Was reading a report from MEMRI yesterday — the Middle East Media Research Institute — and had a funny reaction. The report said (in essence), “Iranian TV: U.S. and Zionists responsible for Mumbai attacks.” (You can check this out here.)
And what was my reaction? I said, “Well, at least they acknowledge that the Bombay bombings are bad.” This is, in part, how I feel when Islamists and other kooks blame the Americans and the “Zionists” for 9/11.
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Of course, you hear contradictory things from the Islamists: On one hand, 9/11 was a great thing, carried out by Muslims; on the other, it was a despicable thing, carried out by the bad guys — i.e., us.
The exact same thing applies to the Holocaust, I’m afraid: On one hand, it was a great and necessary thing (and let’s have another one); on the other hand, it is a Jewish fiction, promoted to gain sympathy and rationalize Israel.
Ah, well . . .
Some weeks ago, I was writing about the great stock-market crash of 1987 — this was in the present context, of course. And a reader sent me something interesting from the
New York Times: an article dated October 21, 1987. An excerpt:
“The Depression did not begin the day of the crash of 1929,” said Ben S. Bernanke, a professor of economics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. “It took a series of unrelated international financial events in late 1930 and early ’31 to turn what had been a normal recession into a panic.”
Just kind of interesting, is all. (For the article, go here.)
Another report from MEMRI — this time, a Syrian actress named Amal Arafa is on TV saying,
Policies may change, but there is something that is already in my genes. We’ve been brought up to hate Israel. It’s in our genes. . . .
[A]s far as I am concerned, Israel will continue to be a black, dark, and murky spot in my memory, in my genes, and in my blood. Even though I am Syrian and not Palestinian, the Syrian upbringing we received and by which we lived — we’ve sucked it with the milk of our mothers. There is no playing around with this, it’s in our genes, and we will pass this down for many more generations.
Okay, a few points:
1) Ms. Arafa seems to be a little confused — was she brought up to hate (i.e., nurtured), or is it in her blood?
2) If it’s in her blood — I know plenty of people who can nod their heads in agreement with that! They are people who believe that all is determined by DNA — radical biological determinists, or whatever the appropriate appellation is.
3) Ms. Arafa is a beautiful woman, of course, being an actress. But she is also — as you can hear — an ugly woman. Bummer.
Been meaning to talk to you about this for ages, guys: Before the election, I participated in a kind of political show at the Hackley School. This is a prep school (tony-ish) outside of New York (City), in Westchester County. Had a wonderful experience there. And my co-presenter, so to speak, was Nancy Gibbs, the well-known political writer from Time.
She and her husband are Hackley parents. And Nancy Gibbs was exactly what you would want in a Time writer: informed, measured, moderate, engaging, balanced. And I say this as someone who is no fan of Time magazine.
(Or, to put it another way, I think Time should make an honest woman of itself and be a self-declared opinion magazine, instead of pretending to be a news magazine. Because, many weeks, it seems almost as much an opinion magazine as National Review — only left-leaning, of course.)
(Yes, I know they have conservative columnists — tokens. Necessary and gratifying tokens, to be sure. I’m all for tokenism, in some arenas.)
After our presentation, I had lunch with some Students for McCain-Palin, and, no, this lunch did not take place in a phone booth — that would have been far too confining. These students were smart, knowledgeable, independent-minded (natch), personable, and altogether refreshing.
One thing I like very much about this school is that it includes political diversity in its idea of general diversity. You may know my old line: When I was in school, “diversity” meant that you had a black Marxist, a white Marxist, a Chicano Marxist, a lesbian Marxist, and so on. There was no diversity of thought. That was not even an afterthought.
But here is what the official literature of Hackley says about diversity:
At Hackley, we believe that true education comes in part through the relationships we forge with others. We define diversity to include differences of race, socioeconomic status/class, religion, gender, national original, sexual orientation, learning style, family structure, political view, home community, and talent, and we also recognize that above all, diversity is a multiplicity of perspectives and experience, and that diversity of community offers us the great opportunity to learn from each other.
And the following is part of the school’s mission statement: “Hackley challenges students to grow in character, scholarship and accomplishment, to offer unreserved effort, and to learn from our community’s varying perspectives and backgrounds.”
And those perspectives, according to the school’s impressive headmaster, Walter Johnson, include political views. Not bad, huh?
(By the way, Walter Johnson — the original one, the Senator — was a customer of my great-grandfather, a Washington, D.C., merchant. My great-grandfather owned The Young Men’s Shop, at 13th and F. Sold men’s accessories. And the Big Train was a customer — and so were many others. But we can talk about that later.)
