Moving day

Parableman is moving to a new site here's the new Parablemania, http://parablemania.ektopos.com/

Racism forever and always in UK

Schools system accused of being racist. Why is it that racism is always at fault?

The study, the African Caribbean Achievement Plan, said: "Some, although not all, African Caribbean young people underachieve because they are educated in an education system that is not totally effective and which exhibits aspects of racism."

Karamat Iqbal, lead adviser on equalities for Birmingham LEA, was an author of the plan. He said to engage pupils properly, their heritage ought to be recognised in the curriculum.

You know, I when I first came to the States most of the teachers had no idea where Barbados was. They certainly weren't teaching West Indian history and the kids took great pleasure in making fun of my accent. But some how I still managed to continue learning how to read, write, and do math. Of course that was 20 years ago.

The article mentions that Black and Asian studengs are "underachieving at school in Birmingham partly because of 'racism' in the teaching curriculum and materials." No mention is made however of how large a part this racism plays or what the other factors maybe. But the proponents of this study are going to go ahead and try to change the curriculum anyway.

Sanity prevails in reparations case, mostly

"Slave reparations case dismissed"

Good thing: "CHICAGO - A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves against corporations they say profited from slavery, saying the plaintiffs had established no clear link to the companies they targeted."

Bad thing: "The court still left the door open for further litigation."

One of the companies named in this reparations suit is Lehman Brothers. This Christian Science Monitor article reveals the extent of their involvement in American slavery,

"Out of thousands of companies that have turned in affidavits [disclosing involvement with slavery], only one, Lehman Brothers, has acknowledged any record of a slave. Martha (no last name was recorded) served as a domestic in the home of the founding brothers. (The company contends the business itself had no ties to slavery; the reparations lawsuit disputes that.)"

I guess the reparations movement has it's own version of the one drop rule. One drop of any hint of a connection to slavery no matter how remote means you owe somebody money (presuming you have lots of money to begin with).

More trouble for Pakistani Christians

Pakistan: Christian jailed on dubious blasphemy charge
Pakistan: Christian teenager forced into hiding

Too smart to be a teacher

We're not the only ones who thought this story was bloody stupid. Baldilocks does too. I can't believe someone actually said, "It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become." Grrrr. I suppose a pimp or a drug dealer would have been a more suitable candidate?

Up date: Joanne Jacobs at Foxnews, Flight From Excellence.

More at the Evangelical Outpost on "The Passion"

The Passion of Apostates (Part II): The Hugh Hewitt Connection, note the striking difference between how Mr. Hewitt is described and how Rev. Stanger is described.

Right-wing Christian ideologue and media pundit Hugh Hewitt is repaying actor/director Mel Gibson with lavish praise for the invitation he got to one of Gibson's exclusive pre-screenings of the controversial forthcoming film "The Passion of the Christ."

[Finally, someone had the courage to stand up and expose Hugh’s true colors. After hearing all this talk about him being a “center-right” blogger I’m glad someone pointed out the truth – he’s a media pundit. I mean, really, one post a day does not a blogger make.]

Gibson has tried to keep his production hermetically sealed for months, shutting out mainstream Christian, Jewish and interfaith leaders from screenings. But based on a leaked version of the script, many of those religious leaders are deeply concerned that the film will unleash a wave of anti-Semitism -- an accusation Gibson has forcefully rejected. Hewitt clearly anticipates the severe criticism that the film is likely to draw upon release, and he's giving Gibson a resounding thumbs up.

[Hugh was also “leaked” a pre-script version of the plot which he passed along to some of his favorite bloggers. Actually, it appears that there were four different scriptdoctors working on the story. The names of the writers are only identified by their first names – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (I know Mel is all about secrecy but I don’t know how that’s going to fly with the Screenwriter’s Guild). Talk about anti-Semitic! The main character, Jesus, seems to be all right. But the twelve guys he has working with him are a bunch of bumbling idiots. They are always screwing up and getting confused…it really reflects poorly on the Jews.]

Some links:
"The Passion of Christ", I think this is the official site. This one is the fan website.

Somebody likes us

We made it into Evangelical Outpost's End of the Week Roundup!

"No, it's my turn on the computer!" -- Favorite Husband and Wife Blogs (Tie) {Le Sabot Post-Modern & TulipGirl } / {Parablemania & Uncle Sam’s Cabin}

Why Cats Rule The World

Hello again to all my friends I'm glad you came to stay!
Our fun and learning never ends, here's what we learned today!

It's Friday! And in keeping with that, I would like to take a moment and interject some levity into the conversations. I thought I would share my thoughts with you on the subject of cats and their domintation of our world.

As I was talking with my sister last night, I told her I would have to get off the phone soon because I needed to go upstairs, to which she replied; 'don't you have a cordless?'. Well the answer to that is no, but it got me to thinking about how the idea of cordless phones came about. After careful thought this is how I think it all went down...

It was 3pm on a Friday afternoon, the roast was in the oven, the potatoes were boiling on the stove, and the vegetables were steaming. All was in order to have dinner ready and waiting for the husband and kids who would be arriving in 30 minutes. Then the phone rings. Fluffy, who had been to this point staring out the window plotting the downfall of the neighbour's parakeet, tensed in anticipation of what was to come. Mrs. C. grabs the phone and begins her daily gossip session with Mrs. D. from church, all the while moving about the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner. Then it happens! 10 minutes ahead of schedule Mr. C and the kids come tearing into the house. With the phone still to her ear Mrs C. rushes out to greet them and send the kids upstairs to wash up. She kisses her husband, puts away all the coats and sends him to wash up also. By the time they return downstairs, Mrs. C. has miraculously gotten the table set, and ended her conversation with Mrs. D. (to be continued later that night...) They gather round the table and the father prepares to say grace when the are distracted by a rampant hissing sound. They trace the sound, and much to everyone's dismay, between the frigidare and the washing machine is Fluffy. The phone cord is wrapped around her mid-section like a hungry boa constrictor squeezing the life out of its prey. Needless to say Fluffy is not happy. Using her powers of telepathy, Fluffy enters the mind of young Timmy and plants the thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if phones didn't have to have cords?'

Twenty years later with the ink still wet on his diploma from MIT, Timmy sits in the board room of Bell Atlantic humbly accepting the praise of his peers who are in awe over his presentation of their next big product... THE CORDLESS PHONE...

Of course this is all speculation on my part, but I bet it made you laugh, or at least smile. Tune in next week for my thoughts on cats and the electric can opener. Toodles!

Crown Heights riots

I used to live in Crown Heights when I was a kid. My mostly fond memories of living in that neighbourhood have been tainted by what happened there in August of 1991. My family bought a house in Queens shortly before the riots happened so we were spared being in the eye of the storm. This story strikes very close to home for me.

New Play About Crown Heights Blames Jews for Deadly Riots
“A play blaming Jews for the Crown Heights riots of 1991 has opened at a new theater on West 42nd Street that was built in part with a tax-exempt, multimillion-dollar city bond.

The play, called "Crown Heights," portrays the murder of chasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum as a tragic accident in a fight in which Jews threw the first punch.”

This is an anti-semitic revision of history folks. To add insult to injury it is also funded by the tax dollars of the American people. I’m not so old that I don’t remember what really happened in 1991 or who happily poured oil on and fanned the flames of the idiots who tried to ruin a good neighbourhood. If you really want to know what happened you can read this detailed article The Crown Heights Riot & Its Aftermath written in 1993.

“Not only was anti-Semitism in the ether, it was gathering steam as a loud and increasingly mainstream black movement when a station wagon from the entourage of Menahem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, careered out of control and crashed onto a Crown Heights sidewalk on the night of August 19, crushing to death a black child, seven-year-old Gavin Cato, and leaving his seven year old cousin, Angela Cato, badly injured.

The violence erupted immediately. When the driver of the station wagon, Yosef Lifsh, stepped out of his car with the intention of helping the children he had hit, he was set upon by angry black bystanders who beat and robbed him before the police could reach the scene.

Moments later, an ambulance from the jewish-run Hatzolah service arrived. Police, seeking to remove the object of the crowd’s anger, directed the crew to take away Lifsh and his passengers. Before the Hatzolah vehicle was out of sight a city ambulance had arrived to begin the gory and laborious task of removing the Cato children from beneath the car, but Lifsh’s attackers were enraged at the decision to place him in the first ambulance.

…a mob came upon Yankel Rosenbaum, a twenty nine year old Australian ultra-Orthodox Jew not a Hasid, as the papers still insist on calling him who was in New York to conduct historical research at the YIVO Institute. Rosenbaum was beaten and stabbed by attackers who shouted “Get the Jew” and “Kill the Jew” before fleeing as police arrived on the scene.

It always perplexes me why people so willing support Al Sharpton as a good leader in the black community. He was a central player in making sure that things went from bad to worse while my old neighbourhood descended into chaos. For his actions in Crown Heights alone this man will never inspire anything in me but contempt. Strong words I know, but would you trust a man who behaved in this manner?

But Sharpton and Carson and the other demagogues who flocked to the neighborhood over the next days to capture the spotlight as leaders of the “protest” wasted no breath mourning Rosenbaum. Nor did they lament any of the other injuries, fire bombings, looting, and property damage that followed his murder. Instead, they quickly conjured up their own version of events, according to which Gavin Cato’s “murder” at the hands of the Jewish driver was the latest in a series of racial assassinations that included the killings of young black men in Howard Beach and Bensonhurst. By the time of Sharpton’s speech at Gavin Cato’s funeral, the list had expanded to include “the four girls who got killed in Birmingham one morning” during the 1960’s civil rights movement and “brother Malcolm X.”

