Category Archives: Etiquette

UPDATE VIII: America’s Angelic O.J. (No Hearsay, Please!)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Etiquette, Europe, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Morality, Racism, Reason, The Zeitgeist

The following is from “America’s Angelic O.J,” now on WND.COM:

“The conviction of America’s sweetart du jour, Amanda Knox, was overturned this month. Based on O.J.-like evidence, Knox was convicted of murdering her British roommate. The vicious and depraved Nov. 1, 2007 killing took place in the historic, university city of Perugia, Italy. Police bungling notwithstanding, the biological and circumstantial evidence stacked against Knox and her former lover Raffaele Sollecito was considerable. …

…The once-convicted killers were declared innocent, no less, and released, due in no small part to a PR blitz mounted by Knox’s family and their Seattle-based publicist. They were assisted by the country’s national media, left and right. With the exception of Bill O’Reilly, former homicide prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Jeanine Pirro; Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC—all worked tirelessly on behalf of the attractive, white kids. The conviction of Rudy Guede the American media let stand. Guede, the pretty pair’s (alleged) partner in crime, is a black man who lacked their appeal and assets. …

… On Nov. 5, 2007, after cartwheeling and canoodling with Sollecito at the police station, Knox framed Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder and rape which she claimed to have overheard. (At that stage, only the cops knew Ms. Kercher had been sexually assaulted.) Lumumba was Amanda’s innocent employer. Knox even committed this evidentiary concoction to writing in a five-page memorandum. Later she blamed police for making her. Amanda’s allergy to the truth cost Lumumba – another black man who remained voiceless in the American media – his livelihood and reputation. …

… Nor did Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, Wolf Blitzer, Piers Morgan, Dr. Drew, Oprah (on and on), give the time of day to the victim’s family. In defense of our homegrown popularizers and poor thinkers, however, the Kercher family was way too classy to partake in the circus created by the Ugly Americans and their aides. …

… Comprehending circumstantial evidence demands analytical and deductive thinking. These faculties are becoming rare in the Age of the Idiot now upon us, as was glaringly apparent in the deliberations of Casey Anthony’s jurors. The average individual seldom reads; he knows only what is palpable and perceivable—what he can see and feel. If he can’t picture something—see it happen on YouTube or on CSI—he certainly cannot think about it in the abstract. …”

Read the rest of “America’s Angelic O.J” on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE I: A MEASURE OF THE ZEITGEIST. BuzzFeed wants to know “Who’s Hotter: Amanda Knox Or Casey Anthony?” Intellectually, this item is more honest than what mainstream media has been dishing on the noxious Knox. By lumping the two ex-convicts together—both implicated in “vicious and depraved” deeds—BuzzFeed is disrespecting the duo. At least this is how I optimistically read this contest.

UPDATE II: An interesting thread on my Facebook Wall. I say ideas should not exist in the arid arena of pure thought. Chris Baker disagrees.

UPDATE III (Oct. 7): A comment at TrueJustice.org links to “America’s Angelic O.J.”:

Great article on WND that you linked to Peter. Some nice quotes in it too, such as:

“Ann Coulter offered up a few tart tweets about Knox’s exoneration: – Amanda Knox not guilty, Casey Anthony rolls eyes, says; ‘well, duh…’”

“Comprehending circumstantial evidence demands analytical and deductive thinking. These faculties are becoming rare in the Age of the Idiot now upon us…”

How true, and I must remember that line.

Someone else on the same site’s comments section, however, impugns my column solely because I write for WND, which the writer calls (fairly) “Obama Birth Certificate Central.”

But I am not a “birther.” The comment is precisely the kind of argument to expect in the “age of the Idiot now upon us”: The comment relies on the “well-known logical error known as the ad hominem fallacy. This is the fallacy of thinking one can undermine the status of a claim or argument by undermining the motives or character” or associations of the person who makes it. (I’ve paraphrased writer Mark Rowland’s definition, which I particularly liked.)

UPDATE IV: I like the way writers with a blind spot for crime perpetrated by sweet young females or whites harp-on, and hide behind, the misguided theory of the crime: a ritual or a sexual game gone wrong. As if today’s youngsters don’t sometimes experiment along the lines of the vapid, vampiric films they devour; as if they never enact the alternate reality they occupy. Some kids don’t exist outside their hand held devices, and the stuff they see in these toys.

More to the point, the obsession with motive is another CSI hangover. In “America’s Angelic O.J.,” I clearly say that, “Police bungling notwithstanding,” there is often no accounting for the “subterranean irrational forces that so often propel evil.”

