So my first reaction to this story was a jaw-dropped five minutes of boggle-eyed amazement. The second was to double check – this wasn’t an intricate send-up by the Onion, or Iowahawk? April Fool’s day was almost two weeks ago, admittedly… but no, it appears to be a completely straight – in the sense of being accurate, not in the sexual sense – news story.

Third reaction – wow, what a horrible thing to do to a poor unsuspecting little Verdi opera. That rumble you hear for south of the Alps? That must be the great maestro himself, revolving in his grave at a couple of thousand RPMs. Hook him up to an electric generator, you could probably power a couple of good-sized American suburbs, or maybe all of North Korea with the resulting output. This is just the latest manifestation of a depressing and currently fashionable penchant for staging operas and incorporating trappings and conventions taken cafeteria-style from an assortment of sources, to include gangster movies of all ages, S&M porn flicks and bloody violence a la Peckinpah or Tarantino…no matter how unsuited the opera is to that sort of artistic vision, or how much violence it does to the plot, or the characters. (more here)

It seems to be the ultra-trendy thing in Europe, apparently; it doesn’t seem to have caught on much in the States, where an opera house actually depends on appealing to the subscribers, season-ticket holders and the audience in general. We’re… umm, kind of traditional, that way. Generally the people who want to revel in gangster movies, S & M porn flicks or whatever, can get their fix somewhere else than the stage of the Met or the Houston Grand.

You’ve got to hand it to the director of this 9/11 Masked Balls-up, though – for sheer Teutonic thoroughness in including every single stupid, tired and overworked anti-American trope in the eu –repertoire: ugly naked people in Mickey-Mouse masks, same old anti-capitalist political posturing, Uncle Sam and Elvis impersonators… the whole ugly collection, calculated to demonstrate American vulgarity and European cultural superiority and creativity. I’m imagining the creative types sitting around, brainstorming and shouting out their ideas for every element and laughing their asses off the whole time at the credulity of their audience. It would be reassuring to think this was some kind of ‘Producers’ type scheme, to deliberately create a production guaranteed to go down in flames on opening night, but apparently not. According to the linked story, it’s sold out, or near to being so.

Ah, well – the next time I read of some euro-snot looking down his artistic nose and condemning Americans for being crass and vulgar and generally uncaring of our artistic heritage, I shall think of this production… and laugh, and laugh and laugh.

From Iowahawk, naturally. How can an English major resist a parody entitled:
“Heere Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte.”

Read, and savor the final punchline. You won’t regret it. Really.

“Here, dhimmi! Sit! Stay! Roll over! Want a treat?! There you go – such a good dhimmi!

“Now, give up your minorities… there’s a good dhimmi, now!”

“Sit! Stay! Who’s a good dhimmi then?

“Quiet, now! Good dhimmi!”

“So obedient! I hardly have to tell them what to do!”

(All links courtesy of Da Blogfaddah)

Later: “Now, Dhimmi - quiet! Sit still!”

…Europe was a quagmire, and we just should have pulled out our troops and brought them home!

(Courtesy of Instapundit.)

The summer that I was sixteen and a half was the one spent in Britain and Europe, doing the Eurailpass/Youth Hostel/$5.00 a day adventure… which upon reflection at a point nearly four decades later seems nearly as long ago as luxury steamship travel and the Grand Tour. I learned many useful and useless things during that summer, and acquired a certain sort of fearlessness about travel and new places, and strange people, as well as the ability to manage a 70-pound backpack in all situations, including the narrow confines of the little stairway to the top level of an English double-decker bus. It’s an awkward thing to manage, of course, and sometimes total strangers were moved to be of assistance, especially when we were shedding our packs (which were our entire luggage) or taking them up again.

It’s of enormous help, you see, for someone to grab the pack and hold it steady as you slip the straps off your shoulders. Then you turn around and thank them, and taking the pack by the frame, you stow it away in the overhead, or set it down…or whatever. We came to know that there were two kinds of men who would instantly offer this assistance: the young ones were Boy Scouts… and all the older ones had been soldiers.

My travel buddy, Esther Tutwyler and I struck up a conversation with one of those helpful older sorts in an English railway compartment… who of course turned out to have been a soldier, and also confessed that he was always grateful to Americans because Patton’s army had liberated him from a German POW camp. This was an instant bond, as Esther’s father was a career Army warrant officer who had fought his way all across France and Germany and done his share of liberating various bits of personnel and real estate. But when I asked the Englishman where he had been captured, he answered with the name of his unit, and that he had been captured at Dunkirk as part of the British Expeditionary Force. I actually recognized the name of his unit, (I knew all sorts of useless trivia at this time) and remarked that they had been part of the defending force around the pocket where the British forces had been driven, upon the opening of the German drive into France,
“Oh, yes,” he said, with great good humor, “But if I had known then it was the perimeter around the bloody place, I would have made Jesse Owens look like a turtle!”

