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Thank you for your kind and unkind letters from Canada, America, Britain, Israel, Iraq and Australia. Mark reads all the letters, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Drop a line to Mark's Mailbox and if you're lucky enough to be 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
HOW A TENOR SHOULD DIE
Here is a bit of opera lore which may be new to you. John Alexander, who was lead tenor at the Metropolitan Opera for many years, was also my father-in-law. His career was cut short by heart disease, but his love of performing never waned. He had retired from singing and was teaching in Ohio when an invitation to perform in his hometown, Meridian, Mississippi, was received.
Not wanting to disappoint his hometown fans, he agreed.
His last number, something of a signature tune, was "Nessun Dorma".
He was quite frail, suffering from advanced congestive heart failure, but he gave it his all. He left the stage as the crowd roared. Backstage was his wife, Susie. He told her that he was tired, sat down, and died, the cheers still ringing in the air.
Now THAT is how a tenor should die!
I love your work.
Andrew Batten
Melbourne, Florida
Re: No weeds in Westfield
WE LOOK FORWARD, NOT BACK
I'm not sure I would put much stock in the 9/11 memorial issue. Generally, the US has not been particularly swift in erecting war memorials. Examples:
1. The Prison Ship Martyrs (who represented the bulk of American casualties in the Revolutionary War) did not get a monument until the 1880's - more than a century after their deaths.
2. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch (commemorating the Union Army of the Civil War) in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn was completed in 1892.
3. There was no national WWII memorial until 2004.
Mark Lake
Redding, Connecticut
THE FINGER
No kidding, it's a complete disgrace. The Empire State Building was built in one year. We should have had a new building up as a giant middle finger years ago.
Noel Pixley
JUST THE WAY WE ARE
I was working in Middletown, NJ on 9/11/01 and remember seeing the smoking buildings before they collapsed so? it isn't a distant memory to me. That said, I'm not sure I'm all that disturbed by fountains taken over by the homeless and neglected memorials. Ours is a country which tends to look constantly forward and rarely back.? Memorial Day and Washington's birthday are better known for sales at the mall then their original meaning. I'd guess that there are more African Americans at NBA games on MLK's birthday than at services. It's just the way we are. That may or may not be a good thing. In any event, what is important to me is that our country see the danger that it faces today and deal with it, rather than dwell on events of the past. That, of course, is not what many are doing, but parades, memorial ceremonies, and clean and beautiful monuments to victims wouldn't change any of that.
Alan Bell
I FORGOT THE UNFORGETTABLE
My own little sad, pathetic anecdote.
I am, at least in my own mind, a strong supporter of the war on terror, against Islamofascism, and a strong supporter of President Bush. I am, by normal conventions, a 9/11 political observer. I was completely disinterested in politics pre-9/11 -- 2004 was the first time that I ever voted. These days, I regularly read probably 10-15 political blogs, write some stuff myself, and consider myself a very close political observer. This is all due to the change that occurred in me as a result of 9/11, I feel I can no longer remain politically ignorant in the face of the threat that confronts us.
Yet, this morning, having thought about today for the last several weeks, in the rush to get my kindergartner ready for school, I completely forgot that it was 9/11. We got half way to school when I realized that I had failed to do the one really small, yet outwardly visible thing to show my recognition of today's significance: I wanted to fly my flag.
At least my wife has put it out now so that the outward expression does not go without display.
Yet inside I feel like a dope, even though it really is a small thing.
May I never forget.
Jeff Dobbs
VISIT EAGLE ROCK
There is a nice 9/11 memorial at Eagle Rock Reservation in New Jersey. I was there nine months ago and it was well maintained. Very dramatic spot, with a clear view of NY (and of the WTC, once).
By the way, I live in NH. I admire your work, a lot.
Jim
LET’S HEAR IT FOR HEROES
I can't speak for other Americans, but I think the decay of these "memorials" is because memorializing victims rather than heroes is really a cultural change being pushed on people by certain egg head and practitioner segments of our society - and it really doesn't get absorbed well, I think, by Americans.
I'd drive out of my way to that field in PA to honor the few who stormed the terrorists, but if I were told the memorial is to the victims and to "peace" I certainly would not bother.
Ken Nordtvedt
MAGNIFICENT MEMORIAL
"After six years, there ought to be something in Lower Manhattan, but that's a whole other can of worms."
There is something in Lower Manhattan, something magnificent: the FDNY Memorial Wall. Of course, it wasn't built by any government --- not the Feds, not the State, not the City, not the Borough of Manhattan. It was built by civilians, using left-over charitable funds, and it's located on the side of Engine Co. 10/Ladder Co. 10, the fire house at the foot of the South Tower, which lost five men on duty that day. When it was being sculpted, the instructions were "Think Trajan's Column", an impossible thought for a modern politically correct bureaucrat. God bless the common man, and God bless America.
