Back in December 2009, Christopher Jenks ran an interesting roundup on immigration-related titles in the New York Revew of Books. His lead paragraph touches on an important subject:
"Many rich countries have tried hiring foreigners to do their dirty work. Few have been happy with the results. Hiring immigrants for unskilled jobs seems a good deal for the employer. Immigrants will usually accept lower wages than natives, and at least in the United States most employers report that immigrants are more diligent, more reliable, and less prickly than the Americans who apply for such jobs. But hiring unskilled immigrants does not make unskilled Americans disappear; it just depresses their wages. In the long run, moreover, hiring unskilled immigrants has another significant cost. Most immigrants eventually have children, and while many of these children thrive in their new homeland, many do not."
Hiring immigrants to do dirty work is nothing new, even in America. The question is what happens next, and especially in the next 2 generations.
Armed Liberal's Obama and the Competence Gap offers this thought:
"The issue from my POV is that what attracted many of us to Obama was the competence that his campaign displayed.... So even if you disagreed somewhat with his politics or policies, you had comfort that the nation would be well-run.... The problem, as I see it, is that in his first year he's shown very little domestic competence (I think foreign affairs are a separate matter), and that he either never believed in the "new^2 liberalism" or got completely stuffed by the interest groups and their Congressional sponsors.
So the question is "now what?"
There's some truth to that, but overall, I lean more toward David Gerson's assessment in the Washington Post:
If you read only one book about the Middle East this year--aside from mine, of course, after it's finished--read The Strong Horse
Lee and I met in Lebanon in 2005, and have been friends ever since. We've spent I-don't-know-how-many evenings in Beirut and Jerusalem discussing Middle Eastern politics and conflict, sometimes expanding each others' knowledge and other times arguing. We don't argue so much anymore, except around the edges once in a while. I should say he won some of our arguments in the end, partly because he relocated to the Middle East before I did and was farther along on the learning curve, but he also claims I shaped some of the way he came to think about the region in that he believes the issues are largely Arab rather than Islamic per se. Whether he's right about that, or if I am, it's certainly an argument worth thinking about. Sometimes his prognosis is gloomy--the Middle East is the kind of place where it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remain optimistic and hopeful for long--but we both have a lot still invested in the region, including mutual friendships in several Middle Eastern countries on both sides of the front lines.
The Strong Horse
His book is not so easy to summarize, so I invited him to speak for himself and go over some of the main points.
MJT: The title of your book is The Strong Horse
Lee Smith: It comes from Osama Bin Laden's observation that when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. I know this idea will be confused with the notion that Arabs understand only force, an idea often, and incorrectly, attributed to the Bush administration. It is useful to recall that throughout history most of mankind has "understood" force. Those lucky few who are fortunate enough to be able to live their political lives free of the fear of violence are largely concentrated in the capitals of contemporary Western Europe and along the east and west coasts of the United States, who not coincidentally happen to make up the primary audience I was writing for, so I wanted to explain that the inhabitants of the Arabic-speaking Middle East are not as fortunate as we are. To say that Lebanon is held at gunpoint by an armed gang, or that Lebanese journalists are assassinated for their work, Syrian intellectuals and Egyptian rights activists are typically thrown in prison and tortured, and regional minorities like the Shia, Druze, Alawi, Christians, Kurds and Jews have often been the target of purges and political violence all in the name of Arab nationalism, a corporatist ideology that seeks to erase communal as well as individual difference, is not to say that Arabs only understand force, but that violence is a central factor in Arab political life and it is impossible to understand the region without taking this into account.
Read the rest at MichaelTotten.com»
"ACORN's leadership and grassroots leaders have taken a whole series of steps, including commissioning an independent report that shows actually there wasn't illegal conduct by any of the ACORN employees involved, although we fired people involved for improper conduct," Whelan said.
The question is whether Dem leaders will decide they're tanking because voters don't like the health reform bill they've been trying to pass, making them decide to shelve it - or whether they'll conclude that voters don't like failure, making them redouble their efforts to pass something they can call a historic accomplishment. Anyone taking bets?
The executive editor of the National Enquirer says he plans to enter his paper's work on the John Edwards scandal for a Pulitzer Prize.No memo on this yet from the LA Times' Tony Pierce.
The Wixom company under fire for putting tiny references to Bible verses on gun sights sold to the U.S. military, announced today it will drop the inscriptions on future arms shipments and offer kits to help the military remove codes on sights in the hands of troops.
Trijicon Inc., responding to an uproar in the United States and abroad, said it has voluntarily decided to drop the inscriptions on all of its products made for the Defense Department. It will also supply the Pentagon with 100 "modification kits" to allow for the removal of the codes.
Poor Obama! It's the eve of the anniversary of his inauguration. The State of the Union was supposed to be very grand. And now what? He has been repudiated! He made this election a referendum on the Democrats agenda, and the people of Massachusetts, the most liberal state, gave him a resounding no.I've got to believe that healthcare is headed for the wheels of the bus, because both Obama and the Democratic elites are passionate, primarily, about one thing - being re-elected. And the optics of their taking a stand on top of the monstrous pile of paper that this bill has metastized into in the face of such public opposition...and in the face of the weak coattails that Obama has shown to date...would be devastating both in 2010 and 2012.
