From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The
Kids Are Alright
College students got some bad press last month, with the release of a poll
conducted by the Luntz Research Cos. for the group Americans for Victory Over
Terrorism. "Only 16% believe Western culture is superior to Arab culture,"
the poll found, "but 79% do not," and 37% said they would be "likely
to try to evade the draft."
So, are today's college students a bunch of unpatriotic little weasels? No, argues blogger Howard Fienberg. Fienberg dismisses out of hand the draft question as "purely hypothetical": "With there having been little public debate on the issue and the pollsters providing absolutely no context to the question, students' opinions probably have not yet been formed. Therefore, the answers don't mean much at all." He also points out a lot of positives in the poll results:
- 62.9% agreed that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is "moral," vs. only 21.4% who disagreed.
- 72.2% agreed the Afghan war is "just"; a mere 15.3% disagreed.
- 58.4% supported "the development of a missile defense system."
- 66.8% said America has "the right to invade Iraq," and 78.4% said America has "the right to overthrow Saddam Hussein."
- 83.2% agreed that there "is good and there is evil" and there "is right and there is wrong."
- 62.6% agreed that "despite its flaws, the United States is the best country in the world."
How does one square that last result with the 79% who denied that Western culture is superior to Arab culture? The answer probably is that the latter is a much less polite way of saying the same thing. Teachers and professors drum into young people a political etiquette in which it's bad form to assert their own culture's superiority or to single out an ethnic group for criticism. This is not entirely a bad thing, though it does sometimes lead to the denial of the obvious. But in any case, the worst that can be said about many of today's college students is that they accept too uncritically what those in authority tell them. If there's a real problem here, it is with those in authority.
Re
Made an Ass of Ermself
The New York Times portrays Mike Newdow, the California crackpot who sued to
declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. It turns out in addition
to being a militant atheist, he's a feminist wacko:
He does not understand, for example, why the English language allows itself anything so cumbersome and awkward as masculine and feminine pronouns. The Mike Newdow dictionary would replace "he" and "she" with "re," "his" and "hers" with "rees" and "him" and "her" with "erm."
"Come on, try it out," he says. " 'Re went to the store.' It's easy."
He's also an antifeminist wacko, thanks to a bitter custody dispute. "Television reporters still looking for sound bites on the pledge from Mr. Newdow would be well advised to steer clear of asking about his real obsession," the Times helpfully offers. "As he himself warns, 'I could go on about family law for days.' " He objects to courts that take account of "the best interests of the child," which he says is "arbitrary and indefinable" and subject to "no valid measurements."
Meanwhile, a playground fight has broken out on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Newdow won his case last week. The Associated Press reports that Stephen says Alfred stayed his ruling because Mary told him to, but Alfred says he did it all by himself and Mary had nothing to do with it, and Mary is in such a huff she won't even talk about it.
(Judge Alfred Goodwin, who wrote the decision; Judge Stephen Reinhardt joined it, and Mary Schroeder is chief judge of the Ninth Circuit.)
Where's
Smartertimes.com When You Need It?
An embarrassing error in a New York Times editorial today: "The Bush administration's
misguided campaign to demolish the International Criminal Court now threatens
to undermine United Nations peacekeeping too, starting with Bosnia," it
begins.
Of course, this should read: "The European Union's misguided campaign to establish the International Criminal Court now threatens to undermine United Nations peacekeeping too, starting with Bosnia."
Arafat
to America: Drop Dead
"Groups affiliated with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's
Fatah movement yesterday called upon all Palestinian organizations, including
the Islamic movements, to attack Zionist and American targets everywhere in
response to US efforts "to remove the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian
people," the Jerusalem Post reports:
Fatah's military wing, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, issued a statement yesterday in which it threatened "to strike at Zionist and American interests and installations" in Israel and throughout the world if the United States maintains its opposition to Arafat.
Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
President Bush suggested in a speech last week that the Palestinians should replace Arafat. Jimmy Carter, for his part, would like to replace America.
