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Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from Canada, America, Colombia, Britain, France, Norway and Sweden. 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 letters on the complaint against Mark and Maclean's magazine, see Mailbox Extra.
Letter of the Week
DO DO THOSE REVIEWS THAT YOU DO SO WELL
I've much enjoyed your "Memory Lane" Sinatra columns this past week!
Since you're now publishing your Great American Songbook columns in book form, they could well end up as enduring reference sources. As such (and because you seem to be a connoisseur of the detail that went into making each entry into the canon), you may wish to addend your "Witchcraft" column should it ever be reprinted.
Sinatra and Riddle didn't "junk" the verse. In fact, when Sinatra recorded "Witchcraft" the verse hadn't yet been written. In an early (the first?) episode of Hugh Hefner's TV show, Playboy's Penthouse, Cy Coleman claims that after Sinatra released it, that he and Carolyn Leigh decided the song needed a little something more, so they penned an "interlude," as he called it, which could be used as a verse or, as Coleman used it, in the middle of the tune.
As Coleman noted: "It just goes to show you, you really never stop writing a song." The fact that Coleman and Leigh would take the time to "tinker" with a hit gives us some insight into how they viewed their song writing -- they took it very seriously. Let's face it: by the time "Witchcraft" was recorded Coleman and Leigh "had the gig." That they would tamper with success speaks to the improvisational mindset that you refer to when you note that by the age of fifteen Coleman had chosen jazz over classical.
BTW, as you know, Coleman was a pretty good singer -- his God-given voice was okay, but his phrasing was very good. I wonder if that wasn't a key factor when Sinatra first heard the "Witchcraft" demo at Capitol. Not that Frank couldn't pick up on a great tune, but it kind of hits you between the eyes when you hear a song laid out for you, complete with phrasing. For Frank, Coleman's interpretation of the lyric may well have sealed the deal.
Anyway, keep up the great work: Now go do those reviews that few do so well!
Dan Ferris
Chicago
Re: Keepin’ it unreal and
Re: Moving Barackwards
NOT EXACTLY EXCITED ABOUT MCCAIN
I think your corner post on Obama's fading glory among the Democrat faithful is right on target.
But I think we have the same sort of problem on our side. I am a life-long GOP activist, worked for the NRCC in 1984 cycle, run some campaigns, etc. -- I know lots of GOP people, and I don't know anyone who is excited that McCain is our nominee. There's a lot of, "well, at least it’s not Giuliani" or "at least it’s not Huckabee" as the nominee, but there is no one who is jumping up and down saying, "Yeah, I am SOOOOOO happy that McCain is our nominee!"
Personally, I look at Obama and I think, "Man, he's beatable!" Then I look at McCain, and think, "Too bad we don't have a decent candidate."
A lot -- and I mean a LOT -- of my friends are saying that if McCain does not pick a conservative running mate, they will sit out the election. That may be short-sighted, they may change their minds before November, but this is a very widespread feeling right now. I hope McCain and his people appreciate the depth of that feeling, but I doubt it.
What a cruddy election year this has turned out to be.
Susan Stahlfeld
Seattle
YOU’RE A DEADENDER CRACKER
I know you're getting the night sweats over the idea of a black president --ooooga booooga, ya imported f***ing peckerwood - but these silly little asides you're making about thermostats and SUVs only show how far out of touch you are in that little bubble you share with the rest of the disconnected right. This is how little you have to throw at the guy? Why f***ing bother, you dripping douche bag.
There's undoubtedly some nice land in largely white Idaho where you and your stinking little klan of crackers can drive your Hummers around to your heart's content. Why not head out there right now and take your Internet connection with you? You're one of yesterday's people, and tomorrow is about to dawn.
Can't come soon enough if it means assholes like you are pushed even further to the fringe with the rest of the Grand Kleagles or whatever you deadenders are calling yourselves these days.
Sacco Vanzetti
FOUR YEARS OF THE ABOVE
I agree with you that obamessiah is s l o w l y losing steam (or at least I hope & pray that's the case). But I absolutely disagree with your assessment regarding Hillary & her campaigning.
The real issue / reason she is behind is absolutely & totally the result of a media having its collective head up its ASS in regards to uncovering & accurately reporting factual information in regards to the Affirmative Action (Racist Agenda Promoting) BHO.
If & when he is elected, and we hear nothing but racism issues for 4+ years - no one will be to blame more than the biased media for allowing a travesty like this to occur.
“CRO”
WEAK CANDIDATES
Today you write "there is no precedent for a candidate becoming weak" as the nomination becomes inevitable.
My memory is that Jerry Brown won several primaries in 1976 after Carter had clinched the nomination. My impression is that it was perceived to have weakened Carter.
Andrew N. Kleit, Ph.D.
Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics
University Park, Pennsylvania
THE OPPOSITE OF HOPE
On last night's Hugh Hewitt show you said in regards to my junior senator, Barack Obama, "what cumulatively comes across is basically the 21st Century version of Jimmy Carter malaise, that it's the opposite of what America is - optimism, progress, and more and more bountiful good for the country and for he planet."
When you really think about it, what the senator says is the opposite of hope.
DH
Evanston
THE INTERACTION FACTION
There's an interesting article by James Edmund Pennington at AmericanThinker (March 21,2008) which concludes that Obama's standing with working class white voters is inversely proportional to the amount of racial contact. Lots of interracial contact yields low standing, little yields high).
A snippet to get you interested...the whole article can be found here:
"...In this year's Democratic primary results the two phenomena -- extensive racial interaction and poor outcomes for Obama among working class white voters -- have been so universally conjoined that cause and effect can be reasonably presumed.
