McCain's invitation and a Mayo Clinic question

At www.insidehighered.com we learn:

U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and past and possibly future presidential candidate [is scheduled to be this year’s commencement speaker] at the New School.

But hundreds of students, staff and faculty members at the institution of about 9,000 students have signed paper and online petitions that seek to revoke the invitation.

Several students and faculty members pointed out that McCain has supported banning gay marriage in Arizona, and that, three days before his visit to the New School, McCain will be speaking at Liberty University, whose founder and chancellor, Rev. Jerry Falwell, has openly expressed his opposition to homosexuality. […]

Plans are underway to disrupt the commencement if McCain, a war hero who endured years of torture while a POW in North Vietnam, speaks.

On the comment thread following the www.insidehighered.com report, we find statements such as:

“Honoring free speech does not mean staying silent in the face of someone abetting those who mean to criminalize your existence.”

“LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.”

“He’s a homopohobic (sic) bigot, just like the rest of them.”

Not all commenters agree with such sentiments. We read, for example:

“I just love it when people preach inclusion while seeking to exclude.”

“Student Harper Keenan notes that in ‘our classes we’re taught the value of inclusion of all people. . .’ except, of course, conservatives, Republicans, war heroes, Christians, and people with old fashioned family values.”

Folks,

When you hear about liberals and leftists at the New School and elsewhere upset that McCain may speak at the commencement, do you ask yourself:

Does the Mayo Clinic have treatment programs for liberals and leftists suffering from post- traumatic stress disorders resulting from exposure to democracy, constitutional rights and informed opinions?

This Duke lacrosse commentary deserves, “Hip, hip, hypocrisy”

Barry Jacobs is the Chairman of The Orange County Board of Commissioners. Orange borders Durham County and includes the town of Chapel Hill and the campus of the University of North Carolina.

Jacobs regularly writes about women’s sports. Recently he sounded off in response to the Duke lacrosse case and made linkages to things liberal/leftists like to call “the larger truths.” Here’s some of Jacobs:

Under the best of circumstances, collegiate athletic competition involving women--most often condescendingly called "ladies" or "girls" by the sports media--routinely commands second-class coverage. […]

The off-field excesses of the Duke lacrosse team (men's) [provide] a dark and hurtful reminder of larger truths about sex, race and privilege.

How must female athletes, black and white, look at their male counterparts after such an episode, or rather how must they imagine their male counterparts look at them?

And, if boys-will-be-boys is tolerated by athletic administrators, where does a woman turn for support? […]

Jacobs serves up a lot more just like that and closes with:

But celebration of the ACC women's transcendent season was cut short by tales of racism, alcohol abuse and alleged sexual assault perpetuated (sic) by male Duke athletes. In this, too, the lacrosse team and its excesses served to victimize women.

Jacobs' piece appeared in the Apr. 12 edition of The Independent, a free, weekly newspaper with strong social and political appeal to the region’s “progressive community.”

The Independent survives on advertising revenue. Some of it comes from restaurants, bars advertising happy hours, book stores, and such.

But a lot of The Independent’s revenue comes from what Jacobs could tell you is a special niche market. The Independent pretty much has the market to itself because most other publications avoid it if they can.

I wish Jacobs was here to tell us what he calls the market. We’ll just have to do with a few examples. These ads are from the Mar. 29 Independent:

TRAVELING HOTTIES

Introducing five brand new co-ed hotties to your area for the next three weeks only. Check out our pics online. Offering one-of-a –kind two girl shows. In or Out. Call: XXXX (no contact information will be provided in this post)

XXXX (ad title is also an internet address)

For the best of exotic dance, massage and entertainment try our ladies. Also selectively hiring

There are a lot more ads with titles such as BIG, SEXY & READY and PARTY, PARTY, PARTY. There’s even one that claims it provides “schedules, reviews & profiles” of other ESCORT SITES.

The Indy, as Jacobs calls it, has pages of ads with photos inviting readers to TRY IT and contact LOCAL DATELINE which bills itself as CASUAL, INTIMATE, and JUST FUN.

Speaking of bills, the ads often remind readers to have a Visa or Amex ready.

If you’re in Durham or anywhere else in the Triangle you can pick up a copy of The Indy most anywhere. The Indy must have at least 5 distribution points at Duke, including one in the lobby of the Bryan Student Center. Duke undergrads are a major target group for most Indy advertisers.

The Indy’s very popular at Duke. The other day I must have seen about 10 copies of it on desks and tables at the Divinity School.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn the lacrosse players who hired the exotic dancers found their contact information in The Indy.

I’ll bet it wouldn’t surprise Jacobs, either.

Now a little advice for all of you. If you’re ever speaking before the Orange County Commissioners, for goodness sakes don’t slip up and call a group of women "ladies" or "girls."

You know how mad that makes Commissioner Barry Jacobs.

For Commissioner Jacobs everybody get up and shout, "Hip, hip, hypocrisy!"

I’m emailing Jacobs a link to this post. I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.

If you’d like to contact Jacobs his email is: barry.j@mindspring.com
----------
URL to full text of Jacobs' article: http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A30272

The Churchill Series - May 5, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

The other day I listened to a discussion, the outcome of which was this: the participants agreed Churchill wasn’t such a great man. He only seems that way, they said, because his ideas and actions are always being compared to people like Hitler and Mussolini. If he was compared to someone like – and here the discussants all agree on Gandhi – well, Churchill wouldn't look so great matched against Gandhi.

I didn’t say anything, but I thought to share a reaction with you here in the series.

So I went home and got out some notes I made a few years ago about Gandhi.

Let’s compare Churchill and Gandhi positions with regard to what were then, and are always, literally life and death matters: our response to violence and the kind of governance we accept for ourselves and others.

Churchill first.

It’s Oct. 29, 1941. Churchill's speaking to the students at his old school, Harrow:

“Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''

Vintage Churchill!

Now Gandhi.

On Apr. 9, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Four days later Gandhi urged Danes, Norwegians and others to adopt a passive, non-cooperative response to the Nazis, even if that meant mass slaughter. He told Europeans:

“ The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather then surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery.”

That wasn’t a one-day only response. On June 29, 1940, with the Battle of France lost and the Battle of Britain about to begin, Gandhi advised the British Viceroy that Britain should:

“…fight Nazism without arms…invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island. If these gentlemen choose to occupy you homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered.”

The Viceroy later described himself as “taken aback.”

(I’ll get the text citations for the Gandhi by Tuesday when I’ll be at a university library.)

The deaths of millions never softened the Nazis. If anything, slaughter seems to have energized them to even greater evil; something Churchill had predicted.

As long as people know some history and value their Western freedoms, Churchill will rank among the Immortals.

A blogger and mother offers good advice to young woman

The Raleigh News & Observer reported today that a Duke University undergrad woman believes she was raped. Here's part of The N&O's report:

The woman, who first met the man at the party, told police that she had been drinking since the afternoon and that, although she was not used to taking drugs, she got a strong dose of the marijuana smoke.
...
Because of her intoxication, the woman's memory is sporadic for the rest of the night, but she does remember the man walking her home, she told police. She told police she remembers being in bed later and hearing, then seeing the man as he left her dorm room. He left his contact information on her computer.

The next morning, she felt like something had happened, according to the search warrant.

Blogger Betsy Newmark, a mother of two daughters and a school teacher, responded to The N&O's story with some advice:

Ladies, don't get stinking drunk, inhale marijuana, hang out in a guy's room, and then spend the next day wondering if some guy did something to you.

I think Betsy's advice will upset some feminists at Duke and elsewhere but it sounds fine to me.

It's the just the sort of advice my wife and I hope out granddaughter hears again and again.

The Churchill Series - May 4, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Reading The Churchill Centre’s Action This Day report for June 10, 1944, we learn a bit about what happened when Churchill and other allied leaders visited the headquarters of the Allied ground commander, General Bernard Montgomery, four days after D-Day.

On June 10th, after Montgomery announced that "we have won the battle of the beaches" Churchill, Smuts, Brooke, General Marshall and Admiral King crossed the Channel where they were met by Montgomery. After a beach welcome they drove through "our limited but fertile domain in Normandy."

[Afterwards] they lunched on the lawn at Montgomery's headquarters, looking towards the front which was only three miles away.

Churchill enquired about the chances of German - armour breaking up their lunch.

Montgomery acknowledged that the chateau had indeed taken a pounding the night before.

The Prime Minister reminded him that "anything can be done once or for a short time, but custom, repetition, prolongation, is always to be avoided when possible in war."

Montgomery moved his headquarters two days later.

More McClatchy Duke headline bias – 5/4/06

Folks,

Now comes another example of McClatchy's Raleigh News & Observer's “news team” at work.

