Mandela and Pearl Harbor

As Bayou Renaissance Man so clearly notes, there are many aspects to Nelson Mandela the man.  I personally make no claims to objectivity in my views of him, which are much along the lines of those espoused by Debbie Schlussel (though not necessarily as strident).  But Mandela did accomplish much that needed to be accomplished.

Quite frankly, the pre-Mandela South African regime was not particularly friendly towards the Jewish citizens in locations outside of Cape Town or Johannesburg.  Mandela himself was tolerant, and even friendly towards, the Jewish citizens of South Africa (provided that they were in South Africa and not in Israel -- another one of those who love us when we are dead in Treblinka and Auschwitz and Terezin, but hate us if we are alive in the Holy City of Jerusalem).  Mandela's successors cannot be expected to be so accommodating.

Anyway, there are diverse ways of viewing Nelson Mandela.  And I do not particularly object, per se, to the vats of ink being now being fed into the presses on the occasion of his passing.

What I do object to, in yesterday's and today's newpapers throughout the America, is the dearth of ink about what happened on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese planes attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor.  It is a day that will live in infamy.

The Americans who died at Pearl Harbor (including those who now repose in the sunken wreckage of the ships there) are no less worthy of the media's ink than Nelson Mandela.

Of Publicity and Privacy: Who's Outing Whom?

The news media, the so-called "Fourth Estate," likes to pride itself in keeping the governing powers and the people honest.  Having been suckled on that pap since journalism school, many Fourth Estaters actually believe that they in fact perform such a function.

And if indeed they really did, then I would be their number one fan.

But, unfortunately, the Fourth Estate has long yielded its independence, and has, by and large, allowed itself to be an instrumentality of the corruptocrats in (and out of) government.

So who, then, is going to be the Fourth Estate to the Fourth Estate (or, in Juvenal's original phraseology from his Satires, "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?").

Sometimes, all it takes is one blogger to do that.

As part of the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary hoplophobe gun-grabber media fest, the Journal-News, of White Plains, New York, has published an article about pistol permit holders, and, as an Internet companion piece, used the cyber mapping technologies to post an interactive map showing the names and locations of all pistol permit holders registered in Westchester and Rockland Counties (inasmuch as I have never lived in either of those two counties, you will not find my name there).

This has caused a big uproar.  Everyone is screaming about (A) privacy rights; and/or (B) now that the burglars know who has handguns, they know which houses to avoid -- and, by inference, which to target.

[This is assuming, of course, that those who are not registered pistol permit holders do not in fact have pistols.  On that score, I will humor the hoplophobes, but cannot in good conscience give 100% assurances to those in the burglary business that every non-registered residence they target is in fact devoid of munition/ammunition.].

But, as Christopher Fountain notes, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  Chris, of Greenwich, CT, has posted on his blog "For What It's Worth" a listing of the home addresses and contacts for the Journal-News publisher, editors, and reporters who were behind the articles.

It is going to be quite interesting to see how the Fourth Estate in White Plains deals with this one.  After all, they cannot now scream "invasion of privacy!" without being laughed out of town.

Not that Chris is invulnerable.  On his blog bio-line, Chris discloses that he is "a non-practicing lawyer and glad of it."  I'm wondering how long it will take the Journal-News to ask whether he is the same Christopher C. Fountain who, in 2000, had his 3-month suspension from the practice of law for forging a signature and notarization affirmed by the Appellate Court of Connecticut.  [Disclosure:  I am personally friendly with more than one ex-lawyer who has been slapped with harsher discipline than that.  Hate the sin but love the sinner!].

Images and Imaginations

I was not going to post on the topic because it has gotten too viral, but I've had too many questions posed to me by various and sundry people in various and sundry situations over the past 48 hours, and certain matters need to be set straight. There will be no hyperlinks in this posting, lest additional contributions be made to the current feeding frenzy.

The White House released a photo of Barack Hussein Obama and his advisors in the Situation Room, watching the mission to take out Bin Laden unfold. The Yiddish language newspaper Die Tzeitung, based in Brooklyn and directed to an insular religious Jewish readership, published the photo, but with the images of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Audrey Tomasen photoshopped out of the picture. Die Tzeitung is one of those newspapers that does not publish photographs of women, based upon its interpretation of certain religious prohibitions, and the fear that men who look at such photographs might likely entertain various impure thoughts and fantasies.

