Bloomberg's not running, and other items

Maria tells me that Michael Bloomberg announced he's saving himself $100 million:

I'm Not Running for President, but ..., thank you for not running anyway, Mike.

Will he back McCain, or Obama?

Or will he be content with his new showbiz carreer?
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I've been banned in China, but have I been banned by the Air Force?

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address.

Perhaps if I changed the blog name to Fausta's coffee-politics-books-and-shoes parlor?

John Noonan at The Weekly Standard points out,

Also problematic is the fact that USAF bloggers have been among the most credible advocates for force-modernization plans, offering their strong support for the acquisition of the full fleet of 380 F-22s in particular. The Air Force has in one fell swoop discarded a valuable media asset, forcing the public to rely on cumbersome--and typically boring--USAF press releases instead.

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Phyllis Chesler has written a beautiful tribute to a friend, An Elegy For My Friend "Babz," aka Barbara Seaman
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City Will Reward Students With Phones for showing up to school and behaving well. Who's paying for the monthly service and texting fees remains unclear but at least "the program is being privately financed".
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Speaking of schools, Betsy has the textbook case on how NOT to handle a cheating scandal: Cheating at Chapel Hill High School

Mamacita writes about Two Students: A Contrast. And Then Some More Opinionated Rants.
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How much does a house weigh?
(h/t Larwyn)
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When I turned on the TV this morning one of the talk shows was discussing whether men look good with a 3-day stubble.

The answer is NO.

If any of you guys have any doubt, the odds are that a 3-day stubble will remind ladies of Yasser, not Colin, and definitely not of Clive.

I hope that settles the issue.

You can thank me later.



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Phyllis Chesler has a question for the presidential candidates

Phyllis Chesler wants to Ask the Presidential Candidates: Does Anti-Zionism=Racism? Is it Racism When the only Jewish State is Excluded?

Feminists slander Israel when they describe her as an apartheid state — when in fact, Islam is really the largest practitioner of both gender and religious apartheid not only in Muslim countries but also in the West. Western feminists won’t say this. They would lose their funding, their cozy lives, their positions in universities and their cachet in the media; their friends too. Perhaps even their lives.

When I say this on campuses, I need police officers to protect my right to speak.

Here's the video of Phyllis's lecture,

More related videos of the event at the AJC YouTube page.


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The death of feminism and Islamic gender apartheid in tonight's podcast

Tonight Dr. Phyllis Chesler joins Siggy and I to talk about women's rights and Islamic gender apartheid.

In an interview last year with The Guardian about her book The Death of Feminism, Phyllis explained,

Western feminism's failure to confront the problems raised by Islam, Chesler believes, is a result of the creation of a hierarchy of sins, "an intellectual culture in which racism trumps gender concerns". The example she cites as the embodiment of wrongheaded priorities is "gay and lesbian movement activists rooting for the Palestinians who, meanwhile, are very busy persecuting homosexuals, who in turn are fleeing to Israel for political asylum".

The result, she argues, is that "instead of telling the truth about Islam and demanding that the Muslim world observes certain standards, you have westerners beating their breasts and saying, 'We can't judge you, we can't expose you, we can't challenge you.' And here in the west you have a dangerous misuse of western concepts such as religious tolerance and cultural sensitivity so that one kind of hate speech is seen as something that must be rigorously protected. That means, principally, lies about America and lies about Jews."

In our society moral relativism has started to reach new lows, particularly in academic circles. Witness this article by Roger Sandall about the film Masai Women where anthropologist Melissa Llewellyn-Davies describes female genital mutilation as "a bit like a white wedding." Llewellyn-Davies spared us the horror of this rite by doing some judicious editing,

According to his 1993 report on the editing of Masai Women, the girl's agony was in fact recorded on audio tape during filming, and "a lively debate took place in the cutting room later about how the issue should be handled". One view was that "perhaps the girl's screams should be heard, thus giving symbolic expression to what was visually too horrific."

To this kind of judicious editing (both moral and cinematic) Phyllis has issued a challenge:

The way I see it: Everything is at stake, it's all up for grabs, this is no time for nihilistic or tedious party lines. This is not the time to think in ways calculated to please or to least offend one's peers. My goal is quote the opposite. I do not want to offend my good feminist friends; on the contrary, I would like to bring women and men together - from both the right and the left - in order to make a real difference. This is a time when we, the good people, have to think clearly, creatively, boldly, and morally.

Join us this evening at 9PM Eastern for a most interesting discussion.




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