The Bookworm Beat — 08/28/14 comprehensive round-up (and Open Thread)

Woman writingDespite my rather chronic worries about the state of our nation and the state of our world, I seldom have nightmares. Last night, though, I had a doozy. It was short, vivid, and had me waking dripping with sweat. I dreamed that my son and I got off a bus in San Francisco only to find ourselves surrounded by Muslim teenagers who proceeded to beat my son to death.

When I awoke, I calmed myself by looking around my peaceful home and said out loud, “That can’t happen here.” But of course it can happen here. It can happen anywhere that radical Islamists — who are incredibly proud of their slaughters — get their tentacles.

It shouldn’t happen here, in the country we once thought of as the “land of the free and the home of the brave” but not only are we rather quickly ceding our freedom to the federal government, a nation that’s terrified of letting children play in parks or of candy in schools really can’t be considered very brave any more.

In this, the beginning of the 21st century, it’s even more likely to happen here because we have an administration head by a man who manifestly feels an affinity for Islam, and encourages his government to do the same.

And now for your regularly scheduled round-up:

The moral inversion of Israel hatred

Six million Jews died at Nazi hands. Those European Jews who survived suffered horribly: exile, torture, imprisonment, slave labor, etc. Because the oldest hatred never dies, the anti-Semites of the world have found a new use for this apocalyptic tragedy. After decades of denying the Holocaust, they’re now kind of acknowledging that it happened, solely so that they can liken Jews to Nazis.

Martin Kramer explains the phenomenon of “Holocaust Inversion,” which is making its way to an over-priced, over-subsidized college campus near you. I’ll share with you his conclusion in case you don’t have time to read the whole thing:

There is such a thing as legitimate criticism of Israel, and there is such a thing as crossing the line into demonization and, to put it plainly, Jew-baiting. The analogies spewed by Columbia’s tenured professors are of the latter kind, and are obscene. Jew-baiting covers a wider range than anti-Semitism, and Holocaust inversion is its favorite technique. Jew-baiting is the demand that Israel and its supporters explain why Gaza isn’t like a Nazi extermination camp or a starved ghetto for the doomed, or why a targeted air campaign isn’t just like the incineration of Dresden. That it should be practiced so openly by tenured professors at New York’s Ivy League home is a scandal, and a warning.

The IDF’s comprehensive site with information about Operation Protective Edge

In this, the first war that has seen the IDF circumvent hostile reporters and communicate directly with the public through the web and social media, the IDF has done a consistently excellent job using the these new media. A good example is its comprehensive Operation Protective Edge information site.

And yes, Obama hates Israel

Peter Wehner tries desperately hard to be a temperate, rational voice over at Commentary. Not for him reflexive Obama criticisms.

Wehner’s growing problem, though, is that Obama deserves a lot of those criticisms. Thankfully, Wehner is honest enough to recognize when criticism is due, and man enough to make it. Recently, he’s started acknowledging that Obama’s conduct towards Israel is not just part of some overarching Progressive game plan but, in fact, rests on a solid bed of real dislike for that tiny, beleaguered nation:

In a neighborhood featuring Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, just to name a few of the actors, President Obama was “enraged” at … Israel. That’s right, Israel–our stalwart ally, a lighthouse of liberty, lawfulness, and human rights in a region characterized by despotism, and a nation filled with people who long for peace and have done so much for so long to sacrifice for it (including repeatedly returning and offering to return its land in exchange for peace).

Yet Mr. Obama–a man renowned for his lack of strong feelings, his emotional equanimity, his disengagement and distance from events, who New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd refers to as “Spock” for his Vulcan-like detachment–is not just upset but “enraged” at Israel.

Maybe Obama would like Israel more if he understood history better

Today, I have a twofer on Obama’s ignorance about all things historical. Both posts allude not just to Obama’s ignorance, but to his complacent belief that, if you just sit back and do nothing, the mere fact that we’re living in the 21st century means that good will inevitably triumph, without any requirement for action from the world’s good people.

Victor Davis Hanson phrases it this way:

Obama often parrots Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice. But King used that metaphor as an incentive to act, not as reassurance that matters will follow an inevitably positive course.

Another of Obama’s historical refrains is his frequent sermon about behavior that doesn’t belong in the 21st century. At various times he has lectured that the barbarous aggression of Vladimir Putin or the Islamic State has no place in our century and will “ultimately fail” — as if we are all now sophisticates of an age that has at last transcended retrograde brutality and savagery.

In Obama’s hazy sense of the end of history, things always must get better in the manner that updated models of iPhones and iPads are glitzier than the last.

The Streetwise Professor, meanwhile, says that Obama’s speech after James Foley’s death reveals the “progressive dialectic” that props up Obama’s belief system:

Obama’s progressivism, in many senses of the word, shines through here. According to Obama, ISIS is an atavism that is destined for extinction, because it does not fit into the 21st century. Through some sort of (unstated) dialectical process, such people “ultimately fail.” Humanitarians prevail, as the world progresses to higher and higher states of development and consciousness. This is profoundly ahistorical. Atavistic forces have repeatedly toppled far superior civilizations.

