Billets Doux
Letters to the Editor, and other musings. 

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine,  23 Aug 10. 

It is remarkable how tenaciously people defend their religious beliefs. In today’s modern world, it requires adorning them with the patina of scientific vocabulary in order to convince others of their veracity. But always left out is any explanation of exculpatory evidence.  Thus, DAM letter writer Anthony Newey, beats the drum with the usual amalgam of techno-half truths to make his theological point that it is greedy mankind which is responsible for our thermal plight. 

No one denies that global warming is occurring; the cosmic question is “Why?” it is certainly not, as Newey asserts, because atmospheric C02 miraculously turns impinging UV into outgoing IR! 

The two issues global warming Cassandras never address is why, if current temperature increase is caused by burning fossil fuels, did we ever have ice ages? Were cave men just not burning enough wood? 

The second is the simple, unpleasant truth that 95% of global warming is not at all caused by humans, but by ever-changing solar activity. As Danish climatologist Hendrik Svensmark points out, cosmic rays hitting the earth form clouds. More cloud cover reflects more of the sun’s heat. We were at a cosmic radiation low (as evidenced by a complete lack of sun spots) just recently and the sun’s activity is already starting up again. Cloud covers will once again slowly increase and we will see a drop in global temperatures. This gradual drop will infuriate the Gore-led priesthood, which has already been caught with their hands in the scientific cookie jar “correcting” the climate data to reflect their faith that mankind—especially profligate Americans--are inherently evil and must be stopped at all costs.  

Well, relax everybody, it won’t be much longer, so enjoy global warming while it lasts.

Discover Magazine 12 June 2010

 Astronomers are not biologists 

As in all religions, SETI cultists are careful not to peer into corners where they might find unwelcome news. Indeed, they are so enthralled with the science of astronomy, they do not even realize how carefully they avert their gaze from the science of biology.

Their two most egregious errors are those of conflating the existence of life with the existence of sentient life, and the unwillingness to face Darwin’s Iron Law of survival of the fittest. 

Sure, microbial life can be found nearly anywhere the conditions permit—liquid water and protection from various forms of harmful radiation. Life is, after all, only a very special chemical reaction. But sentient life is a much different story, and one these celestial mechanics would hardly be qualified to address, even if they turned in their telescopes for microscopes. 

The incredible series of fortuitous accidents that permitted sentient life to arise on this precious planet  (e.g., a very large moon caused by an errant planet knocking a huge junk of the earth into orbit to enable very large tides of salt water that filtered and combined minerals in 100-mile tidal runoffs, etc.) are so unusual, and so sequentially perfect, that the Drake Equation is no more useful than the Creationist’s theory of a watch-maker God. 

Their second error is the result of their daft political orientation-- the unwillingness to face that fact that the only sentient creatures we know became successful because they annihilated or drove off any possible competitors. Any distant intelligence superior to ours would waste about as much time taking over our planet as the Europeans did when they took over the New World.

In the meanwhile, those interested in learning the compelling story about the biology of sentient life (rather than its geometry) should read Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Rare in the Universe, by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. [http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Complex-Uncommon-Universe/dp/0387952896/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top ]  Here they will learn that science or not, we thinking creatures are every bit a miracle of creation.

NY Times, 16 May 2010

NPR Radio 25 March 2010 
The Feminization of America?

I know this sounds heretical, but as a NEWS program, can we have at least ONE male defense of bullying? The regnant liberal assault on this time-honored rite of passage is to search out the most egregious examples—e.g., gang fighting in Los Angeles--and consider that the norm. Then, as with all liberal causes, institute draconian (“zero-tolerance”) national-wide laws against it.

Of course a key element of your simpering  nostrums show only that you have no idea of the dynamics of most real-world bullying. When the question was raised of what to do when being bullied, your commentator went totally mute. Walk away I think was eventually muttered. As if you could. That is typical of the usual liberal thought experiment when all answers offend their delicate sensibilities. 

Most real-world bullying has beneficial side effects. It teaches boys courage under duress; it surprises those who stand up to it and sometimes win.  (After being bullied by Joey Defrance, I finally fought back and—surprising to both of us--won! He never bothered me again.) And if you do fight back, even if you lose, you gain the respect of those who bully, and invaluable self-respect. Not a word of that, of course. Much too masculine. 

