Free Association Conversations

I often have the most wonderfully prolix conversations with my small son, but I can never remember enough of the flippin' things to write them down, come blogging time. But, let me give it a whirl this time:

Scene: Toweling him off after his bath.

Son [waving a small POW-MIA flag we got at the Fourth of July parade last year]: Papa, who is this?

Me: That's the soldier.

Son: Is the soldier nice?

M: Yes, the soldier is nice.

Son: Is the soldier a giant?

Me: No, there's no giants.

Son: When the soldier goes to heaven, will he have birthdays forever?

Me: ...err, open the cabinet and get a Q-tip!

Son: Papa, are there giants in heaven?

Me: No, no giants in heaven.

Son: Only humans?

Me: Yes.

Son: But Papa! Is the soldier human?

Me: Yes!

Son: Is the policeman human?

Me: Yes! Everyone is human!

Son: No elephants in heaven?

Me: Prooobably not...

Son: Papa! Uncle Larry's face is the same as Grandpa's face!

Me: Mmhmm!

Son: I want to ride my bike.

Me: Nope, you just had your bath; time for your beddy-bye story.

Son: I want to ride my bike!

Me: Do you like your new bike?

Son: (nods, trying not to cry) Papa, why did I make a I Love You card for Mommy today?

Me: Because you're a kind boy.

Son: Why?

Me: Because...here, let's get your clothes on.

Son: But Papa! I don't want to die!

Me: !!!... You won't die.

Son: But when I get old I have to!

Me: Well, let's not think about that.

Son: Papa, are you and Mommy too old, or just medium old?

Me: Medium old...

And much, much more, in the same vein.

Mr. Funny

My six-year-old daughter, like many children her age, has an imaginary friend. What's a little different is that her imaginary friend is me!

See, I can do a spot-on voice imitation of David Attenborough. Sometimes when I'm giving her her bath, I'll shift into that thatchy, tweedy, wonderfully avuncular accent of his, and she'll just light up. We'll chat about this & that, and she'll natter on and on, more so than she'll usually do with me in my own persona.

But shhh! It's a secret. No one can hear Mr. Funny except her...

Iranian Language Cops

Iranian President Ahmouttamyhead is whipping the home front into shape: He's banning foreign words & phrases:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.

The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported. [...]

Among other changes, a "chat" will become a "short talk" and a "cabin" will be renamed a "small room," according to official Web site of the academy.

How French of them...

Thx to Viking Pundit

American Troops Recalled To Baghdad

...to help quell escalating sectarian strife. Damn. We've successfully rolled up much of al-Qaeda in Iraq, but Iranian interference & this sh!t are yet to be overmastered. Look for a resurgence in U.S. casualties. Meanwhile, have a Chesterton quote:

I am told that the Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many reasons for disliking the Japanese civilization. To use surrender as a weapon is the very worst spirit of the East. But certainly there is no force so hard to fight as the force which it is easy to conquer; the force that always yields and then returns. [...] Against this there is no weapon at all except a rigid and steely sanity, a resolution not to listen to fads, and not to be infected by diseases.

Danish Jihadist Evacuated From Lebanon--To Denmark

Oh, brother!

You can say about Denmark and many other Western democracies what V. S. Naipaul once said about the United States, when it comes to creeps like that:

Always out there, the United States, an unacknowledged part of the world picture of every kind of modern revolutionary: the country of law and rest, with which at the end of the day a man who had proclaimed himself to be on the other side--in politics, culture, or religion--could make peace and on whose goodwill he could throw himself.
--V.S. Naipaul, Beyond Belief, 1998

Tloxyproctyls At Harvard

From expatriate curmudgeon Fred Reed, this is anti-pc satire, though who knows for how long. Reality has a way of leap-frogging over the most outlandishly imaginative spoof.

Reading With Hope

Ruth Franklin:

Every time we pick up a book, we expect to fall in love; but after a certain number of disappointments, our expectation turns to mere hope; and eventually we give up even that. But no true reader ever gives up entirely. We still want to be moved deeply; we are still looking for books that, as Orwell put it, will burst the thermometer.

You might draw some kind of parallel with blogs, too. Y'all come back now, y'heah?

Rwanda Trials Still Going On

Twelve years after the Rwandan genocide, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is slowly bringing the killers to book. What's weird is that the court sessions have apparently become a destination for Western tourists "doing" Africa.

Court officials said tourists, perhaps intrigued by the horror of Rwanda's 1994 genocide or the psychology of its alleged perpetrators on trial, were making the trek to the ICTR headquarters in increasing numbers.

Although the novelty of court had worn off among locals who had lived with the court in their backyard for 12 years, foreign visitors were on the rise.

One ICTR official said: "There are so many tourist arrivals that at times, it is only them in the public galleries",...

Fine, so long as someone sees justice being done.

There's been a spate of new books on the Rwandan genocide recently, too. Check out:

Paul Rusesabagina's An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography He was the hotel manager upon whom the film Hotel Rwanda was based.

Immaculee Ilibagiza's Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

One-Minute Movie For Israel

Turn on your sound, too.