This central stupidity conjures the manner in which Geraldo Rivera exculpated Casey Anthony: “Why would a mother kill her child?”, the Fox host wanted to know.

UPDATE V: Via the grapevine, I am getting word of certain racialists, never rationalists, who are admonishing me for my deductions vis-a-vis the evidence in the Knox case. The claim being that I’ve failed to grasp and formulaically highlight the prevalence of “black dysfunction” in our society. Their implication, I imagine, is that the indisputable involvement of a black man in the murder must automatically exclude the whites. The “case” against me is a grotesque joke, coming as it does from the quintessential American chauvinists who’ve generally ignored (except for tokenism) the largest, if disorganized, racial ethnocide in the 21st century: that of rural, white South Africans. And its chronicler: Guess who wrote the definitive text on that racial enthnocide? And guess who’s ignored that text yet is now lecturing its author about not being sufficiently racial in her treatment of the Knox crime? Your typical, navel-gazing American, Race-Über-Alles paleo. Give me a break!

UPDATE VI (Oct. Eight): NO HEARSAY, PLEASE. Jerri Lynn Ward: As a lawyer, you know that hearsay is inadmissible, and is wrong argument. I try to avoid it on BAB. The information you’ve provided us falls in that category. The source I studied and quoted is a veteran reporter in Italy who was actually THERE, in the thick of the case. She writes for liberals (who generally love Knox) and has no agenda. I know agenda when I see it. Barbie Latza Nadeau’s reporting was as impartial and impeccable as they come, in my opinion. This woman fits the old mold of journalism.

UPDATE VII: Jack kindly left a link to his source on the Knox case, a man called Steve Moore. I perused the site and saw not one hyperlink to a primary source document, meaning court documents, briefs, etc. This is one of those individuals who is postulating from afar. I’m loathe to promote this kind of individual’s verbiage on the blog. For an “investigator” to offer nothing more than a narrative, and no primary documents: that’s is suspect. You are free to look him up on Jack’s advice.

UPDATE VIII: Jennifer mentioned the love-making at the scene of the crime:

Oblivious to the cameras—or perhaps for them—-Amanda Knox (22) and Raffaele Sollecito (25) exchanged a slow, sensual kiss in full view of world media. Not far from where the two kissed lay the body of Meredith Kercher, the English girl with whom Knox had shared student accommodation in Perugia, Italy. Her throat slit, Meredith had expired in slow agony.
The kinky canoodling of Knox and her paramour outside the house of horrors conjured the climactic moment in the film noir “The Comfort of Strangers.”
Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren play an older couple (Robert and Caroline) who live in a palazzo in Venice. They gain the trust of the vacationing Mary and Colin (played by the late Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett), a young English couple. As Colin sips a cocktail with Robert at the latter’s Venetian residence, Robert suddenly and swiftly (as planned) moves to cut Colin’s throat. He then steps over his gurgling victim and the gushing blood to engage in frenzied sex with his eager wife Caroline.
The two have fulfilled a shared fantasy.

[From “O.J.-Like Evidence Convicts Noxious Knox.”]

UPDATED: Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel

Aesthetics, Business, Celebrity, Classical Liberalism, Economy, Etiquette, Feminism, Free Markets, Islam, Middle East

Is Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel the most beautiful woman in the world? Indisputably. Her face is simply exquisite. Poise and manners are perfect too. Mrs. Al-Taweel’s simple, rich-girl solutions to endemic unemployment sound more left-liberal than classically liberal, but her heart is pure and she is bright. Married to “Buffett of Arabia,” Ameerah Al-Taweel is also terrifically wealthy. I hope she does not pick up any ho-like mannerisms while in America.

Ameerah Al-Taweel’s Interview With CNN’s Piers Morgan

UPDATE (Sept. 25): It would seem that Princess Al-Taweel is a “micro-credit cultist.” The role of the NGO, as she see it, is to encourage economic growth by doling out loans to plucky people who want to start a business. Her belief in the “Micro-Credit Cult” is understandable. Saudi Arabia is a rentier state, where an aristocratic, authoritarian upper-class manages the country’s vast natural resource of oil. In the Saudi situation, this custodian class is probably more benevolent than a democratic despotism would be.

UPDATED: ‘ILANA’ With An Aleph

Christian Right, Christianity, Etiquette, Hebrew Testament, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Judaism & Jews

SO JEWS SUCK; I GET THIS ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRIBE? Emails flood this blog spot on a regular basis pointing to the machinations of Jews and to their tribal nature. As you know, I often publish these tracts. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and all that stuff.

