Sunday, December 23, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Stewart and Colbert to Return
In a statement, the two hosts said they would prefer to return to work with their writers. “If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence,” they stated.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Rich Pickings: A vote for faith in America itself
I think Frank Rich's piece in today's NYT gets it exactly right. I have the audacity to hope so:
"...Or is it because Mrs. Clinton’s shrill campaign continues to cast her as Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy?...
"But it just may be possible that the single biggest boost to the Obama campaign is not white liberal self-congratulation or the Clinton camp’s self-immolation, but the collective nastiness of the Republican field. Just when you think the tone can’t get any uglier, it does. ...
"For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself."
May it be so.
"...Or is it because Mrs. Clinton’s shrill campaign continues to cast her as Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy?...
"But it just may be possible that the single biggest boost to the Obama campaign is not white liberal self-congratulation or the Clinton camp’s self-immolation, but the collective nastiness of the Republican field. Just when you think the tone can’t get any uglier, it does. ...
"For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself."
May it be so.
Friday, October 26, 2007
An Orthodox rabbi's plea: let's be honest here
2007-10-26
By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one. The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, including Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis conference occurs. And last week, as I read one e-mail dispatch after another from these organizations, I became more and more convinced that I could not join their call.
It's not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It's rather that the time has come for honesty. Their call to handcuff the government of Israel in this way, their call to deprive it of this negotiating option, reveals that these organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.
These are extremely difficult thoughts for me to share, both because they concern an issue that is emotionally charged, and because people whose friendship I treasure will disagree strongly with me. And also because I am breaking a taboo within my community, the Orthodox Zionist community. "Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital" is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence. It is an article of faith, a corollary of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. It is not questioned. But this final reason why it is difficult for me to share these thoughts is also the very reason that I have decided to do so. This is a conversation that desperately needs to begin.
No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.
An honest reading of this story reveals that there were voices in the inner circle of the Israeli government in 1967-1968 who warned that settling civilians in conquered territories was probably illegal under international law. But for very understandable reasons -- among them security needs, Zionist ideologies of both the both secular and religious varieties, memories that were 20 years old, and memories that were 3,000 years old -- these voices were overruled. We can identify with many of the ideas that carried the settlement project forward. But the fact remains that it is simply not honest on our part to pretend that the government of Israel didn't know that there was likely a legal problem, or that the government was confident that international conventions did not apply to this situation. That just wouldn't be an honest telling.
An honest reading of the story reveals that the heroes of Israel's wars who became the ministers in its government, who were most responsible for the initial decision to settle, were quite aware that by doing so they were risking conflict with the Arab population that was living there. They were aware that these Arabs would never be invited to become citizens of Israel, and would never have the rights of citizens. Nonetheless, they decided to go forward. Some believed that the economic benefit that would accrue to these Arabs as a result of their interactions with Israelis and Israel would be so great that they wouldn't mind our military and civilian presence among them. Others projected that some sort of diplomatic arrangement would soon be reached with Jordan that would soften the face of what would otherwise be full-blown military occupation. These may have been reasonable projections at the time. But as it turned out, both of them were wrong. And it's not honest to tell the story without acknowledging that we made these mistakes.
The Religious Zionist leadership (similar to today's Evangelical supporters of Israel) made a different judgment, namely that settling the Biblical heartland would further hasten the unfolding of the messianic age. Thus, the Arab population already there was not our problem. God would deal with it. This belief too -- reasonable though it may have seemed at the time -- has also turned out to be wrong. To tell the story honestly, this mistake too must be acknowledged.
And the difference that honest storytelling makes is enormous. When we tell our story honestly, our position at the negotiating table is one that is informed not only by our own needs and desires, but also by our obligations and responsibilities. The latter include the responsibility to -- in some way, in some measure -- fix that which we have done. Also included is the need to recognize that we have some kind of obligation toward the people who have been harmed by our decisions. Honesty in our telling of the story reveals the stark and candid reality that we also need to speak the language of compromise and conciliation. Not only the language of entitlement and demands.
