|
Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from the Canada, America, Britain, Iraq and Australia. Mark reads all the letters, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Drop a line to Mark's Mailbox and if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at least, your state, province or country. Failing that, your continent or hemisphere would do. For a selection of recent letters on Fred Thompson, see Mailbox Extra.
Letter of the week
THE ONE-CENT CHECK
A short story (see Mark's post, "Corrections facility").
There is an SSA benefit called the Lump Sum Death Payment. It is a fixed amount of $255.00 (When the LSDP was originally created, $255 was a fair chunk of change.) All of the Funeral Homes are familiar with the LSDP and quite frequently, the amount was "assigned" to the funeral home. The relative would pay all but 255.00 of the Funeral Home bill and SSA would send the 255.00 directly to the Funeral Home.
Except, for the case where they made a mistake. (Circa 1982) The claimant paid all but 254.99 of the bill. A single penny was due to claimant. It was determined that despite decades of changes in the law, the LSDP was NOT included in various "internal" procedures of when over-payments and under-payments could be administratively ignored. (At the time, it was 10 cents.)
All SSA payment programs, not only refused to accept payments in any amount less than a dime, any such input was internally error-checked and the input rejected. Under the law, (and believe me, it was discussed at some length), it was determined that SSA was required to issue one payment of 254.99 and one payment of .01 cents. Period.
It was also determined, (rightfully so), that SSA could not just ask the Funeral home to refund one penny to the claimant.
And then it was found that Treasury's computers, at least the one's that issued SSA checks, had the same error-checking routines.
It took six weeks, but eventually someone figured out a pathway around all the problems, somewhere, someone got a check for 1 cent.
For a first reform. I'd simply do away with the LSDP.
James
SSA retired
Re: Spitting on the troops
A FEW GOOD MEN
In June our family had a two night stopover at a hotel near Shannon on our way home from Europe. It was stuffed to the gills with American soldiers. I can only say I felt SO PROUD of them! They were a conspicuously decent and kindly-seeming group. And when one of them told me they were on their way to Iraq, the pride and sorrow and poignancy mingled and pooled and overflowed in me. I kept trying to think of something I could do to express it all adequately. Buy a
beer for them all? But there were so many! And would it even be allowed? In the end I settled for saying "godspeed" to as many as possible, and emitting silent prayers for protection as potently as I could. Also doing my best to impress on my three sons my admiration and gratitude for the men who answer the call to serve - who offer their lives for the rest of us. They are good, GOOD men. Rare in our day.
Thanks for the part you play in lifting their morale.
Katie van Schaijik
APPLAUSE AT SHANNON
My son was at Al-Asad for almost a year with the 2nd Marine Air, Squadron 1. Both outbound and inbound, they landed at Shannon - both times, he remarked that the passengers all broke out in applause and they received a lot of good cheer from those in the terminal. My son is not one to sugar-coat strangers, so I am a tad perplexed at the behavior described at NRO vs what I was told to me (and he returned this past Jan).
I agree that airports in our own "Lefty Lands" may not be as well disposed (re: look at how San Fran is treating our military)
Skip
Gilford, New Hampshire
BAY AREA BLUES
I just finished reading you comments about how some of the marines were treated at the Oakland airport recently. This poor reception of US forces returning from war at Bay area airports is a long term tradition. I remember back in 1970, I was 20 years old and was being discharged from the
army in Oakland after being out of country for nearly three years (Germany and Vietnam). I was dropped off at the San Francisco airport to catch a civilian flight home to Baltimore. It was exciting to be back in the US after being gone for so long that I sat in the terminal (in uniform) quietly watching my fellow citizens come and go. I was there no more than 5 minutes when 2 marine NCOs on shore patrol came up to me to welcome me back in country and to inform me that there was a USO in the upper terminal with coffee donuts and television for my convenience. I told the sergeants no thanks; I was happy just to sit and watch America on parade and enjoy being home. The marine sergeants again suggested that I would be much more comfortable at the USO and that I should check it out. I politely declined and again thanked them for their concern. They immediately responded by threatening to kick my ass all the way up the stairs to the USO if I did leave the main terminal at once.
I knew the two could, and would, make right on their promise to kick-ass-and-take names, but being young, dumb, Irish (and having my ass kicked before), I stood my ground and said no. They immediately got incensed and a shouting match started among us with me stating my right to be in the terminal and they affirming their desire to deliver the punishment that they believed I deserved. Soon, a small group of people gathered to watch the show (and the ensuing ass-kicking), but as the crowd grew, the shore patrol backed-off, told me to get f**ked and left me alone. I was more than a little taken back by the whole thing and did not realize at the time that this was a harbinger of how some Americans would treat veterans in the years to come. Although the Oakland airport officials were wrong in their recent treatment of the marines, it is fortunate that these marines returning as a unit were able to discuss this disrespectful conduct with each other rather than dealing with it alone. Most Americans do not look at returning servicemen and women with such a negative and disapproving manner (as folks in the Bay area appear to do).
Some people and places never seem to change.
Earl McCurley
FRIENDLY FACES
I've been through Shannon Airport twice: Once en route to Iraq at the beginning of my tour, and the second time en route home at the end of my tour. I simply do not believe the contention that locals in Shannon oppose US troops passing through the airport, regardless of how they may feel about the war. During my two stops there I had one noteworthy experience, which occurred en route to Iraq. While I was sitting on couch waiting to reboard my plane, an older Irish couple sat down and began speaking to me. They described themselves as residents of Shannon en route to Paris for a one week vacation. It was clear that they sought me ought purposely. During the course of our talk they explicitly stated that they don't like Bush, but they also had a lot of other interesting things to say: 1. They really admire us (US Soldiers) for fighting "somebody else's war" (I took this to mean us fighting the Iraqi's civil war); 2. They believed that what we (US Soldiers serving in Iraq) were doing would be benefit "us all" (which I took to mean the entire western world); 3. They were impressed by the excellent behavior of the American Soldiers in the Airport; 4. They were especially impressed that the officers among us did not behave pompously or lord our rank over others (the husband knew US rank insignia, recognizing me as a lieutenant colonel). All in all they were very, very positive and supportive. While it was clear that this couple dislikes Bush, it was also clear that despite that they harbored a significant fund of goodwill toward the US, and perhaps even a certain grudging acceptance that the fight we're in is a worthwhile struggle. I must admit that the sales clerks in Shannon are not particularly friendly, but I hardly think that we can base any kind of intelligent assessment of Irish attitudes on that.
