Blue Diary

The great Spocko blogswarm continues

2007-01-07T23:13:00.000-06:00

Mike Stark at Daily Kos has been doing an outstanding job bringing attention to the case of Spocko, who was served with a Cease and Desist letter from Disney by posting audio files on his blog to get advertisers to move away from right-wing hate speech on KSFO. Please read the first post on Friday for the outstanding letter written by Spocko. Justice is being served inasmuch as Spocko is an excellent writer and should get many more new readers at his new site.
I wanted to put up this short post since according to Mike's latest update, the blogswarm has gone to 500 blogs including Juan Cole and Jesus' General. This case is important because contacting advertisers is one of the most important ways to "petition the media for a redress of grievances". I posted something completely OT at DB's and now feel really dumb because the J-blogosphere barely has to weigh in on this.

Hevel Hevelim #75

2006-06-25T11:05:00.000-05:00

For actual good presentation visit Hevel Hevelim #75, hosted by AbbaGav.
UPDATE: I apologize to Perspectives of a Nomad whose feelings were hurt by my last post on AddeRabbi being omitted from HH two weeks ago.

Hevel Hevelim #74--fathers, lies, and videotape

2006-06-18T13:02:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Hevel Hevelim #74, the Carnival of Jewish Blogs! I would like to recognize Ezzie for bringing some of these posts to my attention in his blog roundups this week. Blue Diary management has included all posts submitted without necessarily endorsing them. Blue Diary management has also attempted, within these limits, to hold to SoccerDad's policy of one post per blog. Jonathan Rosenblum's post was so important it had to be here.
A big Yasher Koach for the Class of 2006 of Bais Yaakov of St. Louis, graduating today.

We begin with a public service announcement from Jameel about advertising.

We move on to Israel, which produced sustained attention as the killings on the Gaza beach spilled over into last Shabbos.
Israel at Level Ground captures the mood on Sunday.
Oleh Yahshan and lawhawk consider evidence that an Israeli shell did not kill civilians on the beach in Gaza. Rabbi Yonah of Jewlicious fisks the Palestinian video here and here.
Mideast: On Target discusses the Kassam fire in southern Israel. Shiloh Musings sees general incompetence in Peretz's lack of response to said Kassam rockets. In other posts, Batya questions why the NYT thought Hamas had a truce at all and
the principles of the Israeli leaders.
Perspectives of a Nomad and Daled Amos consider the tactics of terrorists in general.
zionist.com sees Olmert being swept along beyond where he wants to go by his own idea of "convergence". Meanwhile Israel Matzav asks why Abu Mazen is not promoting the idea of provisional borders and Perspectives of a Nomad finds opportunity in the Palestinian government's failure to pay salaries. (Yourish questions if Palestinians are really starving and brings an article from The Australian.)
SoccerDad deconstructs the NYT on the prisoners' document.
Yitzchok Adlerstein praises Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, candidate for President of Israel.
Treppenwitz nails the Benjamin Bright-Fishbein story. Joe Settler discusses the two girls almost kidnapped in the Shomron.
Israel Matzav brings our attention to another terrorist incident, and Samizdat BlogFree calls our attention to the expelled trying to resume normal life.
Solomonia has the latest on the Ron Francis case, and Elder of Ziyon posts on the Caterpillar boycott.
AbbaGav rants righteously against Ahmedinejad.
Raanana Ramblings talks about Israelis and the Swedish prison system.
West Bank Blog finds more responses to her call for aliyah stories, and Israel Perspectives begins a press roundup.

We also had some completely positive posts on Israel.
The Hashmonean contributes a very cool post on the Israeli architecture of the new Intel chips.
Meryl Yourish has an eloquent post on Israel's right to exist.
At the IgNoble Experiment, Irina continues her trip to Israel here, here, here,here, and here. Amishav also tells us about his travels in Israel.

Jewish bloggers also considered the Jewish world outside Israel.
A Simple Jew marks the 20th of Sivan.
Jonathan Rosenblum encourages the religious to show concern for Darfur.
LamedZayin decries that we don't have peace among ourselves.
Steven I. Weiss criticizes the defense of AgriProcessors in the Jewish Press.
Ezzie discusses the metzitzah b'peh controversy, with links to Gil and SIW.
Mobius continues the discussion of left-wing anti-Semitism.
Snoopy admits to the Jewish torturers of Guantanamo.
Israel Matzav discusses a positive poll on French attitudes towards Israel.
Orthodox Apprentice interviews Lee Beinstock, the Apprentice finalist.

The World Cup reached our corner of the blogosphere. Kasamba observes World Cup insanity of the present, and Jameel discusses his deep-rooted soccer trauma. DovBear balances the pluses and minuses of soccer. In other sports, Ezzie provides this link to Nephtuli musing on interleague play.

These posts on everyday life are almost all taken from Ezzie.
Jack's Shack contributes this sweet post for Father's Day.
Please listen to the song the title of this post by Psychotoddler, also related to Father's Day, links to. DAG remembers being a father for too short a time.
Seraphic Secret continues the "My Movie Girls" series.
Shira celebrates 29 years of marriage, while MCAryeh waits for his true life.
Orthomom asks about what standard of tznius is appropriate, and Harry Maryles asks about standards for bar and bat mitzvahs.
me-ander comments on organ transplants.
Life in Israel draws lessons from a visit to the dentist.

A good selection of Torah posts is placed "kneged kulam".
Elie brings important points from the Oral Law on parshas Naso, while AddeRabbi provides food for thought and weighs in on the issue of racism and the "Kushite woman".
Gil Student considers when Torah or science should be believed.
On The Main Line discusses the text of "Ashrei".
LabRab attends YU's and YCT's graduations.
Reb Chaim haQoton contributes an essay on converts, spiritually great and not so great. On the other side, Unenlightenment encourages ordinary people to do kiruv, with a stop on the movie "Inspired".
Gedalia Litke contributes one of the best Cross-Currents posts ever.

Please feel free to link to any posts I may have missed in the comments.

Late to the party

2006-06-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

Why was this post not on HH last week? Excellent.

Israelis strike first

2006-06-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

JPost on this story:

Israel will no longer exhibit restraint toward Palestinian terrorists involved in anti-Israel operations, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday following an Israeli air strike in Gaza that targeted a car carrying Islamic Jihad cell members on their way to launch GRAD-model Katyusha rockets at Israel. Eleven people died in the strike and, according to the IDF, at least three of them were Islamic Jihad members.

"We will act with all our might and use all our means against any group that acts against us," Peretz said.

"We showed the necessary restraint in light ... of the international uproar that resulted, but it's over," Peretz continued.

Nine civilians and two schoolchildren were killed in this strike when the second missile was fired. Abbas condemned the attack and was quoted as follows by the AP:

"Every day there are martyrs, there are wounded people, all of them innocents, all of them bystanders...They want to eliminate the Palestinian people, but we are going to sit tight. We are sitting tight on our land...We want to establish our state and live in peace...What Israel is committing is state terrorism."

A Katyusha rocket is evidently worse than a Qassam rocket. Even if the attack was a them-or-us thing, it's poison. We see Peretz and Abbas making statements you would not expect them to make every day. The Olmert government should especially not expect disengagement from the West Bank to have any good effect if the two sides are openly throwing bombs at each other.

(This just in: Evidently serious political pressure on both Peretz and Abbas. The lead prisoner of the "prisoners' referendum" disparaged Abbas's attempt to hold a vote on it and a combination of security forces loyal to Abbas and Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades members attacked the Parliament and other Hamas-controlled buildings. Hamas, for its part, fired on the headquarters Preventive Security Force, loyal to Abbas, in Rafah. 2 were killed and 11 wounded. Abbas declared a state of emergency. Peretz was reported in the Israeli press to have "rejected army plans for intensified airstrikes against rocket-launching teams and sites" (NYT). In this situation the Palestinians will probably be happy Hamas is attacking Israel instead of Fatah. No one will take seriously a country in what amounts to a civil war.)

