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Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from Canada, America, Ireland, Britain, Finland, Israel, South Africa and Afghanistan. Mark reads all the letters, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Drop a line to Mark's Mailbox and if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at least, your state, province or country. Failing that, your continent or hemisphere would do. For a selection of recent letters on Fred Thompson, see Mailbox Extra.
Letter of the Week
STRAIGHT FROM POL POT
I don't know if you've come across this or not. One Swiss political party in the campaign is making an issue of immigration. This of course requires "intervention" by the UN's "Special Rapporteur on Racism", the delightfully named Doudou Diene. Mr. Diene's diagnosis
of the "underlying cause" is a "deep-rooted cultural resistance to the multiculturalisation process".
Pause for a moment to let the true horror of that little statement sink in. It sounds like it was lifted straight from the Selected Works of Pol Pot. Translation, "It's inevitable, so just lie back
and get over it over with.” Just like the Borg on that cheesy Star Wars movie. There is no right, indeed no reason, to hold fast to one's culture in the face of immigration.
"Multiculturalization" means every culture except the ones that have produced democracy, free markets and the rule of law.
S D Dunn
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO EUROPE
I’m a business student from Queen’s University studying in Finland for a semester. America Alone should be made the official guide to Europe, as it offers up a much more accurate picture than any of the wow-look-at-the-pretty-buildings guides I’ve seen: from the ridiculous and time-consuming bureaucracy involved in everything from internet service to operating the damn laundry machines, to the hijabed ladies and their gaggles of children (as opposed to the hot blondes who generally seem child-free).
Your website is the first one I visit every morning, and it is a much appreciated reprieve from the absurd discussion I have nightly with whatever Frenchman or German or Italian or whoever. Europeans argue among themselves about pretty minor differences of opinion (whether America or Israel is worst fascist terrorist, etc) but I feel as if I’m on a different planet from these nutcases. When some guy with his head up his ass starts patronizingly laughing at my crazy views and declares the conversation over I have to physically resist the urge to punch him in the nose. But I wouldn’t want to get all Texan on him…
One more observation: I feel like a child here at twenty years old. I’ll have two years of work behind me by the time I’m the average age of the students here. I think that is probably the best gift the Canadian education system has given me.
Keep up the great work,
A poor Canadian in Europe
Re: So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight
A GREAT AMERICAN TRAGEDY
Your post brought back two memories to me.
The first occurred at one of the "Sing-a-Long" showings of the film. Just after the Mother Abbess sang:
"A dream that will need
All the love you can give
Ev'ry day of your life
For as long as you live!"
those chords crescendoed... and someone in the audience yelled out, in a perfectly over-enunciated Julie Andrews impression: "I want to open a ski lodge in Vermont!"
The second happened while watching the Oscars in 2006. That year they included a ponderous montage of "issue" films, such as In the Heat of the Night. Philadelphia, and Schindler's List. When it concluded, my friend turned to me and said, "How could they leave out the anti-fascism masterpiece The Sound of Music??"
"But it is, of course, a great American success story. The von Trapps fled over the mountains out of Austria and came down in the Green Mountains to settle in Central Vermont, build a thriving business and become a real part of Vermont life."
True enough... except, of course, it's also a great American tragedy: poor immigrant Maria von Trapp's lack of acumen at the ruthless game of capitalism leads to her life story being exploited for hundreds of millions of dollars in profits; she gets peanuts, while Adam Guettel gets the luxury to pursue a totally unprofitable career and Pamela Harriman buys her way into an ambassadorship; and the Almighty Capitalist Dollar continues to bloom, grow, and bless our Homeland forever!!
Brian Johnson
PLASTER SAINTS
They built a thriving business, eh?
In 1967 my family was on one of those grand "cross America in the Ford Station Wagon" trips that many families in the 60s were wont to do. We went through Stowe, VT, and heard that Maria Von Trapp's gift store and Schlockatorium was nearby. Because we were all enamored of Julie Andrews we took the pilgrimage.
It was lovely country, and the dear Madam Von Trapp even came out and posed for the assembled throng. Rather cool. Later, we were in the gift shop and my mom saw a rather lovely two-piece wooden sculpture of Saint Joseph protecting Mary and baby Jesus. She was about to buy it when she saw that a tiny corner of it was chipped, and on the insides it really didn't look like wood. She asked a clerk, 'Excuse me, is this wood or something else?"
The clerk picked it up and looked and said, "Um, I think it's wood, but I don't know."
At that moment, Maria Von Trapp walks up to my mom and pitches a fit. "Of COURSE it is Vood! You suggest that I Vould try and deceive you?" The lady even started crying, and several onlookers checked out the women who made the poor Von Trapp lady cry.
So my mom bought it.
It wasn't wood, just some cheap plaster as my mom found out when we got home. Fortunately, my mom wasn't too upset - she loved showing the Von Trapp figurine to people for years.
"The hills are alive with the sound of conmen."
Paul Strasser
Westminster, Colorado
YOU’RE NO CALVIN COOLIDGE
In your post on the death of Werner Von Trapp, you refer to yourself as a "Northern New Englander."
You are as much a Northern New Englander as Hillary is a New Yorker.
Ben Cronin
DROWNING IN SYRUP
I'm trying to remember which of his friends told Christopher Plummer that sitting through the movie was like being beaten to death with a Hallmark card.
Len Price
Re: Settling the Soviet’s hash
NEUTRALIZING RUSSIA
"To the extent that Kennan was responsible for our not settling Soviet hash in the late 40s, he (and we) enabled the repression and mass murder of a significant portion of the human population for a disturbingly extended period of time."
The presumes that we could have "settled Soviet hash." It's the same kind of presumption people made when they criticized the first Bush for not going to on Baghdad.
cw
MARK REPLIES: Those words you quote are Orrin Judd’s, so you should really take them up with him. As to the comparison with the first Gulf War, I disagree: If you strike at the king, you have to kill the king. If you just stick him back on the throne under a UN-authorized king-supervision regime, it’s a waste of time.
UNCERTAIN OUTCOME
Thanks to all at the Corner for a fascinating discussion. On the question of whether we could have "settled the Soviets' hash" in 1946, I believe we could have defeated and driven back the Red Army in 1946, but never could have occupied the Soviet Union as we did Germany and Japan. The states of Eastern Europe would have been on their own, and there is simply no telling what form of government they would have ended up with. So we would have risked large numbers of already war-weary young men, for an uncertain outcome. Aren't counterfactuals fun?
Now, on to my real point. You observed, correctly I think, that our enemies believe time is on their side. But is it really on their side? Modern warfare chews up huge quantities of money, materials, and, above all, men. Whichever side can replace these three commodities the fastest will always win. We certainly possess the capacity to replace money and materials faster than our enemies, but it is an open question whether we can replace men faster than our enemies. There are two variables in the equation: national will, and, as you have so ably pointed out, simple demographics. In both of these variables, the trends are against us. So the question
boils down to this: is our economic machine powerful enough to compensate for our lack of will? I believe that time will answer that question in the affirmative, if we can avoid economy-destroying policies like Hillary-Care.