Great Minds Think Alike
"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter,"--Stephen Jukes, Reuters
"Terrorism is like beauty, it is in the eyes of the beholder."--Zacarias Moussaoui, alleged "20th hijacker"
You
Don't Say--I
"Study Warns of Stagnation in Arab Societies"--headline, New York
Times, July 2
You
Don't Say--II
"Al Qaeda May Be Planning Attacks"--headline, CNN.com, July 2
Our
Friends the Pakistanis
"A week-long investigation" by the Christian Science Monitor has "uncovered
evidence that Al Qaeda and an array of militant affiliate groups are prospering
inside Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, with the tacit approval of Pakistani intelligence":
Pakistan's guerrilla war to liberate Indian Kashmir has been largely delegated to an array of holy warriors. Critics say that this "privatization" of the war allows the Pakistani government to continue to support its interest in recapturing Kashmir while denying any official government responsibility for armed attacks inside Indian Kashmir.
The Monitor quotes Mohammad Muslim, the ISI's regional chief, who claims: "The U.S. government destroyed the World Trade Center so that it would have an excuse to destroy Afghanistan. After that, the U.S. military killed tens of thousands of women and children in Afghanistan."
Pakistani
Justice
"A Pakistani tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang-raped
in order to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a girl
from a higher class tribe," the Associated Press reports from Multan, Pakistan:
According to the victim, the Mastoi tribe demanded punishment after her 11-year-old brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a Mastoi girl in a deserted part of the village. The boy and his sister are from the lower class Gujar tribe.
The Mastoi tribe called a meeting of the tribal council, which ordered the girl to be raped to avenge their tribal honor. The teen-ager said she was taken to a hut and assaulted as hundreds of Mastois stood outside laughing and cheering.
The AP notes drily that "Pakistan has a tradition of tribal justice in which crimes or affronts to dignity are punished outside the framework of Pakistani law." That's a hell of an understatement. What kind of barbarians restore their "honor" by raping a woman who wasn't even responsible for the purported offense?
Great
Moments in Bureaucracy
Remember Buniah al-Saud? She's the Saudi princess who, as we noted
in December, was arrested and charged with beating her Indonesian maid.
Now, the New York Times reports, it looks as though Buniah is going to walk,
and she has the U.S. government to thank:
Through her lawyer, Princess Buniah will be allowed to plead no contest to a misdemeanor charge of battery, pay a $1,000 fine and give a judge a letter of regret about injuries to her Indonesian maid in the incident.
The maid, Ismiyati Soryono, whom the prosecutors had subpoenaed to testify against the princess, cannot be in court. After she went home to Jakarta in May for her mother's funeral, the United States Embassy there denied her a visa to return to Florida and testify on the grounds that she might try to stay in this country illegally. . . .
After her plea to the misdemeanor charge, Princess Buniah, 41, will again be eligible to apply for a tourist visa to travel to the United States. Because of her wealth and family ties, immigration experts said, she is unlikely to be denied a visa on the grounds that she might try to immigrate illegally.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free--and we'll let the Saudis kick their butts.
Stupidity Watch
Tom
Cruise says he's had it with America. "I think the U.S. is terrifying and
it saddens me," Fox News quotes him as telling the British Daily Express. "I
do worry about my children. As a parent you are always concerned. I just want
them to be in a place where they are going to be strong enough to make the right
choices. Unfortunately, we're in a position where people are so irresponsible
that human life holds such little value to them."
He says he may pack up the kids and move them to Australia, ex-wife Nicole Kidman's native land. "Witchcraft is the fastest-growing religion in Australia," reports the Melbourne Herald Sun. The 2001 Aussie census found 9,000 witches down under, an increase of 350% in just five years.
John Hagelin certainly keeps busy. He heads Iowa's Maharishi University of Management and unsuccessfully challenged Pat Buchanan for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination. Now has a plan for peace in the Middle East: "If the square root of 1 percent of the population regularly practice Transcendental Meditation (TM) techniques in a group, the wave effect of calm will eventually halt terrorism," he tells the Jerusalem Post. That's a pretty tall order, considering that the square root of 1% is 10%.
