Impromptus by Jay Nordlinger on National Review Online

Impromptus by Jay Nordlinger on National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com Impromptus en-us © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved webmaster@nationalreview.com (NRO Webmaster) Wed, 16 May 2012 15:46:04 -0400 Wed, 16 May 2012 15:46:04 -0400 NRO RSS Generator v1.0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 5 http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/nro_rsslogo.jpg Impromptus by Jay Nordlinger on National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com 144 80 National Review Online The scarlet ‘R,’ &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/438995/the-scarlet-r-c/jay-nordlinger A letter popped up the other day. I will reproduce it in toto and verbatim: <blockquote> Mr. Nordlinger, Read your comment about racism being dead in this country. Sir you are delusional and out of touch with reality, at best. </blockquote> What was this strange fellow, or gal (wasn’t clear), talking about? I will tell you, if you’re interested. #ad#Last March, on the day “Obamacare” was passed, I received a letter from a reader. He said he had been struck by two stories in the national news. First, a man in the crowd at an anti-Obamacare rally had used a racial slur -- allegedly. Second, a 16-year-old kid had been arrested for making a bizarre racial comment over a Wal-Mart PA system -- something about how all black people had to leave the store. Our reader wrote, <blockquote> That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow -- and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase. I’ll vote for the first politician with the brass to say that “racism” should be dropped from our national dialogue. We’re a good nation, among the least racist on earth . . . </blockquote> I published that letter at the Corner, our group blog here at National Review Online. I publish a good many letters. And a lot of people didn’t like the one about the Wal-Mart incident, etc. Keith Olbermann read excerpts from the letter on his television show. He had the words from the letter on the screen. And under the words, the viewer saw, “Jay Nordlinger, National Review.” Broadcast journalism at its finest. Olbermann said to his guest, James E. Clyburn, a black congressman from South Carolina, “Do people say this you suppose because they’ve never been personally the victims of racism? Do they say it to reassure racists that they’re not really racist?” As I commented later, “If you can think and talk like that, you too can have a show on MSNBC, evidently.” Clarence Page, the veteran columnist for the Chicago Tribune, got in on the act too. He quoted the reader’s letter. And he referred to its contents as “the Nordlinger thesis.” Swell that they give high perches to such people, right? I wrote about all this for National Review, in an essay found <a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=MGYzMzMzZDg5NjFmOGUwOTZmNDlhMTI4ZmM2ODY5YmY">here</a>. Let me quote myself (obnoxious activity), if you don’t mind: <blockquote> Racism will never die, of course, until the human animal is dead. But our letter-writing reader had a point: If an alleged N-word at a rally and an adolescent prank at a Wal-Mart are national news, haven’t we achieved some victory? Can we acknowledge racial progress when we see it? Are we terrified of complacency, so terrified that we can never put our racial dukes down? Are we too devoted to America the Racist -- a concept drilled into us (many of us) from the cradle -- to give it up? </blockquote> That essay is called “Worst People,” by the way: “Worst People: Some notes on racism and anti-racism in America.” Why “Worst People”? After President Obama gave his State of the Union address last January, I had a long series of observations about him and that speech. One of them was, “Obama looks arrogant, whether he’s arrogant or not. I don’t think he can help it: It’s the upturned chin. When actors want to preen and so on, they turn that chin upward. Yikes.” For that, Olbermann named me one of “The Worst People in the World.” My statement, you see, had been racist. More accurately, it had been “racist.” This country is plain bonkers. Certainly as represented by Olbermann, it is. To be a conservative is to be called a racist, sooner or later. It’s written in stone; it’s baked in the cake. If you support colorblindness -- if you like the old motto E pluribus unum, “Out of many, one” -- you will be called a racist. Because race-consciousness is where it’s at, baby. The great Charlie Rangel called tax cuts racist, remember. I have a feeling this is especially hard for David Horowitz, Linda Chavez, Abby Thernstrom -- people like that. Good old liberals and lefties who crossed over to the conservative side, while retaining, of course, their racial liberalism (and much other liberalism). But because they’re associated with the “Right,” they’re made to wear the scarlet “R” -- not for “Right” but for “Racist.” A few years ago, Al Franken called Horowitz a racist. David popped him but good: <blockquote> As it happens I marched in my first civil rights protest in 1948 before Al Franken was born. For more than fifty years I have supported minorities and defended their civil rights in public word and deed, and raised millions of dollars to help inner city minorities whom racism has scarred. In fact there is no single cause -- except America’s wars against totalitarian foes -- to which I have devoted myself more consistently than that of racial equality. </blockquote> What ever became of Franken, anyway? #page#There is someone who has probably been smeared as a racist more frequently than anyone else in America: Rush Limbaugh. Zev Chafets documents it all in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rush-Limbaugh-Army-Zev-Chafets/dp/1595230637/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281043983&sr=8-2">new biography</a>. I was amazed and appalled as I read. About Limbaugh, you can really say and do anything. And people do. Take the president of the United States, Bill Clinton. At the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, Clinton noted that Limbaugh had defended attorney general Janet Reno, after Rep. John Conyers attacked her over the Waco disaster. The president said, “Do you like the way Rush Limbaugh took up for Janet Reno? He only did it because she was attacked by a black guy.” Uh-huh. #ad#Years later, journalists all over America quoted Limbaugh as saying, “Slavery built the South, and I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying that it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” A professor of journalism, Karen Hunter, went on MSNBC to claim that Rush had said the following: “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.” All lies -- vile, despicable, stinking lies. Limbaugh has endured much more -- again, it’s all laid out, in Chafets’s book. Many of these pages make for infuriating reading. I will quote a passage that struck a chord with me; it may well with you, too. Here is Chafets: <blockquote> Rush and I were both raised at a time of racial optimism and naïveté, when the goal of decent white people was an integrated society. We were taught that skin color shouldn’t matter, that we were all basically the same, that we should judge others not by their color but the content of their character. And if we didn’t achieve this in practice, or even try very hard -- and most of us didn’t -- it was, at least, the ideal that decent people subscribed to.   But things changed. </blockquote> Oh, did they. Chafets writes, <blockquote> . . . the American intelligentsia stopped talking in terms of an integrationist, national melting pot and adopted a tribal model, in which righteously disaffected minorities (blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, and Native Americans) made group identity the basis for their politics. </blockquote> And Rush Limbaugh? <blockquote> While all this was going on, [he] was in the studio spinning oldies or selling tickets for the Kansas City Royals. When he emerged, blinking, into the harsh light of political combat in the mid-1980s, he came armed with the belief in color-blindness that had been in vogue twenty years earlier. Mort Sahl once said that anyone who maintains a consistent position in America will eventually be tried for treason. Or racism. </blockquote> I was reading something last night that reminded me of Mort Sahl -- and Chafets, and Limbaugh. In a recent New Republic, Leon Wieseltier wrote, <blockquote> I have nothing against adventure, obviously, especially when it is an expression of dissatisfaction with oneself; but sometimes one finds oneself where one really should be, in a rich and deep place that demands and rewards toil, within defensible limits, with justified beliefs, and the meretricious course would be to move on, to take one’s instructions from the fickle world, to keep up. In our society, there is almost no greater apostasy than the refusal to keep up. </blockquote> Yes. (For that complete essay, go <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/environment-energy/75267/playing-changes">here</a>.) #page#Earlier, I mentioned Abby Thernstrom, in a lineup of all-stars -- and I’d like to say something further about her now. Of late, she has been embroiled in a fight with other conservatives over this New Black Panther business: this episode of voter intimidation, and its treatment by the Justice Department. I am not a student of this case, though I have opinions about it. (What don’t I have opinions about?) Abby and those other conservatives -- they are students of the case. And I esteem them all. It pains me to see them at crossed swords. I like a good, healthful intramural debate as much as the next guy. I like good, healthful other debates, too! But I like the swords . . . I don’t know: swathed in protective rubber. #ad#I first saw Abby in 1985 -- tough cookie. Wonderful, glorious cookie. Pretty, brainy, principled, bold, exacting, warm -- a woman of substance (as the phrase once went). I count it a great asset that she’s on our side. And by “our side,” I mean . . . you know: the National Review side, to use a shorthand. A few years ago, I reviewed a book she wrote with her husband, Steve -- Stephan Thernstrom, the Harvard historian. I’m going to quote a big old swath of that <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/272993/the-anti-excusers/jay-nordlinger">review</a>. Hope you find it worth it. I began, <blockquote> Odd that Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom should be considered big conservatives today. Mrs. Thernstrom spent the first part of her career as an earnest liberal, a civil-rightsy liberal. Mr. Thernstrom is a history professor at Harvard, and a winner of the Bancroft prize (the number-one award in the writing of American history). I don’t mean to shock you, but they usually don’t give the Bancroft prize to conservatives. And, indeed, the book for which Mr. Thernstrom won -- The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis (1973) -- is not exactly a conservative tract. When I was a student under Mr. Thernstrom in the 1980s, I did not detect a rumbling conservatism. I recall that he said to me one day, “I see that you’re interested in conservatism, Jay -- have you tried talking to Ed Banfield?” (meaning, the great political scientist who wrote The Unheavenly City). But Professor Thernstrom was a fair and broad-minded historian and teacher, and he did assign one book by Thomas Sowell. He knew that his students should be familiar with that extraordinary man’s work. It is, to me, the most touching thing about the Thernstroms’ current book -- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=thernstrom+no+excuses&sprefix=thernstrom+no+ex&ih=8_5_2_0_0_0_0_0_1_1.0_124&fsc=11">No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning</a> -- that it is dedicated to Sowell: “for his pioneering scholarship and unflagging courage.” It is a perfect dedication, in its wording and in its matching of book to dedicatee. So, did the Thernstroms move right, or did American politics -- particularly the Left -- just go sort of crazy on them? Probably some of each. Reagan loved to tell audiences, “I didn’t leave the Democratic party -- the Democratic party left me.” That was a little too pat, but there was some truth to it. Both Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom took hard looks at the country as it stood in the ’80s and ’90s and found themselves roughly in the conservative camp. And I make my usual point that it takes amazingly little to qualify as “conservative” these days. This couple has clung to their old values, in particular their love of E pluribus unum and their hatred of racial inequality. Their passion in this direction is probably more intense than ever. But their analyses and arguments are deeply offensive to the Left as it has developed, and they have therefore been made pariahs by their old crowd. </blockquote> They have been very, very brave in what they’ve done. When you live in the Harvard community, you don’t just drift rightward and go merrily on. There are costs to pay. Others in the community don’t say, “Oh, gee, your pursuit of the truth led you to these particular positions? Very well then. Free for dinner next Tuesday?” I’ll tell you something about my esteem for Abby. No one hates racial counting and assessing -- hates racial identification -- more than I do. Everything in me -- religious, philosophical, temperamental -- screams against it. The sight of those racial boxes makes me want to hurl. You know the boxes I mean: Check here for white, here for black, here for Aleut. I once wrote a piece called “Take Your Boxes and . . .: A nation of race rebels?” You can find it in the collection advertised at the end of this column. It will not surprise you that I did not want to fill out my census form -- at least not the racial stuff. I like that age-old response: Race? Human. But no one knows more about this area of policy, politics, and life than Abby; no one has a keener sense of what is right in these matters. Earlier in the year, she wrote a piece admonishing us all to fill out our census forms. So I did. At least I plan to -- I haven’t done it yet. (Will I get jail for this?) Some of my critics -- poisonous bloggers and their e-mailing readers -- say that I get my instructions straight from Israel. I like to reply, “That’s not true: I get them from the Israeli consulate in New York.” Actually, as you can see, I take my instruction from Abby Thernstrom. I love some others involved in the New Black Panther fight. We can read them all and make up our own minds. “You pays yer money and you takes yer cherse.” Only, here on NRO, we don’t pay any money. (A problem, that . . .) #page#You may have heard about the Iranian government and the octopus. Ahmadinejad denounced Paul the Psychic Octopus, a creature that predicted -- I’m not exactly sure how -- the outcomes of the World Cup matches. The Iranian ruler accused him of “spreading Western propaganda and superstition” and of standing for “decadence and decay.” Iran, octopus -- I had a memory. About five years ago, I was in the presence of an important Arab leader, who was talking about the persistent problems of the Middle East. He said that the Syrian government, Hezbollah, Hamas, other entities -- all of these were mere appendages of Iran. They were like the tentacles of an octopus. You had to go after the head -- kill the beast at the head. And the head was Tehran. Do that, and all the tentacles would quickly wither and die. Wouldn’t it be nice to have this confirmed? #ad#In the last few months, I’ve taken to mocking the British press for its reporting on America. You remember that story that said Sarah Palin “seems to have ditched the staid and formal ‘hockey mom’ image she appeared to favour during her campaign . . .”? We had some fun with that one. It was from the Daily Mail. And now this paper has struck again: <blockquote> Ferociously bright, Chelsea [Clinton] studied history at the Ivy League Stanford University before taking a masters in International Relations at Oxford . . . </blockquote> Listen, it’s hard enough to write accurately about one’s own country . . . A couple of days ago, I wanted some information about Michael Kelly, the brilliant and fearless journalist who was killed at the beginning of the Iraq War. Google took me to his Wikipedia entry, which begins this way: <blockquote> Michael Thomas Kelly (March 17, 1957 -- April 3, 2003) was an <a title="USA" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA">American</a> editor and journalist whose career was tarnished by the <a title="Stephen Glass (reporter)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass_(reporter)">Stephen Glass</a> scandal at <a title="The New Republic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Republic">The New Republic</a>. He was also a columnist for the <a title="Washington Post" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Post">Washington Post</a>. He died in 2003 while covering the <a title="2003 invasion of Iraq" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq">invasion of Iraq</a>, a conflict which he had supported in his writings.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kelly_(editor)#cite_note-FoxNews-0">[1]</a> </blockquote> Um, does that strike anybody as a snotty opening, as it does me? I like to tell you about Ann Arbor, my dear little lefty hometown. On Monday, I had lunch with two old friends who hail from that burg. One was talking about a little girl he knows, who lives there. She is nine or ten and plays on the school’s field-hockey team. (I believe it’s the school’s; this may be a summer league, not sure.) After a game, my friend asked her, “Well, how did it go?” She said, “We’re not allowed to keep score -- but if we were, we won 5 to 3.” Ah, Ann Arbor. Ah, human nature. Even Ann Arbor can’t drum out the human, I don’t think . . . A big issue in the music world at the moment is James Levine, the great -- the pantheonic -- conductor from Cincinnati. The Boston Globe began an <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/07/18/for_bso_conductors_absence_creates_awkward_dynamics/">editorial</a> as follows: <blockquote> James Levine has served the Boston Symphony Orchestra honorably, and deserves to continue as music director if his health bounces back quickly. If he’s not able to return to full strength in a reasonable time, he should resign and allow the orchestra to search openly for a replacement. </blockquote> Let me share with you the closing of my June <a href="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/New-York-chronicle-5332">piece</a> for The New Criterion -- my “New York Chronicle” for that month: <blockquote> The Met[ropolitan Opera] is fretting, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is fretting, about James Levine. He is music director at both places. He has recurring back problems, forcing him to forfeit many operas and many concerts. Managers at both places are thinking, “What’re we going to do?” Opera companies and symphony orchestras need conductors who show up in the pit or on the podium, dependably. A conductor on the disabled list is a huge hassle. Yet, if any conductor should be cut some slack, it’s Levine. I say (not that I was asked), take him when you can get him, and deal with the hassle, to the extent possible. Next season, he may be off the DL altogether -- which would put an end to the fretting. Until the time comes for his retirement. </blockquote> Speaking of music, I’ll be in Salzburg for the next stretch, working at the annual festival. I’ll be writing criticism -- for NR and TNC -- and hosting the interview series of the Salzburg Festival Society. If you’re around, you’ll stop by, right? I am traveling, foreignly and domestically -- I know you’ll pardon my grammatical freedom -- until mid-September, I think. Impromptus may be very “sparse,” as a friend of mine says, crossly. But I will still be writing like a banshee, in most of the usual places. And I hope you’re enjoying a beautiful summer, wherever you are. See you soon. #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/438995/the-scarlet-r-c/jay-nordlinger Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:51 -0400 ‘The line,’ &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/438977/the-line-c/jay-nordlinger I know that “Journolist” has been mightily picked over -- and picked on -- but I have done very little of it. And would like to do some picking now, if you can bear with me. “Journolist,” you remember, is -- was -- an e-mail community of hundreds of liberal or left-wing or whatever journalists. Plus professors, operatives, and some assorted others. They hashed things out privately -- but the Daily Caller has obtained their e-mails, or at least a lot of them, and published them. Or some. Enough to get the flavor -- more flavor than you would probably want. Okay, let me commence with a little picking . . . #ad#Bob Novak used to say, ‘That’s the line” -- he said it with dismissive contempt. Someone else, usually on the left, would make some excuse or give some talking point, and Novak’d say, “That’s the line.” I can just hear him. My friend Jeff and I took this up between ourselves: Someone would say something -- maybe even one of us would -- and we’d say, “Yeah, that’s the line!” It was just kind of fun. “I don’t think I’ll play very well tomorrow because I’m in the process of making some swing changes.” “Yeah, that’s the line!” So I was interested to see that a Journolister headed an e-mail -- or “e-mail thread” -- “The line on Palin.” He was not being ironic, as far as I can tell. He was really and truly formulating a line. And the line was this: “John McCain picked someone to help him politically, Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern” (Biden). You know, I remember hearing that a lot, from the Left, in the immediate post-Palin days. Do you? Okay, some more line-formulation -- I’ll quote from a Daily Caller <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/25/emails-reveal-post-reporter-savaging-conservatives-rooting-for-democrats/">piece</a> on Journolist: <blockquote> After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat, threatening to kill the health care legislation by his presence, [a Washington Post reporter] stressed how important it was for reporters to highlight what a terrible candidate his opponent Martha Coakley had been.   “I think pointing out Coakley’s awfulness is vital, because it’s 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats.” </blockquote> It seems to me that journalists don’t think and talk this way, or should not; party operatives think and talk this way. Party operatives sit around coming up with the line. To see journalists doing it is a little . . . sick-making. Always, there is the herd mentality -- we see the herd at work. A big-time writer said, “Listen folks -- in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have.” What he meant was, people from ABC had asked Candidate Obama about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That was intolerable; the askers had to be “killed.” And don’t you love that “in whatever venues we have”? Oh, they have a lot! Most of the media, in fact. Another big-timer gave a link to a piece he had written and said, “Here’s my attempt to incorporate the accumulated wisdom of this august list-serve community.” Another big-timer, on another subject: “As a side note, does anyone know what prompted Michael Barone to go insane?” Barone is not insane; he is one of the best political minds in America. Often, he expresses conservative opinions -- and that, of course, is what makes him “insane,” according to some. Back in the USSR, they used to put those with dissenting views in nuthouses. They were merely ill, you see. One thing that struck me about Journolist was the sheer thuggery of the talk. I mean, it’s a little shocking. Here you go: <blockquote> It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [something] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically. </blockquote> Well, that’s good to know! The same Journolister wrote, “Let’s throw Ledeen against a wall.” That would be Michael Ledeen, one of the country’s foremost experts on the Middle East (and Italy and other things). Or “throw him through a plate glass window.” This guy seems to have a thing for plate-glass windows. “I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the fuck up, as with most bullies.” Ledeen knows nothing about how to bully compared with this crew. You know, what Ledeen does with most of his life is fight the mullahs -- fight the extremists and oppressors and bombers in the Middle East. You would think that other liberal democrats would join him. If that’s, in fact, what they are. (Am I a McCarthyite for saying that?) Ledeen thinks of the mullahs and their associates as the enemy; other Americans, I’ve noticed, think of Ledeen, and people like him, as the enemy. Which is tragic. #page#I myself will write about the depravity of Hamas, Hezbollah, or al-Qaeda; of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or the Assads’ Syria, or the mullahs’ Iran. And the Left blogosphere will denounce me and say how wicked George W. Bush was. Then readers of the Left blogosphere will e-mail me and say how wicked Bush and I are. I wrote a column on this general subject <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/437230/ksms-elliptical-machine-c/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. Some people thought that the Left would calm down, with the election of Barack Obama as president. They are now in charge. It should be okay to fight, or at least appreciate, the War on Terror (as we used to call it). (Obama and his people prefer “overseas contingency operations.”) But the Left seems as hepped up as ever. #ad#Let me give you a vignette from Zev Chafets’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rush-Limbaugh-Army-Zev-Chafets/dp/1595230637/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280964057&sr=1-1">new biography</a> of Rush Limbaugh. During the (first) Clinton inauguration, the actor Ron Silver saw fighter jets flying over the Lincoln Memorial. Silver was on the left then; after 9/11, he became a convert. He spoke at the 2004 Republican convention in favor of President Bush. At any rate, back to the Clinton inauguration: Silver thought a show of military force was terribly inappropriate. But then it occurred to him, “Those are our planes now.” He said so, in public. Rush Limbaugh rebuked him: “Those are American planes, Ron.” (I’m sure you know this LBJ anecdote: The president was at an airfield, I think, and there were many planes about. A military officer pointed to one and said, “That’s your plane, Mr. President.” Johnson said, “They’re all my planes, son.” Incredible SOB -- I hope Caro doesn’t go soft on him as he continues his bio . . .) Behold the mind of a Journolister, who writes for The Nation: <blockquote> Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians -- men, women, children, the infirmed [the infirmed?] -- on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor. </blockquote> You’ll forgive me if I think this view of America is bizarre, warped, and wrong. When it comes to hurting the Iraqi people -- gassing them, raping them, starving them, torturing them, cutting out their tongues for dissent, feeding them into industrial shredders, feet first, the better to hear their screams -- no one could outdo Saddam Hussein, whom the U.S. and its allies, mercifully -- and in the American interest -- overthrew. I have seen with my own eyes how American soldiers are helping the Iraqi people, even now: and Americans ought to feel pride in this undertaking, rather than the shame that others would induce in them. Forgot to tell you something, an item or two back. You remember how I said that readers of the Left blogosphere will write me to say how much they hate me? Well, Left bloggers themselves will often do it. They’ll e-mail and say, “Hey! Didn’t you see how I said how much I hate you? Why aren’t you responding to how much I hate you?” They simply beg for attention. Weird, the new media. Here is another Journolister from The Nation: <blockquote> I am really tired of defending the indefensible. The people who attacked Clinton on Monica were prissy and ridiculous, but let me tell you it was no fun, as a feminist and a woman, waving aside as politically irrelevant and part of the vast rightwing conspiracy Paula, Monica, Kathleen, Juanita. </blockquote> It may have been “no fun,” but she did it, didn’t she? They all did. They donned their “presidential kneepads,” in the immortal words of Nina Burleigh (a Time magazine writer). Burleigh wrote, “I would be happy to give [Bill Clinton] [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.” Yup -- and line up they did. Another Journolister slammed conservatives as “Fucking NASCAR retards.” I had the following thought: If you were a conservative, writing a satire about how liberals think and talk about conservatives, you might write, “F***ing NASCAR retards” -- but you would be criticized for going way over the top. I mean, that phrase is just too trite and absurd and extreme for satire. But not for real Journolist life. And I imagine there is more political and policy wisdom at a typical NASCAR event than in the whole of Journolist. Much more civility and refinement, too. Always, always -- always, always -- there is race. Always, always, there is the need to call conservatives racist. Do they disagree with you? Do they, for example, favor a colorblind society, or at least colorblind policy? Call them racists. A Journolister: <blockquote> If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them -- Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction. </blockquote> From the beginning, it has been nearly impossible to oppose Barack Obama -- from the right, that is -- without being called a racist. I have done a fair amount of writing about this. Here