"We will reap the whirlwind"

Friedman goes in my "Gets It" column. (see here)

Reminds me of this line, from Ivan Cooper: "I just want to say this to the British Government... You know what you've just done, don't you? You've destroyed the civil rights movement, and you've given the IRA the biggest victory it will ever have. All over this city tonight, young men... boys will be joining the IRA, and you will reap a whirlwind."

Update: If you mistakenly read that quote as supportive of the IRA, rent the movie* or read up on Cooper. It's powerful in context, and grittily wise.

* Thick brogues, but push on, keep listening/watching...

Ah, March...

and late February, tourney time, when all young fans turn to thoughts of... HOCKEY!

Here's how the WIAA men's brackets are shaping up.

Still standing? Eau Claire North and Memorial, Kettle Moraine/Mukwanago, Wisconsin Rapids, Onalaska, Sun Prairie, Middleton and Edgewood (all the Madison public schools are out), Neenah and Fond du Lac, Stevens Point and Wausau East, Marquette and (top ranked) University School Milwaukee, New Richmond and Superior.

Last night's scores are here. Whittled down to 8 by Saturday...
---
For the growing women's field (congrats to Madison schools for organizing a women's team this past year), this weekend top-ranked RiverFalls/StCroixCentral/Baldwin-Woodville/Elmwood will take on veteran Hudson, who eliminated the NewRichmond/Amery/Osceola/Somerset team. Winner goes to the state tournament, where they'll see the winner of this weekend's game between Madison Memorial Co-op and Onalaska.

Good luck to all competitors, and remember, it's not how ya look, it's how ya play the game. Let's play hockey...

I'm with George and Jimmy...

If bi-partisan opponents can point me to one shred of conclusive evidence that America's ports will be less safe operating under this company -- one rational example of where and why they believe our security will be compromised -- I'll listen.

It's like other arguments where you ask opponents to present one shred of evidence -- not a future fear or long-held belief or a categorical lumping -- to support their contentions. Usually, they can't.

After 9-11, we the American people were clearer about protecting the liberties of Americans with the same ethnic background as the plane hijackers. We had it right then. No guilt by mere similarities. No collective punishments for group members not associated with the acts.

Today though, we're more trigger happy. Shoot them before they shoot us, kinda thinking. Lock em up now, think about charging em later. That's not the American way I know (and hey, my primary school years coincided with the Bicentennial, so we spent a lot of time on America the idea, and how her roots were tended.)

Some pundits are touting this newfound bipartisan unity... Tell you what, give me one good reason, one solid speculation regarding why say, you'd turn down a Danish company with the exact background as incapable of getting the port job done. If so, then the arguments are based on merit, not fear and group generalizing.

If not, if it's just based on who they are and not something they may have done or participated in, then I say STICK TO THIS FIGHT, PRESIDENT BUSH. It's not too late to stick your heels and fight to lead, not be led. (Personally, I would have like to have seen Ms. Miers go through the confirmation process, and if necessary, be found wanting there before being summarily rejected as a SCOTUS candidate. It just looks cleaner, like we don't try things in the press and based on insider info, but you get a fair shot and let's see how you do.) They say our ports are poorly run now; I haven't seen anything yet that leads me to believe this company is knowingly unqualified.

Making decisions based on racial speculations, punishing people for coming from the same country as wrong-doers, it just doesn't seem to be the American way that has worked so well for us up to now. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself...
---
HERE'S MORE:

Growing criticism puzzles many in shipping industry
'We haven't done a good job of explaining how we work'

by Meredith Cohn, Baltimore Sun reporter

Just about any given time, it's possible to find a Greek-owned ship flying a Liberian flag, employing a Filipino crew and carrying cargo from China into a U.S. port terminal managed by a British company that hires American longshoremen.

This is how Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and others get their socks and stereos for the U.S. consumer.

So, some in the shipping industry have been taken aback in the past week by growing criticism in Washington and in state capitals to a deal that would transfer control over some operations in several major U.S. ports from a British company to one owned by the government of Dubai.

...

In the major U.S. ports where Dubai Ports World would operate terminals - Baltimore, New York, New Jersey, Miami, New Orleans and Philadelphia - many of the shipping lines, the stevedores that load and unload ships and terminal operators have foreign owners.

The top 10 containership fleets are based in Denmark, Switzerland, Taiwan, China, Germany, France, Japan, Hong, Kong and Singapore, said Peter S. Shaerf, managing director of AMA Capital Partners LLC, a merchant banking firm that focuses on the maritime and transportation industries. All call on U.S. ports, and some of the shipping lines manage terminals.

Other terminal operators with U.S. operations are based in England, Denmark and Hong Kong. Panama has the world's largest ship registry, and Liberia is second. Brad Berman, president of the company that runs the Liberian registry, said about 2,300 ships fly that country's flag and that they carry 10 percent of the world's cargo tonnage.

Shaerf described Dubai Ports World as a respected international company.

The Bush administration announced last month that it would nominate David C. Sanborn, director of operations for Europe and Latin America at the Dubai company, to be administrator of the Maritime Administration of the Department of Transportation, which aids marine commerce and ensures that a U.S. fleet is prepared for emergencies.

"The real risk is in a poorly run port. A badly run port is more of a terrorist target than perceived bad ownership," Shaerf said. "This is an international business. If you welcome their commerce, you have to welcome them."

...

The Coast Guard, one of the agencies on the front lines of port security, said everyone with an interest in the port is treated the same.

