Expanding the monologue on race

The Washington Post, which used to be merely the printing press for the Democratic Party line, is so high on President-Messiah Obama that it doesn't hesitate to sail into the treacherous shoals of race relations while casting objectivity to the high winds. A typical news or opinion -- you no longer can tell them apart at the Post -- story published today is headlined "Top Officials Expand the Dialogue on Race."

It is so blatantly one-sided, biased, and offensive that it reminds me of Mary McCarthy's blast at Lillian Hellman: "Everything she wrote is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'"

When the country's racial chasms seemed to threaten President Obama's election, his team had to tread carefully. A month into his administration, the tone has changed. Top officials are engaging the subject of race more freely, with a boldness and confidence they once shunned.

"When the country's racial chasms seemed to threaten President Obama's election" -- Baloney. Obama's opponent, the twit from Arizona, did backflips to avoid anything to do with race, refusing even to mention The Messiah's 20-year membership in the congregation of the notorious anti-white racist, the Reverend Wright. The country's captive media worshiped Obama for his race, or races, as the Great Healer who would bring us all together.

"Top officials are engaging the subject of race more freely" -- trying to squeeze every last drop out of the white guilt that Obama's election was supposed to make irrelevant.

With the federal government's annual African American History Month celebrations as a backdrop, the attorney general, the first lady and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency spoke more frankly about race recently than any of Obama's surrogates did during the hard-fought campaign.

"The federal government's annual African American History Month" reads like an unconscious slip on the writer's part. It's annual, all right: lasts the whole live-long year. Spoke frankly about race? There is no frankness here, just a power play. But let us, indeed, speak frankly.

Lisa P. Jackson, the EPA administrator and a native of New Orleans, told her staff about having grown up in an area where she would have had to drink from unsafe water fountains because of her race. "Now in 2009, I am, along with you, responsible for ensuring that all Americans have clean water to drink," Jackson said. "Change has certainly come to this agency."

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt about the first claim. But "change has certainly come to this agency"? In other words, until Ms. Jackson was appointed by the Messiah, the EPA had no interest in clean drinking water, or no interest in clean drinking water for African Americans? Yes, change has come to the agency, right enough. What used to be about inefficient, regulation-mad, bureaucratic environmental care is now folded into the racial spoils system.

First lady Michelle Obama hosted middle-schoolers in the White House East Room and taught the children about African Americans and their roles in the executive mansion: the slaves who built it, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation there, the meetings held with civil rights leaders.

Slaves did not build the White House. They were among many kinds of people, including free African Americans, involved in the construction. Slaves certainly did not design the White House, its original architect being James Hoban, an Irish American. I doubt very much that any of these distinctions were made by Michelle Obama in her "teaching." The children left Her Presence believing that slaves did it all while white overseers cracked whips to make them work faster.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who ignited the most debate, used his Feb. 18 address as an admonition that "to get to the heart of this country, one must examine its racial soul."

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said. "Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

This manipulative, mean-spirited speech has been so criticized that I won't spend much time on it.

Since the 1960s, Americans have talked with each other about race more than any other subject except the economy. What the AG means is that not everyone has yet surrendered to the idea that whites are forever and irremediably guilty for events in the long-ago past, despite the indoctrination camps formerly known as universities, and are not ready to sign on to The Messiah's dreams of race replacement, along with a bottomless cup of welfare benefits and reparations for the racial group he has chosen to identify with.

For fake balance, the writer allows one or two dissenting comments, but they are all of the "we can't speak out too much to soon, the whites aren't ready for it, and their racist souls might be stirred up" variety. But, the writer concludes, "other people have shushed protesters as overly sensitive."

I can't bring myself to analyze the rest of this disgraceful piece of dishonest journalism. I guess I'm overly sensitive.

ICE for heat

Phone conversation, 8:45 this morning.

[Female voice] "Good morning, xxxxxx Custom Homes."

[Me] "Good morning. May I speak to [CEO]?"

"He's out in the field now. Can I take a message?"

"Yes, please. Tell him I saw your company truck picking up a batch of illegals this morning."

Pause.

"Uh, where was this?"

"Route xx at xx. I think he knows. Maybe he was driving the truck."

"All right."

"I'm reporting it to ICE. They probably won't do anything about it, but you can worry for a day or two. Good-bye."

Class assignment: kill Cicero

M. TVLLI CICERONIS

John Murrell's Cicero and the Roman Republic is published by Cambridge University Press as part of "a series targeted at either advanced high school or undergraduate students," according to the review in CJ-Online. (Go here, click on Murrell to open the PDF.)