One of the best diaries I have seen on Kos

2006-06-13T11:35:00.000-05:00

Why Unions? Labor 101 by Nathan Newman is an excellent primer on why the labor movement matters even if he got the title of Taylor Branch's books entirely wrong.

More Republican villains

2006-06-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

Rove will not be charged in the Plame case. emptywheel
speculates that this is for Rove's cooperation and that the investigation is focusing on getting Cheney indicted. Fitzgerald failed a lot of people as a messianic figure today. I am reminded of Trevino saying that Bush is a terrible president compared with any ideal, but compared with any real alternative he just squeaks by. Democrats have the information to show that Bush is a terrible president. We don't need any new information and this case might have been only tangentially damaging to Bush. Democrats can tackle as a party and a group of activists the idea that the public realm can't be any more moral than it is now and only private morality will save us. Congressional candidates can take responsibility for the Republican ethical and constitutional failures of the last six years. As much as the netroots love Lamont, they are aware that he cannot save us alone. The Democrats can no longer send out a single figure to suffer for them and save them. Figures such as Brian Keeler, the Kossack running for the State Senate in New York, are as important because it means that the netroots is using their idealism to lift up the established party and make it stand for more democracy. The netroots are likely to keep their connection with the Ned Lamonts and the Brian Keelers because they will be inspired to field more and more candidates to serve as colleagues and Howard Dean is solidly behind the netroots. Related to this subject, Eugene asks the My Left Wingers if they have considered running for office themselves. 10 comments are running mostly against with a contribution from ben masel, running a $1 donation campaign for the Wisconsin Senate as a Democrat.

Coulter, the gift that keeps on giving

2006-06-13T02:27:00.000-05:00

I was hoping Coulter could write a whole book without attacking evolution, but evidently she gave it 80 pages. Pharyngula
does the super-competent job of fisking it we would all expect. If PZ comes over here I hope he can address Coulter's remark that liberalism "teaches children that they have a common ancestor with the earthworm". A Google search for "earthworm and (evolution or fossil)" came up with a lot of junk, but one site said that the line leading to the annelids started in the Pre-Cambrian period through the evolutionary development of the coelom, a basic innovation which implies a body cavity. Another site said that earthworm fossils are few. This confirms my suspicion that the common ancestor of humans and earthworms was such a simple creature that referring to it gives us no interesting speculation about the commonalities between humans and earthworms at all. Saying that humans today have "common life processes with the earthworm" gives as much information as that we have a common ancestor with the earthworm. If you are going as far back as the earthworm you might as well go back to DNA and one-celled organisms, which do provide as much of a sense of wonder and mystery as anyone could want.
I would like to make a comment which on PZ's site would just confuse the reader on Coulter's statement that "liberals subscribe to Darwinism...out of some wishful thinking. Darwinism lets them off the hook morally." Evidently Gertrude Himmelfarb has advanced the view that evolution made our philosophy more materialistic and provided the conditions for Nietzsche to arise. Gertrude Himmelfarb is far more worth taking seriously than Coulter. (Himmelfarb's The Darwinian Revolution goes on reading list. Should have read years ago) But the Higher Criticism was developing separately from evolution and would have discredited unthinking belief in Judaism, Christianity, and their associated moral codes for those who wanted not to believe had Darwin or Wallace never published. In terms of formal ethical theories liberals are split between existentialists, utilitarians, and Rawlsians, and maybe some out-and-out cynics. We also have the ideas of Isaiah Berlin, advanced by DB, that moral values have trade-offs. But this does not mean that we shouldn't subscribe to any moral values. It means that moral values are flexibly wired and can progress or regress with material changes in society, so liberals are responsible for progress in moral values. (See: the "Markos is too pragmatic" controversy) I wrote a paper on Rawls back in my primordial earlier life which showed that Rawls is a constructivist. If we think of ourselves as people fit to have a democratic society we must subscribe to a set of moral values which maximize the democratic potential of everybody. The "contract" is renewed for each person as they become aware of their democratic obligations without necessarily using the "veil of ignorance" which was simply a hypothetical. Pullman's "Republic of Heaven", hardly meant to be an amoral place, might look like this. This old post from Y. Aharon subbing for GH also advances the idea that material evolution went to a certain point and then G-d took over with us and gave us a neshama. In other words, the spiritual world can't be explained in terms of the material world. The spiritual world influences the material world, but even to this day we have limited understanding of it, kol hachomer when Bereishis was written. It is not scientists' job to explain this influence.

This post is also extremely cool and shows a new application of bioinformatics in working on gene relationships.

Gaza beach: nothing to see here, move along

2006-06-12T11:28:00.000-05:00

I have found some good information about the Gaza beach incident from various right-wing bloggers which properly will go in HH. Evidently the Israeli government was willing to believe the shell was Israeli, but is now putting out that it may be a leftover Palestinian rocket. One blog linked to DEBKAfile which stated that Palestinians were combing the beach for bombs. (Will try to find link again later) AbbaGav properly mourned the death of the innocent civilians. As my husband pointed out, Hamas was observing a very cold truce. However, their having rejected it and the prisoners' document cannot be positive. I am trying to have the proper bitachon not to live in deadly fear of where and when the next terrible attack will be.
I think it was Israel Matzav who had an excellent point that the settlers in Gaza were in terrible danger, but they had chosen to be there more than the residents of Sderot. OTOH the Palestinians were firing on Sderot both before and after disengagement.

Postville, Iowa

2006-06-06T18:35:00.000-05:00

Kol haKavod to
Sheira Galyan for an excellent post I came across on Hevel Hevelim. The contrast between the article and the Torah portion of that week or the week before, enjoining us on how to treat our fellow Jewish laborers, could not be missed by anyone. I am not eating the meat cholent at the shul.

Hypocrisy

2006-06-06T18:25:00.000-05:00

Also in today's Times we have a story about a State Department report on trafficking of women which cited that Saudi Arabia "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so". This is a wonderful advertisement for the Saudi royal family. LGF must be all over it.

Ann Coulter does not disappoint

2006-06-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

I am a combination of gleeful and sad to report that the ad for Ann Coulter's book out today in the NYT makes it look as if it is another collection of random insults on liberals. For example, the assertion that Roe v. Wade is liberal holy writ is nonsense. Liberals value the right more than the decision and have phrased abortion as a matter of human rights. If this is really so, a better written decision or a constitutional amendment would take the place of Roe v. Wade and its reasoning perfectly well. I was almost right when I predicted that liberal "churches" would be universities. She chose public schools instead for ad purposes, probably not to remind the book-buying public that the administration of Loyola of Chicago disowned her after her visit where she incited the crowd. I was not sure, however, if Coulter could find it in her to write the anti-secular-Enlightenment book which it would have been very easy for her to have written, and which Tom Wolfe perhaps has already written, and stop giving real conservatives a bad name.
I. B. Singer and GH have identified themes for such a book. Most people will not accept that life is meaningless and then you die. It takes some courage to be a real heretic, who believes in nothing and practices radical skepticism. It is proper to speak about secular religion when you are really talking about conformity: if it is not fashionable to be religious people who care for fashion will believe in whatever is fashionable. This can be liberalism, or pleasure, or art, or nature. There is a liberalism like King's or Heschel's which is motivated by a deeply religious outlook and a liberalism which is motivated by an anti-religious outlook. Liberal bloggers have seen the anti-religious posters whose anti-religion is so fundamental that if the Democrats began to speak about religious values, even to sustain existing Democratic positions, they would all go Green the next day. But this religion of anti-religion is shared by Christopher Hitchens, for one, so Coulter cannot really call it "liberal". Real conservatives are on better ground in speaking about the "religion" which says that human beings do not need a concept of God or organized religion in order to cultivate the spiritual qualities to perfect the world or the "religion" which says that reason will ultimately explain everything. Both of these appeal to the religious sense because they posit an ultimate good.
Despite the gay marriage smokescreen Democrats are not running in 2006 on who has religious values. They are running on who has competence. Religious values are more important for a presidential election because more people vote and more religiously conservative areas of the country have more weight. In such an election the measured rhetoric that our government was meant to be limited in promoting religious values, on the one hand, and that religious values are not always an instrument of controlling people but can inspire people to seek freedom and dignity for themselves and the less fortunate, on the other, may work.