To be sure, I would be horrified and sick if the worst-case division-of-Jerusalem scenario were to materialize. The possibility that the Kotel, the Jewish Quarter or the Temple Mount would return to their former states of Arab sovereignty is unfathomable to me, and I suspect to nearly everyone inside the Israeli government. At the same time though, to insist that the government not talk about Jerusalem at all (including the possibility, for example, of Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods) is to insist that Israel come to the negotiating table telling a dishonest story -- a story in which our side has made no mistakes and no miscalculations, a story in which there is no moral ambiguity in the way we have chosen to rule the people we conquered, a story in which we don't owe anything to anyone. Cries of protest, in particular from organizations that oppose Israel's relinquishing anything at all between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and which have never offered any alternative solutions to the ones they are protesting against, are rooted in the refusal to read history honestly. And I -- for one -- cannot lend my support to that.
Without a doubt, the Palestinians aren't telling an honest story either. They are not being honest about their record of violence against Jews in the pre-State era, or about the obscene immorality with which they attacked Israeli civilians during the second intifada. They are not being honest about the ways in which their fellow Arabs are responsible for so much of the misery that they -- the Palestinians -- have endured, and they certainly are not being honest about the deep and real historical connection that the Jewish people has to this land and to this holy city. And there will not be peace (and perhaps there should be no peace conference) until they tell an honest story as well. But for us to take the approach that in order to defend and protect ourselves from their dishonest story, we must continue telling our own dishonest story, is to travel a road of unending and unendable conflict. Peace will come only when and if everyone at the table has the courage, the strength, and enough fear of God to tell the story as it really is.
For many decades we have sighed and asked, "When will peace come?" The answer is starkly simple. There will be peace the day after there is truth.
Yosef Kanfesky is rabbi of B'nai David Judea in Los Angeles.
By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one. The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, including Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis conference occurs. And last week, as I read one e-mail dispatch after another from these organizations, I became more and more convinced that I could not join their call.
It's not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It's rather that the time has come for honesty. Their call to handcuff the government of Israel in this way, their call to deprive it of this negotiating option, reveals that these organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.
These are extremely difficult thoughts for me to share, both because they concern an issue that is emotionally charged, and because people whose friendship I treasure will disagree strongly with me. And also because I am breaking a taboo within my community, the Orthodox Zionist community. "Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital" is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence. It is an article of faith, a corollary of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. It is not questioned. But this final reason why it is difficult for me to share these thoughts is also the very reason that I have decided to do so. This is a conversation that desperately needs to begin.
No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.
An honest reading of this story reveals that there were voices in the inner circle of the Israeli government in 1967-1968 who warned that settling civilians in conquered territories was probably illegal under international law. But for very understandable reasons -- among them security needs, Zionist ideologies of both the both secular and religious varieties, memories that were 20 years old, and memories that were 3,000 years old -- these voices were overruled. We can identify with many of the ideas that carried the settlement project forward. But the fact remains that it is simply not honest on our part to pretend that the government of Israel didn't know that there was likely a legal problem, or that the government was confident that international conventions did not apply to this situation. That just wouldn't be an honest telling.
An honest reading of the story reveals that the heroes of Israel's wars who became the ministers in its government, who were most responsible for the initial decision to settle, were quite aware that by doing so they were risking conflict with the Arab population that was living there. They were aware that these Arabs would never be invited to become citizens of Israel, and would never have the rights of citizens. Nonetheless, they decided to go forward. Some believed that the economic benefit that would accrue to these Arabs as a result of their interactions with Israelis and Israel would be so great that they wouldn't mind our military and civilian presence among them. Others projected that some sort of diplomatic arrangement would soon be reached with Jordan that would soften the face of what would otherwise be full-blown military occupation. These may have been reasonable projections at the time. But as it turned out, both of them were wrong. And it's not honest to tell the story without acknowledging that we made these mistakes.
The Religious Zionist leadership (similar to today's Evangelical supporters of Israel) made a different judgment, namely that settling the Biblical heartland would further hasten the unfolding of the messianic age. Thus, the Arab population already there was not our problem. God would deal with it. This belief too -- reasonable though it may have seemed at the time -- has also turned out to be wrong. To tell the story honestly, this mistake too must be acknowledged.
