Saturday, October 25, 2014

Sexual assault is a serious crime, but a college is not a justice system

As a female student I read your article on new college codes for sexual conduct with interest (“Yes means yes, says Mr Brown”, October 4th)
writes Jena López writes to The Economist from Houston.
Universities are overstepping their boundaries. Sexual assault is a serious crime, but a college is not a justice system. It does not have the right to say if a person is innocent or guilty. Instead, colleges should tell students what the legal definition of sexual assault is when they first arrive and help them if they want to go to the police if an assault occurs. If one student is accused by the other it is the job of the courts to declare innocence or guilt, not the college.
Unrelated: also check out the letter to the editor on "Napoleon’s flair for genius".

Friday, October 24, 2014

WInston Churchill on Socialism and the Cold War

The graphic novel biography of the life and times of Princess Margrethe before she became queen spans the middle third of the 20th century, from 1940 to the early 1970s. 

While a family saga on the lives, private and public, of three generations of monarchs, Erik Svane and Thierry Capezzone's graphic novel touches on Danish and world history, from Hitler and the German occupation of Denmark through Eisenhower and the formation of NATO to the murder of John F Kennedy and the student protests of the 1960s.

The excerpt from the Danish-language Cobolt-published book below (which can be ordered from Cobolt or from Saxo) is from the couple of pages in English recounting Winston Churchill's visit to Copenhagen during the height of the Cold War.

What Obama doesn’t want is for people to draw the connection between immigration and the spreading of disease because it would be disastrous for his long term plans to change the demographics of this country

The latest perplexing statement from the most incompetent White House in history
writes Benny Huang,
is that a travel ban from Ebola-ravaged Liberia would “actually impede the response” to the disease. Flights will therefore continue between the United States and the epicenter of pestilence. Oh how predictable.

So attempting to contain the disease is actually bad policy? Apparently so, says Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism. “They impede and slow down the ability of the United States and other international partners to actually get expertise and capabilities and equipment into the affected areas,” said Monaco.

No one is talking about keeping Americans out of Liberia. There isn’t exactly a rush to get there now. But some in Congress are talking about keeping Liberians out of the United States. Clearly Ms. Monaco is confused about the direction of travel that would be banned.

Of course, some Americans are traveling to Liberia to bring relief. Many of those Americans are members of the military and must follow orders, even if that means putting their lives at risk combating an invisible enemy they haven’t been trained to fight. At some point they will have to come back here. There’s a risk, of course, to the relief workers and to others they may infect upon their return but there’s no reason why we can’t allow only those Americans who were part of the relief effort back into the United States.

Perhaps we shouldn’t send them in the first place? Well, it’s too late for that. The first uniformed Americans arrived on September 19th.

Ms. Monaco was asked about a one-way travel ban. She said that such a ban wouldn’t be necessary because people in Liberia are being screened for the virus before departing on international flights.

Let’s unravel the twisted logic of this charlatan. She began by knocking down a straw man argument—that relief workers shouldn’t be allowed to go to Liberia. No one was suggesting they shouldn’t. The argument was that Liberians should not be allowed to come here. If such a policy had been in place two weeks ago, Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan would not have been allowed into the country and one hundred people would not have been exposed to the virus. Monaco quickly changed her tune. Suddenly the travel ban wasn’t counterproductive but unnecessary.

Sure. Because travelers will be screened, right?

 … If you believe anything this administration says—and you need your head checked if you do—Ebola isn’t even supposed to be here. As President Obama said on the September 7th installment of Meet the Press: “Americans shouldn’t be concerned about the prospect of contagions here in the United States, short term, because this is not an airborne disease.” Thirteen days later an Ebola-positive Liberian arrived on American soil. I guess that all depends on what your definition of “short term” is but I’d say that his prediction missed its mark by just a little.

 … Anxieties need to be soothed because they hurt Obama who is a huge supporter of immigration, both legal and illegal. Both varieties carry the risk of bringing infectious diseases into the country, though the illegal kind is riskier because there are no controls. Legal immigrants, of course, have to go through screening which is imperfect, as mentioned above.

What the president doesn’t want is for people to draw the connection between immigration and the spreading of disease, and not because the connection isn’t there but because it would be disastrous for his long term plans to change the demographics of this country for the benefit of his party and its politics. He’s already announced that amnesty by royal decree is coming after the November elections.

