As Israel nears her 60th birthday, this is major food for thought: Hamas airs a "documentary" showing that Jews supposedly plotted the Holocaust to weed out the weak and gain international sympathy. They release it just a couple of weeks before the day when the world remembered the victims of the Holocaust. The media largely ignores this outrage, because Hamas represents the "persecuted" Palestinians. I write about the lessons we need to learn from this -- with the insight of my pal Valerie Harper, who took her amazing Golda Meir character to the big screen recently -- in my column this week:

"Sadly, as we marked this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day, 'never again' seems further from reach than ever. Jews continue to be targeted, be it in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or the repeated desecration of Jewish graves in Berlin. Holocaust denial has became accepted as legitimate thought in some circles and has become a foreign-policy talking point in the regimes of others.And when I, a gentile columnist, have written about the outrage of Holocaust denial, I've received far too many letters defending the deniers.

'Jews don't care about anybody but the Jews,' wrote one Canadian reader. '...Only a fool would trust a Jew to play fair with gentiles. ... They're laughing at you for falling for their lies. Don't be such a sap.'

Hamas is doing its best to stoke that disbelief in the true nature of the Holocaust, while fanning the flames of hatred for the Jewish people.

On April 18, Al-Aqsa TV - which brought Palestinian kiddies Farfour the martyr mouse and Assoud, the Bugs Bunny rip-off who vowed to 'eat' the Jews - aired an 'educational' program that accused Jews of perpetuating the Holocaust to weed out the weak among their ranks and simultaneously gain international sympathy.

This, of course, walks a fine line with Hamas' contention that the Holocaust never happened..."

Read the whole thing!

And if you want to be even more depressed, read the reader comments, which include this gem from a woman in Redondo Beach:

"Holocaust 'denial' is a misnomer. Nobody denies the Holocaust. Some people have noticed irregularities with some aspects of the official holocaust story and have raised questions. For example, why haven't the mass graves at the death camps been opened up to estimate the number of victims and see what we can find out about who they are or how they died? Why hasn't anybody demanded information about a relative they believe was murdered in one of the death camps? How exactly did the gas chambers work and how did they dispose of all the bodies?

All reasonable questions but instead of answers, you get called a bigot and anti-semite for asking them. For that reason, people will continue questioning the holocaust. It's not bigotry that leads people to holocaust revision, it's simply curiosity."

To which one reader from New York responded:

"Christina, I could not agree with you more. It's not bigotry to find the truth. The real bigots here are the stiff-neck mutated counterfeit jews that reasons with their own vile vehement that spews forth without intelligences, along with their brain dead following.."

Feeling truly ill yet? There was a positive comment over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to lift one's spirits (the last line cracked me up, anyway):

"I'm surprised the PI let Bridget Johnson's opinion on here.

The popular opinion on the far left is that the Jewish people and Israel are the root cause of all violence, poverty and hate in the Arab world. Without Jews, none of it would exist.

I'm sure they would have felt sorry for them as they were being cooked early in the late 30s, had they been around to see it, but now that they have recovered, prospered and are white and wealthy, they are a target.

Hamas could fry babies, and they do in a sense, and they would be the noble ones to the far left, because they aren't wealthy.

Keep the faith Bridget and if your letters smell of lattes and incense, save yourself some grief and throw them away."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, the DN linked to an NPR story that was billed as a profile of Officer Jennifer Grasso, the first woman to enter the LAPD's SWAT school. Interestingly, the only thing it said about Grasso was that she refused to be interviewed. Some profile.

That may be the only thing the report got right. Top to bottom, the story is riddled with factual errors, blatantly stereo-typed prejudice and gross omissions (for instance, trumpeting an officers $2 million jury verdict, while failing to mention said verdict was overturned on appeal).

Here, then, is the commentary in response that I have prepared for NPR. They've not seen fit to get back to me. I'm shocked.

The Politically Incorrect Truth About LAPD's First Female SWAT Officer:

NPR's recent profile of Los Angeles Police Officer Jennifre Grasso, the first female selectee for the renown LAPD SWAT team, left out numerous key facts and advanced patently false misperceptions and liberal stereo-types.

Let's stipulate now that Jennifer Grasso is an outstanding cop. Those who have worked with her say she's far better than most male officers. SWAT officers I know were disappointed when she failed their stringent 2006 selection.

This doesn't change a simple fact: If Grasso is passes SWAT school, it will only be because she's a woman, and Police Chief Bratton wants a woman on SWAT, capable or not.

NPR failed to mention that Grasso recently committed a violation of weapons' safety so egregious that most present SWAT officers would have been removed from the team for the same. She accidentally fired an MP-5 submachine gun, without even having the weapon in a firing position.

Before now, SWAT officers were expected to arrive with the finest weapons handling traits. Just as diamonds can be cut and polished only to standards their chemical traits permit, so too are weapons skills limited. By choosing only officers with the finest innate traits - those with skills that need to be honed, not learned - SWAT has amassed a remarkable record - killing less than 1% of the extremely dangerous suspects they confront and only one hostage ever - and arguably not even her.

