Best of the Web Today - March 4, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Hey, Is Something Happening?
Saudi Arabia has joined the chorus demanding that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad end his regime's occupation of Lebanon, the Washington Post reports:
Crown Prince Abdullah, who has effectively ruled the kingdom since King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, told Assad to start getting Syrian forces out of Lebanon soon or face deeper isolation, according to a Saudi official quoted anonymously by the Associated Press. The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Saudi official saying: "They know what they should do. They should withdraw immediately. This is what we told them, and this is what the whole world is telling them."
The editorialists at the Orange County (Calif.) Register think something may be going on here:
It is fairly easy to see that something important is happening in Lebanon, a move in the direction of independence and the idea of a civil society with democratic underpinnings that is reflected elsewhere in the Middle East. It is more difficult to figure out why it is happening just now, what forces have converged at this moment.
Man, this is a tough one! We're racking our brain trying to remember if anything happened recently that might have given a push to proponents of democracy in the Middle East. Hmm, nope! Still can't think of anything.
Well, maybe Daniel Schorr will know:
The movements for democratic change in Egypt and Lebanon have happened since the successful Iraqi election on Jan. 30. And one can speculate on whether Iraq has served as a beacon for democratic change in the Middle East.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said that "a liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region."
He may have had it right.
Iraqi blogger Ali Fadhil says part of the credit goes to Al-Jazeera, despite the Qatar-based network's attempt to serve as "a mouthpiece for tyranny" (quoting verbatim):
Al Jazzera focused, as part of its coverage for the "deteriorated situations in Iraq" on every single demonstration against the interim government or the American presence in Iraq even if it was 10 people that are demonstrating! But this coverage, that was missed in the official Arab media most of the times, showed the Arab street an unusual scene. "Arab" citizens demonstrating freely against their government and the supposed brutal occupiers under the eyes of police!
These days we hear every now and then about demonstrations almost everywhere in the Arab world. Excuse me, but this is far from usual! I haven't seen *any* demonstration against Saddam all my life and similarly I haven't heard of any in Syria or Saudi Arabia prior to the 9th of April. Most of us think it's what happened in Iraq that encouraged Arabs to demand more rights, but how could Arab citizens know the details of what's happening in Iraq if it wasn't for Al Jazeera and Al Arabyia?
Well, we guess they could have read about it from Peter Arnett in Playboy.
Great Moments in Jurisprudence
The other day, Judge Henry Floyd of South Carolina's U.S. District Court ruled that the government cannot hold Abdullah al-Muhajir, né Jose Padilla, as an enemy combatant. Federal agents followed Muhajir from Pakistan to Chicago, where they captured him. The government says he had plans to detonate a "dirty bomb" in America.
Muhajir is a U.S. citizen, and Judge Floyd says the government does not have the legal authority to hold citizens outside the normal criminal justice system. This conclusion, however, goes against the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Ex Parte Quirin (1942), which approved the trial by military tribunal (and the subsequent execution) of a U.S. citizen who was a Nazi saboteur, also captured in Chicago.
In the Washington Times, Michael Billok notes that Floyd distinguished the Muhajir case from the Quirin one as follows: "Quirin involved a war that had a definite ending date. The present war on terrorism does not." Asks Billok: "How did the Supreme Court know in 1942, the year Quirin was decided, that World War II would have 'a definite ending date' in 1945?"
This Just In
"Search for bin Laden Faces Complications"--headline, Associated Press, March 3
One of These Things Is Not Like the Others
"A woman cannot vote in Kuwait. She cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. She is barred from working on military submarines in Britain. In Pakistan, if a woman is raped she must have four Muslim adult male witnesses to secure justice, failing which she may herself be considered guilty of fornication."--actress Meryl Streep, quoted in London's Guardian, March 4
America's Palestinians
Sometimes the Democratic Party reminds us of the Palestinian Arabs: angry, paranoid, self-defeating. And just as Palestinians revere "martyrs," so, it seems, do the Dems. The Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader reports:
Tom Daschle has left the Senate, but when Democrats try to take control of the chamber in the future, he'll be on their minds.
The Democrats will be running their Senate campaigns out of a building named for Daschle, the South Dakotan who led them in the Senate from 1994 until his defeat last fall. The Capitol Hill office will be known as The Senator Thomas A. Daschle Building.
We think we'll avoid ever setting foot in the Daschle Building. After all, what if there's a fire and all the exits are obstructed?