Thus far, liberals have been able to vilify anyone who opposes amnesty as a crypto-racist who harbors deeply irrational fears of The Other. It might be a little harder to sell that tripe if people realized that previously eradicated diseases are making a comeback like a bad 80s singer. What’s “irrational” about not wanting scabies at your child’s school? Anarchy at the border might not be such a crowd pleaser when concerns about disease are on the public’s mind. What’s a liberal to do?
Scream “racism” louder?

 … Unfortunately, one party in this country is “all in” for lawless immigration, and the other is halfway there too. They won’t let a little thing like Ebola—or tuberculosis, scabies, or leprosy—to sway the debate. Your health is not as important as their source of future voters.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

New York Times: What Is the True Crime in Rotherham? Westerners' "Easy, Powerful Stereotypes" Against "Asian" Perpetrators Which "Overshadow the Bigger Picture"!

“The blindness is fascinating.”

The blindness of Western citizens, that is.

You knew this was coming, didn'tcha?

The New York Times' Katrin Bennhold pens a story on the "legacy of Rotherham" warning of the danger of… easy stereotypes and, indeed, indirectly calling for more laws and more repression for all citizens.

She starts off by linking the rapes of hundreds of teens by untold numbers of Pakistanis by untold numbers of Asians, reflecting at least some aspects of their Islamic culture, to the abuse perpetrated by BBC host Jimmy Savile (along with Rolf Harris, Max Clifford, and Stuart Hall), the work of a handful of members of the élite acting against the values of their country's general culture.

In the process, Katrin Bennhold gets into a talk about class warfare and decides that the point to remember about Rotherham was that the victims were among the low-status part of society.

This is all the same problem, you see.
First there was abuse at the hands of a popular BBC host. There were scandals at private schools and in the church and talk of a pedophile ring in Parliament. Then there was Rotherham: over a thousand teenagers sexually exploited as the authorities looked away.

Over the past two years, high-profile revelations of sexual abuse of children have painted a picture of Britain as a place where such abuse is not just endemic but systematically covered up — either because the perpetrators are of the very highest status or because the victims are of the very lowest.

There are two lessons here, scholars and officials say. The first is that sexual abuse is far more common than previously believed: Currently, 2,500 children in England have child protection plans because they are deemed to be at risk of sexual abuse. But the police now speak publicly of “tens of thousands” of victims a year.

The second lesson is that the main driver of abuse is impunity: “Abuse happens in a context of permissibility,” said Helen Beckett, an expert on the subject at the University of Bedfordshire.
Of course, it is of vital importance that we learn that "Mr. Savile … was a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher" (needless to say, how the strength of this friendship — two public figures smiling before the camera? — is judged is never established; nor, why the alleged friendship would matter in light — or in darkness — of Savile's hidden life).

Moreover, immediately afterwards (with only one intervening sentence), we learn about "allegations that Cyril Smith, a former member of Parliament who died in 2010, abused boys in a care home in his constituency." Notice that no party is given (Smith was of the Liberal Party, in the British sense); color me paranoid, if you will, but it would hardly surprise me if a left-leaning writer like a Times writer wouldn't mind if it were thought that one of the abusers was of the same party, or of the same bent, as the conservative Thatcher. 
 … Nothing, it seemed, could still shock this country — but in August an outside report on the northern town of Rotherham exploded in the headlines: At least 1,400 white girls had been abused, raped and trafficked by groups of men, mostly of Pakistani heritage, from 1997 to 2013.
Notice how Katrin Bennhold puts the actions of a handful of (very) bad apples — all members of the élite — on the same level as the scandal of mass rape in entire neighborhoods of a British town.
Simon Bailey, the lead officer on child abuse for the Association of Chief Police Officers, last week warned of “many more Rotherhams to come.”

The abusers relied on powerful stereotypes, said Alexis Jay, the author of the Rotherham report, most prominently the idea of lower-class girls being problematic and promiscuous. The police routinely referred to 12-year-old victims as “prostitutes” or worse.

Now, of course, another powerful stereotype risks taking hold: that of the Asian perpetrator and the white victim. The legacy of Rotherham, Ms. Beckett warned, must not be to replace one set of blinkers with another. “If we focus too much on the race factor, we inadvertently give the message that you don’t have to look at risk anywhere else,” she said.
See, folks. The problem is not rape. Or not only rape. It's stereotypes. Y'know, the thing that you clueless clods are so guilty of in everyday life.

Well, actually, yes, it's also rapes. And any one of you could have it happen to your child, just as you might potentially be a child rapist yourself.

So, let's take care of the rape factor, with more and more laws, more and more suspicion, and more and more repression on common citizens from a Western culture which does not support, and has never supported (well, not until the 1960s Sexual Revolution), child sex.

