Friday morning reading
I’m actually going to do paying work today, following a three week hiatus caused by both the decision and a miserable series of viruses. As is so often the case, though, there’s lots of good stuff out there that I will recommend, and I’m always happy when you add to that in the comments.
I’ll start with things I thought of (and said) myself, but that get richer, better treatment from other writers:
Yesterday, I mentioned that a society’s treatment of its Jews is an accurate barometer of the society’s own health. Michael Gerson says the same thing, only better: “But we do know that anti-Semitism has always been a kind of test — a reliable measure of a nation’s moral and social health. When the rights of Jews are violated, all human rights are insecure. When Jews and Jewish institutions are targeted, all minorities have reason for fear. And by this standard, America has cause for introspection.”
Also, yesterday I said that, politically, there’s the Left, there’s the Right, and there are the Loonies, with the Holocaust Museum killer falling into that category. He drew the worst from all party ideologies, and wove them into a justification for racial murder. Jonah Goldberg thinks as I do, and adds a healthy dose of disdain for those in the media trying to foist this killing onto conservatives.
And now on to stuff I hadn’t thought of:
Front Page Magazine provides a short course in the futility, really, of arguing directly with liberals, especially academics. You provide the facts, they provide the lies and the argument. The arguments still matter, though, because people on the sidelines might be able to figure out that there’s actually a difference between the two sides, and that they like our side better.
Rick sarcastically titles this post “Your government at work.” It could be more accurately titled “Your government doesn’t work.” Surprisingly, it’s a Dem making the bureaucrat sweat here. Perhaps he’s a good guy; perhaps he’s digging for evidence of Bush/Cheney malfeasance. Either way, he’s revealing the innards of the sausage.
We keep working, because we never know what pebble will turn the tide. In Pakistan, that pebble may have been the video of the young girl being whipped for allegedly being seen walking with a man. It’s ironic that, for a people subject to bombings, beheadings, and war, this was the last straw. Never give up. Nevert abandon an argument. All of them count, and there are tipping points. (And you will pardon all the mixed metaphors, I hope.)
Wear a good hat, because the pigs are flying: NOW has stepped up to defend the Palin family against Letterman’s “humor.” Next step for NOW? Recognizing that sharia law and attitudes are more of a threat to women than George Bush was.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that, during the campaign season, I was obsessed with Obama’s lies. These weren’t subtle lies. These were out-and-out, “proven false by contemporaneous video” lies. And as Victor Davis Hanson shows, once a liar, always a liar. The other constant, aside from Obama’s lies, is the media’s willingness to let those lies go unchallenged.
If anything saves the Jewish people, it may be the Arab psyche. Arabs really can’t all get along. This is not knew to me. Back in the 1970s, my parents had many Arab friends (mainly Christian Arabs). I remember one woman telling me that, if you had three Arabs and a plate with food on it, they’d fall into a death fight over whether the plate held cakes, cookies or tarts.
And to wrap things up, Zo and Steven Crowder make sure you understand just how horrible Republicans really are:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_WXv06Xsjs[/youtube]
