Bill Cosby's not shutting up I see.

Good.

Mark Firestone notes that the U.N. apparently doesn't take its first-ever conference on anti-Semitism seriously. Unfortunate.

Every couple of months, I remind readers here on Dean's World about certain human rights issues big and small. I can't cover everything; I've been remiss in not talking about Rwanda mostly because I haven't had time to learn enough about it. I only talk about the international slave trade now and then. China and Tibet and I don't get to as much as I'd like, and ditto other places. Still, I cover what I can.

One of the smaller cases I've taken interest in is the fate of Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who remains imprisoned by the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. As he prepared to celebrate Mass on the morning of May 17, 2001, hundreds of police officers appeared at his church and arrested himes. A long-time, outspoken advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for exercising that fundamental human right.

I have in the past asked Dean's World readers to urge Congress to pass a resolution urging the Vietnamese government to release Father Thadeus, by clicking here. I myself have done so of course, back in March. I'm pleased to say that one of my two Senators, Debbie Stabenow, was kind enough to return my mail yesterday. Her letter was as follows:

There's More...

Do me a favor. Go buy a bunch of these goodies, would ya?

I think I'm going to sign up with these people.

In honor of father's day, I'd like to encourage you to check out the NFI's Father Facts web site. It hasn't been fashionable to say so in a long time, but we fathers matter--a lot. It doesn't hurt to remind ourselves how much.

On the flip side, fathers do get taken for granted in this country. Nowhere is this more evident than in our horribly unfair custody and child support laws. What's worse is, as Glenn Sacks notes, the Supreme Court recently took away more rights from non-custodial parents which, of course, more than 90% of the time means fathers.

We often treat fathers like dirt in this country, we really do. This is not a bad day to reflect on that.

If you're a dad, I hope you have a good day today.

Jeff's right.

One of the rare women who ever makes to it to death row is complaining that her sentence in unfair.

Most likely, there are a lot of people who are viscerally uncomfortable with her presence on death row, who may even feel sorry for her, simply because she is a woman. The only thing I can't decide is whether that is a cultural phenomenon, or something built into the human genome.

(Via Bill McCabe.)

Others will vote their consciences, of course, but John Kerry has not disavowed his support for the mass-murdering Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Which tells me too much about where his support for human rights will be over the next few years if elected.

Mind you, only an idiot would call him a "traitor" for taking such a position. I would merely call him a man whose priorities were and are still, quite obviously, out of whack.

Mind you, I'd retract that if he finally disavowed the brutal mass-murdering, torturing tyrant Ortega and acknowledged that the Contra victory brought democracy, free press, free speech, and peace.

Since that is exactly what happened in Nicaragua.

And what is it that happened again? Oh yes, the Contras finally won in Nicaragua, and got what they always said they wanted: free speech, free press, and free elections. When they got that, the people of Nicaragua threw out the Ortega--who was, by the way, good friends with the North Korean, Cuban, and Soviet governments.

And the people of Nicaragua elected the wife of a man who Daniel Ortega had murdered, in a bit of perfect cosmic justice.

Senator Kerry, you and I were on the wrong side of that issue. The only difference I see is, I was able to admit I was wrong, whereas you still haven't. To your great shame.

* Update * J. Scott Bernard has corrected me. While Ortega was of course a mass-murderer whose death squads took out many political opponents, he did not murder Chamorro. That was done by Somoza.

Mark is a little annoyed at what is seen as an anti-Israel message.

Well gosh Mark, picky picky. I mean, surely a sign saying 'Smash the Jewish State' has all sorts of room for interpretation. What kind of rigid ideologue rightwing Arab hater are you that you can't see that, my good man?

Hey Val?

When America intervened in Chile, despite what criticisms anyone might make, it was to stop a Marxist who was receiving money and arms from the North Koreans, from Castro, and the Soviet Union. We helped, unfortunately, put a brutal dictator in his place, because it was the only option available to us except to allow another Communist state to take hold. But we urged that dictator to curb human rights abuses and to give his system up to democratic elections, and while it took until the early 1990s, he finally did that. Chile is a democracy with free speech and free press today, which it almost certainly wouldn't have been if the Communists had taken it over.

When we intervented in Nicaragua, we took out a Communist dictator named Ortega who had crushed freedom of speech, crushed opposition press, and slaughtered thousands of political opponents and inconvenient Indian populations. Due to our intervention, Nicaragua today has free speech, free press, and free elections.