In past years, dozens of male and female candidates have been disqualified for even placing a finger on the trigger at the wrong time. Every professional weapons handling standard starts with "never put a finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire." Grasso went one better, spraying rounds into the dirt in front of her.

She literally could have killed someone, yet is still in school.

Does anyone really believe no SWAT standards have been lowered, as CPT Jeff Greer asserted?

This is no minor matter to current SWAT cops. Would you want to confront an armed suspect knowing the officer behind you had accidentally fired the same machine gun that is now inches from your back? If you're a hostage, is that officer your first choice of rescuer?

NPR also failed to tell you that the selection procedure that picked Grasso used only five of the 18 standards that were previously used to evaluate candidates. Among the eliminated tests, was a simulated hostage rescue that very closely mirrored the 2005 incident in which SWAT is believed to have accidentally killed a little girl - the Suzie Pena case which supposedly led to this change. It is that same test that former officer Nina Acosta barely passed in the early 1990s before suing the City for discrimination. Contrary NPR's report that she wasn't selected because of her gender, officers who testified in the trial say Acosta hesitated for three or four seconds inside that room while fumbling with her weapon. Most police gun battles are over in half that time.

That is why Acosta's $2 million verdict was thrown out by an appeals court, another fact NPR left out.

NPR also was quick to quote LAPD observer Joe Domanick, a journalist who's never carried a gun, much less served as an LAPD officer. According to him, blacks and Latinos were only admitted to SWAT following a consent decree, and the unit is still largely a bastion of whites.

In fact, this is false. Among the very first SWAT officers were several highly regarded officers of a variety of ethnicities. One black sergeant is regarded by old timers as a key to the team's early growth. A large number of the team was Hispanic. Today, African American officers make up a greater percentage of SWAT than the LAPD as a whole - something that was true before Randal Simmons was murdered in Winnetka earlier this year.

But, to Domanick and NPR (who apparrently didn't bother going to look at SWAT), this is a white male bastion.

The fact is, contrary to NPR's assertions, SWAT is a bastion of excellence of all colors, and diverse in its expertise. Its record proves it rarely uses force, and its ranks include some of the world's best-trained - and most successful - hostage negotiators.

How could NPR get so many facts wrong and omit so many important points? I'd venture to say NPR is far more prejudiced against folks in blue, than SWAT cops are anyone of any color. Or any gender.

The loser in all of this is Grasso. Frankly, lots of folks can make mistakes with a weapon. Officers who have done so in the past have retested the selection process and made the team, without doubts. Grasso will not be so fortunate. Regardless of the selection standards used, she will now always be known as the woman who had the standards changed for her, and who got away with something no man ever would.

Sometimes when you shatter a non-existent glass ceiling, you still get cut be falling shards.

And, remember, the standards have not been lowered.

Posted by Robert C.J. Parry at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fascinating George Will column today citing data that destroy two of the most common political assumptions: 1) Conservatives are rich; liberals are poor, and 2) Liberals are more compassionate than conservatives. There are a lot of good stats to discredit these assumptions, but to cite one factoid that stands out:

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

There are two phenomena at work here. The first is that, on average, conservatives tend to be more religious (or, to express it conversely, atheists are more likely to be liberal), and most religions require some form of tithing. (Tellingly, the least charitable group of Americans is secular conservatives -- i.e., Country Club Republicans.)

The second, related phenomenon is ideological: While both liberals and conservatives, by and large, recognize a need to help the disadvantaged, liberals tend to view government as the primary vehicle for doing so, whereas conservatives put their stock (and money) in private charity. To quote Will:

People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition....

While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes.

This explains not only why liberals are less likely to give to charity, but also why they're more willing to pay higher taxes. They see ponying up more money to the state as the price to pay for living in a more just and compassionate society. Conservatives, on the other hand, don't trust the government to do the job, and having already made generous charitable donations on their own, resent the implication that the government thinks they should be doing more.

These are two radically different world views, but one shouldn't assume -- as politicians and partisans often do -- that the other is intrinsically selfish.

Since societal compassion requires some level of both private and public efforts, perhaps we should see our differences here as a blessing -- a necessary system of checks and balances -- rather than as one more cause for political sanctimony and partisan outrage.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I find fascinating the polarizing and unpredictable division of opinions in the Obama-Wright kerfuffle. Just look at what we have here at FF and in the Daily News. First there's Jasmyne Cannick, who in today's paper lines up strongly behind Jeremiah Wright and his heated rhetoric, and denounces whites who would criticize it:

It seems that it's not enough that we've adopted their religion and most blacks are worshipping to their white, blue-eyed Jesus, but now they want to dictate the message that we receive as well. And in the process, they've backed Obama against a wall, forcing him to publicly distance himself from his pastor in order to prove that he's not an angry black man in disguise.