The German offensive of May, 1940 punched through the weak point— Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg— and split the Allies in two. The bulk of the British Expeditionary Force fell back towards the flat sandy coast between Calais and the Belgian frontier… towards Gravelines and La Panne, Nieuport and Bergues… and Dunkirk, with its inner harbor and much of the town smashed to rubble and rendered useless by German air raid. Black smoke from burning oil stocks shrouded the town, and set up a column of black smoke that could be seen for miles. But the outer harbor was sheltered by a long jetty, or mole; wooden gangways spanning concrete plinths reaching out from the shore and sheltering the outer harbor. The moles were not intended as a means of landing or loading personnel, but in a pinch, ocean-going ships could tie up and take on troops… but it was a tricky maneuver at best, and made even more of a hazard by constant German air raids. German artillery dominated most of the sea routes approaching the town… but still, according to most accounts, more than three-quarters of those rescued from Dunkirk were taken off from the moles, by ships who packed in human cargo wherever there was room. It took about seven hours to load 1,000 men on a destroyer, for example… and every minute of those hours, that ship and the men lined up on the mole, patiently waiting their turn to board would be a target of everything the Germans could throw at them. On the evening of 27 May, 1940 the Navy officer on station in Dunkirk sent a message to his superior, saying essentially that evacuating from the moles was too slow, too hazardous. He asked for ships to be sent towards the beaches, east of Dunkirk… and for all available small craft to serve as ferries between the beach and the larger craft.

There were already hundreds of regular Naval and merchant-marine vessels at hand to serve in the evacuation, plus a number of requisitioned Dutch coastal transports, known as “scoots”… but during the night of the 27th, Navy officers scoured boatyards, yacht-ports and wharves all through the south-eastern coast and rivers of England for small craft that could be of use. Fishing trawlers and tramps, tug boats, motor yachts and countless numbers of row-boats, fire-boats and cross-channel paddle-steamers were pressed into immediate service, with crews formed by a mix of reservists, regulars, volunteers, civilians and owners… hastily equipped and fueled up, sketchily armed, formed into convoys or taken under tow, they all went straight into the thick of it… to get their soldiers out.

The legend of the little boats was born out of Dunkirk, of civilian boat-owners sailing into hell … even though it wasn’t quite like that, there’s enough truth in it to stir the blood of anyone inclined to step forward in a time of crisis. Though most of the BEF that escaped did so through the harbor, the image of shallow-draft little boats sailing close into the shore, and of columns of soldiers standing chest-deep in the water, waiting for their countrymen to come for them and bring them safe home … oh, yes; there is the image imperishable, of nine days of glory in the midst of defeat. The British Army left their armor, their heavy artillery, their transport behind; with luck all of it spiked, scattered and burned all along the sandy dunes along the shore from Dunkirk to La Panne. They came away with what they carried, their weariness and pride, for they were still alive.

Arms and transport, armor and artillery, they could be replaced… at a cost, and in some little time; but in only a fraction of the time it takes to train an officer or an NCO, or to raise up an Army. And that was the victory of Dunkirk, delivered out of defeat and captivity at the hands of Hitler’s marvelous war machine; an Army that would return. And that was the victory of the little boats, the volunteers, and the organization of everything that could float, and head towards the column of smoke in the sky…and carry away a soldier or two. It must have been all the sweeter, a victory and an army, snatched from the wreck following on the defeat of an ally which had been until then thought stout and strong.

I couldn’t resist this coda, found from one of my reference books: A very junior Navy officer on the destroyer HMS Grenade was later asked by his commanding officer to write an account of his experience, after the ship was fatally disabled by a bomb which went straight down the funnel and exploded in the boiler. He wrote

“Dear Sir: there was a bloody great bang. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your Obedient servant.”

Found at “Chicago Boyz“: a long evocative essay about the fall of France, which took place early in May, 1940. The writer takes a look at some of the factors which led to the gutting of France… factors which may look hauntingly familiar.

My own essay on a significant historical event which followed closely after, will follow.