Having ascertained that, we all need to start on the next project: working against "powerful stereotypes" (tch, tch) as well.
“The blindness is fascinating,” said Ms. Berelowitz, adding that the same was true for victims. “Ethnic minority victims are falling through the cracks.”

Her concerns were echoed by Mr. Bailey, who warned that “an unhealthy focus” on the Asian-on-white model of abuse overshadows the bigger picture. “That bigger picture is that 90 percent of child sexual abuse takes place in the home,” he told The Guardian last week.

But when it comes to child abuse, stereotypes die hard. “It’s easier to report that a particular ethnic group is guilty or that victims are troubled,” Ms. Beckett said. “No one wants to believe this could happen to someone near them.”

An adventurous story based on the life of Queen Margrethe II

Needless to say, all of the articles, book reviews, and TV appearances related to the new graphic novel on the life and times of Denmark's Princess Margrethe before she became queen have been in Danish.

All of them?

No.

The capital's English-speaking weekly, The Copenhagen Post, has printed a piece by Lucie Rychla on Daisy — en prinsesse i Danmark, along with a photo from the launching of the book at the French Embassy.The French ambassador (centre) Francois Zimeray hosted the book's author Erik Swan (right) and illustrator Thierry Capezzone (left) to mark the release of 'Daisy' (Photo: Hasse Ferrold)And, believe it or not, there is also an article in… Spanish, thanks to the Hola weekly.

(Notice that they get one of the authors' names wrong. Erik Svane is rendered as Erik Swan, supposedly because someone ran a Danish text through an automatic translation software without bothering to double-check the finished product; Thierry Capezzone remains as is.)


Comic book about Queen Margrethe released

Some 76 pages long, 'Daisy – a princess in Denmark' includes true stories from the Danish monarch's life

Daisy – a princess in Denmark', a comic book biography of Queen Margrethe II, was officially launched on September 16 at the French Embassy in the centre of Copenhagen.

According to it authors, Erik Swan and Thierry Capezzone, the illustrated biography will be the first instalment.

It covers the first 32 years of Margrethe's life, from her birth to coronation, and includes some episodes that many people will have never heard about before.

Once upon a time

The story begins just a week after the German occupation of Denmark in 1940, when a princess is born at the royal palace in Copenhagen. 

She is baptised Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid, but people mostly call her by her family nickname, 'Daisy'.

Initially, everyone expects Daisy will remain 'just' a princess for the rest of her life.
But shortly before her 12th birthday, this studious and thoughtful girl finds out that one day – thanks to a constitutional change to the Danish Act of Succession – she will take over her father's throne and become Her Majesty Queen Margrethe.

To be continued ...

Over the course of 76 pages in their comic book, the France-based, Danish author Erik Swan and the Frederiksberg-based, Danish-French artist Thierry Capezzone unfold an adventurous story based on the life of  Queen Margrethe II.

The first volume ends when king Frederik IX dies in January 1972, and a day later Daisy is crowned the queen of Denmark.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The "Daisy" Graphic Novel Is Noticed by the Media


The new graphic novel on the life and times of Denmark's Princess Margrethe before she became queen has received quite a deal of notice in the Danish press since Cobolt published it on September 16, from Billed Bladet and Ugeavisen to Politiken and Jyllands-Posten.

The longest article on Daisy — en prinsesse i Danmark came in the form of a full two-page spread authored by Kristian Lindberg in Berlingske Tidende (incidentally one of the oldest newspapers on the planet).

The book has also been noticed in the English- and Spanish-language press.

Finally, Erik Svane and Thierry Capezzone were interviewed on national TV, with questions from Aftenshowet's Louise Wolff.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Daisy, Princess of Denmark

The graphic novel biography of the early years of Denmark's queen has appeared.
Written by Erik Svane, drawn by Thierry Capezzone, and published by Cobolt, Daisy — en prinsesse i Danmark is a family saga of Denmark's ruling royal family that takes us from the birth of Princess Margrethe in 1940, a week after Hitler's troops invaded the country, through the Cold War to her crowning as queen 32 years later.

There is drama as well as humor in the graphic novel, as you can see from its "making-of" blog, called H.M. Dronning Margrethe II — The Comic Book.

The book, which is in Danish — excerpt for various parts in French or English (such as the pages relating to Churchill's visit to Copenhagen during the Cold War) — has received quite a lot of notice in the press and media. It can be ordered from Cobolt or from Denmark's version of Amazon, Saxo.