Carl Sommer
Re: Ideologically beside the point
A NEW LONG TELEGRAM
I just read Mark's column in today's Washington Times in which he wonders why there has not been a "Long Telegram" similar to the one George Kennan wrote in 1946. Wouldn't he agree that Norman Podhoretz's "World War IV" article, which appeared in Commentary magazine a year or
so back, comes fairly close? It was the genesis of his current book on the topic, but I thought it did a very good job of laying out the problem, defining - and making the case for - the Bush Doctrine, and outlining the future steps to be taken. Come to think of it, America Alone might be considered a very good "Long, Long Telegram."
Bruce G. Kauffmann
Alexandria, Virginia
Re: A meanie writes
ONE-TRICK PONY
Funny thing - when I was a young lieutenant stationed in Germany during the Cold War, I was hungry for news of any kind so I subscribed to the Washington Post Weekly (I don't know if it's still around). After reading 2-3 Dionne columns (and there was one in every issue), I found myself routinely skipping them. I found him to be a one-trick pony (the trick being "cry hypocrisy"), and a lazy one at that. I decided life was too short to spend any on his column - unlike yours.
You've given more of a reply to him than he deserves.
Keep up the fire,
John Marlin
NO WAY OUT
Liberals love to charge hypocrisy, and so I am sure that you can expect to hear that charge again in the future. But Dionne's argument opens up a promising new avenue of attack against conservative baby boomers: if African-Americans who succeed and subsequently fail to support affirmative action are condemned as hypocrites since they must have benefited from affirmative action themselves (how else could they have avoided prison or worse?), then baby boomers who are able to retire comfortably and call for entitlement reform must also be hypocrites because they, or their parents, must have benefited from Social Security (how else could they be old and not destitute?).
I will be cheering you on as you defend yourself against all comers!
Christopher Sands
Washington, DC
Re: Song of the Week
MOONLIGHT & PRETZELS
I want to commend you on your very fine, insightful and original piece about “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
A couple of factual matters:
To my knowledge, Jolson did not record “Dime” in 1932 as did Vallee and Crosby. The version on our compilation CD is from a 1939 radio show.
You cite Moonlight & Pretzels as something Jay did after he and Yip went their separate ways, when in fact they worked together on that film shortly after they wrote “Dime” and even wrote a song very close to “Dime” in spirit and content for the finale. It was called “Dusty Shoes” and follows a tramp from Hoover-era destitution (“dusty shoes”) to prosperity during the first months of FDR’s presidency.
Finally, you may want to consider the following in regard to upcoming “Song of the Week” essays: 1932 was also the year in which two other classic Harburg lyrics were introduced on Broadway: “April in Paris” (with Vernon Duke) and “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (with Harold Arlen) in Walk a Little Faster and The Great Magoo, respectively. In fact, these two shows and Americana were running simultaneously on Broadway for a few days in December 1932. In other words, Yip hit his first career peak just as the country was hitting bottom in the worst days of the Depression. So three of Yip’s master lyrics came in one year AND with three different composers. This is quite a feat.
I am forwarding your fine piece to everybody in my network and Clyde Haberman of the NY Times is interested in doing a piece about our Nov. 26 event at CUNY.
Ernie Harburg
New York, NY
HARMONIES FOR HOBOS
As usual, the article was informative and wonderfully written -- but I do take exception to the lines:
Do you know how hard it is to write a song for beggars, for panhandlers? A guy telling you he's lost his job and he's got a wife and five kids and one of 'em's sick may work when he's standing in front of you on the sidewalk, but in a song self-pity is all but unsellable ...
The yiddish popular music of that era (which which I believe Yip Harburg was very familiar) is FULL of songs like this, great, hummable, sometimes even danceable tunes with lyrics about
unbelievable horror stories of poverty.
Maybe the shining example is "Papirossen", (cigarettes), in which a homeless, starving orphan tries desperately to sell cigarettes in the rain. You can see the lyrics here (though the translation there skips the second verse, describing the death of his parents and his oppression by police). This was quite a hit song in its day!
Ted Alper
Palo Alto, California
FORGOTTEN-MAN WOMAN
As usual, I loved your Song of the Week essay on "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" But I want to clarify one point - not about that song, but about the Dubin-Warren song "Remember My Forgotten Man" from Gold Diggers 1933, which you mention in passing. Your comment that the number was "powerfully sung by Joan Blondell" in that movie is not, strictly speaking, correct. "Forgotten Man" was powerfully sung, but not by Joan, though she did give a very poignant talk-sing rendition of it. The powerful singing came immediately after Joan, in a mournful reprise by a black woman slumped in a window in the building behind her. The uncredited woman was Etta Moten, and her performance of the song is unforgettable, aching with melancholy dignity (I'm watching it as I type this). Etta Moten's was one of the great unsung (though not unsinging) voices of Hollywood; in addition to "Remember My Forgotten Man", she also sang "The Carioca" in Flying Down to Rio and later played Bess in the 1942 Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess. According to the Internet Movie Database, she was the first African American artist to perform at the White House at the invitation of FDR in 1933, and died in 2004 at the age of 102. So long, Etta, and thanks for the memories.
Jim Lane
Sacramento, California
RED SKELTON DESERVES BETTER
A day doesn't go by without a Steyn fix. Am now on Bob Hope in "Passing Parade". "Baby It's Cold Outside" was introduced by Esther, Ricardo, Betty Garret and a guy named Red Skelton. I was Red's concert promoter for his last ten years. Am mystified by how benignly ignored he is by the media. Here is one of the biggest talents of the century. A star in Medicine shows, burlesque, vaudeville, movies, 20 years of a top-rated show, and not a word. He would have been a fascinating addition to your obit book. I was a pallbearer at Red's funeral in Pasadena in 1997 and have a Berle, Hope story. I was in the second pew, Bob and Dolores were in the first. Bob was 95, Dolores as 90. Berle was 89 and his wife was about 16. As you know, vaudevillians never let an opportunity go by if they can top each other. The church was absolutely silent before the service. Berle, directly behind Bob says in a voice that carried thru the church, "Bob, It's Berle, Milton Berle.” Bob is motionless. Again, “Bob, it's Milton, Milton Berle.” Nothing. Dolores leans into Bob and says "it's Milton Berle". The congregation is watching. Bob turns completely around, looks Berle flush in the face, turns back to the front and in a voice that could be heard across the land says, "doesn't look like him!" I did a concert with Bob Hope in Saskatoon in 1989. We had our picture taken one day and the next he offered to sign it to me. As he studied the picture he said, Tom we look like father and son. I said Bob, it's a terrible accident of birth, but I am not. However, I can be adopted. He said if he adopts anyone it won't be a guy. Please look into a bit on Red. There are millions of baby boomers who sat up with their families on Tuesday night and now have wonderful memories. My thanks.
Tom Kalyn
THE BELOEIL BLUES
Thanks for your repeat of "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime". I really enjoy all your musical history stuff...origins of songs, their writers, performers, and so on. Delightfully informative stuff. Also loved "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight" (healthy nostalgia at its best!)