A few minutes ago, a journalist friend emailed:
_______________

John,

Along the line of what we were discussing, take a look at the N&O's Web site.

You'll see a headline: "Duke police investigate new rape case." (bold added)

Now, we don't know whether or not a rape occurred at the lacrosse party, but suddenly the N&O declares that Duke police are looking into a "new" rape case, this one in a dormitory.

The paper is playing too loose with language.

"New rape case" leads the reader to think, yes, a rape did occur at the lacrosse party (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding). This is truly shoddy journalism.

The headline should read, "Duke police investigate reported rape."(bold added)
_____________

My friend’s right in one way. The headline should read,

"Duke police investigate reported rape,"

as long as we assume all The N&O wanted to do was report news.

But what if The N&O wanted to smear the young students on Duke Men's lacrosse team?

In that case, the headline,

"Duke police investigate new rape case,"

works a lot better, doesn't it?

Let’s give McClatchy's N&O “news team” credit for knowing how to frame.

More N&O Duke lacrosse reporting bias

Raleigh News & Observer exec editor for news Melanie Sill continues to avoid serious discussion of the paper's much criticized Duke lacrosse reporting.

Sill's done what she often does: fall back on the old "Gee, we get it from both sides so we must be doing it right" argument instead of addressing specific, fact-based criticisms.

I left the comment you see at the end of this post at her blog.

I'll post again early this evening on a matter involving The N&O's failure to report important information concerning arrests and criminal proceedings against some lacrosse players.

Please come back.
___________________________________________________________

Comment from: John [Visitor] • http://www.johnincarolina.com

05/04/06 at 02:52

Melanie,

"We get it from both sides " is an old excuse.

Specific examples that people can examine against a standard are what matter.

Readers have provided you with dozens of examples of The N&O's biased reporting.

Here are two more examples from many I could cite.

Your Apr. 1 story, “Tension spreads in lacrosse case,” included this photo caption:

Mike Pressler, coach of the Duke men's lacrosse team, snakes his way through players during a practice session Friday. The team's games have been suspended until allegations of a sexual assault at a players' party are resolved.

Pressler SNAKES his way through...???

When was the last time The N&O used "snakes" to describe a person walking among others?

You've told us about the accuser’s academic record, including that she got an A in a "hard course."

What have you said about the lacrosse team's academic accomplishments?

I don't recall The N&O telling readers anything like the following:

In 2005, twenty seven members of the lacrosse team, more than half, made the Atlantic Coast Conference's Academic Honor Roll, more than any other ACC lacrosse team.

Between 2001 and 2005, 146 members of the lacrosse team made the Academic Honor Roll, twice as many as the next ACC lacrosse team.

The lacrosse team's academic performance generally is one of the best among all Duke athletic teams.

John
www.johnincarolina.com

The Churchill Series – May 3, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In February 1902, twenty-seven year old Winston Churchill took his seat for the first time in the House of Commons. He was extremely ambitious and eager to advance in Parliament, so what he did a few months later is really extraordinary. He challenged the British political and military establishments over what for Churchill were matters of principle. What’s even more extraordinary, he prevailed.

According to Richard Hough:

At Winston’s old college, Sandhurst, there had occurred a series of mysterious fires. Accusations of [arson] were made against three cadets, but no evidence of guilt was discovered.

When the fires continued, an order was issued by the War Office and read out to an assembly. Unless the guilty were found within forty-eight hours, all cadets of C Company (where the fires had broken out) would be rusticated and all their servants (mostly old soldiers) discharged unless they could prove they were elsewhere when the fires broke out. Among them were the three cadets who had already been found not guilty.

Churchill took up the cadets’ cause. In a letter to the editor of The Times of London he said the War Offices action’s violated “three cardinal principles of equity.”

His biographer Martin Gilbert continues the narrative:

These principles were “that suspicion in not evidence; that accused should be heard in their own defense; and that it is for the accuser to prove his charge, not for the defendant to prove his innocence.”

All twenty-nine cadets had been sent down from the college. None had been charged with any offence. “Nothing having the remotest semblance to a judicial enquiry has been held.”

Even poor parents had to pay for a term in which their sons were not allowed to be in college, and which would not count towards their time there. “All the cadets I have seen strenuously deny and complicity with the “offence,” [Churchill wrote].

Churchill’s letter was answered by the headmaster of Sherborne School, the Reverend Frederick Westcott. Soldiers had to learn the lessons of corporate punishment, he wrote. “The innocent, doubtless, suffer with the guilty; but then they always do. The world has been so arranged.”

“Has it indeed?” Churchill asked in his reply on July 8. No doubt Westcott had taken care “that the little world over which he presides in arranged on that admirable plan, but it is necessary to tell him that elsewhere the punishment of innocent people is regarded as a crime, or as a calamity to be prevented by unstinting exertion.”

So long as the “delinquencies of a schoolmaster” were within the law, Churchill added, “the House of Commons has no right to intervene, but when a Commander-in-Chief and a Secretary of State are encouraged to imitate him, it is time to take notice” ….

Churchill wanted to discuss the Sandhurst punishments in the Commons. But [Prime Minister] Balfour…refused to allow time for any such debate [so] Churchill [arranged to have the matter] raised in the Lords.

During the debate there, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, agreed that each individual case would be investigated and that no innocent cadet would lose a term of study. Commenting on this outcome, The Times praised Churchill’s efforts, calling him “an effective advocate.”

All but two of the cadets were reinstated as were the servants. The arsonist(s) were never identified. The commandant at Sandhurst was soon replaced because of the general state of disorder there.

The parallels to the Duke lacrosse case are striking. They enable us to make some very informed judgments about what Churchill would be saying and doing now if he lived in Durham. For one thing, I’m sure he wouldn’t have voted yesterday for DA Mike Nifong.

If in 1902 you had watched Churchill place his ambition second to his principles and challenge his country’s political and military establishments, during the 1930s you could have told a visitor listening to him in the Commons: “He’s done this sort of thing before.”
________________________________
In haste. Sources added this evening.

Duke lacrosse coach: A mob victim

A month ago Ruth Sheehan, news columnist for the McClatchy Company’s Raleigh News & Observer, helped lead a media mob demanding Duke University fire Men’s lacrosse coach Mike Pressler.

From Sheehan’s April 3 column:

Upholding Duke's standards, [senior vice president for public affairs] Burness said, was lacrosse coach Mike Pressler's responsibility.

So dump him.

Duke initially stood by Pressler as many staffers there, former players and their parents, opposing coaches, neighbors and others spoke out on his behalf.

But the mob continued to howl, egged on by some angry faculty who attacked the university for protecting, as English Department Professor Houston Baker put it, “a violent and irresponsible group [behind] timorous piety and sentimental legalism.”

Duke soon buckled and forced Pressler’s resignation.

Now, exactly one month to the day Sheehan demanded Duke “dump” Pressler, we read in The N&O of a Duke faculty committee’s just-released report on the lacrosse program. Here’s some of what The N&O reported:

The professors who conducted interviews and examined internal records found that Pressler took action to punish his players -- when he was informed about their misconduct.

Sometimes he made them run laps; in 2005, when the team made it to the national championship game, he suspended two players from post-season play.

But most of the time, Pressler was unaware of his players' troubles with the law or with the internal disciplinary system at Duke.

Except [for Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs ] Bryan and Pressler, the faculty report said, "no other administrator appears to have treated the lacrosse team's disciplinary record as a matter of serious concern."
…
Once Pressler learned of the disciplinary record, he asked Bryan to notify him of future infractions. But Pressler apparently was made aware of misconduct only sporadically; the last communication was in November 2005.

The report was welcomed by Pressler's defenders.

"The perception that he let his players run amok was ironic, because he's tough," said Kerstin Kimel, the Duke women's lacrosse coach. "His reputation among the other [Duke] coaches is he's a disciplinarian with his players, maybe to a fault sometimes."
…

Pressler is married and has three children. The Pressler’s don’t talk publicly about it but the family’s been through hell these past weeks.

I’d like to ask Sheehan and anyone else in the mob two questions:

1) What should Pressler and his wife tell their children when they ask why people demanded Duke fire their father?

2) Where should Pressler go to get his reputation back?

Folks,

You can read a copy of the faculty report here.

It’s lengthy (25 pages with footnotes), but well worth reading. It has a lot of information that's been widely available but the MSM hasn’t gotten around to reporting. Example:

In 2005, twenty seven members of the lacrosse team, more than half, made the Atlantic Coast Conference's Academic Honor Roll, more than any other ACC lacrosse team. 9

Between 2001 and 2005, 146 members of the lacrosse team made the Academic Honor Roll, twice as many as the next ACC lacrosse team. The lacrosse team's academic performance generally is one of the best among all Duke athletic teams

I’ll bet this is the first time you’ve read any of that. But the information’s been out there for a long time. Athletic teams are proud of that sort of accomplishment. They eagerly publicize it.

