IN Touch: Reminder to Republicans

My fourth post on The Indianapolis Star's IN Touch blog is now online. Oh, and in case you missed it, my third post ("Ties That Bind Us") was published in The Indianapolis Star on Sunday, January 25, 2009.

Guns in Dorms!

For every good bill introduced in the Indiana General Assembly, there are a handful of bad bills. And each year there are also a handful of bills that are so bad that they are just idiotic. Senate Bill 12 (authored by  Sen. Johnny Nugent, R-Southeast Indiana) is the winner (at least so far) of dumbest bill of the 2009 legislative session. The bill would add one new chapter (consisting of once sentence) to the Indiana criminal code:

A state educational institution may not regulate in any manner the ownership, possession, carrying, or transportation of firearms or ammunition.

When I first saw this bill I presumed that it was in response to the tragic events at Virginia Tech University and Sen. Nugent’s letter to the editor of The Indianapolis Star (in response to an opinion column opposing the bill) confirms that presumption. While I understand (well, kinda…) Sen. Nugent’s desire to allow college students to pack heat in order to protect themselves from nutcases who might be intent on violence on campus, it doesn’t take much thought to see why SB 12 is a really, really bad idea.

Let’s consider a few things. First, most students don’t live by themselves on campus. Thus, the gun, when not carried by the student, will likely be sitting in a dorm room to which many other people (roommate(s) and friends, for example) will have access. My freshman dorm room was often a bit like Grand Central Station and there weren’t many good hiding places. And remember that college roommates don’t always get along (I used a jar of gefilte fish when I needed a little privacy; my Korean roommate preferred to use his mom’s kimche). Fights among roommates (whether merely verbal or escalating to something more) are not uncommon. Add to this brew the fact that we are talking about young adults, many of them away from home for the first time, often under a great deal of stress (presuming that they are taking their studies seriously). Do we really want to introduce guns into that situation? Oh, I forgot to mention alcohol. Last time that I checked, use of alcohol (and even drugs) was fairly common on college campuses. And we know how well guns and alcohol mix.

And let’s go back to Virginia Tech for a moment. I suppose that the shooter might have been stopped had another student been armed. Maybe. But unless the other armed student (students?) really knew their way around their firearms, how much collateral damage (i.e., other students) would have been caused. Police officers undergo extensive training before being allowed on the street with a weapon, but virtually anyone can obtain a license to own a gun. If you are the parent of a college student, would you be comforted to know that your child might be protected from a crazed serial killer by other students with concealed weapons? Or, are you more concerned that those weapons will pose an even greater danger to your child than the rare serial killer?

And ask yourself this: Why limit this statute to colleges? Why not allow guns in high schools or hospitals or courtrooms? Maybe if the passengers aboard the planes on 9/11 had been armed, they would not have been hijacked (of course, the passengers defending the planes might have shot out windows and caused the planes to crash anyway…)! Maybe we should require everyone to have a gun! Yeah, that’s the ticket. If we all have a pistol on our hip, an assault rifle on our shoulder, a few grenades on our belt, and maybe a rocket launcher strapped to our back, no one will mess with us and we’ll be free of crime and violence forever! Of course one little misunderstanding could get pretty ugly, very quickly, but I guess that is the price that we should pay for safety, right?

Sarcasm aside, I think that guns are dangerous. They are supposed to be. But when it comes to college campuses, I think that students will be much safer in a gun-free environment. Sure, from time to time someone may come along with a means and motive to do harm. That, unfortunately is part of our society (of course, if that person had a more difficult time obtaining a gun in the first place…). But to address that rare occurrence by allowing yet more weapons is simply asking for trouble and yet more  violence. We should be looking for every opportunity to reduce the chance of gun violence rather than increasing that chance in order to reduce the isolated really bad instances of gun violence.

Please call your legislators (remember, you can check the Indiana General Assembly’s “Who Are Your Legislators?” page to learn who your legislators are and get their contact information) and tell them to oppose Senate Bill 12.

Playing a Little Offense

Finally, some on the left (or maybe just center) have decided to stop playing defense in the Indiana General Assembly and have, instead begun to offer bills to counter some recent efforts by the religious right. Allow me to offer two examples that have been introduced in the latest session.

House Bill 1317 (authored by Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond) and its companion Senate Bill 258 (authored by Sen. Jean D. Breaux, D-Indianapolis) would require schools that adopt an abstinence-only sexual education curriculum to notify parents of that curriculum choice. Parents would then have the option to have their child excluded from that curriculum. More importantly, the notice from the school’s principal about the use of an abstinence-only curriculum would tell parents:

Your child is receiving abstinence-only human sexuality education.

Abstinence-only education does not teach students how to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases other than by remaining abstinent.

Your child is not receiving the following:

     (A) Information on methods, other than abstinence, for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
     (B) Medically accurate instruction on the risks and benefits, including safety and efficacy, of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved methods for:
          (i) reducing the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS; and
          (ii) preventing pregnancy.
     (C) Medically accurate instruction regarding the correct use of FDA approved methods for:
          (i) reducing the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS; and
          (ii) preventing pregnancy.
     (D) Instruction that provides lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students with the necessary skills for making and implementing responsible decisions about relationships and sexuality, including the use of all effective methods to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
     (E) Instruction that provides sexually active students with the necessary skills for making and implementing responsible decisions about relationships and sexuality, including the use of all effective methods to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

You have the right to review the abstinence-only curriculum in its entirety. Written and audiovisual educational materials used in abstinence-only education are available for inspection.

You have the right to excuse your child from all or parts of abstinence-only instruction.

You have the right to be involved in your child's education.

There are several points to be made about this bill and the notice that it would require. First, for years, those on the right have argued that parents, not just school administrators, should be making decisions about education. This bill follows that philosophy, but, for a change, is giving parents a say in academic curricula decisions that are important to the religious right.

More importantly, look again at what the the notice to parents would say. I suppose that proponents of abstinence-only education will argue that a child in an abstinence-only program does, in a fashion, learn some of the things mentioned in the notice; after all, abstaining from sex will prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Of course, that argument presumes that abstinence-only education works. Studies have shown (see for example, “Experts say US sex abstinence program doesn’t work”) that abstinence-only programs do not lessen teen pregnancies, reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, or delay the age at which children become sexually active. Children in such programs who do become sexually active will not, as the notice reminds parents, have learned those skills and lessons. For that matter, those children, when they become young adults and do become sexually active (even those who wait until marriage), still will not have received the appropriate education on these subjects.

As fellow blogger Masson notes:

Might as well require [school principals] to send out a notice saying, “Hi, we’re being criminally negligent with your child’s education. How soon would you like our resignation?”

I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer that my children had the facts (and medically accurate facts at that) instead of making decisions in an knowledge vacuum.

Please call your legislators (and you can check the Indiana General Assembly’s “Who Are Your Legislators?” page to learn who your legislators are and get their contact information) and tell them to support House Bill 1317 and Senate Bill 258.

House Bill 1238 (authored by Rep. Vanessa Summers, D-Indianapolis) and its companion Senate Bill 20 (authored by  Sen. Sue Errington, D-Muncie) is, in essence, the opposite of the pharmacist refusal bill that I wrote about during the 2008 session of the Indiana General Assembly. Last year’s bill would have given a pharmacist legal cover for failing to dispense legally prescribed medications on the basis of the pharmacist’s religious beliefs. House Bill 1238, in contrast, would require that a pharmacy dispense properly prescribed contraceptives in accordance with the way that the pharmacy dispenses other medications (and, if the pharmacy does not carry the prescribed contraceptive, the pharmacy would be required to obtain the contraceptive or locate the closest pharmacy that does carry the prescribed contraceptive). Even more importantly, the bill provides that “the pharmacy will not intimidate, threaten, or harass the pharmacy's customers in the delivery of services”. In the other words, the pharmacist could not attempt to bully the patient into not using the contraceptive. It seems like such a simple proposition, yet I suspect that this bill will face fierce opposition.