Meanwhile, In Outer Space...

I see they've managed to get the Hubble Space Telescope working again. Hurray! It still needs to go into the garage, but it's great that there's life in the old bird yet.

Belated RIP Rob Smith of Gutrumbles Blog

Gutrumbles is one of those blogs that I would sometimes visit by following a link or chancing across a search engine result. I'd chuckle, make a note to visit again and maybe bookmark it, but I never did. Now, unfortunately, it's too late. You can still visit and read the archives, and the encomia of Rob Smith's many bereaved fans.

James Gang - Walk Away (1971)

I blogged this old Joe Walsh clip in an earlier post about YouTube, but it deserves singling out. I can picture this blaring out of a 1970 Dodge Charger with all the paint scraped off...

War Is Heck

That's all I got out of this fog bank of a column by Guy Raz at NPR. Only reason I bothered was because of the word "nuanced" in the title. That's a red flag word for me, when it comes to terrorism. It usually signals that the writer has moral-equivalenced himself right out of his mind.

Aside from its terror-related activity, Hezbollah is a political party and a social movement. Tens of thousands of Shiites in the country's south depend on Hezbollah-funded schools and hospitals.

I guess that's what happens when you make a deal with the devil.

And tell me--what is the difference between "terror-related activity" and "terrorism"?

"Illegitimate Rockets"

Via Dave in Jerusalem, a satirical clip about Hezbollah from Lebanese TV.

This is what's so sad about this war. Lebanon, even before the Cedar Revolution, was the suavest, hippest, most chic and Westernized of all Arab countries. Having an army of terrorists like Hezbollah gain leverage if not outright control of its governance is a catastrophe for civilization--as bad as having the PLO set up shop there back in the Seventies. Yet, even now, they can laugh about themselves--something Islamists and jihadis are famously unable to do.

Archaeology Under The Shadow Of Terrorism

Here's a dispatch in the Louisville Courier-Journal from one Ken Stammerman, describing his fieldwork at a Galilean archaeological dig while the surrounding towns are rocketed by Hezbollah.

Twice in the past four days, our afternoons at Kibbutz Ein Gev on the Sea of Galilee have been disrupted by the loud bangs and shaking windows resulting from nearby rocket blasts. The closest so far was at Ramot, an Israeli town a few kilometers up the road, though the sirens and sounds of numerous hits at Tiberias, the largest Israeli town in the area, a scant five miles across the sea, have also rattled nerves and walls at the kibbutz.

And he bids defiance to the terrorists:

Meanwhile, as work occasionally pauses, as it did this morning when we watch a puff of smoke from an explosion rise from Tiberias across the Sea, I sit on the walls where Hellenes, Romans and Byzantine guards manned their watches and saw the sun glisten off the sea. I have no intention of leaving before this season ends.

I visited a few Israeli tels as a student, and have always been intrigued by the thought of going back as a volunteer excavator. So, congratulations and stay safe to this plucky chap.

Andrew Sullivan Supports Bush's Veto of Stem Cell Research

The ever-complex Andrew Sullivan finds common ground with the President, on moral grounds.

This isn't a ban on such research; it's a decision not to throw the weight of federal financing behind it. I respect the case of those who favor it; but, when push comes to shove, I'm with Bush on this. It took political courage to take this stand. And the morality it reflects - a refusal to treat human life as a means rather than as an end - deserves respect even from its opponents.

Now, if he'd just stay on board with the War On Terror...

Bush Feels Up German Chancellor Merkel!

Here are some video stills of Bush rubbing Angela Merkel's neck, and the German chancellor shouldering him off.

Is Bush:

*Overcompensating for his age, having just turned 60?

*Still trying to pump his poll numbers, by reminding people of The Big He?

*Just being a stereotypically puppydog-like friendly American?

*Actually trying to make time with Madame Kanzler?

It Matters Who Wins

Saw that picture at Samizdata a couple of years ago. It's a clear, accurate illustration of the fundamental difference between the Israelis and all their jihadist enemies, not just the Pals. As for the moral imbeciles sighing over how unequal the sides are militarily, what would the terrorists be doing if they had the Merkavas, Falcons and Apaches? Same thing as now: deliberately targeting and killing as many Israeli citizens as possible. I cheered the Lebanon Cedar Revolution, and I'm not totally without some sympathy for the mess the Palestinians have created for themselves. But when terrorists, intellectuals, rightists, leftists, isolationists and internationalists everywhere start baying for Jewish national suicide, I firmly reject that.

And I still remember who was partying in the streets on 9/11.

"Israel itself is a mistake"

Uh-huh.

Well, let 'em join the club!

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
--Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Remark to the author sometime after Freud's visit to America in 1909. In Ernest Jones' _The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud_ [1961], Chapter 18)

Because...

Anywhere else I am at the mercy of the government. It is very simple. I want to be in a country where I can defend myself when I am attacked.
-- Ada Sereni, in James McNeish, _Belonging_, 1980

Thinking over my recent posts on the Lebanon offensive, I realize that I've come close to endorsing collective punishment of the entire Lebanese population. I'll have to ruminate on that for a spell... But no one has a right to demand that Israel agree to some stylized parry-and-thrust choreography with terrorism, any more than a farmer should have to make peace with scorpions in his barn.

