Right Wing Nut House

One of my heroes died last night.

Jeane Kirkpatrick was a genuine intellectual; brilliant, honest, ever curious, blunt, even “acerbic” - an adjective I’ve seen on three different obits already. One wonders if Ambassador Kirkpatrick had been male if she would have been described that way.

She may have invented snark. Her cutting wit was justly famous around Georgetown University where she taught before getting the call from Reagan to be Ambassador to the United Nations. She served on his foreign policy transition team and impressed the President with her spirited defense of democracy and Israel. Her article in Commentary Magazine “Dictatorships and Double Standards” gave an ideological answer to leftists who wanted to cut off American aid to dictatorships for violating human rights at a time when the Soviets were on the march.

And despite the controversy of the subject, I will point out that Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Irving Kristol - former liberal Democrats all - helped define neo-conservatism.

They epitomized the neo-conservative movement. Liberal on social issues, moderately conservative on economic issues, and dyed in the wool anti-communists who left the Democratic party not only for their ruinous economic policies but also their pacifism in the face of Soviet aggression. They were warily welcomed by Republicans of the time who had learned over the years to have a healthy mistrust of Democratic intellectuals. But Kirkpatrick and others made deep thinking popular among rank and file conservatives again. In fact, thanks to Reagan, who brought several genuine conservative intellectuals into government like Martin Anderson, conservatives began to embrace the ideas bubbling up from think tanks and academia. In those heady days in Washington, ideas mattered a great deal. And seminal thinkers like Jeane Kirkpatrick whose vigorous defense of America at the United Nations became the stuff of legend, was in the forefront of the most important foreign policy debates of the time.

She was also a wife and mother - something she never let people forget. In a press conference following a particularly grueling UN session on the Middle East, Kirkpatrick said:

When the Syrian ambassador acted up, what I really felt like saying to him was, “Go to your room!”

And this in response to a question at one of her numerous seminars given at college campuses across the country:

Truth, which is important to a scholar, has got to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

But what endeared her more than anything to conservatives was her speech at the 1984 Republican Convention were she invented the term “Blame America First” regarding liberal Democrats of the time:

They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do - they didn’t blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians - they blamed the United States instead.

But then, somehow, they always blame America first.

When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the “blame America first crowd” didn’t blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.

But then, they always blame America first.

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.

But then, they always blame America first.

The crowd went nuts. And the Democrats have been on the defensive about foreign policy ever since.

It is perhaps inevitable that with her forceful personality that she should be compared to John Bolton who was a good friend and was queried today about his thoughts:

She took with her [to the UN] a reputation as a hard-liner on foreign policy. Because of this, she often was a lightning rod for the opposition. In some respects, she shared Bolton’s controversial profile. Bolton recently decided to resign when it became clear the Senate would not approve him full-time as U.N. ambassador.

Describing his work with Kirkpatrick at the American Enterprise Institute, Bolton told reporters Friday: “When I was at AEI in the late ’90s for most of that time our offices were right next to each other and…” His voice then broke, and near tears he closed his eyes briefly, cleared his throat, and then continued in a quavering voice, “I benefited very greatly. It really is very sad for America, but she will be greatly missed.”

When a reporter noted that Bolton and Kirkpatrick had very similar attitudes, he replied, “I don’t really want to address that question.”

Yes, I suppose they did have similar “attitudes” - as if an American ambassador to the United Nations shouldn’t aggressively represent our interests in that body. The question reveals more about the reporter than it does about Bolton or Kirkpatrick.

In the end, of all that she had accomplished and was known for, she would probably be proudest of the fact that first and foremost, she was an American. And I might add, an American original at that.

One of our country’s best friends is gone. And I can’t think of a time when we needed her wisdom, her courage, and her driving personality more than right now.

PEARL HARBOR FROM AIEA HEIGHTS, DECEMBER 7, 1941

PEARL HARBOR FROM AIEA HEIGHTS TODAY

Hawaii is one of those places that no matter where you turn your head, there is stunning natural beauty. Take a drive along H-1 and get off on one of the scenic highways that meander across the island of Oahu and you’ll suddenly find yourself in a world of stunning vistas and breathtaking overlooks. And Honolulu has one of the most extraordinary skylines in the world, set against an ocean backdrop with Diamond Head looming over it in the distance.

Couple that natural beauty with a climate that encourages relaxation and even sloth and you begin to understand why on that beautiful Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, the sailors and airmen posted on the island felt themselves the luckiest in the service.

The sailors especially must have felt themselves blessed. The Pacific Fleet was usually based in San Diego or some other west coast facility and only made it to Hawaii once a year during training cruises. But in April of 1941, the Empire of Japan was on the move and FDR made the controversial decision to relocate the fleet to Pearl. The Navy was extremely unhappy. Not only were the harbor’s dock facilities inadequate to service the Fleet’s 8 battleships but any Midshipman could tell just by looking at a map what a trap the harbor was in case of attack. Narrow and shallow with just one channel that led to the open ocean, the Navy felt that the fleet was a sitting duck - if someone could figure out how to attack it. But Roosevelt wanted to send a message to the Japanese that he was serious about blocking their plans for total East Asian hegemony.

But that didn’t matter to the thousands of ordinary seamen, airmen, their families, wives or their sweethearts on that lovely December morning. Many had spent the previous Saturday night as they normally did, attending parties or going to one of the many nightclubs that catered to servicemen in Honolulu. Peacetime military life was stupefyingly boring, filled with mind numbing routine and little chance of promotion. Kicking up one’s heels on Saturday night was about the only fun many of them had.

We know now that the Japanese never planned to attack Pearl Harbor without a formal declaration of war. But a communications snafu (gratefully intercepted by our diplomatic code breakers) meant that the timing of the attack had been blown. As it turned out, the Japanese diplomats didn’t make it to Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s office until after the attack was well underway. The attack therefore took place without any official warning although everyone in the government knew that war was imminent. The previous evening, Roosevelt sent a personal message to the Emperor of Japan pleading for peace. That message too never made it to its intended audience. Communications broke down between Washington and our embassy in Tokyo, delaying its transmission and preventing Ambassador Grew from delivering it.

Despite intercepting the message to the Japanese embassy in Washington that clearly indicated an attack was forthcoming, the military still didn’t know where the blow would fall. Some thought the Philippines would be the target (indeed, the Japanese bombed the Philippines on that day as well) while others thought Indochina was the objective. It did not occur to war planners in Washington that the Japanese would be audacious enough to steam thousands of miles across the Pacific ocean with a huge fleet of 56 ships and subs, not being detected, and creep up to within striking distance of the fleet.

The logistics of such an operation was only one reason American planners didn’t think Pearl could possibly be a target. It was also a fact that the harbor was too shallow for a torpedo plane attack, the preferred method of attacking surface ships at that time. The torpedoes would hit the bottom of the harbor before they had a chance to home in on their targets. The Japanese got around this problem by ingeniously attaching fins of wood along the axis of the torpedo that gave it enough buoyancy to prevent it from hitting bottom. They were used with deadly effect during the attacks.

