Who Was Che?

Who was the real Che? Here's what Jay Nordlinger from NRO had to say about him:

He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was
especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabaña, the
fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grâce, the
bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredón,
the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he
established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens--dissidents,
democrats, artists, homosexuals--would suffer and die. This is the Cuban
gulag.

Do you still want to wear the mug of this thug on a T-shirt to glorify his memory?

Hurrah for the Italians

I wish our own politicians had as much gumption as these Italians do. There should be severe condemnation against Iran's government for making such asinine remarks.

Politicians from Italy's left and right have said they will attend a rally
in front of the Iranian Embassy on Thursday to protest remarks by the
Iranian president that Israel should be "wiped off the map.

There can be no Palistinian state without Muslim agreement that Israel has a right to exist. What was the point of Transjordan /Jordan if not to function as a palestinian state?

Doe vs. Groody

Now that Alito is up for confirmation all the lefty attack dogs are digging through the trash to find something that will make him smell bad enough to warrant a filibuster. The liberal lefts methods are so childish. Rather than argue or reason persuasively and logically, they can only resort to ad hominem attacks or distortion of the truth to scare voters. The boys at Powerline blog believe the Doe vs. Groody case will be a judgment that gets distorted by the media. So we'd better know what they're trying to distort. Alito's dissent sounds completely reasonable and persuasive to me. It's not like the cops were just looking for an excuse to strip a drug addict for their own sick pleasure. Here's what John at Powerline had to say:

Groody was a lawsuit by two "Jane Doe" plaintiffs against four police
officers. The plaintiffs claimed that they were illegally searched by the
officers, and asked for money damages. The officers moved for summary judgment,
arguing that the search did not violate any clearly established constitutional
rights. By a two-to-one vote, the 3rd Circuit panel upheld the trial court's
denial of the officers' motion to dismiss the case. Alito was the
dissenter.

The case arose out of the execution of a search warrant on a meth
house. In the affidavit that the officers submitted to obtain the warrant, they
noted that when drug dealers see that they are being raided, they commonly hide
drugs on the persons of whoever may also be on the premises, hoping that the
search warrant won't allow the officers to search them. So, in this case, the
officers requested permission to search anyone they found on the premises, not
just the drug dealer who was the target of the raid.

The search warrant was drafted by the police officers and signed by a magistrate. It granted the officers' request for a warrant, but didn't specifically say that they could
search occupants of the house other than the drug dealer. The officers testified
that this was only because the box on the form where they described the premises
to be searched wasn't big enough to contain more information, but that they
believed that the information in their supporting affidavit was incorporated by
reference.

The majority held that the warrant did not authorize the officers
to search anyone but the drug dealer himself. Alito disagreed. In my opinion,
Alito got much the better of the argument. You can judge for yourself by reading
the decision here. Alito wrote:

First, the best reading of the warrant is that it authorized the
search of any persons found on the premises. Second, even if the warrant did not
contain such authorization, a reasonable police officer could certainly have
read the warrant as doing so, and therefore the appellants are entitled to
qualified immunity.

Alito noted that, under the controlling authorities, search warrants "are to be read 'in a commonsense and realistic fashion,'" a proposition with which I think most Americans, and most Senators, would agree. Liberals' reference to a "strip search" by officers will evoke images of slavering voyeurs gratuitously disrobing a mother and child, so it is important to understand what really happened. This description comes from the majority opinion:

The officers decided to search Jane and Mary Doe for
contraband, and sent for the meter patrol officer. When she arrived, the female
officer removed both Jane and Mary Doe to an upstairs bathroom. They were
instructed to empty their pockets and lift their shirts. The female officer
patted their pockets. She then told Jane and Mary Doe to drop their pants and
turn around. No contraband was found. With the search completed, both Jane and
Mary Doe were returned to the ground floor to await the end of the
search.

Judge Alito made it clear that he was not pleased by the fact that
searches of this nature may be necessary. But, as in so many other instances,
the problem doesn't arise from gratuitous malice on the part of police officers,
it arises from the tactics of drug dealers:

I share the majority’s visceral dislike of the intrusive search of John Doe’s young daughter, but it is a sad fact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and to avoid prosecution. I know of no legal principle that bars an officer from searching a child (in a proper manner) if a warrant has been issued and the warrant is not illegal on its face. Because the warrant in this case authorized the searches that are challenged – and because a reasonable officer, in any event, certainly could have thought that the warrant conferred such authority – I would reverse.