Sgt. Mom’s post got me to thinking about some of my past experiences in Europe. I first started travelling there on business in 1987, when I spent quite a bit of time in Burnley, Lancashire in northern part of the UK. At that time, we had just entered into a joint venture with Lucas, aka The Prince of Darkness, to develop a multifunction column switch for a U.S. auto company. Despite the seemingly endless rains (the sun broke through only one day on my first visit, with the local weatherman reporting that the temperatures “soared into the seventies” – this being July), it was quite a nice place with a small town feel to it. They serve a particular type of beer there called bitter, which, once one acquires a taste for it, is a pleasant way to end the workday. The locals were friendly and very welcoming of us Yanks to challenge them to a game of arrows (darts) at the local pubs. We had contracted some test equipment to a tool shop in nearby Nottingham, necessitating a trip to evaluate their progress. Accompanied by our hosts and some engineers from Chrysler, we took the motorway to Yorkshire, travelling by the Major Oak, which is alleged to have been used by Robin Hood as a hiding place. It turns out that the managing director of the tool shop had some sort of relationship (brother or something) with the curator of Nottingham castle, so after our business was concluded we enjoyed a personalized tour. What a neat place, whether or not you believe in the legend of Robin Hood. Afterwards we retreated to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, a pub across the square from the castle that has been in continuous operation since 1189 with the name inspired by the start of the third crusade. At one point our host asked us what we thought of all that we had seen that day. The auto company engineer thought a moment, and replied (WARNING – UGLY AMERICAN MOMENT AHEAD) “Well, its all very nice, but what have you people done lately?” My only beef with England is their aversion to ice water. If you ask for a glass, you will get one ice cube. That’s it.

Another of my favorite places is the Principality of Liechenstein and its capital city Vaduz, located in the heart of the Swiss Alps. The hotel where we stayed is about a bucolic setting as can be imagined. There was a cow pasture just outside my hotel window, with (sorry California) some of the happiest cows I have ever seen, each wearing a traditional cowbell and munching on the prolific wildflowers. As we were leaving the hotel in the mornings, we would pass groups of children in their neatly pressed uniforms heading to school, singing and playing stickball. While the locals seemed quite friendly, they viewed us with a little suspicion, as though wondering whether we truly were the barbaric Americans that had undoubtedly heard about. One night, our hosts took us to a fine restaurant located high up on a mountain in nearby Switzerland, overlooking the upper Rhine valley, with the river itself being little more that a creek at that location. On our return down the mountain (WARNING – UGLY AMERICAN MOMENT AHEAD), I pressed our host to treat us to a yodeling performance. I was firmly informed in no uncertain terms that “We do not yodel!” I would like to return one day, although I am concerned about their national security.

Paris may be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but I find its residents to be among the most hostile toward Americans – not in any specific way – just a general distaste. I found Toulouse, on the other hand, to be quite the opposite. My last visit was on short notice, so the hotel where we stayed was an unknown quantity, though proving to be a hidden gem. The rooms were quite small – the building dated to the eighteenth century – though most of them opened into small interior courtyards. The owner made a general-purpose room available for us to work on our presentation. He had never seen the sort of hardware we had – laptops, projectors, PowerPoint, etc. – and was fascinated with the process. Each day, he would go to the market to buy fresh breads and pastries for us, serving them with the most wonderful espresso I’ve had before or since. In exchange for showing him the finer points of creating a presentation, he responded to my curiosity about the espresso machine with a compete tutorial on its complicated operation. I remembered enough French to get the basics, but I suspect that, on my own, I would have blown it to smithereens.

In general, I have found that positive attitudes toward Americans are inversely proportional to the sophistication of the city in question. I suspect that much of this is because cities like London and Paris are not so different from cities like New York or Los Angeles, where cynism is the currency of the realm. American influence has shaped much of post-war Europe and, to the extent that things are not going well, Americans are getting the blame. The irony of all this is that, as I alluded in my comment to Sgt. Mom’s earlier post, many of the ideas imported from America by Europe are those held so dearly by the left in America – secularization, liberal immigration policies, socialized (name the government program), etc. The further irony is that the fury of those attitudes is largely directed to those in the U.S. who are most likely to resist the very policies that have failed so miserably in Europe. I am looking forward to my upcoming first trip to Iaşi Romania. Their recent history suggests a more likely aversion to these far-left liberal influences.

One last point I would make is that the Europeans also blame crass commercialization, another bane of society, on Americans. It is, more accurately, a by-product of capitalism, and I would accept it over the alternatives any day. More than any other region, Europe should have learned this (anybody remember the Dark Ages?)

Interesting trip report, from a regular contributor at “Cold Fury”. Anyone else whose traveled overseas lately have input?

Courtesy of Rantburg

Another interesting essay, here. (Found courtesy of Rantburg, from whence cometh all sorts of odd tidbits and free-flowing springs of sarcasm)

With a bit of surprise, I tallied it up today, and realized it has been slightly over 20 years since I was in France, actually, driving across Europe in the VEV (Very Elderly Volvo) with a nearly-5-year old Blondie tucked up in the back seat with a couple of pillows, the tattered striped baby blanket that was her woobie for more years than she is comfortable admitting and a stock of Asterix and Obelix comics. I took a zig-zaggy course across Europe in the autumn of 1985; the car-ferry from Patras to Brindisi, then up the boot of Italy, over the Brenner Pass, across the narrow neck of Austria, west across Germany with a stop in the Rhineland and a charming small town along the Moselle… and because the major roads across France were toll-roads, and (to me) hideously expensive, I went across France entirely on secondary roads, guided by my invaluable road atlas, the Hallwag Euroguide.

