Following Up On Thoughtful Remarks From wallamaarif

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by Smitty

Commenter wallamaarif offers comments #17 and #20 on
Get Stuffed, Alan Colmes that merit examination.

Before delving into details, let’s note that the overwhelming bulk of human history, and, indeed, the contemporary situation, has featured unrepresentative regimes. For example, the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon does a fine job of kicking European representative democracy in the dental work. Examples get uglier from there.

#17:

Good job ignoring this part of Colmes’ article, then demonstrating its central point:
“There is something upsetting about how eager folks on the right have been to say it’s all been downhill since the 1780s. Sure, if called on it, as in the Marshall-Kagan business, they’ll backtrack and say that they obviously think emancipation and women’s suffrage were good things. But they appear mainly unperturbed about the fact that in 1792, the percentage of the population with full citizenship was probably less than one-fourth. It’s an afterthought.”
Exactly. Most conservative pleas for a return to strict constitutional government ignore the fact that relatively few “Americans” got to participate in anything remotely resembling a free market at the nation’s founding.

So the fact that things were less than perfect at when the 1787 Constitution was signed renders the document useless? If you read Amar’s book, you’ll discover that the 1787 Constitution was, itself, a fairly radical step over its Colonial/State predecessors. For example, there were no requirements for land ownership to vote. Yes, women and blacks took longer, and it’s as easy to shoot the Founding messengers for operating within the realm of the possible as it is to contend that a 223 year old document must obviously be useless because it’s old. Your argument would be equally cool on either foundation.

The idea that America is somehow less free today, when all 100% of adults are enfranchised but taxed at one of the lowest rates in modern world history, than it was at its founding, when being born with the wrong skin color or genitalia consigned you to lifelong second-class status, but there was no income tax, is ludicrous on its face.
The rest of your post is a festival of straw men. (Who, for example, on the Left doesn’t believe in “sober management”? Seems like the last time the budget was balanced, a Democrat was in office. Check the deficit records of the Presidents who came out of the modern conservative movement, especially Reagan, for a clear picture of irresponsible financial management.)

When they wrote the 1787 Constitution, the Framers were delegating certain powers to a Federal government. While 1913 brought the scourge of the income tax (Amendment 16), it also stripped States of an advocate (Amendment 17), and brought in the Federal Reserve Act, which un-elected, un-accountable cabal of thieves has supported large scale, systemic robbery from the people. Show me the people in either the Democratic or Republican party (modulo Paul Ryan) doing anything substantial to plan for a debt-free America? Your attempt at holding up a balanced budget figleaf tempts a remark somewhere between Biden and Emmanual on the potty-mouth scale. Tell you what: review this clip and let’s talk about debt and deficit.

#20:

Well, I tried. Did I “shoot the messenger”? No, I responded to your artful eliding of what seemed to me to be a valid point.

Hopefully this more full response answers the mail.

“History is unalterable…” I agree, which is why I wrote the above comment, the substance of which you declined to address.
“…which is why the Left ignores and airbrushes it.” My entire argument is based on matters of historical record. How have I “airbrushed” anything?

The country’s problems, in my opinion, are rooted in the Federal government undertaking non-Federal tasking.
A response might be: “If DC hadn’t enacted Social Security/Fannie/Freddie/ObamaCare, it wouldn’t get done.”
You may argue that pointing to the debt is a strawman, but, if the strawman is of sufficient size/density that it crushes you like a bug when it topples, you may want to respect that strawman.

Also: I realize that it’s pretty much standard fare in web disputes to respond to a charge (in this case: “you’re ignoring the historical case against your position”) with some variant of “I know you are but what am I?” (in this case: “the Left ignores and airbrushes [history].”) But really, is it that difficult to respond to a substantive critique with a specific rebuttal?

Unless you don’t have one, that is. If that’s the case, by all means continue slandering liberals in general for saying things you don’t have an answer for.

And no, none of the points I’m raising in this post are terribly fresh for this blog.
You seem more avid than many on the Left. Hang out, join in. We can recover the country.