Steven Tirone
AMERICA MOVES ON
Not sure if you saw this but it's the perfect manifestation of what you wrote about this weekend.
Even in New Jersey, people are just tired with the idea that "we're at war." Sept. 11 may have "changed everything," but it didn't change our ability to move on. The Sept. 11 memorials, unveiled with so much fanfare and promises to "never forget" are as forgotten as my hometown's
statue "to the veterans of the Spanish-American war."
Rich Tucker
WHERE ARE THE WEEDS?
I concur with your lament about 9/11 fading, but drawing your example from the Star Ledger's lead article troubled me.
I live in Westfield, NJ, where, according to JUDY PEET, *Star-Ledger Staff* "In Westfield, weeds have taken over the brick walkways around the 9/11 memorial and heavy traffic exhaust has left its mark on the obelisk"
I visited the grounds today, after reading your comment and the article yesterday, and the desciption is not accurate.
Perhaps the writer confuses the lariope along the small section of brick pavers. Perhaps, it was heresay. Maybe it was too good a hook to the story that if even a Westfield with its manicured lawns, and tidy downtown, would neglect its memorials, it is truly a story....so a day's worth of
sprawling spurge turns into a calamity. And the obelisk, which glows at night from an internal light and is inscribed with the names of thousands of innocents and uniformed that were killed on 9/11 was luminescent as it has been the past five years.
(Most of the sidewalks are either concrete or asphalt or paver, so I am guessing the "brick walkways" are the pavers. Someone has posted photos taken in 2006 of the memorial.
A good nighttime photo is here.
The 9/11 memorial, build as all recent ones have been, with private donations and thousands of hours of sweat equity, is one of several on the plaza, honoring and remembering the dead from the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II and Korea . (The Civil War memorial is in the Cemetary, the Library is also a World War II memorial and the Pool was one of the first memorials in the country for fallen Vietnam soldiers) The Plaza is where the town goes every Memorial Day to begin the parade and listen to speeches and hear the bell in the First United Methodist Church, whose gothic tower throws shadows on the plaza in the late afternoon. On every November 11, at 11 am a smaller number meet to repeat the ceremony under grayer and colder skies. We remembered the victims, and we embraced the families. To think we have not tended to this task well, even if by the little example of misplaced weeds, well, it
I know personally of private citizens who will go in and pull some weeds in between the weekly visits from the town DPW staff, and in the five years since the memorial was dedicated, improvements have been made, including replacing a dying old tree (among the dozens on site) with a new one to outlive the generation that built the memorial. When I go to Rotary tomorrow, I will ask some of my fellow members if perhaps, upon reading the paper on Sunday morning, they quietly went to the plaza and made right what was wrong. (the area did not show the usual signs of a recent DPW visit today, so I doubt it was "government in action" that responded to the paper)
Twelve people with Westfield connections were killed on 9/11, and for some, including my next door neighbor, this is the only place that can be visited as a memorial. When I read the story in the Ledger on Sunday, I was surprised and angry, as I assumed it must be true, and flew in the face of the way in which the entire plaza has been maintained. Now I don't know what to believe, except I now know that rightly or wrongly, we have been associated with disrespecting those we once memorialized. (Ours is one of the first to be dedicated and one of the few memorials that list the more than 3,000 people killed on 9/11, not just those with local connections)
Ours is an important memorial in an important place in town, as it should be - because the fight that was taken into our homes that day had begun long before 9/11 and continues today and will continue for generations. I learned from my elders not just who we fought, but what we fought for
because of the World War I and II memorials. I hope that we are able to teach our children why 9/11 is important using the memorial spaces we have created.
I am going to write Judy Peet and ask her what day she visted Westfield to see the memorial. Maybe it was a day we were a little too passive, too caught up with all the other things going on in the world to notice. (not too much unlike 9/11/01) Maybe this was a wake up call to our community that was deserved. But I think it wasn't. I will let you know, and if, indeed, the damning words from Ms Peet, that now are seen by a much wider audience thanks to your cite, are not true, I would love it if you could set the record straight as well.
Neil Sullivan
Westfield, New Jersey
SEPTEMBER 10THERS
I read your remarks on America's apathy about Sept. 11 on the Corner. How very disturbing; it is hard for me to imagine such apathy. My husband and I were trying to pick a day this week to take our son to Disneyland. Tuesday was the best day for it but I said to my husband "it doesn't seem right to go to Disneyland on September 11." He immediately agreed.
John Edwards is right there are two Americas. There is September 10th America and September 11th America. I don't even understand the September 10thers amongst my friends and family. They speak a strange language and seem to come from a very strange, rose colored world.
