Uncle Tom's legacy

Jalen Rose, former NBA player and ESPN analyst, has had the racial pot stirred in recent days with his comments in The Fab Five, a documentary about the famous '91-'92 Michigan basketball team. In the film, he criticizes Duke University and its propensity to recruit only black athletes of a certain socio-economic background - presumably those from well-to-do, educated families and not those from inner cities. He framed his criticism, however, in words condescending to the blacks recruited by Duke:

"I hated Duke. And I hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms."

The term Uncle Tom, borrowed from the lead character of Uncle Tom's Cabin, is used condescendingly for blacks, mostly by blacks, to indicate submissiveness to the ways of the white mainstream. A sharp reaction to Rose came from the Washington Post's Jason Reid:

"(Jalen Rose) seems to hold firm to his flawed belief that the experience of some African Americans are "more black" than those of others. The premise, misguided as it is, asserts that academic achievement, professional accomplishment and affluence somehow reduces or eliminates a person's blackness."

On that subject, not long ago, I was amused to stumble upon a rather obscure and unexpected references to the UncleTom-ness of Booker T. Washington, a rather well-known black educator and leading light of Tuskegee. This is from Their Eyes Were Watching God, a 1937 novel set in black culture of the American south in the early 1900s; two (black) women are talking about Washington:

"All he ever done was cut de monkey for white folks. So they pomped him up. He didn't do nothin' but hold us back - talkin' 'bout work when de race ain't never done nothin' else. He wuz uh white folks' nigger."

Of course, the the character of Uncle Tom is timeless, colorless, and placeless. I have privately wondered on occasion if Mohandas Gandhi had some shades of Uncle Tom, having initially gotten the idea from the way UCLA professor Stanley Wolpert pomped up Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Gandhi's mentor, in Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India. To Wolpert, and to many other Western observers (for example, these), Gokhale and Gandhi stood for desirable reform, while Tilak represented a meaningless revolution.

In that context, if I was to vote for Uncle Tom #1 in today's world, it would be a no-brainer: Mahmoud Abbas.

A leg, on the safe side

The United States is at war with Libya. The Warmonger-in-Chief is confident that it will be a feather-touch one. Said he:

"I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to transfer control of this operation to an international coalition."

Look who is talking about war like it was a video game. Like thrusting the joystick in a younger sibling's hands before running to take a dump.

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Yesterday, a US fighter plane crashed near Benghazi due to mechanical failure. The two pilots ejected and parachuted to the ground safely. Now, remember that Benghazi is US-friendly territory.

Between the time that the pilots reached the ground and a rescue helicopter picked them up, two 500-pound bombs were dropped from other planes around the downed fliers' position "as precaution". While the rescue party was on the ground to pick up the pilots, they opened fire on locals, injuring six.

Channel 4's reporter on the ground reports that a small boy expects to have his leg amputated due to a bullet wound.

Oh that fog of war!

The West deserves only so much criticism

March 12: The League of Arab States requests the U.N Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

March 17: The Security Council approves a no-fly zone over Libya and authorizes "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.

March 19: Enforcement of the no-fly zone begins. French warplanes fly over Libyan skies, and American and British warships fire missiles into Libya.

March 20: The Arab League condemns the foreign military actions in Libya. General Secretary Amr Moussa says: "What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone."

Let NPR go the Fannie way

I belong to the camp that believes that taxpayer-supported and government-directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a big role in creating the moral hazards that led to irresponsible lending and borrowing in the housing market, ultimately contributing to exacerbating the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Therefore, I welcome the Obama administration's initiative aimed at stripping federal backing of these entities, and reducing the federal role in housing mortgages.

As much as the Friends-of-Fannie-Freddie may wail, the end of these banks as we know them will not stop Americans from taking out housing loans. It will not stop Americans from buying and selling houses.

As little as the federal government's patronage of housing finance is desirable, its patronage of public radio is lesser so. Perhaps at some point in the past, there might have been an argument for taxpayer support of radio; today there isn't. In the aftermath of the sting scandal, the federal government must withdraw its support of NPR.

Make no mistake, I am a faithful follower and supporter of NPR and its local affiliate (even though I wince when its decidedly liberal interviewers/pundits ask soft questions to liberal interviewees, and lay out traps for conservative ones). But this is no sacrifice on my part - Fannie's death will not signal the end of the housing market and the end of federal funding does not mean the death of NPR.

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Random tidbit: Some NPR hosts sound so terribly snobbish and hoity-toity, I imagine them talking with a garlic clove stuffed up one of their nostrils. Now, there is no scientific or anecdotal evidence that such a culinary placement causes snobbishness; but the mental image somehow makes sense. If you ever listen to Renee, especially when she interviews, remember to use my visual aid.

Choice of one is denial of others

In Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision, Peter Irons rolls out an expansive history of the fifty years preceding the famous Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the one which ruled that segregating students by color was unconstitutional.

