Friday, December 08, 2006
The article or two to read today
If you read one article today, make it Shelby Steele's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: "Our unceasing ambivalence: Why it's so hard to define victory in Iraq." I agree with everything up until the prescription. I may have more to say later.
And if you read two articles today, read Christopher Hitchens on female humor and the lack thereof.
Be your gender what it may, you will certainly have heard the following from a female friend who is enumerating the charms of a new (male) squeeze: "He's really quite cute, and he's kind to my friends, and he knows all kinds of stuff, and he's so funny … " (If you yourself are a guy, and you know the man in question, you will often have said to yourself, "Funny? He wouldn't know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce béarnaise.") However, there is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: "She's a real honey, has a life of her own … [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] … and, man, does she ever make 'em laugh."
Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about.
And then there's this:
Is there anything so utterly lacking in humor as a mother discussing her new child? She is unboreable on the subject. Even the mothers of other fledglings have to drive their fingernails into their palms and wiggle their toes, just to prevent themselves from fainting dead away at the sheer tedium of it. And as the little ones burgeon and thrive, do you find that their mothers enjoy jests at their expense? I thought not.
Not that I agree with him or anything. At least not this part: "I am certain that this is also partly why, in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion, which in turn is the official enemy of all humor." Huh? Christianity has certainly been notable for the exaltation of women in both tradition and practice (many Christian men count on their wives to see that they are sufficiently churched-up), but Islam and Judaism? The Muslims would riot in the street if Hitchens stood up in the center of Cairo and said that, and in any case do their utmost in law and custom to circumscribe women. Orthodox Jewish practice also centers more on the men than the women, at least according to the men. The article is entertaining as usual, but Hitchens' agnosticism got the best of him in that line.
9 Comments:
By 
skipsailing, at
Fri Dec 08, 10:14:00 AM:
That's the part of this I really don't understand. What shelby steele says is absolutely true. If we win, we own it. We've done this before and we did just fine then.
What exactly are we afraid of in Iraq? That people like Lanky Bastard or Dan will snivel in our general direction? Are we afraid of Edward Said's ghost?
To me we are acting like those nitwits in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We are groveling before the knights that say nit. Its just stupid. so what if ineffectual jerk offs like Kofi Annan call us "colonists"? the UN has been castigating Israel for decades with the same idiotic result.
We need to regain our clarity here. We bombed the daylights out of our enemies and recovered our "morality" without missing a heartbeat. We could crush the resistance, impose our will on B-dad and take over and still be good people.
So go ahead, say "nit" all ya like. It is we who are the fools for giving these vacuous morons any power at all.
By Papa Ray, at
Fri Dec 08, 10:55:00 AM:
Steele's right on the real problems facing America, and the reasons for most of them.
But he downplays Islam by saying it is "Islamic extremism is an ideology of menace". That's like saying that crack cocaine is only bad for your reputation, leaving out the dozens of more important and life threating reasons.
But, I shouldn't be surprised. Out of the scores of people I have argued with about Islam, not twenty know the real threat and danger of the most dangerous cult on this planet- Islam.
Nor, that the only way to defeat it is to stop the teaching of it to the populations of the world.
We can kill them by the million, but they will only breed more and come back stronger with even more hatred and better weapons.
We need to kill the teachers, burn the schools, make teaching Islam a capital crime.
That is the only way that the children, the next generations are going to be able to get away from this most evil of cults.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By Ardeshir Dolat, at
Fri Dec 08, 12:40:00 PM:
I beg you all to sign this petition to save Delara Darabi, the Iranian artist who has been in prison on death row for the last three years. The Islamic youth court has upheld her hanging sentence once again and time is running out for her. Delara was only 17 at the time of the alleged crime, which she demies. Please help to distribute this petition as in my experience, they do work.
http://www.petitiononline.com/DL2222/petition.html
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Dec 08, 01:19:00 PM:
Perhaps it is time for the U.S. to copy China's mostly passive approach to world affairs. China's leaders think about the next generation. American politicians think about the next election.