Al Sharpton’s rhetoric peaked at the Cato funeral: The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident .... It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. It is an accident to think that we will keep crying and never stand up and call for justice .... What type of city do we have that would lie on our children and allow politics to rise above the blood of innocent babies? Have we lost all our moral fiber? ... Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid .... All we want to say is what Jesus said: if you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds .... It’s no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on the planet. We’re the original man. We gazed into the stars and wrote astrology. We had a conversation and that became philosophy. We are the ones who created mathematics. We’re not anybody to be left to die waiting on an ambulance. We are the alpha and omega of creation itself .... We will win because we’re right. We will win because we’re strong. God is on our side.

Does that sound like someone that should be taken seriously in a sane world?

Discoshaman on race

Part three Poverty: A Culture Issue, Not a Race Issue

Poverty is a problem that cuts across color lines. Only about one-third of the black community is part of what we call the underclass. There are large numbers of whites and Hispanics which also fall into this category. The factors which keep blacks in the underclass are the same which keep others mired there -- illiteracy, illegitimacy, crime, substance abuse, etc.

Never saw this one coming

Farmed salmon industry faces lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO - The farmed salmon industry faces legal action in California for failing to warn consumers that the fish contain what environmental groups say are potentially dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

Defendants named include major U.S. grocery chains such as Safeway Inc., Kroger Co., Albertsons Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. and farmed salmon producers in Canada and Europe.

Surprise surprise! Who knew this is where we would end up when the study that is apparently driving this shake down legal action first surfaced a few weeks ago.

What's happening to the kids

From The Empty Chair by Fr. Rob Johansen,

The most popular kind of music among young people today is "gangsta rap", which glories in violence, degradation, and exploitation. It assaults the very idea of social bonds. One of the biggest fads today is body piercing: It's no longer enough for some people to wear one or two, or even three earrings, but now some young people pierce their noses, their eyebrows, their cheeks, and even less mentionable parts. But it goes even farther, to things like branding, or something called "tongue splitting", in which people have their tongues surgically split in two, so as to resemble that of a snake. A serious problem among young women today is "cutting": these girls cut themselves deliberately, mutilating their bodies.

All of these kinds of self-mutilation, all of this degradation, is symptomatic of something. It didn't just come out of nowhere. These things are symptoms of deep emotional and spiritual pain. According to pychologists and therapists who have worked with these young people, the thing that is universal among them is a feeling of total disintegration, a feeling that the world is meaningless, that their lives are meaningless. They feel that everything is random, and nothing really matters. Another thing these young people have in common is rage: uncontrollable, almost inexpressible rage. And these feelings of meaninglessness and rage are so overpowering, so overwhelming, that the only way they feel they can get relief is to inflict physical pain on themselves.

But one of the greatest reasons for this underlying sense of meaninglessness, for this rage among so many young people, among the "Gen-X'ers" (those who are under 30), is the fact that our young people, those under 30, as a Gen-X'er recently wrote, are the first generation that our society has systematically tried to wipe out through the holocaust of abortion. If you think I'm exaggerating, if you think I'm being "extremist" by saying something like that, consider this: since 1973, when abortion was made legal by the Supreme Court, we have killed 38 million children through abortion. 38 million! That's more people than Hitler and Stalin managed to kill.

Rise of Christianity in Turkey

Many Turks become Christians, but must tread carefully
"UPI reports that 35,000 Turks became Christians last year — a major social movement in that country. There is a certain poetic justice to this, as the report suggests that many are the descendants of Christians who were forced to become Muslims during the time of the Armenian genocide and the persecution and expulsion of the Greeks. However, these Christians still have to be quiet and 'not make waves,' even in that enlightened, secular, moderate Muslim nation. Now why is that?" From Dhimmi Watch.

Are you serious?: Brains can hurt job applicants

Brains can hurt job applicants by Marquis Harris
(Thanks to American Black for the link)

Could anyone imagine the day when an aspiring educator would be told that he is, in essence, overqualified?
Perhaps my story is merely an exception to the rule. In either circumstance, the outcome is appalling.

I am a 22-year-old African-American male and recent graduate of a respectable liberal arts college in Kentucky. I acquired a 3.75 grade-point average with a double major in Social Studies Secondary Education and sociology.

I was a Rhodes Scholar nominee, inducted into the Mensa society in May 2001, named to the National Dean's List for three consecutive years, successfully competed in intercollegiate forensics and served as student body president.

While in college I was also privileged to serve on mission trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica. In the summer of 2002 I was granted the opportunity to intern with Saxby Chambliss, who was then a U.S. representative running for the U.S. Senate. I served for two years as a court-appointed special advocate for the state of Kentucky.


Recently, I interviewed with a school in one of the metro Atlanta counties, only to receive an e-mail from the principal stating, "Though your qualifications are quite impressive, I regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate. It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become. However, it is highly recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated. Good luck."

After reading the e-mail several times over, I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. It is truly a sad day in the world of education when a 22-year-old aspiring educator is informed that he is too intellectual to teach high school.

-----------
At this point in time I am torn between being amused and upset. Amused not because I am making light of his situation, but because sometimes it is either laugh or curl up into the fetal position and cry uncontrollably. Upset because on some levels I can fully understand where he is coming from. I too 'have' (I put this in quotations because there are times when I think it is a lost cause) an aspiration to the teaching profession. So much so that while in my junior year at school (UPENN if anyone cares) I applied and was accept into the graduated education program there. I graduated in 2001 with a MS.Ed in Secondary Education with a concentration in Social Sciences. I will not go into the details, whys, and wherefores, but suffice it say I am not teaching now, and sometimes wonder if what I have gone through with the Board of Education has not permanently turned me off from teaching.

I am truly disturbed by the fact that there are those who would see an accomplished, educated, young, "African American" (see comments on "Dollars and Sense" for an explanation of why that is in quotes) man as an unrealistic goal for today's youth. If anything I feel as though there are not enough examples out there for our young people. If there are those that follow the course of thinking exemplified by the Atlanta school administrator, then our society is in serious trouble. I would really like to have a conversation with the Atlanta school administrator so they could explain to me just what they would consider an example of an attainable goal for high school aged students. I wonder if they realised the incongruity of their statement. Without role models and people to look up to early on in life, then the possibility is very real that they may not ever make it to the collegiate world. I will leave it at that because the more I think about the idiocy of the situation, the more annoyed I become.

The money trail in Iraq

Well well well! It looks like some people (and some countries) may have been bought off by Sadam Hussien. Who woulda thunk it? Tim Blair writes:

Maybe it really was all about oil:
Claims that dozens of politicians, including some from prominent anti-war countries such as France, had taken bribes to support Saddam Hussein are to be investigated by the Iraqi authorities. The US-backed Iraqi Governing Council decided to check after an independent Baghdad newspaper, al-Mada, published a list which it said was based on oil ministry documents.

"The Passion" under fire

The Evangelical Outpost has comments on a Salon.com interview with one Rev. Mark Stanger, a big wig in the mainstream Episcopalian church. It seems this gentleman doesn't approve of Mel Gibson's "The Passion". Stanger's obvious hostility towards, and disregard for, the gospel is painful to behold. If this is the kind of leadership that the Episcopalian church has no wonder it is in trouble.

Heads up to the college crowd

This looks interesting, Speech Codes.org. From the about page,

"Colleges and universities routinely punish students and faculty for their speech, their writings, and their membership in campus groups. On campus after campus, administrators create and enforce codes to outlaw free speech and free expression that does not conform to various new campus orthodoxies. Almost all of these speech codes depend, for their survival, upon a double standard that strikes at the heart of legal and moral equality."

Thanks to InstaPundit for the link.

Confessions of a former liberal

La Shawn Barber comments on conservative club woes and life as a liberal in Every Muhammad, Jamul and Jose.

Discoshaman on race

Part Duex Racism: Reality and Perceptions

"But just because racism is mostly dead doesn't mean that it's lost its impact. (I'll take a moment now and acknowledge that there certainly still exists white racism, what I deny is that it is widespread.) Like some sort of malevolent ghost, it haunts the popular memory of the black community. To listen to many of the self-appointed African-American spokesmen is to visit an alternate reality -- one where despite massive gains by blacks in every sphere of endeavor, little has changed since circa 1965 and every perceived slight is 'Selma!' all over again.

"Am I saying that African-Americans should forget the past? No. But I am saying that their community's 'leadership' does them a disservice by constantly inflaming mistrust and raising the specter of racism. The perception of racism can be just as debilitating as the thing itself."

Iraqi Christians

Tacitus comments on the incident where a vehicle carrying women in Iraq was fired upon killing and wounding some of the women. Apparently most of them were Christians.

A new voice in the wilderness

Not really new, she's been blogging for longer than I have I think, but we've just discovered each other. baldilocks: Curiously Minimizing Dead Cell Content, author of Name Follies and

Bush Lied Revisited
What is a lie? A lie is an “assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue: a deliberate misrepresentation of fact with intent to deceive (Webster’s Third).” Was President Bush lying when he said that he believed that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction? Let’s put the question another way: did President Bush not really believe that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq possessed WMDs? For that is what those who accuse the president of lying on this subject are saying.

I believe this is known as a serious Fisking in the blogosphere.

Update: I stand corrected by Parableman, "Fisking is when you examine a piece line by line or page by page with your comments inserted. This is just a good rebuttal."

Teens and sex

Latest Column: Safe Sex Lies by La Shawn Barber (update: the permalink works now).

"What's the surest way to increase a teenager's risk of incurable diseases, cervical cancer, pregnancy, infertility, abortion, a broken heart, a jaded view of love and marriage, and doom a child to poverty and fatherlessness?

"Teach her how to put a condom on a cucumber.

"...increased abstinence education is a major cause in the drop in pregnancy and birth rates among teenagers. Among unmarried girls between ages 15-19, increased abstinence education accounted for a 67 percent decrease in pregnancy rates.

