Heretics' almanac

How NTB achieves moral equivalence

In the news article about the murder of Eliahu Asheri, Aftenposten/NTB wants to make sure that its readers understand the Asheri was a member of that humanoid subspecies, known as a "settler." I counted the word "settler" used five times, because Asheri does not qualify as a "man" or a "boy."

Oh, and they took the liberty of altering the quote from the terrorists - it did sound a little bad that Abu Abir said he would Asheri would be "butchered in front of TV cameras," so NTB changed the quote to simply say that he would be "killed."

This is how to achieve moral equivalence - you make murdered 18-year olds look culpable and murderers seem less brutal, and you're off to the races.

The sad state of Middle Eastern "expertise" in Norway

Aftenposten has ordained a new "expert" on the Arab-Israeli conflict, one Gro Hasselknippe, of FAFO, the Labor Union's research organization.

First, let me say that this expert is more considered and less dogmatic than most of the Norwegian "experts" on this issue. She makes an effort to distinguish between her opinion and the facts, provides context for her answers, makes caveats. So she's above average, which unfortunately isn't saying much.

In a recent online Q&A, she made the following egregious errors that are emblematic of the European outlook on the conflict:

Lomheim's fallacy

I listen to the podcast of a Norwegian program called Språkteigen, a more or less weekly survey of interesting developments in the Norwegian language. The resident linguist in the program is Sylfest Lomheim.

This may not be common knowledge among you non-Norwegians out there, but there are two official written languages in Norway: bokmål and nynorsk. There are many more spoken dialects. Nynorsk is the minority language, and there is constant debate whether we really need two languages, and whether nynorsk will survive this century.

Lomheim's point of view is that since "most Norwegians speak dialects," nynorsk will take off "once they realize that nynorsk is closest to the language they speak."

Lomheim is wrong on two points:

Breakfast bar experiment

On my way to the train station the other day, I was offered a breakfast bar with a card attached to it. I didn't really pay attention until I got on the train and noticed that the card was a greeting from South Mountain Community Church, inviting me to join them in worship one of these days.

I didn't have the opportunity to return the breakfast bar with the explanation that a candy bar wasn't going to convince me to convert from Judaism; but neither did I have the conscience to consume the thing (even though it did have a hechsher). So I put it in the communal fride at work, with the card prominently displayed, figuring that someone else wouldn't have the same qualms as me. We're a very diverse company - I suspect that every major religion is represented.

Well, it's been several days, and the bar is still there, with the card and all. The next step in my experiment is to remove the card and see if it's eaten soon after that.

When bad things happen to Palestinians

The Gaza beach bomb incident is following an all-too-predictable and tiresome sequence of events:

• Something terrible happens to Palestinians
• There's a rush to judgment to make Israel culpable
• The first news reports are disjointed but assume that Israel is in fact culpable
• Israeli officials are terse in their response, seemingly strengthening the case for culpability
• As the actual events come to light, Israel's culpability becomes more doubtful
• Media watchdogs take the mainstream media to task for rushing to judgment
• The media ignore corrections and objections and change the subject
• Pro-Israel advocates become increasingly outraged about being ignored
• Anti-Israeli try to put the original version into the official record
• A rhetorical skirmish ensues
• The dead and unfairly accused are forgotten; justice and fairness give way to cynicism and opportunism

It's a wonderful world.

Stanley Kurtz needs more facts

During the debate on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Norway and Sweden were used as examples of the dangers of such unions. Much of this seems to be based on an article by Stanley Kurtz in the Weekly Standard. Kurtz points out that marriage is "dying" in Scandinavia and draws the conclusion that this (inevitably, it seems) must be a result of gay marriage.

In Norway, at least, the law allows for same sex civil unions that are equivalent to, but not the same as, marriage. The first such civil unions took place in 1993, when 156 couples tied the knot. This has grown to a whopping 204 since then. In 2005, there were 22,392 different-sex marriages, which is to say that new same-sex formal unions were less than 1% of the total.

Kurtz's evidence for the perils involved is that a large proportion of children born in Norway are born out of wedlock. This much is certainly true. Between 1951 and 1955, 3.65% of all live births were to unwed mothers; in 2004, the percentage was 51.36%. For purposes of reference, the percentage born out of wedlock was 9% between 1971 and 1975; 20% between 1981 and 1985; and 34.8% between 1991 and 1995. In other words, this is a long-term trend that started long before same-sex unions were allowed.

But these statistics are a bit misleading. In 2004, there were 1,002,617 children under 17 in Norway. Of these, 643,582 lived with in a home with a married couple. That's 64%. In addition, 157,969 lived with an unmarried couple, so that's an additional 15.7%. 185,367 live with a single mother; 15,699 live with a single father. All told, that means that nearly 80% of all children in Norway live in a home with two parental figures, and most of these probably consist of a man and a woman.

Illegal immigration and constitutional interference in marriage

It is hard to understand Bush's presidential priorities. The United States has lots of serious problems to deal with: poverty, health care, sectoral underemployment, and of course a pretty expensive war with an uncertain outcome. But the centerpiece policy items lately have been illegal immigration and a ban on same-sex marriages (and by extension, I suppose, polygamous marriages).

On the immigration issue, the debate is surreal. It is, after all, precisely the fact that some immigration is illegal that makes the labor we derive from it so cheap. These are workers who want to get paid in cash, expect no benefits, and generally refrain from accepting social services lest they be discovered and deported. If we made it legal to hire them, we'd force their employers to pay them a minimum wage, remit social security and medicare taxes, and possibly withhold income taxes. We'd have to offer the workers access to the same kind of benefits others would be entitled to, including medical services, education, etc.

Norah, Ned, and the male condition

I've been reading Norah Vincent's book Self-Made Man, her account of life as a (straight) man in various, ostensibly typical male situations. She joins a bowling league, frequents strip clubs, goes on dates, attends a monastery, and hangs out with an Iron John crowd.

Norah (she seems that familiar to me) has written an excellent book that I can only hope gets recognized as a major contribution to inter-gender understanding.

To me, it's a little disturbing to realize that for all the time we spend with each other and obsessing over each other, men and women understand very little about each other. By her own tacit admission, Norah went into this experiment with some rather unfavorable perceptions of men.