South Dakota Politics

Comment of the Week

South Dakota War College has exposed more problems at the Argus Leader, prompting the comment of the week:  "The Argus Leader manufacturing and manipulating news? I’m shocked, shocked!"

Another Grim Milestone

From Time (H/T to Insty):  "According to Gallup, just 14% of people express confidence in the current Congress. That's the lowest measure in the 34 years Gallup has been tracking government institutions."

The Nanny State and the 100 Miles Per Hour Prius

An answer to Todd's question and mine, from Katherine Evans at Slate:

Gore III had been pulled over on the San Diego Freeway for speeding at about 100 mph in his Toyota Prius. Wait a second—can a Prius really go 100 miles per hour?

Yes, but just. Speed tests have confirmed that that a new Prius can top out between 100 mph and 105 mph. That's not too speedy when compared with Toyota's conventional sedans—some Corollas can get up to 124 mph, and Camrys can reach 130 mph. But if you buy your car in the United States, you're unlikely to see much of a difference. That's because most American cars are equipped with speed governor mechanisms, which make sure, for liability reasons, that a car won't go too fast for its tires.

In the United States, both the Corolla and the Prius are governor-limited to 112 mph (even though the Prius can't go quite that fast). Meanwhile, the Toyota Camry is limited to 100 mph and the Hybrid Camry 117 mph.

I asked my colleague, Jim Seeber, whether his Prius could make a cool hundred.   It did not shock me that he had never tried it.   He did say that it cruised nicely at 60-65, but that above that the fuel economy indicator goes south.  Apparently, every Prius has its own Al Gore installed, to frown at the driver like a Puritan whenever the carbon footprint gets too long.  And now I learn that every American car has my Dad installed, to pour water on the firebox in case we should go too fast for our tires.  American civilization in decline.   

Bombings and Abortion II: Islam and Feminism

Anna at Dakota Women promptly replied to my post of last night. 

I would almost think you didn't read this blog at all! I just posted about the 4,000 women a year who die from illegal abortions in Brazil. We've posted before about the legalization of abortion in Mexico City, a major city in another country where women die every day from illegal abortions. I could go on and on with examples but I think you get my point.

That is a very strong reply to the point  Allow me to point out the obvious: what Anna counts as 4,000 I would count as 8,000.  Believing, as I do, that abortion is wrong for the same reason that slavery and harems are wrong, I have no choice.  But I concede Anna's point that this is a tragedy of similar dimensions to the oppression of women under Islam. Anna goes on:

So the difference between you and me, Ken, is that I am concerned when women die senselessly. Period. I don't care whether it's a car bomb planted by Muslim extremists, or the Catholic church flexing its muscle to deny women access to abortion, it's all wrong to me...  .

I thought that the question here was not concern, but attention.  These days I read every single post at Dakota Women.  It is one of my favorite blogs, and I have enjoyed and profited from my exchanges with Anna. But if Dakota Women has paid much attention to the war against women by militant (and some traditional forms of) Islam, until we mentioned the subject, I missed it.

And even if DW has taken this subject up on their own, this is not true of American feminism in general.  Christina Hoff Sommers has this at The Weekly Standard. 

If you go to the websites of major women's groups, such as the National Organization for Women, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the National Council for Research on Women, or to women's centers at our major colleges and universities, you'll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today's campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world.

It is not that American feminists are indifferent to the predicament of Muslim women. Nor do they completely ignore it. For a brief period before September 11, 2001, many women's groups protested the brutalities of the Taliban. But they have never organized a full-scale mobilization against gender oppression in the Muslim world. The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women's issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority.  [my emphasis]

Ms. Sommers goes on to lay out an anatomically precise description of the forked tongue of some prominent feminists on this topic, along with the stories of courageous feminists who have bucked the trend.   But consider the force of the sentences above in italics. Western liberals mobilized in force against apartheid, and after a sustain effort, helped bring it down.  By contrast there has been no effort among feminists to bring similar pressure against the "gender apartheid" in Muslim countries.  Worse still, as Ms. Sommers shows, feminist political culture seems to block such efforts.

 

Take psychology professor Phyllis Chesler. She has been a tireless and eloquent champion of the rights of women for more than four decades. Unlike her tongue-tied colleagues in the academy, she does not hesitate to speak out against Muslim mistreatment of women. In a recent book, The Death of Feminism, she attributes the feminist establishment's unwillingness to take on Islamic sexism to its support of "an isolationist and America-blaming position." She faults it for "embracing an anti-Americanism that is toxic, heartless, mindless and suicidal." The sisterhood has rewarded her with excommunication. A 2006 profile in the Village Voice reports that, among academic feminists, "Chesler arouses the vitriol reserved for traitors."

Perhaps conservatives like myself may be faulted for not caring enough about Brazilian women.  But in drawing attention to the crimes of militant Muslims against women, we commit no fault.  For if not us, then who?

Grading the Democratic Congress

W$J Opinion Journal excerpt:

School is out, report cards are in. How fares the new Democratic Congress? Even with grade inflation, it's struggling to hit a gentleman's C.

The big question when Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House was whether her party was up to the task of governing. Democrats wisely turned last year's election into a referendum on Republican competence. It was a shrewd strategy, though left unanswered was how they would use their new power. Could Ms. Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid keep the party's angry liberal wing in check? Did Democrats have a big agenda around which they could rally?

Six months on, the country isn't much impressed. Congress's approval rating is drifting into the netherworld, having sunk to an average of 25%. One recent Gallup poll reported only 14% of Americans profess confidence in that institution, now run by Democrats. The numbers make even President Bush look good, an extraordinary achievement.