I don't think I ever told you this, but I tried to get into the songwriting business years ago. My first effort was a blues number which I thought was pretty darn good. A friend gave me the name of a blues "impresario" who was reputedly a good "listener" and an enthusiastic promoter of new stuff (if he liked it, of course). So I drove down to Kansas City and ran my number by the guy. He laughed, and said my song was " good...but TOO good". "TOO good?", I bemused. Too much lyric, he said. He then explained the tradition behind the original blues music: seems the original songs were written by the old singer-musicians themselves, but their songs were usually performed in crowded, smoke-filled little shacks...VERY NOISY joints, and no amplification. But those old guys had as much pride as the next guy in their lyrics, and to make sure they were heard and UNDERSTOOD they tended to write songs in which pretty-much the SAME lyric was repeated over and over. OK, I said...and I then wrote him another one right on the spot:
"My Baby She Done Left Me"
My baby she done lef' me...that's why I got the blues,
My baby she done lef' me...that's why I got the blues.
When my baby she done lef' me..she took my money and my shoes,
When my baby she done lef' me..she took my money and my shoes.
My baby she done lef' me...that's why I got the blues....., etc.
( I'm sure you get my feeling in this song Mark...repeat that stuff 16 times and you've 18:36 of powerful emotion there.) My impresario LOVED the lyrics, but hated the music. Can't win, dammit.
I then came home, and wrote something a little more MOR.
"Please Say You Care"
Darlin', darlin'...please say you care,
Darlin', darlin'...please say you care,
If you really love me
Change your underwear.
Rejected here as well, Mark. Too vulgar, apparently. Guess I'd preceded the vulgar era by a few decades. Think I oughta run it by some of those rap guys? Oh, well...in the meantime I'm havin' fun with this "plebe punditry" stuff ( thanks to STEYNONLINE)
John Gross
Beloeil, Quebec
LAZY RHYMES
I very much enjoy reading all of your work, and especially your Songs of the Week. I'm especially gratified to find out that I'm not the only one who is a little annoyed at how lazy most songwriters are when it comes to rhyming. On that note, my nomination for Worst Ever Rhyme in a Popular Song is the first stanza of Bob Seger's smash hit "Turn The Page":
On a long and lonesome highway east of Oma-HAW
You can listen to the engine moaning out as one long SONG
You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night be-FORE.
Paul Kennedy
FILM NIGHT IN THE NETHERLANDS
I'm preparing a film night in the Netherlands about musicals. I know from your site, you're an expert, but I can't find the right articles. Like a piece on the movie The Sound of Music. Can you help me out, point me out where to look for info on The Sound of Music in particular - did you ever write a piece on it? - and film musicals in general...
Thanks in advance,
Guido Karelse
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
BEAUTIFUL, BUT WHERE?
Howdy!
I've been trying unsuccessfully to find your wonderful Song of the Week article on
America, the Beautiful.
The one reference to it that I found online links to a page requiring login (!!!).
Jorge Curioso
Redmond, Washingon
Re: Doom if Saint Al loses carbs
HE’S LEAVING, ON A JET PLANE
I hope that he's gonna sail or paddle when going to retrieve it.
Ivan Satori
Kingston, Ontario
IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME…
If Al Gore gets a Nobel Peace Prize for global warming (or global cooling, or global staying-the-same-except-for-sometimes-when-it's-hotter-and-or-colder-than-I've-come-to-expect-this-time-of-year, or whatever it is exactly), then I am definitely going to win like 3 of them for Hemispheric
Densification.
What is HD? Well, my unenlightened friend/denier, it is the hard-to-observe but nonetheless obviously true fact that I made up about how wealthy, uncaring, self-centered Northern Hemisphere dwellers are constantly taking resources from the Southern Hemisphere (diamonds, hardwoods, zoo animals, etc.) to the Northern Hemisphere, contributing to an ever more out-of-whack density disparity between North and South. It is only a matter of time - and, I mean, this could happen any SECOND - before the Earth's rotation is affected. And then you get a wobble, which results in - at least - the Earth's axis ceasing to run from North to South Pole and starting to run between two spots on what we now think of as the "Equator." That's if we're lucky. More likely, the wobble will cause the Earth to shoot out of its orbit altogether and go careening into the Sun.
Al Gore is going to run into problems when, in like 10 years, there's been exactly 2 more hurricanes and it seems like winter starts earlier every year these days. I'll have no such problems with HD – because it's not something normal people can even hope to observe until it's too late. Meanwhile, I'll have to build ever-larger mantels (using naturally-Northern-Hemisphere-occurring woods) to hold all my Nobel Peace Prizes.
Brendan P. Cullen
Palo Alto, California
THEY GOT US INTO THIS MESS
You obviously fail to connect the dots between Gore's Sasquatchian carbon footprint and his insider knowledge that we are altering the balance between Earth and the rest of the galaxy. Has it occurred to you, Mr. Know It All Smarty Pants, that Al might understand something that you don't?--that at the end of the day we won't just have to answer to future generations where our stewardship of the planet is concerned: that we'll also have to give an accounting to the Klingons? Knowing that, what would YOU do if you alone held the key to averting an attack from cloaked Klingon raiders? I know what'd I'd do, if I were Al Gore: I'd build a time machine and travel back in time and start terminating the men who got us into this mess: Farraday, Edison, Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, and Henry Ford. A lot of the mess we're in can be blamed on lower infant mortality rates, modern medicine, modern sanitation. Electrical power has been a big culprit in all these areas. Eliminating starvation by increasing food production has wreaked (wrecked? wrocked?) havoc on the planet. The discover of penicillin is up there with the internal combustion engine in placing our earth in the balance. Is it enough just to create a generation of illiterates through our public school system to slow this devastating wave of progress? Is Al building a time machine in his basement? Knowing the way the man's mind works, do I have any reason to doubt it?
Ezra Marsh
Baltimore
DAYDREAM BELIEVERS
The Gore crockumentary is much like Mein Kampf. The contents don't matter, what matters is that you believe, that you proselytize further, that you quote endlessly.
I was loafing around my dad's house on the weekend. I found and leafed through my aunt Rita's 1930's schoolgirl’s "Maid’s Songbook', replete with gothic script quotes from Hitler.
I do not see too much difference between Hitler's nonsense in a kids' songbook and forcing kids to watch the Goreacle's nonsense. No doubt both sets of kids were and will be forced to regurgitate similar crudola on their exams.
Yeah, yeah, somebody or other's law, every argument degenerates into a comparison with Hitler, and I know Gore is not Hitler, he is not flamboyant, intense or smart enough, but so what? People want to believe, believe, believe, and most extant religions and politics seem empty. The Germans had a snootfull of conventional government. The West seems to feel the same about our rather boring governments and religions.
This also another reason to fear Islam. At least jihadis are not as horribly dull as some bearded, leftoid, priest or UCC minister strumming a guitar and moaning downbeat 'hymns'. Or as Stephane Dion, or Stelmach or ...
Strayed a bit, haven't I?
Fred Z
Calgary
GORE STUDIES
You wrote of Gore's movie: "It turns up in biology class, in geography, in physics, in history, in English."
Ha! That's nothing! My daughter had to sit through it in her health/PE class. That's gym class, Mark!
Joe E.