Additionally, it is really not safe to read anything into the reception received at the Airport. Remember - the Irish Republic is a neutral country so it is understandable that they might find themselves a bit unsure about how to handle the unifomed US Soldiers traversing Shannon to and from the theater of operations.
Finally, there are always legal and practical matters to be considered when uniformed servicemen traverse the territory of a third party State. Issues of jurisdiction and immunity are involved, matters usually defined by a status of forces agreement that precisely defines the rights and obligations of the respective governments and the Soldiers themselves. This is no small matter. I don't know what the arrangements with the Irish Republic are, but the incident described could easily be attributable to the absence or the misunderstanding of such arrangements.
No one can accuse Hungary of being hostile to the US, they having actually joined NATO. Yet, when I passed through Budapest en route home for mid-tour leave, we were not allowed off the plane.
I had a similarly illuminating experience during my tour in the Kurdish city of As Sulaymaniyah, where I worked as an advisor to the Iraqi Army brigade stationed there. I was out walking the market area of the city one day when two men ran – I say again RAN - across the street to greet me and my Soldiers. They turned out to be two Canadians, boxing coaches working in As Sulaymaniyah for two weeks assisting the Iraqi national boxing team (Iraqi Kurdistan is different than the rest of the country - it's safe to walk the streets there). The Iraq War is very unpopular in Canada, but these two Canadians were thrilled to see us nonetheless, running across the street to catch us and posing for photos to boot. Nice fellows from Windsor Ontario, right across the Detroit River from Detroit Michigan, which one of the guys said he loved. This is close to my hjometown of Lansing Michigan.
Folks, don't get paranoid. Not everybody hates us.
Dennis P. Chapman
Falls Church, Virginia
TREATED LIKE CRIMINALS
It's disgusting that a sadistic torturer, murderer and terrorist like Ahmadinejad can travel freely through JFK, but our brave troops are treated like criminals at domestic airports.
I wish the TSA would treat Senators & Congressmen with same contempt as they treat our soldiers (and civilians for that matter).
Joe Weldon
HOMECOMING IN ITALY
Apparently this was an issue in post-WW1 Italy where some people hurled buckets of slops from upper windows onto parading returning soldiers.
Played a part in getting Mussolini and the fascists started.
Lionel Albert
Knowlton, Quebec
IMPRESSED WITH THE TROOPS
My wife, son, and I flew back from Shannon in August after a month in Clare. As we perused the plastic paddy souvenirs, we ran into a number of U.S. personnel, who were returning from Iraq. I was very impressed with their demeanour. If you ran into a group of people their age in a mall, you'd be avoiding eye contact and checking your wallet.
As a Canadian born 20 years after WWII, I never quite know what to make of soldiers et al. My fearlessly Irish wife, a self-described former "smoked salmon socialist," launched herself into their midst, thanking them all and shaking as many hands as she could find. I'm sorry that more Irish can't get over their peculiar love/hate relationship with the U.S.
Mind you, I wish that Canada could get over its own inferiority complex. My parents just missed the war, but grew up in a military culture; I always preferred their robust sense of perspective and maturity over the Trudeaupian miasma that pervaded the land of my youth.
God bless America!
Eric Sharf
Toronto
Re: Song of the week
WE AWAIT THE REAL THING
Yesterday we saw the headline on your web site indicating “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” as Song of the Week #73 followed by an essay about “coffee” songs. And we suppose a slight error had been made. We await the actual “Dime” essay on this - one of the great songs of the 20th century. You may be interested to know that the lyric is included as poetry in The New Anthology of American Poetry - Volume 2: Modernisms 1900-1950 (Rutgers Univ Press).
Lastly, on Nov. 26 at 6:30pm we will be hosting a celebration of “Dime” on its 75th anniversary at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Elebash Hall with Sheldon Harnick and others.
Ernie Harburg
New York City
FIGHT TERROR WITH MUSIC
I enjoy your commentary and columns! Keep it up.
As CEO of a symphony, I get many opportunities to speak before crowds and service clubs... Lately, I thought you might be interested to know that I've been getting my biggest and most positive response when I remind people that a great way to fight against terror here at home is to support the arts. I remind them of what the Taliban did in Afghanistan, going after musicians in addition to kids flying kites, guys without beards, teachers, women with uncovered heads, and so on, and point out that a great way to fight terror is to support western culture including our great
tradition of classical orchestral music.
So, let's here a cheer for Bach!
Michael Wenberg
Walla Walla, Washingon
Re: Keep talking
RIGHT ON TARGET
Your piece on the difference between the "talkers" (leftists) and "doers" (terrorist states and their minions) was right on target. How blessed the United States and Great Britain have been to have had three presidents (Reagan, Bush and Bush) and PMs (Thatcher and Blair) who, even if mistakes have been made, have been first founded in the dictates of (sound) Western "talk" but then have also "done" accordingly.
Bill Maston
Philadelphia
ALL TALK AND NO ACTION
EXCELLENT!
We always enjoy your commentaries, but this was the best we've read..."talking, talking, talking" vs. "doing doing doing" is something I'm going to quote to my liberal co-workers.
Outstanding column.
Susan Ambrosia
Mission Viejo, California
YAP YAP YAP
Bloody Hell, what a tight article and I don't mean my shorts. I try to read you everyday. This piece of yours, "Democracies talk etc", is just great, perfect and succinct. Bravo, Charlie and Delta!
