Thursday, May 2, 2013

Gail Collins, "The Luv Guv’s Last Stand": My House Is Hit by a Tsunami

What happened this morning? My daughter woke up early and turned on "E!". News of the Kardashian Family washed over the house like a tsunami and had me struggling against the giant wave, gasping for air, trying to avoid losing consciousness. Meanwhile, my youngest son had also risen, and instead of making sandwiches for school, he had turned on his computer and was back to online game playing.

I could feel my foot ensnared on the bottom and doubted whether I could make it back to the surface.

"Don't pay any attention to dad," my daughter said to my son, as she prepared me a cup of coffee, the only sedative occasionally known to work on this bedlamite. "He woke up on the wrong side of bed."

The wrong side of bed? Ordinarily we're talking about the wrong side of the floor.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Luv Guv’s Last Stand" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/opinion/collins-the-luv-guvs-last-stand.html?_r=0), Gail Collins decided to add to my anguish with a description of former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s campaign for Congress. Collins tells us that Sanford has run "a full-page ad comparing himself to the defenders of the Alamo" and quotes this buffoon as saying:

"I’m outnumbered right now but will fight to the end toward freedom and financial sanity in Washington so important to sustaining it."

The Alamo? Travers, Crockett, Bowie and the other defenders of the Alamo will remain heroes for me until the day I die. Sanford would have us believe that he is a modern day Davy Crockett? Don't go there, Governor.

The tsunami is dragging me down again, hurling me into sunken debris and detritus.

Why did Gail feel the need to add to my emotional distress this morning with this piece of fluff, replete with sexual innuendo? Is there nothing else important to address from the pulpit of the editorial page of The Times? Gail explains:

"Right now in New York, we need all the guidance we can get on this point, since we’re facing the distinct possibility of having to live through an Anthony Weiner for Mayor campaign."

Gail should take Anthony's weiner elsewhere. Me? I'm troubled by something else.

The Obama administration systematically lied to the American people in its effort to portray the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate as the consequence of a "spontaneous" demonstration, and now we are being told that it's ancient history.

More recently, however, it was leaked to us that the Boston Marathon bombing was the "lone wolf" work of two deranged brothers. Ignore Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Dagestan. Ignore the DNA of others on pieces of the bombs. Ignore the arrests of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends.

A "lone wolf" terror attack? Poppycock. You don't believe me? Even Arnold, my Anatolian Shepherd, knows better.

Why does the Obama administration again feel the need to avoid addressing the ugly reality of Islamic fanaticism underlying this latest horror?

You certainly won't find an answer in Gail's frivolous opinion piece.

However, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe (http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-exec.aspx):

"Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam; 81% say such acts are never justified, while fewer than one-in-ten say violence against civilians either is often justified (1%) or is sometimes justified (7%) to defend Islam. Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. However, substantial minorities in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26% of Muslims in Bangladesh, 29% in Egypt, 39% in Afghanistan and 40% in the Palestinian territories."

Only 1% of US Muslims "say violence against civilians is often justified" and only 7% say that such violence "is sometimes justified"? How reassuring . . .

9 comments:

  1. OMG, OMG, OMG ...
    Yes, I actually listened and yes, he said it: "Benghazi happened a long time ago."
    OMG, OMG, OMG ...
    History is really dead in this land. I live in the nation where people don't know what the Cuban crisis was, who our allies were during WWII (or "know" that the Germans) etc. More tragically most have no concept of history and the past is as flat as our Earth in some eyes - "slavery thousands years BCE and the 19th century - what the difference?
    Not surprisingly, I often see the historical "soups" which I really hate: "Napoleon was a Chinese sheik who lived in the 12th century in Communist Brazil and fought green roaches."
    Yes, this "Benghazi was..." is unacceptable - so dishonest, so manipulative, so condescending, so dangerous and so repulsive (notice a smirk - what do you people talk about?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't figure out how your little rants keep getting such excellent Google rankings. Your consulting firm must REALLY be boutique because other than your blog both it and you are a black hole as far as Google and Google UK is concerned. It must be that you have "New York Times" and the columnist's name included in them. I do find it interesting that you didn't start this blog until Obama was elected. You're outraged by Benghazi but felt no need to vent regarding all the BS Bush/Cheney pulled? Some serious blinders you're wearing there. But then, FOUR AMERICANS died in Benghazi, and there's the MASSIVE coverup. Makes Iraq and the cherry picked intelligence that got us there look like a church social.