Re: Corrections facility
CHARGE IT TO YOURS TRULY
Isn't this the same government that has $(B)Millions in invalid charges by government employees on GOVERNMENT credit cards? You remember, the lap-dances and magnums of champagne??
Why isn't their pay being docked? I know it was a firing offense to use the Company Credit Card improperly at AT&T back when.
Tom Walsh
Canton, Georgia
Re: Uniform amnesty
GOVERNMENT INACTION
Again, you forget, this is the government in action (inaction?). The requirement for travellers to obtain valid passports for foreign travel was made subsequent to 9/11. There in black and white for all to read and ponder. Well, ponder it they did, with ICE(?) asleep at the switch, apparently doing nothing to prepare for the coming onslaught of applications. Through their eptitude, they almost doubled the processing time for passport applications.
All I can say is, travelling down the river, "Niagra Falls, 5 miles ahead", or aboard the Titanic, "Icebergs. Deck chair rearrangements to be accomplished by 2:37 am."
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." -- Milton Friedman
Uncle Milt was right, except he forgot that the price would double or treble, and the documentation, health advisory warnings and environmental impact statements would weigh more than the available sand...
Tom Walsh
Canton, Georgia
LET THE KIDS STAY
Your piece on Uniform Amnesty brings to mind one area where I believe that Conservatives are being unduly inflexible and, in fact, unjust on the immigration issue, and that is on the matter of persons residing illegally in the United States who were brought here by their guardians at a young age and who effectively have no other home. These persons are sometimes thoroughly assimilated, are culturally Americans, may have little or no experience or contact with the land of their nominal citizenship, and may not even speak that nation's dominant language. And yet our laws allow for their deportation. I strongly favor strict border enforcement and immigration control. Nonetheless, I believe it to be, in most cases, an abomination in the eyes of God to throw people of this description out of the country. Their parents may not deserve to stay, but these people who have grown up here do. We need to change the law accordingly. I urge everyone to support the DREAM Act currently pending before the Senate.
Dennis P. Chapman
Falls Church, Virginia
WHY STOP AT ONE?
I found your comments on reuniting families interesting. As you know, the rules governing immigration in Canada have grown increasingly curious over the years. I know of at least one Canadian emigre who has all but given up hope of re-entering the country with her Irish husband because they found that the bureaucracy grinds exceeding fine - and slowly. However, this does not seem to deter new Canadians from being "reunited" with a surprising number of spouses. What's really strange to me is how readily Canadians will accept practices that would once have been criminal, or at least an oddity, as a new norm. This came up in a conversation between my wife and one of her friends. As part of the normal gossip about relatives and relationships, my wife's friend wondered how her niece would adapt to her latest relationship with a Muslim boyfriend: "His father has three wives, and that sets their expectations so high", she said. Life can be so unfair to women. Polygamy may be commonplace, or at least unexceptionable, but polyandry just doesn't seem to have caught on. One of my friends at work was musing about how useful the practice would be to gold-digging women. "No dice", I said, "They still have to bump their husbands off one at a time – the old-fashioned way". We can joke about these things, but there is something deeply wrong with a culture that is so empty and insipid that we fail to defend the institution of marriage and the ideal of a nuclear family. These should be inviolate, immovable, and central to our sense of who we are as a nation.
Chris Ivey
Ottawa, Ontario
Re: There’s a place for it
IT’S STOOD THE TEST OF TIME
Thank you for your marvellous column on West Side Story. It is one of the few musicals from my youth that has stood the test of time and that didn't make me cringe when I listened to it again, many years later, with my children. Now I'm renewing my acquaintance with it and enjoying it more than ever, thanks to your article.
Kate Gilderdale
Re: Blowing smoke
FREEDOM OF CULTURAL EXPRESSION
Good Afternoon Mr. Steyn, I was amused by your article detailing the exception that Vancouver has made for smokers of protected cultures. A friend of mine asked if Vancouver would soon allow the firing of automatic weapons into the air during parades and on holidays. It only seems fair to "accommodate" this cultural expression, but given the liberal revulsion of firearms it would be difficult to square this circle.
Adam Lysene
Bagram, Afghanistan
Re: America Alone
I, HUMAN, TAKE THEE, ROBOT
I have discussed your book and its thesis with a number of rutting 20-somethings and thirtysomethings but didn't make much of an impression until I reduced your argument to the following bumper sticker:
"Mark Steyn sez ' At current birth rates, the civilized world will run out of ass before it runs out of oil! ' "
That got their attention.
See, it's all how you put things to some people. They began to chatter anxiously about ageing lap-dancers and porn-stars and 50-year-old Girls Gone Wild and Janet Jackson's forty-year-old right flapper. It was more pain than I intended to infllict.
Then, today I read on Drudge where a researcher in Japan said someday, humans will marry their robots. Now, there's a visual. Must have read your book.
Dean Carter
Hartford, Connecticut
THE VIKING SPIRIT
I agree with you that Europe is in grave danger from shifting demographics trends favoring Muslims, soft PC totalitarianism, and a lack of desperately needed moral clarity. However, where we disagree is, that I believe that Europe can be saved.
The Europeans we know today are descended from some of the fiercest warriors known to mankind. Such as the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, the Frankish people in France, the Germanic peoples, and the Vikings in Scandinavia.
I firmly believe that, if Europeans can rediscover the warrior spirit, and realize what is at stake, Europe can yet be saved from the abyss of Sharia.
Thank you for your time, sir.
anonymous
EXODUS
I am an American EX-expat who just moved back from Germany. One thing that struck me
is that there are TWO prime time series that deal with Germans who have moved
abroad... and I mean RECENTLY ... see here and here.
Is this a sign of a healthy society? I would think not.. One of the series is called "my new life" - mein neues Leben. The other is called "Goodbye Deutschland". The comments say: Starting July 17th, the shows fans can look forward to a two hour version of the popular series".
Thanks for your writing. Your warnings are one the many deciding factors I used in
making my decision to return. Germany is going down.
Steve G
Detroit, Michigan
BERLIN’S LOVELY NEW MOSQUE
In reference to your Corner note about mosques in Europe, I would like to report on the building activities in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin; my neighborhood being the largest Turkish "city" outside of Turkey, but also under an increased gentrification process . On my street a Turkish mosque with one minaret is under construction next to the Catholic Church. Nearby, a Saudi financed mosque is almost completed. However, the biggest problem one reads about is the recently completed McDonald's, the first in Kreuzberg and managed by a Turkish woman.
Generally, I see no problem with Turks; many are even adapting to the gentrification with newly renovated cafes and restaurants. It's the Saudi financed mosque that's worrying me and some Turks I've spoken with.
Name withheld
MINIMALIST ISLAM
Have you seen this film review, which can be found at the online English version of Der Spiegel?
It reviews a film that consists of nothing else but a man on a stripped down stage reading the manuscript of a German translation of sermons preached in a mosque in Germany. You may well guess the content of the sermons.
Mark T. Mealey
Calgary
FAMILY DECLINE
Compare and Contrast:
Otto von Bismark who created Europe's first public pension system.
The demise in London of his descendant.
In a few decades the only Bismark will be in the Dakotas.