Then in a post yesterday that became an op-ed in today's paper, Jonathan offers what is, I think, the perfect counterpoint:

This is not about an endorsement from a person with distasteful ideas. This is about belonging to a community that presents an angry and aggrieved face to the world. That anger may be justified is not the point. The public face of his church is far different from the face that Obama presents to the nation.

Exactly. Jasmyne may be right that Pastor Wright represents an authentic voice for part of black America, but he stands in stark contrast to the hopeful, unifying, race-transcending themes that have been the centerpiece of Obama's campaign. If Obama had run as "an angry black man" (as Jasmyne puts it), he would never have made it to frontrunner status. Indeed, angry candidates of any race seldom do well in a country that craves optimism from its leaders.

Meanwhile, I find myself agreeing with Rob, to an extent, that Wright's anti-American statements are not entirely bad. There is something noble, even patriotic, about not looking past the evils of one's own people. And while I disagree with Wright about what some of those evils are (the idea that the CIA created AIDS to wipe out blacks is vile, noxious hookum), I do find myself uncomfortable with certain Republican-types who react furiously to any suggestion that America might be anything less than immaculate.

Christopher Hayes makes the point nicely in this article in The Nation:

Imagine for a moment that you are pro-life. You believe that each abortion represents the murder of an innocent child. ... If you were religious, you might think that God judged America harshly for this crime, for the nation's continuing indifference, and you might even think that God damns America for its tolerance of a holocaust.

It's hard to imagine, though, that if a Republican presidential candidate were running for president and had a preacher with the views spelled out above, that it would cause much of a stir, or even register a blip in the brain-dead oscillations of the twenty-four-hour, scandal-cycle EKG. And yet here we are, five or six news cycles into an ongoing firestorm over a few seconds of two different sermons delivered by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Barack Obama's (and Oprah Winfrey's) Chicago church, and a man who Obama says "brought me to Jesus."

Although I would argue with some of Hayes' language and conclusions, he has a point. I, for one, do believe that America's abortion regime is an abomination. And a pastor who says as much, even if he uses overheated and harsh language, is speaking the truth.

Where Hayes comes up short, though, is in his suggestion that a Republican whose pastor said God was damning America for abortion would not suffer for it politically. It's one thing to say abortion is evil. It's another, from a political standpoint, to say America is evil, whatever the reason. As Jonathan aptly asks at the end of his article:

Senator Obama, is there any conceivable way that you could place on your ticket as Vice President a person who attended The Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Church for twenty years?

The answer is no, and not just for Obama, but for anyone running for president. Falwell's suggestion that America brought 9-11 upon itself went over the line for how much national self-condemnation the public will tolerate -- from the left or the right, black or white.

Here we return to Rob's discussions of national self-criticism and patriotism. As far as I'm concerned, the most toxic words Rev. Wright has uttered are not the anti-American ones we've heard on TV the last few days, but the racialist and arguably anti-Semitic ones I wrote about two months ago. Yet clearly those never generated the same level of fury.

Go figure.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know the whole world is dumping on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer lately, but I think his resignation speech today was pure class. He's owned up to his faults, assumed responsibility, accepted the consequences -- and now tries to pick up the pieces.

Some notable lines:

• "From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much - the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry I did not live up to what was expected of me."


• "Over the course of my public life I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself."


• "I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."

Amen to that. One hates to see our leaders ever embroiled in this kind of scandal, but much to his credit, Spitzer has shown exactly how to respond to one's failings with grace. Godspeed to him and his family.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As the sad news of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's adultery and involvement with prostitution breaks, expect to hear some talk of "hypocrisy." After all, he was an anti-corruption crusader who prosecuted a couple prostitution rings in his days as New York's attorney general. But expect nothing of the sort of hypocrisy-hyperbole you might hear if Spitzer were a Republican, a conservative, or, worse yet, an opponent of "gay marriage."

Whenever anyone who has said a word in support of traditional families gets caught in one of these sex scandals, all hell breaks loose. Think of Newt Gingrich. Or Larry Craig. Or Robert Livingston -- to cite just a few names from a very long list. Among the chattering classes, these conservatives' marital sins are considered to be somehow worse than progressives' like Gavin Newsom's because right-wingers have the nerve to prattle on about "family values" from the campaign stump.

But as a candidate and as a governor, Spitzer has also been know to prattle on about family values -- he just does so in support of "gay marriage." Consider some of the phrases he has used to describe marriage, words which could have come straight from James Dobson or Pope Benedict XVI.

• Spitzer has called the bonds of matrimony a "solemn commitment."
• He has said that "the institution of marriage produces incalculable benefits for society, by fostering stable familial relationships."
• He's called marriage a "crucial social institution."
• He's even said, "Strong, stable families are the cornerstones of our society. The responsibilities inherent in the institution of marriage benefit those individuals and society as a whole."

Both opponents and proponents of "gay marriage" claim that matrimony is important -- the former argue it's so important it cannot be altered; the latter argue it's so important that it must. Either way, both pay lip service to the institution and its role in society.

