Mark Steyn: Obama the Muzak Messiah of the pseudo-revolution

Orange County Register
Saturday, February 16, 2008


These days, Obama worshippers file two kinds of columns. The first school is well-represented by Ezra Klein, the elderly bobby-soxer of The American Prospect:

"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."

Er, OK, if you say so.

It seems to me that Barack Obama is the triumph of flesh, color and despair over word – that's to say, he offers an appealing embodiment of identity politics plus a ludicrously despairing vision of contemporary America (sample: "Trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart") that triumphs over anything so prosaic as a policy platform.

On the other hand, if you're running for president not as an unexceptional first-term senator with a thin resume but as the new Messiah, the new Kennedy, the new Gandhi, the new Martin Luther King, you can't blame folks for leaping ahead to the next stage in the mythic narrative. Around the world, a second instant subgenre has sprung up in which commentators speculate how long it will be before some deranged Christian-fundamentalist neo-Nazi gun-nut deprives America of its fleeting wisp of glory. Setting a new standard for fevered, slavering Obama assassination porn, Earl MacRae warned Canadians in The Ottawa Sun:

"To be black and catapulting toward the presidency on charm, intellect and popularity is unacceptable to the racist paranoid and scary in America the beautiful. … They do not want to hear that he is a better American than they are, these right-wing extremist fascists in the land of America who no doubt believe it's God's will Barack Obama not get to the White House, no method of deterrence out of bounds, in their zealotry to protect and perpetuate Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Mom's apple pie and the cross of Jesus in every home."

By this point, Mr. MacRae wasn't so much warming to his theme as typing up his first draft for Miramax:

"Barack Obama is waving his arms. The crowd is cheering. … I see Barack Obama, one minute smiling, the people crying his name. I see Barack Obama grab his chest and his eyes widen and his mouth opens, and the crowd screams as Barack Obama, black candidate for the presidency of the United States of America, falls to the ground, dead, an assassin's bullet inside him."

Er, OK.

Right now Obama's more at risk of being taken out by traces of polonium-210 left in his hotel by a Clinton operative than by Roy Rogers saddling up for Jesus. Every president is a target for assassination, though George W. Bush is unique in having been the subject of explicit murder fantasies by so many non-right-wing nonextremist impeccably reasonable artists (the British movie "Death Of A President"; the novella "Checkpoint" by Nicholson Baker) and even the occasional straightforward exhortation: "On Nov. 2, the entire civilized world will be praying, praying Bush loses," wrote Charlie Brooker in London's Guardian in 2004. "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. – where are you now that we need you?"

Well, wherever they are, they're probably saying: "Why bring us into it? When Lee Harvey decided it was time for JFK to get assassinated, he didn't sit around whining, 'John Wilkes Booth, where are you now that I need you?' Get off your butt and do it yourself, you big Euro-ninny." Ah, but for the armchair insurgents of the Western Left, the vicarious frisson is more than delicious enough. Anything else would interfere with dinner plans.

The Bush assassination fantasies are concocted by his political opponents and at least arise from his acts – invading the world; slaughtering 14 million Iraqi civilians; shredding the Constitution. By contrast, the Obama assassination porn is written by his worshippers and testifies to one of the most palpable features of the senator's campaign – its faintly ersatz quality, its determination to appropriate Camelot and every other mythic narrative.

A few days ago, a local news team went to shoot some film at Obama's Houston campaign headquarters. Behind the desks of the perky gals answering the phones were posters of Che Guevara and Cuban flags. Do Obama's volunteers even know who Che is? Apart from being a really cool guy on posters and T-shirts, like James Dean or Bart Simpson. I doubt it. They're pseudo-revolutionaries. Very few people in America want a real revolution: Life is great, this is a terrific country, with unparalleled economic opportunities.



Che flag in Obama office.

To be sure, it's a tougher break if you have the misfortune to be the victim of one of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs or a decrepit inner-city grade school with a higher per-student budget than the wealthiest parts of Switzerland. But even so, to be born a U.S. citizen is, as Cecil Rhodes once said of England, to win first prize in the lottery of life.

Not even Obama supporters want real revolution: Ask the many peoples around the world for whom revolution means not a lame-o Sixties poster above your desk but the carnage and horror of the day before yesterday.

Poor mean, vengeful Hillary, heading for a one-way ticket on the Oblivion Express, has a point. Barack Obama is an elevator Muzak dinner-theater reduction of all the glibbest hand-me-down myths in liberal iconography – which is probably why he's a shoo-in. The problems facing America – unsustainable entitlements, broken borders, nuclearizing enemies – require tough solutions, not gaseous Sesame Street platitudes. But, unlike the whose-turn-is-it? GOP, Mrs. Clinton's crowd generally picks the new kid on the block: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. I wonder if Hillary Rodham, Goldwater Girl of 1964, ever wishes she'd stuck with her original party.

©MARK STEYN

The Obama Delusion

By Robert Samuelson
Newsweek
February 20, 2008

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a rally Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008 in Houston.
(AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

WASHINGTON -- It's hard not to be dazzled by Barack Obama. At the 2004 Democratic convention, he visited with Newsweek reporters and editors, including me. I came away deeply impressed by his intelligence, his forceful language and his apparent willingness to take positions that seemed to rise above narrow partisanship. Obama has become the Democratic presidential front-runner, precisely because countless millions have formed a similar opinion. It is, I now think, mistaken.

As a journalist, I harbor serious doubt about each of the likely nominees. But with Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I feel that I'm dealing with known quantities. They've been in the public arena for years; their views, values and temperaments have received enormous scrutiny. By contrast, newcomer Obama is largely a stage presence defined mostly by his powerful rhetoric. The trouble, at least for me, is the huge and deceptive gap between his captivating oratory and his actual views.

The subtext of Obama's campaign is that his own life narrative -- to become the first African-American president, a huge milestone in the nation's journey from slavery -- can serve as a metaphor for other political stalemates. Great impasses can be broken with sufficient good will, intelligence and energy. "It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white," he says. Along with millions of others, I find this a powerful appeal.

But on inspection, the metaphor is a mirage. Repudiating racism is not a magic cure-all for the nation's ills. It requires independent ideas, and Obama has few. If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems.

By Obama's own moral standards, Obama fails. Americans "are tired of hearing promises made and 10-point plans proposed in the heat of a campaign only to have nothing change," he recently said. Shortly thereafter, he outlined an economic plan of at least 12 points that, among other things, would:

-- Provide a $1,000 tax cut for most two-earner families ($500 for singles).

-- Create a $4,000 refundable tuition tax credit for every year of college.

-- Expand the child care tax credit for people earning less than $50,000 and "double spending on quality after-school programs."

-- Enact an "energy plan" that would invest $150 billion in 10 years to create a "green energy sector."

Whatever one thinks of these ideas, they're standard goodie-bag politics: something for everyone. They're so similar to many Clinton proposals that her campaign put out a news release accusing him of plagiarizing. With existing budget deficits and the costs of Obama's "universal health plan," the odds of enacting his full package are slim.

A favorite Obama line is that he will tell "the American people not just what they want to hear, but what we need to know." Well, he hasn't so far.

Consider the retiring baby boomers. A truth-telling Obama might say: "Spending for retirees -- mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- is already nearly half the federal budget. Unless we curb these rising costs, we will crush our children with higher taxes. Reflecting longer life expectancies, we should gradually raise the eligibility ages for these programs and trim benefits for wealthier retirees. Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for inaction. Waiting longer will only worsen the problem."

