Studying habits in an age of ignorance

Mike of Then There was Light reports on Toronto's Israel Apartheid Week Event 1 - Preaching Hate to the Converted:

A complete irony that most people in the crowd are probably too thick to have realized is that the moderator of the event had no idea how to pronounce the word Apartheid - she kept pronouncing the th wrong. And this wasn’t an accent issue, she just genuinely had no idea how to pronounce it. It just goes to show you how much they really know about what Apartheid is. If you didn’t even take the time to learn how to pronounce the word, then isn’t it safe to assume that you never even took the time to learn what it is? Apartheid is completely misrepresented by these people, and it’s such a shame to the true victims of South African Apartheid.
[...]
And this brings me to the point I really want to make. The people involved in this movement are all on the fringe extreme left. This kind of talk is, I am sorry to say it, completely out of touch with reality. Who still refers to themselves in Marxian terms?

And I’m not just talking about the organizers and the speakers being on the fringe extreme left. That’s expected. The good news is that a quick analysis of the demographics of the entire crowd really speaks volumes for the so-called success and growth of this movement. The crowd was almost completely made up of two groups: muslim/arabs, and middle aged Caucasian ex-hippies.

As I commented at Mike's, however, we should not assume that the many who would not waste their time at such an event are immune to all the crazy talk about Israel as some kind of "apartheid" state. The scapegoating of Israel has clearly gone mainstream and is the agenda of many states, the media, academy, and NGOs, among others.

However, because the powerful are often backing the "apartheid" theme in today's representations of Israel, they leave themselves open to revelations that they are not in touch with reality. And that is an opportunity for those of us who want to renew our culture's commitment to a shared reality. Two recent blogs touch on this question of how we can now hope to do some creative work by reaching out to those who are starting already to see the failures of the Obama-led world view. See 1) Wretchard's latest at the Belmont Club:

The time for recriminations comes later. Kimball knows this and warns against the Tertullian heresy, which holds that one of the delights in heaven is watching the damned burn in hell. That’s wrong; even professional soldiers know better. They let defeated generals keep their swords. Right now the important thing is to realize we’re in a hole and to stop digging. Paradoxically, the apparent vindication of those who called for a closer look at the Lightworker will make it harder for those who voted for him to get up on national TV and eat crow. It’s just too humiliating. Although Cramer and even Matthews may get to the point where they substantively criticize Obama’s policies, they’ll dance around BHO for a while, because I don’t see them coming on the air in sackcloth and ashes. Nobody wants to say he was wrong in general, but they don’t mind admitting they were mistaken in particulars. For example, Martin Peretz has been on a campaign to attack Obama’s choice for chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Chas Freeman, as a Saudi stooge. There should be no need to go further. That should be enough of a plank on which to build bridges.

If conservatives are astute they should be building mini-coalitions with Obama supporters who have seen the penny — the two million ton penny — drop. On them.

And for those willing to grapple with the discipline of Generative Anthropology, see Adam's latest at the GABlog:

the Democrats had a near-death experience between 2000-2006, when they were shut out of power at all levels of the federal government for what I assume was the first time since the founding of the party, they have never seen the Republican revolt against the New Deal State as legitimate, and they are determined not to go through all that again. The Global Intifada is in the ascendancy and normalcy is on the defensive–who knows, maybe on its last legs. Of course, it will all crash, but when and how can’t be predicted, nor can the precise shape and size of the pieces that will need to be picked up–much less who will be around with the capacity to start putting them back together. So why talk about it?

And so Adam turns instead to a discussion of habits, since we can discuss our habits in a much less contentious way than we can discuss more formal intellectual or political positions. And yet what are these positions but the distillation of our habits, which are in turn our inheritance from past models of human creativity, and which, in their interactions with other peoples' habits, will somehow lead us to create new models and norms in future when the failure of today's reigning ideologies becomes clear.

Discussing our habits in terms of those who accept risk, who are willing to go "first" in attempts to model some new reality, in contrast to those who go last in affirming a new communal norm and who then hold on most incessantly to this favored model of reality, Adam argues:

The first takes risks, but never everything he has except in an emergency, and certainly never what others have–the first needs his credibility so as to see the circulation of the sign through to the end. The last eschews risks, but this might take various forms: the discipline imposed by the poor parent–the unwavering insistence upon the exact imitation of the best models–upon the children who might, in a reasonably open environment, do better, initiate something of their own; or it might be a parasitic set of demands upon “society,” which, after all, is rich enough to support anyone. The most productive errors in an open society where rituals have been mostly replaced by habits (that’s another story, isn’t it?) are precisely those where the lasts make their bid for firstness, and get the model all wrong–thereby transforming it into new models. Meanwhile, the terror of error is reinforced by the alliance between those legatees of firstness who blame firstness for lastness and the worst habits of the last–both participants in this alliance collude in confirming for each other that their errors are nothing of the sort, but an arbitrary exclusion mechanism deployed by the firsts.

So, extricating ourselves from the conjoined and mutually reinforcing crises of the Global Intifada and the financial meltdown, and getting the process started without any expectation of help or good models from our mainstream institutions, involves creating sites of generative interaction between the habits of those who are first on the current scene and those who are last but would be first on some future one. The way to set these (or any) divergent sets of habit in productive interaction is to create assignments–minimal tasks and rules in following which the limits of each set of habits opens it to the other set. A good assignment generates productive errors around which we then gather so as to turn them into a sign. The best way to approach it is to establish a model, transcending both the first and the last, as absolute–our common starting point is then delineating its distinctiveness and establishing a “perimeter” distancing the model from criticism (resentment). We all–first and last alike–then commence to iterate that model, knowing we shall all err, and committing ourselves to the creation of new models out of that array of errors. The beauty of this approach is that we can all follow our own habits slavishly (a key ingredient of happiness) in perfectly good conscience because doing the same thing over and over again (iterating my own eccentric appopriation of the model) keeps making everything different–that is, generating new signs. Together we gather maxims–which I am coming to see as the highest form of thinking–from the process: maxims are translations of the interference of one set of habits with another into rules (both in the sense of discerning regularities and in the sense of obeying a series of imperatives) and are generative of new habits in turn–ultimately, what Charles Sanders Peirce called the “deliberately formed, self-analyzing habit.”

Cultural crisis: What is to be done?

A "Roamin' Catholic" and the Cultural Crisis | Interview with Gil Bailie, Cornerstone Forum | Ignatius Insight | February 25, 2009

Ignatius Insight: Who is René Girard and how has he influenced your thinking and work?(I changed the sentence from past to present tense, for Girard is still alive.)

Gil Bailie: The best short answer—and it's not that short—is to tell you a story, which I recently recounted in a soon to be published tribute to Girard.

I first encountered Girard's thought in his seminal book Violence and the Sacred. I bought the book without knowing what to expect, but in the first few pages I was convinced that I was in the presence of one of the world's most penetrating minds. (I have now known Girard for 25 years and I have had the privilege to take part in hundreds of seminars with him, and that first assessment has only been confirmed over the years.)

At the time of my first encounter with his thought, however, I knew nothing about him. My days of theological and exegetical dalliance were winding down, but during them I had attended a few of the conferences of the Westar Institute, out of which eventually evolved the infamous Jesus Seminar. The institute was having a conference in Sonoma, California, where I lived for many years. The founder of Westar, Robert Funk, knew of my interest in Girard, so he called me one day to say that a dozen or so of the biblical scholars who were coming to the conference had persuaded René Girard come up from Stanford University (where he held the Chair of French Culture and Civilization) to join them for a day to discuss the implications of his work for biblical studies. Bob said that he did not have a place to hold this meeting and asked if my office might be available. I was flabbergasted. To this day, I marvel at how providential that phone call was. At the time, I was completely out of the loop. I was not an academic. I did not move in such circles. I don't think I knew whether Girard lived in this country or in France, or even whether he was dead or alive. All I knew was that if someone had asked me for the name of the individual I would most like to meet and from whom I would like to learn, I would have instantly said René Girard. Literally out of the blue, he was coming to my office to spend the day in conversation with biblical scholars about his work.