And I wept and said to myself: Away with the tears!
The sorrow will cease but the graveness will remain!
The graveness will remain, it will seep into the well of the world
like a prophecy, like holy scriptures -
Do not cry, do not weep ...
Eighty million murderers will atone for one worried child in Israel!
-- Yitzhak Katzenelson, "The First Ones"

And hey, have another quote while you're still here:

We're always in the headlines. _The New York Times_. CNN. The BBC. We get more coverage than India. Than China. Than the entire continent of Africa. There's so much news about us, you'd think we're also a billion people, not six million. We're all the time on TV and front pages, so people think they know us. Unsmiling soldiers. Screaming settlers. Crying mourners. Bearded guys in black hats. Well, Israelis are much more than those photos. We complain about our teachers. Worry about exams. Flirt at parties. Wonder if we look good in our bathing suits. We curse at traffic jams and cut in line at the movies. We've got normal fears and dreams. Like young people everywhere, we want to find love and be loved. We're just normal people trying to live in this abnormal, tiny, beautiful country.
-- Ori Heffetz, in Donna Rosenthal The Israelis, 2003

YouTube

Now that it's an establish web resource, I've gotten around to learning of the existence of YouTube. Actually I've known of it for some time, but I've only begun to explore it in depth recently.

For one thing, it's a damn fine jukebox! A lot of early MTV videos are on there, including some favorites that I only ever saw once or twice. For example:

Yes - Leave It
Duran Duran - The Reflex
David Bowie - Blue Jean

And on and on, haven't drawn a blank yet! Further back than that, there are some clips from the 70s, from Don Kirs[c]hner's Rock Concert show. And from European TV, like this scorching rendition of The James Gang's "Walk Away". (Ah, the early Seventies--the golden age of power trios!)

And there's plenty of nature videos, mostly jiggly handcam clips of a spider on the ceiling or something, or copied sections of National Geographic videos. But there are some interesting shots of wild things, too.

It's also a good source for news video. Whenever a news article is hidden behind a subscription wall, it's always worthwhile to check Google Groups, to see if some unscrupulous somebody has copied and pasted it in usenet. Same with subscriber news video, so far as I've seen.

I've no video to upload, but hey! There have to be audiences too, right?

Episcopalian Church Continues To Implode

When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. [...] When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church. [...] So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program - ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth - or die. Sure.
-- Charlotte Allen, "Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins", _Los Angeles Times_, July 10, 2006

Don't forget to check in at Christopher Johnson's place from time to time, to rubber-neck at the wreckage of this sad denomination.

Israeli Offensive Barrels On

From the time Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 until this past week, Lebanon's border with Israel was hardly peaceful. Consider this, from Canadian columnist Robert Fulford, in 2003:

On Sunday afternoons, for a family outing, people in Beirut sometimes load the kids into the car and drive an hour or so south to throw stones across the border at Israeli soldiers. In this way the children can enjoy themselves while vividly expressing their patriotism, which in this case takes the form of hating Israel. It's a pastime that combines real-life horror and Middle East politics with unsettling elements of Disneyland.

On this border region in the Galilee, the struggle of Israel with its neighbours stops being rhetorical and turns highly graphic. Everything gets visually spelled out, the tension and the loathing, the weird comedy, and the authority exercised by freelance armies, in this case Hezbollah, the Party of God, radical proxy of Iran and Syria. Intensely complicated political relationships spread themselves before a visitor's startled eyes.

Aside from providing amusement on otherwise sleepy Sundays, the frontier divides southern Lebanon from northern Israel. But an ignorant visitor wouldn't even know that Lebanon exists -- there are no Lebanese flags, no Lebanese border guards. To the annoyance of Lebanon (now sometimes daringly expressed in the Beirut press), Hezbollah controls outright the strip of land that runs 5 or 10 km north from Israel. The soldiers peering across at Israel are identifiably Hezbollah (army pants, army boots, T-shirt choice optional), proudly standing beneath fluttering Hezbollah flags (automatic rifle, rampant on a field of green).

A despicably provocative billboard also stares across at Israel. It shows huge photographs of three dead Israeli soldiers, one with his bleeding head ripped from his body and held aloft by his hair. A sign reads: "Sharon -- don't forget your soldiers are still in Lebanon." As Israelis are only too well aware, Hezbollah won't return bodies of soldiers they've killed, keeping them either as trophies or possible trading chips.

The stone-throwers, who very rarely hit anyone, recently included a platoon of Lebanese Boy Scouts on a field trip. "The children have nothing to do," an Israeli sergeant indulgently explained to me, "so they come here and throw rocks and they make signs, like running their fingers across their throat to say they want to kill me." Stone-tossing has become so popular among young and old that they've stripped the ground near the fence of all conceivable projectiles, so that on several occasions fresh stones have had to be trucked in to keep the game alive.