That we haven’t heard about the team’s academic accomplishments tells us a lot about MSM reporting of the Duke lacrosse story.

I’m sending links to this post to Sheehan and N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill.

If you care to contact either of them, their email addresses are:

rsheehan@newsobserver.com

melanie.sill@newsobserver.com

The May 2 Churchill Series post is done

I just put that May 2 post up.

Thanks for your patience.

John

The Churchill Series - May 2, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Folks,

Today I want to share some thoughts with those of you who’ve read the just completed six consecutive posts focusing on Churchill’s brother and only sibling, John (Jack) Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947).

If you missed any or all of the posts here are links to them: April 24, April 25, April 26, April 27, April 28, and May 1.

You know I set out to do a three post series. It ended up six: and I struggled to keep it at that.

That’s because there's to say about Jack and his relationship to Winston.

Jack Churchill was a substantial personality whose life is extremely interesting in its own right. Add to that the fact that he was one of Winston’s closest, if not closest, confidants from the time Winston was a boy until 1947 and what do you have?

Three posts? Six posts?

Jack Churchill deserves a multi-volume biography by biographer of the caliber of Martin Gilbert or David McCullough.

I’d planned to just mention Mrs. Everest in passing. What a mistake!

How did I think I could talk about the bond between the brothers and just mention in passing the woman who gave them both love and attention of the kind they would later each give to the other?

Goonie came along and had to be part of the brothers’ story. And from 1908 on, how do you leave Clementine out of anything important in Churchill’s life.

So the series certainly didn’t keep a “tight focus.”

With all that said, I want to ask you a few questions. I hope you’ll respond.

How did you like the series? What could I have done to better meet your interests?

What do you think of the idea of more short series focused a particular person or event in Churchill’s life?

Feel free to make other suggestions not prompted by these questions.

I’d like to hear from you.

John

TIME for a laugh

Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer posted about one of those "100 People Who" lists TIME magazine's always inflicting on us. He noted the A&E section of the list has a huge leftward tilt. Surprised?

Anyway, that got Brian's graphics guy going. He's put together a "TIME cover" that will have you LOL.

Here's a blowup of the cover.

Here's Brian's post.

Enjoy!

The Duke lacrosse case: Gender bias? Yes. Political bias too

Kathleen Parker’s latest column isn’t just another Duke lacrosse piece.

Take a look:

"We don't know all the facts about the alleged Duke lacrosse rape, but ..."

That's more or less how commentators have introduced their remarks on the case that has reduced the Durham, N.C., community to prayers, tears and recriminations.

Let me interpret the code for you: Men are bad.

Even though we don't know what happened, we're not going to let the absence of facts interfere with our indictment of a team, a coach, a school, but more to the point - of boys.

About the only thing to emerge with any clarity since a black exotic dancer claimed that three white lacrosse players raped her last month is our willingness to believe the worst about males. ...

Our willingness? It's only some of us who are willing to believe the worst about males.

Now let's move on:

[Believing the worst about males] is all the more rewarding if the males happen to be white, as well as athletes, and especially if they're perceived to be privileged. If there's one thing we can't bear in this country, it's spoiled white boys who think the world owes them a good time. ...

True unless those spoiled white boys happen to share our social ideology and politics.

Examples: Remember the Good Friday 1991 escapades of Sen. Ted Kennedy, his son, Patrick, and his nephew, Willie? First drinking into the wee hours at a strip joint; then taking two women back to the Kennedy’s Palm Beach compound.

The woman later made multiple accusations, including ones that led to a rape trial with Kennedy’s nephew as defendant.

The Kennedy’s hired dozens of lawyers and investigators, including some whose job it was to search out the women’s backgrounds and make information available to friendly media. NBC and the New York Times even published the name of the woman who made the rape charge despite Florida having a rape-shield law.

How much outrage did we hear then from the same people and news organizations now crying class, race, privilege and fairness?

When Sen. Kennedy recently pounded Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for his brief membership while an undergrad in an organization that barred women, we heard a lot about white males and privilege.

But when shortly thereafter The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, disclosed that “the liberal Lion” had been for more than 50 years a member of the exclusive eating and drinking Owl Club which bars women, we didn’t hear much about spoiled whites and privilege, did we?

Many people first ask “Who is it?” before they decide to attack white males, spoiled, athletic, or otherwise.

That may be nothing new but we shouldn’t forget it.

And we shouldn’t forget where most of the angry anti-male attitude in this country is housed: on the political, academic and media left. Hence, not so much outrage when a Kennedy, Clinton or Jackson is involved.

But white, male, Duke lacrosse players? That’s another matter. They sound Republican.

I agree with most everything else Parker says, especially her closer:

While we wait to hear more on the case, we might turn our harsh judgment inward and recognize that the anti-male groupthink that permitted a presumption of guilt in Durham is little different than the lynch-mob mentality that once channeled rage against blacks.

Obviously, no woman deserves to be raped for any reason, under any circumstances. But nor do men deserve to be presumed guilty just because they're men.

Parker's column is here.

Hat Tip: Mike Williams

The Churchill Series - May 1, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Reader’s Note: Previous posts dealing with John(Jack) Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947) and his relationship with his only brother and sibling, Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965), are here, here, here, here. and here.

Chartwell guest books for the 1920s and 30s reveal Jack Churchill, his wife Goonie, and their children were Winston and Clementine’s most frequent overnight guests. In 1929 Winston and his son Randolph, and Jack and his son John, toured Canada and the American West coast together, visiting among other places William Randolph Hearst’s castle home at San Simeon (Churchill used the occasion to arrange with Hearst to write a series of articles for his papers).

During the years between the wars Jack worked as a financier. He was a man “in the City”, a British expression that conveys much the same thing as “she works in Wall Street” conveys here.

It must have been extremely difficult for Jack to be Winston’s brother and not fall to saying at least a few indiscreet things or get drawn into deals where others are hoping to take advantage of your contacts. Or worst of all, to use those contacts fro your own gain. But Jack avoided all of that, while still serving as serving as confidant and sounding board for his powerful brother.

In 1940 Goonie’s health became a concern. She was subsequently diagnosed with cancer, and moved to the country, which was thought better for her health. Jack remained to work in London and come out on weekends. Goonie died in 1941.

Jack continued to work in the City. His house was bombed and thereafter he moved in with Winston and Clementine at 10 Downing Street and in the Annexe, the nearby bomb shelter Churchill and other government leaders and their principal aides used. He was often the last person Churchill spoke to at night.

In 1945. Jack suffered a heart attack. Thereafter his health deteriorated. He died on Feb 23, 1947, age 67 years. He was buried next to his parents in the Bladon Churchyard a mile from Blenheim Palace. Eighteen years later, his brother Winston was laid to rest beside him.

At the time of Jack’s death The Times of London noted he'd remained throughout his life “on the closest terms with his elder brother.”
____________________________________________
For background I've relied on Speaking for Themselves: The personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (Mary Soames, Editor), Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life and Richard Hough’s Winston and Clementine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills.

Motion for Duke lacrosse DA to step aside

What was your April like?

Durham DA Mike Nifong's spent his granting more than 50 media interviews, including some "big time" ones on national TV. He called Duke lacrosse players "hooligans," demanded DNA samples from every white player because he said the DNA results would establish who committed the rapes Nifong “knows” three white players committed against a black exotic dancer at a party that only some of the players attended.

When the DNA results came back negative, Nifong said that was no problem. The players who did it wore condoms. He also found time to deny he was trying the case in public and attended to his reelection campaign.

Mind you, that not all Nifong did durng April but let's move on.

Today, an attorney for Reade Seligmann, one of the two player's indicted in the case, asked a court to remove Nifong and his office from the case if Nifong doesn't do so himself.

The attorney's motion says Nifong has, among other things, used the case to aid his election campaign and "negatively affected [Seligmann's] rights to a fair trial and impartial jury."

William Teach at Pirate's Cove has a good summery of what happened today as well as some brief, on point commentary.

If you have time read the attorney's motion. It asserts as facts some things that have been washing over the old Durham rumor mill. Example: Some of the people at the party were not members of the lacrosse team.

The motion is free of bluster. It's easy to read. For each claim made facts, witnesses, etc are cited.

Here's a link to a very readable copy of the motion I found at The Raleigh N&O's online site. (pdf form)

I'll be interested to see what attorneys not connected with the case say about the motion.

