RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364506/ghosts-november-mark-steyn

Aside from the music, I haven’t anything to say about the Kennedy anniversary I haven’t said on previous anniversaries. A decade ago, I wrote:

History is selective. We remember moments, and, because that moment in Dallas blazes so vividly, everything around it fades to a gray blur. So here, from the archives, is an alternative 40th anniversary from November 1963:

8 a.m. Nov. 2: Troops enter a Catholic church in Saigon and arrest two men. They’re tossed into the back of an armored personnel carrier and driven up the road a little ways to a railroad crossing. The M-113 stops, the pair are riddled with bullets and their mutilated corpses taken to staff HQ for inspection by the army’s commanders. One of the deceased is Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam. The other is Ngo Dinh Nhu, his brother and chief adviser.

Back in the White House, President Kennedy gets the cable and is stunned. When Washington had given tacit approval to the coup, the deal was that Diem was supposed to be offered asylum in the United States. But something had gone wrong. I use “gone wrong” in the debased sense in which a drug deal that turns into a double murder is said to have “gone wrong.”

Kennedy had known Diem for the best part of a decade. If he felt bad about his part in the murder of an ally, he didn’t feel bad for long: Within three weeks, he too was dead. Looked at coolly, there seems something faintly ridiculous about cooing dreamily over the one brief shining moment of a slain head of state who only a month earlier had set in motion the events leading to the slaying of another head of state.

Two presidents died that November, but the mawkish parochialiasm of the Camelot cult has obliterated the fact that the second bore responsibility for the death of the first. No “eternal flame” for Diem, just an unmarked grave. He’s the Mary Jo Kopechne of the autumn of 1963, unhelpful to the myth: “What goes around comes around” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “one brief shining moment.”

Unless you’re a Vietnam scholar, you won’t remember the pros and cons of an anti-Diem coup as argued in Washington through the summer and fall of 1963. They barely made sense at the time, and Kennedy’s bewildered reaction to the Buddhist unrest earlier that year sums up the administration’s grasp of the situation: “Who are these people?” he said. “Why didn’t we know about them before?” “Big Minh,” the general who led the coup, lasted two months before he was overthrown by another general. He moved to Thailand, where the American taxpayer picked up his tab, including for some expensive dental work.

As Ho Chi Minh observed, “I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid.” There was certainly a presidential-assassination conspiracy afoot in the US in the fall of 1963. In Washington. But all that drivel about Dallas-the-city-of-right-wing-hate is more flattering to American liberalism’s self-image.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/364568/print If the Republicans can’t fight wars and the Democrats stink at socializing medicine, what good are they? That would not be an altogether unreasonable question for a typical American today. No doubt spokesmen for the respective political parties would offer all sorts of objections to that summation. And many of those objections would be […]

Unprovoked attacks by youth looking to do nothing except inflict pain have become an urban tradition.

As a 78-year-old woman walked down the street in Brooklyn, carrying her purse and bags, a young black male, about 20 years old, punched her in the head as hard as he could and ran away. The man said nothing and didn’t steal a single item.

This is one of the latest instances of “Knockout,” a “game” of evidently increasing popularity. Young people — sometimes female but usually male, predominantly black, in their teens to early 20s, in groups or alone — approach unsuspecting strangers and punch them in the head as hard as possible with the intention to knock them unconscious with a single blow. Sometimes the aggressors will rob the victim, but usually violence itself is the purpose of the attack. Some of the attackers have even recorded videos of their exploits.

At various times and places, the “game” has been called “Knockout,” “Knockout King,” “One-Hitter-Quitter,” “Pick ’Em Out and Knock ’Em Down,” “Knock ’Em and Drop ’Em,” and “Polar-Bear Hunting” (most likely in reference to whites). The attacks are unprovoked and often happen in broad daylight.

They can be deadly.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304644104579190040605212378?mod=Opinion_newsreel_6
God Delivered the Pilgrims—and My People
Thanksgiving always had particular resonance for one group of religious freedom-seekers.

