Charles Blow and NY Times Hate America

Instead of blaming ISIS and ISIS followers for terrorist attacks, Blow blames America.  How bizarre and twisted is that.

6/4/1942: How the Japanese Lost WW 2

Late in the morning of June 4, 1942, a high-tech Dauntless SBD dive bomber launched from the U.S.S. Enterprise slipped through the Japanese fleet anti-air defenses and, stabilized by its innovative dive brakes, dropped a 500-pound high-explosive bomb in the middle of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier Kaga’s flight deck.   Dozens more SBDs followed and scored more direct hits with 500 and 1000 pound bombs, sending the entire Japanese carrier force to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean: Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu and Akagi.   Within a matter of minutes at Midway in the remote Central Pacific, the course of World War 2 had been decisively changed.

The Japanese mismanagement of their Midway campaign provides an important lesson for people who run businesses and governments.  Focus and scope management are critical to success.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese had twelve months to win WW 2 or at least entrench themselves strongly enough to force a stalemate.  The United States was in the midst of a massive rearmament program started in the late 1930s and by early 1943 a dozen plus Essex-class super aircraft carriers would enter the fight in the Pacific.  The Japanese were aware of this and knew they needed to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its five older aircraft carriers in 1942.  After this, they would be able to occupy the Hawaiian Islands and use land-based aircraft to neutralize the Essex aircraft carriers.   The Japanese planned to lure the U.S. Navy into battle at Midway, threatening the Hawaiian Islands, and destroy the U.S. Navy's operational aircraft carriers.

"For want of a nail... the battle was lost."  The Japanese didn't just throw away a nail for the battle horse's shoe.  They threw away whole boatloads.  Despite knowing that victory at Midway was imperative to win the war, the Japanese filled the six months after Pearl Harbor with big and small initiatives that wasted boatloads or resources before the battle. 

By the time the Japanese fleet arrived off Midway, they had diverted and lost so many resources that the Americans, who were throwing everything into the battle, had almost 140 more aircraft at Midway Island and on its aircraft carriers than the Japanese fleet.  

Instead of waiting until they'd located the American aircraft carriers, the Japanese immediately attacked Midway and began losing more aircraft, and most of these were attack aircraft belonging to the one aircraft carrier what survived the first fatal American dive bomber attacks.  The Japanese, still not focused on their primary object, the destruction of the American fleet, decided to attack Midway again and their carrier decks became a confusion of rearming for a naval battle when the American aircraft carriers were finally discovered.  The lost minutes and lost and missing aircraft were fatal.  "For want of a nail...."

This is a lesson for all businesses and governments.  Know and focus on the objectives that make your business successful.   Manage scope.  Be absolutely ruthless, RUTHLESS, in saying NO to any initiatives that distract from achieving the organization's objectives.  (you'll never be as ruthless as Admiral Raymond Spruance was when he launched the 117 plane raid against the Japanese fleet knowing that half of the American pilots would never return and hoping that thousands of Japanese would end up dead).

America hasn't managed scope successfully.   For generations we have been haunted by the legacy of slavery and many of our best efforts to fix slavery's problems have been diverted into other initiates.   Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity have become the solution for every problem.   We have softball teams for all the girls while most of the young black men who'd like to play get cut from the high school basketball team.   While black children are gunned down by the score in the streets of Chicago, our government starts arguments over the census and transgender bathrooms.

Focus and be RUTHLESS.

John Birch, Steve Benson and Hiroshima

Is it really a surprise that Steve Benson pushes the idea that we need to apologize for Hiroshima.  Steve's privileged family were enamored with the isolationist John Birch Society, which believed China would be better off ruled by the Japanese, never mind the 20,000,000 dead and counting in 1945 killed by Japan's 3,000,000 strong and undefeated army of occupation.  Steve's privileged family never had to worry about fighting at Iwo Jima and the prospect of continuing the fight on the beaches of Kyushu where the invasion of Japan would start.   When the A-bomb was dropped, my dad was in training to be in the vanguard of the Japan invasion.   My father-in-law was leaving Iwo Jima for the next round.  My Uncle Rob Regan was already preparing the way for the invasion.   How many more of these did Steve want:  photo of Lt. Regan's attack on Japanese cruiser at Kure, Japan, late 1945.

