Spotlight
Virginia Postrel At Bloomberg: ‘Detroit’s Van Gogh Would Be Better Off in L.A.’
From James Lileks: ‘The Gobbler’
Repost-Continuing On A Theme Found Elsewhere: Painting The American West
Offering links and thoughts on the Arts, Politics, Political Philosophy and Foreign Affairs, often from a libertarian/conservative perspective
From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’
Malik is British, the son of East Asian immigrants, and offers quite a bit of insight about his experiences and the culture that received him:
“The Rushdie affair gave notice not just of a new Islam but also of a new left. Radicals slowly lost faith in secular universalism and began talking instead about multiculturalism and group rights. They became disenchanted with Enlightenment ideas of rationalism and humanism, and many began to decry the Enlightenment as a ‘Eurocentric’ project.”
Also On This Site: On relativism: Repost-From Virtual Philosophy: A Brief Interview With Simon Blackburn..
From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…Scruton also suggests keeping political and aesthetic judgments apart in the humanities:Roger Scruton In The American Spectator Via A & L Daily: Farewell To Judgment…
Theodore Dalrymple Still Attacking Multi-Culturalism In Britain…Martha Nussbaum In Dissent–Violence On The Left: Nandigram And The Communists Of West Bengal
Islamism, Immigration & Multiculturalism-Melanie Phillips Via Youtube
Michael Totten At The City Journal: ‘The Friend Of My Enemy Is My Enemy’
‘It’s hard enough for Americans to find goodwill in the Arab world, but it isn’t impossible. None of the people I spoke to in Beirut who groused about Washington’s perceived support for Assad are anti-American. I’ve known some of them for almost a decade. All are political liberals who more or less share our values, which largely explains why they oppose the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis in the first place. There is no upside to alienating these people.
Joshua Landis’ blog here.
Al Jazeera live blog on Syria here.
Interesting paper here.
Related On This Site: Update And Repost: Via Youtube-Uncommon Knowledge With Fouad Ajami And Charles Hill
Too late to act with lower risk and more gain? Ralph Peters At The NY Post: ‘Too Late For Syria’
From Michael Totten: ‘The Syrian War Gets Even Uglier’
Fareed Zakaria On Youtube: ‘Stay Out Of Syria’
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Still trying to hear good arguments…
It’s kind of bizzaro-land in our politics right now, flipped upside-down, where political incentive for those usually strong on national defense is not forthcoming for this President’s actions in Syria, even though we could see Syria coming from a mile away.
Adam Garfinkle here:
‘There is something to be learned here, and there is even a chance that some Administration principles may belatedly learn it: The mantra that the use of force, even the indirect use of force via arms provision to allies or would-be clients, should always be a last resort, is just that—a mantra with no relevance to real life. This is like, as I have said before, advising a cancer victim to wait until the very last moment to consider surgery. It epitomizes the Neville Chamberlain school of diplomacy ‘
Charles Hill and Fouad Ajami argue that this century calls for renewed American exceptionalism, and our bold leadership is necessary because if we don’t lead, someone who doesn’t share our values probably will. Much like we took over many British projects with Truman after WWII, we needed to act in Syria. Update And Repost: Via Youtube-Uncommon Knowledge With Fouad Ajami And Charles Hill
Too late to act with lower risk and higher gain? Ralph Peters At The NY Post: ‘Too Late For Syria’
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More from Rick Francona here.
Zakaria has been arguing that America would no longer get to be the ’director,’ and that we are seeing the rise of the rest, especially Asia. In the new piece above, he’s now arguing that we may become little more than bit players.
Here are some previous Zakaria articles, for those interested, as I think he is a deeper analyst with a wide ranging mind, who’s hit a slightly more liberal, mass audience, sweet spot:
-‘Are America’s Best Days Behind Us?‘
-”How To Restore The American Dream“
Where he’s coming from, on this site: Fareed Zakaria At Foreign Policy: ‘Remembering Samuel Huntington’…
There was the plagiarism kerfuffle a while back.
Sunday Poem: From the Oxford Book of 16th Century Verse
Western Wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!
From Via Media: ‘California Pension Costs May Double Overnight’
Mead is still advocating for a return to a liberalism that, basically, would keep us soluble. California public salaries and benefits are eating the budget.:
‘For years, states and cities had been hiding the true cost of their generous pension programs. Now that they’ve been stripped of their accounting gimmicks, the true cost of these unviable programs is becoming clear.