That being the case, Val, why are you even bothering to debate this cretin from Counterpunch.org? Clearly these people are either deeply uninformed or they simply enjoy acting as apologists for brutal mass-murderers who haven't allowed disssent, free expression, or free elections in over 40 years.

Don't even bother trying, Val. Just remember, always remember, the kind of totalitarian-apologist scumbags who run Counterpunch. And make note of the idiots who try to defend them.

As I've said many times, America is a two-party system and if you want to win political acceptance for your cause, the best possible strategy is to find supporters in both major political parties. Here's a brave lady who gets that. While she will almost certainly be pilloried as a "traitor" by some, I wish her all the luck in the world.

(Via Steven Malcolm Anderson.)

Sometimes you see an ad campaign you want to agree with because it says so many things that need to be said. And yet, sometimes, something crucially important gets missed. As hard as it is, you can't miss that either, which we learn in National Fatherhood Initiative's Ad Campaign Insults African-American Fathers.

Go Glenn.

Hey, check out this interview with the last surviving military leader of the Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, translated and posted by Polish weblogger Arthur Chrenkoff.

It contains what I consider the quote for our times: "Every war with fascism is our business."

I often think of life in the worker's paradise.

Ever since a recent spate of discussions in the blogosphere about domestic violence, I have been planning an article on women and violence. It's one of those things that's difficult at times to write about, as it's a subject I've seen way up close and personal in many ways, some of which I'm not at liberty to discuss publicly. (You may think I'm pretty revealing of my life here, and as a rule I am. But you really have no idea how much I don't share, mostly either because I can't or because I don't want to be seen as a whiner.)

I'll probably still write the article, but in the meantime, I think you should read these articles written by a friend of mine about her own experiences in this area. It is truly amazing what people are willing to reveal about themselves on the internet--and it's amazing how often you find folks who don't match up to the stereotypes we all swallow.

I very much hope you will find the time today to read about one woman's very l journey.

The Bogey Man: Preface
The Bogey Man II: The In Crowd
The Bogey Man III: Two down

I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

It's hard for me to say how moved I was by reading the series--and also by being called her dear friend. (Yes, that was me she was referring to. We sometimes disagree, but I gotta tell ya: that chick's got balls.)

* Update * The Bogey Man IV: A Rose By Any Other, the final part of the series, is done.

That's someone I'm proud to call a friend.

This weekend, the international holiday known as "May Day" passed. In honor of this day, you might want to read Catallarchy's roundup about it.

It's worth your time.

No, really.

Their clients often hate them and lawyers tell jokes about them...

Today is April 24. It is an important day for the Armenians.

The Armenians? Yes. Let me tell you something about them.

I had long thought that the first incidence of genocide in the 20th century was the De-Cossackization program embarked upon by Vladimir I. Lenin and Feliks Dzerzhinsky (founder of the KGB) in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. Starting in 1920, this program, the first of many Marxist genocides in the 20th century, killed about 80% of the Cossack population in Ukraine and southern Russia. Men, women, children, it didn't matter. About 300,000 in all perished. Like most victims of Marxist genocide, they remain largely forgotten. Worse, sometimes they are remembered, but quickly explained away by those for whom--still--the victims are politically inexpedient.

The next great genocide was known as the de-Kulakization program of the 1930s. Stalin modeled this campaign on Lenin's De-Cossackization program. Here Stalin introduced the innovation of the concentration camp, where prisoners were worked or starved to death. In the three year period of 1930 to 1932, Stalin (with the assistance of his Ukranian governor, Nikita Sergeievich Kruschev) oversaw the liquidation of 6 million people in Russia and Ukraine, through a combination of mass starvation, forced migration, and concentration camps where the goal was to, literally, work the prisoners to death.

Members of the Nazi party, touring these camps, later proposed them to Hitler as a model for getting rid of the Jews and other undesirables. The concentration camps were not a Nazi invention, as it turns out. The Nazis did, on the other hand, develop the twin innovations of poison gas and ovens, which massively increased efficiency of disposal.

