The Hubble found where Sauron’s hiding.

And I found the picture at NASA to bring to you. The news articles weren’t polite enough to link back, but I am.

President Bush is awarding Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bravo, Mr. President, and Brava, Ms. Lee.

From the press release:

Harper Lee has made an outstanding contribution to America’s literary tradition. At a critical moment in our history, her beautiful book, To Kill a Mockingbird, helped focus the Nation on the turbulent struggle for equality.

To Kill A Mockingbird is on my top ten favorite books list. I have read it dozens of times, and will doubtless read it dozens more. IMHO, it should be in the list of the top three American novels, with Huckleberry Finn in the number one slot and The Great Gatsby third. (Hemingway doesn’t come on the list at all. I think he’s an overhyped hack.)

So good for you, Ms. Lee. You deserve it.

George W Bush has announced that Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, is to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a civilian.

The medal, established in 1963, is awarded for an “especially meritorious contribution” to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, or for their accomplishments in the areas of culture or “other significant public or private endeavours.”

Lee won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for the novel, which is credited with helping to focus the country at the height of the civil-rights movement by raising awareness of the injustices of discrimination.

It tells the story of a small-town Alabama lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man accused of raping a local white woman. The narrator of the story is six-year-old Scout, the daughter of Atticus.

Although downplaying the idea that To Kill A Mockingbird is semi-autobiographical, it bears a striking resemblance to her early life. She was born in Monroeville, a small town in Alabama, and her father was also a lawyer.

In 1931, when Lee was six, nine young black men in Scottsboro, Alabama, were accused of raping two white women, and, despite the lack of any evidence, the men were convicted by an all-white jury.

Things that make you go hmmm:

Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

[...] She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.”

“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”

Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”

Um. O-kay.

Is the next character to be outed going to be McGonagall?

Two more anti-W-M book reviews to report. The first, from Bloomberg News, a devastating attack by Charles Taylor who, I think if I were to take a guess judging by his name, is not a member of The Lobby (or The Tribe).

Were Mearsheimer and Walt simply saying that Israel’s hard- line policies have often done the country more harm than good (as have the Americans who confuse any criticism of Israel with a threat to its existence), they’d be on solid ground. They claim not to be espousing a theory of a Jewish cabal or a conspiracy — and they’re not. In “The Israel Lobby”‘ there’s nothing secret about Jewish influence. Every bit of U.S. foreign policy that benefits Israel or harms the U.S. has a Jew behind it.

Contradictions, evasions and lapses of logic pepper the text. When the authors want to argue that Israel was not an effective U.S. ally in the Cold War, it’s a small country. When they want to argue that Israel can easily repel any aggression from hostile neighbors, it’s a land of military might.

And yet another devastating conclusion:

In general, critics of Mearsheimer and Walt have dismissed the charges of anti-Semitism against them. But what else can account for a scenario in which Jews are the center of every perfidy, exerting so much influence and dispensing so much money that the goyim spring into line? And how can research so shoddy, so quick to ignore anything that contradicts it, so ready to subjugate facts to ideology qualify as serious?

The eager reception the pair have found in some parts of the left may yet cause embarrassment when those who embraced them come face to face with their realpolitik. Their argument against U.S. support of Israel is that our alliances must be decided solely by self-interest.

That’s the very ideology that has led the U.S. to align itself with dictators in the past and to spurn countries that desperately needed American help. The disaster of Iraq may have led many on the left to think there’s no case left for liberal interventionism (which need not be military). But are leftists really willing to desert their long-held view that oppression should be named and confronted?

In the hands of Mearsheimer and Walt, the socialism of fools has become the foreign policy of idiots.

The L.A. Times’ Tim Rutten is equally as sharp:

It’s interesting that the authors chose to first float their arguments in the London Review rather than, say, in Foreign Affairs or some other American journal. While I subscribe to the review — and, in fact, have been invited several times to contribute to it — it’s a melancholy fact that, in recent years, like so much of the European intellectual press, it has become objectively anti-Semitic in its treatment of Israel. And while it’s true that the authors have had several invitations to speak about their book in the United States withdrawn, it’s also true that this volume arrives under the imprint of what is arguably America’s most prestigious publishing house.

Odd that the all-powerful Israel lobby let that happen.

