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Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from Canada, America and Britain. 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.
Letter of the Week
A REPROACH, NOT A TRIBUTE
I find your "Song of the Week" segments absolutely fascinating. These columns (and several readings of "Broadway Babies say Goodnight") have given me a tremendous interest in "The Great American Songbook" and have made me an absolute bore with all of my friends who genuinely believe that American music didn't exist before the rock-and-roll era.
I particularly enjoyed the current "Song of the Week" profiling Don George and the provenance of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." I have one small caveat however. You state that Confederate troops used "Yellow Rose of Texas" as a tribute to General John Bell Hood. This refers to their use of the lines,
You may talk about your Beauregard
And sing of General Lee
But the gallant Hood of Texas
Sure played hell in Tennessee
According to Shelby Foote and others the line "The gallant Hood of Texas, Sure played hell in Tennessee" was used by his troops as a reproach rather than a tribute. This verse was composed after Hood and the Army of Tennessee suffered crushing defeats at the hands of Union forces in the battles of Franklin and Nashville late in 1864. Hood had earlier invaded Tennessee after the loss of Atlanta hoping to lure Sherman's forces back north and away from the Confederacy's Georgia heartland. Sherman ignored this threat and sent General George Thomas back to Nashville to organize an army to defeat Hood which he did. Hood retreated from Tennessee with less than half the troops he had when he started his "invasion." The soldiers were bitter and felt that Hood had wasted them. Hood resigned his command within a few weeks and the Army of Tennessee was never again a significant fighting force.
Sorry to write like a Civil War wonk but, heck, that's what I am. Keep up the splendid work.
Jack Shuba
Toledo, Ohio
Re: Reader of the Day
9-TO-5 JOURNALISTS
Well, that neatly demonstrates one difference between reporters, who stop work precisely at 5 like the wolf and the sheepdog in the old Chuck Jones cartoons, and bloggers, who are actually interested enough in the story to think and write about it on the weekend when it's actually happening, doesn't it?
Mike Gebert
Re: Our investigative unit was on the beach
‘AN ATTACK ON AMERICA’
This is from an op-ed about Van Jones by the executive director of the Sierra Club (not some nobody posting on a blog).
"But we shouldn't forgive either ourselves or the Administration if the next time we sense this happening we don't fight back harder, faster, and in a way that calls a mob a mob, racism racism, and an attack on the president an attack on America."
An attack on the president is an attack on America. Explain to me again why liberals aren't really full fledged fascists?
Bill Manuel
Spokane
PRIORITIES
NYT investigative staff still busy? Still picking through the Wassila landfill, no doubt.
Chris Baker
Jefferson City, Missouri
LATE TO WORK
Thank you for your illuminating comments on Van Jones and his endorsement of the 9/11 conspiracy theory. You mentioned the Jews who came late to work at the Twin Towers that morning. In truth, there were Jews who were tardy. There is a Jewish custom to recite a special set of prayers called "Selichot" (Supplications) in the time period prior to Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. In 2001, these services began September 9th in accordance with Jewish tradition. So the prayers on the morning of 9/11 extended beyond the usual time and caused people to come to work late.
Tobi Wolf
Re: The firm hand of the benign strongman
OUR KIND OF COMMUNISTS
Wow! Reasonably enlightened? China? The country of forced abortions, jailing of dissidents and Christians, and generally repressing its people? Friedman has finally gone over the edge. He's making the "communism would work; it really, really, really, really would; if only the right people were in charge" mistake. Idiots.
Brian J. Brandstetter
Fort Worth, Texas
THAT PESKY DEMOCRACY THING
Seems the key distinction between Mr. Friedman's view of society and that of NRO readers is that he thinks government is the center of all things, where that messy democracy thing that NRO readers prefer puts those peskily non-homogenous citizens at the center of all controversies. Clearly we're the ones with our priorities backwards.
Jerry Stanton
CHINA IS CHINA
In reference to your NRO discussion re: China, I had to drop a line to you all. I work for a Chinese company that has offices in America. I've been here for nearly nine years, and it takes new employees, on average, a full year to even begin to understand how China "works." As one VP said to me, "Remember, life in China is cheap. If someone drops dead on the line, there are literally 500 people waiting outside the factory gate for that job, and it's one that would have any American filing complaints with OSHA and HR. Keep that in mind and you might be OK."
Most of the reason for people's resistance to actual China is because they've been reading all the idiotic "experts" who are constantly extolling the wonders of China, the advantages, how they're just booming along. They've not heard the stories that we have, from people who know because they live there. Forced abortions, disappearances, baby formula that kills babies, none of those things jibe with the gushy cover stories of Time/Newsweek/et al. At our company we were surprised that China "experts" were shocked (shocked, I tell you. . . ) that there was lead in the paint of children's toys. We wondered how they could possibly be shocked. Of course there was lead in the toys. It's cheaper. The only reason they weren't coated in uranium to make them shiny is because of the expense.
