Irish Travellers: More Hypocritical NY Times Irish Character Venom

Douglas Dalby, who's previously authored dubious stories about burying dead Irish babies in septic tanks and blaming Irish students killed in the US by faulty apartment construction for their own deaths,  adds Irish Traveller bigotry to his list of Irish character faults.

In a 10/30/2015 story about Irish Travellers he segues from minor difficulties in finding accommodations for fifteen Travellers, who lost their dwellings in a fire, to an indictment of Irish society for mistreating the Travellers.   Dalby blames the Irish as a group for a litany of Traveller problems including imprisonment for crime, alcoholism, disease and mortality rates, and claims deliberate exclusion of the minority group is the cause.   In doing so British Dalby ignores that being a Traveler is a voluntary choice and that there are no laws or social mores that force anyone to be a Traveler.   Genetically, the Traveller group is "typical of the larger Irish indigenous population." Being a Traveler isn't like being black in America.   Most of the Traveler's problems result from an itinerant life style choice that make access to health care, education and jobs problematic.  Moreover, generations of intermarriage within Traveler clans have led to a propensity for inherited diseases especially galactosaemia.

Although Traveller clans live in all of the British Isles and America and the itinerant population is far larger in Britain,  Mr. Dalby neglects to mention whether the Travellers fare any better outside the Irish Republic.   A recent American TV series, The Riches, with a strong British connection suggests suggests not.   The story is about a dysfunctional clan of Irish Traveller con artists and criminals living in America. The main characters were played by British actors Eddie Izzard adn Minnie Driver, without any compunction about their "black face" portrayals of a minority group that Mr. Dalby sees as very maligned.   The creator and writer of the series is Dmitry Lipkin a Russian-Jewish refugee.

Unlike Mr. Dalby, none of The Times coverage of The Riches expressed any discomfort with the "black face" Traveller portrayals as congenital con artists and criminals.  You might call this hypocrisy and you'd be very close to the mark.

Eddie Izzard’s Master Plan - Caryn James

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/arts/television/16jame.html

The Riches, Grifters in Sheeps’ Clothing

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/arts/television/08rich.html

Riches: For This Family of Pros, the Con Is Everything

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY  -  Published: March 12, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/television/12stan.html

*   *   *   *  *
The Times has 160 year history of venomous attacks on the Irish character:

No Irish Need Vote - NYC not an American City
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/10/ny-times-no-irish-need-vote-nyc-not.html
Stalking General Sherman
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/stalking-general-sherman.html
The New York Times and the Irish Character 
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-new-york-times-and-irish-character.htmlNew York City's Passion Play
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-york-citys-passion-play.html

Times Friends List: Eat Your Heart Out

Edna Lewis and the Black Roots of American Cooking

The chef and author made the case for black Southern cooking

as the foundation of our national cuisine.

African Americans invented pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, ice cream, hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, dim sum, fortune cookies, noodles, baked potatoes and TACOs.   Seriously?   Pass me the carne adovada please!  Leave it to the New York Times to casually insult and demean practically every ethnic group in America, especially the ones not on their "friends" list.   Eat your heart out Giada, Guy, Grandma Chicarello, Aunt Kathleen and Grandpa Albert, the Baker.  

NY Times Publishes Canard Alleging US WWII Bio-weapons Cover-up

Although the Soviet Union tried and convicted of war crimes twelve high ranking Japanese connected to bio-weapons Unit 731,  the New York Times published an article (10/21/2015) that blames the United States for letting war criminals go free and covering up their war crimes.  The article omits any mention that the Soviet Union took prisoner virtually all of Unit 731's personnel in 1945 and convicted twelve of them of war crimes in a public trial in 1949 that the New York Times itself requested to attend.   How could the United States possibly cover up a public war crimes trial that the New York Times knew about and wanted to cover, but was refused access to by Joseph Stalin.

Moreover, how guilty can Douglas MacArthur be for not prosecuting Unit 731 war criminals when the crime sites, evidence, surviving victims, witnesses and accused were virtually all in the hands of the Soviets and Red Chinese?   But, in fact MacArthur had tried over 5,000 Japanese war criminals, convicting most, including the person most responsible for Unit 731:  Hideki Tojo.

Increasingly the New York Times is becoming a venue for anti-American propaganda regurgitated uncritically from leftwing, former Soviet, and Red Chinese sources.

*   *   *   *   *

After a savage and costly campaign to defeat the Japanese in WWII, culminating with dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities,  the United States tried over 5,000 Japanese military and civilians for war crimes.   More than twice the number of Germans who were prosecuted for WWII war crimes.  Few were exonerated and over 900 Japanese were sentenced to death and executed, including Hideki Tojo, Japan's supreme wartime leader and onetime commander of the Kwangtung Army of Manchuria and its infamous bio-weapons Unit 731.