So how is a married supporter of "gay marriage" any less of a "hypocrite" when caught soliciting $5,000 call girls from the Emperors Club VIP? He, too, has violated the very moral code he claims to uphold, the one he's cited to advance a political agenda as well as a political career. He, too, has fallen far short of his own rhetoric and his own publicly held ideals.

Here we get to the rub: "Hypocrisy" is an overrated vice. The only ones among us who aren't hypocrites are the shameless, those who don't fall short of their own ethical standards because they have none in the first place. (No one will ever call Larry Flynt a hypocrite, but is this really a statement in his favor?) The rest of, struggling to live morally in a fallen world, are all hypocrites and will be until the day we die. We no doubt try to do better, to live better, to be better -- but in the meantime, we'll fall short.

Which is why the great cudgel of "hypocrisy" that progressives like to wield against fallen conservatives is nothing more than that.

Eliot Spitzer may be a hypocrite, but that hardly discredits any of the positions he's taken in the past, on marriage or anything else. Indeed, the fact that he's willing to acknowledge his failings -- rather than to deny they are failings at all -- shows that he's just one more soul struggling for the grace to live up to his ideals.

May he find it. May we all.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What parent has not prayed to change places with a sick, or even a dying, child? What child has not wept at the pain of an aging parent? As my wife, the Fair Helenekela, rehabs from her knee replacement and I put her through her painful paces, I would change places in a heartbeat. It is far easier for me to hurt than to cause her tears.

In the military, a soldier will throw himself (and now herself) on a grenade without conscious thought and certainly adverse to personal interest. A mother bird or human mother will lure danger away from the nest and interpose her body between the threat and her off spring. Deep in the genetic code is the drive to protect the future and care for our offspring.

Since the beginning of recorded time we have danced, sung, painted, pleaded, fought, lied and died for love. It is fundamental to what makes us human beings.

I’m obviously not simply talking about sex and mating—all the other life forms higher than amoebas mate. Indeed, “birds do it; bees do it; even educated fleas do it.” But love is more, much more, than the male drive to inseminate and the female drive to select good genes for babies and a good provider for the family unit.

Human love is far more than lust, recreation or even re-creation. It is empathy, sympathy, sacrifice and generosity.

The Greeks had three words for love so that we wouldn’t confuse affection, lust and devotion: Eros, Phil and Agape. Eros is romantic love. Phil is attraction and devotion (Philosophy being love/devotion to wisdom). Agape is usually understood as the acceptance of the other—flaws, faults, warts and all. The classic example is God’s love for flawed humanity. These three words are connected by, well, connection. They all connect us to the world and to others. They connect our hearts to a special kind of generosity.

Parents, animal and human, will take enormous risks for love—sometimes from instinct and sometimes despite some seemingly strong instincts. Human beings have the possibility of choosing against instinct. We can, if we put our minds to it, come to believe our children are not the most precious and important things in the world. We can try to maximize our own pleasure and not understand the selfless generosity that is built in to our genetic code.

Love, as Agape and not simply Eros, is based on the instinct in animals and insight in humans that we are not the single most important entities in all the universe. This is a liberating epiphany.

As babies, we are only our needs and demands—feed me, hold me, change me, love me. As adolescents, we begin to have a compassionate sense of others and how two are so much more than one plus one. As mature adults and parents or grandparents, we begin to get—consciously or unconsciously—that the needs, desires, happiness and survival of others may be even more important than our own. While other animals may act on this by instinct alone, we are free to choose or ignore these better angels of our genetic inheritance.

Someone once defined civilization as the stifling of our basic animal drives for the sake of civil society. This is in my view 100% half true. The other half is that civilization sometimes stifles the genes of generosity by celebrating our individuality as if it were an unambiguous virtue.

Where romantic love meets devotional love is in the bonding that makes us sense our best selves. I think we often love the people who help us feel about ourselves the way we want to feel, the people who can show us, reveal to us, goodness and generosity that surprises and fulfills us, who can open up our hearts beyond the lonely skin-sack of self and connect us to each other, the world and the future beyond ourselves.

When we squirrel away for the future care of the family, instead of the immediate gratification of that giant flat screen TV (which I still lust for, but don’t need), when we give to our children, the children of the world, a religious group, political party, or scholarship fund—we feel good. We remind ourselves that our short time here in the sunlight has meaning, power and effects beyond its visible manifestation.

We love in order to know that we are not alone and to be connected, physically and spiritually, with each other and the future. Love liberates us from selfishness and opens our hearts to frightening vulnerability as well as to exciting and courageous growth. It sets our hearts dancing.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an election with some strange things happening. One of the strangest is the penchant for so many white males to join with African-American voters in a few primaries to back Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. It’s strange not because of anything Obama has said or done to get so many white males behind him. It’s strange because of the possible motive many of the men that are voting for him. Let’s put it this way. Are they voting for him because they truly buy his flowery pitch of hope, change and unity. Or, is there something darker, and more insidious at work here. The something is the deep, persistent, and widespread notion among many men that a woman is not fit to hold the highest office especially if that woman is named Hillary.