A "diversity expert" was brought in to conduct two sessions about Chinese culture and was laughed out of the room in the first one. Not a single thing he said was correct, and he got angry and demanded of one "dissenter", "How would you know? What do you know about China?"
To which the man replied, "I've been here for five years, and last year along I went to China ten times, a total of 120 days, not in Shanghai or Beijing, but a little place called ShenZhen near the border of the former SAR, and lived for three weeks at the home of a dear Chinese friend, getting to know his family. I speak on the phone with people in China five nights a week, so I have to ask you: How do YOU know what you're talking about?"
The afternoon session was very different.
So whenever I hear about China from the MSM, I have a very different take on it than the average reader. China is not our friend. China is not our enemy. China is. . . . China, and that is all.
Andrea Grennan
Re: Every man his own Section 13 repealer
VICTORY
Had to send you a note of congratulations on your victory in the Canadian courts today. It is also a great victory for all of us who believe in truth!
Love your new book; thanks for the very nice inscription.
Jamie Extract
Los Angeles, California
READ BY EIGHT PEOPLE
I am sure you'll notice this later when you read the decision, but the one article that was deemed to have been "hate" speech, the AIDS Secrets article (starting at paragraph 189) was read by 8 people in Canada (paragraph 208). My guess is that Lucy signed in 2-3 times and read it, the commission, 2-3 times, and Marc Lemire and his lawyer 1-2 times, meaning it was read perhaps 3, at most, 4 times by anyone in Canada until now, when there will likely be 10 or 15 thousand readers of it (hmm, 5,000 times more readers). As you say, there are more Nazis in a Hogan's Heroes episode than still live in Canada.
I'm looking forward to reading your full article on the topic!
Mark
Re: The Omnipresent President
WHAT, EXACTLY, IS THE PROBLEM?
Just read your article in the National Review entitled, "The Omnipresent Leader" and I have to say President Obama is literally driving you Republicans insane. Have been watching the town hall meeting debaucles, the shouting, the guns, the nasty slogans and one has to wonder what, exactly, is the problem. I do believe that there are some people in this country who just cannot accept the fact that we have a black (albeit half-white) President in the White House. It goes against everything they were taught to believe.....white men rule. Now no one can come out and say that of course, but there are other words being used to describe him, such as Communist, Socialist and words of that ilk. From the eyes of an observer this is flat out racism. Why else on earth would parents not want their child to listen to a back-to-school speech by President Obama? Like I said before......Republicans are rapidly going insane and it's a scary thing to watch. By the way I am a white woman and a senior and I voted for President Obama and he is far too intelligent to ever be boring. After enduring eight years of George W. Bush's attempts to attack the English language, it is refreshing to have someone who has mastered it.
Sue Brown
West Hartford, Connecticut
MARK REPLIES: Hey, glad to hear you still dig the speeches. There's a lot more of 'em to go. By the way, what has race to do with government health care? If you seriously think that conservatives wouldn't be up in arms about this if Hillary Clinton or John Edwards were president, then I'm afraid you're the one who's racially obsessed, not us. Britain's National Health Service was introduced entirely by white men, and I've been pointing out its crappiness for decades. Don't insult yourself by falling back on such clapped out tropes.
Re: There’ll be a test afterwards
STEYN IN SCHOOLS
It's short notice, but I would love to be able to have my children listen to you talk about America, rather than be indoctrinated by the President next Tuesday.
Jim Freeman
Portland, Maine
Re: Things only a Kennedy can get away with
WAITRESS SANDWICH
"his post Chappaquiddick, life-long mission of penance..."
I wonder where the waitress sandwich with Chris Dodd and the pre-rape carousing with his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, fit into that penance? He must have attended a different Catholic church than I did.
Dan Galvin
CO-OPTING THE CLERGY
Also, monarchies typically co-opt the clergy regally on display at the graveside service where the presiding Cardinal (“a family friend”) provided public absolution on the grounds of Kennedy¹s leftist policies (never mind how socially devastating).
David C. Jones
St Louis
NOT WATERBOARDING, BUT DROWNING
Your column ("Getting Away With It") misses one "irony." Columnists like Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post have been calling for prosecution of government officials for using interrogation techniques such as simulated drowning. This week Robinson praised Ted Kennedy for being a "prince" and having "moral clarity." Robinson's column ignored the fact that Kennedy caused an actual drowning. Robinson is either too dense or hypocritical to note that the detainees never went through what Mary Jo Kopechne did.
