National debt. Pourquoi Rome n’est pas Athènes? And at what price will the comparison between Rome and Athens remain a subject of debate for lovers of ancient history?
Le Monde answers as follow …
May 21, 2010
Why Rome is not Athens
National debt. Pourquoi Rome n’est pas Athènes? And at what price will the comparison between Rome and Athens remain a subject of debate for lovers of ancient history?
Le Monde answers as follow …
'The Face of God'
Science has a unique authority among thinking people today, and its popularizers have presented a picture of the human condition from which God is absent. Yet, according to Scruton, by understanding the world in this way we fortify those destructive tendencies in our culture which are wiping away the face of the world. These lectures are devoted to showing that this is so, and to pointing to the remedy.
His publications include Art and Imagination
(1974), The Aesthetics of Architecture
(1979), The Politics of Culture
(1981), The Aesthetic Understanding
(1983), Kant
(1983), Sexual Desire
(1986), Spinoza
(1987), The Philosopher on Dover Beach
(1989), Modern Philosophy
(1994), Animal Rights and Wrongs
(1996), The Aesthetics of Music
(1999), Death Devoted Heart
(2004), Culture Counts 
(2007), Beauty
(2009), Understanding Music
(2009) and a volume of autobiography, Gentle Regrets
(2006).Roger Scruton's blog. Via botblog.
May 20, 2010
Yvonne Loriod
Paul Griffitths in the May 18, 2010, New York Times:
Yvonne Loriod, the French pianist whose musical exactitude and intensity inspired numerous masterpieces by her husband, the composer Olivier Messiaen, died on Monday at a retirement home in Saint-Denis, on the edge of Paris. She was 86.
[…]
In Ms. Loriod he [Messianen] found a musician who could provide avian qualities of agility and spectacle. “I have,” he once said, “an extraordinary, marvelous, inspired interpreter whose brilliant technique and playing — in turn powerful, light, moving and colored — suit my works exactly.”
Read the rest.
The “historic” and pretty funny video below is highly descriptive of what that story is all about.
May 19, 2010
American Heart
They say that we need changin’
As if all the Founding Fathers
As if all the Founding Fathers
seem to get it wrong
But I say I still believe in
The greatest Liberator, Innovator, Cultivator
Freedom knows
Sarah Palin called the tune “an amazing love song for America.” Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton recommends it to foreigners “who want to know how the real America feels.” And after hearing the song one woman said, “We are so used to hearing the entertainment industry bash our country and bash us regular folks. It was amazing to hear someone put into words how so many of us feel about our Nation. It gave me chills.”
So no wonder if “American Heart” is becoming the default theme song at Tea Parties across the USA. And it’s really an amazing song, a hymn to America and to Freedom.
Although known as “Jon David,” his real name is Jonathan Kahn, a Hollywood screenwriter/director and singer/songwriter. Using the same pseudonym, he also authors a popular series of articles at Big Hollywood, “My Weekly Date with a Liberal.” Why the pseudonym? Why the baseball cap and the sunglasses he wears when performing in public? It’s to protect himself, he says, from the overt liberal bias toward conservatives in Hollywood, where, in his own words, “being a conservative is the kiss of death.” Yeah, because “the industry responsible for setting the cultural tone in America, which keeps itself warm under the expansive blanket of free speech, has no issue attempting to silence the conservative voice within its ranks,” as it can be read on the song’s page. Hmm… that sounds familiar here in Europe…
But I’m American made
I got American parts
Got American faith
In America’s heart
Go on raise the flag
I got stars in my eyes
I’m in love with her
And I won’t apologize.
May 17, 2010
The Polanski case: prosecution vs. persecution
The signatories include the Franco-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard, and French directors Mathieu Amalric, Bernard Tavernier and Xavier Beauvois. What Polanski advocates think is that, also in the light of what the Franco-Polish film director himself has recently maintained, he is unjustly persecuted. “The United States continue to demand my extradition,” he said, “more to deliver me as fodder to the media of the entire world than to pronounce a judgment on which an agreement was made 33 years ago.” The essence of Polanski’s claim is that he was led to believe that his time in a state facility in Chino would constitute his full sentence, and has been frustrated for the past three decades as US authorities have maintained otherwise.