This anti-bullying campaign is led by the same coterie of feminists that decry any sort of rough-and-tumble anything. Unfortunately, editorializing along these lines is becoming a pernicious trend at NPR. Here are some more examples of feminine earnestness by your radio journalists who seem to have just gotten out of finishing school:

1.      A piece on muscle cramping of older people which goes off on some wild goose chase about using exotic prescription anti-seizure medication—instead of the universally accepted method of taking magnesium oxide tables, available at any drug store. Oh, no, go see a specialist.

2.      Having an English as a second language instructor (of course) insist that if he fell down with a heart attack, his students should know how to call a cardiologist!!! What if this had been an epileptic fit? The cardiologist would have been furious! And what about 911?

3.      A story on a struggling young couple having to scrimp to make ends meet. Fortunately, after only a few months of this, “her book deal came through.” Oh, what a relief to all your listeners, many of whom are also financially hard-up and most of who have numerous potential best seller manuscripts out for editorial perusal. I just hope your piece does not have them all sitting around the telephone…

It is not just NPR (although you are a major culprit). The Explorers Club is now headed by a woman, so all the hairy-chested exploration for which the club has been famous has now devolved to “exploring” green ways to save the planet. Soon they will merge with the Sierra Club. 

Sixteen of the seventeen department heads of the failing National Geographic magazine are now women. They have turned their editorial content around to their female way of thinking. Wind-in-your-face Arctic exploration now consist of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emission from vanishing glaciers. (Those rude glaciers that are growing won’t be mentioned.) Struggles to penetrate the Amazonian jungles in search of lost cities are now replaced by the struggles of planting shade trees for Costa Rican coffee communes on hilly ground. Readers are leaving in droves. 

Finally, I would like a statistical analysis of the percentage of young females you interview, all of whom have charming English accents. Oh, yeah, there was a guy interviewed recently. He is from The Economist. He had an English accent too.

NY Times, 12 July 2007
 

Quote of the Week. 25 June 06  (Proving once again, the BS NEVER stops)

$5 Lottery Ticket to Cost Indiana $1 Million

State Plans to Settle Lawsuit Dating Back to 1996

AP

Jim Clark, with Baker & Daniels, represented the (losing) Hoosier Lottery, said the law firm, which received $450,000 in legal fees from the settlement, still disagrees with Smith and Waples (the winner), but that he's ready for the lawsuit to be over.

"I would have paid him the $5 out of my own pocket," he said.

NY Times, 26 May 06 

Quote of the Week (Online Washington Times 25 May 06)

Stanford's Stephen Schneider, interviewed by Jonathan Schell in Discover magazine later that year [on global warming], spoke of the need to "capture the public's imagination." Scientists would have to "offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. ... Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest."

 

PBS, 10 May 06  

PBS has gone a long, long way in restoring balance to your news programs.  The turning point for me was the special examination of the A-bombing of Hiroshima.  That act has always formed the liberal article of faith that "War Doesn’t Work Any More," and served both to proclaim that it wasn’t militarily necessary and America was evil to do it.

But your program showed otherwise, and in showing this willingness to stand up to ideology, won me back into the fold.  I congratulate you for the restoration of balance. It must have been very difficult.

However, this morning’s program on the monetary value of stay-at-home’s moms' house work was an egregious case of  backsliding.  I could just see the ghost of Bella Abzug cackling over this bogus calculation: “Let’s see now, psychiatrists bill $250/hr., so we’ll say a mother has to play psychiatrist to her kids for two hours a day, times 3 kids. And a taxi driver gets $1.00 a mile plus $2.50 per drop.  And a football coach gets….” And on and on.

COMPLETELY MISSING from this self-abuse were the normal (non-liberal) things like the fact that most kids don’t need a psychiatrist’s help, that taxi driver’s have overhead that has to be paid for that moms’ don’t have and on and on. Also completely missing was the capitalist iron law of supply and demand.  While there are few psychiatrists and a frequent shortage of taxis, there is no shortage of stay-at-home moms.  So their pay scale will always be lower in the real world. Also, many moms (most?) enjoy their work! They like the freedom to be able to decide—as few middle management executives can—when to do what, what not to do, and when to take a break just for the hell of it. All these essentials were not factored into that bogus exercise to show—once again—that women are abused by men.

Rubbish, I say, and it would be nice to hear an alternative view point on this subject just once.

