Happy 59th! Find a way to peace, and fulfill the promise of Israel's Declaration of Independence

David Ben-Gurion proclaims Israel's existence in 1948.

Intra-UW exchange on guns and deterrence

"E pur si muove!":

These killers go into schools and playgrounds because they feel safe there. Don't you think it is time to interfere with their government-given sense of security? If an armed professor or student had brought the Blacksburg killer down, it would have saved innocent lives immediately. It would also have given the next insane murderer reason to pause and go elsewhere, or maybe just to either seek help or keep his evil thoughts to himself.

My libertarian UW philosopher colleague Lester Hunt argues that the Virginia Tech massacre calls for more guns (and less regulation), not fewer guns (and more regulation). He is neither the first nor the last to do so. Perhaps if everyone had guns, the killers would be dispatched before their toll got quite so high. But the notion that this would be much of a deterrent frankly eludes me. Very few of these deranged individuals leave the scene alive, dying either by their own hand or in an exchange of fire with police.

UTexas law professor Sandy Levinson has argued that liberals have been badly served (politically) and almost totally ineffective (in affecting access to guns) in their efforts at gun control. (He also thinks there is more to the NRA's Second Amendment arguments than do most fellow liberals.) While I would support restrictive federal legislation (I agree with Sandy that "hit or miss" legislation by individual states is pretty fruitless --except perhaps in reducing accidental and spontaneous familial shootings), I'm not inclined to hold my breath waiting for it, any more than after numerous political assassination attempts and other massacres. Chalk it up to American exceptionalism (or focused insanity) on this topic.

For a view criticizing this position, and Democrats who shy away from gun control, see: Why Democrats dumped gun control | From Salon News:

'The solution isn't to clam up on guns,'... 'but rather to change the terms of the gun debate ... It's time for Democrats -- and progressive Republicans -- to embrace a 'third way' gun policy that treats gun ownership as neither an absolute right nor an absolute wrong and that calls for a balance between gun rights and gun responsibilities. To win elections, Democrats need to reason with gun owners rather than insult them.'

And if that doesn't do it for you, try this:
From Salon.com: By Walter Shapiro
Repeal the Second Amendment

The best way to reduce the odds of another blood bath like the one at Virginia Tech is to amend the Constitution and abolish the right to bear arms.

A contrarian view on Shaha Riza

Why Wolfowitz did nothing wrong. By Christopher Hitchens - From Slate Magazine:

Anyone in Washington who cares about democracy in the Muslim world is familiar with her work, at various institutions, in supporting civil-society activists in the Palestinian territories, in Iran, in the Gulf, and elsewhere. The relationship between the two of them is none of my damn business (or yours), but it has always been very discreet, even at times when Wolfowitz, regularly caricatured as a slave of the Israeli lobby, might perhaps have benefited from a strategic leak about his Arab and Muslim companion.

It is scarcely Riza's fault that she was working in a senior position at the World Bank when Wolfowitz was gazetted as its president. And quite frankly, if I were he, or indeed she, I would have challenged anyone to make anything of it. Of very few other people working there could it so obviously be said that she held her post as of right, and on merit....

Instead of settling the matter, this disclosure and plain offer on Wolfowitz's part has become the source of all his woes. It was decided by the board of the bank and the "ethics committee" that the board established, that for no reason except a private relationship, Riza had to leave her work at the bank. Feminists and opponents of the glass ceiling should begin paying attention here.

I am no fan of Paul Wolfowitz, and would shed no tears were he to leave the World Bank, or, for that matter, public life. I have no special insight into the particulars of any conflicts of interest (real or apparent) or failures of disclosure on his part at the Bank. But it does seem that Hitchens' argument deserves a hearing, and a serious response.

Let the circular firing squad commence...

From washingtonpost.com: "Tenet's Tell-All Is a Slam Dunk to Provoke Invasion's Architects

By Al Kamen

The drums have begun sounding for the long-awaited book by former CIA director George Tenet, in which he gives his take on pre-9/11 days and on Saddam's huge cache of weapons of mass destruction.