The Irony of Hypocrisy

Steve Benson, the Republic's cartoonist, recently dressed up presidential hopeful Ted Cruz as Senator Joe McCarthy, the 1950s political operative notorious for recklessly accusing people of being communists.  I wonder if "progressives" like Mr. Benson, who accuse people of being a Hitler or McCarthy, realize the irony of their accusations.  Or is a better word for it hypocrisy.

Obama's Biggest Mistake

"Headmasters should be above the menial tasks.  They should keep their minds clear for policy and leadership."

-- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carre

Muslims Fight Hitler's Marxist Allies... in Spain

Michael Kazin's review of Spain in Our Hearts, a book about the Spanish Civil War, neglects to mention the largest contingent fighting against the Americans enlisted in what Kazin describes as the "Communist-led International Brigades."   Muslim Berber troops from Spanish Morocco were the most significant contingent fighting the Communist-led forces.  Without these troops Franco's rebellion against the Spanish Republican would have died an early death, if it had been born at all.  Many of the Berber troops may have been just poor boys who needed a job, but the ferocity of these combatants suggest that most of the Muslims, like Spain's Catholics, saw themselves fighting Godless Communism.

Profession Kazin's most egregious oversight, however, is when he remarks "The [Spanish] Republic’s defeat, the historical wisdom goes, helped give Hitler the confidence to invade Poland that summer."

In fact!  Hitler got his confidence to invade Poland when he signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop "non-aggression" pact in August of 1939. This was an alliance between Hitler and Stalin to invade and divide Poland between them. The great irony of the America's Abraham Lincoln Brigade veterans was that they longed for America to come to their aid in the Spanish Civil War. After Stalin allied with Hitler, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade veterans stayed aligned with the Soviet Union and opposed aid to England and American intervention in World War II, right up until Hitler turned on his ally and invaded the Soviet Union in September of 1941.   

The following is the statement issued by the New York Post, Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and signed by Fred Keller, Commander of the post. The posts in other cities, and every individual vet, are urged to give this statement or similar ones the widest possible circulation, so that our view of the war will become clear to our thousands of friends.  "We, the members of the New York Post of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who fought in the International Brigades in Spain for democracy against Fascism feel that the present European war is not an anti-fascist war but an imperialist war, and that as long as it remains so we not only will not take part in it, but we will emphatically oppose our country's entering it or giving assistance to either side." 

"Today the same press which falsified the character of the Spanish war is printing reams of Chamberlains propaganda in which the British Prime Minister attempts to hide his real aims under the guise that he is waging a war for democracy against fascism and for Polish independence. At the same time he misrepresents the true intent and service of the Soviet Union." 

"We therefore support the foreign policy of the U.S.S.R., which has consistently led and  aided the cause of peace and of truly democratic peoples throughout the world, and  which uses its powerful economy and armed force for the oppressed and attacked peoples of all the world." 

-- The Volunteer for Liberty, Organ of The Veterans for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, October, 1939

The ALB was joined in its opposition to American involvement in WWII by the Daily Worker, the Morgen Freiheit, and the Almanac Singers, led by Pete Seeger and Millard Lampell, whose song "Plow Under" [every fourth American boy] opposed conscription to mobilize America for war.  

Demagoguery at the Arizona Republic

"Perhaps we [America] should moderate our enthusiasm for insisting that other people [non-visa immigrants] do things the 'right way' until we [Americans] have a little more experience doing things the right way ourselves."

-- Sharon Kha, AZ Republic, 3/9/2016 

Apparently, Ms. Kha, among other things, believes American intervention in WWII to save Europe and Asia from Hitler and Tojo was a mistake.

There really needs to be a Pulitzer Prize for being able to use false equivalence, anachronism and non-sequitur in one newspaper column.   It's frightening to thing that Ms. Kha was once allowed to teach in a US high school and represent the University of Arizona. 

Somehow slavery and the American Revolution are sins, according to Kha, that delegitimize any interest in enforcement of America's immigration laws.  This is probably the first time I've seen the American Revolution listed as one of America's sins, but Ms. Kha being an ex-patriate Canadian, it's understandable.   Canada's sovereign is still Queen Elizabeth II of England.   The vestiges of the tyranny and oppression America confronted in 1776 still preclude Catholics for being the Canadian Monarch (or Queen of England).  Maybe America should be more like Canada and have a monarch?

Is it dissembling or disingenuous for Ms. Kha to neglect to mention that America inherited slavery from the British.  And that because cotton commerce with Britain made industrial slavery hugely profitable, America had to fight a war to end slavery and amend its Constitution to guarantee birthright citizenship.  Help me with the wording, I'm just a poor bean counter.  

