By Joseph A. Harriss
Who says there’s anything wrong with the European Union? I mean, apart from the fact that it’s founded on little more than political hot air, that it’s profoundly undemocratic, that it struts and frets on the world stage, but, insecure about its own identity, is unable to muster either the will or the means to play a significant role in international affairs. That its only raison d’être is the obsessive, mischievous geographical and regulatory expansion that keeps unaccountable Eurocrats in Brussels at their tax-free jobs. That its botched attempt at creating greater unity with its own currency, the misbegotten euro, is instead stifling needed growth and causing deep divisions among its twenty-eight member states.
Today, more and more Europeans are beginning to find a lot wrong with the EU. Many are wondering openly whether it is only a necessary nuisance or an actual handicap as Europe struggles to recover from the six-year-old economic crisis. After all, they were never asked whether they wanted this artificial postwar creation. The brainchild of a French cognac salesman named Jean Monnet, it was contrived by technocrats eager to try their hand at creating the biggest multinational bureaucracy—carrying out the most massive redistribution of wealth—since the United Nations. The peasants were never told where they were being led...
[Read the whole article here.]
Showing posts with label American Spectator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Spectator. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Satan and Man at Harvard
By Mark Tooley
Plans for a Satanic black mass Monday evening in Memorial Hall at Harvard University recall conservative icon William Buckley's famous God and Man at Yale, which in 1951 chastised his Ivy League school for abandoning its Christian roots. His critique applied to nearly all of America's most prestigious, historically Protestant academies that shed their church affiliations in favor of a brash secularism.
What would Buckley, a devout Catholic, say today about a black mass at Harvard, the nation's oldest university and founded by the Puritans to train Calvinist clergy?
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston expressed its “deep sadness and strong opposition to the plan to stage a 'black mass' on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge.” Certainly Buckley would be sad too but not too surprised. He diagnosed the spiritual and intellectual trajectory over 60 years ago.
A statement from Harvard Extension School carefully explains that “an independent student organization,” the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club, will host a “controversial student event involving a historical reenactment of a black mass ceremony that has a narrator providing historical context and background.”
The school website offers a further statement from the black mass student host group, which will partner for the grim event with the Satanic Temple of New York, whose devotees will presumably provide the seasoned demonic expertise the Harvard students lack:
Naturally, the school website insists it does not “endorse the views or activities” of any independent student group but does support the rights of students and faculty to “speak and assemble freely.” It also adds that the black mass hosts additionally are inclusively scheduling a “Shinto tea ceremony, a Shaker exhibition, and a Buddhist presentation on meditation-as part of a student-led effort to explore different cultures.”
Inclusive indeed. Will the Cultural Studies Club re-create an Aztec ritualistic human sacrifice in its expansive exploration of different cultures? Or maybe some sati, burning alive a newly widowed woman in homage to a Hindu goddess? Why not sacrifice children to Moloch to understand ancient Canaanite folkways?
Maybe Harvard inclusivity is not yet ready for full throttle multiculturalism. Baby steps. Meanwhile, the visiting New York Satanists will provide “commentary and historical context.” But in the interest of clarity, Harvard should acknowledge that a black mass affirms nothing positive but is strictly a negation, mocking the Roman Catholic Eucharist. Will Harvard be open to organized, ritualistic mockery of other faiths, such as Islam?
[Read the whole article here.]
Plans for a Satanic black mass Monday evening in Memorial Hall at Harvard University recall conservative icon William Buckley's famous God and Man at Yale, which in 1951 chastised his Ivy League school for abandoning its Christian roots. His critique applied to nearly all of America's most prestigious, historically Protestant academies that shed their church affiliations in favor of a brash secularism.
What would Buckley, a devout Catholic, say today about a black mass at Harvard, the nation's oldest university and founded by the Puritans to train Calvinist clergy?
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston expressed its “deep sadness and strong opposition to the plan to stage a 'black mass' on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge.” Certainly Buckley would be sad too but not too surprised. He diagnosed the spiritual and intellectual trajectory over 60 years ago.
A statement from Harvard Extension School carefully explains that “an independent student organization,” the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club, will host a “controversial student event involving a historical reenactment of a black mass ceremony that has a narrator providing historical context and background.”
The school website offers a further statement from the black mass student host group, which will partner for the grim event with the Satanic Temple of New York, whose devotees will presumably provide the seasoned demonic expertise the Harvard students lack:
We are hosting a reenactment of a historical event known as a Black Mass. The performance is designed to be educational and is preceded by a lecture that provides the history, context, and origin of the Black Mass. While a piece of bread is used in the reenactment, the performance unequivocally does not include a consecrated host. Our purpose is not to denigrate any religion or faith, which would be repugnant to our educational purposes, but instead to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices. This performance is part of a larger effort to explore religious facets that continue to influence contemporary culture.
Naturally, the school website insists it does not “endorse the views or activities” of any independent student group but does support the rights of students and faculty to “speak and assemble freely.” It also adds that the black mass hosts additionally are inclusively scheduling a “Shinto tea ceremony, a Shaker exhibition, and a Buddhist presentation on meditation-as part of a student-led effort to explore different cultures.”
Inclusive indeed. Will the Cultural Studies Club re-create an Aztec ritualistic human sacrifice in its expansive exploration of different cultures? Or maybe some sati, burning alive a newly widowed woman in homage to a Hindu goddess? Why not sacrifice children to Moloch to understand ancient Canaanite folkways?
Maybe Harvard inclusivity is not yet ready for full throttle multiculturalism. Baby steps. Meanwhile, the visiting New York Satanists will provide “commentary and historical context.” But in the interest of clarity, Harvard should acknowledge that a black mass affirms nothing positive but is strictly a negation, mocking the Roman Catholic Eucharist. Will Harvard be open to organized, ritualistic mockery of other faiths, such as Islam?
[Read the whole article here.]
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Obama's Smoking Gun
by Jeffrey Lord
The president lies. So insisted the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a taped interview with author Ed Klein for Klein’s book on Obama titled The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House. As the latest revelation of a White House e-mail surfaces — which some are calling a smoking gun from the Benghazi scandal — the picture of a White House that flatly lies no matter the subject continues to sink Mr. Obama in the polls.
It is worth going back to the Reverend Wright to have a better understanding of what’s going on here. Klein was granted an interview with Obama’s longtime mentor, and as part of that interview Wright tells the story of the blow-up that occurred when videotaped sermons from Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ finally exploded into conservative media view. Obama, now in mid-campaign, took a secret break to confront the reverend in Wright’s Chicago living room. The conversation did not go well, with Obama asking Wright in essence to disappear from public view. Wright says this of the moment when Wright refused the suggestion:
Barack said, "I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?" And I said, "No, what’s my problem?" And he said, "You have to tell the truth." I said, "That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician."
So here we are, five and a half years later, and the country has learned of these deliberate lies:
• Health Care: The president told Americans repeatedly that they could keep their doctor and keep their health insurance if they liked them.
• Benghazi: Yes, in fact, contrary to repeated denials, the White House did in fact prep then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice to go out on those five Sunday news shows and blame the Benghazi attacks on an Internet video.
• The IRS: No, the IRS targeting of conservative groups was not the work of “rogue agents” in Cincinnati. In fact, the scandal was operating at the very top of the IRS itself with Lois Lerner, who in turn had been conniving with the Department of Justice...
[Read the whole article at this link.]
The president lies. So insisted the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a taped interview with author Ed Klein for Klein’s book on Obama titled The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House. As the latest revelation of a White House e-mail surfaces — which some are calling a smoking gun from the Benghazi scandal — the picture of a White House that flatly lies no matter the subject continues to sink Mr. Obama in the polls.