Without exception, the Wisconsin pattern (little interracial contact) and the Ohio pattern (much more such contact) have correlated with identically opposite results throughout the Clinton/Obama battles: every state outside the South where Obama carried the white vote and won the primary or caucus was one with a small to negligible black population (Wyoming, Vermont, Wisconsin, Maine, Washington,
Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Utah, North Dakota, Idaho, Alaska and Iowa); in every state where a substantial and widely dispersed black population regularly interacts with whites, Obama lost the white vote and lost the primary: Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. I have omitted the candidates' home states (New York for Clinton, Illinois and Hawaii for Obama). Pennsylvania, where Clinton has a commanding lead, will follow the Ohio pattern, as will Florida and Michigan in the increasingly unlikely event of do overs."
Jerilyn Bredbury
NO BUSINESS LIKE NO BUSINESS
A prospective First Lady by the name of Michelle Obama implores an entire generation of young women NOT to consider a career in "corporate America", and it this not to be considered newsworthy enough to comment on within the context of her husband's campaign for the presidency of the United States Of America? What planet are those "community organizers" organizing on? Who would pay the taxes which fully-fund all those COs?
And by the way, how many " community-organizer" jobs are there out there? I read a lot of Canadian and American newspapers, and I've never seen one advertised...which leads me to suspect you've got to be politically-"connected" and "correct", no doubt - in order to land one.
John Gross
Beloeil, Quebec
BIG BROTHER IS WARMING YOU
The quote from Obama:
“’We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,' Obama said.”
"’That's not leadership. That's not going to happen,’ he added.”
This has a special relevance in California where our state legislature wanted to mandate that all
new homes and thermostats have internet capabilities allowing a central government agency switch off our thermostats or change their settings if we are using more than our fair share of electricity.
I would almost be willing to tell Obama to "go ahead and try." The measure was vociferously opposed even in California so if he takes this as part of his platform he will be utterly destroyed in the general election should he secure the nomination.
Gregory Gelfond
CALORIE-TRADING
Some McDonald's restaurants have farmed out their drive-thru ordertaking to remote call centers. Maybe Obama can work out a deal where we make the call center idea mandatory, and the UN runs the whole thing. That way, some greedy American in a big SUV will order a super-sized bacon double cheeseburger, chocolate shake combo meal, they'll pay for said calorie-fest, and then they'll be handed a bag containing a small salad and bottled water. The extra money paid could fund UN sustainable farming initiatives. They can call it "calorie-trading".
Seriously, is this guy running for President of the United States or UN Secretary General? Barack-Barack Obama?
Frank Bennett
Pennsylvania
THEY TOLERATE US! THEY REALLY TOLERATE US!
We must adjust our living standards to what the rest of the world will tolerate? How Carter-esque of Obama. How long until he picks up Carter's lapsed crusade of implementing the metric system?
Paul Chalmers
Vienna, Virginia
BEGGING FOR OIL
What you ridicule is Obama describing exactly what President Bush did in begging the Saudis to please, please raise the oil supply and the Saudis telling him to shove it.
Obama is correct that President Bush wants no sacrifice in regard to energy savings and his sole plan to meet our needs is to beg for more oil. This is the leadership of President Bush that Obama has rightly criticized and you totally misinterpret.
Well what can I expect from someone still sucking at the tit of Lord Black.
Steve Gleit
HUNGRY FOR OBAMA
Obamunism - We should eat less?
The Left's messiah has arrived. In a nation where we pay millionaire Manhattan non-farmers - like David Letterman - to not grow crops, shouldn't we first stop paying folks to not grow crops before we ask the American people to skip meals and go to bed hungry?
Of course, the MSM will not report the insanity of the proposition of an America on a diet to the feed the world because it is such a "power metaphor" that explains the world is poor because of our greed.
In fact, most the people who go hungry in the world do so because of corrupt socialist governments.
John Pitchford
Plano, Texas
HEAT-SEEKING MISSILES
Will I be safe from terrorists if I put a sign on my house saying my thermostat is at 68, but hey, the guy next door has his at 72?
Michael O’Gorman
CHILLING OUT
I froze my butt off this winter, with the thermostat at 60-63 degrees, during a record cold WISCONSIN winter, to save money for gas for my SUV and to pay for air conditioning this summer. I'll be damned if Obama or anyone other than my wallet (or my wife) will tell me where to set my thermostat...certainly not some guys in Iran that smell like camels. "Capitalist Pig" is my middle name. (There's a pork cartoon in there, if we're willing to risk our lives for it.)
Doug Snow
Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin
BEAR FOOD
“It would make no difference to life in this great republic if every ‘community organizer’ in the lower 48 were to be deposited on an atoll in the Antarctic.
Make it the Arctic and perhaps it would save the Polar Bear and Senator McCain and President Bush could feel good about themselves. Allah be Praised.
Robert Harry
Gilbert, Arizona
of 57 states and counting
UNCLE SAM KNOWS BEST
Not only do I think Obama is wrong to imply that somehow we moderate our consumptive lifestyle to please foreigners, I don't think we should concede to any federal, state, or local government within these United States the authority to dictate those lifestyle choices. We seem to be headed down the path toward a time when the federal government can decide what kind of car I can drive, whether I can have that second french fry, and how much electricity I can use in my home.
Efficiency initiatives are a good idea, eating a healthy diet is a wise thing … but I doubt the founding fathers envisioned the constitution as empowering a federal government to dictate on these matters. What a scary future lies before us.
Meg Hunt
WHY DO YOU LOVE INDONESIA?
I think there is one critical point missing in your analysis of the week in Obama. Indonesia has long held irredentist policies towards Australia and Papua New Guinea. The latter two are named in Indonesian school texts as South and East Irian respectively and students are taught they are rightfully part of Indonesia. Barack Obama having been raised in Indonesia for a while (as a Muslim no less) could potentially signal a shift in the strategic priorities of the United States in the Asia pacific.
In other words it's not just the small nation of Israel that stands to lose because of his Dhimmi Carter style foreign policy - other small nations like Australia would likely suffer strategically from weakened foreign policy from our principle strategic ally. Daniel Pipes agrees with me on this point at least:
Ultimately you might also have to choose between your professed love of Indonesia and that of courageous Australia. Bearing in mind also that Indonesia is not really what one would call a model of democracy with violent regional military suppression of ethnic minorities and reserved seats in their legislative assembly for members of the army.