 NY Times, 28 Apr 06

I sure hope mayor Bloomberg reads the  “New York Killers” article. Of particular interest to him will be the finding that “over 90% of the killers had criminal records.” This means that the new and tougher gun laws the Mayor is pushing for so hard, will have little or no effect on any gun influx.  Being what they are, criminals won’t obey them. And being what they are, criminals always get the guns they want–even in the most repressive countries in the world. So his entire campaign will have the singular effect of making legal gun ownership that much more difficult than it already is.  What’s the point?

NY Times, 28 Apr 06

Oh, I love the trendy slyness of it: "author Kaavya Viswanathan...confessed to copying passages from another writer's books but said her actions were "unintentional."  What is next on the scale of sanctimony?  That, oh yes, she copied, but it was done with the noblest of intentions.

NY Post, 06 Apr 06

Speaking of the Old Gray Lady's congenital blindness to terrorist threats to our nation, consider the underlying cause of this pathology-- her complete misunderstanding of the use of force . (She is not alone: this affliction imbues everything the UN does as well.) This malady is most obvious in her on-going laments about the genocide in Darfur, where the most explicit suggestion of the NY Times on what to do has been that "something must be done."   The one thing completely outside her grasp is the easiest, cheapest and quickest solution: arm the defenseless civilians so they can DEFEND THEMSELVES against marauding bands of heavily armed thugs. Oh-no, she and Koffi Annan wail, more guns is never the answer to already too many guns. No, the answer is obvious: SOMETHING must be done.

Mike Capuano, Congressman (Boston), 06 Mar 06

As an avid hunter, target shooter and voter, please exempt single action revolvers and target pistols from yet another onerous "safety" restriction. This might be a wise bill if ANY safety accidents had occurred when using such handguns.  But since none ever have, it is all too obvious this is just another tactic of the anti-gun left to chip away at our constitutional rights. If they are worried about target shooting safety for themselves, they can fully protect themselves by never target shooting!  Let the rest of us take our chances in a sport that has perhaps the highest safety record of any Olympic sport.

Velocity Press Golden Chalice Award

"Best Industrial Design of a Consumer Product, 2005"

The MIH watch is the clear-cut winner of the best industrial design award for a consumer product.  This clean, simple-looking stop watch reflects both a stunningly chic design, but incorporates some equally clever mechanics. The novel 3-date system requires only 9 moving parts, an industry first.  Note, too the red AM/PM indicator.  The accumulated minutes are shown on the reverse face(!) Although attaching normally, the watch band lip follows the round face for perfect esthetic cleanliness.  Available only in Switzerland at 5000 SF ($3900). 

Popular mechanics, 23 Feb 06  

NY Times, 20-Feb-06

Oh dear, yet another article about Vice president Cheney's tardiness in speaking to the press to explain his shooting accident in which no one was killed.  Any yet another missed opportunity to compare that incident to Sen Edward Kennedy's ten days holed up in his Hyannisport compound, plotting how to meet the press to describe his accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne lost her life. Once again liberal "equality" at its finest.

NY Times, 19-Feb-06

"US policies lamented at a scientific gathering," you report.  But far more newsworthy  would be to report why scientists' laments so predictably follow their political rather than their intellectual inclinations .  Some day please interview a conservative scientist who believes global warming is caused by humans, or a liberal who doesn't. If you could find such rara avis, it would be enormously interesting to learn why--if science is really their primary calling--such combinations have become nearly extinct.

NY Times, 07-Feb-06
  

NY Times, 07-Feb-06

It is time for the Western nations to finally acknowledge the elephant in the room.  The struggle is not Christianity vs Islam; the struggle is--and always has been-- secular democracy vs all supernatural religions --Judaism, Christianity & Islam.  Christian dictatorships (e.g., Catholicism) have survived this long in the West only because they have tacitly agreed to play second fiddle to the voting booth.  Thus, the First Amendment will always take priority over the claims of supernaturalism, including the founding myths of the three great religions.

NY Times, 05-Feb-06
 
 [A letter you will NEVER see published in the Times]
  

Wall Street Journal, 02-Feb-06 
 

NY Times 01-13-06
 

Boston Globe 01-10-06

Of course we shouldn't allow airline pilots to have guns in their cockpits.  Can you imagine what might have happened if the pilots highjacked on the 9/11 flights had had guns??

McCain & Condelezza--The unstoppable 2008 Republican ticket?

