FEMA, First Responders, Federalism, All the King's Men and Mallory for Mayor

How will SWNID tie all of those threads together? With few-to-no errors and absolutely zero doubt, of course.

First, check in to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for an opinion piece that notes that, by law, local officials, not FEMA or any other agency of the federal government is responsible for emergency planning and first response to actual emergencies.

Those who blame Uncle Sugar for everything that happens should be reminded that ours is a federal republic, and that's a very good thing too. A national government big enough and strong enough to run everything everywhere in this sprawling, hyperwealthy nation would be so powerful as to overwhelm liberty and initiative, not to mention utterly incompetent to do anything right, led and staffed as it would be by humans. Federalism, as Iraq will show (and, SWNID knows from experience, Britain has yet to learn) is a pretty good thing in light of human fallibility.

Now, the movie. Those who haven't seen Broderick Crawford's brilliant acting in the brilliant film version of the brilliant Robert Penn Warren's brilliant novel must do so before Sean Penn's remake fouls up everything. ATKM is a thinly disguised novelization of the career of Louisiana's demagogic governor from the Depression, Huey Long. It was the role Crawford was born to play, and the book Warren was born to write.

What ATKM reminds us is that Louisiana has suffered for generations from lousy state and local government. And that's been at its pinnacle in New Orleans, that center for all forms of corruption. Local and state officials have grafted New Orleans to the point of dysfunctionality. It's become part of the charm of the place.

So New Orleans has been a disaster waiting to happen not just because it's surrounded by water on three sides and sits below sea level. It's been a disaster waiting to happen because it and its state have had some of the worst local governing in our federal republic.

Which brings us to the last thread. Cincinnati is moving on a New Orleans trajectory. SWNID allows that none of the current candidates are grafters, but only one demonstrates competency. Mark Mallory has not been a part of the problem at City Hall. His experience and skill suggest that he can be part of the solution.

More particularly, his proposal to restore the office of public safety is more than bureaucratic deck-chair shuffling. It will mean a keener focus on matters like coordinated emergency response.

Cincinnati's midwestern German heritage bodes for better civic life than does New Orleans' roots in France and the Caribbean. Let's just be careful not to let the French win their first battle with the Germans, or we Cincinnatians will all lose the war.

World's Greatest Radio DJ Back on the Air

The sale of WVXU to WGUC has been a singular cultural boon to greater Cincinnati. Gone are the peculiar programs that WVXU's sentimental staff scheduled to satisfy microniche audiences. Now the station delivers consistent news and talk. SWNID is punching up 91.7 more often these days.

But the new regime has made room for some music on weekend evenings. Not the old "Audiosyncracies" or "When Swing Was King" hit-or-miss assemblages. Something incomparably better and more important.

They have brought back Oscar Treadwell, simply the greatest DJ ever on radio. Period. And this is not just SWNID's opinionated judgment. Is there another DJ to whom Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk dedicated tunes?

For years OT taped jazz shows from his home studio for airing late at night on classical WGUC. Those shows ended a few years ago when WGUC made the sensible decision to air only their signature classical music format (now made even purer with the migration of "All Things Considered" to the reconstituted WVXU). For awhile OT presented his program on the old WVXU, and then for a couple of hours on Saturday nights on a commercial station broadcasting "smooth jazz" (i.e. instrumental R&B for people who hate jazz). But when that station traded its format for disco and Motown grooves, OT went to a tiny swing-music station, and then retired. He looked to be done for good.

Until his old friends at WGUC bought a station and made him a place on it.

What makes OT the greatest DJ ever? He has everything: the best bass announcer's voice ever, the best collection of jazz recordings outside of Japan, an encyclopedic knowledge of the music and musicians, impeccable taste for the best music from all jazz eras and genres, an ear for tasty contemporary poetry that he reads in every show, and the best sign-off catchphrase ever ("sweet love").