Terrorism at 39 Waverley Avenue?

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Photo by Da Tech Guy

Pir Khan, Mohammad Bakht Zameen, Said Pervez — these are reportedly the names of three tenants of the boarding house at 39 Waverley Avenue in Watertown, Mass., raided Thursday morning by agents of the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and local police. At least six search warrants were executed, and two men were reportedly arrested, although law-enforcement officials have yet to identify the arrested men by name. Here is video of one suspect being arrested by ICE agents:

The Watertown raid was connected to the May 1 car bomb attempt in New York City, the Wall Street Journal reports:

The suspect in the Times Square plot, Faisal Shahzad, has been cooperating with prosecutors since his capture two days after the May 1 bombing attempt. . . .
The raids are part of the FBI effort to track down the sources of cash that Mr. Shahzad used to finance the bombing attempt, U.S. officials said. Investigators have focused on money couriers, commonly used in immigrant communities, as a possible way Mr. Shahzad got the cash, though there’s no indication anyone handling the money knew Mr. Shahzad’s intention to use it to build a bomb, officials said.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s primary concern during his testimony before Congress today was, evidently, to avoid using the term “radical Islam” to describe the motives of Shahzad and his accomplices:

One of the men arrested attended a nearby mosque:

Members of the Allston-Brighton Islamic Center are watching the news very closely after one of their own was arrested in the FBI raids. . . .
Center officials say Pir Khan has been coming here for Friday prayers for about eight or nine years. “I would describe him as a nice guy, a very good guy,” said Haroon Khan, the center’s director of community affairs. “And even I can not think of him that he can do anything wrong.” . . .
Investigators believe the two Massachusetts men arrested in the FBI raids provided money to the accused bomber, maybe unwittingly. . . .
Sher Wahab says he is shocked over Khan’s arrest.
He owns the cab company Khan drove for. “He’s a very polite person, a very nice person,” said Wahab. . . .
Islamic center officials say they will cooperate with the FBI in their investigation.
In fact, a month ago, the center’s president invited the FBI there when he learned agents were questioning a member about people at the center.

The fact that the FBI was asking questions about members of this mosque a month ago — i.e., before the May 1 bomb attempt — could be connected to reports that the feds had previously aware of Faisal Shahzad’s possible terrorism ties. Like the cab company owner who employed Khan, the landlord of 39 Waverley Avenue was “shocked” by the FBI raid:

He said once he learned of the search, he called the FBI, which sent an agent to show him photographs of his tenants. “And basically the information I gave them was they’re good people. They’ve been living there since 2005 or 6,” said Baij Joshi, who manages the Waverly Avenue apartment for his father.
Joshi recalled his four tenants living there, all male, all from Pakistan, paid their $1,100 a month rent on time and “maintained their property well.” . . .
“Only (thing) unusual is whenever the roommates, they go to Pakistan, they go for like two months and they always have people coming over,” said Joshi.
Joshi says one of the tenants, Said Pervez, worked at a 7-Eleven on Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown. Another worked at the Brookline Mobil station searched by the FBI, said Joshi; a third, Pir Khan, owned taxicab medallions.

The employee of the Mobil station appears to have been Zameen:

The focus of the investigation was on a gray Honda Accord registered to Mohammad Bakht Zameen of 39 Waverley Avenue in Watertown, Mass. That residence was also raided by FBI officials Thursday morning, and involved the arrest of one man accused of alleged immigration violations.

Much of what Da Tech Guy reported by phone about the neighborhood — including residents saying that police had been staking out Waverley Avenue for days — is being confirmed by other reporters. The New York Times:

Another neighbor . . . said two men “with connections to Pakistan” have lived in the top floor of the house for a few months. The neighbor said he had seen law enforcement officials conducting surveillance at the house for about a week.