If you read the motion, I'd love to know what you think of it.

Sorry for Blogger support difficulties

Folks,

I don't know if you'll get this post.

I've been having Blogger tech difficulties all day.

If you know Blogger, you know it doesn't give you much help.

I'm looking for another provider.

I've stayed with Blogger because it's hard to "migrate" archives from one support source to another. I've close to 1000 posts I'll need to take with me to another support source.

Any suggestions?

I'll gladly pay for better support and service to you than Blogger provides.

Blogger hasn't "launched" one of today's JinC posts.

It's "launched" another at Internet Explorer.

At AOL the same post is double posted and remains so despite my efforts to take down the second post.

At Mozilla I can't post at all. (Opps! Just checked Mozilla. Now it's double post there; and I can't take one down.)

So it goes.

Any advice will be appreciated.

I now some idea how the guy on the desert island putting the message in the bottle felt.

Tomorrow will be better I'm sure.

John

A USA Today Duke lacrosse report: Can you miss it's bias?

While researching media coverage of the Duke lacrosse story, I came across a March 29 USA Today story, “Rape allegations cast pall at Duke.”

Let’s look at USA Today's story which ran just five days after the media began reporting on the rape allegation and its fallout. I think even those of you with a low opinion of MSM will be shocked by the story’s blatant bias.

USA Today reporter Sal Ruibal’s story begins:

The flier being distributed outside Duke's student union Wednesday night looked like a wanted poster: 40 faces of young men, smiling smugly for the camera.

What was most disturbing to those gathered was the possibility several of the Duke men's lacrosse players whose photos were arranged in those neat rows may have committed criminal charges, including forcible rape and sodomy.

These men are wanted on the Duke campus. Their fellow students want them to come forward about what happened in a shabby off-campus house March 13. Police say the athletes have refused to cooperate with their investigation. …

Alvaro Jarrin, a Duke graduate student, wore a T-shirt imploring the silent players to speak up.

"It is important that we not let this go down easily," he said as hundreds of marchers began gathering on Duke's east campus. "There's a culture of rape at Duke, so we're hoping this will get them to speak up. This rape is a symptom of a larger problem at Duke." (bold added – JinC)

USA Today’s story continues with more of the same.

A photo of the poster accompanies the story. It’s caption:

A flier featuring the faces of members of the Duke lacrosse team peppered the Durham, N.C., campus as students rallied and pled for team members to come forward with information on the alleged March 13 rape.

USA Today’s photo is not large enough to let you see whether the players are smiling, to say nothing of whether they’re smiling “smugly” as USA Today reports.

But I live in Durham and am often at Duke. I’ve viewed what people here now call “the vigilante poster.”

Many, if not most, of the players are not “smiling smugly.” They’re not smiling at all. They look serious.

Reporting they’re “smiling smugly” is a USA Today fiction.

In contradiction to USA Today’s “These men are wanted on the Duke campus” reporting, most Duke students were appalled and outraged by the poster. They felt it was prejudicial to fellow students, many of whom are classmates and friends. They said the poster stigmatized as criminals people whove been convicted of no crime. They worried that distribution of the inflammatory poster would make a terrible situation worse, including more dangerous.

None of that was reported by USA Today or most MSM. To learn about it you had to talk to those students or read editorials, columns and letters in Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle.

Certainly there were and are Duke students like Alvaro Jarrin who USA Today quoted speaking authoritatively about “This rape.” Some faculty members talk that way too. But all those folks taken together are just a small, albeit loud, minority at Duke.

On Mar. 29 most Duke students were far more sensible and fair-minded than Jarrin. They just didn’t get any attention from USA Today and other MSM outfits. That’s because what they were saying didn’t fit with how most media “framed” the Duke lacrosse story.

But the “vigilante poster?” It fit within the "frame" quite nicely, thank you.

Duke lacrosse questions for The Raleigh N&O - 5-1-06

The McClatchy Company's Raleigh News & Observer's executive editor for news Melanie Sill tells readers:

Next Sunday's Q section, print and online, will explore people's responses to a couple of questions: "What do you think are the important issues in the Duke lacrosse case? How should the community talk about them?" This isn't a dissection of the evidence in the criminal case; instead, it aims to air thoughts on what people see beyond the charges themselves. We've invited some people to write longer pieces and are looking for additional community discussion and views.

Sill invites readers to submit comments (200 words or less )which The N&O will consider publishing.

I responded to Sill, asking her what The N&O's selected writers will cover. Below is my comment I left at her blog. (Hyperlinks, not possible at Sill's blog, are added here. Also, at Sill's blog, a sentence "I hope not" has been corrected here to read "I hope so." Yes, ouch! Sorry. I left a correction at Sill's blog.)
_________________________________________

Melanie,

Re: Those people you've "invited to write longer pieces" concerning "the Duke lacrosse case."

Will any of them discuss The N&O's Duke lacrosse coverage?

I hope not.

Many readers want to know why The N&O published "the vigilante poster."

And why The N&O ran news columnist Ruth Sheehan’s “We know you know” column attacking Duke students and lacrosse players who were only exercising their constitutional rights upon advice of counsel.

Other media quoted extensively legal scholars such as UNC Law School Professor Ken Broun defending the young people’s exercise of their constitutional rights. The N&O didn’t. Will readers learn why not?

The N&O has used as a news source and quoted Duke Professor Houston Baker, author of an open letter attacking the university and the lacrosse players. When Duke Provost Peter Lange responded to Baker’s letter with one of his own, The N&O reported Lange was responding to Baker’s “outspoken” letter.

In fact, at the outset of his letter, Lange called Baker’s letter a “form of prejudice.”

Will readers learn why The N&O decided to report “outspoken” instead “form of prejudice?”

The N&O failed to report that Baker, in a variant of Sheehan’s attack, denounced Duke for “shelter(ing)” the lacrosse players “under the protection of pious sentiments (and) sentimental legalism.”

Will any of the writers tell us what Baker means by “pious sentiments” and “sentimental legalism.” Are they anything like due process and presumption of innocence?

Will any of the writers tell N&O readers Duke has made copies of Baker and Lange’s letter’s available at it news site?

On April 5, a particularly tense day in the Duke lacrosse story, NCCU Chancellor James Ammons released a calm, wise public statement to “the NCCU family.” One area daily reprinted it in full. The N&O ignored it entirely.

I hope one of the “longer pieces” explains why.

Concerning your Sunday Apr 2 front page, above the fold, almost 2000 word lead story, “Incident imperils Duke's image.”

All the Duke students and alums quoted in the story were critical of Duke. Why was that?

The N&O could easily have found students and alums who would have spoken well of a university they know is not perfect but which they respect and are proud to be part of?

There are literally many thousands of such people on Duke’s campuses and in the community.

One of your writers should explain why you didn’t quote even one of them.


I could say more, Melanie, but the hour is late.

I’ll close by repeating something I posted about three weeks ago on another of your blog threads: The N&O’s Duke lacrosse coverage has been biased and inflammatory. It has helped make a terrible situation worse, including more dangerous.

Why the repeat?

Because in the three weeks since, The N&O coverage has remained the same.

That’s disgraceful. I hope and pray it doesn’t also prove to be tragic.

John
www.johnincarolina.com

Steyn skewers Kerry; gives him history lesson, too

Mark Steyn today:

John Kerry announced this week's John Kerry Iraq Policy of the Week the other day: "Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to deal with these intransigent issues and at last put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military."

With a sulky pout perhaps? With hands on hips and a full flip of the hair?

Did he get that from Churchill? "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, at least until May 15, when I have a windsurfing engagement off Nantucket."

Actually, no. He got it from Thomas Jefferson. "This is not the first time in American history when patriotism has been distorted to deflect criticism and mislead the nation," warned Sen. Kerry, placing his courage in the broader historical context. "No wonder Thomas Jefferson himself said: 'Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.' "

Close enough. According to the Jefferson Library: "There are a number of quotes that we do not find in Thomas Jefferson's correspondence or other writings; in such cases, Jefferson should not be cited as the source. Among the most common of these spurious Jefferson quotes are: 'Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.' "

Poor stumbling Senator Kerry.

To paraphrase the old folk song, “When will he ever learn, when will he ever learn?’

How can Kerry commit so many gaffes and remain so arrogant?

Anyway, Steyn’s always worth reading. Today’s column is here.

Business Week knocks on Newmark's Door

JinC regulars know about Newmark's Door, NC State University Economics Professor Craig Newmark's blog where there are lots of short, informative and insightful posts spiced with a wit.

Well now Business Week Online has published his undergraduate recommended reading list.

There's one book on it, Price Theory and Applications, Sixth Ed. by Steven Landsburg, that sounds just a little too heavy for me.