Dave
Thornhill, Ontario
EID DON'T THINK SO
Just finished AMERICA ALONE, and it is a marvel of style, wit, humor, and incisive analysis of a very real problem for anyone who is not a Muslim and has no desire to be reverted. I am recommending this book to every thinking person I know. Thank you for making me aware--with facts and stats--of what I had suspected.
And just today, I see that some pitiful bureaucrat illumined the Empire State Building in green to "celebrate" the end of Ramadan. As if that will keep them from wanting to reduce it to a brickyard . . . .
And so grazie. Molto grazie, for writing such a wonderful book.
Tom Monteleone
(author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel)
WHY NOW?
Empire State Building lit up in green to honor Eid
I have no issue with the Empire State Building lighting up green in celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid, I only have contention with WHY the City of New York is doing this for the first time in its history. Is it out of inclusion or fear? I suspect the latter to be most likely the reason (the bases of political correctness), in which case Muslim's in New York should feel more insulted than respected. Being an agnostic American, I would rather see the building lit up in the colors of my favorite holiday, Halloween. Oddly, I've noticed here in Chicago that the John Hancock Tower for the first time since I moved here five years ago has foregone lighting up in the traditional purple and orange (so have many others). It now sits dark and sad looking. Is Halloween no longer politically correct?
P.S. I might add that I don't recall any of the buildings either in New York or Chicago lighting up in the rainbow colors to commemorate Gay Pride in June. Do you think the governments of those two cities are either homophobic or they have no fear of gays?
David Papaccio
Chicago, Illinois
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO EUROPE
I’m a business student from Queen’s University studying in Finland for a semester. America Alone should be made the official guide to Europe, as it offers up a much more accurate picture than any of the wow-look-at-the-pretty-buildings guides I’ve seen: from the ridiculous and time-consuming bureaucracy involved in everything from internet service to operating the damn laundry machines, to the hijabed ladies and their gaggles of children (as opposed to the hot blondes who generally seem child-free).
Your website is the first one I visit every morning, and it is a much appreciated reprieve from the absurd discussion I have nightly with whatever Frenchman or German or Italian or whoever. Europeans argue among themselves about pretty minor differences of opinion (whether America or Israel is worst fascist terrorist, etc) but I feel as if I’m on a different planet from these nutcases. When some guy with his head up his ass starts patronizingly laughing at my crazy views and declares the conversation over I have to physically resist the urge to punch him in the nose. But
I wouldn’t want to get all Texan on him…
One more observation: I feel like a child here at twenty years old. I’ll have two years of work behind me by the time I’m the average age of the students here. I think that is probably the best gift the Canadian education system has given me.
Keep up the great work,
A poor Canadian in Europe
ROSIER PICTURE OF THE EMERALD ISLE
I agree with your diagnosis of, and prognosis for, Europe's demography problem but the situation in Ireland might be a little different from that of France and Britain. The vast majority of our immigrants are from eastern Europe – mainly Poland and the Baltic states. There is a large Muslim presence - about 30,000 - which is worrying but most of our immigrants from Africa are non-Muslim. The women wear, say and do what they like. Many of them come from Nigeria (I have heard that they are assisted by priests who are helping them escape from sharia law in the
north of the country) and all of them go to the schools and are integrated into the education system. There are also plenty of Asian immigrants. My point is that the vast majority of our immigrants have no beef with our secular, democratic system and have no wish to replace it with sharia or anything resembling it. The main blot on the rosy picture is that much of our law comes from Europe so sharia could be imposed from there. For what it’s worth.
Margeurite Conway
Dublin
THEY WANT TO GO HOME
Indeed, immigration has gone through the roof, but I would contend that, given that the vast majority of our immigrant population are other Europeans (Poles, Lithuanians), with 50 per cent of them being Catholic, and 70 per cent Christian, the problem of integrating them won't be quite as severe.
Plus, most of the Poles want to go home. It is fair to say that the speed of this development has taken everybody by surprise, and there has been virtually no serious discussion of the situation. But I do think that the problem is worse in countries where a significant proportion of the immigrant population share few of the basic cultural assumptions of the host country. I'm not sure that's the case in Ireland.
Tom O'Gorman
Dublin
THE WORLD IN LIMBO
Since the publication of America Alone, you've not written much, and what you've written has not expressed much that is new. But, of course, what is there to write? It seems that the world is in limbo and the same events repeat themselves (re the “peace process”). Your metaphor of fast-flowing water under a frozen river is apt: what will the world look like in 15 years? Everything seems the same now, but it will no doubt change very quickly once the present generation has come of age.
Then again, will it matter? In your latest piece for the OC, you reject the economic determinism of the ruling elite, but the fact that Balkan passions nor some Muslim misfits have not as yet been restrained by the enticements of economic growth and the development of government-as-bureaucratic-management does not really negate the reality of globalization as a worldwide force for the subordination, as now exists in the West, of politics (ideology) to economics. The Balkans will be brought under soon enough. Such a fate is -- is it not? -- the fear of the Muslim world?
Homo economicus has won the day, and it's not all bad. True, we're lost culture, authenticity, community, passion, but banal tolerance, prosperity, and relative peace are perhaps worth it?
Jasper House
SAVE THE AIR
You are being unkind. The drop in population proves how serious they are about reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Having fewer people exhaling sure beats everyone being ordered to hold his breath.
Joseph Shier
Toronto
THOSE DARN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
I purchased America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. This is a fantastic read with a powerful message. Whenever I share some of its information with friends, they experience what sociologists refer to as cognitive dissonance.
I checked the Ontario government's statistics on fertility and we're averaging a whopping 1.4 children per female. Yet the CCCL entered the recent election by indicating they support the idea of revoking funding for Catholic schools. I guess the CCCL is tired of Catholic kids learning to respect life, value the family and honor heterosexual marriage -these silly beliefs just get in the way of radical feminism and extreme liberalism more so than a vacuum bomb.
Ontario secularists want to revisit the issue of funding religious schools in 2007- they want to revoke it. But now I'm beginning to wonder how many of them will be around or young enough to ride that STRONG HORSE into battle. By that time the state will provide free walkers for many of them.
Ontario liberalism is out of control and has been for the past thirty years-perhaps longer. This is such a juvenile society, that the main complaint my liberal father-in-law has is if his mashed potatoes are warm enough whenever he dines at a Swiss Chalez. He never seems concerned that all three of his aging children-48, 51, 54- forgot about having children and he still delights at the sight of his youngest, fat ass and all, being pulled out of the water from a high-powered ski boat. Personally speaking, I'd rather visit the Zanzibar and watch a pole dancer.
Ontarians believe they have nothing to worry about given the growing number of New Ontarians. In fact a friend of mine ,who just helped a liberal get elected, told me Ontario is doing a better job with them than European countries. I asked him, just what the hell we're doing that's so different. I'm still waiting for an answer.
Dave
ADOPT A LIBERAL
Check out the article: "Brood Awakening" by Mathew Kalman in The New York Daily News, Monday October 15, 2007. Wow! I'd send it to you myself but my computer and your web site are having problems communicating.
I can't call it "Adopt a Liberal" because I think President Reagan used the term liberal inaccurately but I am busily engaged in "Adopt a Leftist" machinations.