Note the bit about the billboard. Imagine if those two American Airborne soldiers, kidnapped, killed and mutilated in Iraq, had their postmortem photographs plastered on billboards, across an international border opposite an American military base. For six years.

Solemn pronouncements from the UN of Serious Consequences don't carry much sting, when in large part the UN is composed of Israel's enemies. At some point, the murder of Jews has to earn a painful and yes disproportionate punishment. Indeed, albeit sadly, that's the only thing that has kept the nation of Israel alive these past sixty years.

Here Comes Trouble

From the AP:

Militants open border between Egypt, Gaza
Staff and agencies
14 July, 2006

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Palestinian militants forced open a border gate Friday between Egypt and Gaza, letting hundreds of people pour across despite warning shots from Israeli helicopter gunships. [...]

The Rafah border crossing — Gaza‘s main gateway to the outside world — has largely been closed since then.

Militants from the ruling Hamas party said they opened the border gate as a "gift" to the Palestinian people.

The rest of it is the standard pro-Palestinian weeper. No speculation on jihadis coming across into Gaza from Egypt. Would you rule it out?

NZ Bear's Roundup

A superior aggregation of bloggage from all sides is here.

(Via retired Israeli blogger Tal G.)

Update: I should say this is a roundup of bloggage of the Lebanon fighting, in case it wasn't clear at first glance.

A Caution For Tut-Tutting Canadians

Says Rondi Adamson in the Toronto Star:

The international community should worry less about Israel showing restraint when it is persistently under attack, and more about Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran. [...]
Mumbai, New York, Bali, London, Haifa. These are also all part of the same larger game, the global war on terror. If we accuse Israel of not being sufficiently "restrained" for responding as it has, what exactly will we do when our turn comes?

Rough Historical Parallels

Israel bombing Lebanon in 2006 is a little like the British destroying the French fleet in 1940. A grim necessity to one side, brutal treachery to the other, and posterity will have the rest of history to second-guess, if posterity is lucky enough to have the good guys win in the present day.

Lebanon War Bloggage

Although I think what Jim Henley's agitating for has already been tried and found wanting, High Clearing has had some thought-provoking posts up in the past few days.

Michael Totten is the go-to guy for Lebanese bloggage by an American. He's aghast at the hammering the little country is taking. Most of his commenters, including me, aren't.

The band of plucky Lebanese volunteers running Ya Libnan, the voice of the Cedar Revolution, are fuming. It's too much to expect them to applaud Israel's attack on Hezbollah in south Lebanon, and the main transportation hubs further north and east. And, no surprise, they don't.

Me? In college, I ate pizza in Haifa (possibly in the same place that was attacked by a particularly vicious suicide bomb a few years ago) and window-shopped art in Safed. So the news of Iranian-supplied missiles striking those areas makes me considerably less inclined to get all moist and sniffly about the nation of plump bourgeoisie who have turned a blind eye to these wolves in their midst. They'll never be a First World country that way. It's imperative to get them to understand that they won't enjoy peace by making their country a through-route for terrorists, either.

For good measure: On-the-spot reporting from someone in Israel, and an expose of biased reporting on Israel from the BBC, in one convenient post.

Middle East Explodes, Again

In the spring of 1921 I was sent to the Colonial Office to take over our business in the Middle East and bring matters into some kind of order. At that time we had recently suppressed a most dangerous and bloody rebellion in Iraq, and upwards of forty thousand troops at a cost of thirty million pounds a year were required to preserve order. In Palestine the strife between the Arabs and the Jews threatened at any moment to take the form of actual violence....Thus the whole of the Middle East presented a most melancholy and alarming picture.
--Winston Churchill, "Lawrence of Arabia", Great Contemporaries, 1937

But, let us not succumb to a sense of futility. Imagine how much worse things would be there if the forces of civilization were to give up.

"Decapped Dupes"

Recently unemployed wackademic Deb Frisch, whom you may have heard of in connection with Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein, posts this vileness about the kidnapped, slain, and mutilated 101st Airborne soldiers in Iraq. It's right up there with the "Million Mogadishus" comment by that NYC professor, back in 2002.

Her new audience is giving it to her hot and strong, so much so that her comments cgi is melting down, and I can't weigh in with my own .02. So here it is, if only for me & thee:

Even NPR conceded, oh-so-reluctantly, that there was no causal connection between the rape cases and this ambush. The rape indictments weren't reported until after the two soldiers were dead. The jihadis only started claiming a connection because they know they can play liberal public opinion like a pawnshop Gibson in a Pete Townshend impersonation contest.

"I feel overwhelming grief that a brave, bright man from Madras, Oregon was tortured and murdered..."

I don't believe you. You feel nothing remotely of the sort. Grief for the death of soldiers? It may be something you've read about, and even published papers on. But you've given no indication of ever having felt the thing itself, in your heart.

You're a photo lover, I gather. Here's some photos of Memorial Day events, halfway down:

http://is-3.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_is-3_archive.html

Click through and try to grow an empathy organ.