That’s why, as one who is against any form of persecution, even by judicial means, based on race, nationality, political opinion, personal beliefs, habits, cultural mores, etc., and even though I have to admit that I don’t like Roman Polanski as a person—for what he did, not for what his private views may have been or still be, and apart from my own personal beliefs, habits and cultural mores—I have felt morally obliged to wonder whether he might actually be a victim of persecution because of what he represents. But in all honesty, after reading everything I could get my hands on about the subject, I have come to the conclusion that there is no persecution, just prosecution.
And this even without considering the new allegations by British actress Charlotte Lewis, who on Friday accused Polanski of abusing her just after her 16th birthday. If anything, what is most surprising—and very similar to a persecution—are some reactions to Charlotte Lewis’s allegations. France’s culture minister Frederic Mitterrand, who admitted to paying “young boys” for sexual acts while on holiday in Thailand, referred to them as “pseudo-accusations.” Without the least doubt or hesitation. “I got into the habit of paying for boys,” he wrote in his 2005 autobiography The Bad Life, “[…] All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously. One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable.” It’s the world turned upside down.
May 16, 2010
Climategate - How the science of global warming was compromised
To refresh everyone’s memory on what this whole thing is all about, here is the accurate reconstruction of what happened provided by Spiegel Online International, the English edition of the German news magazine Der Spiegel: How the Science of Global Warming Was Compromised (and how the conflict between climate researchers and climate skeptics could be resolved).
One more tip for those looking for a different perspective on the climate debate than the MSM gives you: be sure to tune in to PJTV.com/ICCC: LIVE coverage of the Heartland Institute’s 4th Annual International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-4)—a worldwide gathering of global warming “realists”—on May 16-18 (direct interviews with participants and live streaming the keynote speakers).
First written for The Metaphysical Peregrine
May 14, 2010
Meanwhile, gold is rising ...
Will the euro bailout work? No, the bailout has slowed the euro’s slip, but it hasn’t solved the problem. That’s what the gold market seems to think, in fact the price of gold is rising against every major currency, not just the embattled euro. This, according to Royal Bank of Scotland foreign exchange strategist Greg Gibbs, is because the market sees the true scale of the sovereign risk problem, the solution and fallout:
If the market won’t buy the government bonds, the central banks have to. There is no other choice. The alternative is just too damaging for the economy to contemplate. If the central banks don’t buy the debt, then governments are forced into a budget surplus (a surplus is required to cover interest payments on existing debt). Imagine the carnage if major economies were forced from double digit deficits to surplus, you are talking Great Depression type scenario or worse.
Even getting close to that outcome is too bad to consider, so when borrowing costs start to rise, as they did recently in the Eurozone periphery, making borrowing difficult, the contagion spreads to equities and global asset markets. This forced the Eurozone governments to promise to throw money at the problem. The US$ 1 trillion bailout package only has some credibility because it involves core countries and the IMF which still have relatively low borrowing costs. However, the package would have little bite if the ECB were not involved. The ECB’s purchase of government bonds (monetization) is critical. It is the most credible source of funds since it creates the money.
It is undoubtedly true that the actions of the ECB this week make it clearer than ever what the real threat of the sovereign debt problem globally is. All countries, not just the Eurozone, when push comes to shove, when bond yields start to rise because of sovereign default risks, will force their central banks to buy the bonds (monetize). You can talk all you like about sterilization, but when the central bank is forced into this path, you can be sure they will not be raising cash rates. They will aim for negative real rates, and until the fiscal house is put back into order, they will aim for nominal GDP growth. Whether this arises from higher inflation or real growth will be of second order importance.
Even though inflation is yet to break out, the price of gold is telling us that this threat is very real over the longer term. People rightly so do not trust fiat money anymore.
Via Chicago Blog.