There were two moments during the day of our meeting that I have often shared in order to give those who are new to Girard's work some sense of René Girard himself. The first incident came early in the day of the meeting with the biblical scholars. René began the day with an informal presentation that lasted, as I recall, about an hour. Though most of those in the room had some familiarity with his work, most were hearing René himself for the first time. His presentation was a typically marvelous combination of personal humility, intellectual audacity, and a healthy disregard for the ideological pieties afflicting the academy. After his remarks, the dialogue began, and the first question—as accurately as I can recall it—went something like the following: "Professor Girard, what you've been saying is quite extraordinary. It almost appears, however, that you are suggesting that the revelatory power of biblical literature is categorically superior to that of all other literature. You are, after all, a Stanford professor; you're not saying that are you?" René's one-word response was all the more striking for the momentary pause that preceded it: "Categorically," he replied. The impression one had was that Girard was the only person in this room full of biblical scholars willing to say such a thing.

I learned two things at that moment which I was to learn again and again over the years in personal conversations with René. First, there is a huge difference between attention to nuance and equivocation, and the explication of nuances begins in earnest only when the principle to be nuanced has been unequivocally affirmed. Second, truth is transmitted through personal witness rather than rational discourse. There was never any doubt that Girard's "categorically" was intellectually well founded and that he was perfectly capable, if challenged, to give a rational account of it. But it was not the implicit presence of a rational defense that made his statement both startling and convincing. It was his personal conviction, made all the more impressive because of his indifference to how his expression of it might be construed by others.

The dialogue that followed gave Girard an opportunity to show the interpretive power of his anthropological theory. And then at the end of the day, another memorable moment came, when someone asked a practical question. Clearly, the panorama Girard had spread out before those assembled was astonishing, and against this backdrop, René's sobering assessment of the contemporary historical and cultural predicament stood out in bold relief. "Given all that you have said," someone asked Girard, "what is to be done?"

In response, René was gracious and patient and humble. His answer, as I recall, was something like this: "Well, it is of course an enormous problem, and it does not lend itself to being easily 'fixed.' We are each called to different tasks, so perhaps we should begin by striving for personal sanctity." I could hardly believe my ears. Biblical scholars, whose discipline had been for decades currying favor with the secular academy by renouncing a priori any distinctively religious preconceptions, were being advised on the practical value of personal sanctity.

There are a lot of things that can and should be said of Girard and his work, but this little anecdote tells the real reason for my attraction to René Girard and his extraordinary work.

I might add that if personal sanctity and acting as a personal witness to the truth is a challenge you can't tackle in a day, if you don't see how to make yourself into a figure of personal or historical importance to others, then you can always put your energies into promoting those who have experiences that can reveal truth to others.

Sandwell Council's dragon-slayers defeat racist windmill!

"The Enlightenment conception of the intellectual as social activist."

I laugh when I read lines like that, being a big fan of the "comedy of recognition." You take something ordinary and show it for what it is in a different light, and voila, it's funny after all. What's so funny about the Left dhimmi fascist movement swamping the West? About Geert Wilders facing criminal charges in the Netherlands for demanding an end to immigration of unassimilable Muslims; asking for a ban on the hate-filled, violence-inciting Qur'an? What is there to laugh about when the world gives us such gems of un-think as the British government taking a child from his grandparents and placing him in the foster care of a homosexual couple-- to make a political point that "all parents are equal?" When we read the entirely humourless work of Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals, there is nothing funny about it at all. To read of pre-Enlightenment intellectuals busying themselves with high-flown speculations about the nature of angels and pin-heads, and to see them now turning their lofty minds to running the daily lives of ordinary people is to find oneself also not in a humourous frame of mind. No, not funny. Government by philosophers is a sick joke at best. To read of government by social activist post-Enlightenment philosophers, it's a bit of a stretch to find it funny. No, it's not funny. It's maddening. Worse is that the people who govern, as it were, are not even philosophers, just party hacks and half-wits who take ideas from their fellows and adopt them as their own, out-doing each other in the pursuit of purity, the sense of which they obviously have no beginning clue. We do not face the treason of the intellectuals but the triumph of the pseudo-intellectuals and the "clerks," as Benda writes in French, "clerks" a better term in all. The treason of the intellectuals is their promotion of the bureaucratic idiots. The clerks. They don't know why, they know not what it means, but they are determined to make sure everyone follows The Programme. Not moral, but moralistic. Not official, but officious. Not intelligent, but moronic. Government by clerks. Treason of the clerks.

Government by uneducated and pretentious fools with a pseudo-religious mission; old women and pompous party hacks given a bit of power and a title, it leads to the mess one sees in Europe and in much of America today. We witness our lives as infantalised, our selves governed by the nanny state, our affairs conducted by attitudinizing Sunday school teachers with a bad agenda. Old lady minders who bully from boredom and lack of thought and character. Old fat duffers who like the sense of power, like to bully and smile and paternalise in public. Eric Hoffer puts it so well: "Those with no business of their own will soon turn to minding yours." Pay one of these fools and give him a big title and a little bit of power, and you get government agents committed to doing, to acting, to creating, to actually believing any damned fool thing they're told. They even take it seriously. Take a fat man, take an old lady, and give them titles and power and they will sweep the world of all opposition to anything you might propose. What do they know? Well, they know they must be right because they're important. If it weren't so dangerous to life and limb it might almost be almost humourous. But not really.

Below and in the following couple of posts, we'll look at a couple of small town English half-wits in power, a should-have-been publican and a jumped-up char woman, both with the need to prove their self-importance. What have they done? What will they do next?

"St George's parade racism fears."

A council in the West Midlands has withdrawn its funding for a St George's Day parade after claims it had attracted some "racist elements".

Dear reader, please excuse my interruption. Do you too recall the Soviet euphemism, "anti-social elements"? That referred to people, as I recall. It referred to people the minders the Soviet government didn't like for some reason -- or none at all. Just as intriguing here is the term "racist." If you're like me, you'll wonder just what it means. Yes, I know, it doesn't really mean anything in the world most of us inhabit; but what is it supposed to mean to those who use it as if it were meaningful? It might be nice to think all these hep-cats in government are transplanted from Cheshire, and that they will disappear before our very eyes after mouthing such profundities as "Words mean what I want them to mean." Good luck with that. "Racism." Silly me, I actually got curious and read Arthur de Gobineau, Inequality of the Human Races. I can give a fair account of what "racism" means in the sense the English West Midlands councillors wish it to mean. I don't think they can do the same, judging by the comments below. However, none of this "racism" is about reality or ideas or truth or racism: it's about petty power and the self-identity of little minds. Now, back to the story in progress:

Sandwell Council said it would not fund a parade through West Bromwich on 23 April but it would hold other events.

It said footage of last year's parade organised by the Stone Cross St George's Day Association showed it had been "infiltrated" by the far right.

The organisers have said the parade was "not political" and "not racial".

It turns out, dear reader, that the Left city council in a small town in middle England have decided to cancel the English version of the Fourth of July parade in their little town because it could be, might be, is maybe-- racist, at least in small part by some people, it is reported.