"In other words, the decline in pregnancy rates among teens is due to a reduction in the proportion of sexually active girls, not to the increased use of contraception, according to an April 2003 study published in Adolescent and Family Health.

"I can hear liberals now: 'Get out of the Dark Ages! It's unrealistic to expect teenagers to not have sex until they're married.' I agree. Youth surrounded by sexual permissiveness shouldn't be expected to abstain; they need to be taught. If they're taught to avoid the risks of drinking and drug use and about the harmful effects of smoking, why can't they be taught self-control in the area of sexual activity?"

On race and nitro

Discoshaman bravely jumps into the fray with a post on race.

"I'm about to stray into touchy territory in our hyper-sensitive times, and actually make a statement about race. These days, this is something like juggling nitroglycerine -- one slight mishandling and it explodes in your face."

More on "White African American"

Name Follies

The White African-American

What was it about skin color again?

You are blind as a bat, and I have sight, lots of comments.

Thanks to One Fine Jay and InstaPundit for the links.

Update: Westside twins say their posters lampooned race-based awards

Forced conversions in Pakistan

"I will make you Muslim and you will bear a Muslim child"
Christians in Pakistan fear a 14-year-old girl kidnapped by several men will be forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim.

Shamim Kausor, of the district of Toba Tek Singh in Punjab province, was abducted from her home Dec. 31 by men who pulled up in a jeep and took her away by gunpoint, according to the Washington, D.C.-based persecution monitor International Christian Concern.

ICC said young Christian girls in Pakistan often are abducted and raped and forced to marry Muslim men but generally have no rights or recourse for the crimes committed against them.

Female genital mutilation in Italy?

What on earth are these people thinking?

Health authorities in Florence have sparked an outcry after they officially welcomed a version of female circumcision.
A gynaecologist in Florence is proposing to perform a "light" version of infibulation, the mutilation of the genitalia of young girls which is practised in many African countries.

Sharia in Iraq

Zeyad has posted an article discussing women and sharia law in Iraq.

The GC gave the role of legal courts, according to this law, to clerics and tribal leaders. Which means that the destiny of women in Iraq will be subject to fatwas and personal interpretations of Islamic Sharia texts by Mullahs and tribal sheikhs, when it should be according to a fixed personal circumstances code. This project evoked storming rage and condemnation from Iraqi women because of the stark differences between the two. In the case of the personal circumstances law, legal courts rule depending on evidence and proof, because law is science, and science depends on certain knowledge. Whereas in the second case rulings are made from beliefs based on personal interpretation and misconstruction of Islamic law.

Stop the oppression of African Americans!

This story that I mentioned yesterday has made it on to the Fox News website, White Student Calls Self African-American . I think somebody's got some splainin' to do. All this flap because a kid from Africa decided that he was eligible for an award given to African American students?

The offending poster's description:
"The poster pictured junior Trevor Richards, 16, smiling and making a thumbs-up sign. A message at the top encouraged votes for him for next year's award. "

What school official said about poster:
""The content of the posters, they believed, was inappropriate and insensitive to some members of our school community'"

Now, considering that this kid has probably spent more time on the African continent than any of the black students at his school why is it "inappropriate and insensitive" for him to refer to himself as an African American? Unless of course you actually know next to nothing about Africa or the history of the various people groups that inhabit that vast land. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that there have been "white" people in Africa for longer than America has been a country. Do their descendents count as Africans or is that a term that is reserved only for those dark savages running around in the bush?

This is your brain on political correctness folks. Clearly African American does not mean "an American from Africa or of African descent". It just means black. This highlights Americans' cluelessness about people and cultures not their own. Most Americans , black and white, have no real understanding of the complexity of Africa. Which is why they apparently have trouble with the concept of "white" Africans. There are thousands of different languages in that vast continent and just as many distinct people groups.

Blacks in America carry on about black pride and love for the mother land while knowing next to nothing about the mother land. I still can't get over the fact that black people willingly celebrate the contrived holiday Kwanzaa. Supposedly based on the harvest rituals of our African ancestors. Anybody with even basic knowledge of African cultures (yes there is more than one) can tell you that all of those rituals co-opted by Kwanzaa's creator are based on east African cultures. Most, if not all, Africans brought to the Americas during the slave trade came from west Africa. See here, here, and here for more info.

Given that so many Americans go along with this fraud like sheep is it any wonder that they can't fathom that there are white people in Africa who consider themselves Africans? Trevor Richards has more right to call himself African American than any American who's ancestors came to American shores on a slave ship.

To be fair Americans aren't the only ones who have seem to be stuck in the African=black paradigm. Tulip Girl comments,

"We are currently living in a country that is predominantly white. There are a smattering of people with asian coloring/features. I see a black person maybe once a week. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen a black woman in the past year.

Yet, one of our co-workers is African-American. His family moved to the US from South Africa when he was still young. There have been so many times I've been talking about him with acquaintances who want to meet him--because of the novelty of knowing a black person. But he's white."

All in the family

I've talked my sister Simone into joinging me in this blogging venture. One down two to go (should I drag the 12 year old into this?). Her first post is Dollars and Sense, enjoy.

Aussie Guvment skuls

There's a raging debate going on over on Tim Blair's blog about public schools in Australia. Apparently they aren't much better than US public skuls, I mean schools. Prime Minister John Howard seems to have gotten himself even further onto the badside of the Aussie left by criticising their indoctrination institutes.

PM queries values of state schools
"'Some schools think you offend people by having nativity plays,' Mr Howard said. 'I think that it's a reflection of the extent to which political correctness overtook this country, particularly through the teaching unions, which I think are a bit out of step.

"'People are looking increasingly to send their kids to independent schools for a combination of reasons. For some of them, it's to do with the values-driven thing; they feel that government schools have become too politically correct and too values-neutral.'"

Dollars and Sense

The following comments are taken from:
Barron Takes Aim At City’s Policies Begins run for mayor with call for diversity by Glenn Thrush

January 20, 2004
"We're calling for a racially balanced, gender-balanced administration in New York City," Barron told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters on the steps of City Hall. "Too few white men have too much power."
Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said, "Anyone who thinks they can beat his [Bloomberg's] record is welcome to try."
If elected in November 2005, Barron would be the city's second black mayor. David Dinkins, whose served from 1990 to 1994, was the first. Barron didn't say whether he plans to quit his council seat to run for mayor.
Other possible Democratic hopefuls include former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, former Public Advocate Mark Green, who narrowly lost to Bloomberg in 2001, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, City Comptroller William Thompson and Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Barron defended his call for reparations, suggesting they should be paid to inner-city residents in the form of free land in their neighborhoods.
"When we call for reparations, it is a just cause," he said. "We're talking about owning land. We built this land for you. There's plenty of land in East New York. That's how you can pay us reparations."

See, now I was with him right up until the reparations issue. Why must it always come back to that? My quarrel with the issue of reparations is that it should be an all or none issue; we either give reparations to all cultures and nations whose repression caused some benefit to another culture or nation, or we don't do it at all.

The idea of reparations is a noble concept, but there is one very critical point being overlooked; Africans in America were not the first and only group of people to ever have been enslaved, and the institution of slavery still exists. Careful study of world history would show that slavery predates American civilisation by many thousands of years. I would even go as far as to say that slavery or the concept of the oppression of one group by another is as old as time itself.

While many Blacks are quick to join in the cry for reparations, there tends to be a deafening silence when you address the issue of other groups who were enslaved or oppressed. What about the early Greeks and Romans who regualrly enslaved those that they conquered during the expansion of their respective empires? What about the African nations who enslaved other groups of Africans? What about Native Americans? Are we so quick to forget that when Columbus and the other "discoverers" arrived here they found an already established culture? What about the Japanese who were placed in camps during the war? What about the millons of women who are even to this day enslaved by cultures that view them as no more than one of a man's possessions?

As nobel as the idea of reparations may be, I believe that a more nobel and pressing issue that we should all be addressing is how to end the continuing practices of oppression and prejudice.

Crimson Tide

Neato 2004 election prediction map. Alas! I live in a blue state. Thanks to Tim Blair for the link.

Paedocommunion

Interesting discussion going on over on Theognome's blog about child baptism and communion.

White African Americans

InstaPundit writes,

Africa is a rather large and complex place, and there are, in fact, lots of white people, as well as ethnically Chinese and Indian people, who have many generations of African ancestry. For that matter, black Africans are a highly various group, and don't tend to think of themselves as an undifferentiated mass. Unfortunately, many people -- including many people who think of themselves as culturally sensitive -- persist in stereotyping.

Of course, this works both ways. My brother -- who doesn't look any blacker than I do -- is sometimes asked by Nigerians (in Nigeria) whether he is black. At first he thought this was odd, but one explained "We have Americans coming here all the time who say they are black, but they look white to us."

He also has links to a couple other interesting stories about white African Americans.

31 Years of legal abortions

The Blackmun Wall, a memorial to the women who have lost their lives to legal abortions. It's really depressing. I didn't make it past the first panel. Thanks to Tulip Girl for the link.

Post-Civil War (aka the War of Northern Aggression) Reconstruction

Forty Acres and a Mule: The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction
"In Louisiana, at the state convention in New Orleans in 1866, a white mob attacked Republicans and their black supporters. Thirty-four blacks and three white Republicans were killed before federal troops restored order.

I bet that got your attention. But wait, there's more.

"Radical Reconstruction attempted to protect black suffrage in the South with the deployment of thirty-eight thousand federal troops. They oversaw the 1868 presidential election, which brought the Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant, a moderate, to the White House. Five hundred thousand blacks voted, presumably for the Republican Party. Grant won by only three hundred thousand."

There's also this interesting bit about the "free" North and a bit about the Klan.