The reviewer, Jonathan Zarecki, has favorable comments about the book but flinches at some of the discussion questions Murrell tosses the student readers:

… I often felt that the questions diverted attention from Cicero and the fall of the Republic and made the book seem as if it were more concerned with modern civics. A few examples:

“There are societies or countries which do not use the adversarial system. How is justice administered in such places?” (in a discussion of Verres’ trial); “In modern states what views do governments and political parties have about poverty and the ways to eliminate it?” (in the chapter devoted to the Catilinarian Conspiracy, after Cicero’s list of the five categories of Catiline’s followers given at Cat. 2.17–23).

Furthermore, at several points M. [Murrell] makes comments or presents questions that may not sit well with an American audience and that may require deft maneuvering on the instructor’s part to keep the class discussion both cordial and on-topic. For example, on p. 42, M. calls the contemporary United States an imperialist state; whatever truth this statement may contain, it could be easily construed as polemical by some students. The second question on p.91 asks students to think about modern examples of “politicians obstinately sticking to their principles when a more flexible stance might have helped the state”; I do not think that it is much of a stretch to think that the immediate response may involve President George W. Bush and his policies."

I too have some study questions for students of Murrell's book, which Cambridge University Press is hereby given permission to include in the next edition, gratis.

1. Is John Murrell really interested in Cicero, or is his priority contemporary political indoctrination?

2. Give several examples of societies that "do not use an adversarial system" to administer justice. The Stalinist Soviet Union? Jihadist cells? How is "justice" dealt out in such "societies"?

3. What views do you think the author has about "poverty and the ways to eliminate it"? Why is he asking you this question when his supposed subject is Cicero, who lived in the first century B.C.?

4. What does calling the United States "an imperialist state" have to do with Cicero? Is Murrell trying to sneak his politics in under the guise of teaching history?

5. Can you think of a modern example of a historian who obstinately sticks to his worldview when a more flexible stance might help the state?

6. What principles do many academics hold? Do they distrust individuals? Do they want to extend the power of government over every aspect of life?

7. What evidence do they have that governments solve problems? What evidence, on the contrary, is there that governments are composed of drones looking out for themselves, and creating more mischief than solutions?

8. Why are academics so fearful of open inquiry, so determined to force their ideologies on students over whom they have the power of the grade?

Cicero, if he were to consider the modern version of academia, would undoubtedly have some answers for us. Possibly they would not be flattering to the Cambridge University Press, or to John Murrell.

Almost everything you need to know about Obama's "stimulus"

Suddenly, it's 1970

There they are again, the musical luminaries of my youth, in the film Festival Express, which I watched on DVD the other night. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, lots of others, playing concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary, with scenes shot aboard the train that carried them across the plains of Canada between gigs. (It may have been the last time in history that a band tour traveled by railroad.)

That was in July 1970, the zenith of the time we call generically the Sixties, which was actually 1967 to 1971. It looked very familiar to me. I wasn't at any of these concerts — I was a Berkeley freak at the time — but it reminded me of the Zeitgeist I'd once been so much a part of.

Let's see, summer 1970 was almost 39 years ago. Incredible. Some of you reading this weren't even born then. Whether you're old enough to remember the time or not, Festival Express isn't a bad way to immerse yourself in its vibe.

Many people today think the '60s were when it all started to come apart, a social revolution that became a social devolution eventually leading to today's reflexive political correctness, the Waterloo for civilized values. On the whole, I agree, notwithstanding my being among that generation.

But some of what went down was positive. There was the music, and … well, to try to explain what else was inspirational is probably futile if you weren't part of it. (And believe me, I'm not talking about the politics, which is what did most to corrupt the Sixties.) Yes, the music.

Festival Express was shot on 16 mm film, so the picture is a little grainy, not enough to be seriously annoying. The sound recording is remarkably good for live, outdoor venues, though, especially with the high-wind factor you can see in some shots. The you-are-there quality of the musical performances satisfies.

Dead heads will of course want to see the movie … no, undoubtedly already have seen it. This incarnation was more or less the original band, including Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. I don't think they're at their best in these performances; they're merely terrific. Ditto for The Band — the mystique of their early albums is missing. They were probably more a recording ensemble than a performing one.

Buddy Guy, the great electric blues guitarist, burns the screen up in his solos on "Money" and "Hoochie Coochie Man." The wonderful Ian & Sylvia contribute a couple of numbers. Tom Rush, from the early-'60s generation of modern folk singers, reminds us how splendid he was (is?). It's fun to see and hear the Flying Burrito Brothers again. (If you rent the DVD, be sure to watch the outtakes included as extras. They contain as much quality music as that in the theatrical release.)

