Protests in Greece

The politics of ‘waaah’!

The lesson of Athens is that protesters who disavow ideology and embrace spontaneity end up sounding like they’re from another planet.

by Brendan O’Neill 

Some seriously overblown claims are being made about the anti-government, anti-EU, anti-IMF protests in Athens. ‘Syntagma Square has become the frontline of the battle against European austerity’, said one giddy British reporter, referring to the square where for the past three weeks Greek citizens, calling themselves ‘indignados’, have been protesting against the IMF/EU demand for further austerity measures before Greece can receive more aid. In truth, the most striking thing about the protests is their incoherence, even their childishness. Far from being the frontline of any kind of solid movement, the Syntagma camp-in is a confused, depoliticised, borderline petulant response to the economic crisis.

Some European journalists and activists have become so enamoured by the physicality of the protests that they seem not to have noticed the gaping political hole at the heart of them. BBC reporters, who normally spend most of their time in stuffy, smokeless offices, have written with undisguised glee of their sweaty experiences in Athens, where the ‘teargas hits us without warning’ and ‘we crush together, shoulder to shoulder’. A Guardian reporter describes being ‘jammed up against the railings’ in a ‘raucous’ atmosphere that is like ‘an open-air concert’. Hacks more used to writing about Vince Cable’s latest pronouncement on business law have leapt upon the opportunity to get stuck into a seemingly more thrilling economic story, in the process presenting the Syntagma stand-off as way more profound than it actually is.

Likewise, many amongst the European left are busily projecting their aspirations on to Athens. This is the ‘start of the European workers’ fightback’, they claim, describing the protests as the ‘beginning’ of an uprising against austerity that they knew would come. It is a feeling of profound disarray and disconnection amongst European left groups, their sensitivity to the political stasis that has largely greeted the economic crisis, which leads them to make excitable claims about Greece. Motivated by a determination to avoid having hard debates at home about the crisis, far less try to come up with any strategies for resolving it, they content themselves instead with celebrating the rowdy ‘indignation’ of Greek protesters and imagining that it represents the first stirrings of the return of traditional class politics.

The obsession with the physicality of the protests, with report after report informing us in myopic detail of the protesters’ movements, slogan-shouting and running around, has become a substitute for any serious analysis of what these protests are all about. Because looked at in the harsh light of day, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the protests represent an almost wilful self-infantilisation on the part of the Greek opposition to the EU/IMF bailout strategy. It is, of course, entirely understandable that Greeks should be angry at both the institutions of the European Union and their own government and should want to protest as publicly and rowdily as possible. But to respond to the crisis with what we might call the politics of ‘waaah!’, in which the opposition presents itself almost as a child angry at its parents, is likely only to make matters worse.

The depoliticised nature of the protests can be seen in their use of the term ‘indignados’, which they borrowed from last month’s similar Spanish protests against austerity measures. Indignation is a curious sentiment to build a protest around. It’s an emotion one tends to associate with those rather self-righteous middle-class consumers who write outraged letters about being conned in shops to the BBC TV show Watchdog. And yet the protests in Syntagma Square are based explicitly on the excising of ideology and politics in favour of such emotionalism. Triggered by a Facebook group calling on people to protest against the government, the protest movement has described itself as ‘without political banners, without ideologies’. The end result, as one reporter described it, is an ‘odd alloy of earnestness and pantomime’; it’s like a rock concert, but one where ‘music is swapped for angry politics’. The expulsion of politics from the square, and the constant celebration of the protest’s spontaneous nature, has led to a situation where, as one Greek blogger describes it, ‘[there is] no clear-cut objective, no ideology and no well-defined strategy’.

A Turning Point

The Year That Changed the World

Islamists grabbed us by the throat in 1979. They haven’t let go since.

by Charles Hill

Though political Islam has been at war with the international system of states for many years, it was not until the opening of the twenty-first century that American leaders began to comprehend the sources, extent, and objectives of Islamism’s rise through the later decades of the twentieth century. In retrospect, 1979 was a turning point.

