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Ruminations in August

1. Do you need a good example of the word “obscenity”? Try the annual salary of deposed Bear Stearns Company co-president Warren Spector: $32.1 million. Chief Executive James Cayne, who demanded Spector’s resignation, made $33.85 million, according to regulatory findings revealed in the Wall Street Journal on August 6. The crash of two Bear Stearns mortgage-related hedge funds initially cost investors more than $1 billion, and the huge security firm’s stock has plunged. The havoc throughout the stock market triggered by the subprime lending fiasco is a sad wonder to behold. Millions of Americans and millions more throughout the world are victims of corporate greed and stupidity. When will our financial and political elite learn about the importance of integrity?

2. Newsweek, in its August 13 issue, told of an extraordinary effort by Israel’s Peace Research Institute in the Middle East to help students think for themselves. The Institute has published a book that divides pages into one column for the Israeli version of history, a second for the Palestinian version, and a third, which is blank, letting the student fill in his own account of what is accurate. The book has been translated into English, Spanish, and Italian, and has sold 23,000 copies in France. Any historian should judge this classroom exercise as pure folly. College seniors majoring in history, in a very good university, with a highly knowledgeable and communicative professor, might be able to discern some of the truth and error in these accounts. But to expect anyone below that level to handle the question effectively is nonsense. Yes, students should think for themselves. But only after they have read extensively on a topic and have enjoyed authoritative and objective instruction.

3. In Wisconsin in 2005, 44% of all births were paid for by the state’s Medicaid program. This marks a 26% increase since 2000. Wisconsin taxpayers had to shell out $179.9 million in 2005 to cover the cost of the births. Wisconsin’s Department of Health and Family Services attributes the soaring number, in the words of a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, “to an economic downturn that led to an increase in women of childbearing age whose incomes qualified them for state health care programs.” The obvious fact that the economy has been exceedingly good during the past several years went unmentioned. What is actually going on here is in large part a reflection of a crisis in the state’s African-American community, particularly in Milwaukee. Data on crime, poverty, and school drop-outs are easily available, and they paint a ghastly picture. The abandonment of personal, old-fashioned virtues is a critical issue here, along with education and jobs. How many of the babies will be raised by both their mother and father? But political correctness, unfortunately, prohibits the issue from being widely discussed.

4. I’ve long believed in what I call “the Jimmy Carter test.” The process consists simply in discovering Carter’s opinions on politics and foreign policy and taking the opposite position. Carter was one of our worst Chief Executives, and he surely ranks as the worst ex-president in our history. He has an uncanny ability to say and do the wrong thing, a talent so huge that James Buchanan and Gerald Ford seem wise in contrast. At the same time, I’ve long felt guilty about the Carter test since in my biography of John F. Kennedy I argued at length that personal character is a vital component in the making of a good President. For decades, Carter has been widely thought to possess sterling character. I’m relieved to discover in Robert D. Novak’s autobiography The Prince Of Darkness that this traditional view may well be untrue. Novak, a veteran Washington journalist, considers Carter “a liar and charlatan.” “Jimmy Carter,” he writes on page 287, “was a habitual liar who modified the truth to suit his purposes.” He makes a persuasive case. Carter’s penchant for appeasement in foreign policy matters is also on display in Novak’s book, shedding light on the ex-president’s fervid hostility toward the war in Iraq and his continued trust in the United Nations.

5. The president of a Los Angeles marketing firm told a Wall Street Journal reporter that the sliding door on a minivan “epitomizes the less exciting realities of minivan ownership, compared to the proactive, vibrant images of go-anywhere SUVs and crossovers.” That awful door: “Ultimately, it’s a symbol of being stuck in a rut of having a family.” A succinct snapshot of the moral rot plaguing our culture in the West.

Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 6:43 AM | Comments (0) | Return

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