I hit a couple of places in France that I had visited 15 years before, as a teen-aged Girl Scout on a sub-budget, Youth-Hostel & Eurail-Pass tour of Europe, and a great many more that I had not, thanks to a slightly higher expenditure allowance (the going rate for the Youth Hostel & Eurail Pass summer vacation trip in 1970, which now seems as far distant as the proud tower of pre-WW1 Europe, was $5.00 a day.
England— halfway home, deja-vu familiar… Germany— slight distrust, being an enemy and the land of Mordor, metaphorically speaking, for two generations, but won over by overall tidiness and devotion to children….Italy— charming, slapdash and slightly grubby…. But France—there was ambivalence.

France meant so much to us, after all, and not just when it came to cooking, and an appreciation for fine food and wines. It meant marvelous architecture and interior decoration, translated into the American landscape, gallery after gallery of paintings, the Impressionists and Moderns and all. France was Monet’s Gardens, salons filled with witty conversation, the fountain of elegance in couture clothing, Madeline and the old House in Paris Covered in Vines, Chartres and the soaring galleries of the Louvre. France was the very last word in sophistication. It was where our aspiring artists and intellectuals went to acquire their training and polish, and American tourists tried for a bit of the same— although always with a feeling that such heights of worldly savoir-faire were well beyond them… and being pretty certain that the headwaiters were laughing at them anyway.

France was my collection of cookbooks, and Peter Mayle in Provence, Van Gogh’s fiends of sunflowers, Chartres floating like a stone ship in a field of golden wheat, me negotiating country roads and traffic circles in tiny towns, and Blondie’s Asterix and Obelix comics. It was buying a copper pudding mold at Dillerhain, and carrying a heavy box packed full of porcelain cooking things on packed subway train car, and watching a street musician plug his electric guitar onto a portable amp, play some fast boogie-woogie, pass the hat and dash off at the next stop. France was also fields of lavender in Provence, and fields of crosses in Flanders and Normandy. We had a history with France, after all.

It’s been an on-again, off-again history at that, more troubled than most Francophiles like to admit. France is usually visualized— starting with Henry James– as the elusive and mercurial girlfriend, but it strikes me these days that France is more like an erratic and long-time occasional boyfriend. Most women have had a brush with that sort: the guy who swoops in and sweeps her off her feet, because he is attractive, and lots of fun, sometimes handsome, always cultured, at home in the world. It never lasts, because he starts to make her feel lumpish and homely by tactlessly criticizing her clothes, or preference in books and friends. Or he is denigrating her in front of his friends, laughing at her behind her back, even while he helps himself to anything he pleases of hers. And then he borrows a lot of money— never repaid— or throws a horrendous scene in a public place, and is off again for a good long time, leaving her furious and embarrassed, and wondering if he really some sort of sociopath after all. Eventually, after a couple of rounds of this, she deletes his phone number, and doesn’t answer his messages.

Which is by way of leading up to these essays written over the last half-decade or so, by an American medievalist, fluent in French, who visits often. They make depressing reading; and I look at my collection of cookbooks, and memoirs by people like Peter Mayle, and wonder if that France, of vineyards and old houses, and cafes full of charming people talking about art and history is now a fantasy itself.

… and would it ever happen? Good thing I am not holding my breath.

(link courtesy Belmont Club, via Austin Bay)

To: Gary Busey, Billy Zane
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Your Next Career Move

1. I assume, of course, that you will still have one in movies catering to mainstream American audiences. You know, America… that country of which you are both ostensibly citizens? The one where a decreasing number of people with disposable income and an inclination to be amused by well-crafted entertainment at the multiplex are in fact declining to report as commanded by the lords of the entertainment industry to be sliced, diced, insulted and lectured on the most recent cause du jour? Yeah, that country. Feel free, though, to cast your lot in with whoever’s movie industry floats your personal boat… this place is still, although you might get some argument among the entertainment wheelers and dealers, a free country.

2. So, guys, how do you feel, after having participated with apparent glee, in what looks like (from this admittedly distant perspective) the 21st Century’s version of that hateful Third Reich propaganda crap-fest “The Eternal Jew”? Full of that nice warm glow that comes of having stuck it to “the man”, I presume. How very daring of you. I do hope you were well paid, as that paycheck might have to last for a while.

3. So, as working actors…
(“Blondie, sweetie, have we ever seen a movie starring either one of these goofs?”
“Billy Zane was the baddie on “Titanic, Mom.”
“I think he was in “Memphis Belle, too. Maybe that’s where he got to be a pacifist.”
“And Gary Busey… who’s he?”
“I think he played Buddy Holly, ages ago… you do know who Buddy Holly is….?.”
“S**t, Mom, you were a DJ, you trained me well… he was killed with Richie Valens… wasn’t he in Point Break, with Keanau Reeves? Oh-oh-oh-oh… Billy Zane was the the “Phantom”… he wore lavender spandex, for Ch****t sake!”)….
It looks like we shall in future be seeing rather less of you two than before… one way or the other— either the free markets’ choice or ours, as consumers.