And the difference that honest storytelling makes is enormous. When we tell our story honestly, our position at the negotiating table is one that is informed not only by our own needs and desires, but also by our obligations and responsibilities. The latter include the responsibility to -- in some way, in some measure -- fix that which we have done. Also included is the need to recognize that we have some kind of obligation toward the people who have been harmed by our decisions. Honesty in our telling of the story reveals the stark and candid reality that we also need to speak the language of compromise and conciliation. Not only the language of entitlement and demands.
To be sure, I would be horrified and sick if the worst-case division-of-Jerusalem scenario were to materialize. The possibility that the Kotel, the Jewish Quarter or the Temple Mount would return to their former states of Arab sovereignty is unfathomable to me, and I suspect to nearly everyone inside the Israeli government. At the same time though, to insist that the government not talk about Jerusalem at all (including the possibility, for example, of Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods) is to insist that Israel come to the negotiating table telling a dishonest story -- a story in which our side has made no mistakes and no miscalculations, a story in which there is no moral ambiguity in the way we have chosen to rule the people we conquered, a story in which we don't owe anything to anyone. Cries of protest, in particular from organizations that oppose Israel's relinquishing anything at all between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and which have never offered any alternative solutions to the ones they are protesting against, are rooted in the refusal to read history honestly. And I -- for one -- cannot lend my support to that.
Without a doubt, the Palestinians aren't telling an honest story either. They are not being honest about their record of violence against Jews in the pre-State era, or about the obscene immorality with which they attacked Israeli civilians during the second intifada. They are not being honest about the ways in which their fellow Arabs are responsible for so much of the misery that they -- the Palestinians -- have endured, and they certainly are not being honest about the deep and real historical connection that the Jewish people has to this land and to this holy city. And there will not be peace (and perhaps there should be no peace conference) until they tell an honest story as well. But for us to take the approach that in order to defend and protect ourselves from their dishonest story, we must continue telling our own dishonest story, is to travel a road of unending and unendable conflict. Peace will come only when and if everyone at the table has the courage, the strength, and enough fear of God to tell the story as it really is.
For many decades we have sighed and asked, "When will peace come?" The answer is starkly simple. There will be peace the day after there is truth.
Yosef Kanfesky is rabbi of B'nai David Judea in Los Angeles.
Naomi Chazen
By Naomi Chazan Published: 10/16/2007
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Uninformed readers of the general American press these days learn only two things about Israel. One is that it is consumed with war and peace. The other is that this small state of 7 million people deploys -- or does not, depending on whom you are reading -- the most powerful, homogenous lobby in Washington, bending the American government’s actions to its interests at will.
American Jews know better, of course. The quest for a fair and sustainable settlement to conflict in the Middle East is indeed central, but the peace process is not the only challenge of Israel’s continuing struggle for survival as the state its founders intended it to be.
Important, too, are issues that define Israel as a society, as a homeland for Jews, as a democracy. In the long run these and related topics will contribute as much as military and diplomatic matters to answering the question of whether Israel will survive another 60 years.
Since serving as deputy speaker of the Knesset, I have spent more of my time on what I call the struggle for Israel’s character. As a democracy with a thriving civil society, there is plenty of scope for argument in Israel over issues ranging from minority rights to religious freedom. However, there are also voices of extremism, intolerance and ultranationalism that threaten not just the Israeli ideal of a liberal, democratic state but the very mechanisms that allow us to fiercely debate the issues that will define our future.
For example, the independence of Israel’s High Court, the most important guarantor of rights in a country without a written constitution, is under siege from right-wingers inside and outside the government who would like to subject it to political manipulation.
The struggle to impede the theocratic objectives of religious parties continues, with progressives working hard just to prevent further encroachment on what should be a firm religion-state divide.
Perhaps most important, and difficult, is the growing chasm between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens, as some of the former continue to perpetuate de facto inequality, and the latter react with an increasingly radicalized vision of an Israel bereft of any identifying Jewish characteristics.
Moreover, Israel is a country facing increasing socio-economic discrepancies. The widening gap between the prosperous Israeli center and the struggling peripheries in the Galil and Negev was exacerbated by last summer’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the difficult recovery in the North.
Overall, the prospects for immigrant youth, Israeli Arabs, mizrachim -- citizens from Middle Eastern and North African lands -- residents of development towns, Bedouin and all the other outsiders to Israel’s thriving economy remain severely constricted.