Update: She seems to have taken the post off of her main page, but for right now the direct link still connects to it. WTH, maybe I'll just preserve it here at my place, lest we forget. I don't know how to do screen captures on a Wintel, so here's the plain text:


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

South(west)paw
I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. Edward Abbey
« recruiting troops | Main | churchill, sheehan & denton »
July 10, 2006
decapped dupes


A reader writes:

You want to post about something? How about the latest video that leaves no ambiguity that our two guys were decapped and mutilated because some of our people raped, murdered, and mutilated the corpses of an Iraqi family. Then look at how the wingnuts are handling it. As soon as the story about the rape/murder came to light, they dropped the 2 Americans tortured and murdered like a hot potato. Now that the video is out, they keep avoiding the context (cf. lgf).
-----------------
Great post. One of the soldiers who was "decapped and mutilated" (a LOT less fun than a decaf and milk, lemme tell ya!) was Thomas Tucker from Madras, Oregon. Tucker was tortured and murdered as payback for what other American troops did. What goes around comes around. Warrior karma.

Are you saying the MSM is trying to keep the decapped dupes story separate from the rapist troops story so Americans won't connect the dots?

Posted by Deb at July 10, 2006 10:35 PM | TrackBack

Comments
Screw the fool who calls our murdered troops "decapped dupes." That's so typical of the Left - denigrate our soldiers and make excuses for a ruthless enemy.

The Muslim thugs decapitated our troops because they're MUSLIMS and their religion and culture are the most violent in human history. I suspect that if anything egged them on it was the killing of the monster known as Al-Zaqarwi, the terrorist leader who regularly beheaded bound captives.

Since the terrorists regularly randomly kill a great number of Iraquis with car bombs, it's really a stretch to say they decapitated our soldiers because they were incensed about the rape murder. It is doubtful they knew anything about it in the first place.

The only "dots" there are to connect, you Leftist swine, is that we are kicking the terrorists asses in Iraq and that the dwindling and desperate few now resort to even more barbaric acts out of desperation.

By the way, Deb, do see my Photoshop of you at my blog. It's a remake of the Count Cockula graphic.

Posted by: Stogie at July 10, 2006 10:58 PM
Do you have children? I hope for their sakes you don't. I also hope that you know the depth of Jon Benet's death and how horrible it is to wish that upon anyone's child. Also, please don't compare yourself to a left-wing rush-Limbaugh. Bringing someone's innocent child into a war of words is not only sick and indecent, its unfair. In a war of words, i'm afraid you lost this one. I want to also add that you cannot compare yourself to Rush-Limbaugh if you don't have the guts to speak out loud. On the internet, its easy to be outspoken. I just want you to know that you should learn to think before you type. This is not the first time a student had taught a professor a lesson.

-UA student, conservative, and not a fan of yours.

Posted by: at July 10, 2006 11:02 PM
I'm continually amazed by the ignorance displayed by women vis-a-vis Muslim Fundamentalists.

They are trying to re-establish the Caliphate.
Do you realize what that would mean for you, Ms. Frisch?

You won't like it much.

Thank God for our troops.
Freedom, even for misspeaking professors, isn't free.

Posted by: Greybeard at July 10, 2006 11:46 PM
Deb -

I know it is not your plan, but you really need to make amends. Shut down and be quiet for several months, return with well thought out essays that will attract the soft, convincible middle. Plan on it taking a couple of years. Plan on doing things you REALLY don't want to do, like finding something very nice to say about Rice, Rumsfeld or Bush.

But the first step is admitting, really admitting that this is a train wreck. You didn't mean for all this to happen. You want to make things right. And you'll start by taking a day - just a day - and not saying awful things about people because they have different political views than you. One day, then a second. Keep doing it.

I swear, it’s like watching Crispin Glover flush his career, while everyone is screaming “STOP!!!”


Posted by: Svolich at July 11, 2006 12:36 AM
From the Arizona Star with commentary: Now that she won't be teaching, Frisch said she plans to finish writing a book on decision-making.
(No irony there. Will she go through the rest of her savings by self publishing?) While she still hopes to fill the need for "edgy lefties," (Read mad, never mind left. Shows the mentally ill don't have to be poor, ill-educated or minorities to slip through the social net.) Frisch said the entire debacle has taught her where to draw the line. (She remains a forty-four year old joyless life hating homo-pedo anti-social.)
She'll continue to write inflammatory comments, but she'll stay away from personal attacks (Shamefully incapable of reasonably articulating her views to strangers who may disagree).
"I don't want to get anywhere near that line again," Frisch said. "It's been scary, overwhelming and exhausting." (It then follows rather than abandon this blog and turn off the desktop that the former academic picks up her disturbed behaviour exactly where she left off. I'll have fries with that, Deb.)

Posted by: I thought someone who toiled and sweated for a PhD was deserving of respect. My mistake. at July 11, 2006 03:59 AM
You should be locked up. Apologizing for threatening a toddler just doesn't work. You're one fruitloop shy of a full bowl, lady. Start taking your meds again, please.

If "what goes around comes around" then look out sister. You may be in for a rude awakening.