Dykstra Enters Senate Bid

The Argus Leader reports this morning that state lawmaker Joel Dykstra has filed his candidacy papers in an attempt to unseat Senator Tim Johnson:

State lawmaker Joel Dykstra filed candidacy forms for U.S. Senate this week, spurring the question, "Who's next?"

Dykstra, a Republican from Canton, is the first to file candidacy papers in South Dakota.

He said the announcement reflects the challenges that await him as he attempts to unseat incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson.

"We've got further to go as a challenger," Dykstra said.

Dykstra is in his third term in the state House of Representatives.

The Democratic party called Dykstra a "fringe candidate," who is "not fit for the United States Senate."

"Once again, the Republican party has turned to the fringes of the far right to find a candidate for Senate," Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a press release.

South Dakota voters are still waiting to hear if Johnson will run for re-election after his brain surgery in December.

UPDATE:  The Congressional Quarterly (via the New York Times) carries this on Dykstra's announcement.

Todd Epp Scoops Me on Al Gore III.

I had intended to blog on this delicious story:

Al Gore III was driving about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over and deputies found a small amount of marijuana plus Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

The younger Gore did not have a prescription for any of the drugs, Amormino said. He was released from jail Wednesday afternoon on $20,000 bail.

That's a lot of space candy, dude!  But Todd beat me to it, pointing his laser at the most interesting fact in the story. 

It’s the apparent fact that a so-called “green” hybrid Prius can go 100 mph.  Hell, I didn’t think they could go much over 55 mph. 

If I were Toyota, I’d get this fact that a Prius can haul some serious ass while leaving a small carbon footprint into their advertising.  It would cross promote the the stodgy Prius to performance car buffs as well as tree huggers.  See, there’s a silver lining in everything!

That, dudes, is some righteous blogging. 

A Reply to Anna on Bombings and Abortion

Anna at Dakota Women comments on a couple of SDP posts on the recent London terrorists acts by myself and Professor Schaff. 

I do enjoy the fact that Ken and Jon seem to be concerned about women's rights only when radical Muslims are the perpetrators of violent acts against women. When the South Dakota State Legislature, governor, and attorney general, along with Leslee Unruh, the Catholic Diocese, and every fundamentalist church in the state band together to deny women access to medical care like abortion and birth control, they don't seem to care that much.

Well, yes.  Would Anna be happier if we disagreed with her about women's rights in all cases?  Don't we deserve partial credit?  In my case, there are a number of reasons for this difference in emphasis.  One is that I disagree with Anna about the moral status of abortion.  Another is that I think that blowing women out of their shoes because they are deemed to be "slags and sluts" is a somewhat more terrible crime than denying them birth control.  I think that millions of women in the world who are denied the most basic political and economic rights, who are routinely kidnapped and forced to marry, who are subject to genital mutilation in order to preserve their value as marketable virgins, have at least as great a claim on our attention as an American whose pharmacist refuses to fill her prescription for birth control. 

Another reason is that, apart from abortion, there just aren't a lot of gender issues on which Anna and I disagree.  I think that birth control should be legal.  I think rape is a terrible crime and should be punished with the full weight of the law.  I have no quarrel with the 19th amendment.  I am opposed to the equal rights amendment, or whatever they are now calling it, because Anna and others have yet to show me a single concrete issue on which it would make a difference.  I agree with KeepAskingWhy at Dakota Women that North Dakota was right to change its laws and assume the costs of examinations in rape cases. 

The truth of the matter is that Anna and I are both liberals in the older sense of the word: we believe in democracy and in individual liberty.  The London bombers do not, and I think that this is an important distinction. 

Expanding the Canon

Via Joe Knippenberg comes this from Mark Bauerlein who argues for expanding the canon of literary criticism so English professors and their students become acquainted with Frederick Hayek, Leo Strauss, Francis Fukuyama, and Irving Kristol, along side the usual left of the ideological line Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Edward Said, et al.  It's a good point, and goes back to what my colleague, Jon Schaff, was discussing earlier this week about providing a firm education in American history and a balanced education in general.   The problem with espousing  the progressivist orthodoxies in the classroom is that it doesn't equip students with a broad range of ideas.  Read what Richard Reeb and William Bennett have to say about education and American identity.

Another problem with promoting only one side is people around you, faculty and students, freely assume you will share in the Democratic victories in Congress or dismay when liberal causes come up short.  For conservatives, the climate can be somewhat chilly if not downright hostile.  The result isn't conversion but can result in alienation from intellectual life.  And, as mentioned above, individuals only learn a narrow range of ideas and caricatures.  When that becomes the norm, the harm is to the students.  It's not good for any group to spend a lot of time listening only to like-minded people, and even worse for a profession whose lifeblood is the exchange of ideas.

A Reader Responds on the Libby Communtation

Intrepid reader Gene sends us this message, in response to an earlier posts here and here. 

Good afternoon gentlemen.  This morning I was on the waterfront at the Norfolk VA Naval Base and was delayed in boarding a destroyer as a cruiser made up to the pier, returning from a 6+ month deployment to the Persian Gulf.  These are joyful times for the crew and their families—never seen babies as well children/spouses/sweethearts/parents and grandparents.  I stood back and watched the ships crew of young men and women walk down the pier—they seemed so young—so full of life.  I felt privileged to have witnessed this event played out with tradition but not much fanfare. I went about my business with a lighter step as I was cleared to proceed to the ship I was visiting. As I was driving back to the office I was listening to talk radio concerning the Libby commutation.  Boy, I’m in two different worlds. Duty, Honor, Country was not used in describing the President’s or Libby’s action.  I was taught in simplistic terms that leadership is; responsibility, authority, and accountability.  These are the missing words in what I’ve heard and read.