Cincinnati used to be a wonderful place for jazz radio. When I first came here in 1977, I was amazed to hear jazz all day from the Jazz Ark, WNOP, and OT at night on WGUC. But first OT disappeared, and then Heidelberg Distributing decided to stop losing money on WNOP (SWNID still on special occasions proudly wears his "day the music died" t-shirt to commemorate the late, great jazz station).

But OT is back. And he's just as great as ever. I'm listening right now. You should be too.

Steyn: 9/11 Didn't Change Porkmeisters, But Iraq is Cool

Mark Steyn's Sunday Chicago Sun-Times column is consistently a consummate perspective on the week's major event. Today he trenchantly notes that 9/11 didn't, as advertised, change everything. Local officials were flatfooted.

Incidentally, he also gives the lie to the notion that the Bush administration took money from Big Easy flood control for the Iraq war, mentioning in passing that the government built a bridge to an uninhabited Alaskan island for more than three times the amount by which New Orleans flood control was reduced.

Then take a look at his Spectator piece justifying optimism about Iraq. With SWNID, Steyn insists that the constitutional process is going just fine, thank you. And then he fires this devastating volley:

If the Shia are England and the Kurds are Scotland, the Sunni Triangle is Northern Ireland. Oh, and the Marsh Arabs are Wales. . . . The point is that back when bombs were going off in Belfast and Derry, life was relatively pleasant in the rest of the United Kingdom except for the occasional sudden atrocity. . . . I often say the glass in Iraq is two-thirds full, but that’s not quite right: it’s seven-ninths full. In 14 out of 18 provinces, life is as good as it’s ever been.

The World Keeps Spinning, And So Does the Left-Wing Media

William Rehnquist's death has given the MSM something to write about besides New Orleans. But the tone hasn't changed. Everything is still the fault of the Republicans.

In light of events, James Taranto has posted a rare Sunday column, doubly rare because this is a holiday weekend. He carries a full transcript of Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's remarks early this morning to Alan Colmes on Fox News about Chief Justice Rehnquist, in which he referred to him as an "activist" justice because of his willingness to overturn acts of Congress on principles of federalism, calling him a "Republican thug." Dershowitz was so over the top that Colmes, no friend of conservatives, didn't even acknowledge him at the end of the program.

Meanwhile, ABC reports polls showing that while the public is plenty dissatisfied with Katrina relief, they are most dissatisfied with state and local government responses and least likely to place the blame on President Bush. Nevertheless, the media still trumpet that Katrina is a political crisis for Bush.

What do these two items have in common? They both illustrate the intransigent bitterness of the left about the current conservative ascendancy in American politics, with special focus on Bush and the justices who voted for his side in Bush v. Gore.

But first, some historical perspective, painted with the broadest of brushes.

Leftist ideology, shot through with foggy Darwinism and diluted Marxism, assumes the historical inevitability of its objectives. Those who drink the left's water are therefore frustrated and resentful that these days the right is winning most of the elections and all of the substantial arguments.

The Left's anger for a generation was directed largely at Richard Nixon because of his championing of Whittaker Chambers against Alger Hiss. Hiss was the poster boy of the left: an east-coast Brahmin, ivy-league educated, serving in that most liberal of government departments, State, and insisting that the Soviet Union posed no threat to the United States. Nixon had none of it, and brought to the country's attention the testimony of Chambers, a Hiss associate, who swore that he had himself been a member of the Communist party, had now left the party, and could confirm that Hiss was a party member and a Soviet operative.

History proved Nixon right. When the Soviet Union fell, KGB papers confirmed that Hiss was working for the Soviets. Well before that time, of course, on his own Nixon had made real trouble for himself. But even today, many liberals will not admit that Hiss was a traitor and Nixon was right.

Now Bush suffers a similar fate, largely because of Bush v. Gore and what created it. The left has not adjusted to the notion that Clinton's presidency did not represent the country's return to proper liberal control of politics but a brief interruption of a long-term conservative swing. Therefore, they will not admit that the Supreme Court merely enforced the law of the land that makes a state's own electoral laws the standard by which its elections are conducted, hence making the Florida Legislature the final determiner of Florida's electoral votes and closing out any further recounts on the deadline set by Florida statute. They further cannot admit that Bush actually won Florida by the narrowest of margins, as proved not only by the initial, official recounts but by every independent recount conducted since. They say that Bush stole the election, or that the Supreme Court, or more particularly five "Republican" justices (or now "Republican thugs") gave it to him.

