RUTHFULLY YOURS

Dear Reader (particularly those of you who will buy me a drink on the Lido Deck next week),

In Men in Dark Times Hannah Arendt says, “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it . . . it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are.”

This, naturally, brings to mind that great episode of the Brady Bunch “Adios, Johnny Bravo.” This YouTube video summarizes the tale expertly, but since you might be at work and are reluctant to get caught watching Brady Bunch videos (again) at the office, I will summarize. Greg Brady, scion of House Brady, is offered a contract from a record label. At first he is reluctant to sign on because he’s a loyal member of his family band. But the record producers convince him that he owes it to himself to be all he can be. They want him to become the new smash-hit sensation “Johnny Bravo.”

The role of Johnny Bravo comes complete with a sensational matador-themed costume and a rented gaggle of winsome young ladies ready to tear it off on command (very much like the job of senior editor here at National Review). The producers promise that he won’t simply be in the Top 20, he’ll be the Top 20. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride,” they tell him. It would be a tempting offer for any young man.

After much soul-searching, Greg agrees to become Johnny Bravo. That is, until he finds out that the producers don’t much care about his musical talent. Through the wizardry of music production — long before the advent of AutoTune — they twist his vocal stylings to what the market wants, not what Greg’s muse has on offer. “That’s not the way I sound!” Greg protests.

The producer retorts, “You? Now c’mon baby, don’t get caught up on an ego trip. I mean who cares how you sound? We’re after the sound.”

If you don’t care about my sound, what do you need me for? Greg asks.

“Because you fit the suit,” another producer responds.

Putting the O in BravO
Forgive me for committing the error of defining my meaning. But Barack Obama fits the suit.

I recently found a 1984 edition of Comprehensive English by Harold Levine. An Amsco publication, it was meant to “help students pass the New York State Comprehensive Examination with distinction.” At the time, the examination contained a listening test, a reading comprehension test, the literature test, and the composition test.

I have serious doubts as to whether my current crop of college students could pass this examination In the course of teaching, one develops some theories about classroom discipline and the ability to reach students. My “theory of threes” used to mean that if there were three troublesome students in a class – i.e., class clown, disruptive individual, pupil outwardly resistant to reasonable demands – it was going to be a rough class to teach. Thus, creative strategies were devised to reach those three without adversely affecting the other students, who were eager to learn and who expected the teacher to control a class and teach.

Things have changed radically. If I have three students in a class who are eager to apply critical thinking skills, I consider it a lucky break. What more instructors are faced with is a classroom of bored students who would rather stare into space than actually tackle the lesson at hand. And remember that for financial aid purposes, “D” and “D-” are passing grades.

I have had to pepper the blackboard with “Ban Mental Lethargy” just to get their attention. But then again, they do not know what lethargy means, even though their ever ready cell phones have a dictionary function.

The last time that I asked if students were attending school because of a love for learning, I was greeted with undisguised guffaws.

In an effort to maintain class size, one school is pushing students to “earn bucks just by enrolling in weekend classes.” Thus, a student can “earn $50 per credit for Friday classes that start after 3:30 p.m. and for Saturday classes that start before noon.” For “Saturday classes that start after noon, one can earn $100 per credit.” These bucks can then be used at the university bookstore and the campus food outlets, including Starbucks.

Each semester becomes more dispiriting than the previous one. At one school, the readings center on the topic of marriage. Mostly concerned with the breakdown of traditional marriage and the upswing in gay marriage, there is little that promotes marriage and its concomitant joys. Thus, in an (unedited) recent piece, one student wrote:

In my culture legal marriage does not happen that much. Once the woman becomes pregnant then she is supposed to go live with her boyfriend and live together as if they were married. There are a few couples who do get legally married. I believe a couple should be legally married if they are already living together and in love. Why not? Isn’t this the goal when starting a relationship?

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker on his brawls with public unions and the key to conservative governance in a state with populist liberal traditions.

‘Wow. First off, I want to thank God for his abundant grace and mercy. Win or lose, it is more than sufficient for each and every one of us,” Scott Walker said, taking the podium on Tuesday night at the Wisconsin state fair grounds after being re-re-elected for governor. It was a curious register, given that Mr. Walker’s religious faith, even though his father was a pastor, has never seemed central to his economic and political identity. But then maybe the intervention of a higher power is as good an explanation as any for the commanding victory that unions and liberals went all-out to prevent.