1979: IRAN

The most significant turning point of 1979 was the Iranian Revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, a world-historical event possessing the ideological potential of the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917—each one a fundamental challenge to the established international order.

The Iranian Revolution brought to power for the first time in history an Islamist regime in full control of a state within the international state system and with a theologically grounded agenda which rejected every core principle of international order. And in gaining power, the ayatollah’s revolution had overthrown one of the most prominent, wealthy, and militarily powerful of America’s allies, a linchpin of "The Nixon Doctrine": the imperial kingdom of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. This was no ordinary revolution.

Consciously or not, the ayatollah’s governmental structure was designed in accord with that described in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract, a manual for the revolutionary overthrow of all established governance and the creation of the world’s first ever "legitimate" society. Such revolutionary regimes relegate governmental ministries and the military to politically marginal roles. Above them are the ideologically empowered keepers of "the will of the people," which operate as duplicative, more potent versions of institutions below them (as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command does vis-à-vis the army). And at the very top is a single all-powerful figure who both transcends and permeates the entire society, a Great Helmsman, Maximum Leader, Dear Leader, or Supreme Guide.

Merchants purchased Israel.

Not Stealing Palestine, but Purchasing Israel 

The real history of Israel’s founding, and why it matters

By D. Pipes

Zionists stole Palestinian land: That’s the mantra both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas teach their children and propagate in their media. This claim has vast importance, as Palestinian Media Watch explains: “Presenting the creation of the [Israeli] state as an act of theft and its continued existence as a historical injustice serves as the basis for the PA’s non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist.” The accusation of theft also undermines Israel’s position internationally.

But is this accusation true?

No, it is not. Ironically, the building of Israel represents almost the most peaceable in-migration and state creation in history. Understanding why requires seeing Zionism in context. Simply put, conquest is the historical norm. Governments everywhere have been established through invasion and nearly all states came into being at someone else’s expense. No one is permanently in charge; everyone’s roots trace back to somewhere else.

Germanic tribes, Central Asian hordes, Russian tsars, and Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors remade the map. Modern Greeks have only a tenuous connection to the Greeks of antiquity. Who can count the number of times Belgium was overrun? The United States came into existence after the defeat of Native Americans. Kings marauded in Africa, Aryans invaded India. In Japan, Yamato-speakers eliminated all but tiny groups such as the Ainu.

The Middle East, due to its centrality and geography, has experienced more than its share of invasions, including the Greek, Roman, Arabian, Crusader, Seljuk, Timurid, Mongolian, and modern European. Within the region, dynastic froth caused the same territory — Egypt for example — to be conquered and re-conquered.

The land that now makes up Israel was no exception. In Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, Eric H. Cline writes of Jerusalem: “No other city has been more bitterly fought over throughout its history.” He backs up that claim, counting “at least 118 separate conflicts in and for Jerusalem during the past four millennia.” He calculates Jerusalem to have been destroyed completely at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The PA fantasizes that today’s Palestinians are descended from a tribe of ancient Canaan, the Jebusites; in fact, they are overwhelmingly the offspring of invaders and immigrants seeking economic opportunities.

Against this tableau of unceasing conquest, violence, and overthrow, Zionist efforts to build a presence in the Holy Land until 1948 stand out as astonishingly mild, mercantile rather than military. Two great empires, the Ottomans and the British, ruled Eretz Yisrael. In contrast, Zionists lacked military power. They could not possibly achieve statehood through conquest.

Instead, they purchased land. Acquiring property dunam by dunam, farm by farm, house by house, lay at the heart of the Zionist enterprise until 1948. The Jewish National Fund, founded in 1901 to buy land in Palestine “to assist in the foundation of a new community of free Jews engaged in active and peaceable industry,” was the key institution — and not the Haganah, the clandestine defense organization founded in 1920.