So now everything is Bush's fault. As Lucianne Goldberg suggests this afternoon, pretty soon they're going to say that Bush caused Katrina to make business for Halliburton.

But much of the public sees through this nonsense. Fox News had stellar ratings throughout the hurricane coverage, no doubt because it was free of the Bush-bashing that is the fabric of other outlets. And now the polls show that they're not willing to blame the president for what are primarily local matters, albeit local matters of epic scope.

So will the MSM catch up with the public? Probably not. This is the only way they know how to fill up their pages and broadcast time. Expect attention to return to Iraq after Labor Day, and expect to hear what a shambles the constitutional process is there and how hopeless the American military position is.

But we'll know what to do with that too.

Crucifying Jabez

SWNID regularly wishes he had written the pieces on LarkNews.com. But no more so than with the current piece "Jabez book devastates China house churches." A brief quote:

The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson, one of the best-selling non-fiction books in the past ten years, has gutted China's house church movement, say observers.

"Chinese Christians used to sacrifice everything for Christ. Now they only want God to bless them," says one Chinese elder who has served five prison terms for planting churches. He and others say China's Christians have "grown soft with navel-gazing" and have lost their tolerance for persecution.

Gentle readers who don't follow the link and read the piece are risking the judgment of Christ.

And for President in 2008, SWNID Endorses . . .

Rudy Giuliani!

Yes, it's rather early to be making such endorsements. So SWNID, while not acknowledging actual doubt, nevertheless reserves the right to change his mind later. But for now, the Time Man of the Year for 2001 and current favorite to be appointed by Bush as Czar of Katrina Relief is our pick for Leader of the Free World in 2008.

Why? He's a tough-minded prosecutor and a get-it-done chief executive. He's proved superb at the substantial and symbolic tasks of executive political leadership. We theo-cons can hold our noses on abortion and gay marriage, neither of which are much within a president's power to affect anyway.

David Brooks, insightful opinion columnist for the New York Times, notes part of the reason that Giuliani is the man. Our tough times bode some political change. Brooks offers that a liberal resurgence would be one possible change. But SWNID says not in times that call for assertiveness abroad and effective administration at home. So the change will be within the conservative spectrum. And Giuliani is the personification of that change.

An unsigned piece in the Garden City, NY News gets more of it. The liberals, they note, are not fit for times like these. They argue further that the only potential Republican candidates with national impact are Giuliani and McCain. But SWNID, never a fan of McCain, notes the unlikelihood that any sitting senator can be elected president (only two in the last one hundred years did so, and one needed his daddy to buy the White House for him). Both Giuliani and McCain would need to find a way to energize the social conservative base of the Republicans, especially in the primaries. But SWNID believes that Giuliani's breathtakingly effective leadership in New York City makes him reasonably appealing to the base, while McCain's maverick pose makes him unappealing even to the unaffiliated, who want to know what they're voting for. The News's reporter notes that Giuliani was notably popular with delegates to the 2004 Republican convention, despite his reputation as a social liberal.

Giuliani is highly appealing to Republican operatives because of electoral college calculus. He would likely steal NY from Hillary and the Ds, making a Democrat victory mathematically impossible. We will all go to bed early on the first tuesday of November 2008 if Giuliani runs.

There are alternatives. Condi Rice is the most interesting. But she's never run for office before, and SWNID, utterly confident of her executive abilities, questions that she has the bloodlust that a winning campaign requires. Stanford beckons for her return. Mitt Romney (see last month's Atlantic profile) is highly qualified but not well known outside of MA and UT. He's the likeliest social conservative to challenge Giuliani, but he can only manage it if he can rise to the occasion of projecting presidential authority to voters.

