Saturday, November 18, 2006

Ensoulment explained

In Minnesota, a state senate seat was won by incumbent Satveer Chaudhary, a practicing Hindu. His opponent, Rae Hart Anderson, sent a bizarre e-mail after the election that briefly congratulates Anderson in the first paragraph, then spends the next seven trying to convert him to Christianity.

Anderson couldn't be reached to comment, but his former campaign manager had some words on the matter:
Later in the afternoon, Anderson's former campaign manager, Barbara Black, told us Anderson wrote the e-mail because "Chaudhary is not Christian, and he needs to find his soul."

I like to think this means that ensoulment doesn't happen until one accepts Jesus. Would that make abortion okay, then? Or would it only be okay to abort heathen fetuses?
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Friday, November 17, 2006

Irony redux

Radio host Dan Savage, homophobic asshole, is at it again. I won't subject you to his noxious screed, except to point out this:
When I said, the other day, for example -- and they went crazy in the media -- they keep bashing me now because I said that the homosexual mafia will not stop until we all bend our knees to the homosexual agenda. They couldn't stop quoting me. All of these guys, who are probably gay themselves, are shocked that somebody would actually say the truth.

...

I told you to be aware of the homosexual agenda; how powerful the homosexual movement is in this country as witness the fact that you never hear any criticism of them.

So you never hear any criticism of gays, despite the fact that people can't stop quoting Dan Savage doing just that.

Unfortunately, that's about the most logical and inoffensive thing to come out of his mouth.
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Does this mean Bush is in league with the terrorists?

This is stunning. Y'all recall how, about a month ago, it was revealed that one of the administration's sources for an Iraq-al Qaeda tie revealed that misinformation after being tortured? Well, a European intelligence agent who infiltrated al Qaeda has claimed that he said this on purpose in order to get the U.S. to invade Iraq:
A senior al-Qaeda operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies said.

The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including British intelligence (MI5). He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaeda had been training Iraqis.

...

Asked whether he thought Libi had deliberately planted information to get the US to fight Iraq, Nasiri said: "Exactly".

Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim country.

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What is new, if Nasiri is to be believed, is that the leading al-Qaeda operative wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. Nasiri also says that part of al-Qaeda training was to withstand interrogation and provide false information.

If true, this would mean that basically the entire war was according to al Qaeda's plans. (Would that make the Bush administration guilty of giving aid and comfort to the enemy?) I'm skeptical about whether it's true or not, though. Surely this war was a godsend for al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations--it created a haven for terrorists and undoubtedly a huge boost in recruitment--but it was premeditated by them? I find that a little hard to swallow.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: "It's Alive!" Edition

I've been seeing a lot of racism recently; I was originally going to characterize it as a resurge of old-time racism, but I really don't know that it is. I suspect that it's been there the whole time and I just wasn't aware of it.

Still, there are people making statements that sound like they could be lifted verbatim from an anti-abolition tract, except that they're less eloquent. Say what you will about 19th-century racists, they could at least turn a phrase. Given that they're rehashing ideas that were dead decades, if not centuries, ago (although some of their ideas are bizarrely novel) I have affectionately dubbed these racists, "zombie racists."

I mentioned it at the time, but a few months ago Pat Buchanan came out with a new book, State of Emergency. Therein he commented on his regret that columnist Sam Francis was fired for expressing what he felt to be obvious:
"The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted by a different people."

Obviously, this is hardly a new idea. In 1899, Gustave LeBon described what he termed the "soul" of a race:
The elements of classification which anatomy, languages, environment, or political organisation are incapable of furnishing are supplied by psychology, which shows that behind the institutions, arts, beliefs, and political upheavals of each people, lie certain moral and intellectual characteristics that determine its evolution. It is the whole of these characteristics that form what may be called the soul of a race.

...

The moral and intellectual characteristics, whose association forms the soul of a people, represent the synthesis of its entire past, the inheritance of all its ancestors, the motives of its conduct.

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This aggregate of psychological elements observable in all the individuals of a race constitutes what may rightly be called the national character.