Instead of demagoguery (non-sequitur, false equivalence and anachronism), Ms. Kha should have admitted that America does a lot right.  For example, there are more immigrants living in America today than ever before thanks to our generous and laxly enforced immigration laws.    Every year a million plus more immigrants are added to the 40 million immigrants already living in the US.

America can't save the world.  It might be possible to save Mexico and Central America.  We're not going to figure how without agreeing on what's possible.   That's impossible when demagogues on the left, like Kha, and right, Trump, drown out reasonable voices with their "no-borders" and "build-a-fence" diatribes.

The Morning After

The morning after, USA Today reveals that Spotlight, a movie about the Catholic Church and sex abuse, is America’s least favorite movie… by a wide margin.   The night before, accompanied by their half-naked consorts, Hollywood’s purveyors of gratuitous sex and violence, declared Spotlight their best movie of 2015.   In 2002, the same crowd voted convicted child-rapist Roman Polanski their best director, giving him a standing ovation.  Polanski could not accept the award in person because he would be arrested if he set foot in the United States.   The irony of it all.

When Dialogue is a Code Word for Denunciation

Of course the New York Times wouldn't publish this letter:

I agree with Tito Jackson, Boston city councilor, who remarked on racial tension at Boston Latin:  “I don’t think that we’ve had the watershed conversation that we need to have on this topic and this issue.” (NYT 1/30/15)  I remember very vividly being invited to a meeting on racial issues at Holy Cross College a few years before the busing crisis exploded [in the 1970s].   I was barely able to get a word in edgewise.  I was confronted by a young black man accompanied by the now prominent Ted Wells who instantly launched into a diatribe about what my ancestors had done to his ancestors.  This was bewildering.  My young black friends didn't know my ancestors.  My mother's family were recent immigrants from Ireland where her uncle had spent several years in a British prison for being an Irish nationalist.   Their mortal enemies were black all right:   the Black and Tans British paramilitary police.   On my father's side of the family they were very proud of their association with the Wagners, claiming that grandpa had helped persuade Bob senior to run for the United States Senate.   Recall that Bob Wagner was the valued friend of the NAACP's Walter White who had fought valiantly, though unsuccessfully, on White's behalf to enact a federal anti-Lynching law.   Perhaps if we had a conversation on race where all sides were willing to listen to each other instead of shout insults, we might at long last have a productive discussion on race.

Finn McCool and Spain's Red Captain:

Since I was once an Irish cowboy, I was intrigued by the Arizona Republic's "A True West Moment" (1/24/16), which claimed the first cowboys were "ginger Hibernians riding around on Celtic saddles."  Although 10 percent of the Irish allegedly have red hair, the only red hair in my family belongs to my wife and hers is inherited from a Spanish ancestor.   What's a Celtic saddle?  The legendary Irish hero Finn McCool, defender of the cattle, and ancient Celts rode bareback or with a pad to protect their horses.   In service of Rome, Celtic cavalry began to use what we'd recognize as saddles, but the Chinese invented the stirrup and that piece didn't arrive in Europe until around the 6th century after Christ.   Cattle and the saddle arrived in America with Cortez.   After the Spanish ranches spread north to Sonora,  Tucson was founded by the Spanish General Hugo Oconor, known to the Apache as "The Red Captain."  Oconor (aka Hugh O'Conor) was an Irishman in the service of Spain, and he built fort Tucson to stop the Apache from raiding cattle ranches in Sonora.  Celtic Ireland and Romano-Celtic Spain reunited in Arizona, in defense of their shared cattle culture.

Targeting Latino Christians

The Arizona Republic's editorial (1/15) on Latin American immigrants does not raise the question of why Latino Christian refugees are being treated differently than Syrian refugees.   Our government welcomes Syrian refugees even as it deports Latinos.  Moreover, the editorial fails to address this  issue in its context.   America, more than any country, has been very welcoming to immigrants and refugees from all over the world, to the tune of at least a million a year (the most intellectually corrupt aspect of the immigration debate is the failure to acknowledge the immense number of immigrants America welcomes every year).  Enforcement of U.S. laws against illegal immigration are in fact quite lax, especially in the area of visa fraud committed by Asians, Europeans and Africans.  What we need to answer is why what immigration law enforcement action the U.S. does take primarily targets Latino Christians.