"In the North, a majority of states still did not allow blacks the vote and showed no inclination to change. The solution from Congress was the Fifteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1870.

"By 1871 incidents of Klan violence had become so common that congressional hearings on the problem were convened. In the U.S. Senate it was reported that fifty thousand murders had been committed in the South since the war. 'This was a war of terror,' says Blight. 'The Ku Klux Klan . . . is an original American terrorist organization.' Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, suspending habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina and leading to the arrest of hundreds on charges of conspiracy to deny rights to blacks. The trials wiped out the Klan in South Carolina and helped Grant's popularity in the North."

And in the end Reconstruction in the South met it's end at the hands of wheeling and dealing politicians looking to promote their candidate rather than looking to do what was right.

"In 1877, the Presidential election was so close it went to the House of Representatives for a decision. Reconstruction became a bargaining chip: in exchange for the Democrats' agreement to accept Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 would be rescinded and federal troops withdrawn from the South. The deal was struck. Without the military to enforce racial equality, the era of Reconstruction was over."

Hmmm, this article makes one thing clear to me, those who don't know their own history are doomed to make themselves look silly by making statements that contradict established historical facts. I've always been puzzled by the claims made by Democrats that Republicans don't care about black people. Neither party has a spotless record when it comes to race relations but given what I know about American history I think I'll throw my lot in with the Republicans.

Clarification: I am not saying that because 19th century Republicans supported Reconstruction I support Republicans now. My point is that the fact that 19th century Republicans were largely responsible for Reconstruction (which was over all a positive thing for Blacks) make a lot of the claims made by Democrats about Republicans and race suspect.

Are you for real: Racism forever and always

Found this at Tongue Tied

Adventures in Jurisprudence
"A federal jury in Kansas City is hearing a lawsuit by two African-American sisters which claims that a flight attendant's use of the rhyme 'eenie, meenie, minie, moe' was racist and caused them physical and emotional distress, reports the Kansas City Star.

"Louise Sawyer and Grace Fuller said they were traumatized when a stewardess on a Southwest Airlines flight said over the intercom, 'Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go,' in an effort to get passengers to take their seats.

"Some say the original child's rhyme ended with 'catch a nigger by his toe,' and the sisters say hearing it on the plane caused one of them to have a seizure later in the day. The flight attendant says she has only ever heard the version that ends 'catch a tiger by the toe.'"

I think I'm going to have to start a regular segment called, "Are you for real?" It would address all of the innocent things people routinely label as "racist". In this case a flight attendant trying to get people to take their seats on a plane. Why were these two women not laughed out of the courtroom? Why has this case dragged on for nearly three years? (These women first filed suit in August of 2001)

The Kansas City Star reports today,

Rhyme was degrading, jury told in airline lawsuit
"The two African-American women...contend the rhyme immediately struck them as a reference to a version with a racist reference. In their lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, they said they were discriminated against and suffered physical and emotional distress on the February 2001 flight."

The obvious problem here is two people who are prepared to see racism anywhere and everywhere. Physical and emotional distress indeed! Are we expected to believe that black people (or just these two women in particular) are so addle-pated as to be undone by what they infer to be a reference to something that might be construed as racist?

A February 2003 articlein the Kansas City Star reported,

"Fuller, who has epilepsy, said the comment upset her so much that her hands shook during the flight and that she has 'unexplained memory gaps' about the flight. Later that night, she said, she had a 'grand mal seizure' and was bedridden for three days. Because she did not have health insurance, she did not seek medical attention, she said."

How convenient, she can't remember what happened and there are no medical documents to backup her claims of "physical distress". I ask again, why weren't these women laughed out of court for presenting such a contrived and flimsy case?

"Sawyer and Fuller filed the lawsuit, without an attorney, in August 2001 after they didn't get a satisfactory response from Southwest." And I suppose a "satisfactory response" would have been to fire an innocent person and present them with a big fat check?

"...They are seeking injunctive relief to have Southwest stop using the rhyme and to provide employee training to prevent such things from happening again."

I wonder what that employee "training" would look like? "Now you be careful with those black folks. They are unstable and see racists everywhere so watch your step. Anything, and I do mean anything, could set them off. Just do whatever they say. Don't look them in the eye and don't talk back to them. If you're lucky they'll go away without causing you too much trouble."

It used to be that blacks lived in fear of the whim of white people. Now it seems like the tide has turned and whites must live in fear of the whim of blacks. Or at least it seems that some folks would like for things to be that way.

Andrew Sullivan's thought for MLK day.

It's a good one.

"To be called an Uncle Tom is an honor. Like our foundational black thinkers, Uncle Tom is often invoked but rarely read. He is not who the Politburo says he is. He was a moral, religious man of dignity and duty who accepted his lot as a slave because he had no choice yet by his behavior transcended it. He was an ancestor of whom to be proud; how has it been overlooked that he chose torture and death rather than inform on two sexually abused female runaways? To follow the Politburo's anti-intellectual, perverse construction to its logical conclusion, blacks should have cultivated no manners, created no art, pursued no knowledge, expended only the mimimum energy at their tasks, and avoided any kindness or heroism that could not have been confined to the black community. They should have actually been subhuman." - Debra Dickerson, from her new, stimulating book, "The End of Blackness."

This sounds promising, I'm ordering a copy today.

Coming to a theater near you!

Here's a link to "The Passion of Christ" the new Mel Gibson movie. You can view the trailers at this site. Joshua Claybourn also has a link to an article about Gibson's struggles to get the movie distributed.

It will be interesting to see how such an overtly Christian movie such as this will go over with the American public.

Andrew Sullivan on the Black and Brown debate

This is a bit late but I just found this article by Mr. Sullivan from the New Republic and it is ever so insightful.

"...none of the other candidates has even raised the issue of Al Sharpton's record of race-baiting. Listening to them you get the impression that black and brown Americans are entirely unable to fend for themselves, and have no problems that aren't caused by whites. This is not to say that there isn't some truth in what the candidates said, but that its one-sidedness is part of the problem, not the solution."

What ills plague the black community?

“The O’Connor Project” Roger Clegg on National Review Online

"The major problem facing African Americans as a demographic group today is the fact that seven out of ten of black children are born out of wedlock.... So long as the African-American illegitimacy rate is more than triple that of whites, you are going to have a serious 'underrepresentation' of academically well-prepared blacks when it comes time to think about college.

"Note that, while there is no doubt that illegitimacy, failing public education, and poverty are serious social problems, it is a mistake to view them as essentially racial in nature, because many whites (and Asians) face them, too, and many blacks (and Latinos) do not. For those who support racial preferences, the deep-down justification for them remains a sense that they are needed to "make up" for past discrimination against certain groups. But this justification won't wash, as the days of Jim Crow recede further into the past, and as it becomes obvious that the remaining social problems — whomever they afflict — have little, and less and less, to do with discrimination."

Yeah, what he said

Discoshaman at Le Sabot...

"Most Democrats and liberals are decent people who live their lives, pay their taxes, and have different politics than I do. But we're both Americans, and I joke about them lightheartedly.

"There is an exception to this -- the AINO (American In Name Only) crowd. On the Hard Left exists a section of people who have truly earned the name traitor....In the household of America, these people are termites. For these people my pen is dipped in acid."

Well said. I'm still a bit timid about the pen dipped in acid bit but if provoked I'm sure I could get there.

Racism on the Left

Parableman (formerly known as Jeremy) comments on the implications of this poster featuring Condoleeza Rice.

"The tactic of belittling Condoleeza Rice for being part of a Republican administration is putting Republicans in a catch-22. If they don't appoint minorities to these positions, then they're contributing to institutional racism. If they pick thoughtful, intelligent minorities who are somewhat like-minded but even have significantly independent views, then these people get labeled as Uncle Toms. The fact that President Bush picked these people shows that he does in fact trust them, and isn't that a sign that racial problems are diminishing? To reframe this in the opposite direction is moving race relations backward.

"For these reasons and probably a number of others that aren't immediately coming to mind, I see the attitudes behind this poster as a serious harm to black people in the United States today. Therefore, according to the definition of 'racist' that liberal intellectuals like to use so frequently, the ad is quite racist."

What do I think? I think the people responsible for this ad totally miss the significance of a black woman being on the frontlines of the administration of a white president. And they say that us little people are stupid, ha!

Some news about Christian shot in Basrah

Also an account of thugs intimidating doctors at Healing Iraq.

More on Sharia in Iraq
According to Iraq at a Glance it's a no-go for sharia in Iraq's civil law.
"I read in Al-Sabah newspaper that Mr.Jalal Al-Talabani, a member in the governing council, stated that the decision or decree no. 137 [re sharia and civil law] has been canceled and considered it invalid, because the decree did not have the votes of 2/3s of the members of GC, so the decree was invalid and will not be carried out."

He's back
Omar Masry is back blogging at Iraq 2.0. He seems to be having trouble remembering what year it is though.

All of those fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and everything else will kill you.

What Can We Eat?
If any of the stuff mentioned in this article were true we'd probably all be dead by now. But we're alive and kicking so somebody must not be telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Eco-Extremism, Not Science, Behind Fishy Salmon Scare by Steven Milloy
Well now that explains a few things.

Study: More pollutants in farmed salmon than wild
This is a good example of media hype and fearmongering. If any of the claims made about farm raised salmon were true we would see a serious rise in cancer cases in the US because so many people eat salmon.

I'm not one of the brainless masses who will believe anything a scientist and a reporter tells me just because it's "scientific." I know a thing or two about the scientific method and it's limitations and statistics and the lot. It's common practice in the scientific realm to spin your results so they fit with your theory. Scientists are ordinary people just like you and me and are not above spinning their results to please whoever's signing the checks that fund their research to make sure that those checks keep coming.

Are you for real?