NY Times, 09 December, 2005
   

************************************************************************ 

NY Times, 07 December, 2005
 

Riposte to an old friend, 12 Nov 05

--George Bush has ...
 started an ill-timed and disastrous war under false pretenses by lying to the American people and to the Congress;

  

Gee, Al, for a guy who reveres facts, it's odd that you forget with such alacrity that EVERYONE from the Clintons to the French thought Saddam had dangerous WMDs.  What part of that fact do you keep forgetting--and why?

 --he has run a budget surplus into the largest deficit in our country's history;

  

Wars of liberation are expensive. Why hasn't any extreme left-winger counted-up and compared how many people HAVEN'T been killed because Saddam is out of power?

-- he has consistently and unconscionably favored the wealthy and corporations over the rights and needs of the people;

 

Yeah, yeah.  Name a President who hasn't favored his biggest contributors.  I note your dead silence on Clinton's pardon of that poor multi-billionaire and master swindler, Marc Rich.

 --he has destroyed trust and confidence in, and good will toward, the United States around the globe;  

 

Of course.  No good deed goes unpunished.

 --he has ignored global warming, to the world's detriment;

 

No, he has ignored the plea of "the international community" (read world-leftists and left-over communists) that the U.S. bankrupt itself so the Chinese and Indians can pollute to their hearts' content.  And he has ignored the plea of the Luddites whose faces turn blank when you point out the world is coming to the end of a natural mini ice age, and NOTHING anyone can do will change that.

 --he has wantonly broken our treaty obligations;

 

Yes, and the EU still won't enforce their treaty obligations to open up of their highly protected farm goods markets; the Chinese and Koreans and Taiwanese still dump goods in the US in spite of their treaty obligations.

 --he has condoned torture of prisoners;

  

Oh.  Unlike the French in Algeria. Unlike the Israelis today.  Unlike 90% of "the international community."

 --he has attempted to create a theocracy in the United States;

  

And he's trying to do it democratically, just as you are trying to separate the theological underpinnings on which this nation was founded. I'm in your camp on this one, but let's not fool ourselves on whose position is farther from the original intent of the founding fathers.

 --he has appointed incompetent cronies to positions of vital national importance...

 

Oh PLEASE.  Who hasn't? Let us not forget Clinton's appointed attorney general Janet Reno who was not simply incompetent, but criminally so.  She personally OK'd the assault and slaughter at Waco of scores of adults and children, in what Newsweek called the most shameful law enforcement action in U.S. history. Somehow, the vaunted liberal media forgot ever to explain what law had been broken to warrant even an arrest, to say nothing of such wholesale slaughter.

 

N.Y. Times, 1 Nov 05
 

Quote of the Week, Boston Courant, 10 Oct 05

Martha M. Walz, the (MA) state representative who promised to be a full-time legislator during her campaign, has taken a job with a downtown (Boston) law firm.

"When I ran I pledged to serve as a full-time state representative, and I will continue to do that with a part time job," said Walz, who represents the Back Bay and Beacon Hill.

Wall Street Journal, 29 Sept 05
 

Boston Globe 18 Sept 05

Why am I not surprised there has been no media mention of Senator Edward Kennedy's pathetic attempt to discredit Judge Robert Johnson by means of a partial quote extracted from a ruling? Not mentioned by Kennedy was that his quote was Judge Johnson quoting someone else!  When Johnson slyly suggested Kennedy read the entire quotation, Kennedy blustered that his version was "a redaction," that is, not even an entire sentence. Thus we see  the Democratic tactic of  "Dan Rathering" opponents has not diminished one whit.

Economist, As printed 03 Sep 05

Sir--Anyone who forces the taking of a property should pay twice the fair market value, making buyers think twice before using eminent domain to create a good financial deal for themselves.

 

Best Quote of the 21st Century. CNN, 21 Mar 2008 

"Yes the Saudi terrorists killed 2-1/2 million New Yorkers with their nuclear device--but at least we Americans can be proud to say we never sank to profiling anyone."

                                    ---President Hillary Clinton

"Boston Globe, 01 Sept 05  

"[People] were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot."  Iraq after the U.S. invasion? Yes, but also, as you write, New Orleans after Katrina. 

Does this brutal behavior signal the end of Democracy in Iraq and New Orleans?  Depends on who's doing the reporting.  If you follow the mainstream media, the answer is "Yes" for Iraq, and "Don't be silly" for New Orleans. 