Reuben Horne
NEGOTIATING CONQUEST
Appearance on Hannity and Colmes: Obama's Chatiness With Iran et al.
To me the issue of Obama's open offers to "talk" to all comers comes down to one simple question: of what value are negotiations, or discussions, with those whose only goal is conquest.
Blaise MacLean
Bogota, Colombia
Re: Song of the Week
SEPTEMBER OF MY YEARS
Thank you for the great series on Frank. Growing up a "rocker", your fantastic insights awakened me to the horrible fact that my musical education is ...lacking. So, I'm off to pick up Mark Steyn's American Songbook and a couple of Sinatra's great albums. Here's to the September of my years becoming an introduction to a world that I've missed.
Larry Durham
Easley, South Carolina
SINATRA CD SUGGESTIONS
Thanks for all the insight into the Voice. I have the Sinatra Reprise-Very Good Years single cd compilation which is great. If I want to dig a little deeper into Frank though, say about 4 cd's deep in total, what should I get?
Michael Valihora
Toronto
MARK REPLIES: Well, I get a bit twitchy about these kind of questions. My big recommendation would be to blow a few hundred bucks and get the complete Columbia box (Forties), the complete Capitol "Concepts" box (Fifties) and the complete Reprise suitcase (Sixties on) and fill from there - the Tommy Dorsey box, the Harry James CD, the complete Capitol singles box - and then have fun with all the odds and ends: The brand new Reprise /Nothing But The Best /CD, for example, contains the biggies - "New York, New York", "Strangers In The Night" - but tucked on the end is the hitherto unreleased "Body And Soul" Sinatra did back in '84.
Still, if you're determined to go four CDs deep, let's work through it logically. If you've already got the Reprise compilation, I'd move back to the Capitol years and pick up a quartet of the classic albums. The trick is to get something from all three of Frank's arrangers in this period - Billy May, Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddle. For May, I'd go with /Come Fly With Me /or /Come Dance With Me/. I have a slight preference for /Fly/, just because of the marvelous title song, the killer version of Kipling's "Road To Mandalay", and the "Make a pizza" tag on "It's Nice To Go Traveling", which closes out the album. For Gordon Jenkins, I'd get /Where Are You?/, a beautiful ballad set which includes Sinatra's magnificent version of "Lonely Town". And for Riddle you have to go with a swingin' set and a ballad set, and for the latter I'd take /In The Wee Small Hours /and for the former the all-time great pop vocal album /Songs For Swingin' Lovers /with the all-time great pop vocal recording "I've Got You Under My Skin". Start with those four CDs, and you'll be back for the box sets above.
SEMPER FRANK
Who cannot love Sinatra? As an Italian kid from Long Island, I grew up listening to my parents and their friends keeping a Sinatra record on in the background at all times. You are correct in that he seemed to really believe the words he was singing – the pain, the loneliness, and happiness of loves lost and won.
When my wife and I married seven years ago, we decided fairly quickly that for our wedding song, we would eschew the sappy love songs popular that month and instead go for something timeless. We chose “The Way You Look Tonight” and told our wedding band to play it like Sinatra (his later up tempo version that is). Our friends mostly choose songs that no one remembers now -- yet when we hear a Sinatra recording of our song, it sounds as fresh as it did when he first recorded it.
We will never see another.
Anthony Calabrese
Chicago, Illinois
JUDY’S BASEBALL CONNECTION?
Albert Von Tilzer [composer of “Take me out to the Ball Game” and Judy Garland were born with the same surname. Do you think they were related?
Larry Feldman
Toronto
BOB, FRANK AND HANK
I loved reading your recent (and republished) pieces on Sinatra, and I always find your writing to be a blast. Being a big Bob Dylan myself, I was wondering about a reference you made in one of those pieces to Dylan "pestering [Frank] to make an album of Hank Williams songs." I never heard about that, but I find the notion fascinating. I'd love to know the source of the story if you recall it.
I've also meditated on the subject a little here.
Sean Curnyn
New York, NY
NEVER SEEMED SO RIGHT BEFORE
I can't decide which I like better: your insightful political commentary or your wonderful retrospectives on musical history (I just finished reading "Somethin Stupid" and am old enough to remember its impact on me as a love-struck 26 year old). Don't ever stop writing.
Jim Dawson
Vancouver, British Columbia
Re: Veterans’ administration
A MILITARY MINDSET? COUNT ME IN
Every time I conclude, "That's it! No way I'm voting for that McCain--that semi-socialist, dead-end-idea-of-the-month Republican" the Democrats resurrect him from the grave. "Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, "and he has a hard time thinking beyond that," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday.
"I think he's trapped in that," Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous..."
Oh, ok, I guess I'll have to vote for him. It's true that it will be four years of low-carb socialism, but at least I'll have a Commander in Chief who has a hard time thinking beyond his military worldview. Who wants a president about whom it can be said, "Oh, don't worry about him--he's not dangerous."
Ezra Marsh
Baltimore
THE FIGHTING MCCAINS
In case you hadn't figured it out, the only rule the DemocRATS follow is that they are allowed to do whatever it takes to win. No contradiction is too large, no explanation too convoluted for them. BTW, do remember all the anti-war idiots who kept insisting Bush send his daughters to Iraq? Well, McCain's sons have been or are going to Iraq...and he still supports the war even though it could mean he loses his sons. Guess how much cred he gets for that? Awww, you guessed. See, you're
getting better at this.
Andrew Macfadyen
Omaha, Nebraska
Navy veteran, so I get to support the war. Well actually I don't because I am not currently serving, and even then, I'd have to be in a combat role. But since I'd be serving, I couldn't say anything, so... my head hurts.
MCCAIN’S A TRAITOR?
First you equate the Democratic Party with Islam in saying that you’re either a believer or an apostate, then turn around and refer to John McCain as a "traitor" to his party. Thus making the Republican Party equivalent to the Dems and Islam, no?
