Politics and Culture

1. One theory concerning marriage fidelity matters is that one's personal conduct is a good predictor of one's public corruption factor. It may not be a completely 1:1 correlation, but I do think that dishonesty is a habit or: if one practices dishonesty, one finds it easy to lie. I'll add that the adept liar finds it difficult to tell the truth, if only because he's used to lying. When one practices honesty, telling the truth is easy and lying is hard. Wouldn't it be difficult to have two standards on the same sin, honesty (I have heard men say that it's OK to lie to women, but that's just a rationalization).

Mark Sanford's behavior dovetails nicely with this theory: personally and publicly corrupt, it turns out.

Other notoriously womanizing presidents- Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Clinton- were also corrupt politicians, if not unaccomplished in other areas. Carter was neither corrupt nor an adulterer, just foolish.

2. It's important that politicians be personally and publicly honest; not only do they handle our money, but they're a reflection of their electors, us (people get the government they deserve) and an example to children. I might not care whether my mechanic or surgeon is having an affair, as I can check their figures or get a second opinion. Skill and talent are independent of one's morality.

3. I wonder whether cheating doctors perform more unnecessary tonsillectomies.

4. It would be rude to ask Eunice Kennedy Shriver how much she's spending on her end-of-life health care. It's none of my business. It shouldn't be the government's either, which is why I want an independent health care system.

5. Isn't it hilarious when ultra-left Hollywood asks for tax breaks to stay in business?

6. Republicans did well with Sotomayor and are doing fine on health care. Their strategy seems to be to give Obama lots of rope to hang himself or, non-metaphorically: let Obama enact lots of liberal legislation and watch him fail. When you're confident in the dumminess of the other guy's ideology and the good sense of the American people, you can play this game.

7. Useful idiocy watch: Benicio del Toro and Bill Murray travel to Cuba. Like Henry from Babalu, I expect del Toro to be an idiot, but Bill Murray should know better.

1. I've heard people criticize Gates by saying that you shouldn't talk back to the police because "police have a gun." Not only isn't that a funny joke, it's an absurd argument. Does anybody think that a cop would shoot a man for being sassy?

2. The real problem with people arguing with police is that order breaks down. I'm a public school teacher. I can't have students decide whether to cuss me out in class. Everything would fall apart.

3. I don't see why whether the lady who called the police described Gates as "black" makes any difference.

4. Just to prove that conversations on race inevitably turn stupid:

Murphy also disputed accounts of her client as a white woman in the traditional sense. "The fact is, she's olive-skinned and of Portuguese descent. You wouldn't look at her and say, necessarily, 'Oh, there's a white woman.' You might think she was Hispanic," Murphy said.

5. In fact, the reason the study and discussion of racial things on campuses, from grammar school to college, has exploded in the past thirty years is because race talk is easy to understand. Even those without any academic talent can understand and comment on it.

6. Yes, Obama: One wrong turn in your life, from an elite private school in Hawaii to Columbia to Harvard to Chicago machine politics to president could have easily turned it into a crack-filled Hell. I think Obama should have been a motivational speaker instead of president:

7. Following Obama's policy of calling patriotic Americans "stupid" and "clinging" and insulting friendly nations while doing what he can to appease our enemies, Obama has shut down the ticker that gave Cubans their only non-Communist-censored news (the equivalent of talk radio in the United States). Good job! Because the reason that Cuba represses its people is that we're too informative.

8. Being consistent isn't too hard. I admire and agree with the Catholic nurse who refused to perform the abortion at Mount Sinai hospital in New York. If I owned a hospital, I wouldn't perform unnecessary abortions or, if abortion weren't against my religion, I wouldn't force doctors or nurses to do them. I don't own a hospital, however. A boss should expect his workers to follow his legal rules and have the ability to fire those who refuse.

9. I've sometimes wondered why I don't have any interest whatsoever in anything Harry Potter. I've tried to read it, but couldn't get past the first chapter. I couldn't finish any of the movies either. I don't hate Harry Potter; it just doesn't grab me. I think I have an answer.

I think back to the biggest Potter fans I've known. They're not little kids- they're middle-aged female librarian and English teacher types. The series is just too feminine.

10. I know why the Obama health care plan is failing: "Let's see: more money, less care and freedom. Ummm, no."

11. You can't blame "special interests" this time, as they all supported the Obama plan, even the insurers. It's been a grass-roots effort, like immigration reform a couple of years back.

