Ariel Sharon has been taken to the hospital suffering from what first news reports call a stroke.
(I’ll be gone; someone else may want to replace this with more information as it happens – and commentary.)
Month: December 2005
Nantucket Nuance
The commotion over the proposal by Cape Wind Associates LLC to build an electricity-generating wind farm in Nantucket Sound has been a treat to watch. On one side is a private company willing to put its own money at risk to build an environmentally-friendly installation that could supply 3/4 of the electricity needs of Cape Code and the nearby islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. The proposal is supported by, among others, Greenpeace, the Conservation Law Foundation, and other environmental groups. It is opposed by, among others, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and other environmental groups. Green-on-green casualties and hard feelings have resulted.
Public angst
One feels rather sorry for European public intellectuals (a concept developed by the egregious Jürgen Habermas). It is so difficult to create a European idea, particularly if you do not want to discuss the one aspect of European history that may be said to have united that unruly Continent, at least ideologically: Christianity.
European history has few unifying factors and European countries have few interests in common, that they do not share with other countries as well. The European “idea”, such as it is, can be described vaguely as the idea of the West that has been spluttering since the Battle of Marathon. But the European Union wants to have a European idea that is all its own and has nothing to do with the West, defined by David Gress as “From Plato to Nato”.
Alas, in the rapidly approaching post-NATO world, the European public intellectuals as well as the European politicians are trying to define their idea in opposition to the rest of the West, in particular, in opposition to the United States. How that can possibly make Europe strong is anybody’s guess.
Morgan Freeman on Color
Tiger Woods isn’t the only celebrity to be tired of people trying to pigeonhole him in one race or another, or to even make a big stink about the color of his skin. Morgan Freeman recently spoke out, somewhat, on the manic obsession that our society makes of race and color:
“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” the 68-year-old actor says in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to air Sunday (7 p.m. EST). “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”
Black History Month has roots in historian Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week, which he designated in 1926 as the second week in February to mark the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Woodson said he hoped the week could one day be eliminated — when black history would become fundamental to American history.
Freeman notes there is no “white history month,” and says the only way to get rid of racism is to “stop talking about it.”
The actor says he believes the labels “black” and “white” are an obstacle to beating racism.
“I am going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,” Freeman says.
I guess now that blacks have been recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures, albeit in a rather contrived showing a couple years ago (which is not to say that Denzel Washington didn’t deserve the award), that’s just one less milestone to conquer. (By the way, doesn’t anybody think it’s rather nice, and rather interesting, that a black man got to go to space before one got an Oscar? I’ve been informed that Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field in 1963, twenty years before Guion “Guy” Bluford became the first African-American in space. The first black man in space was Cuban Colonel Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez aboard a Soviet mission in 1980.)
Without saying that racism is solved (which, so long as people are human, will never be definitively “solved”), I do believe that this is another step toward Dr. King’s dream that someday, people will be judged “not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.”
Still, while we’re using labels, can we please stop insisting calling blacks “African-Americans”, and insisting that folks like Charlize Theron cannot be called “African-American” simply because she’s white.
By the way, Mr. Freeman, for your words, and for your wonderful work in motion pictures, you are the man!
[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]
The McCain Amendment
With all the coverage about the McCain Amendment, has anyone bothered to read the text? The news media only describe it as outlawing torture. The actual bill outlaws “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” which is a good deal broader. In fact, here is how the bill defines it:
(d) CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT DEFINED.–In this section, the term ”cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.
Leaving aside the UN convention for the moment, the Eighth Amendment is enough to seriously hamper the treatment of terrorist prisoners. Domestic interpretations of the Eighth Amendment have led to the release of convicted prisoners and those held for bail because of overcrowded conditions. For example, the old Charles Street Jail in Boston was condemned and converted to private housing because of successful legal action citing the Eighth Amendment. Inadequate toilet facilities, insufficient access to mental and physical health treatment, and solitary confinement have been found to be violations of Eighth Amendment rights. Boston Review has a very good overview of Eighth Amendment issues by Joan Dayan. The McCain Amendment bestows the same rights on terror suspects held anywhere by the US. Also, by granting these rights with reference to the US Constitution, it will be impossible to exclude lawsuits by detainees from the US court system. Brace yourselves for a Ramsey Clark extravaganza.