Instead, Obama pledges not to raise the retirement age and to "protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries." This isn't "change"; it's sanctification of the status quo. He would also exempt all retirees making less than $50,000 annually from income tax. By his math, that would provide average tax relief of $1,400 to 7 million retirees -- shifting more of the tax burden onto younger workers. Obama's main proposal for Social Security is to raise the payroll tax beyond the present $102,000 ceiling.

Political candidates routinely indulge in exaggeration, pandering, inconsistency and self-serving obscurity. Clinton and McCain do. The reason for holding Obama to a higher standard is that it's his standard and also his campaign's central theme. He has run on the vague promise of "change," but on issue after issue -- immigration, the economy, global warming -- he has offered boilerplate policies that evade the underlying causes of the stalemates. These issues remain contentious because they involve real conflicts or differences of opinion.

The contrast between his broad rhetoric and his narrow agenda is stark, and yet the press corps -- preoccupied with the political "horse race" -- has treated his invocation of "change" as a serious idea rather than a shallow campaign slogan. He seems to have hypnotized much of the media and the public with his eloquence and the symbolism of his life story. The result is a mass delusion that Obama is forthrightly engaging the nation's major problems when, so far, he isn't.

Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

Today's Tune: John Fogerty- Rockin' All Over the World

(Click on title to play video)

End of The Great Depression

By David Menconi

On The Beat, Raleigh News & Observer

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

End of The Great Depression

Given how many of its problems are self-inflicted, it's easy to adopt an attitude of schadenfreude about the record industry's ongoing free fall. But not everybody feeling the pain is an overpaid muckety-muck, and the independent-music community is taking a major hit: No Depression, the award-winning bimonthly magazine that covers alternative-country and its variants, is going out of business after the May/June issue. And the primary reason for its demise is that record-label print advertising has plummeted as much as compact disc sales, even while the magazine's circulation has held steady at about 30,000.

At this point, a few disclosures are in order. No Depression co-editor/Mebane resident Peter Blackstock has been one of my closest friends for more than 20 years. I'm also a regular contributor, going all the way back to a feature on Raleigh's Whiskeytown in issue #1, Fall 1995.

North Carolina has always been a No Depression stronghold, with Chris Stamey, the Avett Brothers, Caitlin Cary, Thad Cockrell, Kenny Roby, Chatham County Line and Roman Candle among the local acts to turn up in its pages in recent years. Beyond those local ties, however, No Depression's demise seems like an ominous warning for music journalism and the magazine business. Other music magazines are struggling, too, and No Depression probably won't be the last niche publication to go under this year.

We'll have more about the end of No Depression online and in-print. For now, click through to see the publishers' note that will appear in the March/April issue, which details the reasons why.

From the Editors of No Depression:

Barring the intercession of unknown angels, you hold in your hands the next-to-the-last edition of No Depression we will publish. It is difficult even to type those words, so please know that we have not come lightly to this decision.

In the thirteen years since we began plotting and publishing No Depression, we have taken pride not only in the quality of the work we were able to offer our readers, but in the way we insisted upon doing business. We have never inflated our numbers; we have always paid our bills (and, especially, our freelancers) on time. And we have always tried our best to tell the truth.

First things, then: If you have a subscription to ND, please know that we will do our very best to take care of you. We will be negotiating with a handful of magazines who may be interested in fulfulling your subscription. That is the best we can do under the circumstances. Those circumstances are both complicated and painfully simple. The simple answer is that advertising revenue in this issue is 64 percent of what it was for our March-April issue just two years ago. We expect that number to continue to decline.

The longer answer involves not simply the well-documented and industrywide reduction in print advertising, but the precipitous fall of the music industry. As a niche publication, ND is well-insulated from reductions in, say, GM’s print advertising budget; our size meant they weren’t going to buy space in our pages, regardless.

On the other hand, because we’re a niche title we are dependent upon advertisers who have a specific reason to reach our audience. That is: record labels. We, like many of our friends and competitors, are dependent upon advertising from the community we serve.

That community is, as they say, in transition. In this evolving downloadable world, what a record label is and does is all up to question. What is irrefutable is that their advertising budgets are drastically reduced, for reasons we well understand. It seems clear at this point that whatever businesses evolve to replace (or transform) record labels will have much less need to advertise in print.

The decline of brick and mortar music retail means we have fewer newsstands on which to sell our magazine, and small labels have fewer venues that might embrace and hand-sell their music. Ditto for independent bookstores. Paper manufacturers have consolidated and begun closing mills to cut production; we’ve been told to expect three price increases in 2008. Last year there was a shift in postal regulations, written by and for big publishers, which shifted costs down to smaller publishers whose economies of scale are unable to take advantage of advanced sorting techniques.

Then there’s the economy...

The cumulative toll of those forces makes it increasingly difficult for all small magazines to survive. Whatever the potentials of the web, it cannot be good for our democracy to see independent voices further marginalized. But that’s what’s happening. The big money on the web is being made, not surprisingly, primarily by big businesses.

ND has never been a big business. It was started with a $2,000 loan from Peter’s savings account (the only monetary investment ever provided, or sought by, the magazine). We have five more or less full-time employees, including we three who own the magazine. We have always worked from spare bedrooms and drawn what seemed modest salaries.

What makes this especially painful and particularly frustrating is that our readership has not significantly declined, our newsstand sell-through remains among the best in our portion of the industry, and our passion for and pleasure in the music has in no way diminished. We still have shelves full of first-rate music we’d love to tell you about.

And we have taken great pride in being one of the last bastions of the long-form article, despite the received wisdom throughout publishing that shorter is better. We were particularly gratified to be nominated for our third Utne award last year.

Our cards are now on the table.

Though we will do this at greater length next issue, we should like particularly to thank the advertisers who have stuck with us these many years; the writers, illustrators, and photographers who have worked for far less than they’re worth; and our readers: You. Thank you all. It has been our great joy to serve you.

GRANT ALDEN

PETER BLACKSTOCK

KYLA FAIRCHILD

Posted at 11:40 am by David Menconi in music

On the Beat: David Menconi on music

Who looks worse - Belichick or Goodell?

By Joe Starkey
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, February 20, 2008



New England Patriots chairman and owner Robert Kraft, right, and National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell chat before the Super Bowl XLII football game between the Patriots and New York Giants at University of Phoenix Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008 in Glendale, Ariz.
AP photo

Mr. Tough Guy. That was Roger Goodell last spring.

Following his first season as NFL commissioner, Goodell vowed to refurbish the league's image. He put some meat to his promise by issuing a series of player suspensions.

Nobody messed with The Commish. People praised him -- but their compliments look silly today, amid the ever-expanding saga that is Spygate.

Goodell has become as big a story as Bill Belichick in this matter and looks every bit as bad.

Goodell's the one who ordered the destruction of evidence documenting the New England Patriots' illegal videotaping of opposing coaches' signals.

Goodell's the one, according to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who levied the penalty before receiving all the evidence of New England's activities.

That penalty -- fines plus the forfeiture of a first-round pick -- looked ridiculously lame compared to Goodell's draconian treatment of wayward players. He didn't suspend Belichick and didn't even have the guts to take New England's top pick (No. 7 overall) but rather their lower first-round pick.

Before all this, back when Mr. Tough Guy was doling out suspensions like Skittles, The Washington Post quoted David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at Southern Cal, thusly:

"(Goodell) has succinctly delivered a message of what the NFL stands for and what it expects. He understands that falling short on these issues would hurt his brand and hurt the owners' ability to generate revenues. He understands what it would mean if the sponsors came to regard the NFL as 'The Longest Yard.' "

What would it mean if the sponsors learned of a devious coach cheating his way to Super Bowl wins?