is one piece, written right before the 2008 election: “<a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/375694/that-old-devil-race/jay-nordlinger">That Old Devil Race</a>.” Here is a piece written last year about criticism of Obama versus criticism of George W. Bush: “<a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=MjgxOTNkMzRmMmQxMjVjZDRiNWQ5YzJhN2Y1OGViYTY=">All Wee-Weed Up</a>.” You notice the sheer randomness of the Journolister’s defamation: It doesn’t matter whom you call a racist -- Barnes, Rove, Smith, Jones -- just “take one of them.” Because, really, “who cares”? The point isn’t the truth, it’s the defamation. As I have written many times, race lies do harm beyond the immediate objects of the lies: They harm the entire society, keeping racial sores aflame. This is a point that Ellen Sauerbrey made, back when a Shrum-led campaign tarred her as a racist. She was running for governor of Maryland. She seemed on track to win. And then Shrum & Co. threw a white sheet over her. I’ll forever love Kurt Schmoke, then the mayor of Baltimore, for saying that he knew the difference between a conservative and a racist: and Sauerbrey was no racist. (Schmoke is a black Democrat, I should say.) Anyway, Sauerbrey said (something like), “It’s one thing if you lie about a person’s view of tax policy or agricultural subsidies or something. That’s not very nice, but then the election happens, and everybody goes on. If you lie about a person’s racial views, there’s a lingering effect. The lie corrodes society. It makes race relations worse. It makes it harder for society to heal, after all these years, all these decades. Everyone’s nerves are rubbed constantly raw.” #page#Nasty as all lies are, race lies sometimes seem nastier -- the nastiest of them all. Oddly enough, our Journolister exempted Ross Douthat -- Ross Douthat the New York Times columnist, formerly a National Review intern, now NR’s film critic. The Journolister said, “We’ll know who doesn’t deserve this treatment -- Ross Douthat, for instance -- but the others need to get it.” Why is Douthat off the hook? Neither Barnes nor Rove nor Douthat is in the least racist. But why are Fred and Karl targets for the lie, but Ross not? The sheer randomness of the thing is puzzling. #ad#One more thing about Shrum, and the Shrum style -- which is the contemporary Democratic style. He made an ad against the Civil Rights Initiative in California. That was Ward Connerly’s initiative, copying the language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was meant to ban race preferences in public contracting and so on. The Shrum ad against the initiative showed the Klansman David Duke and a burning cross. (Connerly is black, as you know.) Later, Connerly asked him why he did it. Shrum replied that his side didn’t have very much money, therefore had to get “the most bang for the buck.” In the wake of the Journolist revelations, a lot of people said, “Oh, we knew all this -- this is nothing new. We knew the Left colluded. We knew there was this herd mentality. We knew groupthink was regnant. We knew they were nasty and thuggish in their rhetoric. We knew that they played the race card, from the bottom of the deck. We knew that the spirit of Jacobinism ran through them. What’s the big deal? Yawn, yawn.” Recently, Peter Mandelson, the British politico, published his memoirs, The Third Man. Why are they called that? He was in the thick of the New Labour wars, pitting Blair versus Brown -- Mandelson was that “third man,” between the two principals. Let me quote from Matthew Parris’s <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/6156908/part_2/crisp-and-brave.thtml">review</a> in The Spectator: <blockquote> Critics are remarking that this is all old hat, and The Third Man tells us nothing we hadn’t heard already. Absolutely right. And if it were to be discovered that one of King Herod’s court had in fact kept a daily diary whose contents, now disclosed, confirmed, blow-by-blow, all those dreadful tales about the slaughter of the first-born, and the rest, fleshed out with remarkable detail and painting a sharper, more extraordinary picture even than we had imagined, then the critics -- literalist believers among them, anyway -- might say the same. But the rest of the world would gasp. </blockquote> Exactly. One depressing thing about Journolist? Or one more depressing thing? The presence of journalism professors on it -- or at least of one, Todd Gitlin of Columbia University. He was in on all the “line”-making, all the herding up. I have always respected him as an honest, above-board left-winger -- someone you could read. I’m sure he is. But the whole Journolist thing -- its ethos, its essence -- is creepy. I guess you could say, if left-wingers are collectivist in their worldview, why shouldn’t they be collectivist in their journalism? I think that a person would be better off learning journalism from the lowliest employee of the Toledo Blade than from the Columbia School of Journalism. (N.B.: Pat Buchanan went to this Columbia school. So did Miguel d’Escoto.) According to reports, Journolist is now shut down. Are there other Journolists in operation? How would we know? Does it matter? Don’t people have a right to their private e-mail lists? Sure. But the Journolist experience makes a person wonder. Now and again, I am attacked in the Left media at large. I am too small-potatoes to come in for much attacking. But I have come in for some. And it seems so . . . I don’t know: coordinated, scripted, uniform. They denounce me like the Rockettes kick. Is that because they all think alike? (And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. I think like Thomas Sowell, or like to think I do.) Or is there some conscious ganging up? I’m sure there is no conscious ganging up. I don’t flatter myself. As I indicated, I am not quite worth ganging up on. But you read these Journolist e-mails and think, “Holy smokes, weren’t they embarrassed to be plotting together like that? If you’re going to call Fred Barnes a racist, or say that McCain picked Palin for a particular reason, can’t you just do it on your own? Do you have to enlist an army? Do you have to hold hands?” Reading some of the stories about Journolist, I was reminded why I left the Left so long ago: the groupthink; the political correctness; the scorn for ordinary people (“Fucking NASCAR retards”); the dehumanizing of political opponents. Lord knows, there are jerks on the right -- I think I have interacted with all of them, although there must be some I have missed. I don’t say the conservatives are angels; I know them too well for that. The idea that the Right has a claim on morality is a crock. More like on immorality, I sometimes think. You know the slogan “Vote Right, live Left”? Many conservatives embrace this philosophy with gusto. It is virtually a credo. But, you know? As a rule, the jerks on the right are jerk-like in their own ways -- kind of like Tolstoy’s unhappy families. If you’re going to be a jerk, be an individual, for heaven’s sake. At least that’s what I think. I need to check with my brethren on what the line is . . .     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/438977/the-line-c/jay-nordlinger Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:09 -0400 Limbaugh’s Boswell, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/438848/limbaughs-boswell-c/jay-nordlinger Have you read Zev Chafets’s biography of Rush Limbaugh -- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rush-Limbaugh-Army-Zev-Chafets/dp/1595230637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280351219&sr=1-1">An Army of One</a>? (Actually, the complete and proper title is “Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One.”) It’s a highly interesting book about a highly interesting man. And Chafets is a total pro: as a writer and a journalist. (Extremely versatile fellow, too. Just look at his list of books.) Here is something that Rush said on his radio program: <blockquote> I talked to Zev via e-mail the other day, and he’s been blackballed from a lot of conservative television shows and networks. He has not been invited. He’s gotten some invitations on liberal programs, but no conservative programs are taking him to interview him. . . . I said, “Zev, that should not surprise you, it shouldn’t surprise you at all.” </blockquote> #ad#Well, it surprises me. I think it’s downright weird. Chafets is A-1 interview material. Here is a guy who is basically a liberal -- not a lefty, but a good Cold War liberal, I think -- and, as I said in a review of his book, he completely “gets” Limbaugh: “gets” him and his audience (and Conservative America). All liberals should be so understanding, or even a fraction as understanding. My review of Chafets’s bio? It appeared in the June 7 issue of National Review, and you may find it <a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YzZjNjllODkxOTNkNDhhZWZmYjI3MjczMGZmNWFiNjc=">here</a>. The review is just a shorty. I plan to say more about the book, and Rush, in this here column sometime later . . . Interesting about Chafets’s name: It can be done many ways. There is a Utah congressman, a Republican, named Chaffetz. And there was, of course, Heifetz -- Jascha Heifetz. Want to know a little more? Congressman Chaffetz’s father was once married to Kitty Dukakis. Kitty Dukakis’s father was Harry Ellis Dickson, who was a conductor of the Boston Pops, and also a violinist -- like Heifetz. (Well, nobody was a violinist quite like Heifetz.) Chafets’s first name can be done a couple of different ways, too: On the cover of some of his books, he is “Ze’ev”; on others, “Zev.” You can count on me for the really fundamental stuff, I know . . . The other day, I was looking at some attacks on Republican candidates, and where did they come from? Something called the Patriot Majority. This is a left-wing PAC: the Patriot Majority. Can you imagine if a conservative outfit called itself the “Patriot Majority”? Armageddon! And you may remember a bumper sticker from long ago: “The Moral Majority Is Neither.” That was a popular one in my hometown of Ann Arbor (as you can imagine). Earlier this week, I had occasion to write about the Patriot Act. And I was reminded of a truth, long ago articulated: The worst thing about the Patriot Act is its name. If it were called something else, people wouldn’t get the McCarthy heebie-jeebies about it -- or would get fewer of them. Don’t you think? And, as Impromptus readers have heard me say a hundred times, I never liked “Homeland Security” -- that word “homeland.” It’s just not very American. It has connotations of Vaterland and Volk. But you can get used to anything. And “JNap” and “Homeland Security” just roll off my tongue. (Word to the wise: “JNap” is a shorthand for the director of homeland security, Janet Napolitano.) (Wonder where her ancestors came from.) (That was a joke: Naples, of course. In Italian, “Napolitano” means “Neapolitan,” as you know . . .) A poll showed that 11 percent of Americans approve of Congress. As Bob Kasten, the former senator, quipped to me, “You gotta wonder who that one guy is -- the one in ten, approximately.” True! National Review has a quip about that 11 percent in our forthcoming issue: Who knew there were so many trial lawyers? A sparkling remark (which I can say, because it was not mine, I’m sorry to report). I’ve mentioned this before -- I think on the Corner. I think it’s weird that Vice President Biden refers to President Obama as “Barack” in public. He has done it again: “Barack and I are realists,” he said. When I brought this up with some colleagues the other day, Rick Brookhiser said, “Can you imagine Nixon referring to Eisenhower as ‘Dwight’?” Or “Ike”! I believe that Cheney, in private, called W. “sir.” And, in public, it was always “the president,” or “President Bush,” of course. Is Biden’s use of “Barack” a little -- condescending? Patronizing? Is he merely trying to show intimacy? Is he just kind of clownish, or “out there”? Let’s scroll through history a little. Can you imagine GHWB referring to Reagan as “Ronnie”? How about Garner, Wallace, and Truman? Would they have referred to the president as “Franklin” -- or “Frank”? The mind reels! I like it when politicians, and other public figures, talk about themselves with complete candor. Not long ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she was a “flaming feminist.” Why, sure. I liked it when Governor Dukakis said proudly, “I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU.” (Ginsburg worked for the ACLU, as you know.) Hey, this column is kind of Dukakis-heavy, isn’t it? That’s strange, for 2010. #page#I rather like what Cory Booker is doing over in Newark -- I say “over in Newark,” because I write from New York. Booker is the mayor of that city -- Democrat, of course. And he is having to do some serious economizing, in these straitened times. Let me quote from a <a href="http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/politics/newark-budget-cuts-20100722">news article</a>: <blockquote> The city budget shortfall is $70 million and Booker plans to meet the revenue shortfall with budget cuts instead of property tax increases. “Taxes cannot be the answer,” Booker said. Booker says property taxes in Newark have gone up 76 percent in the last decade and 19 percent in the past five years. </blockquote> #ad#Booker also said this: “Call me Mr. Scrooge if you want, but there’ll be no Christmas decorations around the city.” You know, citizens -- people -- should put up Christmas decorations themselves. They can certainly do it around their own homes. How about in the city at large? Could maybe a civic group provide the decorations? But then, individuals, or a group, would need municipal permission, I’m sure. Modern America can be such a headache, in its bureaucracy, not least. I get about 300 pounds of press releases a day, and I habitually delete them without a second thought. Without a first one, really. But, as I was deleting one of them a few days ago, something caught my eye. It seemed that this particular press release was slamming MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Could it be true? It was. Well, who was slamming MADD? Why, the “American Beverage Institute,” of course! I got a chuckle out of that name: the “American Beverage Institute.” And I thought immediately of Chris Buckley’s superbly comic, socially astute <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Smoking-Christopher-Buckley/dp/0812976525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280369364&sr=1-1">Thank You for Smoking</a>. Three characters, three lobbyists, form the MOD Squad -- “MOD” standing for “Merchants of Death.” I liked the movie too, much. Nice when that happens: when a good movie comes from a good book. Needing some information on the Tiananmen Square massacre -- death toll, etc. -- I turned to the Encyclopedia Britannica (trusty source). I found the entry under “Tiananmen Square incident.” And “incident” seemed to me . . . a little weak. In fact, outrageous. I’m all for neutrality, in certain venues and under certain circumstances. But “Tiananmen Square incident”? Come on. Let’s not be so squeamish. Time for a little language. During the British Open -- played at St. Andrews this year -- I saw a notice on the Internet: “Play suspended due to high wind.” I had a memory: Years ago, when I was working at a golf course, I put up a sign (written by me): “Course Closed Due to Wetness.” (It wasn’t raining -- in fact, the sun was shining -- but it had rained, long and hard, and the course was too wet to be playable. Would-be players needed to know that.) An older man, a retired teacher, said, “You know, when I was growing up, you couldn’t say that -- that ‘due to’ was wrong. You said ‘owing to,’ or ‘thanks to,’ or ‘because of.’” Yes, “due to” is one of those bugaboos, for some. But you and I aren’t bugged, I know . . .  A little music? For a piece in City Arts, go <a href="http://cityarts.info/2010/07/14/the-philharmonic-winds-down/">here</a>. It deals with Lisa Batiashvili, the Georgian violinist (I ain’t talkin’ Marietta); Alan Gilbert, the American conductor; Magnus Lindberg, the Finnish composer (despite the Swedish name); and a few other things. The italics don’t come through online, I’m afraid. But maybe you can read some italics in! I’ve been bouncing around the country a bit lately, and stopped by my dear old hometown of Ann Arbor. I saw a sign that brought sort of a smile to my face. It reminded me that Ann Arbor has a sister city in Nicaragua, Juigalpa. Ann Arbor made Juigalpa a sister city in 1986. Why 1986? You know. If you know the political coloration of Ann Arbor, you just know. In 1986, Nicaragua was ruled by a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, the Sandinistas. (The Sandinistas retook power recently under electoral machinations, and have rigged the system to lengthen their stay. We’ll see how long Nicaragua remains even nominally democratic.) The Reagan administration was supporting the Nicaraguan “contras,” whom some called the Nicaraguan “resistance,” which drove the Left crazy. It was very important for a little leftist citadel like Ann Arbor to express solidarity with Sandinista Nicaragua -- and to shake its fist at the villainous Reagan administration. Hence, sister-cityhood with Juigalpa. Forever, I guess! I think two Ann Arbor mentions in one column is enough . . . Oh, I’ve got a million more things to say to you -- high, low, and medium -- but I should wrap it up. Let me leave you with something American -- really American. In fact, I think I saw this on the Fourth of July. I was at a little fair. And there was this food truck whose specialty was hot dogs. On the truck was written “Banquet in a Bun.” And with that, you could get a “Bucket o’ Fries.” A banquet in a bun and a bucket o’ fries -- when you eat them, you can almost hear a Sousa march. Thanks, guys, and see you. #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/438848/limbaughs-boswell-c/jay-nordlinger Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:54 -0400 KSM’s elliptical machine, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/437230/ksms-elliptical-machine-c/jay-nordlinger Last week, I did a little blogpost about Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held hostage by Hamas for four years now. Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel, had made a pointed comment to Robert Gates, the U.S. defense chief: “A million and a half people are living in Gaza, but only one of them is really in need of humanitarian aid.” He meant Shalit, of course. The soldier is assumed alive, but has not been seen by the civilized world. In that post, I said, “Hamas does not permit the Red Cross to see Shalit, of course. Neither does the Cuban dictatorship or Chinese dictatorship permit the Red Cross to see prisoners. May I remind you that the Red Cross visited inmates in Nazi concentration camps? One was Carl von Ossietzky, the pacifist journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935. And may I remind you that Red Cross representatives were regular companions of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned on Robben Island?” I concluded, “If Gilad Shalit were other than Israeli, there’d be mass demonstrations in his behalf all over Europe, and on American streets, too. But . . .” But he is. Is Israeli. And that makes a great deal of difference in the world. #ad#After I wrote that post, I got a stream of e-mails from people on the left, attacking me in the most venomous and obscene terms. I’ll translate what they wrote into ordinary, temperate English: “The United States refused to let the Red Cross see terror detainees. Aren’t you a hypocrite? Isn’t the United States as bad as Hamas, the Cuban dictatorship, the Chinese dictatorship, and so on?” No. The United States has captured about 100,000 terror suspects, probably more. It has had fewer than a hundred terrorists in the “CIA program” -- in CIA detention, at “black sites.” These were “high-value detainees,” being interrogated for what they knew. Why? Because the terrorists had promised to attack Americans again and again, just as they had on 9/11. Those attacks were not a one-time deal, they said; they were no anomaly. The jihad was going to hit us again and again, as often as it could. Remember when Americans were screaming at the Bush administration to “connect the dots”? And saying that the administration had failed to connect these dots? Well, that’s what the United States was trying to do in those interrogations: connect the dots. (And we did: The information we obtained prevented and foiled attacks.) We certainly did not allow the Red Cross in -- not while those terrorists were being interrogated, not at black sites. The public didn’t know about those sites. We (the U.S.) did not want the terrorists to reveal what we had learned, and what we were doing. We didn’t want them to communicate to the outside -- we had (further) mass murder to prevent. We did not want the terrorists to use the Red Cross, or anyone else, as a megaphone -- which, of course, is exactly what they did later. When those detainees were transferred from the “CIA program” to more regular facilities, the Red Cross had access to them. And those detainees include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Red Cross has the run of Guantanamo Bay, long has. Michael Mukasey was attorney general from November 2007 to January 2009. He remembers visiting Guantanamo Bay in February 2008. He looked at many of the high-value detainees on video monitors. But he did not see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Mohammed wasn’t in his cell. He was off having a Red Cross visit. Mukasey did see the exercise room, adjacent to Mohammed’s cell. And he noticed something interesting: Mohammed had the same elliptical machine that he, the attorney general, had back home in his Washington apartment building. Only there was this difference: Mukasey had to share his, with other residents; there was a mad scramble in the morning to get to it. Mohammed had his machine all to himself. Bear in mind that he was the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people. That he was the beheader of Daniel Pearl. And so on. I wonder how much more tenderly America’s critics expect us to treat such people. “Abdominal massages,” of the type Al Gore apparently requests? This is to say nothing of the fact that these terror detainees are not uniformed soldiers, have refused to obey the laws and customs of war, and are not entitled to Geneva Convention protection. The United States decided to treat these detainees as though they were ordinary POWs. The fact remains, however, that they are not. When you blow up the World Trade Center, when you slit stewardesses’ throats with boxcutters, you are outside the pale. Go back to that blogpost I did, and the anger that it elicited on the left. I was talking about Gilad Shalit, a corporal in uniform. And prisoners of conscience such as those held in Cuba and China: democrats, peace campaigners, intellectuals, artists, religious people, dissenters, and so on. People such as Oscar Biscet and Juan Carlos Herrera, Gao Zhisheng and Liu Xiaobo. What kinship do those men have with the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay -- who blow up and behead innocent people? What? And how is the United States like Hamas, the Castro dictatorship, the PRC, etc.? How? Donald Rumsfeld likes to say, “America is not what’s wrong with the world.” We can broaden that to, “The liberal democracies are not what’s wrong with the world.” You know what’s wrong with the world? Terror groups, dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, and the like. And yet so many people, and organizations, like to concentrate their fire on liberal democracies. This is a sickness. And it’s one that many people in unfree countries are sick over. (You should hear some of the Chinese I talk to.) Reading some of the reaction to my blogpost, I was reminded why I left the Left, many years ago. Happened sometime during college. I was getting curious about the world: wondering about the Soviet Gulag, for example, and the boat people from Vietnam. I would try to raise those issues with those around me. I was immediately suspect as a fascist: “But what about capital punishment here in America? The death penalty, man. What about Agent Orange, man, and My Lai?” Okay, okay, we could talk about those -- we talked about them constantly. But couldn’t we talk about the Gulag and the boat people a bit, too? No, we couldn’t: because the United States was so sinful, we had to run it down full-time. We had no right to criticize other countries. (This did not apply, strangely, to South Africa, Chile, the Philippines . . .) Some readers may recall a common line from the Soviet Union in the first years of the Cold War: “But what about the Negroes in the South?” That tended to shut down all conversation. I don’t know about you, but I find it very hard to talk to people who, when you mention the extreme cruelty of Hamas, the Castros, and so on, go right to the United States and its own offenses, real or imagined. Very hard. We simply live on different moral planets. I guess I spend most of my time, as a journalist, criticizing or bemoaning the United States. I have a complaint a second, it seems: our litigiousness, our racial screwiness, our political correctness, our violence, the grotesque nature of our popular culture. But, you know? The liberal democracies, including the United States, aren’t what’s wrong with the world. Regular readers may remember a journal I did from Iraq, two years ago. May I quote a relevant portion now? Just give it a scan, if you feel like it: <blockquote> Our group makes its way to Camp Cropper, to tour a detention center. Must be a hellhole, huh? A nightmare of torture and depravity. Not really. The people who are detained here are very, very lucky detainees indeed -- very, very lucky jihadists, or former jihadists.   They have the best medical care, the best nutrition -- professionals in white coats looking after them. Diabetes seems to be a problem, and that is treated.   An assortment of classes is held. The detainees learn “life skills.” As the general in charge, Robert Kenyon, says, “Everyone gets a skill set” -- they’ll need it on the outside. There are “Islamic discussion” sessions, too.   For some of these people, getting detained is the best break they ever had. They’re not hardcore al-Qaeda: They were in the wrong place, or did a job for money, or were a little screwed up (or a lot). Some detainees don’t want to leave, and, in fact, fear doing so. Some mothers say: “Won’t you keep my son for longer?”   Camp Cropper is very, very different from being captured by al-Qaeda -- very different indeed. And the coalition makes a point of telling the detainees so.   When they leave, they get to choose Western or Arab clothing. And they get $25 to put in their pocket. They also have the instruction and care they received.   I think -- for the thousandth time during this trip -- has there ever been so benign a major power as the United States? Some people would regard that as naïve. I regard them as confused.   About 25 prisoners come in a day, and about 50 are released. Recidivism, we’re told, is very, very low.   Foreigners -- non-Iraqis -- have their own zone. They are dangerous; they are hardcore al-Qaeda. General Kenyon hopes that they never again see the light of day -- that the Iraqis, to whom they’ll be handed over, will keep them locked up. These are not the type to reform, or so it seems.   And they keep themselves in shape -- in vicious fighting shape. For example, they’ll sprint around the yard, in the hottest, most hellish weather. All prisoners have prayer rugs, Korans -- the whole nine yards. No Westerner in the place touches a Koran, “out of respect.” One of our band -- a fellow journo -- says that this swallows the Wahhabist view of Islam and its rules. In any case, the coalition is very, very careful.   There are regular family visits -- the detainees see their families. One of the American soldiers says, “That’s more than we get to do.”   There are art classes, and we see what the students -- students! -- have produced. Some paintings are very nice. An officer tells us that the detainees tend to start off painting guns and the like. Gradually, the paintings get less violent and bleak, and more beautiful. A civilizing effect is seen. One of the art instructors is a former detainee -- a former detainee now on the camp’s payroll. Imagine that.   There are sewing classes too, and the instructor shows us what he calls “the graduation piece” -- a camel, known as the Cropper Camel. I ask again: Has there ever -- ever -- been a power so benign? What’s al-Qaeda’s equivalent of the Cropper Camel for their detainees -- if they had detainees? . . .   We tour the camp’s hospital, which is spick-and-span, and state-of-the-art -- all the amenities at hand. I can’t help thinking of a point that the dreadful Michael Moore makes: Detainees such as those in Guantanamo get much, much better medical care than many ordinary Americans. True, true.   Of course, you are responsible for those you capture and hold, if you’re civilized. . . .   