sisu

"When faith is devoid of reason"

"If we all don't stand up to Islam together, we all go down," writes Amazonian Culture Warrior Atlas re "left-wing" Dutch MP Geert Wilders's much-censored film short "Fitna," now enjoying top billing in the blogosphere. "This is a great film and I will tell you why," says Atlas. "It is powerful and succinct. There is no editorial, no opinion. Just Islam. There are the violent acts of war by Islam and the Koranic verses that call for them." Images above and below are screen shots from the film. Tchaikovsky's haunting "Arabian Dance" -- based upon a Georgian lullaby -- is woven in and out of the soundtrack, with its images of mayhem and carnage, to ironic effect. YouTube recording of the music here.

"He focuses on reason precisely to show that when faith is devoid of reason, the result is a fundamentalist approach that is not true to the essence of that tradition," says Francesco Cesareo, president of Assumption College in Worcester, in a brief but excellent Boston Globe interview whose headline says a mouthful about what's wrong with the Globe and other MSM big mouths:

On closer look, a more complex pope.

Nearly three years since white smoke was seen coming out of the Sistine Chapel stovepipe, and the Globe and fellow travelers are just getting around to taking a "closer look"? If they'd been paying attention, they could have gotten a sense of the arc of his Papacy the very day before his election to the Throne of Peter back in April of 2005, when we wrote:

"In his homily Monday morning, [Cardinal] Ratzinger -- powerful Vatican official from Germany often mentioned as a leading candidate to become the next pope -- spoke in unusually blunt terms against 'a dictatorship of relativism' -- the ideology that there are no absolute truths," reports FOXNews:

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

Whether or not you're a Catholic, the Cardinal's words ring true on a fundamental human level. "True joy" can come only from striving towards a goal higher than "one's own ego and one's own desires."

You probably caught the MSMs usual misunderstanding of all things Papa Ratzi, this time the Pope's baptism of Allam, a Muslim-born convert who is one of Italy's most famous and controversial journalists, on Easter eve last weekend. You convert, you die!!! We were particularly enchanted by a piece -- can't find the source, but it comes with the territory -- that called Benedict XVI to task for saying something that might offend Osama Bin Laden.

It took Time only seven months to get wind of what Papa Ratzi was up to, as we wrote in November of 2006:

"Suddenly, when he speaks, the whole world listens," gushes a breathless Time Mag, enthralled with its belated discovery of Papa Ratzi, the Pope who loves cats and Mozart. Long before Cardinal Ratzinger became Benedict XVI, the great student of history and human nature was warning the West of the gathering Eurabian storm. But only when Time notices the "hard-knuckle intellect with a taste for blunt talk and interreligious confrontation" is this voice in the wilderness "suddenly" heard. 

This angry litttle guy from Geert Wilders' piece called to mind the RIGHT Reverend Jeremiah Wright, until recently the right-hand man of the man who would be Leader of the Free World. That type of oratory is SO yesterday. Unbelievable that modrin folks buy into it.

That's what comes of gazing at one's navel 24/7.

How sad to think of the worst impulses of our species being promoted, big time, by the tribalistic proselytizers of the "religion of peace."

Fortunately, just as the Jihadists use the internet tools developed by their betters to promulgate their message of hatred and fear of the other, the internet becomes the vehicle of deliverance of Geert Wilders's message of wisdom and truth.

A Harvard man's professed disloyalty to his own ideas in the name of winning access to power

"This is by far the best drawn and most thought-provoking of the cartoons depicting Mohammed published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten" we captioned this image in "We are all Danes now" back in February of 2006 in the heat of Cartoon Wars battle.

"With the arrests this week of five jihadists accused of plotting to murder one of the Danish cartoonists, it's time to demonstrate sammenhold [Danish for solidarity] again," writes Michelle Malkin:

As a show of solidarity and a reminder of how cowardly American media outlets refused to stand up when it counted, take a minute to reprint your favorite Mo cartoon or link back to the blogging you did on the cartoon rage two years ago.

