Blog on the Run

Herewith, a few observations on stories that have not escaped my attention as I scurry up hill and down dale during the Advent season:

1. The sound of liberal heads exploding echoes once more, this time around the world! It seems that, in Nepal... well, first let me make a comment. Nepal, as you may know, is, and has been, the coolest of cool places to visit for... well, really, for many decades now, ever since the hippies discovered that it had the most killer weed on earth, and that it was right next to Tibet, which would have been the coolest place except it had no killer weed and was under the boot of the Chinese (even though Mao could do wrong, etc. -- I've already covered that one). More recently, it has been a yuppie rite of passage to “go trekking in Nepal” -- the way a devout Muslim has to make the hajj at least once in his lifetime. You simply cannot be admitted to the inner circle of hip yuppiedom without having done that trek – that's the law. And of course, the aura connected with killer weed morphing into the trekking Valhalla has extended itself to Nepalese culture, and even – in a pinch – to its religion (overwhelmingly Hindu – not as “cool” as Buddhism certainly, but way better than mean old monotheism). Ah, but there is trouble in paradise. Apparently there is – in one village (and it must be a rich one – read on) -- a requirement that, every five years, immense numbers of animals and birds be slaughtered “to appease the goddess Gadhimai” -- who must be a kind of Hindu version of Janet Reno -- “end evil” (just like Obama promised to do), and bring about prosperity (ditto). The rough estimate of this sacrifice, according to a temple priest, is “around 20,000 water buffaloes, 30,000 to 35,000 goats and countless birds and pigeons”. (No mention was made as to whether the remains are donated to a food bank.) So once again, we have this inevitable culture clash between ethnic/native/indigenous “coolness” (in the eyes of mush-headed liberals) and the ideational fetish du jour -- “animal rights” in this case. It's unclear whether Deepak Chopra will be parachuted in, Jesse Jackson style, to act as advocate for one side or the other – or maybe both.

2. Who out there is for large, intrusive government? Well, I sure am... at least when it comes to loud commercials. Apparently, despite all the complaints over the years, there is yet to be an FCC regulation requiring that TV commercials be no louder, on average, than the shows on which they appear. Well, I could have told you that. The minute any show I'm watching “cuts to commercial” I make a dive for the remote and frantically search for the “mute” button (that's that little one slightly to the left and below the middle of the total array of approximately 75 buttons) – all the while bracing myself for a blast of sound not unlike an air horn. But get the alibis offered up by the TV industry: “Managing the transition between programs and ads without spoiling the artistic intent of the producers poses technical challenges and may require TV broadcasters to purchase new equipment.” “Artistic intent?” Does that apply to daytime TV? Or reality shows? Please. And as for “new equipment” -- hey, just pick up one of those gadgets that OSHA uses to measure factory noise. You can probably get it at Radio Shack.

3. Well, it was worth a try. The foreign secretary of Britain announced, the other day, that they “no longer would tolerate legal harassment of Israeli officials” by people seeking to have them arrested for war crimes. Yes, it seems that Britain has a curious legal convention called “universal jurisdiction”, whereby any citizen can petition any judge to order the arrest of foreign politicians and military personnel found on British soil, provided sufficient evidence is presented to substantiate a war crimes accusation. So onerous is this British legal eccentricity that Tzipi Livni (and I always thought those were Polish dumplings) recently canceled a trip to London. Well – I have a few questions. To begin with, under which enlightened regime did that provision become law in Britain? (And who was it aimed at?) Secondly, if we were talking about anyone but an Israeli politician, would it be seen as a problem? I mean... there was a movement on at one point, as I recall, to bring George W. Bush up on charges of war crimes – until it was discovered that “general idiocy” carried a stiffer sentence. But now wait a minute! What about Pinochet? And what about all those Serbian dudes? And deposed African dictators? Clearly there is ample precedent for this sort of thing. Most curious that the issue has just now come up, now that it concerns “a strategic partner and a close friend of the United Kingdom”.

4. Dare I call it “blowback”? First “leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries” travel to Uganda to “promote therapy for gays to become heterosexual”. Next thing you know, the Ugandan legislature is considering making gayness a capital offense... and failure to “out” them to the authorities a serious crime. “Even landlords could be imprisoned for renting to homosexuals.” (No mention is made as to how the landlord is to make this determination in a definitive way – but one can only imagine.) But did they even try those therapeutic techniques? Why the rush to judgment? And am I being overly imaginative if I speculate that these American ministers are the same ones who were 100% behind the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and who want us to nuke Iran? Gosh – it's enough to give capital punishment of gays a bad name...