To get a flavor of the professors’ argument, here’s how they described the lobby’s operations inside the U.S. Congress: “Another source of the Lobby’s power is its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay, a former head of [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], once admitted, ‘there are a lot of guys at the working level up here’ — on Capitol Hill — ‘who happen to be Jewish, who are willing. . . to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness. . . . These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators. . . . ”

The quotation from an AIPAC staff member is an ingenious twist on the old dual-loyalty argument, but at the end of the day, you’ve still got sour old wine in new skins.

Rutten’s conclusion:

In fact, if you accept the analysis put forward in this book, it’s impossible not to conclude that the United States was, in fact, tricked into a disastrous war in Iraq by a domestic Fifth Column and that the ranks of that subversive formation are filled with Jews, their friends and willing dupes.

Mearsheimer and Walt go to great pains to proclaim their disinterested benevolence toward all and to attach the word “realist” to their argument. The only adjective that comes to this reader’s mind is “sinister.”

Both articles should be read in their entirety. And may I say: You see? It wasn’t my imagination. People who do not generally use the word “anti-Semitism” are all but accusing the authors of it. On the one hand, I’m glad to keep finding these reviews. On the other hand, the effing book is a best-seller. Then again, best-sellers reach the top of the list by selling only a few hundred thousand copies. I’d love to see the publisher’s statement on “The Israel Lobby.” I want to know how many they sell. Discounting, of course, the sales they’re going to make overseas. Wait for the pictures of the book next to “Mein Kampf” in Arab nations, just like Jimmy Carter’s anti-Israel screed.

Two interesting pieces on the Walt-Mearsheimer anti-Israel screed, for your reading pleasure.

The first is in the WSJ:

A crop of Israel’s critics — most prominently Jimmy Carter and now Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” — have managed something of a feat: They express no concerns about the massive pro-Arab effort, funded in significant measure by foreign oil money, taking American Jews to task for participating in the American political process; meanwhile, they inoculate themselves against charges of anti-Jewish bias by pre-emptively predicting that “the Jewish lobby” will accuse them of it.

Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer, in particular, have been heralded by Israel’s critics for their “courage” in attacking American Jews, who have allegedly “strangled” criticism of Israel. Their case seems one part laughable, and one part eyebrow-raising.

My favorite part, once again, is the conclusion:

But if anti-Semitism is too harsh a term, and if the word “bigoted” is also taken off the table, perhaps one can be forgiven for concluding that “anti-Jewish bias” fits the bill here. After all, where there is nothing wrong with foreign money from Arab countries advancing a pro-Arab agenda in Messrs. Walt’s and Mearsheimer’s world — but there is something very wrong with American citizens who are Jewish exercising their civic right to speak out on behalf of Israel and taking issue with the pro-Arab agenda — even the most vehement disclaimers of any bias against Jews lack a certain credibility.

The potency of the Middle East-funded anti-Israel lobby around the world and in the U.S. is difficult to ignore. Yet, Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer and others who adhere to an anti-Israel line ignore it. In and of itself, this is not surprising. When at the same time they portray American Jews’ efforts to make the case for Israel as morally suspect, however, they open themselves up to reasonable charges of something far more troublesome than mere hypocrisy, and that is anti-Jewish bias, by whatever name.

But read it all. Well worth it.

Also of note, from the Chicago Sun-Times, which was mentioned in the W-M paper as part of the lobby (go figure):

Mearsheimer and Walt concede Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War but argue that our continued support is detrimental to U.S. standing in the Middle East and helps “inspire a generation of anti-American extremists.” That’s their world view. Forget the dynamics of radical Islamism, Arab resentment of the West and other complexities of international affairs. Just change U.S. policy toward Israel and the world will be a happier place for America. Two intellectuals at two of our best universities have reduced international relations to that.

[...] The two go to lengths to try to rebut any suggestion of anti-Semitism in their criticism of the American Israeli Political Action Committee and other pro-Israel groups. But you can’t read The Israel Lobby without realizing that whenever two interpretations exist for some action by Israel or its supporters, Mearsheimer and Walt automatically default to the darker view.

For instance, a section of their book titled “Camp David Myths” cites numerous secondhand sources to disparage the Israeli peace initiative in 2000 while dismissing the account of Dennis Ross, President Bill Clinton’s chief Middle East peace negotiator, who was at the center of the Camp David effort and wrote the highly praised The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.

Another read-in-full recommendation.