It is worth going back to the Reverend Wright to have a better understanding of what’s going on here. Klein was granted an interview with Obama’s longtime mentor, and as part of that interview Wright tells the story of the blow-up that occurred when videotaped sermons from Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ finally exploded into conservative media view. Obama, now in mid-campaign, took a secret break to confront the reverend in Wright’s Chicago living room. The conversation did not go well, with Obama asking Wright in essence to disappear from public view. Wright says this of the moment when Wright refused the suggestion:
Barack said, "I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?" And I said, "No, what’s my problem?" And he said, "You have to tell the truth." I said, "That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician."
So here we are, five and a half years later, and the country has learned of these deliberate lies:
• Health Care: The president told Americans repeatedly that they could keep their doctor and keep their health insurance if they liked them.
• Benghazi: Yes, in fact, contrary to repeated denials, the White House did in fact prep then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice to go out on those five Sunday news shows and blame the Benghazi attacks on an Internet video.
• The IRS: No, the IRS targeting of conservative groups was not the work of “rogue agents” in Cincinnati. In fact, the scandal was operating at the very top of the IRS itself with Lois Lerner, who in turn had been conniving with the Department of Justice...
[Read the whole article at this link.]
Politics versus Education
by Thomas Sowell
Of all the cynical frauds of the Obama administration, few are so despicable as sacrificing the education of poor and minority children to the interests of the teachers’ unions.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempt to suppress the spread of charter schools in Louisiana was just one of the signs of that cynicism. His nationwide threats of legal action against schools that discipline more black students than he thinks they should are at least as damaging.
Charter schools are hated by teachers’ unions and by much of the educational establishment in general. They seem to be especially hated when they succeed in educating minority children whom the educational establishment says cannot be educated.
Apparently it can be done when you don’t have to hire unionized teachers with iron-clad tenure, and when you don’t have to follow the dogmas in vogue in the educational establishment.
Last year, there was an attempt to shut down the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, California — schools that had been ranked among the top schools in the nation, schools with the top test scores in their district and the fourth highest scores in the entire state of California.
The reason given was that the former — repeat, FORMER — head of these schools was accused of financial irregularities. Since there are courts of law to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals, why should school children be punished by having their schools shut down, immediately and permanently, before any court even held a trial?
Fortunately, a court order prevented this planned vindictive closing of this highly successful charter school with minority students. But the attempt shows the animus and the cynical disregard of the education of children who have few other places to get a comparable education.
Attorney General Holder’s threats of legal action against schools where minority students are disciplined more often than he wants are a much more sweeping and damaging blow to the education of poor and minority students across the country.
Among the biggest obstacles to educating children in many ghetto schools are disruptive students whose antics, threats and violence can make education virtually impossible. If only 10 percent of the students are this way, that sacrifices the education of the other 90 percent. The idea that Eric Holder, or anybody else, can sit in Washington and determine how many disciplinary actions against individual students are warranted or unwarranted in schools across the length and breadth of this country would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Relying on racial statistics tells you nothing, unless you believe that black male students cannot possibly be more disruptive than Asian female students, or that students in crime-ridden neighborhoods cannot possibly require disciplinary actions more often than children in the most staid, middle-class neighborhoods.
Attorney General Holder is not fool enough to believe either of those things. Why then is he pursuing this numbers game?
The most obvious answer is politics. Anything that promotes a sense of grievance from charges of racial discrimination offers hope of energizing the black vote to turn out to vote for Democrats, which is especially needed when support from other voters is weakening in the wake of Obama administration scandals and fiascoes.
Eric Holder’s other big racial crusade, against requiring identification for voting, is the same political game. And it is carried out with the same cynical promotion of fears, with orchestrated hysteria from other Democrats — as if having to show identification to vote is like a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
Blacks, whites and everybody else can be asked for identification these days, whether cashing a check or using a credit card at a local store or going to an airport — or even getting into some political meetings called to protest voter ID laws.
But to sacrifice the education of children, especially children for whom education may be their only ticket out of poverty, is truly a new low. As someone once said to Senator Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
Here is the link to the article.
Of all the cynical frauds of the Obama administration, few are so despicable as sacrificing the education of poor and minority children to the interests of the teachers’ unions.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempt to suppress the spread of charter schools in Louisiana was just one of the signs of that cynicism. His nationwide threats of legal action against schools that discipline more black students than he thinks they should are at least as damaging.
Charter schools are hated by teachers’ unions and by much of the educational establishment in general. They seem to be especially hated when they succeed in educating minority children whom the educational establishment says cannot be educated.
Apparently it can be done when you don’t have to hire unionized teachers with iron-clad tenure, and when you don’t have to follow the dogmas in vogue in the educational establishment.
Last year, there was an attempt to shut down the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, California — schools that had been ranked among the top schools in the nation, schools with the top test scores in their district and the fourth highest scores in the entire state of California.
The reason given was that the former — repeat, FORMER — head of these schools was accused of financial irregularities. Since there are courts of law to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals, why should school children be punished by having their schools shut down, immediately and permanently, before any court even held a trial?
Fortunately, a court order prevented this planned vindictive closing of this highly successful charter school with minority students. But the attempt shows the animus and the cynical disregard of the education of children who have few other places to get a comparable education.
Attorney General Holder’s threats of legal action against schools where minority students are disciplined more often than he wants are a much more sweeping and damaging blow to the education of poor and minority students across the country.
Among the biggest obstacles to educating children in many ghetto schools are disruptive students whose antics, threats and violence can make education virtually impossible. If only 10 percent of the students are this way, that sacrifices the education of the other 90 percent. The idea that Eric Holder, or anybody else, can sit in Washington and determine how many disciplinary actions against individual students are warranted or unwarranted in schools across the length and breadth of this country would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Relying on racial statistics tells you nothing, unless you believe that black male students cannot possibly be more disruptive than Asian female students, or that students in crime-ridden neighborhoods cannot possibly require disciplinary actions more often than children in the most staid, middle-class neighborhoods.
Attorney General Holder is not fool enough to believe either of those things. Why then is he pursuing this numbers game?
The most obvious answer is politics. Anything that promotes a sense of grievance from charges of racial discrimination offers hope of energizing the black vote to turn out to vote for Democrats, which is especially needed when support from other voters is weakening in the wake of Obama administration scandals and fiascoes.
Eric Holder’s other big racial crusade, against requiring identification for voting, is the same political game. And it is carried out with the same cynical promotion of fears, with orchestrated hysteria from other Democrats — as if having to show identification to vote is like a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
Blacks, whites and everybody else can be asked for identification these days, whether cashing a check or using a credit card at a local store or going to an airport — or even getting into some political meetings called to protest voter ID laws.
But to sacrifice the education of children, especially children for whom education may be their only ticket out of poverty, is truly a new low. As someone once said to Senator Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
Here is the link to the article.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Evicting Jesus
by Lisa Fabrizio
I have often written that the reason some folks persist in calling themselves Catholic is to be ready when reporters from the New York Times come to call. Sometimes I think that the Old Gray Lady might someday be the catalyst for many conversions to the faith, should serious thinkers ever meditate on just why the Church is so often in her crosshairs.
The Catholic Church is the largest institution in the world, and probably the oldest still in existence; and as such, her ways have been and still are well known throughout the globe. Why then, must she constantly explain herself to those who neither hold to her tenets nor share her mission? And even more curiously, why are her attempts to lead her own flock the subject of so much controversy? Surely, in this enlightened age, no one is forced to be a Catholic. If those who chafe at Rome's bit wish, there are many options out there from which to choose. But this exercise of free will does not serve the real agenda of those who wish all worship of God expunged from our nation...(Read the whole article here.)
I have often written that the reason some folks persist in calling themselves Catholic is to be ready when reporters from the New York Times come to call. Sometimes I think that the Old Gray Lady might someday be the catalyst for many conversions to the faith, should serious thinkers ever meditate on just why the Church is so often in her crosshairs.