This is not what a comeback looks like.’
We’re still looking at a pension crisis in various municipalities across the country.
Hardly the time to be building new high-speed rail projects, eh, California?
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I’m still putting up this quote by Victor Davis Hanson, as it makes so much sense, and thus, will probably not happen:
‘Soon, even the Stanford professor and the La Jolla administrator may learn that illegal immigration, cumbersome regulations, and the terrible elementary schools affect them as well.
The four-part solution for California is clear: don’t raise the state’s crushing taxes any higher; reform public-employee compensation: make use of ample natural resources: and stop the flow of illegal aliens. Just focus on those four areas-as California did so well in the past-and in time, the state will return to its bounty of a few decades ago. Many of us intend to stay and see that it does.’
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California’s anti-union and anti-immigration democrat-Full video and background on Mickey Kaus here.
A good post on Robinson Jeffers from Malcolm Greenhill, which highlights how the rugged and vast beauty of California makes it easier to imagine what culture is, and what it ought to be on this outpost of Western Civilization.
Conn Carroll At The Washington Examiner: ‘California In Crisis’
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-A link for Michael Lewis’ article about California politics, public pensions and Schwarzenegger’s time in office.
-A map from Immodest Proposals on how to divide California. Topographic crime map of San Francisco.
Related On This Site: Victor Davis Hanson Via Youtube Via Uncommon Knowledge: ‘The New Old World Order’…Victor Davis Hanson At The City Journal: ‘California, Here We Stay’…
Dream big: Via Reason: ‘California’s Public Transportation Sinkhole’ A great city deserves great art extravaganzas…: L.A.’s New Public Art Piece ‘The Levitated Mass,’ Or As The American Interest Puts It: ‘A Moving Rock’
…California Dreamers From The Atlantic-A Brief Review Of Kevin Starr’s History Of California
The people who promise solutions to poverty and homlessness seem to be engaged in a utopian cost-shifting exercise which favors their interests and overlooks crime, violence and personal responsbility…hardly a way to balance the budget: Repost-Heather MacDonald At The City Journal: ‘The Sidewalks Of San Francisco’…
Some concentrated wealth on top, a stalled legislature with members who know how to play the game…and a service sector beneath…that probably can’t go on forever: …From The WSJ: ‘Joel Kotkin: The Great California Exodus’…
Repost-From Strange Maps: ‘Vive Le Tweet! A Map Of Twitter’s Languages’
Maps (similar to Earth at night) of language usage on Twitter.
Related On This Site: From Strange Maps: The Sweet Tea Line In Virginia…From Strange Maps: Do You Say Soda, Pop, or Coke?
From CBS News: ‘U.S.: Syria Used Chemical Weapons, Crossing “Red Line”
Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication:
“Any future action we take will be consistent with our national interest, and must advance our objectives, which include achieving a negotiated political settlement to establish an authority that can provide basic stability and administer state institutions; protecting the rights of all Syrians; securing unconventional and advanced conventional weapons; and countering terrorist activity,” Rhodes said.
The rebels have been fighting what’s become a brutal proxy war with all kinds of bad actors involved. From non-military aid we’ve also had SpecOps on the ground, logistics, and support for across the border countries handling refugees like Jordan. This conflict has been enflaming the fault-lines in the region and dragging on, spilling out all over the place.
Assad’s Alawite minority regime has now been confirmed using chemical weapons (we pretty much knew that already), and been holding onto power by nearly any means, getting help from Iranian Shia fighters and the Iranian government, Hezbollah, Russian money and weapons, and other assorted interests in the region.
Now it looks like we’ll be sending military aid, creating a no-fly zone, and possibly more (Addition: not confirmed, but possible Another Addition: confirmed arms to the rebels).
To my mind, this further Left President may possibly just be taking the longer way around what’s traditionally been a spectrum of American foreign policy action (I think the President really still believes in a liberal internationalist, Cairo-speech movement towards freedom, arc of history bending towards justice worldview). The Clinton team likely would have been more hawkish, having possibly acted already.
This has always been a lot to lose/little to gain problem, but here we are.