Get ready for some righteous anger folks. I found a link to this article at Black Electorate.com. It's about one of those things that make me go grrr.

Slaves' descendants seek landmark reparations
The article opens,

"By the time Andrew Jackson Hurdle penned his life story in 1919, the former slave had become an ordained minister, helped found a religious college and referred to himself as a 'self-made man.'"

It then goes on to describe the efforts of Mr. Hurdle's daughter (he, apparently, is long since dead) to sue certain US companies for reparations based on the claim that they profited from her father's enslavement.

I can not believe that people actually consider reparations as a viable option to cure the ills that plague the "Black community" (as if we are a homogeneous group). This is the most ignorant, wrong headed, and backwards thing that I have ever heard of! I really am embarrassed by/for the people who really think that reparations for the descendants of American slaves are warranted or that they will do anything to change the status of Black Americans.

Proponents of the reparations movement like to point to the fact that Japanese Americans who survived interment during WWII and Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were given reparations. But they miss some very important facts about these two situations. First, reparations were made to the people who were actually wronged not to their descendants several generations later. Second, these people weren't sitting around bemoaning the fact that they had been wronged and waiting for someone to apologize and give them some money so they could "build their communities." They built communities on their own without being bribed to do so.

The article gives this telling bit of information about Mr. Hurdle,

"'I am a self-made man, have never gone to school a day in my life; got what little education I have by studying at night by a pine torch light a great many times. I myself have never been arrested or paid a fine for a misdemeanor,' wrote Hurdle, who had 25 children with two wives, in a letter collected in a 1978 family book. 'I was sold off from my parents. I consider that God has blessed me in raising my children.'"

This from a man who had been a slave. If he could make so much of himself with so little and having actually suffered the effects of slavery first hand then what is the excuse of all of those people in the Black community that we are supposed to believe is totally destitute?

One false assumption that reparations supporters apparently make is that all Black folk are too poor and stupid to be expected to make anything of themselves on their own. If this is true then where did all of those Black families in the ubiquitous and ever expanding suburbs come form? There are so many Black folk buying and building their own homes these days that we even have our own upscale neighbourhoods. And where are all of those Black kids in college coming from?

The article quotes a second plaintiff in this case as saying,

"I would like to see the sting of racism dealt with because there has been no honest, open dialogue."

Here's some honest open dialogue for you, the sting of racism is in your mind. As a Black woman I can shop anywhere I want to, eat anywhere I want to, or stay anywhere I want to, provided I have enough money to foot the bill. And I have very good prospects for having enough money to live my life as I choose. I can vote for whoever I want to (even though Democrats seem to think that Blacks should only vote for them), I have access to all the same services that White folks do (examples, I have email, cable TV, and my own blog). I even married a White guy and no one, no one, so much as batted an eyelash. So what you ask? I am not unique. The same kinds of things can be said for millions of Black Americans. What sting of racism is this person talking about?

We are not some feeble minded race that is incapable of building a better lives for ourselves without hand outs from our rich White masters. Insisting on arguing for things like reparations for descendants of American slaves only serves to perpetuate such myths. Blacks, former slaves like Mr. Andrew Jackson Hurdle, built thriving businesses and accrued great wealth for themselves less than one generation after slavery. They had intact families and strong communities. They had little or no help from any "great White saviour". They didn't need that 40 acres and a mule that the government had promised them.

So how did we end up with the urban ghettos that inspire people to think (wrongly) that Black people are all poor? Take a look at those urban ghettos, what do you see? Mothers raising children without fathers. Teenaged girls having children and raising them without fathers. Teenage boys fathering numerous children with many different girls and abandoning them. As my sister said to me once, the only man keeping the Black man down is the Black man.

One more quote from the article by one "Charles Ogletree, a Harvard University law professor and co-chairman of the national Reparations Coordinating Committee."

"'Race matters. It mattered then, when there was that peculiar institution of slavery, and it matters now,' Ogletree said. 'We have made a lot of progress, but we have a very long way to go. [Race] is the pink elephant that is in the room that no one wants to discuss, but it's not going to go away. It captures much of what we do.'"

The pink elephant in the room is not race it is the idiotic notion of reparations. It is the fact that continuing to argue for such a thing makes our "race" look like a bunch of lazy incompetent fools. Get a grip people!

New posts at Dhimmi Watch

Tajikistan: pastor at prayer shot dead

Christian missionary activity in Muslim countries has always been dangerous. Islamic law forbids any Muslim to convert to another religion, on pain of death. And dhimmi laws for Christians forbid proselytizing. This just in from Tajikistan, via the Barnabas Fund: "A pastor who was also an active missionary has been shot dead while he was praying in a chapel."

Pakistan church blast injures 11

According to Islamic law, when dhimmis get out of line, they forfeit their contract of protection with their Muslim masters. Evidently some Muslims in Pakistan think that that is just what Pakistani Christians have done, mainly by virtue of being Christians, who have become kafir harbi (unbelievers at war with Islam) because of the actions of the United States.

Wading into the war

I've been blogging for a little over a month now and I've finally discovered alliances thanks to Discoshaman. After reviewing the various alliances I am ready to declare my loyalties. So here goes.
Whereas I am a stay at home mother with two children, a husband, and a home to manage all by myself,
whereas the name Alliance of Free Blogs looked appealing until I read the long list of requirements that I really don't have time for,
whereas InstaPundit was one of the first blogs I ever read and I feel some type of way about trying to do bad things to him,
whereas I like the guy because he's funny and apparently knows how to cook,
I hereby ally myself with the Axis of Naughty. As Jeremy said in his declaration, "After comparing the two groups, and given all the insights I've gleaned from Reynolds, I see no choice but to side with the ill-named group over the ill-conceived group."

Sharia and one more dead Christian in Iraq

Sharia to replace civil marriage and inheritance laws, by Zeyad at Healing Iraq. He also mentions the killing of a Christian dentist in Basrah.

Palestinians shoot themselves in the foot yet again

Arab Mother Of Two Murders Four Israelis In Suicide Attack
"Brig.-Gen. Gadi Shamni, IDF Commander of the Gaza Formation, said today, 'The terrorists take cynical advantage of the State of Israel's humanitarian desire to help out the Arabs of Gaza and allow them to [cross the Green Line] and find work in Israel.'"

Jihad Watch has excerpts from an Associated Press article posted here, Palestinian mother kills four in suicide bombing. What's most interesting about this post are the comments that have been made there so far (as of 5:25pm EST). One individual writes in a series of comments, "Simply put... Disgusting. What kind of woman or mother would abandon her children. animals..... They are all animals." "Kill them until they beg you to stop. " "These are very dark and serious times....Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the only true answer to this problem."

I trust that you see the irony of making such hateful and remarks and then proceeding to assert that Jesus Christ it the only true answer.

Another individual makes this comment, "Find some consolation in the fact that in a sense, we have seen this woman clean up the gene pool, if only a little, by preventing the birth of more like her." What, no compassion for the children who have lost their mother? Such attitudes are just as wrong headed as the ones that lead this woman to blow herself up and deprive her children of a mother that they will most surely need.

Four Killed in Gaza Suicide Bombing, this is the AP article mentioned by Jihad Watch.

I think it is common knowledge that the Palestinian "freedom fighters" have no interest whatsoever in peace or a Palestinian homeland. They are interested in killing anyone who stands in the way of obliterating Israel. Having said this I wonder why anyone bothers to try to include them in the peace process.


Christians shoot themselves in the foot over Palestine/Israel issue
I wonder how far along in the peace process we would be if instead of chosing sides in this matter Christians would fairly seek to right the wrongs that Israelis and Palestinians do to each other. What would happen if rather than insisting that Israel must exist no matter what or that Palestinians are being abused by Israel, Christians fervently dedicated themselves to modeling the fruit of the Holy Spirit to both Israelis and Palestinians. Just incase you forgot, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." Galatians 5:17 (NKJV)

Christians need to remember that the way we should be addressing these issues is not always the same way that others would address the problem. Sometimes the best thing for us to do is stop talking to mere men and start talking to God. Sometimes we need to stop talking all together and do something that demonstrates God's love for mankind. Doing these kinds of things is never easy. It rarely gets you any attention. Sometimes it gets you killed. But it usually has the best results.

Pray for the motherless and fatherless children of Israel and Palestine. Pray for the mothers and fathers who have buried their children. Pray for the salvation of lost people. The most powerful weapon that Christians have in this fight is prayer. It's not the only weapon though.

Iraqi Christians
From Dhimmi Watch

Iraq: Mainstream Political Leaders Denounce Attacks on Christians
"A call by more than 200 mainly Muslim intellectuals and political leaders from Iraq to stop attacks on Christians and cease forcing women to wear the veil was published on Sunday 4 January on the Arabic website Elaph [now viewable at
http://www.ankawa.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=55&topic=6]. The call was directed at Muslim clerics, the Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition Authorities. They specifically called upon Islamic religious leaders to issue fatwas forbidding such 'atrocious crimes against humanity and the Islamic [sic] religion'".

Looks like the aritcle they link to is in arabic. There are other links to reports from the Barnabas Fund in the post.

World Magazine Blog has a post called Immigration Realities with some really good comments so far.

Sullivan on the Dem debate
THE DEMS REGRESS
"There wasn't a nano-second in which any candidate said anything to suggest that minorities can do anything to benefit themselves without more government help, more money and more white condescension."

Tim Blair on the Howard Dean at the Dem debate

What does this prove?

"Under fire in a campaign debate, Howard Dean conceded grudgingly Sunday night that he never named a black or Latino to his cabinet during nearly 12 years as governor of Vermont."

Nothing at all, I suspect. Hiring minorities for the sake of hiring minorities doesn’t indicate sensitivity to racial issues; it indicates cynicism. Besides which, Vermont is about the whitest place in the US. When Vermonters say “Yo”, the second syllable is always “gurt”.

