November 2007 Archives

Out with the Religious Loyalties Test, in with the Baseball one.

Since everyone must define their loyalties these days, here goes: I was not born a Red Sox fan. My mother grew up in Baltimore, so I was an Orioles fan in the American League, but I was really, really a Braves fan, years of listening to baseball games under the covers after the lights went out, and those were the years when the Braves were AWFUL.

But back to the American League, I liked the Orioles, which means I disliked the Yankees, along with all those other reasons, too. All of that baggage made me a somewhat ideal family to marry into a Red Sox family, which I have, with gusto. I even forked out for my wife to get the out-of-town games this year so she could spend less time rooting against someone (the Yankees) and more time rooting for someone (the Red Sox). And I got to sit in a prime seat of Game 7 of the ALCS this year, which was one of the most exciting sporting events I've ever attended.

All of which is to say, even as a fan of the Red Sox for less than five years, even I know that it was 86 years between Red Sox championships in the World Series. For that reason, I winced at Mitt Romney's announcement in the CNN/YouTube debate that as a "lifelong Red Sox fan" he was so excited that after 87 years the Red Sox finally won another championship.

Now ABC is calling him on it.

The Former Massachusetts governor, who presided over the hub of Red Sox Nation for 4 years, and was Governor of the state in 2004 when they staged their epic, history- changing comeback and finally triumphed in the World Series, botched one of the holiest, most sacrosanct numbers in Red Sox lore.

At the close of the GOP debate in St. Petersburg, FL, Mitt Romney spoke of the 2004 World Series Championship: "Eighty-seven long years. We waited 87 long years. And true suffering Red Sox fans that my family and I are, we could not have been more happy than to see the Red Sox win the World Series." The only problem with that statement? It was 86 years between Red Sox victories. 86 years! 1918 to 2004. That makes 86 years.

It is a number that millions of Red Sox fans know by heart. It is a number that many kids in Massachusetts know before they can even count.

What does this say about the Governor? His authenticity has been questioned on several issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control. Is his alleged Red Sox fan-dom also now in question? Romney, who was born and raised in Michigan, did once refer to Fenway Park as "Red Sox Stadium."

From my experience, this article about tech for tots is dead-on. The Times says the hot toy items this year feature a screen and allow preschoolers to emulate their parents. Forget the toy phones, we want REAL phones Mom and Dad. But with screens now overshadowing
wheels and dress clothes on toys, sounds like we have to start monitoring toy-time as well as tv time. Call me fuddy (my mother-in-law does!), but I certainly think so.

"The bigger toy companies don’t even call it the toy business anymore,” Mr. [Jim} Silver of Toy Wishes said. “They’re in the family entertainment business and the leisure business. What they’re saying is, ‘We’re vying for kids’ leisure time.’ ”

Technology has been slowly permeating the toy business for a number of years, but the trend has been accelerating. On Wednesday, six of the nine best-selling toys for 5- to 7-year-olds on Amazon.com were tech gadgets. For all of 2006, three of the top nine toys for that age group were tech-related.

The trend concerns pediatricians and educators, who say excessive screen time stifles the imagination. But more traditional toys — ones without computer monitors, U.S.B. cables and memory cards — are seen by many children as obsolete...

Wiring toys for a young audience is worrying some children’s advocates and pediatricians. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against screen time for children ages 2 and younger, and it recommends no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming on televisions or computers for older children.

Donald L. Shifrin, a pediatrician based in Seattle and the spokesman for the academy, said tech toys cannot replace imaginative play, where children create rich narratives and interact with peers or parents.

“Are we creating media use as a default for play?” Dr. Shifrin asked. “When kids want to play, will they ask, ‘Where’s the screen?’ ”

One of the tent poles of my new book about the influence of Moses in America is Lincoln's speech about Gettysburg, in which he use the paradigm of the Exodus to talk about the birth, struggle, and rebirth of America, drawing the parallel with the birth (Creation), struggle (slavery), and rebirth (Exodus) of Israel. How thrilling, then, considering how much time I've spent with the story in recent months to see this new photo of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg address.