Hmmm.

 

NY Times, 28 Aug 05 (Just when you thought you'd heard everything)
 
Ye gods, now we have heard everything  For years we have learned that Catholic priests have routinely been sexually molesting pre-adolescent boys. Recently we learned that Muslim clerics send pre-adolescent boys to their deaths as suicide bombers.  Now we learn (8-26-05) that orthodox Rabbis fellate ("oral suction") the male babies they have just circumcised and, in at least 3 cases, infected them with the Rabbi's herpes virus. What indignity to our children could possibly be left?  That Protestants perform ritual infanticide and then eat their young?

Of course none of this child abuse is criminal because God says so--or did 2000 or 5000 years ago--they have it in writing. 

When are we finally going to learn that in this country it is solely the American people who make the laws, not a bunch of foreigners to whom the very idea of democracy is anathema? 

 

Hardball @ msnbc.com 17 Aug 05  

Dear Chris Matthews—

 

You were snookered by the stuffed shirts who opposed the woman lawyer. She claimed that .08% alcohol is not an invariant sign that a person is incapable of driving safely. They refused to answer that question. Instead they sideswiped you by claiming that the CDC, MADD, and all the others with a vested interest in a return to prohibition, proclaim it to be “well-known” that this measure is an accurate sign of criminal impairment.

 

Well, it is not “well-known.” In fact, it is not known at all.  There is not a single study that shows why many drivers are perfectly safe when driving "drunk." Why not? Think for a instant who would fund such a study, and what the reaction would be.
 

There was one experiment, undertaken by Car & Drive magazine in the mid ‘60s in which they tested experienced drinkers and drivers on a test track.  And guess what? The drivers’ test times improved with a few drinks, and then gradually declined.  No one crashed.

 

Of course the hounds of hell were let loose on the magazine and the editors rued the day they ever published it. But nothing has changed.  You cannot find out anywhere what we both know is true: Many experienced drinker/drivers managed to get home safely year after year. And this forbidden knowledge is a major taboo.

 

For more on this volatile subject see: Drunkard.shtml

  

News article of the week, NYTimes 17 Aug 05

GEORGIA: LOVE TRIANGLE KILLING A 78-year-old woman was indicted on charges she killed her 85-year-old ex-boyfriend at the senior citizens home where they lived because he had been seeing another woman. The ac­cused, Lena Sims Driskell, was charged with murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Her ex-boyfriend, Herman Winslow, was killed June 10. The police said Ms. Driskell, an­gry that her yearlong romance with Mr. Winslow had ended, shot him four times with an antique handgun at the Hightower Manor retirement home in southwest At­lanta, where the two lived. "I did it and I'd do it again!" she told officers, according to the police.       (AP)

 

New York Times, 22 July 05

 

I am so relieved to read that the single most important aspect to seeking out potential suicide bombers in the subways of NYC is that any searches be conducted in a non-discriminatory way. We all know how many white Anglo-Saxon grandmothers have been implicated in these terrible bombings.   Thus, they too should be searched just as often as young, panicky middle eastern men. Effectiveness in stopping these bombers should never take precedence over possibly violating their civil rights, no matter how they infiltrated into this country. 

What's Wrong with this Calculation?
 
"Pure Black Cherry Jam (by Wilkin & Son) Prepared with 52 grams of fruit per 100 grams. Ingredients: Sugar, black cherries,..." 

[Ha! The latest (Sep-05) Wilkin & Son labels read "Prepared with 40g of fruit per 100g."  Forbidden Knowledge strikes again!]  ]

 

New York Times, 19 July 05
 

Stanley Fish’s exegesis ( 7/19/05) of the meaning behind the words of the Constitution serves as a useful alert.  But this is mere fine-tuning.  Far more important from a practical point of view is the recent fad of  government to attribute any meaning it wants to written law–or none at all.

 

In order to restrict air rifles without actually creating new law, here is the State of Minnesota’s interpretation: “An air rifle is a firearm and not a rifle.”

 

Here in its entirety is the reason the Social Security Administration gave for turning down an application for SS benefits: “You are not entitled to Social Security benefits based on the application you filed.” In other words, you filed an application and we turned you down. This is called “the reason.”