Antoinette Aubert
YOU’RE COMPLETELY IGNORANT
Subject: How dare you make any comment in your article as to 9/11 re IRA or Irish
During the IRA's 30-year campaign, the British grew accustomed (perhaps too easily accustomed) to waking up to the news either of some prominent person's assassination or that a couple of grandmas and some schoolkids had been blown apart
You obviously are completely ignorant of the centuries of aggression committed against the Irish by the English beginning with the stealing of the country and land in the north from owners no compensation and then resettling that land with imports from Britain.
And then take a look at land that some had to try to eke out a living – rocks.
And then at one time the Catholic religion was banned –priests said Mass in out of way places, and no religion in school so it was taught secretly, language banned,
And then during the Great Famine in 1840’s for non payment of rent the poor had their hovels razed by the overlords-no caterpillar tractors then as is done to homes of Palestinians by the overlords, and many poor families died in scalpeens in ditches of starvation while food was sent from country by the overlords.
Some were LUCKY as were my great grandparents to be able to emigrate though this itself was a taste of hell as the FEVER ships were disgusting and owners manipulative and many became ill on ships –imagine the smells –and many died after landing.
Note the new Ireland Park by Lakeshore and web site.
All told the population of Ireland was halved during that time through deaths and emigration
And then later there was Bloody Sunday and there were Black and Tans who terrorized Irish –one friend told me how her uncles were taken from farmhouse –her grandmother never thought she would see them again-and the Black and Tans marched the uncles blindfolded for three days
As to 9/11 I did not believe –being aware of the US aggression against the peoples of South America including the training of the assassin of Archbishop Romero-that the official story had even a trace of truth.
Passports blowing down the street surviving a conflagration???
Planes being flown by non experts missing detection and so precisely hitting target??
And more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And for those who dismiss the suffering of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as some kind of tea party-???????????
I still have photos from newspaper of young men being transported on cargo planes, blindfolded, manacled to either Guantanamo or possibly for rendition to another place of torture
Kathleen BridelMARK REPLIES: “Resettling the land with imports”, eh? Given your previous approving comments on this page on Muslim “resettling” of your own city of Toronto, that seems a tad ungenerous. Ulster’s demographic character is set in stone but Ontario’s isn’t?
TROOPS OUT MEANS SHARIA IN
I was walking through Westminster today past the Mother of Parliaments for the first time in some months. What struck me was how easy it is to dodge the traffic - for the concrete vehicle bomb-barriers have turned that corner of London into a pedestrian area. It isn't so easy to dodge the permanent encampment of the Troops out of Iraq demo. Funny how they do it in London just across the road from a Starbucks and the Red Lion, rather than downtown Baghdad or Basra, where I guess the red lion is red because it's just been blown up by Al Qaeda with a bomb supplied by Iran/Syria/China. General Petraeus is, sadly, fighting on several fronts, what with the narrative of the newly awakened British left being an early and urgent withdrawal back to the Red Lion. When will the European left realise that troops out of Iraq will mean Sharia law is a step closer in the Mother of Parliaments? Funnily enough closer than we think for HMG has just announced a renewed interest in promoting faith schools. No prizes for guessing which faith is opening more schools than any other.
Adrian St. Clair Burke
London
LAME MONDE
Unctuous Le Monde cartoonist Plantu's latest trivialization/celebration of the 9-11 attacks might possibly be of interest to you.
Joe Noory
SIX YEARS ON
A little something from Churchill. The third line should be required reading for every left wing 'cut and run' moron in public office:
VICTORY AT ALL COSTS
VICTORY IN SPITE OF ALL TERROR
VICTORY HOWEVER LONG AND HARD THE ROAD MAY BE;
FOR WITHOUT VICTORY THERE IS NO SURVIVAL.
Derek Carroll
Calgary, Alberta
Re: Song of the Week
ODE TO LIBERACE
This Spud Islander is a big fan of yours, one of maybe 3 on this fair Isle. I am puzzled why Elton John didn't tweak "Candle " for poor old Liberace when he died, same guy different era.
It could go something like this.
"It seemed to me you lived your life like a "Candelabra in the Wind"
A whole different generation of fans could have bought this and put it past Bing's White Christmas. Why stop with only two dead people keep it as a funeral staple. Enjoyed "America Alone" and am loaning it to my Liberal friends.
Ps: Off To Manchester Airport soon with your book in my hand hoping to run into at the airport, chances are good you will be there with the travelling you do.