May 12, 2010
'Scandals were part of the Third Mystery of Fatima'
It has become more and more clear in the past few weeks, to all fair-minded observers, that the attempts to pin dirt on Pope Benedict have failed, and that Benedict’s tougher stance against abusers started in the latter years of his tenure at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It has also become clear that then Cardinal Ratzinger had been thwarted in his efforts to pursue a church trial against Rev. Marcial Maciel (the founder of the powerful religious order the Legion of Christ), involved in child sex abuse, and that upon assuming the papacy, Benedict moved against Maciel, ordering him to live a life of reserved prayer while also launching an investigation into the order itself.
At the same time, this doesn’t mean, by any means, that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is not a reality and a real problem. On the contrary, the truth is that the Church is facing its greatest crisis in modern times. And that’s what pope Benedict basically said yesterday, speaking to reporters accompanying him on a flight to Portugal. In fact, striking a markedly different tone from other church leaders, Pope Benedict issued his strongest condemnation of the sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church (far more harsh than his March letter to the Catholics of Ireland). Unlike cardinal Sodano, for instance (at the start of the Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square last month), instead of attempting to “minimize” controversy over pedophile priests as hostile press coverage and/or “petty gossip,” he said: “Attacks on the pope and the church come not only from outside the church, but the suffering of the church comes from inside the church, from sins that exist inside the church. This we have always known but today we see it in a really terrifying way.”
As it was not enough, Pope Benedict, who is expected to travel to the pilgrim shrine of Fatima where Catholics believe that Mary appeared to three young shepherd children in 1917, described how the sex abuse scandals were part of the so-called Third Mystery of Fatima. “Besides the suffering of Pope John Paul II in the Third Message,” he said, “there was also indications as to the future of the Church. It is true that it speaks of the passion of the Church. That the Church will suffer. The Lord said that the Church would suffer until the end of the world. Today we are seeing this in a particular way.” “The answers that the Church must give,” he added, “are penance, prayer, acceptance, forgiveness and also justice because forgiveness cannot replace justice.”
In other words, one might think that, as the archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Schönborn put it in a highly unusual attack on a fellow cardinal (Angelo Sodano), “The days of cover up are over.” And it was time for this to happen. There’s a time for everything, they say, even though there shouldn’t have been any time for cover-ups. But what’s done is over with, and the future began yesterday. Perhaps the Latin adage, Oportet ut scandala eveniant (it’s good that scandals happen), has never been more appropriate to describe a particular historical period, although at times one would be tempted to question its wisdom.
The Austrian School of economics: its Italian roots
Galiani believed that government generally should not interfere in the natural workings of the economy. A government that attempts to stimulate all sectors of the economy, agricultural and industrial, stimulates nothing. Stimulation means that a particular sector is given preference over the other sectors, and how can one sector be given preference over another if all sectors are stimulated?
Quite interesting, indeed. It’s also interesting to note that Friedrich Nietzsche, who was an expert in matters of intellectual excellence, in his Beyond Good and Evil
pointed out his “friend” Ferdinando Galiani as an example of Cynic of genius and described him as “the most profound, sharp-sighted, and perhaps also the foulest man of his century” (please note that foul, in Nietzsche’s vocabulary, is perhaps the greatest compliment…). He also wrote that Galiani “was far profounder than Voltaire and consequently also a good deal more taciturn.” Furthermore, Galiani’s 1769 Dialogues sur le commerce des blés
, written in French with vivacious wit and a light and pleasing style (you can read it here), delighted Voltaire, who in his Dictionnaire philosophique (“BLÉ ou BLED”) spoke of it as a book in the production of which Plato and Moliere might have been combined (“[Galiani] trouva le secret de faire, même en français, des dialogues aussi amusants que nos meilleurs romans, et aussi instructives que nos meilleurs livres sérieux”). What is surprising is that Galiani is still relatively little known. [Thanks: The Commentator]
May 11, 2010
One can't solve a crisis of debt by increasing the debt
In view of the last post, this interview from Le Monde seems suitable.
Thorsten Polleit is the head economist of Barclays Capital in Germany. He is very critical of the massive rescue loan of the euro zone States.
'How do you judge the rescue plan of 750 billion euros for the euro zone?
'One cannot solve the problem by additional debt. To support certain countries suffering from a debt crisis, the governments will still have to borrow. It's not a solution. The urgency for the euro zone today, is to announce a credible strategy of reduction of deficits. If the pressure of the markets have become so strong, if the investors are losing confidence, it's precisely because such a concept doesn't exist. It's time to clarify this.