Now, it's hardly racist to declare that each nation has its own national character, a set of generally-shared or assumed beliefs and/or traits that help mold a nation's culture. According to LeBon and Francis, though, this 'national character' is not cultural but racial, and hence members of other races are unassimilable:
A negro or Japanese may easily take a university degree or become a lawyer; the sort of varnish he thus acquires is however quite superficial, and has no influence on his mental constitution. What no education can give him, because they are created by heredity alone, are the forms of thought, the logic, and above all the character of the Western man. Our negro or our Japanese may accumulate all possible certificates without ever attaining to the level of the average European. It is easy to give him in ten years the culture of a well-educated Englishman. To make a real Englishman of him, that is to say a man acting as an Englishman would act in the different circumstances of life, a thousand years would scarcely be sufficient. It is only in appearance that a people suddenly transforms its language, its constitution, its beliefs, or its arts. For such changes to be really accomplished, it would be necessary that it should be able to transform its soul.

Clinton Stoddard Burr said much the same in his 1922 work, America's Race Heritage:
One of the country's leading nativists, Clinton Stoddard Burr eulogized Nordics and their role in the nation's "racial history." His America's Race Heritage was an effort to demonstrate that Americanism was "actually the racial thought of the Nordic race" and that Nordics alone possessed the "moral fiber, intellectual character and hereditary traits" to perpetuate it.

And as Josiah Nott put it in his letter The Negro Race: Its Ethnology and History:
But what has been the history of the negro race during these thousands of years, while others, even the Chinese, the Hindoos, and Mexicans, were marching on, according to the strength which nature endowed them with respectively? In the language of Dr. Robert Knox, of London, "Human history cannot be a mere chapter of accidents. The fate of a nation cannot be always regulated by chance; its literature, science, art, wealth, religion, language, laws, and morals, cannot surely be the result of mere accidental circumstances."

If it's not the result of circumstances, what else but race?

More recently, Pharyngula excoriated a work on the average IQs of African countries. I haven't read the article itself, and some commenters said that the Guardian summary was a mischaracterization of the work, so I'm not going to comment on that. However, in defense of the work, a commenter, James G, popped up and said in part:
IQ tests are only biased in the sense that they test for a westernized notion of intelligence. But why shouldn't they? After all, "developed nation" today is practically synonymous with "westernized". If African countries want to step out of poverty, it looks like the only path they can take is a western path. And to do that they need western intelligence. Of course it is always possible they could invent some new "African" mode of development that somehow didn't require western intelligence, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

...

This guy is observing the differences and trying to come up with an explanation. Do you have a better one? Why couldn't the colder, more rugged climates of Europe and Asia provided more novel challenges that the lush jungles of africa? I certainly would rather have lived in Africa.

The notion that "developed nation" or "civilization" is only Western is an idea that permeates old racist works. In effect, blacks weren't civilized because civilization belongs only to whites. Again, Josiah Nott chimes in:
The Rev. Theodore Parker, who was educated and lived at the "hub of the universe," will certainly be received as good authority on this subject. He says:

"The Caucasian differs from all other races; he is humane, he is civilized, and progresses. He conquers with his head as well as his hand. It is intellect, after all, that conquers—not the strength of a man's arm. The Caucasian has been often master of other races—never their slave. He has carried his religion to other races, but never taken theirs. In history all religions are of Caucasian origin. All the great limited forms of monarchies are Caucasian. Republics are Caucasian. All the great sciences are of Caucasian origin; all inventions are Caucasian; literature and romance come of the same stock; all of the great poets are of Caucasian origin; Moses, Luther, Jesus Christ, Zoroaster, Budha, Pythagoras, were Caucasian. No other race can bring up to the memory such celebrated names as the Caucasian race. The Chinese philosopher, Confucius, is an exception to the rule. To the Caucasian race belong the Arabian, Persian, Hebrew, Egyptian; and all the European nations are descendants of the Caucasian race."

Some people, like Mr. G above, strove to explain the inferiority of other races, especially blacks, rather than just accept them as a given. And similar ideas were repeated—the idyllic plains of Africa were such a paradise that blacks simply never had to develop, unlike Europeans who were challenged by their harsh environment. One example of this is Edward Eggleston, who in The Ultimate Solution of the American Negro Problem described the ancestors of today's races as they ventured out of Africa.
When the race had once established itself in such latitudes as Central Asia and Europe its dietary necessities were greatly changed; more heat-producing animal food and less vegetable matter was necessay. Moreover, it no longer had the variety and abundance of fruits and vegetables that nature so lavishly furnished in its equatorial habitats. In great measure the substitution of flesh for vegetable matter had become necessary and the former could be had only by effort and ingenuity. It could have been no easy matter even in these early times—when the lower animals were much more abundant than at present—for the various tribes of the primitive race to resist the cold, capture their food, and maintain themselves against hostible tribes as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the unknown wilds and frigid regions of both north and south. We trust it has been made sufficiently clear then, that as primitive Man forced his way out from the equator his wits were continually whetted and sharpened by the very nature of his new condition. It should also be apparent that those who went out were, for reasons already mentioned, the select element mentally and physically.