Carl Mackay
Prince Edward Island
ERNIE OF THE AIRFORCE
Re: “Sixteen Tons”. Did you know that Tennessee Ernie Ford was an Air Force navigator? Flew with a pilot named Russell Dougherty, who never made much of name for himself, other than being Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command. I heard the story of Ernie dropping in to see him at HQ, he'd tell the guards to tell Russ his navigator was coming in to see him.
Sam Dunkin
Astoria, Oregon
LOST LILY
Now that you've 'done' "Waltzing Matilda", how about doing a column on "The Maple Leaf Forever." It WAS a much cheerier - and dare I say - enthusiastic - song than "Oh Canada"... altho’ the latter appeals to a dour Scot Presbyterian sensibility... and true, true, "the thistle, shamrock, rose entwine" does sort of leave out the 'lily' but then Canada may have avoided the liddle guy from Shawinigan and his buds..
Heather McFarlane
Whitehorse, Canada
Re: Be careful who you smile at
HE’S A CRIMINAL AND A HYPOCRITE
I just read your column "Be Careful Who You Smile At" in Birmingham's Black and White paper. You missed at least one key point and made at least one glaring error of fact.
- Soliciting for sex in a public restroom is a crime. Nothing has to happen as a result of the solicitation, it's against the law period.
- The bit about Democrats, cat houses and Republicans is way off the mark. For clarification just read up on Senator David Vitter, Republican, Louisiana. The Republican party is rallying around him while projectile vomiting Craig. Why? Could it be that if Craig gets bounced a Republican governor gets to choose his replacement, but if Vitter gets bounced a Democrat governor gets to choose? Could it be homophobia? What sort of standards and values are those? "Lofty"
doesn't spring to mind.
So now to the thrust of your column. Did you miss these points because you were ignorant of them or because you really believe that soliciting sex in a public restroom is OK or are you blindly offering support to a Republican because he is a Republican? What have I missed?
I don't really care what people do in their private lives. As for politicians, I'm happy enough if they'd stop screwing the American public. Hypocrisy does stick in my craw, though.
Andy Gallien
MARK REPLIES: At what point, exactly, in his encounter with Sergeant Krasnia did Senator Tappy-Toes "solicit for sex"? The foot-tapping? The positioning of the bag against the door? Given the degree of explicitness required to bring a prosecution for soliciting sex from a heterosexual female prostitute, the reliance on mere foot-pointing here might be regarded as "homophobic". If I were a gay activist group, I'd take this case to the Supreme Court.
RUST-TIERNEY ANYONE?
I have a new post up at the Monkey Tennis Centre on how the media is ignoring the jailing of former ACLU lawyer Charles Rust-Tierney on child porn charges, contrasted with the media lynching of Larry Craig. Key paragraphs:
Compare the MSM’s almost total suppression of the Rust-Tierney case with the unrelenting and hysterical coverage of the Larry Craig story. Craig is accused of seeking to engage in behaviour, which, while repellent to many people, would have been between consenting adults, with no one getting physically hurt. But because Craig is a Republican who’s strong on family values he’s accused of hypocrisy, and faces a media lynching.
Rust-Tierney, on the other hand, used a computer in his 11-year-old son’s bedroom to view photos and videos depicting the rape and sexual torture of children as young as six. At least no one can accuse Rust-Tierney of hypocrisy: he liked to watch children being raped on the internet, and he and others at the ACLU support the right of every American to be able to watch children being raped on the internet.
Mike
WITHDRAW THAT GUILTY PLEA AT YOUR PERIL
For what it's worth, I regret my disrespectful tone in the letter you posted online about Craig “taking back” his plea. I expect that Craig has a good shot at having his plea vacated, but I should have simply suggested as much rather than taking a shot at you for suggesting otherwise.
Look on the bright side: the vast majority of people who withdraw a plea of guilty later regret it.
James Eckert
Re: Homemaking for One
KID-FREE CHIC
Childless yuppies repopulating inner cities?
Hello Mark. Here in Atlanta they are building lofts in formerly horrible neighborhoods and they are selling like hotcakes. There just can't be a child over 5 in any of those places, ever. I mean, there don't even allow for a McDonald's in new urbanism, much less a school. Anyway I applied "Markographics" and now I get it. There is no child in urban chic.
Terry Kearns
Atlanta, Georgia
Re: An unproductive line of argument
WHO’LL CARE FOR GRAMMY?
While you point out in "The Corner" not everything is reducible to economics, the OTHER thing everyone is forgetting is that old people get sick and need help. I worked my way through college as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home, and was responsible for my mother-in-law who had Alzheimer’s. Those four Spanish grandparents are in their sixties now and can do for themselves fine. What happens when they are in their eighties, and are in a wheelchair or worse? Their kids will be in their sixties then and simply not physically able to take care of them. Does Tamny think that one grandkid -- assuming he's still around and hasn't emigrated someplace else, as so many Europeans who are seeing the Arabic scrawl on the wall are doing -- can takecare of four elderly sick people, and still be productive enough to support SEVEN people (himself, his parents and the grandparents) all by his lonesome? Tamny needs to change diapers and give showers and dress and feed elderly people so he gets a little reality check.