Yep, yap, yap, yap. Bow for applause. Kill, kill, kill, such a thrill. Don't stop cause no one will interfere with something as gauche as, ugh, action!
I have a shabby blog that got 'Instalanched' by Instapundit today. People seem to get a laugh out of it and I'm being picked up by atlasshrugged etc, and praised a bit for what it's worth. Maybe some free cheese?
Any chance of ya visiting mark? Even to throw fruit. Here's the link to my wretched blog that Instapundit dug, if only for one fleeting day. The bloggosphere can be so cruel!
Colonel Robert Neville
Melbourne, Australia
Re: Blowing smoke
A NIGHT OUT WITH A HOOKAH
I happen to live right across the street from a hooka bar on Georgia St. in down town Vancouver. I've never been in myself, but I've walked by it many times. The clientele are mostly twenty-something middle easterners but I've definitely seen white and presumably non-Muslim smokers as well.
Also, hooka smoking Muslims are not the only ones in Vancouver to be treated as adults. Despite Vancouver's smoking ban there are still establishements in town where marijuana is smoked openly. Wouldn't want to offend those hippies!
Eli Sullivan
Vancouver
AS VITAL AS A KEG
I thought I'd write to tell you that hookahs are indeed becoming trendy, and not, I think, just to circumvent ridiculous anti-smoking laws. At some Georgetown University parties, in my experience, one is almost as vital as a keg. And you'd need to confirm it, but I think Virginia has enacted a smoking ban with the exception of hookah bars as well, but not, I think with 'cultural sensitivity' as the rationale but rather the idea that some businesses depend on it. As for the hookah bars in the area I've been to, both those catering to the trendy hipster crowd and the ones serving the immigrant crowd, both had a good number of the gentler sex among the staff and clientele. Same with the trendy ones in Istanbul. Can't comment on the ones in Vancouver, however.
Nicole Morgret
Great Falls, Virginia
THE CHICKS DIG IT
I'm a Junior at Georgetown University, and there are about 3 hookah bars in walking distance from campus. They are all seemingly owned and operated by Muslims, but their patrons are very much the average, Caucasian, hacky sack playing college hipster. Women are very much allowed. In fact, I'd say it is more popular amongst females than it is males. Any guy would be perfectly happy lighting up a fag or a nice Coheba, but it is typically the chick that is looking to smoke some sort of strawberry/kiwi flavored tobacco.
Brendan Lane
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A MUSLIM
Indeed you will find women in Hookah bars. They are so popular that non-Muslims frequently own them. I have been to one owned by Muslims with menus in all arabic, and arab television going, and girls in college smoking Hookah. This was in Houston too, surprising.
Josh Reiner
FEMALE CLIENTELE
Thanks for printing my email, I feel like a rock star now that I've had words I've written posted on The Corner.
As for your question, yes, you absolutely can find women in the hookah bars. In fact, the one near where I work has a belly dancer perform in there pretty regularly. But then, that particular hookah bar tends towards a more Arab Christian clientele.
Pax Dickinson
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
I hung out at a hookah bar in San Diego while visiting my kid brother (he's a Marine at Camp Pendleton and Fumari is one of his favourite liberty stops): the crowd was easily 50-50 female and there was one waitress and one waiter/bouncer. The waitress served the all-male and mixed parties while the waiter/bouncer served the all-female parties--indicating some pretty good business savvy on the part of the owner.
FWIW, I highly recommend an evening at a hookah joint. Beer, coffee, cakes, sweet fruit-flavoured tobacco - it's a fine way to while away the end of the day.
Robert Uhl
AS ISLAMIC AS YOU ARE
I don't know anything about Vancouver hookah bars and could care less. I'm just writing to say that the hookah bars in New York are about as Islamic as you are. Not only do they serve alcohol, but they are awesome places to bring girls on dates. The vast majority of clientele is non-Muslim non-Middle Eastern, but rather the 20 something uber-trendy folk that we all love to hate, as hookah smoking is a bit of a fad these days.
N. Blair
THEY’RE SMOKIN’
Just wanted to let you know that DC has a similar situation as NYC. The hookah bars withstood last year's smoking ban and continue to thrive. I believe the justification was that their business relied on the sale of tobacco, and was thus exempted.
Many of the hookah bars are in trendy areas such as Dupont Circle, and are filled with all sorts of people. And yes, you can find plenty of women at some of these hookah bars...
Stephanie Cook
CULTURALLY INVIGORATING EASTERN SMOKING TRADITIONS
Saw your post on the Corner from this morning with regard to the recent trendiness of hookahs. As a nerd who was in school when Facebook.com started getting popular, I can say that yes, you can find women in hookah bars... many of my female friends have posted pictures of groups of hotties hanging out at hookah bars. The trend is so exciting that, as a rule, the titles for their uploaded picture libraries are almost always a simple "Hookah!" Some of the more dedicated tools with whom I attended Miami University are so overwhelmingly in tune with what's hip that they've purchased hookahs, which I suppose detracts from the viability of hookah bars as a place to meet chicks.
Not that most of these girls would be enjoyable company beyond the five minute point anyway. But, yeah, some of my peers have progressed from the alcoholism of their college years to culturally invigorating Eastern smoking traditions. Seems at least a lateral move, as far as vital-organ-destroying weekend activities go!
Godspeed,
Jason Hart
NOTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM
I first heard about Hookahs from my 18-year old college freshman daughter who smokes and frequents the several Hookahs in Colorado. My impression is they have nothing to do with Islam-- she has never mentioned the connection when she talks about them (ie, no burkas etc.) They seem to be a way to socialize and to smoke legally.
Bret Fulton
Louisville, Colorado
A PIECE OF THE PIE
After all, cigar smoking is part of the Hispanic culture . . . Where are Vancouver's Hispanics to complain? Or don't Hispanics count in Canada? or NYC?