Mr. Walker suggests a more secular reading: “People actually saw, they saw with their own eyes,” he says. “Once they got past the myths and the half-truths and sometimes the outright falsehoods, they could see in their own families, in their own homes, they could see in their own workplaces and towns and cities and villages and counties that life was better.” In a word, despite the political convulsions of his first term, his reforms worked, and voters rewarded him for the results.

In a wide-ranging phone interview from Madison on Thursday night, Mr. Walker sounded exhausted but joyful after his third statewide election since 2010. The governor laid out how he thinks center-right reformers can succeed among Democratic-leaning bodies politic—Wisconsin hasn’t broken for a Republican presidential candidate since 1984, when he was in high school—and why he doesn’t think the same trend is inexorable in like-minded states in 2016.

The race Mr. Walker won this week was close-run and became a referendum on his first term. His opponent, Mary Burke, a former executive of Trek Bicycle Corp., ran as a not-Walker. The governor calls her “almost the bionic candidate,” in the sense that her intelligence, business experience, gender and noncommittal up-the-middle platform were focus-group-tested as the perfect foil for his agenda and his track record of the past few years.

In June 2012, Mr. Walker became the only governor in American history to survive a recall election—initiated to reverse his enormously controversial 2011 budget-repair bill, Act 10, which limited the collective-bargaining powers of public-employee unions, as well as automatic dues collection and health and pension benefits. Big Labor and national Democrats returned this year to avenge their loss, though the irony was that Ms. Burke declined to relitigate Act 10 or even take a coherent position. The election turned on competing accounts of economic progress under Mr. Walker, such as job creation and rising household incomes.

David Rubin is former mayor of Shiloh, Israel. He is founder and president of Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund and the author of several books, including Peace for Peace and The Islamic Tsunami.

In June of 1967, at the climax of the Six Day War, Israel’s paratroops commander Motta Gur, somewhat out of character, emotionally announced the words that still resonate to this day, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” Shortly thereafter, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, fearing the potential Islamic and international outcry, shamefully robbed Israel of at least part of its great victory, by handing over the keys of the holiest place in Judaism to the Muslim Wakf of Jordan.

For those who are unaware, this holy site is the plateau on which the two Temples of Israel had stood for hundreds of years. Below it, at its western retaining wall, Jews had shed bitter tears for centuries. For that reason, it was known to many as the Wailing Wall. Since that miraculous week in 1967, when all of eastern Jerusalem fell back into Israel’s hands, it is known to all as the Western Wall. Now that Jerusalem had been liberated, there was no more need to cry.

Despite the fact that the Western Wall has become somewhat of a shrine for the Jewish people and all visitors from around the world, the Temple Mount above it has remained the ultimate symbol of Israel’s former unified sovereign kingdom, with its capital in Jerusalem.

In recent weeks, we have witnessed massive rioting and violent vandalism by Muslims in Jerusalem, coupled with a spate of terror attacks, including the killing of a young baby and others, as well as the very symbolic murder attempt on Yehudah Glick, whose only “crime” was his public activism on behalf of the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Israel’s political leadership quickly responded to that blatant act of targeted terrorism by temporarily closing the Temple Mount to all, an act of pathetic political weakness that encouraged the Arab nations, including the British-appointed illegal country on the other side of the Jordan River, to cry foul, complaining that no Muslim prayer rights should be restricted, even though Jews have not been allowed to pray on the Mount since its liberation forty-seven years ago.

Given this background, it is actually quite shocking that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has responded to the subsequent Jordanian threats by promising King Abdullah that Israel will protect the status quo on the Mount. Such a feckless arrangement panders to the Muslim threats and encourages more violence, riots, and terrorism on Israel’s citizens. Sadly, and despite his tough image outside of Israel, Netanyahu has been known to often cringe under pressure, quickly caving in when the nations of the world launch their unfair attacks on Israel’s sovereignty.

Hamas announced the creation of a “popular army” in Gaza on Friday, AFP reports, saying it was ready for any future conflict with Israel, particularly over the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

At a ceremony at the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza, a spokesman for Hamas’s “military wing”, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said 2,500 recruits would form “the first section of the popular army for the liberation of Al-Aqsa and of Palestine”.