I do not share your view Professor Blanchard. Everything you wrote may be true but he was convicted. Was his sentence too harsh? Maybe. I think you all have seen the reports that Paris Hilton spent more time in jail for a misdemeanor.  Too harsh?  Maybe.  These arguments to justify the commutation seem contrived and I’m not buying it.

I was also disappointed in your comments Professor Schaff. Why did you pick the comments from NRO?  You must have been tired to have referenced that line of reasoning.  It seems the NRO is using the same logic that children use to explain to parents why they have done or want to do something.

I admired conservatives (Goldwater era) as a young man since they were bright and had solid, rational positions. There’s not much to admire in the current crop of Washington conservatives.   Have a great fourth—enjoy the holiday. J  Gene

Thanks, Gene.  You may be right about Paris Hilton, but one cannot show that one sentence is too lenient by comparing with another that was less so, since it begs the question of which one might need to be adjusted.  The President's power to pardon is designed precisely to prevent the police powers from being used for political purposes.  Whatever happened to Ms. Hilton, it wasn't due to a political abuse of police powers.

Thank you for your good wishes.  I enjoyed the Fourth by cooking a shoulder of pork all day and sharing with a group of good looking and intelligent people, and Dr. Schaff. 

Headline of the Year

From the UK Daily Record:  "I KICKED BURNING TERRORIST SO HARD IN BALLS THAT I TORE A TENDON."

Gettysburg Photos

I seem to have touched a nerve with the Gettysburg blogging, and for once a nerve for the better.  Gary C. writes:

Here's a picture of the ground the Confederates had to charge across to reach the Union lines. This is also the spot where General Lee came out to meet the survivors of the charge.
 
The angle is what the Confederates aimed for. It's the lone tree in the middle of the shot. The larger cluster of trees to the right is where the High Water Mark Monument is. If you look carefully there is a highway about half way down from the top. This road existed at the time of the charge and the fences lining the road dramatically slowed the charge, causing perhaps enough causalities to doom the charge.
 
I've also included a picture of The Angle. The tall monument closest to the trees is where General Armistead was shot. He died two days later. The opposing General in this segment of the Union line was General Hancock, Armistead's close friend.
 
I spent 1 1/2 days at the battlefield. Hardly enough time to do it justice. Go see it if you haven't.

Here are the two pictures Gary sends along.

Happy 231st Birthday, America

Today we celebrate the 231st birth of our nation and the signing of a document conceived by planters, merchants, and professional men -- including John Hancock, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge, as well as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  In Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, three separate assemblages of revolutionaries labored to form a new government.  The most famous, the Second Continental Congress, had voted to end ties with Britain on July 2 and signed a formal declaration of independence two days later.  In late June, delegates at the Pennsylvania Provincial Conference replaced the colonial assembly and held elections for delegates to the Pennsylvania Convention tasked to devise a state constitution.  This third group met on July 8 and spent the summer at the State House inventing the new Pennsylvania commonwealth.  America's democratic politics was influenced by both country democrats and city democrats from New England to the South in shaping the new republican order and, Sean Wilentz reminds us, the construction of state constitutions was repeated across the eastern seaboard.  Democracy had taken root in American between 1776 and 1787, but these achievements were fragile and the future far from guaranteed.

The system wasn't perfect, and we continue the journey to improve our democracy.  Debates over the nature of representative democracy began from the start as several ideas and systems of government were scrapped and reinvented.  Years later we confronted the contradiction in the Declaration that "all men are created equal" and the abhorrent institution of slavery, and fully another century before those words prevailed.  We argue yet today about the division between the powers of the state and federal government.  We've admitted our past mistakes and recognized our failures, realizing we are not perfect.  America remains a beacon of hope for the world, not simply because of our Declaration and Constitution, but because as a people, Americans try to live up to them.  Conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, independents, and centrists all want American to live up to its best ideals in their own ways, and we will all continue in our efforts to make America great just as our Founders had. 

Ronald Reagan, in his Independence Day speech, had this to say about our nation's birth:

Thomas Jefferson wrote that on that day of America's birth, in the little hall in Philadelphia, debate raged for hours, but the issue remained in doubt. These were honorable men; still, to sign a Declaration of Independence seemed such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with cries of "treason'' and "the headsman's axe.''

Then, it is said, one unknown man rose to speak. He was neither young, nor strong in voice; yet, he spoke with such conviction that he mesmerized the hall. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment. Then, his voice failing, he said: "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope, to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the bible of the rights of man forever.'' And sign they did.

What makes our revolution unique and so exciting, then, is that it changed the very concept of government. Here was a new nation telling the world that it was conceived in liberty; that all men are created equal with God-given rights, and that power ultimately resides in "We the people.''

We sometimes forget this great truth, and we never should, because putting people first has always been America's secret weapon. It's the way we've kept the spirit of our revolution alive -- a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good. It's the spirit of Fulton and Ford, the Wright brothers and Lindbergh, and of all our astronauts. It's the spirit of Joe Louis, Babe Ruth, and a million others who may have been born poor, but who would not be denied their day in the Sun.

We come together today to honor all those who made the promotion and preservation of the Union their ultimate goal.