Gay genetics
Discoshaman writes a bit about the implications of a possible link between genes and sexual orientation for Christians in The Gay Gene: Would it Matter? He also addresses Howard Dean's apparent claims that there is a scientific link between genetics and sexual orientation.

Up date:
Some very insightful comments on the issue by Adrian Warnock in the UK,

"But there is no use standing on the sidelines saying how shocking it is that a presidential candidate can hold these views. Not only do presidents hold these views but so do some people who call themselves Christians. I suspect that very few of them would feel brave enough to comment on a post on a site like this one to express this, however. Why? Probably not because they are afraid to discuss the morality or otherwise of their lifestyles, but rather out of fear of the rabid response they are likely to get.

"One thing is clear in my mind about this subject and that is that I want to be as personally distant as I possibly can be from some of the offensive knee-jerk emotive homophobic bile that is unfortunately all too common in some circles."

I know exactly how he feels.

Another up date:
Something else for Christians to think about when addressing the issue of homosexuality, by Joshua Claybourn,

"My point is not necessarily that Christian teaching on this subject is bankrupt, but that too many conservative Christians are in the dark about current societal opinions on the subject. Without a firm understanding of what people believe, Christians have little chance of making their case for salvation from the sin. You can't influence or change an audience you don't know, and Christians should know that Dean's views are very much within the American mainstream."

La Shawn on the radio
I've forgotten to do this for two days in a row now but La Shawn Barber has gotten her first radio interveiw. Listen to it here, it's the 01-08-04 broadcast.

Democrat presidential hopefuls on the INS
The question about the INS's legendary ineptitude came up during the Iowa Black and Brown Forum debate between the democratic presidential hopefuls. When asked what they would do to reform the INS the candidates questioned basically said, "The INS is bad and if I am president I will fix it."

As you can see this does not address the fact that people spend years waiting while their paper work sits gathering dust on someone's desk! If any of these people are really serious about immigration reform then they will see that the INS needs a few more employees and a whole lot more accountability to someone, anyone, please.

They certainly don't need more money. What the heck are we paying for with all of those wretched fees they charge anyway? Are we renting the space that our applications occupy on the desks of over worked INS employees?

And another thing, why should people, who have obeyed the laws of the land from the very first, have to get up before the crack of dawn and go stand in line out in the cold to get their finger prints taken yet again because the last set of prints that were taken have expired while their applications for citizenship sat moldering on someone's desk?

And why on earth should someone have to drive 3 hours, one way, to do an interview that takes 15 - 20 minutes tops to complete!

And why on earth are people still get asked if they were ever affiliated with the communist party?

I'm mad about this, can you tell?

Up date:
Why was it called the "Black and Brown" debate any way? Were they really referring to the colour of people's skin? Listening to the questions and answers during the debate it would seem so. There seems to be an implication that the "black" and "brown" folk either weren't included in previous debates or weren't interested in them because their "issues" were not being addressed. Why is this singling out of "minority" people considered a good thing? It just serves to further factionize the American population. It panders to the people who claim that "whitey" is doing everything he can to keep all non-white people down. Because apparently the only way that all the "black" and "brown" people can have their "issues" addressed is to have a special debate just for them. I'm waiting for the "We are all Americans" debate where the candidates pledge to stop this pandering to the separatist mentality that holds so many minorities back from full participation in American society.

Thoughts on the President's proposed immigration policy

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about here are some links:

• Bush Amnesty Plan Raises Immigration Concerns, an opinion piece by Craig Nelsen


• Bush seeks legal status for illegal immigrants, I could do without all of the opinion scattered through out this news story (such as, "Bush's election-year proposal is designed to help meet the needs of U.S. employers and to woo Latino voters.") but it does contain some facts.

I'm conflicted about this whole immigration thing. I've had some dealings with the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) in the past and I must say that I was most certainly not impressed. The ineptitude and bureaucratic backlog at the INS is legendary in the immigrant circles I grew up in. My parents submitted citizenship applications for the entire family and for more than 3 years our applications went back and forth between various inboxes at various INS offices. I was finger printed on three separate occasions because they hung on to my application for so long that the prints kept expiring. My sister just recently concluded a year long ordeal to get them to correct a typo on her certificate of citizenship.

Having said all of that I wonder at the wisdom of giving them more work to do. And I am none too thrilled at the idea that after all my family had to go through to legally attain citizenship folk who ignored the law will get off so easily. From what I've heard and read about the President's proposed new immigration policies I get the impression that most illegal immigrants now in the country will get to apply for citizenship.

Something about allowing people who broke the law by entering the country illegally to remain in this country, and even to receive the benefit of citizenship, just rubs me the wrong way. In fact I would venture to say that it is the most wrong thing that anyone could do where this issue is concerned. I know that some would claim that it is the compassionate thing to do but I would argue that it is far more compassionate to say, I'm sorry but we cannot to allow you to break the law. There has to be a better option than to legitimize their disregard for the law.

The claim that illegal immigrants take the jobs that most Americans don't want is no reason whatsoever to allow them to break the law or to give them amnesty after having broken the law. Legal immigrants also take jobs that most Americans don't want but they have no intention of keeping those jobs. For them they are a step up to the kinds of jobs that most Americans do want.

It is not the fault of the United States government if a Mexican family takes it upon themselves to set out across the southwest desert in an attempt to cross the US border and dies in the process. They chose to take that risk themselves. If any government is to be held responsible for their demise it is the Mexican government. Has it occurred to anyone that if the Mexican government were concerned about it's citizens dieing in the southwest desert they would take steps to make sure that their citizens do not reach such a desperate state?

It is also not the fault of the US government if illegal immigrants pack themselves into shipping containers across the ocean and die in the process of trying to reach our shores. Who is responsible? The governments that do not provide adequately for their own citizens and those who make a living exploiting people looking for a better life for themselves and their families. Sound immigration policy would make sure that the costs of smuggling people into the US (lengthy prison terms or messy deaths at the hands of well armed and well trained border guards) far out weigh the benefits.

The US government needs to send the message to potential immigrants and their governments that any seeking a better life by first breaking the law will not be accepted in this country. We also need to send the message to governments that we will not pick up the slack for poor governance on their part.

I find claims that securing US borders discriminates against immigrants to be completely lacking in any understand of the security needs of the nation. Such claims are steeped in a victimology mindset in which everyone is responsible for the victim's demise except the victim. Securing US borders discriminates against people who attempt to enter the US without going through the approved channels. That kind of discrimination is a very good thing.

In any case, I'll contact my elected officials and wait and see how this thing turns out. I urge all immigrants and naturalized citizens out there to speak up and tell their stories. I don't think most natural born citizens in this country have any idea what life is like for us. And perhaps that's a big part of the problem.

Another one escapes the plantation
The Democrats are busy shooting themselves in the foot again. Or are they just putting their feet in their mouths? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot and then sticking it in their mouths? In any case here's the deal, Dean Backer Calls GOP Candidate 'House Mexican'

"Steven Ybarra, a Democratic National Committee (search) official and regional coordinator of Latinos for Dean (search), called Rosario Marin (search), the former U.S. treasurer under President Bush who is now seeking the GOP nomination to compete against California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a "house Mexican for the Republicans." The attack was sent out in a mass e-mail to political activists, community leaders and a number of journalists this week. "

I liked Marin's response,

"'This man has absolutely no regard for a person who has worked all her life, who has gone from nothing, from very very humble beginnings to the person that's signed all of the currency of the United States,' Marin responded, adding that she is mostly shocked that California's Democratic leaders have so far been silent about Ybarra's remarks."

I really liked Discoshaman's comments on the whole thing as well. Here's a sample,

"Liberal activists in the modern era remind me of nothing so much as Southern sheriffs during the Civil Rights Era. Any minority person who chooses to think as an individual has the attack dogs loosed upon them. Firehoses of vicious invective are turned on them until they retreat from their positions. The leadership of the Democratic Party seems to view their party as a plantation -- and no minority leaves without permission."

Are you a Flame Warrior?
Flame Warriors, this is really funny, especially since I've met some of the flame warriors described on this site. I found the link on Theognome's blog. He was kind enough to add me to his blogroll. Anyway, for the moment I think I'm a Newbie but I aspire to be a Kung Fu Master.

Iraq on France
Good post over at Iraq the Model about the French decision to ban religious attire (yarmulkes, head scarves, crosses, etc.) from schools. Read the comments as well, they make some good points.

Look it! Fan mail!
Well, isn't that nice! Discoshaman over at Le Sabot Post-Moderne comments,

"I /love/ the name of your blog. My wife just pointed out your site to me today, and I think it's such a needed resource. There's a definite dearth of political blogs focused on current events within black Republicanism. I'm adding you to the blogroll tonight. Keep fighting the good fight!"

That's something nice to wake up to after some intense blogging this past week.

Neat stuff over at Parablemania and a short story on abortion
Jeremy has a link to a great article in his post "Scientific data on human genetic diversity."

He also comments on this claim by democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark, "Life begins with the mother's decision."

Err, right. I once knew agentlemann from Norway (a place that some might characterise as the capital of the euthanasia movement) who was appalled at the way Americans treat abortion. In his country a woman does not make a decision about having an abortion without first having a lengthy consultation with her doctor(s). The family is always involved and abortion is not seen as a rights issue but as a medical issue. In Norway having an abortion is a decision not to be made unless one has all the facts and sound, presumably medical, reasons for having the procedure done. A woman is not abandoned to make such a heavy decision on her own under the flimsy premise that it her "right" to do so when ever she pleases. When a mother in Norway reaches the stage of considering having an abortion she is seen as most in need of the support of friends, family, and the medical profession. And she gets that support. This gentleman was, as my husband puts it, horrified that Americans allowed something like partial-birth abortions to happen.