That might be a gross exaggeration, but there is so much we don't know about Belichick's operation. We'd likely know more if the NFL had conducted a serious investigation and, you know, kept the evidence. You have to wonder why Belichick continued the practice for so long if it wasn't providing a competitive advantage.

Belichick has denied a report he had a St. Louis Rams workout filmed the day before the 2002 Super Bowl, but why should anybody believe him?

Here's another beauty of a quote from the same Post story.

Remember, this was long before Spygate.

"(Goodell) understands, like we in ownership understand, that the American public wants to become emotionally involved in our teams and players," Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. "That's the reason these companies spend the money they do and these (television) networks spend the money they do. Certain behavior isn't tolerated by the American public."

Like cheating?

Thank goodness Specter came along. Only a person in a position of power could have prevented Goodell from burying this issue. After his meeting with Goodell last week, Specter said he was told Belichick's cheating goes back to 2000, a tidbit Goodell had conveniently avoided mentioning in public.

Look, Specter probably has questionable motives. He's probably grandstanding. But he also has become football's answer to Jose Canseco - the wacko who blew the whistle.

Somebody had to do it.

And if you think the NFL would look bad if Spygate reached a courtroom or the Senate floor, imagine somebody with clout pressing Mr. Tough Guy on players and their pharmaceutical habits.

Here's what Goodell said when this reporter asked him, in October, 2006, if the NFL has a problem with performance-enhancing drugs:

"I don't think it's a problem."

That was funnier than anything Burt Reynolds said in "The Longest Yard."


Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Tribune-Review. He can be reached at jstarkey@tribweb.com.

Today's Tune: Neil Young- Like a Hurricane

Neil Young, Berkeley Community Theater, 1976.

(Click on title to play video)

Caribou Coffee & Shari'ah Law

Here is all the reason I need to drink Starbucks coffee. - jtf.
http://www.cariboucoffee.com/aboutus/ownership.asp

Information on Caribou’s Ownership

Caribou Coffee became a public company after our initial public offering priced on September 28, 2005.

Our majority shareholder since 2000 is an affiliate of Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(c), a global investment group founded in 1997 with offices in Atlanta, London and Bahrain, a strong U.S. ally in the Middle East and the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s 5 th Fleet. Following our initial public offering, Arcapita continues to own approximately 61% of our outstanding common stock.

Arcapita Bank has provided Caribou with the necessary resources for continuing to expand our store base in the U.S. Arcapita has total assets of over $1.2 billion and has executed transactions valued at over $7 billion in three main lines of business – corporate investment (private equity), real estate investment and asset-based investment. Arcapita’s corporate investment line of business has invested over $1 billion in equity across 17 transactions totaling over $2 billion in transaction value. Current and past corporate investments span a broad range of industries, including consumer products, healthcare, specialized manufacturing and technology. Portfolio companies include Cypress Communications (a telecommunications provider), Church’s Chicken (a quick service restaurant chain), Cirrus Industries (a general aviation aircraft manufacturer), Loehmann’s (a specialty retailer) and TLC Health Care Services (a national home nursing provider).

Arcapita, whose investors are located primarily in the Middle East , makes its investments in a manner consistent with the body of Islamic principles known as Shari’ah. Consequently, we operate our business in a manner consistent with Shari’ah principles and will continue to do so as long as Arcapita is a significant shareholder.

In particular, we must comply with Shari’ah principles regarding money that we borrow from other parties. For example, our lease financing arrangement, under which we have obtained financing to fund our operations and expand our business, is structured in a manner that complies with Shari’ah principles. The structure of this lease financing arrangement is described in the prospectus relating to our initial public offering. Also, a Shari’ah-compliant company is prohibited from dealing in the areas of alcohol, gambling, pornography, pork and pork-related products.

Return to Caribou Coffee FAQs

No Valentines For You!

by Robert Spencer

http://www.humanevents.com/
Posted: 02/14/2008

Religious Jameat Ulmae Pakistan (JUP) activists burn a placard with a heart painted on while denouncing Valentine's Day celebrations during a protest in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008.(AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

Good grief. No Valentines for you, Charlie Brown. At least not in Kuwait. And no roses or cards with red hearts for you, Lucy. Not in Saudi Arabia. The ever-tolerant Muslim world is now condemning Valentine’s Day.

Jamaan al-Harbash, a member of the Kuwaiti parliament, has called for Valentine’s Day celebrations to be banned. “We call on the commerce minister,” he declared in a fine froth of moral indignation, “to perform his duties by banning celebrations of Valentine’s Day which is alien to our society -- and contradicts our religion’s values and teachings.” Another Kuwaiti MP, Waleed al-Tabtabai, chief of a committee in parliament that monitors “alien practices,” said his committee will undertake a study this week on how to stop Valentine’s Day from initiating the “moral corruption” of Kuwaiti youth.

Over in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the notorious religious police who go by the name of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have banned red roses. The Virtue Cops have even ordered florists and gift shops in Riyadh to take any red item off the shelf, lest Saudi lovebirds associate red with hearts and start a-spooning. Nothing new in that: in 2004, the Saudi fatwa committee forbade Saudis from celebrating the day: “It is a pagan Christian holiday and Muslims who believe in God and Judgment Day should not celebrate or acknowledge it or congratulate (people on it). It is a duty to shun it to avoid God’s anger and punishment.”

This is not just an Arabian Peninsula thing, either. Last year in Malaysia, a government official, Muhammad Ramli Nuh, declared, according to the Bernama News Agency, that “celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognizing the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall.” Actually, St. Valentine was a third-century Christian martyr in the Roman Empire, but give Muhammad Ramli Nuh points for imagination.

All this indicates that in at least some parts of the Islamic world the dour spirit of the Ayatollah Khomeini is alive and well. For it was Khomeini, a man who took pains to make sure he was never photographed smiling, who once gave vent to this classic statement of religion-based dyspepsia: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.” Likewise the jihad theorist Sayyid Qutb, after an unhappy sojourn in America in the late 1940s, complained about that Americans even “go to church for carousal and enjoyment, or, as they call it in their language, ‘fun.’”

Ok, students, let’s review: the Islamic jihadists promise poverty, hardship and prayer, from which people are released only at death -- which can be hurried along by strapping a bomb on yourself and detonating near some people you don’t like. Such as those Americans who are so misguided that their Declaration of Independence actually enumerates rights (which they -- how dare they? -- believe are endowed by God) to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Clash of civilizations? If there was ever any indication that it is upon us, it is this. The gulf between that noted American philosopher Dr. Seuss’s lapidary phrase, “These things are fun, and fun is good” and Khomeini’s barren “There is no fun in Islam” is yawning and unbridgeable. Many analysts and policymakers have remarked that the threat of the worldwide jihad has an ideological dimension, but political correctness, multiculturalism, and a fear of offending religious sensibilities have prevented most from articulating this dimension in any meaningful way. Perhaps the annual assault on Valentine’s Day, renewed again this year, points the way: the global jihad pits the civilization of fun and joy against the civilization of anger, rage, and dreariness.

As the controversy continues this week over Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s avowal that Britain’s adoption of some elements of Islamic Sharia law is “unavoidable,” it might be useful to bear that in mind. And remember, also, that it was a Muslim woman, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who replied that what Williams “wishes on us is an abomination.” Those who have suffered from the latest crackdowns in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would no doubt agree -- and would probably even ally with the West against the forces of Islamist gloom, given half a chance.

But will there be any Western leaders willing or courageous enough to cast off their multiculturalist shackles and give those people heart -- during this Valentine’s Day week -- by affirming that our struggle is one for simple joy in existence, against those who would rob us of that joy?

Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" , "The Truth About Muhammad" and "Religion of Peace?" (all from Regnery -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).

The Clemens/McNamee verdict: Both can't be right

BY MITCH ALBOM

DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

February 14, 2008



WASHINGTON - FEBRUARY 13: Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens (C) gets a pat on the arm from his attorney Lanny Breuer after testifying about allegations of steroid use by professional ball palyers before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill February 13, 2008 in Washington, DC. The 'Mitchell Report' named several former and current major league baseball players, including Clemens, who are accused of using steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Somebody's lying. The question is who?

And who cares?

Let's face it, The Roger Clemens Story has turned into a witch hunt, and what most everyone wants is to prove Clemens used steroids and human growth hormone, because there is almost a sense of obligation now in sports -- if not a perverse thrill -- to pop the biggest balloon.

And Clemens, with his puffy jaw set and his big belly stretching those three-piece suits, has indeed appeared balloon-like as he shouts his innocence all over the country, in news conferences, on "60 Minutes," all the way to the closing statement of a televised congressional hearing Wednesday, when Clemens interrupted the chairman after four hours of testimony to again insist his accusers were lying.

"Excuse me, but this is not your time," Henry Waxman admonished the All-Star pitcher, banging his gavel, "to argue with me."

Clemens stared him down so intensely, you swore if he'd had a baseball, it would have been headed for Waxman's eyeballs.

But so what? In the end, you have Brian McNamee, a personal trainer who has told a lot of lies in his life, who may or may not be lying about this.

And you have Clemens, with an amazing 24-year pitching career, who may or may not be lying about his past.

Then you have guys like Waxman, who don't know squat about baseball, but seem intent on defending the Mitchell Report, perhaps because it was done by a former senator.

As they say in gangster movies, you watch out for your own.

But somebody's lying.

An incredible credibility gap

McNamee told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that "I was wrong" for injecting players with banned substances, as if that makes him sympathetic. But remember, it's in his best interest to say that now. He already has confessed. He's trying to save his neck from jail.

Meanwhile, you wonder why a guy with a history of lying suddenly becomes George Washington. Or as Tom Davis, the co-chair of Wednesday's hearings, told the media afterward, "Mr. McNamee is obviously not the most credible witness."

On the other hand, if he told the truth about injecting Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblach -- and their statements suggest he did -- then why would McNamee make all this up about Clemens? Which led Waxman to declare, "Mr. McNamee was very credible."

You see why this is so insane. (By the way, even if McNamee told the truth about Pettitte and Knoblach, it doesn't mean he DIDN'T lie about Clemens. Maybe he hates the guy. Maybe he's jealous. Who knows?)

Meanwhile, here are the hardest things to believe about Clemens' testimony Wednesday: that he didn't know what his investigators were asking McNamee privately, that he never got a call to talk to George Mitchell (oh, please), and that he suddenly felt a need to reconnect with a nanny he hadn't seen in years -- who may have been at a party where HGH was discussed.

Still, the hardest thing to believe is this: If he really did use this stuff, why would he risk perjury? Is he that belligerent? Is his strategy to simply shoot down his accusers' credibility? Is he that sure of his own?

Lights, cameras, chatter

I think he is. I think if Clemens is guilty, he is treating it like an injury the other team can't know about. Just get out there, look tough and pitch your butt off. He may figure nobody will believe a creep like McNamee, and Pettitte will never turn hard on him, he can just say Andy "misremembered" their conversations. In other words, in pitching terms, he can retire the side.

A big risk? You bet. But Clemens is nothing if not self-assured.

Meanwhile, what's the big picture here? What changes if Clemens is proven a liar? We already have plenty of big fish admitting steroids. One more changes nothing. If he did it, he did it years ago, when there was no testing.

Sure, you have to be tough on him -- because we certainly have been tough on Barry Bonds and others. But in the end, I think this is more about the thrill of the hunt than anything else. That, and congressmen getting face time on ESPN, which, unlike C-SPAN, is a station their constituents actually watch.

Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch Albom Show" 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).

Bob Klapisch: Clemens' worst days ahead

Bergen County Record
Thursday, February 14, 2008



Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens (R), Charlie Scheeler, investigator on former Sen. George Mitchell's staff (C) and former Major League Baseball strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee (L) raise their right hands as they are sworn in to testify about allegations of steroid use by professional ball players before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Clemens, fighting to preserve his All-Star reputation, came under intense and skeptical grilling from lawmakers at a congressional hearing Wednesday, as he stoutly denied doping allegations.
(AFP/Getty Images/Mark Wilson)

One day soon, as Roger Clemens stands before a federal judge, accused of perjury, he'll ask himself why he was so blind. So stubborn. So incredibly dense, believing he could charm his way through Congress with the same denials of steroid use. The greatest pitcher of our time is now the game's greatest liar, walking straight toward indictment. After 4½ hours of hearings Wednesday, this much is clear about the Rocket: His worst days are ahead of him.

The irony is, it's not accuser Brian McNamee who will ultimately take Clemens down. It's Andy Pettitte, whose sworn testimony last week all but ensured the Justice Department's involvement. Pettitte says Clemens talked to him about HGH and steroids in 2002 and again in 2004, an assertion so damning the best Clemens could do was say his buddy had "misremembered" their conversation.

No discerning American buys that one. But Clemens is in so deep, he's decided to run the table. That means smearing McNamee, denying they ever spoke about performance-enhancing drugs and even pretending he was unaware that his wife, Debbie, was using HGH. The Rocket does so despite the enormous risk of prosecution and, perhaps, jail time. In fact, an hour before he was supposed to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Clemens was cautioned against testifying by Rep. Tom Davis, the committee's senior ranking member.

Davis reminded Clemens that he was under no obligation to appear. He didn't have to answer any questions. There was no penalty for invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, or even skipping out altogether. But Clemens declined to use the escape hatch. To him, this is a challenge no different than the ones he's faced from 60 feet 6 inches. It's all the same war to the man who's made a living out of bullying opponents. Clemens intends to beat Congress the same way he once dealt with Mike Piazza, with a high, hard one and a follow-up stare that says, "Do something about it."

But there were plenty of telltale signs of Clemens' inner panic. He licked his lips constantly, stammered through half-answers, talked around the charges he couldn't defend. Clemens said he never knew former Sen. George Mitchell's investigators wanted to talk to him, blaming his agents for the lapse. Further questions revealed that Clemens may have tampered with a witness - a former nanny who was ready to tell investigators that Clemens was lying about missing a Blue Jays team party at Jose Canseco's house, where a discussion of steroids allegedly took place.

Clemens made sure to speak to the nanny before putting the committee in touch with her. If that wasn't illegal, it surely was improper, yet the Rocket had the audacity to say he was doing Congress "a favor" by making her available. It's that sense of entitlement that has ruined Clemens: His family, friends, lawyers and sycophants have convinced him that baseball - no, America - owes him for years of greatness on the mound. We are in Clemens' debt for his charity work, for his trip to the Gulf visiting the troops, even his willingness to represent the U.S. in the World Cup.

Who are you going to believe, me or a slime-4.000>ball like McNamee, is the foundation of Clemens' defense. Only, it's not that simple anymore. Forget that McNamee's testimony has been corroborated by two of the three people he named as steroid and HGH users. He said Chuck Knoblauch used. Correct, says Knoblauch. He said Pettitte used. That story checked out, too, according to Pettitte, who revealed he was cheating not only in 2002 but 2004 as well.

So why would McNamee tell the truth about two former Yankees, but lie about Clemens?

Better question: Why would Pettitte, whom everyone in the room called an honest man, say Clemens was cheating?