I wish Americans, and everyone else, could see the detention center at Camp Cropper -- see what Americans and others are doing for those who, after all, were trying to kill them. Would it make any difference? </blockquote> With some people, I’m afraid it would make no difference. With my venom-spewing e-mailers? I can’t help doubting. #page#The Red Cross has not been allowed in to see Corporal Shalit. A lot of us think that it hasn’t tried very hard -- that, if it made a great, worldwide fuss, it would get results. The Red Cross can’t find out where Shalit is? Can’t tell his family or his government where he is? Really? The ICRC -- the International Committee of the Red Cross -- was made for cases like this. Read the history, from Dunant on, and you’ll see that this is so. For a long time, the ICRC has had an Israel problem. (Hard to name a big international organization that hasn’t.) I studied this in detail at one time. For many, many years, there was just one Red Cross society that was kept out of the international movement -- no prizes for guessing whose. #ad#Israel’s Red Cross, the Magen David Adom, or the Red Star of David, was formed in 1930 (almost two decades before statehood). But the international movement refused to admit this group. It had a million Red Crescent societies, but could not countenance Israel’s. The United States, to its everlasting credit, decided to do something about this. In 1991, the president of the American Red Cross, Dr. Bernadine Healy, gave a speech in Geneva appealing for the inclusion of the Red Star of David. Notoriously, the president of the ICRC, a man named Cornelio Sommaruga, asked whether, if the Star of David was acceptable, she was prepared to accept the swastika too. That’s what I’m talking about. Very ICRC. Very European, in fact. In a righteous application of pressure -- the Americans really showed cojones -- the American Red Cross started to withhold dues from the International Federation. That was in 2000. Finally, in 2006, the ICRC found a way to let the Israelis in. And the Americans paid accumulated dues, totaling $45 million. Like many other international organizations -- I’ll get to Amnesty International in a minute -- the ICRC has an America problem, in addition to an Israel problem. One Red Cross-watcher told me recently, “The ICRC leaks reports against the United States. Funny, but you never see them leaking against, say, North Korea, do you?” No, not really. And the American taxpayer is a handsome funder of the ICRC: We contribute between a quarter and a third of the organization’s budget. I, for one, would not weep if we taxpayers rethought that. What if Gilad Shalit were an American corporal? Do you think the ICRC would try a little harder, given all we pay? I just don’t know. I know that Israel doesn’t have much financial leverage. And I know that the Red Cross is not the neutral collection of saints many would like to think it is -- and which it once was, long ago. (Very long ago.) (For a notably sharp article on the contemporary ICRC, try Rivkin & Casey, <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_79/ai_n13807570/">here</a>. For another one -- same authors, plus a third -- go <a href="http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/rivkin_casey_delaquil200412200800.asp">here</a>.) (Have a quick trivial fact: The Red Cross is the only organization to have won three Nobel Peace Prizes. They’ve won four, if you count the prize given to their founder, Dunant. That was in the very first year of the Noble prizes, 1901.) Amnesty International does what everyone else does: attacks liberal democracies, open societies. It’s so easy. And no harm comes to you! But why bother, when there are so many closed societies to worry about, help, and pry open? Amnesty had a beautiful beginning. It’s a famous story, and I’ll recount it briefly. A British lawyer named Peter Benenson was riding on a train in London. This was in 1960. He read that two Portuguese students had been thrown in jail, for toasting freedom. Benenson decided he should do something about it: and the Appeal for Amnesty was born. Its reason for being was to help prisoners of conscience -- indeed, “prisoner of conscience” was an Amnesty coinage. Prisoners of conscience are those tossed in jail merely for expressing what they believe, or for harboring beliefs uncongenial to the ruling authorities. Prisoners of conscience are different from, for example, armed revolutionaries. They are certainly different from terrorists -- from the beheading elliptical-machine users in Guantanamo Bay. Do you know that our founder, Bill Buckley -- our Dunant! -- was on the board of Amnesty International USA? He was, for about ten years. But he left -- this was in 1978 -- because of what Amnesty had become. What had it become? Well, it declared a pox on all our houses: you know, dictatorships, liberal democracies, whatever. It would release reports on the Soviet Gulag; and then on American prisons. And it would condemn both countries in equal tones. They were “moral equivalence” all the way. And that’s not what WFB signed up for. Today, you’re as likely to find an Amnesty report against the use of Tasers by American police as you are to find a report against North Korean concentration camps. And Amnesty loves to savage Israel as well. The U.N. spirit lives within that organization, and that is a foul spirit indeed. You may remember a foul incident from 2005: Amnesty’s secretary-general, Irene Khan, called Guantanamo Bay the “gulag of our times.” Bear in mind, we have real, actual gulags: in the Castros’ realm, in China, in North Korea. But, according to Amnesty, Gitmo is the “gulag of our times.” What are real gulags, then? Maybe not of “our times,” who knows? Here is a further detail -- something else to turn your stomach. We heard about this in an article by Pavel Litvinov, published in the Washington Post. He had been a resident of the Soviet Gulag. And here’s a fact for you: His grandfather, Maxim Litvinov, was one of Stalin’s foreign ministers. In any case, Pavel wrote, <blockquote> Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet “prisoner of conscience” adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty’s executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the “gulag of our time.”   “Don’t you think that there’s an enormous difference?” I asked him.   “Sure,” he said, “but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees.” </blockquote> Flash forward to this year, when Amnesty linked arms with a man named Moazzam Begg, a British Islamist -- a former Gitmo prisoner who had trained in al-Qaeda camps (Afghanistan). His shtick is to say that terror detainees are, in reality, human-rights victims. That was too much for one Amnesty official, Gita Sahgal, who headed the “gender unit” (responsible for women’s rights). (Sahgal is a grand-niece of Nehru, incidentally.) In an internal memo, she wrote that the alliance between Amnesty and Begg “fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights. To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human-rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.” And so on. Amnesty suspended Sahgal, because she went public with her criticisms; eventually, she and the organization parted ways altogether. Before she went, Salman Rushdie issued a statement in her behalf (and we can agree that he knows something about Islamism). He wrote, “Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty’s leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong.” Too many people are suffering from moral bankruptcy, and cannot distinguish right from wrong. That number includes the people who pump poison into my inbox. But before I get (back) to them -- how about one of Amnesty’s sister organizations, Human Rights Watch? They go fundraising in Saudi Arabia, which is a perfectly natural thing for them to do. Why? Isn’t Saudi Arabia a nightmare for human rights? And isn’t the organization called “Human Rights Watch”? Yeah, yeah, but HRW makes a specialty of demonizing Israel. And a lot of Saudis like that -- so they open their wallets for HRW. Simple. Israel is a democracy fighting for its life, against those with no respect for democracy, human rights, or decency at all. But this means cruelly little to many people: including some who work for exalted organizations. Okay, back to my e-mailers, just for a second. I don’t want to whine too much -- more than I already have. All of us who write on the Internet get hostile mail, and we know it comes with the territory. But these items were really, really bad. I had lamented the treatment and neglect of Corporal Shalit and of prisoners of conscience. And one guy -- I think guy -- wrote, “Quit murdering Palestinians, scumbag.” That is not an atypical e-mail, I promise you. And you know who’s very good at murdering Palestinians? Hamas, Fatah, and other Palestinians who lord it over the people. When Hamas is tossing people off rooftops, where is the “world community”? Blasting Israel and America -- the “Little Satan” and the “Great Satan” -- that’s where. It wasn’t hard to figure out why I was getting these e-mails. The e-mailers weren’t reading National Review Online, of course. Left-wing bloggers had attacked my Shalit post in their usual vitriolic and personal terms; their readers were taking the ball from there. And, in their style, they were essentially aping the bloggers they admire. Back to my college days, one last time, please -- and to the matter of why I left the Left. I concluded that I was on a side: on the side of the United States, of liberal democracy, of man (if you will pardon the grandiosity). I was not a neutralist. I was not a pox-on-both-your-houses guy. I was not a moral-equivalence guy. I knew that the United States and the West weren’t perfect, heaven knows. But I also knew that we weren’t what ailed the world -- that we were, on balance, a force for good. This was a less common view than you might expect -- in my environment, at that time. Recently, I was talking to a composer friend of mine, who made a journey from left to right (as I did, but later in his life). I asked him how it happened. He said he had gone to West Berlin in the 1980s, to study. And the people around him -- West German lefties -- said, “You know, there’s really no difference between our side and their side. It’s all the same, really. We’re no better than they are.” But my friend had eyes to see -- and he could see that it wasn’t true. He saw, starkly, the difference between a free and open society, and an unfree and closed one. That made all the difference. I had eyes to see, too. There was a big, big difference between the democratic world and the anti-democratic world. The people around me weren’t Communists; they didn’t carry around copies of Das Kapital (some of them did); they didn’t believe in the “withering away of the state” and all that jazz. They just thought that America was just as bad as anyone else -- and that, therefore, we had “no right to talk.” I disagreed. To repeat what many of my fellow righties have said, there is no way -- no way -- that America’s enemies can defeat America. Only Americans can do that. How do you lose? For one thing, you lose moral reason. And here is one way of knowing if you’re having trouble in the moral-reason department: When you hear about Hamas -- about something awful it has done -- is your instinct to hate and condemn George Bush? The Patriot Act? Gitmo? That instinct is a crazy one. And destructive. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for this long, long Impromptus -- also for the sheer basicness of it. The A-B-C-ness of it. The sun rises in the east, and liberal democracies aren’t what’s wrong with the world. But sometimes it’s good to review the basics. #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/437230/ksms-elliptical-machine-c/jay-nordlinger Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:26 -0400 The Obamites v. Arizona, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/436807/the-obamites-v-arizona-c/jay-nordlinger About a month ago, the United States, in the person of assistant secretary of state Michael Posner, expressed guilt to the People’s Republic of China over Arizona’s new immigration law. Now the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has informed Arizona of the administration’s intention to sue the state while speaking to Ecuadorian television. I knew that I wouldn’t like the Obama administration and its policies. I am a Reagan Republican. But I didn’t know the administration would be so disgusting. Honestly. Whose good opinion would the administration prefer? The U.N.’s or Arizonans’? Le Monde’s or Arizonans’? Rafael Correa’s or Arizonans’? These are pretty disturbing questions, as I see it. #ad#I don’t like to write about people after they die, when I have little or nothing good to say about them. But I have an excuse for writing about José Saramago, the late Portuguese novelist: I’ve been meaning to write about him for weeks -- since late April, when I read an <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ac794e58-4e63-11df-b48d-00144feab49a.html">article</a> about him in the Financial Times. I wanted to say something about the arrival of blogging: blogging as a literary form. Here was a Nobel laureate -- a Nobel laureate in literature -- doing a blog. I quote the article: <blockquote> Encouraged by his wife, [Saramago] kept a web-log from September 2008 until August 2009. This space on “the infinite page of the internet” gave the prolific author yet another medium to air his views on subjects ranging from the minutiae of translation to the author’s misadventures in car repairs. A reluctant blogger at first, he discovered the web could be “that place where I can most express myself according to my desires”. </blockquote> Very interesting. Speaking of the way Saramago expressed himself . . . I wanted to say something about how the Left talks. (Saramago was a Communist.) They specialize in dehumanizing invective, always have. Here is Saramago on Silvio Berlusconi: “this thing, this disease, this virus that threatens moral death to the land of Verdi.” Talk of this nature is a warning to everyone: The speaker is capable of just about anything, will justify just about anything -- which, of course, Saramago did. And I’ll say something nice, or semi-nice. I always quote this. In March 2003, the Castro dictatorship cracked down on dissidents, sweeping up 75 of them. This is known in Cuba, and its diaspora, as the “Black Spring.” Saramago said, “This is my limit. . . . Cuba has lost my trust; it has damaged my hopes; it has defrauded my illusions.” The Cuban revolution triumphed in 1959, and has been totalitarian and murderous from the beginning. Forty-four years is rather a long time to maintain illusions. But some will not let them go still . . . Couple of days ago, I was in a flower shop, and the owner is Israeli, I think. There was a customer who had on the counter a Hebrew newspaper. On the front page was a big, big picture of Elton John. He had performed in Israel. And the two men were saying, “Good for him.” (Yes, I guess the owner is Israeli.) Has it come to that? Has Israel been so demonized in the world -- so delegitimized by Islamists and their left-wing allies -- that a concert by a foreigner in Israel is a big deal? Is an act of courage, cause for gratitude on the part of the locals? Has it really come to that? Is Israel now apartheid South Africa? That is moral perversion of so high a degree, it is dizzying. And people like Jimmy Carter -- author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid -- are responsible. Through the eight years of George W. Bush, I heard something constantly: “He scares me.” Liberals said, every two seconds, “He scares me.” I think there was a bumper sticker that simply said, “I’m scared.” Big nation of fraidy-cats, we were. The Left had peddled the notion that Bush was destroying our Constitution and our civil liberties; a lot of people bought. You know what? I now hear a lot of conservatives say about Obama, “He scares me.” They say it with a kind of disbelief, some embarrassment. Will there be a bumper sticker? I doubt it. The Left really does bumper stickers, with prolificacy, alacrity, and glee. A friend of mine who works in the auto industry sent me an ad for BMW -- used BMWs, specifically. It’s a print ad. A little girl is lying down with her mouth parted, looking sexually at the camera. The text says, “You know you’re not the first. But do you really care?” My friend said, “How old is this girl? Eleven? Twelve?” Kiddie porn in advertising -- and elsewhere in life -- is by now an old story. It has become part of the furniture. I even see it in concert and opera programs here in New York. But it is still alarming. And my friend -- a father of three, not that it should matter -- was alarmed. As well as revolted. #page#A quick musical note: I was in a store (not the flower shop). All of a sudden, I hear Rachmaninoff’s C-minor piano concerto -- but I was not hearing a recording of that concerto. I was hearing “All by Myself,” the old pop song. The Rachmaninoff in it was clear as day. Kind of interesting. You know the song “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”? Slow movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony in E minor. And Google knows everything. Come to find out -- maybe you knew this -- both songs are by Eric Carmen. Rachmaninoff is a wonderful composer to borrow from. But you would think that someone named Carmen would borrow from Bizet (as plenty of songwriters have, believe me). #ad#A second musical note? This will double as a language note. I was in some other store -- you must think I do nothing but shop -- and heard kind of a techno song: a remake of “If I Were a Rich Man,” from Fiddler on the Roof. Only the woman -- or the robot or whatever -- was singing/speaking “If I Was a Rich Man.” No subjunctive. Of course, they don’t use that subjunctive in Britain either, so far as I’m aware. I wish I was there, cocking my ear to the streets, to prove it! Was with a gaggle of Europeans at dinner not long ago. They were saying, with authoritative confidence, that Berlin was the best place in all of Europe now. (None of these people was German.) But the best place for the young: only the young. How they arrived at this, I’m not sure, but they said it like it was a matter of fact. And the best place for the old? They all agreed, quickly: Paris. Can’t really tell you what this means, but I thought it possibly interesting enough to pass along . . . At home in New York, I went by a synagogue the other day. It advertised itself as “forward-thinking.” Kind of a shudder-making phrase, sometimes. I thought a competitor synagogue should counter-advertise: “Backward-thinking!” Saw a heartbreaking sign. A new Subway had opened (part of the chain of sandwich shops -- I’m not talking an underground). It was on a side street, just off a main avenue. The sign had an arrow and said, “25 meters.” Meters! In America! Blech! Saw Jackie Mason on the street. (Not that street. Not the Subway street.) Also saw pictures of Paul McCartney recently -- when he was badmouthing George W. Bush at the Obama White House. Okay, my question: Who looks worse, with a lot of “work”? Men or women? They both look like hell. But I say men. Blech! P.S. Mason is funnier than McCartney. Also on the street, saw an ad for condoms (I believe) -- or an admonition to wear condoms or something. The sign said, “Birth Control: Take Control.” Once upon a time, didn’t “control,” or “self-control,” mean . . . you know? When was that, 1622? So, I noticed that the block where ABC News sits is named “Peter Jennings Way.” Okay, fine. We used to vote at the same polling station: I figured we canceled each other out. How about the block where National Review sits, or, even better, the block where National Review sat for decades, before moving (a little bit away)? Couldn’t that be named “William F. Buckley Jr. Way”? Hmmm? Overheard a funny conversation on the street. One workman was saying to another, “Mrs. Smith [let’s say] died last week.” The other workman misheard his friend: “Mrs. Jones?” “No,” said the first workman, “she should have died.” I don’t know, just amused me. Throw a little language at you -- some golf lingo. Tiger Woods was saying that Dustin Johnson, with whom he played at Pebble Beach last week, was long. Really long. How long? “Stupid long.” I liked this, too: In his Spectator <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/politics/spectator-notes/5972723/the-spectators-notes.thtml">column</a> the other week, Charles Moore disparaged the phrase, “Don’t let anyone tell you that . . .” During the campaign, politicians in Britain were using it. Nick Clegg was a particular offender. Moore wrote, “This [the phrase] is usually followed by something that no one was ever very likely to tell you eg ‘the British people aren’t equal to the challenge’.” That is so true. Remember what William Safire once said, years ago? Nixon liked to say, “Some people have counseled that we take the easy way.” Safire said, “I wonder whether someone, in a meeting, should actually counsel taking the easy way. That way, the president could honestly say, ‘Some . . .’” Speaking of The Spectator, Anthony Daniels had a piece in it sometime in April -- <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/wit-and-wisdom/diary/5951408/part_3/diary.thtml">here</a> -- and I marked a passage in it for you: “I was astonished at the picture of Nottingham Market Square in the 1740s: a grand, elegant and even magnificent urban space. How did they do it without town planners? Go to Nottingham now and it is like having your retinas scoured by wire wool.” A simile that arrests you, no? I have a million more items for you, ladies and gentlemen, but this column has been dribs-and-drabs-ish enough as it is. Let me give you one more -- a striking name, a beautiful name, sent by a reader who said that it belongs to a man at Washington State University: Forgivemore Magunda. Ahhh -- a name, not just of beauty, but of remonstration and uplift! See you. #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/436807/the-obamites-v-arizona-c/jay-nordlinger Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:25 -0400 Three Visits -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/436407/three-visits/jay-nordlinger Like many magazines and newspapers, National Review has a fairly steady stream of visitors -- officials, thinkers, personages. I thought I would tell you a little about three recent visitors -- different people with interesting things to say. I’m not going to encapsulate our conversations. But I thought some tidbits or observations might be nice. And the three visitors, three personages, are T. Boone Pickens (the legendary Texas oilman), Thomas Sowell (your favorite “public intellectual,” maybe), and Sharron Angle (the new Republican Senate nominee in Nevada -- the one who’ll challenge majority leader Harry Reid). Pickens? (Actually, it feels more natural to say, “Boone?”) It won’t surprise longtime readers of this column to know that I like the way he talks: a lot. There is something about Texans and speech. They use the language in a most entertaining and effective way. Pickens -- Boone -- has come to NR to talk about his energy plan, his energy “mission” for the nation: He wants to get us off foreign oil -- particularly Middle Eastern oil -- and get us on natural gas, of which we have plenty, and which is cheaper, cleaner, and so on. (I am echoing Boone -- I know little about this subject.) He makes a brief statement of his mission, and then says, “That’s the blood, guts, and feathers of what I’m doing.” #ad#He also refers to environmentalists as “greenies”: “the greenies.” He calls garbage trucks “trash trucks,” which is something I have never heard: I like the alliteration. And he says this about a particular project of which he disapproves, but which is an American project nonetheless: “It’s an ugly baby, but it’s our baby.” At a certain juncture, a colleague of mine challenges Pickens by making a point about the retail world: Wal-Mart, in particular. The oilman, impatient, shaking his head, says, “I don’t know anything about Wal-Mart, but I surer ’n hell know about energy” -- which is hard to dispute. He says that when he was a sophomore in college -- Oklahoma State -- he was kind of floundering. His parents said, “A fool with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.” Which is a nice aphorism. They went on to say, “You’re a fool with no plan.” T. Boone Pickens, as you know, soon got a plan, and many plans. He is now 82, and a damn good 82. At the end of our session, he says something poignant, or at least I find it so. He’s talking about this “mission” he’s on -- the natural-gas thing. “I was too young for World War II. I was too old for Vietnam. Korea was my war, really. But I had a wife and a child, and I got a deferment. This is my mission” -- what he wants to give to America. Thomas Sowell has come back to New York from California, where he has lived for a long time. Sowell is making a swing of the East Coast, as I understand it. He grew up in Harlem -- and he still talks in a honking New York accent. The kind you don’t hear much anymore. (At least I don’t.) (Frankly, he talks like Charlie Rangel. And that is the only thing he has in common with Rangel.) When he says “park,” a colleague of mine asks him to repeat it: The word comes out . . . very New York-y. When Sowell informs us he’s about to be 80, it’s a bit of a shock. Sowell is not only youthful, he is timeless. He likes the Tea Party quite a bit -- and why not, since they are standing up for Sowellian principles? These are freedom-minded, occasionally cussed Americans, pushing back against the Swedenizing of the country (to use a shorthand). What about Sarah Palin? Let’s put it this way: Sowell’s view is not that of the New York Times. (True, few of his views are those of the New York Times.) Somehow, the term “African-American” comes up. And Sowell is one to say “black.” I ask him what he thinks of “African-American.” He notes that the average black family has probably been here longer than the average white family. Of all Americans to be hyphenated, so late in the game! And who would say “European-American,” such a clunky phrase? Sowell further notes that black Americans typically have less connection to their ancestry than white Americans. I think of a conversation I had with Condoleezza Rice, many years ago -- this was when she was national security adviser. She objected to “African-American,” and preferred “black,” for the same reasons: Blacks had been in this country for 400 years; they were part and parcel of the American experience; there was no need to get into this “African-American” stuff. Plus, she said, “black” is parallel to “white.” In a thousand ways, it can be burdensome and agonizing to be black in America. For example, did you get something because you were black? Were you denied something because you were black? How can you know for sure? Sowell remembers when he was just starting out as an economist, and sending his papers to various journals around the world. They did not know his skin color. So when they accepted or rejected a paper, it had nothing to do with skin color -- which was good to know. You know? I mention that, if Obama runs for reelection and loses, it could be a bad, bitter thing for race relations. People could take it very, very hard. Sowell says that there could actually be street violence. Anyway, we will cross that bridge when we come to it, if we come to it. “The graveyard is full of indispensable men,” goes the saying. So, sure, no one is strictly “indispensable,” I suppose. But I think it’s true that some people are irreplaceable. Well, in one sense, we’re all irreplaceable, aren’t we? We’re all unique. But is it okay to suggest, just in an earthly sense, that some people are uniquer than others? Bill Buckley is irreplaceable -- but there are so many books. Tom Sowell is irreplaceable -- but there are so many books. Thank goodness. One of us asks Sharron Angle, “Are we on the record?” She says, “I’m always on the record” -- a fine thing for a politician to be. She tells us how she achieved her victory in Nevada -- a victory many view as improbable. She recounts her campaign, step by step. And then she mentions God, the hand of Providence. This is not what a typical politician does, and it will fuel the liberal revulsion toward her. I say, “Tough noogs.” How’d she get that double-r in her first name? “My mother and dad gave it to me,” she says. Her mom knew a little girl named Sharron Casey (if I have heard correctly) -- she just liked the name. #page#The Senate nominee was conceived, she says, in Lovelock, Nev. -- what a place-name. (Especially for conception!) But she was born in Oregon. The family moved back to Nevada when she was three (I think). How’d she get involved in politics? She calls herself an “accidental politician.” A little boy of hers failed kindergarten -- was “a dropout at age six.” She wanted to homeschool him and ran into all sorts of roadblocks: which got her involved in “the process.” She got elected (I assume elected) to the school board, etc. And now she is a major-party nominee for the U.S. Senate -- running against the majority leader. #ad#She has taken some grief for favoring the abolition of the Department of Education -- as sound a position as I know -- but her opponents should know this: She talks wisely and even movingly about education policy -- saying that policy works best when it’s closest to the child. You’re familiar with this line: Better the state level than the federal level, better the county than the state, better the town than the county -- Subsidiarity City, baby. On immigration, she says there are two issues: illegal immigration and legal immigration. There should not be much discussion of illegal immigration: Illegal is illegal. Secure the border, enforce the law. Then we can have a nice discussion about what our policy of legal immigration should be. She notes that she has a Mexican-American daughter-in-law, and Mexican-American grandkids, whom she loves. Remember when Bush 41 pointed out to Reagan, on the tarmac in Louisiana, I believe, his “little brown ones”? He took grief for that. But he told the grief-givers to go to hell, which was marvelous. I ask Angle about Las Vegas: Every statewide politician in Nevada has to be a booster of Vegas, I’m sure -- a champion of Vegas. They have to represent the “gaming industry,” as it started to call itself some years ago. (That is one of the stupidest euphemisms in America, in my view.) Angle is a Christian conservative, openly so. How does she square her Christian conservatism with Vegasness: with the hookers, the slots, and all that jazz? Is she at peace with Vegasness? Oh, yes, she says. Vegas is “the place to go to play.” She talks about Christmas in her family, when she was growing up. They’d get individual gifts and group gifts. And one of the group gifts was a box of poker chips. “We learned that the house always wins. We Nevadans generally don’t gamble.” A colleague of mine follows up: “Do you gamble?” “No,” she says, “but I would encourage you to!” (I think that, if Angle were from another state, she would consider Vegas a cesspool worthy of contempt, but I’m not here to argue with her, or anybody else -- not at the moment.) She is warm, gentle, sincere -- a little fragile-seeming. She’s not so polished, anything but slick. Indeed, there is something amateur about her -- and I don’t necessarily mean that negatively. Reid and the Democrats will eat her alive, you may think. And you may be right. But there could be some steel beneath that grandmotherly warmth and gentleness: You don’t run for the Senate if you’re a total wallflower. She does not strike me as terribly bookish. She says “phenomena” when she means “phenomenon,” but so do most people, I find. And Harry Reid is not exactly Ciceronian. The Democrats will paint her as a kook, an extremist, a flake -- their allies in the media have already started to do so. But she says she’s “a mainstream American,” and, you know? She is. She’s just not the kind of American the big media types often encounter. I ask the fundamental question of why she wants to be in the Senate. She says it’s her patriotic duty: to defend the Constitution against those disrespecting it, specifically Obama, Reid, and that gang. She wants a better future for her children and grandchildren. She wants them to enjoy the liberties that Americans have enjoyed for generations -- but that are under threat now. Every politician says this, or many of them do. But Angle says it with an unusual sincerity, directness, simplicity -- believability. Reid will have a fortune to spend, and he will smother her in attack ads. They will hit her with the Full Shrum. But, you know? Nevada is a small state -- small in its population. Two and a half million people. You could kill Angle in California or New York -- defame her to death. But can you do it in Nevada? She can reach a lot of people -- she can literally shake the hands of a good portion of the electorate. Reid & Co. will paint her as a dangerous nut. But Nevadans may say, “Really? That nice, sensible lady I met in the mall last week? I don’t think so.” I have a memory, from many years ago. There was a congressman from New York: very liberal, very snide. (Big surprise, I know.) He was at some local meeting -- a hearing or something. And a very earnest woman was making a Fourth of July-ish statement about how great a country America was, and how we could overcome our problems, just as we always had. And this congressman, a soi-disant sophisticate, was laughing his butt off to the colleague sitting beside him. A rolling camera caught it. Angle is the type that such people laugh at. I grew up with these people -- the laughers, I mean. They ran the world around me. And I rebelled against them. Oh, I hope Angle wins. Oh, how sweet that would be.