God bless our troops!

Posted by: diane at July 11, 2006 05:02 AM
"It is questionable whether the soldiers were actually killed out of revenge. Iraqis around Mahmudiya, where the rape and murders took place, believed at the time that the girl and the other three victims were killed by other Iraqis in sectarian violence, according to the mayor of Mahmudiya and American military officials. The mayor said the possible involvement of American soldiers only became apparent on June 30, when the American military announced it had opened an investigation into the crime."

That is a quote from here:
http://tinyurl.com/m32o6

Turns out the vicous bastards are apparently liars, too. Imagine that.

Posted by: Reality at July 11, 2006 05:29 AM
You need to go somewhere and buy yourself a clue. For someone who is supposed be responsible for the education of others, you sure lack common sense.

See professional help, and for the love of pete, put down the crack pipe.

Posted by: E L Frederick at July 11, 2006 05:31 AM
Lap it up like the dog you are. It only took 3 weeks for the terrorists to make up some link between their torture of two soldiers from the same batallion to the alleged rape...

But here you are, little parrot that you are, bawking back assumption and allegation as fact. Ryan Renz who broke the rape story has been trying to imply a link for weeks now... finally the morons catch on, make a video and guess what?

Deb Frisch eats it up because, after all, it supports what she already knows and got through her cognitive dissonance filter.

Posted by: w3 at July 11, 2006 06:33 AM
Good job buying the Jihadist propaganda hook, line, and sinker, Deb. Had the alleged rape victim survived, her other male relatives would have felt honor bound to kill her for shaming the family and being imperfect goods within the mysogonistic culture fueled by a death cult religion called Islam. So much of what you spew brings to mind the famous Dan Akroid SNL line: "Deborah, you ignorant slut...". Also, notice that we are prosecuting the alleged rape/killings as a crime, while the jihadists you shill for put their atrocities out on video to brag about it. You are one sick bitch.

Posted by: SGT Ted at July 11, 2006 07:20 AM
Filthy degenerate dyke.

Posted by: Chris at July 11, 2006 07:22 AM
Interesting to see what makes DFrisch's day.

After all, they weren't human to her, either. I'm sure.

P.S. The mutilation was inflicted post-mortem. Those men died standing up.

P.P.S. The motive was obviously attached Ex Post Facto. Any fool can see that.

P.P.P.S. For what it's worth, I think the alleged rape/murder is even more horrific than the two soldiers' deaths, assuming that the facts shake out (as they did not in Haditha).


Posted by: anon from blackfive at July 11, 2006 08:17 AM
Decapped dupes? You are beyond parody. If you didn't already exist the Right would have to invent someone exactly like you. Thanks for all your doing. You're providing a service beyond imagination. The fact that the DailyKos has rebuked and rejected you is amazing. Hey, maybe there's a good chance that you're some kind of neocon rightwingnut plot....no one could be this completely moonbattinated without a whole team of evil Bushites coming up with this stuff and then have it come out of the mouth of lesbian college professor....just toooooo perfect.

Posted by: Mike Fay at July 11, 2006 08:40 AM
"It is questionable whether the soldiers were actually killed out of revenge. Iraqis around Mahmudiya, where the rape and murders took place, believed at the time that the girl and the other three victims were killed by other Iraqis in sectarian violence, according to the mayor of Mahmudiya and American military officials. The mayor said the possible involvement of American soldiers only became apparent on June 30, when the American military announced it had opened an investigation into the crime."

Deb are you being intellectually dishonest or leaving out these facts in your biased reporting?

When the soldiers were captured and killed al-Qaeda did NOT know about the alledged rape and murders. How could torturing and decapitating American Hereos be because of this incident that they had know idea of at the time?

You are the dupe.

Posted by: AliKafir at July 11, 2006 08:56 AM
Deb, with this one you've finally proven that you're educated(poorly) way beyond your intelligence. Your parents must be in an agony of dismay, knowing that they should have, in your case, chosen abortion. The "dupes" that you so carelessly consign to "karma" are all that stand between you and burka-clad slavery- which, in your case, would be richly deserved.


Posted by: FASTAC 6 at July 11, 2006 09:00 AM
First this:

This will be my last post on South(west)paw on the Goldstein affair for at least one month.

Thanks for your message,

DF
Posted by Deb at 02:01 PM

Then the next post 7 1/2 hours later:

walking in memphis

I received this email:

"I am sorry to read about your troubles. I believe you that you were never a threat to Mr. Goldstein's son, that it was just an internet altercation that got out of hand...

That's not even a dog month. This sort of thing (plus Count Cockula) makes it a bit harder to believe the genuine nature of uour apologies.

Posted by: BoBo at July 11, 2006 09:37 AM
Deb,

Thanks so much for proving my point: academics are idiots. You're the poster child.

Posted by: Max at July 11, 2006 10:41 AM
And censorship too! My, how refreshingly liberal of you!

Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner

Posted by: Max at July 11, 2006 10:43 AM
Deb,

If you're trying to build a case for insanity or competing for the title of "Most Virulent Blog" then your strategy is working. Otherwise, you might want to reel it in a few cranks and avoid further tangling your line.