So, allowing that Romney is a dark horse who may emerge from early primaries and thereby gain stature, and Rice would make a superb president whose campaign could change politics for a generation, we nevertheless look to Mr. Giuliani.

Remember, you read it here first.

SWNID Issues Cincinnati Mayoral Endorsement

The much awaited SWNID endorsement in Cincinnati's mayoral primary is here.

[drum roll]

SWNID invites all its gentle readers who live in Cincinnati proper to vote in the upcoming mayoral primary for . . .

[drum roll crescendo]

State Senator Mark Mallory.

[cymbal crash, brass fanfare, confetti and balloon drop]

Why does SWNID, a conservative Republican, endorse Mallory, a Democrat and widely identified as a liberal, endorsed at his announcement of candidacy by flaccidly ineffectual and intellectually bankrupt former mayor Roxanne Qualls?

Because of those running, he's the only one who offers what the city needs right now.

I submit the following:

• The other leading candidates are all members or former members of Cincinnati City Council. That alone disqualifies them as effective politicians. Cincinnati City Council has devolved over the last 25 years from a balanced, civic-minded, moderate force for social and economic improvement to a group of spoiled children rushing to get their faces in front of the TV cameras first.
• Mallory has a record in the Ohio Legislature distinguished by productivity and thoughtful cooperation. As a member of the minority party, he has nevertheless managed to work with members of the majority party to secure passage of legislation on which both sides could agree. In this he is following the tradition set by his father, William Mallory, Sr., a state representative of, I believe, 26 years' tenure, who was noted for his bipartisanship and gentlemanly demeanor. Mr. Mallory, Sr. has recently written in the Cincinnati Enquirer with eloquence and affection about his relationship with late Republican members of the Ohio Legislature who were his friends and co-sponsors of key legislation. In the Mallory family, the apples all have fallen very close to a very fine tree.
• Though ideologically liberal, Mallory's career has been marked by sensible moderation, not ideological rancor. As it happens, the issues Cincinnati faces are not matters that fall on either side of the present spectrum of political ideology. They are more about political, social and economic strategizing for improvement in the city's living conditions, and even more about building productive relationships with other levels of government and with the private sector.
• Mallory's priorities are priorities on which conservatives can agree: sensible public safety policies, neighborhood development, expanded home ownership, and protection from predatory lending practices, a real problem right now in Cincinnati.

Mallory himself summed up the choice in an early debate. Asked why people should vote for him and not for the others, he said that voters should speak with the people with whom he works in Columbus, then with those with whom the other candidates work in Cincinnati. That's the choice in sum. He's the only Mensch, and the only one with a record of accomplishment. Note the following about his major opponents:

• Vice Mayor Alicia Reece has done nothing of significance on City Council except to promote herself. She should be commended for not supporting the boycott, but not for posturing and preening on everything else. The essence of her appeal to voters can be summed up as: I deserve to be mayor, and if you don't think so, you're not being fair to me. The best we can hope for from her is more of the same--which is to say nothing--from the mayor's office.
• Charles Winburn is simply a joke. He did nothing as a City Council member except to stand outside alleged crack houses with a megaphone, shouting at drug dealers while the cameras rolled. Out of office thanks to the blessing of term limits, he led a comical campaign against Walnut Hills High School's principal, all based on fictional allegations and all prompted by his disappointment that his daughter struggled there academically. He says we should vote for him because he is the candidate who supports conservative family values (he said so today on my voicemail). Fine. But what does he offer by way of specifics? He'll stop crime (which, by the way, is down overall, not that Winburn will mention it) by building a new prison. And where will he get the money? Private donations! Can you see it? The Carl Lindner Family Center for Penal Hope. The Patricia Corbett Jailhouse Rock. Fifth Third Bank Debt-to-Society Center. The best that Winburn would do as mayor is make America forget about Marge Schott as Cincinnati's greatest buffoon. I say that he's pimping his Christian faith, and as a person of Christian faith, I resent it. We don't need a Republican version of Al Sharpton.
• David Pepper seems thoughtful enough. He's been traveling to other cities to see what works and what doesn't, rather like Chicago's superb mayor, Richard M. Daley. But Pepper has not managed in his terms on city council to emerge as a leader in any respect. All he does is get elected with lots of votes.