 

In today’s contentious society, it will not be enough simply to teach children to read. They must now also be taught propaganda analysis in order to prevent our laws from becoming as eviscerated of meaning as the noble-sounding constitutions prevalent in even the most repressive dictatorship nations.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

Exculpatory Evidence! (25 July 05) Upon being informed of the above groundless Social Security  dismissal of benefits, the Jamaica Plains Regional Office immediately awarded full benefits from the first day of application.  Our Government Still Works!

NY Times 07 July 05
 

With his latest advice (Fit to Print, 7/10/05), the Times’ ethicist unwittingly proves what everybody long suspects-- ones own politics trumps other people’s ethics every time.   Mr. Cohen suggests that a printer producing a right-wing bumper sticker has no duty to correct a typo that makes the slogan (and his customer) look foolish.  Instead, Mr. Cohen fatuously suggests that the job should be done “according to the usual professional standards” of  not smearing the ink, as if alerting a customer to a mistake is not an integral part of (ethical) printing business practices.

 

Is it too unkind to speculate what his advice might have been had the typo been on a bumper sticker that read, “Defend the UN against Republicans/ Vote Democrats”? I imagine the “usual professional standards” would then suddenly include extensive orthographic liability.

 

Mr. Cohen responds: 11 July 05

Thanks for the interesting note.   I agree that the question pivots on what is a standard part of the job.  It is not a standard part of the job for a printer to perform editorial functions.   When I take my novel in to be printed, the printer will do just that -- not proof read it, not copy edit it, unless I employ her to do so and pay extra for that service.  

This printer may choose to go above and beyond what is required, but she need not do so.  Similarly, a doctor must deliver a professional level of care to all patients.  But if she chooses to spend extra time chatting with a particular patient because she enjoys that patient's company, there is nothing untoward in her doing so.

My position would be the same regardless of the ideologies involved, and I never wrote otherwise.  If you're going to condemn me for a crime, you might at least wait until such a crime is actually committed.  In short, if it's not too late for that: yes, it is entirely inapt simply to make up what you think I'd write and then refute it.  

Velocity ripostes 11 July 05:
 
I "condemn" you for these reasons: 
 

1) Being blinded by your liberal ideology, you seize far too eagerly at false assumptions--indeed you make them up--about a printer's professional responsibilities in order to have fun at the customer's expense, and proudly show your colors to the NY Times readership.  The customer is not writing a novel, he is printing a one-liner.  No ethical printer I have ever gone to (plenty) would not immediately point out the error. So my central point, that politics always outweighs ethics, is made once again.

 

2) By this conduct (blindness at one's own ideology, but quick to see it in others), you fall into the Al Franken Trap.  Al, you will recall, wrote a book called "Lies and the lying liars who tell them" meaning Republicans. The high-light of the book was for Al to ask his secretary to lie for him to set up a visit for him and his son to visit the Christian Bob Jones University. He then took his prospective college-age son on a campus tour where father and son lied to the admissions office, lied  to student guides and lied to faculty members.  The purpose of this jaunt was "to have fun at their expense," "We were going to go on a comedy adventure."  Franken was "Excited about all the comic possibilities." 

 

In other words, Franken completely missed the ethical point--just as you have done in the shabby, unchristian way you are letting the printer handle his client.

 

Finally,  where is your ethical concern for the redneck?  Just because he is a Republican (and not a NY Times reader) and--unlike you--uneducated, you feel it is ethically all right for the printer to let him humiliate himself--and pay money to do it?

 

Not kosher. 

NY Times (Sports section) as printed 03 July 05.

Re “As Stakes Rise, More Parents Are Directing Rage at Coaches” (June 28): The Massachusetts Youth Soccer League was plagued with the problem of irate parents harassing volunteer referees and worse.

The solution was this: After warning the coach once about an offending parent’s behavior, the referee had the right to cancel the game at the next offense and give a forfeit victory to the other side.

One could add an interim step of banning the offensive parent’s child from playing for one or more games.

The problem is, even when such rules exist, referees and coaches who try to invoke them are rarely backed up by the leagues, or they face personal lawsuits by the parents.

A little backbone by the leagues and the lawmakers would solve the problem pretty quickly, to everyone’s benefit.

Quote of the Week

"It was a completely inadvertent unintentional mistake," said university spokesman, Todd Cohen.
                                       ---NY Times, 19 June 05

[As opposed to the 'intentionally deliberate mistake,' or was it more like the 'totally erroneous mistake'?]