I make no apologies for Die Tzeitung and other publications that have "no photos of women" policies. I do not now seek to distance myself from them (though in many respects they themselves have already done the distancing). I shall not now dissect the logic, and the flaws therein, of the notion that the Torah prohibits the publication of photographs of women. I take no position as to the propriety or ethics of altering a photograph released to the media with the stipulation that the photograph not be altered. And I do not now analyze whether the implementation of the aforementioned policies do or do not constitute a debasement and degradation of women.

I do, however, note (in no particular order) that:


A. I do not consider the subscriberships of Die Tzeitung and similar-minded publications to be more religiously observant than I am. As alluded to in previous postings, I keep the Sabbath, eat kosher, wear a kippah on my head, and my wife covers her hair.

B. This matter has drawn a significant amount of media attention upon groups that, by their own unabashed admission, seek insularity.

C. Said media attention has collateral impact upon those of us who are also Torah-observant Jews, but who have not problems with photographs of women (provided that the woman in the photograph is not immodestly or provocatively dressed or demeanored).

D. The media attention generated may well redound to the detriment of the insular groups the news publications in question identify with. Specifically, these same insular groups, which are not known for providing their people with a high degree of self-sustaining vocational skills, are dependent in no small part upon the generosity of charity-givers and/or the politicians. The current ridicule may well dissuade, to one extent or another, the continuation of such generosity, particularly in thin economic times such as those which currently prevail.

In its public apology, the sincerity of which I do not question but the efficacy of which I do, Die Tzeitung described the White House's photograph as "iconic." But if indeed a photograph is truly "iconic" then Die Tzeitung's editors cannot expect their manipulation of it to go unnoticed.

Terrorist Candid Camera

According to an Associated Press article, the sob sisters in the MSM and Israel's Foreign Press Association are now whining that Israel is using videos confiscated from some of the participants in the "flotilla" incident. They seem to think that just because the footage was shot by journalists, it should be off-limits to the Israelis as far as explaining Israel's side of the story goes.

To which I say, "Boo Freakin' Hoo!"

The MSM has long used articles and footage from the terrorist organizations to constitute its own stories (can you say "Al Jazeera"?). And the MSM has long used information from whatever sources it can get, and has long insisted upon its Constitutional right to not disclose those sources.

The MSM seems ill postured to deal with the fact that Israel is beating it at its own game.

What really galls the MSM, no doubt, is the damning quality of the evidence. As more and more evidence surfaces, Israel's case grows stronger and stronger.

Now that Israel has shown that it can keep the flotilla people out of Gaza, maybe Netanyahu should take another testosterone shot and start excluding foreign journalists who serve as the terrorists' useful idiots.

Ernesto and Irv

Still teaching, but not quite as sleep-deficient.


Ernesto Lecuona (1895 - 1963) was, by most estimations, Cuba's greatest musician ever. He was a composer, pianist, band leader, and a founder of the Havana Symphony Orchestra. Finding the Castro regime in Cuba intolerable, Lecuona moved to Tampa in 1960. If you have not been informed about Ernesto Lecuona, you can bring yourself up to speed here, here and here.

Lecuona's untimely death on 29 November 1963 did not receive the attention it merited because the news media of the world was still working on the grist from the death just a week earlier of another significant figure in Cuba's history -- President John F. Kennedy.


History repeats itself! My friends in Philadelphia have informed me that noted radio personality Irv Homer passed away on 26 June 2009. I had a number of occasions to listen to Irv's show, and I held him in high regard for his sincerity, and his willingness to call things as he saw them, come what may. Irv Homer was able to see the broader issues of things.

Irv Homer was a staunch proponent of the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, and was openly critical of the intrusive excesses of government, whether the FCC or the IRS.

And, having lost a young child of his own to disease, Irv Homer was an active and avid supporter of the Sunshine Foundation, a charity that grants wishes to very sick children. [Parenthetic note: The Sunshine Foundation's sponsorship of gatherings of children afflicted with progeria, a rare disease that manifests itself as rapid aging, enabled the efficient and reliable collection of blood samples which greatly advanced the medical research towards treatment and cure.].

Hopefully, Irv Homer will eventually be recognized as the broadcast industry's moral compass he was. But, like Ernesto Lecuona before him, Irv Homer must, in death, take second-line billing the media's other anointed idols of lesser worth than himself -- In Irv's case, he is a few pages after Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett.

Rest in Peace, Irv Homer (and also Ernesto Lecuona)!