5. And along very similar lines, we now have a call from the justice minister of Israel to make Jewish law “binding” in Israel. Will the people who are all up in arms about sharia even take notice? But apparently there is a vocal Orthodox minority in Israel who, for some reason, feel that a country that was established as a haven for a single religious and ethnic group should actually manifest that fact in its legal code. Imagine! What ever happened to “diversity”? Well... actually, they don't need it, even though they never tire of telling us that we do – and criticizing the small remnant of Christianity in our own legal code. But, it should be noted, “secular Jews make up about 80 percent of the Jewish population” of Israel – which means that, as many of us have long suspected, Israel and its welfare is not a religious issue at all, but only an ethnic/tribal issue. The religion piece is only trotted out to make that pill a bit easier to swallow, namely that the bulk of our national resources is being squandered in order to protect a tribe of people who not only do not share the religious convictions of the vast majority of Americans but who, by and large, have no religous convictions at all.

6. News from Honduras: “Drug czar assassinated 2 months before retirement.” Wow, they have “czars” down there too! But here's what I love: “... investigators were trying to determine a motive.” Um... OK, so you have a country the majority of whose GNP is tied to the drug trade, but everyone is baffled as to why the drug czar would be assassinated? Sounds like all those drugs had an effect on their brains. And, BTW, he was going to retire to Canada – or, as one commentator calls it, “Soviet Canuckistan”. Strange bedfellows indeed...

7. “Follow the money”, they say – and the money is more and more going into gold, gems, and “rare items” like high-end watches and wines -- at least on the international level. A high-level member of Christie's commented that “there is this talk that there should be inflation someday because governments have printed so much money”. He wasn't just talking about Zimbabwe. Everyone sees the Treasury Department oiling up the printing presses – and whoever has dollars, or dollar-based securities, is dumping them as fast as possible, and going back to the eternal verities, material value-wise. Assuming that the rich are smarter than other people, wouldn't it be prudent to follow their example as much as possible? Whoever holds onto dollars is going to be, more and more, left holding the bag for... well, for quite a while; maybe even until we go back on the gold standard (that would be in... about a hundred years at least).

8. Hey, how about that “Onion” spoof where the Swiss had supposedly voted to ban minarets? Talk about hilarious! Um... problem is, it wasn't a spoof; the Swiss really have decided that those masonry spires erected by the Musselman wherever he goes cannot be tolerated in the land of cheese, “apres ski”, and cuckoo clocks. But – lest we forget – Switzerland was also the birthplace of Calvinism. Maybe there is such a thing as too-fresh air and too-clean water...

9. “President tells top party to fight fair.” Yep – the president told the dominant political party to “stop trying to manipulate elections and learn to win fairly”. Oh – you'll say – how could I have missed this story? Because it happened in Russia. But... wouldn't it be nice if an American president would level the same criticism at the beast with two heads, AKA the “two-party system”? Yeah, I know... dream on. Even Medvedev's statement that “elections must express the people's will in free competition between ideas and programs” -- can you imagine if this had been applied to the Republican primaries last year? And listen to this: “Opposition candidates claimed they were hindered from campaigning and some were denied places on the ballot.” Can you say “Ron Paul”, or the Constitution Party, or the Libertarian Party? And – Medvedev again -- “Democracy isn't for parties, either ruling or opposition ones, it's for the people.” Wow – try telling that to the Democratic National Committee or its Republican counterpart. One again, the former communist slave states and the U.S. are passing each other going opposite ways...

10. And finally we have the gift that just keeps on giving, namely Hurricane Katrina. Now a court has actually come out and ruled that “monumental negligence” on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers contributed hugely to the disaster. And this, in turn, “could lead to a new deluge: billions of dollars in legal action from thousands of storm victims”. Now... I know this could never happen... but “what if” the awards for all of those lawsuits were taken directly out of the Corps' hide? You know – just take its budget (for as many years as needed) and reduce it by the amount of the awards. That could... why... that could even put them out of business! And what a blessing that would be. Yeah... it's one thing when a government agency is simply useless. In that case, it might be relatively inert. But the Corps has been destroying the landscape (and waterscape) and stomping on people for generations now; this could be the one thing that would be its comeuppance, and do away with it once and for all. But gosh, I guess it's just too big (and too evil) to fail...