Now a personal observation, not decisive about Mallory's merits, but which I hope is of interest to our gentle readers. Mark Mallory has lived for nearly four years with his parents in the house across the street from the SWNID household. Mrs. SWNID, son and daughter of SWNID and I have found him and his parents to be friendly, gracious people. My only criticism is that Mark wears inappropriate clothes to rake leaves, namely wing tipped shoes, worsted wool slacks and French-cuffed shirts, albeit tieless and with sleeves rolled up. Challenged on the principle that one should wear old clothes to do yard work, he replied to SWNID, "But these are old clothes."

SWNID also insists, in the interests of full disclosure, that he does not endorse Mallory in hopes of getting better snow removal from his street. Having made such a remark to Mr. Mallory, Sr. awhile back, the remarkable gentleman reminded me that Cincinnati is not Chicago.

So in short, Mallory is a person who will build coalitions, establish consensus, bridge differences with respect and personal kindness, and build networks of people for civic improvement. That's what we need in a mayor right now: a competent executive, a uniter, not a divider. Cincinnati has alienated itself from surrounding suburbs, Hamilton County government, and the folks in Columbus. At this point, even Belgrade probably wouldn't agree to be a sister city with us. Mark Mallory can change that.

And now a word to my friends who are active in Republican Party politics in Hamilton County. You'd better pray hard that your scenario for Winburn's victory (carry Republicans plus some of Reece's and Mallory's African-American votes in the primary, then play the same card against Pepper in November to carry most of the African-American votes plus some of Pepper's west side support) doesn't pan out. If he's elected, the party will lose all credibility as soon as he's inaugurated and opens his mouth. And Cincinnati will be back in the late-night monologues.

But back to Mallory, with the Republicans still in mind. The party wanted judge Mark Painter to run. Painter would have been a serious candidate, appealing, with an excellent record and the ability to be an excellent mayor. But he refused, saying that his long friendship with the Mallory family made it impossible for him to consider running. That's as close as you'll get to a Republican endorsing a Democrat in this county.

Unless this is. Peter Bronson, seldom-wrong-but-never-in-doubt columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer and a rabid conservative, is himself forced to admit that Mallory looks like the best qualified candidate. Bronson can only criticize Mallory's focus on "root causes" of crime, always an anathema to conservatives because of its philosophical roots in notion of humanity's inherent goodness. I likewise object to such talk, though maybe not as enthusiastically as Bronson. But Mr. Mallory is running for mayor, not prosecutor. Since the Hamilton County Prosecutor will be a Republican for the next 1000 years, maybe a Democrat mayor who wants to supplement prosecution with prevention is OK. Unemployment, poor schools and idle time for youth may not be the cause of crime, but they don't help anybody either. Furthermore, Mallory's Public Safety Plan is all about sensible programs that will put more resources in place to fight crime head-on. The only thing that resembles a liberal "root cause" program, a la Bill Clinton's infamous midnight basketball , is a boot camp for nonviolent juvenile offenders. A boot camp is not soft on crime!

So if there's a chapter of Republicans for Mallory, I'll join.

Something That Could Save Doomed Big Easy

OK, OK. So the Port of New Orleans is necessary to the economic well being of North America, if not Planet Earth. The city will be rebuilt to some degree. SWNID admits that all great cities are built where they are to take advantage of certain factors of location, ignoring others.

But how do we avoid reliving what just happened there?

Clever contrarian John Tierney has a suggestion nobly informed by history and economics, two helpful disciplines that are sadly opaque to many pundits. The problem, Tierney opines, was reliance on the federal government to do what privately funded insurance and locally financed government action should have taken care of. Ben Franklin got it right: organize a local fire department and sell private fire insurance. So now we must apply to water what we have applied to fire: build local infrastructure and make flood insurance the only means of protection, not FEMA largesse.