The once-in-a-lifetime convergence of Thanksgiving Day with the first day of Hanukkah has inspired culinary fusions like deep-fried turkey, song parodies and clever T-shirts. One enterprising lad has even invented the “Menurkey”: a menorah (candelabrum) in the shape of a turkey. Humor aside, one group of American Jews—the members of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel —have reason to find in this year’s calendrical happenstance a source both of institutional memory and of profound pride. Of all American synagogues, Shearith Israel has been celebrating both Hanukkah and Thanksgiving from the very beginning.

As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World. In September 1654, 23 Jews set sail from Recife, Brazil, where the Portuguese Inquisition had made practicing Judaism impossible. Intending to return to Europe but captured by pirates mid-voyage, they gave themselves up for lost—until, as a congregational history puts it, “God caused a savior to arise unto them, the captain of a French ship arrayed for battle, and he rescued them out of the hands of the outlaws . . . and conducted them until they reached the end of the inhabited earth called New Holland.”

Once arrived safely in New Holland, better known as New Amsterdam, the refugees formed the first Jewish community in North America. From the start, they remained loyal to their faith: praying together, ensuring the availability of kosher meat, and observing their holidays. For these individuals, the symbolism of lighting the Hanukkah candles in the dark of winter must have been especially resonant, at one with the dawning presence of Judaism in the New World.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Shearith Israel—the name means “the remnant of Israel”—was importing its clergy from Europe. But by 1768, it was ready to hire its first American-born minister, Gershom Mendes Seixas. And it is here that the story of Shearith Israel becomes forever intertwined with the story of Thanksgiving—and of America.

The ‘Spy’ Who Fooled the EPA
Under deep CIA cover at the Office of Air and Radiation.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to be the nation’s super-regulator, though it might first try to regulate its own employees. At least the ones pretending to be James Bond.

The Department of Justice in late September announced a plea agreement with John C. Beale, until recently a senior career employee at EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. Beale, 64, has admitted to devoting most of his 23-year career to bilking taxpayers of some $900,000 in pay and expenses. “Saturday Night Live” couldn’t come up with this story.

Information released by law enforcement, and details from an investigation by Louisiana Senator David Vitter, show that the fraud began when Beale stated in his 1989 EPA job application that he’d worked for the U.S. Senate, though there is no record of such employment. By 1994 Beale was claiming he was a CIA operative to justify prolonged absences. Apparently this raised no eyebrows at EPA.

There is something very bad going on in Cuba.

First, we hear of health care but:

“Officers of the Ministry of Education (MINED), Central Region, at a government meeting on Monday the 11th, suspended the Schools in the Countryside program for November and December, because of the complicated epidemiological situation in the province.

Guilfredo Martin Betancourt, a MINED official, said the province is experiencing cases of cholera and dengue fever, without giving specifics with regards to numbers, given the environmental and social indiscipline problems.”

Second, we hear that 1,000,000 homes in Cuba do not have running water. This one is a real shock to any Cuban who remembers pre-Castro Cuba. We had a lot of problems in pre-Castro but running water was not one of them.

Let’s file these two under “What Michael Moore missed when he went to Cuba”.

We hear of reforms and reforms but the island’s ballplayers would rather play under “yankee imperialismo”. It’s amazing because these are young men who grew up in Castro’s Cuba and learned that “playing ball for money” was a capitalist sin.

We just learned that more Cuban players have “sinned” and left that workers’ paradise that so many of our college professors love so much.

The global warming crowd just experienced a double whammy.

COP 19 was shocked when China led a block of 132 nations in a walkout over “loss and damage.”

Loss and damage is an entirely bogus concept which would assign legal liability to prosperous nations for natural disasters and other problems experienced by developing nations.

The hunger strike by Philippine negotiator Yeb Sano over Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda has been the most dramatic moment of these negotiations. Climate campaigners have seized upon the Philippines typhoon as a rationale for supporting the proposed UN global warming treaty.

While we continue to encourage donations and humanitarian assistance to the Philippines and others in need, “loss and damage” is nothing more than a bid by developing nations to reap a tremendous redistribution windfall.