I’m glad to see W-M’s book getting lousy reviews. Because these creeps have hit the best-seller list. Gee. Amazing how the Israel lobby is so powerful, it manages to squelch all criticism. They’re being silenced. They’re only number 23 on Amazon, and 17 with a bullet on the NY Times bestseller list. Yes, they’ve been utterly silenced by the Israel Lobby—all the way to the bank.

The Israel Lobby is so dangerous to America, the authors of the widely-discredited paper have turned it into a book. And they’re taking it on the road. Only the Israel Lobby is preventing them from speaking, because you simply can’t speak out on the Israel Lobby. Not even in the New York Times. The Lobby will silence you, I tell you. Silence you!

Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.

“Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

You see how silenced they are? There’s an article in the New York Times telling us that they’ve been silenced. They’ve had six events cancelled or turned down! Six! That damned Israeli Lobby is so powerful, it controls whether or not people want Walt & Mearsheimer to speak at their venues.

Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

So, let’s recap: W&M have been cancelled out of three events. And they were turned down by three organizations. Let’s see exactly how that played out. Their speaking appearance was canceled by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Why?

Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies at the council, said, “Whenever we have topics that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point of view is there.” In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.

Ah. The Council wanted someone there for an opposing viewpoint. Yes, we know that one. It’s used for every pro-Israel speaker invited to college campuses. It’s a goose/gander thing. But what about those three turn-downs the Times is touting?

After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her “they can’t afford to bring in somebody ‘too controversial.’ ” She added that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend customers.

So the three cancellations are all tied to the same Chicago event? Isn’t that interesting. An event that was cancelled at one venue—which raises red flags when trying to schedule it at other venues—was turned down by three other venues. So it’s one event that was turned down by three alternative venues. Not three separate events turned down by people who didn’t want W&M to speak. And let’s think…. why is it that a Jewish Community Center would be reluctant to have Walt & Mearsheimer come to tell an audience of Jews about how the Israel Lobby is controlling American foreign policy? Let me think about this one for a while, and see if I can find a reason why they were turned down. Hm. Jewish Community Center. Lots of Israel supporters. The W&M claim that the Israel Lobby is controlling U.S. policy…. That’s a tough one. Nope, I can’t figure out why they were turned down by the Chicago JCC.

Please.

Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt said, “Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be balanced by someone from the ‘other side.’ ” Besides, he added, when you’re promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.

If you are presenting a book written about a charge that has been widely discredited in its thesis form, people are going to want to let your audiences know that you are, well, not being truthful with the facts, shall we say? Jimmy Carter pulled the same drek. The common theme here? Both books charge Israel (and American Jews) with controlling American foreign policy. Both books charge Jews with being less than full citizens of America (the old dual loyalty canard). And both books are riddled with inaccuracies and lies. Of course he doesn’t want his “ideas” discredited. People won’t buy a book based on information that has been shown to be false. The more coverage W&M’s opponents get, the fewer dollars fall into their pockets. But don’t worry. It’s going to be a guaranteed best-seller in the Arab world. It will be on the bookshelves right next to Mein Kampf, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

W&M are also now defending themselves against charges of anti-Semitism. And they do it by showing that the Israel Lobby isn’t really as powerful as they claim it to be. They do it in a wholly unironic way. You really have to wonder if these men ever listen to themselves speak.

Overall Mr. Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views will be “less ferocious than last time, because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.” Both Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” as making it somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.

“This isn’t a cabal; this isn’t anything secretive,” Mr. Walt said.

American Jews who lobby on Israel’s behalf are not all that different from the National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or the American Petroleum Institute, he said, “They just happen to be really good at it.”

Translation: It’s much easier to criticize Israel now because people are criticizing Israel, but we’re being silenced because we’re criticizing Israel. And everybody lobbies, but the Jews are really good at it, and saying so doesn’t make us anti-Semitic.

“It’s the way American politics work,” he continued. “Sometimes powerful interest groups get what they want, and it’s not good for the country as a whole. I would say that about the farm lobby and about the Cuba lobby.”

And yet, they have not written a book about the farm lobby or the Cuba lobby. They have written a book about the Israel lobby. Funny, that.

To the authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents’ Day sales and “Law & Order” reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: “People are allowed to have multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties, loyalty to family, to an organization and you can have loyalty to other countries. Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland.”