Mohammed Abu Askar, a Hamas official, said those older than 20 could sign up “to be prepared for any confrontation” with Israel.

Abu Askar said the new force had been established “at a moment when the Al-Aqsa mosque is subject to serious Israeli violations”.

Another Al-Qassam spokesman said “the people, arms and the tunnels are going well”, in reference to Hamas’s network of underground passages, hundreds of which have been destroyed by Israel and Egypt to prevent arms smuggling.

The new “popular army” and the Hamas threats come amid continuing tensions in Jerusalem in general and particularly on the Temple Mount, fueled by Arab riots in the capital.

Violent Arab rioting on the Temple Mount on Wednesday forced police to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque as rioters barricaded themselves inside.

Nevertheless, it is Israel that has been blamed for the violence, with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas warning Jews against ascending the Temple Mount and claiming that the “break-ins by the settlers and Jewish extremists” to the Al-Aqsa ,osque are a violation of Muslim feelings.

More than 1,000 young people from France have joined extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, more than from any other European country. The recruits are no longer just coming from the margins of society.

Sometimes Séverine Mehault climbs the stairs to the second floor for no reason at all. She walks along the hallway, past her son’s room and into her daughter’s bedroom. Then the 40-year-old lies down on the bed, next to a white stuffed bunny, and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to understand why only one of her two daughters, 15-year-old Kenza, is still there — and why Sahra has abandoned her.

Not much of Sahra is left in the room: her stuffed rabbit, a Koran in translation, a prayer book and a guide to the correct methods of bathing for Islamic women. The guide is a worn, pink brochure with small illustrations. Chapter 3 is titled: Instructions for Cleaning Your Ears.

There’s a dish containing red nail polish, mascara and lip gloss, but Sahra hasn’t worn makeup in almost two years. After turning 15 at the time, she converted to Islam.

She left France on March 11, 2014 to joint the jihadists in Syria. The family doesn’t know where she is exactly, or which terrorist group she has joined.

Her father drove her to the train station in Narbonne on that March day, as he did every day, when she would take the train to school in the nearby city of Carcassonne in southwestern France. A surveillance camera image shows Sahra, 17, standing on the platform in Narbonne, at 7:44 a.m. She is wearing white jeans, white sneakers and a black headscarf, and she is carrying two shoulder bags. The last image of Sahra on French soil, also taken with a surveillance camera, shows her at the airport in Marseille. She took an afternoon flight to Istanbul, and the next day she continued to Antakya on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Leftist Hollywood blows hot and cold when depicting a post-apocalyptic world.

Hollywood: Snowshoes vs. Hockey Sticks

My last few columns about Hollywood, such as, “The Death of Adult Movies” and “Hollywood: Sharia-Compliant,” tackled the politically correct mindset that has produced movies not targeted to adults but to undeveloped and/or brainwashed minds (many of them adult), or are bloviating leftist propaganda vehicles in the “entertainment” media. This is particularly true when it comes to the subjects of Islam (never deprecate Islam, or show a Muslim in a bad light), capitalism (capitalists are snarky bad guys who smoke and leer at photogenic women), and environmentalist propaganda and how to dramatize the effects of “global warming” or nuclear war or man as an unnatural and destructive occupant of earth.

What are reviewed this turn around the block are some post-apocalyptic stories.

There is only one non-apocalyptic movie discussed here, Radio Free Albemuth, and I include it because it is too bizarre to pass up. The others are very post-apocalyptic, with a vengeance. Oddly, only one conforms to the “man-caused global warming” party line, Terra Nova. The others beat their CGI-mesmerized audiences over the head, not with hockey sticks, but with snowshoes.

Someone might object: But we already know that Hollywood is in the Left’s pocket, and has been for decades. Why beat a dead horse?

Well, the horse isn’t quite dead; it can still bite if you look too closely in its mouth. You have no idea of the sheer volume of rubbish that’s produced by the Left and finds its way to Netflix or Amazon Video from mainstream television and the theater chains without a peep of publicity, or any ballyhoo or promotional push in the New York Times or Washington Post, Variety, or Hollywood Reporter.

“Death is in the nature of mining.” — Turkey’s then-Prime Minister, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Why is death not in the nature of French, British or Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?” — Kemal Kilicdaroglu, opposition leader, Social Democrat Party.