Les Leinaweaver
Alexandria, Virginia
THE LIFE OF A SINGLE YOUNG WOMAN
From the Official State Media's encomiums for Kennedy comes this from relentless authoress Joyce Carol Oates:
"If one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?"
Is this satire? No, just another example of how academe has destroyed American writing, as our best & brightest have interred themselves in the one place in American society you can't speak your mind. Hemingway drove an ambulance, Dickens was a reporter, London an oyster pirate, Conrad a sailor And gunrunner; none of them were effete academics viewing the world through the pinhole of the NY Review of Books while listening to soothing editorials on National Public Navel-Gazing.
(Related: John Irving's newest novel, it is said "depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course' blah blah blah blah blah. Is this Rwanda? Sri Lanka? Afghanistan? No, it's America, at least what you can see of it from the bunkers at the Iowa Writers Workshop.)
Jeff Percifield
Sacramento, California
THE KOPECHNE PROVISION
KennedyCare should consider the Kopechne Provision for seniors. Under this option health care bureaucrats may suggest dumping ‘em in the river in lieu of surgery.
Thomas Chiapelas
Chicago
UNNECESSARY
It is also self-abasing and very undignified for President Bush to show up to a memorial for a man who accused him of running a torture chamber in Iraq and who invoked anti-Catholic (!) bigotry to defeat a Bush judicial nominee. The fact that Bush considered such a man to be his friend goes a long way to explaining the political train wreck his administration became.
Joe Core
Pennsylvania
INTELLECTUAL COMB-OVER
I thought the late Malcolm Forbes had the best take on the intellectual comb-over that was Ted Kennedy's liberalism when he said that "Ted Kennedy feels guilty about being rich so he wants to raise my taxes" (or something like that). Substitute global warming, uninsured waifs and fun and you get the same outcome.
R J Edwards
McLean, Virgnia
THE FINGER
An interesting video just came onto Youtube. It is Caroline Kennedy's daughter, Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, giving the middle finger to the crowd during Ted Kennedy's funeral procession.
The Boston Herald is also covering this story in their Inside Track section. However, the mainstream media seems to be ignoring it.
Jean Bradley
TOO GENEROUS
I found your column entitled "Things only a Kennedy could get away with" far too generous. I certainly agree that leaving a young lady to die is egregious but I also find his abandonment of the mother of his children in favor of a younger woman to be significant. Worse than these, however, was his reckless attitude toward the value produced by the hard work of American taxpayers.
I understand that Kennedy was author of more than 300 proposals that managed to make their way into our law. I suspect there is an even larger number of amendments that he also authored. Each of these have cost American taxpayers money. I wish I had the resources to tabulate how much he cost each of us. He was particularly good at spending money for the benefit of those who pay little or no taxes but vote Damn-ocrat. Perhaps you have the wherewithal to reconstruct the damages he did in this respect?
Edward J. Fern, MS, PMP
Mission Viejo, California
TASTELESS TROGLODYTE
I didn't think it possible for you to appear even more odious to thinking folk, then I read your tasteless post jabbing at Ted Kennedy before his last day on earth is done.
Stay classy, troglodyte.
David B
NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN
Airbrushing Kopeckne was not quite as complete as the airbrushing of Joe Arena, the police chief of the Island who was whisked-off to St. Albans, VT and never heard from again. Joe became police-chief-for-life in St. Albans to provide the cover that he really was a competent police administrator. Joe passed away a couple of years ago with hardly a footnote in history. He was never interviewed again and remained silent about the incident for the rest of his life. Paid-off? You judge, but i'd bet he was paid handsomely and had his silence paid-for in annual installments.
Bill Ferguson
Reno, Nevada
GUTSY
Gutsy masterpiece. Your last sentence is so true, and it applies to so many scary aspects of the media and public's casual attitude re the Obamas and Holders today. None of their nefarious pasta sticks to the media-lubricated wall.
*In the early aftermath of Chappaquiddick, one of his Ted's pals (Markham or Gargan, I don't remember which) was defending Teddy's behaviour that morning - all the phone calls, etc.- and he said something very significant: " Ted has always depended on others. He's a guy who doesn't even know how to use a screwdriver". Perfect fit for the senate.
John Gross
Quebec
RULERS' RIGHTS
“Droit de seigneur”
Love that term.
John M. McCaffery
Re: Will on Afghanistan
MUDDLED AND UNFOCUSED
As a recent returnee from Afghanistan, I agree with your assessment. We are muddled and unfocused, saddled with a lack of resources and a fractured chain of command. Further, even were we to commit fully to nation building it would take us decades to succeed. There is not much there to allow a nation to cohere and even less reason to believe that that entity would share our interests for long.