“The problem,” he said “is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many people tend to think of it in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard and making the argument that Jews are disloyal to the U.S.”

That’s because it is always raised in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard. It is simply disingenuous to pretend otherwise. You cannot accuse a Jew of dual loyalty without meaning that the person you are accusing is disloyal to his or her home country. The concept of dual loyalty is never raised in terms that Mearsheimer “explains” above. That is patently false. Ted Kennedy managed to support the IRA and never be accused of being disloyal to America. Just go do a Google search on Joe Lieberman and see how many times his loyalty to America is questioned, and not just over his support to Israel. Lieberman’s loyalty is questioned simply because he is Jewish. W&M are utterly full of it when they pretend that the dual loyalty charge is not meant in the same fashion.

Walt & Mearsheimer are handing the anti-Semites of the world a great recruiting tool, and a book that will have to be discredited for many years to come, and will ultimately settle in with the Stormfront crowd as “proof” the Jews control America. Their paper has already found wide acceptance in neo-Nazi circles. David Duke is particularly fond of it, touting it as vindication of his anti-Semitic filth.

And there is, of course, the W&M disclaimer:

In print and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold no animus towards Israel or Jews. “We think Israeli policy is fundamentally flawed,” Mr. Mearsheimer said, “just as we think American policy is fundamentally flawed.”

Right. No animus. Just lies, inaccuracies, and a modern retelling of the old Jews-control-the-world myth.

Sarah has finished book 7, and I said a few days ago that I’d wait until she finished the book before posting about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I guess I should wait for Larry to finish it, though, seeing as how he reads this site every day too.

In the meantime, if you have already read the book (spoilers at most of the links), you’ll enjoy this WSJ review. It discusses religion in Harry’s world, and contains absolutely big-time spoilers. If you haven’t read the book, don’t click the link.

There’s also this MSNBC article from Rowling’s appearance on the Today show last Friday. Yes, it contains some major spoilers, so don’t whine to me if you haven’t finished the book and click on that link.

MSNBC was on a roll with the Rowling stories. This one has spoilers, but it also reveals which character got a reprieve from death after having been scheduled to die in the series. I was surprised, but pleased to find that one out.

And last, but not least, Rowling talks about her plans to write the Harry Potter encyclopedia, and spills the beans about what happens after the book ends, as well as why she changed the last word of the final book (which was originally supposed to read “scar.”) Here there also be spoilers.

For Harry Potter fans, here’s a video of the author reading the first chapter of The Deathly Hallows. She’s a good reader. Authors used to read their books as a matter of course in the days when authors went on tour like rock stars. That pretty much ended in the early twentieth century. Shame.

Really brutal, but worth it.

Between that and the second season of Battlestar Galactica, Saturday was a no-posting day.

Sleep would be nice now.

Someone posted images of the final chapter of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online.

I have no desire to read the ending before the novel is published, but be warned. If you don’t want to know, stay away from spoilers between now and the time you have the book in your hands.

Couldn’t resist taking the Harry Potter quiz

You scored as Harry Potter. You can be a little reckless and hot-headed at times, but a more brave and courageous friend would be hard to find. Harry Potter 95% Sirius Black 85% Remus Lupin 80% Ginny Weasley 80% Ron Weasley 75% Albus Dumbledore 70% Hermione Granger 70% Draco Malfoy 65% Severus Snape 55% Lord Voldemort 30%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

Damn. Who knew?

Sorena reports that she is Dumbledore.

Sgt. Mom wrote a book. So far, she hasn’t gotten a publisher, but that’s not stopping her. Now she’s going to try to self-publish, but that’s not inexpensive, either.

So go check out Sgt. Mom’s post where she tells you about her book, the rejections, Plans B, C, D, and E, and if you have a few extra bucks, hit her tipjar. It’s all my fault, you see. I liked her writing so much when she was a plain old blogger, that I told her she should turn her words into a book. So she did.

So, maybe if only 5% of the manuscripts floating into agents’ offices, and publisher’s submissions sub-sub-sub contractors are good for anything other than landfill. Everyone thinks they have a book in them, and the fact that in most cases it should have stayed right there is beside the point. The OK to Pretty Damned Good stuff is still an absolutely unmanageable quantity. All the competent and ethical agents seem to have about all they can do to look at hundreds of similar OK to Pretty Damned Good submissions clamoring for their attention and time and make a snap decision on accepting and managing the tiny percentage that will pay off with the least amount of effort on their part.