We delved back into our 31-strong category "Cartoon Wars" and found some of our favorite posts of the last two years -- beginning with "We are all Danes now" -- and herewith republish "Crazy Sissy talks with the Harvard man," originally published February 20, 2006, a first-hand revelation of the dynamics of self-censorship in a fear society -- in this case what we call the fear society "lite" of academia:

Raphael's "Saint George Slaying the Dragon," a parable of good destroying evil (first published here two years ago in a post where we quoted a Syrian filmmaker who said after the fall of Saddam, "The myth of having to live under despots for eternity collapsed.")

"On the right wing [crazies like Sissy Willis are] easy to pick out, writes Markus Kolic of Dem Apples -- 'Love the name! -- the official blog of the Harvard College Democrats, standing up for fellow DA blogger Josh Patashnik, who was the object of spirited criticism here the other day for his pre-emptive dhimmitudinous surrender in the Cartoon Wars. While we admire Mr. Kolic's loyalty to his friend, we are disappointed -- if not surprised --  at his professed disloyalty to his own ideas in the name of winning access to power:

And after spending some time arguing with radicals [Kolic's term for "crazies" like us. --ed], I’m beginning to realize why: unlike them, my goal is not to enforce my principles on everyone else. My goal is to do good for my country, by getting my party elected. Thus, no matter how fervently I might believe some of my radical ideas, I don’t want my party to recognize them if they would alienate large portions of the American people. I might have an extreme or unusual view on 9/11, or drug policy, or taxes, or religion. But I will keep those ideas to myself, because I know that the vast majority of Americans do not and probably never will think that way. This is what differentiates us from authoritarian ideologues on both wings, who have no qualms about condemning the masses. (”Sinners!” “Consumers!” etc.)

'Reminds us of Hillary Clinton's modus operandi, pandering at will. We always wonder if such persons realize how condescending their approach is to "the masses" -- what we would call "fellow citizens" -- whose votes they seek. Unlike Hillary, however, Markus Kolic wins our heart if not our mind with the civility and humor of his comments on our blog:

As a friend and fellow blogger of Josh Patashnik, naturally I'm irked at your characterization of him, but I respect your right to that opinion. (Thanks for the link back, by the way -- no such thing as bad publicity and all that.)

We especially like that parenthetical comment, a sentiment we've often blogged here. But so much for hearts. What about minds? Markus -- may we call you Markus? -- continues:

What gets me, both with your reasoning in particular and so much of the right's reasoning in general, is how you so easily throw out words like "enemy" and "adversary." Now, there is no doubt that we are in a war and there is an enemy (OK, a few of my radical-lefty friends doubt that, but that's beside the point). But you seem to have forgotten: Islam is not our enemy . . . I fail to see how these Danish cartoons are even remotely productive in the war on terror.

"Even as he gives a pass to our Blueberry Light 'n Fit Dannon yogurt, Baby shows sammenhold -- the Danish word for solidarity, reports Michelle Malkin -- by going for the jugular of our grilled Havarti and Majestic Danish ham sandwich. Mmmmm. What a delicious way to show support for our freedom-loving Scandinavian friends," we captioned this image illustrating "The taste of freedom" February 24, 2006.

Did we ever say or even imply that Islam is our enemy? Never. Some of our best blogfriends are believers, fergossake. It's the dragon of Islamist terrorism and its fellow travelers that we battle with our words here. And what about those cartoons? If our new blogfriend fails to see how they "are even remotely productive in the war on terror," perhaps it is because those presumably utopian ideas he says he keeps to himself have blinded him to the lessons of history and the imperatives of human nature. We'll let longtime blogfriend Teresa, who responds to Mr. Kolic in the comments, have the last word:

There is a reason for talks about slippery slopes. Appeasing violence rather than confronting it -- has never ever worked. It always ends with the appeaser having to give more and more -- until they are useless -- then they end up despised and dead. It's a losing proposition with extremely dire consequences for our country and our way of life.

As we've said before, we love it when our commenters, disagreeing with each other's ideas, engage in civilized debate. It gives us hope that freedom of speech will prevail.

PC and hypocritical paternalism on steroids

Last night's Corny Cornbread square on the side becomes this morning's main event, It's Better than Ham and Cheese on English. (x 1.25)  Sliced in half horizontally, toasted, slathered with mayo lite and piled with slices of Danish ham and Havarti with dill, another delicious recipe for the Cold Turkey Cookbook. 279 calories. We devoured it hungrily in solidarity with the politically incorrect Danes, whose stalwart stand for freedom of speech in the Cartoon Wars continues to put them in harm's way, as PajamasXpress blogger Flemming Rose, editor of the paper that first published the Mohammed cartoons, explains today in "Al-Qaeda Comes to Demark."