Save a Forest

Print Your Emails

It's okay to use paper. Trees are renewable, recyclable and sustainable.

By CHUCK LEAVELL AND CARLTON OWEN

Well-intentioned email taglines inspired by sincere desire to help the planet have become ubiquitous in recent times: "Please don't print this email," "Save trees: Print only when necessary," or "Please consider the environment before printing this email."

However, the World Wildlife Fund has taken this to the extreme with a new nonprintable electronic document. Patterned after the highly successful PDF (Portable Document Format) that has revolutionized electronic document sharing and storage, the WWF format takes the decision away from you.

This tact is sure to frustrate and increase inefficiency, leaving some saying, "Wait a minute, I really needed to print that document!" What many folks don't realize is that it also may indirectly hasten the conversion of forests to other uses like strip malls, parking lots and housing developments—because the nation's forest landowners can't keep growing trees without markets for this natural, organic and renewable product.

Chuck's email tagline reads: "Notice: It's OK to print this email. Paper is a biodegradable, renewable, sustainable product made from trees. Growing and harvesting trees provides jobs for millions of Americans. Working forests are good for the environment and provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat and carbon storage. Thanks to improved forest management, we have more trees in America today than we had 100 years ago."

Now, understand that we don't advocate wanton waste of paper or any other material, but avoiding the print option does absolutely nothing to save the planet or forests. More forests are dying of insect infestation and disease or being paved over across this country right now than could be converted to an email print-out in a thousand years.

Paper is good. Around 105 A.D., man discovered that paper traveled and transcribed better than stone; it became the renewable medium of choice. Frankly, the human eye can only stare at a computer screen for so long.

We appreciate and applaud people who are sensitive to environmental issues. We both love forests and are avid environmentalists. But we are going to continue to print out those necessary emails without guilt.

Honest, it's okay to print. Trees are renewable, recyclable and sustainable. 

Constitutional jokes

War Powers and Libya

Congress is entitled to restrain the president’s military adventures abroad

by Richard A. Epstein 

When it comes to U.S. involvement in Libya, the Obama administration has made a mess in dealing with its obligations under the War Powers Resolution (WPR), a law designed to check the president’s ability to commit America to war without the consent of Congress. Before I read the unsigned statement that President Barack Obama sent to Congress under the bland heading, "United States Activities in Libya," I was prepared to give the president and his legal team the benefit of the doubt. But his embarrassingly thin legal analysis calls into question the constitutional competence of those members of his divided legal team who concluded that the president is entitled to go it alone in Libya without further Congressional authorization.

Here is an excerpt of the statement:

The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of "hostilities" contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision [that provision states that the president can engage in war for 60 days without Congressional authorization]. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of the United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorized the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.

There are two ways to deal with this effort to justify the president’s actions in Libya. The first asks whether the actions comply with the WPR. The second asks whether that resolution (which became a law after Vietnam over the veto of President Richard Nixon) is consistent with the requirements of the Constitution. Let’s take them in order.

On its own terms, the president’s statement is a constitutional joke. At no time does it give any account of what the critical term "hostilities" means, except to say that whatever its meaning, it constitutes a high threshold that is not met in Libya. The trusty thesaurus offers the word "fighting" as a synonym for "hostilities," which is just what we are doing in Libya today. There is no evidence in the WPR text that the term "hostilities" does not have its ordinary English meaning. The term is first used in connection with the statement that the WPR "will apply to the introduction of the United States Armed Forces into hostilities." The word "introduction" suggests that the WPR kicks in when hostilities begin such that Congress preserves its power to have a say before these hostilities escalate into something bigger. The particular context reinforces the ordinary meaning and thus undercuts the president’s claim that small hostilities—which these aren’t—fly below the radar. The president’s statement gets everything exactly backwards.