Now, I think that could be good for Obama. He's a man of change. Let him change. I hope he becomes the President I thought he could be when I voted for him. With the midterm elections looming in the fall, he can readjust, set himself apart from Congress. Take the people seriously.
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The Wixom company under fire for putting tiny references to Bible verses on gun sights sold to the U.S. military, announced today it will drop the inscriptions on future arms shipments and offer kits to help the military remove codes on sights in the hands of troops.So the story broke yesterday that Trijicon, makers of the excellent line of ACOG firearms sights is embossing the codes for Bible verses on the sights along with the model number and serial number.
Trijicon Inc., responding to an uproar in the United States and abroad, said it has voluntarily decided to drop the inscriptions on all of its products made for the Defense Department. It will also supply the Pentagon with 100 "modification kits" to allow for the removal of the codes.
Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them.
I am forced to preach under something of a handicap this morning. In fact, I had the doctor before coming to church. And he said that it would be best for me to stay in the bed this morning. And I insisted that I would have to come to preach. So he allowed me to come out with one stipulation, and that is that I would not come in the pulpit until time to preach, and that after, that I would immediately go back home and get in the bed. So I'm going to try to follow his instructions from that point on.
I want to use as a subject from which to preach this morning a very familiar subject, and it is familiar to you because I have preached from this subject twice before to my knowing in this pulpit. I try to make it a, something of a custom or tradition to preach from this passage of Scripture at least once a year, adding new insights that I develop along the way out of new experiences as I give these messages. Although the content is, the basic content is the same, new insights and new experiences naturally make for new illustrations.
So I want to turn your attention to this subject: "Loving Your Enemies." It's so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation - the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: "Ye have heard that it has been said, 'Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.' But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."
Taken from a talk to the incoming international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, on August 11, 2009. It's also great advice for anyone writing in English as their first language:
"As you start your journey here at Columbia this week, you may tell yourself that you're doing "communications," or "new media," or "digital media" or some other fashionable new form. But ultimately you're in the storytelling business. We all are. It's the oldest of narrative forms, going back to the caveman and the crib, endlessly riveting. What happened? Then what happened? Please remember, in moments of despair, whatever journalistic assignment you've been given, all you have to do is tell a story, using the simple tools of the English language and never losing your own humanity.
Repeat after me:
Short is better than long.
Simple is good. (Louder)
Long Latin nouns are the enemy.
Anglo-Saxon active verbs are your best friend.
One thought per sentence.Good luck to you all."
Journalist and author Christopher Hitchens visited my hometown of Portland, Oregon last week, and I interviewed him at Jake's Grill downtown over glasses of Johnny Walker Black Label. My old friend and sometimes traveling companion Sean LaFreniere joined us and contributed a few questions of his own. You can read Part I here.
MJT: The big story in 2010 will be Iran. We have this revolution there--I'm not afraid to call it that.
Hitchens: You're right, I think it is one.
MJT: We have Iran's terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon. And we have the regime's nuclear weapons program.
Hitchens: Also, in each case, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard--the Pasdaran--is the controlling force.
MJT: Hezbollah is the Mediterranean branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
Hitchens: We have the same bunch overseas where they're not wanted, in Lebanon and even among the Palestinians, conducting assassination missions abroad, shooting down young Iranians in the streets of a major city, and controlling an illegal thermonuclear weapons program. We do have a target. All this has been accumulated under one heading.
MJT: Yes.
Hitchens: I thought that was worth pointing out. It's not "the regime" or "the theocracy." It's now very clear that the Revolutionary Guards have committed a coup in all but name--well, I name it, but it hasn't yet been named generally. They didn't rig an election. They didn't even hold one.
MJT: They never counted the votes. There's no "recount" to be done.
Hitchens: The seizure of power by a paramilitary gang that just so happens to be the guardian and the guarantor and the incubator of the internationally illegal weapons program. If that doesn't concentrate one's mind, I don't know what will.
MJT: If the Obama Administration calls you up and says, "Christopher, we need you to come in here, we need your advice." What would you tell them?
Hitchens: I would say, as I did with Saddam Hussein--albeit belatedly, I tried to avoid this conclusion--that any fight you're going to have eventually, have now. Don't wait until they're more equally matched. It doesn't make any sense at all.
The existence of theocratic regimes that have illegally acquired weapons of mass destruction, that are war with their own people, that are exporting their violence to neighboring countries, sending death squads as far away as Argentina to kill other people as well as dissident members of their own nationality--the existence of such regimes is incompatible with us. If there is going to be a confrontation, we should pick the time, not them.
We're saying, "Let's give them time to get ready. Then we'll be more justified in hitting them." That's honestly what they're saying. When we have total proof, when we can see them coming for us, we'll feel okay about resisting.