Women confront gender rights issues every day, and not just in the Orthodox and Israeli Arab communities. The disgusting parade of Israeli politicians accused and found guilty of sexual harassment and worse is the most visible indicator of a society struggling to overcome serious problems with patriarchy.
These and similar issues constantly, if not always consciously, affect the relations between Israel and world Jewry. The notion of a single-minded American pro-Israel lobby that only reflects the worldview of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- Walt and Mearsheimer notwithstanding -- is ridiculous.
In the next week I will be engaging, along with other Israeli progressive social activists, in a nine-city national conversation sponsored by the New Israel Fund titled “Towards a Progressive Vision for Israel.”
Anyone attending these events for even an hour no doubt would conclude that much of the American Jewish community is to the left of some of its “official” spokesperson organizations, and that this large segment deserves a louder voice on key Israel-related issues.
Achieving a more powerful voice for these Jewish voices in the United States is crucial for two reasons. First, the taboo of criticizing Israel must be broken. The issue is not whether Israel is always right or always wrong, as the current discourse aridly asserts. Rather the question is how to deal constructively and creatively with Israel's very real problems. The debate about Israel must be reframed.
Second, the majority of Israeli citizens -- who have achieved real successes advocating in an open, argumentative, self-critical society -- need support from their American counterparts. When the most visible American backers of Israel are the Likud-fellow-traveler Jewish groups and the Christian right, it is almost impossible to counter those powerful and well-financed voices and the retrogressive values they champion.
Americans, whether Jewish or not, deserve more than a sound-bite understanding of what Israel is and where it may be going. Beyond the heartfelt support that most Americans feel for Israel are real dilemmas for the only fragile yet working democracy in the Middle East.
Most Israelis see the threat of religious ultranationalism, minority repression and economic inequity all too clearly. It is time for true democrats in both Israel and the United States to challenge themselves with the reality of Israel in its 60th year: a vibrant, thriving country still striving for ideals not yet attained.
(Naomi Chazan, former deputy speaker of the Knesset, is professor emerita of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and head of the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo. She is a member of the New Israel Fund board of directors.)
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Uninformed readers of the general American press these days learn only two things about Israel. One is that it is consumed with war and peace. The other is that this small state of 7 million people deploys -- or does not, depending on whom you are reading -- the most powerful, homogenous lobby in Washington, bending the American government’s actions to its interests at will.
American Jews know better, of course. The quest for a fair and sustainable settlement to conflict in the Middle East is indeed central, but the peace process is not the only challenge of Israel’s continuing struggle for survival as the state its founders intended it to be.
Important, too, are issues that define Israel as a society, as a homeland for Jews, as a democracy. In the long run these and related topics will contribute as much as military and diplomatic matters to answering the question of whether Israel will survive another 60 years.
Since serving as deputy speaker of the Knesset, I have spent more of my time on what I call the struggle for Israel’s character. As a democracy with a thriving civil society, there is plenty of scope for argument in Israel over issues ranging from minority rights to religious freedom. However, there are also voices of extremism, intolerance and ultranationalism that threaten not just the Israeli ideal of a liberal, democratic state but the very mechanisms that allow us to fiercely debate the issues that will define our future.
For example, the independence of Israel’s High Court, the most important guarantor of rights in a country without a written constitution, is under siege from right-wingers inside and outside the government who would like to subject it to political manipulation.
The struggle to impede the theocratic objectives of religious parties continues, with progressives working hard just to prevent further encroachment on what should be a firm religion-state divide.
Perhaps most important, and difficult, is the growing chasm between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens, as some of the former continue to perpetuate de facto inequality, and the latter react with an increasingly radicalized vision of an Israel bereft of any identifying Jewish characteristics.
Moreover, Israel is a country facing increasing socio-economic discrepancies. The widening gap between the prosperous Israeli center and the struggling peripheries in the Galil and Negev was exacerbated by last summer’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the difficult recovery in the North.
Overall, the prospects for immigrant youth, Israeli Arabs, mizrachim -- citizens from Middle Eastern and North African lands -- residents of development towns, Bedouin and all the other outsiders to Israel’s thriving economy remain severely constricted.