As far as I can see Bush has been more liberal than McCain has ever been, yet McCain is decried, derided and proclaimed a traitor. Doesn't that strike you as odd?
Sean MMARK REPLIES:
Sorry if that was unclear. The perceived "traitor to his party" is Senator Lieberman - see Daily Kos et al ad nauseam. The "traitor to Arianna's parties" is Senator McCain - see here.
Re: A nervous flyer among the stars
STEWART SWINGS THE SMITHSONIAN
Jimmy Stewart did record at least one other Cole Porter hit, “Begin the Beguine”. Back in the '80s, the Smithsonian Institute came out with the Smithsonian Collection of Big Band Jazz on vinyl and Stewart's recording of it is included. I remember how surprised I was when I first heard it at how good Stewart was. What you describe with “Easy to Love” also applies. It's been years since I've heard the recording (like most folks, my LPs are gathering dust), but even now whenever I hear the usual version by Artie Shaw or Ella Fitzgerald, I still think of Jimmy Stewart's unexpectedly sweet rendition of “Begin the Beguine”.
Tim Saunders
Half Moon Bay, California
NO REASON TO EXPECT HE WOULD COME BACK
One of my favorite movies that I remember seeing as a kid (home sick with the flu, afternoon early show) was "No Highway in the Sky" with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. That movie fits in with the description you give of Mr. Stewart as a nervous flyer.
Stewart plays a mousy, shy engineer. You could even believe he was short. It starts out slow, but stick it out until Stewart says something on the order of "...and then everything went phlooey."
On his service. I have always thought that if anyone could have said, "please take someone else, I have too much to live for," it could have been Jimmy Stewart. Yet he served in a theater where he had no reason to expect he would come back and would certainly have never expressed the sentiment above. I would say that is real personal courage.
Mark Morrissey
Albany, New York
WHY I LOVED HIM
Thanks Mark for that beautiful 'eulogy' of Jimmy Stewart. I always loved him as an actor and your essay brought back to memory the very reasons why I loved him.
Donna Luchko
ACUTE AND MOVING
You¹re a brilliant man, so I can¹t say anything you write surprises me, but your appreciation of Jimmy Stewart was one of the most acute and moving things I¹ve read about a popular artist. Thank you.
David A Caplan
Re: The sun sets
PAGANS TO THE RESCUE?
As an American Anglophile, I take no pleasure in Britain's demise, but I can't resist the notion that this isn't the first time she's destroyed herself. The situation seems very similar to Roman, Christian Britons inviting the pagan Anglo Saxons into their country to do the jobs Celts wouldn't do. I just wonder, will historians be able to identify a new Vortigern in this latest episode?
Anthony Bloch
BUMMER
Man you bum me out, as we say out here in California. Your post on The Corner regarding Islamization of the UK, I mean. I loved learning from your book, but I'd like something to give me some hope things will turn around. Throw me a bone, will you?
Smyth
WE CAN NEVER CHANGE ENOUGH
Since 9/11 we have been thrashing about trying to figure out how to right the wrongs we have done to the Muslim world - from Andalusia to Indonesia. The first question we asked was: "What did we do to deserve this?" That is, it must be our fault.Some of us have been consistently pointing out that it's not what we've done but who we are that enflames the Islamists.If that's true, and I fervently believe that it is, the only way to ameliorate the situation is to change who we are. Your narrative "the sun sets" on the NRO Corner marks a point on the curve we are speeding along. We have already curtailed our free speech with the cartoon fiasco and prosecuting "hate speech," as you mightily well know. We can never change enough to satisfy them. Until, that is, sharia law is established everywhere, and the caliphate has been not only restored, but expanded globally.
The world we live in is a bizarre amalgamation of Orwell and Monty Python.
Roger W. Barnett
Professor Emeritus, Naval War College
Newport, Rhode Island
CROSSED OUT
Mark, the Union Jack flag days are numbered also. It has a cross in it which will change to a green crescent. Maybe in our lifetimes.
Paul A Hummell
THE LION ON THE SLAB
I had planned to live in England after my graduation from Oxford. But after being there for 4 years while in University, and watching what was being done by government and other institutions, I headed for the exit soon after graduation. It saddened me to see a once great nation lie down before the beast to be eaten without so much as a murmur of protest.
I acquired many, many good mates during my time in England, but they are also beating a path to anywhere that understands the dangers of Islam and not looking back. What a shame.
Joshua
Re: Daddy’s Little Girl
SEX CHANGES FOR KIDS
Sometimes I wonder the same. It becomes difficult to defend my American culture, much more, Western Culture at large, when there are stories like this present and plentiful. I feel as though while I defend my Christian faith against Islam, I defend the perversion of the Western world in their eyes.
In 10 years when this girl gets over her confusion, she will be a mess trying to figure out how to be a woman when she never learned how to be a girl. A mom that refuses to show her how to be a woman and instead thinks herself a good mom by "standing by her decision" will be of little use then as she has proven now. Loyalty to stupidity is not a mark of goodness.
I feel for the father. As a father myself, I can imagine the anguish.
Mike Porter
IT’S NOT A LIFESTYLE CHOICE, IT’S A TRAGEDY
Mark, I love your writings, I own America Alone (in hardcover!) and have recommended it to my friends, I have learned a lot from your writing on music. I admire your conservative opinions, and share them enthusiastically.
But I am married to a transgendered male-to-female. I didn't know when we married this would happen. She was hoping marriage might stave off the need. I have become familiar with transgendered folk from attending meetings and seeing a therapist specializing in the problem. It's not a joke, not a lifestyle choice. It's a tragedy, like being born deaf or blind or insane. It's very real. My husband knew as soon as he figured out there were boys and girls that he should be a girl. Drove his parents nuts with his insistence and arguing. They dragged him from doctor to therapist to psychologist. Nothing changed his mind. Puberty was a nightmare.