And the drums are saying that Tenet is not going to get too many Christmas cards from Vice President Cheney's office after they read 'At the Center of the Storm.' Folks from down the river at the Pentagon, including former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz-- a guy who's already going through a rough patch -- and former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, might also get some heartburn.

What would (the world) want?

From The New York Times: By Thomas L. Friedman

...when was the last time you saw a U.S. president or politician being held up as a role model abroad? It’s been awhile. And that got me thinking about Mr. Obama. It seems to me that the strongest case one could make for an Obama presidency right now is rarely articulated: it is his potential to repair the broken relationship between America and the world....

The Bush-Cheney team, by its own hand, has undermined its ability to talk about American principles in a way that foreigners will take seriously. They have moral clarity and no moral authority. ... It also lets the foreigners off the hook.

I think Mr. Obama has the potential to force a new discussion. For now at least, he has a certain moral authority because of his life story, which makes him harder to dismiss. And while he is a good talker, he strikes me as an even better listener. It’s amazing what people will let you say to them, if you just listen to them first....

Which brings me back to Mr. Obama. I believe that what has propelled his candidacy up to now — more than anything — is that many Americans have projected onto him their hunger for community, their hunger for a president with the voice, instincts and moral authority to make it so much harder for foreigners to be anti-American or for Americans to be anti-one-another.

Although American Presidents have more impact on the lives of millions of people around the world than their own national leaders, elected or otherwise, foreign nationals have no voice in the (s)election of the American President. And it's been a while since the respect of non-Americans has played any (positive?) role on the selection of an American leader. (Perhaps it made a marginal difference in the very close 1960 election of John F. Kennedy.) It will have an effect on my vote in the coming primaries, for precisely the reasons adduced by Friedman. Barack Obama has the unique background, standing, and persona that could reverse the precipitous decline in American standing around the world resulting from the calamitous policies of the current Administration.

Friedman gets this one right.

Gonzales v. Carhart--Link to Text of New Abortion Opinion

From the dissent:

Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.

I dissent from the Court's disposition. Retreating from prior rulings that abortion restrictions cannot be imposed absent an exception safeguarding a woman's health, the Court upholds an Act that surely would not survive under the close scrutiny that previously attended state-decreed limitations on a woman's reproductive choices.

Clarifying a new direction of analysis (unfortunately, in dissent):

As Casey comprehended, at stake in cases challenging abortion restrictions is a woman's "control over her [own] destiny." 505 U. S., at 869 (plurality opinion). See also id., at 852 (majority opinion).2 "There was a time, not so long ago," when women were "regarded as the center of home and family life, with attendant special responsibilities that precluded full and independent legal status under the Constitution." Id., at 896-897 (quoting Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57, 62 (1961)). Those views, this Court made clear in Casey, "are no longer consistent with our understanding of the family, the individual, or the Constitution." 505 U. S., at 897. Women, it is now acknowledged, have the talent, capacity, and right "to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation." Id., at 856. Their ability to realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is intimately connected to "their ability to control their reproductive lives." Ibid. Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature. See, e.g., Siegel, Reasoning from the Body: A Historical Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of Equal Protection, 44 Stan. L. Rev. 261 (1992); Law, Rethinking Sex and the Constitution, 132 U. Pa. L. Rev. 955, 1002-1028 (1984).

Presidential(s)elections do have consequences. Take a moment for silent outrage over Bush v. Gore. Better, send a check, or sign up to volunteer.

One of the 32: Remembering Liviu Librescu

Intersecting on a Fateful Day, Lives That Spanned the Country and the World - New York Times:

Liviu Librescu, 76, a professor who had done groundbreaking work in aeronautical engineering, was born in Romania and survived the Holocaust, only to be killed on Yom Hashoah, the international day that commemorates Holocaust victims.

Students said Professor Librescu had blocked the door to his classroom to prevent the gunman from entering. A daughter-in-law, Ayala Librescu, who lives in Ra’anana, near Tel Aviv, told Ynet, the Web site of the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot: “He must have realized that the murderer was approaching. He saved his students and was killed by gunshots.”