Cultural Amnesia...If not Plagiarism

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." --Galatians 3:28

According to Aaron James Wendland writing in the New York Times (1/17/16),  

Now, in Germany and elsewhere, doors are closing. But what are the potential consequences of this resistance to outsiders, to those in need? Is it justified? Do we owe the suffering and dispossessed something more, if we are to call ourselves ethical beings?

Few philosophers confronted questions like these more directly than Emmanuel Levinas... Levinas has taught us that our responsibility for others is the foundation of all human communities"

Are Times readers, editors and Wendland so culturally ignorant that we don't recognize shared humanity and responsibility for others as the ancient foundation of Christianity.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

-- Luke 10:25-37

America's Immigration Dilemma

Another anti-American diatribe on immigration by Roger Cohen of the NY Times, 12/30/15.    Mr. Cohen, a British journalist, might at long last give us an unprejudiced appraisal of America and immigration, something that's sorely lacking amongst the dishonest prigs who so often and so merrily criticize the US.   As never before in its history, America's doors are opened wide to immigrants.  Mr. Cohen must have walked through an airport at some point to get here during his visa free travel to visit his daughter in New Mexico.  Most of the taxi drivers out front are from the Middle East or Africa,  and so are many of our TSA agents.  On my family's recent trip from grandma's house in Boston the TSA front line was manned by a Vietnamese.   Throughout the airport the shops and restaurants are run by Asians and Latinos.   Back home, what do my son and his best school friend have in common?  Their fathers both fought the Communists... one in Vietnam ... the other in Eritrea. Their school teachers' would sum of America's dilemma as follows:  we love you Yafeat (my son's friend), you're the kind of immigrant kid everyone envisions when we think of the American dream, but would somebody either find us more money to help these immigrant kids or give us fewer kids to help.

Know Your Saints: Santa and the Muslims‏

Santiago, Matamoros, y Cierra Espana!

Regarding Steve Benson's Santa cartoon "Muslims are All Right" (12/10/15):

HOLY MACARONI!   Doesn't Steve realize that many Muslims might be offended and/or horrified that Steve has invoked a saint, and a Christian one at that, to intervene on their behalf.

Anachronism:  Santa is avatar of Saint Nicholas who died in 343 AD long before there were any Muslims.   He never thought about Muslims one way or the other.

Avatars:  I might believe in avatars, but Steve Benson has made it abundantly clear he doesn't believe in avatars or saints,   so he shouldn't be making up things about what Saint Nicholas's avatar thinks one way or the other.   Unless this is a revelation that he's started having religious visions.   I suppose anything's possible.

Muslims and Saint Nicholas:   Saint Nicholas is recognized as a saint by nearly all Christians, even many Presbyterians.   As far as Muslims are concerned, he's problematic, especially when treated as venerated saint, and especially for strict Muslims.   The issue of saints is part of the Sunni-Shia divide.   Don't get caught on the wrong side of it if you value your head.

Saint Nicholas and Muslims:  Saint Nicholas is famous for leaving anonymous gifts for poor children.    He is also famous for being a strict conservative theologian and a father of the Nicene Creed.  He famously punched the heretic Arius in the face during the Council of Niceaea.   Since Turkey's repressive Muslim conquerors prohibited celebrating the Divine Liturgy at the site of Saint Nicholas's episcopal see at Myra, Turkey, for centuries until 2007, saying the saint (or his avatar) would be magnanimous with respect to Muslims is problematic.

America is one of the few places in the world where religious tolerance is a reality.   Even though I'm named for Spain's patron,   St. James the Moor slayer, it never occurred to me to ask about my Arab roommate's or my Turkish/Iranian lead system analyst's religion, although my roommate liked to read some guy name Kahlil Gibran and was pretty vocal about saying don't believe everything the New York Times says about Palestinians.  That last part when I was young was like hearing Steve Benson say the Bible is a fairy tale.   I was a whole lot more worried about Vietnam than if my buddy was some kind of crypto-extremist.   When I hit Arizona I revered my colleague Ali because he was a rock of stability and integrity on a big project where we had to herd too many people who were knuckleheads.  If you want to get a job done hire Muslims named Ali and programmers from BYU.

As far as the Muslim world is concerned, my experience working in Saudi Arabia years ago wasn't bad at all (just quiet and boring).  They didn't hold my name against me (but then it didn't say Santiago instead of James on my passport) and it was a lot safer place than the US.   Zero gun violence.   You will not run into anyone that's "strapped".   And no women  drivers talking on their cell phones!    All the Saudi's were exceedingly polite.   On the other hand if you're a Catholic and need to go to confession or communion, or need a beer, you're pretty much out of luck.   

