Heretics' almanac

The BBC may have inadvertently turned the tables

The BBC chose to illuminate the latest terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv by exploring the grief felt by - the family of the guy who blew himself up. Many of the pro-Israeli people I know are outraged by this, chalking it up to the increasingly overt anti-Israel bias in the British government's broadcasting operation.

One made an interesting point, though: such coverage - however it's motivated - may show what a catastrophe terrorism is for everyone, and especially the Palestinians. The British public may be callous toward the scope of Israeli hardship during the Oslo war, but they may and should be persuaded that terrorism is an evil means toward an evil end, with only evil secondary effects. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (abbreviated PIJ, since it maligns all three of the terms that make up its name) has taken responsibility for this attack, and nothing good will come of it.

In other words, it should be clear to those who hate Israel and love the Palestinians (Robert Fisk comes to mind) that terrorism is a bad, counterproductive thing. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

Rome in the Spring?

Devout Catholics and other admirers are praying for the pope's health these days, but I'm not entirely sure what they're praying for. The pontiff is worn out, chronically and severely ill, and a sad sight. Destined for accelerated canonization, the faithful should have little doubt about his soul. While you wouldn't exactly wish for the old man's death, we're no longer talking about an abbreviated life or an incomplete mission.

The truly worrisome prospect of the pope's passing is the conclave of the College of Cardinals, possibly one of the most important elections in the Church's history. They'll have to choose whether to piss of Mel Gibson further or invite back into the fold millions of gay and/horny Catholics who have been alienated lately. They have to crack open the door to debating celibacy and birth control. Maybe even a more open, less dogmatic Vatican. The cardinals are probably not packing their bags yet, but they may be wondering about the weather in Rome these days. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

Supply side and Europe

With just a touch of Schadenfreude, the Wall Street Journal points out that several European countries reported that they'd recently slipped into recession, while the US can show a GDP growth rate of about 3.5%. “Cowboynomics,” they say, may be worth emulating among those who disdain everything Bush stands for.

I won't argue the point that Europeans are annoyingly self-rigteous with very little reason, whether it comes to economics or politics.  And I'm not got going to say that supply-side economic policy is all wet.  But I am far from convinced that cutting taxes for high-income groups is what is driving the US economy's modest expansion.  It seems to me that business cycles follow their own logic, and that government intervention can do quite a bit of harm but very little good.

What the Journal and other conservative opinion-makers must understand is that Europe does not separate economic from foreign policy as much as Americans do.  Yes, they would say, our growth is slower and unemplyment higher, but we have fewer poor and uninsures individuals.  I wouldn't entirely buy the argument, but the Journal shouldn't simply assert that America has it righter in every respect without examining the opponent's arguments. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

The next m-e crisis?

If Norwegian newspapers had favored developments in Lebanon with any meaningful coverage, readers would have been surprised to learn that Lebanon is under Syrian military occupation. Instead, rumors of a fixed hockey game get prime billing in aftenposten.no, and news of Hariri's funeral and US diplomatic actions are hard to find. Just one more data point that proves just how anxious the European press is to demonize anything Jewish while glossing over events just as relevant and even more appalling than campers parked on hilltops on the West Bank.

Syria is a nasty regime that has impoverished its people and radicalized the Middle East. It can afford the occupation of Lebanon only at the expense of bare necessities for its people, and debka reports it is expending scarce hard currency to buy advanced weapons from shameless Russia. It might have been a better choice than Iraq for the neocon agenda, except for its porximity to Israel and lack of oil reserves. As it is, something will likely give soon - unless Damascus withdraws from Lebanon and adopts a more isolationist stance.

In the meantime, this episode appears to prove that Arab dictators need an enemy in Israel to distract them from killing each other. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

If porn is heaven, what his hell?

In Norway, where pornography is illegal, Deep Throat is considered a piece of film history, so every once in a while someone wants to show it - for academic interest only, of course.  The premise is that you can watch porn as long as it doesn't arouse anything but intellectual curiousity. 

Laura Kipnis also has something to say about Deep Throat, now that it's being re-released along with a documentary.  Her punchline:

Deep Throat tells a labyrinthic story about sexual pleasure—a labyrinth that is the female inheritance—then magically fixes it. In its coded, sometimes ludicrous, frequently offensive way, pornography does tell certain unpalatable truths, then offers an antidote to them—one that millions can't seem to live without these days.

Is this a terrible thing? According to anti-porn forces, yes. But if reality can't compete with porn, isn't it reality that should be doing the apologizing?

Along with my favorite line:

The usual impediments to acquiring sex don't exist in pornutopia: Forget social convention, sexual repression, your partner's personality foibles. Porn is a world where personality simply doesn't matter: what a refreshing vacation from the daily reality of coupledom in which one partner's personality tics and the other's inability to deal with them is surely the leading cause of couple dissolution, not to mention the sexual anesthesia (or antipathy) that generally precedes it.

(I can only hope that pornutopia makes it on the shortlist of the American Dialect Society's word of the year for 2005.)   