Please call your legislators (remember, you can check the Indiana General Assembly’s “Who Are Your Legislators?” page to learn who your legislators are and get their contact information) and tell them to support House Bill 1238 and Senate Bill 20.

IN Touch: Ties That Bind Us

My third post on The Indianapolis Star's IN Touch blog is now online. I wrote the piece as I listened to President Obama's inaugural address.

LibraryThing: "Paul of Dune"

I've updated my LibraryThing catalog with a brief review of Paul of Dune [Heroes of Dune #1]by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Now I'm reading The Walk-In by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo.

I Could Talk About Gaza...

I could write more about Israel and Gaza or the upcoming inauguration or the Franken-Coleman dispute in Minnesota. Or I could look out my aunt's window here in Aspen (Snowmass Village, to be more precise):

The real world will have to wait until I get back from vacation.

When the News Media Gets it Wrong … Or Doesn’t Even Try

On Tuesday (January 6), while driving home, I found myself listening to NPR’s coverage of the ongoing conflict in Gaza. While I am a big fan of NPR, I have always been left cold by their one-sided, poor coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yesterday’s coverage proved the rule, rather than the exception. During All Things Considered, co-host Melissa Block interviewed Ahmed Abu Hamda, a Palestinian News Producer who works with NPR and other organizations (I’ll return another day to the use by Western media of Palestinian news producers). During the interview, Block asked Abu Hamda about the use by Hamas of the Palestinian populace as human shields (alluding, apparently, to the Israeli strike against the United Nations administered school in Beit Hanoun):

BLOCK: The claim from the Israeli military has been that Hamas uses the population within Gaza basically as human shields, that they infiltrate what would be civilian sites. And that's why some of these places have come under attack. What do you think about that?

HAMDA: I think this is totally wrong. It's a war media. It's an advertising for themselves. Why? Because UNRWA School has been targeted by the Israeli fighters.

BLOCK: This would be the United Nations school that was targeted.

HAMDA: Exactly, exactly. And innocent people, most of them are wounded and killed. There are no fighters in the UNRWA schools. I challenge them if they have - they say that even they have on tube - that they shoot each rocket and they have it on video, on the YouTube why they shot that rocket or whom they were targeting. I bet them, if they can't approve that if there was a militant or a rocket launched from that school.

Neither NPR nor Block followed up on the “challenge” posed by Hamda. Which is truly unfortunate. Why? Well, watch this:

The building in this video is the UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun that Israel targeted yesterday. Yes, the video is a year old, but the fact remains that Hamas has used the school as a place from which to fire at Israel. Moreover, given the efforts to which Israel goes to minimize civilian casualties, it seems highly unlikely that Israel would have launched a strike against a school, let alone a UN-administered school, without sound reason.

(I know that many will disagree with the basic prospect that Israel seeks to minimize civilian casualties. But think about it for a minute. If Israel didn’t care about minimizing civilian casualties, couldn’t it or wouldn’t it have already inflicted far, far worse damage with far higher civilian casualties?  More than 1.5 million people live in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, yet in 12 days of fighting, there have only been several hundred deaths. That is less than half the total number who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Israel could flatten Gaza if it didn’t care about civilian casualties; but it does…)

Later in that same interview, Hamda described going to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza and talked about the wounded that he saw. Block asked him about seeing “militants” in the hospital:

BLOCK: You saw young men. You did not see Hamas militants. How do you know when a young man is or is not a Hamas militant?

HAMDA: OK, when someone, Hamas militant, is targeted, where do you think he'll be targeted? Now they are on alert, on war alert. Each Hamas member will be wearing his weapons, will be wearing his war uniform. It will be very clear. But what I see, a mother crying next to a young guy, OK? So it's very, very clear. Very obvious. You can recognize that. A fighter is a fighter.

Again, rather than following up on any of this, Block ended the interview. She did not, for example, ask Hamda why he would expect to see weapons on wounded men in the hospital or why he would only expect to recognize “militants” from their “war uniform” especially given that Hamas is not a uniformed army. Block didn’t ask Hamda about reports that Hamas has set up an independent hospital to treat its own wounded (and for which it steals supplies destined for civilian hospitals). Nor did she press Hamda about the report from Haaretz that I cited yesterday:

The sources also said that senior Hamas officials have been spotted more than once wandering around the maternity ward of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital and even using the hospital to hold press conferences, on the theory that it offers a safe haven from Israeli fire. For the same reason, Hamas forces have taken refuge near buildings that serve as headquarters for various international organizations, such as the Red Cross and the United Nations.

Why does NPR allow “commentary” (disguised as a news story) from a Palestinian “news producer” without critical analysis and without opportunity for a rebuttal statement from an Israeli spokesperson? For that matter, had Hamda seen senior Hamas members at the Shifa Hospital, how likely is it that he would have said such to NPR?

Of course, this poor reporting is only one example of the problems that the media exhibit in reporting on the conflict. For example, still on the subject of the attack on the Beit Hanoun school, how many media outlets reported this official statement from the Israel Defense Forces:

After an investigation that took place over the past hour, it was revealed that terror operatives from Hamas's military wing and a mortar battery cell, which were found in the school, were firing on IDF forces in the area.  Hamar operatives Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar were amongst terrorists that were identified at the school.

If the IDF has enough information to identify not only what was found in the school but to actually name two of the terrorists, shouldn’t the media at least offer a bit more than “big bad Israel attacked a school”? Even more critically, how many news media reports included the following:

Residents of a Gaza neighborhood are confirming Israel's claim that Hamas militants had opened fire from the cover of a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge.

…

Two residents say a group of militants had fired their mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets.

And consider what the UN has to say about the conflict. The Washington Post reports that John Ging, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza said:

The civilians in Gaza have international rights to be protected not by verbal protection, but actual protection.

Um. Just curious now, but what about the civilians in Israel? Don’t they have international rights to be protected by rocket and mortar fire from Gaza? What has Ging said about that? What has the United Nations done to protect Israelis? And why does the United Nations permit Hamas to use its schools and hospitals as staging grounds for attacks on Israel?

It is worth considering the official statement from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which concludes:

During its operations in Gaza, the IDF is making every effort to comply with the two basic legal tests of international humanitarian law: (1) are the targets legitimate military objectives and (2) is an action likely to cause disproportionate damage to the civilian population and their property.

Israel faces a particular challenge with regards to determining the legitimacy of intended targets. The presence of civilians in an area of conflict does not stop a military objective from being a legitimate target. This is both the letter of international law and a reflection of state practice. The deliberate positioning of Hamas military targets among Palestinian civilians presents a problem with which Israel must consistently contend.

The Iranian-backed Hamas, as a matter of strategy, refuses to uphold one of most fundamental requirements of international humanitarian law - that of distinguishing between combatants/military instillations and civilians/civilian properties. It follows therefore that while Israel does all it can to avoid harming non-combatants, under international law, any collateral injury to them is the responsibility of the Hamas, which deliberately chooses to operate from civilian structures and fire behind human shields.