Yeah, they kept sending me these letters admitting that they just didn’t feel the passion for my book that they felt was necessary to represent me adequately. So, apparently no one feels sufficiently passionate about “To Truckee’s Trail” except for me, and about a dozen people who have read the entire thing and loved it passionately as well.

Unfortunately, all those people were just readers and other writers… so, here goes Plan B.; a fund drive to do a POD version, to buy advertising, and put review copies where they will do the most good. I think I can promise an autographed copy of “To Truckee’s Trail” to anyone who contributes over a certain amount.

Hey, conservative readers: give her the money you were going to give the RNC before the Republicans jumped ship on the amnesty bill. And then send a letter to the RNC telling them. Two birds with one stone!

Liberal readers: Well, geez, she’s an underdog. And a writer. And a woman. Pick a cause.

Centrist readers: We just like her. And we support the military.

Anarchist readers: Oh, like I have any of those that come here to do more than leave an offensive comment for me to delete.

I have to say, this made me smile.

Iran on Sunday condemned Britain’s decision to knight Salman Rushdie, the author who was forced into hiding for a decade after the leader of the Iranian revolution ordered his assassination.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said granting Britain’s highest honor to Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” sparked the death threat, insulted the Muslim world. His comments came during a time of especially tense relations between the Islamic republic and the West.

“Awarding a person who is among the most detested characters in the Islamic society is obvious proof of anti-Islamism by ranking British officials,” Hosseini said at his weekly press conference.

I think the appropriate answer here from the Brits would be, “Yeah, what-EVER.”

On the other hand, raise hands, those of you who have ever read The Satanic Verses.

I have not. And I ‘r’ a English major.

Well, let’s see. There’s the “Gilad Shalit deal is imminent” stuff. Nope. I don’t bother writing about that, because it’s crap. Israeli reporters know it’s crap, too. Get a load of this lede:

A prisoner exchange deal for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is expected within two to three weeks’ time, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Wednesday.

It should be noted that Abbas has made similar statements in the past, but he appears to have very little influence on the negotiations on this deal.

Even the reporters are dissing Abbas.

I won’t be writing about yet another Jewish author slamming Israel in another alternate history, and pretending that he’s a good little boy for not having any attachment to the land of his ancestors.

Thinking about what the world would look like without the state of Israel was “one of the motivating impulses of writing the book,” he says. “How mad it seems that this tiny little scrap of land” should be at the center of global conflicts. “I have a very strong feeling of complete ambivalence about a world without Israel,” Mr. Chabon says. “I didn’t come in with a point to prove or an agenda.”

And I’m not really writing about French anti-Semitic attacks these days. They’re becoming too depressingly common.

A 45-year-old Jewish man was stabbed in front of a kosher restaurant in the city of Villeurbanne, southern France on Tuesday in what authorities believe to be the latest in a series of anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

The victim, who is only being identified as “Eric”, was rushed to hospital in the neary city of Lyon after suffering injuries on his left shoulder.

The attack occured around lunch time as he parked the car while his family went into the restaurant.

A few minutes later he entered the restaurant covered with blood, saying he had been stabbed by a young man on a bicycle.

Gee. I wonder what religion that “young man” is from?

That’s why I start writing about the weather. Waste of my time to write about the above.

There’s a post I never published, written after Kurt Vonnegut’s remarks in praise of suicide bombers. I never published it because I never quite finished it, and I never quite finished it because I couldn’t stand that the man I’d admired for most of my life, the writer who is on my top ten list of all-time favorites, could so sell out his own moral code and say something good about those who murder. He made his career by writing anti-war novels (Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five), and yet, here he was, glorifying killers. So I never finished the post, and in fact finally deleted it from my drafts a month or two ago, realizing I’d never put it out there.

Vonnegut died last night, and the words that come to me most vividly are the words that either Harpo Marx or his ghostwriter wrote about John Barrymore, watching him drunk, crying, and trying to find a scrap of paper in a pile sawdust with a blowsy waitress’ phone number on it:

The passing of a great man is tragic, and doubly so when the greatness passes before the man.