"Political correctness is the signature cultural statement of the ruling elites, undermining their moral authority and driving a wedge between them and the working class far more effectively than any right-wing demagogue could hope for," writes Boston political reporter Jon Keller in "The Bluest State," reviewed by Guy Darst in Opinion Journal:

He argues that, although Massachusetts does not suffer alone from its notorious affection for liberalism, it is the incubator for "Massachusetts viruses" that infect the national Democratic Party. The viruses come in many forms: "addiction to tax revenues and a raging edifice complex couched in disrespect to wage earners; phony identity politics without real results for women and minorities; reflexive anti-Americanism in foreign affairs; vain indulgence in obnoxious political correctness; self-serving featherbedding; NIMBYism; authoritarian distortion of the balance of governmental power, all simmered in a broth of hypocritical paternalism."

This close-up captures the mouth-watering toothsomeness of the soft cheese, succulent ham and "extremely corny and very moist," crumbly Corny Cornbread.

Keller's "vain indulgence in obnoxious political correctness" -- not to mention his "broth of hypocritical paternalism" -- were on steroids in the Duke rape hoax, as Abigail Thernstrom writes in an Opinion Journal review of a new book by Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson, "Until Proven Innocent":

"Until Proven Innocent" is a stunning book. It recounts the Duke lacrosse case in fascinating detail and offers, along the way, a damning portrait of the institutions -- legal, educational and journalistic -- that do so much to shape contemporary American culture. Messrs. Taylor and Johnson make it clear that the Duke affair -- the rabid prosecution, the skewed commentary, the distorted media storyline -- was not some odd, outlier incident but the product of an elite culture's most treasured assumptions about American life, not least about America's supposed racial divide.

Political correctness seems particularly prone to unleashing our species' darkest, totalitarian impulses. The hysteria was of medieval proportions.

Houston Baker, a noted professor of English, called the lacrosse players "white, violent, drunken men veritably given license to rape," men who could "claim innocence . . . safe under the cover of silent whiteness." Protesters on campus and in the city itself waved "castrate" banners, put up "wanted" posters and threatened the physical safety of the lacrosse players . . .

The New York Times' coverage was particularly egregious, as Messrs. Taylor and Johnson vividly show. It ran dozens of prominent stories and "analysis" articles trying to plumb the pathologies of the lacrosse players and of a campus culture that allowed swaggering white males to prey on poor, defenseless young black women. As one shrewd Times alumnus later wrote: "You couldn't invent a story so precisely tuned to the outrage frequency of the modern, metropolitan, bien pensant journalist." Such Nifong allies -- unlike the district attorney himself -- paid no price for their shocking indifference to the truth.

Back to "The Bluest State" reviewer Darst:

Mr. Keller does a fine job of cataloging the "politically unappealing traits" -- such as aloofness, arrogance, entitlement, condescension and hypocrisy -- that beset the bluest of blue-state politicians, but he does not try to investigate the traits' origins. For that, he might have taken a look at the "Sociology of the Intellectual" section of Joseph Schumpeter's great 1942 work, "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy." Schumpeter believed that capitalism was the only system that produced the seeds of its own destruction by nurturing intellectuals, a class thick on the ground in Massachusetts.

Yes, but fortunately there are bloggers like the members of our sub rosa group behind enemy lines here in Taxachusetts who are on the case. Speaking of which, Richard Landes of Augean Stables emails promulgating a petition for the release of the unedited al-Durah video tapes. Sol of Solomonia explains, quoting his friend Yaacov of Breath of the Beast:

Before the Pope's remarks, before Gaza Beach, before the Mohammed cartoons there was Muhammad al-Durah, the 12-year-old boy the allegation of whose death was one of the first triumphs of the Islamo-rage-aholic/Pallywood/humiliation-a-thon that has sucked in and manipulated the Western Media.