The president does no better when he tries to bolster his position by noting that the United States is playing second fiddle to the Europeans. That’s because the want of American leadership has no possible relevance to whether the president injected U.S. forces into hostilities. The president needs to make peace with Congress, not with foreign nations. The failure to get Congress to sign off on the war is not cured by running off to NATO.

Yet the president offers not a shred of evidence to support his twisted constitutional logic. Hats off to those in his administration—Eric Holder, Caroline Krass, and Jeh Johnson—who stood up to the president. And shame on those, like Harold Koh, who should know better.

Voting for Putin kind of disturbs one's memory

Fading Legacy

Yelena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov were giants. Why do so few Russians remember them?

BY DAVID E. HOFFMAN 

In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev permitted elections for the first popularly elected legislature in Soviet history. The Communist Party still dominated, but about a third of the seats in the 2,250-member chamber were open, and in many of them, establishment party members were booted out. When the first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies opened on May 25, the nation was mesmerized by the televised proceedings. Work stopped on factory floors as millions of people witnessed an astonishing new phase in Gorbachev's revolution from above -- open criticism of the powers that be.

One of the most memorable speakers in those weeks was Andrei Sakharov, the dissident physicist and Nobel Prize winner who was the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Two years earlier, Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, had been released from exile in Gorky and allowed to return to Moscow, where they were beacons of hope for those who believed in human rights and democracy. Sakharov's appearance in the legislature seemed to be a singularly radiant moment.

On Bonner's death Saturday, June 18, in Boston at age 88, it is worth recalling once again their legacy, one that seems to be fading in today's Russia.

It was on display, in part, during those hectic two weeks of 1989, when Sakharov made the opening speech at the parliament, and a longer, more detailed one in closing. In between, the Congress became an explosion of public debate and unprecedented criticism leveled at the KGB, the military, and the country's leaders.

Sakharov, in the closing remarks, called for repeal of Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, which gave the Communist Party a monopoly on power. He wanted a political system that would be built by "genuinely democratic methods," based on principles of the rule of law, including freedom of speech and conscience, and the possibility for citizens to contest the actions of their government at all levels. He wanted pluralism and competition.

When Sakharov called for the repeal of the party's hold on power, even Gorbachev lost his cool. He unplugged Sakharov's microphone.

Sakharov died later that year, and the Soviet collapse in 1991 led to the rise of a democratic Russia under President Boris Yeltsin. But Sakharov's vision has only been partly realized. After a raucous period of openness in the 1990s, Russia today is once again without political competition and largely dominated by a single power structure, that of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia today is not the same as the Soviet Union. Putin exercises a kind of soft authoritarianism. But if Sakharov could see the political system today, he would surely detect some of the same elements he and Bonner so bravely fought, including the suffocating lack of competition and the use of police-state methods to squash dissent.

Bonner, who founded one of the most active human rights groups in the Soviet dissident movement of the 1970s, kept the flame alive in the two decades after Sakharov's death. She backed President Boris Yeltsin in his violent confrontation with hard-liners in 1993, but also harshly condemned Russia's brutal crackdown on Chechen separatists in two wars. Bonner was among the prominent figures who signed petitions protesting Putin's rollback of democracy in his eight years as president. She also established the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow, which features exhibitions and seminars on Soviet repression, the Gulag, and Sakharov's life.

In the second of his memoirs, Sakharov wrote of Bonner, whom he called Lusia, "Truly, she is the only person who shares my inner thoughts and feelings. Lusia prompts me to understand much that I would otherwise miss because of my restrained personality, and to act accordingly. She is a great organizer, and serves as my brain center. We are together. This gives life meaning."

Sadly, a generation of young people in Russia who have grown up since Sakharov's death only dimly grasps his importance. Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times reported in Sunday's paper that when a group of college students at the Russian Law Academy in Moscow were asked recently for their views of his legacy, they fumbled. Most seemed never to have heard of him. Schwirtz reported that a survey conducted last year by the Levada Center, a respected polling organization in Moscow, found that 44 percent of Russians ages 18 to 24 knew nothing about Sakharov. Of those who did, only 9 percent knew that he was a champion of human rights and a dissident.