(Emphasis in original.)

Three other semi-related stories are worth mentioning. First, there is this report from YnetNews:

A number of reports from the Strip paint a picture of very difficult humanitarian conditions, not least because of Hamas itself. The suspicion is that the group's operatives have seized control of any supplies passing through the crossings – including those sent by Israel and international organizations.

Reports say Hamas takes a cut out of all aid that arrives, including flour and medicine. Supplies intended to be distributed without gain among the population is seized by the group and sold to the residents, at a profit to the Hamas government.

One such incident was recorded Monday, when a convoy of trucks carrying supplies through the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened fire upon and seized by Hamas gunmen. Similar incidents occurred with trucks carrying fuel. 

…

In other cases, civilians are simply used as cannon fodder or human shields. Reports out of Gaza say residents who attempted to flee their homes in the northern area of the Strip were forced to go back at gunpoint, by Hamas men.

The organization is presumably interested in increasing civilian casualties in order to give rise to international pressure against Israel. Arab media reported that in an IDF strike on a UN school 30 civilians were killed, but there is no legitimate way to prove gunmen were among those killed as Hamas tends to bury these bodies quickly, thus eliminating evidence in Israel's favor.

Other civilian complaints state that Hamas gunmen pull children along with them "by the ears" from place to place, fearing that if they don't have a child with them they will be fair game to the IDF. Others hide in civilian homes and stairwells, UNRWA ambulances, and mosques.

In other reported cases Hamas gunmen hold civilians hostage in alleyways in order to provide themselves with a living barricade to ward off IDF forces.

Of course, none of this makes it into Western news reports.

Then there is this story about a “mistake” from French television station France 2:

France’s public broadcaster was forced to apologise to viewers yesterday after it mistakenly used amateur footage shot in 2005 to illustrate a report on the current Gaza conflict.

France 2 television on Monday broadcast part of an amateur video presented in a voiceover commentary as showing the fallout from an Israeli air strike on a civilian area in Gaza on January 1.

Dating from September 2005, the video, which has been widely circulated on the Internet, actually shows civilians wounded in the accidental explosion of a pick-up truck loaded with Hamas rockets at a rally in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Alerted by the French website LePost.fr, France 2 admitted its mistake yesterday and made a formal apology to viewers in its midday news broadcast.

“It is an error on our behalf. There was an internal malfunction in the checking of information,” a France 2 executive told AFP.

Why do I put the word “mistake” in quotes? Could it be, perhaps, that: (a) this video has been posted on the Internet numerous times with the false claim that it shows the result of an Israeli strike but that those claims are almost always immediately shown to be false (the video can be seen here; the comments are illustrative) or (b) that France 2 has previously been shown to have aired pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli television footage that it knew or had reason to know was demonstrably false? In fact (and this will be a great subject for another post some day), France 2 filed a libel claim involving accusations that it knowingly aired false video. Guess what? France 2 lost.

Finally, an Israeli basketball team set to play a team in Turkey yesterday had to flee the court when fans began throwing bottles at the players and shouting, among other things, “Death to the Jews”. The team had to be escorted back to their hotel with heavy police protection.

Do As Norm Says, Not As Norm Does

Since election day, political junkies like me have been following the never-ending recount process in the Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken. If you remember, after election day, Coleman held a razor thin lead; however, as the recount progressed (and the sides battled about this vote and that vote, the recount methods, what to do about missing ballots, and numerous other issues), Coleman's lead narrowed, narrowed, and eventually disappeared. Yesterday, Franken was declared the winner. So what now?

Well, the day after the election, Coleman held a news conference:

"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," Coleman said Wednesday at a news conference. He noted Franken could opt to waive the recount.

"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," Coleman said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position.

Coleman also said that there was "too much at stake for a recount":



Now that the recount has been completed and Franken has been named the winner, Coleman says that he wants to "take the time to get it right" and, to that end, is filing an election contest lawsuit challenging the results of the recount. Senate Republicans have said that they will filibuster the swearing in of Al Franken pending the resolution of any lawsuit that Coleman might file.

In other words, when Coleman thought that he was the winner, there was "too much at stake" but now that he has lost, he wants to be sure to "take the time". Hmm. Nothing like a hypocritical politician that can't even take his own advice... Too bad the "new" Al Franken can't write a comedy sketch about this farce.

Hamas and Babies: Let’s Compare and Contrast

Two brief stories about the ongoing conflict in Gaza serve, I believe, to underscore the real difference between Hamas and Israel when it comes to respect for civilians and to demonstrate that it is Hamas, not Israel, that is the true perpetrator of war crimes and terrorism. First, on January 6, Hamas launched another rocket attack against Israel and this rocket attack penetrated further into Israel than any other previous rocket attack. The rocket exploded in the town of Gedera (about 28 miles from Gaza). A three-month-old baby was wounded in the attack. Yet, back in Gaza, Hamas leaders were taking refuge from Israeli military strikes. Where? According to Haaretz:

The sources also said that senior Hamas officials have been spotted more than once wandering around the maternity ward of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital and even using the hospital to hold press conferences, on the theory that it offers a safe haven from Israeli fire. For the same reason, Hamas forces have taken refuge near buildings that serve as headquarters for various international organizations, such as the Red Cross and the United Nations.

In other words, while Hamas lobs rocket after rocket into Israel with the express intent to hit civilian targets, wounding babies in the process, Hamas’ leaders take refuge in a maternity ward precisely because they know that Israel, out of respect for civilians and efforts to minimize civilian casualties, would not be likely to attack a maternity ward. At the same time that Hamas ignores the sanctity of human life and the moral obligation not to intentionally target civilians, it relies upon and takes advantage of the fact that Israel does recognize the sanctity of human life and the moral obligation not to intentionally target civilians. What kind of barbaric society would use its own babies as human shields? The same kind of barbaric society that would use its youth as suicide bombers.

When one side to a conflict intentionally targets civilians and intentionally uses human shields, there shouldn’t even be the need for a discussion about which side is committing war crimes or whether efforts to stop such actions are unjust.

Letter to the Editor Printed in The Indianapolis Star

While I work hard to keep the thoughts and opinions expressed on this blog separate from things that I do on behalf of organizations with which I am affiliated, I do want to note that a letter to the editor credited to me (as president of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council) and David Warshauer (as past-president) was printed as the "My View" featured commentary in Sunday's (January 4, 2009) edition of The Indianapolis Star. Apparently, my second IN Touch blog piece was scheduled to be printed but was scrapped for the more important (and longer) piece.

What Is a "Proportionate Response" to Terror?

While waiting in line to get my lunch today, I overhead two people arguing about the conflict in Gaza. One of the people made the oft-heard claim that Israel was to be blamed for using "disproportionate force". That got me thinking. What, precisely, is proportionate force and how should it be applied?

The proximate cause for the current conflict is the near-constant bombardment of southern Israel with rockets. So, should Israel, in an effort to keep its implementation of force "proportionate" simply fire one rocket at Gaza for every rocket fired at Israel? If Hamas fires 60 rockets on any given day, should Israel simply fire back 60 of its own? And if those Hamas rockets are non-targeted (i.e., they are simply pointed north and fired without any real attempt or ability to hit a particular target), should Israel's response be equally random and indiscriminate? Can you imagine the outcry if Israel were to do that?