For more on Professor Librescu:

Slain Israeli Professor Saved Others in Va. Tech Massacre - From Arutz Sheva

McCain's appalling interview ...Straight-to-Iraq Express

By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine:

Sen. John McCain has been careening his Straight-Talk Express all over the highway in recent months, but late last week, he finally slammed it into the guardrail, plunged over the cliff, and went splat in the big muddy. ...
To put it another way, he's a stalwart for the war as long as he has to appeal only to hard-core Republicans (who still support the war)—yet he'll accede to reality (and the views of the broader American public) after he's cleared that hurdle and won the party's nomination.

Two and a half years ago, John McCain swallowed his pride and hitched his ambitions to two stars—George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. Both have since imploded. And so, as his campaign faces the purple dusk of twilight time, the man who might once have been an honorable president slips and slides on the stardust.

The Kibbutz as new exurb?

From Haaretz : By Avirama Golan

The Kibbutz Movement's demographic growth department has its hands full sorting and accepting new applicants for membership.

Most of the new members are children of kibbutzim who left, studied, worked and lived for years in the city and now want to return. Suddenly, they have realized that the promise of the city as a place where all the opportunities are open to them is deceptive. The opportunities are available only to a thin stratum of successful types, in golden cages of addiction to money and to work.

What they had taken for granted at the kibbutz - an excellent education in small classes, life in the bosom of nature and in an atmosphere of security and warmth - costs vast sums in the city. Housing prices are astronomical. All of their adult lives they have had to work hard to pay for a quality of life that is not better than that enjoyed by kibbutz veterans today. Exhausted by the savage competition that is devoid of social and existential security, they now recall the relaxed pace of life in their childhood, and the memory becomes more acute as they grow older. As long as they were very young and did not have children, they thought they had the world in their hands. Now that they can barely manage to spend any time with their children, they are beginning to long for the communal life that had previously looked strangling and limiting to them...

The new kibbutz is not an ideal place, but it has bid farewell to the rigid fairy tale of equality that created many distortions and now offers an interesting model for communal life, in which one can find both security and a social challenge. The kibbutzim that are taking in new members are explicitly declaring full privatization and differential pay alongside "mutual responsibility in education, health and welfare." All of them, of course, are interested in young people with small children. Kibbutzim that are enjoying renewed economic prosperity are attracting more new members than they are able to absorb.

Jordan to host Nobel Laureates to discuss Mideast peace

From Haaretz : By The Associated Press

AMMAN - Jordan will host a third meeting of Nobel Laureates next month to discuss the fate of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and youth education, organizers said in a statement Wednesday.

Like the two previous meetings, the May 15-16 gathering will be held in the ancient city of Petra, according to the statement jointly issued by King Abdullah II Fund for Development and the New York-based Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity....

Participants also will explore the possibility of establishing a Middle East science fund to advance regional scientific cooperation.

King Abdullah, the Jordanian monarch, was quoted by the statement as saying the conference's message is clear: "We can, and will continue to foster hope, innovation, and inspiration, in order to build a better world."

Elie Wiesel, a 1986 Nobel Prize winner for Peace, said in the statement: "This year we will explore practical steps to building a better world through partnerships involving Israelis and Palestinians and via cooperation between stakeholders across the Middle East."

BYU’s policy : Do ask, do tell, don’t do...

Inside Higher Ed: Brigham Young OK With Gays Who Don't Have Sex:

Brigham Young University has revised its policy on homosexuality, such that gay students would no longer be in violation of the university’s honor code for “advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit),” The Salt Lake Tribune reported. However, gay students still would be in violation if they ever had sex. The new policy states that “Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or orientation and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards.... One’s stated sexual orientation is not an Honor Code issue.” ” Equality Ride, a bus tour designed to draw attention to some colleges’ anti-gay bias, recently visited Brigham Young’s main campus, in Utah, and the university’s Idaho campus. Gay rights groups welcomed the changes at Brigham Young but stressed that they did not amount to equality. Will Carson, policy and strategy coordinator for Equality Utah, said, “BYU’s policy can now be summarized as ‘Do ask, do tell, don’t do.’

Kind of like gay Conservative rabbis?