It is interesting that very few people will openly approve of pornography.  The right is against it because they're against sex; and the left is against it because they think it objectifies women and victimizes (only the female?) actors.  The centrist position is that well, it is of course offensive, and especially to women, and who would watch the filth anyway, but there is this matter of free speech and the slippery slope, and we're leaving it to the courts anyway.

Kill Kim, vol. 1

Without a doubt, many on the lunatic fringe will argue that it was Bush's belligerency that pushed North Korea to develop nuclear arms, as if a psychopathic despot who starves his people needs much of an excuse.

North Korea's economic policy is all about extorting money from others by threatening them, and a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate racket. We can thank China for having protected the Kim regime for all these years, which is precisely whu Bush preferred multilateral negotiations. It's too late to speculate whether a bilateral approach would have been better - I doubt it - because now it's clear that Pyongyang doesn't take any negotiations seriously. It should be obvious by now that North Korea will not stop its nuclear arms program, whatever the US, EU, or the UN tries.

The ideal scenario would be that Beijing did the hard work by invading North Korea, dismantling any WMD capabilities, and then letting South Korea take over. It would be bloody and messy, but less so than a nuclear exchange involving Japan and South Korea. What it would take for China to act with such courage and principle, I wouldn't know.

If it weren't for all expended political capital and military resources in Iraq, it might be easier to imagine a US-led coalition taking on North Korea - massive air strikes against nuclear facilities and artillery pieces trained at Seoul; land-based assault across the DMZ; some kind of coordination with China. It would terrify the South Koreans, but the alternative scenarios look worse by the day.

Not an easy problem - and I'm not sure Bush and Rice are up to it.
Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

Ashes on 6th Avenue

Today was the day you can spot (some of) the Catholics among us, what with the soot on their foreheads from having attended their holy day of obligation in a church. The ash is from the last year's palms that were used for Palm Sunday - possibly based originally on lulav. If it weren't for the religious significance of the day - entering Lent and being reminded of one's mortality - this could be a sort of Catholic pride day.

Meanwhile, we've learned that the pope was within minutes of dying recently, and that has no plans to abdicate. Vatican officials say he can serve all the while he can *somehow* can make his will known. I suppose the pope also receives the sacraments from someone, but he hardly needed reminding of his mortality this year.

There must be many secrets still held in the Vatican, and it must take a great deal of faith to be among the initiated there. The people who walk the streets of New York with shmutz on their foreheads today belong to an institution that is still obscure in important ways, and you have to wonder why more of the laity isn't alienated, and why they love the pope with such devout sincerity. The distance between 6th Avenue and the Vatican is great in so many ways.

There is much to admire about Karol Woytyla, and John Paul II may be one of the most important popes ever. The force of his papacy is ending, as will his life, probably sooner rather than later. Whoever's next has big shoes to fill and a lot of unresolved problems. And that will affect how many besooted foreheads we'll see in years to come. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

More talk in the Sinai

Sharon, Abbas, and Rice announce that there's a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians, and everybody seems to be pleased.

I guess I am too, except there's something I can't quite figure out. All this time, the PA has disavowed any responsibility for terrorist attacks in Israel. Whether Hamas, PIJ, Hizballah, or the al-Aksa Martyrs' brigade claimed responsibility for the murders, the PA blamed Israel for making it impossible for Palestinian security forces to put a lid on it. So Abbas is either offering something he can't deliver, or else he lied all along before.

Meanwhile, terrorist attacks are way down lately, in large part due to the much-maligned security barrier.

All of which raises the issue whether Sharon is giving away soemthing in return for nothing. I actually don't think it's that bad - it is good in any event for Israel to reduce its military presence in the territories, the point of their activity having long since been made.

What still remains is the unpleasant work of destroying the terrorist organizations and evacuating first Gaza, and then parts of the West Bank. This can only happen if the “cease fire” appears to work, and that will take a lot of effort and an equal measure luck. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.

Real World vs. Michael Jackson

Dahlia Lithwick, one of the best writers in Slate, wrote this about the Michael Jackson trial:

Don't ask jurors to understand him. Just ask that they revere him. But is it really going to work in this case? Is a trial about whether or not a man can control himself around children best presented by showing a man who can't control his public behavior or image? If ever there was an opportune moment for Jackson to manifest some understanding that he resides in the real world and understands its rules, one would think this would be that moment.

I know a couple of people in law enforcement, and they all tend to believe Michael Jackson is innocent.

A lot of johns in Norway

According to Aftenposten today, 17.5% of all men between the ages of 18 and 49 in the greater Oslo area admit to having had "bought" sex; the number for all Norwegian men in the same age group is 13.2%.

Doesn't that seem like a high ratio?  It means that 1 in 6 men in the Oslo area has willfully committed a crime that also (and perhaps more importantly) subjected his ego to the fact that he couldn't get "it" in any other way. 

Such prevalence also strengthens the point that prostitution is a public health problem for the buying population as well as the sellers.  Sex with prostitutes is, after all, not just a matter of sexual release; it's also about realizing a fantasy about human relationships - the willingness to suspend disbelief long enough to believe that the prostitute is granting you intimacy.

I'm not trying to equate the victimhood of the john with that of the hookers', but I am suggesting that prostitution can't be reduced to a matter of sexual oppression of women; it's also a matter of emotional desperation among men.