Unfortunately, the apathy about politics today in Russia is not only among young people. Absent genuine competition, people aren't interested. This leaves Putin and his men relatively free to carry on as they please. Putin and Medvedev talk openly about making the decision among themselves about who will be the next president -- and rarely mention that the choice should be with the voters.

Sakharov would not have understood nor approved of this. So much was sacrificed for freedom, he might say, that it is not something you can allow to fall into disuse.

We are all respectable around here

Politically Tied Lawyers Win Jobs Handling Foreclosures in the City

When the Riverton apartments in Harlem faced foreclosure,

a retired judge, Seymour Boyers, was paid $760,000 as receiver.

By CARA BUCKLEY

In 2009, a judge in Manhattan had a lucrative appointment to hand out: oversight of a diamond district building that was drifting into foreclosure.

Nearly 600 people in Manhattan had been approved for such work. But the job went to a lawyer named Mark D. Lebow, who is the husband of Patricia E. Harris, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s most trusted aide.

Since then, Mr. Lebow has earned $352,000 in fees, more than $5,000 a week, according to court records.

The foreclosure crisis has caused a surge in the number of court-appointed receivers for distressed properties in New York, and politically connected lawyers are benefiting.

Yet even as the fees mount, totaling millions of dollars, it remains unclear why judges are selecting some of these lawyers, and whether the fees are being well spent.

The court system in New York State has long been criticized for fostering a system of patronage appointments that enriches lawyers and others with ties to influential politicians. Court officials defend the process of selecting receivers for distressed properties, saying judges are looking for people who they know have done good work.

Over all, the number of receivers appointed by judges to oversee distressed properties in the city jumped to 284 last year from 47 in 2007, records show.

Paul Vallone, a scion of one of Queens’s most powerful political families, earned nearly $17,000 for one assignment. Howard R. Vargas, a former commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, was awarded $28,000 for three cases. Marc Landis, a Democratic district leader and member of the transition team of the new state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, was compensated $22,000 for supervising three buildings.

And those were for assignments that were given out earlier in the foreclosure crisis and that have already yielded fees. The newest appointments, with the billing to come, are filled with even more lawyers with ties to the powerful.

Dominick Calderoni, a law partner of State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat, was handed six receiverships. William C. Thompson Sr., the father of William C. Thompson Jr., the former city comptroller and mayoral candidate, got six. Gregory C. Soumas, a member of the city’s Board of Elections, received two, though he said one property went into bankruptcy, ending his involvement.

When a building goes into foreclosure, a judge appoints a lawyer as a receiver who acts a property’s temporary landlord during the process. Receivers are entitled to fees that typically amount to 5 percent of a property’s revenues. Judges can award less than 5 percent, but usually do not.

The court-appointed lawyers in turn usually hire property managers and other lawyers to assist in overseeing the properties. The receivers do not pay out of their own pockets for the costs of the property managers and other lawyers. That money comes from the properties’ revenues. “This is why mortgagees hate foreclosures,” said Harold Shultz, a senior fellow at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a nonprofit research group. “During this process all these people are sucking money out of the building.”

Race to the bottom

The Dumbing-Down of America

by P. Buchanan

"Is our children learning?" as George W. Bush so famously asked. 

Well, no, they is not learning, especially the history of their country, the school subject at which America's young perform at their worst.

On history tests given to 31,000 pupils by the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "Nation's Report Card," most fourth-graders could not identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a reason why he was important.

Most eighth-graders could not identify an advantage American forces had in the Revolutionary War. Twelfth-graders did not know why America entered World War II or that China was North Korea's ally in the Korean War.

Only 20 percent of fourth-graders attained even a "proficient" score in the test. By eighth grade, only 17 percent were judged proficient. By 12th grade, 12 percent. Only a tiny fraction was graded "advanced," indicating a superior knowledge of American history.