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/436407/three-visits/jay-nordlinger Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:52 -0400 Ft. Worth Journal -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/435261/ft-worth-journal/jay-nordlinger Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger was in Ft. Worth over the weekend. Below are some characteristic “scribbles.”   There are some significant events going on in this friendly town west of Dallas: the Colonial Golf Tournament (a PGA event, in case you didn’t know); and the premiere of an opera, Before Night Falls, by Jorge Martín. All over town, people have tags around their necks -- their tickets to get into the tournament, on the various days. And a blimp hovers over the tournament -- a Met Life blimp. With Snoopy on it. #ad#I remember something from my childhood -- or adolescence? -- and it may amuse you. One day, we woke up and Snoopy was advertising for Met Life. I remember being kind of traumatized, and appalled: Peanuts belonged to the whole nation; the strip and its characters were a national institution. And here Snoopy was shilling for a company? I thought it was so wrong! As though the government had weighed in on behalf of a particular product. I guess I was innocenter then . . . Before Night Falls treats the well-known story of Reinaldo Arenas, the Cuban poet, gay, who was persecuted by the revolution. You may remember that a movie was made of this story in 2000. I will be writing about the opera for National Review. The performances take place in Bass Hall -- on the front of which, two enormous angels stick out, blowing long, long trumpets. And some of the ladies attending the opera are interesting: They have backless or sleeveless dresses, and big ol’ tattoos. Big mamas, too. Oh, one more thing, before I move on: The Diet Cokes at the opera are $2.25. Two twenty-five! At the Metropolitan Opera, where I am usually reviewing, they are $5, I think -- maybe more. In Ft. Worth, I feel like getting two! At Angelo’s Barbecue, I hear two old men talking about “the Five Lessons” -- and they are obviously talking about Hogan, the great, late golfer who was from Ft. Worth: and who in 1957 wrote his famous Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. I wonder if these old duffers knew Hogan -- or met him. He did not like to be met much. (By the way, I wrote an appreciation of Hogan when he died in 1997. You may find it in the collection advertised at the bottom of this column: Here, There & Everywhere.) The barbecue at Angelo’s is good, of course, but is it better than it is elsewhere in the country -- New York City, for example? Or do we merely think it is, ’cause we’re in Texas? I’m afraid I think the latter . . . But that doesn’t negate the goodness of Angelo’s! Angelo’s is closed on Sunday: a reminder that we are not in New York anymore . . . By the way, the joint is on White Settlement Road. Interesting to speculate how the road got its name. And is there a less modern-sounding name? At the hotel, I check in, and the young man behind the counter thrusts out his hand and says, “My name’s Hayden. Have a great stay.” That is something I love about America -- something that differentiates it from Europe. And something that differentiates, say, Texas from New York City. The sheer openness of it, the equality of it -- do you know what I’m driving at (in this brief little blurby thing)? I’m reminded of the observations of European travelers to early America. They were amazed at the easy intercourse between people. (No snickers, please.) For example, the easy intercourse between employees and employers. (Yes, I’ve heard of slavery, thank you very much. Please don’t write me.) (On this point.) There is a big photo of JFK, visiting Ft. Worth. Was it during that trip? I don’t know, but I could check -- not germane at the moment. He is leaving the Texas Theater. The marquee says, “Welcome to Ft. Worth, Where the West Begins.” JFK is striding, buttoning (I believe) his suit coat. Big, bright smile. Has anyone ever looked better in a suit? Ever? Behind him is LBJ, in a raincoat. Not looking very good at all. Hey, I’ve learned my Oliver Stone history: I know LBJ killed Kennedy. I see an ad for Lone Star beer. It says, “Drinking any other beer is treason.” A stinking example of Texas McCarthyism . . . The Tarrant County Courthouse (I think it is) is a beautiful brown building, with a champion clock tower -- the clock is right, too (and more than twice a day, I assume). If this building were in another country, we would pause before it with great appreciation, and consider ourselves lucky to have seen it. Seldom do you appreciate your own stuff, you know? Outside the courthouse is a monument honoring “Confederate soldiers and their descendents who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.” It was put there by the Julia Jackson Chapter of the UDC -- the United Daughters of the Confederacy -- in 1953. “Descendants” is misspelled (as it so often is). “Descendent” is only an adjective, never a noun, as far as I know. #page#There is a great, huge, beautiful old building that was the Texas & Pacific depot. It is now condominiums. You should see the elevators in the building: works of art. I don’t see why we can’t make stuff like this now. Do you? Nearby is a monument to Al Hayne, a British visitor who rescued many people in a tremendous fire. He was the only one to die. An inscription reads, “Most noble is that fame which rests upon heroic deeds of love and sacrifice.” A great monument, and, by the evidence, man. #ad#The old post office is absolutely enormous, and rock-solid -- it ain’t goin’ nowhere. Was built in 1933. They built things to last. Huge, huge columns: There are cows at the top of them, to honor the area. (Ft. Worth is known as “Cowtown,” you know.) There are also traditional gargoyles and such. And the lobby? It features -- I am tempted to say “boasts” -- marble, bronze, and gold leaf. Why does everything new need to be ugly? Do we have a lack of imagination -- of taste, of money? I have a point confirmed in Ft. Worth: There is no Texas accent. Rather, there are many Texas accents. Such a big state, and a diverse one, at that. There could no way be just one accent. At a bar or some establishment -- 7th Haven (no, not “Heaven”) -- I see a marquee. Today, it’s reading, “Better to lose a lover than to love a loser.” Ah, American folk wisdom! Would you like to know where the “Home of the Crawfish Sausage” is? Well, I’m gonna tell you: J&J Blues Bar. I have complained about this a million times: the sheer extremism of the environmentalist movement. I mean, if only they would speak more sanely. The little signs on the bathroom counters in hotels say, “Save Our Planet.” It has to do with washing the towels. “Save Our Planet”! Why do they have to talk that way? Why? Can’t they be a little more -- temperate, credible? A friend of mine was saying, makes her want to throw her towels on the floor, to be washed. I know the feeling. The Ft. Worth Water Gardens is -- are? -- a very good idea. This is a hot climate. And the gardens are very pleasant. There is this kind of waterfall, a little Niagara -- and I think of Annie Taylor. Remember her? The first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls. She was in a barrel. Weird, bizarre, very American story. Guy has a black Corvette -- very cool. Wrong color for this uncool climate, however, in my opinion. Still, I’d take it, if offered . . . First Christian Church, established in 1855, has an interesting slogan: “From the Frontier to the Future.” There is a Foch Street, or Foch Road -- I can’t help thinking of it as Avenue Foch. Could it possibly be named for the World War I general? On Houston Street -- is it “Street”? -- there’s a fantastic old-timey sign for a store that no longer exists: Juvenile Shoe Store -- “for Boys, for Girls.” It is my impression -- and things may be different where you are -- that people don’t say “boys” and “girls” much anymore: It’s “kids,” “young people,” etc. By the way, would you like to see a picture of that sign? Took it with my little BlackBerry, so it’s not exactly Stieglitz-level, but you may like it: <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/2010/06/01/descriptionimg00028.jpg">here</a>. Um, there’s also, elsewhere in town, Limp Willies Snowball Palace. Oh, come on, y’all. In airports and hotels, I am asked, often, for ID, such as my driver’s license. In these days of anti-Arizona fever, perhaps I should say that I’m asked “for my papers” -- and I should say it with a Nazi accent (as distinct from a German accent, huh?). They have this slogan down in Austin: “Texas for people who hate Texas.” Must be the snottiest slogan on the planet. Well, I love Austin -- and I also love Texas for people who love Texas.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/435261/ft-worth-journal/jay-nordlinger Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:40 -0400 Up in Norway, Part IV -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/435108/up-in-norway-part-iv/jay-nordlinger Well, let’s wrap this baby up -- these jottings from Oslo, handsome, stately, interesting capital of Norway. For Part I, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434859/up-in-norway-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. For Part II, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434944/up-in-norway-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. And for III, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/435034/up-in-norway-part-iii/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. A friend takes me into a Muslim neighborhood, saying, “This is a part of Oslo that many people don’t want you to know about, and that many people pretend doesn’t exist.” Except for some signs with Norwegian words, you could be in a South Asian or Middle Eastern town. Some kids of the third generation do not speak Norwegian. And many women, in particular, aren’t leading anything like Norwegian, or Western, lives. #ad#Some are not allowed to leave the home. Some have to endure “female genital mutilation.” Some are forced into marriages they want no part of. And are Norwegian political and cultural elites helping them? Well, are such elites helping any Muslim women, anywhere in the West? Are they encouraging assimilation? Would they be so bold as to demand it? Or are they allowing continuing ghettoization and apartness -- a little sharia on the side, winked at, when not ignored altogether? A sad, outrageous story, in Norway and many other countries. I interview Siv Jensen, leader of the Progress party. You remember how I said, early in the journal, that I heard someone’s cellphone go off, and it was playing “Morning Mood,” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt? That was in the Barcelona airport: in line at the SAS counter, where the Norwegians were queued up to go home. Well, Jensen’s cellphone goes off too: and plays that beautiful, very Norwegian tune. The Progress party is a Reaganite or Thatcherite party -- the only one in Norway. Jensen has been called “the Norwegian Thatcher,” not unjustly. Is this just an obscure little fringe party? Not on your life: It is the second-largest party in the Storting, the parliament, after the Labor party. Jensen expects to be prime minister someday. When, exactly? In 2013, following the next elections. There are significant conservative and libertarian elements in this strongly socialist environment. And they are a joy to be around, these elements! I’ll write about them -- and Jensen, and Progress -- in a future issue of National Review. Let me give you one tidbit: In Jensen’s office are a) a bust of Reagan and b) an Israeli flag. Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t tell you how shocking this is in Norway. I just can’t. The media would better respect a politician who had child porn. Do you know about Vigeland Park, that site in Oslo featuring sculptures by Gustav Vigeland, Norway’s national sculptor (if I may put it that way)? I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a more beautiful park. It begins with the Main Gate, in granite and wrought iron -- huge, and a work of art itself. Then we see a sculpture . . . of the sculptor. This is a self-portrait. You can say “self-portrait” when referring to a sculpture, right? In it, Vigeland is wielding his hammer and chisel. Also, his head is streaked with pigeon poop, which is kind of a shame. Then we see other Vigeland productions, scores of them, in all their glory. Many of the sculptures depict family life, from the appearance of them. And all of Vigeland’s people are nude. I don’t think he did clothes (except when engaged in self-portrait -- self-sculpting). The men and boys all have their meat and two veg, and the women and girls have their stuff, too. Kind of weird -- just a little. The park has more than sculptures -- it has . . . park stuff: a river (I think), bridges, ducks, geese, fountains, playgrounds. The entire place breathes peace, orderliness, beauty. You could relax here, you really could. Do you remember how I said, earlier in the journal, that I saw a statue, outside the Storting, and thought at first that it was of Lincoln? Instead it was of Johan Sverdrup? Well, in Vigeland Park, I again think I see Lincoln, but say, “Nah” -- I was fooled once. I must have Lincoln on the brain or something. But I get closer, and, lo -- it’s Abe. The plaque on the left says, Presented to the People of Norway by the People of North Dakota, U.S.A., July 4th, 1914. The plaque on the right says, Government of the People, by the People, for the People, Shall Not Perish from the Earth. It’s just me, but I don’t see anything more moving in my entire stay in Norway. Every year, my admiration and awe of Lincoln increase. And I started, as a child, admiring and in awe. And some of the worst mail I get is from Lincoln-haters -- either the saddest or the most despicable group on earth, I can’t decide which. Feed you one more tidbit about Vigeland? He designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal -- the only medal he ever designed. There are nudes on that too, come to think of it. (Classical figures, embracing, fraternally.) I meet an American who has lived in Norway for about twelve years -- is married to a Norwegian. Has Norwegian kids. (When he speaks English to them, they speak Norwegian back to him.) He’s an NR reader and a very, very sharp thinker and observer. He relates something interesting about this question of integration and assimilation. (Everything he relates is interesting.) He says that he’s about as integrated and assimilated as you can get. He looks like a Norwegian (though he is of different ancestry). He speaks fluent Norwegian, with the lightest of accents. He has a Norwegian family. He blends (as they say in My Cousin Vinny). But he would never be accepted as Norwegian. What chance do others -- ones who stand out more, who blend less -- have? Yikes. #page#He tells me a funny story about a friend of his -- another American married to a Norwegian. The friend met this Norwegian girl at school somewhere. Thought he had something really extraordinary: this beautiful, Nordic blonde. Then they went to Norway, and, at the airport, he discovered that many, many women were like that. “Hey,” he said. “There was no disclosure. Why didn’t you tell me that you were basically run-of-the-mill?” He meant that in the most loving way, I’m given to understand, and still does. #ad#It’s true that Norwegians are almost cruelly good-looking. (“Cruelly,” because this is unfair to the rest of the world.) I think of something I once said about the Austrians, when I first started going there, years ago. I said, “You can almost” -- almost -- “forgive them for considering themselves a master race.” In Oslo, you occasionally see African women -- black black African women, nothing café au lait about them. They, too, are beautiful, and stand out as brilliant plumes. The gaiety of their dresses helps, too. I see some tough guys, some bruisers -- big Norwegian men with tattoos and all. They look like you wouldn’t want to mess with them. But, you know? They’re carrying man-purses (as they said on Seinfeld, I believe). And it’s hard to take someone seriously as a bruiser when he’s carrying a man-purse. You know? I don’t care that it’s Europe. Sue me for ethnocentrism. Attila the Hun would look laughable with a man-purse. Taking a cruise on Oslo Fjord, I see that the environs look like Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The Norwegian immigrants must have felt at home in that region of our country. A guide points out a house, or cottage, or something, that looks like a Greek temple. It was built in 1912 -- by a Norwegian who had a Greek wife, who was homesick. Sweet. Most of the many islands are owned “by the municipality,” says the guide, but there are a few private ones, including one with a golf course -- not a common facility in Norway. I think, “You know, this island would be about right for me . . .” Earlier, I mentioned a pile of something -- modern art -- opposite the new opera house. The opera house is by the water; the art is in the water. It’s not the worst thing in the world -- not the worst pile of modern art you ever saw. But did anyone think it could improve on the water itself? This is not gilding the lily -- it’s more like staining it. Again, it’s not that the art is so bad. It’s that it’s so . . . unnecessary, and, you might say, arrogant: arrogant of man to think that he was making an improvement, even an adornment, even a non-detraction. But then, I am out of step (the title of Sidney Hook’s autobiography, by the way, if I remember correctly). A Norwegian comments, with pride not unjustified, on the peaceableness of the place: where the police are unarmed. Hope they can stay that way (if they want to be). And I hope that their lack of arms does not cause undue trouble to citizens, and crime victims. I will remark once more on the friendliness of Norwegians: Even the teenagers smile at you and are polite to you, when working as cashiers, waiters, and so on. And teenagers, of course, are the most insolent people on earth. Insolence is virtually their right! Here is a rule: If a country’s teenagers are friendly -- that is one friendly country. Can I give you some charming English, uttered to me by a Norwegian hotel clerk? She says, “You’ll want to take a taxi” from one company in particular, “because the other ones will rip you.” I appreciate her attempt at an idiom. But she needs the “off.” Otherwise, she’s saying that the cab companies will criticize me harshly! As I leave Oslo, Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, arrives. He is just perfect for the Norwegians -- I mean, for the Norwegian political elites: Third World, “indigenous,” not quite a commie, not quite a democrat, something in between. Perfect. By the way, I mention to a Norwegian friend -- a conservative-libertarian -- that Barack Obama is the perfect U.S. president for the Norwegians. I mean, if there has to be a United States, and it has to have a president, Obama is perfect. My friend says, “He could be gay, too. Then he would be perfect.” I stand corrected. I have a thousand more items for you, but you’ve had enough, and I gots to go. Let me relate one more story -- something that almost made me fall down. I mean, it’s something you might put in a movie. In a TV show. As you know, Americans are big, big users of ice -- ice in drinks. The rest of the world uses less ice (or none). You can always tell an American by the ice he requests. And I’m one of them. All over Oslo, it has been almost impossible to get ice. And when ice has been available, they have wanted to give you a cube or two -- more would be unthinkable, uncivilized. So this has been basically an iceless sojourn for me. That’s okay: When in Rome . . . I get to the airport, to go home. It’s mid-morning. I walk up to this café-like place. The girl behind the counter -- pretty, smiling -- says, “Hei-hei!” I order a chocolate muffin and a milk. She says, brightly, chirpingly, “You want ice with that?” Now they offer ice? With milk? Hell, I take it. Thank you, dear readers -- see you!     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/435108/up-in-norway-part-iv/jay-nordlinger Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:26 -0400 Up in Norway, Part III -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/435034/up-in-norway-part-iii/jay-nordlinger Thanks for joining me for the third round of these notes from Oslo -- for the first two rounds, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434859/up-in-norway-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a> and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434944/up-in-norway-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. Where were we? Can’t remember, so I’ll just wade in: wade back in. Speaking of wading: In the ponds on the grounds of the royal palace, people actually wade. They wade in the water (to quote an old spiritual). No one comes out to arrest them. And isn’t it remarkable that you can be on the grounds of the royal palace at all? #ad#What’s more, you can practically walk up to the front door and say, “Hello, King.” No one stops you. The place appears barely guarded. The White House used to be like this, generations ago. (I know that for sure: I’m from an old Washington family.) I imagine Buckingham Palace used to be like this too, once upon a time. I find that Norway has an amazing informality: This may be a socialist state, but it is possibly less a nanny state than ours back home -- back in the good ol’ U.S. of A. What do I mean? Well, let me give you an example: I’m walking along some cliffs, not far from the center of Oslo, and the drop-offs are severe. I mean, you’d be a goner, if someone pushed you or if a strong wind came up. I’m thinking, “They actually let you walk here? Where is the protection? There are no rails, no barriers, no signs -- ‘Hey, Be Careful!’ Nothing.” You know what I mean? I felt kind of queasy, frankly. Guess modern America has wussified me (or I was born that way). Remember: We live in a country where, if you buy a product that comes in a plastic bag, the plastic bag says, “Don’t Put Over Head, You Could Suffocate.” America is embarrassing, in some regards. It comes from our litigiousness: from our lawsuit culture. Someone else must always be to blame, for everything. While in this capital, I ask to see certain things: offices, rooms -- places that are not really open to the public. At home, I might have to submit a request weeks in advance, on official letterhead, and follow that up with phone calls, forms, fingerprints, blood -- you know the routine. In Oslo, everything seems easy. “Excuse me, sir, I’m going to be here until the end of the week. Do you think I could make a request to see [this or that]?” Norwegian: “Um, anything wrong with right now?” Me: “Well, um -- no, actually.” And I’m a rights-less foreigner. In Impromptus and elsewhere, I have griped and griped about a certain inhospitableness in America. You may remember this tale: One day, I went to the Sears Tower, to meet a friend of mine. We were going to go out -- go back to his place, actually. He worked in the building, and I wanted to meet him in the lobby. I had been traveling for a long time -- I think from the Middle East, for some reason. I was tired. In the vast lobby, there were no chairs, no benches -- no places to sit at all. Where I had just come from, they might kill you, but you would have a place to sit, and they would likely offer you a cup of tea and a cake. In the Sears Tower lobby, I went to sit on my suitcase -- a suitcase that had gone through security screening. The guards forbade it. You could not sit on your own suitcase in the lobby. And they offered you no place to sit. I went outside, muttering, “Is this the most inhospitable, rules-insane country on the planet, or what?” I know, I know: They don’t want bums camping out in the lobby. But they don’t have the nerve, because of political correctness, to keep the bums out and let others sit. With Norwegian friends, I bring up this general subject: of ease and informality versus difficulty and rules, etc. They love the Anglo world, and they hesitate to criticize: but they tell me that, when they’ve traveled in Britain and the U.S., they’ve been amazed at the red tape. All the red tape to untangle, all the hoops to jump through. And the Continent is supposed to be the place where you’re regulated to death! #page#I’m interested to see that many of the houses and buildings in Oslo are a yellow: a gold yellow, a pale yellow, a darkish yellow. The royal palace, for instance. The Nobel Institute, for another instance. “Solidarity” is the name of the game here in Norway: We’re all in this together. It is a society that stresses egalitarianism, unity, collectivism, consensus, blah, blah, blah. One fact, I find astonishing: They publish your tax returns on the Internet. There is no privacy at all. Everyone knows what you make, you know what everyone else makes. “And you hate anyone who makes one crown more than you,” someone tells me. Another person says, “They publish everyone’s tax return on the Internet, but they won’t publish how the schools are doing -- how students at individual schools are faring on tests and so on. That’s Norway.” That stinks. #ad#Near City Hall, I see a shop called Stetson Hats. Not a stetson among the hats in the window, however. Also near City Hall, and near Stetson Hats, is the Nobel Peace Center. The building is an old train station -- beautiful structure, and yellow. At the gates, there is a large neon sign: It says “LAUGHTER,” pretty much. But to the left of the “L” is another letter, “S” -- it flickers occasionally, giving you “SLAUGHTER.” “What’s that?” I ask a friend of mine. “Is the ‘S’ supposed to flicker? Or is there a technical problem? Is this modern art, political art?” My friend, a shrewd, frank Norwegian, says, “It’s crap. That’s what it is: crap.” He further says that “crap” has been dumped in the fjord, opposite the new opera house: some pile of modern art that blights the natural setting. That, I will see later . . . The Peace Center has a special exhibition on, celebrating the South African peace laureates: Albert John Lutuli (a genuinely great man, and a Christian leader, among other things); Bishop Tutu (later Archbishop Tutu); and Mandela and de Klerk. They won their prizes in 1960, 1984, and 1993. (Mandela and de Klerk won together.) There are videos starring Tutu and Mandela, and they are made out to be rock stars. Kind of interesting. The younger Winnie appears in the videos: I wonder whether anyone’s embarrassed, now. She is not exactly a poster child for human rights -- rather the opposite. Ask Stompie Moeketsi (if he were alive to take questions). I reflect on a curious fact about the Nobel Peace Prize: In the long history of the anti-Soviet struggle -- all those decades, all those captive nations, all those prisoners of conscience -- two men involved in that struggle won the prize: Sakharov (1975) and Walesa (1983). The anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa was honored three times. That says something, particularly about the priorities of social-democratic elites (such as those who determine the peace prize). At the Peace Center, there is another exhibit, featuring Obama, the 2009 laureate. It resembles a shrine. There are posters of the president that remind me of Che T-shirts -- “iconic” posters. They contain the words “A Call to Action.” I’m guessing that the Nobel Committee and its allies are feeling a little defensive about the ’09 prize. Why? Because this exhibit is an attempt to link the terms of Alfred Nobel’s will to the selection of Obama. The exhibit is telling you, “This is why Obama’s prize was right, traditional, and deserved.” You could call it an explication or defense; you could also call it spin. The gift shop features a mascot: Fred the Giraffe. Why “Fred”? Random name? Doubtful: “Fred” means “peace” in Norwegian. Sitting on a sidewalk, elsewhere in Oslo, there is a man from South Asia, playing the accordion, and singing. What’s that tune? “When the Saints Go Marching In.” New Orleans music has gone all around the world, and back again, and around again. Who can resist it? The accordionist-singer is good, too. He has earned the crowns in his cup. Feel like one more installment? Okay, tomorrow, then I think I’ll call it quits.