Best-Informed Also View Fake News, Study Says

From The New York Times: By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news. "

The six news sources cited most often by people who knew the most about current events were: “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” (counted as one), tied with Web sites of major newspapers; next came “News Hour With Jim Lehrer”; then “The O’Reilly Factor,” which was tied with National Public Radio; and Rush Limbaugh’s radio program.

This story is not from The Onion, although it sounds like it might be!

Saluting Alice Shalvi

Few Israelis have done as much as Professor Alice Shalvi to combat injustice. A member of NIF's [New Israel Fund] International Council and former NIF Board Member, 80-year- old Professor Shalvi is still making headlines. Next week, on Israel Independence Day, she will receive the Israel Prize for her lifetime work.

In a candid interview with Etti Abramov of Yediot Ahronot, Israel's largest circulation daily newspaper, Prof. Shalvi revealed that she was the victim of sexual harassment by two academic figures at the Hebrew University in the 1970's and discussed her role in establishing veteran and major NIF grantee Israel Women's Network (IWN).

And for more:

The 2007 Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement and Special Contribution to Society and the State of Israel will be awarded to Professor Alice Shalvi from the English department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The award was announced on March 25 by Minister of Education Prof. Yuli Tamir.

Explaining their decision, the judges called Shalvi ''revolutionary and courageously trailblazing, with intellectual integrity and long-term vision.'' She will be awarded the prize during an Independence Day ceremony.

Shalvi was born in Germany in 1926 but fled to Britain shortly after the Nazi rise to power. There, she went on to earn her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature at Cambridge University. She then went on to study social studies at the London School of Economics. A year after immigrating to Israel in 1949, she received a position as a professor of English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Shalvi served as principal of the Pelech School for Girls in Jerusalem, turning it into one of the first religious experimental schools and a model for other experimental and democratic schools throughout the country. She began her feminist activity in the 1970s, battling for the rights of women whose husbands refused to grant them a divorce. She also founded the first grassroots self-help neighborhood organization, ''Ohel Yosef'', in the 1970s to improve the quality of life in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This served as a model for future neighborhood organizations.

Shalvi was also among the founders of the Israel Women's Network, and chaired it from its founding in 1984 until 2007.

McCloskey leaves Republican Party

ContraCostaTimes Politics Weblog::

Lifelong Republican, Marine veteran and former congressman Pete McCloskey has left the GOP and registered with the Democratic Party.

McCloskey says he is disgusted with the 'succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.'

'A pox on (Republicans) and their values,' he wrote.

And who said the only good Republican was a dead Republican? For shame.

Man Bites Dog!

Man Sent to Prison for Bilking Law Firms - New York Times

Health care system broken, Clinton says

SF Chronicle:

SAN FRANCISCO -- The dire state of the nation's health care system is threatening the country's well-being, former President Bill Clinton told a receptive crowd in San Francisco on Saturday.

'Our health care system is immoral because it doesn't provide health care to everybody,' said Clinton...'It's wildly uneconomical. We pay more than everybody else in the world for less.'

'It is sowing the seeds of its own destruction...'

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

Celebrating Charles Savage, Boston Globe

Glenn Greenwald - Salon:

The Pulitzer Prize Committee today recognized the work of one of America's few truly excellent political journalists:

Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe won for national reporting for his revelations that President Bush often used 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws.

Even for months after The New York Times first revealed -- back in December 2005 -- that the Bush administration had been secretly eavesdropping on Americans in violation of FISA for the prior four years, there were virtually no journalists writing about the Bush administration's theories of lawlessness which gave rise to that specific lawbreaking. And there were virtually no journalists who recognized or described just how profoundly radical that behavior was.

... Savage was one of the very few journalists in the country who understood, investigated and reported on the radical theories of executive power embraced by this President. And once he began reporting on those abuses, he was relentless in his efforts to draw public attention to the administration's conduct.

This week's portion...

Parshat Tazria-Metzora 5767
April 21, 2007

This week's double parshah describes the process of determining whether or not a person is a leper.

All things considered, I prefer Imus.

Nora Ephron: Not About Imus

From The Huffington Post
So now people are blogging about not blogging about Imus, and blogging about that.

Juxtapositions

are sometimes the most satisfying commentaries.