From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Pro-America Protests Go Nationwide
If you heard the news of this past weekend's pro-Saddam protests in Washington,
San Francisco and elsewhere, you probably wondered: Is there anything I can
do to show my support for America and for the liberation of Iraq? Pro-American
Americans, after all, vastly outnumber anti-American Americans, but we don't
have communist front groups to set up events for us.
Filling that breach is reader Don Crawford, a talk-radio host at KLBJ in Austin, Texas, who writes to describe a very successful protest he staged this weekend:
Saturday and Sunday night, 8 to 10 p.m., during our show, we called for all the normal Americans who support the war against Saddam to turn on their headlights! The response was overwhelming. Numerous callers reported that every car on Austin's highways and byways had its headlights on. We received only one report of one car in all of Austin's roads that had its lights off.
Next Saturday and Sunday nights, we are staging the same pro-war protest to show where Americans really stand. Could you invite all of America to join us in this very visible protest no matter the community in which they live?
Then we are going to call on all those who love America and stand behind our troops in their soon-to-be war against Saddam to participate in a motorcade Monday morning, 6 to 9, driving into Austin and filling up its roads and parking lots. We don't mean to sound arrogant, but we are confident that working Americans who cannot normally attend protests will overwhelmingly respond and turn Austin into one big traffic jam. Again, could you invite all your readers who live in metroplexes all over the country to join us in the Beat Iraq Motorcade for next Monday morning?
This is a great idea. Lately we've been hearing about how the drivers of certain types of vehicles support terrorism. We doubt that's true, but in any case, here's your chance to use your car to take a stand against terror and despotism. Let's drive Saddam out of power.
Make
Love, Not War?
Did Scott Ritter try to inspect something even more forbidden than Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction? WNYT-TV in Albany, N.Y., reports that police in nearby
Colonie arrested the weapons inspector turned Saddam apologist, whose full name
is William Scott Ritter, in June 2001, "apparently . . . as part
of [an] Internet sex sting":
NewsChannel 13 reported in June 2001 about an arrest of a 39-year-old William Ritter of Delmar on charges he tried to lure a 16-year-old girl he met on the Internet to a Burger King in Menands. According to police, the intent of that meeting was so that she could watch him perform sexual acts on himself.
The underage girl turned out to be an undercover police officer posing online as a minor as part of a sting operation.
Ritter was charged with attempted endangerment of a child. The case was adjourned in contemplation of dismissal and was subsequently sealed.
The Albany Times Union reports that two months earlier Ritter "tried to meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl," but instead was met by cops, who arrested and released him.
Hold
the Phone
How did Osama bin Laden escape capture during the battle of Tora Bora? The Washington
Post reports that a bin Laden bodyguard, Abdallah Tabarak, has told interrogators
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that Tabarak "took possession of the al Qaeda
leader's satellite phone on the assumption that U.S. intelligence agencies were
monitoring it to get a fix on their position." Tabarak was indeed captured,
but bin Laden wasn't. Then again, Tabarak is still alive. We're not so sure
about bin Laden.
Is it possible bin Laden has taken refuge in Scandinavia? The Associated Press reports one Osama bin Laden is listed in the Norwegian phone book. "His address is listed as Lantkvekistan (Far away-stan) in Norway's northernmost county, Finnmark."
Britain
Seizes Arms From 'Holy' Warriors
As part of the continuing ricin investigation, Scotland Yard has raided the
Finsbury Park mosque in North London, a center for radical Islamism. The Times
of London reports that the police arrested seven men and seized "a small
arsenal of weapons, including a stun gun and a CS gas canister." Perhaps
more significantly, "detectives also recovered hundreds of documents including
forged passports, believed to be French, faked French identity cards and counterfeit
credit cards." All for religious purposes, no doubt.
Writing in the London Guardian, Faisal Bodi of ummahnews.com claims that Britain is suffering from "Islamophobia" and that its government is engaging in a "dirty war against Britain's Muslims." He goes on:
With poll after poll showing the Muslim community in open disagreement with government claims that the war on terror is not a war on Islam, it is a sure bet that the swoop on a place of worship will be viewed as an escalation of hostilities. And not without justification.
The real question, though, is not if Britain (and America) is waging a "war on terror" or a "war on Islam." Plainly the West is going out of its way not to wage a "war on Islam." Yet while Bodi says not a word about the genuine danger of terrorism, his criticism of the way Britain is treating Muslims is so over-the-top that he even compares it to the Holocaust. It is reasonable to ask: Which side is he on?
You
Don't Say--I
"Iraqi VP Is Convinced U.S. Will Attack"--headline, Associated Press,
Jan. 21
You
Don't Say--II
"U.S. Skeptical of Iraqi Promise on Inspections"--headline, Reuters,
Jan. 20
You
Don't Say--III
"Election Fever Still Absent Among Arabs"--headline, Jerusalem Post,
Jan. 21
What
Would Hans Blix Drive?