The Kleagle Has Landed
Former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd's defense of judicial filibusters is causing some embarrassment back home in West Virginia. Columnist Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail weighs elaborates on Byrd's involvement with the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which we noted Wednesday:
Byrd's words may be forgotten, but history does preserve the reaction of Willard Brown, president of the Charleston NAACP:
"The one-man talkathon staged by Sen. Byrd for 14 hours last night and this morning indicates the extent to which a mind warped with hate and prejudice will go--even in the hallowed halls of Congress.
"Sen. Byrd has not only done his state and our nation a great disservice, but has in addition exposed his family and friends to great embarrassment. The shame and stigma that attaches to his continuing acts against civil rights legislation is positive evidence that he is still a present-day advocate of the principles of the Ku Klux Klan.
"The sooner he is removed from the public and political scene, the better chance democracy will have to survive in America and the free world."
The good news is that even though Byrd remains on the public and political scene nearly 40 years later, democracy has done all right. Meanwhile, speaking of the KKK, we got a hilarious e-mail from reader Greg Johnson:
Thanks for your "blog" disguised as an "op-ed page."
Your comedy is valuable.
You are making a difference with you and your "bloggers" getting to the bottom of "Jon Stewart," that hard hitting Bush critic on, um, Comedy Central.
You guys remind me of the Klan's night riders.
Being anonymous and riding the countryside in a cloak of darkness to keep the "different people" in their place with threats and half-truths.
Keep up the partisan hate, you are pretty good at it and the WSJ is a good robe to hide under.
In case you need a history refresher, here's what the Houghton Mifflin Reader's Companion to American History has to say about the Night Riders:
Most southern counties saw little of the Klan, but others were overrun by it for months or years at a time. It tended to thrive where the two parties or races were relatively evenly balanced; in such places, terrorism was most apt to change election results. In the worst-affected counties, disguised night riders ranged the countryside on a regular basis, dragging people from their homes, whipping, shooting, or otherwise assaulting them, destroying their property, or driving them away. Most of the victims were black, but white Republicans were also targets.
Ted Kennedy might call it "winning hearts and minds."
What's the Matter With Fiddy?
You have to read into the third paragraph of this New York Times article, by Kelefa Sanneh, before realizing it's a . . . well, we won't spoil the surprise:
In his book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" the liberal writer Thomas Frank argues that conservative politicians have come to rely on a brazen bait-and-switch strategy. He says that they often champion "old-fashioned values" while campaigning, only to turn their attention to economic issues once elected.
"The trick never ages, the illusion never wears off," he writes, contending that voters who say they care about, for example, abortion often wind up electing representatives who seem more interested in reducing the capital-gains tax. He's mystified--or, more accurately, horrified--by this seemingly paradoxical system: "Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes."
Despite the book's widespread success, there is no evidence to suggest that the rapper 50 Cent is among the armchair political scientists who have bought it. Still, its central argument might sound familiar to anyone following his career. His new album, "The Massacre," arrives in stores today. . . .
Of course, it's a rap review! But although we have to doff our hat to Sanneh for this gratuitous bit of political commentary, doesn't the Times stylebook call for a mention of Abu Ghraib?
Gay Apparel
Here's an interesting story from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Spurred by a case of "Gay" pride, Leigh Clemons tried to order a New England Patriots jersey last month online. Clemons, an assistant professor in Louisiana State University's Theater Department, had watched one of her former pupils, Patriots defensive back Randall Gay, play a key role in New England's 24-21 win against Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX and wanted to show her support for the former LSU standout.
But the NFL intercepted her attempts in mid-February to buy a jersey, personalized with Gay's name on the back, from NFLshop.com, the league's official online merchandise center.
When Clemons entered the last name of the Patriots cornerback, her request was rejected. The Web site accompanied the rejection with a message that said, "This field should not contain a naughty word."
What's naughty about a football player's name? Well, it turns out that gay has another meaning, as Wikipedia explains:
Gay, in addition to meaning "merry," "joyous," or "glad," also means homosexual.
The word gay has had a sexual meaning since at least the nineteenth century (and possibly earlier). In Victorian England, female and male prostitutes were called "gay" because they dressed gaily. Eventually, "gay boys" (renters) became used as a term for any male homosexual. Whilst females would usually describe themselves as lesbian, some resent this term and also call themselves gay. In the United States, the term may have arisen from the hobo community: a young hobo, a "gay cat" or "geycat," often had to befriend an older more experienced hobo for education and survival. Such a relationship was implicitly sexual, hence the term "gay cat" came to mean "a young homosexual."