Years ago, the late, awful Rheingold Beer had an ad campaign which noted that there were more of certain groups in NYC than in their home countries as in:
"In New York City, where there are more Puerto Ricans than in all of Ponce, Puerto Rico, more people drink Rheingold Beer . . ."
As for the Hispanic groups complaining about their not being included as a special minority in Ken Burns history of WWII * my friend points out that what are now considered a protected class were considered a subset of the general white population up until the 1980s when it became apparent to anyone that Fed Gov goodies for "minorities" meant that you should be a minority to get your share.
The Feds had to rewrite and rewrite the definition of Hispanic, first to remove the Dutch (who, after all, were ruled by Spain), then the Feds added Brazilians who weren't Hispanic at all but wanted a piece of the pie, and finally the Feds removed anyone from Spain from being considered Hispanic. Today a Hispanic is anyone who isn't from Spain, but is from the Americas south of the US southern border except Belize, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana. So the Boys from Brazil are Hispanic.
Seeing the success of the minority programs, India Indians lobbied successfully to be considered a minority so that they too could get a piece of the Federal pie.
Meanwhile, black Americans and American Indians, for whom the minority goodies programs were begun, have received less and less over the years as the more aggressive groups have lobbied and pushed their way to the front of the Federal goodies line.
John Williamson
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Your objection noted...but now I know where to go to enjoy a La Flor Dominicana in Vancouver!!
Jason M. O'Connell
PAY ME NOT TO SMOKE
You can pay me not to smoke..and maybe we can PAY people not to eat fatty foods, take drugs or drink as well because this is about to be proposed (via Yahoo News):
The Goodall Institute is working with a recently formed group of eight rain forest nations called the Forest Eight, or F8, led by Indonesia. The group wants to create a system where rich countries would pay them not to chop down rain forests and hopes to unveil the plan at climate talks in Bali in December.
Here's the link:
Kathleen Acton
SPLIFF DENS
Yo, mon. Just whena dem Canadians gonna let de Rasta toke up on de spliff den? Jah love!
Sean P. Pugh
Washington, D.C
THE ‘J’ WORD
I enjoyed your piece in the recent WS. You are probably the only writer in our risible country who is prepared to use the "j" word in talking about crime. Is there anyone over the age of five who does not grasp that the bulk of crime in Toronto is committed by Jamaicans? Would Maclean’s have allowed you to use the "j" word?
Robert Martin
RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS
Just had a thought regarding Vancouver's smoking exemption for Muslims.
Next we'll hear that the Suicide Belt will be allowed on airline flights for devout Muslims, because Jihad is a religious obligation!
Shaun
RESPONSIBLE CAB DRIVERS
Just for accuracy's sake:
Taxi cab drivers in Minneapolis are not allowed to discriminate against people carrying alcohol or
seeing-eye dogs. The Muslim population has been very active in resolving this situation in a responsible manner.
Mike Harris
Re: Looking for love in all the wrong places
MOCKING THE CHRISTIAN ETHOS
I will tell you what I didn't like about the article.
Patrick: "was also a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other." Steyn "I was laughing so much I lost control of the wheel and the guy in the next lane had to swerve rather dramatically. He flipped me the Universal Symbol of Human Understanding. I certainly understood him, though I'm not sure I could learn to love him."
What bothers me about this little exchange is 1. It certainly never happened, if he is that incapable of controlling his emotions he should not get behind the wheel of a car.
2. It the Pope had said such a thing on the anniversary of 9/11 I seriously doubt Steyn would have said anything like what he said. I could easily imagine the Pope making such an argument, in fact it is almost expected, but God forbid a Governor use such terms.
Now certainly Steyn is free to mock the Christian ethos. I would have more respect for him if he said that Christians are wrong to express such views, but he didn't.
He finishes with: How many people in any society think like Deval Patrick? That's the calculation to make if you want to figure out its long-term survival prospects.
Basically, all of the worlds professed Christians are called upon to have such a world view. One of Christs fundamental commandments is to love thy enemy. Disagree if you wish, but Christ did say it, there is no way around that.
Steyn, doubtless, would find such a notion hilarious, I just hope he never hears it when he is driving a car. There would be lives at risk.
Donald Blackton
Easton, Pennsylvania
MARK REPLIES: Sorry, no sale. I didn't "mock the Christian ethos". I mocked what Patrick said, which was that 9/11 arose from a mutual "failure" to love. There was no failure on our part, and Mr Atta and his colleagues were not Christians. Which may be why, to take your hypothetical, the Pope has not said any such thing.
As for your concerns about my driving, feel free to take it up with the relevant authorities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Re: Uniform amnesty
LINE JUMPING
I assume someone pointed this out to you already, but just in case they didn't. What probably happened wasn't that INS took too long but rather that the quotas for that type of immigration were full. While she was waiting in line she got married thus no longer qualifying under that type of petition. You made it sound as though it were just a problem of a slow bureaucracy.
As I've tried repeatedly to point out, to conservatives, without much success, that's the problem with the line jumping argument with respect to amnesty. The line for the type of petition you mentioned is backed up about 15 years if the daughter was from Mexico. Here's a link to the current numbers.
The problem with the line jumping argument is that while some poor Mexican has been waiting in line for 15 years some guy from India or China who applied 6 years after him has already been approved. That's not what most people think of when they hear the word line.
Greg Marquez
CHANGE STATUS AT YOUR PERIL
The system is messed up but so what? The rules say if you change your status your application is voided. Everyone knows that. Go to any immigration blog or discussion group and it is made more than clear that you should not get married and don't change jobs during the green card application since it can and will cause issues.
I went through the application for a green card. I stayed in a job i wanted to leave for 18 moths knowing that if I left it might have caused some issues for me.
So I have 0 sympathy for her and I'm surprised you are falling for the liberal tear jerking bullshit in the media.