Remember Da Tech Guy said:

The boarding house where the suspects were arrested is “next door to public housing” in an “ethnically mixed neighborhood.” . . .
[T]he 2-story boarding house at 39 Waverly Ave. is located two doors down and across the street from Watertown Middle School . . .
[M]ost people in the neighborhood don’t know their neighbors. That might make it “a perfect place” for would-be terrorists to keep a low profile . . .

And here’s the Boston Herald reporting:

[T]he rental property, which is located across the street from Watertown Middle School, is constantly turning over with new residents.

So it was the kind of place where residents wouldn’t pay much attention to the comings and goings of strangers. Da Tech Guy has now posted several videos from Watertown today, including this 360-degree pan showing the locations of 39 Waverley Avenue, the Watertown Housing Authority and Watertown Middle School:

A pleasant-looking New England neighborhood and it’s not been established that anyone at 39 Waverley Avenue — including the men arrested Thursday on immigration violations — had any knowledge of Faisal Shahzad’s plans:

Federal officials say the searches were to check out money couriers who may have facilitated currency exchanges for Shahzad . . .
Immigration agents on Thursday took three men into custody – two in the Boston area and one in Maine. The Boston men, identified as Pir Khan and Aftab Khan, are not charged in connection with the terror plot, and officials said the third man wasn’t involved in the plot either.
Officials said it is still unclear if anyone who might have helped Shahzad get money had any idea about his bomb plans.
On Long Island, the FBI searched the basement apartment of Mohammed Younus along Oxhead Street looking for possible evidence. Younus has not been charged with any wrongdoing, officials said.
Investigators said the reason the raids spanned such a large area is because the old-world money lending system Shahzad used to raise funds, called Hawala, connects people in disparate places.

See Da Tech Guy’s videos, including his interview with Barbara Lacerra, who became something of a local media celebrity today.

My Fellow Redneck, Seema Jilani

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The experience of being a Muslim after 9/11 evidently aroused her to the prejudice experienced by those of us guilty of being Southern after 1861:

Oddly, the same people who disparage us also have love affairs with our culture. They ridicule us and then profess their love for Nina Simone, Austin, Johnny Cash or Louisiana’s crawfish etouffee dish when it’s trendy. This brings me to my favourite specimens: cocktail party progressives. You know the type – can’t converse without referencing the New Yorker. Pretentious, self-congratulatory liberals who applaud their own humanity while mocking the south. Curiously, they feign knowledge of Hank Williams when fashionable, but their intellectual elitism forgets that Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were southern geniuses.
I adore our southern nights and the taste of authenticity in Willie Nelson’s voice and Muddy Waters’ blues. I love that we celebrate colossally in New Orleans: Jazz Fest, Crawfish Fest, Mardi Gras, even Jazz Funerals. I was touched when kind neighbours baked us casseroles and stood by us as we endured post-9/11 racism. I am proud that Houstonians opened their homes to 250,000 New Orleans evacuees. That’s genuine southern hospitality. Southerners are not the ignorant, inbreeding, toothless rifle-owning trailer trash that my progressive colleagues paint them as. They are vibrant, passionate Americans with resolve. . . .

Jiliani didn’t mention William Faulkner or Mark Twain or Edgard Allen Poe or Willie Morris on her list of “southern geniuses,” but there’s never enough room, eh?

Also: “Southern” should always be capitalized as a proper noun. “Southern” refers to a people and a culture, whereas  “northern” is merely a direction.

Hat-tip: Toothless inbred trailer trash Glenn Reynolds.

Will Terrorists Boycott Arizona?

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Da Tech Guy told me that some residents of Watertown, Mass., he spoke with today said it’s time for Massachusetts to pass its own version of the new Arizona immigration law. Which would be a 180-degree reversal of what was happening in Massachusetts before this morning’s raids:

Last week, the Boston City Council passed a measure that would immediately end all city contracts with the state of Arizona and Arizona-based companies. This week, officials in Worcester, Lawrence, Springfield and Amherst were considering similar actions. Other cities in other states also are looking at taking action.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is stuck in “blame Bush” mode — is anyone really surprised? — and Michelle Malkin’s working on a column about today’s raids:

Suffice to say, the open-borders lobby’s “STOP THE RAIDS” and “STOP THE DEPORTATIONS” rhetoric will be on momentary pause so the Obama administration can selectively enforce our immigration rules for a brief, politically expedient moment before returning to the regularly scheduled, anti-Arizona demagoguery programming.