Richard Landes of Second Draft and Augean Stables who, many of you know, is a pioneer debunker of media complicity in the Arab/Islamist/Palestinian offensive of misrepresented and staged news, has refocused attention on this prototypical travesty with a new effort to try to get France2 to release all of their video tapes from that fateful day's activities.

We encourage our readers to sign the petition. Let's make sure that the perpetrators of al-Durah -- unlike Nifong's useful media idiots in the Duke rape case -- WILL pay a price for their indifference to the truth.

"Being offended is sometimes purely a form of aggression"

Tiny and Baby out on their tethers this afternoon understand exactly what Mohamed Raseol was talking about when he said back in the 90's that  "Being offended is sometimes purely a form of aggression." If only our own species were so perspicacious.

“Being offended is sometimes purely a form of aggression,” wrote Mohamed Rasoel, a prescient Pakistani/Dutch immigrant charged with racism way back in1992 for his book The Downfall of the Netherlands, Land of the Naive Fools, quoted by Fjordman in a tour de force recap of creeping Eurabianism, with a dash of USArabianism thrown in for good measure -- Salman Rushdie, Bat Ye’or, Ayan Hirsi-Ali, Ahmed Mansour and South Park's "Cartoon Wars" episode are all there -- at The Brussels Journal that afforded us a "staggering" Eureka Moment. First a few excerpts from the article:

Mohamed Rasoel had warned in his book that the Dutch were mistaken to tolerate the mushrooming growth of their Muslim population. He predicted that this would lead to a civil war and, at best, the country’s partition. This was during the heat of the Rushdie controversy. The book was taken from the shelves in most bookstores throughout the Netherlands, and quickly forgotten about.

Mohamed Rasoel himself stated that: “It proves that the general thrust of my book is correct, that Dutch society is changing and becoming less tolerant. Freedom of opinion is already being sacrificed . . . Muslims are allowed to shout: kill Rushdie . . . When Muslims say on TV that all Dutch women are whores, it is allowed . . . It is ridiculous and scandalous that I have to justify myself in court for discrimination of Muslims.”

For the ecstatic life-flashing-before-your-eyes experience of drowning in the sheer awfulness of it all, be sure to read the whole thing. Here's the gist:

Gerard Alexander warns against what he calls “illiberal Europe,” by which he means the dramatic expansion of laws to sanction speech that “incites hatred” against groups based on their religion, race or ethnicity. Such laws have been passed in Western European nations since the 1970s. “The real danger posed by Europe’s speech laws is not so much guilty verdicts as an insidious chilling of political debate, as people censor themselves in order to avoid legal charges and the stigma and expense they bring.”

We're talking fear society here, somewhere on the spectrum between heavy and lite:

This “swirl of speech-law charges, lawsuits, and investigations” is now sustained by an “antiracism” industry. “Europe’s speech laws are written and applied in ways that leave activists on the political left free to whitewash crimes of leftist regimes, incite hatred against their domestic bogeymen of the well-to-do, and luridly stereotype their international bogeymen, often with history-distorting falsehoods such as fictitious claims of genocide said to be committed by the United States and Israel. It may be no coincidence that Socialist and extreme-left parties have played central roles in the design of speech laws.”

"It may be no coincidence," indeed. We've often blogged about the unholy alliance between all too many of our fellow citizens on the left side of the aisle -- in the media and on campus, especially -- and strange bedfellows from the heart of darkness that is Islamic fascism. Which brings us up to that "Eureka Moment" of which we spoke above. Mohamed Rasoel's "Being offended is sometimes purely a form of aggression" is precisely what was going on when Harvard President Larry Summers was hounded out of office by hysterical Marxist feminist mullettes. The Founding Fathers are spinning you know where.

Update:  "What are mullettes?" asks Goomp. "Female mullahs," we reply. "Hillary fits the description . . . The usual type that knows better than you do what's best for you."

Update II:  If you know what's best for you, head on over to Friday Ark #96 at Modulator.

"There is a truckoad of work that has to be done in Boston"

The new swags and jabots in the living room upstairs, created from scratch by the Tuck man, rule. Totally awesome. It answers the question of whether home economics with sewing should or should not be required in high school curricula. In our day, we had to take home ec, and Tuck had to take shop. Neither girls nor boys were encouraged/allowed to follow their interests. Earlier on, though, in second and third grade, we attended the progressive, private Exeter [NH] Day School, where girls and boys both took everything. Our beloved mother always spoke proudly of us as a "sweet girl carpenter." Now, in homeschooling at Chelsea-by-the-Sea, Tuck took a wicked short course in sewing from the Mother of All Swags and Jabots -- ourselves -- and outstripped the mistress.