Read Tierney and marvel that such good sense came from the New York Times.

The Problem with Conservative Talk Radio

No, it's not that it's conservative. That's fine, especially with me, since I'm conservative. And seldom wrong.

What's wrong with conservative talk radio is its widespread reliance on advertising from scam artists selling bogus herbal remedies, diet aids, vision-improvement programs, breath-improvement programs, and work-at-home ponzi schemes.

How can someone who uses the airwaves ostensibly to uphold the time-honored values of Western Civilization and the Judaeo-Christian religious traditions take money to advertise people who are effectively lying to make a fast buck?

I urge all the big conservative radio talkers, all of whom read this blog daily for program ideas, to stop advertising the Three-Step Plan, the See Clearly Method, the Bad Breath Bible, and others of their ilk. You have nothing to lose but money, and nothing to gain but credibility.

And you read it here first: as SWNID's readership grows and advertisers ask to buy space on this page, we will accept no scamvertising. Period.

Comments from Humans Welcome

SWNID's gentle readers don't comment much on the posts here. After all, the posts are already seldom wrong, so what's to comment on?

But SWNID's gentle readers may have noted that the number of comments on posts has recently skyrocketed. But those who click on the links to comments will realize that they bear a striking resemblance to spam emails.

These posts are, sadly, spam comments. These geniuses are devising programs to automatically post comments with links to commercially oriented blogs that push the usual round of spammy scams.

So, gentle readers who are actually reading, we urge you to fight back by posting actual comments. Go ahead! It's easy!

Update: We Still Owe These Guys a Lot

Update on previous post: Larry Vinson's wife, Heather, went into labor just before his departure. This means that, per army regulations, Larry can stay for the birth of his child and so will not go on active duty in Mississippi for hurricane recovery.

I'm for thanking God that Larry can stay home and be a dad and husband, which he alone can do, while others can help with the recovery. However, I have to remember that many who are being activated are also dads, moms, husbands and wives.

We owe these guys, Larry included, a lot.

Future for the Big Easy: Grim or None

City Journal is a must read for those who love cities and are interested in how they can be made better. Its website currently features a short column by Nicole Gelinas giving a lot of reasons to think that New Orleans may well never recover from Katrina.

This analysis makes Dennis Hastert's much maligned comments on the prospects of the federal government financing rebuilding in New Orleans look pretty reasonable.

But nothing can make this a happy prospect. Taking the long view, we all know that cities arise and disappear. But we don't expect to see it happen, let alone so quickly.

RFK Jr. Still Second Most Embarrassing Kennedy

Despite a strong effort to take over first place from his uncle, Congressman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. remains in second place in the race to be named Most Embarrassing Kennedy Ever.

RFK Jr.'s recent post on Hurricane Katrina invokes biblical imagery in a kind of postmodern pagan deification of nature, arguing that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour brought the disaster on his state because he opposed ratification of the Kyoto Treaty's limits on so-called greenhouse gases.

Besides ignoring the meteorological reality that hurricane strength and frequency depends on patterns of ocean currents that change constantly over time and are not quickly influenced by atmospheric temperature changes, the Congressman's remarks also ignore the geological reality that dramatic events in the atmosphere, oceans and crust of the earth have shaped the earth's surface since the planet first formed, with or without the effects of human activity.

Endorsing the myth that Earth was an edenic paradise prior to industrialization--or at least prior to the Bush Administration, the remarks also show no understanding for the recurrence of disasters affecting major cities throughout human history. One observer remarked, "This is the dumbest blame-casting since Mrs. O'Leary's cow took the rap for the Chicago fire."

Despite this strong showing in the Kennedy embarrassment standings, Senator Ted Kennedy remains securely in first place, the position he's held since July 1969. The Senator established his lead by driving a car in to the water off Martha's Vineyard. The Senator was apparently intoxicated at the time, and was in the company of a young woman other than his wife. That passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in the accident, while the Senator escaped and contacted someone other than the legal authorities. The Senator's actions managed to gain public attention despite the fact that they occurred on the evening that the Apollo 11 mission first landed men on the moon.