4. I would also venture a guess, that any future American big-screen production that you have a major role in… will probably not show in an AAFES theater, not once word about this little movie escapade gets around. It’s just a guess, mind you, but I do have an instinct about these things. Military members have a long, long memory about movie actors who either mouth off about the military, or play very prominent roles in movies which defame the military. I know lots of people who have been boycotting Jane Fonda for decades. Of course, that duty was made less onerous when she barely made any movies for decades— interesting coincidence, don’t you think?

Sincerely,
Sgt Mom.

PS: Please don’t do any interviews in which you lament the unflattering way in which Americans in general and the American military in particularly, are seen by foreigners… seeing that you just now, and a couple of decades of Hollywood efforts before you have contributed so much to that state of affairs. We owe so much to you all, for generally portraying Americans as brutal, racist, crude, uncultured, ignorant and generally benighted. Thanks for all your sterling service in that regard.

PPSS: Rremember, make that paycheck last!

To: Major Newspapers, Broadcast TV News Channels, NPR and especially (but not limited to) the ever lugubrious Daniel Schoor (What? He is still a practicing journalist? Who’d have thought it?)
Re: “Free Press” & The Affair of the Danish Cartoons

1. As far as American newsprint and broadcast television is concerned, the phrase “freedom of the press” is from this day now enshrined in my favorite set of viciously skeptical quote-marks. The affair of the Danish Cartoons, and their non-appearance in all but a handful of newspapers has put the lie to every bit of lip-service ever paid to the notion that the American people had a right to know… had an absolute right, enshrined in the foundations of our very Republic to know… well, whatever it was that would goose the ratings, or boost circulation this week… A right that every journalist would fearlessly defend, with every fiber of his principled, journalistic being. Oops, there seems to be a little contradiction there. Principled… journalist… now there is a concept worn to tatters by this little international imbroglio, especially after Eason-gate, Rather-Gate and all the other tedious-gates. It’s pretty obvious that in this case, especially, mainstream media couldn’t defend the concept of a free press against a troop of marauding Brownie Girl Scouts, not when the threat is something a little more substantial than a couple of rabid letters to the editor and maybe a dozen or two cancelled subscriptions, some yanked adverts and maybe… in the case of a really egregious offense… a consumer boycott.

2. Thanks for all the ringing endorsements of principle, though — they made inspiring reads when a journo went to jail to protect a source, or a loud-mouthed bully of a politician ran off at the mouth. And to be fair there were just enough brave, and risk taking journalists who lived up to it, and sometimes died for it. It does look like they were the exception; most of the journalistic crowd seems only able to cope with jail food for a couple of days, and go on the Today Show to bask in the warm glow of peer approval for weeks afterwards.

3. My own hometown newspaper has a rather schizo take on it all: the two local cartoonists are riled and indignant, and very much in favor of publishing the original twelve Danish cartoons, but the paper has also rolled out two members of the local Muslim community to lecture us all about sensitivity and insult to Islam and otherwise wrap us in the inoffensive warm swaddling quilt of the whole multi-cultural experience. Dear no, the great unwashed general public must never be offended or upset, never given a chance to look at the facts and make up their own mind, and the ever-seething Muslim Street must never be given an excuse to torch another street full of cars, or a handy embassy. Not even if enough people without internet access are now curious about what in heck the fuss is all about. No, no, no; the cartoons are too vile, to insulting. Mustn’t be seen, musn’t have the delicate sensibilities be offended… just take our word that the 12 cartoons are that horrible!

4. 4. Funny, that: the tender sensibilities of Muslims taking offense at something or other, twice a day and three times on Fridays over matters that run the gamut from the real, through the exaggerated and terminating in the completely imaginary. However, this well known and often demonstrated propensity for over-the-top outrage didn’t stop any Western newspaper from publishing the Abu Graib pictures, or the bogus Koran-flushing story. All that sent the Muslim Street onto high seeth mode for simply months, without shaking a particle of our mainstream media’s devotion towards the general public’s right to know. Repercussions from this adherence to principle landed on everyone else but the gentlemen of the press. One might be forgiven at this point for suspecting that press deference to Muslim sensibilities in this case is directly proportional to a well-established tendency for the offended to directly underline their unhappiness with sharp knives, exploding garments, creative arson, and fatwas, along with the more customary threats of lawsuits and consumer boycotts. It all depends, as my mother used to say, upon whose ox has been gored, and on this occasion, the major media’s ox has been well and truly gored.

