=jpih0410 Letters to the Jlem Post and International Herald Tribune, October '04 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sent to JP 26 Oct '04 If it's not too late, could we give Gaza to the Israel Mafia? They would at least respect human rights more than the Gaza Palestinian warlords. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sent to JP 26 Oct '04 In calling on the Israel electorate to respect the Knesset voste on disengagement, the Post takes an unjustifiably utopian view of most MK's and Ministers, who seem to have subordinated objective analysis to clinging to their careers. If Israel withdraws from Gaza, it will have created the world's first terrorist mini-state. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent To IHT, 26 Oct '04, re: Editorial 25 Oct '04 The pirated refurbished Chinese edition of Bill Clinton's autobiography seems far superior to the original, and should be published in the USA as a 2nd Edition. -------------------- This was printed in the 28 IHT Letters as follows: "The editorial "Bootlegging Clinton in China" (Oct. 25) reports that a pirated autobiography of the former president is circulating in China. The Chinsese version, among other untruths, "reveals a Clinton family obsessed with China's strong points" and how Chinese science and technology left America "in the dust." The pirated autobiography sounds superior to the original. The American publisher should reprint it as a second edition. Steve Amdur, Olivone Switzerland " The printed version includes 11 of my words, approximately 20%. The quotes, neither of which I included in my letter, are from this paragraph in the Editorial: "The fake version reveals a Clinton family obsessed with China's strong points, with how Chinese science and technolgy 'left us in the dust'." I had barely noticed that paragraph, and was more taken with the following: "Who knew that back in Bill Clinton's early days in Arkansas, the future president and his Uncle Buddy sat around and chewed the fat, ham fat to be precise, and talked about how China was one the world's most ancient clutures and had produced Four Great Inventions, one of which was gunpower?" "Another retranslation of the pirated translation last summer has Clinton explaining to Hillary that his nickname is 'Big Watermelon'." "The first sentence in the pirated Chinese version says: 'The twon of Hope, where I was born, has very good feng shui.'" What I had intended as a merely humorous remark seems to been rewritten, in the best Chinese fashion perhaps, as some sort of polemic gambit put in the mouth of a strawman. The Clinton family, as far as I know, featured at different times a U.S. President, a U.S. Senator, and a Huckster. It would seem that at least the first two should have been quite concerned with China's strong points; it is hard to imagine a scenario in which such concern could meaningfully be termed an 'obsession'. Hanging large bronze gongs in the East Room perhaps. Not having been invited to lunch at the White House, I cannot say whether this is an 'untruth'. Nor can I quite figure out what I am supposed to have said, and why. Did some sub-sub-Editor intend to set me up as a Buffoon Spokesperson for the Ignore China Lobby? It seems now that the IHT may routinely rewrite Readers' Letters to fit an Editor's agenda. Evelyn Gordon, a senior columnist at the Jerusalem Post, complained that a letter she sent was tendentiously edited; the IHT denied it. Earlier this year I submitted a 1-paragraph letter protesting the French ban on Muslim schoolgirls' headscarves, which I argued violated the human rights to freedom of religious expression and to personal modesty of dress; that letter was printed but trimmed to make it appear merely facetious and, arguably, anti-Christian. ---------------------------------------------------------------- To IHT, 27 Oct '04 Logistically, the co-ordinated terrorist attacks of 9-11 required a specialist's knowlege of engineering -- few could have known that the heat of exploding aviation fuel would cause the entire structure to collapse -- and would have required realtime management until the planes were boarded. (What if the flight targetted at the 2nd Tower -- a psychologically devastating terrorist tour de force -- had been delayed or cancelled.) These attacks could not have been planned and run by a dropout playboy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan. As for 'Al Quaeda', that sounds like something out of a Batman Comic Book. Which is approximately the intellectual and emotional level of George Bush, Jr. Osama bin Laden is presumably dead, as Mark Steyn, who writes like a CIA reject, remarks en passant in the Jerusalem Post (Int. Edition 8 Oct '04), Apparently bin Laden was strangled by the Pakistan secret police while fleeing the US invasion of Afghanistan, and then buried with the fullest possible honors appropriate to his sect of Islam. (An IHT article at the time quoted a newspaper considered