Kvell

2006-05-30T18:47:00.000-05:00

According to mlb.com Albert Pujols is leading all other players by six lengths with over 700,000 All-Star votes. 25 home runs will do that.

Approaching Shavuot

2006-05-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

Last year Rabbi Yair Kahn had charge of the yhe-parsha list for the Virtual Beis Midrash for Sefer Bamidbar and did a very nice series on which a political interpretation of that book can be built. One might be able to think that the arrangement of the tribes in Parsha Bamidbar is hierarchical, with east going first. However, we notice that each firstborn has a place of honor and each division has a tribe known for its skill in battle. Rabbi Kahn argues that the arrangement is really one of harmony between the tribes, with each tribe and each individual recognized and maintaining the distinctiveness of the tribes. The important separation is between the machaneh Yisrael, the camp of Israel, and the camp of the shechina in the center. The revolt of Korach and the concept of the nazir break down this distinction in their own way. Sefer Bamidbar also exploits the contrast between the ideal arrangement, set to conquer the Land of Israel, and the true arrangement who sent the spies and had not fully renounced the mentality of slavery. A contrast is made between the first generation who remembers the food they ate in Egypt for nothing and the second generation who complains, "Why did you take us to die in a land where there is no wheat, figs, or pomegranates?" (characteristic of the Land of Israel) The analysis of Balak is also original.

Desperately seeking post IV

2006-05-25T14:24:00.000-05:00

All refundable fares to Anaheim are more than $1200. This is very bad.

Yom Yerushalayim

2006-05-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today is Yom Yerushalayim at least in Israel, which commemorates the unification of Jerusalem. Evidently the religious camp has adopted Yom Yerushalayim and the secular camp Yom Haatzma'ut. This is sad considering that Israeli soldiers were involved in the liberation of Jerusalem, that we do not have the Temple Mount should mean nothing to a secular person, and the greatest problems involving going back to the 1967 borders (see post below) are Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The right of Jews to live in all of Jerusalem, our holiest city, is important in its own right and the day should not be considered a commemoration of the victory in the 6 Day War and the occupation of other territories.

Interesting PA story

2006-05-25T13:37:00.000-05:00

I posted on Seraphic Secret last week that any legislation passed to isolate Hamas should be designed to isolate Hamas, not allow the people to have most of the suffering as happened with 10 years of sanctions on Iraq which did not punish Saddam Hussein one iota for all the evil that he did, although he may have had a full-fledged WMD program without them. Some obduracy from the West and Olmert's willingness to provide direct humanitarian aid seems to be giving Fatah more leverage in the PA government. This Haaretz story tells us that Abbas is pushing a referendum for a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders in order to have some basis for unity between Hamas and Fatah. If Hamas does not agree to the plan within 10 days, he will put it to the people. If the Palestinians will stand up and say they will settle for less than the destruction of Israel, besides being discomfiting to some right-wing bloggers it will be a small step towards trust. (What right-wing bloggers can say, and in fact Meryl Yourish, my steady JIB vote for Best Israel Advocacy, has implied: Palestinians know they cannot have the destruction of Israel now, but with a future stable state they may be able to. And the 1967 borders are unworkable.) Here is another bombshell, which Haaretz could not confirm by itself:

According to the radio, the London-based Al Hayat al Jadida daily newspaper reported that Hamas agreed for Abbas to hold negotiations with Israel based on the position of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Any agreement Abbas reaches with Israel, however, would have to be approved in a referendum, according to the report.

Hamas and Fatah also agreed that the responsibility over the PA's financial administration would be handed over to Abbas, in order to allow the international community to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

The Jerusalem Post has also reported this.
This link shows some of the points of the prisoner document which the Palestinians would be voting on. It says nothing about the border, but does talk about reorganizing the security forces and forming a unity government. If the Palestinians have a unity government and Abbas is who the outside world deals with, has Abbas won or has Hamas won because Abbas is covering them with a cloak of legitimacy?

Desperately seeking post III

2006-05-24T00:10:00.000-05:00

My husband consented to book a room at the Anaheim Marriott for Worldcon and we are mulling over the flight.

Desperately seeking post II-Hugo Awards

2006-05-23T13:58:00.000-05:00

Another summer routine tied to Gardner Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction is to read the five Hugo nominees for Best Novel as atonement for not having read any SF the rest of the year. Here is the full nominee list from Worldcon. The five novels are
Ken McLeod, Learning the World
George R. R. Martin, A Feast For Crows (read this! Inspired continuation of story but too many loose ends to win)
John Scalzi, Old Man's War (And at Instapundit there was much rejoicing)
Charles Stross, Accelerando (must be favorite, because the Hugos snubbed almost every story in this book)
Robert Charles Wilson, Spin

In other news Doctor Who received three well-deserved nominations for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and Battlestar Galactica one for "Pegasus". IMHO, after I have seen precisely none of the movies nominated for long form, "Serenity" is a shoo-in. I may even be able to vote if my husband is sufficiently tempted by the 40th-anniversary Star Trek festivities.

Desperately seeking post I--political reading list

2006-05-23T13:32:00.000-05:00

civil rights:
Autobiography of Malcolm X
A Stone of Hope
Covenant with Black America
TPM Cafe/FDL book group:
Rick Perlstein/Barry Goldwater
Glenn Greenwald, How Would a Patriot Act?
Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
Anthony Shadid/Larry Diamond/George Packer on Iraq
Fawaz Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist (this excerpt already gave some new information about how the Muslim Brotherhood developed over time which I was not clear about. But no one at TPMCafe really wanted to talk about this book. This is sad!) Bergen's "The Osama Bin Laden I Know" is a maybe.
David Sirota, Hostile Takeover (Kos recommended this book as "wonky")
Juliet Eilperin, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives
Todd Gitlin, The Intellectuals and the Flag
Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977
Hacker and Pierson, Off Center
Gene Sperling, The Pro-Growth Progressive (this book will probably come in handy in debates with Ezzie and Co :))

I am glad that Goldberg has published her book based on intense reporting. The only reason I wanted to read Kevin Phillips's book was for the theocon aspect. According to my mom, who has read it, "it had its moments".
For several years I have allocated the 3 Weeks to Jewish history. I spent two years concentrating on the Holocaust but found that this was turning Tisha B'Av into an extension of Yom haShoah. Gorenberg's book looks as if it could fit right in. (I have Diner's "History of the Jews of the United States" in reserve. I am desperate to read Sarna's "American Judaism" but IMHO it does not fit in the 3 Weeks.) I am always happy to find a book in a mainstream bookstore actually about either Temple period. I have read Schiffman's "From Text to Tradition" and still find it an excellent reference, and have bought the Artscroll history of the Jews in the Second Temple period.
I was surprised to walk into Borders on Sunday and not see Glenn Greenwald's book displayed in the front. Maybe a) the publisher cannot pay for this kind of publicity or b) Borders is gearing up to sell beach books. Borders had a sale of 3 well-known fiction titles for the price of 2 which I almost bit at.

Posting renewed

2006-05-18T00:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ezzie I was able to visit jblogosphere.blogspot.com where the old Havel Havelims are collected. I thought to myself, "This sounds like fun to do". This was sufficient reason to try to post again. Since Douglas Brinkley's and Ivor van Heerden's books on Katrina have come out, I may be able to post on Katrina, Roberts, and Alito, the three topics which seemed so urgent that any other posts seemed dumb. This was OK; the last three posts were dumb. I was so ashamed of two of them I deleted them. A blogroll may also be coming.

Drool

2005-08-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

Executing what I thought was going to be one of the main purposes of this blog for ten years running, let me introduce with a drumroll Mike Huben's Critiques of Libertarianism site.

And now for something completely different

2005-08-11T15:58:00.000-05:00

Ma Rabu is a relatively recent blog dedicated to liberal reclamation of Rabbinic Judaism, including a link to the Great and Powerful Kos. Hat tip: Steg.