Alexander Stone Dale
New York City, Baby
PENIS SHRINKERS
We need to locate the foreigners who made Sudanese penises vanish, and send them (the foreigners, not the Sudanese penises) among our enemies. These youth bulges must be stopped.
Michael Greenspan
Bronx, New York
A SIGN OF STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS
Whatever the virtues of immigration per se, a dependence on mass immigration - especially mass immigration from one particular source (as in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland) – is always a sign of structural weakness in society and should be addressed as such. But the reality is that in Britain and Europe no-one even knows how to discuss the subject anymore. Sad.
Hmm...what other country can I think of that depends on mass immigration from one particular source? What other society considers it "racist" to even discuss limiting illegal immigration? What other society has a massive presence of immigrants who don't speak the language, don't share the culture and don't have any allegiance to their new country?
It ain't any better on this side of the Atlantic pal. We in the West are all going down together.
Paul Kohnhorst
Grand Rapids, Michigan
POST-BABY BOOST
Saw your post about the declining birth rates in Europe, especially Spain. Interesting, but I thought Spain has been doing increasingly better economically (relative to the rest of Europe) in its post-Franco incarnation. I wonder if there's some sort of short-term boost to the economy if people don't have children, have fewer children, or have them later... E.g., my wife and I are in our mid thirties, she has returned to school for financial planning, I work at a start up, and own half of another. We have no room for children right now (and possibly later, given our ages and reality), but there's a great potential for us to be economically successful. Thoughts?
Justin
THE EUROPEAN SOLUTION
....should we consider the recent fateful summer heat wave and subsequent death toll of elderly Europeans as the European solution to the problem you highlight?
As the Dems point out....Europe is more civilized than us upstart colonists!!
Carol Burge
THEY DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT
Just want to confirm your comment that Brits don't even know how to discuss the immigration topic. Was on holiday on a little island off Madagascar a few weeks back and met a charming British couple from Bristol - very intelligent, successful business people. Proper upper-middle class poms. Conversation somehow led to British taxes and European society, but as soon as I mentioned low birth rates and structural weaknesses resulting in reliance on immigration, these talkative people fell completely silent, and a strange, stifled silence fell on the conversation. I realised that they had never really even applied serious thought to the issues. More importantly, they didn't seem to care much at all, or consider it at least worth a brief discussion. Conversation was quickly diverted, and a jolly good time was had by all ol' boy... but it definitely got me thinking that certain key issues are just not in the realm of public discourse in the UK and Europe. This very fact will exacerbate the problems going forward. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Cheers.
p.s for the record, as a red blooded South African, I am incredibly proud of our nation's British heritage, and am so thankful for British colonisation of Southern Africa. I hope that the Brits can rediscover even just a fragment of their former glory - we all need it actually.
Russell
Johannesburg, South Africa
FLIRTING WITH OBLIVION
This article certainly confirms your thesis about the demographic collapse of Europe. It appears that Europe is aborting and refusing to procreate itself into oblivion.
Keith Varni
GREAT BOOK
Yes I'm a little late in reading it. I guess I've been hiding under a rock.
Wow what a great book !! Some of the content I knew about, some of it was new.
Thanks for the masterpiece.
Brett
Sacramento, California
EYES WIDE OPEN
Just finished your GREAT book. It should be required reading for EVERY American. It sure opened my eyes. I'm so glad that Laura Ingram coupled your book with hers otherwise I never would have been fortunate enough to get it and read it.
Thanks for all you do Mark.
Shirley Robb
Brooklyn, New York
Re: Jobbing pols
NO PLACE FOR AN EAGER BEAVER
I completely agree with Mr Newmark's and your comments. I would also two additional requirements:
1. Age. At a minimum, a President should be 50 and older would be better. If for no other reason, his energy will be limited, so he will be forced to concentrate on just the few essentials. The Presidency is no place for an eager beaver.
2. At one point in his life, the inidividual must have achieved pariah or "has been" status. Reagan qualifies due to the effective collapse of his film career in the 1950s. We need to be sure that the individual will stick to his principles and guns even when everyone is booing him.
Tim Saunders
Half Moon Bay, California
SENATE’S ENOUGH
Got to agree with Corner comment on presidential qualifications. Given the Senate's performance over the last 150 years or so, it has gotta be near the bottom of the list of places to go.
Mike Gallagher
A GOOD THING
Re: Betsy Newmark's comment: People complained in 2000 that Bush hadn't prepped to
be President due to lack of public service and that "he never wanted to be President." I always thought this was a very good thing; that he not only hadn't been involved in government, but hadn't been spending his time preening for the office his whole life like, oh, I don't know, Mr. Gore? Thanks for your work and humor.
Scott Lavender
WHAT’S HILLARY GOOD AT?
Before seeking to be president, should a person exhibit being competent at some other
job? Millions of women demonstrate being competent at both roles of wife and mother. Yet,Hillary Clinton's marriage is a public disaster. By her own admission, it took a village to raise her child. As a lawyer after failing the easiest bar examination in the country, she lost the billing records of a client which is unacceptable for a lawyer. What has she accomplished as a senator? Is she presidential material?
Floyd Folven
Pasadena, California
A PHILOSOPHY HELPS
"If one looks at recent history, the Republican nominee with the fullest, most profound political philosophy, the one who'd thought most seriously about the role of government and its relationship to individual liberty, was Ronald Reagan, who formed his views while doing other stuff."
I hasten to add that that same formulation can be applied to a Republican of a more recent vintage = George Bush.
Colin Mulloy
Kansas City, Missouri
Re: Wait staff
HEALTHCARE HORRORS
I am a regular reader of your columns. Thank you for the revealing piece, "Brother, Can You Spare a CHIP?" My gratitude and encouragement for keeping the truth alive.
Please write more warnings about the aging, failing British health care system? Socialized medicine in the US will similarly look like a good deal to the first recipients, as the newly nationalized system operates under its own momentum during the first years. Their heirs will not fare as well, as the system crumbles due to isolation from market-based initiative.
Point out the horrors of a bureaucratic government health care monopoly that controls medical professionals as government employees, medical care facilities as government offices, medical care insurers as government contractors, pharmaceutical companies as government suppliers and medical research as pork.
Chris Lienhard
Kerrville, Texas
WHAT WE DON’T WANT HERE
I would appreciate a discussion of the US healthcare system that addresses the following issues but I have never heard them mentioned as part of the debate.
My understanding is that in most or all of the socialized medicine countries :
1 There are NO Contingency Fee Attorney payments. Patients can sue and win but the lawyer gets a paycheck not a jackpot.
2 An MD is an undergraduate degree and a Dr. is NOT required to spend 4 years and $100+ thousand on an undergrad "PREMED" degree before starting medical school.
3 These countries are spending billions to try to move to the quality of US healthcare. Blair BRAGS that his administration brought wait times down from 18 months to 7 months.
4 Most of these countries allow for PRIVATE HEALTHCARE INSURANCE which brings us back to the same problem of those with insurance get good treatment and those without get crap.
The US voters are being told a fairy tale they are all too willing to accept as fact and none of our news sources will bring out the downside of the Socialized "Medicine Show."