The Soviets, always more technologically primitive, made less effort to clean up the mess wrought by their genocides. They were not completely unfastidious, however. In the 1930s, the Soviet government printed up signs in the affected parts of the Soviet Union, letting citizens know that eating their own children was an act of barbarism. They also did their best to crack down on the practice of cannibalizing corpses stolen from mass graves and hospitals by people who otherwise had nothing at all to eat. (The New York Times was on hand to report but, unfortunately, their correspondent was friendly to Stalin's regime.)

After Hitler, the genocides of the 20th century continued in a stunning number of places. Ho Chi Minh, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and others killed hundreds of thousands or millions. The greatest mass murderer in human history, Mao of China, killed fully 65 million souls in his many pograms.

Stop and think about that some time. One man killed 65 million people. Go watch Schindler's List. It's a truly amazing movie, an important movie that everyone should see. Then think: Mao killed more than ten times as many Chinese as Hitler killed Jews.

Try to wrap your mind around that. You can't, can you? It becomes simply a number. A numbing, appalling number of wives, grandmothers, daughters, fathers, grandfathers, sons--all ages, all groups, it didn't matter. You were a problem for the regime, and then you were gone.

We think of the Nazis when we think of genocide. Well, why shouldn't we? They were as evil as evil can get, and they were efficient at documenting their crimes. Proud of them, even. They should always be remembered as a unique evil, and the specter of their philosophy should always be feared.

My only regret is that not enough people remember the others.

My friend Ara Rubyan recently posted about the 20th century's first genocide. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm getting there. Ara quoted the perfect phrasing of Milan Kundera: the struggle of memory against forgetting.

One group who struggles not to forget is the Armenians.

When it came to the practice of genocide, Lenin's Marxist revolutionaries were not the first. That honor belongs to a political party called the "Committee of Union and Progress," known more informally as "The Young Turks." They were the first, having conducted their genocide campaign in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. Starting in 1915, they began slaughtering the Armenians in wave after wave of terror. By 1923, 1.5 million Armenians were dead. As always with genocide, no one was spared the knife: women, children, old men, young men, it didn't matter. Mounds of skulls were built by the victors, while the lucky survivors fled for their lives.

It was the Armenians who were the first people nearly extinguished during the most violent, blood-soaked century of human history.

Even here, as I write this, memory still struggles against forgetting. As we remember the 6 million Jews slaughtered by Hitler, we sometimes forget the millions of others who died: the Gypsies, the Slavs, the crippled and lame, the Christian resisters and the political opponents who died next to the Jews in the camps. In the Armenian Genocide, where 1.5 million Armenian innocents perished, hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and Greeks were killed alongside them, in the same waves of terror.

The struggle of memory against forgetting. It's hard. What does it matter? It was a long time ago. I wasn't there. I don't know any of these people. Can I really be said to remember this anyway?

Well, what can I say?

I'll do my best.

---

Images taken from Armenian National Committee of San Francisco and Gaydzer. Also, A slightly different version of this article was first published on Dean's World last year.--Dean

Strategypage notes:

Israel has managed to terrorize the terrorists. Killing two leaders of the major Palestinian terrorist group Hamas within a month has shaken up the organization. But it’s not just the death of the two leaders. Over the last few months, dozens of Israeli raids have arrested lower ranking leaders and technical experts, and shut down workshops and supply dumps for bomb making. The smuggling of explosives and weapons into the Palestinian territories has been interrupted with greater frequency. 

But Hamas faces a larger problem. The Palestinian people are becoming disillusioned with the terror tactics. The main reason for the disillusionment is poverty. Before the current “intifada” (uprising) began in late 2000, some 20 percent of Palestinians lived in poverty. Now that figure is over 80 percent. Per capita income for Palestinians is about a thousand dollars (although 30 percent of that comes from foreign aid). Business investment in the Palestinian territories (and their 3.5 million population) is only about ten percent of what it was before the intifada.  The Palestinian economy depends on Israel for jobs and trade. By sending suicide bombers into Israel, the movement of Palestinians and Palestinian goods into Israel was interrupted.

There's More...

While I am generally a supporter on a moral level of the death penalty--I think it is the only fitting punishment for the worst crimes--on an intellectual level I often struggle with it because it's hard to trust that the risk of a wrongful execution isn't too great. I think it's something conservatives should ask more often: if you're the folks who don't trust governmenet, why do you trust governmenet to execute the right people?

Like I said, I am a supporter of the death penalty. I just want the highest possible bar for it, the strictest standards.