V NSE
REUNIFY AT HOME
Sowell said it best (I am paraphrasing). Why is the US the only place in the world that a family can be reunified?
Kevin Hodge
York, Pennsylvania
WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT BANGALORE?
It seems the real problem is the direction most of these marriages seem to go. That is to say that if you have a British Muslim marrying his/her "lifelong love" - his/her cousin from Islamabad - for some strange reason they always seem to move in one direction: FROM Pakistan TO Great Britain. Why, I wonder, do they never move in the other direction? I have known Indians living in the US who arranged marriages with girls or guys in India, and they never say "We're getting married, and we're gunna settle in Bangalore." For some reason they always seem to choose to settle in Tulsa or Akron.
If we can't ban international marriages, the very least we can do is expect it not to be an alternative form of immigration (and fraud). Instead, let's require that for every one person who enters America from country X on a marriage visa, that they accept one of ours on a marriage visa.
For some reason I imagine this would slow down marriage immigration substantially. There are plenty of members of every ethnic and religious group imaginable already living in the US - Muslims, Indians, etc. If they want arranged marriages they can do it here - they don't need to go looking overseas for their life partners.
You can restrict other forms of immigration to your heart's content; but if you leave the marriage route open it will only increase the number of immigrants. People want to come to the West. If you don't seal all the potential cracks, they all will.
Love your work.
Craig Russell
IT TAKES A MARRIAGE TO MOVE A VILLAGE
In civilized societies, granting legal residency to a husband or wife is a non-discretionary form of immigration, and it says a lot for the torpid bureaucracy at whatever the INS is called this week that it cannot even operate that procedure efficiently.
Does that go for the arranged marriages of Pakistani 'Britons'? No doubt you are aware this has become a way of transporting whole villages to the UK. How many spouses can Mohammad bring over? Can he marry a British born Pakistani, move to the UK, and then marry a girl from 'the old country' and get her into the UK too?
Moreover I can think of two more or less civilised societies which do limit spousal immigration. Denmark no longer automatically grants such residence, and more famously Israel will not allow the reunification of Israeli Arabs with their Palestinian spouses in Israel. Seems both countries are exercising some discretion.
My own rule would be, the couple would have to live for three years in the country with the lower per capita GDP. Think of how romantic that period of struggle would be - great for strong marriages!
Mitchell Young
STATUS FREEZE
Good cases make bad law.
However, the solution here is to freeze the status of the individual to what it is at the time of application. That would seem to be fair all-around.
As for the wives of servicemen, all we have to do is follow whatever the time-tested rule was for all those honey-sans our guys picked up in the Philippines (after it gained independence). That should be fair. If they couldn't be brought back, same rule applies. If they could, same rule applies.
Scott Wallace
CROSS-POLLINATION
In today's The Corner, you said: "Yet I'm still not entirely comfortable with denying the right of a ... Texan to fall in love with a Fijian."
OK. But cultural cross-pollination can be scary. Case in point: Trinity High School in Bedford, Texas...
Jay Lewis
Texpatriate in Seattle
THE GOVERNMENT IS LOUSY
This is one reason I, as a conservative, am against more and bigger government and am for lower taxes. The government is ineffective! I don't want children and old people to starve or die in the cold, I just realize that the government is lousy at pretty much everything it undertakes.
Link Bishop
Jacksonville, Florida NO PROBLEM
This agency called INS (or whatever the name du jour might be), would this be the same agency our leaders believe can manage the applications of millions of amnesty seekers? Just asking...
Jerry Boyenga
WHAT’S GOING ON?
When you post comments like this one from "The Corner," isn't there any way you can also direct us to the original article you're talking about, so we know what's going on? It's like coming in in the middle of the movie.
Larry Eubank
Re: Corrections facility
UNFORESEEN COSTS
"unforeseen administrative costs and fears that any policy changes could shake public confidence in the agency"
could easily be translated as
"legal fees from lawsuits over the SSA's power to cut benefits once recipient has become accustomed to them"
Ken Hennesay
Re: America Alone
THE STRUCTURAL WEAKNESSES OF ISLAM
”America Alone” was almost as good as I'd been expecting. Which is to say bloody good. Thank you for writing it.
There was one thing you missed, however, though you're in good company. You correctly scorned the “Appeal to Moderate Muslims”, as if there's bound to be a Quaker equivalent out there - or a benign and fluffy Cof E - which we can locate and “have a dialogue” with. So it's only a matter of persuading 'em to develop some backbone.
But you didn't nail just WHY that's pie-in-the-sky. You didn't nail the structural weakness of Islam, as Dostoevski would have seen it. The fact that it has no regular clergy, as Christianity has, and hence no means to discipline and control what they DO have, those 'Legal Scholars' who form the 3rd and 4th 'Roots of the Law' (usul), and who can change Sharia on the hoof. And hence no means to keep the Wahhabi imams in line, and prevent them from radicalizing even the easy-going Hanafis. I watched this happening during my ten years in Egypt, by the way, and your demographic argument is EXACTLY right.
But you should also realize---what my BIANN friends (Bottoms-In-the-Air-Not-Necessary, the only reasonable Muslims I've come across) told me, and I was able to confirm at first hand---just how much the peasantry dread their women getting out from under the thumb, and having a say in anything. And how much that's the fear the bloody imams are playing to...
By the way, there are five 'Schools of Law' not four, as you state. There's also Jafari, the Shi'ite school.
In case you're interested, I've attached the relevant pages from my book RESCUING THE PAST, which is still the best resume I've come across. It forms part of my chapter explaining why, if religious images made before the time of the Prophet are Taswir (anathema), the buggers had never got round to destroying them, like the Taleban (but why they will, as soon as the Muslim Brotherhood takes over in Egypt).