The most objectionable part of your post isn't that you fell for the jihadi misdirection play--half of the MSM will probably fall for it and for the same reason. The worst is that you come off as gleeful and crack jokes about one of the most psychotic and horrifying acts so far perpetrated in this war. If you want to channel Markos, stick with "screm 'em".

Posted by: Immolate at July 11, 2006 10:55 AM
No mention by the Jihadis when the bodies were discovered, per CNN on June 21st.

But leave it to an angry Lefty to grant them 'ex Post Facto revenge' and publish it with near orgasmic relish.

Posted by: DANEgerus at July 11, 2006 11:20 AM
What a truly disturbed, sick person you are.

These brave men did nothing to deserve this, if indeed it happened.

The terrorist need no linkage to any alledged crime, a rare act by the way, from some of our troops.

Terrorists kill because, like any serial killer, because they like it. It pleases them.

You are far more akin to these terrrorists with you thought process, your celebration of violence than you are the victims of it.

You are a disgrace. I may not like liberals, but I know that you do not represent them. I disagree with what they think.

I however loathe you.

Posted by: Tim at July 11, 2006 12:06 PM
Deb,

I can see in some of your non-political posts like the Sisters bulge that you've got an appreciation of beauty. For your soul's sake take a break and seek peace.

You need to center and separate desires from self. The boat in the water; not the water in the boat.

Bitterness is a poison and you're drinking deep.

Richard L.


Posted by: Richard L. at July 11, 2006 12:29 PM
As a "Supporter of our Troops'" and a candidate for congress I was somewhat taken back by this whole discussion. As I pointed out in the Arizona Daily Star alot of the issues seem to be of a religious nature rather than a left or right conservative or liberal view point. I do not have a PHD but know many good friends who do and have fallen into an abyss. One such good friend is Dr. Peter B. Schur P.h.D. of Palo Verde Behavioral Care ,who abruptly left town surrendered his license and the center closed as well when it was exposed for "Molesting Children," that were patients in there offices.A parent accidently walked in on a molestation of his child. All of this was exposed by a police investigation and hushed down by the courts,because alot of the P.H.D. Psychiatricts and Psychologists are lawyers or associated with lawyers. The Jewish faith seems to be prevelent in the University of Arizona Psychology Department descussions, concerning Nazi Germany and who worked in the World Trade Towers. I noted alot of the Psychology Department at the UofA are Jewish also. I do NOT falt anyones belief or religion and wish that "The Separtation of Church and State" could be enforced in our Colleges not just in Politics. Professors do not need to be teaching there own personal faiths or beliefs or political views to students who pay $200,000 dollars for an education in what-even field they choose. Tenure has enabled "Speech Corruption" to enter our public and private institutions that is not based on shared values of higher learning.

Posted by: Dwight D. Leister: Chair: Committee To Elect at July 11, 2006 12:47 PM
I feel overwhelming grief that a brave, bright man from Madras, Oregon was tortured and murdered because the commander-in-chief has no respect for human life, American or otherwise.

I feel grief at how we keep sending our best and brightest to die and kill for nothing.

The term dupe is not meant to disparage the troops but rather to call attention to the fact that they are dying for a lie and for no real purpose. They have been duped by Uncle Scam. That's the point.

Posted by: deb at July 11, 2006 01:09 PM

Enough With Blather About "Root Causes"!

Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else… . Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child!
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground

Caution: the link goes to a page of graphic nastiness, although it is well-spoilered in advance. Only someone in a persistant nuance trance could dream of giving these beasts any slack.

A Series of Clarifying Moments

Tough week for terrorist victims, and for the moral obliviousness of terrorist apologists. Let's hope that next week is equally tough on the terrorists, theirloathesomeselves. In the meantime, it never hurts to be discreetly reminded of the obvious:



I mean, since the geldings in the news media can't even bring themselves to call the terrorists "terrorists" anymore; and Islamic groups like CAIR shrewdly play the victimology fiddle...

That's my boilover point; I welcome yours.

The Idiocy of Rural Life

From guest blogger Anthony Sacramone at First Things:

The country, I’ll concede, may be where you find community, if by that you mean your next-door neighbor walking uninvited through your canted screen door to borrow a few shotgun shells to dust back yet another coyote. But it is also where you are apt to find the same old prejudices, superstitions, and gross habits masquerading as traditions. Not that the big city is bereft of such things, but at least you’re confronted with competing and contradictory prejudices, superstitions, and habits. In short, it’s hard to stay a city person for long and not be made aware that there’s someone else out there—probably right down the hall in a nicer apartment—who thinks you’re an idiot.

And if that’s not spiritual—to be humbled by people richer and more powerful, smarter and more beautiful, than you—then I don’t know what is.

Ha!

100th Anniversary of Exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus

And leave it to the pinks at Forward to invent a link of culpability to George Bush.