Oh, and "outsourcing" provider care by importing a lot of immigrants? Excuse me, ask any mother how easy it is to find cheap, reliable day care. The bottom line is, as mothers find out, is you can't outsource love. Nobody will take care of little Johnny like you do -- and little Johnny is cute.
Elderly people in the late stages of dementia, not so much. If my mother in law hadn't had myself and her son to take care of her and fight for healthcare people to help her and take her ailments seriously, I shudder to think what her last years would have been like. And the birth rate in the
Third World is falling also -- who is going to get priority, an immigrant’s own parents or some whining elderly white people he doesn't know? There are going to be some very grim last days for elderly Europeans in the tender care of the Islamic vipers they have taken in to nurse them.
Maureen Muncy
PS -- bought your book "America Alone", never had the experience before of being horrified and laughing hysterically at the same time.
ECONOMIC GROWTH IS NOT TIED TO POPULATION GROWTH
After reading John Tamny's column, I don't believe that he is trying to argue for the need for immigration. In fact the gist of what he says indicates that we do not need immigration, because increasing productivity will maintain the West's economic and military power.
" In the end, he falls back on the global economy's ‘productive exchange among peoples’ -i.e., the west using the Third World as its nursery. "
I can't claim to speak for him, but I think you are misreading him here. "Productive exchange" suggests old-fashioned Adam Smith type commerce to me, not the exchange or movement of people. To quote Milton Friedman, "the movement of goods is a substitute for the movement of people."
The core of what he is saying is sound. Economic growth is not tied in any way to population growth, whether that population growth is "internal" or driven by immigration. In theory the US population could shrink drastically with no adverse impact on its economy.
This is a good point to get across to those who are convinced we need more and more people from whatever source in order to avoid economic ruin.
“Jonsandor”
Re: African wisdom
DUMB AND DUMBER
Your anecdote about the castle reminded me of my "rule" for determining the producers' respect for their intended audience:
High: establishing shot of Eiffel Tower, no caption
Medium: establishing shot of Eiffel Tower, caption = "Paris"
Low: establishing shot of Eiffel Tower, caption = "Paris, France"
Bob Bell
Canada
Re: A music book that’s not muzak
JOE COCKER’S ‘CRY’
I enjoy your columns on music only ever so slightly less than your political writing, which is to say I enjoy them a very great deal indeed.
But I do feel compelled to make one point about something you wrote in MacLean’s in your review of Wilfrid Sheed's book.
You wrote: "it's hard to imagine anyone bellowing No Moon at All or Cry Me a River in an unmiked barn of a vaudeville theatre circa 1912. But it's equally hard to imagine anyone doing it in a rock video or live at a sports stadium on the edge of town."
I would refer you to the Joe Cocker/Mad Dos and Englishmen rendition of Cry Me a River, circa 1970. That shambolic tour mostly played hockey rinks, rock theatres like the Fillmore, and even some college gyms, so technically it wasn't performed in a sports stadium. But the version is certainly well-suited to such a venue. What's more, the film of the tour did function as a kind of proto-music video. Somewhat alarmingly, for many of my vintage this was the first time we were ever exposed to the song and eventual introduction to laid-back jazz or golden age interpretations came as a shock. I am sure there are still many who know it only as a rock song.
G. Davis
Toronto
Re: America Alone
JAPANESE BABIES
I was having an interesting conversation with a young Japanese woman the other day. She and I were talking about the fertility rate of Japan. She said "In general, people aren't having babies. That's not really so true for my friends. They all have four or five apiece. We who are young sort of feel that the future of Japan is resting on us, and we need children."
That is an interesting thing about demographics. Though it is a game of last man standing, the choices of the young count for more than the choices of the old. Perhaps Japan is not in an endless death spiral, if young people don't want it to be.
Dr Urchin
Natchitoches, Los Angeles
CHRISTIANITY OR ISLAM
I'm enjoying your book... scary and entertaining. Has made me realize a few things. 1. Christianity saved the world once and would be the only thing that could save us again but things are just out of control. 2. Christanity doesn't have a chance because there's no unity - reuniting Christians back to the Catholic Church might help. 3. Martin Luther destroyed Christianity. The devil is very patient. Took a long time but and his plan is working through Luther. 4. People want so badly to
keep religion out of government but I think it's impossible. Right now there are 2 choices Christianity or Islam. By driving Christianity out, they'll be left with one choice - Islam.