An Army Colonel
POROUS BORDER
It seems to me that the only real "solution" that will result in a victory in this war is an invasion & occupation of the Pakistani tribal areas across the border. When you are fighting against an enemy that can slip across a border and you lack the will to cross that border and defeat them in battle you are in a unfavorable long term situation.
Bob Bell
Keller, Texas
WHAT’S THE POINT?
I think you are bringing up a good point about Will's column. If the Obama Administration is not committed to "victory" in Afghanistan and even worst have declared the "War on Terror" to be over, then what's the point? What are we fighting for? Maybe the guys and gals should leave if our government is not fully committed to the fight. Keep it up.
Tyrone
TOP BLOG
This blog is written by a retired Marine who is over here in Afghanistan working for an NGO. He is often brutally honest in his assessments and he's almost always 100% on the mark. If you want to understand our frustrations here on the ground, read the blog.
CPT Erin Steele
BACK TO THE FUTURE
One more thing to blame on the commies. Afghanistan had a primitive but working country until the Soviets decided it wasn't good enough. The best thing would be a return to that day and age. Un-realistic though.
Charles Neely
City of Carrollton
WHAT’S THE END GAME?
Again, I am taking this opportunity to thank-you for writing your book: America Alone. Loved it!
I am tending to agree with you on your point about Afghanistan. I have a son, a Navy medical corpsman assigned with the Marines, who just deployed to Iraq with a special team and whom I am sure will probably end up in Afghanistan. Obviously, I am pro-military in my sentiments and love to meet these guys especially when I had the privilege to visit my son before his deployment. That is why I am, like you, concerned, that there does not seem to be a "purpose" or "end game" for Afghanistan - at least in Iraq there "seems" to be one (???). Perhaps our President wants more folk to see the Afghanistan war more like Vietnam, I don't know. It is not....but it won't take long for liberals to convince more and more Americans that it is. I would hate for our military veterans to be treated like the veterans of Vietnam shamefully were.
I like what Rush continuously says: "The purpose of our military is to kill and break things". That means they are not "nation builders" (accept to protect our own nation so we can continue top "build" on our own freedoms they help provide for us) nor permanent "peacemakers" for other nations. It ought to be: get in, win, show how to rebuild and get out - whatever time that takes. That is probably wishful thinking but.....God bless our troops!
Pastor George Crocker
Rome, Georgia
DO IT RIGHT OR NOT AT ALL
Some questions conservatives need to answer re Afghanistan ...
1. What is the U.S. objective?
2. What is the minimum commitment of troops and dollars necessary to achieve this objective?
3. Given the mind-boggling fiscal demands of Obama's domestic initiatives, what is the likelihood he and the Democrat congress will be willing to authorize and sustain such a commitment?
4. If this minimum commitment is NOT authorized and sustained, what will be the cost in terms of American blood and treasure ... and what will be our return on that investment?
If we're not going to do this right ... if we're just going to Carry On Up the Khyber ... someone will have to explain why the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, more young Americans are worth it.
Ken
Re: Rush Limbaugh Show
JILL FROM ITHACA
Just a quick hello and thanks for that wonderful response on Rush's show yesterday for Jill from Ithaca. I live in a small rural town outside of Ithaca and work at the very liberal Cornell University. When I heard an Ithacan was chosen to speak on air, my first instinct was shock that there was another conservative in town. Yes, I was let down that she was another leftie but your patience and refusal to give up on the debate and try to cheerfully convince her of the merits of the conservative position on health care was the very best thing I have ever heard on talk radio, and I listen to a lot. We get Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, and Lars Larsen up here and all of them would have cut her off quickly and belittled her in some way. Rush would have spoken to her more but your humor and grace was just so much more satisfying. Your words at the closing that we must try to convince the Jill's of the world of our viewpoint one at a time was simply wonderful.
Thank you so much. I love your columns and when you fill in for Rush.
If you do come here to talk to Jill, as you mentioned on air, I cannot help but offer my services to show you around town and buy you a coffee.
Jessica Drennan
POWER FROM THE PEOPLE
You're great on Rush's show and I also read you on Macleans website.
Loved your comment about Silent Cal. There's a tradition in Mass. you may not have heard of. An outgoing gov. never attends the inauguration of his successor. The income gov. is to be honored without the outgoing gov. to distract attention.
On Inauguration Day the outgoing waits in his office. The incoming and his entourage arrive to pay their respects. the outgoing passes on the "artifacts of the office" including a set of keys made by Paul Revere and the Bible carried by Benjamin ("Beast") Butler in the Civil War.