'Absolutely disgusting'

The association has received council funding for the past five years but organisers said they would have to cancel this year unless they could raise about £10,000.

Trevor Collins, a spokesman for the Stone Cross St George's Day Association, said organisers had intended to invite Gurkha soldiers to the event.

He said: "I think it's absolutely disgusting - it's not political and it's not racial. We are just proud to fly the flag."

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council said it made the decision based on advice from a watchdog.

Hey, wait a minute. Dogs might be watchdogs but no person is a dog, watchdog or not. Our look at the Soviet experiment in destroying Humanity shows clearly that "watchdogs" are: spies working for the police-state. But this is small town England!

'Democratic process'

The scrutiny management board [?] was asked to assess last year's parade footage and interview witnesses.

"The scrutiny management board?" "Was asked [by someone?]"

We are looking at small town England here. What "scrutiny management board?" Any of those three words and all of them together make me wonder just what happened to this green and pleasant land?

Council leader Bill Thomas [more later] said: "[Their] evidence showed categorically that extremists infiltrated the parade.

"A report by our watchdog committee has to be taken seriously, in the same manner as a report from a parliamentary select committee, and is very much part of the democratic process."

This Owellian double speak, "has to be taken seriously!" "Infiltrated by extremists!" The evidence provided by the board, we know not who they might be, showed it categorically! Watchdogs! Watch, dogs: "It's very much part of the democratic process." This pompous fool is a terrible bad joke. It gets worse.

The council said it would spend £38,000 on St George's Day celebrations and had a proud tradition of celebrating the English patron saint.

It said it would provide a family fun-day on 18 April and a St George's Day concert at West Bromwich Town Hall on 23 April.

It said it would also raise the flag of St George on all its buildings on St George's Day.

The council confirmed the decision to withdraw the funding on Thursday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7887063.stm

There's more to this story, as you might guess. I'll follow up as time permits. Or, as the Sandwell Council would have it, "Follow-up will be provided by the committee of the board. The Council of Dags, having scrutinized the video surveillance tapes and having interviewed past participants, allow for such, and has confirmed the decision to return to this. Meanwhile, dream lucidly of a family fun-day.

We'll return to the staggeringly stupid Sandbar Council and Council leader Bill Thomas next. Wait till you meet his female counter-part. You'll be not laughing in the aisles.

Compare and Contrast: the trade in false Messiahs

The Obama Administration Double-Deals On Israel - Forbes.com

Barack Obama just added double-dealing to his foreign policy repertoire. On Friday, administration officials led many Jewish leaders to believe that the president had decided to boycott the United Nation's "anti-racism" conference known as Durban II. At the same time, however, human rights organizations were being led to believe that the administration was not pulling out and was looking for a way to "re-engage."

Durban II, scheduled for Geneva in April, is the U.N.'s attempt at a rerun of the 2001 global anti-Semitic hate fest held in Durban, South Africa.

After sowing confusion over the phone lines, the State Department chose late Friday night to put the real deal in print. Their release reads: "the current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable," and "the United States will not ... participate in a conference based on this text," but we will "re-engage if a document that meets [our] criteria becomes the basis for deliberations." A new version must be: "shorter," "not reaffirm in toto the flawed 2001 Durban Declaration," "not single out any one country or conflict," and "not embrace the troubling concept of "defamation of religion."

And by the way, it continued, the U.S. will "participate" for the first time in the U.N. Human Rights Council.

All of this leaves the American people not knowing whether they're coming or going.
[...]
In fact, Obama's four deal-breakers do not include many other troubling provisions still on Durban II's negotiating table. These include: questioning the veracity of the Holocaust, a variety of attacks on freedom of expression in addition to "defamation of religion," and incendiary claims of "Islamophobia"--the general allegation of a racist Western plot to discriminate against all Muslims.

The administration's decision to slip in the Human Rights Council as a consolation prize for Durban enthusiasts is an attempt to downplay a major move. State Department officials intimated that they intend not only to observe but to run for a seat--subject to the "likelihood of successful elections." Council members and human rights gurus, like China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are sure to welcome the instant legitimacy provided by U.S. participation. The Council--controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference--has adopted more condemnations of Israel than all other 191 U.N. states combined, while terminating human rights investigations on the likes of Iran, Cuba and Belarus. Obama's move denies the opportunity to leverage the prospect of American membership to insist on reform.

Whether Obama actually stays away from Durban II is most likely to depend on his cost-benefit analysis of sacrificing Israel vs. heeding the siren's call to engage. My guess is he'll take the loss in the engagement column on Durban and the Israel column on the Council. Who said the human rights business had anything to do with human rights?

TheStar.com | Canada | Iran's ideology 'evil,' Harper tells U.S. paper

The ideology of the Iranian government is "evil," Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, Harper criticized Iran, which the West accuses of covertly seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.

"It concerns me that we have a regime with both an ideology that is obviously evil, combined with a desire to procure technology to act on that ideology," Harper said, as reported in the newspaper's online edition late Friday.

"My government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel and considers the Iranian threats to be absolutely unacceptable and beyond the pale."

Many a liberal will see Harper's use of a word like "evil" to mark him as some kind of unsophisticate without the nuance of an Obama. I think however that Wretchard at Belmont Club has the latter closely pegged:

I am not so sure that Barack Obama is going to lose support among his followers any time soon. If deception has worked to his advantage so far it was largely the self-deception among those who felt compelled to believe in him. BHO’s great talent was knowing how to tap into this need and package himself so that he passed, like a shiny silk cloth which changes color depending on the angle of the light, as anything you wanted him to be at all.

The real political task isn’t to defeat BHO in the next election but revive among his cadre of supporters the ability to see things as they are. Otherwise they’ll simply elect someone else like him. I think the biggest challenge among conservatives is how to radicalize the liberals: radicalize as in getting them to see the root. There is no way things will change unless at least 20% of the voters who elected Obama find a way to see things differently. It won’t happen automatically. Peretz of the New Republic is apoplectic at the appointment of Chas Freeman yet still can’t bring himself to accept that Freeman is Obama’s creature: his appointee. Over the past month one nominee after the other has been found to have tax problems, legal problems or ethical problems and they’ve all been put down to “blunders” or “mistakes” — as if the President was somehow misled, or naive or didn’t know these people when he chose them despite having all the resources of a great state at his disposal. But how many have drawn the obvious conclusion. His appointments are consistently shady because the core of the administration itself is shady. They flow from the source and are not incidental to it. But no one will believe this, because there is a need to cling to a light-worker, a transcendent figure or at least a Cool Cat.

Now here's an example of the kind of thing Wretchard is talking about: My Muslim President Obama - Forbes.com

I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.

I know it's odd to say this. At first, I thought I was the only Muslim engaging in this folly, and I am reluctant to express it lest right-wing zealots try to use "Muslim" as a smear and cite my theory as proof of an Islamic traitor in the White House or some such nonsense. But, since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice.

"Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is." They would cite his open nature and habit of reaching out to critics, reminiscent of the Prophet Muhammad's own approach, and also Obama's middle name, Hussein. Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim.

Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam. These realists said that, although not an avowed and practicing Muslim, Obama's exposure to Islam at a young age (both through his father and his stint in Indonesia) has given him a Muslim sensibility. In my book, that makes you a Muslim--maybe not a card-carrying one, but part of the flock for sure. One realist Muslim ventured that Obama worships at a Unitarian Church because it represents the middle ground between Christianity and Islam, incorporating the religious beliefs of the two faiths Obama feels connected to. Unitarianism could be Obama's way of still being a Muslim. (And let's not forget that the church Obama worshiped at for so many years had a minister who reminds most Muslims of their own raving, excitable ministers. Even if Obama really is Christian, he picked the most Muslim-esque minister out of the bunch to guide him.)