August 16 of 1945, the day after Japan surrendered, the Japanese Kwantung Army of Manchuria surrendered to the Red Army and over 500,000 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner by the Soviet Union.   Among those captured were the personnel, headquarters and facilities for the Japanese bio-weapons Unit 731, which was stationed and headquartered in Harbin, China.  When the Soviets withdrew from Harbin and China in 1946, they took all their Kwantung Army prisoners (500,000+) with them, including virtually all of the Unit 731 personnel and the Japanese bio-weapons technology.   When the Soviets withdrew from China they turned Manchuria, Harbin and the Kwantung Army's remaining weapons over to the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army.

In August of 1949, the Soviet Union held the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials convicting twelve Japanese for Unit 731 war crimes.

Several Western and Japanese papers, among them The New York Times and the Asahi Shimbun, sought permission to send reporters to Khabarovsk, Permyakov said. But Stalin, perhaps still stung by coverage of the 1938 show trials, refused. It is a pity. Soviet newspapers, fueled by Stalinist xenophobia and communist contempt for the people, dehumanized the defendants and condescended to their readers. Reporters in a totalitarian state [which had also committed heinous war crimes] were ill-suited to consider the moral riddle of what impels men in uniform to commit mass murder and then return home to their families believing their work was good and necessary.

Japan Times -- http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/

Unit 731 Personnel convicted of war crimes at the Soviet Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials:

• 25 years imprisonment
  • Gen. Otozō Yamada, former Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army
  • Lt. Gen. Kajitsuka Ryuji, former Chief of Medical Administration
  • Lt. Gen. Takahashi Takaatsu, former Chief of Veterinary Service
  • Maj. Gen. Kawashima Kiyoshi, former Chief of Unit 731

• 20 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Gen. Sato Shunji, former Chief of Medical Service, 5th Army
  • Lt. Col. Nishi Toshihide, former chief of a division of Unit 731

• 18 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Karasawa Tomio, former chief of a section of Unit 731

• 15 years imprisonment
  • Sr. Sgt. Mitomo Kazuo, former member of Unit 100

• 12 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Onoue Masao, former chief of a branch of Unit 731

• 10 years imprisonment
  • Lt. Hirazakura Zensaku, former researcher of Unit 100

• 3 years imprisonment
  • Kurushima Yuji, former lab orderly of Branch 162 of Unit 731

• 2 years imprisonment
  • Cpl. Kikuchi Norimitsu, former medical orderly of Branch 643 of Unit 731

Guns and Hitler

In addressing Ben Carson's Holocaust gun canard, Alan Steinweis is somewhat ahistorical himself when he limits the origins of the Nazi dictatorship to "the authoritarian legacy of the German Empire, the inability to cope with defeat in World War I and failure to achieve political compromise during the Wiemar Republic."   In fact a large and aggressive armed German leftwing movement had much to do with the rise and ultimate triumph of the Nazis.  The German populace was heavily armed immediately after WWI, in part as a result of soldiers taking weapons home with them when the German army collapsed.  Armed uprisings in Germany and Bavaria against what the left viewed as oppressive regimes legitimatized for many Germans the existence of armed rightwing militias, Freikorps,  that put down the leftist rebellions.  These rightwing militias became the shock troops who brought Hitler to power. Gun ownership did not stop Hitler's rise or place a roadblock on the road to the Holocaust.

Similarly armed leftwing revolt and resistance in Austria and Hungary could not prevent rightwing authoritarian regimes from taking power.  Notably in Spain, even the infusion of Soviet arms could not keep the rightwing "loyalists" from overthrowing the leftwing government.

Insanity: Red China Building US Railroad

If you're looking for the definition of insanity this is it.

A privately held US casino building company is partnering with a state-owned Red Chinese company to build a high-speed railroad between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.   What could possibly be wrong with this.

1.  Red China is conducting an undeclared war in the South and East China Seas to grab territory from longtime US friends and allies Japan and the Philippines.  Someone needs to stand up to these people and tell them that it's not going to be business as usual as long as they're the aggressor in East Asia.

1.1 Red China threatening reprisals if South Korean installs a missile defense system to defend against Red China's client state North Korea's nuclear sabre rattling.

2.  Red China's idea of bilateral trade with its best customer, the United States, is: "heads we win; tails you lose."   Red China gets to sell all the subsidized products, including steel, it wants in the US while US access to Red China's markets is highly restricted.