'What should be done?'
'The decisions are the recourse of each government, at national level. One should decide how to reduce expenditure, to reduce the deficits as soon as possible, to engrave these objectives in marble as we did in Germany by establishing a mechanism in our constitution to reduce the debt... One must remember that from the very beginning, had the stability pact been fully respected, this situation would never have occurred.
'Thanks to this plan, wasn't the risk of contagion of the Greek crisis nevertheless countered?'
Yes, with regard to the countries threatened in the immediate future. But it's the quality of credit of notable States which will cause them to suffer from the consequences. The conditions of loan of the lending countries will undoubtedly be degraded. In fact the problem only shifts itself, and in the long term it's likely to worsen.
'Does the decision of the European Central bank (ECB) to buy national debt threaten its credibility?'
'It's clear that if the ECB acts in this way, it's because the European governments wish it. There's an instrument of monetary policy which doesn't seem to be decided in total independence. This decision is very problematic: in the long term such a program is likely to create inflation as well as a lack of confidence of investors.
'What is the situation regarding the long term stability of the euro?'
'If the States don't find the means of reducing their debt which often reaches intolerable levels, the euro is seriously threatened. The creation of the single currency has been a vast experiment of which the result is now uncertain. Especially if things continue in such a way, with certain countries condemned to pay again and again sums increasingly more important.
'Do you believe that Germany will recover the money of the loans made in Greece?'
No, on the contrary, I don't believe that the sums will ever be reimbursed.
(Remarks put together by Marie de Vergès)
_____
Italiano
May 9, 2010
Why the West’s economic prosperity can no longer be taken for granted
As the Times of London put it, Stephen King writes scary stories, but Stephen D. King writes scarier ones. He is the chief economist of the London-based HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world, and Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity
is his first book. And a scary book indeed, according to the reviews I’ve read so far (I’ve never been an avid reader of economics, and that’s why I don’t really know if I will read the book, though according to the Times “You don’t have to understand the carry trade or know what a Gini coefficient is to read this book, but it helps”—what terrifies me is that but it helps…).What is it about this book that is so scary? To put it up very simply, the thesis is the following: The international financial crisis that began in 2007 is but one result of the emerging nations’ increased gravitational pull. In other words, the baton of economic progress is passing to states such as China and India. This suggests that the decades ahead will see a major redistribution of wealth and power across the globe that will force consumers in the United States and Europe to stop living beyond their means.
Or, put more simply, “Be prepared, the worst is yet to come.” Yet, Stephen D. King also offer us a few possible ways out of this unpleasant situation. The main one is the creation of three big monetary unions—an expanded euro zone along with currency unions in Asia and the Americas. But, as The Economist puts it, “Mr King fails to make a convincing case for why such a reform would ever happen or why it would lead to a more stable global monetary system.” That’s also why, according to The Economist, the book “is more a series of provocative comments than a convincing argument.”
Another way out of the bind, with regard to the UK, is that, instead of limiting immigration, Britain should dismiss border controls and protectionism and welcome immigrants, and, painful though it may be in the short term, open ourselves up to the full force of global competition.
At a symposium in Trinity College Dublin last month to promote his book, just to make it clear what the whole thing is all about, King provided some curious information and a series of thought-provoking data. Very interesting reading indeed.
He also quoted the response of the UK economics profession when the queen asked why no one had seen the bank crisis coming: “Your majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole.”
Failure of imagination: term used to describe circumstances wherein something that was possible to predict or foresee was, in fact, not predicted or foreseen. Hope you got the hint.
May 8, 2010
Re-readings
“ “For this reason,” the abbot continued, “I consider that any case involving the error of a shepherd can be entrusted only to men like you, who can distinguish not only good from evil, but also what is expedient from what is not. I like to think you pronounced a sentence of guilty only when ...”“... the accused were guilty of criminal acts, of poisoning, of the corruption of innocent youths, or other abominations my mouth dares not utter …”
“… that you pronounced sentence only when,” the abbot continued, not heeding the interruption, “the presence of the Devil was so evident to all eyes that it was impossible to act otherwise without the clemency’s being more scandalous than the crime itself.”