As Marc Morano of Climate Depot said at CFACT’s UN press briefing yesterday, “Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda was not the most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippines in recent history… it was the seventh worst.”

Since its founding in 973 C.E., Al Azhar University (and its mosque) have represented a pinnacle of Islamic religious education, which evolved into the de facto Vatican of Sunni Islam. Unfortunately, during that same millennium, through the present era, Al Azhar and its leading clerics have represented and espoused the unreformed, unrepentant jihad bellicosity and infidel hatred at the core of mainstream, institutional Islam.

Al Azhar’s contemporary espousal of sacralized Islamic animosity has been directed, unsurprisingly, against Jews and Israel, dating back to the 20th century origins, and ultimate creation, of the modern Jewish State. Despite nearly universal willful blindness by media, academic, and policymaking elites, this critical issue of sacralized incitement of Muslim Jew-hatred by Islam’s Sunni Muslim Vatican, remains center stage.

Ahmad Al-Tayeb, as current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, is the Sunni Muslim Papal equivalent. During an interview with Al-Tayeb, which recently aired on Channel 1, Egyptian TV, October 25, 2013, the Al-Azhar Grand Imam gave a brief explanation of the ongoing relevance of the

Koranic verse 5:82 (sura, or chapter 5, verse 82) has been invoked—“successfully”—to inspire Muslim hatred of Jews since the advent of Islam:

A verse in the Koran explains the Muslims’ relations with the Jews and the polytheists. The second part of the verse describes the Muslims’ relations with the Christians, and the third part of the verse explains why the Christians are the closest and most friendly to the Muslims. This is an historical perspective, which has not changed to this day. See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism, whereas our peaceful coexistence with the Christians has withstood the test of history. Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. This is a cause of great distress for the Muslims. The Koran said it and history has proven it: “You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists.” This is the first part. The second part is: “You shall find the closest in love to the believers to be those who say: ‘We are Christians’.” The third part explains why the Christians are “the closest in love to the believers,” while the Jews and the polytheists are the exact opposite.

Abysmal payments. Lack of information. Even questionable business practices.

Those are all complaints physicians have had in the early stages of working with health insurance companies selling plans through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance marketplaces, also known as exchanges.

MedPage Today asked several attendees at this week’s American Medical Association’s interim meeting about their experiences with the new plan offerings. Responses from those with experience dealing with them on the whole weren’t positive.

“Neither the patients nor the physicians know if they’re in network or not,”said Steven Larson, MD, of Riverside, Calif., chairman of the California Medical Association’s Board of Trustees.

It has been a common complaint thus far, as plans have been slow to report or update provider networks for exchange plans.

Michael Sexton, MD, of Novato, Calif., said some physicians have received a letter stating they are in network for a plan unless they say otherwise. “One doctor told me he saw a document from a plan — with his [own] signature on it — that he never saw before.”

Richard DePersio, MD, from Powell, Tenn., said that one health insurer had contacted his practice about working with him, and he hadn’t heard of the plan before. Even worse, they offered rates lower than what Medicaid pays.

“I think everybody has an uncomfortable feeling about what is happening,” DePersio said.

IF YOU FLUNK THE TEST IS THERE A REMEDIAL COURSE ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION (ALSO KNOWN AS ISLAMOFRIENDLY INFIDELPHOBIA)???

On 10/30/13, Stetson Universities Cross Cultural Center and Multicultural Student Council presented a lecture on ‘Addressing Islamophobia: Proactive Efforts to Address Hate and Bias on and off Campus’ led by Amer F. Ahmed.

Amer F. Ahmed, Associate Director, Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, University of Michigan supports Islamic Religious Apartheid and called all non-Muslims a violent threat to Mecca. Ms. Yolany Gonell, Director of Diversity & Inclusion stood silent as Mr. Ahmed was making these vile statements during his lecture. Mr. Ahmed’s comments make a mockery of diversity and Inclusion.

Mr. Ahmed’s lecture was advertised as open to the public and all were welcome. I had my video camera set up to document the event when Stetson Public Safety Officer Sgt. Casey told me I could not film under threat of arrest.