I wouldn't go near Saudi Arabia today, though.  It's a very different world and difficult to figure out who's still polite and who's not.

Einstein and Tensor Calculus

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/science/a-century-ago-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-changed-everything.html

What a shame that Dennis Overbye's story about the General Theory of Relativity didn't mention the mathematical foundation for Einstein's work. The General Theory could not have been developed without Tensor Calculus, which makes possible modeling of complex motion in uneven space. Tenor calculus is so difficult even Einstein needed a tutor, his friend mathematician Marcel Grossman, "Between the years of 1915 to 1919, Einstein held a correspondence with the Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita – who in 1900 published perhaps the most important work on tensor calculus to this very day - who desired to help him [Einstein] fix some mathematical errors he had found in Einstein’s work."

NY Times Features War Criminal Simon Winchester

The Times story concerning the arrest of a British soldier for the Bloody Sunday Massacre makes no mention of the role their featured contributor, Simon Winchester (e.g., 11/6/2015), played in the media cover-up of the murders.  The only thing The Times should be featuring from Winchester is an apology for his complicity in British war crimes in Northern Ireland.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/world/europe/bloody-sunday-massacre-arrest-northern-ireland.html

"The final London edition of the Guardian (February 6th, 1971) said that, 'an army marksman shot dead one rioter, who threw two petrol bombs at an armoured car in Butler Street, off Crumlin Road, Belfast. The dead man was Bernard Watt, aged 28, of Hooker Street'. The report was headed 'by Simon Winchester'. On April 6th Bernadette Devlin raised this report in the House of Commons and alleged that it had been 'concocted in the editorial offices of the Guardian, to condone the cold blooded murder of one, Barney Watt.' "

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/mccann72.htm#3

Mr. Winchester's claim to fame rests on a book about a "mad" Oxford dictionary contributor.  The "madman" escaped the gallows according to Mr. Winchester because he was driven mad by having  to witness an Irish deserter, one of many according to Winchester, being branded.   This made for a good story, but as Mr. Winchester surely knew,  since he reviewed the military records of the "madman",  the "madman" wasn't anywhere near where the battle and alleged (imaginary) branding took place.  Moreover, as Mr. Winchester and his editors knew, branding wasn't a Civil War punishment for desertion.   The "deserter" story was just a cock-and-bull excuse dreamed up for a gullible English jury to absolve a rich drunk for shooting a hapless passerby.

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.

Steve Benson and the Whore of Babylon

"In the Benson household the enemies list included: Martin Luther King, who, I was taught, was a notorious liar and a rabble-rousing communist.... and, last but not least, John F. Kennedy, who, I was told as a fourth grader on the day of his assassination, got what he deserved."
http://ffrf.org/legacy/fttoday/1999/December99/benson.html

The above recalled by Steve Benson, grandson of the Mormon Pope Ezra Taft Benson.  While one of the Twelve LDS leading Apostles,  the elder Benson served in the Eisenhower cabinet.

I'd never hold the sins of someone's parents against him.   Unless, of course, he repeats them.


Steve Benson, AZ Republic, 9/23/2015

"It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church [i.e., the Whore of Babylon]."
-- Mormon Doctrine,  Bruce McConkie, LDS First Council of the Seventy.



Steve Benson, AZ Republic, 9/27/2015

In the vein of a noble tradition:

President Honors Disobedient, Disruptive Student

Ahmed Mohamed brought a "clock" in a box to high school in Irving, Texas, and got in trouble after he disrupted class and frightened the English teacher.  For some reason the President of the United States, in a knee JERK reaction, interjected himself, declared Ahmed a victim and invited him to the White House.



A disobedient, disruptive student should not be honored by the President of the United States. After showing the "clock" in a box to his science teacher, the science teacher told Ahmed: "Nice job. DO NOT SHOW IT TO ANYONE ELSE." Instead of obeying the science teacher little Ahmed went to English class and plugged the thing in and it started making noise, disrupting the English class and frightening the poor English teacher, who as one might expect had no idea what the contraption was and why it was being activated in English class.  Perhaps if the President and others did not encourage disobedient, disruptive students, something might get accomplished in the public schools. Students might even learn to read and write in English class....more

Moreover, it is "more probable than not" that bright young Ahmed's naivete concerning the problematic nature of his contraption is disingenuous, especially after he was warned by the science teacher not to show it to anyone else.  That the high school principal and district superintendent are Latino is omitted and for some reason irrelevant to this story, which is being positioned to highlight American racism.