The incoming gov. leaves for the chamber to be sworn in. The outgoing waits alone in his office. As the new gov. speaks the first words of his oath a signal is passed through the hallways to the front window. The last usher waves a white cloth through the window. Across Beacon Street in the Boston Common an artillery battery begins to fire a salute to the new governor.
When he hears the sound of the first round the old gov. leaves the office and walks the deserted corridors to the front of the State House. There are 3 doors. The left and right doors are used routinely. The Middle Door is opened for the President of the United States, for a visiting head of state (head of state, not head of government; the Queen, but not the Prime Minister), and for a departing Governor.
He walks down the steps and down the walk. He crosses Beacon Street and walks into the Common alone. He continues walking until he is lost to sight among all the other people on the Common.
This symbolizes that the power of the Governor is derived from the people for his term of office and when his term ends he becomes again merely one of the people.
Coolidge was our Governor before being elected Vice-President.
(This is paraphrased from Mr. Dineen's excellent book "The Purple Shamrock" about
James Michael Curley.
Russell Greene
Whitman, Massachusetts
Re: The curse of Steyn
FLOODS, LOCUSTS…
Bring on the pestilence!
Rick Lehmann
Concord, New Hampshire
SWEPT AWAY
This reminds me of an old diamond dealers' joke:
MOSHE: So Izzy, nu? How's by you? How's business?
IZZY: Oy! Dun't esk! I hed a flood! I vass ruined! A great plotz of vater came in from nowhere and svept everysink avay! Ploosh! Everysink -- the safe, the inventory, the petty cesh, the receptionist's desk -- everysink! Gone! All gone viss de vint!
MOSHE: A flood! Hmmm, interesting.... Tell me, Izzy,... how do you organize... a flood?
Cheers and continue to take no prisoners,
Jack Jolis
CONSERVATIVE CLINCH
Last evening, I attended a "meet and greet" of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney at a private home.
Having awaited an opportune moment, and by way of introducing myself, I said to him " If I told you I am
a huge fan of Mark Steyn"... I was going to go on to say: would you know why I am here?
However, before I could continue, I was on the receiving end of a completely spontaneous bear hug and kiss!
So there. I think Jason Kenney grokked me, thanks to you.
Karen Hamilton
Montreal
Re: Song of the Week
SUB STANDARD
Most famous "subway" song ever:
"Charlie and the MTA"
How could you miss it?
Shame, shame!
Well, 'bye for now.
Jules E Benard
SPANISH CLASS
The guitar and multitracking innovator Les Paul died recently, and your article recalls a song he and his
wife made famous in 1953. The song is called "Vaya Con Dios", which is Spanish for "Go with God" or "May God go with you".As you can hear on this 3-minute recording, "Vaya con Dios" is pronounced with five syllables: va-ya con dee-os.
Question: How is "Dios" pronounced in Spanish? Is it pronounced in two syllables, as Les Paul and
Mary Ford pronounce it, or is it pronounced in one syllable, like "dyohss"? If the latter, how is this song sung in Spanish? (There must be a Spanish translation, right?) I was unable to find a Spanish version on YouTube.
Wait, hold on! Here it is. That Spanish pronunciation doesn't sound too authentic; in fact, it sounds just like Connie Francis. And the refrain sounds like
Vaja con dyos, mi vida
Maja con dyos, mymor
So "dios" is a one-syllable word. But is "ya" pronounced in Spanish like "ja"? (Later she pronounces "yo" as "jo".)
And here's another Spanish version, introduced by -- wait for this -- Lawrence Welk! Here the singer say both "vaya" and "vadya". And this singer -- named "Ancani" -- pronounces the v-sound in the English way, resting here top front teeth on her lips. I understand that v and b are pronounced identically in Spanish, and not with teeth touching lips. Corrections of misinformation are welcome.
And here's still another version, sung in Spanish by a Greek (Nana Mouskouri) with Mary Ford's
two-syllable English pronunciation of "Di-os":
Mark Spahn
West Seneca, New York
P.S. Want a Japanese version? Here it is...
(Good caller, but not enough allemandin' and do-si-do-in'.)
SURFING THE CULTURAL TURF
Your obit for Les Paul was just superb! Outdid yourself.
I never cease to be amazed by how much cultural turf you cover across your writing, how consistently excellent is your prose, and how much an arrogant smart guy like myself goes so deeply into the learning mode when I read your columns and postings.
On the Harry's Place blog some days ago, some deadly Obamazoid was bitching about how much he hates "humorless bigots". I responded with a link to marksteyn.com, saying "how about bigots with a fabulous sense of humor?".
AP
NOT FORGOTTEN
Thank you for the great piece on Les Paul. I was afraid that his passing would go unheralded. "Chester and Lester" was my favorite album of that period. Thanks again,
Bud Roberts
NOT JEWISH
Can you name one composer or lyricist on Broadway or Hollywood who was NOT Jewish?