This is why I am generally supportive of efforts to increase funding for DNA testing by law-enforcement. It's the kind of evidence that can often definitively clear someone, and it's still not used often enough.

Worse, sometimes people who've been cleared by genetics have a hard time getting their convictions overturned anyway.

If you happen to watch that Oliver Stone movie that's premiering on TV tonight, I hope you'll keep certain friends in mind.

Just a thought.

Aaron would like me to remind folks that tomorrow is Buy A Gun To Spite Michael Moore Day.

Man, the cost of amputations can be ridiculous, can't it?

Father Thadeus remains imprisoned by the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. As Amnesty International reports:

Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly prepared to celebrate Mass on the morning of May 17, 2001, hundreds of police officers appeared at his church and arrested him... A long-time, outspoken advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam, Father Ly was sentenced to 15 years in prison for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and religion.

To urge Congress to pass a resolution urging the Vietnamese government to release of Father Thadeus, please click here.

It would be nice to see the Sharon government promoting more efforts like this one.

I've long thought the Israelis would be doing themselves a favor to do more to emphasize that they don't view themselves as enemies to the Palestinians. It may seem pointless to some, and an effort they can't afford, but I at times think they can't afford not to.

(I can't remember who sent this to me. Sorry.)

I just returned from a visit to NY and my family. My sister-in-law has only spotty information about her grandfather. She knows only his first name (Francoise) and that he died in 1943 in "the ovens". We do not know for sure that he is Jewish. He was captured because he was a member of the French Underground. However, there are some clues that he was:

Her stepfather once heard someone call her mother "daughter of the Jew".

Her grandmother gave the children her maiden name (perhaps to hide their Jewish parentage?) and never revealed the father's last name.

Right around the time Francoise was killed, the children were baptized with no father's name on the baptismal certificate.

So I am on a task to find what I can about her grandfather, while there is a chance that people who knew him or of him may still be alive. I plan to share my searh here. It will be difficult because he lived in France and I don't speak the language. Perhaps someone can help.

The first clue I have is a picture with an inscription on the back. If anyone can read the inscription, I'd appreciate it.

UPDATE: More docs are up at Calblog.

The case against invading Iraq was always intellectually weak and rather selfish. But it was also morally bankrupt to the core.

I will never stop reminding people of that.

Ugh.

Just: Ugh.

You should view this comparison of Israel and the rest of the world. Then ask people who keep acting like Israel's presence in the Middle East is the "root cause" of terror or oppression or "a razor in the mind of the Arab street" or any of that other nonsense.

(Via Serenity, who could use some lovin'.)

Glenn Sacks notes that some gender feminists have been complaining because of studies which show that women do an average of 11 more hours of housework per week than their husbands--prompting some to suggest an "international women's strike" to teach men a lesson.

He also notes, however, that the same studies which show that women do all this "extra" work also happen to show that men average 14 hours a week more than women in the workplace, and suggests that it would be much more fair for the husbands of the world to go on strike until they are more appreciated for what they do.

Hey ladies? You're welcome.

By the way, Glenn's also one of the only national commenters to ever note in his columns that men suffer a rate of workplace injuries about ten times higher than women, and that the overwhelming majority of fatal injuries in the workplace are men. Or that men often work more hours per week for the same amount of pay as women who work fewer hours.

Funny how you don't hear all those things more often, isn't it?

Ariel Beery wonders why everyone is so silent about Sudan.

He'd also like to know if anyone is organizing protests or action for Sudan.

In reading this eulogy for a pro-democracy advocate, I was both moved by the loss, and excited to learn about Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy, an organization formed in 1999.

I have known Muslims in my time, most of them decent, friendly, easygoing, and hardworking people. Through things I did with the Iraqi Democracy Project and Operation Give I also had friendly contacts with other Muslims who have a very pro-Western outlook.

But somehow, learning that this organization exists, and is apparently quite serious and sincere, really made my day.

Those of us in the West who want to see the world a better place should be encouraging groups like this as much as we can. Too much of the Islamic world is still stuck in the middle ages, but they don't have to be. They really don't.

Hey. Beijing. Kiss my freedom-loving butt.

Congratulations, President Chen.

Val Prieto reminds us that freedom of speech is a precious thing, and that, apparently, Oliver Stone has not the faintest idea of what free speech really entails.