Update:
The Norwegian system has a panel of professionals considering each case to decide if an abortion is medically necessary. If they say it is, the mother and the doctor can go ahead with the abortion. If they say it isn't, there's no chance of a legal abortion.
Jeremy Pierce

This is funny
Of Martians and Jihad by James Lileks
I found the link on Tim Blair's blog. It's one of those things where you laugh and then you stop becuase you're not sure if you should laugh at something like that. But then you start laughing again because you can see the element of truth in it.

We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it any more!
Kevin L. Martin is not playing nice with the Democrats over at the Black Conservative. I tried not to take too much pleasure in his damning account of the Congressional Black Caucus, but alas, being only human I failed miserably. I hope you all have better luck than I did.

Black Conservatives Need to Ensure a Complete Defeat of Democrats

Black Conservatives need to start banding together in this new year to with a winnable game plan that will ensure the complete defeat of the Democrat Party.

The year 2004 is a banner year for black conservatives as it has been ten years since the Republican Revolution, but not to be overlooked by any means it has been ten years since the worst ethnic cleansing since World War 2 was allowed to happen.

Most black conservatives have never held the Congressional Black (Democrat) Caucus responsible for the part it played in the needless deaths of nearly one million of our closest brothers and sisters in the nation of Rwanda in the winter of 1994.

The Congressional Black (Democrat) Caucus simply stood idly by as a Democrat Congress and President refused to deploy troops to help our brothers and sisters and would not even allow the incident to be classified as ethnic cleansing on the fear that public outcry would force their hand.

More on Terri Schiavo
Fr. Rob Johansen is back and blogging to save Terri Schiavo's life from her creepy husband and some shady lawyers and judges in Florida. Here are some excerpts from his latest post, Update On Terri Schiavo, or, Being a Judge Means Never Having to Say, "I was Wrong"

In the latest proceeding, Governor Bush asked the most recent court-appointed guardian, Jay Wolfson, to investigate 10 issues related to Terri's case, including such things as the circumstances of the injuries which led to her brain damage. Governor Bush also asked Wolfson to make a determination as to whether Terri and Michael could be divorced. Mr. Wolfson had also, in his report to the court, advocated that swallowing tests be done on Terri, as well as other measures to determine whether there is any likelihood that therapy could improve her condition.

All of these questions, and the request for a swallowing test, are highly inconvenient to Michael Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos. If Michael and Terri can be divorced, then Michael is sunk, and Felos loses the pro-death test case he longs for. If a swallowing test is conducted by honest and independent doctors, then Michael will almost certainly be sunk as well, because such a test will reveal that Terri already is swallowing her own saliva (about 2 to 2.5 liters per day, like most normal adults) and can therefore swallow liquids. If she can swallow liquids, then she can probably re-learn to swallow solid food.

But these questions and the request for a test are also inconvenient to the Florida courts, because honest answers to them will reveal the bias and judicial incompetence, if not outright misconduct, of Judge Greer and, to a lesser extent, Judges Boyer and Baird.

And so, the response of the courts has been, once again, to discharge the guardian ad litem. Once again, there is no independent advocate representing Terri. The Schindlers have petitioned the court to re-instate Jay Wolfson so that he can complete the investigation into Terri's case. Predictably, George Felos opposes the re-instatement, saying that Wolfson had already completed the investigation. Felos has relied upon misinformation and outright deception to make his case, and can't afford to have any further inconvenient facts come to light.

Read the whole thing. It really makes you wonder about those people who are clamouring for Terri's "right" to die. There's a link here to more on the Schiavo case.

From the Christian Science Monitor

A bill to protect campus conservatives?
By Amanda Paulson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A professor requires that students write - and send - antiwar letters to President Bush to receive full class credit.
A graduate student instructor warns, in the description for his course on Palestinian resistance, that "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections."

A criminology professor assigns a paper on "Why George Bush Is a War Criminal," and fails a paper submitted instead on "Why Saddam Hussein Is a War Criminal."

These are just a sampling of recent anecdotes that critics cite when they want to show that campus politics not only tilt to the left, but sometimes do so to the exclusion of all other opinions. Conservatives, they warn, may have become the most discriminated-against minority in academia.

Now, they're offering a solution: an "academic bill of rights," penned by conservative activist David Horowitz, one version of which has already been introduced to the US House of Representatives. Another may come soon before the Colorado legislature.

It's a bill that critics say would destroy academic freedom - even as proponents insist it is needed to salvage it.

Read the rest of the article for yourself.

More on Iraqi Christians

Christmas for Iraqi Christians: Three bombs and a Fatal Shooting
"The Christmas Season for the beleaguered Iraqi Christian community was punctuated by three bombs, two of them in places of worship, and a fatal shooting." This from the Barnabas Fund, with thanks to Bruce Gordon.

"Christians in Baghdad narrowly escaped carnage as a bomb went off in their church at Christmas. The congregation had just celebrated the birth of their Lord with a traditional service when the bomb exploded. Thankfully no one was hurt, but the blast shattered church windows and caused other damage. A week later as the New Year was ushered in, another bomb was discovered at St. George's monastery in Mosul. Again, in the face of potential tragedy, the Christian community had cause to be thankful as it was defused before it detonated. Restaurant goers celebrating New Year's Eve in Baghdad were less fortunate. Five people were killed by a car bomb in a predominantly Christian area; it is not certain that this attack was specifically anti-Christian."

Democrats and Republicans fighting over the Black vote?
I found the links to these two articles at Black Electorate.com (thanks to La Shawn Barber for posting a link to the site).

Black Votes -- No GOP Fantasy
"Believing it has cornered the market on black voters, the Democratic Party may want to dismiss the GOP's announced goal of winning 25 percent of the African American vote in 2004. Democratic leaders may be correct in saying the feat can't be achieved in time for this year's presidential election. But the current political dynamics in black America do not bode well for the future; the Democratic Party could lose its good thing."

"More African Americans now have college degrees, ushering them into the middle class, shifting their values and priorities while prompting them to abandon the "blacks-as-victims" theology. Many low-income blacks have gained an appreciation for the opportunities provided by the free enterprise system and are rejecting the notion of government as savior. Meanwhile, there has been an emergence of a new generation of African Americans that exists in a multiracial, crossover world."

"If Democrats want to avoid an erosion of their African American base, they can start by opening the door for more and younger blacks to assume leadership posts, and by abandoning the outdated left-wing politics they seem intent on playing. Most important, they can stop navel-gazing and do what Republicans are doing: Pay attention to the evolving African American electorate."

Republicans Are Trying to 'Fool' Blacks
"The Republican Party, after receiving only 8 percent of the African-American vote in the 2000 presidential election, has established a goal of winning 25 percent of the Black vote in next year’s contest.

Instead of making that announcement when most people were preparing to make their New Year’s resolutions, the GOP should have delayed that announcement for three months. Then, it would be clear that this was some sort of April Fool’s joke.

What has George Bush done to quadruple his Black support? Let’s ignore the rhetoric and look at the record."

Well, you can decide for yourself if this piece actually ignores rhetoric or not. I think it's just more of the same "republicans hate black people" victimology drivel. Am I being too harsh?

Interesting New Blog
New to me anyway, Iraq 2.0 by one SGT Omar Masry, Civil Affairs, US Army Baghdad International Airport, Iraq. I especially like his idea for an "I am Iraq" campaign. He's got some nice pictures of Iraq and it's people as well.

Score one for the little guys
Judges Uphold GOP Texas Redistricting Map
"AUSTIN -- A three-judge federal panel Tuesday upheld a new congressional map for Texas that the Republicans pushed through the Legislature after months of turmoil and two walkouts by the Democrats."

I first mentioned this case in my post Democrats to the rescue! Not! back in December.

The article goes on to say, "Democratic Rep. Martin Frost, whose district is being decimated under the new map, said the ruling turns 'back the clock on nearly 40 years of progress for minority Americans.' Democrats had argued the map amounted to a right-wing power grab led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas."

Why do democrats always think that the clock will be "turned back" if they aren't the ones calling the shots. For once I'd love to hear a democrat explain exactly how letting the people elect whomever they wish to represent them (even a republican) will lead to a regression in race relations in this country.

The latest by La Shawn Barber
Courting the Black Vote? Why it Won't Work
"Blacks have been lied to about the history of the Republican party and civil rights. Historically, blacks voted for Republicans because Democrats were blatantly anti-civil rights (and in some ways still are). For example, “radical” Republicans of the 1860s supported slavery’s end in America, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1964 were opposed by Democrats (Senator Robert Byrd participated in a filibuster of the latter) and Jim Crow was a creation of Democrats.

In the 1960s, Democrats blocked school doorways while Republicans pushed de-segregation legislation. In 2004, Democrats continue to block school doorways while Republicans push school choice, the only hope many black parents have to ensure that their kids get a decent education."

Iraq is NOT Vietnam
Kevin at Boots on the Ground

"One thing that really gets on my nerves is people still talk about the "war in Iraq". It's not a war anymore, that ended in May. I'm not saying these soldier's lives are worthless, but we maybe lose a Soldier every other day. More people die in America from shoots than soldiers do here. Not only that, an average of 20 or so soldiers died everyday in Vietnam. There is no comparison, and it's just as dumb to say that as it is to say that in Vietnam the loses were small at first and then got worse later on. Just because it got worse in Vietnam, doesn't mean it's going to get worse in Iraq."