Clemens had no answer for that, forced to fall back on his theory that his buddy had "misremembered" their conversation in 2006, after they'd been named in a leaked story in the Los Angeles Times. Pettitte, in a state of panic, asked Clemens what they were going to do now that the dam had burst. Cold and calculating, the Rocket pretended he didn't know what Pettitte was talking about, insisting their conversation had been about Debbie Clemens.

Pettitte didn't challenge the Rocket any further. He realized the great man he'd admired, if not idolized, had sealed himself up in a lie, one that he refuses to surrender. What a pity. What a waste. All Clemens had to do was tell the truth - just say he broke the rules, tried juicing, regretted it, and advised anyone who was considering steroids to run the other way.

Americans would've forgiven Clemens in an eye blink. Congress would've had no further interest in him. Using steroids, after all, is hardly the kind of crime the government will bother prosecuting. But it's the lying - the pathological, bold-faced, unyielding lie - that will send you to jail. And therein lies Chapter Two of this dark saga. Sooner or later, this case will be heard in a courtroom, not on Capitol Hill. And Pettitte won't be able to get away with a statement behind closed doors.

He'll have to take the witness stand and tell the world what he told the committee, that Clemens is a liar. Don't think that scenario hasn't already played out a million times in Pettitte's head. He asked the Yankees on Wednesday for a five-day reprieve before reporting to spring training. The pressure, he said, had turned into a tidal wave. Brian Cashman granted Pettitte's wish, telling reporters, "I was in no position to refuse."

The Yankees' general manager, no dummy, was staring at the obvious: For Clemens and Pettitte, the worst is yet to come.

E-mail: klapisch@northjersey.com

Today's Tune: Johnny Cash- When the Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash and Roseanne Cash, Hiltons, Virginia
By Annie Leibovitz, 2001




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From Russia With Verve: It's Ovechkin

Jamie Rose for The New York Times. The Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin provides tickets to children from the Most Valuable Kids charity, then signs autographs for them after games.


By LYNN ZINSER
The New York Times
Published: February 13, 2008

When Bruce Boudreau first met his players as the Washington Capitals’ coach, he had no idea what to expect. His career, spent largely bouncing around minor leagues, had not taken him in front of the kind of players now judging his every move.

So Boudreau was amazed when one of the first players to shake his hand in the locker room that November day was Alex Ovechkin, the team’s outlandishly talented 22-year-old left wing.
“He walked up to me and said, ‘What do we do, Coach?’ ” Boudreau said. “That’s the way he is. He follows every direction. He does things superstars just don’t do.”

Ovechkin’s ability to astound began in the first game of his N.H.L. career, when he lived up to every bit of his hype by scoring two goals, and has barely let up. In his third season, Ovechkin leads the league in goals (47) and points (76). He has a handful of the most spectacular plays of the season and negotiated his own contract extension worth an eye-popping $124 million over 13 years.

His on-ice flair is so flamboyant that he practically commands a channel on YouTube — his falling-down-and-shooting backward goal as a rookie is an endless loop on his Wikipedia entry — but among the Capitals, he manages to be simply Alex. Ovechkin is teased by his teammates for his contract, for his scraggly beard and uneven haircut. He grew up in Russia playing the sport he loved since he was first exposed to it.

And he wants to win, which was the first thing Boudreau noticed.

“He helped us believe in each other,” Ovechkin said of Boudreau. “We believe in ourselves and believe in our power and we win the games now.”

The Capitals have climbed into the Southeast Division lead and occupy a playoff spot.

“Now we bring the fans and the crowd is very good,” Ovechkin said. “When it’s full, it’s unbelievable. Everybody has to understand, one player cannot bring a good team. It’s a whole team. We just have a great team right now, a young team, and everybody does what they can try to do to win.”

After a thrilling overtime victory over the Rangers last Sunday in which he had a goal and two assists, Ovechkin emerged from the Capitals’ locker room to greet a group of children who had gone to see him. He stopped to kiss his parents, Mikhail and Tatiana, before wading into the group to sign the red foam No. 8’s they had spent the game waving in support.

He entered with no fanfare and smiled his missing-tooth grin, posing for pictures. He sponsors a different group of 8-to-12-year-old underprivileged children with tickets for each game. Sometimes, the tickets go to military personnel. They sit in a lower section at Verizon Center in Washington, waving their No. 8’s.

“I think for kids, it’s very important when people take care of them,” Ovechkin said. “I want to give people a chance to see what is hockey because if they don’t know what’s going on, they can’t come to the game and see us.”

Ovechkin has quickly become Washington’s pied piper of hockey. Drafted by a franchise with so little success, Ovechkin arrived from Russia with much fanfare. His rookie season, immediately after the lockout, coincided with the arrival of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby.

From the beginning Ovechkin was different. He thrived in a league intent on freeing its superstars, scoring 52 goals to snatch rookie of the year honors from Crosby. He brought a combination of speed, a dazzling shot and relentless energy. He took hits and dished them out. His YouTube clips also include several big checks as well as a fight.

In his most spectacular game this season, an overtime victory over Montreal, he scored four goals, including the game winner, despite having his lip stitched after a puck hit him and having his nose broken when he was driven into the boards. He also had a cut under his eye from a high stick the previous game.

“He competes so hard,” Boudreau said. “That’s what sets him apart from other players.”

Ovechkin has also bucked convention by learning English quickly, asking the Capitals for an English-speaking roommate when he was a rookie. The N.H.L. marketing machine quickly latched on to his photogenic smile and sense of humor.

But Ovechkin said he was taught from a young age that what mattered most was his team’s success. That lesson came from his parents. Mikhail was a professional soccer player and Tatiana was a two-time gold medalist in basketball for the Soviet Union. As a teenager, Ovechkin helped Dynamo win a Superleague title.

“I don’t want to prove anything, I just want to win,” Ovechkin said. “I just want to go to the playoffs and go as far as we can. There is only one goal here. There is only one Stanley Cup.”

And, he is quick to remind people, he cannot win that by himself.

Joe Louis' fight continues

By Tim Smith
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com
Wednesday, February 13th 2008, 4:00 AM

Joe Louis enjoys Daily News recap of victory in Max Schmeling rematch but champ endured hard times later in life.

For years when I was growing up, I thought Joe Louis was a part of my family. That's because my great-grandmother had strategically placed an 8-by-10, black-and-white photo of a young Louis in our family photo album.

As a kid I would flip through the photos and there between pictures of my great-grandfather in his World War I doughboy uniform and the various aunts and uncles in their Sunday finest was the strapping Louis in a boxing pose.

I would ask my great-grandmother how we were related to Louis and she would just say, "That's Joe Louis," in the most reverential tone. That Louis photo held the same prominence in our photo album as the pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK on the walls of most African-American homes in the '60s and '70s.

I was reminded of that "family" photo after viewing "Joe Louis, America's Hero - Betrayed," the fine HBO "Sports of the 20th Century" documentary, which airs Feb.23 at 8 p.m. as the prelim for the Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov heavyweight unification fight at Madison Square Garden.

The 75-minute documentary shows the full scope of Louis' significance to American history and society and the horrible manner in which the IRS hounded Louis for back taxes. It is one of the best pieces of work by the sports documentary duo of Ross Greenburg and Rick Bernstein at HBO.

Joe Louis Barrow Jr., Louis' son and one of the most important voices in the documentary, said he and Greenburg talked about making the film 15 years ago. He was pleased with the way that it came out.

"I've never been to any place in the world where people didn't have respect for my father," Barrow said.