If a Hamas suicide bomber blows up a pizza parlor, should Israel simply plant a bomb (I don't think a Jewish suicide bomber is a very likely possibility) in a cafe in Gaza? Must Israel ensure that it only uses the same amount of explosives as the suicide bomber? And if the suicide bomber used metal fragments dipped in rat poison, should Israel be sure to include some kind of chemical or biological agent it its response? If a Hamas terrorist attack targets a shopping mall, should Israel be sure that its response hits only civilians? If a Palestinian terrorist attacks a Passover Seder, should Israel's response target a Ramadan feast? Again, can you imagine the outcry if Israel were to take such actions?

If Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, should Israeli children be taught to hate Muslim children?

If Iran should acquire a nuclear weapon and attack Israel, would Israel thus be justified in launching its own nuclear response against Iran?

And why, in all of these scenarios, must Israel wait and respond to the initial implementation of force?

If you punch me in the face over and over again, shouldn't I have the right to do something other than simply punch you back? If you won't even sit down and talk to me to try to work out our differences, must I simply allow you to keep hitting me? Or, can I take efforts to stop you from hitting me again?

I guess that the real question is what is Israel supposed to do when Hamas launches attacks from within civilian areas and with the use of civilian shields? What is the "proportionate" response to that attack? Clearly, Israel cannot simply allow the attacks to continue unchallenged; just as clearly, Israel cannot simply decide to surrender and commit mass suicide to appease Hamas. So what can and should Israel do?

I suspect that if I were able to cross-examine at length one of Israel's critics I would learn that their real answer is that Israel should not be entitled to use force at all either due to a mistaken belief that Israel is a "colonial" or "apartheid" regime or due to some form of anti-Semitism.

In any event, I believe that Israel has the right to defend its citizens. I believe that Israel has the right to do more than simply respond in kind to attacks launched against it. If the only way to stop the use of terrorist force in an asymmetrical conflict is with the application of disproportionate counter-force, then such disproportionate force should, in reality, be seen as proportionate in the situation.

Updated January 2, 2008 to add title.

Would You Want Your Government to Protect You?

Just imagine that you live in an American community adjacent to a Native American reservation. Now, imagine that the elected leadership of that reservation argues that land belonging to Native Americans was stolen by American settlers and the American government. Finally, imagine that the police force for that Native American reservation began launching rockets from reservation land into your community and that from the time that those rockets were launched it took just 15 seconds for them to reach their terminus in your community, on your street, or in your home. How would you explain the situation to your children as they screamed in fear in your basement? Would you want the American government to simply agree to give back all of your community's land to the Native Americans? What if the Native Americans wanted not just your community, but all of America? Or, would you want your government to protect you and your family and take efforts to be sure that the rocket fire stopped?

Now, suppose for a moment that the reservation was no longer under the control of your government. Suppose that the charter of the reservation provided that the only outcome that would satisfy that the Native Americans was your complete destruction and a statement that negotiation was worthless. Suppose also that the reservation bordered a foreign country (Mexico or Canada, I suppose) that allowed weapons to be transported into that reservation to be used against you. And suppose that, in addition to the rockets, members of the Native American tribe would occasionally sneak into your community with explosives strapped to their bodies and blow themselves up in pizza parlors, nightclubs, shopping malls, and bus stations. Again, would you want the American government to give up land for a promise of peace or would you expect your government to protect you?

Finally, imagine that both the American government and the international community had provided the government of the reservation with billions of dollars to improve the living conditions on the reservation but that the leaders of the reservation had used that money to purchase weapons and to enrich themselves but had used little, if any, to improve the lives of the average resident of the reservation. And suppose that the leaders of the reservation fought vicious battles with the leaders of another reservation who at least might want to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Suppose that the leaders of the reservation taught their children that killing your children was something that they should aspire to. Suppose also, that the international community and the media only talked about the harsh realities of life on the reservation and continued to blame you for those conditions. How would that make you feel?

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the preceding is a pretty good re-telling of the current situation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Go back and read the scenario again, but substitute Israel for America, Palestinians for Native Americans, Gaza Strip for the reservation, and Egypt for Canada or Mexico. Has your viewpoint suddenly changed? If so, why? What makes Israel subject to a different standard of conduct than that which you would apply to our own government and our own behavior with Native Americans? If you're English, why should Israel be subject to a different standard than applied to Great Britain with its dispute with the IRA? (This morning I was listening to the BBC World Service and one of the hosts compared the bombardment of southern Israel by Hamas rockets to the terrorist attacks from the IRA; I would suggest that his comparison was misplaced as the IRA attacks were usually targeted rather than random and the IRA was not launching 100 attacks per day.)

Israelis have been living with an ongoing barrage of missiles from Gaza (not to mention suicide bombings and other terrorist acts). It takes just 15 seconds for a rocket fired from Gaza to reach the town of Sderot.


It is also worth noting that the rockets being fired from Gaza are not targeted missiles with sophisticated guidance systems. Instead, they are crude instruments that are simply pointed in a given direction and are, thus, indiscriminate in their "targeting".

Hamas doesn't recognize the right of the State of Israel to even exist, so how is Israel to "negotiate" with Hamas who has said that they will accept nothing less than all of the land that comprises Israel. In fact, the Charter of Hamas says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." The Hamas Charter even references the historical forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as "proof" an a "Zionist" plot for world domination:

The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

With the current fighting, many simply refer to the "cycle of violence" or the "vicious cycle". The problem with these approaches is that they create a moral equivalence in the type of conduct and refuse to make distinctions for purpose of the conduct. Consider the following, for example: If you see a man walk into a crowd firing indiscriminately, mowing down women and children, and you shoot that man to stop his rampage, is your conduct morally different than his? And if his family then attempts to kill your children in an act of revenge and your wife shoots and kills those family members as they enter your home, is their conduct morally equivalent? And after this back-and-forth continues for a period of time, when the police intervene and try to arrest the perpetrators and planners and a shoot-out results, are the actions of the police morally equivalent to those of the perpetrators? Yet moral equivalence for different types of conduct is what the phrase "cycle of violence" creates when applied to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. When you attack me and I defend myself by trying to stop you from attacking me, there is no cycle of violence at all.

And, most importantly, remember that the alleged "cycle of violence" could be brought to an end via negotiation. Israel has always been willing to negotiate, has given up land for peace, has unilaterally disengaged from certain land, and has offered the Palestinians almost everything (but not quite) that they demanded. Yet that was never enough. Without going back too deep into the depths of history, recall too, that Israel accepted the UN partition plan; the Palestinians and Arab nations did not and they attacked the fledgling State of Israel. And lost.

I contend that there is an enormous difference between firing a rocket at a civilian area and a targeted missile strike against a terrorist training camp. I contend that there is an enormous difference between the suicide bomber with a belt of explosives and ball bearings dipped in rat poison who kills himself and innocent civilians in a pizza parlor and the assassination of the terrorist who built the bomb and planned the bombing. I contend that there is a differtence between a culture that tells people to "martyr" themselves in suicide bombings and a culture that encourages peace and open dialogue. And I contend that there is an enormous difference between the government that says "we don't recognize your right to exist and will continue our armed struggle until you cease to exist" and the government that says "we want to live in peace with our neighbors but, if necesssary, will act to protect our citizens".