    I applaud the fact that you read a real newspaper rather than spend all your time glued to Fox News but given your numerous blog posts it looks as if you only read it as a source of tsuris. Given the Times liberal bent and your disdain for their opinions I fail to see why you read it other than a source of material for which you can write scathing rebuttals, almost all of which I find to be just..... wrong.

    I'm not really anonymous. My name is Andy and if for any reason you'd care to reply you can reach me at llfarm@yahoo.com. I'd be fascinated to know why a guy who's "appeared on television throughout Europe, supplying real time, on-the-scene commentary during crises and wartime" and his boutique firm have absolutely no Google footprint. I'd enjoy hearing from you.

    One last thing. If the previous comment is indicative of your audience ("OMG, OMG, OMG !!!") you are either wasting your time or have a low threshold for self validation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Andy,

      You obviously did not read the opening paragraph of my April 27, 2013 blog: "Make no mistake about it: George W. Bush was a disaster for the United States. The Second Gulf War destroyed the equilibrium that existed between Iraq and Iran in the Middle East, setting the stage for Iran's fanatic pursuit of dominion over the region. His introduction of ground forces into Afghanistan was a tragedy in the making, as he should have known from Russia's prior entry into this quagmire. His administration allowed Wall Street and the big banks to rape the US economy with the introduction of worthless, real estate-based derivatives, and the elimination of the Uptick Rule during his second term in office (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/paul-krugman-jobless-trap-castigating.html) continues to plague American productivity."

      Was this, in your opinion, also wrong, or did you not read it before submitting your comment?

      Frankly, I don't know anything about my Google ranking, nor do I care. Yes, I have tens of thousands of pageviews every month, and perhaps this has something to do with it, but I honestly don't know how this factors into my Google ranking. Again, it is of no interest to me.

      If you are curious about my Google ranking, I suggest you start a blog and insert the names of NYT columnists and see if your opinions attract interest. Moreover, you will thenbe able to write freely and opine about "all of which you find to be just . . . . right."

      My audience? If you are more intelligent than those who read my blog, who include PhDs, professors, members of congress and newspaper editors, I again urge you to start your own blog. Maybe it will be an overnight Internet hit!

      Good luck to you.

      Jeffrey

      Delete
  3. Dear not anonymous "Andy,"
    Sorry to inform you, but your luck is bad.
    This "OMG" anonymous happens to be a former professor (to prevent some idiotic jokes - yes, at one of the oldest universities in the world) a Ph.D., with several masters extra - multilingual, multicultural and obviously multi-degreed, who despises any provincialism and pomposity, yours including.

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  4. Ah, non-anonymous "Andy,"
    Sorry to inform you again, but both Jeffrey and I are Jewish and we don't consider events which took place several thousands years ago as something which happened "a long time ago," we both value history, and yes, history is one of the areas of my interest/expertise and all the others areas are also "historical" in some way.

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  5. Andy, do you have an anger management problem? Have you considered treatment? I am not being hostile.

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  6. "Andy" - if that is indeed your name - your comment is intemperate, arrogant and despicable. A person who thinks so highly of himself/herself must surely have something better to do than fret over Google ratings.

    "Get a life," as they say.

    ReplyDelete
  7. He's angry and ... simplistic.
    I, the same OMG anonymous, am here to totally confuse this poor non-anonymous.
    Although I am trying hard to leave the Democratic party (after the disgusting September performance of the Congress), it was the only party I belonged to since my eligibility.
    Although I now only scan the paper which in my view (not Jeffrey's) is Der Neue Stuermer, it was my main daily paper for most of my time in NY/US until ... I came to my sense/ until it became an antisemitic rag, financed by who knows whom.
    I don't know about our non-anonymous, but I remain a Social-Democrat who doesn't have a TV set and most certainly doesn't watch Fox News (never did) or any other news, even those which were watched in some distant past.

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  8. Hello JG. The NYC mayor's contest, on both sides, is already a circus without a real clown, although there are a lot of pretend-contortionists, so I give Gail Collins some slack for trying to figure out how stupid-crazy it will be if The Weiner jumps in.

    The NYT had a terrific series on the 2008 meltdown "The Reckoning", in their business section. (I believe no one on the op-ed page ever reads the business section) You really do need to give full credit to Chuck Schumer "The Senator For Wall Street", and Clinton's team (Rubin, Summers, Greenspan) who thought CDOs did NOT need any regulatory oversight.

    all else deleted, just in case Google is watching...
    K2K

    ReplyDelete