Admiral Yamamoto’s huge gamble in attacking Pearl was justified by the recognition of the Navy that they could not long hold back the American Pacific Fleet once war broke out. In a long war, America would have a decisive advantage. Their only hope was to knock out the fleet in the first hours of the war and attack western possessions along the entire east Asian pacific rim, hoping to acquire enough raw materials and oil to prosecute a war that they hoped would lead to stalemate by 1943 and peace negotiations.

But on that morning, with American going about their normal Sunday routines - getting ready for church, enjoying time with their families - the Japanese fleet was targeting the symbol of American power in the Pacific. As Yamamoto’s ships came within 275 miles of Pearl, they launched a first wave of 183 bombers and fighters in the pre dawn darkness. On Oahu, the Army’s Opana Point radar station picked up the formation of Japanese planes but were told not to worry because a formation of 6 B-17’s were expected that morning and coming from the same direction. This mistake sealed the fate of our air force whose planes were lined up wingtip to wingtip on 3 separate air fields to prevent sabotage.

The result we know. Even today the figures elicit shock. Almost all of the 188 American aircraft were destroyed, including an astonishing 155 on the ground. The surprise was total and absolute. Our combined Army-Navy-Marine air forces could muster only 35 sorties during the entire attack. Little wonder bitter American sailors being strafed in the water at will by Japanese Zeroes cursed our Air Force for dereliction. For weeks after the attack, MP’s in Honolulu were kept busy as vicious fights broke out between airmen and sailors in bars and nightclubs.

Japanese losses were 29 planes (out of 340 engaged), 55 airmen - most of those in the second wave attacks that targeted ships already burning. And in wreaking havoc on the battleships of the Pacific Fleet, the Japanese gained a fleeting and, as it turned out, illusory victory. While they managed to sink 5 of our front line battleships and 13 smaller ships, damaging dozens more, by pure luck the three American aircraft carriers in the fleet had been sent out on patrol only 48 hours prior to the attack. Missing the carriers proved to be decisive because less than 7 months later at the battle of Midway, those three carriers were to deliver a massive blow against a Japanese invasion force and turn the tide to the American side for good.

In the meantime, FDR had to deal with the fact that for all practical purposes, the west coast of the United States was defenseless. He decided to downplay the extent of the damage to the fleet. In fact, it wasn’t until after the first investigation into what went wrong at Pearl had concluded its deliberations in 1943 that the American people were finally told the extent of the catastrophe. Nearly 2500 Americans lost their lives as opposed to the original false figure of 400 given by the government. The War Department also downplayed the number of ships that were damaged or sunk. In this case, the truth was just too horrible to tell.

It has become popular in the last 20 years to posit conspiracy theories regarding FDR’s foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Most recently, Robert Stinnet in his book Day of Deceit used FOIA requests and examined nearly 200,000 documents related to intelligence about the attack, coming to the conclusion that Roosevelt had to have known that Hawaii was the target and let the attack happen in order to bring the US into the war against not Japan but Hitler!

An immediate problem with this conspiracy theory is that there was absolutely no guarantee that Germany would declare war on America, thus foiling FDR’s “plan” to assist the British. And the idea that the US would declare war on Germany was very controversial at the time. The feeling in Congress and much of the nation was “one war at a time.” There was no hue and cry to go to war against Germany despite the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt’s “Date of Infamy” speech on December 8th never mentioned Germany, the British, Europe, or gave any hint that we planned to add the Nazis to our list of enemies.

Hitler, God bless him, solved our problem for us by, for the first time in his life, honoring his word and declaring war on America in accordance with the technical requirements of the Tri-Partite Pact on December 11.

This little nugget of information always seems to escape the conspiracy theorists who want us to believe that FDR allowed the Japanese to attack and nearly destroy the Pacific Fleet. The idea is so stupid on its face - that any American politician or military commander would stand still while the primary defense for the west coast of the United States was knocked out - that is easy to see why most historians dismiss the theory as total rubbish.

But what about all that intelligence? As it turns out, Stinnett especially either deliberately (or out of ignorance) misread much of what he was reading. Pearl Harbor historian and former cryptologist Phillip Jacobsen explains:

The book misleads the uninitiated reader by lumping the relatively simple JN-25A code and cipher system that took 14 months to read with the much more complicated JN-25B system together as “Code Book D.” Thus, the final successes of JN-25A are imputed to JN-25B even though the first significant reported decrypt of the latter much more complicated code and cipher system was in early 1942. The book omits the fact that the November and December 1941 raw intercepted messages from Corregidor, Guam and Hawaii on which so much is relied were actually enroute to Washington DC by ship and rail on 7 December 1941 and thus were not decrypted until 1945-46 and the most promising of those decrypts were translated in 1946-47 and are available in the National Archives today. Also not discussed is the fact that Station Hypo in Hawaii under Rochefort was only permitted to work on the unproductive Admiral’s code system before Pearl Harbor and was not given the go ahead to work on JN-25B until a week or so after the attack. It is claimed that unkown censors are holding back vital decrypts in the National Archives or elsewhere because certain Station Message Serial (SMS) numbers and original versions of messages appearing on Japanese naval broadcasts are missing. However, the so called “missing” messages can be attributed to the fact that less than 60 percent of Japanese naval messages were intercepted and many were originally sent by land-line, cable or visual means when tied up at docks or anchored in a Japanese harbor.

Knowing an attack was imminent is not the same as knowing where it will happen. Sound familiar? Think of the summer of 2001 and perhaps now you see why the 9/11 conspiracists are as batty as Sinnett.

It was 65 years ago today. Every year, the ranks of veterans who lived through that horrific day when the water caught fire and the harbor was choked with the bodies of the living and the dead, grows thinner. They are old men now. Their memories are still tinged with the sadness that comes from the realization that soon, they will all be gone and, like other landmarks in American history such as Gettysburg and Antietam, it will be up to the rest of us to keep the remembrances alive and never, ever forget what happened on that impossibly beautiful Sunday morning when the world turned upside down and changed all of us forever.

ON THE RIGHT, USS ARIZONA AFTER A BOMB PENETRATED TWO DECKS AND EXPLODED IN THE FORWARD MAGAZINE, KILLING MORE THAN 1100 OF HER CREW - SOME OF WHOM LIVED FOR UP TO 10 DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK TRAPPED IN THE SHIP’S SUPERSTRUCTURE.

ON THE LEFT IS THE USS WEST VIRGINIA, BURNING AS A RESULT OF 7 TORPEDO HITS.