These pilgrims, who braved all sorts of new dangers—thus eliminating all but the fittest—established themselves in various and sundry localities, some more suitable for racial development than others, but all better than his torrid birthplace. Those who continued to dwell in hot climates underwent little change, and all succeeding generations perpetuated this simple life and many primitive race characteristics. This is the very environment that has produced the Negro race. Very slight adaptational changes have occurred in this division of the race, thus he has remained much closer to the original stock than have the higher branches of the race.

Finally, I was reading this post by Glenn Greenwald, describing how certain people on the right are blaming the Iraqi people for the failure of their pet war. But what jumped out to me was this statement by Paul Mirgenoff of Powerline:
The Iraqis, of course, are not the first people to make a very bad decision at the polls. The fact that they did so is not necessarily evidence of some national "genetic" flaw, much less a demonstration that democracy can't work in the Middle East. It just means that the Iraqi people did less than what a difficult situation required, and that we must face up to and deal with the consequences.

It is not necessarily evidence of a "'genetic' flaw"? Who even suggested such a thing except you? This "not necessarily" strikes me as his exerting the least of efforts to hide the fact that he's a zombie racist. The idea that some people are simply genetically incapable of handling democracy is hardly new:
Convinced by such authorities as Frank, Hawk, and Humphrey, William Joseph Simmons, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, felt the Klan's treatment of the Negro to be fully justified. The race's "state of biological evolution," he stated, made Negroes "physically, and hence morally" unfit for democratic responsibilities. "The cause is biological."

And I just now came across this post, which quotes the editor-in-chief of the New Republic as saying:
Give George W. Bush his due. He took down the Taliban. And he also took down the savage Caesar. These are achievements. What he did not grasp--and what, for that matter, Baker and those for whom he speaks also do not grasp--is the sheer and relentless butchery of which both Sunni and Shia are capable. The fiendish barbarism of decapitated heads and mutilated bodies is now a reflex of the warriors and nothing exceptional, a commonplace. Even the bare rudiments of civilization will not soon come back to the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates."

Hm. Savages and barbarians too busy killing themselves to create the bare rudiments of civilization? I don't suppose that aspersion has ever before been applied to a minority.

These four incidents are hardly all of it. The anti-immigration (and anti-Mexican) furor reeks of the 1920s Immigration Act and "Americanism". Some years ago several liberal bloggers were criticizing the Bell Curve for its claims about race and intelligence. Trent Lott, who believes that if only Strom "Sperm" Thurmond had become president we wouldn't have the problems we do today, was just elected minority whip. Going back a bit further, Rush Limbaugh praised Thurmond for his ability to filibuster over 24 hours to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And so on.

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Some tidbits about Russian

I recently learned some interesting facts about Russian.

For one, мир ("Mir") means both "peace" and "world", which leads to the neat phrase МИРУ МИР: "Peace to the World".

Also, the word восток ("vah-stoke") is Russian for "east". A town on the east coast of Russia, Владивосток ("vlah-dee-vah-stoke") is a combination of that and the verb владеть ("vlah-dyet"), which means "to rule". So Владивосток is "ruler of the east".

If you combine these tidbits, you find that the name Владимир ("Vladimir") means "ruler of the world". At least that's according to my textbook; according to Behind the Name, it means "to rule with greatness" or "to rule with peace." But I much prefer my textbook's interpretation.

Also, our teacher gave us an interesting hand-out today--a list of pairs of English words or phrases that non-native speakers often confuse, and a similar list for Russian words and phrases. As an example, on the English side she had such words as "desert"/"dessert", "chemistry"/"cemetery", "surgeon"/"sturgeon", and my favorite, "My name is"/"mayonnaise".