"The archbishop said he rues the tone of much of the debate that takes place within the church and society -- a debate that has been coarsened and amplified by the proliferation of blogs and email," writes Michael Paulsen in a Boston Globe interview with Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley on the eve of the Capuchin friar's elevation to Cardinal in Vatican City ceremonies Friday:

In a rare, wide-ranging interview, O'Malley said the Catholic Church can no longer rely on its position of authority to transmit its teachings on moral values, but instead must turn increasingly to persuasion in an effort to convince a skeptical society of the merits of Christian faith . . .

His first 32 months here have been made difficult not only by the deep damage to trust, finances, and participation caused by the sexual abuse crisis, but also by controversy over the closings of 62 of 357 parishes, and, more recently, division over the church's opposition to adoptions by gay households.

"Vatican expert John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter says Archbishop O’Malley’s elevation is a special endorsement by Pope Benedict XVI," reports cbs4boston.com. "Cardinals are expected to serve as good will ambassadors around the world. But Allen believes the pope will respect O’Malley’s request to spend most of his time in Boston. 'My guess is that he is going to be very sensitive to that, because obviously there is a truckload of work that has to be done in Boston.'”

Pope Benedict XVI's decision to elevate O'Malley is controversial, of course, his having inherited the diocese of the disgraced, some say scapegoated, Bernard Cardinal Law -- now ensconsed behind closed doors at the Vatican to the dismay of our perspicacious reader and blogpal, Teresa of Technicalities -- on whose watch the sexual-abuse scandal came to a head, and it isn't just the blogs and email. Our local CBS4boston.com is on the case, with quotable quotes from "local Catholics who are still struggling with their faith":

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian represents dozens of victims who remain disappointed and disillusioned. "He's not holding healing masses; there are no workshops being conducted; there's been no apology. Why don't you tell them what's going on with the pedophile priests, if you're watching them, how you're watching them?"

According to our exclusive Fast Track poll, conducted by Survey USA, many Boston area Catholics feel the same way.

The litany of complaints -- no "healing masses," workshops or apology -- has a disagreeably reflexive Opraesque ring to it, but the sense of betrayal is deep, and Oprah rules -- just ask Harvey Mansfield -- so snap out of it. More from the Globe interview:

O'Malley, whose new red robes symbolize a willingness to shed blood for the church, noted that his fellow Capuchin bishops, who mostly serve in the developing world, have faced physical danger as a result of their positions. He said he does not expect to face such danger himself, but there are other challenges here in Boston.

''It's unlikely that I will experience a bloody persecution, but there are always more subtle forms of persecution that people have to endure for their beliefs and to be able to witness to the Gospel," he said. ''At times, I think the dominant culture, the secular culture, does trivialize our beliefs, and at times ridicules them. . . . There were many worse forms of persecution. But, I think that there are many forms of persecution, and certainly one of them is to be ridiculed."

We love to contemplate the difference between Archbishop O'Malley's tempered response to ridicule and the hysteria of our fellow sufferers of the Islamic persuasion whose lack of humor forces them to totally lose it whenever someone makes a joke at their expense. Cartoon wars come to mind. Who would ever dream that a faithless if soulful one like ourselves could find profound sustenance in Catholic dialogue? It started with Benedetto, who touched our mind and heart, first with his love of cats and Mozart and then with his recognition of the threat that Islamicism poses to Western Civilization. As we've blogged before, "he inhabits an intellectually rigorous and emotionally rich world of faith and ritual we will never know," but even so, he renews our faith in our fellow human beings:

I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand -- shall stand -- at the latter day upon the earth.

If only the heartstopping, breathtaking music of the Church -- from Gregorian Chants through Handel's "Messiah" and Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus" and beyond -- could enjoy a rebirth of recognition amongst the great unwashed. It happened a little bit during John Paul's funeral and Benedetto's induction last year, when the cables took a break from all-blonde-missing-girls-all-the-time to focus on the pageantry and emotional shock and awe of one of western civilization's great cultural traditions. We were totally mesmerized and are hoping for a reprise this weekend.