On the other hand, there's

Getting Rich in America: Eight Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life by Dwight R. Lee and Richard B. McKenzie.

As the title indicates, this book explains how an average person can get "rich." There are no gimmicks or tricks, just sound advice firmly grounded in empirical and theoretical economics. The authors are leading academic economists.

Thanks, Craig. That's my kind of book.

Take a look at the list, folks, and at Newmark's Door.

Environmental groups impact on energy supplies

Has America become:

"a country of a million Walter Mittys driving 75 mph in their gas-guzzling Bushwhack-Safari sport-utility roadsters with a moose head on the hood, a country whose crude oil production has dropped 32 percent in the last 25 years but which will not drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for fear of disturbing the mating habits of caribou.?"

Charles Krauthammer thought so when he wrote the above 10 years ago.

Today Krauthammer says:

I wrote that during the '96 witch hunt for price gougers. Nothing has changed. Except that since then, U.S. crude oil production has dropped an additional 12.3 percent.

The drop in domestic crude oil production is shocking. I'll say a few things about it in a moment.

But first this: One of President Bush's biggest mistakes has been his failure to commit the government to a vigorous energy conservation program, with an active role for every America.

We had such a program in WW II. As President Roosevelt knew, the conservation program, besides conserving vital war resources, gave citizens one more way to show support for the war. It helped sustain morale and support for the President as Commander-in-Chief.

Regarding the production drop:

Environmental groups are primarily responsible for it.

For decades they've successfully opposed every effort to lower our foreign energy dependence and increase domestic production. Domestic exploration? They've opposed it. Build new, more energy efficient refineries? Opposed. Nuclear power plants? Opposed. And on and on it goes.

The environmental groups opposition to expansion of domestic energy supplies has created a situation where it's now much easier and cheaper for energy companies to buy oil overseas than to find and develop news energy sources here.

But when groups such as Greenpeace and The Sierra Club fund-raise, they don't mention that. Instead they tell people to "Think Green" and help make the world a better place for Bambi.

That's enough to get millions of credulous people reaching for their credit cards.

I wish MSM reporters, pundits and editorialist would say more about environmental groups’ opposition to sensible energy policies.

Then maybe fewer people would find themselves saying, "I've got Amex # 18 .....

You can read Krauthammer's column here.

Speaking up for America's defenders

Early Wednesday morning ROTC buildings on the campuses of North Carolin State University in Raleigh and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were vandalized. The Raleigh News & Observer reported:

Vandals staged attacks early Wednesday on the buildings used by the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, echoing similar assaults on three Triangle recruiting stations last month.

As before, vandals sprayed anti-war slogans and profanity, splashed red paint and claimed responsibility with a mass e-mail message to area media outlets....

Today, N&O columnist Dennis Rogers described the vandals, and then want on and talked about the military. Here's part of what he said about the vandals:

They're politically inspired vandals who skulk through the night to spread their spoor because they're neither brave nor committed enough to stand and deliver in the light of day.

George Orwell, whose grim novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" cast doubt on the survival of free societies, saw such weasels for what they are: moral and intellectual cowards who offer stirring words about peace but shy away from defending it themselves. Instead, they denigrate those who do.

In an essay called "Notes on Nationalism" written 51 years ago, Orwell said of their type: "Those who abjure violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

While I'm on a literary tack, let me also offer this well-aimed dart from Rudyard Kipling: "Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep."

Rogers has it right. We know what kind of Chapel Hill and Raleigh we'd all have if the American military wasn't around.

Rogers closes with this:

The guest of honor at a recent party I attended was a 19-year-old home from boot camp. I have watched Evan Gearino grow from a good kid to an even better man who looks you in the eye and is ready to defend his country. He is neither poor nor a person of color. He is a proud United States Marine.

We live in dangerous and imperfect times.

Someday, Evan may be called on to commit the violence necessary for us to sleep soundly at night. The childish marauders who insult people like him are not worthy to wipe the dirt from his boots.

Rogers says a lot more. You can read it all here.

And then maybe send the column link on to a friend.

We need to keep speaking up for our military.

We need to honor and thank them and their families.

Heaven forbid we ever come to the day when the vandals have gotten their way.

Hat Tip: Mike Williams

The Duke lacrosse DA's Humpty Dumpty world

Regarding attendance at the Duke lacrosse party the night of Mar. 13/14:

News14Charlotte.com reports:

A noise violation and an alcohol possession violation against David Evans, a team captain, is being reinstated, (Durham DA Mike) Nifong said, because the party was held at the house where Evans lived.

Nifong said he will reinstate the charges against players with active deferred prosecution deals if they can't prove they weren't at the party. …

WRAL.com reports:

(The second dancer, Kim) Roberts, 31, was arrested on March 22 -- eight days after the party -- on a probation violation from a 2001 conviction for embezzling $25,000 from a photofinishing company in Durham where she was a payroll specialist, according to documents obtained by the AP.

On Monday, the same day a grand jury indicted lacrosse players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, a judge agreed to a change so that Roberts would no longer have to pay a 15 percent fee to a bonding agent.

District Attorney Mike Nifong signed a document saying he would not oppose the change.

Got that?

Nifong has no problem with Roberts attending the party, even being one of its principal professional performers.

Afterwards he approves a reduction in her bail terms.

But Nifong thinks its pretty bad stuff for certain lacrosse players to attend the same party.

So bad that he's revoking agreements his office made with them.

What’s more, Nifong’s going to revoke agreements his office made with some lacrosse players who say they weren’t even at the party but just can’t prove it.

If what Nifong's doing bothers you, try chanting to yourself, “Guilty until proven innocent.” That's the mantra of a lot of his Durham supporters.

But if it doesn’t work for you, remember what Humpty Dumpty told Alice: “A word can mean whatever I want it to mean.”

In DA Nifong's world, being at a party can mean whatever he wants it to mean, including the same as not being at the party.

If you like DA Nifong’s Alice in Wonderland brand of justice, you can vote for him on May 2.

The Churchill Series – Apr. 28, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Reader’s Note: Previous posts dealing with John(Jack) Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947) and his relationship with his only brother and sibling, Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965), are here, here, here, and here.

On Aug. 8, 1908, Jack Churchill married Lady Gwendeline Bertie, whom Winston knew and liked. Later that day, Winston wrote to Clementine Hozier, to whom he would propose in a few days and marry a month later:

I have just come back from throwing an old slipper into Jack’s departing motor-car. It was a very pretty wedding. No swarms of London fly-catchers. No one came who did not really care & the only spectators were tenants & countryfolk. Only children for bridesmaids & Yeomanry with crossed swords for pomp.

The bride looked lovely & her father & mother were sad indeed to lose her. But the triumphant Jack bore her off amid showers of rice & pursuing cheers – let us pray – to happiness & honour.

Jack and Goonie (as she was always called) were, much like Winston and Clementine: intelligent, generous, witty and deeply in love.

Clementine and Goonie quickly became fast friends. They discussed details of their children’s development and their husbands’ careers. They shared opinions concerning art, music, social issues, and affairs of state. In later years they traveled together to such places as Venice, Florence, Rome, Paris and the South of France.

Besides delighting in each others company, the two couples often cared for each others children.

For a time during WW I while Winston served on the Western front and Jack served in the Eastern Mediterranean and later on the Western front, Clementine and her children moved in with Goonie and her three children.

Right up until Goonie’s illness and death in 1941, Winston and Clementine counted on Jack and Goonie (nicknamed “the Jagoons”) for generous love that included a quality rare at any time, and vital to a statesman: discretion.

The Jagoons never let them down. Candid when speaking to Winston and Clementine, they were expert at protecting Winston and Clementine’s private lives and unguarded comments.

In Monday’s post, I’ll conclude this series with a sketch of Jack’s later years and some thoughts on his achievements, including his contributions to Winston and Clementine’s lives.
___________________________________________

Winston’s letter describing Jack and Goonie’s wedding can be found on pgs. 12-13 of Speaking for Themselves: The personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (Mary Soames, Editor). I relied on that work for other material in this post. I also made use of Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life and Richard Hough’s Winston and Clementine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills.

A physician/social critic is worried about England

Physician and social critic Theodore Dalrymple returned to his native England recently. He found there:

a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously.

Dalrymple offers many examples to illustrate his point.

Here's an example of a serious matter taken lightly:

(A) 42-year-old barrister, Peter Wareing, (was) attacked in the street while walking home from a barbecue with two friends, a man and a woman. They passed a group of seven teenagers who had been drinking heavily, one of whom, a girl, complained that the barrister and his friends were “staring” at them. Nowadays, English youth of aggressive disposition and porcelain-fragile ego regard such alleged staring as a justified casus belli.