Read the rest at MichaelTotten.com
First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
...the problem can be traced to the American Bar Assn., which continues to allow unneeded new schools to open and refuses to properly regulate the schools, many of which release numbers that paint an overly rosy picture of employment prospects for their recent graduates. There is a finite number of jobs for lawyers, and this continual flood of graduates only suppresses wages. Because the ABA has repeatedly signaled its unwillingness to adapt to this changing reality, the federal government should consider taking steps to stop the rapid flow of attorneys into a marketplace that cannot sustain them.Ah, the attitudes of the Ottoman Empire. Where every pasha and wali could know that the office they had dearly bought would be profitable.
Pyrrhus of Epirus wasn't a bad general - he beat the Romans twice, and was widely considered to be one of the great military commanders of his age, even by enemies. He was also smart enough to realize that while winning was better than losing, his tactical victories in 280-279 BC had cost him dearly.
Peggy Noonan can hardly help but see the analogy concerning Obama and the Democrats, whose talk of a permanent majority sure undid itself quickly. Though she doesn't mention it, she could add that it has quite a ways left to fall. If they keep going the way they're going, the bottom is a long way down. I hope they do, because it's probably the fastest way to get America back on its feet, and headed on a smarter course.
So do the Republicans, but Noonan's "The Risk of Catastrophic Victory" is also wise enough to see that the Republicans are gearing up for a Pyrrhic victory of their own - and provide evidence. I think the party's leaders have actually done well on the legislative front, given their position. On the other hand, many of those same people are part of the reason for that unenviable position. However capable in legislative tactics, they are also weak public leaders who project little vision, and display little behind the scenes. As a result, bright spots like the "Young Guns" are happening as much in spite of the party as because of it. With respect to the larger party, it remains deeply disconnected from its base, with the main bright spots of progress in 2009 being Sarah "Donna Reed-Quixote" Palin, and Ron Paul for his connection to the Tea Party Movement. With an honorable mention to, of all people, Dick Cheney.
The party is, in short, not ready for prime time. While it was impolitic of him to say it publicly, Michael Steele is absolutely right - and the lack of clue among senior Republicans concerning the truth of that message is a fundamental indictment of their own leadership. Their chosen approach of sitting back and letting the Democrats destroy themselves may result in tactical victories, but it will leave them incapable of winning the larger conflict.
There's an interesting subtext to this situation, and the Young Guns. Palin has been very publicly backing GOP reformers, and this kind of new blood. Contemplate what level of political clout that translates into, if her backing, fundraising assistance, etc. is seen by many of Capitol Hill's bright new talents as having helped put them there. And if Steele gets tired of being the RNC Chair, I really hope he's one of them.
I had lunch with journalist and author Christopher Hitchens in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, this week and interviewed him over glasses of Johnny Walker Black Label downtown.
The man should need no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway. He's the author or editor of more than twenty books, a journalist, a literary critic, a world traveler, a teacher, and a polemicist who migrated rightward from the radical left and no longer fits in anyone's convenient box. Last year Forbes magazine cited him as one of the 25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media, but at the same time he's a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford. In 2005, Foreign Policy magazine cited him as one of the 100 most influential intellectuals in the world.
He's a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, Slate, and the Atlantic, and his most recent book, God Is Not Great, made him more famous (or, if you prefer, infamous) than ever. His best book, or perhaps I should say my favorite, is Love, Poverty, and War, a rich collection of travel pieces and essays on those three most important of topics.
Hitchens is certainly famous, and is recognized on the street a lot more often than I am. A tall and slightly disheveled man in his fifties rudely interrupted our conversation outside the bar at one point and said "I can't remember your name, but I recognize you from YouTube."
"You should read more," Hitchens said. He didn't remind the man of his name.
Not two minutes later, an attractive young woman walked up to him, squeezed his arm gently, and said "I love you."
"How often does this happen?" I said.
"This," he said and smiled at the pretty young woman, "doesn't happen nearly enough. But that," he said and gestured to the man who recognized him from YouTube and would not go away, "happens too often."
Read the rest at MichaelTotten.com
A reader asks a very interesting question about the undie-bomber - why did he get back into his seat to detonate a bomb that had a ramshackle detonator and where he could be overcome by fellow travelers? Read the whole email:I keep hearing this even described as a failed terrorist attack on an airplane. But was it really? I keep hearing about how the system failed, but did it really? Think about it. First, what is the major goal of terrorism? It is not to bring down airplanes. It is not to destroy the West. It is, pure and simple, to create terror in people. Why? Because when people are afraid they overreact. And this includes most of us, yourself included.
This was simply too funny. If you haven't seen it, consider it my New Year's gift. Ever wonder what the Chinese participants were really thinking? Well...
And kudos to SNL for living up to its mission to parody anyone, from any party. They do it so well, which is one reason why they're still going.
Another poor, massive, uneducated African-American teenager lumbers onto screens this month, two weeks after Precious and obviously timed as a pre-Thanksgiving-dinner lesson in the Golden Rule. But unlike the howling rage of Claireece Precious Jones, The Blind Side's Michael "Big Mike" Oher (Quinton Aaron) is mute, docile, and ever-grateful to the white folks who took him in.