As we've noted
before, someone with the unlikely name of Arianna Huffington has been waging
a campaign against sport-utility vehicles and other "gas guzzlers,"
claiming that people who drive such cars "help terrorists buy guns."
Hey, Arianna, check out this Associated Press photo. It shows three vehicles, including two SUVs clearly marked "UN." They're being used by the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq. Is Hans Blix helping terrorists buy guns?
So
What Should It Be Used For?
"Annan: Terrorism Must Not Be Used to Abuse Rights"--headline, Reuters,
Jan. 20
Oh Well,
It Was Only a Dream
"Yes, we want to be judged by the content of our character and not the color
of our skin. But what makes up character? If we don't take race as part of our
character, then we are kidding ourselves."--Hillary Clinton at a Martin Luther
King Day ceremony, quoted in today's New York Sun
The
Soft Bigotry of the Teachers Union
The New Jersey Education Association's Web site features a brochure for download
called "Getting Involved in Your Child's School." It comes in three
versions; the first is simply described as "a
parent's resource" (links in PDF format). The second is written in
Spanish, but the third is curious. It's called the "African-American
version."
Why is an African-American version necessary? Who knows, but there are differences between the text of two versions. For example, here's how the "parent's resource" answers the question: "Why do teachers need my help?":
Today, there is an increasing emphasis on individualized instruction--fitting the curriculum to the child. Teachers want to employ new methods and materials to give each child personal guidance.
When you assist teachers with growing paperwork, make instructional materials, or conduct a science experiment, you give them more time for planning activities, for trying new teaching strategies, and for working directly with children. As a parent volunteer, you allow them to be more effective teachers--and the school obtains your skills and services that might be unavailable due to financial limitations.
Here's how the "African-American version" answers the same question:
Today, teachers want to use new methods and materials to give each child personal guidance.
When you assist teachers, you give them more time to work with children. You allow them to be more effective teachers.
We actually like the African-American version better; it takes just 36 words to say the same thing the parent's resource says in 91. But another way of looking at it is that the New Jersey teachers union seems to think their material has to be dumbed down for the benefit of black parents.
The
Soft Bigotry of Howie Kurtz
"If colleges don't consider race at all, some of them would end up looking
like the Republican side of the House. (Number of blacks: zero.)" Does
Kurtz really think no blacks can meet the standards of certain colleges?
What's
Black and White and Racist All Over?
Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory recounts this anecdote:
The editor of a sizable newspaper told me recently that he decided the racial makeup of four new hires--two minorities, a white woman, and a white male--before reviewing a single applicant. In other words, if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein applied, only one of them would get a slot.
Ha ha, that's a funny little gibe--but aren't such hiring practices illegal?
You
Don't Say--IV
"Some See Widespread Liberal Bias at Colleges"--headline, San Diego
Union-Tribune, Jan. 21
Not
Too Brite--XLVIII
"A German woman from southwestern Germany lived with her dead aunt tucked
up in bed for 18 months," Reuters reports from Berlin. "Police entered
the house in a suburb of the city of Stuttgart Wednesday to discover a skeleton
in the bed of the house occupied by a 54-year-old woman, officials said Friday."
Oddly Enough!
Science
Marches On
In an item
yesterday, we expressed mystification at the Boston Globe's claim that "global
warming" increases the risk of skin cancer. It turns out there is a hypothesis
according to which it would. The Web site of a company called Environmental
Support Solutions explains how it's supposed to work:
Ozone depletion gets worse when the stratosphere (where the ozone layer is), becomes colder. Because global warming traps heat in the troposphere, less heat reaches the stratosphere which will make it colder. Greenhouse gases act like a blanket for the troposphere and make the stratosphere colder.
Ozone, the theory has it, acts as a filter for the sun's ultraviolet rays, which cause skin cancer; thus, if all this is true, "global warming" would increase the risk.
Of course, there's a lot that science doesn't know. We were reminded of this by the headline of an Associated Press dispatch: "Scientists Study Why the Elderly Fall." One of these days they'll discover gravity.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steve Getman, S.E. Brenner, Steve Ginnings, Jamie Gregorian, C.E. Dobkin, Marie Bourgeois, Nick Eckert, Steve Zak, Barak Moore, Mark Schulze, Gad Meir, Richard Miniter, Rosanne Klass, Mara Gold, Monty Krieger, Howard Weiser, Raghu Desikan, Natalie Cohen, Robert LeChevalier, N. Eckert, Paul Cooper, Sarah Becker, Michael Segal, William Schultz, Bob Sinnema, Rosanne Klass, George Lenz, Jim Orheim, Ed Miseta, Steve Staley, John Hartness, Hiawatha Bray, Christopher Curran, Bob Rigler, Jim Foley, David Drews, Aviva Ross, Clay Young and Steve Rosenberg. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- David Brooks: Who's against SUVs? A bunch of geeks.
- Brendan Miniter: Two U.S. airmen face justice for accidentally killing four Canadians.
- Jason Riley: If film stars could see the big picture, they'd be better directors.