On the list of Russian mistakes, she had "замок"/"замок" (the difference is in which syllable is stressed), which can be the difference between "castle" and "lock". One of the more amusing ones is "мука"/"мука". Again, the difference is in the stress of the syllables--if you stress the second syllable you get "flour", but if you stress the first you get "torment, suffering". Given how negligent most of my classmates have been of properly stressing their words (which has irked me quite a bit) I consider it highly likely that if they continue Russian they will one day ask to borrow a cup of suffering. In fact, she included a Russian poem that seems to make fun of this awkward pairing.

But the absolute best has to be the first item on her list: "Не за что" versus "Ни за что". The first one means "Don't mention it!" or "You're welcome!" The second means "I won't forgive you."

She mentioned that many students do not forgive her when she thanks them.
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I'm really not a liar. Not when the truth is so much more amusing.

A few weeks back, I made a claim that I did not provide any evidence for:
This need to protect the infiltration of white blood with black also explains, to a small degree, the sexism involved in miscegenation. Whereas white men could generally get away with sleeping with black women, the reverse was much more readily condemned. I cannot at the moment find any quote to this effect, but the argument was sometimes put forth that white men could sleep with black women because all that did was inject white blood into black. But white women should not sleep with black men because women, as bearers of children, were guardians of the race--a white woman having a mulatto child would have allowed the injection of black blood into the white race.

I doubt anyone has been obsessing over this lack of citation, but when tidying up some of my sources I came across a quote saying exactly this:
We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind.

--from The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn, by William Benjamin Smith.
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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Good old-fashioned bigotry

Glenn Beck of CNN seems to have serious problems with Muslims.

First he practically accuses Representative Keith Ellison, the first-ever Muslim in Congress, of being in league with the terrorists:
With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, "Let's cut and run." And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

And then he expresses surprise that a Muslim would criticize Al-Qaeda:
A couple of months ago, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq urged his supporters to each kill at least one American in the next 15 days. It was a shocking statement, but hardly surprising.

Then, just a few days later, I came across a response to that message of hate that was surprising. It said, "You hid in your caves and behind the faces of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. You have abandoned God and have started worshipping your own satanic egos that rejoice at the killing of innocent people."

Why do I say that statement, something that many of us agree with, is surprising? Because the man who wrote it is a Muslim. He lives right here in the United States.

He claims that he knows and likes Muslims, but wants a Muslim Congressman to prove he's not working with enemies of the country. And he says that he doesn't "believe that Islam is a religion of evil", that he thinks "it's being hijacked", but expresses surprise that a Muslims criticizes terrorists.
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

I'm torn.

As you know, South Africa recently passed a law allowing gay marriages. As best I can determine, they allow true, full-blown gay marriages, and not some marriage-lite substitute like civil unions. Reading through some of the articles, I saw them saying that the bill was being attacked by both sides of the aisle--religious groups I expected, but apparently some gays were saying it didn't go far enough. I really wanted to know what more they wanted.

Well, I finally found out:
The Roman Catholic Church and many traditionalist leaders in South Africa said the measure denigrated the sanctity of marriages between men and women.

To ease some of these concerns, the bill allowed both religious and civil officers to refuse to marry same-sex couples on moral grounds.

Gay-rights groups criticized this "opt-out" clause, saying they should be treated the same as heterosexual couples, but in general, they praised the new measure.

I'm not sure whether to be horridly pissed at this conscience-clause cop-out, or just take this as the major victory it is. Maybe I can do both--work occasional barrages of cursing into whoops of elation.
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How can anyone hate the Colonel?

KFC has constructed an 85,000 square-foot image of Colonel Sanders, so that it is visible from space:
The KFC Corp. on Tuesday launched a rebranding campaign with an 87,500 square-foot image of Colonel Sanders in the Nevada desert which the company says makes Kentucky Fried Chicken the world's first brand visible from space.

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The logo consists of 65,000 one-foot by one-foot painted tile pieces that were assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Their rationale for this is hilarious:
"If there are extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants to become their restaurant of choice," KFC President Gregg Dedrick said in a statement.

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"If we hear back from a life form in space today - whether NASA astronauts or a signal from some life form on Mars - we'll send up some Original Recipe Chicken," said Dedrick.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Last December, the highest court of South Africa recognized a same-sex marriage and told Parliament it had a year to recognize same-sex marriages.

With a few months to spare, South Africa has finally done so, according to Yahoo! Breaking News:
South African parliament passes legislation recognizing same-sex marriages, in a first for the continent.

At least they learned something from their absurd marriage laws.
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