The "Most Embarrassing Kennedy Ever Contest" was first established by family patriarch Joseph Kennedy, Sr., who led the standings in its first years on the strength of his very public extramarital affair with neurotic film star Gloria Swanson and his statements supporting European fascism while serving as US ambassador to Great Britain in the Franklin Roosevelt administration.

Why we owe so much to these guys

SWNID has commented before on the courage and dedication of America's servicemen and women, mostly connecting stories in the news with personal anecdotes from our contacts with active duty and reserve servicepeople.

Well, here's another one.

We've heard that National Guard units are on their way to the south to help in aid and recovery efforts. One such soldier is Cincinnati Christian University student Larry Vinson.

Larry has already served in Iraq. Back in the classroom at CCU, he's now been activated again, with the semester barely a week old, to serve in Mississippi. Worse, his wife is expecting their first child any day now.

Larry will not be present for the birth of their child. But he will be present for all of us in Mississippi.

He called me tonight, to check on what could be done to salvage his semester. Of course, we'll do everything we can to keep his education moving toward graduation. But there's not much we can do for the pain of his separation from his wife and child.

But we can thank him, honor him and those like him, and continue to try to live in a way that reflects our gratitude for sacrifices like his, remembering that there is an even bigger sacrifice on our behalf, gratitude for which has changed everything about life.

SWNID Corrects Revered Web Columnist

James Taranto, editor of the invaluable and aptly named "Best of the Web Today" at OpinionJournal.com, has for some time made statements like the one in today's column:

Neither the biblical story of creation nor the idea of "intelligent design" is a scientific theory (despite the latter's pretensions), and thus neither belongs in science class, as opposed to courses in history, religion and philosophy.

Mind you, Taranto is no friend of secular evolutionists either. But his attempt to strike a middle ground on the question of teaching origins questions in schools is strikingly illogical, for one reason. Why should the question of origins demand a rigorous observance of the limits of an academic discipline in the classroom, when no other subject does?

To wit:

• English teachers regularly discuss moral/ethical questions raised by the actions of characters in novels, even though ethics is not a branch of language study.
• History teachers regularly discuss questions of ethics and current politics, though neither are history.
• Science teachers regularly discuss public policy questions that relate to the application of science.
• Math teachers regularly talk about the use of math in business or science, though they teach neither.

The truth is that all good teaching is interdisciplinary. That's because knowledge is interrelated.

And the fact is that no one would care about questions of origins if we didn't think that they had relevance to our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. This is not just human curiosity about the world. No one really cares much that dogs are descended from wolves. But we do care that people may be descended from apes. Or that there might be a Creator. That's why origins gets studied, taught and argued about.

So SWNID has boldly emailed to Taranto a challenge on this very point. Step out from behind your slender objection, Mr. Taranto, and face up to the question that you are avoiding! This question of God won't go away with appeal to the so-called limits of science. Give up the illogic that such questions don't belong in the science classroom. No one would stay awake in a science classroom that never breached the methodological walls of science.

Where to Give

With a lot of other blogs, SWNID is recommending a way to give for hurricane relief. We're going with two.

For immediate relief, give to the Salvation Army (be patient with the link: heavy traffic means slow downloads). These folks are dedicated to the task, knowledgeable and still doin' it in the name of Jesus. Some interesting anecdotes from other recent stateside disasters suggests that they maybe surpass even the Red Cross for short-term effectiveness.

For long-term relief, go for International Disaster Emergency Services. This organization has an amazingly low overhead because it works with churches located in or near disaster areas to distribute the aid that the locals know they need to the people whom the locals know are in need. If you know of churches in or near the affected area, contact IDES with the information, or contact the church--if you can--and have them get in touch.

World's Smartest Person Explains, But Is Anyone Listening?