Given an excerpt from the Supreme Court's 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education -- "We conclude that in the field of pubic education, separate but equal has no place, separate education facilities are inherently unequal" -- and asked what social problem the court was seeking to correct, 2 percent of high school seniors answered "segregation."

As these were multiple-choice questions, notes Diane Ravitch, the education historian, the answer "was right in front of them."

A poster put out by the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, circa 1940, was shown and the question asked, "The poster above seeks to protect America and aid Britain in the struggle against ..." Four countries were listed as possible answers.

A majority did not identify Germany, though the poster contained a clue. The boot about to trample the Statue of Liberty had a huge swastika on the sole.

"We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," historian David McCullough told The Wall Street Journal.

"History textbooks," added McCullough, "are "badly written." Many texts have been made "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence" -- such as inventor Thomas Edison -- "are given very little space or none at all."

Trendies and minorities have their sensibilities massaged in the new history, which is, says McCullough, "often taught in categories -- women's history, African American history, environmental history -- so that many students have no sense of chronology ... no idea of what followed what."

But if the generations coming out of our schools do not know our past, do not who we are or what we have done as a people, how will they come to love America, refute her enemies or lead her confidently?

This appalling ignorance among American young must be laid at the feet of an education industry that has consumed trillions of tax dollars in recent decades.

Comes the retort: History was neglected because Bush, with No Child Left Behind, overemphasized reading and math.

Yet the same day the NAEP history scores were reported, The New York Times reported on the academic performance of New York state high school students in math and English. The results were stunning.

Of state students who entered ninth grade in 2006, only 37 percent were ready for college by June 2010. In New York City, the figure was 21 percent, one in five, ready for college.

In Yonkers, 14.5 percent of the students who entered high school in 2006 were ready for college in June 2010. In Rochester County, the figure was 6 percent.

And the racial gap, 45 years after the federal and state governments undertook heroic exertions to close it, is wide open across the Empire State.

While 51 percent of white freshman in 2006 and 56 percent of Asian students were ready for college in June 2010, only 13 percent of New York state's black students and 15 percent of Hispanics were deemed ready.

The implications of these tests are alarming, not only for New York but for the country we shall become in this century.

In 1960, there were 18 million black Americans and few Hispanics in a total population of 160 million. By 2050, African Americans and Hispanics combined will, at 200 million, roughly equal white Americans in number.

If the racial gap in academic achievement persists for the next 40 years, as it has for the last 40, virtually all of the superior positions in the New Economy and knowledge-based professions will be held by Asians and whites, with blacks and Hispanics largely relegated to the service sector.

America will then face both a racial and class crisis.

The only way to achieve equality of rewards and results then will be via relentless use of the redistributive power of government -- steep tax rates on the successful, and annual wealth transfers to the less successful. It will be affirmative action, race preferences, ethnic quotas and contract set-asides, ad infinitum -- not a prescription for racial peace or social tranquility.

A Republic, if you can keep it

Citizens Not Politicians Make America Great

by T. Paulson
What makes America great? It’s not our politicians; it’s our people. A government can only be as good as the people it governs. America has always been blessed by people who have balanced a commitment to personal responsibility with a shared commitment to the commons.

It’s all too tempting to focus on the devastation of the recent series of tornadoes that ripped apart cities from Joplin, Missouri to New England. But the true story is not the devastation of the tornadoes themselves; it’s the story after story of fellow citizens and neighbors who immediately came to help and have continued to respond with prayer, encouragement, support and contributions.

Even in a crowded metropolitan area like Los Angeles, if the local news covers a story about a family in need, the response is heart-warming, overwhelming, and immediate. In America, you are not alone. Americans care, and they put that caring into action.

The depression of our age has been termed “Learned Helplessness”—the belief that nothing we do can make any difference in what happens to us. In the past, newspapers would primarily focus on local problems and people responding. We were a powerful people because we could see evidence daily of our ability to make a difference.