There And Back Again Part V

What better way to celebrate our Independence than writing about yet another trip to London.  We left Rome and got back to London.  We spent one more full day in London.  I have no pictures of this day as we forgot the camera. Ack!  We did purchase a disposable camera, but those pictures have not been developed.  The important visit that day was to Westminster Abby, burial place of many a great Briton, including kings and queens, such as Queen Elizabeth I. I downloaded a picture of her tomb and will include to the side.    The Abby is a wonderful monument to the history of the British peoples, including the famous Poets Corner, which celebrates those who told wonderful tales in the English language.  A trip to the Abby is not complete without visiting the gift shop.  I was standing there looking at the trinkets when I noted the lovely melody playing over the speakers.  "How pretty," thought I.  I then began to recognize the tune.  Finally, struck with horror, I realized they were playing "Send in the Clowns" in the Westminster Abby gift shop.  It ended and another tune began.  Mrs. Right-Wing Wacko came to me and said, "Is this what I think it is?"  "Yes," I replied, "they are playing 'Unchained Melody' in Westminster Abby."  No accounting for taste.

The next day saw the renting of the car and a drive up to York.  As previously mentioned, we rented a Vauxhall Astra.  A fine auto.  Now, perhaps you are familiar with the fact that they drive on the left in the UK.  They also have the steering wheel on the right side of the car.  This presents certain issues.  I must say, throughout our trip, the whole left hand side of the road thing did not bother us much (although there were a couple of, er, incidents of driving on the wrong side, luckily with no traffic, punctuated with cries of "Left side! Left side!"). Making right hand turns was a bit dicey as we had to think hard about from where traffic would come. Sitting on the wrong side of the car was a bigger problem, as it took each of us a couple long drives to get used to the new perspective.  Let's just say that in the beginning there was some banging of the curb with the left side tires.  Oops!

I found the English countryside (at least from London to York) to look much like the southeastern Minnesota of my youth, but with a few more trees.  It was my birthday this day, and so we ate lunch at one of my favorite places, KFC.  Let's just say the English version doesn't quite measure up.  I think they are missing a couple of the herbs and spices.  And they don't have mashed potatoes and gravy as a side.  Now that's reason enough for revolution. 

York is a quaint little town with lots of gift shops within the old city walls, which still exist.  We ate at a nice pub where I had a lovely fish and chips and John Smith's beer.  York has a lovely Minster, shown to the right, where we went in time to catch evensong.  As I have mentioned, the UK is a place where history abounds. It'd have been intriguing to spend more time in the York area , but we had a date with Scotland the next day. That is a subject for a different day. 

On The Declaration

Ken Blanchard rightly directs our attention to the Declaration of Independence as providing the meaning for this day, Independence Day.  As Prof. Blanchard is fond of noting, Congress actually voted for independence on July 2, 1776.  Celebrating July 4 as our Independence Day tells us something about the place of the Declaration in the hearts, minds and history of our nation.  There is much to note about the Declaration, but let me just point out one of its admirable qualities.  It is common for a governing regime to base the justice of its rule on some foundation.  Throughout history that foundation has typically been, "Because I can kill anyone who says otherwise," i.e., I should rule because I am the one most capable of violently imposing my will.  A regime might also claim legitimacy based on support of the people.  Some have claimed support by God or the gods (although "divine right of kings" was a relatively late development).  The foundation of the American regime is nature, or, if you will, Nature.  The Declaration makes a claim about the nature of man, that the "laws of nature" and the "Creator" have made men by nature free and equal.  Man is the kind of animal that is capable of self-governing. That is his nature.  Lincoln's argument, noted below by Prof. Blanchard, is that slavery is a violation of man's nature.  My enslaving of you is not made just because I am stronger than you.  It is not made just because I am whiter than you.  It is not made just because the people say it is just.  The people themselves cannot rightly support that which is wrong, a violation of nature.  The the grounding of the American regime is not the opinions of the people, but the nature of man.  Here is Lincoln in the last debate with Stephan Douglas at Alton, IL, October 15, 1858.

And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he as a Democrat, can consider himself ``as much opposed to slavery as anybody,'' I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong, do you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it in the free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about it in the slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, because that will disturb the security of ``my place.'' [Shouts of laughter and cheers.] There is no place to talk about [it] as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong.

(snip)

Try it by some of Judge Douglas' arguments. He says he ``don't care whether it is voted up or voted down'' in the Territories. I do not care myself in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong.

From The Mailbag

Reader Thomas S. Mann sends along a photo of the "high water mark" of Pickett's Charge, to which I alluded yesterday. 

As I recall, Confederate General Lewis Armistead  broke through the Union lines on horseback, only to be shot down within seconds. 

Reader Gene Kocmich is upset with us for not being upset about Pres. Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence.  He writes to me:

I was also disappointed in your comments Professor Schaff. Why did you pick the comments from NRO?  You must have been tired to have referenced that line of reasoning.  It seems the NRO is using the same logic that children use to explain to parents why they have done or want to do something.

In my post I clearly acknowledged the some of the low level argument coming from NRO, although the major point of John Podoretz's post at NRO is worth taking seriously.  NRO is clearly a biased source, although it is a biased source with some integrity and expertise on these questions.  It's not like I was quoting Chuck Norris or Pat Boone.  But if NRO is not good enough, how about William Otis in the Washington Post:

Yet the sentence is another matter. Neither vindication of the rule of law nor any other aspect of the public interest requires that Libby go to prison. He is by no stretch a danger to the community, as "danger" is commonly understood. He did not commit his crime out of greed or personal malice. Nor is his life one that bespeaks a criminal turn of mind. To the contrary, as letters to the court on his behalf overwhelmingly established, he has been a contributor to his community and his country. And whether or not we agree, we cannot dismiss out of hand the notion that Libby thought he was serving his country by his overall conduct in this episode, specifically by letting it be known, truthfully, that it was not the White House that tapped Joseph Wilson to look into whether Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Niger.

This is my last word on the Libby/Plame case, a case in which the heated media interest has never been anywhere close in proportion to the significance of the events.  Note all the attention in the last couple days to this story, and  yet I have seen virtually nothing about the fact that Iran is committing acts of war against the United States and we are doing nothing.  HT on that one to Joe K.   