I can only think of Hoagy Carmichael.
Bob Schwalbaum
Honolulu
Re: Hannity
LIARS
Bush a 50-50 president?
Not according to the polls I read. He didn't have a 50% approval rating since the beginning of his second term. Get your figures right or stay off the air. There are enough conservative liars already.
Larry
MARK REPLES: Oh, dear, Larry. Have a nice cup of tea and lie down in a darkened room for half an hour and you'll soon feel better. I would have thought it was obvious to you and all your excitable friends that my comparison was with Obama and Bush at the start of their terms. Obama came into an office as the colossus of the world, the bright new dawn, the post-partisan Messiah. Bush came into office as "the 50-50 president" with the deciding 0.000001 per cent of the vote settled by the Supreme Court. Now six months into his term, the God-like Obama - like Bush in the summer of '01 - is Mister 50-50. If anything, I underestimated Bush. If you average out the polls between January and August, Bush fell one point - from 57 to 56; Obama's fallen 16 points - from 68 to 52.
And I'll be happy to compare Obama's farewell numbers with Bush's when that point arrives.
But honestly, you fellows really need to lighten up. This is your world now: A transformative Democrat president with a huge majority in the House and a 60-seat Senate. Bush is gone, Bush is history. And you poor wee things can't get over it: UnableToMoveOn.org. Very sad.
SCUM
When all else fails LIE! You people are the scum of the earth.
James Allen
Re: Live Ticketed or Die
MISSING SENATOR
I, too, live in NH's 2nd district and have only seen Mr. Hodes on milk cartons.
Perhaps holding town halls in absentia might be more productive...
Susan Olsen
Re: Hot new cyber-talent flees blogosphere
FASCINATING NEW TECHNOLOGY
David Olive notes that you won't run across bloggers at the dentist office.
He is perhaps unaware that there is a fascinating new technology called "the internet-enabled wireless telephone" or "smartphone" for short. With such a device the user could (theoretically) access bloggers from anywhere that has "cell phone service". (I'm trying to keep all the technical mumbo jumbo to a
minimum, since he seems new to the technology.)
I say this because I was actually reading your NRO stuff the last time I went to the dentist.
But you have to concede the point that in 15 years you probably will not reach full market penetration for 88 year-old grandmothers with poor eyesight who occasionally go to the library and pick up the Toronto Star because it has been accidentally placed in front of the latest issue of "Southern Living". But that's the risk you take when you flirt with those sultry internet tubes.
Mathias Shapiro
SAVE PAPER, GOOGLE
You are far closer to the truth than Mr. Olive. I commute into NYC twice a week. 5 years ago, my rides on metro north consisted of people either asleep or reading the paper. The sound was either snoring or paper rustling. Now I hardly ever see a paper - instead everyone is reading their blackberry or iphone and the sounds I hear are either snoring or button clicks. The paper crates on the platform at grand central used to be overflowing by 7:30am. Now there are barely any papers in them for one to scavenge.
Of course, The Corner is one of the bookmarked sites on my blackberry. Keep up the great writing!
Alex Gadea
Zuzu's Leaf and Bean Company
SHOVEL-READY CONGESTION
Another excellent column on the stimulus that wasn't, in NRO.
We in Michigan have similar signs along our roadways, although I expect that the signs are imported from New Jersey or I'd be hearing about the revitalized sign industry from our governor. You're probably familiar with our governor; she's very attractive with the sound turned off. Listening to her veers between the hilarious and the outright scary, hence the use of the mute button.
One of her economic tours de force was bringing a joint Dow Chemical-Kuwaiti project to Dearborn, a project since canceled due to the rest of the country joining Michigan in the economic dustbin. The Madame Governor touted 5000 new jobs coming to Michigan as a result of the program. What she failed to mention was that it was no coincidence that the project was going to Dearborn, the single largest Arab-American community in the US, and that the Kuwaiti's would be supplying the labor for the project. It came to Michigan and Dearborn because of a Kuwait desire to locate in a community comfortable to themselves. I am surprised that the President has not re-vitalized the project; wouldn't those be 5000 jobs "saved"?
In any event, back to road construction. Joe Biden was out to cut the ribbon on one of those shovel-ready projects this spring. It was for the widening of I-94 and the reason it was so shovel ready is that they just put the shovels away from re-doing the interchange a mile to the west. Apparently the Feds wouldn't return enough of our highway tax dollars to do the complete job necessary so we settled for just re-doing the interchange last year. Everyone knows that the job done right would have gone another few miles down the interstate to the east, and that's the new shovel-ready project for.........next year?