I am convinced that had I convinced him not to go through with the whole thing, hormones and surgery, he would be a suicide. He makes a very homely woman, and I am in the peculiar position of being legally married to a woman (and I am not a lesbian). But we are very incredibly compatible in every other respect. She has a PhD in nuclear physics (but worked mostly as a science museum curator, now retired), and I write murder mysteries.
If the problem had been identified early, and proper medical treatment begun, I might have met Ellen Rose and become her friend, and she would not be six feet tall with enormous feet and knobby bones in her face. I know it sounds like a joke (one thing my therapist helped me do was laugh about it -- God plays some very cruel jokes), but it isn't, not really.
Mary P. KuhfeldHALTING PUBERTY
I have been following the growing trend of permitting pre-pubescent children to begin hormone therapy to delay or retard puberty for sex change purposes with growing alarm. When I was approximately 12 years old, I developed a catastrophic thyroid disorder that had the practical effect of causing precisely the delayed development that these doctors are intentionally creating. Over 20 years later, I am still dealing with the health consequences of this. I find it deeply troubling that health care professionals are so willing to tamper with these children's hormone systems at such a fragile time. I do not, for one moment, believe that these doctors know the long-term consequences of this treatment. I was under the impression that using children for medical experimentation was forbidden. The breezy manner in which it is assumed that doctors can do simply halt puberty without there being serious, long-term health consequences is very troubling.
On another note, I returned to the States yesterday from a week in Canada where I took great delight in purchasing a copy of America Alone complete with soon to be banned in Canada sticker. This was made all the sweeter by the look of disgust on the clerk's face as she checked me out. I take my joy where I can.
Thank you for helping me to laugh my way through our civilizational collapse. Might as well go down smiling.
Name withheld
ILL INFORMED
How can it be deemed that a 12-year-old child can make an "informed decision" about ANYTHING, particularly something of this magnitude?!
Disgusted,
Dick Rinehart
WHAT A CROCK
"The child's lawyer told the court she considered the girl capable of making an informed decision..."
What a crock. If she were having sex with someone, would the Judge consider her 12-year old decision making process "informed"? What if she were drinking alcohol? Driving? The judge should be disbarred for letting a 12 year old make a decision of any legal import, let alone a sex change. Maybe you're right. The Muslims might outlast us, because they're surely stronger than us when it comes to this foolishness.
BTW, just bought your book in paperback. Looking forward to reading it...
Douglas Stanley Jr
TOO ABSURD TO SATIRIZE
When I was much younger, I read Juvenal and aspired to be a great satirist. Only someone that loves a society and wants to preserve what is good in it can write satire said my Latin advisor. While I'm finally getting to the age when it might be appropriate to write satire, but how can anyone write effective satire any more when the truth itself is so absurd.
C. Thomas Ludden
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
LOTS OF SEX CHANGES IN IRAN
If anything, the Islamic world may have it up on the decadent West in this field, according to the Wikipedia entry on "Homosexuality and Islam"
Within Shi'a Islam, thinkers such as Ayatollah Khomeini have argued for the legality of sex-change operations if a man is homosexual, and feels effeminate. [17] Khomeini's original fatwa has since been reconfirmed by the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is also supported by many other Iranian clerics.[18]The law remains in force in Iran, where the state will pay a portion of the cost for a sex-change operation.
See also here.
Christopher Brown
AND MORE
With respect to your remarks on the Australian girl who wishes to be a boy, you suggest that Islam would oppose this. Are you aware that Iran has sex changes? A lot of them in fact. See here .
David Young
STOP RESPECTING SIXTIES LEFTOVERS
Remember, the vast majority of people in the west also oppose giving sex change hormones to a twelve year old girl. The problem is not excessive support for Australia's criminal farce, the problem is the public's terminally ill but lingering respect for the judiciary. It's far less societal sickness than judicial sickness.
Even to the extent that children are making these “decisions”, they are symptoms of excessive respect for the education industry, which preaches weirdness uber alles. Yes, real people will sometimes support ridiculous decisions, but check back five years later. Peasants with pitchforks generally wake up and fix things when they realize what's happening.
Give parents power over the schools and the nonsense will be restricted to the Gorky-like regions where we store our 60s leftovers.
James Eckert
GENDER RECOGNITION CERTIFICATES FOR ALL!
You quote the Sheffield Telegraph as reporting (“The internal contradictions of the PC utopia”)
“Emma, aged 42, has a birth certificate and a ‘gender recognition certificate’ to prove her
legal status as a woman although she is still waiting for final surgery to make her transition from male to female physically complete... “
So, Emma has "legal status" as a woman without final surgery to transition to a female. Apparently the bar to obtaining a "gender recognition certificate" is so low it wouldn't trip up anyone. Why then would anyone underwrite the expense of surgery once legal status has been obtained? Should something as inconvenient as genitalia get in the way of transitioning to a female, when all that is necessary is a gender recognition certificate? It's not as if the Y chromosome is being swapped out for an X chromosome.
Seems Justice Kennedy was on to something when he wrote of "the right to define one's own concept of existence." (Though, it might have been chaos that he was on to.)
Forbes Tuttle
New York, NY
Re: Your car can’t run on Congress’s hot air
WE CAN’T AFJORD IT
Great piece on the oil problems in the US.
However, you think you've got it bad at USD 4 per gallon.
Over here in Norway we are now heading up to USD 13.60 per gallon - and much of it is, you guessed it, taxes.
Christopher Petrie
Norway
WE ARE THE SAUDI OF COAL
How selfish is it for us, to use up oil pumped out of Canada, Mexico, Saudi, Iraq, So America...when we have all we need off the coasts and in AK? We say let them spill it on their sand, but not in our backyard!
The Germans converted coal to fuel in WW2, we are the Saudi of Coal...and we starve people to make fuel out of food! When will the politicians/greens wake up!
The SELFISH angle should be used to breakdown the "greens" argument. We can produce oil with the latest technology with the cleanest results. This would have a major affect on the oil market.