What Obama’s vacations really mean

Conservatives have harped for years about Obama’s vacations — their scope, frequency, frivolity, and expense. Periodically, Leftists will announce that Bush and Reagan vacationed more frequently and at greater expense. I don’t know if these claims are true and neither do I care.  Instead, my visceral feelings about Obama’s vacations is that they are too showy, frequent, and costly for a nation in a recession and a nation at war. There was and is something indecent about them. Matthew Continetti feels the same way and has written a really marvelous article expanded on that feeling.

Foley was not the saint he’s painted as being

Nothing, absolutely nothing, excuses ISIS’s heinous execution of James Foley. Still, it’s worth knowing who he was and, I’m sorry to say, he may not have been the saint he’s portrayed as being.

According to Daniel Greenfield, who provides the evidence to back up his charges, Foley was a Leftist activist masquerading as a journalist. His unswerving support for Sunnis against Shias in Syria’s civil war blinded him to the evils of both. Along the way, as his Twitter feed shows, he was hostile to America’s effort to contain Islamic terrorism and cold to the slaughter of Christians:

Foley came to Syria to support the Sunni Islamist rebels against the Syrian government. He was a vehement advocate and while he didn’t necessarily side with any single group, he echoed the one sided narrative rather than telling the truth about the Islamists. His Twitter feed was full of urgings to arm the Jihadists.

Meanwhile he sneered at America’s War on Terror.

He cheered on the Sunni Muslim terrorists fighting to ethnically cleanse the Christians of Aleppo. In the conflict between Israel and Hamas, his tweets and retweets were chock full of pro-Sunni Syrian terrorist propaganda.

Given the above, it should come as no surprise that Foley also supported Hamas over Israel.

Haters got to hate

Andrew Klavan is back with a video helping conservatives understand some of the Leftists’ favorite catch-phrases. You’ll enjoy it.

The only problem I have with the video is that Klavan didn’t include the word “hater” in the list. I freely admit to being a “hater.” Indeed, I think more people should be “haters.” It’s not the fact that you hate; it’s those you choose to hate.

I hate ISIS and other radical Islamist groups and their members. I hate pedophiles. I hate finding black widows in my house. I’m a hater, but I’m a smart, focused hater.  Where I differ from Democrats is that, within the American political system, I strongly disagree with what they advocate and do but, unlike them, I do not “hate” my political opponent.

Hater world leader teenage girl

Oh, and before I forget, here’s the Klavan video:

And let’s be honest for once about who the real racists too often are

While we’re on the subject of racists, you have to see this video, in which a couple of conservatives turn the table on a Latin American reporter looking for racism.

Also on the subject of hate, you have to see the article about the Democrat newspaper that someone let slip past a photo of Asian Americans with made-up racist names that would have worked perfectly in any Hollywood film or newspaper from the 1870s through the 1930s. I suspect that a crew of juvenile Leftists working at the paper were playing around and, before they could correct their little bit of fun, the issue ran.

The fact is that Democrats hate Asians because Asians put the lie to Leftist myths about white tyranny oppressing non-white peoples. Asians also kill the myth that growing up in the slums means generations in the slums without government help. And of course, they destroy the myth that growing up in a poor neighborhood means you’ll be a psychopathic gang banger. Asians, in turn, respond to this race hatred by worshiping the Democrat Party’s assurance that Asians are victims of white hegemony and must vote for big government to protect themselves.  In other words, just like Jews, Asians are the world’s smartest dumb people (or the world’s dumbest smart people?).

Fear of being called racist allows British town to ignore hundreds of pedophile abuse crimes

Back when I lived in England, Yorkshire, unlike large swaths of Southern England, was very, very English. There weren’t even many tourists there.

That’s all changed, of course. Thanks to Labour’s open door policy for the Muslim parts of the former British Empire, Yorkshire has morphed in Little Pakistan. Combine this influx of hard core Muslims with Britain’s politically correct culture and you get a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale: Social workers in the medieval south Yorkshire town of Rotherham closed their eyes to more than 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse because the abusers were Muslims, and the social workers were afraid they’d be labeled as racists if they acted to protect the children.

This evil has been exposed in only one Yorkshire town. You don’t have to be psychic to know that it happened in many others too.

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Europe may simply be damned

In France, 10% or so of the population is Muslim. I assume that 100% of that 10% is part of the 1 in 6 French people who support ISIS. That still leaves 6% of the non-Muslim French population that supports ISIS just because….

I truly think Europe is damned. That is, without even the excuse of themselves being Muslims, significant numbers of Europeans support an ideological/political/military entity that is, as Jonah Goldberg insists we admit, “evil.”

Class warfare rhetoric breeds hatred

I’m not actually sure that class warfare rhetoric had anything to do with the horrible scene described at a WalMart that was accepting Kiwani’s and Salvation Army vouchers for school supplies for poor children. It’s just that I cannot think of any other thing to describe the dishonesty and ingratitude that the Lonely Libertarian witnessed.