Leftist elites: Unwitting servants of a totalitarian impulse?

"The European Union is what Americans would call a shotgun marriage," former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky told Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal recently. Belien reports:

In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a full-fledged totalitarian state.

Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into a socialist organization . . .

The idea was very simple. It first came up in 1985-86, when the Italian Communists visited Gorbachev, followed by the German Social-Democrats. They all complained that the changes in the world, particularly after [British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher introduced privatisation and economic liberalisation, were threatening to wipe out the achievement (as they called it) of generations of Socialists and Social-Democrats -- threatening to reverse it completely. Therefore the only way to withstand this onslaught of wild capitalism (as they called it) was to try to introduce the same socialist goals in all countries at once.

Echoes of the Gramscian underpinnings of the Soviet Union's insidious infiltration of our own elite institutions last century -- blogged here, here and most recently here, where we cited Eric S. Raymond's checklist of the Soviet Union’s "memetic weapons" of propaganda internalized by our fellow Americans of the left. How would we feel were we to learn that our own political worldview -- in our case Darwinian libertarian -- was the result not of a lifetime of experience, reading, debate and analysis but, rather, the result of a bioterrorist-like attack on our thinking, where a virulent strain of counterintuitive, morally relativistic, international progressivist ideas had been released into the water supply of academic discourse and turned inquiring minds into unwitting servants of a totalitarian impulse?

Update:  Roger L. Simon's fisking of the dhimmitude of Newsweek exemplifies Raymond's "memetic weapon" of blaming the victim and forgiving the perpetrator of violence:

I don't know if there is a more fuddy-duddy publication than Newsweek (unless it's Time). Now they are tut-tutting those Europeans who have the temerity -- in the post-cartoon riot world -- to be concerned with protecting free speech and other Enlightenment values through new immigration standards that encourage assimilation. Not surprisingly the Newsweekies title their article The End of Tolerance, meaning Europe's, of course, not those Sharia-bound Muslims whose tolerance is legendary.

Update II:  Neo has an excellent post on "Conspiracy theories, Arab and otherwise," but as we said in her comments, "Just because I'm a conspiracy theorist doesn't mean there aren't evil-doers out there trying to take over the world."

Sisu = Sissypants?

Sissified descendents of our distaff ancestors in the old country -- the once fearless, albeit gloomy Finns of sisu fame -- have apparently thrown in the towel, submitting to YKW [PBUH].* Editorial heads rolled after publication of a cartoon drawn by Ville Ranta [detail above], "whose aim was to lampoon the Finnish president, prime minister and foreign minister for their cowardice during the cartoon crisis. The prophet was masked, because, as the cartoonist said, 'I do not wish to incriminate myself by drawing Mohammed’s face,'” reports The Brussels Journal.

"In Finland the editor of the cultural magazine Kaltio was fired yesterday after publishing a cartoon of a masked prophet Muhammad," reports The Brussels Journal:

Apparently the reason for sacking the editor, Mr Jussi Vilkuna, was that some of Finland’s large financial institutions withdrew their advertisements from Kaltio. Olavi Nieminen, the chief lawyer of Pohjola, a non-life insurance firm owned by OKO Bank, said the posting of the cartoon were irresponsible and a wrong way to defend free speech.

Finland has had a tradition of neutrality since the 1940s and apparently wishes to continue this tradition of “Finlandization.” The Finns’ neutrality was not voluntary, but was the consequence of the appeasement by a small country towards an aggressive, dangerous neighbour (the Soviet Union).

Our knowledge of Finnish history is sadly lacking, but we swell with pride over the reported valor in the name of freedom of the Bronson-Alcott-like pater familias of our own maternal grandmother, Grammy -- AKA JuJu -- as ferreted out by the family's official Genealogy Tsar, sister-in-law and mother of our nieces, Ellen. From the Fitchburg Daily Sentinel of December 13, 1912:

Few people of Fitchburg [MA] or the places in its vicinity, with the exception of those of his own race, are aware of the fact that there now resides in Lunenburg, within a short distance of the center of the town, a man who played a very prominent part in the general uprising in Finland, in 1905, which was known, throughout the world as the general strike, but which was in reality an uprising for the purpose of wresting from the Russian government what might be termed "home rule," and which was successful. As a result of his activity in that uprising, this man, who was for some years a resident of Fitchburg, had a heavy price placed upon his head by the Russian government, but after victory had been won, he escaped through other European countries and eventually found his way to the United States, in which he has traveled extensively and done much to arouse among his countrymen and interest in Finnish affairs.