By 
, at
Fri Dec 08, 02:54:00 PM:
DEC: there's something to be said for a government that doesn't answer to the people; it is much easier to make long term plans, for sure. I think I like our system better though!
PR: I don't understand why you think attempting such a course of action would be effective or desirable. It is one thing to make war on the people who are one's declared enemies (the radical Islamic fascists); it is quite another to try, as a state, to outlaw and destroy a system of beliefs. Not only would doing so destroy America as we know it (by undermining many of the fundamental freedoms in the constitution), but history has not been kind to those states who have tried that kind of thing. The Romans tried pretty hard to crush Christianity, and look how that worked out for them.
Even if you take for granted that we must fight some Muslims, I don't see how you plan to win in the long term by creating martyrs. In the end, to be ultimately rid of the threat, we'll have to cause Islam to change. I agree that it isn't obvious how to do it - perhaps we can start by doing our utmost to both discredit the extremists ideology (by violence, if we must, or other means) while at the same time positively reinforcing those who are Muslims but are not radical?
In light of history, I don't see how your simplistic solution will accomplish anything.
By , at
Fri Dec 08, 05:16:00 PM:
To summate, PR, yours are terrible 'solutions'
In regard to the Iraq article, I have a problem with this thinking, "as the insurgency developed, we made a kind of space for it, almost as if we believed it had a right to fight us."
It suggests that there is some deep American instinct to be moral and lose the war. In fact, the whole article suggests as much. I disagree. We aren't losing because we want to, we're losing because of the terribly incompetent leadership that oversaw the war.
There are no morally insecure leaders, just strategically stupid ones.
The rest of the article was pretty good.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Dec 08, 10:11:00 PM:
"We aren't losing because we want to, we're losing because of the terribly incompetent leadership that oversaw the war."
First of all, we're not losing anything except insofar as our fortunes are linked to the new Iraqi government and *they* lose things. Your very premise is defeatist.
Secondly, the war war executed with virtual perfection and will likely be studies as a marvelous example of executing modern offensive warfare. The ensuing Baathist insurgency was crushed with their leader in chains, and the Al Qaeda attempt was crushed with their leader dead. We haven't done the same to the Shi'i militant factions (they aren't really an insurgency) because we aren't allowed to. Literally.
By Papa Ray, at
Sat Dec 09, 01:13:00 AM:
I'm not being disappointed in people's disbelief in how to handle Islamic radicals or whatever name you want to put on them.
Wiping out a religion is a drastic measure. Wiping out a cult of destruction and evil is an even harder task.
But, those that believe that Islam will change under any conditions are sadly mistaken.
Don't take my word for it, but mark my words, in ten years or less, the few thousand others like myself who opt for the destruction of Islam will be joined by millions more, including millions of Muslims, who are the primary victims of Islam.
Study Islam, know your enemy.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By William, at
Sun Dec 10, 02:01:00 AM:
"including millions of Muslims, who are the primary victims of Islam."
We'll get together and talk things over in ten years.
Upon taking over Iraq, we had no plan, but rather let Bremer wing it. We (or he, acting as we) disbanded the military (fire all the people with guns), de-baathisized the government (fire all the people with gun's friends & family), and stood by as looters ran rampant across Baghdad for we had not the resources to provide them with simple security. Recall the insurgency did not even begin until a good 6-7 months after we arrived? They built an insurgency on our watch. That's incompetence.
If you look at the war as defeating the government of Iraq, as I'm sure Rumsfeld did, then yes, it was brilliantly executed. But if you take the grander vision, that the war was to achieve a democratic nation in the heart of the Middle East, a view I at least took from the beginning, the war was executed, well, incompetently. With insufficient resources and bad tactics.
I do not want us to lose. I still want to see that democracy. But I've been wanting to see it for three years, and while our enemies have shown no lack of ingenuity and resources in hampering such a quest, I have seen very few solutions and still (relatively) fewer resources put forth by our leaders to win it.