In those fifty years, presiding judges and legal parties on either side danced around the question of whether or not segregation is constitutional, instead dealing with peripheral issues like whether separate schools still provided equal opportunities, and whether segregation had detrimental impacts on black students' psyche. Brown vs. Topeka finally tackled the issue of constitutionality head-on, and overturned segregation on the basis of it violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

Curiously, a case with a similar pattern of dancing-around-the-main-issue arose in the High Court of Gujarat. A gentleman by the name of Rajesh Solanki filed suit that the offering of Hindu-style prayers at the ground-breaking ceremony of a state building is non-secular, and thus unconstitutional.

The Gujarat High Court dismissed the case, and went a step further and accused the petitioner of perjury and inflicted a penalty of Rs. 20,000 on him. The entire text of the statement is worth reading here. Besides the fact that the ruling has historic consequences, it is notable because it drips with an attitude not befitting the Court.

In justification of the ruling, the Court presented an interpretation of secularism from an earlier ruling that "secularism is not anti God", therefore the state's invocation of divine blessing on a building project is still secular. It is amusing that the the Court freely uses concepts from the Vedas, a text that is arguably at the heart of Hinduism, to support its position.

The ruling is likely to be overturned at some point in the coming years or decades, as much for its creative reliance on religious texts, as for its faulty logic. We shall see.

The Johns of War

Over the past few days, several prominent American politicians have lobbied for a no-fly zone to be enforced over Libya. In response, here is White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley:

"Lots of people throw around phrases of 'no-fly zone' and they talk about it as though it's just a game, a video game or something."

The answer is so appropriate, no further commentary is necessary here. But hey, there is never a bad time to recite the Warmonger Roll Call (abridged):

John "Hoar of War" Kerry: "[We should] prepare a no-fly zone in conjunction with our allies, not implement it." (Right. I am going to put a glob of toothpaste on my toothbrush and patiently stand in front of the wash basin, not brush.)

John "War Shrill" McCain: "This would send a signal to Gadhafi that President [Obama] is serious when he says we need for Gadhafi to go."

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have ever wonder why ~ 100,000 people were needlessly killed in Iraq, remember it was because of people like these.

Sources: Kerry photo McCain photo

Journalistic objectivity

At what point does a news report cross the line and become an opinion piece? Consider this news article from the Guardian:

Libya Loyalists Celebrate Muammar Gaddafi's Phoney Triumphs

Journalistic objectivity

At what point does a news report cross the line and become an opinion piece? Consider this news article from the Guardian:

Libya Loyalists Celebrate Muammar Gaddafi's Phoney Triumphs

I owe him

Greatbong writes of his cozy relationship with his Amar Chitra Kathas, and the passing away of Anant Pai. Like the Greatbong and millions others, I too grew up with Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle, Pai's creations. Peace be to the Uncle.

Freedom wins

No, no, Gaddafi is still in power; this has to do with freedom of speech in America.

A few months back, I had mentioned the Westboro case that the Supreme Court was hearing then. The suit was filed by the father of a deceased U.S. Marine against members of the anti-homosexual Westboro church for intruding on his privacy by demonstrating at the son's funeral.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court held in favor of Westboro, on grounds that the First Amendment shields the demonstrators from the lawsuit. As much as the church's actions are despicable, the court's ruling is reassuring. One interesting assertion forming the basis of the opinion is that whether agreeable or not, the issue the church was demonstrating about was of public concern.

"The content of Westboro’s signs plainly relates to public, rather than private, matters. The placards highlighted issues of public import—the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of the Nation, homosexuality in the military....and Westboro conveyed its views on those issues in a manner designed to reach as broad a public audience as possible."

Thus establishing that the demonstration was on a public issue, the rest was simple. Drawing from precedent, the court said:

"Speech on public issues occupies the 'highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values' and is entitled to special protection."

Then, the fact that the Marine's father was emotional hurt by the protest becomes immaterial:

"The context of the speech—its connection with Matthew Snyder’s funeral—cannot by itself transform the nature of Westboro’s speech."

Even as the Chief Warmonger is positioning his toys vis-a-vis Libya, all Americans should celebrate the victory of freedom of speech at home.

Read the full opinion here. The summary on the first four pages is truly worth your time.

Golden words

I consider myself a conservative when it comes to fiscal public policy, and usually gobble up most fiscal prescriptions made by the likes of Ron Paul, Sauvik Chakraverti and Peter Schiff . Yet, one element of the conservative school of thought that has always stuck me as illogical has been the role of gold.

According to their line of reasoning, government-issued money today is a travesty since it is not backed by real wealth. So far, so good. But this usually leads to a conclusion that gold should again play a role in how central banks issue money; in other words, all money should be backed by gold, where the real value lies. That is where the I fall off the bus.

Warren Gibson attempts to address some questions about the value of gold in this article in The Freeman. He makes a good start with the following line, which echoes my sentiment towards gold as a symbol of economic strength:

Actually, nothing has intrinsic value.

He does not follow through with that bold statement though. How gold has any more intrinsic value than, say, a clay brick, is not clear. Does the coupling of rarity and remarkable physical properties alone mean value?