We who live in the 21st century suffer from a breathtaking conceit regarding our ancient human ancestors. We believe that the poor dears were ignorant little children, occasionally making a breakthrough discovery to move the train of human knowledge along (some even going so far as to believe that aliens were responsible for it all rather than people) but by and large, seeing the ancients as a dirty, doltish bunch of superstitious ignoramuses with no indoor plumbing and an unhealthy reliance on the mystical in their everyday lives.

This ignores the facts of archeology which paint a much different picture. About 50,000 years ago, our ancestors created art on the walls of caves outside of Lascaux, France that rivals in realism and talent anything that Renaissance painters could do. The Polynesians populated the Islands of the Pacific by crossing expanses of ocean that wouldn’t be duplicated by Europeans for thousands of years. Going the Polynesians one better, it is still a mystery how people from Southeast Asia managed to make it to New Guinea 50,000 years ago.

The Egyptians moved blocks of stone weighing tens of thousands of pounds with little more than levers and rope (the block and tackle pulley system was waiting to be discovered). By sheer brute strength, they carved and maneuvered these stones, stacking them so perfectly that the tolerances achieved would make a modern engineer jealous.

The irrigation system invented by the Mayans was so sophisticated that nothing comparable would be seen until the 19th century. The Mayans also made an unbelievable leap of knowledge by coming up with the concept of zero in mathematics; as counterintuitive in its own right as the invention of quantum mechanics.

And then there were the Greeks. What we know about this astonishing culture has piqued our curiosity and excited our admiration since Medieval times. It’s what we don’t know about them that may, in the end, prove to be even more incredible than anything we could have imagined:

A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone.

Known as the Antikythera Mechanism (Nature)But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C.

The instrument, the Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers deciphered inscriptions and reconstructed the gear functions, revealing “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period,” it said.

The researchers, led by the mathematician and filmmaker Tony Freeth and the astronomer Mike G. Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff, Wales, are reporting their results today in the journal Nature.

They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions, and the gears were a representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C.

While scientists now know pretty much what the Antikythera mechanism did, we still don’t really have a good idea of what it was for. Possible practical uses for the device include:

* Astrology was commonly practiced in the ancient world. In order to create an astrological chart, the configuration of the heavens at a particular point of time is needed. It can be very difficult and time-consuming to work this out by hand, and a mechanism such as this would have made an astrologer’s work very much easier.

* Calculating solar and lunar eclipses.

* Setting the dates of religious festivals connected with astronomical events

* Adjusting calendars, which were based on lunar cycles as well as the solar year

This new research indicates that the Antikythera mechanism could predict eclipses to the hour of their appearance as well as the orbits of at least Venus and Mars.

The Antikythera mechanism featured wheeled gears whose sophistication and exactness wouldn’t be seen again until the watchmakers of the middle ages. What this device hints at is the probability that much human knowledge and many technological leaps were lost to history following the fall of Greek civilization. Why didn’t this kind of knowledge pass to new generations of humans so that they could build upon and improve what was already done?

Roman stupidity probably had something to do with it, an empire always more willing to plunder and destroy rather than save and study - except that which could assist them in their conquering. And the fall of that empire which plunged the Europe into the so-called “dark ages.” Of course, while barbarians were running wild in Europe, Muslim culture was in full flower, making their own scientific advances. The Muslims, in fact, admired the Greeks immensely and much of what we know of them is largely given to us by Muslim scholars who saved what they could following the great upheavals in Europe.

The Antikythera mechanism reminds us that the human capacity for making great leaps forward in knowledge is not something limited to modern technological man. Throughout the history of our species, these astonishing breakthroughs have occurred in every culture and during every epoch proving that we really are quite clever when we put our minds to it.

After being mercilessly pummelled the last 2 days by lefty commenters for my ignorance, my closet authoritarianism, my slavish devotion to the cult of Bush, and other wild and wacky imaginings, I thought I’d get away from questions about burning Sunnis, “realist” foreign policy mavens, and the war to talk about something really important.

No, not Lebanon - although I promise a post later today about Nasty Nasrallah and his Merry Band of Cutthroats and their planned “open ended sit in” in Beirut. And no, I will not write today about My Beloveds since they don’t make news on this blog until Sunday. Writing about Pakistan is too depressing. And penning an essay on the weather - 10″ of snow that will need to be blown off the sidewalks in front of the homestead - smacks of self pity and no one wants to read about my aching back or chilled feet.

Today’s topic is the lifeblood of human civilization. One usually uses that term when referring to oil. And indeed, without cheap oil, the wheels of western industrialized civilization would come off and we’d live the way the Greenies intend; residing in “sustainable” mud huts, wearing rags for clothes, and bartering mouse meat for extravagances like ball point pens or nail files.

I am talking about the planet’s second most important commodity. With 400 billion cups drunk annually, coffee’s importance economically, culturally, and socially cannot be denied. Indeed, if oil greases the wheels of industrialized civilization then coffee surely lubricates its living, breathing, moving parts.

The history of coffee is weird. The reason for this is that homo sapiens have probably known of every edible plant, root, grass, and tuber on planet earth for more than 100,000 years. Agriculture - the planting and harvesting of crops - has been around for at least 10,000 years. And yet, the coffee bush escaped cultivation until around 1100 CE. Why this is so is a mystery. Poppies have been cultivated for at least 5,000 years. Marijuana even longer. It is amazing that the little bush, thought to have originated on the hillsides of Ethiopia, was not generally recognized for either its medicinal properties or the salutary effects the berries had on our constitutions.

In any event, there are several amusing anecdotes about the origin of coffee, including one widely told myth of a a sheep herder from Caffa, Ethopia named Kaldi who noticed how frisky his animals got after eating berries off of a particular bush. (And no, I’ve never seen a frisky sheep and have no desire to discover how Kaldi could tell either.)

Seems that Kaldi tried the berries and found himself getting rather frisky as well. This piqued the interest of Arab traders who took the bush back home. For three hundred years, Arabs had pretty much of a monopoly on coffee production, although isolated pockets of cultivation appeared in places like India as a result of stolen seedlings. In fact, it was a crime to transport the bush outside of Arabia.

It was probably the Turks who figured out how to dry the berries and roast them, then soaking them in water to make what we would consider coffee today. The first coffee shops appeared in Constantinople around 1475. The Turks, not knowing any better, added flavorings like anise and cardamom to their coffee - as if one could improve on the Almighty’s handiwork by arbitrarily adding flavorings not in God’s original recipe.

From Turkey, it was a simple matter to jump the Bosporus and land in Venice - the center of life and culture in Europe at the time. The first coffee shops opened there in 1645 and swept across Europe.

Early coffee shops were places of both debauchery and intellectually stimulating conversations. English coffee shops hosted the finest minds of the pre-enlightenment and can be credited in no small way with facilitating the spread of radical democratic ideas. Authorities tried several times to clamp down on these ideas by closing the coffee shops - as if one could stop a tidal wave by commanding the ocean to cease making waves.