Yesterday we noted Pakistani sports officials' boorishly anti-Semitic response to one of their countrymen playing at Wimbledon with an Israeli doubles partner. Harvey Araton, a New York Times sportswriter, manages to attack America in writing about the story:
It is no difficult task, then, to ridicule the complaining Pakistanis, but it is also fair to wonder if Americans who still prefer patriotic fervor to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" would have cheered one of their own teaming with an Afghan last fall, or how the Israeli public, which has taken no issue this time, would respond to Hadad [the Israeli player] and a Palestinian of choice.
In truth, such a gesture of peace and friendship would be unremarkable in either America or Israel, and it's very unlikely that it would be greeted with hostility in either country.
Hooray
for Mayor Bloomberg
Life in New York just got a little easier. No longer will residents of tiny
Manhattan apartments have to separate glass and plastic containers from other
garbage. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council have abolished glass and
plastic recycling, which was costing the city $40 million a year. (Metal and
paper are still recycled.)
Now if only Albany would repeal the law requiring a five-cent deposit on soda cans and bottles--a law that gives bums an incentive to foul the sidewalks by rooting through garbage bags in search of containers to redeem.
Disoriented
in Seattle
A new Washington state law bans the word Oriental in statutes, codes,
rules and regulations. Actually, the law does allow references to Oriental rugs
or Oriental food, but not to Oriental people, who henceforth are deemed "Asian."
The law's only actual effect is to change a law requiring the solicitation of
minority contractors to build city water mains. The law read: "Minority group
members include, but are not limited to, blacks, women, native Americans, Orientals,
Eskimos, Aleuts and Spanish Americans." For good measure, state Sen. Paull Shin
changed "Spanish Americans" to "Hispanics."
These Twins Aren't Identical
"Thousands of Minnesotans Hit Their Welfare Deadline"--headline, Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 1
"Welfare Cutoff to Hit 350 Families"--headline, St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 30
And
the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon
A pair of inmates escaped from Cameron County, Texas' new $19 million "maximum
security detention facility" using plastic spoons, The Brownsville Herald
reports:
After picking the lock to the broom-storage closet inside the cell or pod where the inmates were held, Hinojosa said it appears they opened a utility panel on the inside wall of the closet and entered a crawl space.
They made their way into the ceiling and roof through the ventilation system, removing aluminum louvers from the ducts and pounding loose several bars. The two then jumped from the two-tiered roof of the high security facility.
Police insist the escapees aren't dangerous, though one of them faces charges including aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault. Says County Commissioner Carlos Cascos: "Spoons? Imagine what they can do with a fork."
Where's
PETA When You Need It?
"A male baboon who died Friday was killed after a fight with another baboon
in the Virginia Zoo's African exhibit," the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.
"Zoo marketing director Tammy Lindquist said Tommy, one of three male baboons,
was likely killed by JoJo, the dominant male in the group. Tommy died soon after
the Friday morning fight, she said."
Don't these primates have any respect for animal rights?
What
a Relief
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has, you'll pardon the pun, passed an
ordinance banning public urination and defecation. We held
our nose and noted the absence of such a law yesterday.
Maybe they should buy repeat offenders a one-way ticket to London and direct them to the Tate Gallery, which, the Telegraph reports, has just spent £22,300 (about $34,500) of taxpayer money to purchase "the canned faeces of Piero Manzoni, one of Italy's most controversial artists":
Can 004 is one of an "edition" of 90 tins of merda d'artista created by Manzoni in 1961 as an ironic statement on the art market. Each can contained 30 grams of his faeces and Manzoni sold it for the same price as if it were gold. . . .
"The Manzoni was a very important purchase for an extremely small amount of money: nobody can deny that," said a spokesman for the gallery.
"He was an incredibly important international artist. What he was doing with this work was looking at a lot of issues that are pertinent to 20th-century art, like authorship and the production of art. It was a seminal work."
We could understand if the Tate spokesman mistook the Manzoni piece for Shinola, but he's really confused if he thinks this is a "seminal" work.
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Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Greens go up in smoke. Will sensible forest policies rise from the ashes?
- Tom Bray: Big challenges lie ahead for the school-choice movement.
- Kim Strassel: I'm glad the World Cup is over. And I like soccer.