“Whenever we attempt to close a mine the employer brings 50 well-connected people to lobby against the closure.” — Faruk Celik, Labor Minister.

“And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds,” wrote the ancient Greek epic poet Homer in “Iliad.” Nearly three millennia later, in Turkey “they do not quite die an equal death.”

After 30 coal miners died in a May 2010 accident in Karadon, northern Turkey, then Prime Minister (now president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to Islamist fatalism to wave off criticism of what was an obvious administrative negligence: “Death is in the nature of mining.”

Earlier this week, the main opposition party leader, Social Democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu asked Erdogan a legitimate question: “Why is death not in the nature of French, British and Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?” — a question not likely to be answered by any government politician.

Last March, Kilicdaroglu’s party submitted a parliamentary motion to investigate alleged failings of safety standards at a coal mine in Soma in western Turkey. Erdogan’s men voted to reject it. In May, the same coal mine exploded, killing more than 300 miners — and putting the death toll from mining accidents in Turkey at around 3,000 since the Republic was established in 1923. By then Turkish mines were six times more dangerous than even the Chinese.

Smaller accidents after Soma at mines and construction sites have killed dozens more workers. In one particular case, revealing governmental protection for the potentially guilty, twelve Labor Ministry inspectors, who had given a “perfect score” to the Soma mine shortly before the accident, were preliminarily indicted, but the ministry refused to give permission for legal proceedings. (In Turkey, a government official cannot be prosecuted for negligence of duty without ministerial approval.)

In my piece I noted that the day after Election Day President Obama conducted a news conference during which he barely acknowledged that the Democratic Party got trounced in both houses of the United States Congress and even in many gubernatorial elections around the United Staes.

Prior to Election Day he said that although he was not on the ballot his policies would be. After Election Day when asked at that news conference about what the implications of the elections were he said that he did not read the political tea leaves but would leave that up to the pundits.

What was extremely disturbing is that he said that he would take executive action to address immigration and that Congress could get him to cancel his executive actions by passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform. He is clearly seeking to “strong-arm” Congress into submission. This is hardly consistent with what is required by the Constitution of the United States. As I have noted repeatedly, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would undermine national security, public safety and public health and have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy and unemployment.

Failures to secure our borders to prevent the entry of terrorists flies in the face of the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Furthermore, it must be understood that our nation has 50 “border states”- any state that has an international airport or access to the tens of thousands of miles of meandering coastline or lies along the northern as well as the southern borders of the United States are all “border states.”

Failures to combat fraud in the visa process and in adjudication of applications for immigration benefits also violate the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

What is incomprehensible is that not one politician who expresses concerns about the threat of terrorism will even make a passing reference to the 9/11 Commission Report or to the companion document, the The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel.

Once more, Gaza is under attack.Now the World Fiddles as Gaza Cries By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn

Gazans are being evicted from their homes, a curfew has been imposed, and a crossing that enables Gazans to leave has been closed. Yet the world is silent. Strange, is it not?

Hundreds of residents along one of Gaza’s borders have suddenly been ordered to evacuate, on just two days’ notice. Their homes are to be demolished. There is no talk of compensation. Why isn’t the United Nations Security Council denouncing this outrage?

Because it is the Egyptian government, and not Israel’s, that is doing the evicting. See The New York Times, Oct. 28 edition.

The Egyptians have decided they need a buffer zone along their border with Gaza. They don’t trust the Hamas regime, which they say has been assisting terrorists who have been attacking Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. Apparently Cairo does not accept the Obama Administration scripted fiction that the new Hamas-PA government is run by “technocrats.” Egypt understands that a Hamas-appointed “technocrat” is, first and foremost, a functionary of Hamas.

Of course, the Egyptians could establish their buffer zone along their own side of the border, without evicting anyone. But why should they yield their own territory when it is Hamas creating the menace? So they are kicking out Gazans who reside along the border, and setting up a buffer zone that will be nine miles long, and with water-filled trenches that will be more than 500 yards wide — that’s half a kilometer, or five football fields.

Yet nary a word of protest from the White House, nor any suggestion of delaying any U.S. arms deliveries to Egypt.

That’s not all. In response to the recent attacks in Sinai, the Egyptians have imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew all along the Egypt-Gaza border. In other words, no resident of that part of Gaza can leave his or her home after dark, for any reason.