I could go on at length about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I could talk about Pallywood (the Palestinian "industry" of creating faked confrontations or staging atrocities to inflame prejudice against Israel). I could talk about the ridiculous misinformation that comes from Palestinian sources that is often swallowed, without comment or question, by the media (remember the "massacre" in Jenin that was widely reported, yet even the UN had to later admit that no massacre had occurred). I could talk about the horrible instances of anti-Semitism that are endemic in Palestinian education (not to mention education throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world) such as the frequent re-telling of the Blood Libel (the suggestion that Jews drink Muslim blood as a part of religious rituals) or airing on government-run TV a mini-series based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I could talk about the charitable efforts of Israel (Israeli hospitals will treat any patient without regard to whether the patient is Israeli or Palestinian, Jew or Muslim; Israel offered to send assistance to Iran following an earthquake a year or two ago, but the offer was rejected) or the corrupt Palestinian government structures that enrich their leaders while many Palestinians still live in "refugee" camps (you could ask why refugee camps still exist givent that the Palestinian authority has controlled those areas since the mid-'90s). I could talk about Israeli efforts to have open and honest discussion and debate about history and the impact upon the current situation and the Palestinian efforts to rewrite even basic history that cannot, in the exercise of intellectual honesty, really be disputed (for example, Yasser Arafat famously claimed that there was no historical evidence of Jewish links to Jerusalem; of course that allegation directly impacts Christianity, too). I could talk about the unfair treatment meted out by the United Nations and other international organizations. (Did you know that until 2006 the International Committee of the Red Cross recognized the Red Crescent in Islamic countries by not Magen David Adom [the Red Star of David] in Israel? Even today, the Red Star of David is only recognized for use in Israel while a special Red Diamond is to be used for relief work outside of Israel.) I could talk about how Hamas treats a captured Israeli soldier (refusing to even allow the International Red Cross to ascertain his condition and holding public demonstrations where the captured soldier is ridiculed). I could go through nearly a century of history that so few really know or understand (or seem to care to understand).

Instead, I will finish by asking again this one simple question: Why is Israel, among all nations in the world, held to a different standard in its conduct?





I've obviously got lots of things to say about the Israeli-Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) conflict in general and the current conflict in particular, but I'll save that for another day.

IN Touch: Frivolous

My second post on The Indianapolis Star's IN Touch blog is now online. I wrote the piece last week, but it didn't make it onto the website until yesterday. (Incidentally, my proposed name for the post was "Frivolous Lawsuits Not Newsworthy".)

Ben Stein, Chain Emails, & "Happy Holidays" (Part 2)

Now that you've had a chance to read (in Part 1 of this post) the original commentary and embellished chain email, it is time to turn to my response. Some of my friends and family have already read this, but after receiving yet another version of the Ben Stein chain email, I decided that it was finally time to share. As you will see, my response was written as a direct response to the woman who first posted the chain email to the mailing list. Rather than try to rewrite my response, I've simply removed specific references to her but left the overall tone and message intact:

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I have a number of grave problems with the "Ben Stein this is great..." [some versions are entitled "Ben Stein Food for thought"] email that is being circulated. On most days, I might have just brushed my concerns aside and not worried about it. But at the time that I first read this email, I was trying to figure out how to answer the concerns of my very sensitive then7year old daughter who was upset that she had to listen to "Santa stories" in her public school classroom and who didn't want to make a Christmas stocking in art class [and ironically, the same week that I'm posting this response, I've had to deal with concerns from that same daughter, now 9, who was upset that she was being made to draw images of Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and the Three Wise Men in her elementary school Spanish class]. It was in this frame of mind that first I received the email bemoaning the absence of God from our schools and public life. Thus, I experienced a visceral response that prompted my original drafting of this essay.

As you will see, the separation of church and state is a major issue for me; perhaps it is simply because I am a part of a religious minority or because I have been on the receiving end of prostelyzation and religious bigotry. In any event, I have long been an advocate for the separation of church and state and even lobby the Indiana General Assembly on behalf of the Jewish community of Indianapolis on church-state issues [and let me reiterate again that what I say on this blog and in this essay in particular I am saying for myself and am not speaking on behalf of anyone else or any agency with whom I am affiliate]. I have no problem with people expressing their faith. Nor do I have a problem if a business elects to follow a religious path or erect a religious symbol. And obviously, I have no problem with a church or other house of worship taking steps to foster its religious viewpoint.

However, I do have a problem when the government becomes enmeshed in religion, especially when the government my government tries to tell me that I must pray, how or to whom I must pray, or which religious holidays or religious beliefs meet with "official" approval (or, conversely, chooses to ignore other equally valued religious beliefs). I have a problem when others are not satisfied with prayer in their homes, churches, or other private places and, instead, feel the need to force their prayer upon me, whether or not I agree with their religious beliefs, especially when they want to force their prayer and religious beliefs upon me through the government. And I really have a problem when people want to force those religious viewpoints upon my children in the public schools. I am old enough to make my own religious decisions; I know enough about religion to know what I do and don't believe; I am not worried about peer pressure; and I am confident enough in myself to stand up and so "no" when asked to do that which violates by sincerely held beliefs. But my now 9year old twins should never have to bow down to public pressure to believe a certain way, be made to feel different or an outsider, or be forced to consider their own religious beliefs all because someone else is not satisfied with prayer in their own home or church. I'm curious to know how comfortable you are that your children would be able to handle prostelyzation from another religious faith, especially if your child were confronted by questions or accusations that go to the core of your religious beliefs or involved questions of religious understanding to which your child had not yet been exposed.

Before delving further into some of the issues raised in the email, however, there are few important preliminary points that must be addressed:

First, the email begins by attributing the text to Ben Stein (and, I must say, that it is getting somewhat tiring having the opinion's of a single Jew thrown in my face, almost as if because one Jew believes a certain way, those of us who disagree must be wrong; I suspect that many Christians would take offense if I were to pick and choose the words of a few particular Christians and use those words to paint broadly the viewpoint of all Christians or to challenge the legitimacy of contrary opinions held by other Christians). Anyway, while Mr. Stein did, indeed, make some of the comments attributed to him in the email, his comments end before the paragraph that begins with "In light of the many jokes..." See Mr. Stein's website for the full text of his comments (which, by the way, differ slightly from those that he actually gave on CBS Sunday Morning).

The email then goes on with a series of other statements and quotations (without recognizing that these statements or quotations were not made or quoted by Mr. Stein). The first of these references an interview between Jane Clayson and Rev. Billy Graham's daughter Anne Graham (Lotz). The email suggests that this interview and Ms. Lotz's response were "regarding Katrina". However, considering the fact that the interview took place on September 13, 2001, it obviously was not in reference to Katrina (but, just as obviously, was in reference to the events of September 11, 2001). Moreover, the statements the email attributes to Ms. Lotz, while close in substance, are not accurate and include far more than what she actually stated [in particular the numerous additional statements noted in blue in Part 1]. For additional information, see She Said He Said at BreakTheChain. One of the dangers of the Internet is the ease with which people can be misquoted, quotations taken out of context, or entire quotations fabricated, and then those mistakes are given a life of their own. Before attributing statements, we owe it both to those whom we are quoting and to those whom we want to influence to check the source material for accuracy. Similarly, before forwarding a chain letter (or email), it behooves us all to check the accuracy of the statements therein; after all, when we send that email we are, in essence, putting our name and reputation behind the content of that which we distribute.