We're just glad Randall Gay didn't grow up in Victorian England. With a name like that, he would've been mercilessly teased by the other kids.
At Least They Didn't Bury the Lead
"Leaders Learn to Be Better Leaders Through Leadership Program"--headline, Woodstock (Ill.) News, March 1
The Abominable Snowman Couldn't Make It
"Big Foot in Town for Monster Truck Show at Expo"--headline, Daily Sentinel (Nacogdoches, Texas), March 4
What Would We Do Without Friends?
"Woman Accused of Naked Dog Wrestling: Friend Says Woman Has Been Acting Strangely Recently"--headline and subheadline, Internet Broadcasting System, March 4
Dave, Is That You?
Several readers wrote us to say that the essay "How to Win an Argument," from which we quoted yesterday, was actually a column by Dave Barry. We've been unable to confirm this either way. The essay does show up attributed to Barry on the Internet, but it more often shows up without a byline. A Factiva search turns up no Barry column by this name, or including a key phrase from the essay. There are a few citations attributing a sentence in the column to Barry, but this could be repetition of inaccurate information from the Internet. (Yes, it is out there.)
The essay does show up as a newspaper column--but the author isn't Barry but Kevin Eismann, a lawyer in Kaukauna, Wis., who writes a business column for the Appleton Post-Crescent. In the column, which appeared Oct. 1, 2003, Eismann attributes the ideas to "a litigator in our office." The credit line helpfully notes that "information appearing in this column does not constitute legal advice."
Peach State Banana Kerfuffle
In what has to be the oddest kerfuffle since Valerie Plame, Rep. Tom Price, a suburban Atlanta Republican, has written a letter to Mayor Bob Poydasheff of Columbus, Ga., "about the banana incident," reports columnist Tim Chitwood of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. The "banana incident" involves a Price constituent, Gwen Stewart, who was in Columbus on Martin Luther King's birthday for a civil rights rally:
She saw two police officers eating bananas as she passed them on a bus going to the Columbus Civic Center, where people gathered for the Jan. 15 march. The police department that day had sent around a snack van to feed officers working security for the event.
Stewart says she and others found the bananas deeply offensive. She complained to the police and to the mayor, and the mayor sent her a Jan. 22 letter of apology, which she never got because the address was wrong.
When I wrote a column about this Jan. 28, I relied on city officials' assessment that Stewart was offended because racists have compared black people to apes, at times, and in the context of a civil rights march, the bananas might be taken as a symbolic slur.
But I've since talked to Stewart twice by phone, and she would not tell me why she was insulted, and apparently she never told the mayor, either. In his letter to Price, Poydasheff writes: "Incidentally, through all of my communication with Mrs. Stewart concerning this matter, she has never told me why she was offended by the officers' conduct."
Stewart tells me she shouldn't have to explain that. People should know why that's offensive, and if they don't, then they need to find out. But they're not going to find out from her--even though she's the one complaining about it.
Chitwood and Poydasheff ought to check out the Web site of the Anti-Banana Society, "a completely new Society, send [sic] by the United Nations, to rid the world of the bananas--forever." The site offers a Q&A that explains the banana menace. Some excerpts:
Q: What do bananas, Hitler, and Napoleon have in common?
A: Everything.
Q: What did the banana say to the orange?
A: You will die you orange bastard.
Q: How do you spell banana?
A: E, V, I, L.
Q: Do banana's [sic] drink coke or pepsi?
A: Neither, they drink blood because they're evil.
Q: If you were in the middle of Saudi Arabia and you saw a banana what should you do?
A: Run to the nearest military stronghold because you can bet that a banana in the desert in Saudi Arabia is up to no good.
Now you can see where Gwen Stewart is coming from. Another page gives 20 suggestions on "what to do when you see a banana." Here are a few:
1. Run. Banana's make for a good chase, so only use this option, and I mean *only* if you're feeling up to it at the time. Please be careful out there man.
3. Attack the banana with a nearby beet. You can always count on beet merchants to be around when you need one.
7. Pretend you're America and the Banana's Iraq.
9. Try and grow some wings, some blue feathers, and a beak. Banana's [sic] get along well with Rainbow lorekites [sic].
11. Take it to Australia and yell out in public stating the banana hates Aussie Rules Football--then watch it get beaten to mush.
You can tell Gwen Stewart is part of the Anti-Banana Society because when she saw bananas she did follow one of these suggestions: "15. Call for help. We have trained agents everywhere." Yet Columbus officials interpreted Stewart's reaction as having some sort of racial overtones. That is truly bizarre. |