Vonnegut’s greatness passed before he did. But it doesn’t take away from the legacy of his writing. It doesn’t take away from my discovery of him in high school, and my memories of being thrown out of the high school library for laughing too hard at a certain illustration in Breakfast of Champions. (It was the picture of an asshole, to my 17-year-old mind, it was hilarious. And, well, I never got thrown out of anywhere in high school and, in fact, was such a book geek that I had the librarians sign my yearbook.)

It doesn’t take away from the fact that I have all of his novels, and will take them out and reread them from time to time, or that his influence can sometimes be seen in my humor pieces.

And yes, I know that he quoted David Irving liberally in Slaughterhouse-Five, and I know that Irving’s facts have since been utterly debunked—but that doesn’t take away from Vonnegut’s writing career, either. Irving fooled a lot of people in those days.

The science fiction community tried to claim Vonnegut, and to this day is a bit resentful because he never considered himself an SF writer. That’s because he wasn’t. He was an American humorist, and yes, in the same vein as Mark Twain. So I will remember his writing, and forget his foolishness, and thank God that he can no longer say anything stupid in interviews that will make me cringe and wonder what happened to the man I respected all those years.

So it goes.

An interview with Daniel Handler in Moment magazine, in which we discover the Baudelaires are Jewish.

Has the series been influenced by Jewish history?
I think there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery, yes. I mean, I guess naturally but not exclusively Jewish. I’m Jewish so, by default, the characters I create are Jewish, I think. Then I think I have something of a Jewish sensibility shaped by having a Jewish upbringing and so, therefore, books that I produce would be somewhat Jewish in tone.

Are the Baudelaires Jewish?
Oh yeah! Yes. The Baudelaires are Jewish! I guess we would not know for sure but we would strongly suspect it, not only from their manner but from the occasional mention of a rabbi or bar mitzvah or synagogue. The careful reader will find quite a few rabbis.

Can you tell me where?
No, I don’t think I should. I think the rabbis should be for people to find.

With thanks to Judith.

Think I’ll print it out and give it to my students. I think they’re going to like this part the best:

Will you be writing a prequel or sequel to the series to tell us more?
I’m sure there’ll be more from Lemony Snicket, but people who are hoping to have all their questions answered shouldn’t hold their breath.

Christianity today reviews three books on Israel, including Jimmy Carter’s execrable “analysis.”

Carter is not an anti-Jewish ideologue. His views are not irrational, they are just unbalanced—driven by an unquenchable private need for vindication. He cannot let go of the fact that the only part of his Camp David Accords of 1978-1979 which has lasted (and that just barely) is the achievement of a Peace Treaty and exchange of diplomatic recognition between Israel and Egypt. He proclaimed at the time that the three parties (the United States, Egypt, and Israel) were committed under the Accords to persuade the Palestinians and all the Arab nations to resolve their quarrel with Israel along parallel lines. Because Israeli and American opinion can be affected by the disquisitions of former presidents and because Arab opinion cannot, Carter has been working out his frustration regarding the failure of the larger hopes for “Middle East peace” against the former ever since, seeking to shame us all into setting things straight.

But Carter’s Camp David formula was built on a fantasy: that the Arab world’s complaint against Israel has to do with geography. The creation of the State of Israel is an intolerable reversal of the judgment of the Prophet Muhammad that, for their refusal to heed his voice, “humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them [the Jews] and they were visited with wrath from Allah” (Sura II: 61; cf., Sura III: 112). It is for this unforgivable assault on the credibility of Islam that Israel cannot be permitted to stand.

This one, on Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel’s Foreign Policy, 1948-1967, is fascinating.

Among the themes which figured in early dealings between Israeli authorities and the churches were titles to property, missionary activities, the right to run schools and other facilities, and the right of representatives of the churches who are not citizens to travel in and out of Israel or to reside and to work in Israel. Of interest to historians of foreign policy are the connections that Israeli authorities made between settlement of these local issues and the behavior of parent church bodies in Europe as well as attitudes of nation-states which had among their citizens large numbers of members of certain churches which in the past had behaved as their protectors.