Every indication is that the officers in this case met the
highest professional standards. What did they get for their pains? They got
sued. Judge Alito's opinion in Groody is well-reasoned and highly persuasive.
There is no reason why leftists should be allowed to use it to cast doubt on
Alito's qualifications. On the contrary, it is a good illustration of why we
need jurists like Judge Alito on the Supreme Court.

Today's Historical Moment

What is so significant about today, October 31st? Oh, don't say Halloween. Halloween may be a fun time to dress up, load up on sweets and prepare for All Saints Day on November 1st (like so many of us do THAT). But such frivolity didn't change the face of Western Civilization. Nope, it's something far more grand and contentious at the same time. Tired of guessing? The Reformation! Woohoo!

Today is Reformation Day, the day Martin Luther pounded his 95 Theses or declarations to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral in 1517. In doing so, he threw down the gauntlet in the hopes that the Pope and his minions would engage him in debate. Luther argued for sola scriptura, sola fides, and sola something else. In English that means the church is not over scripture but under scripture. Therefore, the Catholic Church should be held accountable by and to God's Word, or Holy Scripture. Luther also clarified that we are saved by faith alone with God's grace. We cannot earn our salvation through the buying of indulgences or the doing of good works. Luther never intended to split from Catholicism but only wanted to reform it, to bring it back to Biblical truth. Popel Leo X would have none of it and declared Luther a heretic. And thus, the Reformation was born and the domination of the Catholic church and its popes weakened.

Two men were precursors to Martin Luther but with a similar message: John Wycliffe and Jan Hus. Wycliffe was the first to translate the Bible into the English vernacular so that the common man could read it for himself. For centuries the Bible was only in Latin and the only people who could read it were those who were highly educated, not a large percentage of the population. He was also against the church being in charge of governmental or temporal affairs and condemned it's use of the sword against its enemies. He believed that it corrupted the church. For his troubles, Wcliffe was posthumously burned as a heretic. Jan Hus was also burned at the stake as a heretic for propagating the beliefs of Wycliffe in Bohemia or modern day Czech Republic. Both these men sowed seeds that would be harvested by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others.

We live with the legacy of the reformation in many ways. One big way is that it opened the way for the separation between church and state. So everyone living in America owes these first Protestants a huge Thank You for bucking the establishment or the system or "the Man" if you will to follow their conscience and the truth. To this day, the Catholic Church believes the Protestants broke off from Church tradition. However, Protestants believe they continued what was started in the early years of the Church and it was the Catholic Church that diverged from the truth. And yet, more than ever there's an ecumenical spirit growing between Catholics and Protestants (and even the Orthodox, but that's another story).

Take a moment and give a prayer of thanks for these men and the positive changes they wrought on the world.

Arachnaphobia

Can insects get fat? or reptiles? I would venture a guess that insects expend so much energy capturing and eating their food that they're always treading a fine line between life and death. I have no scientific evidence or knowledge to support that theory, but that's what I think. Now reptiles I could see getting fat if they were pets, but again not if they're part of the food chain of eat or be eaten. And yet, perhaps insects can get fat. A spider has set up shop near our back porch and been doing a brisk trade. Everyday fat bundles are stuck in his web. I fear the spider's abdomen is getting larger. I fear the spider will leap at my face the next time I walk by. The web is beautiful and an engineering marvel (if I remember my science textbook correctly). But. The spider is getting bigger. I must resist the urge to destroy it.

Historic Moment in Turkey

For years, the Turks refused to allow the Kurds the freedom to express their Kurdish identity. It wasn't until June 2004 that the government even permitted TV programs in the Kurdish language. Until last year or so, Turkey has been committed to the reforms Ataturk enacted early in the 20th century to forge the descendents of the failed Ottoman Empire into one homogenous people group. So for the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to say the following is a HUGE step in the right direction.