 

Dog Bites Dog

MTV's Kurt Loder unloads on Michael Moore's Sicko. 

Unfortunately, Moore is also a con man of a very brazen sort, and never more so than in this film. His cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews (with lingering close-ups of distraught people breaking down in tears) and blithe assertions (how does he know 18,000* people will die this year because they have no health insurance?) are so stacked that you can feel his whole argument sliding sideways as the picture unspools.

Doesn't this describe every film Michael Moore has ever made?  HT NRO.

Johnson Fundraising

From The Hill:

In South Dakota, late-quarter help from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) helped recovering Sen. Tim Johnson (D) near a goal of $600,000 in the closing hours of the June 30 deadline, according to an e-mail to supporters.

Kerry and Daschle both sent fundraising e-mails for the senator, who suffered a brain hemorrhage last year. Johnson, a top GOP target, raised $665,000 in the first quarter with help from his colleagues and has no major opposition yet.
Kerry raised $1.2 million for the quarter and now has more than $11 million cash on hand thanks to a large transfer from his presidential campaign.

Man Mistakes Peacock for Vampire

My wonderful daughter drew my attention to this story, which hasn't received the coverage it deserves.  From the Star Tribune:

The peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Staten Island Burger King parking lot and perched on a car hood Thursday morning. Charmed employees had been feeding him bread when the man appeared.

He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping the creature, said worker Felicia Finnegan, 19.

"He was going crazy," she said.

Asked what he was doing, she said, the attacker explained, "'I'm killing a vampire!"'

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them. Authorities were looking for the attacker, described as being in his teens or early 20s.

Now having made this same mistake myself, I am in no position to heap blame on the confused man.  I would point out that I am nowhere near my early 20s, and have never been to the Staten Island Burger King.  But you might have thought that the press would point out how much more tragic it is, and just as common, when people mistake vampires for peacocks. 

Thune Backs Bush on Libby

From the Aberdeen American News:

President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case was "his call to make," but overturning the jury that convicted the former White House aide would have been a mistake, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday.

Bush on Tuesday said the jury's conviction of Libby should stand but that the 30-month prison term was too severe. The president, however, refused to rule out an eventual pardon for Libby.

Thune said he's kind of a tough law and order guy and believes in equal justice under the law. But he said it could be argued that the sentence was too harsh, and the president has the authority to make that call.

"Obviously he wasn't going to negate what the jury had done, which I think that would have been a mistake," the senator said.

Thune said people on the far left will think the commutation is an outrage and people on the far right will think Libby never should have been convicted in the first place. But crimes such as perjury are serious matters and South Dakotans want to see the law applied to all, Thune said.

"I think people in South Dakota have an inherent sense of fairness," he said. "And they will want to see the law applied fairly."

Terrorism, God's Grace, and a Crime Against Women

Evangelical Atheist and Defender of Liberal Civilization Christopher Hitchens has a piece on the recent excitement in London. He begins with this:

Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God …"? If matters had been very slightly different over the past weekend, the streets of London and the airport check-in area in Glasgow, Scotland, would have been strewn with charred body parts. And this would have been, according to the would-be perpetrators, because of the grace of God. Whatever our own private theology or theodicy, we might at least agree to take this vile belief seriously.

Hitchens probably isn't interested in an explanation, and may not read SDP, but here goes.  Christianity, like Buddhism and, I suppose, most religions, tries to remind people of their vulnerability and mortality.  Most of us most of the time forget these things, at least if we are lucky.  It next tries to teach them to be grateful for the gift of life and for such good fortune as they may enjoy.  That is all that "there but for the grace of God go I..." means. 

As for the defender of liberal civilization thing, Hitchens does well to point out that one of the attempted bombings was not only a crime against the British people, and against civilized life, it was specifically a crime against women. See Schaff's worthy post below. 

Only at the tail end of the coverage was it admitted that a car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was "ladies night" and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails. Since we have known since 2004 that a near-identical attack on a club called the Ministry of Sound was proposed in just these terms, on the grounds that dead "slags" or "sluts" would be regretted by nobody, a certain amount of trouble might have been saved by assuming the obvious. The murderers did not just want body parts in general but female body parts in particular.

There is no greater enemy of women's rights, or their bodies for that matter, than militant Islam. The reluctance of the left to acknowledge this fact, or indeed to show much interest in it, bodes ill for everything they hold dear.   

The Declaration is the Reason for the Season

Stephen Douglas defended his doctrine of popular sovereignty (let the people of each territory decide whether to allow slavery or not) in terms of the right of self-government.  Lincoln argued successfully that this involved a contradiction.  Here, from his speech on the Kansas-Nebraska act, is about as good an explanation of the Declaration of Independence as any you will find. 

The doctrine of self government is right--absolutely and eternally right--but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a Negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the Negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, and also governs another man, that is morethan self-government--that is despotism. If the Negro is a man,why then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal;” and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm,paraphrases our argument by saying “The white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable Negroes!!”

Well I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are, and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without the other's consent.I say this is the leading principle--the sheet anchor of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence says:

“We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights,governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.”

Today In American History

Today is a great day in American history. On this day in 1863, in Gettysburg, PA, the Union Army pummeled Confederate General George Pickett's attempt to break the center of the Union line.  This, after three days of hard fighting, represented the defeat of the Confederates and the most severe whipping of Robert E. Lee's army hitherto.  The Battle of Gettysburg would represent a turning point in the war.  Never again would Lee enter Union territory.  The next two years would represent a slow, if not entirely unfaltering, defeat of Lee's Army.  Meanwhile, in Vicksburg, MS, Ulysses Grant was completing the siege of that southern city on the Mississippi.  Officially accepting the surrender of the Confederate forces on July 4, Grant thereby gave the Union total control of the Mississippi River.  Union soldiers would celebrate Independence Day in Vicksburg, so embittering the citizens that it'd be 81 years before that holiday was celebrated in Vicksburg. 