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/435034/up-in-norway-part-iii/jay-nordlinger Thu, 27 May 2010 00:00:34 -0400 Up in Norway, Part II -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434944/up-in-norway-part-ii/jay-nordlinger Welcome to the second installment of these notes from Oslo. For the first, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434859/up-in-norway-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. I was talking about the 17th of May, I think. Why is this day a big deal? It is National Day, Constitution Day -- the Norwegians’ Fourth of July. (I realize that our Fourth celebrates the Declaration, not the Constitution -- but we won’t pick nits, right?) The Norwegian constitution was signed on May 17, 1814, in the town of Eidsvoll. I’m told that many Norwegians don’t know that: don’t know that May 17 marks the signing of the constitution. But no matter. The point is, May 17 is Norway’s Big Day. One huge difference between their May 17 and our July 4 -- at home, in the summer, we dress pretty grubby: in T-shirts and shorts, ready for a picnic, ready for barbecue sauce spilled down our fronts. (Should I speak for myself?) On May 17 in Norway, oh, my, are they spiffy and formal: The men are in suits and ties; the ladies are in dresses, particularly of a folk nature. They are in national costume, and so are some, though a lower percentage, of the men. #ad#People are amazingly elegant on National Day. (I guess I’m repeating myself.) I actually see some men in top hats. And children are delicious, all dressed up -- is there anything like children dressed up? These ones don’t seem recalcitrant, either -- they don’t seem Our Gang types. Even the adolescent boys are in suits and ties. I don’t see that at home much. Do you? Many men wear a patriotic ribbon -- the national colors, red and blue -- on a lapel, and so do I. The ribbon is given to me by a host of mine. I am feeling very Norwegian, very patriotic. Not a drop of Norwegian ancestry in me, but what could I care? Everyone in Oslo is a Norwegian today. Thinking of constitutions, I am reminded of an interesting point -- something that a think-tanker related to me long ago: Though America is a young nation, it is an old government -- the oldest in the world? This is what the think-tanker said, I recall. Consider how new the governments of the old, old nations are: the governments of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China . . . I partake in a traditional May 17 breakfast at the home of friends. They have patriotic Norwegian napkins, candles -- the works. There is also patriotic music playing on the stereo. Do you know that “God Save the Queen” -- or the king, depending -- is used for the Norwegian monarch too? Excellent tune. Of course, a guy like me will always think of it as “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” I wish you could see the spread at this breakfast -- “smorgasbord” ain’t a Scandinavian word for nothing. The accent is on Norwegian delicacies, including a very tasty brown cheese and reindeer sausage. On, Blixen! (No, I did not say Hans Blix -- another ghastly Swede.) The main drag in Oslo -- Karl Johan Street -- is decked in flags, flags everywhere. So is the rest of Oslo, I gather. Seldom have I seen so many flags -- never, really. By the way, do we still have Flag Day at home? I can’t remember when or what it is. Guess I’m a bad American (as the Left suggests every now and then, when it is feeling gleefully McCarthyite). People lucky enough to be staying in the Grand Hotel hang out of the balconies, watching. What are they watching? Well, the parade -- the parade of bands, the parade of people. Speaking of balconies, King Harald stands on his, at his palace. Children parade beneath him, and he beams and waves at them. Just as a king should. Some of the bands, let me tell you, play American pop songs. I am particularly happy to hear “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. Like other countries in Europe, Norway has a Muslim population, and a burgeoning one. Very burgeoning. More burgeoning than Norwegian officials like to admit. And integration is going very, very . . . badly. (I will have more on that later.) I’m told that there was a debate recently: Why not allow flags of many nations in parades on May 17? The Pakistani flag, the Somalian flag, what have you? Those pushing that idea -- the multicultis -- lost out. The competing argument was, “People can fly those other flags 364 days of the year. Can’t we have one day for our traditional national day?” Sounds reasonable . . . #page#Here are a couple of stories about the king -- about the present king’s father, actually: Olav V. During the worldwide oil crisis, he stopped using his car. He took the train, and there is a famous picture of him paying for his ticket. I’m reminded of something: My mother remembers the winter during World War II -- she was a little girl -- when the Windsor girls, Elizabeth and Margaret, went without new winter coats. They just used their coats from the previous winter (and they were growing girls). I can’t confirm at this moment that the story is true. But my mother remembers it that way, and it made an impression on her. Those things do. Symbolism counts. Another story about King Olav? (Not to be confused with King Ouf of Chabrier’s operetta L’Etoile, a performance of which I reviewed the other month.) Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, came to stay in the palace. He heard the train, or tram, pass close by at night. The dictator grumbled to the king, “Why don’t you have it shut down?” The king replied, “Why, the people are using it.” That must have perplexed the Romanian king greatly. #ad#The Norwegian parliament is called the Storting, and the Storting building is a grand, attractive edifice. Its greatest room is the Storting Chamber, where the legislators meet. At the head of the room is a very large and famous (in Norway) painting of Eidsvoll 1814: when the constitution was adopted. Honestly, the chamber is one of the most beautiful big rooms I have ever seen in my life. It must be pleasant to be a Norwegian legislator -- enacting and enforcing socialism in style. There is a man outside the building -- a statue of a man -- and for a quick second, before drawing closer, I think it’s Lincoln. Nope: It’s Johan Sverdrup, the prime minister from the 1880s. Lincoln is elsewhere in Oslo -- I will tell you about that in a future installment. Lions guard the Storting, and they were carved by convicts, imprisoned in the Akershus Fortress. The chief carver, or stonemason, was “serving a life sentence for a brutal murder.” (I’m quoting from official literature.) First, he was sentenced to death; then he was given that life sentence -- a sentence of “penal servitude,” for the remainder of his days; then he was set free, in recognition of his “services to Norway’s national assembly.” Guy went to America, “where he became a pioneer settler on the prairies.” Just so you know. I find it interesting to see older, elegant women in their national costumes -- grandmothers, aristocrats (by the appearance of them) -- sitting on benches tapping on their BlackBerries or iPhones. I myself sit on Karl Johan Street, watching the people go by. It seems that every third or fourth woman is wearing a headscarf. This is not part of the Norwegian national costume; this is something else. Are these Norwegians, or dwellers in Norway, feeling Norwegian today? Do they feel that on any day? Does the majority population allow them to do so? Questions to be explored . . . At night, there is a concert, down by the harbor. There is a parade of singers, all contestants in the Eurovision contest, I understand. One girl -- young woman? -- is especially good and appealing. Don’t catch her name. Hope she wins something. And isn’t it interesting that, wherever you go in the world, you hear pop songs in English? Well, I think that’s enough Norway-ing for now -- certainly enough National Day-ing. Thanks, and catch you for Part III.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434944/up-in-norway-part-ii/jay-nordlinger Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:01 -0400 Up in Norway, Part I -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434859/up-in-norway-part-i/jay-nordlinger You know how Hemingway wrote a story called “Up in Michigan”? (Such a good title.) Well, this little journal here will be “Up in Norway.” And it is not to be confused with the series I had about a month ago: the “Oslo Journal.” That was about the Oslo Freedom Forum, the human-rights conference that takes place in the Norwegian capital. This one is about a separate trip to Oslo, and it should be a little more fun -- unless you consider accounts of persecution a gas. And what was my journal last week? (I know, I’m on journal overload.) It was about National Review’s Portugal cruise. When I left off, I think, I was in the Barcelona airport, transiting to Oslo. So here I am, waiting in line at the SAS counter -- SAS standing for Scandinavian Airlines (somehow). And I feel like I’m in Norway already -- because almost everyone in line is blond. I mean, really blond, not the bought kind of blond. As if to confirm the point -- that I am in Norway already -- someone’s cellphone goes off, and the “ring” is “Morning Mood” -- the beloved, cheering piece from Grieg’s Peer Gynt. How much more Norwegian can you get: being blond and having your cellphone play “Morning Mood”? That is almost gilding the Norwegian lily. #ad#When we land in Oslo, I see a plane on the tarmac -- it has Garbo’s picture on it. But it’s not a Swedish plane (Garbo was a Swede); it’s a Norwegian plane. Scandinavian solidarity? Pat Buckley once told me that Greta Garbo was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She encountered her in a doctor’s office in New York once. Garbo did not behave very well -- but she was beautiful. My fellow senior editor David Pryce-Jones knew her -- there was a family connection. Ask him about the time he played tennis with a topless Garbo. I can’t wait for his memoirs: which should include a heck of a lot more than Garbo’s you-know-whats. In the Oslo airport, people are very friendly -- particularly the girls behind the food counters. They smile brightly and say, “Hey!” They don’t know what language you’re going to speak to them -- Norwegian or English (or German or something else?) -- so they start with something neutral, such as “Hey!” I even hear one say, “Hey-hey!” Charming, from her. I meet another girl who lived in L.A. for a year, volunteering with a charitable organization -- very Norwegian. I have heard some Americans say that Norwegians are stand-offish, particularly the older ones. I myself don’t find that this is the case. I find the Norwegians almost uniformly lovely: exceptionally polite, patient, good-humored, friendly, helpful. It’s like some law -- some national law -- has decreed niceness. Read a map in the street, and chances are someone will stop to ask whether he can direct you. He may even walk you to your destination. Boy, do they smoke here in Norway. I don’t sense that smoking has been stigmatized, like it has in the U.S. (Memo to itchy-fingers: Yes, I mean, “like,” not “as” -- there is a distinction. Please don’t write me. Thank you!) And a Norwegian American who lives here tells me, “They drink like it’s their job. They drink into the night, vomiting in the streets, and by 8 in the morning or so, it’s all cleaned up.” I myself don’t witness this. Hey, I can’t have my eyes, and ears, on everything . . . In a train station, there is a poster -- an ad for something -- with a beautiful woman in it, in mid-stride. The effect is a little spoiled, however, when, in the text, there are the words “full fart.” (Meaning a sprint, I later learn.) My hotel is just off Bernhard Getz Street -- and I contemplate how interesting it is that the Norwegians should pay tribute to New York’s famed subway vigilante. (I’m a real card, I know: Norway’s Bernhard Getz was an esteemed jurist, I believe.) A clerk tells me how much she likes President Obama, and what a good thing for America it is that we have now been given Scandinavian-style health care. I smile at her. Oslo is the most expensive city I have ever been in, by far. (I have not been to Tokyo, so can’t compare.) The sticker shock never ceases. Everything is like quadruple a normal price. I have been warned about this, and I experienced it myself, during the Freedom Forum. But I still cannot quite adjust. Do you want to buy dinner in a restaurant, or would you like a new mountain bike instead? An American who knows this place well recalls her first week here: “I ordered a beer, and I was later given the bill. I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry, I’m just paying for one beer.’ I thought they were charging me for an entire party or something. But the bill was just for one beer.” I’m told that many Norwegians make a run for the Swedish border, when they want to buy certain goods: particularly those that are whoppingly taxed in Norway, such as cigs. These shoppers-in-Sweden are branded economic traitors, by some Norwegians. Interestingly, Swedes come here in droves in order to work. The Norwegians go to Sweden to buy things; the Swedes come to Norway to work. As I said, interesting. A Norwegian friend tells me a story that has him buying a pair of jeans in America. I say, “You must have thought they were free!” He grins. I look forward to getting back to New York City, to pay low prices -- which is a strange feeling. Prices are lower in Toledo, Ohio, than they are in New York City -- much lower, as you know. But the gap between Oslo and New York is much, much greater. A marching band parades by outside my window. How civilized, how pleasant, how buoying! I reflect how Mahler loved bands (and incorporated them into his symphonies, nostalgically). And how Ives loved bands. I do too. You? I never hear them anymore, however -- not at home. Maybe it’s because I don’t go to Friday-night football games. The sun sets at about 10:30; and rises about 3. Sunny times, here in the North. May 17 is Norway’s national day, its Fourth of July, so to speak, and what a spectacular day it is: something to experience no matter where you’re from. Tell you a little about it in Part II? Thanks for joining me today. See you.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434859/up-in-norway-part-i/jay-nordlinger Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:25 -0400 A tragic miscoloring, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434777/a-tragic-miscoloring-c/jay-nordlinger I know that the issue of color-coding the states is over and done with in America: The left-leaning states are the “blue” states, and the right-leaning ones are the “red” states. But it still irks me. I mean, how in the heck did the lefties end up blue while the righties ended up red? For ages and ages, the color of conservatism has been blue; and for ages and ages, the color of -- well, I don’t want to sound McCarthyite. But you know what I’m talking about. I was reminded of all this -- a re-irking took place -- when I was perusing the British press. In The Spectator, Toby Young talked about coming out Conservative: “By remaining closeted for so long I have been tacitly accepting that society is right to disapprove of people like me. After all, if I didn’t think that being blue was something to be ashamed of, why keep quiet about it?” And in Standpoint, Douglas Murray quoted the phrase “blue-on-blue fire,” meaning intra-Conservative sniping. #ad#But conservatives here in America are stuck being known as red. The other week, I was interviewing the former governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich, who referred to his state as “the bluest of the blue.” It just seems so wrong. You know that wonderful Gershwin song “Blue, Blue, Blue”? Last month, President Obama said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” That was the kind of attitude I grew up with. Actually, Obama put the point pretty mildly. I heard such things as, “No one should make that much money. It’s obscene.” The underlying assumption was always that, if someone was making a lot of money, it meant that someone else was making less money, as a result. This is kindergarten economics: but it persists in some adults. At a certain point is your company too big? Do you have too many franchises? Are you making too many widgets? Are you employing too many people? What is “enough” money: enough to live like the Obamas (I mean, pre-White House, and pre-Senate)? When people start talking about how much money is “enough” money, watch out -- especially when those people run governments. Above, I quoted something I often heard: “No one should make that much money. It’s obscene.” Just so you know, “obscene” was always the word associated with wealth: “He’s obscenely rich,” “He makes so much money, it’s obscene.” If I had a buck for every time I heard someone say that -- I’d be obscenely rich! Several months ago, a dear friend of National Review in Wisconsin wrote me and said, “Watch the congressional race in the 7th District. David Obey has been there forever, but he’s beatable. There’s this excellent new Republican named Sean Duffy. He’s a world lumberjack champion. Extremely interesting guy. Weird year. Duffy could win.” I thought “Hmmm,” and tucked that note away. (Remember the rap song “Things That Make You Go ‘Hmmm’”?) And I thought of that note when reading, a couple of weeks ago, that Obey was dropping out of the race. Amazing. To heck with November: I wish the country could vote now. You know Sen. Bob Bennett, the Utah Republican who has been pushed aside by more sparky conservatives? You know all the good press -- good liberal press -- that Bennett is getting now? About how sensible and decent and patriotic he is? Such an admirable legislator? Do you remember Bennett’s ever getting such press, before he was upended by his fellow conservatives in Utah? I don’t either. Rand Paul, the Republican senatorial nominee in Kentucky, is being asked to distance himself from his father Ron, or to disavow some of his father’s views. This reminds me of the election of 2000, particularly the Republican presidential primaries: when Gov. George W. Bush was repeatedly asked, or invited, to put distance between himself and his father, particularly on tax policy. (For example, he was invited to criticize Bush 41’s 1990 budget deal.) W. bristlingly refused to do it. Everyone knew, or most people knew, he was more anti-tax than his father, or regarded the 1990 deal as a mistake. But he was damned if he was going to say so. He would not knock his father for political gain. Rand Paul, if only as a matter of manners, should not be asked to put distance between himself and his father. You should not really ask a son to do that, is my opinion. (We can all think of exceptions.) For his first foreign trip, David Cameron went to Paris. I wish he had come to Washington, to America. But then, I’m a special-relationship-ist. #page#Since the swearing in of the apparently Anglophobic Obama, the special relationship -- I suppose I should use quotes: “special relationship” -- has been called into question. That’s on both sides of the Atlantic. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Miami Republican, sponsored a resolution that passed the House on May 12. It recognized the special relationship and did several other things as well. For example, it expressed appreciation for the enduring influence of Britain on America. And it honored the British fallen in the Afghan and Iraq wars. On the floor of the House, as in the resolution itself, Diaz-Balart quoted Churchill, who said on becoming an honorary citizen of the U.S., “In this century of storm and tragedy I contemplate with high satisfaction the constant factor of the interwoven and upward progress of our peoples. Our comradeship and our brotherhood in war were unexampled. We stood together, and because of that fact the free world now stands. Nor has our partnership any exclusive nature: the Atlantic community is a dream that can well be fulfilled to the detriment of none and to the enduring benefit and honour of the great democracies.” Diaz-Balart then said, “During the most trying times in the history of the United States, we have had no truer friend than the United Kingdom.” I find it interesting that it took a Cuban-born congressman to hail and affirm the Anglo-Saxon inheritance. If you’d like to see that resolution -- which is worth reading in full, I think -- go <a href="http://www.usembassy.org.uk/gb115.html">here</a>. #ad#So, I saw that Saadi Gadhafi, one of the Libyan dictator’s boys, is big into movies. He is backing some Hollywood project to the tune of $100 million. He can afford it: According to the article I read, he’s a billionaire. How’d he get the money? Did he come up with some kick-a** software? Some sort of miracle diet? Oh, yeah . . . By the way, the article I read described the movie mogul’s dad as “one of the Middle East’s most notorious figures.” “Notorious,” huh? How should we describe Pol Pot? “One of Southeast Asia’s most notorious figures”? I’ll say. An old friend and I once described Pol Pot as “the Wade Boggs of genocidal dictators”: He hit for average. Something like a fifth of the population -- more than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao ever did. But listen, we must treat Moammar Gadhafi with respect: He has just won a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, you know. The one W. left, and Obama rejoined. Great. I quote from an <a href="http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100522/D9FS3BUG2.html">Associated Press report</a>: <blockquote> The youngest climber to reach the peak of Mount Everest hugged his tearful companions and told them he loved them. Then 13-year-old Jordan Romero took the satellite phone and called his mom. “He says, ‘Mom, I’m calling you from the top of the world,’” a giddy Leigh Anne Drake told The Associated Press from California, where she had been watching her son’s progress minute by minute on a GPS tracker online. “There were lots of tears and ‘I love you! I love you!’” Drake said. “I just told him to get his butt back home.” </blockquote> I’m touched and all, but I don’t think I really understand today’s phones. This kid can call his mom from the top of Mount Everest? And I can barely hear my mom when I’m in Central Park and she’s in Michigan? Criminy. Feel like a little language? I’ve written several times about a touchy issue in American politics: “Democrat” as an adjective. “Democrat wars,” Bob Dole notoriously said, in his vice-presidential debate with Mondale. GWB uses “Democrat” as an adjective. So do some Democrats (in the West, I think). And I was quite interested to learn something in the British press: that Nick Clegg talks about “Liberal Democrat values.” Hmmm . . . A little music? For a piece published in (New York’s) City Arts, go <a href="http://cityarts.info/2010/05/05/farewell-flicka/">here</a>. I cover the farewell recital in Carnegie Hall of Frederica von Stade, the American mezzo-soprano. And an all-Stravinsky concert by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Valery Gergiev. End with a little reader mail? Okay. Here’s one: <blockquote> Dear Mr Nordlinger, I saw the hissing you’ve described a few times for the first time as I was watching C-SPAN recently.  Man, was it was disturbing. There was something really evil about it, I felt. Anyway, where does the phenomenon originate? </blockquote> Dunno -- Eden? And I loved a sentence in this letter -- you’ll see: <blockquote> One of my favorite profs studied at UConn under Herbert Marcuse. Even stormed the Dean’s office. He has mellowed nicely since, and is a great historiographer. (You should have seen his face at the end of our French Revolution seminar, when every single student saw the revolution negatively! One said so eloquently, “After taking this course, I want to drive to Hilton Head and kiss the Atlantic for keeping that crap away from us.”) </blockquote> Adore it. Thank you, dear readers!     