A quote from Kissinger:
‘On all sides of the Syrian conflict, the commitment of the belligerents to democratic values and alignment with Western interests is, at best, untested. Al-Qaeda has now entered the conflict, effectively on the side that the United States is being asked to join. In such circumstances, U.S. policymakers encounter a choice not between a “realistic” and an “idealistic” outcome but between competing imperfections, between considerations of strategy and of governance. We are stymied on Syria because we have a strategic interest in breaking the Assad clan’s alliance with Iran, which we are reluctant to avow, and the moral objective of saving human lives, which we are unable to implement through the U.N. Security Council.’
Joshua Landis’ blog here.
Al Jazeera live blog on Syria here.
Interesting paper here.
Related On This Site: Update And Repost: Via Youtube-Uncommon Knowledge With Fouad Ajami And Charles Hill
Too late to act with lower risk and more gain? Ralph Peters At The NY Post: ‘Too Late For Syria’
Thursday Links Sent In-Zombo.Com
This blog is staying on the cutting edge, the cusp of the culture, the hot molten core and the birth of the new.
Anything is possible.
Distance to Mars. It’s pretty far.
The Afterlife keeps coming up as one of the worst website designs ever. A MIDI version of Bryan Adams “Heaven” will guide you towards salvation.
This is starting to remind me of Jeff Koons’ kitsch and marketing, high and low, fleshed out in pieces like Michael Jackson And Bubbles, Winter Bears and ‘St John The Baptist’.
Photo found here…gps1941 photostream here. More on the original St. John The Baptist here.
A Reaction To Jeff Koons-For Commerce Or Contemplation?
From The China Daily Mail: ‘Why Are Chinese Tourists So Rude?’
Well, not all of them, by any stretch, but it’s interesting to note the reasons why. Click through for more:
‘After almost every ‘rude Chinese tourist’ story, unfortunately, made SCMP.com’s top-10 list, I decided to give the question some serious thought.’
This strikes me as similar to complaints Americans can receive while abroad (loud, rude, coarse, disrespectful of custom, don’t speak the language, etc).
Because I couldn’t find a photo, here’s an unrelated incident with a likely drunken Chinese man on a Chinese Subway giving a white guy a hard time, and getting a little more than he bargained for. Good times:
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We are populous, but they are many times more so. We have a large contiguous land mass with great differences in climate and natural resources, and so do they (and a longer history). They can be pragmatic, practical and cheap (shopkeepers of the world), so can we. They have what will be the largest economy in the world (still state-manipulated, modernizing, pegged to our dollar) and seek to control commodities and supply chains while making deals around the world. They are rattling sabers with their military and seek more cultural, business and political influence in their backyard and around the world.
Psychologically, this will pose some interesting challenges for both countries, with lots of friction and a trickier road to reach mutual cooperation and understanding with these two huge economies. We’ve got some serious work to do to build and connect that common ground.
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What’s life like in Beijing for an American editing an English-language Business Magazine?
Interesting quote on author Eveline Chao’s censor:
‘I understood then the mundane nature of all that kept her in place. A job she didn’t like, but worked hard to keep. A system that would never reward her for good work, only punish her for mistakes. And in exchange: Tutors. Traffic. Expensive drumming lessons. They were the same things that kept anyone, anywhere, in place — and it was the very ordinariness of these things that made them intractable.’
Related On This Site: Kissinger says our relations with China are incredibly fragile, and that due to its own past, it may not fit as easily into the Western models of statecraft as some would think: From The Online WSJ: ‘Henry Kissinger on China. Or Not.’
From The WSJ-Exclusive: ‘Eric Schmidt Unloads On China In New Book’
From The China Daily Mail: ‘The Cultures Of North Korea And China: Conflict Escalation Explained’
Over a billion people and a culturally homogenous Han core. Rapid industrialization atop an ancient civilization. There is state-sponsored hacking and espionage, a good bit of corruption and a lot of young men floating around fast-growing cities. There are people fighting for their freedoms, better laws, and making their way forward. There is an often lawless, ruthless capitalism (and hefty State involvement and cronyism) and it will take smart leadership to maintain steady growth. Can they do it? TED Via Youtube: Martin Jacques ‘Understanding The Rise Of China’…From Foreign Affairs: ‘The Geography Of Chinese Power’…From Via Media At The American Interest: ‘History Made; Media Blind’…From The New Perspectives Quarterly: Francis Fukuyama’s ‘Is America Ready for a Post-American World?’…
Are we headed toward 19th century geo-politics?: Obama’s Decision On Missile Defense And A Quote From Robert Kagan’s: ‘The Return Of History And The End Of Dreams’ From Foreign Affairs: ‘The Geography Of Chinese Power’Do we try and invest in global institutions as flawed as they are?: Daniel Deudney On YouTube Responding to Robert Kagan: Liberal Democracy Vs. AutocracyFrom The American Interest Online: Niall Ferguson on ‘What Chimerica Hath Wrought’
Update And Repost: ‘A Canadian Libertarian Making Noise: Ezra Levant’
Here are Levant’s opening statements during his investigation:
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Levant was fighting what he saw as an infringement upon his freedom of speech by the Human Rights Commission of Alberta. As editor of the Western Standard, Levant published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and found himself investigated by, in his words, ”a kangaroo court.”