Boston Globe (14 June 05)  

If ever TV news wanted to learn why they are falling in such disrepute, they need only analyze the last few weeks of their coverage of  world events. According to the media, only one newsworthy story occurred: Michael Jackson. Even more hilarious (or sick if you even care) is that now that their pompous analysis and ill-informed predictions have been proven 100% wrong, they are furious at the stupidity of the prosecutor, the jury system,  the world--everyone except (of course) their shallow selves.

Boston Globe (As printed, 06 June 05) 

Why have journalists assumed that the French and Dutch voters rejection of the EU constitution is a slap at their country's leadership? Sometimes a hat is just a hat. Maybe those citizens were simply rejecting a pathetically confused document that seemed to impose ever more restrictions on their behavior.

Equivocation of the month  03 May 05

"The Opportunity team continues working with an engineering test rover on Earth to determine the safest way to attempt to drive the rover out of the dune where it's currently parked on Mars. In the meantime, Opportunity is collecting science data with its instruments and cameras."

[" Currently parked ," NASA terminology to describe Opportunity which is  stuck in a Martian sand trap and can't get out. May 3 , 2005. (Similar to the term "hard landing" to refer to a crash.)]

(Ha--now, May 8th , they still can't bring themselves to utter the words "stuck."  Trying to get out is referred to as " Testing Rover Mobility in Challenging Soil.")

Well finally, May 10th, this admission: " (Engineers) plan the best way for the rover Opportunity to drive off of a soft-sand dune that the rover dug itself into the previous week.

May 20th, Finally, a full confession: "Opportunity continues to make inch-by-inch progress toward getting out of the dune where it has been dug-in since sol 446 (April 26)."

May 24th: (Hope springs eternal.):"The rover has been hindered by soft sand for nearly three weeks. Traction is difficult in the ripple-shaped dune of windblown dust and sand Opportunity drove into on April 26. Since it began trying to get out, the rover has advanced only 11 inches." ("Hindered" is a good one.  "Stuck" is what it is.)

Boston Globe, 2 May 05  

We learn that longtime Oklahoma baseball coach Larry Cochell resigned Sunday, five days after using "a racial slur" during off-camera "interviews" with ESPN. 

So it has come to this: Private conversation can be used against you with reckless abandon.  This means nobody should speak his mind to anybody (especially not to reporters) and  of course you should never speak honestly since personal prejudice is now a (unwritten) career-ending  crime. And secondly, like the Inquisition, we aren't going to learn from the media what the heinous crime actually was. (This is just like the numerous claims of ant-Semitism made against Mel Gibson's Jesus film the content of which were also carefully hidden from view.) 

Did Coach Cochell use "the N word"? That word is much too offensive to be said or printed on network TV, or any newspaper. We are, after all, only Americans, that is, sufficiently mature to see movies where every indecency and mayhem is common fare, but where common street talk is far too strong for us to stomach.  The media has sunk to reporting insinuation rather than news.   And it wonders why, lately, fewer and fewer readers seem to care any more.

Boston Globe, 18 April 05 
 

We just returned from the Concord reenactment of the April 19th, 1776 "shot fired heard 'round the world."  What a touching memorial to the Colonialist militias and the British soldiers who began the Revolutionary war.  How sad that the Globe did not publicize this heavily attended patriotic event.  But it did publicize the Lexington shooting which occurred the day earlier. Is this politics as usual? (Because in Lexington the Colonialists were the victims of a British shooting, while in the Concord they were the aggressors?)

 

("The Redcoats are coming."   Buy this glorious photograph in 16 X 24 inches for $149.95.)

WSJ, 18 April 05
 

There is an even deeper issue at work which prevents an American from being selected as the Catholic pontiff: American intellectual religious inquiry.  This re-examination of what it means to be a Christian has produced extraordinary outcomes. Catholic intellectuals (e.g., Jesuits) have long agreed behind closed doors that Jesus cannot have been conceived by a virgin. Recently, Jesus' biological father has been irrefutably discovered. Many other fundamental reconsiderations are causing what can only be considered a second Reformation. 

 

A tectonic shift in religious appreciation of who and what Jesus really was–before orthodox censors emasculated him and substituted a Disney World superhero–is causing serious clergy (particularly American clergy) to re-examine what is knowable about him.  The early results show Jesus to have had a radically new way of looking at the real world and its travails–a hard-headed yet visionary concept of service that is stunning in concept–and beginning to exert an irresistible appeal to believers and atheists alike.  (See  “What is religion?”) 