Our politicians (all are lawyers) would never change the contingency fee jackpot in the US system. The WSJ editorial spoke about legal settlements in the US as being $300 Billion but the CHANGE IN ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR as over $800 billion which could explain the difference in
healthcare expenditures in the US vs socialized countries.
In the Bush / Clinton debates Clinton said "Why can’t Americans have a healthcare system that's as good as the Canadians or Germans?" Within a few weeks a NY Times articles (buried) said that 40,000 German Healthcare workers went on strike calling their system supervised euthanasia. You would think the Republicans would have jumped on this since it occurred before the election but they let it pass. I don't get it.
J. R. Boccuzzi DMD
Trumbull, Connecticut
Re: G, I wonder why the remake Joe
THE REAL G.I. JOE
Your story of the transformation of G.I. Joe is fascinating. It chronicles yet another case of Hollywood rendering the sublime into the ridiculous. For there was a real G I. Joe, if any individual soldier could be so named. He was Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton Texas, a company commander in the US Army 36th Division in World War II. By all accounts he was as honorable, courageous, devout and beloved a soldier as ever wore an Army uniform. The story of his death in the battle of San Pietro, Italy, 1943, was one of the most popular of Ernie Pyle's wartime dispatches, entitled "The Death of Captain Waskow". (You can read all about it here). This Capt. Waskow, and this dispatch of Pyle's, formed the basis of William A. Wellman's 1945 movie, "The Story of G.I. Joe", starring Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith.
The rest of the story, as you suggest, is typical. G. I. Joe then enters the American cultural vernacular, in turn, as the unassuming citizen soldier who rights the world's wrongs, the subject of a Johnny Mercer hit song, becomes a toy action figure, and is now a comic-book movie anti-hero,
globalized and neutered. He will appear with Bono at the next Live Earth concert, screeching a rock Jeremiad against George Bush. What could be more predictable?
Michael Arens
Howell, Michigan
Re: The sun never sets
UNWORTHY OF YOU
I'm a fan, and almost always agree with you. But I cringed when you wrote that arguing the motivations of the dead is shrill and unworthy -- not ten lines after endorsing Canadian correspondents' argument for the importance of "per capita" blood spilled in defense of freedom.
The factual truth is that Americans have shed far more blood for freedom than Canadians. The argument that Canadians might have shed more if there were more of them is baldly speculative. Same goes for Britons in WWII, though they only have "half the population."
Pro-rating lives is at least as unworthy as taking the motivations of our war dead
into consideration.
Matthew Kalash
New York, New York
Re: Spitting on the troops
NO IRISH PERSON SHOULD BE APPLAUDING
Glad I checked web site as I have written to Taoiseach Ahern a number of times before as to facilitating war mongers. Will do so now.
My great great grandparents survived a Fever ship to reach safety in Canada during the Great Famine -not so lucky were the many poor Irish families tossed out of their hovels for non payment of rent to the oppressors -not Irish -many poor died in ditches children included. No Irish person should be applauding. Maybe I will make copies of a few bloodied bodies from Iraq including the two women recently killed by mercenaries though the soldiers seem to be doing a great job too. I will also ask if Rendition flights are refueling at Shannon.
Kathleen Bridel
WHEN IS IT TIME TO TAKE UP ARMS?
Dear Mr. Steyn, I have been asking this question to Conservative Talkers and nobody answers it I hope perhaps you would know.
Since our second amendment is such a treasured right when is the appropriate time to envoke it against as you well know an out of control Government.
Is it after Pelosi and Reed have opened the door to jihadist? After Ted Kennedy drives this country down Chappaquidic one more time?
Why if we actually have a second amendment right, why do we spend so much money paying secret service to protect the same people it gives us a right to take up arms against.
Whether it's national or local when is enough enough?
Waiting for an answer Sir.
Jeffery Davis
MARK REPLIES: I don’t think I can answer it. As an immigrant to this country, I’m obligated not to take up arms against the United States government. So I think it’s one to put to the native-born.
DEATH RATES
I refer to the Vanity Fair article about the young man who was killed who had stated that he was inspired in part by you to join the military.
Do you realize that the death rate per capita of Iraqis of all stripes due to any and all war causes is less than the homicide rate in New Orleans?
The CIA world factbook estimates the population of Iraq at 27,499,638. Googling "96 tulane new orleans murder" leads us to many references to an article by a Tulane University professor who estimated the 2006 murder rate of New Orleans as 96 per 100,000 in 2006. That means that there would be 2,200 murders per month in Iraq if the people there were as bad off as the people in New Orleans [one-twelfth of 27,499,638 times (96/100,000)]. And a predictably wretched CNN.com article "Blast hits near hospital as violence tears across Iraq" of April 2007 gives the Iraqi civilian war casualty rates over several months at less than 2,000 per month. Word is that it's now less than that.
The death rate due to natural causes for a population that size would very roughly be about 33,000 persons per month [one-twelfth of (27,499,638/70)]. The factor of 70 comes about because persons in populations groups whose members mainly die of natural causes tend to live for about 70 years, so roughly 1/70th of the population dies of natural causes each year.
An often-given estimate of the death toll for our four-year US civil war of 1861-1865 is 620,000. It happens that the population of the United States then was about the same as that of Iraq now . We can easily estimate the US casualty rate per month as about 12,900 [one-twelfth of (620,000/4)].
Mike O'Connor
Shelton, Washington
WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM WITH RUDI?
I was shocked to read, at the tail end of your HH interview this week, a casual
comment that you have "a whole bunch of problems" with Rudy Giuliani. What are they?
Greg Forster
Indianapolis, Indiana
THE HOSTILE CANADIAN
I was recently doing research on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and came across several interviews she gave posted on YouTube from across the globe, including Sweden, Britain, the Netherlands and Canada. Most the interviewers - including the Swede - were open, even sympathetic, to her views, all except one - the Canadian. The Canadian interviewer (a Left Wing version of Bill O'Reilly?) kept insisting that Hirsi was making gross generalizations about Islam. Then, ironically, when Hirsi made a positive comment about the United States, he unflinchingly went on a rant about the United States being controlled by Christian evangelicals and that homophobia in America is "rampant." He seemed to have no issue making the most outrageous cliched generalizations about the United States, but was personally insulted Hirsi, who lived under Sharia law, would criticize Islam. This is the kind of interview one would expect coming from al-Jazeera. That it took place on Canadian TV is astounding, not to mention desperately sad. You need to see it for yourself to believe it. If this interviewer’s opinions of the United States are the prevailing view held by the majority of Canadians, then we have a serious problem on our hands.
Mario
Chicago, Illinois
DEMS ANTAGONIZE TURKEY
Isn't there another possible angle to Democrats' using the genocide issue to anger Turkey -- if Turkey gets angry and (1) crosses the border into to destabilize now-quiet northern Iraq or (2) cuts off logistical support for America's efforts in Iraq, then Democrats get to stop "the President's war"? And if Turkey does cross the border to attack the Kurds, Democrats get to continue their "see, they've been killing each other for centuries, we're caught in the middle" argument.