And … Janis. I suppose it's possible, if you know Janis Joplin only from her albums, to wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, this is what. She's backed by her later band, Full-Tilt Boogie, much superior to the original Holding Company. Despite her well-publicized dysfunctional off-stage behavior — and the film shows her, at one of the many impromptu jam sessions on the train, blissed out with God knows what combination of extraneous chemicals bubbling in her brain — she was a serious musical artist. There is discipline amid the performance fireworks. Her songs captured here should be preserved for the wonder of future viewers.

Younger viewers will find the "hippie" looks of the audience a hoot. Having lived through the period, the sight isn't bizarre to me, but even I have to admit that a lot of the guys with their Geronimo hair, droopy mustaches, clown trousers, and love beads are dead goofy. Women, on the other hand, know how to make the most of their assets in any fashion environment. The gypsy-ish "chicks" still strike me as appealing. (And I enjoy seeing that young women today have revived the long, straight hairstyles.)

Before you decide I am wallowing in nostalgia, I note that there are aspects of Festival Express that show those days in a less admirable light. Even some of the music. The road show includes a Canadian band called Mashmakan, which I had never before heard or heard of, and hope never to again. Seatrain does a pretentious "art rock" number. But worse, and casting an ominous shadow before it, is the behavior of some of the fans.

They were outraged that they were expected to buy concert tickets. It's the people's music! It should be free, man! Never mind that the producer had to pay the bands and hire an entire train from Canadian National Railways. (He wound up taking a bath on the enterprise.) As happened so often in the days of peace and love, the anti-capitalist mood turned ugly. Police and guards hired for crowd control became targets; one policeman, we are told, received a serious head wound. To his credit, Bob Weir of the Dead is shown arguing with a militant against such thuggery.

When gate crashers threatened to create chaos, Jerry Garcia asked the crowd outside for a little time to sort the situation out. He then arranged a free Dead concert at a nearby park. That moment symbolizes what went wrong in the '60s. Jerry and his group should have used their popularity and perceived moral authority to teach the rebel children the basics of responsibility. Instead, the louts who demanded something for nothing were appeased and legitimized.

Musical, sociological, and historical interest aside, Festival Express isn't much of a movie. The recent interviews with the producer and some of the musicians are as dull as such things usually are. The director, Bob Smeaton, is a big fan of that irritating device, the split screen.

It's sad, and a little strange, to reflect on the passing of some of the people in Festival Express shown making music of such vitality. They seem so present, so "real," thanks to the ability of film to preserve the past. Jerry; "Pigpen"; Janis, who died three months after the film was shot. Delaney, of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, who was also among the musicians on the tour, died while I was in London last December. The Telegraph had an obit of a few paragraphs for him.

Simon Gray, in his next-to-last memoir The Year of the Jouncer, writes about visiting his friend Alan Bates (the actor) in a hospital during Bates's last days. Around the same time, while channel surfing, he caught glimpses of Bates in old movies, young again, "in a bowler hat, an eyebrow raised, smiling quizzically."

Gray muses on "the contradiction that never existed before the invention of movies, of people who are long dead being visibly alive, you can see them breathe, there they are, the characters and the actors, both with futures of life and death unknown to them in the two stories they're in."

It occurs to me that the flower children grooving in those 1970 concerts are in their 50s and 60s now. Not a few have since then succumbed to illness or accident. While I believe that we survive the change called death, it would hardly be human not to feel a little knot tighten somewhere inside while thinking about those who are no longer with us.

If I were in a gloomy mood, which thankfully I'm not, I might echo the words of the 10th century Syrian poet Abu’l-Ala al-Ma‘rri (R.A. Nicholson, translator):

Life is a malady whose one medicine is death. …
All come to die, alike householder and wanderer.
The earth seeketh, even as we, its livelihood day by day
Apportioned; it eats and drinks of human flesh and blood. …
Meseemeth the crescent moon, that shines in the firmament
Is death’s curved spear, its point well sharpened,
And splendor of breaking day a sabre unsheathed by the Dawn.

Every breath you take

Every move you make
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
I'll be watching you
I'll be watching you
I'll be watching you...

— The Police, "Every Breath You Take"

Want to know what life will be like in the United States as a government-controlled, Marxist failed state, should the Obama regime have its way? Look no farther than some of the stories on the home page of today's Daily Mail from London.

Labour has 'failed' to take on polygamy for fear of offending Muslims, says peer: "British politicians have ignored the issue of bigamy and polygamy in the UK because of 'cultural sensitivity' towards minority groups, a leading Muslim peer said today. Baroness Warsi, Shadow Minister for community cohesion, said there had been a 'failure' by policy-makers to take polygamy seriously, with the result that Britain's seemingly strict laws banning the practice were not being properly enforced."