Later, the French brought the berry to the New World, specifically their island holdings in the Caribbean where the rich, volcanic soil in places like Martinique produces some of the most flavorful and aromatic varieties in the world. Coffee appeared in Brazil in 1727 and by 1800, most of Central and South America was growing the bush.

Although I believe it sacrilege to add anything to coffee, I realize that I live in a world where coffee lovers come in various shades of latte, cappuccino, mocha, and espresso. So be it. Because the social history of coffee is one of felicity and accommodation in interpersonal relations, I will mention that it appears the first use of sugar in coffee was in the court of The Sun King, Louis XIV in 1713 while the use of milk or cream in the nectar seems to have been continuous since coffee’s discovery. Espresso was invented by the French but perfected by the Italians with the first commercial machine in use by the turn of the 20th century.

Why all the fuss? What is it about coffee that has captured so much of humanity and made it the drink of choice to be shared by friends, philosophers, philanderers, the high born, the low, and most especially, the middling classes?

To say, “It’s the caffeine, dummy” is too pat, too simple. While addictive, caffeine is by all reports a mild stimulant and not a danger to human health when taken in moderation. Of course, those of us who truly love coffee find nothing “moderate” about it. A pot in the morning with a taste in the afternoon and a satisfying after dinner indulgence is a daily routine.

But it is not the amount of coffee one drinks but rather the choice of bean as well as the careful preparation of the elixir that marks the casual coffee drinkers and separates him from the half crazed obsessives such as myself.

For every time of day there is a corresponding type of bean that, when prepared in the proper manner, can bring the sun out from behind the clouds and brighten the mood of anyone.

Mornings require a robust, but richly textured coffee. Most “house blends” seek to achieve this combination but rarely succeed. I rarely bother with blended beans because the quality tends to vary from pot to pot. Starbucks is a perfect example. Millstone also supplies uneven results. This is why for going on 40 years, I have enjoyed a canned coffee. But not just any canned coffee. Stewarts is a Chicago institution and until recently (the last 20 years) was unavailable in most stores. This is the most unique blended coffee I’ve ever had. And if you can keep it fresh, will deliver pot after pot of superbly sublime coffee.

Afternoons require something a little tamer, a taste both smooth and rich while going easy on the palate. Kenyan AA or Kona does nicely. Just about any good highland coffee from Central America will also fill the bill - although I find the Belize bean much the superior to any other from that region.

If you insist on drinking coffee before dinner, try an island coffee. Jamaican is smooth while not being too aromatic. I personally find coffee before dinner a hazard to the enjoyment of the meal. Best to keep the palate cleansed, preferably with water but any good Merlot or Chardonnay that doesn’t leave an aftertaste will do.

The same holds true for drinking coffee with dinner. Given the havoc that coffee can play with our sense of taste, unless you’re eating at Denny’s, wait until dessert.

Here your choices are unlimited. A strong, winey, and full bodied brew is my preference. Can’t get much better than Columbian but many prefer a good Arabica - especially if one is to indulge in dessert. Anything that can overwhelm the tastes of the recently concluded repast so that the coffee isn’t affected by some of the heavier flavors like onion or garlic is desired.

There are literally hundreds of varieties of coffee to choose from for any occasion. But keys to making good coffee are the same regardless of what your personal preferences are; freshness and uniform preparation.

I can’t tell you how to prepare coffee. The idiosyncratic nature of one’s taste buds require that you experiment to discover your own path to coffee Nirvana. If you’ve never paid much attention to how you prepare your coffee, chances are you are missing the full flavor potential of the bean. When experimenting, pay attention to how acidic the coffee is, its aroma, and how the body of the coffee is affected by the combination of more or less water or more or less coffee. When you find a combination that pleases you, stick with it and see if it’s what you had in mind.

As for freshness, here too there are arguments about the best way to keep the bean from going stale. All agree that placing the bean in a hermetically sealed glass or ceramic container is your best bet. When I open my canned coffee, I immediately place it in a glass jar with a lid that can keep the air out. I then place it in a cupboard to keep it away from sunlight, another factor in making coffee lose its freshness.

Some prefer to keep the coffee in the refrigerator. This is controversial due to the moisture that may form in your container. Others recommend freezing the bean. I have tried this and found the coffee nearly tasteless after thawing. For those who might have an interest in the subject, this site gives the pros and cons regarding coffee storage in a pretty straightforward manner.

Regardless of how you prepare it, what beans you use, when you drink it, or what you put into it to enhance its flavor, coffee has greased the skids of social interaction for more than 500 years. More than beer, more than wine or cola, coffee seems always to taste better when drunk in the company of others. It appears to have been placed on earth for the specific purpose of encouraging human beings to interact and enjoy the give and take of stimulating conversation.

For myself and I’m sure for many of you, the world would be a much different place without coffee. Poorer in spirit, I think. Less open, less interesting.

And, no doubt, a much sleepier world as well…

“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!”
Hamlet Act II Scene 2

“There’s many a man alive of no more value than a dead dog.”
Sgt. Buster Kilrain from the movie Gettysburg

Saddam Hussein is not the most prolific mass murderer in history. Mao’s rampages make the Butcher of Baghdad appear meek and mild by comparison. Nor is Saddam one of the more inventive killers in history. Vlad the Impaler had a particularly unique and exquisitely painful method of dealing with his enemies. And Genghis Khan took great pleasure in coming up with new and exciting ways to end human life.

In fact, in the grand sweep of history, Saddam will be remembered as pretty much of a run-of-the-mill 20th century tyrant, a second tier mass murderer who will be mentioned in the same breath as Idi Amin and Slobodan Milosevic.

Regardless of how history remembers him, the Iraqi people will never forget his brutal, sadistic rule. And now the tyrant and his reign, ended by force of American arms, has been judged:

An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, convicting the former dictator and six subordinates for one nearly quarter-century-old case of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter.

Shiites and Kurds, who had been tormented and killed in the tens of thousands under Saddam’s iron rule, erupted in celebration — but looked ahead fearfully for a potential backlash from the Sunni insurgency that some believe could be a final shove into all-out civil war.

Saddam trembled and shouted “God is great” when the hawk-faced chief judge, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, declared the former leader guilty and sentenced him to hang.

What is it that makes a man like Saddam? Certainly an essential part of humanity is missing from his soul - the ability to feel empathy, pity, or any of the other “angelic” attributes that Hamlet praised in his soliloquy. But in context, Hamlet was also torn between this majestic view of humanity - made in the image and likeness of God - and the view given voice by the rough hewn Kilrain whose dismissal of any elevating characteristics in most men rings as true as Hamlet’s paean to man’s perfectibility.

We are all of us monsters and saints. The potential for both is present in each of us. Saddam’s brutality cannot be laid at the feet of any cultural or religious peculiarities. Psychiatrists might point to his childhood where he was constantly beaten and abused by his uncle or some other aspect of his development where the finer instincts that adhere to most people either died or were never implanted in his soul. But in the end, Saddam’s evil was the result of his own deliberate choices.