If you want to know the answer to that little puzzle, I'm afraid you'll have to buy the book
Jonathan Tokeley
Erstwhile Infantry Captain, Devon and Dorset Regiment erstwhile "2nd Greatest Smuggler of the Century" (the Egyptian government, rather churlishly, given that I'd contributed enormously to their retirement funds)
THANK YOU FOR MY FIRST CONTRACT
"America Alone" launched my career
Thanks to "America Alone" and the mention of the "Tragedy of the Korosko", my screen
adaptation of the novel just had me signed to my first contract. Had I not read it I would have never heard of the novel, so thanks.
Tassie Tzavaras
Scarborough
THE FACE OF WESTERN EUROPE
Another story from one of your former stomping-grounds. This once again makes your point that it is no use looking at % of immigrants in the population as a whole - the most revealing story is in the number of children. It is clear that those who talk about there being no demographic crisis, that birth-rates are increasing in Western Europe etc., etc., ignore the fact that birth rates are very high amongst recently settled ethnic minorities.
Like it or not, the face of most of Western Europe is changing.
One fifth of schoolchildren from ethnic minorities
White British children are now a minority in almost a fifth of education authorities in England, official figures have shown.
* The report in full
Andrew Porter
Melbourne, Australia
HAPPY RAMADAN
This is how we push back on people of your ilk.....................everybody celebrates Ramadan ........WISE UP!
Dakk
Re: What happens in Vegas
DISNEY IN THE DESERT
I remember discussing a "private sector" approach to fixing Baghdad while wandering one of Saddam's Baghdad palaces last fall. Some enterprising billionaire (of which there seems to be a few in that region of the world) could take on a project of creating a major tourist attraction in Baghdad, the by-product of which would address some of the major economic issues in central Iraq. Appeal to western tourists; exploit the whole "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves"/"Aladdin and the Lamp" theme, and create a "theme park" city based on it; minarets, bazaars, a magic carpet monorail, blue costumed djinns, etc. For the regional tourists, use the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates to create a wonderland of green (trees, grass, etc.), of which there is not an abundance in the Middle East. Start with a large piece of land along the rivers, wall it off and secure it, hire locals (Sunni, Shiite, Bhaalist, etc.), house and care for them on-site (thus ensuring their buy-in to the success and security of the project) and then build the hotels, attractions, and infrastructure then gradually move out from that "beach head" into larger parts of the city.
So as opposed to following the Las Vegas azimuth, the "Disney Land" approach to Baghdad would, in addition to further agitating the radical left, be a more practical approach to the sensitivities of that part of the world. Based on a recent trip to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, everyone I talked with (employee wise) appeared to have sold their souls to the Mouse and were more than happy to be part of the enterprise. Create something like that in Baghdad, then we might be on to something.
RJ
UNFAIR TO THE IRAQIS
From your recent posting on "The Corner":
“Next stop: Baghdad. Convert Saddam's palace into Caesar's Palace and book Wayne
Newton.'”
Wayne Newton?! Sir, please - we are trying to remain friends with the Iraqis...
Major John Tammes
Civil Affairs Officer
108th Sustainment Brigade
MOCKING MAUREEN
Maureen “Brutal Afghan Winter” Dodd.
Around our house she is always referred to as such!
Daniel W Schroder
Texas
TOP-NOTCH REPORTING
What was a bigger mistake the "brutal Afghan winter" storyline or Iraqi WMD's? Do you remember all of the top-notch reporting on the Iraqi military before the war? All of the tanks? (third most in the world, if I remember correctly) The battle hardened veterans? How did the media blow that story too? The only intelligence gathering operation more incompetent that the Bush Administration is the MSM.
Greg Poulson
FREAKING COLD
I'm a US Army paratrooper, and did a tour 3rd Special Forces Group in Afghanistan.
It's freaking cold up there.
The press was wrong about our eyelids freezing off, but they've been wrong about everything else in the war, so we didn't worry about it.
David
PUNCTUATION POOPER
The gambling operation Caesars Palace does not use an apostrophe in their name.
It¹s a very frequent error, but so far as I know, even after changes in ownership, the style continues apostrophe-less.
Excelsior.
Terry
Re: We are the world
NOT JUST ONE CORNER
You mentioned Kalpana Chawla as a good example of the American dream. This is true, but, at least according to Wikipedia, she was also fond of quoting Seneca "I was not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land." I'm sure Couric would approve. A small, but arguably growing elite, has always felt more cosmopolitan than bound to one nation. I'm not sure how significant this is, given that the vast majority of the population will always be more attached to regional and national identities.
Aslak Berg
AIRBORNE AMERICA
Indeed the shuttle crew were an airborne America.
It's much the same with our Olympic teams. They always look so strange compared to other nations' teams, especially during the big opening and closing ceremonies. Some names off the top of my head: Kwan, Yamaguchi, Ohno, Eruzione, Spitz. Some names via Wikipedia from our 2004 summer team: Okafor, Qi Han, Jeschelnig, Escobedo, Rami Zur, Wolski, Kimiko Soldati, Chiacchia, Bhardwaj, Ottiano, Iagorashvili, Boonzaayer, Berg, Bustos, Jung, Spadea, Navratilova, Abdirahman, Famiglietti, Ritzenhein, O'Neill, Flanagan, Keflezighi, Pappas, de Reuck, Culpepper, and of course Williams, Jones, Richards, Henderson, Miller, Davis, Clay, etc.
It reads like United Nations, but it's not. It's America. It's like "we" picked our team from the best of the other countries' teams. In a sense, that's what America is.
JPW
ON THE SPOT
Your Couric post was spot-on and painfully funny. Not that you care what I think, but ... well done.
David M. Cole
Chicago, Illinois
NEVER HEARD OF HER
OUCH!!
By the way, who is this Katie Couric you are referring to?
John Maraviglia
Jersey City, New Jersey
Re: About that Fred Thompson crack
A CRAPPY LITTLE ACT OF APPROPRIATION
Your column about Fred Thompson mentioned a sub captured by British that was attributed to the U.S. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago seems to thoroughly document that it was an American undertaking. What am I missing?