That was our great grandfather. We never heard much about his political exploits from his daughter -- our grandmother -- Julia, who preferred to reveal the less heroic side of his nature as husband and father. All that is history now. Be that as it may, we are wicked ashamed of Finnish leaders' response to the Cartoon Wars.

Meanwhile, we are more than elated at the Vatican's "practice what you preach" announcement this week:

After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance towards their Christian minorities . . .

After criticising both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.

We've loved Benedetto with all our heart and soul from day one when we learned of his passion for Mozart and cats. He inhabits an intellectually rigorous and emotionally rich world of faith and ritual we will never know. Even so, as we wrote here recently:

We agree with Oriana Fallaci -- the renowned Italian Journalist indicted last year in her native country for vilifying, as the law says, a "religion admitted by the state," in this case Islam -- that "You cannot survive if you do not know the past." In an Opinion Journal interview with Tunku Varadarajan last June -- blogged here -- she said "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."

Our doting, contrarian Finnish grandmother, Grammy/JuJu used to call us Sissypants. It was a term of endearment then, but now that sisu has been sissified in dhimmitudinous submission to Islamicism, it speaks only of contempt.

*YKW [PBUH] = You Know Who [Peace Be Unto Him] = the Muslim prophet Mohammed [formerly known as Mohammed]

The taste of freedom

Even as he gives a pass to our Blueberry Light 'n Fit Dannon yogurt. Baby shows sammenhold -- the Danish word for solidarity, reports Michelle Malkin -- by going for the jugular of our grilled Havarti and Majestic Danish ham sandwich. Mmmmm. What a delicious way to show support for our freedom-loving Scandinavian friends.

Freedom's Zone [via Michelle Malkin] is encouraging bloggers to help Stand up for Denmark by writing a post on Christopher Hitchens's call for a demonstration at the Embassy of Denmark between noon and 1 p.m. today, February 24. Besides eating for freedom (above), you may want to call and/or email the Danish embassy early and often. Here's the info:

Embassy of Denmark
3200 Whitehaven St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: +1 (202) 234-4300
Fax: +1 (202) 328-1470

Email: wasamb@um.dk

Fear may be cowing the media, but like Brit Hume of Fox News, the gentleladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere aim to be fair, balanced and unafraid. This happens to be our 25th Buy-Danish! Cartoon Wars post, and it won't be our last till the Danish cows come home. We love cream and ice cream, and according to the Mackie's of Scotland ice cream folks, "Danish Jerseys produce the creamiest milk in the world!" Baby and Tiny stand in sammenhold on this one, big time.

Update:  Stephen Green has pictures -- Hitch, Sully, Gertrude Himmelfarb's boy Bill, Clifford May with crossed-flags lapel pin [gotta get one of those] and assorted Danish at the rally in front of the Embassy this afternoon. Be sure to catch the signs. Our fave:  "Submit to Havarti."

Update II: Blogfriend Martin Lindeskog of EGO is hosting the Carnival of the Recipes with a Danish theme a week from today. That's March 4, Feast day of St. Casimir, Prince of Poland (b. 1458), according to Answers:

When Casimir was thirteen he was offered the throne of Hungary by factions discontented with king Mattias Corvinus. Casimir, who was eager to defend the Cross against the Turks, accepted the call and went to Hungary to receive the crown.

It is an ancient wound. But meanwhile -- like music -- food is the language we all understand, so we invite you to put on your chef's hat and send in your Danish-themed recipes to Martin ASAP.

"His fatal flaws were honesty and a desire to do the right thing"

Tiny stares out the back door (offscreen to the right) -- at things we don't see -- this morning from behind a mock prison, the laundry rack atop the washing machine, where she likes to swish and purr and self-pet while weighing opposing arguments before deciding the exact moment when it's safe to go outside.