The Catholic Church is the largest institution in the world, and probably the oldest still in existence; and as such, her ways have been and still are well known throughout the globe. Why then, must she constantly explain herself to those who neither hold to her tenets nor share her mission? And even more curiously, why are her attempts to lead her own flock the subject of so much controversy? Surely, in this enlightened age, no one is forced to be a Catholic. If those who chafe at Rome's bit wish, there are many options out there from which to choose. But this exercise of free will does not serve the real agenda of those who wish all worship of God expunged from our nation...(Read the whole article here.)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Benedict XVI: Christian Radical
By Samuel Gregg
As the condom-wars ignited by Benedict XVI's Light of the World abate, some attention might finally be paid to the book's broader themes and what they indicate about Benedict's pontificate. In this regard, perhaps the interview's most revealing aspect is the picture that emerges of Pope Benedict as nothing more and nothing less than a Christian radical.
Those accustomed to cartoon-like depictions of Joseph Ratzinger as a "reactionary" might be surprised by this description. But by "radical," I don't mean the type of priest or minister who only wears clerical garb when attending left-wing rallies or publically disputing particular church doctrines.
The word "radical" comes from the Latin radix, meaning "root." It's in this sense Benedict is radical. His pontificate is about going back to Christianity's roots to make, as Benedict says, "visible again the center of Christian life" and then shining that light upon the world so that we might see the truth about ourselves.
At Christianity's center, Benedict states, is the person of Jesus Christ. But this person, the pope insists, is not whoever we want him to be. Christ is not the self-help guru proclaimed by the charlatans of the Prosperity Gospel. Nor is he the proto-Marxist beloved by devotees of the now-defunct liberation theologies. Still less is Christ a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man," as once opined by that noted biblical scholar, Elton John.
According to Benedict, Christ is who Christ says he is: the Son of God. Hence, there is no contradiction between what some call "the Christ of faith" and "the Christ of history." In Light of the World, Benedict confirms that underscoring this point was why he wrote his best-selling Jesus of Nazareth (2007). "The Jesus in whom we believe," Benedict claims, "is really also the historical Jesus."
Such observations hardly seem revolutionary for a Christian. But the context of Benedict's remarks is a world of biblical studies dominated by what's known as the historical-critical method. Among other things, this involves placing scripture in its historical conditions and exploring the different literary genres used by biblical authors... Read the whole article.
As the condom-wars ignited by Benedict XVI's Light of the World abate, some attention might finally be paid to the book's broader themes and what they indicate about Benedict's pontificate. In this regard, perhaps the interview's most revealing aspect is the picture that emerges of Pope Benedict as nothing more and nothing less than a Christian radical.
Those accustomed to cartoon-like depictions of Joseph Ratzinger as a "reactionary" might be surprised by this description. But by "radical," I don't mean the type of priest or minister who only wears clerical garb when attending left-wing rallies or publically disputing particular church doctrines.
The word "radical" comes from the Latin radix, meaning "root." It's in this sense Benedict is radical. His pontificate is about going back to Christianity's roots to make, as Benedict says, "visible again the center of Christian life" and then shining that light upon the world so that we might see the truth about ourselves.
At Christianity's center, Benedict states, is the person of Jesus Christ. But this person, the pope insists, is not whoever we want him to be. Christ is not the self-help guru proclaimed by the charlatans of the Prosperity Gospel. Nor is he the proto-Marxist beloved by devotees of the now-defunct liberation theologies. Still less is Christ a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man," as once opined by that noted biblical scholar, Elton John.
According to Benedict, Christ is who Christ says he is: the Son of God. Hence, there is no contradiction between what some call "the Christ of faith" and "the Christ of history." In Light of the World, Benedict confirms that underscoring this point was why he wrote his best-selling Jesus of Nazareth (2007). "The Jesus in whom we believe," Benedict claims, "is really also the historical Jesus."
Such observations hardly seem revolutionary for a Christian. But the context of Benedict's remarks is a world of biblical studies dominated by what's known as the historical-critical method. Among other things, this involves placing scripture in its historical conditions and exploring the different literary genres used by biblical authors... Read the whole article.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
America's Forgotten Newman?
by Joseph P. Duggan
It is accepted wisdom that the newly beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and his associates in the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement were influences in the faith formation of members of the Episcopal Church in the United States, including some who followed Newman's path of conversion to Roman Catholicism. Less appreciated are the stories of made-in-the-USA Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholic converts, contemporary or even antecedent to Newman, and probably influential in the Cardinal's own spiritual odyssey.
Though there may not have been a "movement" in America of scope, celebrity, academic prestige and literary heft to compare with that of the Oxford divines, there were notable moves by individuals that deserve their place alongside Newman's. To give two clichés some well deserved mangling, not all of the great 19th-century Crossings of the Tiber took place Across the Pond.
During the early days of the American Republic, when much of the Empire State was still frontier territory, Christian clergy of every church and denomination were pressed to emphasize pastoral duties above intellectual pursuits. John Henry Hobart (1775-1830), an Anglo-Catholic and one of the first leaders of the Episcopal Church following American Independence, was exceptional in his integration of scholarship with pastoral and charitable endeavor. As assistant minister at fashionable Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, he inspired a parishioner, a young society matron named Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, to deepen her faith and involve herself in direct care for the poor. Arguably the most startling event during his tenure at Trinity was Mrs. Seton's conversion in 1805 to the humble parish of St. Peter's, the only Roman Catholic church in New York City.
As Episcopal Bishop of New York from 1816 until his death, Hobart became founding dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York (1817). In 1822, he founded the institution in Geneva, New York, today known as Hobart College. That same year he gave his daughter Rebecca's hand in marriage to Levi Silliman Ives (1797-1867) and ordained Ives a deacon. In 1824, Bishop Hobart traveled in Europe, spending several months in England and dining and conversing with young English churchmen including the 23-year-old Newman, then preparing for his ordination as deacon... Read the whole article.
It is accepted wisdom that the newly beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and his associates in the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement were influences in the faith formation of members of the Episcopal Church in the United States, including some who followed Newman's path of conversion to Roman Catholicism. Less appreciated are the stories of made-in-the-USA Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholic converts, contemporary or even antecedent to Newman, and probably influential in the Cardinal's own spiritual odyssey.
Though there may not have been a "movement" in America of scope, celebrity, academic prestige and literary heft to compare with that of the Oxford divines, there were notable moves by individuals that deserve their place alongside Newman's. To give two clichés some well deserved mangling, not all of the great 19th-century Crossings of the Tiber took place Across the Pond.
During the early days of the American Republic, when much of the Empire State was still frontier territory, Christian clergy of every church and denomination were pressed to emphasize pastoral duties above intellectual pursuits. John Henry Hobart (1775-1830), an Anglo-Catholic and one of the first leaders of the Episcopal Church following American Independence, was exceptional in his integration of scholarship with pastoral and charitable endeavor. As assistant minister at fashionable Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, he inspired a parishioner, a young society matron named Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, to deepen her faith and involve herself in direct care for the poor. Arguably the most startling event during his tenure at Trinity was Mrs. Seton's conversion in 1805 to the humble parish of St. Peter's, the only Roman Catholic church in New York City.
As Episcopal Bishop of New York from 1816 until his death, Hobart became founding dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York (1817). In 1822, he founded the institution in Geneva, New York, today known as Hobart College. That same year he gave his daughter Rebecca's hand in marriage to Levi Silliman Ives (1797-1867) and ordained Ives a deacon. In 1824, Bishop Hobart traveled in Europe, spending several months in England and dining and conversing with young English churchmen including the 23-year-old Newman, then preparing for his ordination as deacon... Read the whole article.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What's in a Word?
by Peter Hannaford
"Dawa" may be an unfamiliar word to you. It is to most Americans, but we had better learn to understand it for it is almost certainly the motivation behind the drive to build the "Ground Zero" mosque in Manhattan.