Denise Adams.
MARK REPLIES: No, that just shows how “thorough” this crappy little act of appropriation was. The Enigma operation was conducted by HMS Bulldog, which doesn’t sound terribly American to me, and the U-boat from which it was seized was not the one of the film’s title but U-110. That, too, is “thoroughly documented”, by the Imperial War Museum in London .
STAB IN THE BACK
I must respectfully disagree with your statement that, regarding the terrible "U-571", my British cousins "just gave a shrug, and left the picture to flop all on its ownsome." Granted, the number of Brits with whom I interact is measurably smaller than your own but the film "U-571" seems to have been a greater threat to Anglo-American relations than The Worst President Ever (tm). Perhaps it's some kind of inside joke that I have not understood, but any mention of WWII, "codes", "enigmas", Hollywood, submarines or even "Power Control Modules" results in a long discussion regarding this stab in the back.
In fact, this very day, in our internal corporate news site an online discussion regarding an article entitled "Power Control Module is Brains behind Ford Powertrains" included the following comments:
9. Re #8 Now you have given the game away; they will all know about Bletchley now....Just don't motion the Enigma machine....
10. re #9 - don't worry Hollywood confused the issue with U-571.
Frankly, if I were British, I would take more issue with Kevin Costner as the thief Robin Hood.
Tom Enright
Application Architecture & Performance
2006 TIME Magazine Person of the Year
Michigan
Re: Changing his tune
EVIL WAS AN INCONVENIENCE
Pete Seeger is much like his fellow travelers on the left. For the better part of the last century and in the name of their ideologies and social theories, theirs is a history of throwing people off the back of the sleigh to the wolves. Only, to say, 50 years later, “oops!” But these folks really don’t care. The folks thrown off the back of the sleigh are people, in the minds of these self-appointed elites, who really don’t matter.
Our constitutional republic represents the highest attainment of Western Civilization. That is, the amalgam Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman traditions that above all makes the rights and liberties of the individual paramount. This concept naturally infuriates the above philosopher kings who are deeply offended that there exists a system that allows people, lesser than they, to actually have an opinion and actually make it stick (such as Reagan’s election).
The attraction of these elites, to totalitarian ideologies isn’t confined to Islam (that’s Islam, not a hyphenated euphemism). Dhimmitude isn’t that bad, these people having been doing political correctness for decades out of abject fear of being stricken off the East Hamptons social register. Hitler, Stalin, Che, Castro, Mao were (or are) all, at some point, darlings of the left. You mention the sister of Irving Berlin’s wife wearing a diamond-crusted swastika. From that same era, take a
look at some of the cartoons from the New Yorker. They show a German and Japanese
soldier present at the "burning of New York." But, the caricatures are such to caricature the critics of neutrality who warned about the dangers of the German and Japanese fascists.
Seeger, like his radical fellow travelers never wanted to acknowledge evil because it would inconvenience their pampered lifestyles. War, conflict; such dirty topics not worthy of polite society. As long as it wasn’t they getting harmed, it’s so much easier to appease with politically correct pieties and turn your back.
Eugene Podrazik
Casper, Wyoming
ALL THE GOOD SONGS
Regarding your recent Khrushchevian denounciation of Pete Seeger, we presume you already have read the wikipedia article on Pete Seeger (even if its sentiments might be untrustworthy):
A brief oblique excerpt:
As comedic/political songwriter Tom Lehrer in his 1965 "Folk Song Army" ( Reprise Records): "Remember the war against Franco? / That's the kind where each of us belongs. / Though he may have won all the battles, / We had all the good songs." [17]
One might paraphrase:
Remember the war against Lefties?
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
Though we may have won all the battles,
They had all the good songs.
- and please, no 'Broadway Babies" rebuttals
Tony King
Elgin, Quebec
THE PROTEST SONG CENSORED
Your mention of "This Land is Your Land"
"This Land is Your Land," you probably know, is universally misfiled in the same folder with "God Bless America" and other patriotic songs. But its recent fate is even more insidious, and speaks to the feel-good song trends you wrote about.
The only currently available recording of the song has expunged the verse that makes Woody Guthrie's socialist intentions most clear. It's on (not on, actually) "The Ultimate Grammy Box," put out by the screechingly anti-censorship recording industry itself. How's that for commitment to free expression?
The Grammy Box recording is 40 seconds shorter than the one I have, because it lacks the song's final verse, the one most pointedly against the concept of private property, and the one that makes clearest the socialist message of the song's title. They didn't even bother to edit it out: during the "final" chorus, the song just fades out, a practice that didn't even exist in 1947 when the recording was made.
So we're not just seeing the infantilization of political action through song, we're also seeing the sanitizing of an angry protest song into a feel-good patriotic anthem. At least we can blame the misunderstanding of Springsteen's "Born in the USA" on people who don't bother to notice the lyrics. But Guthrie's message has been literally erased from history in a way worthy of Stalin himself. Will Pete write a song about that?
ps I can send you mp3's of both versions if you wish.
Jay Gilbert
Cincinnati, Ohio
HORRORS AND INCOMPETENCE
So Pete Seeger has recanted his admiration for Joseph Stalin! Pardon me, but I find that a bit preposterous - a tad late, shall we say.
In the 50s, I and other teenagers about my age (most of us would have been military brats like myself) figured, as sophisticates, that the stories of Communist ghastliness were mostly true but probably contained a touch of exaggeration for propaganda purposes. My surprise was great when from the 70s onward I began to meet and to talk with refugees from Eastern Europe, and found that the stories were not only true but actually soft-pedalled the horrors.
At least they were incompetent, we thought. I remember when my father was at SHAPE we all figured that the Warpac forces were as screwed up as the Nato forces - different ammunition, different communications equipment, different tactical doctrine, questionable will to fight on the part of Certain Countries That Shall Not Be Named; and that was a little comfort.