As a parent with children in public schools and a member of their middle school's site council,  I'm fed up and infuriated by the disingenuous excuses students and their parents make for bad behavior. Just last month my young daughter went to the nurse's office with her friend who has diabetes and needed an insulin injection.   Besides insulin they also keep extra clothes there for children with dress code violations.   An irate lady teacher dragged in a boy "by the ear."  What did I do wrong wailed the boy.  The infuriated teacher yelled:  "You have a picture of a woman with naked breasts on your t-shirt!"  I could go on and on.

Is America Still a Colony?

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina (CNN 9/3/15) thinks English is the official language of the United States.   Does Carly actually think America is still a colony and Queen Elizabeth is our monarch?

My family is filled with grandmas who spoke Spanish, Gaelic, Italian, Portuguese and German.   After three and a half years of high school Spanish, my son can't understand a word they say on Univision, the American Spanish language TV channel.   No one on the planet would understand my broken Gaelic.  The American version of English has worked out well as a common language for business, politics, and  the dinner table.   I've always considered English a foreign language, but thank God I didn't have to learn Portuguese!

But if you want to watch Univision or talk to grandma in Italian, knock yourself out.  It's a free country.  No offense Queen Elizabeth, you're a lovely lady, but that's why we fired your ancestor King George III in the first place.

Slainte (cheers)!

Michael Ignatieff: The Rude Guest

I am offended by Michael Ignatieff's rude rebuke of the United States for allegedly not helping Europe during its latest crisis.  Mr. Ignatieff himself is an immigrant, an ungracious guest of the United States who has a job among the privileged elite at Harvard University.

The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world.  My children go to public schools with children who are recent immigrants and refugees that the U.S. has taken in from China, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Latin America and other foreign lands.  There are over 41,000,000 foreign-born immigrants living in the United States today.  A million more are given visas to live in the U.S. permanently every year.   U.S. immigration laws are mostly guidelines and tens of thousands more show up each year without a visa and live here mostly unmolested once they navigate the border, their children receiving free education and health care.  Any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen no matter where their parents came from or how.   Does Europe offer that. Indeed, has Europe or Canada ever offered to help at all with the millions of Latin American immigrants clamoring at the U.S. door?

America is now in its second century of saving the world.   Too many Americans have given their lives in America's ill-fated wars of good intentions:  brothers, sons, schoolmates and friends.  Too often America has been called upon to save the world because Europe couldn't or wouldn't deal with problems it created.   Is it too much ask that Europe take the lead on dealing with a problem on its doorstep so that America can focus on fixing the very grave problems in the U.S. today, and deal with the millions already knocking on America's door...not Europe's.

Linda Valdez and Immigration: Argumentum Ad Hominem

Extolling Germany's offer to take in Middle East asylum seekers (America's Shame, 9/11),  Linda Valdez claims that "In the land of liberty [US], however, huddled masses from south of the border are not welcomed."  This is an odd, abusive claim by someone named Valdez who holds a coveted job at the Arizona Republic.  In fact her claim is very much at odds with reality.  The US has the most generous immigration policy on the planet.   There are 41,000,000 immigrants living in the US today.   Half are from south of the border.  Indeed, the US has the third largest Latino population of any country in the world.  The US gives permanent residency visas to a million new immigrants each year.  Tens of thousands more arrive each year without permanent visas (or visas of any kind) and live here unmolested once they navigate the border.   If their children are born here, they are automatically US citizens, regardless of their parents immigration status.  If they're poor, and most are, their children get free medical care.  Regardless of where born, all the children from "south of the border" receive free education at public expense.   What would make Ms. Valdez happy?  That the US have no borders at all.   Isn't the US pretty close to that anyway.  Why is it that "progressives", who rejoice in the rule of law when county clerks are jailed for not handing out marriage license, are appalled when the rule of law is applied to US immigrants?

In the meantime three of the Republican candidates for US president come from Latino families.  And my Arizona kids go to public school and church with immigrants from all over the world:  Latin America, Somalia, China, Sudan, Cameroon, Eritrea, the Philippines.  One's dad who went to Camelback High became a citizen last month.  It shouldn't be a Shocker.