"His fatal flaws were honesty and a desire to do the right thing. That has ruined more than one academic career," writes Thomas Sowell, noting "the resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard University tells us a lot about what is wrong with academia today":

Even if every conclusion with which students are indoctrinated were true, unless those students develop their own ability to weigh opposing arguments, these conclusions will become obsolete as new issues arise in the years ahead. These "educated" people will have developed no ability to analyze opposing sides of issues.

Students are getting half an education at inflated prices and learning only how to label, dismiss and demonize ideas that differ from what they have been led to believe. Their "educated" ignorance is a danger to the future of this country.

But all may not be lost. Like the Danish imams who fanned the fires of "Arab-street" cartoon hysteria only to have their attempts to repress freedom of speech in the West blow up in their faces [Buy Danish!], Harvard's radical FAS malcontents may have unwittingly sown the seeds of their own destruction by revealing the raw power grab behind their heavy-handed attempts to repress freedom of speech on campus.

Honesty and a desire to do the right thing, a fatal flaw in today's university president, are the hallmarks of success among leading members of the feline community.

According to Harvard Prof. Ruth R. Wisse in Opinion Journal:

Student response to the ouster suggests another long-term outcome. Although the activists of yesteryear may have found a temporary stronghold in the universities, a new generation of students has had its fill of radicalism.

"My sources report that Summers did himself no good with the faculty by becoming a hero to the student body," quips Emmett Tyrrell, popping the spoilers' hot-air balloon with humor:

The weekend before his resignation the student newspaper, The Crimson, published a poll showing that some 70 percent of the university's undergraduates wanted him to stay. Knowledgeable observers around the Harvard Yard recognize that many faculty members are very jealous of the undergraduates, viewing them as handsomer, prettier and in some cases much better skateboarders. Also the undergraduates are seen as a threat to the professoriate's self-esteem, as many do not watch much television or play video games. They agree with Summers that Harvard State University should be a citadel of learning, even if that means reading books rather than conducting witch hunts.

We hope the smug thugs of the FAS get to read that. Maybe we'll google their email addresses and forward it. There's nothing a tyrant can tolerate less than being made fun of.

Chomsky, Moore, Fisk: Pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant

I appease, therefore I submit to tyranny. Chamberlain, left, and Harvard President Lawrence Summers, right, who has just resigned. As the appeasing Peter, Paul and Mary sang in a different context, "Oh, when will they ever learn?"

"A repressive society is a repressive society, wherever it may fall on a continuum of brutality and thought control," we blogged awhile back in our post "Fear societies, heavy and lite," where we cited former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky's "mechanics that sustain such a society." Whether it's back in the gulags of the old USSR, in the imamically orchestrated "street" of today's Arab tyrannies or in the politically correct, ivy-covered towers in our own backyard at Harvard, intimidation is the blogtheme that keeps on giving. Cartoon Wars have it in spades, and now academia's Appeaser-in-Chief, Harvard President Lawrence Summers, is rumored to be about to submit his resignation in the wake of humiliating show trials and appeasement last spring. Enter, stage right, Eric S. Raymond of Armed and Dangerous [via Pajamas Media]:

The most important weapons of al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamist terror network are the suicide bomber and the suicide thinker. The suicide bomber is typically a Muslim fanatic whose mission it is to spread terror; the suicide thinker is typically a Western academic or journalist or politician whose mission it is to destroy the West’s will to resist not just terrorism but any ideological challenge at all.

Raymond reminds us of the Gramscian underpinnings of the Soviet Union's insidious infiltration of our elite institutions last century -- blogged here and here -- offering a riveting checklist of "some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons," noting that "Indeed, the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda":

There is no truth, only competing agendas.

All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.

There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.

The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.

Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.

The poor are victims.

Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)

For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.

When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

Go make yourself a delicious Danish ham sandwich with Havarti and then come back and read the whole thing:

The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.

We feel better already.

Update:  Nobody says it better than Dr. Sanity:

In the history of academia, I don't think anyone has ever come closer to voluntary castration for the cause of radical feminism. And look where it got him.

According to news reports, Summers plans to return to the seraglio teaching at Harvard after a year's sabbatical.