More History

See Julie Ponzi for some further thoughts about the teaching of history, which I discussed here.  She links to this David Broder column that highlights historian David McCullough's appearance before a Senate hearing on history education.  McCullough and Broder make a good point: if kids can get excited over Harry Potter, than they can get excited over history that is well written.  Shelby Foote, a novelist by profession who wrote the most gripping history of the Civil War to date, often argued that historians had a lot to learn from novelists about writing narrative. History is, in essence, a narrative, with  plot, with character, and often with some climatic end (although usually a less definite end than in fiction). 

I happen to be reading both Shelby Foote's Civil War history and working my way through the Harry Potter books (yes, I am a decade behind this trend).  I find the Potter books actually examples of mediocre writing, yet make ripping good reads.  I'd say J.K. Rowling is a fine story teller and an average writer, if you take my meaning.  Still, I'll settle for kids reading mediocre writing if it keeps them away from the Gameboy for a while.  And maybe J.K. Rowling can inspire them to keep reading and maybe eventually read books of a higher quality.

If you are curious, read McCullough's remarks on "Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are,"  which was one inspiration when I gave at NSU's December Commencement a couple years ago (if you are really bored, read that address by clicking the link:  Download commencement_address_4.doc .)

Hitchens On UK Bombings

Christopher Hitchens reminds us of a truth: the Islamofascist terrorists attack the West not because they hate the West's foreign policy, although they do, but because they hate Western Civilization.  A taste:

Only at the tail end of the coverage was it admitted that a car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was "ladies night" and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails. Since we have known since 2004 that a near-identical attack on a club called the Ministry of Sound was proposed in just these terms, on the grounds that dead "slags" or "sluts" would be regretted by nobody, a certain amount of trouble might have been saved by assuming the obvious. The murderers did not just want body parts in general but female body parts in particular.

The work against our civilization's enemies is made harder by those like Howard Zinn who try to convince us that there is nothing particularly special about that civilization.  Look to Steven Hayward and William Voegli for responses to Zinn and critiques of the Left's desire to overcome patriotism.  Hayward and Voegli remind me of my graduate school days when Walter Berns came to campus to talk about patriotism. He was then in the process of writing his Making Patriots book.   In the course of his talk he opined that he hadn't met a less patriotic group of people than academics.  Brave words in front of an academic crowd.  During the question and answer session one of my professors raised her hand and demanded Berns give evidence to his claim about academia's lack of patriotism.  "How do you know academics are unpatriotic?" she demanded.  Berns gave her a bit of a squinty look and in an almost whisper said, "Fifty years in academia." 

Courage on the Court

Not the Supreme Court, the tennis court. 

Hobbled and hurting and essentially playing on one leg, Serena Williams managed to gut out a three-set victory at Wimbledon on Monday against an opponent who helped by fading right along with the daylight.

Williams crumpled to the grass in the second set with a left calf injury, was treated on court, then kept on playing, barely able to move. Given a reprieve by a nearly two-hour rain delay, Williams returned to compete, over her mother's protests.

And she won, prolonging her bid for a third title at the All England Club by getting past No. 10-seeded Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-2 to set up a quarterfinal showdown against No. 1 Justine Henin.

It doesn't look good for the next round.  But Serena is the real thing, God bless her. 

Education, Democrats, Money, Unions, and Race

Richard Cohen is no knee-jerk liberal.  He is a liberal capable of independent thought, which occasionally requires standing back a bit and looking at a problem from a neutral point of view.  Here is what he had to say about the Democratic presidential contenders, and what they had to say about education.

The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington last week for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded-- one system "for the wealthy, one for everybody else," as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per pupil spending is through the roof and -- pay attention here -- the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are uneducable.

This blindness with regard to the central fact of the American educational system, that the money spent per pupil in a district is almost inversely proportional to performance, is not the result of stupidity or lack of information.  It has systemic causes.   

It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything remotely close to a call for real reform. Instead, a member of the audience could reasonably conclude that if only more money was allocated to these woe-is-me school systems, things would right themselves overnight.

Of course.  Teachers unions are invariably opposed to real education reform because such reform invariably means holding teachers accountable.  And then there is the great distraction of race balancing in schools, which was flamboyantly evident in the reactions to the Supreme Court's recent ruling on race-based admissions in public schools. 

The reality...  is that the court decision has almost no application to the big-city school systems we worry so much about. Most of these systems are overwhelmingly black or Hispanic. Washington has about 65,000 black students and about 3,500 whites; Los Angeles has about 1 million Hispanic students and 285,000 whites; Philadelphia has about 180,00 nonwhite students and 30,000 whites. New York's borough of the Bronx has about 200,000 black or Hispanic students and nearly as many Asian/Pacific Islanders as whites (9,000). "I can't do racial balancing," Joel Klein, New York City's innovative schools chancellor, told me. To him, it's a distant dream.

Spending more money on education is no good if that money is sucked up by administration and programs designed to make us all feel better.  Race balancing can do nothing to help those minority students who are most in need of help.  These are the facts that anyone must squarely confront if he or she wants to think about educational reform.  The Democratic Party is utterly incapable of talking about them. 

The Libby Commutation

Scooter Libby apparently lied to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.  That is what a jury concluded when it found him guilty.  His conviction and his fine still stand.  The question is whether his sentence was reasonable, given the circumstances.  I agree with President Bush that it was not. 