On the other hand, I’m totally tactful—and more than gracious—about Christian tics, despite my dismal experience with the decency and grace of this group’s individual members (one or two stellar individuals excepted.)

A kind word or a helping hand from a Christian? What’s that? Not in my world, although Christians do spend a lot of their time shouting “Praise the Lord” from the rooftops. Then again, perhaps Jews are not Kosher; don’t qualify for decent treatment? Who knows? All I know is that, in my experience, Christians are the quintessential tribalists. You’re either in or out.

The other day, a snippy, self-professed Christian, having befriended me on Facebook, wrote to demand imperiously that I justify the letter Aleph near the URL of my website.

I know better than to expect readers in “The Age of the Idiot” to have researched the object of their scorn, and thus to know that she is Jewish and grew up in Israel. That’s too much like fact-finding. So politely, I responded with a link to the Hebrew alphabet, explaining that my name begins with an Aleph.

But information was not what he was after. Judging from the obnoxious, follow-up on my Facebook Wall—a forum which is supposed to be collegial—some rude, distinctly theological routine was the man’s aim.

The chutzpah of this investigation into the legitimacy of an ex-Israeli, Hebrew-speaker’s use of her Hebrew name! What’s up with that?

I’m curious, truly. Where does he get off judging/commenting on my use of my native tongue, Hebrew? Can he speak the language? Can he even read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew? Did he spend his formative years debating/conversing/conducting life in Hebrew? Did he take all his school exams in Hebrew?

I did. For the first 19 years of my life, I was “ilana” with an aleph.

It’s who I am.

UPDATE: Compassionate Fascist’s posts are an example of the collectivist, contempt-filled comments I’m pretty patient with. Isn’t it time to kick CF off BAB? Here he is below, maligning Jews again. At the same time, he is a recipient of my hospitality in cyberspace, where he is permitted to vent his disdain for the likes of his host. The way I treat Compassionate Fascist provides a measure of proof against his theorizing about how bad Jews are. In effect, by bad-mouthing Jews as a group, and posting here quite happily, for the most, he finds himself in self- contradiction.

Writing on the topic of Western Civilization, historian Alan Charles Kors once observed that avoiding self-contradiction is the touchstone of truth—being mired in self-contradiction, the touchstone of error. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.”

UPDATE II: Jackie Kennedy: enchantress (Style & Substance)

Aesthetics, America, Art, Critique, Etiquette, History, Human Accomplishment, Music, The State

Jacqueline Kennedy’s dowdy daughter Caroline Kennedy has released “never-before-heard audio recordings of interviews conducted with the former first lady in 1964, shortly after her husband’s assassination,” together with a book, “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy.” We know Jackie Kennedy for her style, sophistication, sense of history, and love and knowledge of music and art. We now know something about her well-formulated opinions and astute observations, delivered in dulcet tones and exquisite English. (The other day I used “hermetically sealed,” which was common usage when I was, well, much younger. My husband wanted to know why I was using a term used in engineering!)

Discussions with the late historian Arthur Schlesinger reveal Jackie to be not only a dazzling conversationalist, but a forceful, if ever-so feminine personae.

Especially appreciated is Jacqueline Kennedy’s opinion about the sainted Martin Luther King (whose real worldview I discuss briefly—and unfavorably—in my book). All the more so given how irreverent she is in coming out and dissing a legend in the making. PC was not an issue back then. My book also quotes Kennedy on affirmative action: the man was conservative as few conservatives are today.

From a performance of Pablo Casals in the White House to Beyonce’s bump and grind: how far we’ve fallen. To be fair, Bush was also without class and culture.

UPDATE I (Sept. 16): STYLE & SUBSTANCE. Myron Pauli: Like many a libertarian, you refuse to address issues of culture. A comment such as mine, dealing with an impressive, classy lady—Jackie was certainly mistreated by her husband, but never responded like a tawdry tart, as is the custom nowadays—is reduced to the problem of statism. In a universe in which everything is reduced to the state, is there any place for observations about culture, human accomplishment, personality, etc?

I suggest to you that things would not be so bad if more women today had the class and classical education of a Jackie O. At the very least, women with a similar frame of reference would not feel so obsolete and voiceless.

UPDATE II: “Go, Jackie,” writes Lew Rockwell:

Funny how the media are trotting out Mrs. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, to try to smooth over her mother’s taped views: that LBJ was an integral part of the assassination plot (of course, but not mentioned in this article), that she didn’t admire Martin Luther King, FDR, or Churchill, that she rejected feminism, etc.