But, but . . . . they paid their rent on time!

UPDATE: Faisal Shahzad’s immigration history:

•June 30, 1979 – Born in Pakistan.
•December 22, 1998 – Issued student visa in Islamabad. It is difficult to justify the issuance of this student visa. Shahzad certainly failed to demonstrate that he had “sufficient academic preparation to pursue the intended course of study” at the University of Bridgeport, as the regulations required. He was applying as a transfer student, and his transcript from his correspondence course with Southeastern University, a now defunct fourth-rate academic program, showed a GPA of 2.78, including several D’s and an F (in statistics). . . .
•Fall 2000 – Graduates from University of Bridgeport, Conn. Several media reports have noted that Shahzad was flagged by border officials for carrying large sums of cash into the United States and for his repeated visits home to Pakistan. . . .
•2001 – Begins working for a temporary staffing agency. Shahzad entered on a student visa, which does not include permission to work. . . .
•2002 – Issued H-1B visa. Shahzad was sponsored by Elizabeth Arden to work in a low level accounting job under the H-1B visa program. This would seem to support the argument that the visa program brings in primarily ordinary workers, not the best and the brightest as its defenders claim.
•2004 – Obtains mortgage with Huma Anif Mian (U.S. citizen and future spouse).
•2004 – Comes under scrutiny of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. . . .
•February 2005 – U.S. citizen wife files green card petition. Neighbors of Shahzad’s bride have told reporters that he had visited her in Colorado just once before she left to marry him.
•January 2006 – Green card approved. USCIS was apparently unconcerned about either the suddenness of the marriage or the JTTF investigation. . . .
•October 2008 – Applies for citizenship. Shahzad wasted no time applying for U.S. citizenship, which can happen after three years of marriage to a U.S. citizen, compared with five years of residency for other legal immigrants. Shahzad’s alacrity in submitting his citizenship application is very unusual. The average immigrant waits six to ten years before applying, according to DHS statistics. . . .
•April 17, 2009 – Sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Again, it appears that USCIS was untroubled by or unaware of the previous JTTF investigation.
•June 2, 2009 – Departs for Pakistan.
•February 3, 2010 – Returns to the United States.
•May 1, 2010 – Attempts to set off bomb in Times Square.

Yeah, but I bet he paid his rent on time. They’re so hard-working, these immigrants. Building car-bombs American car-bomb builders won’t build.

UPDATE II: Meanwhile, in Illinois, liberals are cracking down on girls’ basketball teams. No word yet on whether the Faisal Shahzad or Mohammad Bakht Zameen or any of the other Pakistani Arizonan terror suspects ever attended a Tea Party, but I’m sure Frank Rich will have that angle covered.

BREAKING: Terrorism Angle in Massachusetts ‘Immigration’ Raids; BUMPED: ‘Very Quiet Neighborhood’; UPDATE: Mohammad Bakht Zameen; UPDATE: ‘They Paid the Rent on Time’

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12:08 p.m. ET: DaTechGuy on the scene reports by phone: The boarding house where the suspects were arrested is “next door to public housing” in an “ethnically mixed neighborhood.” Residents describe it as “a very quiet neighborhood” where “nothing ever happens — until today.”

UPDATE 12:20 p.m. ET: New England Cable News names Mohammad Bakht Zameen as one of the suspects in the case:

Federal agents roped off a Mobil station in Brookline Thursday morning, raiding the building along with a gray Honda Accord in the parking lot.
A man being questioned inside the gas station was believed to be the owner of the gray Honda, police told NECN. Police are unsure of his relation to the owner of the gas station, who is a well-known member of the Brookline community, Elias Audy. As off 11 a.m., the man under questioning had not been released from the gas station.
FBI officials were inside the Mobil station throughout the morning, pulling material out of the building’s bays — it is unclear exactly what they were doing. The focus of the investigation was on a gray Honda Accord registered to Mohammad Bakht Zameen of 39 Waverley Avenue in Watertown, Mass. That residence was also raided by FBI officials Thursday morning.