The investigation in which Libby got caught up was absurd.  At no point was there any reason to believe that there was a crime to be investigated, something Fitzgerald eventually acknowledged.  Libby was prosecuted for two reasons.  One was the hope that he would roll on someone else, hopefully (the great dream of every special counsel), someone important.  But because there was no underlying crime, Fitzgerald could have no idea on whom Libby might tattle or about what.  This is called a fishing expedition, and it does not indicate honest law enforcement.  The second reason Libby was prosecuted is because Fitzgerald, having wasted millions on a wild goose chase, desperately needed something to show for it. 

Finally, the unduly harsh sentence was apparently the result of Fitzgerald's arguments before the Judge that Libby or someone was guilty of worse crimes, but crimes for which no one was charged nor any evidence presented.  Whatever justice looks like, this ain't it.  Bush was right to act as he did, at least in Libby's case. 

Epp A Little Over Heated

Todd Epp weighs in on President Bush's commutation of the sentence of Scooter Libby. 

Well, at least Scooter Libby is still a convicted felon who outed an undercover agent.

My only surprise is that President Bush had the ya-yas to do this while still living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (snip)

God how I love the Bushies take care of each other, even when they commit crimes that would get them killed in other countries for selling out their countrymen and women.

Todd has one important fact wrong.  As John Podhoretz points out, and as was very publicly revealed in the trial, it was not Scooter Libby who "outed" Valarie Plame to the press.  It was Richard Armitage, who has yet to be charged with anything because it is unlikely what he did constitutes a federal crime as Plame was not a covert official whose identity was covered under law. 

And not to get into a game of "I know you are but what am I," but NRO points out that President Clinton granted clemency to convicted Puerto Rican terrorists and Chuck Schumer came out for clemency for convicted spy Jonathon Pollard.  Not exactly great moments in statesmanship.

Howard Zinn And American History

A couple days ago I posted on the necessity of giving our young people a firm grounding in American history and the failure of our schools to perform up to task.  One of the reasons for our failure is the influence of radical historians such as Howard Zinn. Howard Zinn hates America.  I've heard him say it on the radio, so I am not engaging in hyperbole.  And yet he is as influential an historian as we've got.  His ironically titled People's History of The United States is a big seller.  I know that it is sometimes used as a text in college History courses.  Some books teach American history "warts and all."  Zinn is simply interested in the warts.  As we can see here in this piece penned for The Progressive, Zinn wants us to get over our allegiance to America, which is as evil as any other empire in history, and give our allegiance to humanity.  As Michael Corleone would say, now who's being naive.  Here's Zinn:

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Farm Bill Follies

Will we get a farm bill this year?  Who knows. If we do, what will it look like?  Who knows.  Read all about it here.  A taste:

Thune says that neither the Senate nor the House is likely to consider parameters of a bill in July, and if serious work is postponed until after the summer recess in August, lawmakers might run out of time in the legislative year and probably will be forced to extend the existing bill.

If it comes to that, Thune said Congress should extend the bill for two years, not just one.

"In my view, we don't want to be writing a farm bill in an election year," he said.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin disagreed with Thune's take on the progress of the legislation. She said the major titles in a new bill are moving through House Agriculture subcommittees, and "nothing is preventing the Senate from moving forward on a parallel track. I'm certainly interested in monitoring the progress they make on their front, as well."

Advocates of a farm bill that continues robust subsidies for crop production face a serious challenge this year from members of Congress who want to see support shift strongly toward conservation, according to Thune. He noted that Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., introduced an amendment to do that during the last round of farm negotiations in 2002 and received more than 200 votes in a Republican-led House.

More Bad Publicity For North Dakota

The best headline of the day: "Intoxicated Fargo man hops fence to greet Barry Bonds."

Free Speech and the Robert's Court

The Supreme Court handed down two major decisions on free speech this term.  In one, the Court took a bite out of the campaign finance restrictions.  In the other, they took a bite out of freedom of expression for students.  At the risk of shocking you, I think the Court was write on both counts. 

The fundamental purpose of the First Amendment freedoms of speech and of the press is to protect political speech in all proper public forums.  Political speech is vital to democracy.  In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., the Court ruled that the cheesehead state could not prohibit a political organization from running adds critical of two U.S. Senators just before an election.  That is precisely the kind of speech that the First Amendment was designed to protect.  Oddly enough, David Broder agrees with me. 

The public media is emphatically a forum for free speech.  The school yard is not.  In Morse v. Frederick, the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case, the Court ruled that school authorities could shut down pro-drug use expression during a school-sponsored event.  Of course.  Time, place, and manner restrictions on free speech attempt to distinguish between what is, and what is not, a forum for free speech.  I can shout out "Hilliary is Hitler!" or "Bush is Hitler" through a megaphone in a public park during open hours.  But I am not free to do so in the lobby of a hospital.  Frankly, I think the K-12 schools can place almost any limits on speech by students during school hours when the students are under their control.  I think, for example, and contrary to what the Court has said, that a school could allow political clubs to organize on campus but deny space to religious organizations.  It is only necessary that the school authorities do not take sides, e.g., limit only liberals but not conservatives.  The Court would not go so far as that. Outside that realm, the student has every right available to any 
citizen.  But the school yard is not a forum for political speech. It is set aside for the purpose of education.  The same thing goes for school sponsored events. 

John From Cincinnati

Professor Schaff and I, along with Todd Epp, were big fans of the HBO series Deadwood.  I thought it was probably the best TV show I have ever seen, and indisputably the best judged by its dialog.  Recently I listened to a NPR feature on "the Shakespeare Industry," where the interviewer asked on scholar what Shakespeare would be writing if he were alive today.  The answer was not for the theater or movies; he would be writing for Deadwood.  He didn't point out that the show would still fail, and that I would still be crushed when it did.