The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn't attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, "my father's not a strict Muslim either, and I haven't been to a mosque in years." Obama even told The New York Times he could recite the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, which the vast majority of Muslims, I would guess, do not know well enough to recite.

I think many of us Muslims see Obama as Muslim, or at least of Muslim heritage, because his background epitomizes one of the major Muslim experiences--a diverse upbringing that eludes any easy classification as specifically one religion or one culture. So many of us Muslims around the world have Islam in common, but an altogether different culture from one another. Many Muslims share a culture with a Christian, Hindu or Buddhist community but not the same religion. When faced with such diversity, there are no hard and fast rules for Muslim identity.

The Qur'an speaks often of the umma, or the worldwide community of Muslims. In the early days of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad led the small umma. Every decision, every effort, everything was for the umma--people who were often unrelated by blood but had become related by choice as Muslims. In those early days, many Muslims had gone against the wishes of their own families in converting to Islam, pitting brother against sister, father against child. Perhaps that's why the concept of umma became so dear and is still echoed today--in my opinion, echoed more than that Western favorite jihad--in Muslim homes, whether those homes are in the United States or in Palestine.

Gratitude Builds A Home For A Hero

I was reflecting earlier today on how powerful a force gratitude can be; spending a moment to sincerely show how thankful you are is a double blessing, elevating the spirit of both the "giver" and the "getter". A simple "Thank You" goes such a long way towards making the pain of a sore back seem to disappear, when the recipient of your back-breaking labor humbles themselves to show their appreciation for your efforts.

Here's an inspiring example of the renewing power of gratitude, courtesy of New Jersey's Courier Post. It follows the story of U.S. Marine staff sergeant Andrew Robinson, who was paralyzed from the chest down by an IED in Iraq in 2006, and the wonder to behold when someone says, "Thank You":

In his new, specially adapted home courtesy of Homes for Our Troops, Robinson can maneuver his wheelchair through wide hallways, travel up and down from the basement via an elevator, wash dishes and more. An automated hydraulic system allows him to press one button to open the door.
...
It was during a series of hot days last July that volunteers pitched in for a "build brigade" to bring up the frame of the house. Robinson and his wife, Sara, were handed the keys to their new home on Veterans Day.

"I was just crying," she said. "The builder gave us everything we wanted."

The couple, married for four years, previously resided in California, where they rented a regular four-bedroom home, but it was difficult for Robinson to move his wheelchair through narrow hallways or over the thick carpet. The new 2,200-square-foot home has wood flooring, wide doorways and a lift to assist Robinson in getting out of bed and going to the bathroom.
...
Since moving into the home, Robinson has been learning to do various tasks, but he still is limited by a lack of finger dexterity.

"I used to clean a lot, do laundry, iron and clean the kitchen," he said. "I just learned how to make a sandwich. Next, I want to cook an egg."
...
Robinson hopes to go to college in the fall and volunteer with organizations that help other veterans.

Happy Days are Here Again

I hate being a grump all the time, so today I bring you some good news.

Dat blijkt uit de nieuwste opiniepleiling van Maurice de Hond, die vandaag verschijnt.

De PVV haalt maar liefst 27 zetels, een meer dan het CDA.

Wilders reageert euforisch en ziet zichzelf al als nieuwe minister-president.

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/3362789/__PVV_nu_grootste__.html

And if you think that's good news, let me also say that the P.V.V. is the most popular party and Geert Wilders is the most popular politician in the Netherlands today, Wilders on the verge of becoming the prime minister!

We're on the road again!

Happy Birthday, Robert Mugabe.

I hate being a grump all the time, so today I wish Robert Mugabe a happy birthday.

I can hear you saying: "Dag, are you serious?" Let me put it this way: "Did he invite me?"

Or, I could put it this way: "Would any of us gone if we had been invited?"

Mugabe's birthday event, which is reported to have cost $250,000, comes as a new unity government aims to tackle an economic crisis that has rendered the Zimbabwean dollar useless.

Mugabe, who has been president of Zimbabwe since 1980, admitted that his Zanu-PF party had lost last March's legislative elections.

The MDC leader has in recent weeks appealed to international donors for $5bn in aid and investment.

About three million Zimbabweans - a fifth of the population - have left the country to escape economic hardship or send remittances to relatives back home.

More than 83,000 people have also been affected by a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 3,800, according to the UN.

Zimbabwe's schools, hospital and sewerage have fallen into disrepair as a result of hyperinflation.

Agricultural output in Zimbabwe has fallen dramatically since 2000, when Mugabe launched his policy of seizing white-owned commercial farms and turning them over to native Africans.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, has urged the country’s last remaining white farmers to leave the country....

A decade ago, Zimbabwe produced enough maize to export the surplus. Now more than half the population is estimated to need food aid.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/02/20092281921141234.html

Happy Birthday, Bobbie!

R.I.P. Paul Harvey

A remarkable storyteller has passed away at the age of 90. Rest in Peace, Paul Harvey:

Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history. As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households. His career in radio spanned more than seven decades, during which time countless millions of listeners were both informed and entertained by his "News & Comment" and "Rest of the Story" features. Even after the passing of his loving wife Angel in May 2008, Paul would not slip quietly into retirement as he continued to take the microphone and reach out to his audience. We will miss our dear friend tremendously and are grateful for the many years we were so fortunate to have known him. Our thoughts and prayers are now with his son Paul Jr. and the rest of the Harvey family.
Jim Robinson
President, ABC Radio Networks

Clues to the nature of transcendence?

[My comments in post REVISED}

Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist

DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres.

For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century.

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.
[...]

Now I never thought I'd link to a psychic's website, but this is the number one link you get when you Google the title of "science" writer Michael Talbot's popular 1991 book, The Holographic Universe, which begins with a useful synopsis of the work of David Bohm and Karl Pribram and then flows into a lot of fanciful speculation about paranormal psychological phenomena in an attempt to explain all according to the holographic theory of the universe. I think the psychic here has collected a number of commentaries that fairly represent the claims of scientists, but also those who would take them into new age speculations. I'll stick to the former but readers may be interested further in the kinds of things people want to believe about the "holographic" universe:

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose.

Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.
[...]
Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through ome gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.

Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross-correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
[...]
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.

Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through he senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.

Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.

Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.

It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.

Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the Holographic Paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far.

More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature. Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.

Obama pulls out of hate fest after dipping toes in the water

U.S. pulls out of Durban II (UPDATED WITH REACTION) | Capital J | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

What is postmodern man?

In the previous post, I offered a rough explanation:

The central facet of postmodern man is her recognition that every action and every thought entails a process of figuring a centre of sacred attention and hence a marginalized or alienated periphery of the sacred. Since every thought and statement creates a margin, only actions and thoughts that are "correct" can be contemplated by people obsessed with redeeming alleged victimhood. The centre is always under suspicion and one is not focussed on upholding the norms of those centres that, notwithstanding their limits in building Utopia, nevertheless allow for a maximum freedom of exchange on the periphery.

Here's another illustration of what I'm talking about, from Bill Clinton pollster and consultant Dick Morris:

In addressing this panic, the president of the United States must truly be the leader of the world — showing the way back to confidence.