12:52 p.m. ET: In his latest update via telephone from scene, Da Tech Guy reports that the 2-story boarding house at 39 Waverly Ave. is located two doors down and across the street from Watertown Middle School (68 Waverly Ave.).

Residents in the neighborhood tell Da Tech Guy they were awakened this morning by the sound of helicopters overhead. FBI agents have been seen taking papers and computers out of 39 Waverly, and have reportedly set up a temporary headquarters in the basement cafeteria of the Watertown Housing Authority (55 Waverly Ave.).

The boarding house at 39 Waverly is owned by absentee landlords and most people in the neighborhood don’t know their neighbors. That might make it “a perfect place” for would-be terrorists to keep a low profile, as one resident told Da Tech Guy, who is continuing to interview residents, police and other people on the scene. He will be filing photos and video later today.

UPDATE 1:15 p.m. ET: The Boston Globe reports:

Baij Joshi, who manages the Watertown property for his father, Shubh, said the tenants on the first floor were several Pakistani men, who had lived there “more than two to three years.” He said some had spoken recently of taking trips to Pakistan.
“They seemed to be very good people. They paid the rent on time,” he said.
“The impression that I got is they’re working people, making their daily livelihood by driving a taxi and working in a store,” he said. . . .
FBI agents also questioned employees at another Brookline gas station, at the corner of Cypress Street and Route 9, this morning. They asked about a recently hired Pakistani employee who apparently worked Sundays for the last several months, said Hiyam Jabour, the cashier at the Mobil station, who was interviewed.
Neither she nor the mechanic from the garage said they knew the man, noting that he worked on a different shift. They referred questions to Elias Audy, the owner of the station, who also owns the gas station on Harvard Street.
Bill Audy, brother of Elias Audy, said he “wants the truth to be known.” He said he did not know the Pakistani employee but said that he worked at the gas station for “a very short time.” He said the real victim is his brother.
“This is a mess,” Audy said. “I think the media has destroyed my brother’s business. If I’m an outsider, I’ve got to wonder if the owners of the gas station are terrorists. He’s not happy about this.”

In the interest of “responsible, ethical journalism,” we must stipulate: (a) the individuals arrested are merely suspects, and their connections to Faisal Shahzad are unknown; and (b) even if the arrested suspects are involved in terrorism, neither their landlords nor their employers have been implicated in any such allegation.

It has just been reported that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will be holding a press conference shortly.

UPDATE 1:20 p.m. ET: Linked by Jules Crittenden, who happens to be city editor of the Boston Herald.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

PREVIOUSLY (11:08 a.m ET): Da Tech Guy just called from Massachusetts to tell me about this story now breaking on local news there:

The FBI conducted several raids in Massachusetts Thursday in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing, officials told CBS News.
Further raids are expected throughout the day.
Two people have been detained for “immigration violations,” FBI spokesperson Gail Marcinkiewicz told CBS station WBZ-TV in Boston, though she would not say whether they were involved in the plot.
“The searches are a product of evidence that has been gathered in the investigation subsequent to the Times Square bombing investigation,” said Marcinkiewicz.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick cancelled a planned appearance in Fitchburg today. Da Tech Guy has already blogged about this story, as has Jammie Wearing Fool. Da Tech Guy called me from the road as he was en route to the scene of the raids, and promises to have exclusive reporting soon.