And high praise for Iraqi police:
"I think IPs have it rougher than any of the Coalition. Constantly, they are being targeted by suicide bombers. Yet, most of them continue to do their noble work for Iraq. IPs are regarded to the Iraqis much like how we regarded our fire fighters after September 11. "

God, USA, and anti-American sentiment
Insightful commentary about the USA at Iraq the Model by Ali. Here's a sample:

People who blame the USA for every evil event in the world rely on the fact that she is the strongest nation on earth and thus they belief that she is the only power capable of doing that, so if something evil happens it’s either the doing of the USA or it happened because the USA didn’t want to prevent it.
Yet, I don’t see many people point out good things as caused by the USA, or her refrain from preventing it!
These people overestimate the power of the USA and seem to confuse it with God’s power, as it appears well when it comes to Iraq (saying for example that the USA went to war without plans for the post war period, or that she is not doing enough to help bringing peace and order to Iraq). Here I’d like to remind them with some facts:
-God is almighty; USA is not.
-God (knows) the future; USA does not.
-God cares for all human beings and creatures; American administration has to care fore its people first.
-God is most merciful; American administration cannot be so.
-When it comes to the ME, God is very popular; USA is very unpopular.
-As a summary God is perfect, American administration is not.

Maybe those people should try-just for a change- to compare the American administration with other human powers such as the governments of France, china, Russia and others, especially when they were dominating the world. I’d be happy to receive any comparison.

Read the rest it's really interesting.

Is there a biblical precedent for prohibiting interracial marriage?

I have recently encountered an individual who thinks that the actions of Nehemiah and Ezra after the return of the Israelites from exile in Babylon support the idea that interracial marriage is unbiblical. I’m having a hard time seeing the connection between these two things. In a discussion here on World Magazine's blog the gentleman gave this passage as a defense for his argument:

Nehemiah 13:23 In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
24 And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.
25 And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.
26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.
27 Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?

The main description of the dismissal of foreign wives and children by the returned exiles is in the book of Ezra, chapter 10.

Now, in choosing these verses there is the assumption that Ezra and Nehemiah’s actions in this instance were justified. One could argue, and rightly so, that the influence of foreign culture led to the degradation of the Israelites’ faith and culture to the point where they could no longer understand their own language. But one could also argue that this was part of God’s judgment against Israel for abandoning their faith prior to exile.

There is also the question of why this instance of marrying foreign women was met with such condemnation from Ezra and Nehemiah. There are other accounts in the Bible of Israelite men marrying foreign women without such drastic action taken against them. Most notable are the women in the genealogy of the house of David (Ruth and Rahab) and subsequently the line of Jesus Christ.

There are many instances in the Bible where the decisions recorded where not necessarily the best ones that could have been made at that particular moment. The one that first comes to my mind is when Sarah gave her handmaid to Abraham to conceive a child with. I think most Christians would agree that that was not the best decision for Sarah and Abraham to make. The same can be said for Jacob having two wives and children by their handmaids. Even though this is recorded in the Bible I don’t think any Christian could seriously argue that it is proof that polygamy is endorsed in the Bible. That particular argument over looks the seriously dysfunctional families that resulted from the various polygamous relationships in the Bible.

No less than Jesus himself issues condemnations of divorce in the New Testament

Matthew 5:31
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:7, 8
“They said to him [Jesus], 'Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?' He [Jesus] said to them, 'It was because you were so hard hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.' (NRSV)

These verses call into question the decision to force the returning exiles to divorce their foreign wives and abandon the children they had with them.

All in all I don’t really see how the actions of Ezra and Nehemiah lead to the conclusion that Christians (or other individuals) from different cultures should not marry (please note that I am NOT saying that Christians can be “unequally yoked”). The really important distinctiveness of Christian faith, namely that Jesus Christ is the son of God who died on the cross as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind and that he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, overcomes all other cultural distinctions. It was this message of Christ crucified that the apostles used to unite Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Romans, and indeed people from all over the know world of their time.

Pick any two Christians from any two distinct cultures on this earth today and they will agree to that one unifying principal of faith. The fact that they may have other issues upon which they disagree does not mean that they should not interact with each other. It is rather a good incentive for them to do so.

The girls have come out to play

Female Officers Cross Cultural Frontier in Iraq
Women on Patrol Near Iran Brave Insults and Disapproval

"Because of religious and cultural taboos on touching between men and women who aren't married or closely related, an all-male Border Patrol could not search women. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, whose 101st Airborne is responsible for northern Iraq, called for women to join the new Iraqi security forces that the occupation authority was trying to create. He said he was worried that terrorists would use women to ferry equipment and messages back and forth.

Several dozen responded. There were teachers, clerical workers and housewives as well as some former Kurdish guerrillas, known as pesh merga.

The women say they recognize that some religious leaders might object to their work. But they argue that their interpretation of the Koran makes them believe that working as a Border Patrol officer is a noble and respectable profession, and that objections to women carrying weapons or touching men in this capacity are old-fashioned. Female doctors can treat male patients, Kadir points out, so why shouldn't Border Patrol women be able to search men?"

These women live in a society where it is taboo for a man who is not a close relative to touch a woman. So these brave women put their lives on the line for their country to make sure that terrorist don't exploit their cultural habits and the best that some people can come up with for them is,

"You are shameful."

"Women were created for being in the house."

Most regular Iraqis though may actually appreciate what they are doing.

Such efforts have been applauded by many Iraqis, who point out that women make up about 60 percent of the population. Some groups have pressed the occupation authority to do even more, pointing out that only three of the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council are women and that none serve on the committee drafting the country's constitution.

People who care about the dignity of women would not say you can't do such and such because it is insulting or inappropriate. Someone who cares about the dignity of women will say, what do you want to do and how can we help you do it.

I'm a lucky woman
My husband Jeremy has a lengthy review of the LOTR movie trilogy. You can read the whole thing here. But this is the part that I really appreciated:

The second thing about this that bothered me was that Arwen was never portrayed as a warrior [in the books]. This was purely a 21st century imposition onto Tolkien's worldview, an attempt to create what Jackson saw as stronger women. (I will later discuss how he did the same thing with Eowyn.) In my view, this involves a false sense of what it is to be a strong woman. The only way a woman can be strong, as Jackson apparently sees it, is for her to be just like a man. (I discuss this issue in more detail here.) Therefore, if Arwen doesn't go out and fight, she's not a strong woman. If the only time she appears is in diplomatic, childrearing, romantic, and public political settings, then she must not be a strong woman. So Jackson has to force her into a masculine role, in effect denying the significance of real femininity, as if what women have traditionally done and been very good at, e.g. raising children, something crucial to the development and continuing of society, is not as valuable as what men have traditionally done.

Well said! Society pays lots of lip service to motherhood (it's the most important thing a woman can do yah dah yah dah) but when the rubber hits the road it is always the thing that gets pushed to the back burner or sacrificed for other more "important" things. I'm glad I'm married to a man who can appreciate true womanhood.

Mad cow or just mad people?

Update: Post on Crooked Timber about mad cow stuff mentions Mr. Milloy.

Steven Milloy writes about the lack of real science behind the mad cow scare. Here are some excerpts

Mad cow hysteria is once again frightening beef consumers and hammering the beef industry. It would be easy to blame ignorant media, opportunistic anti-meat activists and cut-throat business rivals for the current mania. But I won’t.

The blame for the groundless alarm rests squarely on the shoulders of scientists who have given way too much aid and comfort to the still unproven notion that mad cow disease poses a risk to human health.

Most of the scientists who buy into this theory are also quick to acknowledge that they believe the risk to human health is small but not zero, citing the relatively low number of deaths despite that hundreds of millions of Europeans who consumed millions of pounds of potentially infected British beef since the 1980s.

... however, it has not been scientifically established that prions cause any sort of disease ― a fact only reluctantly acknowledged by organizations such as the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council and the National Institutes of Health.

Despite almost 10 years of intense research into the causes and potential ramifications of mad cow disease, the prion theory still does not satisfy the basic scientific test known as Koch’s Postulates for whether a particular microorganism, such as a prion, causes a specific disease, such as mad cow.

“The best-kept secret in this field is that [prions] in any form have never shown infectivity,” said the head of Yale University’s surgery department to the United Press

Other researchers, including an anonymous NIH scientist, told Mitchell that the research community isn’t applying for grants because the agency is biased against non-prion theories and will reject applications for such research.

I don't know about you but I'm not giving up steak any time soon. I just hope this whole thing makes beef a bit more affordable.


No rush to vegetarianism in U.S. yet: Mad cow scare hasn't changed eating habits Apparently most people have kept their heads about this whole mess but PETA is not above a little fear mongering for the cause.

'MAD to eat meat'
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seems less concerned about appearing political.

The Norfolk, Va.-based animal rights group already has activists around the country distributing information about vegetarianism outside restaurants and launched a new ad campaign: “You would have to be MAD to eat meat.”

Bruce Friedrich, the group’s spokesman, said demand for PETA’s free vegetarian starter kits — a pamphlet of recipes and advice for changing one’s diet — has been so strong the group called in employees from vacation to handle the requests — 10,000, up from the usual 4,000.

“The USDA and the meat industry are playing Russian roulette with the health of the American people, and the national consciousness is being awakened” he said.

Persecution of Christians in Iraq

Dhimmi Watch: "Iraqi Christians fear for their lives" about the plight of Christian alcohol merchants and other Christians.

Healing Iraq, Zeyad discusses the plight of Christian alcohol merchants in Basrah.

Rueters story about the murder of Bashir Toma Elias in Basrah.

Dhimmi Watch: "Iraqi Christians suffer rise of radical Islam" about the plight of Christians in general in post Saddam Iraq.

Interesting new blog
Dhimmi Watch

Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.

The dhimmi attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today.

But in this era of global terrorism this silence and distortion has become deadly. Therefore Dhimmi Watch seeks to bring public attention to the plight of the dhimmis, and by doing so, to bring them justice.

2004 has arrived!
Happy New Year everyone!