I have enjoyed and recommended the books of the chief rabbi of England, Jonathan Sacks. I see today that he's both on the offensive and defensive. On the offensive, attacking multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism promotes segregation, stifles free speech and threatens liberal democracy, Britain's top Jewish official warned in extracts from his book published Saturday.

Jonathan Sacks, Britain's chief rabbi, defined multiculturalism as an attempt to affirm Britain's diverse communities and make ethnic and religious minorities more appreciated and respected. But in his book, The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society, he said the movement had run its course.

"Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation," Sacks wrote in his book, an extract of which was published in the Times of London.

"Liberal democracy is in danger," Sacks said, adding later: "The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear."

Sacks said Britain's politics had been poisoned by the rise of identity politics, as minorities and aggrieved groups jockeyed first for rights, then for special treatment.

The process, he said, began with Jews, before being taken up by blacks, women and gays. He said the effect had been "inexorably divisive."

"A culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation is greater than that of others," he said.

On the defensive, he's been forced to back down on his plan insisting that only Jews can attend a Jewish school.

The Jewish Free School (JFS) in London has removed from its admissions criteria a clause favoring ethnically Jewish children after the school was accused of breaking state anti-discrimination laws, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the top Jewish state school was accused of discrimination after it denied a place to a child who did not meet the definition of Jewish set by Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

The mother of the child in question, who heads the school's English department, had converted to Judaism under supervision of Israel's chief rabbi.

Sacks, who is the school's religious authority, had stipulated that applicants must have an ethnically Jewish mother in order to be accepted into the school. Following the accusation, chief schools arbitrator Philip Hunter ruled that the JFS had not violated race relation laws as it was following religious, rather than racial, criteria.

The American press, predictably, is portraying the summit in Annapolis in strictly Bush v. Clinton terms. Clinton got engaged and failed, Bush is not getting engaged... and will also fail. It's doomed to failure without outside pressure. I'm not sure I agree with this.

The Israeli press, equally predictably, is viewing it differently, and it's important that we understand what they're saying. And that is: Bush is a groupie of Israel and, with the possibly exception of Giuliani, that is not likely to be the case next time, so better do something now in favorable terms or face a harsh reality in 2009 or beyond. There are problems with this point of view, too (if peace today is so favorable to Israel the Palestinians will balk) but I think it's a smarter way to view the event. Here's Yoel Marcus in Haaretz:

Bush's road map has tangled up everything in a knot with its sequential demands: Before commencing permanent status talks, the Palestinians are supposed to halt terror and dismantle the terror organizations, and Israel is supposed to evacuate outposts in the territories. These demands have set the proverbial dog running in circles, chasing its own tail. Sly foxes like Sharon and Olmert have embraced the road map on the supposition that the Palestinians are not capable of ending terror.

Condoleezza Rice is the one who urged Bush to cut this Gordian knot with an international conference attended by the Quartet, the moderate Arab countries, and anyone supportive of peace in the Middle East. The conference thus created sponsorship for the two-states-for-two-peoples solution, a return to 1967 borders, and the creation of settlement blocs based on territorial exchange. Israel, which has always been traumatized by the idea of an imposed solution, received a promise from Bush that the Annapolis summit would only sponsor the talks, and not twist Israel's arm.

The summit in its current configuration, with Syria represented by a deputy minister (half coffee/half tea) has divided the world into good guys and bad guys, and isolated Iran and Hamas. For Bush, that is already a major accomplishment, says Americologist Zvi Rafiah.

As far as the talks themselves are concerned, it is still up to the Palestinians to prove that they're on the side of the good guys. The presence of the moderate Arab states is meant to back up Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. That is important not only for Abbas, but also for Israel.

We have never had a president like George W. Bush, and chances are we will never have another. If we reach an agreement, we are not only clinching a deal with Mahmoud Abbas, but with the whole of the moderate Arab world. On the other hand, Israel could find itself under pressure and sanctions from the whole of the international community if it fails to open up and engage in a serious discussion of core issues, as Olmert promised to do a few weeks ago.