to be a mouthpiece for the Pakistan secret service, as saying that bin Laden had died of acute pulmonary arrest, and then be been buried with the full ceremony of Wahabi Islam. Mark Steyn hints that his body was subsequently cremated. As for his subsequent guest or ghost appearances on videos, those should not be difficult to synthesize. (What Steyn says is simply: "Earlier this year, she [ Mo Mowlan, a flamboyant former British Cabinet Minister ] called for Osama bin Laden to be invited to 'the negotiating table' -- a difficult trick. what's left of him would fit in the salt cellar." But putting such technicalities aside, Ms. Mowlan's main point was ... ") ----------------------------------------------------------------- Draft for any outlet in France: L'interdiction aux ecoles public du couverature de la tete -- practice commune aux pluparts des religions -- violee les droits humaines -- droits inconditionelle -- du pudeur et de la libertee d'expression religiouse. Tant a la secularisme francais -- phenomene culturelle dont on n'attend depuis deux siecles -- qu'est-ce que ca a contribuee a la civilization humaine, sauf que la guillotine et le metre. (The French ban in public on schoolgirls covering their heads -- a practice common to most religions -- violates the unconditional human rights to modesty and to freedom of religious expression. As for 'French secularism' -- a cultural phenomenon unheard of for the past two centuries -- what has it contributed to human civilization except the guillotine and the meter. ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 21 Sep '04 (Vincour on Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington defending Europe from the Musselman hordes, and America from the Spics) FOR STARTERS, SUBTRACT ALGEBRA: It is arriviste pretention to suppose that there is an Anglo- European culture distinct from, much less superior to, and still less endangered by, Islamic culture. Culture, of which most politicians and pop writers have barely a patina, is universal. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: IHT 21 Sep '04, Jean Daniel, Director , Nouvel Observateur Jean Daniel writes like a muddled drunk trying not to reveal himself as anti-Semitic. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 21 Sep '04 -- Prof. Paul Bloom, Psychology, Yale, It is often useful and sometimes misleading to conceptualize hody and soul as disjoint. With more conceptual grace, as Bloom notes, the "President's Council on Bioethics" in its report "Being Human" writes: "We have both corporeal and noncorporeal aspects. We are embodied spirits and inspirited bodies (or if you will, embodied minds and minded bodies.)" As Bloom notes, asking 'when does life begin' is not quite the same as asking 'when does the soul enter the body'. Mentality is mediated by the brain, but to identify mentality with neuro-physiologic processes is a reductionist fallacy. It is what Gilbert Ryle called a conceptual 'howler': it conflates one conceptual system into another, although each has its uses -- which are more limited than pop philosphy supposes. Nor can one say, as Bloom says of Steven Pinsker, a Harvard psychologist, that "the qualities we are most interested in from a moral standpoint [are] consciousness and the capacity to experience pain". This is true only in most elementary ethical thought-experiments. Bloom seems to assimilate the soul to mental processes -- which would reduce monks to librarians -- and mental processes to physiologic processes -- which would render discussions of intellectual history unintelligible. Bloom also seems to pretend that psychology can resolve philosophic dilemmas; but that too conflates disparate intellectual regions. ----------------------------------------------------------------- An IHT/Reuters article, ca. 9/04, referred im passing to Israel's 'complicity' in the 1973 Lebanon War Sabra-Shatilla massacre of Palestinian civilians by troops of the Lebanon Falangist Christian militia. But the worst that can be, as was, said of Sharon in that incident was that he failed to anticipate and prevent this massacre, which occurred in response to the assassination, apaprently by Syria, of the Lebanese Christian leader Bashir Gemayel. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To: enquiries@yufuislam.org 19 Thisrei / 19 Sha'baaz (not yet sent -- 17 Cheshvan ) Re: Cat Stevens refused permission to enter USA, removed from plane in Bangor. Although I do not know all the background nor details, I must say I was embarassed to read of this incident. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: IHT 1 Oct '04 (Zeller) Califonia has enacted a law reaquiring file-sharers to give a valid E-mail address. But this is unconstituional. First of all, the right to privay is implicit in the 10th ammendment -- all rights not delegated to the federal government or state governmetns are reserved to the people. Second, it violates the 5th ammendment, by obliging a person to incriminate himself. And as for 'inducing' criminal behavior -- this is a meaningless analogic term. An electric current or magnetic field is induced. It is also untenable law. One cannot crimialiye the creation of conditons that facilitate criminality -- one can only criminalize acts. Otherwise, eg, all gun-manufacturers would be criminals -- and all car manufactuers, too, for they facilitate drive-by shootings. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on the illegality of child pornography: Pornography would seem to be illegal only if others are forced to view it, for example by posting indecent advertisments at a public bus-stop__shelter. But there is a social consensus that child pornography may be deemed illegal. The reasoning for that is not obvious. One wants to say that no person should be displayed, much less treated, as a sexual object who does not wish, or at least in some sense consent, to be so displayed or treated. Recent laws forbidding 'sexual harassment' and illegalizing 'date rape' seem to rest on this principle. One could then say that since children are sexually inactive, no display of them as objects of sexual attraction is proper. One can of course argue that such display should be illegalized because it might incite some persons to child molestation. But this is a difficult point to argue, it takes us back to the conceptual problematicity of illegalizing 'inducing a crime'. One can also argue that child pornography is per se evidence of a crime, since the innocence of a child was abused in photographing him/her in an improper pose or situation. (Although here one must distinguish innocent from prurient images. Many parents photograph their naked infants and children, and here this is deemed commendable affection, not improper prurience. Amd the boundaries blur, especially as the child approaches puberty. Fashion is civilized lust. ) ) But then one could argue, as some have, that synthetic images of child pornography should not be illegalized, since no child was photographed indecently. Syntehtic images are criminal only insofar as they induce criminal behavior. However such images may be termed indecent, and an affront to public decency may be deemed criminal, even if can not reasonably be said to have harmed anyone. Of course affronting public decency is a civil crime. But I want to say, it is more than that, it also has a criminal aspect. But what does it damage. I must conceptually retreat, and say, rather, that it damages, not a real person, but an abstract entity which impacts real people -- the 'fabric of society' or 'quality of life' of 'desirability of the neighborhood' ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent in longhand, ca. 1 Sep '04 Re: Jlem Rpt, 23 Aug '04 -- Erin Leib (U. of Chicago) on Marc B. Shapiro's "The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' 13 Principles Reappraised" Judaism has no catechism -- nor have I noticed any implication of such in orthodox practice. Corporality is attributable only metaphorically to Divinity. Corporality, as all Cretion, is Divine, and Divinity may be incarante, and individuclas may exemplify some aspects of Divinity (Jesus ("of Natzereth" or "the Nazir" ) is said by some to have done so): but to claim an indvidual incaration of Supreme Being is not merely heresy -- a Catholic, not Jewish notion, as Judasism has no theology -- but idolatry. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent in Longhand ca. 1 Sept '04 Re: Jlem Rpt, 23 Aug '04 (Susan Weiss ) There is much to say about covering head and hair, particulary with a wig. First of all, it is not a matter of repressing the sexuality of women; it is merely a matter of monopolizing that of one's wife or wives. And that's just so the kids don't fight over the sheep, and maybe start a civil war. Long hair seems to serve as an antenna to pick up subtle vibes. So those who must reduce their sensitivity, eg soldiers, cut their hair short. There is a difference beweeen selling one's hair (Cf. O'Henry, 'The Gift of the Magi'), sacrificing it (eg Christian and Buddhist monks), or dedicating it to a pagan deity. One who buys something freely sold may use it. But 'freely sold' should be interpreted to include in its meaning -- free of the constraints of poverty. Just as the paintings sold at a fraction of their value by Jews fleeing Nazi Germany are nowadays deemed not to have been freely sold, and the buyers are constrained to make restitution. That which is sacrificed and then re-used might be accounted stolen. That which is dedicated to another religion is not kosher. (And likewise may be deemed stolen -- in this case by the Hindoo priests of Bungajoo who sold their initiates' shorn hair it to a wig store in a Mea Shearim. ) There is someting rather weird, dissonant, jarring, in wering someone else's har. (Edgar Allen Poe imagined such situations.) If a married woman is to cover her hair in public because it is seductive, that mitzvah