The girl attacked the woman in the other party. When Wareing and his male friend tried to separate them, two of the youths, aged 18 and 16, in turn attacked them. They hit the barrister’s friend into some bushes, injuring him slightly, and then knocked the barrister to the ground, knocking him down a second time after he had struggled to his feet.

This second time, his head hit the ground, injuring his brain severely. He was unconscious and on life support for two months afterward. At first, his face was so disfigured that his three children were not allowed to see him.
The doctors told his wife, a nurse, that he was unlikely to survive, and she prepared the children for their father’s death. …

Nevertheless, (Wareing) made an unexpected, though partial, recovery. His memory remains impaired, as does his speech; he may never be able to resume his legal career fully. It is possible that his income will be much lower for the rest of his life than it would otherwise have been, to the great disadvantage of his wife and children.

One of the two assailants, Daniel Hayward, demonstrated that he had learned nothing—at least, nothing of any comfort to the public—after he had ruined the barrister’s life. While awaiting trial on bail, he attacked the landlord of a pub and punched him in the face, for which he received a sentence of 21 days in prison.

Dalrymple reports that when sentencing the violent criminals, the judge spoke stern words.

On learning that, you many be thinking: “In America, “stern words” from a judge are often followed by a soft sentence. Is it the same in England?”

It was in this case:

Both received sentences of 18 months, with an automatic nine-month remission, more or less as of right.

In other words, they would serve nine months in prison for having destroyed the health and career of a completely innocent man, caused his wife untold suffering, and deprived three young children of a normal father.

One of the perpetrators, too, had shown a complete lack of remorse for what he had done and an inclination to repeat it.

It’s all terrible, isn’t it?

But American’s shouldn’t be surprised. Such things and much worse happen every day on our streets and in our courtrooms.

Here's an example Dalrymple provides of something trivial in England that authorities there took very, very seriously:

The newspapers reported the case of an Oxford student who, slightly drunk after celebrating the end of his exams, approached a mounted policeman. “Excuse me,” said the young man to the policeman, “do you realize your horse is gay?”

This was not a very witty remark, but it was hardly filled with deep malice either. It was, perhaps, a manifestation of the youthful silliness of which most of us have been guilty in our time….

The policeman did not think the student’s remark was innocent, however.

He called two squad cars to his aid, and, in a city in which it is notoriously difficult to interest the police in so trivial a matter as robbery or burglary, they arrived almost at once.

Apparently, the mounted policeman thought—if thought is quite the word I seek—that the young man’s remark was likely to “cause harassment, alarm or distress.” He was arrested and charged under the Public Order Act for having made a “homophobic remark.”
The young man spent a night in jail.

Brought before the magistrates the following day, he was fined $140, which he refused to pay.

The police then sent the case to the equivalent of the district attorney, who brought the student before the courts again but had to admit that there was not enough evidence to prove that his conduct had been disorderly.

The degree to which political correctness has addled British consciousness, like a computer virus, and destroyed all our traditional attachment to liberty, is illustrated by the words of one of the student’s friends who witnessed the incident. “[His] comments were . . . in jest,” he said. “It was very clear that they were not homophobic.” (bold added - JinC)

In other words, the friend accepted the premise that certain remarks, well short of incitement to commit violence or any actual crime—words that merely expressed an unpopular or intolerant point of view—would have constituted reasonable grounds for arrest.

I can't help but wonder what would've been the reaction in England or here if Mr. Hayward was gay and said his attackers called him "gay" just before attacking him.

"HATE CRIME" headlines? Mass protest vigils? A statement from the Prime Minister saying such "hate" has no place in Britain?

And the sentence? Nine months? That would have been OK?

The PC crowd is mostly interested in special treatment for it selected favorites.

You want a safe society with equal justice for all? You don't believe there should be selective outrage and punishment when a heinous crime is committed?

If you do, get ready: The PC crowd is going to call you a "conservative."

Dalrymple's article is in City Journal. It's lengthy but well worth your time.

Hat Tip: Newmark's Door

The Churchill Series – Apr. 27, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Reader’s Note: Previous posts dealing with John (Jack) Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947) and his relationship with his only brother and sibling, Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965), are here, here and here.

On January 28, 1900, Jack Churchill arrived in Durban, South Africa, aboard a hospital ship, Maine, which his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, had helped raise funds to equip. Recently commissioned in the Territorials, Jack had volunteered to serve in the Boer War.

Within a week of his arrival Jack observed his twentieth birthday and was serving alongside his brother Winston, five years his senior and, by then, an experienced combat officer who’d seen action along what is now the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in Sudan, and South Africa.

The brothers’ first combat action together occurred on Feb. 12 when they were part of a mounted scouting patrol which encountered a much larger Boer force. The British patrol retreated under fire and appeared to have ridden clear of the Boers. Winston tells us what happened next:

I looked back over my shoulder from time to time at Hussar Hill or surveyed the large brown masses of our rearmost squadrons riding so placidly home across the rolling veldt. I remarked to my companion, “We are still much too near those fellows.”

The words were hardly out of my mouth when a shot rang out, followed by the rattle of magazine fire from two or three hundred Mauser rifles. A hail of bullets whistled among our squadrons, emptying a few saddles and bringing down a few horses.

Instinctively our whole cavalcade spread out into open order and scampered over the crest now nearly two hundreds yards away. Here we leapt off our horses, which were hurried into cover, threw ourselves on the grass and returned the fire. …

Jack was lying by my side. All of a sudden he jumped and wriggled back a yard or two from the line. He had been shot in the calf, in this his very first skirmish. …

I helped him from the firing-line and saw (that he received medical attention).

After treatment at a field hospital, Jack was evacuated to the Maine to complete his recovery. His mother had come out with the hospital ship and Winston soon joined them on board for a period of some days.

Jack later returned to the fighting. He was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Queen’s Medal with five clasps.

For some years before WW I , Jack and Winston served together in the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, at the time a reserve unit whose members pursued civilian careers while training periodically.

Jack was on active duty throughout WWI. He served first near Dunkirk where the British fought to stop the German’s initial advance along the channel coast. Afterwards he served on the Western front, later at Gallipoli and, finally, back again on the Western front after British forces were withdrawn from Gallipoli.

As in the Boer War, Jack served with distinction. He was mentioned in dispatches; and in 1918 was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

Most historians say the quality Churchill most admired in a man was physical bravery. Jack, he knew, was such a man.

In tomorrow’s post the brothers marry within a month of each other; their wives become close friends; and the two couples move through life sharing good times and bad until death parts them.
________________________________
For this post I’ve drawn from Speaking for Themselves: The personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (Mary Soames, Editor), Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life, Richard Hough’s Winston and Clementine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills,and John Keegan’s Winston Churchill.

Still no answer to my Joe Wilson question

You remember former Ambassador Joe Wilson, don't you? Took a trip to Niger. Posed for Vanity Fair. Grants more media interviews than Chuck Schumer and Cindy Sheehan combined.

Back on July 18, 2005, I asked a question concerning Wilson in the post below. Take a look and see if you can answer it.
___________________________________________

Some Novak reporting goes unchallenged

At latimes.com there's a story on the Wilson/Plame tale that's a classic hit piece. Primary targets: Rove and Libby. Objective: Hurt Bush.

But the Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallstein story does provide a surely unintended laugh in this sentence:

(Wilson) said a friend who saw Novak on the street reported that Novak told him, "Wilson is an asshole and his wife works for the CIA."

When Wilson pauses for breath, do you think he'll notice no one's challenging either of Novak's claims?

The Churchill Series – Apr. 26, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Reader’s Note: Previous posts dealing with John Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947) and his relationship with his only brother and sibling, Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965), are here and here.

Neglected by their parents, Winston and Jack received the care and love their parents owed them from their nanny, Mrs. Ann Everest, whom the Churchills first employed when Winston was born. The boys reciprocated Everest’s love.

That they would each love Everest is understandable. What’s extraordinary is that they developed in childhood feelings for each other of deep affection, admiration, concern, and devotion that would last their lifetimes.

There were so many factors that could have helped lead the brothers to an envious rivalry. Jack displaced Winston as the only object of Everest’s love and attention. Family and friends often let the boys know Jack was “good,” “really a dear,” while Winnie was “troublesome” and “a worry.” When Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, spoke or wrote to Winston, he often held Jack up as an example of what Winston should be, usually using harsh, even brutal, language.

An act of Winston’s at the time of Mrs. Everest death on July 3, 1893 reveals his concern for Jack, then a thirteen year old school boy at Harrow.

When Churchill heard Everest was ill, he rushed to her bedside in London. Realizing her condition was serious, he arranged at his expense for a noted physician to attend her and engaged a nurse. But Everest died within a day of his arrival.