Instead, Obama has been instrumental in purveying fear and spreading doubt. It is his pronouncements, reinforced by the developments they kindle and catalyze, that are destroying good businesses, bankrupting responsible people and wiping out even conservative financial institutions. Every time he speaks, he sends the markets down and stocks crashing. He doesn’t seem to realize that the rest of the world takes its cue from him. He forgets that he stands at the epicenter of power, not on the fringes campaigning for office. This ain’t Iowa.

Why does Obama preach gloom and doom? Because he is so anxious to cram through every last spending bill, tax increase on the so-called rich, new government regulation, and expansion of healthcare entitlement that he must preserve the atmosphere of crisis as a political necessity. Only by keeping us in a state of panic can he induce us to vote for trillion-dollar deficits and spending packages that send our national debt soaring.

And then there is the matter of blame. The deeper the mess goes — and the further down his rhetoric drives it — the more imperative it becomes to lay off the blame on Bush. He must perpetually “discover” — to his shock — how deep the crisis that he inherited runs, stoking global fears in the process.

So, having inherited a recession, his words are creating a depression. He entered office amid a disaster and he is transforming it into a catastrophe, all to pass every last bit of government spending and move us a bit further to the left before his political capital dwindles.

But the jig will be up soon. The crash of the stock market in the days since he took power (indeed, from the moment he won the election) can increasingly be attributed to his own failure to lead us in the right direction, his failed policies in addressing the recession and his own spreading of panic and fear. The market collapse makes it evident that it is Obama who is the problem, where he should, instead, be the solution.

IT’S OBAMA SPREADING PANIC at DickMorris.com

Bazaar man trades in politically-correct apartheid

Update to our last post. Mike reports that York [University] President Shoukri releases a long overdue public statement.

As Mike notes, there is a lot wrong with this statement. For starters, it is not enough to make statements decrying your school's antisemitic riot without making clear indications of how you will take actions to protect Jewish students and insure all students can freely express their support for unfashionable but nonetheless intelligent and ethical causes like that which holds Israel as a model nation for the economic and social development of the Middle East.

Shoukri writes, in between comments on the woeful economic news:

We have just endured the longest university strike in the history of English-speaking Canada. Our students have returned to class and to examinations, only to be faced with a barrage of disruption, hostility and even intimidation from their fellow students. This state of affairs is unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to you. Intimidation, bullying, and discrimination will not be tolerated here, and we are taking action to protect the rights and the safety of all students and staff.
[...]
at a time when our community should be pulling together, we turn on each other instead — academic disruption, intimidation, sit-ins, name-calling, shouting people down, banging on the doors and windows of Senate or the Board of Governors or student clubs. Then we run to the media and tell anyone who will listen how bad York is.

Is it any wonder our own students are disconnected? Or that turnout at our student elections is so low? Or that our students and their families are voting with their feet? Our public face is not demonstrating the core values a university should stand for:

* Freedom of speech – especially for those with whom we disagree
* Mutual Respect
* Reason
* Discourse
* Objectivity
* Being able to teach — and learn — without disruption
* Being open to other ideas and other people.
* And yes, social justice.

But we cannot demand social justice only for ourselves and for those who think like us. Social justice is for everyone, or it is for no one. York has a history of social activism, but the events of the past weeks — intimidation and shouting each other down — have nothing to do with social activism.

That is why I am asking you today, as Senators and key representatives of the academy, to make your voices heard and say, “enough is enough.”

I want to give a couple of examples of how the academy can contribute to open dialogue on tough issues. At other universities in this province, faculty members participate as guest speakers at lecture series organized by student clubs. These events tackle the very same issues we are struggling with:

* Islamophobia
* Anti-Semitism
* Racial profiling
* Overcoming stereotypes

The goal is not agreement or endorsement of each others’ ideas, it is to create safe spaces where people can come together to articulate their views — without fear and without being shouted down.

I’ll give you another example happening right here at York. Next week, the York Centre for International and Security Studies is hosting an event that will examine the idea of academic boycotts. Speakers will explore the topic in a reasoned way in an academic forum. These two examples share one common element: faculty involvement.

Our faculty needs to become more involved in leading these conversations. Students look up to their professors. They look to you for direction. You are in a position to mentor and guide them and to teach them how to talk with passion about things that anger us, but without anger, without hate, without fear. I am asking you to help us fix our community, because this truly is our problem.

We talk a lot about diversity here at York, but somehow we have allowed that diversity to divide us. We need to focus now on unity, on our common values and on what makes us a community. We must identify the challenges and work as a community to address them.

"But somehow we have allowed that diversity to divide us"? Of course it is a bit jarring to see academics invest in the Utopian lie that humanity can ever exist without conflicts and divisions that need to be mediated intelligently, but not denied. Does he mean to suggest that his idea of "diversity" is one where everyone signs off on some code of politically-correct thought where nothing can really be advanced that is not in the name of some already-sanctioned terms of peace, with due recognition of the officially-sanctioned victim groups? He probably does. The central facet of postmodern man is her recognition that every action and every thought entails a process of figuring a centre of sacred attention and hence a marginalized or alienated periphery of the sacred. Since every thought and statement creates a margin, only actions and thoughts that are "correct" can be contemplated by people obsessed with redeeming alleged victimhood. The centre is always under suspicion and one is not focussed on upholding the norms of those centres that, notwithstanding their limits in building Utopia, nevertheless allow for a maximum freedom of exchange on the periphery.

So, in practise what does this mean? It means, for example, that postmodern ideologues pay respect to the idea of "Islamophobia" without allowing serious discussion (maximum exchange) on the reasons "the kafir" might fear Islam. It means a university president who thinks he can calm tensions on campus by pointing to some professorial pretension to be having a serious academic discussion on the "Boycott Divest Sanctions" movement vis a vis Israel. Mike points us to this little write up of the coming event, whose only listed speaker is the Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti. This does not look like it's going to be a balanced or sober discussion. The write up makes the ridiculous comparison of Israel to South African apartheid and ends:

Is this a sustainable movement that can build on the successes of the similarly inspired movement against South African apartheid or is it engaging in counter-productive actions that threaten to undermine delicate peace efforts in the region as its critics claim? Furthermore, how are those who reside in Canada, seemingly removed from this conflict, most constructively able contribute to the establishment of a lasting peace in the region?

So, for example, anyone with the idea that it is the entire value system that is behind the BDS movement that is the greatest source of violence in the Middle East cannot, one imagines, seriously engage in the "reciprocity" this event pretends to advance. In other words, because the "Palestinians" are the duly sanctioned, unquestionable, victim group, the most realistic ideas about how to maximize reciprocity in the Middle East cannot be mentioned. There can be no mention of the real Apartheid states: the Islamic ones that have effectively cleansed themselves of all non-Muslims; the Arab states that want nothing to do with adopting the Arab "Palestinian" refugees other than to leave them as a festering wound and to point the finger at an American-Jew scapegoat, so as to re-focus their own oppressive societies' many internal resentments; the Muslim countries in which a class of dhimmis still exist as a lower caste relegated to jobs like garbage collecting and recycling. There can be no mention of Jordanian or Syrian or Lebanese massacres of Palestinians, a death toll far greater than that suffered in the Israel-Palestine conflict. There can be no mention of the fact that it is only in Israel that Jews and Arabs may or may not choose to live side by side in the same neighborhoods, as they variously do. There can be no discussion of the fact that only in Israel do Arabs freely make their own politics and elect their own representatives, even including parties that call for an end to the Israeli state. There can be no discussion of why Islam cannot recognize the existence of any kind of Jewish politics in lands it claims for Islam. There can be no discussion that maybe it is the failure of Palestinian politics that threatens to "undermine delicate peace efforts". There can be no discussion of what to do with the Hamas cult of martyrdom that actively promotes the deaths of Palestinians that they may be used as victims to throw before the antisemitic world's attention to fuel more insane hatred of Israel, a state that has been under attack and defending itself from Arabs since before it even came into existence. There can be no discussion of the Hamas butchery of Fatah opponents. There can be no discussion of the international left's role in fostering and encouraging the unproductive Palestinian cult of victimhood. There can be no discussion of those who would protect an unfree society because it is romantically traditional, and hence bound in by all kinds of socioreligious limits, rather than call for a universal modernity bound by constitutional democracies interacting a global free market. In short, the idea that "social justice" is not at all what is on offer in the diatribes privileged by the politically-correct at York cannot be seriously questioned. Nope, instead "Israeli Apartheid" Week will go on as planned, antisemitic riots be ignored.