On "The Pity of It All"

2005-08-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

For Three Weeks/9 Days purposes, I have finished "The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch" by Amos Elon. Strong and interesting parts of the analysis were:
As my mom has said for years, "Germany is a place of great contradictions. There is this great, humane cultural tradition, and then there is Bavaria". Besides the standard right-wing authoritarian Germans, in batches such as 1848 and 1918 a belief in true Enlightenment liberalism and equality came out in the German people but was defeated and betrayed because the military parts of the state were never democratic. For a hundred years, anti-Semitism came in waves, but the Jews survived each wave much as they were before. This provided encouragement for them to see Hitler as a temporary phenomenon.
Germany was susceptible to fascism for many reasons. A reason I did not know before (this did not take much) was that there was a "dictatorship clause" in the Weimar constitution allowing it to be suspended. If this had happened in 1789 Americans had sufficient fear of a king that it would never pass. Germans had recent experience with a king who allowed some liberal principles to take effect, and did not have the same fear. Bad economic times and old-fashioned hate were also very influential. Also, the idea of a German nation was founded on German kultur and German spirit: both German Jews and German Gentiles sought a spiritual Germany in politics. German Jews had a greater belief that Germany was inevitably to be swept on the wave of human progress, and were very active in liberal politics and parties such as the Social Democrats as soon as they were allowed to do so.
German Jews were attracted to Germany because there was more economic and intellectual opportunity than in Poland or Russia. Being a "real German" offered the possibility of being part of the universal and not just the particular. This did not necessarily mean self-hatred. Conversion to Christianity or being entirely secular was a real possibility throughout the 19th century, and Reform Judaism in this light was a way of clinging to Jewish identity. Martin Buber offered the possibility with his Hasidic tales of having a spiritual German-Jewish nationalism, but Zionism did not catch on greatly in Germany, although Herzl was German and percieved that Jews were "separate and unequal".
A disturbing part of Hitler's rise to power was that Jews were able to see that he was evil, but counted on the decency of the German people to stop him. Perhaps because of political apathy, this decency never came through, and it could have.
Finishing the book, I felt that the best may not lack all conviction, but the best lack organization. I am sad to see many decent bloggers, such as Instapundit and M. Simon, separate from affiliation with the Democrats because of the war in Iraq, and am glad to see Tim Russo hanging tough. Unfortunately the Bush administration has backed us into a corner. Leaving Iraq would be very dangerous at present because it would encourage the current Iraqi government to merge with the insurgents, who are nihilistic beyond a doubt. An interesting idea floated in The Nation would be to link a troop withdrawal to concrete democratic steps taken by the Iraqi government, possibly with international monitoring. The Democrats in 2006 could also run with the issue of nuclear proliferation, which is becoming more worrisome as Iran continues enrichment activities. Also as I finished the book, I realized the scale of the fascist nightmare. Not only was politics corrupted under the Nazis, but the entire country was recruited for mass murder. This is much worse than the abuse of power which the Founders were afraid of. Although I agree with Ruth Wisse that we should not forget that the Holocaust was a political process aimed at Jews in particular, the prominent thought was "I don't want this to happen to my country". Republicans would do well to remember that the liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s was aimed at the hatred of the fascism which we had just fought and a desire to eliminate the racism of which we ourselves are guilty. As liberals showed fear of implementing their own ideology especially with regards to civil rights, leftism became more palatable.
Trying to use reason and recognize the decency of the other side and realizing that the USA is not the repository of all virtue is probably effective in dispelling the fascist nightmare.

Good result of the War on Toby

2005-06-26T00:05:00.000-05:00

I have found the blog of someone I used to know from St. Louis who made aliyah a year ago. I am as stunned by the learning in it as I was when he was physically present. Check out End of Days, yearsofawe.blogspot.com. yaak came in to defend Toby and linked to this site.

Democrats and Israel

2005-06-22T21:45:00.000-05:00

A post by M. Simon on Democrats "forgetting their anger" over 9/11 caused me to think of how to measure the "commitment to Israel" of Democratic lawmakers. A serious commitment is likely to be directly related to the number of Jewish voters in the state. A "scorecard" of items where AIPAC encouraged members to contact their representative would be a starting point, but I expect these items to be fairly bipartisan. A more accurate measure would take speeches into account as well. One must then decide what level of support for the peace process implies a "safe Israel", even though the lawmaker may have sincere faith in the PA. I put this up not to bother the poor guy anymore and to have a public record in case I decide to do something.

Flattery from afar

2005-06-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

I have finally seen the winners of the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards, in which Dov Bear came in third for Best Humor Blog. This is more of a tribute to DB than one would think, because people are recognizing his talent even if their best general interest blogs are LGF and PowerLine. Possibly the contingent living in Israel rewards the most passionately pro-Israel blogs. I am not sure how Meryl Yourish won for best blog overall, although it is well written and researched. Musings of a Jewish Soul, winner of the best religion category, is well done.

Got no reason to blog...

2005-05-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

Georgia10 of Daily Kos has finally embarked on the waters of a blog of her own, akou (www.akou.blogspot.com) The blog is attractive and features the good writing and analysis one would expect from Georgia.

NYT accountability

2005-05-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

Instapundit has blogged the NYT story on its report on how to establish credibility and has linked to Jeff Jarvis, who approved of most of the changes. The moves toward greater openness such as better email for reporters, having editors discuss the journalism process, and fewer anonymous sources are very welcome. Anything the paper can do to defeat plagiarism and false reporting is also welcome. The paper was doing well IMHO with its religion coverage(for example, coverage of the new Pope was good and complex), but further coverage is good, and further coverage of rural areas and red-state America is excellent. I am in terror of the new initiative to broaden arts and lifestyle coverage. I read the NYT arts and lifestyle coverage, however middlebrow, because it represents New York! The foreign arts coverage is sometimes interesting. I hope that the arts coverage does not regress to the level of the Post-Dispatch or USA Today. The NYT can also be advised to fix its proofreading. I have seen several monster errors over the last month.

"Growing Up Red"

2005-05-04T07:54:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from the continuing adventures of Charlotte Simmons (she is about to join the Millennial Mutants), we have Tim Schilke's "Growing Up Red". Mr. Schilke is known as ColdFusion04 on Daily Kos and posted a few pleadings related to said book, which he self-published. I gave him $25.00 which could have gone to two other worthy causes publicized on DKos recently, Community Prep in NYC and gregpalast.com.
Mr. Schilke is an IT guy from Milwaukee who grew up in a Republican household but changed his mind during the Gulf War of 1991 when studying journalism at Valparaiso(there is something there other than Bryce Drew :)). He has my entire sympathy, because although I supported this war more than the current war in Iraq, the triumphalist attitudes about it were very disturbing to me as well. He got up on the morning of November 4, 2004 and decided to write a book, just as I decided to write a blog. He is to be commended for the courage to write a book. If I had the thought to write one along the same lines, I would easily be dissuaded because Garrison Keillor already wrote it, it was called Homegrown Democrat, and it was five times as good as anything I could come up with. I would also say that I am not sure my values are "blue" values per se. They are academic values. To cross the line into blue values I would have to have more solidarity with the less educated members of the Democratic coalition.
The first time I sat down to read the book, it suffered from an unflattering comparison to Colm Toibin's The Master, which I had just finished. I had two reactions: he desperately needed a better editor, and this is a good warmup for advisorjim's book, which is not being self-published. Advisorjim's book, "Confessions of a Former Dittohead", has the following advantages: he believed both liberal and conservative worldviews strongly as an adult, he is often witty, and he can spin out a sustained argument, especially about financial matters where Mr. Schilke is not well-researched. Advisorjim's diary on "The Right-Wing Reasoning Chip" is worth about half of this book.
In his prologue, Mr. Schilke describes how he wrote a paper on a controversial issue for his Freshman English class. The only one he could think of was evolution vs. creationism, so he wrote that "God created the world to look like it evolved". His professor gave him a D- for not using any facts. He also states that unlike his Red relatives, he can use facts to create a conjecture. Accordingly, the book is filled with facts. I already knew most of them, but on the Patriot Act he did a fine job. This chapter is the best in the book, although the quotes from Senator Leahy are treated as if they are facts. This will not slip by any Republican. He himself is the best fact. He is a liberal because he could not accept blind partisanship, not because of any "anti-God, anti-American" prejudice that his cohorts may believe that liberals have. However, with all of his facts, he states that rational people ought to have certain Blue beliefs(which I think is clear) or he conjectures things that he cannot prove. An example is his treatment of the "Ownership Society". He states flat out that the "Ownership Society" is a society for the original owners because individuals will be loyal to their corporate property interests. However true this is from his own Republican experience, it is not the whole story. Individuals can own their skills and education or their entrepreneurship. These personal characteristics make them less dependent on corporate America and more skeptical of the way that businesses are run. A true "ownership society" would mean that the individuals own their assets regardless of which party is in power, as has been the case with Social Security for its whole history, and call the government to account for protecting the assets.
A useful part of the book was its description of how Red voters relate to politics. They have a few news sources which they trust, which includes the evening news, surprisingly enough. Mr. Schilke believes that if it is not in the evening news or on the front page of the NYT or WaPo with a picture, it didn't happen for them, and even some of the things that did happen, such as Abu Ghraib, must be explained away. I got a laugh when he mentioned that people tell him all the time, "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet". He sees his suburban voters floating on a current of anxiety about their entire lives, which Bush feeds expertly. He also sees that finding the truth is not a high value, and that people vote the way they do as a result of social pressures and do not see the point in being highly interested in politics. Of course, dumb partisanship is not unique to Red voters. The book is interesting as a compilation of arguments which he thinks these voters are not aware of.