The film follows Louis from the time he migrates to Detroit from Alabama with his family as a child to his death in 1981. In between is an insightful look at Louis' rise through the heavyweight division, his memorable matches against Max Schmeling, Billy Conn and Rocky Marciano, and his sad ending as a hotel greeter at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Barrow said his father never complained about his plight or even the fact that the IRS mercilessly hounded him for back taxes. The film details how Louis donated money to Army and Navy charities and did countless exhibitions while enlisted in the Army for four years during World War II. The feds even went so far as to take the $64,000 trust funds that Louis had set aside for his two children.

"It was an inappropriate way to treat anyone, let alone someone who had done so much for society," Barrow said.

Louis came along at a bleak time for African-American heavyweights who wanted to be world champion. He broke a more than 20-year blackout that was based on the behavior of Jack Johnson, which was considered inappropriate for a black man at that time. The flamboyant Johnson dated white women and flaunted his superiority in the ring by taunting his white opponents after he knocked them out. Newspapers at the time actually said another black champion would lead to race riots and general social unrest.

In his pursuit of the heavyweight championship, Louis was given rules by his handlers that forbade him from being photographed alone with white women and never to raise his arms in victory after he won a fight. The humble, strong, silent role actually fit Louis' personality, so it was nothing he fought against, according to Barrow.

Barrow said his father made America come to grips with segregation. But as a new African-American athlete came to the fore during the civil rights movement, Louis seemed out of step. There is a clip of Muhammad Ali in the film calling Louis "an Uncle Tom for white people."

"At my father's funeral Muhammad Ali came over to me and whispered in my ear that my father was really The Greatest," Barrow said. "I think that was his mea culpa for what he said."

A mea culpa never came from the government, though Ronald Reagan cleared the way for Louis to be buried in Arlington Cemetery with full military honors.

The HBO documentary evokes all the emotions that I'm sure my great-grandmother had when she considered the full measure of Joe Louis in our family album. I didn't fully understand it until I saw the film.

Defending the West in American Universities

By Robert Spencer

http://www.frontpagemag.com/

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Edward Said throwing a stone at Israeli border guards.

With jihad terrorists around the world making recruits and justifying their actions by reference to Islamic teachings, academic study of Islam is needed more urgently than ever. Yet in today’s universities, political correctness almost completely forecloses any honest examination of the elements of Islamic culture or belief. Much of this is the result of the work of the late Edward Said, a hugely influential professor and author of the book Orientalism, which has set the tone for Middle East Studies in the United States ever since its first appearance in the 1970s. Said contended that Western academic study of Islam and the Middle East was deformed by notions of cultural superiority, and was a racist handmaiden of Western colonialism and imperialism.

Said’s word has become law. On most campuses today any examination of matters Islamic that is even remotely critical is shouted down and labeled bigotry and “hate speech.” Pre-1960 works by Western scholars on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies are disparaged or ignored. Said’s influence has for three decades now had the baneful effect of inhibiting academic and public debate about crucial issues such as how Islam must be reformed and whether or not this reform can be accomplished, and how Muslims and non-Muslims can develop a framework for peaceful coexistence as equals on an indefinite basis.

But now the fearless and clear-sighted Islamic scholar Ibn Warraq has dealt a body blow to the Saidist establishment in his new book Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism.

Ibn Warraq not only reveals the sloppiness and tendentiousness of much of Said’s research; he also demonstrates that Western study of Islam and Muslims has never been as uniform, imperialist, or supremacist as Said contended, delving deeply into the work of the classic Orientalists themselves – painters, sculptors, artists, and writers, much of whose work was once influential in numerous fields, but has of late been under a Saidist cloud. Defending the West shows these men to be, as Ibn Warraq describes them, “colorful and gifted individuals” who “had their own individual reasons for exploring artistically foreign climes, customs, people and costumes,” were not racist, and were not part of some rapacious imperialist project.

But in a certain sense, the subtitle of this book is unfortunate. For while Ibn Warraq elegantly and eruditely eviscerates Said’s thesis, the scope of this book is much wider. In an epigraph, he quotes Arthur Koestler, a man who knew a thing or two about the decline of civilizations: “The predicament of Western civilization is that it has ceased to be aware of the values which it is in peril of losing.” Ibn Warraq identifies three characteristics of Western intellectual inquiry – and of the work of the Orientalists whom Said disparages – that cannot be found consistently in non-Western (including Islamic) intellectual endeavors, and which are in danger of being lost today in the West, not least because of the ideological straitjacket that Said’s followers enforce in universities. The first of these is rationalism, and the prizing of knowledge for the sake of knowledge – Ibn Warraq observes that “under Islam, orthodoxy has always been suspicious of ‘knowledge for its own sake.’ Unfettered intellectual inquiry is deemed dangerous to the faith.” Then there is universalism, the idea of the essential unity of mankind that leads to a genuine openness to other peoples and cultures. While this has characterized the West since the Greeks, Ibn Warraq notes that, in a peculiar inversion of Said’s claim, the Islamic world has generally regarded non-Muslim cultures with contempt and lack of interest – even to the detriment of its own civilizational development. And finally, Ibn Warraq points out that the West has demonstrated from the beginning a capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism that has been almost wholly lacking in Islamic cultures. He explains that “the ability to turn a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits” has always been “the distinctive and redemptive grace of Western civilization.”

But today in our own colleges and universities the redemptive graces of Western civilization are ignored in favor of a Saidist litany of Western crimes and misdemeanors, sapping our strength for civilizational self-defense at the time we need it the most. Erudite, enlightening, entertaining, and magnificently broad in scope, Defending the West is the antidote.

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?.

Today's Tune: Iggy Pop- Punkrocker

Annie Leibovitz
Iggy Pop, Miami,
Florida, 2000
Silver Print

(Click on title to play video)

The Saudi Woman is Always Guilty

By MEMRI

Memri.org

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

In December 2007, the Saudi English-language daily Arab News published an op-ed by Dania Al-Ghalib titled "The Saudi Woman is Always Guilty." In it, the author describes the condition of the Saudi woman, depicting her as born unwanted and held accountable for everything that happens to her in life - even though she is always the chattel of a man and has no control over anything.

The following is the article as it appeared in the Arab News. [1]

"The Saudi Woman is Born Unwanted"

"The Saudi woman is guilty. She is guilty of being born in a male-dominated society. Her fault is that she grows up in a society that stigmatizes her sex as a sin. She is held accountable because society believes she is underage - even if she is in her 60s -and implements a guardianship system over her as if she were a second-class citizen. It is very common for a Saudi woman - a widow or a divorcee - to have her young son as her guardian, and she needs his written permission to carry out official paperwork. He is in control of her life and her destiny.

"The Saudi woman can be blamed for living in a male-dominated society that opposes many rights for women despite the fact that the Prophet (peace be upon him) - the best of all humans - consulted a woman and listened to her advice. The Saudi woman is guilty of living in a society that confuses tradition with Islamic obligations, and idolizes what it sees as the latter to the extent that when she wants to discuss or object, she is accused of rebellion. Her fault is that society considers her an item of her guardian's property. He can do anything he desires with her without asking her opinion or even listening to her.

"The Saudi woman is born unwanted. Everybody wants a male child rather than a female one.

"She is Guilty If She Remains Silent and Guilty If She talks"

"This innocent creature is forcibly taught what is prohibited and shameful before even knowing how to speak. She is guilty if she remains silent and guilty if she talks.

"She is guilty if she is divorced and guilty if she cleaves to her husband and children when someone tries unjustifiably to destroy her marriage. Her only refuge is prison, where she has the right to say no. She has lost all her rights and has fought for one that allows her to live only behind bars. Her sin is that she tried to protect her marriage and family. But traditions and customs challenged and destroyed her attempts.