Respect for reality at York University is at best optional. In President Shoukri's bazaar you can hope to trade peacefully only in that which the cult of "diversity" recognizes as legitimate goods. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Teaching Assistant who unilaterally declared to a student that he is banned from wearing his IDF t-shirt.

York University's moral and intellectual death spiral continues...

UPDATE: Mike has the text of the letter sent out to the York Jewish students mentioned below. The university administration is apparently trying to look balanced by also disciplining the "anti-Israel-apartheid" students, but as Mike points out it was they who started the disturbance the university wishes to sanction.
-------------------

We previously reported on the antisemitic riot at Toronto's York University, an event which has grabbed national attention.

Blazing Cat Fur now reports Jewish Students Attacked at York University now face Charges!

For demonstrating without a permit!

From a source: Prof. Ed Morgan is filing a defence motion for the Hasbarah fellows at York University. You are not going to believe this. The Hasbarah fellows are being charged with demonstrating without a permit, and three Jewish students fined $500 each. The Muslim mob did not have a permit either. The thing is, this is the most critical week because if the Hasbara fellows get banned (even temporarily as is being suggested) then they can't be present on campus to do their planned counter-activism against Israel Apartheid Week.

If this report is accurate, any and every Canadian who values a free society must send York University messages like this one (also via Cat Fur)

Dear Dr. Shoukri,
(President and Vice Chancellor, York University)

I am Shalom Lappin Professor of Computational Linguistics at King's College, London, and I am currently a visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, where I am on sabbatical for the semester.

I was recently invited to give a talk on my research on computational modeling of grammar induction in the Colloquium of the Cognitive Science Program of the Philosophy Department at York, on March 25. I accepted the invitation with great pleasure. I received my BA in Philosophy from York in May 1970, and I welcomed this opportunity to return to my first academic home. It is therefore with considerable regret that I must now withdraw from this engagement in light of the York administration's handling of the attack on Jewish students that took place on the afternoon of February 11.

The reports of this attack that I have read in both the Canadian and the foreign press (confirmed by eyewitness accounts that I have received) converge on a disturbing sequence of events. A group of approximately 100 students supporting the York Student Federation broke up a press conference organized by other students campaigning to impeach the YSF. This group then pursued approximately 40 of the students from the press conference, most of them Jewish,
to the offices of the campus Hillel, where the latter locked themselves in for fear of physical assault. The YSF supporters banged on the door and the windows of the offices, shouting threatening comments at the students trapped inside. The students in the Hillel headquarters appealed to campus security for assistance but received none. They then called the Toronto Police, who eventually arrived to escort them out of the offices, through lines of hostile YSF supporters chanting angry slogans and hurling insults at them.

To date I have seen no public statement by any University official on this incident, beyond the expressionon of an intention to investigate it. I called your office on Monday, February 23 to seek clarification of the administration's view of the attack. A member of your staff called me back today and graciously listened to my concerns. However, she was unable to do more than
reiterate the University's official position that the matter is still under investigation. Given that the incident took place two weeks ago, I find it odd that the administration has been unable to come to any conclusions on what took place. It is particularly remarkable that it felt no need to
release at least a general statement specifying that violence and abuse of any kind will not be tolerated on campus, and confirming that all students have the right to express their views without fear of intimidation.

The fact that the University has not taken up this assault with the students who launched it, nor acted to reassure the students who they targeted indicates a severe failure on the part of the administration to fulfill its reponsibility to sustain a campus free of physical violence and harrassment. Several of the Jewish students at York claim that the assault was not an aberration, but part of a general atmosphere of extreme hostility that they have been forced to contend with over an extended period of time. I am in no position to evaluate this assertion. But it seems to me that the administration is obliged to address the grievances of students who feel that they are being victimized, particularly in light of a significant incident which lends some credence to their charge.

I do not regard the ethnic identities or the political views of any of the participants in this event as of relevant concern. All sides to a controversial question have an equal right to be heard in a civil environment of tolerance and mutual respect. Nor do I see criticism of Israel as the problem here. I have frequently spoken out publicly against the policies of the Israeli government, most recently in a joint letter and comments critical of Israel's operation in Gaza, published in the Observer in January.

If one group of students is permitted to engage in violent harrassment of another without the decisive intervention of the University's administration, then the conditions for a free and unfettered exchange of ideas are completely undermined, and the primary purpose of university life is betrayed.

When I was an undergraduate at York in the late 1960s the University was home to lively political activity on a variety of issues. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of these, and discussion was intense, occasionally heated. However, at no time did this discussion degenerate into systematic bullying, intimidation, or expressions of bigotry. Nor would the administration of that period have allowed it to do so. It is a source of great sadness to me that the current administration is either incapable or unwilling to insure the existence of a basic culture of decency, civility, and free speech on its campus. This culture is a necessary feature of any serious institution of higher learning.

Sincerely,

Shalom Lappin
Professor of Computational Linguistics
King's College, London

It would seem that Dr. Shoukri & Co. need to be reminded that Jews who stand up to organized, systemic racism, encouraged by many an unthinking professor, cannot be treated like dhimmis.
------

For those interested, a truly scholarly and ethical discussion of the latest trends in antisemitism can be found here.

What is a Muslim, continued, continued...

globeandmail.com: Imams unable to grasp needs of Western Muslims: report

Imams are out of touch with the needs of Western Muslims, and divorced from the struggles their congregants face in secular society, according to a new report from a leading Canadian scholar.

Many religious leaders don't offer constructive advice about how to reconcile traditional beliefs with the challenges of integration in Western societies, concludes the study, which is based on focus groups with 60 lay Muslims in Ottawa, Washington and Britain.

"My ultimate fantasy would be to find an imam who gives a sermon in a Friday mosque, who happens to be someone who goes out to work from 9 to 5, takes the bus, is dealing with his kid who is picking up a marijuana joint at the age of 13," one interviewee said, "and not speaking to me about the battles that we won 1,200 years ago."

Karim Karim, director of Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, is the author of the report to be published today by the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy.

"We need to acknowledge the soul searching in the Muslim world," he said, "and the diversity of voices, and not let the process be hijacked by the groups or individuals who claim to speak for 'the Muslim community.' "

Some Muslims in the survey complained about "the cultural illiteracy" of imported imams. Others expressed the desire for a more elevated discourse in the mosque and a critical approach to dogma.

"What I am looking for is an intellectual Islam that examines where we are today and how we move forward," a participant noted.

Others took issue with conservatism in the mosque, including dress codes for women, and imams who insist women fast when they are pregnant or menstruating.

In fact, a lot of Muslim scholars are "reopening the gates of reasoning," said Prof. Karim, and engaging more with contemporary society. "Religious law's governance of the minutiae of daily life under religious law is contentious not only for Western Muslims but also for Muslims living in majority-Muslim countries," he notes.