This revelatory thinking is deeply troubling to Rome, akin to Copernicus suggesting that the sun does not circle the earth. It is an essentially American heresy that, like birth control, is being fought by Rome tooth and nail but, like every non-scriptural religious dogma inflicted on the faithful, will eventually fail.  The question is, how much wreckage will result in the downfall of the current orthodoxy.  And what, exactly will take its place.  An exciting question for an exciting (if not comfortable) time to be an orthodox Christian.

NY Times, 05 April 05
 

It does sound reasonable that our guns laws should be rewritten to enable people on the terrorist suspect list to be denied the right to purchase firearms--except for one huge problem.  How do you get on the list?   Can anyone send in a "suspicion report" to get you listed?  Can your political or business enemies report you as they probably did Sen. Edward Kennedy (who the Times reported was denied aircraft boarding)?

 

And most importantly, how do you get off the list if you were reported in error?   Until the federal government answers these questions--which it refuses to do--anyone could be denied the right to purchase a gun for no reason at all.  And that would be a beautiful end-run around the Second Amendment. 

Misleading ad of the week:

 

"Wherever you go, count on more bars (i.e. signal strength).  That's the goal of Cingular."  (In other words, a promise is made and then withdrawn--they don't have "more bars" yet for you to "count on.") 

 

[Ed note: This is the classic case of making a promises in headlines which are later withdrawn in the fine print. Lawyers spend weeks crafting these devious "promises." The most noxious are the "You have won a free 7-day trip to Hawaii" variations, or the "bank check" made out to you for one million dollars. "Pay to the order of you" is huge; the "not negotiable" tag is tiny.]

 

[Forbidden Knowledge strikes again. The Cingular slogan is now "Wherever you go, the goal of Cingular is more bars."]

NY Times, 11 Feb 05     McCAIN & CONDI IN 'O8 
 
Condoleezza Rice is creating a sensation in her tour of Europe.  Already she has that monster Black Jacques Chirac, eating out of her hand, and that Helmut Schweinehund  Schroeder snuffling on her lap.  This is more than Colin Powell accomplished in his entire career.

"The annual Munich Conference on Security Policy brings together the toughest national security crowd in the Western world, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton played it safe and cool here on Sunday. In her first appearance before the clubby -- and overwhelmingly male -- gathering of experts, Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, showered praise on the United Nations as she called on it to reform and uttered only the most indirect rebuke of the Bush administration….She was welcomed -- even praised -- by the audience. Antje Vollmer, vice president of the German Parliament, and one of the few women at the conference, told Mrs. Clinton that 'personally, politically and intellectually, it was a great pleasure to listen to you.' Miomir Zuzul, the foreign minister of Croatia, thanked her for her 'excellent' speech….At the conference's gala dinner on Saturday night, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, singled out Mrs. Clinton for praise."
-- Elaine Sciolino on Sen. Hillary Clinton, February 14.

vs.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stood before the audience at the Institute of Political Studies on Tuesday afternoon and rewrote cold war history, to the consternation of many in the highly sophisticated audience."
-- Opening sentence to Sciolino's story on a Rice talk in Paris, February 10.

Here is Dick Morris' take on this stirring possibility:

She could be Hillary's worst nightmare in 2008, said Dick Morris in the New York Post. As Condoleezza Rice jets around the globe, in her first foreign trip as secretary of state, one thing has already become obvious: "A star is being born." Whether she's using humor to loosen up German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, or speaking sternly to Israel of the tough decisions ahead, Rice has quickly proven that she possesses a deft political touch, a statesman's eloquence–and a disarming personal charm. Imagine if she employed these skills in the service of a presidential run. Democrats must be shuddering at the thought. As a deeply religious woman and a social conservative, Rice would have no problem sewing up the votes of the Christian right–a key to winning the Republican nomination. Then, as the first woman and first African-American with a real shot at the presidency, Rice could fracture the Democratic Party's base. Millions of blacks would defect to get behind Rice's history-making candidacy. And even if the Democratic nominee were Hillary Clinton, she would no longer have a lock on the female vote. Granted, Rice is still a "work in progress," but should she chalk up a major foreign policy triumph in the Middle East, her prestige could go through the roof. So "keep your eye on this political star."

                                 -- The Week , 25 Feb 05 

  NY Times, 10 Nov 04.
 

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