“When I found someone guilty,” William explained, “he had really committed crimes of such gravity that in all conscience I could hand him over to the secular arm.” ”
—Umberto Eco, THE NAME OF THE ROSE, translated from the Italian by William Weaver, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc and Martin Secker & Warburg, 1983. Originally published in Italy in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa by Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri-Bompiani, Sonzogno, Etas SpA.
It’s almost as if he could indifferently look into the past and the future, and anticipate the issues of the present time while recalling those of a remote past...
I love re-reading my favorite books, and this time it’s The Name of the Rose’s turn. Generally speaking, it’s a wonderful adventure, always new and always different, because every time we re-read a book, we ourselves are new men and women, having been made such by the vicissitudes of life, by our personal experiences and achievements, both spiritual and intellectual. No one is the same person they were even as long ago as yesterday. That’s why re-reading great works of literature is such a wonderful experience: the more you read them, the more you fall in love with them. To say nothing about a book such as the Bible, the book of the books—I’ve lost count of the times I’ve re-read it…
May 7, 2010
UK set for hung Parliament
PS: Britain Wakes Up Speaking Italian (Best Wishes!)
May 6, 2010
A postcard from France
Maybe the idea of 'A postcard from France', will encourage a flagging contributor to send the odd one, based on selected news items from the French press, to Wind Rose Hotel more regularly. Hopefully it will also incite readers to make constructive comments.
To begin with, and as the Polanski case was alluded to here before, it might be appropriate to refer to a recent article on him from Le Figaro.
Polanski had just published a text confided to 'La Règle du Jeu', a site directed by Bernard-Henri Levy, stating that he can no longer remain silent. He considers that he is the victim of lies. According to him, the threat of extradition and legal proceedings in the USA for what he had done so long ago, are based on trumped up charges.
The Franco-Polish actor, writer and film producer maintains that his sentence of 42 days in a Californian prison in 1977 per 'having had sexual relations that year with a 13 year old adolescent', correspond with the sentence for which he was condemned and which he had thus already endured.
"I am accused of having avoided US justice, but in the 'pleading guilty' procedure I had recognised the facts and had returned to the USA to purge my sentence".
Roman Polanski (76) was arrested the 26th September last year in Switzerland and has been assigned to residence since the 4th December.
"I can no longer remain silent when the victim has been dismissed by the Court of California after having asked several times to stop the proceedings of my case", he also underlines.
"I can no longer remain silent because the United States continue to demand my extradition, more to deliver me as fodder to the media of the entire world than to pronounce a judgement on which an agreement was made 33 years ago".
____
My own view is that justice can hardly prevail if it chooses to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the actual victim of the crime and her repeated demands. I also have the impression that Polanski has never been overly appreciated in the USA, and suspect that the atrocious Manson killings may also have something to do with it. (If one remembers, whilst Polanski was working in Europe, his then pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was brutally stabbed to death in the Polanski residence in California with several other, horribly murdered victims. This was in August 1969, and carried out by members of the Manson gang. Manson (74) is still alive, seemingly without any regrets, and is even a 'cultural' source of influence in America).
Whilst there doesn't appear to be any rabid witch hunts going on in the States for real pedophiles, especially the ecclesiastic kind, Polanski, on the other hand, seems to incite a great deal of suspicion and hate, and this perhaps even more so in the State of California.
_____
Italiano
May 5, 2010
Athens burns
Many feared this would happen, and it has. Three people were killed and four were seriously injured when an Athens bank went up in flames as an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against harsh austerity measures aimed at saving the country from bankruptcy. Here is a video of the protests (see other videos here):
And here is a france24english TV report:
Forget about soccer for a moment...
Italy is never the favorite for the World Cup and that helps. But look at our history. We’ve won four times and lost once to Brazil on penalties. If we had won that shootout we would have five World Cups now and Brazil would have four. […] They say a lot of things in the rest of the world, but Italy has always been a protagonist at the World Cup and I’m extremely confident that this group is going to do great as well.