3.  The US needs to fix its aging infrastructure, especially to give its economy a boost. but sourcing all the technology, including the railroad engines and trains, and engineering from Red China isn't going to help much.  It's just going to add to the huge trade deficit and bill we owe Red China.

4.  The company organizing the high-speed railroad wants a $6 billion loan from the US government.  In effect, the federal government will end up subsidizing more of its trade deficit with Red China.   Moreover, it is doubtful the train service will be economically viable.   It's really a high speed rail service from Las Vegas to Victorville, California, a couple of hours drive from Los Angeles.   When the railroad goes bankrupt and the loan isn't repaid, the US taxpayer will end up holding the bag and the bill.

5.  Why should the US taxpayer subsidize a Red Chinese construction project?   Never mind the federal loan and other outright federal subsidies that may or may not happen.   The railroad can't be built without using the interstate highway right of way between Victorville and Las Vegas.   A private company using a Red Chinese railroad building contractor needs to pay full market prices for any right of way originally paid for by US taxpayers.   Big, big bucks in today's dollars.

6. After this money loser gets built, they want build a high-speed line from Las Vegas to Phoenix, and lose even more money.   But why should they care.  In the end they'll declare bankruptcy and the US taxpayer will be stuck with the bill.

Wrong.  So very, very wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XpressWest

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/10/17/california-rail-china

Times distortion creates false equivalence between Catholic and Muslim cultures

Marriage for Catholics is a sacrament of mutual, voluntary consent.  In the Catholic sacrament of marriage,  the ministers of the sacrament are the spouses themselves.  This is why the allegation appearing in the New York Times of force Catholic marriages is problematic.   

"The survey found child marriage or forced marriage, or both, in families of many faiths, including Muslim, Christian (particularly Catholic), Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/opinion/americas-child-marriage-problem.html

In fact, beyond the fundamental problem of alleging a child can be forcibly married in the Catholic Church, the Times article distorted the language in the cited survey to imply an equivalence between the scope of the problem in the Muslim culture and that of Catholics. 

"Forced marriage also affects people of many different faiths. The majority of respondents who provided information on religious background said they encountered forced marriage victims from Muslim religious backgrounds, but also encountered victims from Christian (particularly Catholic), Hindu, and Buddhist religious backgrounds, among others."

--- Tahirih Justice Center survey

  

NY Times Latest Cover-up

http://www.catholicleague.org/new-york-times-remains-defiant-on-serra/
Here's the latest dust up between The New York Times and the hyperbolic Bill Donohue of the Catholic League over allegations that reporter Laura Holson defamed recently sainted Roman Catholic priest Junipero Serra.   You would think that The Times representative would defuse this with an apology or put Donohue in his place by providing a citation and quote backing up Holson's claim that Serra ordered the torturing of Native Americans.   Instead The Times standards editor Gregory Brock gave a non-answer answer.   Typically in the world of professional skepticism this means that Brock is covering up for Holson whose anonymous source probably doesn't exist.

Strapped

Crime is down according to Charles Blow of the NY Times?   Down from what?   There's a shooting in the news every day in Phoenix and  Phoenix doesn't even rank up there with America's worst combat zones:  Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore.

Do people at The Times think it's a good thing that I can take my kids to a fast food restaurant and run into a "gangsta" with a gun tucked into his waistband.   Living in the country and having a  .22 for hunting is a whole lot different than walking around city streets "strapped" to intimidate potential enemies.   Hell, "strapped"  wasn't part of my vocabulary when I was 17, but it's part of my son's.   Things are getting better?

Take the police off the liberals list and give them the authority to disarm the mentally ill,  criminals and knucklehead kids who think they need to walk around "strapped."

Replace the police on the enemies list with "entertainment" people who glorify young men walking around "strapped."

Education in Black and White

The NY Times Sept 22 story about a controversial rezoning of New York City public schools notes:

"Research has found that minority students who attend integrated schools perform better academically and go on to earn higher incomes and have better health than minority students who attend segregated schools."

My children attend an integrated public school, so let me shed some light on this.  It doesn't come as any surprise to me that minority children to better in classes with white kids.   My son who started to shine academically has been spending hours and hours helping his friends with their homework.    My daughter who's still in middle school was recently drafted to tutor other students in math after school.  

There's no magic formula explaining why my children are in a position to do this.  My wife and I tutor them and every summer our children go to summer school to brush up on their math and science.

We consider it a bless having that our children go school with children from different backgrounds and cultures.   Is it necessary for black children to go school with white children to succeed academically?   No.  What all children need is enough teachers around to help children who need help with their assignments.    We also need a longer school year so that every child can benefit from the extra opportunities that my children have.  

These are far from the only improvements to education we need to make, but they're a good start.