Males make up slightly more than forty percent of the American electorate, and of that percent, white males make up thirty six percent, or one in three American voters. They have been the staunchest Republican backers since Ronald Reagan’s trounce of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Without their solid support in 2000, Democratic Presidential contender Al Gore would have easily won the White House, and the Florida vote debacle would have been a meaningless sideshow. In 2004, Bush swept Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in every one of the states of the Old Confederacy and three out of four of the Border States. He grabbed more than 60 percent of the white male vote nationally. In the South, he got more than 70 percent of their vote. That insured another Bush White House.

Male voters gave not just Bush but Republican Presidents Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon the decisive margin of victory over their Democrat opponents in their presidential races. The majority of them that voted for the GOP presidents were middle-to upper-income, college educated, and lived in a suburban neighborhood. This closely parallels the demographic of the men that are voting for Obama. But at the same time, fewer than one in five white males labeled themselves as liberal.

The reasons for the intense and unshakeable loyalty of working and middle-class men to the GOP are not hard to find. The gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 contest between Reagan and Carter. That year Reagan got more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes he got over Clinton. Women voters by contrast split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Most men made no secret about why they liked Reagan and what they perceived that he stood for. The tough talk, his apparent firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the stereotypical, male qualities of professed courage, determination, and toughness.

Then there’s the thing that’s even less politically and gender correct to admit and that’s that the bias of many men toward women in high positions is so deep seated that they refuse to believe that they are even biased. Psychologists have testified in countless gender bias law suits that the “unconscious bias” of male managers against women, especially against women attaining power positions. The refusal of men to promote women has been the biggest factor fueling gender discrimination in corporate hiring and promotions. Male managers in charge of promotion and pay decisions unwittingly engage in "spontaneous" and "automatic" stereotyping and "in-group favoritism" that results in the most desirable jobs at the company being filled by white males.

Even if unconscious gender bias affects only a relatively small percent of men in a close contest between a male and female candidate in which the two are rated fairly evenly in competence, qualifications and experience, the refusal of many men to vote for her could harm her candidacy. Female candidates offset the male bias by getting solid support from women voters.

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So week before last, I was invited to a screening of "Golda's Balcony" -- the new film version of the stage play -- at the Writers Guild Theatre, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and Stand With Us in celebration of Israel's 60th birthday. Afterward, I sat and chatted at length with star Valerie Harper -- yes, Rhoda plays Golda wonderfully -- about women leaders, identity politics, and Golda Meir, who was prime minister of Israel when America was still struggling with issues of equality.

I wrote about my talk with Valerie (an awesome person -- she and her hubby, the film's producer, insisted on walking me to my car after the theater closed) as well as my thoughts on women leaders at Pajamas Media today (where I have new pieces weekly):

As I watched the life of the former prime minister unfold onscreen, I chuckled at the thought of how our 2008 obsession with identity politics seems to forget the great leaders — who just happened to be women — who have long had the attention of the rest of the world. After all, Oprah is not the most powerful woman in the world; that woman is, as ranked by Forbes, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But Merkel is a conservative. Meir fought for Israel’s survival in the Yom Kippur War. Even Condoleezza Rice’s term as secretary of state has not been hailed as a great advance for women and/or African-Americans. So is a leader who happens to be a women only hailed as advancement if she pursues a feminist agenda outlined by NOW or the Code Pink sisters?

It raises serious questions when Ms. magazine last month refused to run an American Jewish Congress ad hailing Israel’s powerful women leaders: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with the words “This is Israel.”

Ms. told the Jerusalem Post that the ad was rejected for being too political, as two of the three women were from the Kadima party (which happens to also be the ruling party, hence making the magazine’s argument that the ad was unacceptable partisanship all the more ridiculous).

I later ask Valerie how Meir wasn't compartmentalized in the stereotype of women leaders:

“Golda was an amazing person, I think, male or female, in that she was both a visionary and an activist,” Harper said. “A lot of activists have sort of a vision, but they’re so in the doing that they don’t get the big picture, and some of the visionaries are very bad when it comes to the practical application and the doing. She was both. She held the vision just so clean and clear and her whole raison d’etre was ‘I want a world that’s safe for Jews.’"

Read the whole thing!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the AP:

The New York chapter of The National Organization for Women accused Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of betraying women with his endorsement of Barack Obama, prompting the organization's national office to come to the Massachusetts senator's defense.

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal," NOW's New York State chapter said in a scorching rebuke. "Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard." ...

"We are repaid with his abandonment!" the statement said. "He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton."

OK, the New York NOW-NOWs put gender over all else in picking a candidate, and their pal Teddy let them down -- I get that. What I don't get is why they consider this endorsement an unpardonable offense against women, when they've never had any problem overlooking, oh, this.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Kudos to Jonathan for his excellent post on identity politics. I think the distinction he makes between letting identity politics dictate whom we'll consider voting for -- as opposed to whom we'll vote against -- is key.