In a recent speech in Diyarbakir, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the government has mishandled relations with the Kurds, and their long-standing grievances need to be addressed through
greater democracy, not repression. In this largest city in the nation's
troubled Kurdish region, the crowds applauded wildly. "The significance of his
words can't be underestimated," said the chairman of Diyarbakir's influential
Bar Association. "It's the first time any Turkish leader has admitted to
wrongdoing on the part of the state." Since Erdogan came to power in 2002, his
party has enacted sweeping reforms allowing Kurds to broadcast and publish in
their own language as well as to teach it in private courses.

However, not everyone is happy with Erdogan's comments. I'm assuming Erdogan made these comments because he desperately wants Turkey to get into the EU and they have to show they're serious about protecting human rights. Keep your eye on this country for I'm sure there will be interesting developments for good or for ill in the next couple of years. They're a petri dish with Islam and Democracy being the microbes and everyone wondering if the two can work together. Admitting guilt is a step towards better democracy. However, as I mentioned below there's still the threat of imprisonment for Ophan Pamuk because of his statement about the government's complicity in the Armenian genocide. Obviously they're not a perfect democracy just yet (none of them are), but at least they're working at it.

Harry Jaffa Speaks!

If you're in Orange County Friday night check out Harry Jaffa speaking at Trinity Law. He's Professor Emeritus of government at Claremont McKenna college, founder of the Claremont Institute, and author of A New Birth of Freedom. His talk is on The Moral Foundations of the Law. An important issue considering today's political, legal, and social landscape where morals are considered mere opinions as opposed to absolute and objective knowledge. If anyone does attend, please post your comments about his talk here. And it's FREE.

The Trinity Law and Trinity Graduate Schools

2200 N. Grand Ave. Santa Ana CA, 92705
Friday Night Speaker Series
Date: 14 OCTOBER 2005
Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Where: Room #200

Harriet Miers

Is Harriet Miers another Sandra Day O'Connor? It's looking that way. Stanley Kurtz of National Review has been digging into her past as the head of the Texas Bar Association, here are some of his conclusions:

The most telling thing about Miers is that she sees membership in the Federalist Society as excessively “political,” yet doesn’t think twice about associating herself with a lecture series that invites the likes of Gloria Steinem, Pat Schroeder, and Susan Faludi. That’s because Miers’ political career is based on being the one member of the conservative Texas establishment that liberal feminists can best work with. Miers has spent a lifetime being the sort of conservative who tries to swim within the “mainstream.” Miers would rather make a partnership with the far left, than risk being called an outsider on the right. Her almost obsessive silence about her political views probably derives in part from the fact that her own support base comprehends everyone from pro-life evangelical conservatives to Susan Faludi-like feminists.

Even when Miers went out of her way to make a conservative point–as in the drive for ABA neutrality on abortion–her underlying purpose was to keep her Texas group connected to the national center of “mainstream” liberalism (and her formal position was mere neutrality). And even if Miers’ advice to the White House to go slow on affirmative action and stem cells was based on a political calculation, it was a calculation that fit very comfortably with Miers’ long-term intellectual-political orientation. Whatever her personal views, Miers doesn’t feel comfortable openly positioning herself to the right of what liberals call the “mainstream” on social issues. My sense is that this makes Miers into something of a Sandra Day O’Connor figure–someone who could go either way on the big social issues. On the one hand, Miers’s personal instincts are conservative. On the other hand, she is used to working in coalition with, making concessions to, and often sympathizing with, feminist liberals. (David Frum's excerpts from Miers's writings broadly support this point.)

On abortion, Miers is clearly opposed personally, yet her history is that of working with, and making concessions to, feminists to her left. So I’d say that one’s a toss-up. In short, given her history of building coalitions with liberal feminists, I think Miers is likely to be an O’Connor-like figure, who could break either way on all the big social issues.

I'm not keen on the Miers nomination. I wanted and think we needed the fight that could've happened over a real nominee with stellar credentials. I'm really curious to see if Republicans will bork Miers. If they do, it would be a huge testament to their belief in the importance of ideas over the strictly political. We'll see....