To counter the power of conservative imams, some Muslim institutions in Britain and the United States are training imams to develop a more critical approach to traditional religious issues. The report also recommends that Canadian policy-makers target "Islamophobia" through anti-discrimination programs and by supporting cross-cultural initiatives, such as the twinning of mosques and synagogues.

As Ernest Gellner argued, the growth of the modern state in the Islamic countries, in response to the Western-led transformation of the traditional world, transforms the practise of Islam. The old Islamic world was divided. On the one hand there were the many clans and tribes who practised significantly local cults, with their local shrines paying homage to local saints/protectors and practising local rituals. On the other hand, a numerically small, literate, book-bound Ulema preached a "pure" Islam to the urban elite. The multiethnic, multi-tribal, residually polytheistic, and local nature of culture in the pre-modern world mitigated against the book-bound elite ever dominating the culture of Islam. However, the modern world, with its need for a large bureaucratic state, provides much opportunity for growth in the puritanical Islam of the book, for the modern state needs some kind of unifying trans-local culture, and preferably one that can be streamlined without too many embarrassing religious eccentricities that would clash with the cognitive needs of urban life in a now global economy and politics.

Gellner's writing is now more or less a generation old and we might ask to what extent was Gellner right that the puritanical Islam of the book would prevail over the local cult in adapting to modernity. On the one hand, we can of course see very much evidence for it around the world where all kinds of middle-class young people feel compelled to take up study of the Koran and other Islamic texts in a search for identity, many also signing on to the Islamist and terrorist political projects that are conducted in the name of the book (all asides to Israel, the Great Satan, etc., being somewhat secondary).

However, on the other hand, as the above article suggests, there is also a kind of modern educated Muslim who looks at the book-bound Imam as something locked in the past, unable to preach a religion that makes sense in a country like Canada today. It was my impression, or best guess, that such people provided much of the audience in Vancouver for Tariq Ramadan. And yet, I also inferred from the tone of the questions asked Ramadan that such people know, that despite his liberal talk, that Ramadan, with his Muslim Brotherhood roots, is also ultimately somewhat in debt to the puritanical readers of the book, and his questioners were less than convinced by what appears to many to be his double talk where on the one hand he professes to respect the book absolutely while on the other he promises some reformed reading thereof (he wants to reform the reader, not change the book; but to do this he has to allude mysteriously to some heretofore ignored or misunderstood "real meaning" of the Koran and the historical context of its revelation).

This is not surprising when, as is common in Vancouver, the "Muslim" is a refugee from a country like Iran where the victory of the book-bound at the political level has now resulted in a country with a massive heroin addiction problem, middle-class women selling themselves as prostitutes, among other social ills, as Spengler reports. One area in which Islamic law clearly lets the people down is on the question of how to adapt to the global economy. When oil wealth arrives in quantity, not as a result of the productive re-organization of Muslims to exploit the mineral, but as rental income from foreign companies, there is a huge question of how to distribute this wealth. It becomes a source of much corruption in what Spengler not unreasonably calls a "potlatch" culture.

The general rule, as I understand it, is that if one is to adapt successfully to the modern free market and liberal society, one may well be served by some kind of highly-disciplined faith and ritual, if this is strictly a private religion. But any attempts to make such a religion be the guiding hand of economic life, civil society, or of the state, ends in disasters like the present state of Iran.

I am suspicious of liberal religion as an answer to personal needs in modern society: the lessons of Christianity in liberal society is that it is not the liberal, but the more conservative, churches that succeed best in guaranteeing the individual's survival and success in the anonymous marketplace, or as a creative leader in politics. Yet the equation may well be different with Islam. For all we know, Gellner's observations of an Islamic world where modernity means the men of the book gain the upper hand over the local cults will in time evolve further to a world where local cults of, say, pot-smoking Muslims, or feminist hijab burners, or jet-setting traders, protected by liberal states, and needing to mediate the reality of a clearly triumphant free market economic system that the foundational Islamic books have no way (as yet revealed) to understand or recognize, will demand the Mullahs preach some new kind of Islam that allows them to live as something other than puritanical zealots.

But if that is to happen, we may all have to do a better job, in good faith, of talking to Muslims and others about the fundamental anthropological nature of the antisemitism and the more generalized fear of the "kaffir", or unbeliever, that is integral not simply to the Koran, but to the inevitable resentments thrown up by a globalized, free-market, modernity.

US Senators Making Up Their Own Reality To Justify CPSIA?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) interviewed on KSMU radio about the impending economic devastation unleashed through the enactment of the disastrous CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act):

“We’ve had a number of children die in our country last year because of lead on products that had been imported primarily from China. So, there was a new attempt to look at lead testing and in the process of trying to address the dangers of lead content in some products in this country, we inadvertently caught thrift store in this net,” McCaskill said.

Valerie from The Bookroom did some thorough fact-checking of the Senator's statements, to see just how bad the problem of lead poisoning has been. Her discovery:

There is no report of any child poisoned by children’s products in 2008...
[...W]as Senator McCaskill talking about 2007? No again. There is no report of any child poisoned by children’s products in 2007. In fact, lead poisoning from children’s toys, clothing, and books is unknown. It simply doesn’t happen...

Meanwhile this misbegotten legal steamroller continues to flatten the very kind of initiative that we all need right now more than ever, the optimistic spirit of "can-do" enterprise that does so much to define American exceptionalism, our neighbors' admirable trait of choosing hope in the face of despair. One by one, the lights are going out, from Hawaii....:

In Kailua, little Raven Mollison holds what's left of her mom's at-home business. "It's the last doll that my mom made so she gave it to me," she said.

Her mom Denise, ran a doll shop to pay for Raven's medical supplies. The eight-year-old has Russell Silver Syndrome, which stunts her growth.

"I'm very sad that she's shut it down out of business," said Raven.

But Denise says she has no choice. A new anti-lead law calls for safety tests she can't afford. "Parents and consumers are hesitant to purchase my products and truthfully I don't blame them. If I could provide the certification then everything would be fine but my hands are tied," said Mollison.

In response to critics who call the law a job-killer, CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission]has issued a stay of enforcement which puts testing requirements on hold for a year until it can work out a compromise. But business owners must still abide by the new lead limits.

"The snag here is they're saying 'don't test but follow the guidelines'. You can't be sure you're following the guidelines unless you test so it's a catch 22," said Mollison.

...to Arkansas:

A Kidd's Dream, located at Oak and Court streets, will close on Feb. 9, the day before the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act goes into effect. Brenda Kidd and daughter Gayla Wade opened the business, a children's consignment shop, in February 2007.
...
Kidd said, "We will be held criminally and civilly responsible for anything sold that does not meet the new requirements."
...
Taunya Kidd, another daughter of Brenda Kidd, was helping her mother and sister last week at the store's going-out-of-business sale.
"The only ones it's not going to affect are the ones who were importing from China in the first place," she said. "Mattel can easily afford to test one (toy) from each lot. We kept waiting for them to make an exemption or an exception, but all they did was say 'you're not our primary target, but you still have to follow the law.'"
She added, "This is the first thing you see when you come downtown. I hate that it's going to be sitting empty."

