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October 18, 2003

Interfaith
: This is an odd -- and essentially irrelevant but still intriguing -- coincidence alongside the Easterbrook affair.
Part I: Yesterday, I pointed you to a controversy in the Presbyterian church over a fake synagogue being run by a Presbyterian minister (who doesn't admit to his ordination in the congregation's literature) in an attempt to proselytize, converting Jews to Christianity. My sister, a Presbyterian minister, is at the front of a fight against it.
Part II: Then I read Gregg Easterbrook's apology for his anti-Semetic comments (below). It ends with this:

Every reporter who has called me today has asked me my faith. Since I say this is relevant for others, it's relevant for me. I'm a Christian. I worship in one of the handful of joint Christian-Jewish congregations in the United States. This website describes the Bradley Hills Presbyterian (USA) side of the church. This website describes Bethesda Jewish, a Klal Yisrael ("All Israel") congregation that shares the same worship spaces and finances. Two years ago I wrote in The New Republic of the Bradley Hills-Bethesda Jewish joint congregation, "One of the shortcomings of Christianity is that most adherents downplay the faith's interweaving with Judaism." I and my family sought out a place where Christians and Jews express their faith cooperatively, which seems to me a good idea.

It turns out that the pastor of Bradley Hills is Susan Andrews, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) -- essentially, the head of the denomination right now.
So Andrews has to deal with the controversy in Philadelphia. And she clearly brings a unique perspective to this: She and her congregation understand interfaith relations: learning from each other without trying to convert. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia proselytizers are trying, quite sneakily, to act superior to the Jews they are trying to attract -- and thus, essentially, anti-Semetic -- by trying to convert them, by trying to say that one way is right, the other not.
I agree with Easterbrook's perspective on Christianity in that paragraph above. I often ask -- and have asked in this weblog -- why we Protestants do not adhere to more of the traditions of our own religious forebears. We should.
And now I wonder what the members of the Jewish congregation that shares Easterbrook's church's building -- and what his Presbyterian pastor -- would have to say about his sin and his confession. In the end, this is a matter of religion more than politics, media, culture, or certainly sports.

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I-balls
: Dave Winer: "It's not about how many eyeballs you aggregate, it's which ones."
He's dissenting from Clay Shirky's power-law rap.
I said it this way: "bloggers are influencers talking to influencers.... it's not how many are talking that matters, it's who's talking and what they're saying."
We agree.
Here's a blogger whose influence is already outdistancing his traffic.

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Matter, meet antimatter
: Matthew Yglesias says this Guardian story about the decline of France confirms his belief that the reigns of Bush and Chirac are a mirror.

: The money quote from the story, from a book:

'With our sermons, our empty gestures and our poetic flights, we (the French) have pissed off the planet. Worse: we make them laugh....'

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Democrats are from Mars, Republicans are from Venus
: Richard Bennett calls the Democratic presidential candidates mamas boys.

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Iran and Iraq online
: I just had the privilege of introducing Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder) to Zeyad, the new Iraqi blogger. Zeyad wants to do for Iraqis what Hoder did for Iranians: spread blogging and with it the exercise of freedom of speech and also the ability to tell their stories to the rest of the world. Hoder is kind enough to help; Zeyad is honored to get the help.
Note the obvious: Here are an Iranian and an Iraqi helping each other online. They are brought together by weblogs. And here I am, an American, honored to be befriending both men.
This weblog thing, this networked world, never ceases to amaze me.

: Zeyad has new posts up today, as illuminating as the last.
On his life during the war, an amazing post, hear these brave last words:

The following days were awful. The lawless and chaotic phase was next. I couldn't stand to go out and watch those ignorants stealing everything they could and literally destroying public buildings. What would the world think of us now? Some of the strangest things I witnessed, a pickup truck filled with school desks, the desks that their children use. A child dragging a Canon laser printer on the floor. Computers, hundreds of them loaded on carts pulled by donkeys. Police and army vehicles. And most important of all weapons, kalashnikovs, RPG's, hand grenades, stockpiles of ammunition. I wanted to bury my head in dirt. I hated myself for being an Iraqi, for sharing the same nationality with those strange people. I was deeply ashamed, watching this helplessly. People consciously destroying their own infrastructure, people setting fire to buildings we are proud of, stealing their history from museums, burning their public libraries. They are not Iraqis, they are aliens from Mars. I just couldn't take it. I cried, I admit it. I didn't know who to blame. I NEEDED someone to blame. I couldn't possibly blame the Americans, after all it isn't THEIR country, it's ours. We were the ones destroying ourselves. We are a self-destructive people. It only took me now to realize that. It wasn't Saddam that was the problem, it wasn't the Ba'ath, it wasn't the Ottoman empire, it wasn't the monarchy, it wasn't colonialism, it wasn't anything. It was us. We simply destroyed Iraq, and now we are sitting and wailing because the Americans aren't rebuilding it for us.