The email also goes on to suggest that "recent events" (such as terrorist attacks and school shootings) began when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (her name is actually spelled Madalyn Murray O'Hair) complained that she didn't want "prayer in our schools". For information on Ms. O'Hair, see the entry for her at Wikipedia (I know, I know, but it is a decent starting point...). In fact, Ms. O'Hair complained of coercive prayer in public schools in the early 1960s! And, by an 81 majority, the United States Supreme Court agreed that it was improper for coercive prayer or bible study in public schools. More information on the decisions can be found on the Wikipedia pages discussing Abbington School District v. Schempp and Engel v. Vitale. It is worth noting that four of the Justices on the Supreme Court that decided those cases were appointed by a Republican President. Yet Ms. O'Hair is somehow being blamed for Islamic terrorists attacking America. Timothy McVeigh, perhaps... but the lack of coercive Christian prayer in American public schools does not seem to be one of the things that has sparked fundamentalist Islamic terrorists to attack America. Generally speaking, we Jews don't believe in prayer in public schools, yet I haven't seen many Jewish children engaging in school shootings or terrorist attacks; nor, for that matter, have I seen adherents to other religious faiths behind the trigger in school shootings, either.

The email next furthers the foregoing argument by suggesting that America is in trouble because we no longer read the Bible in schools and it is the Bible that teaches "thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself". I guess, that we are to understand that, if we still taught the Bible in our public schools, we wouldn't kill or steal and we would love each other. First, just because our children don't read the Bible in public schools doesn't mean that we can't (or don't) teach our children not to kill or steal or can't or don't teach them to love one another. And even when children did read the Bible in public schools, bad things happened: Jim Crow laws prevented blacks from voting or forced them to sit at the back of the bus (and sometimes left them hanging from a tree), but I would be willing to wager that supporters of those laws prayed quite a bit. Murder and burglary did not suddenly start the day that prayers ceased in the public schools; it seems that those societal ills have been with us (and with all of humanity) from the beginning of time, whether or not people prayed (and irrespective of the type of prayer or the deity to which those prayers is offered). It is simply too easy to say that things are bad and to place blame accordingly without empirical evidence supporting the allegation.

Next the email implies that people have been wrong to follow the advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock and appears to ridicule Dr. Spock's advice because, according to the email, Dr. Spock's son committed suicide (as if to suggest that if Dr. Spock's own son committed suicide, then Dr. Spock's child-rearing advice must have been wrong). While this suggestion is, itself, almost uncertainly unfair, it is wholly misplaced given that Dr. Spock's son did not kill himself. Rather, Dr. Spock's grandson killed himself after a long battle with mental illness (for more information, see Doctored Spock and the entry for Dr. Spock on Wikipedia).

[I added this paragraph after receiving some of the alternate versions of the chain email that added the text that was not in the original version.] Some versions of the email then proceed through a litany of social issues in the buildup to the general premise that the "world is going to hell" as a result of American society's decisions on those social issues. The authors of the email want us to believe America is in danger and that God is angry because we oppose corporal punishment of our children by teachers and principals, because we support a woman's right to choose and oppose certain restrictions on that right, because we support giving condoms so that kids who are sexually active don't become pregnant or get sexually transmitted diseases, because we support the notion of privacy, especially within the confines of our own bedrooms, because we allow pornography to exist, because we allow child pornography (I'm stumped by this one given that child pornography is not only illegal, but it is not protected by the First Amendment and mere possession of child porn is punishable), and because some segments of the entertainment industry espouse viewpoints that may not conform to mainstream beliefs and practices. I could just as easily turn the entire discussion around and argue that America is in danger and God is angry because we don't take care to properly feed the poor and house the homeless, because we allow children to go without proper health care and make some of the elderly choose between food or medication, because we glorify greed and allow the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer, because we use violence rather than diplomacy and include torture as an accepted way of getting information, because we don't uphold our own democratic traditions and allow our civil rights to be trampled, because we are willing to discriminate against people on the basis of their religious beliefs or their skin color or their national origin or their sexual orientation, because we use the airwaves to espouse hate and bigotry and to talk about our political opponents as the enemy, because we allow our environment ("God's green earth?") to be polluted, and because we are egotistical and/or stupid enough to suggest that natural disasters have anything whatsoever to do with human thought.

Finally, the email offers a number of statements that repeat the general allegation that the "world is going to hell" because "public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace".

Which leads me back to the main point. Those of us who feel strongly about the separation of church and state do not suggest, not even for a moment, that children are not or should not be allowed to pray in public schools. Nor do we argue against public "discussion" of God, gods, or religion. Rather, we argue against public prayer. We argue against government sponsorship or endorsement of particular religions or particular religious viewpoints. We argue that our children should not be compelled to pray in public schools and that the government should not compel a person to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. If a child wants to pray in school, he or she can do so any time, whether on the bus, at recess, at lunch, or even quietly seated at his or her desk. But the government should not tell my child (or your child, for that matter) that the child must pray (and certainly not with a particular prayer or to a particular deity).

And before you say, "but without prayer in public schools, our country has gone to hell", just consider for a moment what you are really saying: Either, you are saying that we, as parents, have failed at teaching values to our children (because, if the schools aren't teaching values and children aren't learning those values, then who else is there to blame but the parents who are not properly teaching and raising their children?) or you are saying that the U.S. should be a religious country in which minority religions are merely tolerated. As to this latter point, remember that the U.S. was initially settled by many people looking to escape religious persecution and bigotry. More importantly, which religious viewpoint should be the dominant one? Assuming that Christianity would be the "national" religion, would that be from a Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, or other viewpoint? Who's interpretation of scripture would be correct? Who would get to pick which prayers are to be said in our public schools?

For that matter, which Bible would we be using? The Jewish Bible (the Old Testament)? The Catholic Bible? The King James Bible? It is worth noting that the different versions of the Bible have very different texts and meanings. Just consider the Ten Commandments, about which so much has been made recently. Many people want the Ten Commandments posted in the schools and courts. But which version would that be? A simple Google search will reveal a number of examples of different versions of the Ten Commandments. Consider simply the commandment quoted in the email that "Thou shalt not kill". The use of the word "kill" finds its way into certain translations, while other translations (in particular those that do not go through an intervening Greek and/or Latin translation) usually use the word "murder" instead (and just consider the difference in meaning between those terms). Or, consider that some versions of the Ten Commandments do not include a prohibition against graven images. Even the Bible itself has several versions of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). For more discussion of the differences and meanings, see the Wikipedia entry on the Ten Commandments. And which Biblical lessons would we be teaching? I suppose that we should teach how to place a proper monetary value upon our daughters when we sell them into slavery (as permitted by Exodus 21:7). We should teach men how to recognize when a woman is having her menstrual cycle so that we can avoid touching them (as prohibited by Leviticus 15:1924). Perhaps we will need to revisit our teaching of the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights movement; after all, Leviticus 25:44 states that we may possess slaves. We will also need to settle once and for all whether Friday, Saturday, or Sunday is the true Sabbath (just when exactly did God tell Christians to move the Sabbath from Saturday [the last day of the week on every calendar that I've looked at recently] to Sunday [the first day of the week]; after all, I thought God rested after finishing creation not before getting started)? Why is this important? Because Exodus 35:2 requires that we put to death those who work on the Sabbath. It seems best that we know which day not to work on and schools would be a good place to teach that. We will also have to be sure that our schools don't serve any kind of shellfish as eating it is an abomination (Leviticus 11:10). I guess, too, that the hippie movement will be forced to make a comeback as our schools should probably teach that trimming a man's hair, especially around the temples, is forbidden (Leviticus 19:27). I am worried about forcing schools to stop playing football, but given that touching the skin of a dead pig makes a person unclean (Leviticus 11:68) it would seem, at bare minimum, to require that we switch to a synthetic ball. For that matter, ham sandwiches and hot dogs will certainly have to go (Leviticus 11:68) and cheeseburgers will be a thing of the past (Exodus 23:19). And I can't wait to see how school dress codes are modified to take into consideration that prohibition against wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread; alas, no more cotton/polyester blends (Leviticus 19:19). And I'm particularly looking forward to the part of the curriculum that deals with the proper way to make animal sacrifices.