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434777/a-tragic-miscoloring-c/jay-nordlinger Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:43 -0400 Cruising with NR, Part III -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434664/cruising-with-nr-part-iii/jay-nordlinger Friends, welcome to the third and last installment of these notes from our recent cruise in Portugal -- and when I say “our,” I mean National Review’s. “Are you a magazine or a cruise line?” someone once asked, not too politely. We are a magazine that lives it up on a cruise once or twice a year. For Parts I and II of this journal, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434430/cruising-with-nr-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a> and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434538/cruising-with-nr-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. Where did we leave off? I think I was talking about Paul Johnson, the great historian, essayist, and critic who is one of our guest speakers on this ship. In our final session, which is about the future -- of America, of Britain, of the world, etc. -- I ask him about the future of art. One of his points: “There will always be a craving for beauty.” #ad#You know what American politician he really, really loves? Sarah Palin. Thinks the world of her. I think I know why: Paul Johnson loves America -- appreciates America, understands America -- to a very unusual degree. He loves America as much as anyone I have ever known. And Palin is very, very American. You might even say classically American, or hyper-American. (The same is true of George W. Bush, who is a favorite of Johnson’s, as Johnson is a favorite of his.) In one session, Rich Lowry and I are talking American politics. And, at the end, we take a little survey of the room -- on preferences for the ’12 Republican nominee. When we get to Palin, Johnson puts both of his hands up, high. That’s enthusiasm. That’s support. But remember, only stupid people support Palin or enthuse over her. You’ve heard that over and over, right? Paul Johnson must be quite the stupe. What’d he ever write, anyway? What does he know about liberal democracy: what makes it tick, what it needs to survive and thrive? One night, onboard, there is a Portuguese troupe -- a fado troupe. I think to myself, “This is the Portuguese version of Preservation Hall.” Before a mandolin player beings to sing, someone -- a fellow member of the troupe -- puts a black cape over him, with ceremonial solemnity. When the player ceases to sing, returning to the role of player, alone, the black cape is removed. At dinner in a monastery one night, I have a jerk moment, I’m afraid. I’ll report it to you, because it’s kind of fun. A diner asks, “Did you read that review in National Review of George Gilder’s book on Israel?” I say, “Not only did I read it, I wrote it!” I am reminded of an eternal truth: Normal people -- normal readers (i.e., ones who don’t work in the journalism business) -- don’t look at bylines. Who cares who wrote the articles? We’re only interested in whether we’re interested in the articles. Years ago, a colleague told me that his mother had enthused to him about a piece in a magazine or newspaper, on a topic he would appreciate. He himself had written it. When we arrive in Porto -- Portugal’s second city (after Lisbon, of course) -- Pope Benedict XVI does as well. He is conducting mass in the central square. The atmosphere in town reminds me of a college-football Saturday. I don’t mean to be profane here, I promise you, but it does. I come from a town where college-football Saturdays are huge: Ann Arbor, Mich. (The town is a strange mixture of leftism, jockomania, and normalcy.) Many streets are blocked off. People park far away, and then walk. They have come from far and wide. They are united in their purpose, and their enthusiasm. They wave pennants and sport buttons. Vendors hawk these items. And so on. The only thing missing is tailgating -- plus drunkenness. College football is nothing without drunkenness, right? Everyone says that Portuguese people are exceptionally friendly, and everyone is right. I hate to generalize, or condescend, but . . . the Portuguese, I have found, are really pleasant to be around. I need directions from a policeman. He is pleased to show off his English -- which is quite good. I tell him how good it is. He says, “I’m afraid not.” I say, “If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be able to say, ‘I’m afraid not.’” He grins. I ask him to point me to the river, please. “Do you feel like a swim?” he says. No, I’m simply looking to return to my cruise ship. More grins. #page#Stop signs everywhere -- all over the world -- say “Stop.” Suppose that Anglo-American civilization tumbles. Just goes belly up. China will be the top dog (or someone else will). Will signs saying “Stop” be thought of as a relic, or souvenir, from the age of Anglo-American dominance? “Oh, the word ‘Stop’ comes from English. It used to be the lingua franca of the world, you know. Hard to believe now, huh?” Shudders . . . On the shores of the river as far as it runs, men fish -- men, boys, women, and girls fish. (Mainly men and boys.) I wish I could take pleasure in fishing. Those who do, really do. I am almost envious of people’s love of fishing. They seem like the most content people in the world. #ad#Mind if I go back to Paul Johnson for a second? One afternoon, talking about America, he says there are three institutions we’d be much better off without – three institutions without which the country would be healthier, wiser, and more progressive: Hollywood, Harvard, and the New York Times. Have to say, I’m with him on the first and the third of those; Harvard, I think we can keep. In our group, as we cruise the Douro, we have two pairs of top-notch dancers: Kim Ruska and Steve Warshawsky, and Margarita and Ron Farmer. There may well be other couples, but I’ve only noticed those two. Man, can they dance: the cha-cha, the rumba, the jitterbug, what have you. It’s like watching professionals. You -- or at least I -- can only look on, admire, and applaud. We have regular cruisers who come from La Crosse, Wis. Boy, do they love the Packers; man, do they not love the Vikings. In any case, they have ten children, some of whom come, too. Eight are true-blue conservatives; the oldest and the youngest are liberals. Well, you can’t win ’em all. Also, one son-in-law -- whom we have met on a previous cruise -- is a Minnesotan and a devoted Viking fan. Agony. From the ten children come 30 grandchildren. At dinner one night, I ask the patriarch about the college tuitions he paid. He says that, from the ten kids, he paid for 58 years of higher ed: college and grad school. Fifty-eight years. Great stuff. Great family. Another night, at another dinner, I sit next to maybe the youngest person on the ship -- just out of college, I think. Not sure. I ask whether she has enjoyed the cruise. Very much, she says. What has she liked best? I ask. The Portuguese countryside, the vineyards? She answers, “The people on the ship, without a doubt. Mingling with them, getting to know them. They are really nice and fun and interesting.” You know, most everyone says that. Another cruiser says to me, “You’ve gotten me where I can’t travel any other way. I don’t want to go on a vacation without National Review people. It seems to me a waste of time.” Care to see a few cruisers? Okay, <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_kim.jpg">here</a>’s a snap: of Janet, Mike, and Kim. (Photo used without permission -- like all the photos in this journal. My apologies to the people involved, and to the wildflowers as well.) Just so you know, Mike’s mother sometimes still calls him “Little Mike.” And he is a great storyteller -- earthier than Paul Johnson or David Pryce-Jones, maybe, but great. Let’s wind this baby up (or is it down?). In the Porto airport, the TSA workers -- or whatever they’re called here -- look like fashion models. They’re also a little nicer -- a lot nicer -- than the ones I’m used to, back in the dear old U.S.A. One girl -- am I allowed to say “girl”? -- looks like she stepped out of a Pedro Almodóvar movie. (Wrong country, I know.) Right country: In the Barcelona airport, I see, and use, escalators that are not staircases but ramps. Escalating ramps. I’m pretty much the last to notice these, right? The personnel in the airport, especially on the phone, say “Vale” constantly: “Vale, vale,” “Okay, okay, fine, fine.” Vale, vale. Vale, vale . . . A passenger wears a jacket that says “Junta de Andalucia” -- kind of interesting to see “junta” used in a non-condemnatory, neutral way! In due course (as WFB would say), I arrive in Oslo, which, as I write, I’m departing. I’ll scribble you a journal about things Norwegian sometime soon. Thanks, guys, and see you.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434664/cruising-with-nr-part-iii/jay-nordlinger Fri, 21 May 2010 00:00:47 -0400 Cruising with NR, Part II -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434538/cruising-with-nr-part-ii/jay-nordlinger So, the second and final installment of these notes from National Review’s Portuguese cruise? For the first installment, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/434430/cruising-with-nr-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. Where was I? Doesn’t matter. One day, we cross the Douro River into Spain -- busing (no, not “bussing,” that would be kissing) to Salamanca. Our group takes two buses: and one of the buses is stopped, by the Spanish police. Why? A shakedown, it seems -- a pure, simple shakedown. The fuzz looked and looked for some infraction. Best they could come up with was one tire whose pressure was a wee bit low. The bus spent the entire day in the slammer, and so did the bus driver, I understand. Many of our group were inconvenienced. After some payola, the Spaniards let the bus go. I’m told that the Spaniards are always doing this: harassing Portuguese tour buses, shaking down the drivers and companies. What a disgusting practice. Where are we, Zaire? Chicago? I remark to a fellow passenger, “I wonder what King Juan Carlos would say, if he knew about this. I don’t think he’d like it at all.” Then I remember the well-worn expression of the Jews in Old Russia: “If only the czar knew . . .” Still, I believe that Juan Carlos wouldn’t like it at all. He is a civilized man, and he should preside over a civilized country. And I know my man Aznar, the former prime minister, wouldn’t like it. #ad#I learn something in Salamanca: Some of the organ pipes point out -- they are not vertical, but horizontal. They point out at you like trumpets. A guide says this is unique to Spain. Nice (whether the “trumpeting” pipes are uniquely Spanish or not). Interesting about the Spanish language: Our guide speaks beautiful, pretty much fluent English, but some things are simply ingrained. When she says, “Spanish,” she says, “Espanish”; when she says, “Spain,” she says, “Espain.” I like it. At night, on the ship, we have a flamenco troupe -- impressive bunch. They are very, very serious -- very sincere. Sincerity counts a lot in art, of whatever type. They believe entirely in what they are doing. They don’t consider it silly or comical in the least. And they make you believe in what they are doing. Moreover, they support one another, touchingly. For example, when one of the girls is dancing, the others shout, “Andale, guapa!” In Part I of these scribbles, I mentioned the wildflowers -- fields of wildflowers, masses of wildflowers, in the Douro Valley. Want to see some pictures? They’re just cellphone jobs -- actually, BlackBerry Pearl jobs -- but they might give a hint. Try <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_wild1.jpg">this</a>. And <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_wild2.jpg">this little curve in the road</a>. And <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_wild3.jpg">these red poppies</a>, along with some purple jobs. (I am Joe Flora, I know.) And <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_wild-etc.jpg">this other curve in the road</a>. If National Geographic would like to engage my photographic services, please contact me at National Review. Thank you. Above, I said “red poppies.” Are all poppies red? If so, pardon the redundancy. But then, I know most things, or many things, through music, and Glière wrote a ballet called “The Red Poppy.” Yesterday, I mentioned some of our guests -- our special guest speakers -- and today I will mention the others. We have David Pryce-Jones, our esteemed senior editor. In one panel session, he delivers a tour d’horizon that is a tour de force. And in another session, he has a delicious clash with Paul Johnson, on the subject of Muslim integration in Britain. (Johnson thinks it will happen in short order; Pryce-Jones is highly dubious.) There is nothing like two brilliant Brits sparring -- especially when they are fast friends. David is here with his wife Clarissa, née Clarissa Caccia, daughter of the famed Harold Caccia, Lord Caccia, who was a top diplomat of Her Majesty’s Government, the ambassador in Washington, for example. I call Clarissa “the ambassador’s daughter,” or “la fille de l’ambassadeur,” which she hates (but tolerates, barely). She is glorious, for her toleration of me and more. Would you like to see a picture of the P-Js, standing before Douro splendor? You can tell it’s they thanks to their name tags. Go <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910_PJs.jpg">here</a>. Johnson is in cracking form all week. One day, at lunch, he sings “Jerusalem” for us, along with his wife Marigold. Stirring. Wish my tape recorder had been going. I just realized that that word “cracking,” above, can be construed as applying to the singing! He did not crack; and neither did she. One afternoon, at one of our public sessions, I have an hour with him on the subject of Churchill. Johnson recently wrote a short bio, which I’ve discussed in my column before. On the ship, he quotes from Churchill, pronounces on him, tells stories about him, imitates him -- the next best thing to hearing from the old man himself. Just splendid -- thrilling, actually. Talk about wishing for a tape recorder . . . I’ll relate one point: Johnson says that Churchill was half American because of his mother, Jennie -- but he was more than half, really, because he had an American mind and heart (to speak loosely). He had no use for class, for example. And he had an American-like zest for living (despite occasional bouts of “black dog”). Johnson could explain better than I -- and, in fact, did. One day, another lunch, I bring up Kipling. Paul gets a look in his eye, and says, “Ah!” In his view, there are four British authors who had genius -- not just big talent, but genius. Certainly genius of a particular kind. Jane Austen, whom Paul loves perhaps above all, is not on this list, because her writing came from experience. But Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Kipling? They just pulled stuff from the air -- had a strange, barely explicable quality of knowing. When he was a teenager, Kipling was writing, brilliantly, about things he had never seen. Johnson could explain better than I . . . In one of our sessions, I ask him to comment on the United Nations -- whether we should stick with it, whether we can do better, whether we should try for a league of democracies, and so on. Johnson will not deal with the subject. He dismisses it with, “The U.N. isn’t worth tuppence.” I know the word “tuppence,” I believe, from seeing Mary Poppins as a child. Ladies and gentlemen, I am -- what is the expression? A lying sack. At the end of yesterday’s installment -- Part I -- I said that tomorrow, today, would be the second and final installment. At the top of this column, I said, in effect, “Welcome to Part II, the last of these jottings from our Portuguese cruise.” You know? There will be a Part III -- tomorrow. Enough for now. I will close out -- close out for sure for sure -- tomorrow. Got some good material too, including more Johnson. Thanks for joining me today. Join me again tomorrow, despite lying sackhood?   #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434538/cruising-with-nr-part-ii/jay-nordlinger Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:45 -0400 Cruising with NR, Part I -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/434430/cruising-with-nr-part-i/jay-nordlinger Friends, I’m writing you from Oslo (as I did a few weeks ago). But I want to write to you about Portugal, where we’ve just had a National Review cruise. There is another NR cruise taking place there right now. We did back-to-backers. I was on the first one. Made some notes to share with you. Care to hear? Here is a little cruise journal -- a cruise-in-Portugal journal. A very, very short flight from New York to Lisbon. Six hours, ish. Just about the shortest flight you can take from the U.S. to the European continent, right? Kind of like flying across the country. Portugal clings to the western edge of Europe -- is the western edge of Europe. And it’s five hours ahead of us -- ahead of Eastern Standard Time, I mean. Like London. The time doesn’t shift to six hours until Spain. You knew that, right? I didn’t. #ad#I have written about Lisbon before, and will say just a little here: What a beautiful, different, and memorable city. Romantic, dreamy, multifaceted, elegant. A little down at the heels -- like a beautiful old home that needs some restoration. But plenty lovely and enjoyable as is. Some of us NR-niks discuss the rise and fall of nations, empires, and civilizations. Once upon a time, Portugal was a great, great maritime power. It bestrode the world like a colossus. Then it became a backwater, an impoverished sliver in a European corner, of no consequence at all. What a shudder-making lesson. What is the lesson, exactly? Portuguese is an interesting language -- a delight to listen to. An ess-aitchy language, with a lot of “ao” (as in “ow”). The Romance-language speakers among us comment that Portuguese is fairly easy to read but curiously hard to understand. Words are not pronounced as they are written (to me). Over the course of some days, I will sort of get the hang of it, however. I see a lot of names that I am familiar with -- classic Portuguese names. Soares. Sousa (as in John Philip!). Lugar (as in the Indiana senator -- remember when he was always described as “Nixon’s favorite mayor”?). Pires. (There is a pianist named Maria João Pires -- just about the only Portuguese musician, classical musician, of note.) Can you name a Portuguese-American writer? Why, John Dos Passos, of course. Cool name. WFB -- who knew him -- once told me that his friends called him “Dos”: pronounced, not “Dose,” but “Doss.” We cruise along the Douro River, into the Douro Valley. I have hardly ever seen such beauty. There are fields of wildflowers, endless fields, masses of flowers: red, purple, and yellow. The red ones are poppies. Not sure about the others. I love gardens as much as the next guy -- more than the next guy -- but these fields of wildflowers are better than anything man could plan. They are wondrous to walk in. And the birds sing like crazy, as though in appreciation and contentment. Sorry to get la-di-da on you, but it’s true. More la-di-da? Let’s talk about the trees: almond trees, cork trees, and olive trees. Millions of them, lined up along the hills like soldiers (at ease). I don’t know about you, but I had no idea Portugal was so beautiful. Wish I could stop writing and just show you. We visit the town of Lamego, with its church atop a hill, and an amazing, zig-zaggy stairway leading up to it. Want to see a picture of our famed and adored publisher, Jack Fowler, on that stairway? The view is downward, away from the church and into town. Sorry for the poor quality (the photo, not Jack) -- taken with my phone: <a href="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/pic_nordlinger_051910.jpg">here</a>. In town, we sit in the cathedral, listening to a narration. The guide mentions a painter, I believe, nicknamed “the Big Vasco.” Jack leans over to me and says, “I want that nickname.” So, to some of us, he’s the Big Vasco. Who’s aboard -- aboard the ship? Well, in addition to the NR faithful, we have some special guests -- some special guest speakers. One is Charles Murray. Big brain, you might have heard. Awfully nice guy, too. Then we have Charles Kesler and Sally Pipes -- possibly the smartest couple since Pierre and Marie Curie. Then we have Otto Reich, the diplomat and foreign-policy analyst. His full name is Otto Juan Reich. Funny name, huh? His father was an Austrian Jew who escaped over the Alps from the Nazis. Wanting to fight the bastards, he joined the French Foreign Legion, serving in Africa. Oops. The French surrendered to the Germans, and now what was the young man, Walter, to do? He made his way to Havana -- which means, appropriately enough, in this case, “Haven.” He had a contact, an address -- a street address and an apartment number. He went to the wrong floor -- right number, wrong floor. A man answered, and Walter was in luck: A son had just left, and Walter could have his room. In a year, he was married to a daughter. They had a family: Otto and his brother (I believe). When the revolutionaries triumphed in 1959, the family went down to the National Hotel, to greet and hail them. But soon, Castro and his men showed what they really were. And Walter said, “We’re going. I’ve seen it before, and we’re going.” His wife’s family protested, “No, no, you’re being hasty. You’re merely spooked by your prior experience. Why don’t you wait and see how it develops?” Walter said, “No, people waited too long before, and we need to go now.” So the Reichs came to America. Over the years, the Left has had fun with Otto’s name: Reich, as in “Third Reich.” Ha, ha! Suits that fascist, right? Of course, much of Otto’s paternal family was killed in the Holocaust. He is named after his grandfather. The Left can go hang, as far as I’m concerned. (I’ve said that a lot in Impromptus, I realize.) Otto is not a fascist and he is not a right-winger: He is a liberal democrat. Years ago, at an event in Florida, I believe, he made sure not to be in a position to shake the hand of Somoza. At another event, he made sure not to shake the hand of Pinochet. He loves freedom and hates tyranny -- whether the tyranny’s particular flavor is black or red. In a couple of discussions before our passengers, I traverse the world with Otto, who answers everything like the astute, principled, experienced, measured Reaganite he is. I hope he is in government again someday. He has great GWB stories to tell too, by the way. Enough cruising, Portugal-ing, and journal-ing for now? See you tomorrow for the second and final part. Thanks much.   #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/434430/cruising-with-nr-part-i/jay-nordlinger Wed, 19 May 2010 00:00:30 -0400 Oslo Journal, Part VI -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/433511/oslo-journal-part-vi/jay-nordlinger Editor’s Note: Last week, Jay Nordlinger attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, the human-rights conference in the Norwegian capital. The conference is over, but the journal continues. Previous parts are at the following links: <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/432503/oslo-journal-part-i/jay-nordlinger">I</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">II</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433213/oslo-journal-part-iii/jay-nordlinger?p=1">III</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433215/oslo-journal-part-iv/jay-nordlinger">IV</a>, and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433425/oslo-journal-part-v/jay-nordlinger">V</a>.   The head of Amnesty International, Norway, is at the podium, here in the Christiania Theater. He’s saying that “detention without due process in Guantanamo Bay is just as bad as in the other half of Cuba” -- by which he means Cuba Cuba: Castroland. Yeah, whatever, bud. At least he makes me feel like I’m at a regular, normal human-rights conference. Although do they acknowledge abuses by the Cuban government in those? #ad#Lidia Yusupova, the human-rights lawyer from Chechnya, is making a presentation. She shows photos. One is an extraordinary shot of three children. And the children don’t look . . . normal. They look . . . weird. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Yusupova then says, “These are not children’s faces. They are the faces of old people who have experienced bad things.” Yes, that’s exactly what they look like! Yusupova goes on to explain that these children watched their father being killed. I think, “These are for sure the strangest children’s faces I have ever seen” -- like some weird aging process has been performed on them. Toward the end of her talk, Yusupova says, “I need moral, economic, and psychological support from you.” Marcel Granier was -- is? -- the general director of RCTV. It was the oldest and most popular television station in Venezuela. But the Chávez government shut it down. RCTV was an independent voice, and that is not tolerated in the new Venezuela. One by one, the lights have gone out in that country. RCTV was a very bright light. Granier makes a statement that strikes me as particularly sad: After a “democratic experience,” Venezuela saw “the comeback of the caudillos.” And that comeback, for those who tasted democracy, and expected it to last, has been very hard to take. He talks about all the attacks on journalists -- and he means physical attacks, not just governmental denunciations and expropriation. And he says, “The military has taken over most of our assets.” It would be nice if journalists in free countries remembered a little solidarity with their colleagues in Venezuela. Agree? Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani repeatedly appeals for solidarity. I mentioned him in this journal a few days ago -- he is the journalist from Yemen who has endured kidnappings, beatings, imprisonment, and other ghastly things. Here in theater, he says that “living in Yemen is like being trapped on a hijacked plane.” Elections are never fair, and the judiciary is directly controlled by the presidency. It is “dangerous” to be a journalist in Yemen, he says -- as his life has proven. He mentions the prominent American journalist Thomas Friedman. He expresses disappointment: saying that Friedman came to Yemen and stuck close to the government, his hosts, without “going into the streets” or “meeting any journalists.” (I have no idea whether this charge is true.) He then says, “I would like to salute the American blogger Jane Novak, who learned about Yemen and led an international campaign to free me. Jane restored my faith in human beings.” He pleads with journalists in free countries to keep an eye on their colleagues in unfree countries, and yell as loud as they can when those colleagues are in danger. He closes his remarks by saying, “I have made it a tradition to write an article entitled ‘We Shall Continue’ every time I leave prison. And I say to you now, ‘We shall continue.’” Clara Rojas was held by the FARC -- the Colombian terror group -- for six years. Another hostage was Ingrid Betancourt, once a presidential candidate. There in the jungle, they encountered all the humiliations you might imagine. Rojas was raped and gave birth to a son, Emmanuel. He is romping around this conference (and is adorable). As Rojas says, the FARC had “no respect for law, human dignity, or God.” And yet, after her release -- they were heroically rescued, actually -- “I resolved to live again, to have as normal a life as possible, and to leave the kidnapping behind me.” I will keep quoting: “I wake up every day with enthusiasm, joy, and the will to live, for which I am daily grateful to God. I realize this is a miracle of life, and I live each day to the fullest. I enjoy the rise of the sun, a walk through the park, maybe flying kites with my son, eating ice cream, watching a children’s movie in a cinema -- just like any other woman in the 21st century. “I have forgiven my captors, and I believe this has allowed me to find freedom, real freedom, from resentment, pain, bitterness, and hate. And I feel free, light, without any burdens weighing me down. “Thousands told me they prayed for me, and they helped me to resist. Otherwise, how could my son and I have survived this drama? We were physically isolated but we were never alone, because there were millions of people who looked deep inside themselves and offered their prayers. The result is, we survived.” I can tell you, as a listener and watcher, that this woman seems to mean every word she says. #page#Yoani Sánchez is not here, not in the flesh -- how could she be? She lives in Cuba. The dictatorship is not real good about letting people out. But she is here in a videotaped interview. How it happened, I’m not sure -- but I doff my hat to the Oslo Freedom Forum for pulling it off. Fantastic. Regular readers of my column are well familiar with this extraordinary young woman -- a Cuban blogger who has braved all sorts of things to get her writings out to the world at large. In her interview, she speaks crisply, confidently, and fast. The words simply tumble out of her, as if pent up. She has a great deal to say. #ad#About her inability to travel, she says, “I am condemned to stay on my national territory. I have received international prizes, but I can’t go to receive them.” Over the years, the authorities have kidnapped her, beaten her up. These actions are “all part of a terror frame,” she says, “to deter me from what I’m doing.” She says that she fights, she blogs “for personal exorcism. I have a lot of demons to expel, dissatisfactions about the country I’m living in. It is not the one I was promised as a child.” People use words such as “oppositionist” and “dissident,” and these words are fine. But “I like to say I’m a citizen. What we need now are citizens: empowered citizens, people who know their rights and know how to demand things.” Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a prisoner of conscience who recently died after an 83-day -- an 83-day -- hunger strike. (Readers will recall a piece I did about him for National Review. His bravery was, simply, superhuman -- far beyond human.) His death, says Yoani, “served to unify dissident groups on the island. Orlando became a catalyst of unity and indignation.” Currently, Guillermo Fariñas is on hunger strike. “I wouldn’t do it, but I also understand how a person has to do it” -- is driven to do so. Her strongest message for her international audience: “Don’t leave us here alone.” I hope to meet Yoani Sánchez someday, tell her how much I admire her. Diego Arria is a relatively rare bird -- a diplomat with spine and principle. He is as smooth, polished, and educated as they come. He is almost from Central Casting: the handsome, urbane, multilingual diplomat and man of the world. But he has the heart and guts of a dissident. I might mention that he and I have something in common: both friends of Bill Buckley. That is a large and glorious club. Arria, a Venezuelan, was an ambassador to the U.N. As he puts it, “I used to represent my country when it was a democratic country.” He was an assistant secretary-general of the U.N. And he was a witness against Milosevic at The Hague. He tells us, “I have spoken before the United Nations many times. But I have never felt more inspired or humbled than to speak before you.” He calls the Oslo Freedom Forum -- this is a beautiful phrase -- “a magnificent way to embrace humanity.” His main topic today is the U.N. and its failure to stop the massacres in Srebrenica. He has chapter and verse: about how the U.N. knew exactly what was going on and refused to do anything about it. Arria uncovers a cover-up. And he says -- with sadness and anger -- “We promised to protect the Bosnian Muslims. And we didn’t.” Arria’s testimony is hard to listen to, and I don’t doubt a word of it. Do you know about Wikileaks? It is a “whistleblower website . . . helping to publish anonymous submissions and leak sensitive documents from governments and other organizations to the public.” I have quoted from the bio of Julian Assange, “an Australian journalist, programmer, and Internet activist” who takes a leading role in Wikileaks. He is with us today, and I will give you a flavor of what kind of activist he is. He compares Auschwitz and its slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” to the Guantanamo facility and its slogan “Honor-bound to Defend Freedom” -- and he says that the Gitmo slogan is worse “as a perversion of the truth.” There’s one in every crowd. Actually, there’s more than one in every crowd. Readers of this journal have already met Kasha Jacqueline. She is a woman of considerable charm, as well as considerable courage. Introducing her, Thor Halvorssen says, “Every day, from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to bed, she is harassed and tormented.” Jacqueline is the founder and director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, a gay-rights group. She begins her remarks, “I’m a feminist, a lesbian, a pan-African, and a Ugandan.” Before continuing, she puts on her glasses, saying, “I only wear these to look intellectual.” She talks of what it is to be gay in Uganda. A girl was beaten to death in school -- by the headmaster. Another was beaten at a school assembly -- by whom, I don’t quite hear -- then went home and swallowed a bottle of pills. And so on, and so on. Pending before the Ugandan parliament is an anti-homosexuality bill that is hair-curling: A gay could be sentenced to life in prison, or even sentenced to death; a person who knows another person is gay, but fails to report that person to the authorities, could be imprisoned for three years. That includes the mothers and fathers of gays, the brothers and sisters, the friends . . . Sitting here in the Christiania Theater, I think what “gay rights” used to mean -- back home in America. How swiftly things change, in politics. Time was, being for gay rights meant that you were for the right of homosexuals to be let alone -- to live their lives, free of harassment and persecution. I know a man in New York, now in his eighties, who was imprisoned for one or two years, after being caught with another man (I believe). That was in Connecticut. (Incidentally, the man I’m speaking of, after 9/11, took to wearing an American-flag pin on his lapel. He has done this through the Afghan War, the Iraq War. Some of his friends give him grief about it. He couldn’t care less.) Then came such tricky questions -- or, for some tricky -- as “Should they be allowed to teach in schools?” and “Should they be allowed to adopt children?” Not so long ago -- like two seconds ago -- the far-out, barely fathomable progressive position was civil unions: to be in favor of civil unions for gays. Then, basically one second after that, if you were for civil unions, but not gay marriage, you were a bigot, a homophobe, a hater. You might as well be wearing a white sheet. What a bizarre country, America. #page#Belarus is one of the worst places on earth -- certainly the worst place in Europe. Its dictatorship is iron-fisted. We have with us an opposition politician, a brave, graceful, supremely dignified man. He is Alyaksandr Kazulin, a mathematician (Ph.D.), as well as a politician. He has been beaten up and imprisoned and otherwise abused, but he is still standing, pretty tall. He tells us of the misery of Belarus: how it leads the world in alcoholism and suicide. His wife died while he was in prison. “She did everything she could to save me. She fought until her last day, asking for my freedom.” The authorities refused to let him out to attend the burial. So he began a hunger strike. “I said, ‘If I’m not allowed to leave for the burial, they can bury us together.’” After three days, they let him out, to attend the service and burial. “Soldiers surrounded the church where we had the ceremony.” #ad#Kazulin was released from prison in 2008, “thanks to the previous administration of the United States. That’s how I remain living.” You know how sometimes you can just sense you are in the presence of a great man? That’s how I felt -- I must confess -- about Kazulin. Peter Thiel, I mentioned in yesterday’s installment: co-founder of PayPal, hedge-fund manager, board member for Facebook, advocate of freedom, funder of freedom, etc., etc. What a useful life. What a lot of good he has done. As I understand it -- and I’m not an expert in all things Thiel, as some of my friends are -- he came up with products or devices that improved the lot of man, and made a fortune as a result. He has since used that fortune to perform yet more good. John Dos Passos once wrote a book called “The Theme Is Freedom.” So it is with Thiel’s life and work, I gather. Thiel is a backer of the Freedom Forum, and he gives a brief, elegant speech to the assemblage. How nice it would be, he says, to hold the forum one day in Havana, Harare -- or even Pyongyang? Oh, yes. There are several Africans at this conference, and I talk with one of long experience. I ask a fundamental question: “Does foreign aid mostly help or mostly hurt? I know it does both.” My interlocutor confirms that it does both -- but mainly it hurts, he says. “Do you know the difference between AID and AIDS? The letter S.” He means that foreign aid is the occasion of corruption and a cause of dependence. Tough, even harsh words -- but, given the source, worth listening to. Can I tell you that Armando Valladares calls me “Yay,” making the “J” into a “Y,” as in “Yo-yo”? I hope he never quits and is never corrected. In our rooms -- my room, at least -- in the Grand Hotel is a Gideon Bible (Norwegian and English). They used to be standard equipment: as standard as a bed and basin. I see them less now. I am glad to see it; I consider it a service. Does the presence of this Bible offend some people? I’m sure, because everything offends someone, right? (In golf, we say, “Every shot pleases somebody.”) Thank you so much for joining me for this unusual journal, this Oslo Journal. I think I’ll knock off now. I have more -- an interview with Lech Walesa, the Solidarity leader who is kind of the presiding spirit of this conference. But I will deliver those goods some other time, soon: either in National Review or here on the site. Should I offer some “big thoughts” here at the end? Well, you know any thoughts I might have to offer -- I have voiced them already. The Oslo Freedom Forum is most unusual, and invaluable -- a genuine, bona fide human-rights conference. Many of the people who are participating have come through the worst things life can impose. And many have done so with utter grace, dropping hatred or bitterness and embracing love, for the benefit of themselves and others. As I said at the outset, we often say that we are “humbled” to be somewhere or to meet someone or to do something. I’m not 100 percent sure what that means. I do know, however, that it has been humbling -- and rewarding and gratifying -- to be among these people. See you and thank you!     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/433511/oslo-journal-part-vi/jay-nordlinger Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:17 -0400 Oslo Journal, Part V -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/433425/oslo-journal-part-v/jay-nordlinger EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week, Jay Nordlinger attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, the human-rights conference in the Norwegian capital. The conference is over, but the journal continues. Previous parts are at the following links: <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/432503/oslo-journal-part-i/jay-nordlinger">I</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">II</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433213/oslo-journal-part-iii/jay-nordlinger?p=1">III</a>, and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433215/oslo-journal-part-iv/jay-nordlinger">IV</a>.   Does the name Anwar Ibrahim ring a bell? He was the deputy prime minister of Malaysia in the 1990s. He played a significant part in the flowering of the Malaysian economy. In fact, Newsweek named him its 1998 “Asian of the Year.” But then he turned his attention to corruption in his own government. And he was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement. He was released in 2004. Today, he is leading the reform movement in Malaysia, trying to break 50 years of one-party rule. And he is facing more charges. #ad#In the Christiania Theater, he tells us that, when it comes to the Malaysian government, “we’re not dealing with Hitler, Stalin, or the Khmer Rouge. This is a sophisticated clique. They give the appearance of democracy,” using the slickest PR firms. “They say they have an independent judiciary,” but that isn’t so: “It’s under the thumb of the executive.” So, we are not dealing with monsters here, says Ibrahim -- although his six years of solitary confinement was pretty monstrous. “We are dealing with a sophisticated bunch,” a “corrupt and corrupting ruling elite.” Ibrahim is charming, funny, and mordant. He was beaten up by his country’s inspector general. “So, if you take power, make sure your inspector general is not too strong,” physically. That way, if one day he beats you up, “it’s not fatal.” He says, “Yes, we had freedom of speech -- but we never had freedom after speech.” A crucial distinction! In Malaysia, you engage in free speech “at your own peril.” He says that his opponents have accused him of coming to Oslo to solicit foreign support and to attack his own country. They have accused him of being “an agent of Israel, a Jewish agent, a stooge of Israel.” That shows you where the heart of the Malaysian government is: When they malign you, they reach for Israel and the Jews. Says Ibrahim, “Of course, I’m against the crimes against the Palestinians.” I say under my breath, “To heck with you, buddy.” (I am cleaning it up for the journal.) At any rate, Ibrahim tells us that he’s going back to prison: because “once you’re charged, you’re going to prison. It’s a foregone conclusion.” And yet Malaysians at large are “demanding and clamoring for reform.” Zuhdi Jasser is doing blessed and indispensable work. He’s a physician from Wisconsin who now lives in Phoenix. He is a former Navy lieutenant and a Muslim -- the child of Syrian immigrants. His group is the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. It is, to quote from Jasser’s bio, “a Muslim-led effort to establish a synergy between democracy and pluralistic Islam; it seeks to address the ideological conflict between spiritual and political Islam.” Jasser says that “terrorism is just a tactic: We are fighting an ideology,” namely “political Islam.” He says that in Muslim countries -- “the so-called Muslim countries,” he actually says -- people are given a “binary choice”: either “secular fascism” or “Islamism.” And yet there is another way: “universal liberty.” He also makes a point that cannot be made too often: Radical, political Muslims bamboozle non-Muslims by saying, “Well, this is what our religion demands.” Muslims such as Jasser cannot be bamboozled. They know better. It’s their religion too, after all. The Islamists are not pushing religion, says Jasser; they’re pushing their politics. I wish we had a thousand and a million and ten million Zuhdi Jassers: democratic Muslims who put their necks on the line by speaking out. Siegmar Faust was an East German. Now he is just a German, I suppose, and a man. He was arrested by the Stasi for writing “liberal and provocative poems.” He spent four and a half years in prison, most of the time in solitary confinement. Sixty-three of those days were in “hungry confinement” -- they gave him very little to eat. And he was tortured. After the fall of the Wall, a wonderful thing occurred: Faust became the commissioner in charge of the Stasi files. He tells us how ruthless the Stasi were -- one of the most vicious state-security apparatuses in the world. And yet, after Communism, there were no acts of revenge against Stasi men (and women). Faust says this is indicative of “a high level of civilization.” He talks about how thorough a police state East Germany was. In all of Nazi Germany -- an unsplit Germany -- there were 7,000 in the Gestapo. In the GDR, just eastern Germany, there were 91,000 officials in the Stasi, and 189,000 “off the record employees,” as Faust puts it. “One out of every 60 citizens in the GDR was an active member of state security, officially or unofficially.” In his talk, Faust becomes emotional several times -- chokes up -- and has to stop. Then he resumes. When I was growing up, I often heard about what a good country East Germany was: probably the most humane of the East Bloc countries. They had worked out some kind of social democracy. You often heard East Germany praised by people who, in the United States, are called “liberals.” Sure, we in the West had “political rights,” but there, they had “social rights”: the right of food, shelter, health care, and so on. Honecker was kind of an FDR-plus. What a lie. A few years ago, I interviewed Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the writer and director of The Lives of Others, that marvelous movie about life under the Stasi. I said to him that some former East Germans had complained to me about the movie: saying that the country was even worse than depicted. Donnersmarck replied that they were absolutely right. #page#I have mentioned before in this journal Lubna al-Hussein, that incredibly brave Sudanese woman. May I give you her bio, or remind you of it? <blockquote> [Hussein] gained international attention in July 2009 when she was prosecuted for wearing trousers. At the time of her arrest, she worked for the media department of the United Nations mission in Sudan and was known for her public criticism of the government’s policies. . . . [S]he and 12 others were taken into custody for “dressing indecently in public” -- an offense that could be punishable by whipping. Hussein refused to plead guilty and demanded a trial. When the court fined her for her behavior, she chose to remain in prison instead, but was freed to avoid more international embarrassment for the government of Sudan. </blockquote> This is a point I wish to stress: Hussein could have gotten out of her predicament; she had the connections. But she stayed in her predicament, so to speak, in order to help others -- in order to challenge the government broadly, perhaps making it easier for Sudanese in the future.   #ad#She shows us pictures of how Sudanese women used to dress -- how her grandmothers, and her contemporaries’ grandmothers, dressed. Today they would be given many lashes. Islamism is not an age-old phenomenon. What I mean is, it has erupted quite recently in many places, including Sudan. Hussein details the plight of women in her country. Ninety-one percent of girls undergo genital mutilation. It has been outlawed since 1947 -- but that’s only on paper. I’m reminded of the Soviet Union. People always used to talk about its constitution: “According to the Soviet constitution . . .” But that parchment was a crock. Hussein relates several stories of abuse and sadism. Care for one? Okay, real quick. A girl balked at marrying the man who had been arranged for her. So the man gave the girl’s brother some acid, claiming it was holy water, blessed by the sheikh. “Splash it on your sister’s face before morning prayers,” he said. The brother did so -- with horrifying results. We see pictures. Endlessly, there is rape -- rape of toddlers, rape of adolescent girls, rape of women, rape, rape, rape. Not punished at all. Just systematized: rape, rape, and more rape. Five years ago, I did a biggish piece on Sudan for National Review, and the worst part of doing it -- of researching it -- was reading and hearing about rape. Constant rape. But, as you know, this is a tool of repressive governments, and repressive societies, all over the world. I could go on with Lubna al-Hussein’s testimony, but you get the drift . . . Hernando de Soto -- not the 16th-century explorer but the great Peruvian economist -- speaks to us by video. He talks about writing his book The Other Path. This was when Sendero Luminoso -- Shining Path, the Maoist terror group -- was on the march. The “other path” of which de Soto had written was freedom, essentially. De Soto was worried about what would happen to him if he went ahead and published. One beautiful day, he heard the birds chirping, and he thought, “If I publish this book, I will never hear birds chirping again.” Sendero would kill him. He decided not to publish. “And I felt better for three days. Then I felt bad” -- and published. “Some nice people gave me a bullet-proof car. People taught me about security.” He ducked the terrorists for five years; and then they were subdued -- and de Soto, with everyone else, could breathe easier. De Soto is one of the great explainers of economics, and if you forget the importance of property rights, he’ll remind you. How do property rights relate to human rights? “Property rights are human rights,” he says. In the evening, there is a somewhat formal dinner, at which the main speaker is Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. She is a dedicated campaigner for human rights. She has just been on CNN and al-Jazeera, making her central points. Thor Halvorssen, the president of the Oslo Freedom Forum, says that she was like a “cannonball” on those networks -- just saying the necessary straight out. We could use more of that. I have met Fergie, as we used to call her -- do we still? -- once before. We were guests on a television show, out in Hollywood: Politically Incorrect. She was sweet and charming then. She is again now -- a lot of fun and slightly earthy, too. At the rostrum, she easily wins the crowd. One of the points she makes is that the Freedom Forum should become “the Davos of human rights.” Among the diners is Lech Walesa, looking majestic -- projecting a workingman’s majesty, a trade-union majesty, if you can follow me (and I know you do). A film is shown, depicting scenes from Communist China, North Korea, and other unfree societies. Walesa repeatedly nods at the screen, as if to say, “Ah, yes -- very familiar.” After the dinner, I hang out with a number of locals -- a number of Norwegians, and even a Dane, for diversity. One Norwegian is a serious libertarian who worked on the Ron Paul for President campaign. When he was a student, he went to America, looking for the genuine libertarian culture. You know where he went? The University of California at Berkeley! Whoops. He loved the experience anyway (and has had many more since). I ask him, “Does every educated Norwegian speak English?” He says yes. And “our grandparents spoke German.” How about the Norwegians of the future? Chinese? We laugh slightly nervously about this. Among the partiers is Patri Friedman, who is treated somewhat like royalty -- like a prince -- because he is the grandson of Milton and Rose. And the likes of us love them, abidingly. Patri is head of the Seasteading Institute, which is supported by Peter Thiel, who is also here. (Thiel is the entrepreneur, inventor, intellectual, philanthropist, and so on who is responsible for PayPal, and other remarkable things.) What is this “seasteading”? Like homesteading, I understand, but out at sea. This is a futuristic project with a variety of political and social implications. Enough Oslo-ing for one day? I think so. See you tomorrow for Part VI.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/433425/oslo-journal-part-v/jay-nordlinger Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:42 -0400 Oslo Journal, Part IV -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/433215/oslo-journal-part-iv/jay-nordlinger EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week, Jay Nordlinger attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, the human-rights conference in the Norwegian capital. The conference is over, but the journal continues. Previous parts are at the following links: <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/432503/oslo-journal-part-i/jay-nordlinger">I</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">II</a>, and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433213/oslo-journal-part-iii/jay-nordlinger?p=1">III</a>.   Sophal Ear, an American, is a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He was almost a casualty of the Cambodian holocaust. He tells us the story of his family, using photos: We see his mom and his dad, young and in love. Life in Cambodia was pretty good, envied and copied by others in Asia. Then the Khmer Rouge came to power, with their diplomas from Paris. They remade Cambodian society, killing a quarter of the population in the process. Ear’s father was one of the victims. The rest of the family managed to escape to Vietnam. The Communists wanted to create an “agrarian utopia,” Ear says. “You know the John Lennon song ‘Imagine’? ‘Imagine no possessions, no religion’? That’s what it was like in Cambodia. The only thing people had was a spoon, for eating the daily pourridge. And that pourridge was grossly insufficient for the work they were made to do in the fields.” I don’t believe I have ever heard the John Lennon song cited negatively. It is thrilling. #ad#Ear mentions that Pol Pot died untouched, in his bed, at an advanced age -- which is slightly annoying. He also talks about Tuol Sleng, the school that was turned into a torture center. Some 16,000 people were tortured to death; twelve are known to have survived. I find that a stunning statistic -- twelve. We see a sign listing the rules of Tuol Sleng: It says that, when you are tortured, you cannot cry out. We see photos of boys who are deemed enemies of the state. They have numbers pinned to their skin -- that is, the pins go through their skin, as though it were a shirt. I cannot look at the photos. But worse, possibly worse? Ear reminds us of all the Western intellectuals who loved -- loved, loved, loved -- the Khmer Rouge. Many of them were in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. Ear shows us pictures of the “Kampuchea Conference” that took place in Stockholm, in 1979. Stockholm is not very far from here. The purpose of the conference was to promote the restoration of the Khmer Rouge to power. Jan Myrdal was the keynote speaker -- the famous intellectual who is the son of Gunnar and Alva. Ear also quotes Noam Chomsky, others. Chomsky is still making moral and political pronouncements, and so is Myrdal. Being on the left means never having to say you’re sorry. They just glide on . . . Earlier in this journal, I mentioned Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani women’s-rights activist. She was gang-raped, out of “honor.” As I understand it, her twelve-year-old brother had walked in the street with a woman of a higher caste. That qualified Mukhtar for gang-raping. She was supposed to kill herself; custom dictated that -- but she didn’t. She says, “I never worked to be well-known. It is by your love and the blessing of almighty Allah that you know me. You know me for my work and my mission.” And being well-known -- hailed in the world’s capitals -- “enhances one’s responsibilities.” Her motto, she says, is “The end of oppression through knowledge.” She has set up a girls’ school, where 600 students get a free education, complete with free uniforms and transportation to and from school. Lucky girls, that Mukhtar Mai came along. Ben Skinner is “a specialist in the antithesis of freedom,” as he says: slavery. Contemporary slavery. His book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Monstrous-Face-Face-Modern-Day/dp/B003A02W8U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272764156&sr=1-1">A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery</a>. There is a man at this conference whose family owns slaves, or recently did -- I must find out. In any case, he is from Mauritania, an “Islamic republic” in the west of Africa. You remember Gilbert Tuhabonye, from Burundi? I will quote his bio: <blockquote> In October of 1993, members of the Hutu tribe invaded Tuhabonye’s high school and captured more than 100 Tutsi children and teachers. Most of the captives were killed with machetes; the rest were burned alive. After spending nearly nine hours hidden beneath the burning corpses of his classmates and suffering burns over much of his body, Tuhabonye managed to escape and seek medical attention. By 1996, his running skills took him to the United States as part of an Olympic training program. He obtained a track scholarship at Abilene Christian University and was a national champion runner. Tuhabonye is the award-winning coach of Gilbert’s Gazelles Training Group in Texas. In 2006, he cofounded the Gazelle Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve life for people in Burundi without regard to tribal affiliations. </blockquote> In the Christiania Theater, Tuhabonye relates that, as he lay underneath the burning bodies, “a voice kept telling me I would be okay.” The Hutus were outside the school, “drunk, celebrating the massacre.” Tuhabonye sensed he could escape. He took a femur -- a femur -- from one of his classmates’ corpses and broke a window. Out he ran -- and ran and ran. “I outran my enemies. I escaped into the night.” Tuhabonye says, “God gave me the courage to run on, and to persevere.” Doctors told him that he would never run again. But he proved them wrong. And “I went on with my life. You cannot live a full life if your heart is heavy with hate and anger. Though it was very hard, I chose to forgive. Forgiveness allowed me to move forward, to open my heart to countless blessings and opportunities.” As he tells us, he is “a coach, a husband, and the father of two beautiful girls, Grace and Emma. Through perseverance and forgiveness, you can accomplish anything.” #page#Kang Chol-hwan is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aquariums-Pyongyang-Years-North-Korean/dp/0465011047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272766018&sr=1-1">The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag</a>. He was imprisoned, with his family, at age nine. Through his teens, he did backbreaking work. He also suffered beatings and starvation. Almost 20, he fled to China, then to South Korea. In the theater, he greets us with a dignified bow. In English, he says, “Good afternoon.” Then he proceeds with his remarks in Korean (translated for us). #ad#He speaks of life in the gulag: torture, starvation, public executions; more torture, more starvation, more public executions. I am reminded of what Jeane Kirkpatrick called North Korea: “a psychotic state,” something “quite rare in history.” Kang and his fellow inmates ate snakes and frogs for meat, and some people ate grass. Many died from malnutrition. “I buried many hundreds of bodies of political prisoners,” says Kang. He says that people understand natural disasters such as earthquakes -- they see pictures from Haiti or from China. But they do not see pictures from the North Korean gulag. So they have no understanding of the situation, may not believe it if, by chance, they heard about it. Kang says, “I believe there is no one more desperate, or in more pain, than people dying in prison camps,” alone and unknown. I am especially interested in a particular comment, and I’ll tell you why in a moment. Kang says, “I appear normal now, as I have been eating well for more than ten years in the Free World. But I was just skin and bones when I defected.” I remember when Armando Valladares -- who is present for the conference in Oslo -- emerged from the Cuban gulag after 22 years. He was handsome and vibrant, and many people said that he could not be telling the truth, in his memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Against-All-Hope-Memoir-Castros/dp/1893554198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272768251&sr=1-1">Against All Hope</a>. If he had been so brutalized, how could he look so good -- so normal? Valladares was telling nothing but the truth. People rebound, mercifully. Many of the participants in this conference -- who endured years of torture, rape, and deprivation -- look normal. Perfectly normal. They also appear cheerful. Some of the participants, to be sure, look like they’ve been through hell; and cheer does not come easily to them. But human resilience is a remarkable thing. And some people are, quite frankly, grateful to be alive. To be breathing free air, such as can be gulped in Oslo. Incidentally, if you’d like to see a picture of Kang Chol-hwan -- being welcomed by President George W. Bush in the Oval Office -- go <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kang_Chol-hwan_and_George_W_Bush.jpg">here</a>. Like Kang, Marina Nemat has written a book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prisoner-Tehran-Womans-Survival-Iranian/dp/1416537430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272631760&sr=1-1-spell">Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman’s Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison</a>. That prison was one of the most notorious in the world: Evin. A place of darkness and sadism -- unrelenting sadism. Evin is the symbol of the Khomeinist revolution, really. At the podium, Nemat says, “It is an emotional experience for me to be here. Hearing all these stories” -- the testimonies of other former prisoners -- “I feel energized.” Nemat is going on from Oslo to do a European speaking tour. “Thank you for reenergizing me.” She was only a teenager when she was a political prisoner. And there have been thousands of teenage political prisoners since the revolution triumphed in 1979, she says. “This situation has been going on for 30 years. It is going on today.” She comments on the pictures of Cambodia that Sophal Ear has shown us. The torture chamber reminded her of what she saw in Evin. Chains tied to bed legs and so on. She says, in essence, “You’ve seen one torture chamber, you’ve seen them all.” She also describes a visit to Auschwitz she had. During that visit, she saw a great pile of shoes, taken from the victims. “And that made me wonder, What did they do with our shoes?” She remembers the shoes she went in with: “They were Puma running shoes, white with red lines on the sides.” What did they do with our shoes? She tells her story simply, plainly, matter-of-factly. She was “just a normal girl” who rode her bike in the streets and wanted to become a doctor. Her father was a ballroom-dancing instructor; her mother was a hairdresser. The family was Catholic. She was 13 when the calamity of the revolution struck. At 16 -- this took unbelievable nerve -- she asked her calculus teacher to teach calculus instead of the Islamist propaganda of the regime. She was arrested in the middle of the night, and blindfolded upon arrival at Evin. This is standard operating procedure. And then she was tortured. She does not go into details, here in the Christiania Theater. “They are in my book.” She was told that they would arrest her mother, father, and boyfriend if she didn’t “marry” her interrogator-torturer and convert to Islam. She submitted. This was “legalized rape,” as she says. “I didn’t have a choice.” Interesting about her “husband”: He had been a prisoner himself, under the shah, and tortured -- tortured for three years. Now he was the torturer. Three months after the “marriage,” he was killed -- “assassinated,” Nemat says. Curiously enough, it was his family that pleaded for her release. They secured it. She went home to her parents. At the dinner table, they talked about the weather. No one asked her what had happened inside the prison. “It would have been nice if someone had said, ‘When you’re ready to talk, we’re ready to listen.’” But no one said anything. The experience was just swept under the rug. She married her boyfriend, who was the organist at church; she herself was in the choir. “The marriage was an act of defiance. I converted back to Catholicism when I married André. This put another death sentence on my head, because if you convert to Islam, and then convert out of Islam, you are automatically condemned to death.” Years passed. Nemat was living in Canada. And it was in 2002 that “I lost the ability to sleep. The past caught up with me. I started having nightmares, flashbacks, and I had to do something about it: either go jump off a bridge or tell my story.” She took the latter course. She stresses that what happened to her in Evin is going on every single day, with other girls. The only thing that has an effect, she says, is international pressure. A colleague sitting next to me, here in the theater, leans over and says, “After hearing all these prison stories, I don’t want to hear a word about America’s alleged mistreatment of jihadists at Guantanamo Bay ever again.” Well, that’s enough for one day -- one installment. End with something light? A language item? Okay, will do. I’m talking with a Norwegian politico who speaks quite good English. (What Norwegian doesn’t speak quite good English?) He says, “Tell me, Jay: In English, you say ‘fat chance’ and ‘slim chance,’ and they mean the same thing. How can that be? How can ‘fat chance’ and ‘slim chance’ mean the same thing? Shouldn’t they mean opposite things?” Ah, English. What can you say? Thank you for joining me, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Part V.