5. Myself, I have begun to wonder if major media’s almost hysterical insistence on the original 12 Danish Cartoons being so vile, so insulting and hurtful as to be unworthy of print space or airtime isn’t a trifle self-serving. I have seen them, (and linked to them and put up one on this website) as has practically anyone who has internet access, a bit of curiosity and the ability to do a simple search. It’ll be very hard for an old-line news organization who has stuck to the party line about the offensive nature of them to actually put them out there, in print or on the air, and have all those people who still take them seriously realize in actuality, they are pretty mild… about one half step more cutting than “Family Circle” or “Dagwood & Blondie”. There would be a great many people reading the morning paper, or watching prime time news in that case, scratching their heads and thinking “That is what they got so upset about?” A dozen bland little sketches, only two of which had any satiric bite at all— all the fuss was about that? Oh, no best keep the cover locked into place… after all, the public doesn’t have to know everything. Best let them go on believing that main line media does really believe in freedom of the press.

6. Unless believing in it really means a bit of real danger and risk. Myself, the next time I hear someone pontificating away on the awesome responsibilities involved in upholding the “freedom of the press”… and they are from a newspaper which refused to run the Danish Cartoons, or a television station which refused to air them, citing “community sensitivities” or “deference to religious feelings” or whatever the sad excuse du jour is…. I shall laugh and laugh and laugh.

Sincerely
Sgt. Mom

All this last week I have been returning, almost obsessively to certain blogs for continuing updates on the Danish cartoon story. It is a marvel of jaw-dropping proportions of how a dozen fairly innocuous sketches, published in a comparatively small national newspaper, in a small European country have gotten the goat, so to speak, of seething mobs a good few countries or continents away. I rather suspect some of the rioters are only vaguely aware, in a kind of trivial pursuit/jeopardy question obscure factoid sort of way that there is a Denmark, and even fewer could find it on a map, but there they are, howling away and waving weapons and signs— invariably neatly lettered in English, how curious is that?!… and burning flags again… where the heck did they get all those Danish flags— is there some sort of “Flags R’ US” big box chain store serving Damascus, Jakarta and Gaza with all their banner barbeque needs?

It’s the fabled Muslim Street again, at a full roiling, furiously bubbling seeth, parked in front of an embassy, intimidating and threatening diplomatic staff, business interests and free-lance do-gooders, all alike. For more than two decades America (AKA “The Great Satan”) pretty much had a lock on that gig, as a focus for the Muslim ire, and it is initially passing strange and going into Outer Limits territory to see it happening to some other national interest, especially to a tidy, comfortably inoffensive little country like Denmark. The original action is so minor in comparison to the snowballing reaction—it’s rather like seeing the Animal Regulation people backed up by a tactical SWAT team go after the neighbor down the street on account of a unlicensed and unleashed teacup Chihuahua. You just keep scratching your head and wondering ‘what the f**k brought all that on?’ Or alternately, ‘what the f**k doesn’t set off the seething Muslim Street?’Or daringly, even ‘Since anything and everything sets off the seething Muslim Street, may as well publish and be damned!’

I personally confess to a great deal of appalled sympathy for the Danes, and the Norwegians, and all those other Europeans and Britons who see this issue clearly, just now. The whole issue of intellectual and press freedom, and open discussion of anything and everything, won for us with such great struggle and with so many setbacks, is a central value. All the previous little kerfuffles, all those spats about artist-poseurs smearing themselves with chocolate, or a canvas with elephant dung, or some tiresome leftist with a captive university audience, or some writer-pseud striking a daring pose by sticking it to the bourgeoisie; All that before was just a pose, a trivial and momentary diversion; this now, this is for real. Are we now willing to publish, or write about, or talk about an issue that might have permanent and fatal consequences, over a principle that we have had so long been accustomed to? Now that a threat has been issued that we must perforce obey the dictates of a religion, a religion alien to most of us? A dictate backed up by threats of murder and violence?
” Nice little country you got here, be a shame if anything happened to it.”
The demand, couched as a seemingly reasonable request to be “respectful” and understanding of a particularly belief is put reasonably, counting on us to be reasonable, courteous… but the implications are huge and only just dawning on those who have been not been following this, admittedly in a desultory way, for the last four months.

If we value the soul of Western democracies, of a free press, of being able do discuss anything at all in the media, old and new, print and TV, in the halls of universities and governments, in coffee shops and around office water coolers, without fear or favor, we cannot yield on this. Because being once constrained by Moslems, under threat, there is no reason to deny it to any other special party that may raise a complaint, backed by a similar threat. Once debate can be shut down on the grounds of “being respectful” to one belief, once criticism can be howled down on that ground, it can be done on behalf of any other religion or party, or group… and then what you have is no longer free. It may be something… but it is no longer free. Once the exception is made, we are pretty much lost, as much as the media outlets in the Mexican border towns are, when it comes to publishing anything about narco-trafficking , or independent Russian media is, about anything to do with the oligarchy.