Whether Saddam had been tried under the auspices of the World Court or some other supra-national judicial forum doesn’t matter. The atmospherics may have been different than a trial in Iraq. The lawyers would have been able to maneuver, delay, obfuscate, and preen for the cameras with more freedom than they had in the Iraqi courtroom. But the facts of the case - overwhelming physical and documentary evidence - would have sealed his fate regardless.

The calls are already coming fast and furious to spare his life. I am ambivalent about his execution. There are political, military, and even strategic arguments against hanging the tyrant. But what does civilization do with someone who is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings? In cases like Saddam’s, “punishment” has no meaning in a legal sense. There is simply no sentence that could have been handed down to fit the crimes committed by this bloodthirsty sadist. Death is as good as any. And if justice were indeed blind, hanging would be seen as merciful indeed.

In the midst of the bloodletting that is his legacy (and, to some extent, ours), the Iraqis who suffered so long under the heel of the dictator’s jackboot are celebrating. I just wish they could unite in their recognition that Saddam’s judgement has offered them a new start, a new way to live that doesn’t include killing their neighbor because of what occurred in the past.

If we’ve heard that saying once over the last century, we’ve heard it a million times.

As diplomatic manoeuvrings failed miserably in the summer of 1914 to prevent the cataclysm of World War I, exhausted negotiators were at a loss to figure out what happened. Why did the old diplomatic verities that had worked so well for more than a century fail in this instance to prevent a general European war?

The short answer is that most of the parties wanted war. Or refused to take advantage of any “out” that was offered. This was due to the suicidal interlocking alliance system that assured smaller, weaker states dictated whether the great powers went to war or not.

Germany was at the mercy of Franz Joseph’s Austria-Hungarian Empire whose ultimatum to Serbia following the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination automatically dragged the Czar and Russia into any potential conflict. This made French participation inevitable as well as Britain’s forced march to disaster. Talking, it appears, was useless.

The war so horrified civilized people everywhere that new diplomatic paradigms were invented to deal with conflicts. International organizations were constituted in order to give belligerents a forum to air their grievances. A blizzard of treaties were agreed to outlawing war itself, placing limits on naval tonnage, establishing uniform methods of dealing with POW’s, chemical weapons, and a host of other war related issues.

A fat lot of good it all did. Almost exactly 20 years after the Versailles Treaty was signed ending the first World War, Adolph Hitler deliberately launched the second.

But Hitler’s actions prior to the war were unique in history. He used diplomacy not for the purposes of conflict resolution, but to legitimize his power grabs. Skillfully blending a masterful propaganda campaign with an in your face negotiating style, Hitler cowed both the British and French into accepting his vision of “A Greater Germany” that included a re militarization of the Rhineland, Aunchluss with Austria, the absorption of the Sudetenland into the Reich, and the final destruction of the Czech rump state as poor President Emil Hacha was verbally abused into handing what was left of his country over to the Nazis.

And yet, even as evidence of Hitler’s use of diplomacy as another kind of warfare piled up before their eyes, both Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier convinced themselves that as long as they were talking, Hitler wouldn’t go to war. This use of negotiations not to solve problems but simply to carry on with the diplomatic niceties - negotiations for the sake of negotiating - led directly to World War II. Thanks to extensive records captured after the war, we know now that Hitler always intended to go to war with France and England and nothing those two nations did would have stopped him. But would the Allies have discovered this if they had not been so in love with the diplomatic process? If, for instance, a more hard eyed approach to dealing with Germany exposed Hitler for the deal breaker that he turned out to be, could France and Britain have been forced to act militarily before Hitler was ready?

This has been bothering me for months as the Israel-Palestinian war erupted and the Iranian/North Korean problems moved center stage. The fact of the matter is, I have zero confidence that negotiations with any of those parties will serve any other purpose than advancing their own plans for evil. Negotiations have been nearly continuous between Israel and the Palestinians for nearly 60 years and one must look realistically at what those talks have achieved. Is Israel safer? Do the Palestinians have a homeland? How much real progress has been made? Diplomats point to concessions made by Israel that have ceded land and sovereignty to the Palestinians. But has this made Israel safer, more secure?

Does anyone save Hosni Mubarak in Egypt view the Israelis with anything but hate and loathing? A similar question could be asked of the Jordanians or any other Arab state. Despots all whose hold on power is dependent on the barrel of a gun could be overthrown tomorrow. And 60 years of “negotiating” would be seen for the utterly futile exercise it truly is.

The Palestinians have no interest in living peacefully with a Jewish state. They wish that state gone. Through 60 years of negotiating, they have refused to recognize even the reality of that state’s existence. But somehow, “negotiations” are the end all and be all of statecraft and the proprieties must be observed.

I find similar myopia when it comes to Iran and North Korea. Here’s former Carter National Security Advisor who sums up the striped pants position perfectly:

Why won’t the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country’s good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends — a huge mistake.

Talking solely for the reason that this is the way it’s always been done and doing or trying anything differently is crazy seems to be the position of our foreign policy elites. You can’t really blame them. It was how they were trained. The diplomatic dance is successful when both parties are rational and both parties see an advantage in reaching an agreement. Civil wars in Africa especially have lent themselves to negotiated settlement for this reason.

What advantage would accrue to Iran in reaching an agreement? I mean a real agreement that totally dismantled their nuclear program under strict and intrusive inspections. More importantly, how could we be sure that they would adhere to the agreement in the first place? Diplomats like to talk about “confidence building measures” and other intermediate steps before reaching an accord with an adversary. But what do you do when one party to the negotiations is not interested in settlement but rather in using the talks as a way to delay sanctions, or military action, or world condemnation, or any other fallout that would occur if and when the negotiations fail?

This is the great conundrum facing the Bush Administration with Iran. North Korea proved that they couldn’t be trusted as the paper mache “Agreed Framework” turned out to be nothing more than a way to put American policy makers to sleep while Kim continued his enrichment activities. When the Bush Administration called the North Koreans on their cheating, they unilaterally abandoned the agreement and brought their activities into the open. The six power talks, where it was believed China and Russia could convince Kim to stop his mad rush for the bomb, proved in the end to be useless. One wonders if China, who supplies the North Koreans with 90% of their fuel oil couldn’t dissuade Kim how the United States in bi-lateral talks could have done any better (without giving Kim another huge bribe as the Clinton Administration did with the Agreed Framework).

In a very roundabout way I am questioning this paradigm that posits the notion that negotiations - even if they won’t accomplish anything - are always preferable to the alternatives (not necessarily military). If only one side in the negotiations is seeking agreement while the other side wishes to use the talks to achieve the goals that the negotiations are trying to forestall, isn’t it common sense to ask why bother?