Richard Lee
Mission Viejo, California
FORCE CONGRESS TO DRILL HERE
Regarding your latest article at NRO, "fill her up with hot air", While I agree the idea of suing NOPEC for gas prices is ludicrous, I do wonder if this might not be a blessing in disguise.
Is there any chance that this NOPEC legislation could be used to force Congress and/or the States to allow offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and off the continental shelf off the coast of California?
Economists could testify that there is no doubt that these bans have limited the supply of oil products in the US and therefore have had a "direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price, or distribution of oil, natural gas, or other petroleum product in the United States.”
Am I just thinking wishfully sir, or is there a chance that by passing this legislation congress may in fact be hoisted upon their own petard?
M.W.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
THE SIPHONING OF REOURCES
Congress has sat on their hands for two years, watching China and India prepare to drill for oil in Cuban waters 90 miles from Florida beaches. I don't often agree with Senator Foot-tapping Craig, but he has a good point in this old article that gave warning of the siphoning of resources in 2006.
Meanwhile, our country plans to change our national energy needs with a few windmills tilting and corn producing ethanol measures while our food and energy bills increase. This is a dream that is not reality.
Starting this year, there is a great siphon sucking oil to Asia that we could be using and freeing us, for a time, from the Middle Eastern oil barons.
I think if a presidential candidate would suddenly startle people out of their election year stupor with a promise to drill in the Gulf and the Arctic reserves he would be elected (I don't say she because the royal she is no more after her Robert Kennedy gaffe).
I hope McCain's people read your column and act against environmentalists---how many
are they that could help him in this election? I don't think Al Gore was probably going to vote for him anyway.
You were correct in saying, we can't solve everything "But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon." Amen. It is time for the US Congress to wake up from their fugue state of denial and listen to the collective voices of the people who put them in office.
I agree with this quote by Will Rogers: "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer." Actions do speak louder than pipe dreams.
Lin
GOVERNMENT PROFITS PER GALLON
Great column on the recent Congressional "Big Oil" beatdown! I think the statement by Rep. Schultz is absolutely the dumbest thing I have heard any elected official say, and there is some pretty stiff competition for that title. I especially liked the barnyard animal analogy. Here in California in addition to the 40 cent federal tax we pay an additional 60 cents in state and local tax per gallon. I wish one of
the oil executives had the balls to stand up and ask if oil company's profits are obscene, what does that make government taxes? Government entities make more on a per gallon basis than the oil companies, and the oil companies have to work for their profit. As long as our elected officials spend all their time trying to find a scapegoat instead of a solution we will continue sending hundreds of billions of dollars to countries that fund terrorism.
Chuck Jones
Anaheim, California
Re: The right to health care
THE RIGHT TO FREE MEDICAL SCREW-UPS
Hi Mark - you say,
'in Levin terms, the "right to health care" is the right to be put on a waiting list'.
How charmingly naive. Come to Eastern Newfoundland! Come to the land of "Eastern Health" (an Orwellian name if ever there was one). You will have access to a wide range of tests, and it is possible, even likely, that access will be fairly speedy; though that is certainly not to be counted on.
Furthermore, some, but not all, of these tests will be performed correctly. If your tests have not been performed correctly, and Eastern Health finds out about it, it may (or may not) order them redone. But they probably won't tell you. Even if the initial tests show that you are OK, and the revised tests show that you are NOT OK, Eastern Health may or may not let you know; so if that swelling keeps getting bigger and bigger, and more and more painful, you won't be unduly alarmed.
Of course we now are going through the inevitable judicial review, which has the few remaining oncologists brushing up their resumes and reminding themselves that the weather as well as the profits are better south of the border. Our conscientious Premier, Lord Danny the Williams, has duly noted that the judicial inquiry is making a bad situation worse, and is trying to shut it down. However, the local legal class (imagine really mean versions of Rick Mercer, or Rex Murphy with a bad bad hanggover) are in feeding frenzy mode.
You can follow the gory details as they unfold, here. I don't ordinarily recommend any sane person to watch or read CBC but CBC NL does mainly just report news.
John K.C. Lewis
Department of Physics & Physical Oceanography
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, Newfoundland
NOT A RIGHT IS WRONG
Is healthcare a right of the American people? If it is and our current system leaves 47 million without coverage, shouldn't we change the system? Of course if you say that healthcare is not a right, you can claim that the current system is fine especially if you have good coverage yourself. If healthcare is a right, what kind of a system would be the most efficient way of delivering acceptable healthcare to everyone, what would such a system cost and how would we pay for it? Practically, I don't think running on a claim that healthcare is not a right is a winning hand in this election.
Robert Hurley
IF SOMEONE HAS TO PROVIDE IT, IT’S NOT A RIGHT
Obama simply doesn't know what rights are. Saying you have the right to health care makes as much sense as saying you have the right to a free computer, or the right to a speedboat. Someone else has to provide it - so it is not a right.
Another look - if we all have the right to health care, doctors who leave at the end of their shift are denying us our rights. The freedom of doctors to take vacation or go home conflicts with the right to health care. I'd call that the tip of the nose which ends the right to health care punch. Or perhaps when it has to be funded via tax dollars so that it is "free".
Obama has leftitis. It is increasingly common. You can read all about it assuming your right to free internet access hasn't been denied.
Jeff Walker
FREE EVERYTHING!
I asked a liberal friend who desires nationalized health care the following:
How would an individual rank the following in terms of what they desire? Food, housing, healthcare.
Healthcare would, of course, be last. Yet, everyone should have a right to healthcare? Why is the Left not formulating grand plans to feed and house the millions of hungry and homeless?
He said he would have to think about that one.
Cesar Alaniz
RIGHTS AREN’T FREE
Does a "right" to bear arms necessitate the government providing me a firearm? How is health care different?
Jim MacGregor
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Re: America Alone
IT’S HAPPENING HERE TOO
Regarding the missing Germans (“Where have all the Germans gone?”) obviously this is happening in the US also, and it seems that a lot of people are missing the implications.