I can see why Mormons would be attracted to Romney, the way African-Americans may be attracted to Obama, or evangelicals to Huckabee, or even women to Hillary. Each of these groups believes -- rightly, to varying degrees -- that it has been kept on the fringes of society, disrespected or even discriminated against by the political establishment/mainstream/majority. For each group, the election of one of its own to the presidency would confer a sense of having "made it," and having overcome its outsider status.

No doubt, this attracted many Catholics to JFK. Surely it's what makes Antonio Villaraigosa so popular among Latinos. I even remember back in 1984, hearing Italian-American groups gush over Walter Mondale because he had named Geraldine Ferraro as a running-mate.

This is natural, and dare I say, not all bad. It's the melting pot in action. And it also tends to dissipate over time.

The real trouble, as Jonathan notes, is not when people want to see a member of their group succeed, but when they refuse to consider members of certain other groups due to their own bigotry. Romney, no doubt, has received this bigoted treatment from some evangelicals/fundamentalists. (Should he get the nomination, he can expect much more from various secular liberals.) But by far, the biggest victim of this negative kind of identity politics has been Huckabee. I have heard multiple intelligent, educated people say they would never vote for him because of his religion -- a statement that seldom arouses any controversy, but imagine if it were made about, oh, Mike Bloomberg or Keith Ellison.

The other dangerous side of identity politics is when it is used as a cheap campaign wedge. Think of the Clinton campaign's efforts to portray all criticisms of Hillary as sexist. Or think of the Obama Spanish-language radio ads that claim, "Hillary Clinton does not respect our people."

This is dangerous talk which poisons our democracy -- and it's far more destructive than members of a put-upon group pulling for one of their own.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Call me old-fashioned, but I have a hard time accepting the ACLU's defense of Larry Craig -- that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy. As a parent, I like to think that when I take my kids into a public restroom, I have an expectation that I don't have to explain why all that groaning and huffing is coming from Stall #2, from which four legs are plainly visible under the door.

As the old saying goes, get a room. You're a senator, you can afford it.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My Sunday Viewpoint column on my down-and-out childhood and important lessons learned has been reprinted, well, lotsa lotsa places, including the Dallas Morning News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Houston Chronicle, the Montreal Gazette, and even as far away as the Daily Dispatch in South Africa. Consequently, I've been plugging away at answering lotsa reader mail. One pastor from North Carolina noted how much churches do to help the homeless; it was, indeed, a Catholic school where I found help as a kid. Others shared their own personal stories of hardship. And there was this letter from a reader of the Akron Beacon Journal:

"I have always thought about this very topic and your article touched me. Unfortunately, I am not sure if or how to act on my feelings. I would love to know if you are aware of any type of organization dedicating themselves to the humaness of homelessness; therfore offering every season as a season of giving respect and recognition."

In my column, I wrote about some of the everyday gestures that anybody can extend one-on-one to the homeless. In Los Angeles, we have people like Ted Hayes, who tirelessly advocates for the homeless. If you have advocates like Ted in your town, help their mission with fundraising activities or appealing the issues to your elected representatives. Remembering that so many of the homeless are veterans, there are opportunities to help with the Disabled American Veterans, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, or the National Veterans Foundation. Visit a local shelter and ask what you can do. Are there homeless folks in your neighborhood? Make a game plan with your friends, neighbors, fellow church members, fellow Rotarians, etc., about how to help. Remember that many programs to help the homeless are mired in bureaucratic red tape, and that many homeless need a bite to eat now -- so don't be afraid to brown-bag a few lunches and just hand them out.

One reader suggested using decommissioned military bases to house the homeless. Any other ideas on how to help? Post 'em here!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't deter crime. It's expensive. It's needless in today's world. It puts innocent lives at risk. And in the state of New Jersey, it -- capital punishment -- is no longer.

Yesterday, Gov. John Corzine signed a law ending the death penalty in the Garden state, and commuting to life-without-parole the death sentences of eight condemned inmates. This marks the first time in 40 years a state has opted to dispense with capital punishment.

But could it be a trend? And could California be next?

As I wrote in a Daily News column nearly five years ago (re-posted after the jump), the death penalty in California has become an expensive joke. It serves little purpose to maintain it, and doing so comes at a steep cost, both financially and morally.

For decades, the Democratic Party stood valiantly against popular opinion and for its principles in opposing capital punishment, but that ended around the time of Clinton, when the party decided the issue was a loser, and winning mattered more than anything else. Since then, neither party -- and only a handful of politicians in either -- has been willing to talk about the issue honestly.

But maybe that's changing. Polls have shown a softening of public opinion in the issue, and in New Jersey, politicians clearly felt safe enough in their jobs to voe the right way. Time will tell if politicians in other states, including California, show the courage to follow suit.

Continue reading "Capital Punishment, RIP" »

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

California's politicians love sin taxes, and why not? They're a convenient way to raise money by imposing the cost on a small group of unpopular people -- like smokers or drunks. That's why the politicos are always looking for new ways to raise "sin" taxes or create new ones, such as surcharges on gas-guzzling cars, or sugary sodas, or bullets. But if we really want to sin-tax our way to fiscal solvency, here's a novel idea: Why don't we impose a sin tax on ... sin?