My Mister

How do I know my mister loves me? He surprised me with pork chops stuffed with a cheese, spinach and garlic mixture when I came home from work. Nothing is so sexy as a man who cooks and has it waiting for you after a grueling day. You may be thinking what's the big deal. But food is a contentious issue in our home. If we argue about anything, it's about what we're going to eat. We can have yelling matches about what restaurant to eat at or what take out to get (usually because we've been dithering for an hour and are near starvation by the time we decide). Neither of us likes to make food decisions because neither of us wants the other to be disappointed with the choice. And if we're talking about making food, it was usually my responsibility since my mister didn't know how to cook. But lately I've been tired of cooking, thinking about food or trying to figure out what's for dinner that night. My mister had never cooked prior to marrying me five years ago. And in those five years, I could count on one hand the number of meals he made from scratch.

Yet his endeavors this past month have me counting on both hands now and that's a big deal in our household. Not only that, but all the speciality meals he's made have turned out fantastic. For a beginner, he's marvelous. His lasagna, chicken picata, and now stuffed pork chops have all been winners. And pork is a difficult meat 'cause it dries out so quickly. Not these chops. Moist, succulent, and oh so tasty! If you have a mister or a misses who doesn't know sauteing from stewing give them Cooks Illustrated. It's the best magazine for beginners since they give detailed instructions from start to finish and explain all the science behind the technique.

My mister loves me 'cause he's willing to do what I hate to keep me happy and us both nourished. Left to me, it would be cereal every night with a boiled egg thrown in for protein.

Keep an eye on this guy....

He wrote Snow and My Name is Red. Now he's saying what no Turk has dared to say: That the Turkish government was responsible for the Armenian genocide from 1915-1918. For almost a century, Turkey has refused to admit any guilt for the extermination of the Armenians. Their history books ignore it, their politicians deny it, but Orhan Pamuk is apologizing for it. A famous Turkish writer is airing his country's dirty laundry that has moldered for almost one hundred years. As a result he faces up to three years in prison for speaking the truth about his government's sordid past. Pamuk isn't speaking to the world, he's speaking to his own people who have their hands clapped over their eyes, ears and mouth when it comes to problems in Turkey's past. Let's hope that with the upcoming EU talks, Turkey will think twice about imprisoning Pamuk for what the rest of the world already knows to be true.

Kissing Judases

Os Guiness rebukes the pseudo Christian leaders who are corrupting mainline denominations. Following are some excerpts from a recent speech he gave to a worldwide gathering of Anglicans as reported by The Layman:

"Soren Kierkegaard called them 'kissing Judases' – followers of Jesus who betray
him with an interpretation."

Guinness said liberal denominational leaders have followed to a fault
Friedrich Schleiermacher's plea that Christians reach out to "the cultured
despisers of the gospel." Rather than reach them to convert them, said Guinness,
the current church leadership has joined and become like cultured despisers of
the gospel, no longer being faithful to Jesus Christ.

Guinness labeled the current ecclesiastical state
as "an Alice in Wonderland Church in which Christian leaders now openly deny
what all Christians have believed and many have died to defend; Christian
leaders who celebrate what their faith once castigated; Christian leaders who
advance views closer to their foes than to their founder; and Christian leaders
who deny the faith, but stay on shamelessly as leaders of the faith they
deny."

Celebrity Weather

For a dramatic reading of LA weather, and yes we do have weather contrary to popular belief, check out this celebrity's site for a daily update. Apparently his report is getting affiliated. At least that's what I think his last remark suggests.

Time Line of Local, State, Federal efforts in LA

Check out Rick Moran's website for a time line of all the efforts in Lousiana. A fascinating read of who knew or said what and when. It may confirm or blow away your perceptions of the effort, or a little bit of both. People were so shocked and horrified that Michael Brown didn't know there were evacuees in the Convention Center a place that was never mentioned in the emergency evacuation plans. Well, it sounds like Brown wasn't the only one who didn't know. (HT:Hugh Hewitt)

Eerie

That Bitch Katrina

What are those looters going to do with the junk they stole? Seriously, they're in the middle of a massive natural disaster with untold consequences to life and livelihoods and all they can think to do is to steal trifles. An ipod, a flat screen TV, a camera, a carton of A1 Steak Sauce are all trifles compared to the drama raging around them. What is going on in the souls of these people that they can focus on stealing crap while people surround them wailing and gnashing their teeth. How does one put the lust for a material possession before the safety of their own life? Where are they going to watch that TV when they have no home? How are they going to charge that ipod when there's no electricity? How will they eat that steak sauce when there's no food? It's absurd. It's deeply disturbing. It's human nature.