It is an Arabic word. As Andrew McCarthy, the former U.S. prosecutor who put the "blind sheik" and his allies in prison for their part in the 1983 World Trade Center garage bombing, puts it this way: "Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread...The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread and defend sharia."
The leader of the movement to build the 13-story mosque and "community center" 600 feet from the hole in the ground where the twin towers stood, is Feisal Abdul Rauf, imam of one of New York City's 100 or so other mosques. The site where he wants to build it is owned by Sharif el-Gamal, who, until a few years ago, was waiting tables in New York restaurants. He now owns several expensive properties. The sources of his wealth are unclear as are the sources of the $100 million that must be raised to build the structure.
Imam Rauf, now on a U.S. State Department-sponsored "good will" tour of Muslim countries, is widely considered to be an example of "moderate" Islam; however, among his more memorable quotations are these:
…United States policies were an accessory to the crime (9/11) that occurred.
…the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children.
While Rauf does not endorse violence, he professes to understand its roots; that it is the reaction of oppressed people to authoritarian regimes supported by the U.S. He has declined to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Rauf has been heading the Cordoba Initiative which professes to create "an atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect." That should appeal to many Americans, but they should note also that the name of the proposed mosque-community center is Cordoba House, is derived from the Cordoba, Spain mosque built on the ruins of a Catholic church after the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 8th Century. The Christians reconquered Spain in 1492 and Islam lost "al Andalus."
This is one of the "humiliations" that ardent Muslims want to avenge. Thus, the name "Cordoba House" stands for "conquest" and the siting of it is an example of dawa in action: Islamist triumphalism... Read the whole article.
"Dawa" may be an unfamiliar word to you. It is to most Americans, but we had better learn to understand it for it is almost certainly the motivation behind the drive to build the "Ground Zero" mosque in Manhattan.
It is an Arabic word. As Andrew McCarthy, the former U.S. prosecutor who put the "blind sheik" and his allies in prison for their part in the 1983 World Trade Center garage bombing, puts it this way: "Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread...The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread and defend sharia."
The leader of the movement to build the 13-story mosque and "community center" 600 feet from the hole in the ground where the twin towers stood, is Feisal Abdul Rauf, imam of one of New York City's 100 or so other mosques. The site where he wants to build it is owned by Sharif el-Gamal, who, until a few years ago, was waiting tables in New York restaurants. He now owns several expensive properties. The sources of his wealth are unclear as are the sources of the $100 million that must be raised to build the structure.
Imam Rauf, now on a U.S. State Department-sponsored "good will" tour of Muslim countries, is widely considered to be an example of "moderate" Islam; however, among his more memorable quotations are these:
…United States policies were an accessory to the crime (9/11) that occurred.
…the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children.
While Rauf does not endorse violence, he professes to understand its roots; that it is the reaction of oppressed people to authoritarian regimes supported by the U.S. He has declined to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Rauf has been heading the Cordoba Initiative which professes to create "an atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect." That should appeal to many Americans, but they should note also that the name of the proposed mosque-community center is Cordoba House, is derived from the Cordoba, Spain mosque built on the ruins of a Catholic church after the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 8th Century. The Christians reconquered Spain in 1492 and Islam lost "al Andalus."
This is one of the "humiliations" that ardent Muslims want to avenge. Thus, the name "Cordoba House" stands for "conquest" and the siting of it is an example of dawa in action: Islamist triumphalism... Read the whole article.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Separation of Islamophilia from State
by George Neumayr
By modern secularist standards, Barack Obama's boosterism for Islam violates the "separation between Church and state." Had George W. Bush held a rosary and modest fish dinner at the White House to mark the beginning of Lent, the ACLU left would have freaked out. But these same secularists didn't mind Barack's "Iftar dinner" last Friday night.
That is, until he wimped out on his endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque. Now his dinner looks to them more like the production of Ishtar, as finger-to-the-wind Dems cravenly scramble for cover. The search is on for a "compromise." Perhaps the self-styled Solomonic Obama can convince the mosque planners to transfer their property rights to NASA. Administrator Charles Bolden could then turn the land into a satellite office for contractors who pursue the space agency's "perhaps foremost" mission (as explained to him by Obama): "to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering."
The moment one thinks this presidency has hit the bottom of grim parody it finds a new one. It is hard to keep track of them at this point, but any list of the White House's greatest Islamophilic hits would have to include: wanting a civilian jury trial for the 9/11 planners, refusing to identify radical Islam as a terrorist motive, endorsing the concept of jihad, fretting over the loss of "diversity" after the Fort Hood shooting, and vacationing through the fallout of an aborted Christmas day bombing over Detroit.
The White House's ideologically willful self-delusion about radical Islam is staggering. Here, for example, is its self-reporting at whitehouse.gov about the Ramadan dinner: "Last night, President Obama continued the White House tradition of hosting an Iftar -- the meal that breaks the day of fasting --celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room." Continued a tradition? Exactly which White House tradition is that?
The answer: Obama was referring not to a White House "tradition" but to one distant event that he carefully left vague: Thomas Jefferson's war negotiations with Tunisian envoy Sidi Soliman Mellimelli.
Jefferson, desperate to end the Barbary war with Islamic pirates, invited Mellimelli to Washington for negotiations. According to Gaye Wilson, the visit put Jefferson and his staff on the spot: James Madison, then the Secretary of State, had to field Mellimelli's request for "concubines." Jefferson told shocked colleagues to calm down; after all, peace with the Barbary pirates required passing "unnoticed the irregular conduct of their ministers." Mellimelli, in his own way, was grateful. After hearing some gossip about the wan mood of the childless Madisons, he "flung his 'magical' cloak around Dolley Madison and murmured an incantation that promised she would bear a male child. His conjuring, however, did not work."
The war negotiations happened to coincide with Ramadan. Consequently, a scheduled dinner at the White House had to be moved back from "half after three" to "precisely at sunset" in order for Mellimelli to show up... Read the whole article.
By modern secularist standards, Barack Obama's boosterism for Islam violates the "separation between Church and state." Had George W. Bush held a rosary and modest fish dinner at the White House to mark the beginning of Lent, the ACLU left would have freaked out. But these same secularists didn't mind Barack's "Iftar dinner" last Friday night.
That is, until he wimped out on his endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque. Now his dinner looks to them more like the production of Ishtar, as finger-to-the-wind Dems cravenly scramble for cover. The search is on for a "compromise." Perhaps the self-styled Solomonic Obama can convince the mosque planners to transfer their property rights to NASA. Administrator Charles Bolden could then turn the land into a satellite office for contractors who pursue the space agency's "perhaps foremost" mission (as explained to him by Obama): "to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering."
The moment one thinks this presidency has hit the bottom of grim parody it finds a new one. It is hard to keep track of them at this point, but any list of the White House's greatest Islamophilic hits would have to include: wanting a civilian jury trial for the 9/11 planners, refusing to identify radical Islam as a terrorist motive, endorsing the concept of jihad, fretting over the loss of "diversity" after the Fort Hood shooting, and vacationing through the fallout of an aborted Christmas day bombing over Detroit.
The White House's ideologically willful self-delusion about radical Islam is staggering. Here, for example, is its self-reporting at whitehouse.gov about the Ramadan dinner: "Last night, President Obama continued the White House tradition of hosting an Iftar -- the meal that breaks the day of fasting --celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room." Continued a tradition? Exactly which White House tradition is that?
The answer: Obama was referring not to a White House "tradition" but to one distant event that he carefully left vague: Thomas Jefferson's war negotiations with Tunisian envoy Sidi Soliman Mellimelli.