You laugh, but they're doing it in Texas. Effective January 1 -- unless opponents can get the courts to intervene -- Austin is going to start collecting a $5 per-customer tax on nudie bars.

Think about how much money this plan could make here, in the smut capital of the world. Not only do we have scores of nudie bars, but this is also the home of the pornography industry, what with Larry Flynt Publications, the major porn studios, and innumerable smaller operations. What if the state put a $5 tax on every nudie-bar patron, a $1 surcharge on every DVD, a quarter on every magazine? Plus add in a 10 percent income-tax surcharge for all virtual "adult" businesses, like web pornographers and phone-sex operators.

Continue reading "A Skin-Tax Sin Tax?" »

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This quote comes not by way of some right-wing, science-hating Christian fundamentalist, but from Shinya Yamanaka -- a professor at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Japan's Kyoto University, and developer of the most promising innovation in stem-cell research to date.

According to this piece in the New York Times, when Dr. Yamanaka first looked through a microscope at a fertility clinic, the plain reality of science gave him an epiphany: “I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.”

Thank you, Dr. Yamanaka, for a much-needed reminder: Good science begets good ethics -- and vice versa.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The hot-heads so eager to stir up faux controversy about the pope's comments on global warming have actually missed what really was the controversial nugget in his message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace. It's this:

Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.

In short, you can't be both anti-family and pro-peace. And if you doubt that, just go to any neighborhood where the fatherlessness rate is high, and see how peaceful things are.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is terrific news to celebrate this Thanksgiving! We have the means to explore promising fields of medical research without wantonly destroying human life. The Faustian Bargain of the embryonic stem-cell debate -- destroy life so that life may be saved -- has been made obsolete!

Researchers in Japan and Wisconsin have discovered a way to make human skin cells act like embryonic stem cells, thus opening the door to potential therapeutic applications, without compromising basic scientific ethics, or requiring thousands of "donor" women to surrender their eggs. This is why Ian Wilmut, creator of Dolly the cloned sheep and pioneer of the technology that made embryonic stem-cell research possible, says he is going to quit the practice. It's time has passed, he reasons.

Whether you choose to thank science or thank God, thank something! A needless debate can be scrapped. Potentially life-saving research can be ethically pursued. And we no longer need be tempted to compromise our humanity for the benefit of humankind,

Everyone should celebrate this development. And everyone will, I suspect, expect for some unscrupulous politicos.

You see, with this discovery comes the end of the "need" for embryonic stem-cell research -- a dubious "need" in the the first place, given the paucity of results such research has produced. As even that bastion of right-wing Christian fundamentalism, The New York Times, concedes, "For all the hopes invested in it over the last decade, embryonic stem cell research has moved slowly, with no cures or major therapeutic discoveries in sight." The value of embryonic research was never so much medical, but political.

Indeed, embryonic stem cells were the classic "wedge" issue -- a way for Democrats to separate the GOP from pro-lifers by making it choose between a popular position or one that pleased its base. And it allowed for such effective political theater -- just trot out Ron Reagan, or Michael J. Fox, or promise, as John Edwards once did, that the Democratic Party could make Christopher Reeve walk again. That the supposed benefits of embryonic stem-cell research were ridiculously over-hyped, or that there was plenty of reason to believe the same potential could be achieved through more ethical means, didn't matter. As an issue, this one was campaign gold.

But now it's been made moot, and it will be interesting to see if embryonic stem-cell research's supporters will yield to the science, or cling to their myths for nakedly political reasons.

It will also be interesting to see what we here in California do, now that we have a multi-billion dollar state-backed research outfit charged specifically with funding embryonic stem-cell research. Will some honorable politician have the decency to try to amend Proposition 71? Will the celebrities and biotech interests who fought and spent heavily for its passage now seek to reform it? Or were their interests never so much about progress as politics?

We'll see. One way or the other, this discovery marks a giant leap for humanity. And for that, we can all be grateful.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... when she writes:

These days, you can forget that old-style GOP rhetoric about "values," "human dignity" and the "culture of life." Because the GOP has a new litmus test for its nominees: Will you or will you not protect U.S. officials who order the torture of prisoners?

But I increasingly fear she's right. Especially when she cites examples like this:

As Scott Horton reports in his Harper's Magazine blog: "Several days before his first meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Michael Mukasey's Justice Department handlers arranged a private meeting for him with a number of 'movement conservatives.'... They pushed aggressively on the torture question. They wanted Mukasey to pledge that he would toe the administration's line" by not criticizing the administration's approval of waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques, and they wanted him to "protect those who authored the [interrogation] program" by issuing opinions that would keep those responsible for the program from facing criminal prosecution.

There's a lot at stake in next year's election, includuing the very soul of the GOP.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I cannot read about the school board of Portland Maine adding birth control pills to the health center at a middle school without feeling highly conflicted. The idea of supplying birth control to girls from the age of 11 without the knowledge and consent of their parents is, and should be, disturbing. We may not find agreement on what the age of consent should be, but 11 seems a tad young for any girl to give informed consent to sex with its physical and emotional consequences.