And on the "rising young ambitious fanatic Shi'ite cleric from Najaf" Muqtada Al-Sadr and his influence in Saddam city (now Al-Sadr city):

Al-Sadr has recently declared the city as 'American free'. And claimed that he wouldn't be responsible for any attacks against Americans if they entered that area. But he IS responsible for the most anti-American/western rhetoric we have ever heard since Khomeini. Their 'fatwas' are always so fun to listen to. One of these fatwas stated that unveiled women were prohibited to enter 'their' city and might 'face extreme punishment' if they did. Some of their earlier fatwas following the war warned cinema owners and booze shops to close within a week or face the consequences. Many violent attacks against both followed and are still to this day. Another fatwa warned CD and video rental shops to close,..etc. You get the picture....
The problem is he is too young to be making such a fuss, he is 21 or 22. And he receives instructions from Kazim Al-Ha'iri who lives in -of all places Iran. Kazim Al-Ha'iri issued the 'deadly fatwa' a few months ago that calls for all Iraqis to kill any foreigners, especially jewish intending to buy property in Iraq.

: UPDATE: Salam Pax welcomes Zeyad.

: Also note this fascinating blog who points to Zayed: Brooklyn to Baghdad, a travelogue through Iraq.

: Says Harry: "We might shrug our shoulders at our ability to be able to instantly publish our thoughts but for people who have spent their lives living under dictatorships, media like weblogs truly are liberating."

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Going too far
: I worry about the fate of free speech in this country -- not because of governmental interference, not because of that most overused word, "censorship," but because people in power are skittish about opinions, terrified of controversy, cowed by political correctness, and most of all driven to avoid at all costs the ultimate sin of the age: offending.
Gregg Easterbrook said something offensive, deeply offensive: In panning the movie Kill Bill, he criticized the studio heads who released the film as "Jewish executives" who "worship money above all else." Webloggers everywhere -- and his editor at The New Republic -- castigated him publicly. Easterbrook apologized as abjectly and sincerely as he could, as well he should have. (Here are more links from Glenn Reynolds.)
Now Roger Simon tells us that Easterbrook was fired by ESPN for his sin.
Those who criticized Easterbrook say that ESPN went too far.
Says Simon: "I don’t think anybody who attacked Easterbrook wanted to see him fired. I certainly didn’t." Says Reynolds: "I think that's an overreaction." Says Jonah Goldberg: "I certainly think his dismissal is outrageous." Says Josh Chavetz: "We've reached the granddaddy of over-reaction.
I agree.
We have to stop being afraid of strong -- and wrong -- opinions. We have to stop being afraid of mere speech. We have to learn again to fight fire with fire -- words, that is -- rather than with nuclear weapons such as this.
When someone says something stupid, call it stupid. When they say something wrong, call it wrong. When they shout, shout back. That is the free marketplace of ideas and speech. That is democracy. Nothing to be afraid of there.
But if we try to cut off that free discussion, even when it is offensive, we cut off the marketplace of ideas, we cut off our own freedom.
What ESPN did is essentially insulting to its audience. They think we can't take care of ourselves, that we can't make our own judgments about Easterbrook and what he said and how he apologized; they are condescending to us when they think they are protecting us from offense.
I also think they did the wrong thing firing Rush Limbaugh. As I've amply demonstrated, I can't stand that self-righteous, insufferable bag of hot air -- no, of hot methane produced by the crap he produces. But he expressed an opinion and because it merely smelled controversial, they got rid of him. Now they get rid of Easterbrook.
The result will, unquestionably, be a chilling of free speech. And that is wrong.
The result will, unquestionably, be a dulling of the airwaves. And that is bad business.

: RiShawn Biddle and other commenters disagree. RiShawn says this is a case of being on the wrong end of synergy: Easterbrook is gone in part because he criticized the boss' (that is Disney's) product. I disagree. Companies are never so well-organized as to be conpiratorial. And even Disney's not that stupid. I have been on the delicate end of synergy often myself when I criticized TV at TV Guide (sharing ownership with Fox) and at People (then sharing ownership with HBO) and edited Entertainment Weekly (just as it was merging with Warner). The institution was not the issue; individuals were. I had two bosses who did the right thing and a few who did not. But the institutions never acted institutionally. It's a matter of individual ethics. It always is.

: Atrios also criticizes Easterbrook, also sees the syn of synergy, but also says this wasn't necessary.

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How to?
: I need some music advice. I now own the Treo 600 Palm phone. I want to download (legal) music (paying for one song at a time, not by subscription) and use the phone as a player (it will take stereo headphones and a 512meg SD card). But...
: iTunes, I assume, supports only the iPod. True?
: BuyMusic spits out only WMAs and the recommended Treo player, Pocket-Tunes, plays only MP3s (and Ogg Vorbis).
So what do I do? Which download service shold I use? Which Palm player software should I use?
Help.

: People are telling me I have to burn a CD and then rip the CD and then convert the file and then I can get it on my Palm.
Gawd, can't the industry get this right? I want to buy their frigging music and they're making it impossible!

: UPDATE: Looks as if Musicmatch is the thing for me: works in MP3; works with portable players besides the iPod. Any comment?

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