"The Saudi Woman is Guilty for Being Raped"

"The Saudi woman is guilty for being raped, in darkness or in daylight, because her society wants her locked in, producing legal children and never leaving her house unless she is dead and of course accompanied by a guardian. She is guilty when brutal beasts tear her body and soul apart, threatening her with weapons and defamation because society believes she subjected herself to them and she deserves what happens to her.

"She is guilty because society prohibits her from driving and forces her to live at the mercy of a foreign driver. He might rape her one day or make money by allowing others to rape her, and then she will be the one who is blamed for having put herself in such position and went out with a driver without her legal guardian.

"The Saudi Woman is Guilty Because She is Part of her Guardian's Property"

"The Saudi woman is guilty because she is part of her guardian's property even when he is a criminal, serving time in jail and he marries her off to his colleague in prison who is awaiting execution. Society is aware of this and apparently sees no harm in such. In fact, the community blessed this marriage and arranged for them to be legally alone together. And the woman's fault is that she is the daughter of a criminal.

"She is Guilty when Others Confiscate Her Property... by Impersonating Her - And Her Greatest Sin is that Her Identity Stems From Her Guardian"

"The Saudi woman is guilty of being haunted by spinsterhood and not accepting misyar [2] and all other types of male-invented marriages. She is also guilty if she accepts being abandoned by her husband when he feels tired and bored with her and wants a new wife. She is guilty if she objects to anything and her legal guardian beats her until he breaks her ribs or permanently disfigures her. His right is to beat her and make her obey and listen, even if that means deforming her physical features as a woman and taking away her beauty.

"She is guilty when others confiscate her property or real estate by impersonating her, and her greatest sin is that her identity stems from her guardian. The Saudi woman is always guilty and anyone who thinks of dealing with her humanely is a criminal."

[1] Arab News, Saudi Arabia, December 25 2007. The text has been very lightly edited for clarity.

[2] For more on misyar, or pleasure, marriages, see MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 291, "Pleasure Marriages in Sunni and Shi'ite Islam," August 31, 2006, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA29106.

Britain's Encounter with Islamic Law

By Daniel Pipes
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Beneath the deceptively placid surface of everyday life, the British population is engaged in a momentous encounter with Islam. Three developments of the past week, each of them culminating years' long trend – and not just some odd occurrence – exemplify changes now underway.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith describes terrorism as "anti-Islamic."

First, the UK government has decided that terrorism by Muslims in the name of Islam is actually unrelated to Islam, or even anti-Islamic. This notion took root in 2006 when the Foreign Office, afraid that the term "war on terror" would inflame British Muslims, sought language that upholds "shared values as a means to counter terrorists." By early 2007, the European Union issued a classified handbook that banned jihad, Islamic, and fundamentalist in reference to terrorism, offering instead some "non-offensive" phrases. Last summer, Prime Minister Gordon Brown prohibited his ministers from using the word Muslim in connection with terrorism. In January, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith went further, actually describing terrorism as "anti-Islamic." And last week the Home Office completed the obfuscation by issuing a counter-terrorism phrasebook that instructs civil servants to refer only to violent extremism and criminal murderers, not Islamist extremism and jihadi-fundamentalists.

Second, and again culminating several years of evolution, the British government now recognizes polygamous marriages. It changed the rules in the "Tax Credits (Polygamous Marriages) Regulations 2003": previously, only one wife could inherit assets tax-free from a deceased husband; this legislation permits multiple wives to inherit tax-free, so long as the marriage had been contracted where polygamy is legal, as in Nigeria, Pakistan, or India. In a related matter, the Department for Work and Pensions began issuing extra payments to harems for such benefits as jobseeker allowances, housing subventions, and council tax relief. Last week came news that, after a year-long review, four government departments (Work and Pensions, Treasury, Revenue and Customs, Home Office) concluded that formal recognition of polygamy is "the best possible" option for Her Majesty's Government.

Third, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, endorsed applying portions of the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) in Great Britain. Adopting its civil elements, he explained, "seems unavoidable" because not all British Muslims relate to the existing legal system and applying the Shari‘a would help with their social cohesion. When Muslims can go to an Islamic civil court, they need not face "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty." Continuing to insist on the "legal monopoly" of British common law rather than permit Shari'a, Williams warned, would bring on "a bit of a danger" for the country.



Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says that Islamic law in Great Britain "seems unavoidable."

Prime Minister Brown immediately slammed Williams' suggestion: Shari‘a law, his office declared, "cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor can the principle of Shari‘a law be used in a civilian court. … the Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values." Criticism of Williams came additionally from all sides of the political spectrum – from Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory (Muslim) shadow minister for community cohesion and social action; Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats; and Gerald Batten of the United Kingdom Independence Party. Secular and Christian groups opposed Williams. So did Trevor Phillips, head of the equality commission. The Anglican church in Australia denounced his proposal, along with leading members of his own church, including his predecessor, Lord Carey. Melanie Phillips called his argument "quite extraordinarily muddled, absurd and wrong." The Sun newspaper editorialized that "It's easy to dismiss Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams as a silly old goat. In fact he's a dangerous threat to our nation." It concludes acerbically that "The Archbishop of Canterbury is in the wrong church."

Although widely denounced (and in danger of losing his job), Williams may be right about the Shari‘a being unavoidable, for it is already getting entrenched in the West. A Dutch justice minister announced that "if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Shari‘a tomorrow, then the possibility should exist." A German judge referred to the Koran in a routine divorce case. A parallel Somali gar courts system already exists in Britain.

These developments suggest that British appeasement concerning the war on terror, the nature of the family, and the rule of law are part of a larger pattern. Even more than the security threat posed by Islamist violence, these trends are challenging and perhaps will change the very nature of Western life.

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).

Today's Tune: Townes Van Zandt - Snowin' on Raton

(Click on title to play video)

Roy Scheider Dies at 75

Star of 'Jaws' and 'All That Jazz'



Universal Pictures
COMPLEX TOUGH GUY: Roy Scheider began acting at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., and by the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to be an actor. He spent time in repertory theaters and appeared in more than 60 films.

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 11, 2008

Roy Scheider, the jagged-nosed actor who brought complexity to tough-guy roles in such films as "The French Connection," "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," and was also known for political activism off the set, died Sunday afternoon at a hospital in Little Rock, Ark. He was believed to be 75, and had been battling a form of blood cancer for three years.

Scheider, who lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital, which specializes in the treatment of multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that affects blood cells. He died of complications from the disease, said Leslie Taylor, a university spokeswoman.

Taylor said Scheider had been receiving treatments at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy in recent years. On its website, the institute says that it has kept patients alive for six to seven years after diagnosis, about twice the national average.

In a career spanning four decades, Scheider appeared in more than 60 films, as well as in numerous roles on stage and television. But his most acclaimed roles came in a span of eight years in the 1970s, beginning with "The French Connection" in 1971.

He probably will be best remembered for his role as Martin Brody, the water-shy police chief in "Jaws" (1975) who uttered the immortal line: "You're gonna need a bigger boat," after seeing the size of the shark. He once lamented that the role "will be on my tombstone."

His favorite role, he said, was playing choreographer Joe Gideon, a thinly disguised stand-in for Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, in "All That Jazz" (1979) -- a role for which the former boxer had to learn to dance. "That will always be my favorite film," he told the San Jose Mercury News in 1999. "But I never worked harder in my life. I felt I had to prove myself to the dance company. I didn't want to misrepresent them. . . . I was in relatively good shape. But at the end of the day, I'd return to the Holiday Inn with my Tiger Balm."