Originally, a letter was written by Syed Soharwardy, an imam living in Alberta, to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Soharwardy claimed that the cartoons were morally offensive to the religion of Islam. Levant believed his decision to publish the cartoons was protected by Canadian law, and that Soharwardy found a path to legal action (at the expense of Canadian taxpayers) through the Human Rights Commission because no one else would take Soharwardy’s claims seriously.
One of Levant’s main concerns seems to be the the way in which someone like Soharwardy, (with unchallenged religious beliefs, and illiberal ideas of social freedom), has infringed upon his freedoms through an institution like the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
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Heading towards a theme, here’s Mark Steyn discussing complaints brought against Macleans, Canada’s largest publication, by the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (who sent three representatives) to TVOntario. They were upset at the pieces Steyn had published there. The complaints went through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for alleged “Islamophobia” and “promoting hate:”
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Pretty heated.
Again, the focus here is not whether Islam is a religion whose followers would eventually clash with the idea of separation of church and state, and/or identify with a larger global pan-Muslim population at the expense of their adopted countries. That’s a different debate. We know that here in America, they are granted a space created by our Constitution for freedom of religion in the public square and no specific religious test for office. They must follow our laws and are protected by them. Living and working alongside one another has its benefits and I generally favor the melting pot approach.
The debate here focuses on the effect that multiculturalism, the human rights crowd, and the public sentiment behind them can have upon freedom of expression when Human Rights Commissions are allowed legal recourse to settle this kind of dispute. This is one of the consequences of those ideas in action, and it’s not exactly liberal. It’s the multicultural solution, and it can be absolutely chilling on speech, placing onerous financial burdens on citizens, and it can create a sort of shadow court with aims of its own (if not jurisdiction) operating alongside the regular courts.
We’re not anywhere near Choudary territory yet, but remember that Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, had some problems with “workplace violence”. Most multiculturalists really don’t see a problem with their approach.
***A friend points out that the illiberal tendencies of the Muslim complainants in both cases and the illiberalism of the multiculturalists is a good fit. Just don’t be a Canadian on the receiving end.
***This also helps to confirm the libertarian contention that libertarians are the true classical liberals, and modern liberalism has followed the logic of moral relativism, a lot of Continental, New Left, neo-Marxist influences in feminism and race theory which lead to an unhealthy desire to control and be controlled by the State, which will grow larger and larger.
Also On This Site: From The BBC-Kurt Westergaard: ‘Cartoonist Attacker In Danish Court’
Repost-From Beautiful Horizons: ‘Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan at the 92nd Street Y’
Virtual Philosophy has a series on free speech and some links and notes to J.S. Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ among others. Is Mill’s utilitarianism enough?: From virtual philosopher: ‘Free Speech: notes and links for course at Free Word Centre’
A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea…as a more entrenched radical British Left and Muslim immigration don’t mix too well: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…
Free speech (used both well and unwell) meets offended Muslims: ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted‘During Lecture’……From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’
Repost-Eugene Volokh At The National Review: ‘Multiculturalism: For or Against?’…Theodore Dalrymple Still Attacking Multi-Culturalism In Britain…From The Volokh Conspiracy: Multiculturalism As A Traditional American Value
From Sultan Knish: ‘The Mirage Of Moderate Islam’
Roger Scruton suggests Islam is incompatible with Western Freedom: From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…
Kenan Malik In The Spiked Review Of Books: ‘Twenty Years On: Internalizing The Fatwa’-Salman Rushdie