12. Michael Vick should absolutely be able to play football. All he did was abuse animals. Plenty of players have abused intrinsically valuable people and are playing. That he's able to play is a good sign for national values.

13. The globa...I mean climate change debate is almost over. Soon, people won't be able to make the claim with a strait face anymore. More counter-evidence here.

The Black Caucus visited Cuba. They didn't quite give Castro the Obamian bow that I'm sure they felt he deserved, but they generally said very nice things about the encounter, and the official Communist newspaper, Granma, reciprocated with kind words on behalf of Cuba's "people" (party hacks). Let's run through the drill:

1. Castro is not a champion of the people.
2. Leftists who decry Guantanamo, Pinochet, Samoza, the Patriot Act, are hypocrites if they don't also condemn Castro and the Cuban system.
3. Unless, they know what they're doing, in which case they're cynical pro-Communist or at least pro-left-at-all-costs pragmatists, i.e., Cuba is a nation of the left and I must support it against the United States.
4. Unless, they don't know what's going on, in which case they carry on the ignoble tradition of "useful idiocy".

It's so easy to see that it drives me nuts, which is the reason I don't blog about it so much anymore. For detailed coverage, visit Babalu blog.

First, why would anybody want to put bombers in Latin America? Is there a threat in the hemisphere? Clearly, it's an anti-American move.

Second, why would Russia throw up this trial balloon? To test Obama, of course. Let's see how Obama reacts.

Third, isn't everybody supposed to like us now?

Here.

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russia expressed interest in using Cuban airfields during patrol missions of its strategic bombers, Russia's Interfax news agency reported

"There are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us," Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev told Interfax.

Zhikharev, who is the chief of staff of the Russian Air Force's long-range aviation, said, "If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."

Zhikharev also told Interfax that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered a military airfield on La Orchila island as a temporary base for Russian strategic bombers.

"If a relevant political decision is made, this is possible," he said, according to Interfax. Zhikharev said he visited La Orchila in 2008 and can confirm that with minor reconstruction, the airfield owned by a local naval base can accept fully-loaded Russian strategic bombers.

President Obama shouldn't reward this kind of behavior.

Here.

Havana, Cuba, Mar 11, 2009 / 12:28 am (CNA).- The Women in White, a civic movement made up of the wives of Cuban political prisoners, denounced the Communist government of Raul Castro this week, saying the regime to prevent the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the Black Spring, when many of their husbands were arrested and imprisoned by the government.

“We blame the State police and the Government in general for any physical aggression or acts of repudiation that are carried out against us by paramilitary troops dressed as civilians or by the officials themselves of repressive organizations,” the women said in a recent statement.

The Women in White, recognized internationally for their struggle in support of human rights, said that since Feb. 20, they are becoming “the victims of greater repression and harassment” by political police, who detained “more than six of our members, threatening them and presenting them with warnings,” ordering them also not to attend the activities marking the Black Spring.

"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have conserved their racial purity by a lack of affinity with washing, have seen their patch invaded by a different kind of slave: The Portugese.... the black is indolent and fanciful, he spends his money on frivolity and drink; the European comes from a tradition of working and saving which follows him to this corner of America and drives him to get ahead."

Recounting the execution of Eutimio Guerra: "I fired a .32 caliber bullet into the right hemisphere of his brain which came out through his left temple. He moaned for a few moments, then died."

Che philosophizing on the rule of law: "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."

Che lamenting the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis: "If the missiles had remained, we would have used them against the very heart of America including New York. We must never establish peaceful coexistence. In this struggle to the death between two systems we must gain the ultimate victory. We must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims."

Che on his commitment to his cause: "In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm."

Here

In a famous speech in 1961, Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

And woe to those youths “who stayed up late at night and thus reported to work (government forced-labor) tardily.” Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.” Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless “lumpen” and “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved.

For a great Che article, go here.

Quotes from National Review.

I'll defer to my friends: Jose Reyes from Cubanology, Babalublog who have the most extensive anti-dictator coverage including report cards on the mainstream news coverage, and the New York Times on this one.

By the way, the New York Times' non-adulatory coverage of Communism in Cuba and conversations with my liberal friends suggest to me that the left has finally thrown Cuba under the bus- in public, at least. Except for unreformed Communists like Michael Moore, nobody on the left brings up Cuba's poor, but equally distributed health care or the fact that 95% of the population can read the Communist propaganda they're provided (literacy). Better late than never, I suppose.

Maybe in 50 years, we'll have stories on how much better Iraq was without Saddam Hussein.