Now, any disaster in the world is brought to us in two minutes, and we watch transfixed, sure that nothing that we can do from our living room will make any real difference. We send funds, but too many remain observers of things we can’t control. Instead of getting involved locally, it’s too easy to “awfulize” about disasters that we believe only “government” is big enough to fix.

In reading my father’s memoirs, the reality of the Great Depression was brought to life. He wrote of two other distressed families living in the family homestead. He talked of being hired out to a neighboring farm for room and board and $4/month that was used to help pay his dad’s mortgage. The only Christmas my father remembered was the one his dad told the kids, “There will be no presents this Christmas. A poor family that’s come to town needs the money more.”

It’s the same today. After providing a brief keynote for the Greater Conejo Valley Community Foundation’s Ninth Annual Spirit of Community Awards that honored teachers, policemen, sheriffs, firemen, military service men and women, volunteers and area non-profits, all in attendance were reminded of the impact community service can have on those who are served and those who serve. The applause and the shared tears spoke volumes about the importance of community.

As columnists, it’s far too easy to focus exclusively on the big national problems and to criticize politicians, but we should never forget to balance such efforts with attempts to honor the heroes who make us better and challenge us to do our part. So today, let me join others in honoring Dr. Frank Dawson who has helped thousands of patients since the inception of the Conejo Free Clinic in 1976, the Hospice of the Conejo who has consistently helped people face death and helped the living get beyond their grief to live again, and teachers of the year Cynthia Gyure and Catherine Prater who, with other teachers, work tirelessly to bring education to life in the hearts and minds of their students. They are all inspiring!

These challenging times may be tough on many Americans, but I am optimistic that Americans will continue to take care of those in need. For Americans believe in collaborative community problem solving. In school, that may be called cheating, but, in America, it’s called neighbor helping neighbor.

Instead of “awfulizing” this week, get involved helping in your community. Ronald Reagan said it best in one his oval office addresses: “I’m not taking your time this evening to ask you to trust me. Instead, I ask you to trust yourself. That is what America is all about… It’s the power of millions of people like you who will determine what will make America great again.” May it always be so.

The eternal childhood of western adults

Elf 'n' safety shuts hill to Wimbledon tennis spectators: Fans might slip on the grass, warn officials
By PAUL HARRIS and EMILY ANDREWS

Thousands of Andy Murray fans had sat patiently under their brollies, sipped hot tea from flasks, and unfurled their Union Flags in anticipation. But on a rain-hit Day One at Wimbledon, they were robbed of the chance to see him on the big screen – for ‘health and safety’ reasons.
The grassy slopes of Henman Hill - now renamed Murray Mount - were empty after the screen was blanked out and the area was closed in case anyone slipped and hurt their ankles.
After losing a set to little-known Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver, to the consternation of his mother Judy and girlfriend Kim, the Scot recovered to win by three sets to one beneath the Centre Court roof, in use for the first time.
Furious tennis lovers deprived of the chance to cheer him on from Murray Mount said they would have been happy to take their chances with the slippery conditions and accused tournament organisers of bowing to the modern culture of inflating potential risks beyond likely reality. Others showed how it was possible to slide down the hill, even head-first, without injury.
This is the first time in the tournament history the screen has been deliberately blanked out since it was installed. Countless throngs have enjoyed second-best views from this spot, which can accommodate up to 4,000. When the roof is open, you can easily hear the roar of the Centre Court crowd while watching the action on screen.
Among the disappointed fans was Katie O’Brien, the British hopeful who was knocked out yesterday after losing her first-round match and took her family to the hill to ‘drown my sorrows with a Pimm’s’, as she phrased it on Twitter. 
Shortly afterwards, the screen went blank.
Wimbledon spokesman Johnny Perkins said: ‘This is the first time we have had to shut off the big screen as this is the first time the roof has been used in these conditions. Previous to the roof, of course there would have been no play to watch on Centre anyway if it was rained off.
‘The hill has been closed because of the slippery nature of the grass while it is so wet. It is a health and safety issue. We just can’t have people slipping and sliding and falling off the thing and breaking their ankles.
‘It’s different on the courts if there is a drizzle as they can sit on seats. We could have large numbers of people slipping and sliding all over the place.’
'Even if the rain stops we won't turn the big screen back on - that's it I'm afraid. It's regrettable but wise in view of the circumstances. We always anticipated that we would have to turn off the match for those on the hill if it rained.'