Common practice at the time called for Churchill to send Jack news of Everest’s death via telegram. There was also the matter of Churchill having interrupted his military training to go to Everest. He was falling behind each day he was away. He needed to return to his post.

Nevertheless, at a time of great personal sorrow, Churchill was mindful of Jack’s feelings. So he took the train to Harrow and spared Jack the shock of learning the news from a telegram. In doing so, Churchill was also making sure there would be someone at Harrow who understood and shared Jack’s grief.

At the time of Everest’s death Churchill was 18.

In tomorrow’s post, Churchill leaves for South Africa to report and fight in the Boer War. Jack joins him there. The brothers literally fight side by side and narrowly escape death, although Jack is wounded.
________________________________
For this post I’ve drawn from Speaking for Themselves: The personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (Mary Soames, Editor), Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life, Richard Hough’s Winston and Clementine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills, and John Keegan’s Winston Churchill.

"Big brothers" bring down liberal Air America

From day one, liberal talk radio’s Air America has struggled with low ratings, financial scandal and the “Where’s mine?” demands of its most highly touted show host, former funnyman Al Franken.

Now Drudge reports:

"'AIR AMERICA' IN AUDIENCE PLUNGE NYC"

[...]the just released radio Winter Book [Jan-Mar 2006] from ARBITRON shows AIR AMERICA in New York City losing more than a third of its audience -- in the past year!

Among all listeners 12+, it was a race to the bottom for AIR AMERICA and WLIB as mid-days went from a 1.6 share during winter 2005 to a 1.0 share winter 2006. …

A network source says the radio ratings released today do not reflect the overall growth of the broadcast.

"The demos are better, and listeners trust AIR AMERICA to give them the real truth on issues and the Bush presidency," says the insider.

Listeners trust Air America?

He's not kidding?

Well, than tell those trusting AA listeners I’m a five-time Olympic gold medal winner. For an autographed photo, they need only send in $19.95

Now if you're serious about following the AA story, Brian Maloney is the "go to guy" at Radio Equalizer.

A few thoughts:

Besides its own boorishness, mendacity and incompetence, two “big brother” factors have helped bring down what many now call the Franken Fluff Network:

1) The huge, successful, well-endowed and passionately liberal National Public Radio has sucked up most of the liberal listeners who might otherwise have tuned in to AA.

2) Liberals see no reason to shell out their own money to support another liberal talk radio network when the government already subsidizes NPR through tax exempt foundation grants, tax exempt contributions, network station locations on tax exempt properties such as college campuses, and, of course, direct government subsidies using money taken from American's who work.

For the latest, stay tuned to Radio Equalizer.

Join the CIA and leak secrets to America's enemies

From a WSJ editorial today, Our Rotten IntelligenCIA:

Fired CIA officer Mary O. McCarthy went on offense Monday, denying through her lawyer that she has done anything wrong.

But the agency is standing by its claim that she was dismissed last week because she "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence." It has been reported that one of her media contacts was Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the so-called "secret" prisons that the CIA allegedly used to house top level al Qaeda detainees in Eastern Europe.

We're as curious as anyone to see how Ms. McCarthy's case unfolds. But this would appear to be only the latest example of the unseemly symbiosis between elements of the press corps and a cabal of partisan bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere in the "intelligence community" who have been trying to undermine the Bush Presidency.(bold added - JinC)

The existence of this intelligence insurgency first came to light in a major way with former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote a New York Times op-ed in 2003 questioning the veracity of President Bush's "16 words" about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa.

Someone close to the White House had the audacity to point out that Mr. Wilson was an anti-Bush partisan whose only claim to authority on the matter was the result of wifely nepotism. Mr. Wilson has since been thoroughly discredited, including in a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. But former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby is still being prosecuted as the result of a media-instigated investigation into the "leak" of Valerie Plame's not-so-secret CIA identity. ...

The case of Ms. McCarthy appears to be as egregious as it gets as a matter of partisan politics. She played a prominent role in the Clinton national security apparatus and public records show she gave $2,000 to John Kerry's Presidential campaign and even more to the Democratic Party. Such is her right. But rather than salute and help implement policy after her candidate lost, she apparently sought to damage the Bush Administration by canoodling with the press.

And what will that get her?

So far she's getting strong support from the "bash-Bush and never mind the consequences for America" crowd.

If you don't know that you haven't been listening to people like Denial Schorr at NPR or reading your favorite liberal MSM newspaper.

The WSJ continues:

There is little doubt that the Washington Post story on alleged prisons in Europe has done enormous damage--at a minimum, to our ability to secure future cooperation in the war on terror from countries that don't want their assistance to be exposed.

Likewise, the New York Times wiretapping exposé may have ruined one of our most effective anti-al Qaeda surveillance programs. Ms. McCarthy denies being the source of these stories. But somebody inside the intelligence community was.

Leaving partisanship aside, this ought to be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about democratic government. ...

CIA Director Porter Goss is now facing press criticism for trying to impose some discipline on his agency. But he not only has every right to try to root out insubordination, he has a duty to do so because it undermines the agency's ability to focus on the real enemy.

The serious and disturbing question is whether the rot is so deep that it is unfixable, and we ought to start all over and create a new intelligence agency.

The press is also inventing a preposterous double standard that is supposed to help us all distinguish between bad leaks (the Plame name) and virtuous leaks (whatever Ms. McCarthy might have done). Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie has put himself on record as saying Ms. McCarthy should not "come to harm" for helping citizens hold their government accountable.

Of the Plame affair, by contrast, the Post's editorial page said her exposure may have been an "egregious abuse of the public trust."

Yes, and Downie also told us he couldn't publish the Danish cartoons. That was a matter of being "sensitive to people's feelings."

Message to Downie: Lot's of American's are sensitive about protecting their country from harm.

There's much more to the editorial, all of it worth reading.

Hat Tip: Mike Williams

The Churchill Series – Apr. 25, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

John Strange Spencer Churchill, Winston’s only brother and sibling, was born Feb. 4, 1880, in Dublin, Ireland, where the boys’ father, Lord Randolph, was serving as Vice-Regent.

Sixty-five years later, Churchill recalled the day: “I remember my father coming into my bedroom at Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin and telling me (aged 5), ‘You have a little brother.’” Shortly thereafter, the family returned to England.

The brothers’ parents were indifferent to their emotional needs and often away, even at Christmas. Or, if they were at home, they often arranged for the boys to stay elsewhere, lest they distract the Churchills from their political and social pursuits.

But Winston and Jack were not totally denied the kind of care and attention parents owe their children. They received it from a servant: their nanny, Ann Elizabeth Everest.

“My nurse was my confidante, Churchill later wrote. “Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants. It was to her I poured out my many troubles.”

Everest had been employed when Winston was a baby. As a toddler he began calling her “Woom,” and would continue doing so throughout his life.

With Jack’s birth Woom was no longer just “Winnie’s nanny;” she became “the boys’ nanny.” Everest gave Jack the same deep affection and care she gave Winston.

Jack’s birth and Woom’s care, really love, for Jack confronted Churchill with the first great crisis of his life.

A five year old can be very angry and resentful when a sib arrives. Often, those emotions are directed savagely at parents, cherished caregivers and/or the sib. They can last a person’s whole life.

But a five year old can also take on a “big brother, big sister” role, “helping” parents or caregivers nurture the new sib.

We know how Winston resolved his crisis. Whatever anger or resentment he may have felt toward his parents, “Woom” and Jack, must have been slight and well-repressed. Historians and documents I’ve read note no change in Winston’s feelings or behavior toward “Woom” following Jack’s birth. What we know of the brothers’ relationship in their early years suggests it was then as it was during their adult years: warm, affectionate and caring; in a word: loving.

A five year old who resolves a great crisis in the way Churchill did has taken a long stride toward confident, caring adulthood. He’s beginning to learn that what he holds most dear may be threatened but that he has within himself the resources to master such threats and preserve what’s most dear.

The old expression comes to mind: “The child is father to the man.”
_____________________________________________
Churchill's recollection of his father telling him of Jack's birth is found in Martin Gilbert's Churchill: A Life (p. 2). This post draws on that work, John Keegan's Winston Churchill, and Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (Mary Soames, Editor) for background.

The discussion regarding Jack’s birth as a crisis and Winston's resolution of it is my responsibility.

Bush threatens another veto

Reuters reports:

President George W. Bush threatened on Tuesday to veto a bill to fund the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina rebuilding if its cost exceeds $92.2 billion, as he weighed in on a heated Senate debate over the bill's rising price tag.