There is also a clear conflict between patient privilege, right of privacy they want in order to assure the girls the freedom to use their services, and the fact that in most states teachers, schools and school nurses are mandated reporters of suspected abuse.

In California, I’d like to think that if a teacher or school nurse finds that an 11 year old is sexually active, they might have a legal duty to report to Child Protective Services. Here, there would be a crime taking place: Statutory rape. Officials have to report it.

One could argue that the nurse may not know for certain that the young girl is actually having sex. She may want the pill to regulate her period or as a, “just in case” safeguard, like the young boys of my generation carrying condoms in our wallets in the then vain hope of needing them. I do not find this argument persuasive. Prescribing powerful hormones to an 11 year old should not be done without the health professional knowing why.

Now normally I am very pro-birth control and family planning services. We can rail all we want against sex and for abstinence but we will probably fail to change behavior for the better. My concern is that we can change behavior for the worse.

As someone who was a volunteer at Planned Parenthood in the late 60s and early 70s, I am not opposed to birth control, to counseling and to girls having some right of privacy. I’d rather have them safe than pregnant. But birth control only guards against pregnancy, not STDs including HIV. It doesn’t guard against psychic scars that 11 and 12 year olds are likely to endure.

For years I have argued that birth control doesn’t make girls sexually active. It is not a cause. The birth control pill does not make someone choose to have sex any more than seat belts cause automobile accidents.

I no longer feel that confidant in my metaphor. There is an issue of a cultural climate that changes taboo to possibility, possibility to likelihood and likelihood to expectation.

I will admit that having kids and five grandchildren—three boys and two girls—may play a part in my discomfort with this.

I know it breaks the contract that pundits make with the public to pretend to know everything and feel everything with great confidence and passion, but I have to confess to being torn by this issue. I have no good answers. I have desires, wishes and hopes but no policy other than I believe that passing out the pill to 11 year olds helps to create an atmosphere of permission, and I do not believe that the 11 year olds are competent to say yes. I think the adults who voted this are not competent to be in leadership positions. Okay, I’ve made my call.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At least in California. If you had any doubt, then this study by the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives might clear that up. The study found that

women hold only 10.4 percent of the board seats and highest-paid executive positions at the corporations, and that more than 30 percent of the companies have no women in those leadership positions at all.

Posted by Mariel Garza at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the latest estimates, more than 1 million -- 1 million! -- youths in California have sexually transmitted diseases. That's nearly 10 times more than previously thought.

To get a sense of how staggering that figure is, consider that, according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers, there are only 4.8 million Californians in that age group (15-24). In other words, more than one in five California youths has a sexually transmitted disease, from genital herpes and gonorrhea to HIV. More than a third of those youths live here in Los Angeles.

To what can we trace this epidemic?

Surely it's a lack of sex ed in the schools, right?

Wrong. According to the California Department of Education, "Since 1992, California public schools have been required to teach HIV/AIDS prevention education at least once in middle school and once in high school." That includes "(i)nstruction on the nature of HIV/AIDS, methods of transmission, strategies to reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, and social and public health issues related to HIV/AIDS.” Moreover, the CDE also reports, "96 percent of California school districts provide comprehensive sexual health education."

Oh, well then it must be the fault of all that abstinence-only stuff the Bush Administration has been forcing down schools' throats.

Wrong again. As the CDE also explains, California law "prohibits 'abstinence-only' education." Our progressive state did away with such old-fashioned ideas in favor of teaching kids about how to "protect" themselves. See how well it's worked?

But the issues here run much deeper than what's taught or not taught in the schools. They point to broader cultural phenomena, phenomena that can be seen in courts that make light of statutory rape, dolls and clothes that sexualize children, and municipal governments that think it appropriate to spend tax dollars on S&M street fairs.

The Sexual Revolution has had more than its fair share of victims -- and most of them are young.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's a letter that went to Laker's President, Dr. Jerry Buss:

Dear Dr. Buss:
Los Angeles Civil rights leaders are offended by the demeaning remarks made by New York Knicks President Isiah Thomas toward women. The Reverend Al Sharpton has called for a public apology by Thomas and has threatened to picket Knick’s games.

The recent lawsuit against Thomas and the Knicks for sexual harassment is a negative mark against not just the Knicks but the NBA and the Lakers. It gives the appearance that NBA players are routinely abusive to women. This is certainly not the case with the Lakers players or team management.

Therefore we call on you to speak out vigorously against sexual harassment and join in the call for Mr. Thomas to apologize for his demeaning remarks. By joining in the call, the Lakers organization will send the strong message that sexual harassment will not be condoned.

I produly signed the letter along with other local leaders. Now Dr. Buss we know that Thomas is a loose cannon and his offensive words don't represent the thinking of Laker players toward women. But just to be on the safe side, how about saying that publicly!

Posted by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)</