I don't think I'm a cynic by nature, yet -- this Armenian thang all seems like a back-door attempt by Pelosi and Congressional Democrats to hamper the war in Iraq. Remember Murtha talking about a "slow bleed" on Iraq, by monkeying with war funding? Secretary Gates was quoted last week as saying that about 70 percent of all our air cargo going into Iraq goes through Turkey... this includes ALL of our new armored vehicles that are designed to withstand IEDs and such.
IF Turkey cuts off our airspace access and ability to provide logistical support, don't Democrats get to shrug their shoulders about the consequences -- yet, they're on the high hobby horse by taking this principled stand on 90-year-old genocide, and it's not their fault?
No fingerprints. Think about it.
Chris Caldwell
Richmond, Virginia
SLOW HAND-CLAP
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, is famous throughout the entertainment industry for being more than just a little self-righteous.
At a recent U2 concert in Glasgow, Scotland, he asked the audience for total quiet.
Then, in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands, once every few seconds.
Holding the audience in total silence, he said into the microphone: "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."
A voice in a broad Scottish accent from the front of the crowd pierced the quiet ...
"Well, then fookin stop doin it then, ya evil basturd!"
Len Price
MEDIA PUKES AND SCUMBAG POLITICANS
What happened to America?
1. Sandy Burglar....gets a slap on the wrist..50K fine...and some black kid does two years for shop lifting???? That fat schmuck should be hung drawn and quartered!!!! And he is working with Hillary? Americans are disgusted with these self serving rich scumbag politicians.
2. How about the USS LIBERTY crew?? And the media...in general has NO GUTS...Finally...after 40 years,,,,the Chicago tribune steps up and writes a fabulous article....loaded with facts....do any of you suck up clowns follow up???? Nope.
Do you media pukes all suck up...wave flags...say how Patriotic you are ...but cower at telling the TRUTH about the USS LIBERTY...who was left behind by our own GOVERMENT???? To DIE????
You call yourself "Patriots"...I call you cowards!
3. Rudi....this little weasel...who is bought and paid for by Israeli Lobby...and AIPAC and PNAC neocons...this prick who supports late term abortion...this is the best WE Republicans can do?????
4.. How about IMMIGRATION??? Are any of these candidates going to do SQUAT???? Nope!
We need some honesty...and Ron Paul is that....like many...I will write him in...rather then vote for the anointed choices we are being given....
RP...may not have an ice cube in hell’s chance to win...but at least I'll know I didn't sell out my soul when I cast my vote!
R Thompson
Florida
HILLARY’S ANTECEDENTS
For those of a certain age (like me):
Question: What do you get when you cross - from 1972 - Richard Nixon with George
McGovern?
Answer: Hillary! 2008.
Love your columns!
Tom Zampino
Port Washington, New York
JOIN THE CLUB
Regarding Hillary's run in with Randall Rolph with his own opinion in Iowa yesterday it made me wonder if she had really been asked that same question before as she claimed. Just like when she claimed she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary and that was proven to be false. I wonder how she can run for President and hope to make all the important National Security decisions and at the same time any dissent from her rule while campaigning she screams set up or plant. By the way, do you know where I can sign up for the right wing conspiracy club?
I look forward to your articles every Sunday in the Orange County Register.
Tom Page
Silverado, California
PS I enjoy the NRO Corner I will send them some bucks.
THE NAME'S BOND, JIMMY BOND
The real first James Bond movie in 1954
Actually I believe the first silver screen James Bond was played by fellow named Barry Nelson, and he was called Jimmy Bond and he was a CIA agent, not British intelligence. The TV movie was made in 1954 by the Climax Theater and was even called Casino Royale. The movie also starred Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. It is a black and white movie and except for the name changes and some plot revisions, it remained pretty close to the Ian Fleming written version. I liked this movie mainly because it was simple, straightforward, and lacked any pretense of being anything greater than it was. It also gave me an idea of how James Bond might have been cast had the strictures of the almost Victorian Fifties been carried over to the sexy Sixties!
Ken Besig
Kiryat Arba, Israel
FAREWELL WESTERN STANDARD
This letter is just to play Taps over the sad news of the demise of the Western Standard magazine. It truly is sad to see that refreshingly different magazine go down in the sea of Media conformity of today. Maybe it will continue to have a Web presence.
Wroblewski
Columbia
THE END OF A GREAT MAGAZINE
Western Standard has been a great magazine, and it is a real tragedy to see it go under. I purchased 2 subscriptions for a couple of friends, as well as one for me. However. It's time to get real, moneywise. This transition from "dead tree" to "the Web" is going to have to be financed, by more than contributions, or even subscriptions etc. Advertising is a possibility, of course. However, the large $$ from the latter is from clothing and food, neither of which advertise in political environs.
I understand that whenever a song is played on the radio, or used in a movie/show/play, some $$ goes to the artist/owner of said song.
Well, I wonder if there could be some system like that of music, applied to the web portals... like, everytime a column is read/accessed, $$ is taken from that person's "bank account." This would be a lot handier, by the way, than re-registering every time my subscription runs out.
Heather McFarlane
Whitehorse, Yukon
WRITING RECOMMENDATION
I regret the closing of the magazine. When you talk to your pals there suggest, that if they ever rejuvenate themselves in one form or the other, much attention should be paid to high quality writing. Both in content and style.
George Steiner
Lachine, Quebec
HITLER ANECDOTE
First I want to let you know that I am a very big fan of yours - love your wit and wisdom in the political arena, which is my area of interest, and I am delighted whenever I can catch you on TV. Wish it were more often. I've also read with great interest your "America Alone."
Second, I have a question from your recent excellent piece "Keep Talking." What is the source of the Lord Halifax/Hitler anecdote?
Many thanks for your presence and the light you put on this dangerous world scene.
Best wishes from a devoted fan.
Pnina Schiffer
Jerusalem, Israel
GLENN GOULD REMEMBERED
I love your stuff for NR/NRO and wherever else I happen to find it.
As you probably know, this last October 4th was the 25th anniversary of your fellow Canadian, the magnificent pianist (and totally eccentric wingnut) Glenn Gould, who died of complications of a stroke at age 50.
Since his death, two more wonderful pianists have arisen from your country: Marc-Andre Hamelin (from Montreal) and Angela Hewitt (from Toronto, I think). Gould was also from Toronto.
Canada is well-represented by classical pianists these days. I don't know if you like classical music, but you should be proud.
Again, love your stuff.
Richard Zuelch
Lakewood, California
MARK REPLIES: I love Glenn Gould. Used to play him all the time when I was a classical jock. And you can be sure if we ever do "Downtown" for Song Of The Week, Gould's peerless Petula Clark analysis will be extensively referenced.
LAST WORD
In the most recent mailbag, you refer to having resigned as columnist from a number
of newspapers. I seem to have missed any discussion over this and am curious. Could
you take a moment or two to explain the circumstances?
Not that I am displeased. You were carried in my hometown Chicago Sun Times, a
miserable rag wherein you were the standout amidst a gaggle of silly little women liberals (including Richard Roeper, who should just put on a dress and get it over with).
And since many of your correspondents seem moved to verse these days...
The newspaper writer named Steyn
Wrote columns that were just fine.
The rest of the paper being a bore
Getting to him was a chore.
So now we enjoy him online!
Burt
Des Plaines, Illinois
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