That role earned Scheider some of his best reviews. Pauline Kael would later write in the New Yorker that Scheider "made you feel you were watching Fosse himself. It wasn't an impersonation; it was as if Fosse had taken over his body, from the inside. That's the only role in which Scheider had an exciting presence, and it wasn't his; we seemed to be looking right through him to Fosse."



Scheider in "All That Jazz", 1979

And then-Times critic Charles Champlin wrote that Scheider "is a wonderment, a dancing dynamo whose portrayal of this life-splurging, death-obsessed man poses the Academy voters another mind-boggling decision."

It was not a decision that came down in his favor -- Scheider never won an Oscar. He was nominated as best actor for "All That Jazz," but lost to Dustin Hoffman in "Kramer vs. Kramer." His only other nomination was for best supporting actor in "The French Connection," the movie that launched him as a star.

Scheider played Det. Eddie Russo, the abrasive, street-smart partner of "Popeye" Doyle, played by Gene Hackman. The two New York narcotics cops were on the trail of an international drug gang that has been shipping heroin from Marseille, France, to New York. In later years, Scheider delighted in telling the story of how he got the part by sheer luck while auditioning for a stage role in New York. The stage part called for an actor who was at least 6 feet tall.

"Every time I started reading, the director sitting out there in the dark in the theater would interrupt and ask me how tall I was," Scheider recalled in a 2001 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. "I told him I was 5-foot-10, but he asked me to stand back-to-back with another actor. I lost it, and flung the script into the darkness. It so happened the casting director for 'The French Connection' was sitting in on the auditions and watching. He told me later he knew he had found Popeye's partner."

Scheider was reportedly born Nov. 10, 1932, in Orange, N.J., although in some interviews he indicated he was born in 1935. He grew up in the New Jersey suburbs outside New York City. He was, by his own account, a sickly, pudgy child, and spent a good deal of time bedridden. Among his greatest delights as a child, he once said, was going to the Saturday matinees at the movie theater in Irvington, N.J., eating popcorn and watching movies.

From the age of 8, he said, he worked weekends pumping gas at his father's service station, a job he loathed. "It's true that I had more pocket money than my friends, but I also had more responsibilities," he said in a 1975 interview with The Times. "I was driving cars around that place when I was 11. But what I really wanted to do was go swimming with the other kids."

His health improved in his late teens, and when he was about 17 he began boxing at the local YMCA. Under the tutelage of a retired welterweight, Scheider entered the Golden Gloves competition in Elizabeth, N.J. He won one fight and lost the next. In the process, he got his nose broken, creating the slightly off-kilter profile that lent him authenticity in his later tough-guy roles.

After a stint in the Air Force, Scheider began acting at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., and by the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to be an actor. He spent the next seven or eight years doing classical theater.



Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, "Jaws", 1975

His film debut was in Del Tenney's "Curse of the Living Corpse" (1964). He won attention for his role in "Klute" in 1971, followed months later by "The French Connection." Among other notable films, he appeared in "Marathon Man" (1976), "Sorcerer" (1977), "Jaws 2" (1978), "Still of the Night" (1982), "2010" (1984) and "The Russia House" (1990).

For decades, Scheider had been active politically, participating in protests against the Vietnam and Iraq wars and for environmental issues on Long Island. In 2003, he was among a group of protesters who laid down on a Long Island highway in a symbolic reference to the casualties of war.

In December 2004, while seeing a doctor for a routine examination, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Ten months later, speaking about the experience on "The Today Show," he said he considered himself lucky. "Every single day, it's a miracle," he said.

Scheider's first marriage, which ended in divorce, was to film editor Cynthia Scheider. He is survived by his second wife, documentary filmmaker Brenda King, and three children, Maximillia Scheider, Molly Scheider and Christian Verrier Scheider.

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com

Times staff writer Scott Glover and Times researcher Robin Mayper contributed to this report.

England's Crisis is Ours Too

By David Warren

Ottawa Citizen

February 10, 2008



A young British Muslim woman who would only allow her last name, al-Shaikh, to be printed, wears a full-face veil. “It’s an act of faith,” she said. (Hazel Thompson for The New York Times)

The United Kingdom, from common language and shared heritage, offers us our best window into what is happening in Europe. This is especially so when we try to come to grips -- if we have the courage to do so -- with the historically sudden irruption, and rapid spread, of Islam across Europe.

There are parallel developments in all the nations on the Continent: high immigration rates from Islamic countries, comparatively high birth rates among that immigrant population, and the radicalization of their young in Wahabi mosques financed by the oil wealth of Arabia. But for many English-speaking Canadians, it is the British experience that brings the phenomenon home.

The demographic issue is at the centre of much controversy. There can be little dispute over the statistical facts, which are quite dramatic, and as exhilarating from an Islamist point of view, as they are ominous for those who fear the loss of everything associated with western civilization. For, owing to the prior triumph of the leftist "multicultural" ideology, which holds that one "culture" is as good as another, and therefore it is wrong to preserve our own way of life, there is considerable opposition to discussing these facts.

We have seen this in Canada, where journalists Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant have been hauled before "human rights tribunals" -- kangaroo courts in which defendants are stripped of all the traditional protections of court law, and where judgments may be passed against them by people with no legal qualifications on the basis of whim and hearsay.

Mr. Steyn, in particular, stands accused of having openly discussed demographic questions. Mr. Levant stands accused of having published materials the mainstream media had been cowed into suppressing by the fear of Islamist violence.

In both cases, the journalists are being prosecuted by Muslims who advocate the imposition of Shariah law, but are using an apparatus that was designed by the Left for the persecution of those expressing right-wing views.

The British system works differently, and the media in Britain remain more robust than the media in Canada, and willing to report things that would be studiously ignored in a Canadian newsroom. On the other hand, by sheer force of numbers, and the intimidation value of several Islamist atrocities on London's streets, the "fear factor" in Britain is much higher, and the Labour government has proved much more responsive to Islamist demands.

The chief, and most consistent Islamist demand, is for the imposition of Shariah law, at least for Muslims, but ideally by the whole state. In fact, many Shariah courts are already operating informally in Britain, dealing mostly with routine civil questions of marriage, divorce, inheritance, and financial disputes, but sometimes with crime. For instance, a Shariah court in the London district of Woolwich was allowed recently -- apparently with the co-operation of police -- to pass judgment on unnamed Somali youths in a knifing incident. (The assailants were released in return for an apology to their victim.)

In various other ways, Shariah is being recognized, semi-formally. For instance, although bigamy remains nominally a crime in Britain, the Labour government has approved new social provisions by which extra welfare payments, council housing privileges, and tax benefits may be claimed by polygamous households, and the cash benefits to which the extra wives are now entitled may be paid directly into the account of their husband.

At a higher level, the (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, publicly called this week for the recognition of "some form of" Shariah law for Muslims in Britain, and said it should be given equal status with parliamentary law. While Archbishop Williams has a long history of muddled pronouncements, and is widely observed to be emotionally unstable, the strength of his office is now engaged on the Islamist side.

Muslim groups such as the Ramadhan Foundation responded luke-warmly, welcoming the suggestion but criticizing the archbishop for having failed to punish his Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, who is under police protection after recently suggesting that various Muslim districts in Britain had become "no-go areas" for people who are not Muslim. (The Anglican Archbishop of York is also under fire, for making remarks critical of radical Islam.)

The saddest part of this, is that so many "moderate" Muslims emigrated to Britain (as to Canada) expressly to escape from societies in which Shariah law is normative. And what they are learning now, is that, thanks to the triumph of multiculturalism in the West, "you can run but you can't hide."

otiosus@sympatico.ca
Copyright 2008, Ottawa Citizen