is satisfied only legally, not in intent, if she covers her hair with an attractive wig (rather than, eg, a dustmop.) --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: Daterape (in particular, a scandal in the USA involving a basketball player and a trollop with second thoughts, possibly fiscal) Ordinarily, if a lady accompanies a gentleman to his room at an hour when all decent people, if any, should be a_bed, it may be assumed that she has consented, and in that sense contracted (absent extraordinary undiscolsed circumstances) to lie with him, in the usual (rather than, eg, the lawerly) or a mutually agreeable manner. And a contract my not be unilaterlly abrogated by one party without due cause. (What fun the Elizabethan lecher poets might have had with this notion. I mean, for sheer male chauvinist lawerly poetics once can scarcely surpass Marvell's "and by and by the worms shall try thy long-preserved verginitie".) It may be that at the last minute she had a bona fide change of heart or an authentic revelation of soul. but he cannot be held responsible for that. Such tragedies, little or sometimes great, happen, mostly to women. The law cannot rectify everything. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The USA must choose now between a real man -- with the flaws of any real man -- and a perfect, if rather vicious, incarnate cartoon. I suppose that is the latent truth of these mixed-media flics, starting with 'Who Killed Roger Rabbit'. But of course a simplistic characters depends upon a simplistic plot, and 'We killed the bad guys' is the simplest possible plot. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Prospero has a rather petty side. And the libretto of the Magic Flute, too, is a rather immature, almost shlocky attempt at mysticism. (As for The Magic Flute, I must admit that the only time I saw wit was in arguably somewhat difficult circumstances; at the Santa Fe outdoor opera, with a woman who had hoped to get together with me, after I had, without bothering to mention it to her, dropped a half cap of LSD, or possibly mescaline. She said, 'LSD does not need The Magic Flute, and The Magic Flute does not need LSD.') I blame Leary, who once wrote that there is nothing higher than making love on LSD, but neglected to mention that for some persons under some circumstances this can be more difficult than doing so under a Fifth of Jim Beam. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: Jlem Rpt 23 Aug 04 -- Judith Solomon on "An Almost Perfect Moment" by Binnie Kirshenbaum Unless the improbably yclept Ms. Binnie Kirschenbaum has, as hinted, discovered a new way to mono- if not hetero- -sexual satisfaction, one might do without a review of her trivially ingenious book. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP, ca. 1 Sep '04 El Al's 20 kilogram luggage allotment may be ok for yahoo's on a fortnight holiday -- 2 polyester leisure suits or a 12-tone set of nail polish -- but it's a bit limiting for a writer planning a month or more abroad. Some os us carry more than that in books. Surely a passenger plane can usually add a ton or so to its cargo, and so could allow passengers an extra 20 kg. or so, for a reasonable fee. ------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PROBLEMATICITY OF THE METHODOLOGY OF POLLS: It has becomea media cliche that, as consistently shown by polls, 2/3 of the Israel public favor expelling all Jews from Gaza. Some consider this sampling so reliable that they regard a referendum as superfluous, and its results a foregone conclusion. But that is dubitable. The methodology of polls should be re-evaluated, and the results presented with more detailed data on the margin of error. A crucial statistic is the percentage of the originally selected sample who agreed to respond to the poll. Joe Klein (Newsweek 4 Oct '4) notes that most people refuse to be included in polls. He writes: "Americans -- as many as 90 percent, pollsters have told me privately -- refuse to answer questions when the wizard [the pollster] calls", One Israeli commented on an election outcome which contradicted the polls -- on Netanyahu's defeat of Peres, if I recall -- that Israelis "tell the truth to pollsters, but lie in the voting booth". And then one must analyze the differences between those who do and those who do not agree to respond to polls. To take a simple example: A tyrant may get a very high approval rating in a poll, since the pollsters will most likely be regarded as his agents. But subtler factors prevail. Persons polled may regard their interview, not as an abstract exercise in an idealized model of democracy, but as a social encounter in which they say what they think an upwardly mobile person should say, rather than what they feel. Or on the contrary, they may take the interview as a harmless opportunity to verbally act out their feelings, but then might, in a real situation, do the opposite. Many people, asked hypothetically if they would like to shoot the Prime Minister or strangle their teenager, might say yes, but in a real life situation might risk their life to save him. More generally, there needs to be statistic studies of the correlation between poll results and referenda, votes, etc. in which the entire participating electorate is surveyed. There are many instances of opposite results -- the victory of Harry Truman over Tom Dewey is 1948 is one of the better known. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is odd that nations which would react with justifiable outrage at foreign support for violent Basque speeratists, the IRA, or the Red bridgades, show no shame at supporting the PLO_led nihilist insurrection. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT, 5 Oct '04, Op (Ed), Michael Tarazi, "Why not two peoples, one state" As Tarazi notes, Israel is de facto a single state, and should remain so politically; it is too small, and too unified economically and and by infrastructure, to subdivide. And of course all residents should have the same civil liberties, and civil responsibilities, except for the conditional right and obligation to bear arms. The only point at issue is the extent to which present non-citizens whose primary political allegiance may be to an entity other than the state in which they live, should be empowered to determine foreign policy security issues. ------------------------------------------------------------------- HOMAGE TO ALLENBY AVENUE: AM ECHaD, DISKETTE EChaD The sale of illegally copied but otherwise adequate goods is not primarily a matter of theft from the copyright holder, nor of consumer fraud, but of creative socialism. Most who buy those goods realize that these are imitations, and could not otherwise have afforded them. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP ca. 1 Sep '04 Recently I bought passage from Lod to Zurich in the Economy Calss of an El Al 800. It was a spectacular geography lesson -- what little I glimpsed and less understood from the starboard window seat I was kindly given -- but the conditons of accomodation should be reported ot the nearest or most officious human right commission. Details follow: Thre was barely enough air to breath, except during the last half hour, when the steerage passengers were revived to clear customs. There were only two privies for about 150 people. The economics of Economy Class is apparently to make travel conditions so miserable that passengers will pay an extortionate fee to upgrade and travel like human beings. As to the geography -- there should be cockpit cameras offering a pilot's-eye view, optionally displayed in 3-D on individual monitors with a detailed route-map. El Al should stop taking its passenger-base for granted. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To IHT: Cheney, speaking for the Bush Administration, apparently believes that the USA is at war against an international terrorist conspiracy, and that the only good defense is continual pre_emptive warfare against assumed host nations. This is dangerous nonsense. The USA, unlike Israel, has sufered only one terrorist attack in three years. And it is not obvious that that logistically astounding attack was organized by a dropout playboy from a cave in Afghanistan. Terrorism is not a movement; it is a tactic of guerilla destabilization campaigns. The Bush administration has not brought liberation, much less democracy to the remnants of Afghanistan and the quagmires of Iraq. It has merely replaced two stable repressive tyrannies with anarchy. A tyranny can be contained, and subjected to overall control; anarchy can not. Terrorism thrives in an environment of anarchy. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The U.S. Presidential campaign seems to show the failure of USA democracy -- over half the USA electorate seems to prefer image to substance. (Supermarkets are based on this principle -- most consumers will pick a good locking tasteless fruit over a poor-looking tasty one -- but then, most consumers have blunted ttheir palate with cigarettes, sugar, alcohol, and artificial flavors. ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- To IHT: No OK to Edit: The situation in the USA as of 4 Nov '04 invites comparison with Germany in 1933. One priority is survive until 2008, but that will not be an ethical option for everyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To JP: It is shocking that Israel still imprisons people for debt. A friend who should be playing with his grandchildren is presently an internal outlaw, too impoverished to hire a lawyer and forced to flee from arrest and jail for a very contestable debt, bloated with cummulative interest, totaling merely a few thousand dollars. Some spend more than that on a two-week cruise. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================== sa, Campra, 4 Nov '04 -- 20 Cheshvan -- 21 Ramadan ==================================================================