And this is the realization that suddenly, and with a great deal of horror, that a lot of people in Britain and in Continental Europe may have come to this week, of how close they stand to the abyss, and how easily they may be struck a near-mortal blow, a blow at the intellectual heart, rather than the physical one struck on 9/11 to the US, for nothing more than being who they are in the eyes of Moslem extremists, rather than anything particular that they might have done.

Here’s and interesting news tidbit from Norway:

A new law came into force at the beginning of this year that stated that every cow in Norway had to have its own mattress to sleep on. This rather bizarre ruling from the Ministry of Agriculture is only partly about animal protection — there are sound economic reasons, too. If the cows are more comfortable, they do actually produce more milk.

It appears that, while cows do seem to be more comfortable on mattresses than plain concrete, more economical alternatives are available:

Respondents felt sand provided some advantages for cow comfort, while satisfaction with bedding cost and manure handling was higher with mattresses. Dairy Herd Improvement data showed no difference in milk production or somatic cell count for producers who chose sand or mattress‑based free stalls.

Leave it to the Europeans to go for a new law, when the free market will serve better.

Considering the recent exchange between our own Joe Comer and reader Robin on a nuclear response to a terrorist strike, I thought in would be valuable to blog on this

In Berlin, government spokesman Thomas Steg rejected the view that this was any change in French nuclear doctrine.

‘There is no doubt that France supports an agreed position in close accord with Britain and Germany in the EU-3 group,’ he said, and declined to interpret Chirac’s remarks as a veiled warning to Iran over its nuclear-research programme.

Of course, France has never hesitated over the ruthless use of its own military, even as they decry the actions of other nations (mostly the US).

This from Paul Marks at Samizdata:

However, I was surprised as the editor started a pro Bush story of how he had met the President some time ago and…

Then the BBC suddenly went off the air. The broadcast of the show started again when the story was over. At the end of the programme the BBC blamed “technical difficulties” for the break in transmission.

So I listened to the repeat of the show (today Saturday the 14th of January) in order to hear the editor’s story of his meeting with President Bush. It was cut out of the programme - even the start of the story that had been broadcast on Friday night. It seems that the BBC will not tolerate any pro-Bush comment.

As the BBC is agency of the British government, I think we have a diplomatic issue here.

Scott Johnson at Powerline is concerned with this from Mark Steyn’s Telegraph article, “Wake Up and Listen to the Muezzin“:

Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic missionary group, has announced plans to build a mosque next door to the new Olympic stadium. The London Markaz will be the biggest house of worship in the United Kingdom: it will hold 70,000 people - only 10,000 fewer than the Olympic stadium, and 67,000 more than the largest Christian facility (Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral). Tablighi Jamaat plans to raise the necessary £100 million through donations from Britain and “abroad”.

And I’ll bet they do. I may be a notorious Islamophobic hatemonger, but, watching these two projects go up side by side in Newham, I don’t think there’ll be any doubt which has the tighter grip on fiscal sanity. Another year or two, and Londoners may be wishing they could sub-contract the entire Olympics to Tablighi Jamaat.

I was slightly surprised by the number of e-mails I’ve received in the past 48 hours from Britons aggrieved about the new mega-mosque. To be sure, it would be heartening if the Archbishop of Canterbury announced plans to mark the Olympics by constructing a 70,000-seat state-of-the-art Anglican cathedral, but what would you put in it? Even an all-star double bill comprising a joint Service of Apology to Saddam Hussein followed by Ordination of Multiple Gay Bishops in Long-Term Committed Relationships (Non-Practising or Otherwise, According to Taste) seems unlikely to fill the pews. Whatever one feels about it, the London Markaz will be a more accurate symbol of Britain in 2012 than Her Majesty pulling up next door with the Household Cavalry.

Scott’s chief cause of concern is the true nature of Tablighi Jamaat. His post, and the accompanying links, are well worth a read. But that wasn’t the central theme of Steyn’s article, which is what piqued my interest:

I notice, for example, that signatories to the Kyoto treaty are meeting in Montreal this week - maybe in the unused Olympic stadium - to discuss “progress” on “meeting” their “goals”. Canada remains fully committed to its obligation to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent of its 1990 figure by 2008.

That’s great to know, isn’t it? So how’s it going so far?

Well, by the end of 2003, Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions were up 24.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, how are things looking in the United States? As you’ll recall, in a typically “pig-headed and blinkered” (Independent) act that could lead to the entire planet becoming “uninhabitable” (Michael Meacher), “Polluter Bush” (Daily Express), “this ignorant, short-sighted and blinkered politician” (Friends of the Earth), rejected the Kyoto treaty. Yet somehow the “Toxic Texan” (everybody) has managed to outperform Canada on almost every measure of eco-virtue.

How did that happen?