Jefferson, desperate to end the Barbary war with Islamic pirates, invited Mellimelli to Washington for negotiations. According to Gaye Wilson, the visit put Jefferson and his staff on the spot: James Madison, then the Secretary of State, had to field Mellimelli's request for "concubines." Jefferson told shocked colleagues to calm down; after all, peace with the Barbary pirates required passing "unnoticed the irregular conduct of their ministers." Mellimelli, in his own way, was grateful. After hearing some gossip about the wan mood of the childless Madisons, he "flung his 'magical' cloak around Dolley Madison and murmured an incantation that promised she would bear a male child. His conjuring, however, did not work."
The war negotiations happened to coincide with Ramadan. Consequently, a scheduled dinner at the White House had to be moved back from "half after three" to "precisely at sunset" in order for Mellimelli to show up... Read the whole article.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Targeting Free Speech
By Mark Hyman
Any doubts about the administration's designs on reducing First Amendment opportunities may no longer exist due to officials' remarks and government actions including a recent decision by President Barack Obama. The administration's resolve to tamp down dissent was signaled in a June 28th presidential memorandum that would lead to the end of all free, over-the-air television.
Fortunately for Obama he has various federal agencies, the Democrat-controlled Congress, a judiciary hostile to the Constitution, and a compliant liberal media at his disposal to help him usher in speech controls.
Obama's disdain of political dissent is well documented. He has differentiated himself from all other modern presidents by publicly calling out by name the handful of journalists that have criticized his presidency. Senior White House staff have served as his Praetorian Guard against media critics.
While presidential name-calling is indeed troublesome, it does not rise to the level of the concern created by the administration's plans to control the nation's telecommunications platforms.
Obama's Harvard Law School classmate and current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has been directing a multi-pronged effort aimed at increasing government control of news, information and entertainment.
First, is the FCC's ill-conceived National Broadband Plan, which is designed to end local television broadcasters' use of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. the radio spectrum) to deliver free, over-the-air television and eventually move the nation's 1,600 TV stations to subscription-only platforms such as cable. Cable is a much easier to control than 1,600 geographically dispersed television transmitters.
The goal, claims Genachowski, is to make the spectrum available to other wireless platforms such as cellular telephones. The single largest beneficiary of the FCC scheme would likely be Verizon. Unfortunately for Genachowski, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg panned the NBP and found the FCC's "looming spectrum shortage" claims to not be credible.
"I don't think the FCC should tinker with this," Seidenberg told the Council on Foreign Relations in April. "I don't think we'll have a spectrum shortage the way [the National Broadband Plan] suggests we will."
To bolster support for its National Broadband Plan, the FCC announced a broadcast engineering panel to examine the technical aspects of its proposal. The June panel convened by the FCC was notable for who the Commission excluded -- broadcast engineers. The FCC relented at the last moment after the Society of Broadcast Engineers waged a fierce PR campaign to be added. To exclude broadcast engineers from the panel would have been the functional equivalent of bureaucrats rewriting detailed medical procedures without consulting a single doctor... Read the whole article.
Any doubts about the administration's designs on reducing First Amendment opportunities may no longer exist due to officials' remarks and government actions including a recent decision by President Barack Obama. The administration's resolve to tamp down dissent was signaled in a June 28th presidential memorandum that would lead to the end of all free, over-the-air television.
Fortunately for Obama he has various federal agencies, the Democrat-controlled Congress, a judiciary hostile to the Constitution, and a compliant liberal media at his disposal to help him usher in speech controls.
Obama's disdain of political dissent is well documented. He has differentiated himself from all other modern presidents by publicly calling out by name the handful of journalists that have criticized his presidency. Senior White House staff have served as his Praetorian Guard against media critics.
While presidential name-calling is indeed troublesome, it does not rise to the level of the concern created by the administration's plans to control the nation's telecommunications platforms.
Obama's Harvard Law School classmate and current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has been directing a multi-pronged effort aimed at increasing government control of news, information and entertainment.
First, is the FCC's ill-conceived National Broadband Plan, which is designed to end local television broadcasters' use of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. the radio spectrum) to deliver free, over-the-air television and eventually move the nation's 1,600 TV stations to subscription-only platforms such as cable. Cable is a much easier to control than 1,600 geographically dispersed television transmitters.
The goal, claims Genachowski, is to make the spectrum available to other wireless platforms such as cellular telephones. The single largest beneficiary of the FCC scheme would likely be Verizon. Unfortunately for Genachowski, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg panned the NBP and found the FCC's "looming spectrum shortage" claims to not be credible.
"I don't think the FCC should tinker with this," Seidenberg told the Council on Foreign Relations in April. "I don't think we'll have a spectrum shortage the way [the National Broadband Plan] suggests we will."
To bolster support for its National Broadband Plan, the FCC announced a broadcast engineering panel to examine the technical aspects of its proposal. The June panel convened by the FCC was notable for who the Commission excluded -- broadcast engineers. The FCC relented at the last moment after the Society of Broadcast Engineers waged a fierce PR campaign to be added. To exclude broadcast engineers from the panel would have been the functional equivalent of bureaucrats rewriting detailed medical procedures without consulting a single doctor... Read the whole article.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Obama's Milky Way
by George Neumayr
Barack Obama is not a Muslim, said Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign, adding slyly, "as far as I know." Reeling from losses that followed this whispering campaign, Obama denied its implication and faked up an eager interest in Christianity. "I was sworn in with my hand on the family bible," he pouted.
But once safely ensconced in the presidency, he renewed his Islamophilia. Last year in Cairo, he tried to wow his audience by saying that he hails from "generations of Muslims" and that he had marinated for "several years" in Islamic Indonesia, where he "heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk."
By secularist standards, Obama's Islamophilia constitutes a blatant violation of Church and state. His presidency largely exists for the benefit of one religion, the only religion he appears to consider blameless and holy -- Islam, and not even its moderate variant... Read the whole article.
Barack Obama is not a Muslim, said Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign, adding slyly, "as far as I know." Reeling from losses that followed this whispering campaign, Obama denied its implication and faked up an eager interest in Christianity. "I was sworn in with my hand on the family bible," he pouted.
But once safely ensconced in the presidency, he renewed his Islamophilia. Last year in Cairo, he tried to wow his audience by saying that he hails from "generations of Muslims" and that he had marinated for "several years" in Islamic Indonesia, where he "heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk."
By secularist standards, Obama's Islamophilia constitutes a blatant violation of Church and state. His presidency largely exists for the benefit of one religion, the only religion he appears to consider blameless and holy -- Islam, and not even its moderate variant... Read the whole article.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Christian Adams Blows Whistle on Progressives and Race
by Jeffrey Lord
Christian Adams and Bill Clinton.
Who would have thought a heretofore unknown career Justice Department lawyer and the famously garrulous former President could combine to turn the spotlight on the centuries old -- if never formally acknowledged -- alliance between progressives and racism?
President Clinton first.
In winging along in his eulogy for the late West Virginia U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, former President Bill Clinton decided (impulsively?) to address the much commented upon knowledge that Senator Byrd spent part of his early career as an "Exalted Cyclops" of the Ku Klux Klan....Read the whole article.
Christian Adams and Bill Clinton.
Who would have thought a heretofore unknown career Justice Department lawyer and the famously garrulous former President could combine to turn the spotlight on the centuries old -- if never formally acknowledged -- alliance between progressives and racism?
President Clinton first.
In winging along in his eulogy for the late West Virginia U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, former President Bill Clinton decided (impulsively?) to address the much commented upon knowledge that Senator Byrd spent part of his early career as an "Exalted Cyclops" of the Ku Klux Klan....Read the whole article.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Barack Obama's Square Box
By Daniel Oliver
When John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed into Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999 some observers said he had gotten himself into a "square box," meaning that he had run into the limits of his experience and his imagination.
Barack Obama is in a square box, and observers are now beginning to talk about his inevitable crash.
There was some question about JFK Jr.'s flying experience. There's no dispute about Barack Obama's executive experience: he has none. In fact, he is the least qualified person ever to be elected president.