See, anyone with a lick of sense and half-a-lick of business sense, knows that the highway improvement contracts are let in the late winter, giving contractors time to gear up for the coming season. By the time we experienced our recent stimulating Spring, road contractors were all booked up for the coming season. February or march is far too late to gear up the Caterpillar plant or hire extra crew for large highway projects. Nevertheless, the ribbon was cut and VP Biden made it out of the state before someone sold him a Jeep Compass. Not only the signs went up but the orange barrels as well, eliminating a portion of the third lane that they just added last summer. There has been no construction except some ancillary railroad bridge work nearby. So why the orange barrels and the funneling of traffic, you might ask? ...wait for it.... God as my witness, the official explanation is that the orange barrels are out so that drivers can "get used to" the congestion before the project begins, next summer. Yup, we've created a year's worth of shovel-ready congestion and we've managed to eliminate the need for the shovel...no doubt a cost savings, that. So the main artery between Chicago and Detroit has an artificial bottleneck at Kalamazoo so that the stimulus program doesn't have to resemble Joe Biden's college transcripts. My cocktail napkin calculations project that the project will be done just about the time the Chevy Volt rolls off the line. And if my examination of the commuting habits of Kalamazooan's is at all close to being accurate, the last year of the three year project should be complicated by a massive log jam of dead electric cars in the heart of the construction zone. Good thing we're practicing now, eh?
I am not making this up. Elmore Leonard couldn't make this up.
Guy DeBoer
TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Mark, I read your story about the eerily empty work sites in New Hampshire. I just drove 1200 miles from Houston to Indiana and saw the same thing. Funny the roads in Texas were the best and were being worked on and I saw no sign about Tarp. When we crossed into Missouri miles of road had been torn up and a sign hung saying that TARP was in charge. No one was even working on the roads. On the way back 5 days later, no one was working on them. Our tax dollars at work.
Sandy Docherty
GHOST ZONES
I think I've driven by some of the very same Recovery signs you have. I liked your pointing out that road repair projects used to pop up unanounced, get completed, and then disappear, and always seemed to be manned. Now the deerhunter-orange cones and barrels appear and sit there unattended for months. So in addition to the sign makers, the companies making the cones and barrels are no doubt being stimulated.
In your neighboring state, Vermont, there is a cruel twist. As you know most highway repair zones have reduced speed limits and doubling of any fines for speeding. Recently I came upon a long stretch of road with all the usual indicia of a construction site - signs, barrels, cones, warnings, etc., but without a single worker or piece of equipment. But waiting beyond a curve was a state police car with an officer standing behind it with a radar gun. So even without the safety rationale for slowing down, in Vermont at least you are to be double fined for not slowing down in a ghost zone.
But you ignore one great thing about the stimulus. As Obama boasts, this $800 billion bill was passed with alacrity without a single ounce of pork or an earmark. Got that? Seems Obama was against earmarks before he was for them, and now appears to be against them again.
Does this seem similar to his accusation that those of us who fear rationing and death panels "bear false witness?" We're just wrong, damn it, and Obama will prove it by removing the death panel provisions from the pending bills. So there! This is on a par with our lies about his support for single payer, shown in his own words in a cascading number of videos coming to light. He proves he never supported it by having his Obamacare media flack replay his more recent videos where he promises you he doesn't support it, while scoffing at us for ever thinking he did. So there again!
A health reform plan premised on helping the uninsured morphs into a plan to punish (tax) any individual choosing not to be insured and eliminate any incentive for employers to provide a plan to their workers. I guess we're stupid, or evil or something, not to accept that logic.
John Primmer
South Ryegate, Vermont
SHOVELS NOT REQUIRED
I enjoyed your piece on the stimulus (I prefer porkulus) bill projects. One phrase I have always found especially ridiculous is "shovel ready" on the road building projects. The people who are pushing this notion seem to be trapped in notion that it is still the 1930s, and to generate employment all you needed was to hand Billy Bob a shovel and tell him to put his back into it. Road construction and repair today involves the use of very sophisticated and expensive equipment, which requires some degree of training and experience to employ properly. Road construction today is not nearly as manpower intensive as it once was. The sign you saw showed a guy with a shovel, but when you pass a road construction crew today, how many people with shovels do you see?
Rich DiNardo
REMARKABLE JOB
At the bottom of the article you referenced, I came upon this:
"Gov. John Lynch praised Fitch, who's been working on his own since a summer intern went back to school. The Legislature has already approved a 15-month, $2 million budget for the stimulus office that will ultimately have five, full-time staff including a $120,000-a-year director.
"He does a remarkable job equal to the work of a dozen people,'' Lynch said."
Ummm....I'll do the work of a dozen people for $120,000 a year.