UPDATE 11:22 a.m. ET: In our brief phone conversation, Da Tech Guy said the raids involve a family well-respected in the Boston suburban community where the raid took place. The Associated Press reports:

[P]olice have cordoned off a small house in Watertown, a suburb about 10 miles west of Boston where a neighbor reported seeing an FBI raid. . . .
Vinny Lacerra, 50, who lives across the street from the house raided in Watertown, said he was in his living room about 6 a.m. when he heard somebody say, “FBI! Put your hands up!”
Lacerra said he looked out his windows and saw 15 to 20 FBI agents with their guns drawn surrounding the house.
He said about 15 minutes later, the agents went inside and came out with one man handcuffed and took him down the street. He also said he saw an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I was surprised to see this because this is what you see on TV,” Lacerra said.

Da Tech Guy should arrive in the vicinity within minutes.

UPDATE 11:32 a.m. ET: Dan Riehl was on this story early, with links to the New York Daily News and this report from the Boston Herald:

FBI agents were also seen at two gas stations in Brookline – one on Harvard Street and another on Cypress Street. . . .
Lacerra said the rental property [on Waverly Avenue], which is located across the street from Watertown middle school, is constantly turning over with new residents. Neighbors said they’ve seen police staking out the area for several days, but did not why . . .

UPDATE 11:40 a.m. ET: Just got off the phone with Da Tech Guy, who just arrived on Waverly Avenue in Watertown and reports: “There are police all around, news cameras everywhere.”

UPDATE 11:45 a.m. ET: Now a Memeorandum thread and a story at Fox News, linked by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, where one of the commenters gets snarky:

CNN investigating anonymous reports that the men were arrested at the local tea party headquarters.

Professor Glenn Reynolds says, “Hmm.”

Why Michelle Todd Will Never Work
for a Republican Campaign Again

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OK, so who the heck is Michelle Todd? Her name popped up in this story about Charlie Crist:

Gov. Charlie Crist told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on April 30 that he would “probably” give refunds to donors who don’t approve of him leaving the GOP. . . .
No more. . . . [C]ampaign spokeswoman Michelle Todd said there will be no refunds. Asked whether that amounts to a flip-flop, she said, “We have never made an official statement before. It is now the official statement. They donated to the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign, and it’s still the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign.”

Republicans have now written down her name on their persona non grata list. Michelle Todd is henceforth an un-person to the GOP, and everybody else who does one day’s work for the Crist campaign will find their names on the same list.

One of the reasons Charlie Crist thought he could get away with this betrayal was his erroneous supposition that he could hire competent campaign staff to replace those who resigned en masse when he announced he would run as an independent.

Knowing a thing or two about how these things work, however, I explained on Ladd Ehlinger’s radio show this week that Crist would have extreme difficulty finding staff because (a) he’s doomed to defeat, and (b) any Republican operative who hires on with a Crist independent campaign will be committing career suicide.

Some conservatives have been freaked out by polls showing Crist leading a three-way race, evidently forgetting that, a year ago, the same polls showed Marco Rubio trailing Crist by 30 points in the GOP primary. There are four basic reasons Crist is doomed to defeat:

  • Crist will get no more Republican money. Fundraising is crucial to politics, and there are no direct-mail lists of “raging moderates” who will donate to an independent Crist campaign. It was estimated in late April that Crist quit the GOP race with $6 million cash-on-hand. Based on his previous “burn rate,” he’s unlikely to have half that amount remaining by Labor Day. Florida is a large state where running TV ads statewide (from Miami to Orlando to Jacksonville to Pensacola) is very expensive. Crist will get buried under an avalanche of TV ads in September and October.
  • Crist has no campaign “ground game” infrastructure. Who will be county chairmen and precinct captains for Crist? Where will he find volunteers to staff local offices, working the phones and handing out yard signs? Crist must build a campaign apparatus from scratch, while Rubio will have the well-established election machinery of the Republican Party working for him. As Rubio’s senior advisors said in a memo last month, “Florida’s county GOP offices are some of the most organized and sophisticated in the country . . . Crist will be starting from scratch to recruit, organize and mobilize volunteers for his campaign, whereas both Marco and [Democratic candidate Kendrick] Meek will have built-in volunteer networks to draw from.”
  • Nobody trusts a traitor. And nobody respects a quitter, as Arlen Specter is belatedly learning. Like Specter’s switch to the Democrats, Crist’s decision to go independent was pure selfishness. Crist had expected his handpicked state GOP chairman Jim Greer to deliver the Senate nomination on a silver platter, and when that didn’t happen, Crist decided to take his ball and go home. Think of how that lends itself to a devastating 30-second TV ad.
  • Rubio will win the debates. For nearly a year, Crist avoided debating Rubio. Once they finally met in a debate — March 28 on “Fox News Sunday” — it was obvious why, and Crist quit the GOP primary less than a month later. At some point this fall, Crist will have to share a debate stage with Rubio and the Democrat, Meek. Charlie will lose that debate, too, for the simple reason that there is no persuasive political rationale for Crist’s candidacy. If Florida voters want an Obama-hugging, stimulus-endorsing, liberal stooge for Harry Reid, they’ll support Kendrick Meek.