Prior to being elected, he had done almost nothing. Certainly nothing requiring, or teaching, executive ability.
He served in some capacity as a "community organizer," which Sarah Palin might say is like running a Sunday-school picnic, but without the kids.
He worked as a civil-rights attorney, whatever that means. And he taught at a law school, which may be why he always sounds as if he's lecturing to twenty-somethings.
He served in the Illinois legislature for a few yeas, but spent most of his time voting "present." Then he served in the U.S. Senate, but for only two years.
Would the directors of any mid-sized company have asked him to be its CEO? He wouldn't even have qualified for -- in Ross Perot's memorable phrase -- middle management.
He is a man without significant executive experience in life.
He also seems to have little imagination. His supporters say he is tremendously brilliant. Maybe. But how do we know? Obama has never released his college or law-school grades, and, given the educational institutions he attended (Columbia College and Harvard Law School), we are entitled to assume he may have been an affirmative-action admittee. As he was to the White House.
Besides, the relationship between brains and imagination is not clear. Harvard brains are obviously not a necessary condition for a fertile imagination. President Reagan went to Eureka College. But he had the imagination -- the vision -- to reduce taxes and win the Cold War. He inspired America and was the most successful president of the 20th century. (Roosevelt only won a war. Reagan won a war and saved the economy.)
Certainly nothing Barack Obama has done since becoming president shows much imagination. He is a complete knee-jerk liberal. Not a single action he has taken makes you say, "Wow, that was clever."
His economic policy is straight from the FDR-progressive mold. And although, like Roosevelt's, it has failed miserably (skyrocketing deficits, persistent unemployment), he lacks the imagination to try something else. Even his speeches are turning into liabilities. Exhibit A (or are we up to Exhibit Q now?): his Oval Office speech on BP, which his friends panned... Read the whole article.
When John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed into Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999 some observers said he had gotten himself into a "square box," meaning that he had run into the limits of his experience and his imagination.
Barack Obama is in a square box, and observers are now beginning to talk about his inevitable crash.
There was some question about JFK Jr.'s flying experience. There's no dispute about Barack Obama's executive experience: he has none. In fact, he is the least qualified person ever to be elected president.
Prior to being elected, he had done almost nothing. Certainly nothing requiring, or teaching, executive ability.
He served in some capacity as a "community organizer," which Sarah Palin might say is like running a Sunday-school picnic, but without the kids.
He worked as a civil-rights attorney, whatever that means. And he taught at a law school, which may be why he always sounds as if he's lecturing to twenty-somethings.
He served in the Illinois legislature for a few yeas, but spent most of his time voting "present." Then he served in the U.S. Senate, but for only two years.
Would the directors of any mid-sized company have asked him to be its CEO? He wouldn't even have qualified for -- in Ross Perot's memorable phrase -- middle management.
He is a man without significant executive experience in life.
He also seems to have little imagination. His supporters say he is tremendously brilliant. Maybe. But how do we know? Obama has never released his college or law-school grades, and, given the educational institutions he attended (Columbia College and Harvard Law School), we are entitled to assume he may have been an affirmative-action admittee. As he was to the White House.
Besides, the relationship between brains and imagination is not clear. Harvard brains are obviously not a necessary condition for a fertile imagination. President Reagan went to Eureka College. But he had the imagination -- the vision -- to reduce taxes and win the Cold War. He inspired America and was the most successful president of the 20th century. (Roosevelt only won a war. Reagan won a war and saved the economy.)
Certainly nothing Barack Obama has done since becoming president shows much imagination. He is a complete knee-jerk liberal. Not a single action he has taken makes you say, "Wow, that was clever."
His economic policy is straight from the FDR-progressive mold. And although, like Roosevelt's, it has failed miserably (skyrocketing deficits, persistent unemployment), he lacks the imagination to try something else. Even his speeches are turning into liabilities. Exhibit A (or are we up to Exhibit Q now?): his Oval Office speech on BP, which his friends panned... Read the whole article.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Aborting Healthcare Reform
by Lisa Fabrizio
And so it comes down to this: President Obama wants his signature healthcare reform bill passed this week, no matter what; whether or not the American people want it and whether or not his own party has the votes to pass it. So great is either his ego or his conviction that the government must take over one sixth of our economy, that he is willing to march his fellow Democrats to the edge of an electoral grave they themselves are digging.
So desperate is their goal, that even with strong congressional majorities, they must employ highly unusual and maybe even illegal methods to attain it. One of the extra-constitutional measures they might use is appropriately called the "Slaughter Solution," whereby the bill that cannot get a simple majority of votes in the House may be returned to the Senate where that's all it can get. Got it?
But the issue that may drive the final spike into this mess of a bill is appropriately, abortion; that awful practice that was also undemocratically forced on our nation without benefit of a single vote legitimately cast. I and others have long chronicled the use of Orwellian doublespeak as a tool of socialists to foist their agenda on a country whose people are basically good at heart and of a trusting nature, but never have their efforts been more focused than on this issue. The continued application of euphemisms like "choice" is both sophistic and insulting, as are attempts to paint the snuffing of our children's lives as some form of healthcare... Read the whole article.
And so it comes down to this: President Obama wants his signature healthcare reform bill passed this week, no matter what; whether or not the American people want it and whether or not his own party has the votes to pass it. So great is either his ego or his conviction that the government must take over one sixth of our economy, that he is willing to march his fellow Democrats to the edge of an electoral grave they themselves are digging.
So desperate is their goal, that even with strong congressional majorities, they must employ highly unusual and maybe even illegal methods to attain it. One of the extra-constitutional measures they might use is appropriately called the "Slaughter Solution," whereby the bill that cannot get a simple majority of votes in the House may be returned to the Senate where that's all it can get. Got it?
But the issue that may drive the final spike into this mess of a bill is appropriately, abortion; that awful practice that was also undemocratically forced on our nation without benefit of a single vote legitimately cast. I and others have long chronicled the use of Orwellian doublespeak as a tool of socialists to foist their agenda on a country whose people are basically good at heart and of a trusting nature, but never have their efforts been more focused than on this issue. The continued application of euphemisms like "choice" is both sophistic and insulting, as are attempts to paint the snuffing of our children's lives as some form of healthcare... Read the whole article.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Saving Catholic Schools
by RiShawn Biddle
The poor black and Latino children attending Sacred Heart School in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, D.C., probably don't know that Century Foundation Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg thinks their participation in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship and other voucher plans merely helps to make "'separate-but-equal' work." Chances are, they don't even know about the contention among progressives and even otherwise school choice-supporting centrist Democrats that public funding of parochial schools is somehow a plot among conservatives to cut government spending and violates the Constitution's ban against the intermingling of church and state.
Nor should they or their parents care one way or another. Although the District's traditional public school system is undergoing a much-needed overhaul led by Blackberry-touting reform maven Michelle Rhee, just 49 percent of its high school freshmen graduate four years later; a mere 12 percent of its 8th-graders in 2007 had reading skills rated "proficient" or higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test of academic performance.
These families shouldn't have to wait until Rhee turns around the district's performance in order to avail their children of opportunities for high-quality academic instruction. Their interest in improving the quality of education for their children should outweigh concerns about the racial and ethnic segregation that they choose. And their hard-earned tax dollars shouldn't remain captured by a district that isn't delivering the goods.
Centrist and progressive Democrat school reformers are certainly familiar with these arguments. After all, they have successfully used them in beating back efforts by teachers unions, traditional school districts and some civil rights activists (usually the kind that spend more time on manicured Ivy League campuses than in gritty urban locales) to stamp out and restrict the existence of public charter schools, the publicly-funded-privately-operated entities that have become their favored form of school choice. And they should keep it in mind whenever vouchers (and similar tax credit programs) come up for discussion. If nonprofit- and for-profit operators can be trusted with public funding through charters, then school vouchers used for Catholic and private schools shouldn't be a problem... Read the whole article.