...to Kansas:

Local Goodwill stores will no longer sell many children's clothes, toys and other items, citing liability concerns over new federal safety regulations that take effect today.
Painted toys and clothing with metal clasps or fasteners -- including blue jeans, coats and hooded jackets for children 12 and younger -- were pulled from store shelves Monday night, said Gayle Goetz, vice president of development for Goodwill Industries Easter Seals of Kansas.
...
Goodwill officials worry that fewer products will mean fewer sales, which will mean less money raised for people with disabilities and others the nonprofit group helps.
Right now, though, shoppers -- including many who see thrift stores as a way to stretch their dollars during hard economic times -- are likely to feel the most effect.
"There's a lot of people whose income has dropped, but their children keep growing," Goetz said. "So, 'Now I need another size of blue jeans, and I can't get them at Goodwill.' It's unfortunate."

Where does it end?

Mark Steyn On CPSIA: "Government By Insanity"

Mark Steyn was interviewed in the first hour of today's Hugh Hewitt radio show, primarily to get Mark's reaction to this week's political news. Hugh has been covering the legislated carnage courtesy of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), and he raised the subject with the Columnist To The World:

MS: [...T]his safety thing has made every children's book printed before 1985 apparently a lethal weapon!

HH: Yes.

MS: It's illegal... if I happen to have a 1982 edition of Tom Sawyer lying around, it's illegal for me to sell that at my local rummage sale, because it'll kill the kid who reads it. This is rubbish! None of this stuff is needed... All of that gets in the way of the dynamic and productive part of the American economy.

HH: You know, Mark, it sideswiped the entire all-terrain vehicle industry, destroying a huge market segment where they would sell these vehicles to 12 and under, they can't do it now because of lead in the machines. It was not intended to do that, it just did it!

MS: Let me tell you something, I'm not going to pay any attention to that. In my little corner of New Hampshire, every 12-year old boy loves taking an ATV, loves riding it around up in the hills. And the idea that the lead in it is going to cause that kid to keel over, is preposterous. This is government by insanity...

How many businesses is this law crippling? Hugh posts an email he received as a result of the hour he devoted to CPSIA on his Monday program:

...I am a franchisee of a quick service hamburger chain sitting on $30,000 in obsolete inventory as a result of this act due to the phthalate content of our kids meal toys, which by the way had been deemed safe for years but have suddenly (first week of Feb 2009) and with no notice been determined to immediately be hazardous and non saleable. It’s a terrible blow to discard this inventory as I struggle to pay my bills in the middle of this recession.

After the Mark Steyn interview, Hugh took some listener calls, and heard from a pen manufacturer; the retailers that he sells to have apparently canceled all their fall back-to-school orders, because they are waiting to see what the long-term results of CPSIA will be. Unlike all-terrain vehicles, children may actually put pens (highlighter and otherwise) in their mouths...
How many small entrepreneurs is this law crushing? Can an outfit like Bugbitesplayfood afford to pay $10,000 for testing whether or not every component used in their hand-stitched ham sandwich is in compliance with CPSIA? What will be left of the handcraft industry if the law is left to stand? How many work-at-home mothers might have to find another way to earn an income... outside of the home, away from their kids?

If there's a silver lining to this legal monstrosity, it's the revelation of just how amazingly industrious a nation the United States has become. How many of us, for instance, were aware of the existence of an Irish Step Dance Apparel Industry?

[Hat tip to Overlawyered for the latest news of how CPSIA hurts the children's garment industry]

CPSIA Crashes Into Minibike Industry

Last August an economic time bomb called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) was tossed into the struggling US economy, with little consideration for its eventual consequences. Legitimate concern about little children being poisoned by the made-in-China toys they put in their mouths has led to a law that threatens more businesses than you could imagine... certainly more than Congress, evidently, could imagine.

It's humbling to realize how unconnected we can all remain in this age of unprecedented communication and interaction; had you ever heard of this story, this legislation, before this week? I hadn't. As shocked as I was to read about the unforeseen damage it is doing to libraries, where books published before 1985 are now deemed "poisonous" due to the lead they contain in their ink, it seems that libraries and bookstores may be getting off easy compared to other businesses, such as the off-road vehicle industry:

The sport of off-highway recreation is seriously threatened by recent legislation that imposes strict lead content guidelines on children's everyday toys. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) has effectively banned the sale of youth off-highway vehicles (OHVs). The AMA is calling for action now to help reverse the potentially devastating effect this could have on the sport of OHV recreation.

"The unavailability of youth OHVs will devastate family OHV recreation and cripple amateur competition, creating a domino effect across all aspects of motorized recreation," said AMA Vice President for Government Relations Ed Moreland.

A Rapid City, South Dakota newspaper interviewed baffled retailers who have to adapt to well-meaning Congressional legislation that threatens to destroy their livelihoods. The road to hell is paved with legislation like the CPSIA..:

The Safety Improvement Act prohibits children's products from having more than 600 parts per million of lead. The new regulations affect the sales of children's toys, cribs and even clothing, but dealers just recently learned that it also affects dirt bikes.

The American Motorcycle Association reports that engines, brakes, suspensions, batteries and other mechanical parts in such vehicles often contain small amounts of lead. Combined, however, the level reaches the restricted amount.

The regulations affect bikes up to 85cc in size, most designed for children younger than 12. An estimated 100,000 such bikes were sold last year. People who own such bikes will be allowed to keep them, but lead-free parts needed for future repair may be hard to come by, said Pete terHorst, a spokesman for the AMA.

TerHorst calls the restrictions on off-road vehicles for children "ridiculous," saying it's difficult to imagine how a child would ingest the lead found in the internal parts of a dirt bike.

He said the AMA also is bothered by the short notice given to manufacturers and dealers. "There was no practical time to react to this."

[Dick Schieffer, owner of Sturgis Yamaha, BMW, Suzuki] said he learned about 30 days ago that the law would affect his business. Last week, he removed at least 20 vehicles from his showroom. Schieffer said he isn't even sure where the lead is on the vehicles he removed. "I wish I could tell you," he said.

...

Wade Rice, general manager of Rice Honda in Rapid City, was forced to remove $60,000 in merchandise from his store. He also had only a month's notice.

"It's totally ridiculous," he said of the regulation. "A 12-year-old is not going to chew on a bike, ... and toddlers are not going to ride a bike."

[hat tip to Overlawyered]

Geert Wilders Interviewed On American TV

Geert Wilders was interviewed on Fox News Monday night, first on Glenn Becks' show...




...and then he almost got to say a few things on Bill O'Reilly's program:





I think Glenn Beck, by far, offered the better opportunity for Wilders to make his case. From the transcript:

Wilders: [..If] I would have been allowed to enter the United Kingdom and I would have gone to the House of Lords, I would have reminded them to one of the giants of America who spoke there in 1982, this was President Reagan, and President Reagan in the House of Lords while warning for communism said that if history teaches us anything, it teaches us that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

And, of course, he was talking about communism, but what he meant is that we cannot escape — we cannot escape from totalitarian ideologies that want to destroy us.

... They had people shouting "Hamas, Hamas" and all the Jews have to be guests in the center of London. [Note: the Fox transcript is in error here; Wilders actually recounted the crowd's chant as "Hamas, Hamas and all the Jews to the gas" (thanks to BakedLays in the comments for pointing out the discrepancy)] They have Al Qaeda affiliates as guests from Lord Ahmed in the House of Lords a few years ago. They had pop music bands in December last year who are shouting music that gays should be killed. They have the most terrible things.

And one guy, like myself, is standing up and saying, this is wrong. We have to defend freedom of speech and warn against the totalitarian ideology of the Islam and I am being banned. I'm here today, Glenn, this week in the United States and to really learn from you.

What I want to propose is a European kind of "First Amendment." I want all the hate speech laws that are only used against us to be to be abolished in Europe. And let us come with a first — European first kind of amendments and learn from the freedom of speech that you Americans have.