Crist is doomed and, after Nov. 2, Crist’s campaign staffers like Michelle Todd are going to find themselves not merely unemployed, but unemployable.

MARCO RUBIO FOR U.S. SENATE

Sure, It’s Among The More Primitive Large-scale Bonding Events

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by Smitty (h/t The Corner)

Herndon is sort of an anti-Prom, a brutal anachronism that is a hot, sweaty end to a crappy year. In the spirit of Twain’s famous quotation

“Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”— Mark Twain

the Herndon ceremony gets you ready for the next three years, before you escape “Sing Sing on the Severn.”

Today there is news of potential un-sought change un-backed by hope:

In a Wednesday media briefing, the academy’s outgoing superintendent hinted that the institution may be reconsidering the Climb, an event that sometimes leads to minor injuries. The climb has taken as little as a minute and a half and as long as four hours. The first-year “plebes” never stop till they reach the top, in a greasy human pyramid.
A followup statement clarified that Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler believes the Herndon Climb may eventually be supplanted by the Sea Trials program, a 14-hour regimen of physical and mental endurance tests including “hill assault,” a two-mile regimental run, simulated bridge defense and demolition, pull-ups and something called “pugil stick jousting,” This year’s Sea Trials is set for Tuesday. The Climb takes place May 24.
Fowler did not say that he would end the Climb. He’s leaving the academy this summer.
The academy has had official doubts about the event since at least January 2008. A Washington Post article from that month quoted an institutional statement that leaders were “evaluating the Herndon Monument Climb to ensure the event remains a valid part of our heritage but is conducted with professionalism, respect, and most important, safety in mind.”

This notion is as utterly weak as the uniform change allowing Surface Warfare Officers, known as “black shoes,” to wear aviators’ brown leather oxfords. The regulation came out, and the SWOs looked left and right and said “Be the first twerp to step into a wardroom in brown shoes, legal or not.”

Every class likes to tout theirs as The Last Real Plebe Year, and Herndon is the ceremony that brings closure. Mine ranks as the slowest to complete the evolution, but we were also the first, AFAIK, to get someone boosted to sit atop the thing. I thought the Baltimore Sun had a picture of that on the front page the next day, but light Googling can’t locate it.

Members of the first class to omit this event will make Rodney Dangerfield look like George Washington.

‘Responsible, Ethical Journalism’

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Thanks to Maggie’s Farm for reminding us of this brilliant May 4 prediction about the Times Square car bomb from law professor Timothy Stoltzfus Jost:

I think the politics of this incident will turn heavily on who is found to be responsible. If, as seems unlikely, the bomb is linked to South Asian or Middle Eastern terrorists, questions will again arise as to whether the Department of Homeland Security is doing all it can do to keep us safe. If, as I believe is much more likely, the bomb was placed by a right-wing lunatic, it seems to me that questions need to be raised as to whether the right-wing media bear some responsibility for stoking the delusions of such people through their relentless and often unfounded attacks on the Obama administration and the federal government.
We need to consider whether it isn’t time to return to responsible, ethical journalism.

Don’t quit your day job, professor.