And before you say that we don't need to follow all of those commandments from the Bible, please tell me just who it is, precisely, that gets to decide which commandments we keep and which ones we ignore; which commandments still have a place in the modern world and which should be relegated to the past? I don't recall God saying that we get to pick and choose the rules that we want to follow. But then I guess that will be part of the school curriculum as well.

And how are we to reconcile all of this with Jesus' own prescriptions against public prayer:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men....when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret....

(Mathew 6:56). It would seem to me that coercive (or even optional, but organized) prayer in the public schools would violate this admonition. But maybe our new Biblical public school curriculum will include proper instruction on how and where and to whom to pray, too.

Perhaps we can settle these questions in the civilized way that Europeans have used over the millennia: War. Consider, for a moment, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) in which all of Europe was embroiled in a war over competing versions of Christianity (Catholics v. Lutherans v. Calvinists). By some estimates, millions of people died during this particularly bloody war. European history is filled with examples of war over religious doctrine and dogma. The Spanish Inquisition was a particularly pleasant way of addressing religious differences. And don't forget Henry VIII who created an entirely new church just because he wanted a divorce. More recently, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants have seen fit to blow each other up. Christians aren't alone in their use of violence to resolve religious disputes. Just look at the violence between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, between Muslims, Catholics, and Greek Orthodox in the Balkans, not to mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course, if we were to decide that blowing each other up was the best way to resolve our own petty religious differences, then we wouldn't be much different from the Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims presently engaged in their own conflict in Iraq in which wholesale kidnapping, torture, and slaughter is apparently an acceptable way to address religious differences.

Consider the following statement from ReligiousTolerance:

Religion is a unique force in society. It motivates individuals to do both good and evil. Historically, it has promoted: an end to slavery, racial integration, equal rights for women, and equal rights for gays and lesbians. It has motivated individuals to create massive support services for the poor, the sick, the hurting, and the broken. Conversely, it has been used to justify slavery, racial segregation, oppression of women, discrimination against homosexuals, genocides, exterminations of minorities, and other horrendous evils.

Religion motivates some to dedicate their lives to help the poor and needy. (e.g. Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa.) It drives others to exterminate as many "heretics" as they can. Consider the mass murders and genocides in Bosnia, East Timor, Indonesia, India, Kosovo, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tibet, etc.

Religion has the capability to generate unselfish love in some people, and vicious, raw hatred in others.

Americans love to stand up and say how proud they are of their country and the freedoms and liberties that America stands for. Yet, when those freedoms and liberties challenge us, how many of us are still ready to stand up and support the rights of those with whom they disagree? You pray the way you want, I'll pray the way I want (if I want), and we'll leave the schools to teach our children about math and reading and science (and let's not even get started on the whole issue of creationism or "intelligent design").

Do we honestly believe that simply offering a public prayer that conforms to a particular religious viewpoint will suddenly cause all children to be good, that burglars and murderers will suddenly repent, that terrorists will leave us alone, and hurricanes will limit their destruction to Mexico or Cuba? Just think about it: Canada allows gay marriage, but it doesn't appear that God has punished Canada. For that matter Massachusetts also allows gay marriage, but Hurricane Katrina landed far to the south of Boston. So maybe, just maybe, the fact that we don't allow prayer in public schools has little or nothing to do with how God views our country. Or, perhaps, if God is angry at the U.S., it is because we have not lived up to the challenge of always acting as we should when we support dictators, don't give enough money to help impoverished nations, continue to allow the environment to be destroyed, rely upon torture to obtain information, and continue to use God and religion as an excuse for political viewpoints that demonize those with whom we disagree. Or maybe, God just wants us to allow gays to marryY

Just consider my own childhood in which the principal at my public elementary school used a derogatory term to describe my mother after I (a somewhat precocious 5thgrader) expressed discomfort at singing "Silent Night" in the school's Christmas program. When I asked the music teacher if I could simply remain silent during that song, I was given the choice of singing (and not just "mumbling", I was reminded) or quitting the choir. Or consider that Good Friday was a recognized absence for the Catholic children, but Jews had to call in "sick" to be excused for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Or consider that every student at our public high school had to sit through a performance of Handel's "Messiah" by the school choir (and rise at the appropriate moment). I was told that if I did not attend the performance, I would be suspended. When I later asked the music teacher why that particular piece of music was chosen, she claimed that it was due to the beautiful harmonies and not for its religious content. So, I asked her why it was not included in the spring music program and she replied that it "would lose its meaning". I could go on and on with examples of the government, through the public school system, attempting to impose a particular religious viewpoint upon me. It was clear to me, as I grew up, that because I was not Christian, I was different and something less than a full participant in my own country. That is wrong. That is not American. I am no more a guest here than any other citizen, whether a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Wiccan, or any of the myriad other religions that make up America. And an atheist is no less a citizen than any believer. I am not a guest and my country should not make me feel that I am anything less than on equal footing with every other citizen, no matter my religion (or lack thereof).

And finally, back to Ben Stein. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Stein that it doesn't bother me when people refer to Christmas trees as such. Nor am I particularly bothered if someone wishes me a "Merry Christmas". My wife even likes to listen to some Christmas music (I have allegedly been caught humming "Frosty the Snowman") and our family will occasionally drive around and look at our neighbors' Christmas lights. However, while I am not offended, I do wonder what is so wrong with saying "Happy Holidays" as that term is fully inclusive of all people, of whatever religion (or none the phrase includes New Year's Day and Thanksgiving and maybe even the winter solstice) rather than being exclusive. So, while I have no problem with Wal-Mart deciding that its greeters should say "Merry Christmas" (can anybody explain why Wal-Mart needs to greet me?), I also have no problem giving my business to Target where diversity is welcomed and inclusiveness is valued. That said, I am offended when someone who knows me says "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Hanukkah" or "Happy Holidays" because that tells me that the person doesn't care enough to be considerate toward me. If I know that someone is Christian, I will try to remember to say "Merry Christmas". Otherwise, I usually say "Happy Holidays"; I want to be inclusive and be sure that my greeting is appropriate for everyone (but, I'll acknowledge that when an acquaintance who knows that I'm Jewish wishes me a "Merry Christmas" I am likely to respond with "Happy Hanukkah" if I'm in a bah humbug sort of mood).

Like Mr. Stein, I am not offended by a manger scene. The church on the corner near my home has a lovely living nativity each year. I am, however, offended, when my government chooses to erect a manger scene or allows one to be erected on public property. Why exactly does the government need to erect a manger or to celebrate the birth of Jesus? Don't churches and private homeowners (not to mention stores and businesses) do a sufficient job of that? The hue and cry about the "attack" on Christmas would make one think that those of us who favor the separation of church and state want to prohibit churches and individuals from showing their faith and devotion when that simply is not the case at all. By all means, hang up your Christmas lights, decorate your tree, erect your crèche. Just do it at your home or at your business or at your church and not on government land and do it without government tax dollars. Is that really too much to ask?