The old verities and certainties did not work on North Korea. They are not working with the Palestinians. And it is an open question whether they will work with Iran. One could legitimately ask then that if we don’t have negotiations, don’t we de facto have a state of war?

Not necessarily. There are still measures short of war that could be undertaken to dissuade an adversary from engaging in activities that are clearly unacceptable to the world at large. Sanctions and other measures that isolate an aggressive nation could - if they are broad enough and sting enough, threatening the stability and survival of the regime - accomplish far more than any negotiations ever could.

Unfortunately, that just wouldn’t be possible. Diplomats live to negotiate. And negotiating simply for the sake of talking would appear to be the preference of a world community who one day will wake up and realize that all of the talk expended over Iran and North Korea was as worthless as the rubble that will be left behind when one of their cities lies in ruins.

Curt over at Flopping Aces has a detailed look at the 9/11 Memorial built by the State of Arizona that illustrates what the far left International Freedom Center would have done with the memorial at Ground Zero.

You will recall that the original proposal for the Memorial included a 300,00 square foot exhibit of “the history of freedom” that would have included all sorts of extraneous left wing baggage about America’s sins of omission and commission over the years. Not to mention that the Board of the IFC was made up of some of the most unbalanced Bush haters in America. The actual Ground Zero Memorial would have taken up around 50,000 square feet and would have been buried underground.

What is fascinating about the Arizona 9/11 Memorial is that it goes to the heart of what the left actually thinks about that seminal day in American history. It isn’t a question of 9/11 being a tragedy - every American believes that. But as we saw with the liberal’s reaction to The Path to 9/11, The Narrative of that day must, by necessity, give short shrift to the role of Osama Bin Laden and the hijackers and concentrate instead on supposed American policies that led to the attacks.

In this way, blame can be easily shifted to America herself. And by highlighting America’s sins at the expense of the sins of the hijackers or even the courage and bravery of our citizens on 9/11, it also validates every leftist critique of American policy since the end of World War II. Viet Nam, our Latin American policies, the Cold War - the left’s historical narrative (skewed and twisted out of all proportion and reason) stands as a stark reminder that hijacking history in this manner is almost as great a sin as hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings. In short, they are murdering the innocents and their memories all over again.

Get a load of some of things that the “memorial” wants us to “remember” about 9/11:

* “Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians (7/1/02)”

* “Congress questions why CIA & FBI didn’t prevent attacks.” (6/3/02)

* “Violent Acts Leading US to War”

Some see a crescent (representing Islam) when looking at the design of the memorial, although I think that may be reading too much into it. The problem with the Arizona memorial as with the now defunct plan for the memorial at Ground Zero is very simple:

Why can’t we just design and build a loving and powerful remembrance of what happened on September 11, 2001 only? Why is it necessary to include events and history that has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on that horrific day?

An inkling can be found in this Arizona history teacher’s anger at the whole idea of a 9/11 memorial in the first place:

In his fiery e-mail, Johnsen wrote: “What happened on September 11th was indeed tragic. Other adjectives would apply as well: unethical, immoral, shameful, needless, heartbreaking, unacceptable, etc. In my view, however, what it was not was a ’senseless’ tragedy … any more than it was ‘unthinkable’ … To me both terms suggest just a tad too much that there was simply no conceivable reason for 9/11 to have happened.”

[…]Johnsen closes his e-mail by suggesting the school “resist the Pavlovian nationalist platitudes for a change, and instead transcend our shock, grief and anger” into examining what part, “if any, U.S. policies play in breeding such hate and violence against us” and “begin engaging in democratic dialogue and coalition-building.”

No, I’m not making this moonbat a spokesman for the entire left. His extremist views would undoubtedly be rejected by many liberals. But his shifting of blame for the attacks from those who perpetrated the obscenity to America is telling indeed. For this is part and parcel of what the leftist members of the IFC had in mind with their “Freedom Center” being placed on the sacred ground of the collapsed towers.

Not content with simply honoring our dead and commemorating the survivors while telling the story of who carried out the attacks and the nature of that enemy, the left by definition must include “context” in any re-telling of the 9/11 story. That “context” would validate their post-9/11 political critiques of the Bush Administration as well as legitimize their ideological and historical criticisms of America herself.

As it stands now, the Freedom Center will be several blocks removed from Ground Zero as it should be. And the Memorial? As with the entire site, the project is hopelessly bogged down thanks to political squabbles and a curious inertia that seems to have gripped everyone involved. Five years after the attacks, New York politicians can’t seem to get their act together. And it’s long past time that they do.

Even though the Pope’s remarks about violence and Islam were buried midway into a long lecture to scientists and theologians about faith and reason, is it possible that the Vatican knew full well that his comments would draw the kind of reaction from the Muslim world that we see erupting in the streets of the Middle East and elsewhere?

I would say it is more than possible. Given the way that the Vatican vets anything the Pope says in public, it would seem likely that at some point in the review process, someone would have pointed out that connecting the words “evil and inhuman” with anything associated with Islam would cause an uproar.

Just as with any major Presidential address or a speech given by the Secretary of State here in this country, the Vatican has several different departments that review anything uttered by the Pope, especially on foreign soil. The Pope’s speeches are reviewed to make sure not only that they reflect Vatican policy but also are consistent with religious dogma. And I feel certain that anything in a Papal speech that would mention another religion would have to be okayed by both the Secretariat of State as well as the Congregation in charge of interfaith relations. Either one of those two departments would have been able to tell the Pope what he could expect from the Islamic street after using the term “evil” in relation to anything having to do with the Prophet or the Muslim religion.

In fact, the more I think about it, in order not to believe that the Pope knew his remarks would cause a firestorm, you would either have to think that the Vatican bureaucracy are a bunch of fools or that a small part of the Pope’s lecture slipped through the cracks and wasn’t vetted properly. Either scenario just isn’t very plausible.

There was some speculation in the media that the “blunder” by the Pope was due to his lack of media savvy and a doctrinaire approach to his public pronouncements. The problem with this critique is that the lecture he gave a Regensburg was not about the Catholic faith as much as it was about a fascinating dissertation on the history of reason in Western thought. In fact, there was little if anything doctrinal in what Benedict said at his old University. There was reminiscing about how his education progressed and a scholarly look at how the relationship between secular reason and divine faith have developed since the Greeks. But there were no major pronouncements about theology and certainly no opportunities to lay down the law regarding anything having to do with the Catholic faith.

As far as being “media savvy,’ the 78 year od Pontiff is stiff and uncomfortable in his public appearances although he seems to be getting better as he goes along. But the thought that the Secretariat of State would not have realized that the Pope’s words would have been taken out of context and used to incite violence strains credulity. The job of the Secretariat in vetting Papal pronouncements is to make sure that just such an eventuality is covered.