The recorded exchanges between the many parties to these negotiations make for colorful reading. Even more colorful are internal memoranda and diary entries which Bialer has located and quoted. We are shown a great deal that is not pretty. Here is Foreign Minister Sharett on his negotiations with Vatican principals (from the pope down) over the latter’s refusal to recognize the State and its determination to wreck Israel’s chances for survival by imposing “international status” upon Jerusalem: “[This is for them] a matter of retribution, the squaring of an account concerning something that happened here in Jerusalem, if I am not mistaken, 1,916 years ago when Jesus was crucified… . [They are saying] that the Jews need to know once and for all what they did to us and now there is an opportunity to let them feel it.” Here is Cardinal Tardini, the Vatican’s Secretary of State: “I have always been convinced that there was no real need to establish that state… . Its existence is a constant source of danger of war in the Middle East. Now that Israel exists, there is, of course, no possibility of destroying it, but every day we pay the price of this mistake.” As for diplomacy: “There is no possibility of contact or negotiations with the killers of God.” This is the kind of history that grownups like, because it requires us to make our own judgments about motives and meaning.

I think that one should go on my reading list.

Have you ever found something neat while googling something else? I just did, while looking for the number to the service department for my apartments.

Someone scanned in a document from 1863 Richmond, which at that time was the capital of the Confederacy. It’s called

The Stranger’s Guide and Official Directory for the City of Richmond.
Showing the Location of the Public Buildings and Offices of the Confederate,
State and City Governments, Residences of the Principal Officers, etc.:

It’s a list of who’s who and what’s what in Richmond in the year 1863. It’s probably a lot more interesting to Richmonders, who know the streets and places and can say, “Wow, that company was around during the Civil War?” But I found this to be amusing:

GENERAL REMARKS.
In the absence of a map it may be proper to remark for the information of strangers, that the streets of Richmond are laid off at right angles to each other, with one or two exceptions. The principal streets are those extending from east to west. The “cross streets” extend from the river to the northern boundary line of the city, and are numbered in regular order from west to east. North of and parallel with Main street, in the order mentioned, are Franklin, Grace, Broad, Marshall, Clay, and Leigh streets; South of Main, and also parallel with it, are Cary, Canal and Byrd streets. The Capitol Square, which is situated near the centre of the city, is bounded on the north by Capitol street, which is parallel with and near to Broad street; on the south by Bank street; on the west by 9th street, and on the east by Governor street, and a part by 12th. Governor street (formerly a county road,) is irregular. It is 13th street south of Main, but by its inclination to the west acending the hill, its continuation becomes 12th street north of Broad street. A stranger can readily find any place, whose situation is described in the DIRECTORY, by bearing in mind that the numbers of the “cross streets ” diminish as he goes “up town” or west, and increase when he goes in the opposite direction. The names and numbers of streets are (or should be) inscribed on boards attached to the corner houses. The Capitol Square breaks the continuity of two streets, Franklin and Grace.

They sure knew how to stretch a sentence in 1863. But not nearly as badly as they did in 1763, and don’t even get me started on early eighteenth century literature. (Have you ever read Jonathan Swift? Sure, he had some good stories, but my God, the abuse of the comma and semicolon!)

So. Have you ever found something neat while googling something else?

Post-terrorism stress syndrome. I am tired of constantly writing about the gazillion attempts to destroy Israel and Jews. I think today, instead, we’re going to concentrate on other things.

Like Powerline’s “Greatest American novel” poll.

Oh, wait. I don’t want to discuss it, because it’s pretty much an arbitrary thing. And frankly, a lot of their choices suck. But there’s this utterly classic part of the post that I simply must highlight:

We tried to select candidates based on literary merit. Politics and sociology were ignored.

In an update to the post, Joshua Sharf says that The Sot-Weed Factor should be replaced with The Grapes of Wrath. Hinderaker’s response?

Joshua, Joshua, Joshua. You’re fortunate that Denver has a fine public library. I’m sure they have The Sot-Weed Factor. It’s not too late to catch up with one of the most entertaining (albeit nihilistic) books ever written. But, beyond that–The Grapes of Wrath?? No socialist realism for us, thank you!

You know, that one’s such a gimme, that I don’t think I can add a snarky response to it.

Oh, of course I can. Hypocrisy, thy name is John.

I have no idea what “unconscious” plagiarism is, but I should like to make a few things clear right now.

• I am writing a “chick-lit” novel.
• I am not lifting passages from any other writer.
• It will have a much shorter title than that teenaged plagiarist did. So far, it is exactly two words long. (”Road Trip.”)
• I seriously doubt I will get a six-figure book contract out of the deal.
• I will probably put the first few chapters online. When they’re ready. We are far from that point right now.