The poor black and Latino children attending Sacred Heart School in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, D.C., probably don't know that Century Foundation Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg thinks their participation in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship and other voucher plans merely helps to make "'separate-but-equal' work." Chances are, they don't even know about the contention among progressives and even otherwise school choice-supporting centrist Democrats that public funding of parochial schools is somehow a plot among conservatives to cut government spending and violates the Constitution's ban against the intermingling of church and state.
Nor should they or their parents care one way or another. Although the District's traditional public school system is undergoing a much-needed overhaul led by Blackberry-touting reform maven Michelle Rhee, just 49 percent of its high school freshmen graduate four years later; a mere 12 percent of its 8th-graders in 2007 had reading skills rated "proficient" or higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test of academic performance.
These families shouldn't have to wait until Rhee turns around the district's performance in order to avail their children of opportunities for high-quality academic instruction. Their interest in improving the quality of education for their children should outweigh concerns about the racial and ethnic segregation that they choose. And their hard-earned tax dollars shouldn't remain captured by a district that isn't delivering the goods.
Centrist and progressive Democrat school reformers are certainly familiar with these arguments. After all, they have successfully used them in beating back efforts by teachers unions, traditional school districts and some civil rights activists (usually the kind that spend more time on manicured Ivy League campuses than in gritty urban locales) to stamp out and restrict the existence of public charter schools, the publicly-funded-privately-operated entities that have become their favored form of school choice. And they should keep it in mind whenever vouchers (and similar tax credit programs) come up for discussion. If nonprofit- and for-profit operators can be trusted with public funding through charters, then school vouchers used for Catholic and private schools shouldn't be a problem... Read the whole article.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Creation
by James Bowman
It will come as no news to readers of The American Spectator that science is now no longer just science but has become a religion-substitute for a large number of Americans. This faith, perhaps, claims even a majority of those in some other liberal democracies of the West. And if science, and its political arm, environmentalism, is the new religion, Charles Darwin is its Christ figure, despised and rejected of (theist) men and persecuted for the Truth he sought to bring to set men free of their inherited chains. These are not the bonds of sin and death but of the superstition and ignorance which supposes the world to have had any Creator at all or any Redeemer other than Darwin himself. That is what we mean by myth: a story that explains the world, whether or not the story happens to be true, and the Darwinist myth now comes closer to an explanation that people are prepared to accept than any other since the Redemptive history in the Christian interpretation of the Bible.
For this reason Jon Amiel's Creation, written by John Collee from a family memoir by Randal Keynes, Darwin's great-great-grandson, has something of the odor of piety about it that has hardly been seen on screen since the days of Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epics. The movie would have us believe that Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) lost his always rather uncertain religious faith on account of the death of his beloved daughter Annie (Martha West) and only then allowed himself to be persuaded by a group of hard-line atheist friends, led by T.H. Huxley (Toby Jones), to finish the long-delayed writing of The Origin of Species. Furthermore, their ideological interest in his doing so became his own over time and fully congruent with the atheistic triumphalism in Huxley's words of proleptic appreciation for the Origin: "You have killed God, Sir."
That sounds dubious enough, even coming from the historical Huxley, but then the filmmakers can't resist making him add: "Good riddance to the vindictive bugger" -- the v.b., that is, being God. At once we are made aware that we are no longer in anything that is even meant to look like the 19th century except in the most superficial ways. Instead, the film is quite self-consciously taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Dawkins-Hitchens faction in the theist-antitheist debates of our own time. The movie-Darwin tentatively protests at first about how society is held together by religion and, though it is a frail bark, it nevertheless manages to float; he is also restrained by the still-powerful religious belief of Mrs. Darwin (Jennifer Connelly, the real-life Mrs. Bettany) -- until she reads the book in manuscript and urges him to publish it. But in the end his own atheism is as confirmed as Huxley's. Or, more to the point, Richard Dawkins's... Read the whole article.
It will come as no news to readers of The American Spectator that science is now no longer just science but has become a religion-substitute for a large number of Americans. This faith, perhaps, claims even a majority of those in some other liberal democracies of the West. And if science, and its political arm, environmentalism, is the new religion, Charles Darwin is its Christ figure, despised and rejected of (theist) men and persecuted for the Truth he sought to bring to set men free of their inherited chains. These are not the bonds of sin and death but of the superstition and ignorance which supposes the world to have had any Creator at all or any Redeemer other than Darwin himself. That is what we mean by myth: a story that explains the world, whether or not the story happens to be true, and the Darwinist myth now comes closer to an explanation that people are prepared to accept than any other since the Redemptive history in the Christian interpretation of the Bible.
For this reason Jon Amiel's Creation, written by John Collee from a family memoir by Randal Keynes, Darwin's great-great-grandson, has something of the odor of piety about it that has hardly been seen on screen since the days of Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epics. The movie would have us believe that Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) lost his always rather uncertain religious faith on account of the death of his beloved daughter Annie (Martha West) and only then allowed himself to be persuaded by a group of hard-line atheist friends, led by T.H. Huxley (Toby Jones), to finish the long-delayed writing of The Origin of Species. Furthermore, their ideological interest in his doing so became his own over time and fully congruent with the atheistic triumphalism in Huxley's words of proleptic appreciation for the Origin: "You have killed God, Sir."
That sounds dubious enough, even coming from the historical Huxley, but then the filmmakers can't resist making him add: "Good riddance to the vindictive bugger" -- the v.b., that is, being God. At once we are made aware that we are no longer in anything that is even meant to look like the 19th century except in the most superficial ways. Instead, the film is quite self-consciously taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Dawkins-Hitchens faction in the theist-antitheist debates of our own time. The movie-Darwin tentatively protests at first about how society is held together by religion and, though it is a frail bark, it nevertheless manages to float; he is also restrained by the still-powerful religious belief of Mrs. Darwin (Jennifer Connelly, the real-life Mrs. Bettany) -- until she reads the book in manuscript and urges him to publish it. But in the end his own atheism is as confirmed as Huxley's. Or, more to the point, Richard Dawkins's... Read the whole article.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Pro-Choice Anti-Choicers
by David N. Bass
It's a case study in the conundrum of liberal ideology: radical feminist groups declaring that a woman's choice to not have an abortion is, somehow, anti-choice.
The far left Women's Media Center put out a press release last week doing just that. The group ripped CBS for accepting a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam.
The ad, sponsored by the Christian group Focus on the Family, draws attention to Pam's decision to bring her pregnancy to term despite health complications that threatened her life.
Millions of viewers will find that pro-family message a welcome relief from the typical raunchy fare aired during the nation's top sporting event. But feminists, apparently, don't appreciate the break from racy beer commercials. In fact, they're enraged by it.
"An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year," Jemhu Greene, president of WMC, told the Associated Press.
Given the rhetorical firestorm, you'd think Tebow and his mom were using the ad to encourage Congress to enact the national "Keep Women Barefoot and in the Kitchen Act of 2010." Instead, Pam will explain her decision to have Tim despite doctors' advice to the contrary... Read the whole article.
It's a case study in the conundrum of liberal ideology: radical feminist groups declaring that a woman's choice to not have an abortion is, somehow, anti-choice.
The far left Women's Media Center put out a press release last week doing just that. The group ripped CBS for accepting a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam.
The ad, sponsored by the Christian group Focus on the Family, draws attention to Pam's decision to bring her pregnancy to term despite health complications that threatened her life.
Millions of viewers will find that pro-family message a welcome relief from the typical raunchy fare aired during the nation's top sporting event. But feminists, apparently, don't appreciate the break from racy beer commercials. In fact, they're enraged by it.
"An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year," Jemhu Greene, president of WMC, told the Associated Press.