Question - I found through your website you were baptized Catholic... just curious why you left the Church.
Dominic Zaidan
Alabama
PRE-SCHOOL FAN
Your influence is already filtering down into the lower reaches of the next generation. After dinner last night, as I grumbled to my wife and eldest daughter about the latest indicators of civilisational decline, I happened to use the phrase "the end of the world". Without a word, my youngest
daughter, who is four years old and cannot read, walked over to the bookcase, took down a book, and handed it to me. It was one of my autographed copies of America Alone. Now that's what I call indoctrination.
Ron Galea
Tasmania, Australia
TOO MUCH CNBC, NOT ENOUGH STEYN
How is it that I have lived so long and never came across the writings of Mark Steyn? Perhaps it's an addiction to CNBC? Maybe the National....errrr....Philadelphia Inquirer has never seen fit to put opinion pieces from Mr. Steyn opposite their own peculiar brand of political twaddle? Maybe it's because I long ago abandoned my fervor for politics, and stopped my subscriptions to National Review and American Spectator, when I felt that there wasn't a chance of ever finding a candidate worthy of support?
Anyway, better read, than dead. Right?
I just ordered twenty copies of "America Alone" from Amazon.Com and I look forward to gifting friends and acquaintances with the most thought provoking book I've read, since I started gifting friends and acquaintances with Professor Hans Sennholz's small treatise: "Freedom and Money". It's absolutely essential to understand the condition of this great country, and how the many small lies that have been fed to us, have debased our currency and debased our sense of national purpose.
I was discussing this book with my father, a thoughtful man, who has pondered and written about race relations, transportation, and the drift leftward of the party he once supported, the Democratic party. We were chattering about possible responses to the eventuality of "suicide bombers" with personal bomb-packs of the type seen almost daily in Israel, when he offered up an astonishing response. I don't know if he originated it, or if he somehow absorbed it elsewhere, but it's a compelling solution, and one with such innate charm and irony that it is unlikely to ever be adopted, but which, if it were, might actually give pause to some of these fanatics.
Have the President, or the Director of homeland security (whomever THAT is) appear on TV and make a statement of some sort to the following effect:
"Now that a terrorist has detonated a suicide bomb pack worn on his (her) own body, within a crowd in a U.S. city, we plan to put into place our very best forensic assets, laboratories, scientists, DNA experts, to help us definitively identify all remaining body parts left of the suicide bomber. These body parts will be collected and transported to a designated pig farm in North Carolina where they will be incorporated into the feed of the swine raised on that farm. We earnestly hope that dedicated Muslims find this action reprehensible, alarming, and unacceptable in the manner in which we find suicide bombings exactly so. If this practice gives pause to even one would-be bomber, we will consider the program a success. All would-be suicide bombers should now stop and think hard on the fact that without fail, the body that Allah has so blessed you with, and which you so blithely forfeit in the interest of hatred and jihad, will ultimately be consumed and expelled from the body of a pig into some manure pile on a farm owned by an American Patriot".
A bit extreme, and perhaps loony even, but certainly no more so than the bomb pack solution that these fanatics choose as their main weapon.
Thanks so much for the entertainment that I have discovered in your writings, the eloquence of your arguments, and the thought provoking nature of your message.
I intend to be a frequent visitor to www.steynonline.com in the future. I hope that your message is taken to heart by all of the people to whom I plan to give copies of the book, and that they may loan it out to others in the interest of killing the multicultural zeitgeist that has so suppressed
serious discourse on the nature of our enemy.
Michael
Upper Darby, Pennsylvania
SAFETY FOR GERMANY IN GREENLAND
I think the only answer to this article is America Alone. It's exactly the same topic.
David Chernin
Jersey City, New Jersey
HAVE A BABY! WIN AN ATV!
You can't make this stuff up
Love your writing!
Kevin
Westlake Village, California
Re: Goodnight Vienna
NOT SURPRISED
I comment on your "Corner" post "Goodnight Vienna".
Are you surprised that Europeans do this sort of thing?
It's socialism; they invented it.
It's one of the minor logical conclusions that an average eurotyke living on (rather poor) benefits a-la-Bismarcko-Prussienne can draw; if there is stuff available, and it's not yours, and it's been screwed out of people who work, and you'd rather not work too hard, then screw to get it.
They like it. The trouble for England, and our current tragedy, is that we live too near them, and we get infected across the water. The Grand Banks would have been a better place for our particular part of the continental massif to end up. Trouble is, then we would not have become what we had previously been, and ought to be again.
David Davis
Lancashire, England
WHAT HO
Bertie Wooster reference? Nice.
Fancy running into you here, Upper Market Snodsbury.