Mis-nagid, zichrono l'bracha

2005-05-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

I was shocked at going over to Dov Bear yesterday to find that mis-nagid had deleted his blog and his domain. Only on Sunday, I was happily posting there. Could it have been something I said? ("I won't be condescended to by blueenclave anymore, especially since she kept that herring in the wine sauce in the refrigerator through all of Pesach when her husband was supposed to eat it before then...") I was often scared to go over there because I know nothing about the DH, so I could not refute him. Also, in my current state of ignorance I can accept that the Torah of the Talmudic generation is not direct from Sinai, but that does not mean that I can read a page of Gemara. I would argue that it is more important to acquire this skill when you don't have automatic faith in the Sages than when you do, because you can see directly what they accomplished. Mis-nagid served as a reflection of my yetzer hara--I am not as frum as I could be because I am lazy, certainly, but also because I have a sneaking suspicion that it is not real, but a culture that one can accept or reject. I will learn Chumash and miss things utterly which Rashi finds important because I do not have enough concentration on why something would be phrased by G-d the way it is. I will often take repetitions as a literary device. I liked mis-nagid for his energy and his willingness to investigate things. Perhaps he got tired of it all.

kos deflates vanity

2005-03-07T03:47:00.000-06:00

I am reminded that you do not have to be the most learned person to be a citizen and to have a conscience.

Blueenclave goes to Yale

2005-03-07T00:42:00.000-06:00

This episode of my fantasy life was prepared assuming that Yale allows double majors. Substitution for some of the classics 400-level courses would take serious thought if they do not. Italian literature and um, ecology, are probably good substitutes. I would have Donald Kagan and Jonathan Spence, or die in the attempt.

I, in which blueenclave kills self
CHN 115a CHN 115b(1st year Chinese)
LITR 120a(fiction--study of narrative) ANTH 170b(Chinese culture, society)
MCDB 120a(introductory molecular bio) European history
PHYS 200a PHYS 201b
Latin 300(prose) Latin 301(poetry. Virgil. Yum)

II, in which blueenclave barely survives
CHN 130a CHN 130b(2nd year Chinese)
Grk 390a Latin 390b (IMHO I am prepared for Greek 390a. I had some exposure to Plato in high school)(These courses are on stylistics and syntax)
ancient history Chinese lit in trans
classics 400 level PLSC 116b(comparative politics)
chemistry?

III
CHN 150a CHN 150b(third-year Chinese)
classics 400 level classics 400 level
ancient history Chinese history
Chinese lit in trans PLSC 286b(Political Judgment) ("it sounded so wonderful...")
Italian lit?

IV
CHN 160a CHN 160b(literary Chinese)
Chinese lit I Chinese lit II(in Chinese)
classics survey I classics survey II(yearlong survey of Greek or Latin literature)
classics 400 level CHN 491b: senior essay
PLSC 302a(ancient and medieval political thought)(could not leave without that!)

I submit that I would be educated.

In my actual life, I had three semesters of Chinese and have now forgotten it all.
It was very difficult to read anything, even so, and the contrast with what one could do with three semesters of Italian was very sharp.
I am much luckier than the unfortunate Ms. Simmons. These kinds of courses would make me happy, and the instructors have the right to expect rigor of the students.

Excellent journalism

2005-03-07T00:22:00.000-06:00

Yale actually gives "Slavery in the Medieval Mediterranean", History 404a.

I am Charlotte Simmons

2005-03-06T23:46:00.000-06:00

Yale classics department: state of beyond drool. Crying.
It is really sad to have confirmation that your life is a ruin.

I am not Charlotte Simmons

2005-03-06T23:02:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to confirm to self that if I had my college career to do over again I would pick very different courses from Charlotte, I was pushed by nice hubby to observe the Yale graduate program in CS. I promptly drooled. I may wish I was a humanities snob and nothing but, but there are many technical fields that are intrinsically interesting. (Examples: chemical engineering, genetics, ecology. Ecology! How is that not a liberal art??)

The virtual blogroll

2005-03-01T03:19:00.000-06:00

You are all to visit Dov Bear (dovbear.blogspot.com). Now.

Armando gave me a 4!!

2005-02-25T04:08:00.000-06:00

Armando gave me a 4!
Armando gave me a 4!

Seriously, greatest of congratulations to Daily Kos on winning the Koufax. I am very proud.

Apology

2005-02-24T01:21:00.000-06:00

I apologize to Mike Martz for saying he should be fired.

Koufax Awards

2005-02-21T12:45:00.000-06:00

I visited many new blogs in the course of my incomplete vote for the Koufax Awards.
I liked Crooked Timber, Obsidian Wings, Panda's Thumb, Bob Harris, and Michael Berube. Michael Berube's writing is graceful and insightful. I am sorry that I was blinded to it in voting for Kid Oakland in the last round, because KO has a um, unique, writing style.

Jefferson's Demons

2005-02-21T12:04:00.000-06:00

I just finished this book. Wrapped up in the Powerline insulting email controversy, I was going to say nicely that the Powerline bloggers might get something out of it. I find a review
on the Claremont Institute website(two Powerliners are affiliated with the Claremont Institute). Dr. Yarbrough almost nails it. (MHO: Jefferson's idea of subdividing counties into smaller units may not be as related to Burke as Beran thinks in the note. It may be related to the Federalist claim (I'm 90% sure this is Hamilton) that a federal system is the equivalent of a republic because a large country has enough natural leaders to congregate together and make representative decisions. But does this cultivate republican virtues in individuals? Jefferson says no. I see in blogs a tendency to congregate people into a self-selected "platoon", where they can have practice in civic virtue if other users are willing to call them on comments that Kossacks would troll-rate and I can only call partisan lashon hara.) I take small issue with the final statement that emphasizing that Whig politics is drab, and that irrationality is necessary, does not "revive public virtue". I invoke the name of Rawls, who said that liberalism ("Whiggism", in Beran's terms) cannot prescribe the meaning of life. I also invoke the name of Gershom Scholem who points out that for all the rational religion that goes on to the credit of Judaism, it is kabbalah that provides underlying myths and reasons for people to be shomer mitzvot. Rationality and irrationality complement each other. Beran implies that Jefferson had and used myths of his own. There was the Greek/Roman myth involving fertility magic, the treatment of which Beran concludes by saying, "Art made possible the higher form of order known as love. It supplied the techniques that enabled men to turn what Jefferson called 'eager desire' [the lusts inherent in fertility magic] into something that 'kindles' not the 'senses only' but the 'imagination' as well. These processes changed lust into love, passion into noble architecture, bloody revolution into ordered liberty, and so on." (p. 107, bolding blogger's) That Beran also says that Jefferson is forced to reach this conclusion by the landscape in which he found himself is not a glorification of irrationality. It is saying that the use of irrationality is the imagination ordered by the process that creates love ("ordered imagination" gives you Nazism). Jefferson also used the prophetic myth and the myth of the republic being on the brink of disaster if a strong, centralizing leader such as Hamilton got his way. Jefferson himself became a myth of rationality. Beran does something of a service in emphasizing that this rationality was the product of struggle and shaking hands with irrationality in himself. In any event, individuals can become virtuous because of a myth (religious or political) or because of the rational pursuit of "American principles". The USA is a great country because a good citizen can follow abstract principles, and not necessarily founding myths. With the flood of books on the Founders, we show our commitment to how they understood the principles.