Actually, it’s not difficult. Signing Kyoto is nothing to do with reducing “global warming” so much as advertising one’s transnational moral virtue. America could reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 87 per cent and Canada could increase them by 673 per cent and the latter would still be a “good citizen of the world” (in the Prime Minister’s phrase) while “Polluter Bush” would still be in the dog house, albeit a solar-powered one.

This is pretty typical. If you think back to the Tsunami, while the governments of the world were busy making “pledges”, and berating the US, our government and NGOs were stepping up to the plate.

But it goes further:

Likewise, those public sector union workers determined to keep their right to retire at 60. I’ve had many conversations with New Labour types in which my belief in low - if not undetectable - levels of taxation has been cited as evidence of my selfishness. But what’s more selfish than spending the last 20 years of your life on holiday and insisting that the fellows who can’t afford to retire at 60 should pay for it?

Forget Kyoto and the problem of “unsustainable growth”; the crisis that Britain and most of Europe faces is unsustainable sloth. Their insistence, at a time of falling birth rates and dramatic demographic change, on clinging to the right to pass a third of your adult life as one long bank holiday ought to be as morally reprehensible as what Gary Glitter gets up to on his own weekend breaks. Apart from anything else, its societal impact is far more widespread.

And here’s where it hits home. Because we have a certain degree of that here as well. We could “fix” the Social Security crisis permanently, if we simply raised the retirement age to 75, and continued to raise it as life expectancy increases. But it would be political suicide for one of our elected representatives to take this stand.

Update: Clive Davis looks at contemporary attitudes to Kyoto. It seems the US was way ahead of the curve here.

This from Dave Kopel at Volokh:

One textbook quotes with approval an article written in the run-up to the Iraq war, arguing for the urgency of containing American power, which imposes its will by force and is contemptuous of allies.

Also approvingly reprinted in a textbook is a student essay: Terrorism is a revolt against aggressors. As in France during the Nazi occupation, terrorism appears when a people suffer and have no other solution except explosives.

After the riots began, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy denounced the rioters as “racaille,” which translates as “rabble” or “scum,” depending on who is doing the translation. As the French begin to ponder how their nation came to be filled with a Fifth Column of Jew-hating, French-hating criminal scum, I hope that France re-examines its educational system which, by justifying terrorism against Americans and Israelis, appears to have taught principles that were readily usable to justify terrorism against the French themselves.

Read the whole thing.

And so it is, for the eleventh night running, after the serious possibility being raised by the failed artist and sometime supposed paper-hanger turned dictator and ultimately unsuccessful military strategist some six decades previous. I follow the news about the suburbs of Paris being wracked by flames and insurrection with a curious mixture of dismay and indifference, because there are two—and maybe more— Cities of Light in contention in my imagination and experience.

I make no claim to intimate knowledge of Paris in the real world; I’ve only been there twice in my life. At the age of 16 I stayed in a youth hostel outstanding in memory for grunge hitherto un-encountered in what was admittedly a fairly sheltered life. The hostel was in a newer neighborhood. I retain memories of brutally ugly neo-Corbu concrete high-rises nearby, and a skim of greasy filth floating on a bowl of coffee essence and hot milk served up for breakfast along with a length of somewhat stale baguette. The same blue melamine bowls ten hours later also contained our dinner, a stew of potatoes and stringy, curiously sweet-tasting meat that we were fairly sure was horse, although my best friend, Esther Tutwyler held out for mule. There were bugs in the bunk bed mattresses, too. But we spent a couple of days there, exploring the Louvre, and climbing the endless stairs to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, and twenty years later I visited Paris once more, driving at leisure across Europe with my daughter, dipping into the tourist delights… the Louvre again, and buying kitchenware at Dehillerhin, before heading out into the countryside.

The France that I have in memory is a country road, unfolding between autumn-tinged trees, leading to a small town where grandmotherly hotel managers cluck over my daughter and feed her soup, where there are cathedrals and ruined castles, the war cemeteries where two generations of my family are buried (or at least, memorialized), the Provencal fields painted by Van Gogh— who got it right, incidentally. Olive trees and sunflowers, starry skies and tile-roofed buildings lighted by street-lights, fields of golden stubble and distant blue mountains; there are places you can look at, and know that yes, that was what he was looking at and he painted it, just right. If you cook, or love the Impressionists, or have an appreciation for history, you are always coming back to France… even if it only through books like “A Year in Provance” or “On Rue Tatin”.

But then there are those other Frances, as many as there are other Americas. An empty highway across the Great Basin is still in the same country as an inner-city project, as opposite as they seem to be. The project and the endlessly unfolding miles of the Far West are still in the same country. And the France of my personal memories is still the place beloved of memoirists and artists and foodies , for all that the so-called suburbs (which we would call “the projects”) full of angry, unassimilated immigrants ringing Paris and other major cities… I would no more have visited them, any more than I would have visited the projects, but they— like our projects most certainly do exist.
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