Charles C Pavlick
LET’S PLAY ‘PUBLIC ASSISTANCE’
Your post on the dead aunt reminded me something from the classic welfare board game
from the 80s "Public Assistance". See the card at bottom.
If you've never seen the game, it's priceless.
Scott
WE’RE JUST AS DYSFUNCTIONAL
I've been listening to clips of General Petraus' report, and must admit that I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the ineffectual Republican reacoint to the Democrats' sickening, political gamesmanship with respect to the war.
The thing that really sticks in my craw is the Democrats carping on the "lack of political progress" and the "dysfunctional" nature of the Maliki government. For crying out loud, like our government is not dysfunctional? Name one damn thing that Congress has done of note since the last congressional election. I have heard President Bush make this point one time, but they really should be jumping up and down and waving their arms about. And we've a couple hundred years of practice.
But the bigger, unmentioned point is that we spent 7 years under the Articles of Confederation prior to the current Constitution. Note to Congress, the mainstream media, and the public at large: on our first attempt, we were so dysfunctional that we scrapped the entire form of government after 7 YEARS!!! Not the government, but the whole form of government. And we were coming out of a parliamentary democracy. Well, almost a parliamentary democracy. At least it wasn't 40 or 50 years of a murderous, genocidal military dictatorship with no prior significant democratic tradition.
Yup, the hypocrites of the Democrat party are sitting around bitching about the Iraqis doing no better than we did even thought the Iraqis are starting further behind where we were at the time.
Why can't someone skewer them on that?
No wonder the West is circling the drain.
Jeff Pyle
Houston, Texas
THE COPPERHEADS RISE AGAIN
Arthur Friedman's letter about Mark Steyn is painfully revealing of both his true (perhaps secretly held?) opinion of his own country, and of his gross ignorance of history. First, his historical analogy is preposterous - our overthrow of a hideous mass-murderer (Saddam) and our continued struggle against viscous, nihilistic killers is in no way comparable to the interference of the British and French in our Civil War on the side of the chauvinistic slave-holding Southern Confederacy. Would our overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 be morally equivalent to a British/French overthrow of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War? Was the execution of Saddam the moral equivalent of John Wilke's booth assassination of Lincoln in 1865? I think not, but it seems that Mr. Freidman thinks so. In reality, however, if there is any valid historical analogy, it is the opposite: British and French interference then, on the side of the Confederates, was if anything analogous to Iranian and Syrian assistance to the nihilists we're fighting today, while the efforts of our government and of Prime Minister Maliki are more equivalent to those of Lincoln - all of whom struggled in their way and in their day against profoundly arrogant forces of evil, one of which targeted black Americans for permanent enslavement and repression, and the other targeting every Iraqi alive for imposed subservience to brutal, racist regimes of one sort or another. Even more ridiculous is his prediction that the overthrow of Lincoln's administration by European powers would have brought all factions in the US together to oppose the invaders. Hello!!!! The main pillar in the Confederate's war strategy was to attempt to force just such an intervention by the Europeans. They would have welcomed European intervention with open arms, not opposed it. One final Civil War analogy to consider. I wonder if Mr. Friedman and his ilk have considered their own similarity to the Northern Copperheads who so harried Lincoln in his efforts to preserve our Constitution and our Republic and to destroy the arrogant Slave Power that had so dominated the land for so long? Are they aware just how similar their own efforts to impede President Bush's efforts to prosecute the current war? After all - the Copperheads of yesteryear and the MoveOn.Org of today both claimed to be defending our civil liberties as each group sought to hamstring the President of the United States in his efforts to defeat the most implacable foes of civil liberties. Did Clement Vallandingham just step out of a time machine, or what? Oh, by the way: Yesterday's Copperheads and their progeny of today have one more big thing in common: Membership in the Democratic Party.
Dennis P. Chapman
As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
HOW KERRY DROPPED THE BALL
Just wondering if you saw this article. Although it is a bit old, it would be nice to remind people how lax Kerry was since all the libs are saying Bush wasn't on the ball.
Al Gray
San Juan Capitstrano, California
BARAK’S PET PAPER
What is with the Chicago Sun-Times? Your column hasn't appeared for nearly a month. I wrote them twice - no response. They did find time, space and ink and paper to have a nearly book-sized genealogy on Barak Obama this Sunday, pictures of his family, an entire family tree and more information than I could stomach. They have also included at least one article and/or picture of him on a daily basis, since before he even announced his candidacy. I wrote to them then and asked if their reporter, Lynn Sweet, was his PR guy, talk about biased - they didn't even attempt to pretend to be reporting neutrally. If your column doesn't return, I'm canceling my subscription. They only thing I was hanging on to it for was your Sunday column.