A couple of years ago when Bush was pushing private accounts for Social Security, we saw the same thing.
As a retiree, you can hold (a) cash, (b) subprime mortgage notes, (c) stocks and bonds, (d) the government's promise to tax workers and give you the money or (e) a huge pile of feathers. And it matters not one bit which one you have UNLESS there are enough young people working to feed you from their surplus.
It all comes down to the demographics. The Social Security proposals tried to make the point that the problems with "d" could be solved if we just switched to "c", but that's not true. The demographics are there no matter what.
Jeff Miller
SO LONG, FAREWELL, AUF WIEDERSEHEN ….
"More Germans left the country in 2007 than in any year since reunification in 1990, new figures from the Federal Statistics Office reveal. ...
The latest numbers seem certain to add to concerns that Germany is headed towards a demographic crisis with some experts fearing Germany's shrinking and ageing population will cripple Europe's largest economy in coming decades."
With gratuitous photo of scantily dressed supermodel.
Debby
MARK REPLIES: You’re right. For the fifth straight year, Germany is in net population decline. That's to say, the "native German population" is declining so steeply that not even the dramatically higher Turkish birth rates can make up for it.
Go to any town on the east German plain. You can see it for yourself.
It starts as a "cultural problem". Now it's an economic problem. They're now a strictly honorific member of the G7.
THE EURO DEATH WISH
You don't do a lot of economics commentary, but the Euro death wish has economic consequences too. Some are starting to notice and this: is a well written note on the problems of not enough young people to pay interest to old farts who were too busy having fun to breed a few kids to look after them when they got old.
Cheers, only it ain't cheery.
Fred Z
SO RIGHT ABOUT SWEDEN
Recently watched you in a interview with Michelle Malkin at Hot Air, I believe the topic was "Islam and the West".
I have some reflections on this interview.
In the interview you mention Sweden repeatedly; and this email is mainly about that. Well, frankly, it's more about how absolutely correct you are in the statements made.
One statement really caught my interest, namely how the mass immigration isn't "sold" to the Swedes on a truthful and solid base about how this changes our society. This is of high topicality right now, since it has come out that "public service"-media cut and paste their news reports on arbitrary decision. This is done under what's called "multicultural journalism", diligent cheered on by no other than the prime minister himself; Fredrik Reinfeldt. "So the people won't get the idea that the multicultural society isn't working", as he puts it.
In other words, Sweden has a media that doesn't reports on events in our society as it has happened or how society appears and develops. I don't know if you are aware that all Swedes have to, according to law, pay for the "public service"-media even if one never in - where it's very hot - would choose to watch it.
Sweden has a center-right government these days. Well, at least that is what it's called. It doesn't really matter what political party wins the election to run the government, since most of the system has been built up under decades of socialist government power. Political parties doesn't change government, government change the political parties. Add to this the total lack of public debate, with left-wing-extremist who in a SS-manner assaults politicians from smaller local parties; threatens them very bad to leave politics.
My name is Marthin, and I study politics at a university up north Sovi.. Oh, I should write Sweden. I have not given up.
There are tons of facts about Sweden not told, but I aim to make that happen.
Marthin Andersson
Sweden
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?
Is your latest mention of Muslim British Police giving up safe house addresses maybe one of those "Too good to verify" stories? I remember your claim of separate swimming at Parisian Municipal pools... and after many phone calls (I'm Jewish, live in Paris, and would love a separate swimming pool...!) there is no such thing!
Could you forward your sources??
Tsipora Zerbib
Paris
MARK REPLIES: I don't believe I have ever made any claim about "separate swimming at Parisian Municipal pools". I did refer to gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools - if memory serves, I think it was Lyons or points south.
Nor was it I who wrote that Muslim British Police give out safe house addresses. In a post at National Review's The Corner, I linked to an editorial by The Church Of England Newspaper which mentioned that fact. See here. So your request for sources should be more properly directed to them.
However, since you ask, I believe they're referring to reports such as this one ("Asian" is the preferred media euphemism for "Muslim"):
"Several women's groups, particularly in the Midlands and northern England, say they are often reluctant to go to the police with women who have ran away to escape violence because they cannot trust Asian police officers. Zalikha Ahmed, director of the Apna Haq refuge, says:
"'We have to be careful with them especially the Asian ones. We don't visit the station when certain Asian officers are on because some of them are perpetrators, and one of them on record said that he would not arrest someone who used force on his wife. Some of them would just expose us for what we do.'
"Another worker in a women's group in the North, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said:
"'We had instances when a [Asian] chief inspector offered his help to a family by tracking a girl down - we were appalled."
"According to some women's groups such problems appear to be practically common in the West Midlands police force. Shahien Taj, director of the Henna Foundation, a women's group in Cardiff, says:
“ 'There have been cases of runaways and women being re-housed where members of the police department have passed on their information to the Asian community network which then tracked down the women. This can also be applied to community leaders and councillors.
"'Recently I had a case in Birmingham where a woman was dumped outside a shop at seven pm with her three children. I made calls to a community leader asking for help and he said it was the wrong time of the week and day [Sunday]. A police officer said 'why don't you let me deal with the case?' and the woman said she can't trust the police - because nine times she had run away and nine times the police just returned her to her family where she got abused. On all these occasions the police told the husband where she was and sent her back to them.'"
This aspect of the report was covered in stories such as "Asian PCs Blocking Crackdown On Honour Killings" by Daniel Boffey and Miles Goslett, which appeared on page 47 of Britain's Mail On Sunday on February 3rd 2008:
“SOME Asians in the police and in Government jobs are blocking the crackdown against so-called honour killings, according to a report.
It is alleged they are not only failing to help desperate women trying to flee abuse and arranged marriages but are actively encouraging punishment for those they believe are breaking traditional taboos.
"Terrified victims who seek official help are even being tracked down by a network of Asian men working in Government departments and social services, according to a study written by the think-tank Social Cohesion.