Women confront gender rights issues every day, and not just in the Orthodox and Israeli Arab communities. The disgusting parade of Israeli politicians accused and found guilty of sexual harassment and worse is the most visible indicator of a society struggling to overcome serious problems with patriarchy.
These and similar issues constantly, if not always consciously, affect the relations between Israel and world Jewry. The notion of a single-minded American pro-Israel lobby that only reflects the worldview of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- Walt and Mearsheimer notwithstanding -- is ridiculous.
In the next week I will be engaging, along with other Israeli progressive social activists, in a nine-city national conversation sponsored by the New Israel Fund titled “Towards a Progressive Vision for Israel.”
Anyone attending these events for even an hour no doubt would conclude that much of the American Jewish community is to the left of some of its “official” spokesperson organizations, and that this large segment deserves a louder voice on key Israel-related issues.
Achieving a more powerful voice for these Jewish voices in the United States is crucial for two reasons. First, the taboo of criticizing Israel must be broken. The issue is not whether Israel is always right or always wrong, as the current discourse aridly asserts. Rather the question is how to deal constructively and creatively with Israel's very real problems. The debate about Israel must be reframed.
Second, the majority of Israeli citizens -- who have achieved real successes advocating in an open, argumentative, self-critical society -- need support from their American counterparts. When the most visible American backers of Israel are the Likud-fellow-traveler Jewish groups and the Christian right, it is almost impossible to counter those powerful and well-financed voices and the retrogressive values they champion.
Americans, whether Jewish or not, deserve more than a sound-bite understanding of what Israel is and where it may be going. Beyond the heartfelt support that most Americans feel for Israel are real dilemmas for the only fragile yet working democracy in the Middle East.
Most Israelis see the threat of religious ultranationalism, minority repression and economic inequity all too clearly. It is time for true democrats in both Israel and the United States to challenge themselves with the reality of Israel in its 60th year: a vibrant, thriving country still striving for ideals not yet attained.
(Naomi Chazan, former deputy speaker of the Knesset, is professor emerita of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and head of the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo. She is a member of the New Israel Fund board of directors.)
Monday, October 15, 2007
Conservatives and Al Gore's Nobel | Campaign for America's Future
Conservatives and Al Gore's Nobel | Campaign for America's Future: "'...the big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.' -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr."
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Yale Law Women Releases 2nd Annual List of the Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms
California Newswire » : By Valerie Gotten
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Yale Law Women (YLW), the largest student organization at Yale Law School, announces the release of its 2007 Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms list. Phoenix-based firm Quarles & Brady received top honors, followed by Proskauer Rose; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer; Jenner & Block; Mayer Brown; Covington & Burling; Arnold & Porter; DLA Piper; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, PC; and Faegre & Benson. YLW seeks to emphasize the need for firm employment policies that facilitate work-life balance for attorneys. The DC Women’s Bar Association’s report, Creating Pathways to Success, indicates that 70% of lawyers with children-both men and women-report work-life conflict. Due largely to inflexible work demands, firms face an ongoing retention problem with young associates. “If firms are to recruit and retain attorneys, they must change their work environments to not only accommodate but support lawyers with families,” said YLW Activism Co-Chair Jill Habig. Fellow Co-Chair Katie Wilson-Milne stated, “This list is a way to celebrate those firms that have taken important steps toward helping attorneys have both a family and a successful career.”
YLW analyzed firms from Vault’s Top 100 Law Firms and Best of the Rest lists. The variables used were selected based on a survey of Yale Law School alumni, who ranked in order of importance a list of family-friendly law firm policies. Categories included maternity/paternity leave, childcare, and alternative work arrangements, among others. All data was collected from the National Association of Law Placement (NALP) directory.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
U.K. Hospitals Issue Doctors' Dress Code
New York Times:
Hospital dress codes typically urge doctors to look professional, which, for male practitioners, has usually meant wearing a tie. But as concern over hospital-borne infections has intensified, doctors are taking a closer look at their clothing. ''Ties are rarely laundered but worn daily,'' the Department of Health said in a statement. ''They perform no beneficial function in patient care and have been shown to be colonized by pathogens.''"