It is doubtful that America's next president will be as friendly and supportive as Bush, who can be trusted not to pressure us on issues that compromise Israel's security and survival. So whatever can be achieved we must try to achieve now, while Bush is still at the helm. We are not going to be able to fool all of the people all of the time.

Bush showed his hypocrisy by criticizing Nancy Pelosi for talking to Syria ("aiding and abetting the enemy," "signalling to Syria they are part of the international community") then inviting Syria to U.S. NAVAL HEADQUARTERS, but having the moderate Arab states there was Condi's big coup. If there is peace, or even intermediate steps toward peace, the Arab world has pre-signed on to supporting it. The reason for that, of course, is that a weakened Iraq has strengthened Iran and its cronies Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Arab world fears all of them.

For better or worse, Annapolis was the first event of the post-war-in-Iraq-Middle East, which is one reason why the participants didn't exactly know how to act -- and another reason we have no choice but to give it a chance.

'Twas the month before Christmas And all through the land The wacko cable air hogs Were showing their hand Some press releases are best shown in their entirety. If you're sensitive to the sight of naken ambition, best not to...

Just in time for Annapolis, a new coalition of liberal Jewish groups tries to reclaim grown long-since lost to the anti-peace crowd in Israel....

Archaeology among us. A wonderful idea for a book.Southern New Mexico is the site of some of America's most spectacular ruins. Photographer Arthur Drooker traveled America for two years taking pictures of places like the Quarai Mission, which was built...

As someone who has traveled in biblical archaeology in recent years, last week's mega-discovery of the cave where the she-wolf supposedly nursed Romulus and Remus in Rome pressed all my skepical buttons. The pattern in the Middle East over the...

Now you, too, can look like a camel. I have long eyelashes. People have commented on them since I was a child. Every now and then people will actually stop me on the street and mention them. Or at least...

See the video announcement here. The TED Prize was introduced in 2005, and it is unlike any other award. Although the winners receive a prize of $100,000 each, the real prize is that they are granted a WISH. "A wish...

I know lots of people are saying the Vladimir Putin considers himself God, but it seems he's willing to teach Russians about alternatives. In a fascinating development that's sure to rile the debate over teaching religion in American schools (I'm...

Newsweek has a fascinating cover story this week on the future of the book, timed to coincide with the newest e-reader book silver bullet by Amazon. The retailer is releasing Kindle, which it hopes will do what all the previous...

Soaring in the polls in Iowa, Mike Huckabee is getting some scrutiny to go with his mo.Mr. Wallace, on Fox News Sunday, asked Mr. Huckabee about a range of alleged ethical shortcomings –- including accepting gifts while he was still...

If you're a woman of a certain age, better think twice before you down that sweet potato souffle on Thanksgiving! Or, for others I know: Better have seconds! Check out the last line of this amazing article about the Ultimate...

Singapore Airlines tries to kill it.The A380 may have the world’s first airborne double bed, but it won’t be put to the obvious use if Singapore Airlines has its way: “If couples used our double beds to engage in inappropriate...

I was asked recently to wade into the debate over The Israel Lobby, the controversial book about the influence of the Christian- and Jewish- fueled Washington lobby the supports the State of Israel (and is also said to have fueled...

That's the title of a first-ever Economist debate being held this week in New York, tied in to their cover story on the subject this week. Good timing, if nothing else. If you'll be in New York on November 10th...

As the discussion on Beliefnet the last week suggests, the Religious Right clearly seems to be a definitional moment in the United States. Part of it is the parade of sex scandals in recent months. Part of it is the...

While we're on the topic of the Holocaust, a group of Jews is reenacting the Exodus from France 60 years ago in one of the more embarrassing bungled attempts by the British to maintain harmony in Palestine. The episode was...

And they made the trains run on time. And they planted lots of flowers?A quarter of Germans believe there were some positive aspects to Nazi rule, according to a poll published Wednesday—a finding that comes after a popular talk show...