However, in recent years, a friend who grew up in East Germany (he is the fiercest anti-Communist I know, by the way), told me that the East German army at least was kept highly trained and ready to march, westward, on a few hours' notice. Had that been known, or at least appreciated, there would have been quite a few very tight ... at Nato headquarters.
Again, in the 70s works by Robert Comfort and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and associates (I am thinking of "From Under the Rubble") documented not only the horrors but also the sheer blinding incompetence of the Communist regimes. Solzhenitsyn et al. pointed out, for instance, that the USSR was at the time a major importer of grain from the West; while before the Communist revolution Russia and the Ukraine had been net grain exporters, indeed considered as the bread-baskets of Western Europe.
Well, I knew this by the `70s. As did every other informed person. Where the Hell have the likes of Seeger been for the last generation?
John K.C. Lewis
St. John's, Newfoundland
Re: Campus in the Clouds
PERSONAL ENCOUNTER
I read your article "Campus in the Clouds" in the New York Sun. Somewhere in the first two chapters of his book "The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler," John Lukacs talks about Hitler's refusal to meet with Churchill in the early '30's and, more interestingly, Churchill's refusal to meet with Hitler in the late '30's while "[l]ots of Prime Ministers and diplomats accepted invitations." Lukacs states that Churchill's refusal was deliberate as he was fearful if it ever came to war, it would reflect poorly on him. I wonder though if it was more than that.
Churchill had been speaking against fascism and Nazism for years and, looking toward possible future war and his own leadership role, Churchill might have wanted to take away from Hitler something that only a personal encounter would provide: an ability to see Churchill as just a man and not an unknown enemy. I think Columbia gave Ahmadinejad the opportunity to see young college American's for what they are and in his mind they pale next to the Iranian students he was a part of in the 1970's
Stephen C. Kelly
Saint Paul, Minnesota
IF ADOLF HITLER FLEW IN TODAY
The Columbia U incident brings to mind a verse from my favorite Clash song, White Man in Hammersmith Palais. It goes, "if Adolf Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway." Think it ironic that a punch thrown at, I believe, early Thatcherite England misses its target but lands on the academy.
Gerry
Huntsville, Alabama
A SNOWBIRD PARADISE
Could global warming and demographic decline combine to turn the entire planet into a snowbird paradise a la Florida? We'll all be just the right age to appreciate a climate warm enough to alleviate temperature sensitivity! You may have already considered this possibility; please post the article featuring your reflections on such a happy confluence, if one exists. If not, feel free to use the concept in your next debate/rant/interview. Lord knows I have used many of your rhetorical weapons in my minor squabbles with friends, relatives, airport restroom vice cops etc.
Many thanks for your continued efforts on the Right side of history! Tally Ho! (or whatever the RCMP call to arms may be)
Eric Hosemann
Chesterland, Ohio
WHAT’S GOD UP TO?
Not sure if you’ve noted this irony before or not: Almost every month there is a massive earthquake in the world’s most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) and many people die, rest their souls, but whenever there is a natural disaster in the USA it is the work of God showing disgust to the extravagant West (allah ackbar), even though these natural disasters pale in comparison to what usually happens in that part of the world on a monthly basis.
Jon
Edmonton, Alberta
METAPHOR MYSTERY
... you contest the notion that this is the dumbest metaphor used by a sitting president in a very, very long time?
Jeremy A Manier
MARK REPLIES: Ah, progress. You at least acknowledge it's a metaphor as opposed to a formal death announcement.
GOVERNMENT AT WORK
I thought you would be interested in a little history of Nevada's oldest brothel, the Mustang Ranch. In 1999, it was forfeited to the U.S. government due to tax fraud, and for the first time in the Mustang Ranch’s history, it failed to make a profit. Shortly after, the government auctioned it off to a private investor, and soon under new ownership the Ranch was again running at a profit. If the federal government can't even make a profit off the world's oldest profession (a $20 billion a year industry in the United States alone) then how can we trust it to keep the health care industry afloat, or anything else for that matter?
Mario
Chicago
CONSERVATISM IN CRISIS
Please could you help the British focus upon their undeclared debate about whether conservatism (with a small "c") is dead or not, by opining something about the current supposed double-digit lead by "new" "Labour" over the "Tories"?
I sometimes use excerpts from your stuff to help me with the Science students. I hope you don't mind?
David Davis
Southport, Lancashire
THE DANCING DOLLAR
Some time ago (2001?) you’ve made a bold prediction that Canadian dollar would be worth about a quarter US within next five years (I cannot guarantee that you’ve put it in the exactly these words, but it was something to this effect). While I generally agree that unsustainable social spending does that to a currency, the recent developments present evidence au contraire: Canadian dollar is at par with US, and going up… What is your take on it now?
A.K.
Canadian Tax Refugee
MESSAGE FROM THE ‘REALITY-BASED’ COMMUNITY
It must be lonely for you and your tiny cadre craven chicken hawks - like your intellectual Godfather, Rush Limbaugh, left to squawk about "cowards" in the ranks. As the WSJ reports, the business Republicans are trying to disentangle themselves from George Bush and the USS Delusional. Even the dumb money now knows the Republican stance on Iraq and global warming won't work - like Lenin once famously said of another utopian scheme. Welcome to the "reality based community," you dumb ass.
Sergio Rizzo
Berwyn, Illinois
GLATTON FOR PUNISHMENT
You must be a glatton for punishment to run stuff from a guy who calls you a "baffoon". Guess the guy really knows how to press your battons.
Never sarrender, Mark.
John Gross
Beloeil, Quebec
GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
What happened to your association with The Atlantic and your monthly Post Mortem essay? It was my first choice every month and then it was gone and no explanation offered from the editor. Well, I then came across America Alone in the bookstore and I found SteynOnline and all was not lost. Still, what about The Atlantic?
Anthony Murphy
New Rochelle, New York
LAST WORD
PLEASE! PLEASE! Sub for Rush............................
Don
|