Times to End Charges on Web Site
New York Times:
The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight tonight. The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators. In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free. The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue. “But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising..."
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age
New New York Times:
"Social networking has so far focused mainly on businesspeople and young people because they are tech-savvy and are treasured by Madison Avenue. But there are 78 million boomers — roughly three times the number of teenagers — and most of them are Internet users who learned computer skills in the workplace. Indeed, the number of Internet users who are older than 55 is roughly the same as those who are aged 18 to 34, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, a market research firm."
Gary Hart: J'Accuse
The Huffington Post:
Some interesting and relevant themes for Rosh Hashanah in America.
(not to speak of Hart's invocation of "chutzpah on stilts"!)
"This administration stands indicted for incompetence and mendacity. That it still commands the loyalty of even a quarter of our fellow citizens is testament to the persistence of willful ignorance. Against all the facts assembled in this indictment, that the administration's operatives can still make claims on strength, security, and determination is chutzpah on stilts. That the media still treat these operatives and spokespersons, and indeed the president himself, seriously is witness to their desire for 'access' and 'sources' rather than their commitment to the truth. America is today under the steady gaze of billions of the world's citizens and even more under the examining lens of history. Nothing is more difficult than to admit that we made a tragic mistake in selecting our leaders. But that is the first step toward redemption. Absolute rejection of those who lay claim to ownership of security is the next. We are too old to behave as adolescents any longer. That includes particularly our president. America must grow up. We must redeem ourselves in the name of those who lost their lives unnecessarily six years ago. We must reclaim our dignity and our honor from those who have neither."
Some interesting and relevant themes for Rosh Hashanah in America.
(not to speak of Hart's invocation of "chutzpah on stilts"!)
Monday, September 10, 2007
Boys Cast Out by Polygamists Find Help
Boys New York Times: By ERIK ECKHOLM
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Woodrow Johnson was 15, and by the rules of the polygamous sect in which his family lived, he had a vice that could condemn them to hell: He liked to watch movies.
When his parents discovered his secret stash of DVDs, including the “Die Hard” series and comedies, they burned them and gave him an ultimatum. Stop watching movies, they said, or leave the family and church for good.
With television and the Internet also banned as wicked, along with short-sleeve shirts — a sign of immodesty — and staring at girls, let alone dating them, Woodrow made the wrenching decision to go. And so 10 months ago, with only a seventh-grade education and a suitcase of clothes, he was thrown into an unfamiliar world he had been taught to fear.
Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave the polygamous settlement that straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.
Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives. ...
“In part it’s an issue of control,” Mr. Murphy said of the harsh rules. But underlying the expulsions, he added, is a mathematical reality. “If you’re going to have plural marriage, you need fewer men,” he said.
Andrew Chatwin, 39, the uncle who took Woodrow in, left the sect 10 years ago. He explained how the expulsions usually happen: “The leaders tell the parents they must stop this kid who is disobeying the faith and Warren Jeffs. So the parents kick him out because otherwise the father could have his wives and whole family taken away.”...
Mr. Gilbert estimates that 100 boys from his school class, or 70 percent of them, have been expelled or left on their own accord; there is no way to verify the numbers. “There are a lot of broken-hearted parents, but you question this decision at the risk of your own salvation,” Mr. Gilbert said.
The problem of surplus males worsened in the 1990s when the late prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs’s father, took on dozens of young wives — picking the prettiest, most talented girls, said DeLoy Bateman, a high school teacher who watched it happen.
Warren Jeffs, taking the mantle after his father’s death in 2002, adopted most of his father’s wives and married others, and also began assigning more wives to his trusted church leaders, former members say. Forced departures increased. ...
Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries
New York Times: "By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. ...
Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”...
“It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. “There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”...
The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller. ...
“Otisville had a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated,” said David Zwiebel, executive vice president for government and public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group. “It was decimated. Three-quarters of the Jewish books were taken off the shelves.”
Mr. Zwiebel asked, “Since when does the government, even with the assistance of chaplains, decide which are the most basic books in terms of religious study and practice?” ...