It turns out that Deadwood did not die so much as transmigrate.  Its creator, David Milch, has produced a new show for HBO that is very interesting and doing even worse in the ratings.  I think HBO really dropped the ball in drawing attention to the new series.   John from Cincinnati focuses on the Yosts, three generations of surfers living in a California town called "Imperial Beach."   I didn't see the first episode, but I gather that John appears out of nowhere and falls into the life of the family.  He is conventionally handsome but linguistically and motivationally dysfunctional.  Mostly he can do nothing but repeat what everyone else is saying and doing, though he is a very quick study when it comes to switching the pronouns around.  He also says a lot of cryptic things, along with a few cliches like "the end is near."   

It is not clear where John really comes from, but wherever it is, I doubt that it has a major league franchise.  As soon as John shows up, miraculous things begin to happen to the Yosts, including levitation and the miraculous recovery of the youngest surfer from what should have been a fatal accident. I speculate that John is either a space alien, an angel, or maybe both. 

As an idea of the dialog, a scene in episode four finds Bill Jacks, played by Ed O'Neil (Al Bundy in Married With Children), squaring off against Steady Freddy Lopez, played by Dayton Callie (Charlie Utter on Deadwood).  Jacks is a retired cop who spends most of his day talking to his pet birds.  Lopez is an aging drug dealer.  Somehow they have both been drawn into the role of protectors of the Yost family.  The two men have just met, but each knows the other's type down to his shoelaces, and it does not endear them to one another.  John from Cincinnati, watching them stare each other down, says to the Doctor standing next to him: "Bill is not Freddy's first Bill," and a moment later, "Freddy is not Bill's first Freddy."  Now that is dialog on a near to Deadwood level.

Callie included, there were no fewer than four Deadwood veterans in episode's one to four: Garret Dillahunt (Wolcott and the guy who shot Wild Bill); Jim Beaver (Ellsworth); and another guy who played a politician from Yankton.  I can't imagine this show will ever approach the greatness of Deadwood, and I think it not likely to last more than one season, if that.  But it is well worth taking a look at, and if you liked Deadwood, you will feel a little bit at home. 

Ratatouile

We went to Ratatouile last night.  Fantastic.  Fun for the whole family.  Thomas Hibbs has a review that is essentially on the money.  The film defends a kind of democratic excellence.  While declaring for most of the film "Anybody Can Cook" (this is the title of a book written by a character), the film concludes in explicit terms that no, not anybody can cook, but great cooks can come from anywhere.  The film honors the excellent while poking fun of those who are content to simply satiate their senses and seek mere comfort like an animal. Sure, the characters are rats, so they are animals, but perhaps it is best to give animated films with talking rats a little leeway.  The film channels Aristotle, arguing the we exist not for mere life, as do the animals, but for the good life which contains some notion of human excellence.

The film does contain some gooey progressivism.  The film argues that "the new" needs defenders and that nature and innovation are synonymous.  That hardly seems the case.  First, if anything we are enamored with novelty and youth.  If something needs defending, it's the old!  And one wonders if, say, the notion that "all men are created equal" is actually a truth about human nature, true for all people and all times, or if it is simply an innovation that we might get over at some point.  But one can look past this and appreciate a funny, enjoyable, and rewarding film.  Go see Ratatouile. 

Michael Yon Reports On Al Qaeda Massacre In Iraq

Whatever one thinks of the war in Iraq, the people we are fighting are beasts.

Argus Circulation Falling

SDWC:  Editor and Publisher: Argus Leader Daily Circulation down over 2700

A Reply to David Newquist on Parents v. Seattle

Jill Kurfirst of Seattle couldn't get her son, Andy Meeks, into the school of her choice because he was the wrong color.  In Parents Involved in Community Education v. Seattle School District, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Seattle couldn't do that to Andy.  I think the Court was right. 

My former NSU colleague, and soon to be colleague in a new enterprise, Professor David Newquist, disagrees.  He says this:

The Supreme Court is like those folks in Europe who deny the fact of the holocaust. They are denying slavery, segregation and the lingering inequalities that are their legacy.

This is utter nonsense.  For more than fifty years the Supreme Court has struggled with a conundrum as it repeatedly confronted the legacy of segregation.  On the one hand, dismantling segregation in education requires race-conscious remedies.  You have to ask, for example, how drawing school districts will affect the racial balance of schools to pursue desegregation.  On the other hand, policies that discriminate against individuals on the basis of race are inherently suspect under the Equal Protection Clause, even if the person discriminated against is White and the purpose of the discrimination is remedial.  Whether you agree with the five or the four in Parents v. Seattle, the decision sits squarely within this line of cases. 

It is not the Court, or "regressives," who are denying the facts. It is the New York Times and Professor Newquist who do so.  Juan Williams, who happens to be both African American and a liberal, has this:

Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity.

And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America’s public schools have been growing more segregated — even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic.

The policies Professor Newquist defends have utterly failed either to achieve the proximate goal, more or less evenly integrated schools, or the ultimate goal, the elimination of the racial/ethnic achievement gap.  The Court was obviously right in Brown to strike down segregated education.  School districts are obviously right to try to pursue integration, and for that they cannot avoid race-conscious policies.  But the social return on such policies has been found to be very modest.  It cannot justify racial discrimination against individuals.

In Brown, the Court ruled that a young lady could not be denied admission to a school on account of her race.  In Parents v. Seattle School District, the Court reached the exact same conclusion concerning a young man.  Is it really "regressive" to say that the Court was right on both occasions?