Dave Bergeron
CONE SURPLUS
We have them here all over MD, too. The ones I see are on I-70W between Frederick and Hagerstown. Like you, never knew there was anything wrong with the road before the signs went up. There's some heavy equipment and barrels, no workmen, and the equipment is always in the same place. I've been thinking for weeks that it reminds me of the DC happening in the late 70s:
In the late 70s the feds passed a "Right Turn On Red" law to help with the gas shortage. It was the rage in California and highly touted, despite 50% of the cars in California had driver's front headlights missing. The Feds offered $180K (chump change) to any local jurisdiction that passed a right-turn-on-red ordinance. So the Washington, DC mayor and council passed such a law, gleefully scooped up the $180K, and then promptly spent over $200K putting No Right Turn On Red signs at every intersection in the city. No, I'm not kidding. Most of the city's intersections still have four No Right Turn On Red signs.
Deborah Oliphant
Hagerstown, Maryland
Re: Prostration is the better part of valor
JUST LIKE THAT
The much loved and missed British comedian, Tommy Cooper once said, “I once picked up a book on glue making. I couldn’t put it down”.
Marc Landers
Scotland
SEBASTIAN FAULKS, THE SEQUEL
I was disappointed to read of Sebastian Faulks, the Sequel, in your NRO post; the first Sebastian Faulks was more to my liking. Perhaps you could have him over to the Steyn Cafe and give him something stout to bolster his spirits.
Speaking of which, I am proudly enjoying my new Steyn Coffee Mug--nutty sprinkles and all.
As the crazy newsman used to say: Courage!
Hank Racette
Missouri
THE REAL VILLAINS
Sebastian Faulks has been doing the rounds at the BBC to plug his new book “A Week In December”. Whenever he’s asked about the Koran controversy, Faulks offers an embarrassing little show trial confession about the wonders of Islam and then quickly moves the topic on by emphasising that the real villains of the novel are City of London traders.
Simon Mayo Show, Radio 5 Live
Mayo: "You found yourself in a spot of hot water about some views on the Koran about which you were asked and then I don't know who told the right story. Where are you in that debate?"
Faulks: "Well, that debate is happily closed and I was able to put any misunderstanding perfectly straight in an article I was lucky enough to write in the Daily Telegraph last week which stated my respect and, you know, awe really for the purity of that religion and its scripture. So that debate is behind us, but I hope that 'A Week In December' will generate quite a lot of debate, particularly about the financial system of which it is extremely critical."
Sian Williams
Sian Williams: "You've made some comments about the Koran which have upset some people so we won’t go into exactly what they were, but it's a very tricky area to go into isn't it?"
Faulks: "It is. No, some words mentioned in one context were reproduced in another context. That was slightly unfortunate. Mercifully I was able to set the matter straight in the Telegraph last Tuesday where I stated explicitly my respect for Islam and its scripture so we've left all that behind us. It's rather ironic actually that it should have been this area which would be controversial because the Muslim family in the book is extremely sympathetically portrayed. You'd have to look very very far and wide to find a nicer mum and dad than Farooq and Naseem."
Willaims: "Yes. That's true."
Faulks: "But having said which of course it is a controversial book. The area of controversy that I expected to brew up most is the financial one because in the character of John Veals is this ruthless hedge fund manager…"
A hedge fund manager as the baddie. Yeah, that’s really controversial Sebastian.
D Bull
IMPORTANT PRIMERS
Thanks for the update. I was beginning to think that your pal Mr. Faulks was a ranting schizophrenic. Even for me, a Muslim, the Qur'an is not an "easy" book, though many passages are of wondrous beauty, even in translation. The keys to its understanding are many, as Muslims have discovered over the centuries, whether through careful study of its "outwardness," or through immersing oneself, as the Sufi mystics have, in its "inwardness." First steps to a better understanding of the Qur'an may be found in such works as Frithjof Schuon's "Understanding Islam," a very important primer.
Jeffrey S. Erickson
Davidson, North Carolina
BIT OF A DOWNER
You would be interested that the former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer of the previous Howard Government wrote this article in the Adelaide Advertiser: "The changing face of Europe".
That by 2050 most European Cities will be Muslim majority. And that Europe will be changed fundamentally socially and politically. He seems to agree with your statements, yet does not want to change anything about it.
“Steyn-reader”
CRUCIAL
What’s the carbon footprint of the UK’s 20-page doc telling employees about twitter?
I especially like Appendices C and D.
Blake Krass
Pflugerville, Texas
OINK
You are a pig - stay out of America’s business - Fox news is trying to destroy our country and you are buying into it - you are disgusting.
Suzy Bauer
LAST WORD
Are you sure you’re not from Texas?
Greg Hoffman
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