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/433215/oslo-journal-part-iv/jay-nordlinger Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:09 -0400 Oslo Journal, Part III -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/433213/oslo-journal-part-iii/jay-nordlinger EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week, Jay Nordlinger attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, the human-rights conference in the Norwegian capital. The conference is over, but the journal continues -- and for Parts I and II, go <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/432503/oslo-journal-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a> and <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger">here</a>.   Breakfast is in the Grand Café, as lunch and dinner often are too. This is a historic old café: where Ibsen came daily, one hears. There is an interesting scene on this particular morning. As I mentioned previously in the journal, Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian president, is in Oslo on a state visit. In the café, for breakfast, are many men who are part of his security team. They look like they mean business, to put it simply -- like they could hurt you while barely stirring themselves. Also in the café is Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion who is now one of the foremost opponents of the Russian government. He has spent time in jail. People notice a tension in the café: Kasparov wary, scowling, the security men much the same. In a way, a Moscow drama has been transported to the Grand Café in Oslo. I hope you won’t think it dramatic to say that Kasparov’s defiance is palpable, because it is. #ad#A Venezuelan participant in this conference has woken up to the news that his farm, back home, has been confiscated. Simply stolen from him, by the Chávez government. He defied them, refusing to play along or shut up. And now they have acted. How has your morning been, by the way? The speakers give their presentations in the Christiania Theater, a jewel of a place, with red walls and white-plaster decorations. The seats are not your regular theater seats. They are detached -- lined up, but detached -- and very comfortable. They are armchairs. First at the podium is Rebiya Kadeer, sometimes called “the mother of the Uigur nation.” She is unyielding against Chinese oppression. Beijing, of course, has accused her of being a fomenter of violence. In reality, she is what the Dalai Lama has called her: “a paradigm of nonviolence.” Kadeer was arrested in 1999 while on the way to provide testimony to a foreign delegation investigating human-rights abuses. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for “leaking state secrets and endangering state security” -- that’s how they do things in China, as in other police states. She spent about five years in prison, and 700 of those days were in solitary confinement. She was released thanks to international pressure, including the award of the Rafto Prize here in Norway. That is a prize for human-rights activism and leadership. Kadeer is now exiled in the United States. She says, “We all need to fight together against dictators and the powers of darkness.” And then she tells the story of her “nation.” In October 1949 came the occupation by Communist Chinese forces. “They persecuted not only us,” she says, “but the majority Chinese people, too. Anyone who wants democracy is treated as an enemy of the Chinese state.” But Uigurs, she says, face worse persecution than the majority Chinese. “We cannot speak our own language in our homes, and our sons and daughters cannot work in their own country. They are forcibly removed to other Chinese states to work as Chinese slave labor.” She talks of wives who are afraid to ask, “What happened to my husband?” “We are living in an open prison,” she says. And then there is this: “I have no weapons. They use guns, bombs, and instruments of torture to intimidate the Uigur people. And yet the Chinese government is afraid of me, because they’re afraid of the truth.” Before this lady boarded the plane that would take her into exile, “my Chinese minders said, ‘Don’t talk about human rights.’ But I do. One human voice, speaking the truth, can accomplish a lot.” Kadeer sums up, “I’m confident that dictators and tyrants are afraid of our being together today. They are trembling now because of us. If we fight together, our peoples that live under these dictatorial, totalitarian regimes will be free.” She has had much taken from her: her business, her family -- her sons are in prison. And, of course, she is unable to live in her country. But she seems cheerful and without bitterness. She says, “My experiences have caused me great pain and grief. Nonetheless, I must speak on behalf of my sons, and not only them, but on behalf of all the others too.” She is determined to carry on, with grace. This is an extraordinary-looking woman, with an extraordinary physical presence. She is wearing a blue jacket and a blue skirt. A green cap is on her head. She has two long braids, on either side of her face. She has high cheekbones, sparkling eyes, and a warm, bright smile. Her posture is perfectly erect. In her body, she exudes confidence, serenity, imperturbability, defiance -- all those things. I find myself wishing she could be on American television: that she could be a celebrity. She is someone with important things to say, unlike most of those who appear on television and are known to one and all. #page#Mart Laar was a leader of the “Singing Revolution” in Estonia. A singing revolution? Yes, they sang illegal patriotic songs when the Soviets were in charge, and, in fact, when Estonia seemed a forever part of the forever USSR. Eventually, Laar negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and he became prime minister in the new Estonia, twice. He has always said that his boldness came from his naivety: He had no idea that what he was doing was judged, by others, impossible. The first thing Laar says impresses me a great deal, and I’ll tell you what it is. Thor Halvorssen has introduced him, generously, as one does. And Laar says, “As always in introductions of me, my role was overestimated. I was only one of many brave people who helped change the country.” #ad#He says that the address by Rebiya Kadeer “touched my heart, because I know how it is for a language to be suppressed, and for a culture to be suppressed, and I know how it is when no one wants to hear about what’s happening in your country, when you feel cut off from the world, all alone.” He remembers when Soviet troops fired on unarmed people in Vilnius, Lithuania, in January 1991. This was about the same time that “Mr. Gorbachev was given the Nobel Peace Prize. That was something very hard to understand, but something we see continually around the world.” He means the ignoring of victims, the appeasement or celebration of victimizers. (The Gorbachev case is a complicated -- and a historic -- one, I grant you.) Laar notes that the Baltic revolutions turned out fine -- but, “as we saw in Tiananmen Square, it can all end in a different way.” What’s key, he says, is international pressure: the threat of sanctions, the imposition of sanctions, and so on. If the Chinese kill Uigurs, and the world continues to bow to the Chinese, the Uigurs have no chance. More than “beautiful statements,” says Laar -- beautiful statements about human rights with nothing behind them -- is necessary. He is a strong free-marketeer -- a Reaganite, a Thatcherite -- and Estonia has blossomed under free-market principles. He is also a historian, a founding member of the Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes. In the Christiania Theater, he makes the familiar point that the world unanimously condemns and reviles Nazism, but will not do the same where Communism is concerned. Communist crimes are somehow excused. “But we must speak up loudly against killing and oppression, wherever these occur, and no matter who the oppressors and killers are.” As I think I said earlier in this journal, who cares whether the boot is black or red, as long as it’s stomping on the human face? Concluding his remarks, Laar says, “If we think too much about what’s possible and what’s not possible, we won’t do anything. There weren’t many people who believed that Estonia could be free. There are people in the Uigur nation who think that this violence will last forever. I have seen with my own eyes that oppression can end. Let’s have no fear. Let’s fight for freedom, and support the people who are doing the same.” Yeah, let’s. Jared Genser is doing something outstanding with his life. He is a young American lawyer, the founder and president of Freedom Now, a non-profit organization that works to free prisoners of conscience across the world. He is also a partner in a Washington law firm -- which I imagine allows him to do the Freedom Now work. He and his human-rights colleagues are lawyers for those without lawyers: people in dungeons. He represents such people as a Pakistani Christian on Death Row for blasphemy. Or a Vietnamese doctor imprisoned for translating a page from the U.S.-embassy website: a page headed “Democracy.” Genser speaks of “airport moments” -- those moments when a freed prisoner greets the family he has been waiting for, as they have waited for him. This is what makes his work “worthwhile,” he says. Of course, it’s worthwhile whether the prisoners get released or not. The thing that most distresses political prisoners is the belief that they are alone, unhelped, and forgotten. At the end of his talk, Genser says, “Freedom is universal. Everyone yearns to be free. I have found this throughout the world.” This is the sort of talk that George W. Bush was mocked for. It’s still true. Are there people like Idi Amin and Pol Pot who do not wish for freedom, at least for others? Come on, folks: Accept a generalization. And, no, freedom is not necessarily the liberal democracy of, say, Ames, Iowa. It involves decency and rights, however: freedom of worship, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom not to be stolen from -- not least by the state. #page#Samuel Kofi Woods is a Liberian. I ask him about the second of those names: the one shared by the former U.N. secretary-general. A common West African name, says Woods. The culture is similar, if not the same, across national boundaries; those boundaries were drawn with little rationality. “Kofi” means that you were born on a Friday. “Kweisi” means that you were born on a Sunday. And so on. #ad#Let me quote from Woods’s bio: <blockquote> His lifelong commitment to human rights began with student activism that led to his first arrest in 1981. In 1986, as a member of the National Student Union, he was forced into hiding and later banned from employment and travel. Upon the outbreak of civil war in 1989 he fled to Ghana, but returned to Liberia in 1991 to found his country’s most prominent human rights organization, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission. He also established a radio program that focused on publicizing arrests and extrajudicial executions and educating citizens about their rights. In 1994 he founded the Forefront Organization to document the human rights abuses of the Second Liberian Civil War. In 1998 he was declared an anti-government activist and was threatened with sedition for exposing forced child labor in the country. Although many of his colleagues were murdered and his family was under threat from government authorities, Kofi Woods persisted in his work for justice. He now heads the Liberian Ministry of Labor. </blockquote> Not bad, huh? Makes me, for one, feel incredibly lazy. Before the Christiania Theater assembly, Woods speaks of “a universal contest between good and evil.” Good “will eventually triumph,” he says, but “not by retiring. Good must confront evil,” and by confronting evil we do at least two things: “offer society a moral alternative” and “test our own convictions.” He is an inspiring man, Woods. Also notably fit. He tells me he does sit-ups, push-ups, etc. every morning. And, like so many others here who have seen and endured horrific things, he is the picture of cheerfulness, warmth, and goodwill. A phenomenon to ponder. Jimmy Wales, who gave us Wikipedia, could not be with us in person, but he speaks via video. He talks about the importance of Wikipedia to people under dictatorship, to people who live in places where information has long been controlled by the state. He has something amusing to say about North Korea -- to the extent anything about North Korea can be amusing: “We’re not censored there. The one guy with a computer can probably get” Wikipedia. In China, he says, the censorship is not perfect -- not total. But the government doesn’t need perfect censorship to get the chilling effect it wants. People are made to understand that “certain conversations can’t be had in public.” Still, things are different from “an era when people could be completely kept in the dark.” Sunlight pokes through in China. Wales also talks about “the heroes of Wikipedia,” people who risk their lives to work on the site. He mentions a man in Iran who has been reported to the police twice -- “even though he wasn’t editing politically sensitive topics.” Amazing, the risks people are willing to take . . . Give you a couple of notes about Norway -- about Oslo, I mean. Kicking around, I see a statue of FDR -- very nice to discover. Norwegian gratitude for American help during the war is set in stone. But the stone figure looks nothing like Roosevelt. I mean, it could be anybody. You’d never be able to identify the figure if not for the name on the pedestal. Still -- nice. Here is a curious fact: 7-Elevens, all over the world, smell the same. There is an established, unchanging 7-Eleven smell. Whether the store is in Peoria, Oslo, or Timbuktu, you walk in, take a whiff, and go, “Yup -- 7-Eleven.” Seagulls whine a lot, don’t they? Big whiners, they are. Some of the whiniest creatures on earth. One of the best things about being in Norway -- maybe the best, despite the wondrous natural beauty? Interacting with Norwegians. Thanks for joining me, dear Impromptus-ites -- Oslo-ites, during this period? -- and I’ll see you tomorrow for Part IV.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/433213/oslo-journal-part-iii/jay-nordlinger Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:21 -0400 Oslo Journal, Part II -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger Welcome to the second installment of these jottings from the Oslo Freedom Forum, here in the historic, smart Norwegian capital. Part I appeared on Monday: <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/432503/oslo-journal-part-i/jay-nordlinger">here</a>. Sorry for the long delay between installments. With that delay in mind, should I just wade in, without further prelude? One morning, there is a press conference, featuring a slew of Freedom Forum speakers -- about a dozen of them. Most have stood up for human rights in their countries (as well as all over), and paid a serious price for it. These people are amazingly, almost shamingly brave. Let me discuss just a few of them -- though each of them deserves a long piece all to himself. #ad#Mukhtar Mai is from Pakistan, a women’s-rights activist. I will quote from an autobiographical sketch of her. It will not make for easy reading, I’m afraid. “In 2002, she was gang-raped when a neighboring clan carried out an ‘honor revenge.’ Although it is customary for women to commit suicide after such an atrocity, Mai fought back by taking her assailants to court . . .” She then opened a women’s-welfare organization. “Although her work comes at great personal risk to her and her loved ones, Mai remains committed to bringing national and international attention to the abuses perpetrated against women in her country.” At the press conference, she notes that she is a Muslim woman from a remote and rural area, working out of a village. And if she can do what she is doing, in her circumstances, women elsewhere can do the same. Hard to argue with that, isn’t it? Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani is a journalist from Yemen who has been imprisoned, tortured -- you know the routine. Ghastly, sadistic stuff. He says that journalists in free and open countries ought to sympathize with journalists in other countries who are in distress. I myself have been singing this song for years. There is little solidarity among journalists, especially where places such as Cuba are concerned. Cuban journalists, if they try to be independent, face the worst things. Their brethren in free countries are apt to spend their time excusing the persecutors. This is why one of the most refreshing groups, anywhere, is Reporters Without Borders. They don’t care where you are being tortured, or by whom. They just care about justice -- which is why I say, “refreshing.” Lidia Yusupova has been called one of the bravest women in the world. Thor Halvorssen, the founder and president of the Freedom Forum, says that her job carries with it an extraordinarily high mortality rate: human-rights lawyer in Chechnya. Yusupova is under constant threat. A beautiful woman, she has a rather haunted, hunted look on her face, as well she might. At the press conference, she says that one of the benefits of the Freedom Forum will be the gaining of “psychological support” from others: those who understand and appreciate her and are doing similar work to hers. Kasha Jacqueline is amazingly cheerful-seeming. She has a ready, easy laugh. She set up a gay-rights organization in Uganda. She says how happy she is to be in Oslo. Norway is a beautiful country, she says -- very different from “my dusty country.” But “I don’t like the weather, I must confess.” (The weather is in the low 50s now, and must feel frigid to Jacqueline.) (By the way, could any non-Ugandan, or non-African, get away with describing Uganda, or any other African country, as “dusty”?) In Uganda, there has been a fierce national campaign against homosexuality and homosexuals. Jacqueline, still cheerful, explains that, when she gets home, she may face death. She is not joking -- far from it. Have a nice day . . . Guadalupe Llori is a politician and indigenous leader from Ecuador. She tells us that her country’s government is developing along the lines of Chávez’s -- and the Castros’. This government threw her in prison for eleven months. She was beaten, put to hard labor -- all of that. She was released “thanks to the Human Rights Foundation [Halvorssen’s organization in New York], thanks to journalists [who gave attention to her case], and thanks to God.” She says that, when she was invited to the Oslo Freedom Forum, “I received many threats indicating that, if I came here, I would not be allowed back into my country.” When she arrived at the airport in Ecuador, the police harassed her. And “I am wondering every moment I am here, ‘Should I say things? Should I not say things?’” She is trembling, tearful. She says that, whenever she leaves home -- whether for other parts of Ecuador or for other countries -- she wonders whether she will see her family again. But “I am here representing those people who cannot speak, trying to get the message out, asking the world for solidarity, because we are slowly losing our freedom.” Gilbert Tuhabonye was caught up in the Burundian genocide -- an event much less well-known than the genocide in Rwanda, as he points out. I will quote from his biographical sketch: Tuhabonye spent “nearly nine hours hidden beneath the burning corpses of his classmates and suffering burns over much of his body.” I think that gives picture enough, for now. He went to the United States, where he became a champion runner, an inspirational speaker, and a humanitarian. He seems the picture of contentment. He has seen the most hellish things. #page#Lubna al-Hussein is the Sudanese journalist -- you may remember her -- who in 2009 gained some renown when she stood up to the government in Khartoum: which was prosecuting her for wearing pants. She was accused of “dressing indecently in public.” Astonishingly, she won: She took on the government and won. I will have more to say about her later. One of the points she makes during the press conference is the following: “There is no contradiction between being a Muslim and being a human-rights activist. Unfortunately, religion is used to justify oppressive practices. In medieval times, many bad things were done in the name of Christianity and in the name of the Christian Church.” But those bad things “had nothing to do with the Christian religion,” rightly understood. “We [Muslims] are passing through the same experience.” #ad#How much do we know about the North Korean gulag? Not much. What we do know is likely to come from The Aquariums of Pyongyang, the stunning book by Kang Chol-hwan, who is present. At age nine, he was sent to a camp along with his family. This camp was . . . almost a parody of evil. He was kept in it ten years. Then he escaped and wrote his story. He is a witness in the long, honored tradition. He comes from a place from which precious few witnesses emerge. I am kind of amazed to be around him, to shake his hand. I’m afraid I stare at him, just a little. Did he really come from a North Korean prison camp? Indeed, he did. And here he is, in Oslo, Norway, just as though everything were normal. Surreal. A broader point: As I look at this lineup of human-rights warriors and former prisoners of conscience -- and I have mentioned only a few -- I try to think what must, or might, be going through their minds. It must be at least a little -- to use that word again -- surreal: to be in this glorious European capital, talking to the international media. Such a long way, in more than one sense, from their cells and battlegrounds. They are staying in the very luxury hotel that hosted President Obama when he picked up the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Armando Valladares spent 22 years in the Cuban gulag. He is in this “lineup” -- at the press conference -- and I ask him a question. I do so, I admit, conscious that the Norwegian press is here. And you remember that the Nobel Peace Prize is given by a committee of five Norwegians, right? They are appointed by the parliament. I ask Valladares, “Do you think a Cuban dissident or symbol of freedom could ever win the Nobel Peace Prize?” His answer is, in essence, Don’t wait up nights. The Norwegians showed great, great concern for South Africans under apartheid, and great, great concern for Chileans under Pinochet. Don’t Cubans deserve the same sympathy and care? Valladares and I will later agree that, if Cubans were persecuted by a dictatorship seen as right-wing rather than left-wing -- and what does it matter whether the boot is red or black, as long as it’s stomping on your face? -- they would have won two or three peace prizes already. Castro seized power in 1959. Who might have won the peace prize? Valladares, once upon a time; Biscet now -- many others. At the press conference, Valladares makes clear that he wants to distinguish between the Norwegian government and the Norwegian people. The Norwegian people have always been magnificent, he says; the government, not. He remembers that Norwegian human-rights groups worked very hard for his freedom, “and I owe them a debt of honor.” But “the attitude of the government” has been something else altogether. I find this a curious thing. Norway is a democracy -- a gleaming, free-and-open democracy. Hard to think of a freer country. Between the government and the people, is there all that much difference? I mean, no one shoots his way into power here. Everyone is placed democratically. If the government is not a reflection of the people in Norway, where is the government a reflection of the people? Of the 40 or so speakers who will address the conference, many -- maybe most -- have spent time in prison: as political prisoners, prisoners of conscience. If you toted up all the years they have spent, collectively, what would the sum be? You would get a very high number, for sure. Maybe someone should do this toting -- maybe I should. A macabre exercise, granted, but interesting. Halvorssen points out that most of the people who have come to speak at the conference are criminals -- that is, regarded as criminals by the criminal governments of their countries. This is a bracing thought. #page#He also points out that the Oslo Freedom Forum is unlike other human-rights conferences -- what we have here are victims of human-rights abuses, and campaigners for human rights. Think of your typical “human rights” conference, such as a U.N.-sponsored one: Durban I, Durban II. That is more a collection of human-rights violators than a gathering of human-rights advocates. Halvorssen is eloquent on the subject of witnesses: the power of one man’s, or woman’s, witness to rock tyranny. He cites the all-time example, Solzhenitsyn. And I think of his image, a folk image, of the oak and the calf. A calf butts his head against an oak, in the foolish belief that he can knock it down. That is an illustration of futility -- of wishful thinking. Solzhenitsyn titled his classic literary memoir “The Oak and the Calf.” But of course, he was a toppler. And participants in the Freedom Forum have the same kind of butting ability, if I may put it that way. #ad#Here’s an interesting development. Halvorssen says that, by sheer coincidence, Russia’s president Medvedev is on a state visit here in Oslo. Further by sheer coincidence, he is staying in the same hotel as the Freedom Forum crowd -- on the same floor as the press conference. We are in the Grand, on Karl Johan’s Street, the main drag. Halvorssen says (I paraphrase), “We’re sure the president’s schedule is very full, but maybe he could spend a few minutes with us? Maybe meet in the lobby? It would be good to discuss freedom of expression and related matters. He has nothing to fear from us. After all, he’s got a huge army, nuclear weapons, hundreds of bodyguards. We just have e-mail and fax machines.” This has a strong rhetorical effect. Several people from Russia are in attendance at the Freedom Forum. I have mentioned Yusupova. And then there is Garry Kasparov. And Vladimir Bukovsky, who was a guest for many years in the Soviet Union’s lovely prisons. One more bit of news on the Russian front: Do you recall that, in Part I of this journal, I mentioned the Freedom Forum banners lining Karl Johan’s Street? They have been taken down, in favor of Russian flags. Halvorssen has been told that the Freedom Forum banners will be restored, once the Russian president leaves. Klassekampen is a Communist newspaper here in Norway -- or formerly Communist newspaper or post-Communist newspaper or whatever they’re claiming to be this week. (The name of the paper means “The Class Struggle.” Sweet, no?) Last year, it reported something interesting. It reported that Thor Halvorssen had been a CIA agent, working in El Salvador, from 1980 to 1989. In 1980, Halvorssen was three or four. Very precocious kid. Also, the Cuban embassy let it be known that Valladares had planted bombs in Cuba -- a bald-faced lie, of course. Strange, that the Cuban government should be lying. Maybe Wayne Smith should be called in, to say that it’s somehow all Miami’s fault? Claudia Rosett, that indispensable, unique journalist is here. Someone asks her, “So, what do you do?” She gives an answer I love: “I write about bad people -- very bad people.” So she does. So do I, often. She makes a notable point about Kasparov, the former chess champion, now known for his political and human-rights activism. He could really live anywhere -- any capital would be pleased to have him. He could live comfortably, well, easily: riding the ongoing waves of chess greatness, right? But he continues to stick it out in Russia -- which is to his credit. In the evening, participants in the Oslo Freedom Forum are given a reception in City Hall -- a stately, handsome building (certainly on the inside), where the Nobel Peace Prize is handed out every year. That event takes place on December 10. Why that day? Why is 12/10 “Presentation Day”? Because that is the day of the testator’s -- of Alfred Nobel’s -- death (1896). There is music at the reception, provided by Jennifer Glass, a singer-songwriter who lives in New York. Her band is Starling Crush, and she is a host of Concert TV. She sings purely, naturally, and pleasingly. She’s a lot of fun, to boot. Oh, I could go on, but you’ve had enough -- more than enough -- for one day. I will see you on Monday, promise -- no more eons between installments -- for Part III.     #JAYBOOK# <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/433072/oslo-journal-part-ii/jay-nordlinger Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00:52 -0400