Heretics' almanac

History of feminism

It appears that at any given time, I have one or two major projects going on at Wikipedia (often at the expense of this blog), and I should get into the habit of unleasing my point of view on these pages, since I'm not supposed to in Wikipedia.

Lately, I've written a few stubs and a few half-finished articles on Norwegian feminists. I stumbled across this when I for reasons I can't remember wrote an article on Katti Anker Møller. I got in touch with a few people who know more about the topic than I do and found some recommendations for further articles.

Aside from Katti Anker Møller, one was particularly interesting to me, namely Berit Ås, who was active in politics in the 1970s. She was elected to one term in the Norwegian parliament, as the first leader of the newly founded Socialist Left Party. When she was active, I largely dismissed her as a hopelessly radical politician, dogmatically socialist with no sense of reality. As it turns out, I was mostly wrong.

Nothing but ugliness ahead in Korea

So Kim Jong-Il has thousands of long-range artillery pieces aimed at Seoul; long-range missile capabilities that could threaten Japan with conventional payloads; and now possibly some kind of nuclear capability. At least to make a dirty bomb. Although their claim to have detonated a nuclear bomb is met with quite a bit of skepticism, Bolton and the US administration is taking them at their word and threatening them with... well, what?

Economic sanctions probably won't make much of an impression on Kim Jong-Il, since all he cares about is himself. It will starve to death some more Koreans, though; so arguably that would be an anti-humanitarian thing to do.

Other things come to mind, but anything that would really hurt Kim Jong-Il might provoke an entirely irrational, destructive response.

All the news that fits the narrative

For a brief while this morning, Aftenposten.no had as its headline that "a rabbi is suspected of terrorism" in Israel. According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency and various other wires, a 51-year old Israeli, described as a rabbi, expressed his intention of attacking targets on Mount Moriah to those gathered at the lobby of a Tel Aviv Hotel. The security guard at the hotel called the police, and the man was arrested and referred for psychiatric evaluation.

Anyone who is remotely familiar with Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular is also familiar with the "Jerusalem syndrome" that seems to give its victims strange delusions that they will with their actions change the course of the world, presumably for the better. It sounds like this 51-year old rabbi is deranged, though of course one shouldn't assume that he is harmless.

The question is why Aftenposten thinks such an item is newsworthy.

What does "tolerate" really mean?

Per Edgar Kokkvold, the secretary general of Norway's press association supports Norwegian TV2's decision to display the Mohamad cartoons, saying that "this the Moslems have to tolerate."

If by "tolerate," he means that they should abstain from burning down embassies and issuing death threats, then of course they should tolerate it. I expect most Moslems would agree with this.

If by "tolerate," he means that they should not voice any objections or complaints about it, he's absolutely wrong. Of course they have the right to invoke their free speech to protest something they find offensive. If some of them want to ban the cartoons or punish the publishers, I'll disagree; if they object and use their free speech, I'll defend their right to do so.

What about Foley's fall should be self-evident

I have to imagine the mood in the West Wing is dismal these days. And that there are a lot of people who can't help but gloat, but in a classy way. As John Dickerson points out, this is a time for the Democrats to stand back and let the Republicans dig the hole even deeper.

In truth, scandals such as these shouldn't invite partisan politics. There is no reason to believe that the Republican party attracts more scumbags than the other party, what's it called...? And if there is, it better be substantiated pretty thoroughly to be used as political currency.

What's a little strange about all this is that it isn't entirely clear what Mark Foley did wrong, at least by a narrow definition. He may have been inappropriate with the pageboys, but he didn't assault them, try to seduce them, or get them involved in pornography. I mean, he cut awfully close to being a child sex offender, and the investigation has yet to show the connection between nasty thoughts and words, and actual actions.

Horror and wisdom in Amish country

In a state founded by Quakers and in a school for the Amish, yesterday's massacre ranks pretty high on an awfulness scale that finds way too frequent use these days.

It seems useless to ask why this happened. There are no good reasons. I'd like to offer some comfort to this community but can't come up with anything: "Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, for they were no more."

I suppose one thing to do is to honor their memory by emulating their community a bit more. According to CNN, Amish funerals are simple events - boarded caskets, spoken but not sung hymnals, respect for but no praise of the dead. No flowers. The Amish, I'm sure, are probably romanticized in popular culture, but as fundamentalists go, they have a noteworthy civilization. Above all, they do nothing to attract anger or hostility.

It seems to me that the Amish believe that no amount of injustice warrants the commission of injustice. As sad and grief-stricken as they undoubtedly are, I'm hard pressed to see how this event will change their convictions.

Aftenposten's right to speak yet never be offended

The Norwegian press is commemorating the anniversary of the Mohammad cartoon debacle, with a lot of self-righteous pontificating about freedom of speech, etc. I write self-righteous because it would appear that most newspaper editors feel that "freedom of speech" means that they have the right to print whatever they want without being criticized or condemned. To criticize speech in Norway is - absurdly - an assault on the speech.

For most Norwegians, I suspect freedom of speech means "anything that I don't find annoying, offensive, or disagreeable."

You'd be hard pressed to find a more principled proponent of free speech than me. I think Nazis, racists, homophobes, antisemites, Holocaust deniers, and other despicable characters have every right to air their contemptuous convictions. I don't think it's an absolute right - it shouldn't be derived from people being hurt, and it shouldn't incite crime, for example. But if people want to let everyone know how just vile they are, I don't think a law should stop them, though hopefully decency might, in some cases.