Motorists face on-the-spot points and loss of licence for careless driving offences: "Under the proposal, police can issue fixed-penalty notices for offences including failing to signal and coming to close to cyclists without evidence being heard in court. … Currently police must take drivers to court if they want to prosecute careless drivers, but new powers mean police can punish motorists instantly and according to their own judgement. The new power means that thousands of motorists risk losing their licences for minor offences. … The plans were welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers who said it would reduce the amount of time involved in processing cases." [Why stop at fines and taking away licenses? Shooting the offenders would make sure they would cause no future trouble.]

Work canteens to be forced to cut half of pastry from pies in new Government healthy-eating drive: "… Stringent new Government guidelines [rule] that the amount of pastry on a pie should be cut by 40 per cent. Under the new healthy-eating scheme, canteens in public buildings from council offices to schools may be ordered to serve healthier food.'

"A pastry limit on pies could cut the fat content by 40 per cent, qualifying the dish for a bronze health award under proposals to recognise leaner cuisine. A silver award would go to sandwiches containing at least 40g of salad or vegetables. A gold medal would go to menus which met targets for low salt content."

Ordeal for mother driven 120 miles to three hospitals before she can give birth: "A mother has told how she was driven 120 miles to three different hospitals to give birth - because no beds were available for premature babies. Natalie Page, 20, started her marathon at Leicester's General Hospital but was then transferred to Birmingham Women's Hospital because no suitable cots were available. But by the time she arrived in Birmingham the last bed had been taken and she had to be driven on to Liverpool Women's Hospital."

And this pièce de résistance:

An English country pub is my idea of heaven. But now Big Brother is invading even this sacred sanctum: "I read with utter horror this week's news that some police forces - even in rural Essex - are insisting that pub licensees should install CCTV cameras on their premises, to record the comings and goings of their customers. Increasingly, they are making it a condition of granting licences that landlords should undertake to hand over any footage to the authorities on demand. This strikes me as an assault on the very soul of England, an unpardonable intrusion by Big Brother into a sanctum where he has no business to be."

The traditional English pub has virtually disappeared from cities, replaced by chains with cute names, gambling machines, loud music, and customers from the U.K.'s subculture of 20-something aggressive drunks.

It would be pleasant to imagine the centuries-old, smoke-stained, sociable pubs of the village were holding on for at least a while longer. But The Bill (Britspeak for cops) keeps watch on pub car parks, and anyone who has been in the boozer too long (by The Bill's estimate) is likely to be pulled over and breathalyzed the minute they drive away.

Now it's closed circuit TV cameras inside the pub. Next, no doubt, microphones to pick up any "racist" remark so immigration restrictionists can be cuffed and hauled off to the station house before they can inflict further damage on the diverse multi-cultural community.

Which is one reason for this:

Shock BNP victory as far-right candidate takes council seat in Kent: "A shock win for the far-right British National Party yesterday sent a tremor through Labour amid growing fears that the recession is driving angry voters into the arms of extremist parties.The BNP seized a Labour seat in a district council by-election in Sevenoaks on a substantial turnout, encouraging fears that the party could make significant advances in the June local and European elections. …

"Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who has consistently warned against the threat of a BNP surge in white working class areas, predicted it could do well in the European elections. He said: 'The BNP poses a threat in six Euro regions, with as little as 7.5 per cent required in the north-west, where the party leader, Nick Griffin, is standing.'With Ukip [the U.K. Independence Party] faltering, few local elections and the economy hurtling into recession, we will need everyone who opposes the BNP's message of hate to play a part. A BNP victory will change the political landscape in Britain.'"

Is it possible to imagine a story written with more overt bias? There was a time, believe it or not, when newswriters were supposed to simply report facts, without prejudicial or judgmental language. That's so mid-20th century.

"Far-right, far-right." How often is the Labour Party in the U.K. or the Republicrat Party in the U.S. described as "far-left"? "Shock win." Shocks are unpleasant, sometimes can kill you. "Extremist parties." See "far-right" above. "The BNP seized a Labour seat." Seized? Was it a coup d’état? Did they drop paratroopers into the district and haul the Labour MP out of bed? I thought this was what is called an election, where one party's candidate receives more votes than the other parties' candidates.

"Encouraging fears that the party could make significant advances." Well, for some it was fears, for others hope. Notice, too, how the victorious candidate is quoted at great length — exactly two words. While the Labour and Tory spokespeople are given two paragraphs each.

Regardless of how you feel about the BNP, this story isn't responsible reporting. It's blatant anti-BNP propaganda, what leftists would call if the situation were reversed "hate speech." And the Daily Mail passes for conservative in Britain.