Christopher Hitchens, who genuinely deserves the motto of this blog, offers a typically erudite and scathing explanation--once again--of the necessity for the Iraq War. A brief quotation, to whet the appetite:

This state--Saddam's ruined and tortured and collapsing Iraq--had also met all the conditions under which a country may be deemed to have sacrificed its own legal sovereignty. To recapitulate: It had invaded its neighbors, committed genocide on its own soil, harbored and nurtured international thugs and killers, and flouted every provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United Nations, in this crisis, faced with regular insult to its own resolutions and its own character, had managed to set up a system of sanctions-based mutual corruption. In May 2003, had things gone on as they had been going, Saddam Hussein would have been due to fill Iraq's slot as chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Meanwhile, every species of gangster from the hero of the Achille Lauro hijacking to Abu Musab al Zarqawi was finding hospitality under Saddam's crumbling roof.

SWNID happily points gentle readers to this piece. But SWNID wonders whether anyone cares any more, SWNID readers excepted. The American attention span has been exhausted, it seems. Iraq and global jihad must go away.

Well, Hitchens knows that they won't. Let's hope that someone is listening.

Why do facts keep contradicting analysis?

The Times (UK, not NY) reports that Islamic Fundamentalist candidates took a huge electoral beating in the border provinces of Pakistan.

This give a huge boost to President Musharraf, a key American ally who has stuck his neck out repeatedly to support the War on Terror.

It also is factually problematic for the antiwar left's drumbeat that the Iraq War is creating more terrorists.

But this time SWNID doesn't blame the MSM for ignoring the good news about Iraq. Blame the American MSM for ignoring the fact that there is such a place as Pakistan.

Or India, or Sri Lanka, or Malaysia, or Fiji, or Botswana, or Paraguay. Or Bulgaria or Armenia or Estonia. Or Canada!

The British press remembers that "the pink bits [used to be] ours," and reports on them regularly. The American press knows that there are the European Union, Israel, places where illegal immigrants come from, and, occasionally, places where bad people harvest narcotics. They've known about Iraq since 1989 and Iran off and on since the 70s. They don't even know that there used to be an American Empire of sorts. When was the last time you heard anything about the Philippines?

And when American reporters get outside their comfortable surroundings, they all check into one hotel with herds of other reporters. And they do their reporting from there. I wish I'd saved a link to a story to this very effect that was posted recently by a MSM outlet. A reporter in Baghdad actually said something like, We don't need to leave the hotel; we can see the explosions from here. Remember Hotel Rwanda?

But back to the big point. Who would have expected that pro-Musharraf candidates would have reversed a 50-point deficit in the very provinces where the Qaida guys are cave-dwelling? Is it possible that there is a fairly universal human longing for freedom and dignity?

Robertson Follows Clinton Example, Widens Lead in Embarrassment Standings

Responding to criticism of his remarks about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, professional Christian embarrassment Pat Robertson has issued an apology coupled with the remark:

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him
out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping;
there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing
him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all
the time."

Observers note that Robertson's claim to have been misinterpreted is seriously weakened by the context of his original remark, which included: "If he [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it."

Inside sources reveal that Robertson's inspiration for this pallid equivocation was President Bill Clinton's famous remark, "It depends on the definition of is." Those sources refuse to speculate whether Robertson will continue to imitate the two-term Democrat president.

Robertson's apology and equivocation have moved him further ahead of rival Jerry Falwell in the standings as Most Embarrassing Christian Ever.

(Hat tip to Son of SWNID for the idea. See also, SWNID is loath to admit, the fine satirical piece on the Brown Daily Squeal.)

More on Vietnam Parallels

Jeff Jacoby has the unenviable job of making sense within the pages of the Boston Globe. But I do envy that he can devote his full-time attention to writing opinion pieces. I therefore defer to him and direct readers to his superb column on why Iraq is not Vietnam.

I will only add anecdotally that the transcript of Matt Lauer's Today Show conversation with an American solider in Iraq is confirmed by SWNID's stateside conversations with veterans of the campaign.