Name the issue, and you can be pretty sure that Democrats will lie about it until they’re convinced it’s safe to come out and say what they really mean

The indispensable James O’Keefe rolled out another video last week
quips Benny Huang,
this one targeting Alison Grimes, a Kentucky Democrat who hopes to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell in November. Her website and campaign advertisements state in no uncertain terms that she opposes the Obama Administration’s attempt to strangle coal industry, a vital sector of Kentucky’s economy. Too bad it isn’t true. O’Keefe’s video reveals that Grimes has been mouthing platitudes about her love of coal just to get herself elected.

Grimes’s campaign staffers will be happy to explain their Machiavellian strategy, provided they believe a sympathetic ear is listening. In clip after clip, organizers and foot soldiers for the Grimes campaign opined that opposing coal is political suicide in Kentucky, which necessitates lying on the candidate’s part. Politics, you see, is “a lying game, unfortunately,” according to one Grimes staffer.
Another staffer was asked: “If we can get her elected, do you think she’s going to do the right thing, and she’s going to try to wipe out that coal industry and go for better resources?” The staffer responded: “I absolutely think she is.”

Oh, I see. First she poses as the coal miner’s best friend just to get their votes, then she deliberately “wipe[s] out” their livelihood. A masterstroke!

Wouldn’t it be great if we knew where candidates stood on the issues? Then we could match their positions to our own and decide which candidate most closely matches our beliefs and priorities. But that would mean they’d have to tell us where they stand, and they won’t do that.

Yes, it’s true that “both sides” engage in this kind of duplicity—Republicans and Democrats, that is.

 … While “both sides” may fib to get elected, the two parties do not engage in electoral fake-outs in equal proportions. Democratic politicians are more prolific in their lying, and Democratic voters are more comfortable with being lied to. They know a line of baloney when they hear it but so long as it’s utilitarian they don’t care.

Liberals, I believe, have begrudgingly accepted the notion that ours is a center-right country. I don’t believe that we are anymore, but in this instance perception is reality. As a consequence of their perceived minority status they have embraced the “noble lie” concept. They gain their victories by stealth, always pretending to believe what anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows they do not.
 
Does anyone think that Barack Obama actually opposed same-sex marriage at any point in his political career? I certainly don’t, but he claimed that “[M]arriage is the union between a man and a woman” when he ran for president in 2008. He made a point of visiting Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, one of the country’s largest evangelical congregations, where he told the audience: “Now, for me as a Christian, [marriage is] also a sacred union. You know, God’s in the mix.”

Why didn’t the tolerance bullies tear Obama limb from limb over that remark? Doesn’t that type of rhetoric qualify Obama as a bona fide member of the American (Christian) Taliban? Well, no. Because he was lying through his teeth. The foul-mouthed homosexual activist Dan Savage admitted as much in a column he penned earlier this year.  “…[T]he president pretended to oppose marriage equality and we pretended to believe him… The president’s evolution on marriage equality was a lovely piece of political performance art. And by the time Obama was ready to publicly endorse marriage equality—another calculated decision on his part—Obama had managed to bring a lot of the country along with him. So, as it turned out, the president’s political calculations were pretty f—g sound.”

The lie advanced the cause. The lie was good.

Furthermore, did anyone expect that the flood of illegal alien children who inundated the border this summer would be sent home? Polls indicated that a supermajority of Americans supported that position so Obama claimed that he did too. We know now that most will be treated as refugees and allowed to stay, and the others will probably be granted amnesty by royal decree after the election. But back in the summer, Obama’s ideological compatriots were spraying invective at anyone who actually agreed with Obama’s stated position. Was Obama a heartless racist like the other deportation supporters? No, because he was lying.

Name the issue, and you can be pretty sure that Democrats will lie about it until they’re convinced it’s safe to come out and say what they really mean. There’s a reason why Planned Parenthood supported Obama’s health care overhaul, even when he swore that it would not cover abortion. It’s because they knew it would! I have no doubt that he told them so behind closed doors. The illegal alien advocates were similarly tacit about public proclamations, made at the State of the Union Address no less, that Obamacare benefits would never find their way to illegal aliens. Why weren’t they apoplectic? Because the statement was a lie and everyone knew it, even the illegal aliens.

Politics may be a “lying game,” as Alison Grimes’s staffer put it, but it shouldn’t be. Voters should punish these deceitful finks at the polls every time they try to snow us with assurances that they don’t want to do what they obviously will do. They should be hounded with questions until they’ve made completely clear what they mean, and never allowed to skate away with weasel words and generalities.

No Pasarán Is Back

After one month of inactivity — due to the publishing of a book along with password problems — No Pasarán is back.