Jonathan Lethem continued

2005-02-11T11:17:00.000-06:00

In an interview in SF Site, Jonathan Lethem observed that The Fortress of Solitude was part of working out his alternate career as a rock critic, and praised Greil Marcus :) Aha!

The Fortress of Solitude

2005-02-11T10:50:00.000-06:00

This book is marvelous. I hope I will give it a chance to change my life. Where has Jonathan Lethem been for all of it? The musical criticism is apt. A scene puts the hero , Dylan Ebdus, at the beginnings of hip-hop at a block party in Brooklyn, and he goes through the next twenty years of rap resenting rappers for being able to talk about their street experiences. This and Robert Woolfolk's extremely tough rap gives an East Coast perspective on the local hip-hop station. (One of my beefs with said local hip-hop station is that it is very tentative to play East Coast hits. Lloyd Banks got arrested there, then was let go. The outlook is Southern, and IMHO there is only so much crunk you can listen to, except at a club. I think Kelefa Sanneh is enamored of crunk because it's exotic there.) Dylan gets out of his bad neighborhood by getting into Stuyvesant, but otherwise is less than the hero of his own life. He represents the "middle space". At the end of the book, he is perhaps ready to be the hero. Music will give him a way out!? If he is still interested in writing his script about the Prisonaires, his actual experience in the prison will be more important than his self-pity. The POV on graffiti is refreshing, too.
The book took more than care of a personal desire to hear a story. I may be able to put off I Am Charlotte Simmons for a while longer. After about 100 pages, I testify that the strength of that book is the desire to hear a story and to know what happens next. (And the savage take on college basketball...) I know from the reviews a few things that happen to Charlotte, but I'm not far enough to know how she rises above the things that happen to her, as I am assured that she does.

Dean as Chair

2005-02-09T11:51:00.000-06:00

In response to M.Simon:
The money Dean raises ought to be independent of the money that Soros raises. (Also, I think Soros is involved with ACT instead of MoveOn.) So the Democratic Party is now "co-owned".
The great strength of Howard Dean is that he can arouse Democratic passion and make it positive. Democrats could retreat, lick our wounds, hate Bush, and post on dKos all day :), or we can start being active in our own party for our state and local candidates. Dean's job is to make the Democrats more representative and more vocal, so that the elitism charge doesn't stick. I also don't believe that, apart from being against the war, Dean is all that liberal. Even conservatives can believe that the way we were taken to war does not pass the smell test, although it was important for the international community to say that Saddam's regime was immoral.
Dean was gracious enough to say in an email that DFA should continue as a grass-roots group.

The Super Bowl

2005-02-09T11:47:00.000-06:00

I knew the Patriots were going to win; my prediction was 10 points. Once again, the Patriots did just enough to win and Donovan McNabb threw wildly at times. I congratulate Terrell Owens for knowing that he could play.

"The Missing Peace"--5 stars

2005-02-09T11:32:00.000-06:00

I have just finished Dennis Ross's "The Missing Peace". The book provides excellent context for the "peace process" that came out of Oslo and the American perspective on it. Ross has no kindness for Arafat whatever (he didn't deserve it, the SOB), and admits that Arafat was "overindulged" by the Clinton administration. He points out in the last chapter a failure of the Bush administration in not being on the ground to support proposals that came out under it, such as the road map, which was designed by the Quartet without working with the parties on how they were going to implement it. This process might have rebuilt trust, although trust in Arafat is ridiculous. The roadmap could be interpreted as what Palestinians and Israelis could do if Arafat was to be trusted. We are also able to see Israeli leaders beyond the vague impressions of them that were possible from the MSM. I had the impression that Barak was "doing his best" from the small attention I paid to his administration. But one can see from this book that, although Barak was willing to take risks for peace that Arafat was not willing to do, he did not always do his best. The issue of giving back some villages, such as Abu Dis, on the outskirts of Jerusalem became very tangled, with Barak delaying his promise to give even one because of political considerations.(In addition, there was considering letting El Al fly on Shabbos! Scandal!) Abu Mazen comes out more or less positive from the book. When he was a negotiator, he worked hard for peace and had creative ideas. Bill Clinton comes out as desperately wanting peace and willing to chastise both sides. Rabin is, of course, the hero of the book.
Possibly more later...

Tova Mirvis strikes back

2005-02-09T11:25:00.000-06:00

Eric Alterman, in another episode of wanderings in the blogverse, has pointed out Tova Mirvis's reply to Wendy Shalit in The Forward. This was a good reply because it emphasized the power of the imagination, and not to worry about what "they" are saying about us. My response was more literal. (I posted it on dKos but it really belongs here.) Tova Mirvis a) created idealistic characters in "The Outside World", notably Bryan/Baruch, and b) has the subject of individuals who worship Judaism as a tradition, but are not worried about closeness to Hashem. These individuals do exist.

More wanderings in the blogverse

2005-02-09T11:13:00.000-06:00

Well, dKos was very slow yesterday, so I visited Matt Yglesias' blog from there. This blog is very good! I was then referred to Power and Control, M. Simon's blog. This blog also has a libertarian, pro-war outlook, and the posts are intelligent. M. Simon is a graduate of University of Chicago! Excellent school! My sister went to the Harris School! Woo hoo! M. Simon claims that Bush is a political genius. Karl Rove has a great deal to do with any political genius Bush has. I could respect Karl Rove as President. There is also my mom's line: "It's all simple aphorisms". Bush is good at putting across simple aphorisms. He is not so good at implementing them. An example from the site is No Child Left Behind. The idea was of a more rigorous education than these kids were getting before. Unfortunately, political realities left who was "proficient" up to the states, and the requirement to be proficient by a short deadline punished the states that had more rigorous standards. (The New York Times: good for something.) NCLB is good if it creates a movement in the states for rigorous standards.
I don't know if this country will reveal its real libertarian nature or not. The Christian Right does not have many libertarian impulses, and they are holding up this administration. Individuals who are disgusted with the Christian Right have the easy option of being Democrats.

Falcons 47, Rams 17

2005-01-16T01:49:00.000-06:00

Wait till next year!