True. Absolutely. Never the favorite, but … There is something weird in this. But this is not just a soccer issue, this is a much wider one. Forget about soccer for a moment and think of other fields—such as the economy, to give an example—to which the above “rule” may be applied. But this theory can be easily turned upside down: if recent Italian political history teaches us anything, it is that (here) bad things happen when you less expect. That’s also why Italy is a mystery to most people, including the Italians. No way to escape.
PS: Speaking of “bad things” and bad news, this—whether unexpected or not…—could be a perfect example of how not to behave in politics (unlike the second act of the play).
May 4, 2010
But the Greek bailout won’t work, says Cassandra
Perhaps it’s because of our fond memories of childhood school days, when we learned about Homer’s Iliad and the beloved heroes and legends of the Trojan War, that, in the present days of economic turmoil, when you say Greece you say Cassandra, the prophetess of doom. It’s almost inevitable, or that’s what seems to be the case. However, if you are an incurable optimist, just keep away from stuff like this…
'The Sun Behind the Clouds'
For all its worthiness politically, “The Sun Behind the Clouds’’ is a lackluster film. That changes whenever the Dalai Lama is on screen. We see him at his residence in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, as well as making public appearances in the United States and Western Europe. To watch his meet-and-greet with Prince Charles is truly to see worlds colliding — those worlds being humanity at its most impressive and Madame Tussauds at its most animated (relatively speaking). The Dalai Lama also gives interviews to the filmmakers. He’s the most prominent of several talking-head subjects, nearly all of them Tibetan activists.
The closest thing to debate in the movie is over the Dalai Lama’s “middle way’’ policy, which seeks Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule rather than outright independence. Several activists criticize the Dalai Lama for what they see as self-defeating moderation. It’s hard to imagine what alternative the Dalai Lama has. “The only thing we know is that empires rise and fall,’’ says Lhadon Tethong, former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet. That’s certainly true. But as another Tibetan activist notes, the situation of his people recalls that of Native Americans and Native Australians in the 19th century. More Chinese than Tibetans now live in Lhasa. Cultures fall, too, especially when they’re shoved.
Be it as it may, I stand with the Dalai Lama and always will. The only thing I know is that, to quote one of my favorite authors ever, “The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience” (Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi). Long life to His Holiness!
May 2, 2010
America's Illegal Immigration Fight
~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~
What they are protecting themselves from is rampant drug and gun running, murder, rape and robbery. On average three Border Patrol agents per day are assaulted. Phoenix is the kidnap capital of the country. On average every 35 hours, or about three people a day are kidnapped. How safe would you feel? One in five Arizona teenagers are doing drugs smuggled in from Mexico. Would you want your child exposed to this? Arizona has become a dangerous place to live, and its citizens live in fear.
Our director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, denies there’s a problem. She said, “I say this again as someone who has walked that border.” “I’ve ridden that border. I’ve flown it. I’ve driven it. I know that border I think as well as anyone, and I will tell you it is as secure now as it has ever been.” The President of the US said it’s a racist issue, that the legislation, SB 1070 is unconstitutional, and has sent a legion of lawyers to begin Federal Lawsuits against the citizens of that State. Much of the wording in the Bill, by the way, is exactly the same that is in Federal Immigration Law.
The President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, also has chimed in condemning Arizona. "Criminalizing immigration, which is a social and economic phenomenon, this way opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." He added: "My government cannot and will not remain indifferent when these kinds of policies go against human rights."
Can you say ‘hypocrisy’? How does Mexico treat people without the proper papers in their own country? (Actually, even if you are properly documented, police will shake you down and have to be paid off.) The Mexican government bars foreigners if they upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” Racial profiling anyone? If you’re from another country and do not enhance the country’s “economic or national interests” or are “not found to be physically or mentally healthy,” then you’re not welcome. Make sure too you don’t show “contempt against national sovereignty or security.” (Mexicans in America have mass protests flying the American flag upside down, wave Mexican flags, chant anti-American slogans, and advocate the overthrow of the US government.) [ In Mexico noncitizens cannot “in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.”] If you apply for Mexican citizenship you must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove you can provide your own health care. Here, the Democrats and many Republicans just want to call amnesty and make all illegal’s citizens. A majority of those here illegally will vote Democrat, hence the term calling them “undocumented Democrats”. Illegal entry into Mexico is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years’ imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment.