Given the rhetorical firestorm, you'd think Tebow and his mom were using the ad to encourage Congress to enact the national "Keep Women Barefoot and in the Kitchen Act of 2010." Instead, Pam will explain her decision to have Tim despite doctors' advice to the contrary... Read the whole article.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Media Warns of Grave GOP Danger
by John R. Guardiano
The Christmas Day terrorist attack on Flight 253 was an actual disaster that never occurred thanks to luck (the bomb's detonators were faulty) and to heroism (a Dutch passenger, Jasper Schuringa, literally jumped over rows of passengers to nab the terrorist, subdue him, and save lives).
The averted Christmas Day attack, though, is turning into a political disaster for the Obama administration and the Democratic Left. Political disaster looms because the American people rightly want to know how a terrorist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with detonators and explosives in hand, ever managed to get on Flight 253 -- especially after the terrorist's own father had warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria about the dangers posed by his son.
The American people also want to know what the Obama administration is doing to prevent future Abdulmutallabs from blowing up planes and American cities. Republican elected officials, consequently, have finally found their voice and thus are asking politically inconvenient questions about how the administration has handled -- or mishandled -- the war on terror. Questions like:
• Has the Obama administration's ban on enhanced interrogations, and its pledge to investigate and prosecute past enhanced interrogations, resulted in lax counterterrorism efforts, which might otherwise have prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane?
• Did the Obama administration opt to cede Abdulmutallab to the courts and his ACLU-loving lawyers vice interrogating him about his terrorist connections and knowledge?
• How much actionable intelligence was lost -- and how many terror plots might have been averted -- because the Obama administration opted to treat the Christmas Day terrorist attack as a law enforcement matter rather than an incident of war?
• Does the Obama administration truly recognize that America is at war with al-Qaeda and the terror masters; or does it still view terrorism as an issue best delegated to the courts and the criminal justice system?
Of course, the Obama administration and the Democratic Left don't like these questions, which threaten to expose their soft underbelly and show that the emperor has no clothes. That's why they've enlisted their allies in the big media to fight back... Read the whole article.
The Christmas Day terrorist attack on Flight 253 was an actual disaster that never occurred thanks to luck (the bomb's detonators were faulty) and to heroism (a Dutch passenger, Jasper Schuringa, literally jumped over rows of passengers to nab the terrorist, subdue him, and save lives).
The averted Christmas Day attack, though, is turning into a political disaster for the Obama administration and the Democratic Left. Political disaster looms because the American people rightly want to know how a terrorist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with detonators and explosives in hand, ever managed to get on Flight 253 -- especially after the terrorist's own father had warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria about the dangers posed by his son.
The American people also want to know what the Obama administration is doing to prevent future Abdulmutallabs from blowing up planes and American cities. Republican elected officials, consequently, have finally found their voice and thus are asking politically inconvenient questions about how the administration has handled -- or mishandled -- the war on terror. Questions like:
• Has the Obama administration's ban on enhanced interrogations, and its pledge to investigate and prosecute past enhanced interrogations, resulted in lax counterterrorism efforts, which might otherwise have prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane?
• Did the Obama administration opt to cede Abdulmutallab to the courts and his ACLU-loving lawyers vice interrogating him about his terrorist connections and knowledge?
• How much actionable intelligence was lost -- and how many terror plots might have been averted -- because the Obama administration opted to treat the Christmas Day terrorist attack as a law enforcement matter rather than an incident of war?
• Does the Obama administration truly recognize that America is at war with al-Qaeda and the terror masters; or does it still view terrorism as an issue best delegated to the courts and the criminal justice system?
Of course, the Obama administration and the Democratic Left don't like these questions, which threaten to expose their soft underbelly and show that the emperor has no clothes. That's why they've enlisted their allies in the big media to fight back... Read the whole article.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Subverting Democracy
by Daniel Mandel
It is extraordinary to see the Obama Administration -- backed by establishment liberal papers like the Washington Post and New York Times -- urging democratic Honduras to accept at least the temporary reinstatement of ousted president Manuel Zelaya.
Hondurans should ignore this advice.
Zelaya was ousted because he sought to alter the Honduran Constitution in order to enable him to run for a further term as president. This was illegal, because Article 4 of the Constitution limits the president to one four-year term. Article 4 in turn is subject to a constitutional prohibition on its alteration contained in Article 239, which states that "whoever changes or attempts to change" it "will be immediately removed from public office."
It was precisely this constitutional prohibition that Zelaya violated last May when he tried to initiate a referendum to change Article 4. Article 42, Section 5 says that anyone who is found to "incite, promote, or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President" faces loss of citizenship. Under the Constitution, therefore, Zelaya appears entitled to neither the presidency nor even Honduran citizenship... Read the whole article.
It is extraordinary to see the Obama Administration -- backed by establishment liberal papers like the Washington Post and New York Times -- urging democratic Honduras to accept at least the temporary reinstatement of ousted president Manuel Zelaya.
Hondurans should ignore this advice.
Zelaya was ousted because he sought to alter the Honduran Constitution in order to enable him to run for a further term as president. This was illegal, because Article 4 of the Constitution limits the president to one four-year term. Article 4 in turn is subject to a constitutional prohibition on its alteration contained in Article 239, which states that "whoever changes or attempts to change" it "will be immediately removed from public office."
It was precisely this constitutional prohibition that Zelaya violated last May when he tried to initiate a referendum to change Article 4. Article 42, Section 5 says that anyone who is found to "incite, promote, or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President" faces loss of citizenship. Under the Constitution, therefore, Zelaya appears entitled to neither the presidency nor even Honduran citizenship... Read the whole article.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Twits, Twitter, and Tweets
by Tom Bethell
I've been thinking about the huge hi-tech changes that have taken place since I first wrote for The American Spectator. That was in, oh, 1976. Very few people at the time realized just how far reaching the transformation would be-although I suspect that George Gilder did. We still don't know how disruptive the changes will be because they haven't stopped yet. But one indicator is that major news institutions like the New York Times are in jeopardy. The digital revolution is like an express train taking us to an unknown destination.
I hate to use the much overused word revolutionary, but as applied to the new technology it is appropriate. Its impact on society may well be comparable to that of the printing press, or the Industrial Revolution.
It was in the early 1980s that everyone you knew began talking about word processors. "What program do you use?" Names like WordStar and WordPerfect filled the air. How great it was, people said. You could rearrange the order of your paragraphs. I refused to join the crowd, smugly replying that paragraphs were rightly ordered the first time. Then in 1987 I started to use a computer myself. The Hoover Institution, which I have been fortunate enough to visit over the years, had a mainframe system. It was swept away years ago and may already be in a museum. But it was a revelation to me. Overnight, rewriting became not just easier but an actual pleasure... Read the whole article.
I've been thinking about the huge hi-tech changes that have taken place since I first wrote for The American Spectator. That was in, oh, 1976. Very few people at the time realized just how far reaching the transformation would be-although I suspect that George Gilder did. We still don't know how disruptive the changes will be because they haven't stopped yet. But one indicator is that major news institutions like the New York Times are in jeopardy. The digital revolution is like an express train taking us to an unknown destination.
I hate to use the much overused word revolutionary, but as applied to the new technology it is appropriate. Its impact on society may well be comparable to that of the printing press, or the Industrial Revolution.
It was in the early 1980s that everyone you knew began talking about word processors. "What program do you use?" Names like WordStar and WordPerfect filled the air. How great it was, people said. You could rearrange the order of your paragraphs. I refused to join the crowd, smugly replying that paragraphs were rightly ordered the first time. Then in 1987 I started to use a computer myself. The Hoover Institution, which I have been fortunate enough to visit over the years, had a mainframe system. It was swept away years ago and may already be in a museum. But it was a revelation to me. Overnight, rewriting became not just easier but an actual pleasure... Read the whole article.
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