I visit DNC caucus, pretend to be important

2005-01-16T01:44:00.000-06:00

This post has been already diaried on Daily Kos, but I did tell the person at the Missouri Democratic Party that I had my own blog.
Because the caucus switched hotels in the middle of the night, I reached the Airport Marriott at 9:10 am and did not find out that the caucus was at the Hilton until 11 am. (The room was booked for Democrats at 10 am on the meeting screen.) I got to the Hilton at 11:30, in time for the end of the reading of the rules changes but not in time to have breakfast with Dean or Rosenberg. I visited the hospitality suites of Webb, Roemer, and Fowler. I also shook Howard Dean's hand! This was at the end of the forum. I was surprised at the very strong handshake, since he did not know me from a hole in the wall.
The 7 candidates gave opening statements of four minutes, then took questions from the audience. Audience questions fell into the categories of how the candidates would handle the state party chair proposals, how they would encourage diversity. how they would work with the state parties, and two oddballs: how would the DNC counter Bush's appearance in Collinsville, IL to push medical malpractice reform, and what would the candidates do about the primary schedule? (Ahem)
I will give impressions candidate by candidate.
Howard Dean Loudest cheering and applause. Answers are absolutely what we want to hear. In his opening statement, he said that you gain power by giving it away, and by trust. He talked about the West County Democrats who were formed by one activist who was inspired by him--his strongest suit is that he can inspire. He also mentioned that the Democratic constituencies such as labor will be involved in making decisions. Great cheer line: "No more talking points from DC". Another great cheer line: "I'm a doctor, and Bush's malpractice reform plan is a fraud. What we need is insurance reform and finally universal health care". (Only candidate to mention health care!) Line with good applause: "Let's have one set of knockers on doors, not the Democrats, the League of Conservation Voters, ACT etc." He also said that you have to keep running people and backing people, and not be afraid to lose, all the way up to the "county clerk that will count votes, secretary of state, etc." He mentioned his experience as DGA chair, where Democratic governors were elected in the South. Dean is not for regional primaries. He is for as many people getting a chance to vote as possible and not necessarily wrapping up everything by March. (Where did this strategy get us again?) Dean gave the best answer to the question of designing programs for women: he had a female chief of staff; women should design the programs; Democrats are naturally a female-friendly party, and women in red states should not be written off. I am impressed with the energy and intelligence of these answers as I type them.
Donnie Fowler Comes off extremely well in campaign literature, as if has good idea for every Democratic Party problem. Emphasized (also in "interview") that he is the person who has actually been on the ground in 14 states and understands the states'problems. (He was the national Gore field director) Excellent line: "Media is not grass roots. Media is the air war." Also, "Local people know better". Against "aristocracy of consultants" (hear, hear!) Against tired memes of going left/going right, going North/going South. Very articulate. Believes that the party needs a strategy of benchmarking for the state parties and decentralizing the DNC structure and a strategy for redistricting and ballot initiatives. (Well, the redistricting part was obvious.) He supported the ASDC proposal "plus". Fowler is delighted at how progressive young voters are and would give them a role along with the other party constituencies. He also said that state and county parties should have the organizing ability that labor used to have. He emphasized his successes in reaching out to women and religious voters in Michigan and in recruiting diverse delegates in 2000. Fowler is impressed by the educational experience of doing retail politics in Iowa. He suggests a system of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Arizona/New Mexico early to have regional representation without losing the small state experience.
Martin Frost His campaign literature made a much stronger case for him than he did in person. After reading it, I put him in the middle of the pack. The strong points were that he has won in Texas; he has worked to recruit Democrats in Texas; he has worked with the state party; he has headed the DCCC and gained 14 net seats; he is very competitive. Frost considers civil rights, abortion, labor, defense, and faith credentials to be key Democratic values. He thinks that economic issues will bring social conservatives into the party. He will relate to states by letting the state parties keep some of the DNC money, sharing fundraising lists, committing financial resources early, consulting with the state parties about who to hire, encouraging state party plans, and visiting every state. He has worked with southern districts with African-American swing voters to turn them around and has recruited young people. The DNC should be "in the Republicans' face every single day". Frost is waiting for the party commission to make recommendations on the primary schedule.
Danny Leland Came across as nice guy. Has run Ohio Democratic Party and Project Vote, which registered over a million minority voters. Is interested in DCAN, Democratic Community Action Network, where the Democratic Party takes more of a community organizing role and is more involved in listening to people. DCAN can be used to groom candidates. He broke the fundraising record in his state party chair position, and recruited young people, minorities, and women. He came out in favor of more caucuses and fewer primaries, because caucuses help build the party and primaries attract "driveby Democrats" who go to vote for 15 minutes. I thought this was his best point, but the person next to me said that it doesn't matter what the structure is if there's no competition.
Tim Roemer Did not come off well. Had three themes: Democrats should not attack each other by litmus testing ("that's what Karl Rove wants us to do"), Democrats should focus on winning elections, and Democrats can win by focusing on economic issues. He mentioned his 9/11 commission experience, his red state background, and that Pelosi asked him to run. If he gets this defensive among friends, I have low confidence in him against Republicans.
Simon Rosenberg I am glad someone on DKos thinks Rosenberg is "suave and engaging". Sitting next to Dean made him seem comparatively low wattage. He provided voters with a folder full of his press clippings, endorsements, and speeches and DVD of his media. I have a good impression of NDN as an organization that is media savvy and straddles both the left and right sides of the party. (A Fowler staff member complained, "But Simon will only fund New Democrats"). Rosenberg is proud of his efforts to reach Hispanic voters. He believes that Iowa and New Hampshire should not have a lock on the first primaries, but should be grandfathered in. He emphasized in his opening statement that NDN was involved in 48 states, including those that are difficult such as Alaska and Oklahoma; that Democrats won in 33 statewide elections; that Democrats should attract the grass roots, build local infrastructure, and have a strategy desk for the young; and that "opportunity, defense, faith, family, and community" should be Democrats' core values. These core values and common purpose should be the basis of party-state relationships. He also emphasized his experience writing and producing for television, in the Clinton "war room", and bringing in young Democrats and College Democrats. Rosenberg pointed out that married women in central Florida lost the Democrats that state. I think that having run a national campaign puts Rosenberg in a strong position. I think that he is looking for a balance between the national party and the grass roots. A document referred to early training for "academics and bloggers". Huh? These groups are supposed to be independent :)
Wellington Webb Another nice guy. Spoke well about how he has encouraged diversity with the people he has hired. Said that small states and retail politics were important in the primary process, but that candidates will adjust to whatever process there is. He is worried about affirmative action slots in competitive bidding for contracts. His state-national remarks were good: do not think you know everything from being national, wrap national around local and stand behind the state parties with revenue and staff. Hire people that the state parties suggest to you.
After the forum, I visited the hospitality suites.
Webb's suite was absolutely deserted. I talked to him walking down the aisle to the Al Sharpton event. (Sharpton is supporting a candidate for vice chair. I am positive I saw him as I entered the hotel in the lobby.) Webb asked me, "What did you think of the forum?" I said, "Well, you gave the impression of being very serious about diversity. I think Fowler was very strong." I asked him if he had any experience running a national campaign. Webb(hurt): "Well, I ran the Mondale campaign in Illinois and the Carter campaign in Colorado." I then threw him a softball: "Why do you want to be chair?" Webb gave a very eloquent answer about wanting to fight for labor, minorities, and everything the Democrats have traditionally fought for. There being no further questions, I let him go to his event. A staffer said, "Thank you".
Roemer had more attendees. The four or five tables in the lounge filled as the meeting went on. The spread was "comfort food", including ribs, chicken wings, potstickers and sandwiches. Roemer was overheard talking privately about how frustrating his run was and how "DNC members are split into three groups: people who will consider me, people who will consider the idea of a big tent, and people who can't vote for me." A DNC member from Wisconsin was very sympathetic to Roemer, since there are conservatives smack in the middle of her district. Roemer endured four questions, clearly wanting to meet and greet some more people. When asked, "What is positive about you that your critics should know about, besides the issue of the "big tent"?", he answered, "Children and education are very important to me; it's important to educate people for the jobs of tomorrow; I was on the 9/11 commission and understand national defense." (Not accurate quote at all) An eloquent anecdote was about his visit to a prison and how the warden told him that they plan for prisons by how many children are at risk in second grade. Next question: "Do you support NCLB? I forgot." With this acronym spelled out, Roemer explained that he supports the concept but not the way the Bush administration has handled or funded it. Roemer also explained that he is pro-life because children are so important to him and that we should work for a situation where a woman never feels that she has to have an abortion, because no woman wants one. (Good answer! Good answer!)
Fowler talked to me for easily half an hour, after which we exchanged emails and he gave me a button. He had the chair of the state party chairs at his event, whom I was introduced to. Food and drink comprised a bar, plus cheese, fruit, bread, crackers and vegetables. I asked him what "Christian politics" meant to him, since he had identified himself as a person of faith. "Do you mean, "What would Jesus do?"" OK, so he hadn't thought about it. "Well, how would you use Christian language to reach voters?" "The Democratic Party should not be in the business of religious language. I think there are common values in all religions, like Joseph Campbell (do you know him?) and the Democratic Party can use those values. What's really important is that the Republicans are telling people that you cannot be a person of faith and a Democrat, and that they are identifying us as godless, hateful, etc. We have to counter those messages and talk about family, community, hard work." (No more accurate than last quote) We came to a happy agreement that Democrats talk first about policies and do not spend time reaching the heart of the voters: "George Bush won because people thought he stood for what he believed in." "Clinton could reach the heart first." I picked up on Stirling Newberry's idea of a "national vision" and asked, "Can you have a national vision if you want simply to be a liaison for the state parties?" "My job is to be a clearinghouse for the state parties and get them the resources they need, whatever it is. Our national vision is our core Democratic values." I also asked him how he could keep the resources of the ABB donors. "The ABB donors know that Bush is opposite of their vision for America, so I don't see any problem holding on to them." (Do not assume any of these quotations is what he actually said.) Fowler also came out in favor of having many constituencies: DFA, DCAN, other Democratic organizations, etc. and having community elements on state party websites.
After this I watched the Jets go to OT. (Get new field goal kicker!) Two rank and file people had not made up their minds at all.
I see Dean, Rosenberg, and Fowler at the top of the pack. If I had been able to talk to Rosenberg, I might be able to make a better judgment about him and rank the three candidates better. An irrational worry about Dean is that he will only dance with the DFA types that brought him. (But if you want the Democrats to be like DFA, that's perfectly fine.)