Would the Pope then deliberately roil the Muslim world and incite hatred against the Catholic church? The “apologies” issued by both the Secretariat of State and the Pope himself are careful to avoid regretting anything the Pope said and instead express regret about the reaction to the speech.

Ed Morrissey thinks that even this partial apology gives legitimacy to Muslim complaints. In an impassioned Open Letter to the Pope, Morrissey points to the expressions of regret being a sign of weakness:

When you apologize and retreat, they understand that as a triumph for their religion, a victory won with force and threats rather than through intellectual engagement. This encourages more of the same. The West had the opportunity to stand up to the same angry hordes earlier this year during the controversy over the Danish editorial cartoons that depicted Mohammed, and many of us gave into the threats and violence rather than stand up for the freedom of speech, religious practice, and editorial commentary. In both cases, Muslims ironically proved the point of the criticism leveled at them.

I have to disagree with Ed. I think there are larger forces at play here - larger even the outrageous killing of a nun in Somalia or the apparent kidnapping of a priest in Iraq. If this is indeed the first salvo fired by the Catholic church against radical Islam (which is driving the violence causing more “moderate” Muslims to respond or be marginalized), it is a possibility that this is a real effort by the Vatican to rally more moderate, thoughtful Muslims to the anti-terror banner. So far, nothing has worked in trying to engage the millions of Muslims who disagree with the jihadists. But by holding up a mirror and forcing these moderates to look their own religion in the face, perhaps the Pope believes he can start a dialogue that would help set Islam along a different path. Instead of the moderates being marginalized, such a turn of events would marginalize the extremists.

This is pure speculation, of course. But I am having a hard time believing that the Pope’s words were a “blunder” or some kind of a media faux pas by the Vatican. And if the Pope’s words were deliberately provocative, one can only conclude there was some other reason why he might have used the obscure example of a dialogue between a 15th century emperor and Islamic scholar to make a point about the differences between Muslims and Christians.

If ever one needed proof of the shallowness and intellectual laziness of the mainstream media, the hysteria they’ve managed to gin up over remarks by the Pope regarding the Islamic faith, taken wildly out of context, serves as a potent reminder of just how sorry is the state of journalistic ethics and integrity in the west.

Reporters and editors have a duty to reveal not only what is said but accurately tell us what is implied - especially when a hot button subject like religion is involved and when the words are uttered by eminent personages such as a Pope or President. By lifting one quote out of context made by Benedict in a long, thoughtful speech on religion and reason, the western media has once again inflamed the passions of intolerant, hypersensitive Muslims and caused even moderate Islamic governments to condemn the Pope and demand an apology lest more radical elements gain politically over what is certainly a non-issue.

Even a cursory reading of Benedict’s speech reveals the Pope to have a passionate and firm belief in tolerance. His elegant thoughts on God and reason have a beauty that transcends any individual faith and speaks to the spiritual in all of us. Not blessed with the towering intellect of his predecessor, Benedict nevertheless lays out a case for a God that, rather than being in conflict with science, in fact defines reason itself. The universe exists as it does because God is perfection. And being perfect, it is impossible for Him to exist in contradictory terms.

The Pope made a strong case that science and faith can exist side by side in the modern world, that there is nothing inherently wrong with exploring the mysteries of the universe because finding answers will ultimately reveal God as pure reason:

The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

This is the essence of the Pope’s address; a call for a new definition of reason that surmounts what he considers to be artificial barriers between science and faith. Truly remarkable in its depth and subtlety, the Pope has come down firmly on the side of tolerance and freedom.

Then why the reference to Islam’s violent history? Why speak at all of the “forced conversions” in the early years of Islam? If the Pope is guilty of anything, it is perhaps in choosing one school of Islamic thought to make his point about the difference between a God who is reason and a God who transcends reason:

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor [of the text where this debate appears], Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

(HT: Quote from the Pope’s speech courtesy of a grad student at a Catholic Seminary in an email to Michelle Malkin)

Juan Cole points out that there are other schools of thought in Islam that are in opposition to this thinking:

The pope says that in Islam, God is so transcendent that he is beyond reason and therefore cannot be expected to act reasonably. He contrasts this conception of God with that of the Gospel of John, where God is the Logos, the Reason inherent in the universe.

But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu’tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them. The Mu’tazilite approach is still popular in Zaidism and in Twelver Shiism of the Iraqi and Iranian sort. The Ash’ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).

And Cole points to forced conversions in the history of Christianity as well (some of them on this continent) which undercuts Benedict’s point about violence and reason to some extent.

Cole believes Benedict should get himself some new advisors on Christian-Muslim relations for making what he considers to be an ill-considered point. This is pure sophistry. As are western calls for the Pope to “apologize.” These calls echo those from what Malkin correctly refers to as “The Religion of Perpetual Outrage.” And for the western media to lazily fall into the trap of the professional grievance mongers in the Islamic world who are always ready to work themselves (and their ignorant followers) into a lather over “insults” to Islam only shows how frighteningly naive and truly shallow many in the media are - especially about matters pertaining to faith and religion.

Case in point; the New York Times:

The Vatican issued a statement saying that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue. But this is not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims.

In 2004 when he was still the Vatican’s top theologian, he spoke out against Turkey’s joining the European Union, because Turkey, as a Muslim country was “in permanent contrast to Europe.”

A doctrinal conservative, his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity, not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.

The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

It is indicative of the politically correct, nonsensical attitude of many in the media that the Times would have found the Pope’s historically accurate statement describing the vast religious, cultural, and political differences between Turkey and the western European nations in NATO a cause for friction between Muslims and Christians. It isn’t that the differences don’t exist mind you. One just doesn’t voice those differences in public. Such statements are considered impolite in the PC world occupied by the Times and other western media outlets and are best left unspoken.

As for the rest, the Pope, after all, is Catholic. And as we’ve discussed here before, it riles the Times and others that the Catholic faith refuses to change its dogmas and canons to reflect the enlightened views of the Times’ editors.

No, the Pope should not apologize. Instead, the MSM should be covering the wildly out of proportion response by militant Islamic nutters who are tearing up the streets in the Middle East and elsewhere to “protest” what they consider to be this insult to their faith.

If only they could get half as worked up over those who murder in Islam’s name, the world would certainly be a much more peaceful place to live.

UPDATE

Malkin also has a gruesome reminder from the internet jihadists about what happens to those who “insult” Islam.

UPDATE II: POPE APOLOGIZES

Ed Morrissey has the latest statement from the Pope where he “is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers.”

This probably won’t satisfy the Islamist nutters rioting in the streets (now that they have the media’s doting attention) but it was perhaps inevitable given the controversey that erupted over the taking of his words out of context.

Also, check out my favorite Catholic’s take on this. The Anchoress echoes some my themes while making this point about the apology:

Now, we read Benedict blunder shows he has failed to master media machine. This is Benedict’s blunder, you see. As if he has any control over how the press presents a story.