Then you have the blame game. Everyone's going to come out dirty in this game. The blame starts local and moves up. Ain't no one going to escape the mud. Government corruption of the kind that ran rampant in Lousiana and New Orleans for decades leaves the state weak when it most needs to be strong--natural (and unnatural) disasters. Too bad it's the people who pay.

So Cindy Sheehan doesn't think this country is worth fighting for. The USA, one of the freest and most just nations in the modern world let alone history (compared to reality not a utopia), a country that lets her spew filth without a governmental bitchslap in response, is not worth fighting for. Makes me wonder what kind of country she does think is worth the fight. How about North Korea Ms. Cindy Sheehan? Let's take a look at that country. Following are highlights from a Touchstone Magazine article on this evil regime:

German activist Dr. Norbert Vollertsen was one of the first to
mobilize American advocacy for human rights in North Korea. In 1999,
volunteering as an emergency-room doctor in Pyongyang, he donated skin for a
graft for a burn victim. The North Koreans rewarded him with a “Friendship
Medal,” a car, and a V.I.P. passport, affording him the kind of access never
given to those on state visits. Vollertsen was undone when he saw the real
North Korea: the country of mass starvation; villages with no sanitation or
running water; no medical care; and orphanages full of dying children. Since
that time, he has devoted his life to efforts to bring freedom to that country.
He and other heroes regularly risk their lives helping North Korean
escapees.

AND

A 2004 BBC documentary, Access to Evil, provided another shocking revelation. A producer and an investigative journalist were invited to North Korea to film a political documentary in which the regime offered its perspective on the nuclear crisis. Undeterred by the propaganda the authorities organized for them, the filmmakers interviewed several defectors now living in Seoul and ended up revealing North Korea’s gas chambers and chemical experiments to the world.
The witnesses included a former prison-camp security chief who had watched parents and children die by poisonous gas injected into a small glass cubicle, and a doctor who had actually performed the experiments. Those the regime considered enemies of the state, including Christians, were selected for the experiments.

AND

Christians and other political prisoners receive life sentences of hard labor, tantamount to a drawn-out, torturous death sentence. Soon Ok Lee, a former North Korean government worker and prisoner, witnessed the persecution and death of many Christians. She saw prison officials pour molten lead over one group of elderly believers. The uncompromising faith of Christian prisoners deeply moved Mrs. Lee, who has become a Christian and a tireless activist.

What would Cindy Sheehan say if her son died to liberate the North Koreans? How can one so weak raise one so strong? I must believe that he grew into a man despite his mother and not because of her.

Andre Kertesz Photos

I found this photo simply breathtaking. The trees look so delicate and so like pressed seaweed. Yes, that was my first thought that his photo looked like my pressed seaweed.

Words that came to mind from the simple elements of a stark building and a shadowey figure: drama, suspense, foreboding, intrigue.

Elegant and restful.

A Perfect Day

I slept until almost eleven and didn't feel a moment of regret either. The only reason I got up then is that the bedroom was slowly roasting me. I then made myself some Cameron Highlands tea my sister picked up for me in Malaysia, two pieces of toast buttered with raspberry jam, and a sliced peach. Ah the decadence of buttered toast. Butter is one of my favorite foods (or is it a foodstuff? what's the difference?). As a child, I'd savor slivers of butter I shaved off the stick. Now and again you can catch me eating butter especially when I'm baking. But I digress.

I lingered over my tea reading G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong with the World. I find his diatribes against the Reformation and Martin Luther hilarious. If I was Catholic I'd probably feel the same way. In fact many Protestants think the Catholics are seriously misguided and all going to hell. So he's really just the flip side of the same sentiment.