Law enforcement officials at all levels must enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens’ arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities. Here, the Democrats and Obama administration say the local and state officials can’t enforce federal law, which is just stupid because all enforcement officials in all states enforce federal law all the time.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. One other thing, there are a large number of Central and South Americans rotting in Mexican prisons without due process because they were caught in Mexico without proper documentation.
We have a foreign President condemning a US State, and our own President and political party embracing that condemnation. These American officials swore to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States and have refused to do so. Arizonians have decided to protect themselves as a result, and have gotten attacked by their own Federal government.
If you want to travel, pick Arizona. I lived there for a decade and it’s a beautiful place. Info here. There’s also a ‘buycott’ on FaceBook to counteract the boycott the Leftists have started. (Good grief, even Leftist elected officials in Arizona are advocating the boycott of their own state.)
An email going around here in the States:
Dear President Obama:
I'm planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me.
We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico , and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.
We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.
I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over?
Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. Please print all Mexican Government forms in English.
4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.
5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.
7. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico , but I don't plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won't make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my housetop, put U S. flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start.
13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.
14. I want to receive free food stamps.
15. Naturally, I'll expect free rent subsidies.
16. I'll need income tax credits so that although I don't pay Mexican taxes, I'll receive money from the government.
17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Government pays $4,500.00 to help me buy a new car.
18. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I'll get a monthly income in retirement.
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico .. I am sure that President Calderon won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.
Thank you so much for your kind help.
You're the man!!!
April 30, 2010
The religion of the New York Times
We all know, I suppose, that the New York Times isn’t fair. In his latest column in Commonweal, Kenneth Woodward provides an enlightening example in this respect:
In its all-hands-on-deck drive to implicate the pope in diocesan cover-ups of abusive priests, the Times has relied on a steady stream of documents unearthed or supplied by Jeff Anderson, the nation’s most aggressive litigator on behalf of clergy-abuse victims. Fairness dictates that the Times give Anderson at least a co-byline.
After all, it was really Anderson who “broke” the story on March 25 about Fr. Lawrence Murphy and his abuse of two hundred deaf children a half-century ago in Wisconsin. Reporter Laurie Goodstein says her article emerged from her own “inquiries,” but the piece was based on Anderson documents. Indeed, in its ongoing exercise in J’accuse journalism, the Times has adopted as its own Anderson’s construal of what took place.
But as I have already assumed, such unfairness is not new, nor, unfortunately, is it confined to that newspaper alone. In all probability, what is really new (and peculiar) in the case of the Times is something else. At least, that’s what Woodward maintains in his piece, entitled “The Church of the Times,” in which he makes a well-argued comparision of the NYT and … the Catholic Church.
[L]ike the Church of Rome, the Times exercises a powerful magisterium or teaching authority through its editorial board. There is no issue, local or global, on which these (usually anonymous) writers do not pronounce with a papal-like editorial “we.” Like the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the editorial board is there to defend received truth as well as advance the paper’s political, social, and cultural agendas. One can no more imagine a Times editorial opposing any form of abortion—to take just one of that magisterium’s articles of faith—than imagine a papal encyclical in favor.
The Times, of course, does not claim to speak infallibly in its judgments on current events. (Neither does the pope.) But to the truly orthodox believers in the Times, its editorials carry the burden of liberal holy writ. As the paper’s first and most acute public editor, Daniel Okrent, once put it, the editorial page is “so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right.” Okrent’s now famous column was published in 2004 under the headline “Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” and I will cite Okrent more than once because he, too, reached repeatedly for religious metaphors to describe the ambient culture of the paper.
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? That’s also why Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (thanks!) is probably right when he calls the NYT “Hell’s Bible.” After all, it was the current NYT publisher, Arthur Ochs “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr., who described his personal faith this way: “I have the Times. That’s my religion. That’s what I believe in, and it’s a hell of a thing to hold on to.”
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