The Justice Department may have a problem arguing that Michael Brown was “executed.”

Eric Holder has chosen to fling himself into the Ferguson uproar on the side of Michael Brown, never mind that Holder made this decision immediately, without benefit of any actual facts. As facts are emerging, Holder may regret his hasty decision. Why?  Because in a shooting with a bullet-in-corpse pattern remarkably similar to the Michael Brown case, Holder and his team argued vociferously that there was nothing execution-y about even a shot to the top of the head.

When it comes to corporations, I agree with both the Left and the Right

One of the things Leftists like to point out about American corporations when conservatives raise the issue of inordinately high taxes is the fact that corporations get so many taxpayer subsidies. On this one, both the Left and the Right are correct. Subsidies put the government’s heavy, often wrong, thumb on the scale and lead to cronyism and monopolies. And heavy taxes chase away businesses, wealth, and jobs. We should therefore do away with both of them says Stan Collender.

Yeah, the media hates us (Republicans, that is)

There’s a reason Ed Driscoll is one of the premier media analysts in the conservative blogosphere — he’s good at what he does, helped by an incredible knowledge base about the American media.

Today’s evidence of that truth is a flashback to a time when media members were as open in their condescension towards Americans and their disdain for Leftists as they are today, with the difference being that there was no internet to disseminate their attitudes to all Americans.

The safest school in America

In Argyle, Texas, the school district is arming its teachers and making that fact well-known:

Argyle Texas arms teachers

I’d be surprised if there’s ever a mass shooting at an Argyle, Texas, school.

Pigs fly moment on San Francisco public radio

San Francisco’s public radio and TV channels are notoriously Leftist. I mean, what can you expect when you combine San Francisco and public media? That’s why a conservative woman I know almost crashed her car the other day when she tuned into Michael Krasny’s notoriously Left-leaning forum, and heard a spirited discussion in which host and panel took turns excoriating Obama’s conduct regarding ISIS.

Just to confirm that the show really was hostile to Obama, just peruse the comments from an audience accustomed to tuning into the KQED radio and hearing the usual Progressive mix of Obama and Muslim worship, along with Republican and Israel hatred:

Forget the ice bucket challenge. I have the Michael KRASNY Challenge: Invite the eminent foreign policy analyst John Mearsheimer on to your program!! If it is a foreign policy issue, he can speak to it in depth, in plain yet scholarly language, and it is a view you are apparently never exposed to. Try it some day Michael!! Please?

[And in response to the above, another commenter said:] And Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal, with Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor

***

IMO we in the US shouldn’t be supporting any regime or movement that doesn’t first endorse and implement gay marriage.

(That last was my personal favorite, because it shows someone figuring out that Islamists and their countries are not user-friendly.  I may not support gay marriage — preferring that states do civil unions only, leaving marriage to religion — but I do not support regimes that routinely marginalize, torture and execute gays either — and that would be all sharia regimes.)

A new challenge, even better than the ALS one (and one that wastes less water and harms no one):

(I was not surprised to learn that the man issuing the challenge is a Marine.)

Shop for the stuff you need and help the NRA at the same time

I ought to be telling you to shop at Amazon using a Bookworm Room link, but I recognize that doing so is convenient and, honestly, it doesn’t bring me a lot of money. Here’s a better thing to do if you’re an Amazon shopper: Shop through a portal set up so that, that every time you make a purchase, Amazon donates a portion of that purchase to the NRA. Yes, you heard that right. I honestly don’t know how it managed to do so, but the NRA is enrolled in the Amazon Smile program. Under that program, shoppers can set up their account so a fraction of every purchase is given to their designated Amazon Smile charity.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Log on to the Amazon Smile page.

2. Click on Your Account to the right of the search bar.

3. Under Settings category: Select Change Your Charity

4. Search for “The NRA Foundation, Inc.”

5. Click Select next to The NRA Foundation, Inc.

6. Start shopping.

(Not to detract from the NRA, but using that same “Amazon Smile” portal, you can also give other America friendly charities such as Wounded Warrior.)

I get the free speech aspect; I just don’t get what the joke was

The University of Oregon charged a student with all sorts of speech crimes after she spotted a couple walking past her window on a summer’s day and yelled “I hit it first.” The gal claimed it was a joke, but the couple (or some bystanders) took offense. After a blast of publicity, UO backed down, which is a good thing.

I fully understand the basic facts, but there are two things I don’t get. How is yelling out “I hit it first” a joke? And why would anyone find that joke or phrase offensive? Please explain.

The Caped Crusader picture round-up

(With help this time from Sadie and from Earl.)

Waking up Obama

A beheading for Obama's attention

NSA collects data IRS loses it

Honor killing war on women

People never flee the united states

Ice bucket challenge 183 times

Women and the imaginary wage gap

Lincoln on the constitution

Democrat billionaires

Liberal logic re cops

Muslims and minority rights

It depends who kills Hamas

Obama priorities

Kurdish women fight for real women's rights

Muslim extremists

Obama and golf

rich on racisn