You Brits are bloody well insane. I hope you know that.

(Via Ith.)

* Update * Thanks to the efforts of two alert Dean's World readers, Stu and Catch 22 (and the near-instantaneous peer review process of online journalism), we have learned that this story is not what it seemed, and that the defendant was apparently a drug dealer and had chased his victim out of the house before stabbing him four times in the back. Which makes it far less of a self-defense situation.

Thanks for having a hard nose for facts, guys!

One of the most politically courageous women I know, Trudy Schuett, has begun publishing a novel on domestic violence. I think the world of Trudy and her work. And it's on a subject that too many people refuse to take seriously, especially given the legal climate that still exists in much of the West.

It's nice to see that an important civil rights movement is gaining a foothold in the U.K. Good luck to them is all I can say.

Father Thadeus remains imprisoned by the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. As Amnesty International reports:

Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly prepared to celebrate Mass on the morning of May 17, 2001, hundreds of police officers appeared at his church and arrested him... A long-time, outspoken advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam, Father Ly was sentenced to 15 years in prison for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and religion.

To urge Congress to pass a resolution urging the Vietnamese government to release of Father Thadeus, please click here.

Sometimes you hear a line from a movie, and it sticks in your brain forever, and sometimes even shapes your life.

I'm not really a big fan of westerns. But, in The Magnificent Seven, Charles Bronson has an exchange with some children that, as a father, I think of often.

If you haven't seen the movie, well, the story is simple enough. A group of dirt-poor villagers in a remote part of Mexico are regularly brutalized, stolen from, and starved by a group of outlaws, gangsters who regularly rape and pillage small communities like theirs. The villagers have little money, few weapons, and are outnumbered. So they gather what they can, and hire a motley crew of gunfighters to help them fend off the outlaws. They wind up assembling seven of them (hence the title).

The seven gunfighters get to know the villagers, the women and children, and are admired by all for their bravery. In one quiet scene, away from the others, Bronson, in the role of Bernardo O'Reilly, is making preparations for the coming fight, and talking to some of the kids. Then the following exchange takes place:

Village Boy: We're ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.

O'Reilly: Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun?

Well, your fathers are much braver. Because they carry responsibility: for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to.

I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it: this is bravery.

I think of that line often.

One day I'll probably write an extended essay on why that line is so important to me. But then, that might just be gilding the lilly.

Man. It would be so easy to celebrate diversity if it weren't for those stupid Christians trying to mess everything up. Why we even allow those sorts on the campus I have no idea, let alone letting them have their own groups and such. Besides, doesn't that violate the principle of church and state, letting those people be around? I mean, puh-leeaz!

(Via Big Arm Woman.)

Congressman Major Owens has written a sort of mini-opera about male sexuality called "The Viagara Monologues," and the predictable lock-stop reactionaries are offended.

Here's a harsh truth: those of us who were both male and came of age in the late '70s and the '80s, at least if we came from middle class backgrounds, were routinely made to feel like garbage for our sexual urges by those people who are criticizing Owens, and by the countless authority figures, especially teachers, cultural commentators, writers, and news reporters who took everything they said as gospel. We were made to feel like oppressors, like we should apologize for who and what we were, and made to feel like if we even noticed male-female differences in behavior we were oppressive brutes.

So all I can say is, when I found out who was offended by Owens' work, all I could think was, "Good! Anyone who offends those self-righteous and abusive prigs is fine by me."

Congressman Owens: more power to you, brother.

(Story via Sydney Smith.)

Taiwan is one of those states I always think about when I think of countries that need U.S. assistance. I think that the U.N. began to lose any real semblance of legitimacy was that dark day in the early 1970s when they kicked Taiwan out of the United Nations just to make the People's Republic of China happy.

Anyway, their President was recently shot, although he looks like he'll survive the injury.

I don't care what his party or his ideology is. I wish him a safe and speedy recovery, and hope and security for his people.

As Val Prieto notes, today is an important anniversary in the Worker's Paradise: one year ago today, the Castro government rounded up over 75 independent journalists, physicians, and librarians for criticizing the government.

Follow the link, Val's got more info you should read.

My own comment? Just remember: Wherever there is a jackboot stepping on a human face, there'll be a well-healed, comfortable, spoiled-brat Westerner there to remind us that the face enjoys free health care and a high rate of literacy*--and that "international law" and "principles" forbid us from doing anything about it besides giving dictators whatever they ask for and giving more money to the United Nations.