After breakfast I puttered around in between bouts of lethargy spent lounging on the sofa reading catalogues, magazines, and the book Answering Islam. I then trolled through various books copying passages into my ideas notebook that I wanted to ruminate on at a later date. We batted around the idea of seeing a movie, but tired of the discussion and instead pulled up a Pat Novack for Hire radio detective show from the 1940's starring Jack Webb and Raymond Burr as Inspector Hellman. You can find MP3's for a few of the shows here. The writing's smooth, the humor dry, and the delivery laugh-out-loud funny. I love it. Agnes Bolton is my favorite episode so far.

Needing to escape the heat, we decided to see the Tim Hawkinson show at LACMA (after five is free!). But not before I insisted we stop at Canter's for a bowl of Kreplach soup (with an extra kreplach) and a cup of coffee. Strangely enough I get cravings for soup even when it's 98 degrees outside. But I can only eat it if I'm in an air conditioned restaurant or it's 10 o'clock at night otherwise I perspire. Back to Tim Hawkinson. From LACMA's website (which is hideous):

The central subject of Hawkinson’s work is often his own body,
whose likeness he inflates, measures, weighs, reflects, and animates. Eschewing
conventional self-portraits, Hawkinson uses his own physical form as a starting
point for investigations into material, perception, and time. His analytical
approach is often balanced by a suggestion of spirituality, as in Balloon
Self-Portrait (1993, refabricated 2004), a life-size, inflated latex cast of the
artist’s body that has been inflated and hovers over the gallery floor like an
apparition. In other works, though, Hawkinson reduces his self to a simple
machine effect, as in the kinetic sculpture Signature (1993), which ceaselessly
inscribes the artist’s own signature.

Creepiest piece was a small sculpure of a bird skeleton made from his fingernail clippings. If I could buy one of his pieces it would be his elephant "skin" made from aluminum foil and something else. For being made from foil it looked remarkably real, but not at the same time. Intriguing. It'd look fantastic hanging in a hunting lodge.

Next, we popped into view Andre Kertesz's photography which was breathtaking. I love his eye! I'll post a few of his photos in my next posting.

After LACMA, we dined with my sister and her husband on tri-tip and champagne with Cassis.

A perfect day from start to finish.

My Friday

If not for the heat (and the lack of air conditioning in our wee apartment), my weekend would have been perfect. Friday wasn't auspicious. I laid off an employee, a very agreeable and likable fellow I'll call Mark. I've laid off employees before, but in that instance I was happy to see them leave. Not this time.

My goal during the last three (or is it now four) years as Manager has been to create a department that is highly functional and works well together. It required letting people leave for the competition without making a counter offer, laying off two others (one who was a trouble maker and another who was incompetent) and not hiring ex-employees who left on their own accord but then wanted to return to their old position. Which wasn't as simple as it sounds since I couldn't always pay my first choice candidates what they deserved or what they wanted. Yet despite the obstacles Corporate has thrown along the way, I've developed a great department. All of which to say I'm sad to see Mark leave. He was dependable, honest, intelligent, and unflappable. He made a good foil to the other more high strung tempraments in the office.

However, Mark made one egregious error in handling a large client of his. The client then threw a temper tantrum which ended with him sending an email to Mark (and copying the rest of my department--very bad form) berating him for his lack of customer service skills and ranting about all that Mark had done wrong in handling his problem. It was ugly. Unfortunately for Mark it made him the layoff target since the incident put him on my two bosses radar. And yet, it may have been the best thing for him. Mark wasn't happy; he aspired to be a scriptwriter (this being hollywood) but wasn't motivated to move on from here to pursue his dream. He also wasn't promoted like most others in the office and now wouldn't be because of losing his biggest client. Basically he was in a dead end job. So perhaps the layoff (which gave him three weeks severance) was ultimately an act of mercy to push him into his dream. Mark being Mark handled the layoff with his usual aplomb. I thank him for that.

I'm afraid there may be more lay offs in the near future. For all I know, my own.

How Hot?

I'm melting. At 11am this morning it was 90 degrees in the shade and I'm not talking about Valley temperatures which reached 100. Now, at 8:15pm it's so still and sultry I belong in a Tennesse Williams' play as the woman desperate for her man yet frigid with unresolved sexual tension. Or a dame in a Raymond Chandler novel sipping a shot of whiskey to stay cool while perched on the porch waiting for her crooked boyfriend. Yep, it's that hot.