“Government does have a legitimate interest to screen out things that tend to incite violence in prisons,” Mr. Laycock said. “But once they say, ‘We’re going to pick 150 good books for your religion, and that’s all you get,’ the criteria has become more than just inciting violence. They’re picking out what is accessible religious teaching for prisoners, and the government can’t do that without a compelling justification. Here the justification is, the government is too busy to look at all the books, so they’re going to make their own preferred list to save a little time, a little money.”...
There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations. ...
Fracas Erupts Over Book on Mideast by a Barnard Professor Seeking Tenure
New York Times: "Dr. Abu El-Haj has some opponents at her own college. “There is every reason in the world to want her to have tenure, and only one reason against it — her work,” said Alan F. Segal, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard. “I believe it is not good enough.” He said he was particularly troubled by her suggestion that ancient Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands, and he said that she had either misunderstood or ignored evidence to the contrary. “She completely misunderstands what the biblical tradition is saying,” he added. “She is not even close. She is so bizarrely off.” He also said that a Barnard official, whom he declined to name, had asked him to suggest people who were not Jewish to comment on Dr. Abu El-Haj’s work for the tenure review, and that he had refused."
Friday, September 7, 2007
A Quiz for Constitution Day
Chronicle.com: By LAWRENCE DOUGLAS and ALEXANDER GEORGE
This is our second annual Constitution Day quiz. Constitution Day is September 17th. Federal law now requires that educational institutions that receive federal funds hold an 'educational program' on the Constiution. Give this handy quiz to everyone on your campus — students, professors, administrators, staff, even members of the hockey team — and happily avoid the suspension of millions of dollars of federal research money. 1. In the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Congress suspended the writ of habeas corpus for alien enemy combatants detained at Guantánamo Bay. The Constitution, however, stipulates that Congress can suspend the writ only 'in cases of rebellion or invasion.' We can therefore conclude: 1. We have been invaded. 2. We are in the midst of a rebellion (against the government, not against the Constitution itself). 3. The Military Commissions Act is unconstitutional. 4. The Constitution does not protect evil suspects. 5. The founding fathers intended to make an exception for Gitmo. ...
Print: Psychologists, Under a Historian's Lens
Chronicle.com: By THOMAS BARTLETT
As the American Psychological Association debates whether its members should be involved in so-called coercive interrogation, Alfred W. McCoy is trying to get psychologists to own up to their past. Mr. McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is the author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Metropolitan Books, 2006). The book is a detailed indictment, brimming with outraged accusations — what one reviewer called 'a flashlight beaming into the dark closets of government.' It is also a book that has come under fire for alleged distortions and overstatements. Mr. McCoy has been criticized for suggesting that two towering figures in the discipline, Donald Hebb and Stanley Milgram, worked with the Central Intelligence Agency. He has also been accused of being too quick to see nefarious connections between psychologists and the government, and of basing grand conclusions on skimpy evidence. In a paper to be published next month by the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, he takes on his detractors and digs further into the 'deep, dark' history of psychology.
"If you don't diagnose the disease," asks Mr. McCoy, "how can you find the cure?"...
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Jewish students at American Universities
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More Jewish students choose the University of Florida than any other public university, while New York University is their top pick among private universities. That’s according to a list of the 60 most popular college campuses for Jewish undergraduates, published as the Insider's Guide to College in this month’s Reform Judaism magazine. The popularity list used raw numbers, and the list was divided by public and private institutions. The University of Florida in Gainesville heads the list in the public category for the second year in a row with 5,500 Jewish undergraduates. Next are the University of Central Florida and the University of Maryland, College Park, each with 5,000 Jewish undergraduates. York University in Toronto and Rutgers University in New Jersey each have 4,500 Jewish undergraduates. Among private universities, New York University has 4,000 Jewish undergraduates, followed by Boston University, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania with 3,000 each. Yeshiva University ranks fourth on the list of private schools with 2,810 Jewish undergraduates. Not surprisingly, Yeshiva heads the guide's list showing the 20 colleges with the highest percentage of Jews -- 93.5 percent of its undergraduates are Jewish. Next is Brandeis University with 61.7 percent, then Barnard College with 43.5 percent. The Ivy League schools with the highest percentage of Jewish students are Harvard and Penn, with 30 percent each.
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