Indeed.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

On this 5th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, we Americans are engaged in the helpful process of taking stock, carefully toting up the pluses and minuses in our imaginary ledgers of where we are as a nation. Perhaps we even take some time to calculate the political cost/benefit ratio of how this particular anniversary will color the election in November. And if we’re in the mood, we may even listen to some of the testimonials given by politicians and read the editorials in the great newspapers that hearken to us a remembrance of the evil perpetrated against America on that day.

For myself as hard as I try to recapture the emotions that roared to the surface that day, bubbling up from a place I never knew existed - so raw, so real, so utterly bereft and the same time feeling a closeness with my fellow Americans I had never felt before - what I can no longer do is weep. I can no longer weep for the widows, the orphans, the brave and selfless first responders who charged up dozens of flights of stairs, giving their lives so that others could live. I can no longer weep for lives cut short, for loved ones whispering their tearful goodbyes on doomed airplanes, for heroic citizen-warriors who fought our first pitched battle in the skies over Pennsylvania (and won). And I can no longer weep for America with the realization that these attacks meant we were at war and that many a young American would lose their lives defending us.

It isn’t faulty memory that prevents the tears from coming. I remember September 11, 2001 clearly, as beautiful a day in the Midwest as it was in New York. I was on a short vacation and got up early as has always been my wont to watch a movie I had rented on the VCR. When the movie ended, I turned off the TV and puttered around the apartment for a while. I distinctly remember doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

Thinking to catch some NFL previews for the coming week, I flipped on the TV and saw the smoking towers. It didn’t register at first. How could it? In the background, I could hear CNN droning on. Something about airplanes and terrorists.

It still didn’t register. And then, not 2 minutes after I had flipped on the TV, the first tower began to collapse. By this time I had begun to grasp what was happening and watched in absolute horror as the once proud symbol of America’s greatness was reduced to a smoking pile of rubble in just a few seconds. I stared and stared at the screen, barely aware in the background that someone was screaming. I was actually briefly annoyed. Can’t they move that person away from the microphone, I wondered.

It was then I realized that I was doing the screaming.

The tears flowed often that day. When the second tower collapsed, a sadness so profound, so beyond tears, engulfed me and I fell into a state of absolute numbness - a defense mechanism initiated by the brain I’m sure, protecting my psyche from being damaged by the overwhelming and powerful emotions engendered by watching my fellow citizens incinerated and crushed.

That feeling of not being able to feel was interrupted several times during the day. Some pictures showing the gaping hole in the Pentagon and the rescuers working frantically brought more tears as did some of the images of ordinary New Yorkers whose entire world came crashing down that day along with the towers. You just never knew when the tears would start to flow. The image of young girl in Pennsylvania laying a teddy bear at the instant memorial for flight 93 that had been started by nearby residents. Frantic people who had loved ones in the towers trying to get to lower Manhattan but being blocked because the danger was just too great. The still picture of a dead Father Judge, Chaplain to the Firefighters in the city, being carried away so gently.

What finally caused me to turn the coverage off for a while was when Members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol and, following heartfelt speeches by the Speaker and Minority Leader, a lone voice in the back began to sing God Bless America. Totally unscripted and without precedent, several dozen Congressmen tearfully joined in. Veteran CNN correspondent Judy Woodruff, as tough and as professional as they come in the news business, nearly broke down on live TV describing it.

It was at that point that I wondered: Will we ever be happy again? Will we ever be able to laugh and dance and sing the joyous, confident notes that have marked the American people as the most dyed in the wool, overarching optimists the world has ever seen?

How can we look to the future when the gaping, oozing wound at Ground Zero reminds us that we are not invulnerable, that for all our military might, our economic power, our cultural dominance, our gigantic footprint on the modern world, America can be laid low by a bunch of fanatics?

The answers seemed not to be forthcoming on that day. But gradually, as our national leaders recovered their equilibrium and especially as President Bush seemed to find a purpose and direction for our emotions, we eased back into our daily routines, finding comfort and solace in the ordinary tasks and challenges that take up space in our lives, allowing us to find a haven from the winds of history that blew through New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that horrible day of blood and death and fire and smoke.

Every once and a while in the months that followed, we would receive a reminder that would bring those same emotions we felt on 9/11 to the surface. But a scab had formed over the wounds inflicted upon America that day and much of the power and grief we felt had faded like an old, weathered photograph gathering dust in the attic so that we could look 9/11 in the eye and not flinch. Yes, there were still moments of pathos and pain. I would tear up when the brave workers at Ground Zero would find the body of a firefighter or policeman and the sad, solemn procession carrying the remains to the waiting ambulance evoked memories of the cost of that day. But in retrospect, most of us were following the preparations for war and much of what we endured on 9/11 as a nation became simply part of the “mystic chords of memory” that bind all of us who lived through those awful hours.

When the first anniversary of the attacks came and went, it seemed proper that we should try our best to move on from the tragedy and get down to the business of fighting and winning the war. A people at war cannot afford powerful emotions. They must steel themselves against anything that can deflect them from the course that leads to victory. But after celebrating the vanquishing of the Taliban during the first anniversary and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on the second, the date itself began to take on a new meaning. The third anniversary was unavoidably marked by politics as it occurred during the height of the Presidential election of 2004. Try as we might, it was difficult to summon the grief and the outrage that had marked the first two anniversaries. And last year’s memorial was extremely subdued, almost as if some wanted to forget the day altogether.

Through it all, the memory of the emotions that tore at the nation’s soul and caused an ocean of tears to flow receded slowly into the background, like a tidal wave that washes over a shoreline and, retreating slowly back into the sea, reveals a new landscape. We have barely explored this new world, many of us preferring the old one and finding comfort in the words of those who wish to pretend the catastrophe never happened. But while we may not be able to summon the demons that caused the anger, the sadness, and the tears 5 years ago, we should now be able to call forth the angels who can aid and protect us from our own folly; the fearful belief that the job is too big, too fraught with uncertainty for us to even try and win through to victory.

It is to this endeavor that we can rededicate ourselves on this 5th anniversary of 9/11. The tears may be gone, unable to bridge the mists of time and the healing salve of forgetfulness. But the cause remains. The purpose lives. And while our tears may have dried, the reason we wept in the first place will never, ever be forgotten.

UPDATE

Allah has a personal rememberance well worth your while. And he’s right about the video of the towers being constructed. He calls it something akin to watching an old friend who has died on his wedding day.

That sums it up perfectly.

Jay at Stop the ACLU has a round up of my Wideawake buddies’ posts on 9/11.

DJ Drummond has a huge roundup of links to all sorts of 9/11 memorabilia.

LaShawn Barber has an excellent round up as well.

I will be drinking all of this in for the next few hours, going from blog to blog and reading what those of us who love to write have to say about this 5th anniversary. Watch the updates for links to particularly good ones.