic belief in the limits imposed by biology. Meet Jennifer Lee Jackson, a man, oops woman, oops, surgically castrated man- once confused and conflicted but no longer so. She is Woman, hear her roar.

"...About the time Jennifer Lee Jackson rejected her male body, she also dropped her Republican roots.
        The process was gradual. Both identities - her gender and her politics - had been constant, but conflicted.
      7nbsp Now, two years after gender-reassignment surgery and abandoning her previously conservative political ideology, Jackson feels whole. She's running for a seat in the state Senate as a Democrat..."
See the rest here.

April 07, 2006

MORE BILLIE

Do not miss this: at WKCR. This is a birthday celebration worthy of the artist herself, organized by an American Treasure, Phil Schaap.

HAPPY 91ST, ELEANORA FAGAN

Billie Holiday, the greatest jazz singer of the twentieth century, would have been 91 today. Here is what we had to say a year ago:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELEANORA FAGAN
        On this date, April 7, 1915, the greatest female jazz vocalist who ever lived was born. The child of a 13 yr. old prostitute and a 15 yr. old guitarist, who quickly abandoned her, she left her own budding career as a teen aged hooker, took the name, 'Billie Holiday' and lived a brief 44 years, before succumbing to drugs and alcohol. Her unique style of singing slightly behind the beat, of finding unpredictable notes to sing, while maintaining the clarity of melodic line (try singing along with her, you'll quickly be lost), but finally, the intensity and genuineness of the emotion she conveyed, has never been equalled. Every lighthearted tin pan alley ditty she sang was transmuted into near Sophoclean tragedy, by the weight of her sadness and empathy for the human condition. Horsefeathers remembers seeing her at the Apollo Theater near the end of her life, her voice gravelly and gasping, and heartbreaking; he knew he was witness to genius. It was horrifyingly thrilling. Was it the actress, Jeanne Moreau who said that Billie could convey more emotion in 3 minutes than most actresses in 3 hours? The closest anyone has come, in our experience, was Janis Joplin, in a performance at Hunter College auditorium in New York, when the scary bone-chilling intensity of the performance made us think 'this woman is doomed': no one could express that intensity, even fueled by ample supplies of Southern Comfort, and expect to survive long.
        For us, Billie's most satisfying performances are the ones in which her doomed tragic awareness is tempered by the exuberant loving musical connection with saxophonist, 'Prez', Lester Young (who dubbed her, in return, 'Lady Day'). This was the most exquisite erotic musicianship ever set down in recordings. Listening now to A Sailboat In The Moonlight, or Says My Heart,("Oh you fool, that was love says my heart") encourages one to an almost utopian conviction that Love will prevail over the forces of darkness--and if it doesn't it will have a helluva good time before it succumbs. Happy birthday Eleanora!

.

April 06, 2006

STUDY CONFIRMS WALT AND MEARSHEIMER: THE DANGEROUS JEWS ARE EVERYWHERE

        Another scholar Harvard might consider for its faculty has spoken out on his findings.

"Top Hamas man says he directed study proving 'Zionists' infiltrated churches"...

"...Even the churches where the Americans pray are led by Jews who were converted to Christianity, but they were converted to keep controlling the Americans," Mohammad Abu Tir, the number two Hamas terrorist in the newly formed Palestinian Authority government said during an exclusive interview from his home yesterday.."

See the rest of this scholar's thoughts here.

April 05, 2006

A FRENCH PHILOSOPHER WHO BELIEVES IN OBJECTIVE FACTS? MON DIEU!

THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY REVISITED.Separating Truth and Belief
by André Glucksmann

The anti-caricature campaign started by attacking a newspaper. It then focused on Denmark as a defender of the freedom of the press, and now it has all of Europe in its sights, which it accuses of having a double standard. The European Union allows the Prophet to be denigrated with impunity, but it forbids and condemns other "opinions" like Nazism and denial of the Holocaust. Why are jokes about Mohammed permitted, but not those about the genocide of the Jews? This was the rallying call of fundamentalists before they initiated a competition for Auschwitz cartoons. Fair's fair: Either everything should be allowed in the name of the freedom of expression, or we should censor that which shocks both parties. Many people who defend the right to caricature feel trapped. Will they publish drawings about the gas chambers in the name of freedom of expression?

Offence for offence? Infringement for infringement? Can the negation of Auschwitz be put on a par with the desecration of Mohammed? This is where two philosophies clash. The one says yes, these are equivalent "beliefs" which have been equally scorned. There is no difference between factual truth and professed faith; the conviction that the genocide took place and the certitude that Mohammed was illuminated by Archangel Gabriel are on a par. The others say no, the reality of the death camps is a matter of historical fact, whereas the sacredness of the prophets is a matter of personal belief.

This distinction between fact and belief is at the heart of Western thought. Aristotle distinguished between indicative discourse on the one hand, which could be used to reach an affirmation or a negation, and prayer on the other. Prayers are not a matter for discussion, because they do not state: They implore, promise, vow, and declare. They do not relate information, they perform an act. When the Islamist fanatic affirms that Europeans practice the "religion of the Shoah" while he practices that of Mohammed, he abolishes the distinction between fact and belief. For him there are only beliefs, and so it follows that Europe will favor its own.

Civilized discourse analyzes and defines scientific truths, historic truths, and matters of fact relating to knowledge, not to faith. And it does this irrespective of race or confession. We may believe these facts are profane or undignified, yet they remain distinct from religious truths. Our planet is not in the grips of a clash of civilizations or cultures. It is the battleground of a decisive struggle between two ways of thinking. There are those who declare that there are no facts, but only interpretations--so many acts of faith. These either tend toward fanaticism ("I am the truth") or they fall into nihilism ("nothing is true, nothing is false"). Opposing them are those who advocate free discussion with a view to distinguishing between true and false, those for whom political and scientific matters--or simple judgment--can be settled on the basis of worldly facts, independently of arbitrary pre-established opinions.

A totalitarian way of thinking loathes to be gainsaid. It affirms dogmatically, and waves the little red, or black, or green book. It is obscurantist, blending politics and religion. Anti-totalitarian thinking, by contrast, takes facts for what they are and acknowledges even the most hideous of them, those one would prefer to keep hidden out of fear or for the sake of utility. Bringing the gulag to light made it possible to criticize and ultimately reject "actually existing socialism." Confronting the Nazi abominations and opening the extermination camps converted Europe to democracy after 1945. Refusing to face the cruellest historical facts, on the other hand, heralds the return of cruelty. Whether the Islamists--who are far from representing all Muslims--like it or not, there is no common measure between negating known facts and criticizing any one of the beliefs which every European has the right to practice or poke fun at.

For centuries, Jupiter and Christ, Jehovah and Allah have had to put up with many a joke. The Jews are past masters at criticizing Yaweh--they've even made it a bit of a specialty. That does not prevent the true believers of any confession from believing, or from respecting those of a different faith. That is the price of religious peace. But joking about gas chambers, raped women and disemboweled babies, sanctifying televised beheadings and human bombs all point to an unbearable future.

It is high time that the democrats regained their spirit, and that the constitutional states remembered their principles. With solemnity and solidarity they must recall that one, two, or three religions, four or five ideologies may in no way decide what citizens can do or think. What is at stake here is not only the freedom of the press, but also the permission to call a spade a spade and a gas chamber an abomination, regardless of our beliefs. What is at stake is the basis of all morality: Here on earth the respect due to each individual starts with the recognition and rejection of the most flagrant examples of inhumanity.

This article originally appeared in French in Le Monde and in German in Perlentaucher.

André Glucksmann is a French philosopher and writer.

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