I also agree with Mr. Stein that America is not an "explicitly atheist country". I am unfamiliar with that claim. Instead, I believe that America is a country that is (or should be) neutral toward religion. America is not atheist any more than it is Christian or Jewish or Muslim or tied to the earth and ancestor spirit faiths of Native Americans. America is all of those things. America is made up of hundreds of different religions (and of those who have either no particular faith or who don't believe in a god or gods), each of which may be a valuable contribution to the fabric that makes our country (and each of which may also have negative influences as well). But that does not mean that America as a country and through its institutions should show favoritism toward any particular religious belief or form of worship (or lack thereof). To exclude coercive prayer from public life, to recognize that not everyone shares the same religious views and beliefs, to value diversity (and the rewards and challenges that diversity can bring) is not "atheist". But it is American.

Happy Holidays.

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Well, I did warn you that this would be long. If you've stayed with me the whole way, thanks. If not ... well, I guess that you wouldn't be reading this would you? Anyway, as I'm sure you can tell by now, the issues that I discussed above are very important to me and about which I tend to get very exercised.

Ben Stein, Chain Emails, & "Happy Holidays" (Part 1)

Let me apologize in advance for the length of this post and of Part 2 (which I'm actually posting at the same time). Unfortunately, to do justice to the subject, I found that I had to write even more than my usual relatively-lengthy posts. Sorry. And with that, away we go...

First a little background. I'm sure that you've received numerous chain emails on a whole host of different topics. Usually, I just hit the delete key and move on, but every now and then one of these chain emails either interests me or offends me or both. I participate in a number of mailing lists related to various subjects. One of these mailing lists pertains to certain health care matters and is supposed to be limited to that topic. Nevertheless, one particular poster frequently feels the need to send cute little jokes and inspirational messages that I ignore (the jokes aren't funny and the messages aren't inspirational). She has also been prone to sending chain emails to the mailing list and, on more than one occasion, these chain emails have been untrue (hoax virus warnings, the crying baby on the doorstep urban legend, and other similar things that have been debunked by Snopes and others). When I receive these messages, I often send her (or others from whom I receive similar messages) a private email noting that the chain email is a hoax or urban legend and offering some suggestions on how to identify hoaxes in the future. Again, this may be an annoyance, but it isn't really harmful.

But then one day, she posted a message that got me angry (I'll discuss the subject matter in a minute). After reading the message several times, I started doing a little online research of my own. I found that part of the message was an mostly accurate transcript of an original commentary but that it had been combined with a number of other bits and pieces without proper attribution and which were incorrect. Moreover, even ignoring the numerous errors in the message, I found the subject matter and the conclusions reached by the authors to be highly objectionable. So I decided to write a response. Over the course of a number of lunch hours I drafted my response. I wrote and tweaked and edited until I was happy with my response. My only real concern was that the tone of my response was much harsher than the tone I usually use, but I felt that the circumstances warranted that tone. Finally, before I posted my response, I sent it to my wife to review. She told me that it was a well-written message that did an excellent job of addressing the issues; however, she told me that if I posted the message she would have to kill me. All I would accomplish, she explained, would be the creation of a flame war on the mailing list (in which she is a frequent participant). We argued, but eventually I relented and decided to hold my tongue. I tucked my post away in my drafts folder where it has stayed for quite some time.

In the two years following, I received that same email several times. A few months ago, when the election was heating up, I received the objectionable email from a close family friend (who I think secretly hopes that he can drag me over to the political right). And then, unsurprisingly, here shortly before Christmas, I've received yet another copy of the message. Each of the versions of the email that I've received are virtually identical with only little bits and pieces changing from one to the next. An online search will reveal several versions of the same general chain message. However, all of the versions of the chain email have warped and expanded the original commentary on which they are based and which they quote.

So finally we get to the actual content of the original commentary and the chain email that it spawned. In late 2005, actor/game show host (and now advocate for creationism and the position that belief in evolution was a root cause of the Holocaust) Ben Stein gave a commentary on CBS Sunday Morning about Nick & Jessica and Christmas (sorry the video cannot be embedded). Mr. Stein posted a version of that commentary on his website (it is worth noting that the commentary on the website is subtly different from that which he gave on CBS Sunday Morning, but the differences are essentially non-substantive). Here is the full text of the commentary as posted on Mr. Stein's website:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

I disagree with some of Mr. Stein's thoughts (though not about Nick and Jessica or Tom Cruise...), but don't really care what he has to say. If those comments were the extent of the chain email I would probably have just hit the delete key. Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, decided to embellish Mr. Stein's comments and tried to make them into much more than they really were. As embellished, Mr. Stein's comments are then used to try to advance both the simple position that Mr. Stein was commenting about but also to advocate on behalf of prayer in public schools and to attack those of us who support separation of church and state. And, as I mentioned previously, not only are many of the additional points not from Mr. Stein; they are also factually inaccurate. Yet because they appear to have the imprimatur of being spoken by an "expert" (or at least a third-rate celebrity; some people seem to have trouble telling the difference), they are taken at face value. (I find it troubling that Mr. Stein has not added and addendum to the page with his originally commentary noting that he is not responsible for the additional thoughts attributed to him that are so readily found floating around the Internet.) Moreover, and more importantly, because Mr. Stein is Jewish (and "confesses" as much in his commentary), his comments (including the embellished additions) are used as a club against Jews (like me) who have a different viewpoint.

So, below is the full text of the chain email that caused me to become so exercised in the first place. As you will see, it is fairly lengthy. Thus, my response (the one that I've kept in my drafts folder for two years now), with some minor corrections and edits, but with the original tone largely intact, will be in Part 2 of this post. It is also worth noting that some versions of the chain email completely omit the portions that I've posted in green (and change the subsequent reference to "Nick and Jessica" to "celebrities") while others add the portion that I've posted in blue.

Something not to laugh about.

If they know of him at all, many folks think Ben Stein is just a quirky actor/comedian who talks in a monotone. He's also a very intelligent attorney who knows how to put ideas and words together in such a way as to sway juries and make people think clearly.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.

If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don' t feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica [alternately: celebrities] and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.

But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina)

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.

And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about and we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued (there's a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.).. And we said OK.

Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents.. And we said OK.

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.

Then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to free speech.

Then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.

Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through email and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

Before moving on to my response (in Part 2), take a moment and comment on Mr. Stein's original commentary and the embellished thoughts attributed to him.

Valuing Intellectual Achievement

Shortly after the election, I wrote:

I have great hopes that we will, indeed, leave behind the days when "intellectual" was a derogatory term and enter a new period in which those willing and able to engage in "deep thought" and careful, intellectual analysis of complex issues and problems will be valued.

So, you can imagine my reaction to something that President-elect Obama said in yesterday's news conference in which he nominated Arne Duncan to be Secretary of Education:

If we can get young people focused on education; if we can change our culture so that we are once again valuing intellectual achievement; and if we are willing to all pull together around making our schools better, that's going to be the single biggest determinant, in terms of how our economy does, long-term.

(Emphasis added.)

What do you think? Has the President-elect been reading my blog?

And, on a somewhat related note, several years ago, my wife and I attended a conference in Chicago (at Northwestern, actually) for education-related businesses (my wife has a tutoring service). One of the speakers at that conference was Arne Duncan (who, if I recall, was relatively new to his job with the Chicago public schools). While I don't remember the specifics of his talk, I do recall thinking quite highly of him. I specifically recall discussing with my wife the fact that Mr. Duncan seemed more than willing to talk candidly about the issues that were facing the Chicago public schools and he seemed very open to listening to and thinking about ideas. I haven't followed his progress in the intervening years, but my gut reaction on hearing of Mr. Duncan's nomination -- based solely upon the impression formed from listening to him speak and honestly and candidly answer questions -- was very positive.