Sherry Hoffheimer
SMALL SCREEN IDOLS
Thanks for your great work. Loved your book.
It sounds like everyone agrees that Fred Thompson's TV work will help him in the presidential race. But what about John Edward's role as Lieutenant Jim Dangle? Help or hurt?
Kris Bundy
WEIGHT WATCHER
Critics will howl, but I say John Edwards doesn't go far enough in proposing mandatory preventive-care visits to the doctor for all Americans. Where's the required exercise? Where's the compulsory fiber intake? How long are we going to continue talking about "recommended" daily amounts of vitamins and minerals? What's optional about vitamins and minerals? Who among us is callous enough to disregard the basic food groups? What about people who defy openly posted weight limits? I for one am sick of politicians who lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up and tell
the public that in the same way you don't have a right to drive an unregistered car, you have no right to operate an unregistered body: if you're walking down the street and you can't produce evidence that certifies that you visited your proctologist within the last year, we're locking you up and throwing away the key. And when are we going to start talking frankly about the prostate tax?
EDwards! EDwards! EDwards!
Ezra Marsh
Baltimore
DO OR DYE
If you've seen the latest releases of Bin Laden and the proof positive that he's dyed his beard
since the last release, then we've seen confirmed what we suspected for along time - Bin Laden Is brave. He's willing to ....dye...for his cause
Al
Lemon Grove
TIMES READER?
Who is Osama's speech writer?
Mark, have you seen the transcript of Bin Laden's new video? Sounds like straight neo-rump-left with a bit of social-democrat-Islamo-welfare mixed in. Do you think he has a special speechwriter or just a subscription to one of our newspapers?
Manuel
Sydney, Australia
HAIRY PROBLEM
Did you see the two new OBL videos? In one, he urges all Americans to convert to
Islam.
I have just one question:
"If I give up my immortal soul, do I get a free set of lousy fake whiskers like him?"
Gee, what an offer!
Paul Simon
HUGH OR DENNIS?
Are you still doing the Hugh Hewitt show or has Dennis Miller stolen you away? I like HH better because of the free podcast.
Greg Rigdon
Durham, North Carolina
FLAG OF CONVENIENCE
Did you catch the Canadian connection in the chaser's APEC stunt?
The much-vaunted protection for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit was peeled away with embarrassing ease yesterday by satirists armed with hire cars, Canadian flags and a colour printer. Chaser team member Chris Taylor said there was "no particular reason" they had chosen Canadian flags. "We just thought they'd be a country who the cops wouldn't scrutinise too closely, and who feasibly would only have three cars in their motorcade as opposed to the 20 or so gas-guzzlers that Bush has brought with him." Lucky the terrorists aren't that smart. In case you don't know what I'm referring to:
The Chaser's bogus motorcade of two black vans, a hire car, two very unofficial-looking motorcycles and jogging security heavies sliced through two checkpoints on Macquarie Street. They remained undetected until Bridge Street, where Morrow and Licciardello, who was wearing a bin Laden beard and robes, got out of their car outside the hotel, finally prompting police to grab them.
Mark
PROSECUTION OVVEREACH
I'm 21, I was born in Iran, and I've worked for a few of the leftist organizations you wish didn't exist.
I read every single blog entry of yours on Conrad's trial without exception and, to your surprise, I'm not writing with some hate message. I agree with you completely.
On prosecution overreach in the US, did you come across this? Glimmer of hope maybe?
Hamoon Ekhtiari
IT ALL FITZ
I followed the Conrad Black trial you liveblogged and know your thoughts about Partick Fitzgerald. What are your thoughts about him handling the Holy Land trial?
Robert B
IsraelMAKE A NEW BABY
As much as I love reading all of your works when you are in full "Demography Bore" mode, I've got to say that my favorite two reads of the past year have been "Passing Parade" and "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight" (thanks for autographing my copies by the way). "Broadway Babies" looks to be about 10 years old right now, and I was wondering if you have any plans to publish an updated version. I'd love to hear your thoughts on new talents (e.g., Kristen Chenoweth) and new trends (Disney's apparent determination to repackage every property they own for Broadway) that have emerged since 1997. Will Disney succeed in recapturing the American musical from The Brits? And if so, will it actually be an improvement ?
Take a break from the demography for a while to recharge your batteries and address
these pressing issues !
Greg Belt
Hudson, Ohio
LAST WORD
I love reading all the past articles by MS that he reprints when relevant to current events, but often it is not clear when and where they originally appeared. Since my memory of events is fuzzy, I'd like to know exactly when in 2001 this Quebec summit he's referring to occured...
Could you maybe put the date and publication it appeared in at the end of the
acticles, please?
Thank you! You're my hero, Mark!
Aina Arroyo
Sebastopol, California
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