Volunteer work disparity

2004-12-07T11:15:00.000-06:00

I saw in the research published in the NYT that Republicans are about 35% more likely than the average American to do volunteer work and that Democrats are about 20% less likely. This is worrisome. Democrats should be aware of the limits of civil society in practice to counter the accusation that they don't know about the problems they want government to solve. (Admittedly, many Democrats are teachers, health care workers etc.)

St. Louis County turnout

2004-12-07T11:12:00.000-06:00

80.09%, the highest ever. Voters should take a bow.

Iraq as state of nature

2004-12-07T11:08:00.000-06:00

I briefly saw that Jon Lee Anderson was arguing in the New Yorker that deBaathification has made Iraq less stable. I realize that with the lack of institutions that can impose force, Iraq is the state of nature! Hobbes was right that it can really exist. Either that or it is a failed state. I think that the Americans have responsibility to make sure the same guys do not come to power and the Iraqis are just as badly off as before.

Happy Chanukah

2004-12-07T11:07:00.000-06:00

To all my seven readers.

A gift for the Rams

2004-12-07T11:02:00.000-06:00

Dallas beat Seattle on Testaverde's pass to Keyshawn Johnson where his elbow hit out of bounds before his knee did. Thank you to John Madden and Al Michaels for pointing this out. I am sorry that MNF is suffering in the ratings because these guys are an absolute pleasure to listen to. On the "Desperate Housewives" scandal, they probably should not have aired it, but people should know there are always 10 minutes of chatter before the game.

Rams are in 6th place

2004-12-05T18:53:00.000-06:00

Through absolutely no fault of their own.

Giants 7, Washington 31

2004-12-05T18:49:00.000-06:00

And it just gets worse.

Wanderings in the blogverse

2004-12-05T10:24:00.000-06:00

Bring back Kurt!
I actually watched 20 minutes of college football. I hope that USC gets in so I will have someone to root for. This whole situation seems to call out for a playoff. The past two years we had three legitimate contenders for the national championship. The Auburn team looks very professional. Pitt won the Big East! Yea!
The NYT featured a review of Stephen King and partner's book on the Red Sox season. I actually smiled!
Referred from Instapundit, I visited Bill Whittle's site and Cold Fury. These sites are worth visiting since the authors are not sheep Republicans (Mike said that he thought Bush was "too damn liberal" the last time). I agree that Iraq could be said to be part of the war on terrorism since Saddam Hussein was an example of the undemocratic regimes in the Arab world and he was supporting terrorism by sending checks to suicide bombers' families. Part of the war on Al Qaeda, however, is dubious. I am reading Plan of Attack(yes, I should have done it before the election). I am not sure there is anything really juicy in it, but for those of us against the war, it can reinforce that Bush was living in a fantasy world. I also realized a solution to Lewis Lapham's pointing out a contradiction between "a limited government and an imperial army". A limited government means faith in sovereign individuals. An imperial army is an expression of sovereign individualism since there is limited international government to restrain it. Also, a legitimate function of government for almost everyone is to stop the threat of force so the sovereign individuals can trust each other. However, I don't think the Founders meant us to have an "imperial army". They were even suspicious of a standing army.
I was so depressed after these two blogs I visited Daily Kos. I felt in a warm bath of support and felt very despondent that my little blog could accomplish anything. I signed up. Stephanie Dray's post was very illuminating because it assumed that Americans would automatically see through Bush for the sake of an ideal America. Unfortunately, many Americans seem to have the attitude that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and their enemy is the fashionable, amoral liberals or leftists(France could be painted in this light). (Thanks, Tom Wolfe. I am not sure if I can still link to you. The interview was in The Guardian.) This is very sad because there are plenty of passionately moral liberals out there. So, anything the amoral leftists support cannot be ideal on its face. They can also argue that liberalism has to be cynical because it assumes that the government needs to do for people what they can do for themselves. (I don't really agree. The government has moral responsibilities to establish justice as a representative of the people.) I also had the impression out here that I was in a situation of traditional Jewish politics vs. Christian politics and Israel-centered Jewish politics. I am not able to have an opinion yet about what a theologically sound Christian politics should be. I was heartened to see Christian posters expressing strong belief in a liberal America not too different from my own. My husband expressed two Bush supporter beliefs. He said that he wanted someone who "knew when to pull the trigger" and that Arafat's death was a consequence of choosing Bush because he was now completely irrelevant. In a vain attempt to find a silver lining, I remembered someone's comments on Dennis Ross when he visited our town. The person said, "Ross just wanted to have a deal, not worrying whether it would be safe for Israel." Kerry in this situation may have been tempted just to have a deal.
I also visited Baraita. Very nice blog.

About Me

2004-11-22T11:18:00.000-06:00

I named myself "blueenclave" because I live in one. St. Louis County, Missouri went strongly for Kerry and even more strongly for McCaskill(governor). Jackson County (Kansas City) torpedoed Kerry in this state because he was running very closely there. The Bush coattails put Blunt over the top, since with a small amount of examination he could not have got there himself. The awful ads were enough to punish him with. Democrats came out to elect Charlie Dooley, our first African American county executive. The county is among the largest in the country and is composed entirely of suburbs. There are strongly Democratic areas and strongly Republican areas. St. Charles County is also strongly Republican and could be defined as "exurban". So if I want to visit Red America I only have to go 20 miles.
The Washington Witness has nurtured my libertarian streak over the years. However, I don't believe that the market is always right. I think that government regulation and law is important to encourage ethical behavior by a corporation as it encourages ethical behavior by individuals.
Some of the "moral values" involved in this election have me shaking my head. I have a sister who married her fiancee in Canada but I can see why people are uneasy with gay marriage. I can even see why people think that abortion is such an egregious sin that they will just vote on that issue. As pointed out in Eugene McCarraher in The New Pantagruel, first issue, a "culture of life" is not a culture of war. Many conservatives are so comfortable with military images of life that they will sign on to any war, cultural, military or otherwise, without thinking it through. This is a danger for our country.
Our country was established to protect the liberties of the people. If a president takes us into a righteous war but threatens the liberties of the people, then we should reject him. Although some of our founders may have used Christian faith to support classical liberal beliefs, these beliefs are the reason our country exists and is strong. The First Amendment says that we should not have a religious establishment or a religious test; therefore, for a president to be commanded to do what a king of Israel ought to do (such as destroy idolatry), or to promote Christian values rather than to act on them, is illegitimate. For a president to use Christian values to make a policy based on false assumptions is just as bad.

A frustrating day in the NFL

2004-11-22T11:13:00.000-06:00

Bring back Kurt! Eli can work out his kinks when it is even more obvious the Giants are going nowhere.