Grotesque Gall Galore

A large dog distressed by New Year fireworks kept me up last night, and I'm grateful for it. I did something I rarely do and turned on the overnight news.The ABC male news reader was talking about the Bush administration crowning the year by producing unemployment at levels not seen since 1991. Then, in his banter with his female co-anchor, the male anchor actually complains that he's working on New Year's and declares his desire for and doubts about being compensated better in the coming year. He has just spoken of millions of fellow Americans without jobs, about how hard times are, but is gainsaying the position he has which so far as I can discern requires no unique ability, just the capacity to stay awake and read. Plenty of people, recently downsized or made redundant would be glad to trade places with him. In my hometown of Nashville yesterday, Muslim activists held a rally at the state capitol, holding up graphic pictures of babies purportedly butchered by Israel during the recent unpleasantness. I recall no similar gathering of Nashville Muslims to express their outrage over September 11, over the Beslan school massacre, over the Madrid train bombings, over the 7/7 London attacks, over the Mumbai murders, or indeed over any other act of barbarism or terror. While they would not be able to exercise their right to demonstrate unless they were parroting the position of government in any Arab or Muslim capital, it is heartening that even those who would use Sharia to deprive the freedom of others, have the liberty to protest here. The protest is of course misdirected, if Hamas had not been raining rockets over Israel and hiding behind women and children, the protesters would not have had any provocative photos to hold-up. (Except those from other events or that were photo shopped which I don't think Muslim provocateurs are beyond doing.)

Gallant and Glorious

Nick Schifrin reported the latest terrorist outrage at the start of World News Tonight. He described the simultaneous attacks as "bold". Audie Murphy who faced two Italian tanks with a Tommy gun was bold. Ernie Pyle who went to war with a typewriter was bold. Assailing unarmed civilians in cafes, hotels, and wounded people in a hospital is not bold. Even the suicide bombers are not bold-they are just deluded. The practices of asymmetric warfare are not brave. I saw a drunk cold cock an eighty year old female tavern keeper once after she cut him off. Was he a hero? These people who capture a theater in Moscow or a school in Beslan are the lowest form of yellow this author knows of, and there is a deterrent no matter how distasteful. Let it be known that every member of their family or tribe will be hunted down when they are identified. They will be wiped from the face of the earth. Cherie Blair said she understood Palestinian suicide bombers some years back. I wonder if her empathy extended to the 7/7 bombers. It is sadly all too easy to find fanatics willing to slaughter others and sacrifice their own lives, but are they willing to put their entire family at risk?