The veto threat, announced in a White House statement on the $106.5 billion emergency spending measure, was aimed at placating conservatives in Bush's Republican Party who are irate over extra items added that they deem as "special-interest" spending.

Bush has not vetoed a bill in his more than five years in office. ...

No, Bush hasn’t, despite often threatening to veto bills which didn’t meet certain criteria.

But whenever a bill he's threatened to veto didn't meet his criteria and came to his desk, Bush has backed off and signed it.

You know what happens to parents, teachers, and anyone else in authority who keeps saying, “If you try that, I won’t stand for it,” and then stands for it.

Parents, teachers, Presidents: it’s all the same. We lose respect for them for threatening and then not following through.

Let’s watch what Bush does on this bill.

As reported by Reuters in the same story, Bush has made clear his veto criteria:

The overall spending in the Senate bill is about $14.5 billion more than Bush requested and which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

"The administration is seriously concerned with the overall funding level and the numerous unrequested items included in the Senate bill that are unrelated to the war or emergency hurricane relief needs," said a draft of the White House statement, which was to be sent to lawmakers.

"If the president is ultimately presented a bill that provides more than $92.2 billion, exclusive of funding for the president's plan to address pandemic influenza, he will veto the bill," the White House said.

We’ll see what happens.

My thoughts:

If the bill calls for anything above $92.s billion, Bush should veto it, with no ands, ifs or buts about it.

If he doesn’t, the number of the Americans answering “Yes” when asked, “Do you believe what President Bush says,” will plummet further.

That will be bad for him, us and the rest of the civilized world.

Let's call this bill the "Veto or Else Bill (VEB)”

We’ll follow it to veto or signing.

Fingers crossed!

Duke lacrosse bathroom questions

(Welcome visitors from Betsy's Page.)

The alleged victim says three men took her into the bathroom where thy brutally raped and choked her. She says she tried hard to fight them off.

Questions:

Have you and someone else ever helped a cooperative elderly or very ill person into a bathroom to shower?

Didn’t you have to be extremely careful and move very slowly lest you accidentally injure the person or yourselves by hitting one of the hard, angular, and large objects found within a bathroom, particularly a smallish one?

In order to avoid serious injury to any of you, didn’t you carefully plan and coordinate with the person and your helper every move you all made within the bathroom?

Nonetheless, all the while you knew the smallest accidental slip or bump could result in injury, didn’t you?

Did you think about getting a third person to help?

Did you reject that idea because a third person would’ve made things too crowded and harder for everyone to maneuver safely around the shower/tub, toilet, sink, medicine cabinet and towel rack?

Have you ever been asked to help a person who would resist a shower, say an Alzheimers patient with paranoid ideation?

Did you try to help; or did you reject the idea as simply too dangerous to the person and everyone else involved?

Did you think instead of a bedroom where you could give the person a sponge bath?

That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?

The papers report the house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd. has three bedrooms.

What would we do without government regulations?

In Army Leaders of World War II, James B. Sweeney mentions the U. S. Army Air Service's first set of Flying Regulations, which the Service issued at the time of WW I.

Sweeney lists some of the regulations. My favorites:

Don't take the machine into the air unless you are satisfied it will fly.

If the engine stops, land as soon as you can.

Those regulations were good advice for sure, but also something like telling the spy not to use his cyanide capsule unless he really has to.

The Churchill Series - Apr. 24, 2006

(One of a series of daily posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill)

Did you know Churchill had a brother?

People are often surprised to learn that. Here, for example, is an inquiry typical of many The Churchill Centre receives each year :

While watching “Young Churchill” the other day, I heard a reference to his brother. I have since learned he had a younger brother named Jack. I am highly surprised I have never heard about him before. Could you tell me something about him?

The Centre replied with a “bare bones” sketch, some of which follows :

John Strange Spencer Churchill, 1880-1947, known as Jack, a stockbroker.

Wounded in action in the Boer War, 1899.

Served at Dunkirk, 1914; on Sir John French's staff 1914-15; on Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton's staff at Gallipoli, 1915; on General Birdwood's staff 1916-18.

Married Lady Gwendeline Bertie (1884-1941), daughter of the 7th Earl of Abingdon, in 1908.

Jack and Winston were very close; their descendants still are.

In the next two posts, I’ll put some “flesh” on those “bones.”

Jack was a person of amiable temperament, generous, brave, and possessed of what we used to call “a fine character.” He and Churchill always got along, and after their marriages (both in 1908), the brothers’ wives became best friends.

It followed than that each couple was the other’s “best friend.” They shared the good and the bad of their lives until first Gwendeline’s (called “Goonie” in the family) died in 1941, followed by Jack in 1947.

Jack and Goonie will tell us a lot about Winston. And Clementine, too.

Reader’s Note: I’ve heard from some of you recently. Thank you for sharing information about your Churchill contacts, visits to places associated with his life, and your Churchill readings.

He’s a wonderful companion, isn’t he?

Also, thank you for your nice words.

McClatchy N&O editor threatens to remove Duke lacrosse comments

The McClatchy Company's Raleigh N&O's executive editor for news, Melanie Sill, is threatening to remove from The Editor's Blog, which she operates on McClatchy's behalf, comments about The N&O's Duke lacrosse coverage another reader and I made there.

Please visit Sill's post and the thread where she makes the threats.

Judge for yourself.

Sill has removed readers' comments before. For example, last Aug. 9 and 10 when many readers questioned the factualness of statements she made concerning The N&O's failure to report the loan scandal then engulfing liberal talk radio's Air America, an entire comment thread with about 30 comments was removed.

It took considerable reader protests, including attorneys reminding Sill of First Amendment rights, to get the readers' comments put back.

Please read Sill's Aug 9 post and reader comments and then go on and read her Aug 10 post and readers reactions to that. Be sure to note the many readers who spent their own time and money to do Lexus and other searches in order to confront Sill with data directly refuting a series of statements she made to readers.

I posted at the time and have repeated since that Sill's statements were false.

Since then I've invited editors with The N&O and other newspapers to look at what Sill and the readers said, and than make a statement.

I've offered to publish in full at JinC what the editor(s) say after seeing what Sill and the readers said. My only condition is that the editor is "on the record" and identified by name and affiliation.

So far no takers on that offer, but plenty of journalists have been willing to say off the record Sill's statements were false.

Take a look and see what you think.

Below is a copy of a comment I just left at The Editor's Blog. It's here FYI and in case Sill removes it at her blog.
_____________________________________________

Comment from: John [Visitor] · http://www.johnincarolina.com
04/24/06 at 11:08
Melanie,

“(F)ar off point?”

A reader comments and I responded to her and you.

I urged you to answer her questions and those of other readers concerning The N&O’s “coverage” of the Duke lacrosse story.

You respond now by telling her and me you’ll delete any further comments like ours.

This thread’s post is titled, “What’s a blog?”

Melanie, do you have any sense of irony?

Please make available to us the standards McClatchy uses to delete reader comments.

Will this comment be deleted if I ask when you plan to answer reader questions at “Getting it right?” They’ve been piling up for days.

As commenters here Joan and I have some First Amendment rights. Please tell us your understanding of those rights.

Finally, in your discussion of what’s a blog, do you plan to tell us the difference between a blog and those internet sites that call themselves blogs, but are really PR operations that operate like the infomercials we see on TV.

Thank you.

John
www.johnincarolina.com

Is McClatchy Duke lacrosse reporting “the best?”

The McClatchy Company’s CEO Gary Pruitt has been saying his company’s newspapers are generally the biggest and best in their market areas.

How about that?

Biggest?

Here in North Carolina, McClatchy’s Raleigh News & Observer has the highest circulation numbers of any daily in the central or eastern part of the state.

Score one for Pruitt.

But best? The N&O?

Well, you might believe that if you read only what N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill tells readers in her posts at The Editor’s Blog.

But if you read readers’ comments responding to Sill’s post: WOW!

Try it yourself.

Are you interested in the Duke lacrosse story? Then take a look at “Getting it right.” Also, Sill’s “What’s a blog” post doesn’t mention Duke lacrosse, but wait until you see what happens once you get to the fourth comment which begins:

Ms . Sill, What your coverage of the Duke Lacrosse story has really done is to devastate all of us who truly strive for a color blind society.

I frequently post on the liberal trending left N&O’s “news reporting.” See, for example, this post.

The N&O’s public editor, Ted Vaden, has devoted two recent columns to The N&O’s Duke lacrosse coverage. Vaden goes easy on The N&O but still -- take a look here and here.

I plan to post tonight examples of The N&O’s prosecutorial Duke lacrosse reporting.

Mind you, I don’t know much about what happened that night at 610 N. Buchanan.

But each of us is entitled to due process and presumption of innocence.