* - Not my line, but not one I ever forget.

Ruhama Shattan has a moving tribute to Rachel Corrie that you should read.

For more on who Rachel Corrie was and what she stood for, I suggest reading Rachel Corrie Remembered, which includes lots of good links and references, and a poem by our friend Casey Tompkins.

Alan Kellogg has an open letter to the people of Iran.

Those who seek freedom, anyway.

In Betrayed by Europe: A Patriot's Lament, Nidra Poller writes:

I’m being treated to a poignant lesson in European and Jewish history. The 30’s: why did they stay? Why didn’t they run for their lives? Couldn’t they see what was happening? I see before me a vivid demonstration of the deep roots we dig to make our lives bloom, the intricate biology of a human life, irrigated with the lifeblood of a community, inextricably connected to a society, born of life to give life to keep life alive. Leaving is not packing up and tipping your hat goodbye. It is tearing live flesh out of a living matrix.

I am, or was, the first American-born generation in a family that fled Europe before World War I: a lesson in the wisdom of leaving before it is too late. Now I am the first stage in the story of a three-generation "French" family. Why don’t people just pick up and go while they still can? It’s always the same. There is an ailing grandmother, a son in medical school, a daughter who just got married, a business too good to throw away and not good enough to sell. There are in-laws and obligations and unfinished business and . . . hope. Hope that it will all blow over. That people will come to their senses, reason win out, normal life resume. And so, blinded by hope, people minimize danger and cling to an imagined stability.

Jews are being persecuted every day in France. Some are insulted, pelted with stones, spat upon; some are beaten or threatened with knives or guns. Synagogues are torched, schools burned to the ground. A little over a month ago, at least one Jew was savagely murdered, his throat slit, his face gouged with a carving knife. Did it create an uproar? No. The incident was stifled, and by common consent—not just by the authorities, but by the Jews.

Some Jews are simply frightened; they are reluctant to take the subway, walk in certain neighborhoods, go out after dark. Others, clearly identifiable as Jews, are courageous and defiant. Many, perhaps the majority, show no outward signs of Jewishness and do not seek to know the truth about the rampant and increasingly violent anti-Semitism all around them. If you are Jewish but do not defend Israel or act too religious or look too different, you are not yet a target—so why insist on monitoring the danger when daily life is so delicious?

A typical American expatriate, having left for France for the usual trendy-left, sneering reasons a few decades ago, finds herself alienated in her chosen land, and almost heartbrokenly longing for America again.

Go. Read the whole thing.

(Via Andrea.)

Trudy asks some difficult questions.

I know my answers. How 'bout you?

Who are young Arabs mostly annoyed by? Israel? The U.S.? No. Their own governments.

What do they most want? Democracy and freedom of speech.

At least, if Fawaz A. Gerges and ABC News are to be believed.

I hope it's not just wishful thinking.

(Via Kathy Kinsley.)

I've been meaning for some time to link Matt Welch's excellent article on draconian treatment of men in many states, but in California in particular. You really should read it.

(I'm already seeing the sneers on some of your faces. Go read it.)

A Polish family, thrown into slave labor by the Nazis for harboring Jews, then turned over to Stalin and shipped to a Siberian concentration camp, finally manages to find freedom for some of the family in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

"A lot of people don't know what freedom means. I do."

Read the whole thing.

Smale side note: the phrase is "12 months of winter, the rest are summer." The newspaper misquoted it.

(Via Sparkey.)

Okay. I opened the whole "rape" can of worms yesterday, and I cannot stop myself from making a point about it.

I know women this has happened to. I've known men it's happened to. (Yes, I have, and no, I don't particularly want to tell you about it.)

When I quoted Paglia, I was surprised by how many thoughtful comments it brought up, and unsurprised at some of the (later mollified) rage it brought out.

Possibly the most upsetting thing Paglia said was, "...if you get raped, if you get beat up in a dark alley in a street, it's okay. That was part of the risk of freedom, that's part of what we've demanded as women. Go with it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go on. We cannot regulate male sexuality." This is the only part I actually disagreed with Professor Paglia on--at least in any strong way. No, that is phrased in far too dismissive a manner. Nevertheless, sometimes the point of saying something crass is becau