I mean, come on! There are much more immediate and alarming parallels with this landmark French jewish scandal in France itself, than with anything here. The author might better have developed his opening paragraphs about anti-semitic violence in France. But, that might have led down some thought-avenues that good progressives don't care to tread--especially if the question of who is committing all this violence comes up.

Dana Heller on Susan Sontag

The white race is the cancer of human history'? Who was this woman? Who and what? An anthropological epidemiologist? A renowned authority on the history of cultures throughout the world, a synthesizer of the magnitude of a Max Weber, a Joachim Wach, a Sir James Frazer, an Arnold Toynbee? Actually, she was just another scribbler who spent her life signing up for protest meetings and lumbering to the podium encumbered by her prose style, which had a handicapped parking sticker valid at Partisan Review. Perhaps she was exceptionally hell-bent on illustrating McLuhan's line about indignation endowing the idiot with dignity, but otherwise she was just a typical American intellectual of the post-World War II period.
-- Tom Wolfe

That was written some years back, while Sontag was still alive. I thought & still think it was devastatingly funny. I'm not so sure about this piece by someone named Dana Heller, in The Common Review. There's something about postmortem score-settling that doesn't sit well with me.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Vacation's End

Getting there may be half the fun, but getting back is not the other half. Just once, I'd like to go on a vacation, and not get belted by a dead carp once I get back to work.

Don't ask...

The Evangelism Linebacker

Saw a funny video in church today, and found it online at Youtube. How would your Christian witness improve, if you knew the Evangelism Linebacker was waiting to flatten you for slacking off?

"Unadulterated Patriotism"

Richard John Neuhaus deftly skewers a bit of (unconscious?) sanctimoniousness from the Washington Post. (Click through; the post is short, but not nuggety enough to excerpt.)

After a quarter century of the conservative movement at flood tide, it really does betray a smug laziness--or a lazy smugness--for liberals to look down on conservatives as static, backward yearning flag-idolaters. In an era when a significant percentage of conservatives think that the best way of protecting America is to spread democracy, and a significant percentage of liberals think the highest form of patriotism is to deface Old Glory with swastikas, libs needn't automatically consider themselves the dynamic faction.

Random Beach Bloggage

Well, I'm back home now. We stayed in a very nice beachfront motel, run by a national chain. We had a full kitchen, oceanfront view, swimming pools, jacuzzi, and a lazy river ride. It was quite a step up from last year. Then, I outsmarted myself bidding blind on Priceline. I tried to keep my bid low by starting in one region of the beach and spreading out as each lowball bid was rejected. I wound up in a golf motel overlooking a marina on a river about a mile inland, with a pool but nothing else for kids. We had to pack up the wagon, drive to the beach and park in the public lots, trek to the public restroom, and leave too soon each day. This time, I just picked a good facility in a good location, called them up, and dickered their price down by about twenty dollars.

Disclosure: The dickering bit was my wife's idea. I hate bargaining; I'm one of those types who'll pay list price in exchange for avoiding personal friction. So thanks to her, through gritted teeth, for putting some stiffening in my spine. I saved about eighty bucks.

At the beach, I fell into my longtime habit of people watching. Things have changed a lot since I was a kid, coming to the same beaches. There are many more beachfront towers, for one thing, and not so many yellow brick motels as formerly. Back then, legal segregation had ceased, but there was still self-segregation by choice. Now, the Grand Strand is as diverse as my home metro area of Atlanta. In fact, any Atlantans reading this will understand when I say that my motel was Buford-Highway-By-The-Sea. In case you're wondering, I think it's a wonderful sign of progress. (But, if you've been reading me for a while, shame on you for wondering!)

Tattoos and pierced navels are thoroughly mainstream now, it seems. I was hard pressed to find a young man without a barbed wire bicep decoration, or some kind of pointy ninja throwing star design. Nor did I notice many girls beyond their twenties without a pseudo-Celtic tramp stamp on the small of their back (although many of these were obviously rub-on decals). Tattoos, snot rings, and pierced navels first burst into popular consciousness through the outrageous antics of Dennis Rodman. Now, with every male advertising his testosterone and every female advertising her availability this way, I think tattoos and piercings are now about edgy as; well, as edgy as Dennis Rodman.

This is the final year for the venerable Myrtle Beach Pavilion. There's no firm word on what's going to take its place when it's torn down.

The Vacation From Hell!

Not mine, thankfully. Mine's going swell--I've just popped down to the hotel lobby, playing hooky on the family to bash out some bloggage. I can't resist anymore! But when I arrived a few days ago, another couple was loading up to leave. They were snapping at each other, and things just boiled over. He used some vile language on her as I was getting back in the car to park it, and as I drove out of the turnaround she started flinging luggage out of the back of their SUV across the driveway. I nearly ran over a shoe.

I hate to see ill will between couples, especially in young couples. Okay, so your trip bit this time. You rubbed each other the wrong way. It happens! Can't put every vacation in the plus column. Just be kind to each other--how much does that cost, fa'chrissakes?

Now, as for the couple of college kids who've been spending every morning and every evening sitting in the kids' wading pool sucking face, we have a different issue to discuss...