"One woman was found by her family after she signed on at a Jobcentre where a member of the Asian community was working.
"The report also claims some Asian police officers actually return women to their abusive families or refuse to act against men enforcing traditional roles.
"Meanwhile, non-Asian officials and police officers are scared of acting against families who abuse their relatives for fear of being branded as racist, the report says.”
So maybe it's the easy slur of something being "too good to verify" that's too good to verify.
A FELLOW ‘DEMOGRAPHY JUNKIE’ WRITES
For a minute I thought it was you writing the second half of this article. Hope it is of some use. Cheer.
"The population explosion on Europe's doorstep" (Lionel Shriver), London 'Times' 18 May.
Alan
England
GREY AREAS
Forget the fish, it's the demographics that ate Pittsburgh!
And you thought Russia was in trouble.
BTL
Re: Vertigo
STILL GORGEOUS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
I spent many years in California as a young man and saw a fair number of the top female stars in person. They were almost invariably unimpressive, with the exception of Kim Novak, who I saw many times in Carmel after she left Hollywood. On the screen she looked like a bimbo, in person she was drop dead gorgeous and a very nice person. I noticed your comment that she still looks fantastic these days. Good for her, she deserves it, even though she must now be well into her 70's.
Pat West
Toronto
WORLD WEARY
I remember some time ago that you referred to an organization - either World Vision or World Relief - as leftist. Which was it? I ask because my church has done some "partnering" with one of them, and I want to make sure it's not the wrong/left one.
Thanks!
Paul Hempel
Carol Stream, Illinois
MARK REPLIES: Are you sure I said that? I don't recall it, but my general view is that
any organization with "world" in the title is suspect (other than Wayne's World).
JUSTIFY YOUR VIEW ON GAY MARRIAGE
I write as a great fan of yours on a great many issues. But recently I read, in a transcript of a Hugh Hewitt appearance, that you're against the recognition of gay civil unions passed by the legislature in New Hampshire.
How in the world could you be against such a thing? You want to protect marriage - fine, it isn't called "marriage." But if you've ever known gay people at all, do you think that prohibiting legal arrangements between them is going to make them all become breeding heterosexuals? I assume you don't want to create the kind of hetero marriages where gay spouses get their romantic satisfactions on the down low, so to speak. Is there any point to making gays jump through hoops in order to get the simple rights of couplehood - i.e., inheritance, next-of-kin hospital visitations, etc.?
We differ from the Islamists in the tolerance we show our minorities, no matter what our religion says about them. We differ from the Europeans because we assimilate minorities into our culture, rather than letting them fester into a toxic fringe. Who teaches these things? Mark Steyn!
Please enlighten me how you would justify your view on this issue.
Big M
Philadelphia
SPEED UP WITH THE SEQUEL
Wow. I read America Alone awhile back and really wish you would do a follow up to it. I read probably 2-3 books a week when I am in the mood. I have to say that you are probably the most brilliant writer that I have read and sometimes you write a little over my head, but that's okay because I am willing to always learn.
Please keep up the good work and thanks for being on the right side.
Jeff Flowers
BABY BONANZA
I have just finished reading your wonderful book "America Alone". To let you know how much I agree with the thesis, I would like to tell you that my wife and I already have five children and plan for more. Keep up the good work!
Dean Clouse
Addison, Texas
WISDOM FOR WIMPS
Mr. Steyn, I just bought and read "America Alone" this weekend and I wanted to thank you. It is one of the very best books I have ever read. I have a wimpy lefty brother-in-law that I will force to read it. Thank you for your outstanding effort in writing this book.
Michael Jarratt
Mesa, Arizona
CONVERTED DEMOCRATS
Thank you for your clarity and brilliant writing. I love reading your blog as well as seeing you on the news shows from time to time. As a former Democrat (I am a Mexican Jew so I was convinced I belonged in that party!) I take comfort that you are so eloquently making the case for reason and right and supporting my country even if my own countrymen seem to be working against our own interest.
Nora Straight
Surfside, California
CRAZY DEMOCRATS
Ah, yes. Whatever happened to the good ol' days when Americans were cowering in fear and lashing out at real and imagined enemies of every sort? By all means, let's keep our fingers crossed for another terrorist attack so the nation can return to its senses--which according to you means seeing engagement as appeasement, torture and denial of due process as justice, and perpetual war as peace. The sorry neo-con record speaks for itself Mr. Steyn. Rather than analyzing the 30% of crazy
Democrats who believe 9/11 was an inside job, you'd do better to analyze the 30% of crazy Americans who think Bush is doing a good job.
Sergio Rizzo
Atlanta, Georgia
TARGET PRACTICE
Yikes. We have now officially succumbed.
Justin Hart
EUROBABES AND ROUGH TRADE
Mark, I've just read your NR post in which you weigh in on the hot topic of which Eurobabe you are most like. While I think the great minds of our time will certainly have a heated debate on this one, you suggested Anita Ekberg but not Mamie Van Doren. This is only the second time I've seen these two names set one after the other. The other is in the lyrics of the Rough Trade song "High School Confidential". Were you sub-referencing consciously or subconsciously? Or is this a hidden message that you see yourself as the Carole Pope of our time?
Jim McReynolds
BOY BARDOT?
"Face it, Mr. Steyn, you’re one sexy bitch!". Mark Steyn - As sexy as Bardot, but more awesome. Steyn - As sexy as Bardot, but does more damage when dropped from 50,000 ft.
Alexander Kowalyshyn
LAST WORD
Not in any world of quasi-sane heterosexuals are you in any way shape or form Gina Lollabridgida (DuckaYou Heada!) or the Bridget Bardot of Canada. I am a huge fan of yours, but such wild rhetorical flourishes should be stopped immediately. I know you are not responsible, but lest you get a swelled head (or bust) -- it just ain't so. You're not even Morganna the Kissing Bandit (Google it) of Canada.
Troy Hinrichs
Riverside, California
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