At last, an organisation that is foreign, professional and well funded

Saudis have West over a barrel

And they don’t want to hear about oilsands development

By E. Levant

An OPEC billionaire has publicly said what everyone long suspected, but just hadn’t heard out loud before: Saudi Arabia doesn’t want the world to develop unconventional sources of oil, like Canada’s oilsands.

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the world’s 26th richest man, worth more than $19 billion, told CNN he’s worried if oil prices stay around $100 a barrel, the West will look for other sources of oil and Saudi Arabia would lose its dominant position.

“We don’t want the West to go and find alternatives,” he said, “because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives.” Give the sheik full marks for honesty. Saudi Arabia has the West just where they want us. They don’t want us getting any big ideas that would reduce our dependence on his dictatorship, and terrorist states like Iran.

It’s like when the head of Russia’s state-controlled natural gas company, Gazprom, denounced new technologies to produce shale gas, saying he was worried about the safety of “American housewives.” No, Gazprom executives and Vladimir Putin are not concerned about human rights and environmentalism in Russia, let alone the West. They’re concerned about competition that would free America and Europe from reliance on Putin’s natural gas.

The Saudi sheik didn’t condemn the oilsands by name — he just condemned what he called “alternative” sources of oil. But he couldn’t have been talking about anyone else. There are more than 170 billion barrels of oil in the oilsands we can recover with today’s technology. That’s 300 years worth at the rate we’re producing it. It’s the world’s second largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia.

But there are another 1.7 trillion barrels in place in the oilsands that we don’t yet have the technology to get out economically. That’s what this Saudi sheik is worried about. If oil stays at $100 a barrel, it’s worth it for Canadian scientists to invest in new technologies to get at that 1.7 trillion barrels.

It’s pretty tough to like Saudi sheiks, Iranian ayatollahs and Russian former KGB agents. Which is why you don’t usually see those folks attacking the oilsands in public. Prince Al-Waleed’s comments were a rare Saudi public criticism of the West. Normally, they leave that sort of thing to their allies — professional environmental lobbyists.

There are about 100 professional anti-oilsands activists in Canada, who do nothing but attack Canada’s oil industry. Typically they pose as grassroots environmentalists. But the facts are different.

Most environmental activists are actually paid professionals. And most work for foreign lobbyists.

Greenpeace, for example, is a $200-million multinational corporation based in Europe. If they don’t raise a million bucks a day in fundraising, they’d have to shut down.

As Vivian Krause has documented, the U.S. Tides Foundation, their Canadian arm Tides Canada and other foreign foundations have pumped about $200 million into Canada to fight development of the oilsands and forestry, among other causes. Imagine if Canadian lobbyists pumped $200 million into the U.S. to meddle in their political decisions: Congress would hold hearings and the Pentagon would go to Defcon 1.

The professional environmentalist movement is neither Canadian nor grassroots. It’s foreign, professional and well funded.

It may not be funded directly by Saudi Arabia — we have no evidence of that.

But every time a Canadian oil company is slowed down or our pipeline projects are delayed, it is another day the OPEC near-monopoly continues.

Canada’s environmental extremists might not be working directly for Sheik Al-Waleed, but they’re doing his bidding.

If he could send a message to Greenpeace, it would be one word: Shokran — thank you, in Arabic.