"The Coast Guard recognizes we live in a global economy and that foreign-owned corporations are operating within the United States," said Jeff Carter, a spokesman, in a statement yesterday. "Laws and international conventions are currently in place."

The Coast Guard and other Homeland Security agencies collect information on crews and cargoes and flag a small number of the millions of containers that arrive on the estimated 5,300 commercial ships that make more than 60,000 calls on U.S. ports each year.

...

Many of the deal's critics say they just want more information or further review by the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment, which examines investments that could pose security risks. The committee reviewed and cleared the $6.8 billion deal in recent months. But lawmakers say the review was done in secrecy and that the committee has released no specifics.

Helen Delich Bentley, a former Maryland congresswoman and a port consultant, said the committee has always operated that way and approved many deals that she objected to.

She said the Dubai deal should not be blocked because it would be unfair to single out one foreign-owned company. But she said foreign ownership should be addressed, with questions about job opportunities examined along with security issues.

"I don't think we ought to pick just one," she said. "I almost give up hope this is a wake-up call. America has been much too complacent."
---
*edited copy. 1418CST

Listen children to a story that was written long ago...

By ZIAD KHALAF, Associated Press Writer
17 minutes ago

SAMARRA, Iraq - A large explosion destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite shrines Wednesday, spawning mass protests and triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets this week and threatened to enflame sectarian tensions.
...

If you can only read one today, Friedman's column in the NYT or Roger Cohen's piece reprinted from the International Herald Tribune, go with Cohen.

...

Coming as violence rages over the publication in Denmark last September of a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the sentencing in Vienna of the British historian David Irving to three years in prison for the crime of Holocaust denial has created what might be called the perfect moral storm.

Perfect not least because, for Arabs and the entire Islamic world, it was precisely in the unjustifiable geographic displacement to the Middle East of Western and Jewish outrage over the Holocaust that lay the germ of much anger between Islam and the West. I refer, of course, to the outrage that fed the creation in 1948 of the state of Israel.

Never truly accepted by Arabs, even by those Arab states that have made a formal peace with it, the modern Jewish state has been seen from Cairo to Riyadh as embodying the perpetuation of Western colonial intrusion, the cementing of injustice through force, the contempt of the West for Muslims, and the double standards of Western societies.

It is precisely such supposed double standards that irk Moussa. Irving, a historian with a screw loose who never hurt a fly, questioned the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz - the very gas chambers that drove surviving Jews from Europe to the Middle East - and was sentenced to prison by an Austrian court.

Yet Flemming Rose, the culture editor of a Danish newspaper, chooses to impugn the foundations of a global faith, Islam, through the publication of cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad - an act seen as sacrilegious by Muslims - and Europe moves to defend him in the name of freedom of speech as dozens are killed from Pakistan to Libya.

For many Muslims, who see themselves at some level as victims of a 61- year blowback from the great Nazi crime, or the innocent surrogates of Western shame, there could scarcely be a more succinct summation of the moral myopia of the West before the faith of 1.2 billion people.

Incensed by what he sees as Western insensitivity and hypocrisy, Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote to me recently that:

"Muslims are convinced that the world, especially the West, shows no moral concern over their plight. The loss of innocent Muslims lives, whether in Iraq or Palestine, Afghanistan or Pakistan, does not stir the world. Nor has the West shown any real interest in supporting the development of Muslim societies. In short, the cartoons hurt Muslims badly because they add real insult to real injury." ...

American Style:

Free speech countering free speech.

(Hint: the bikers come through.)
---
George McEvoy last week expressed similar thoughts in responding to members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka (Fred Phelps' family):

...

Shirley Phelps-Roper, an attorney for the church, said that God struck down the dead soldiers and Marines because they were fighting to protect homosexuals and adulterers. According to her, I suppose, Woodrow Wilson said the First World War was fought to "make the world safe for adultery."

Personally, I was getting pretty much fed up with the supporters of this war saying guys like me were against the troops and undermining their morale.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As an ex-soldier, I just don't like to see our people dying in a war we had no reason to fight.

But I also demand that those who give their all in this war be treated with respect and honor. Whether the war is justified or not, their lives are sacred.

As for the clash between free speech and privacy, I find myself in a strange position.

As a journalist, I've always stood on the side of the First Amendment. Without free speech and a free press, there can be no freedom.

But with freedom comes responsibility — and a certain amount of good taste.

That virtue seems to have skipped over the little Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka.

Maybe we should wait until one of their congregation dies, then show up at the funeral with signs attacking bigotry.

I think my old pal Murphy wouldn't approve of this war, either. But I can just about hear his reaction if he saw any of this Kansas bunch interrupting the solemn sound of taps.

"Everyone believed."

...

"We said [Thursday] we were going to make a new miracle," said Rooth, a former Minnesota Duluth player who scored the shootout winner and both of Sweden's goals in regulation. "If we just believed we could beat them, we thought it could happen. Everyone was so committed. Everyone believed."

Except on the American side. The U.S. players felt only disbelief at losing their first Olympic semifinal. As Sweden's players got high-fives from NHL stars and countrymen Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin, goalie Chanda Gunn fought a losing battle with tears, and Angela Ruggiero couldn't grasp the reality of playing for a bronze medal.

That will happen Monday against Finland, 6-0 losers Friday to Canada.

"I'm in shock right now," Ruggiero said. "It's a huge day for Sweden. It hurts, but we have to stay positive, because we can still win a medal.

"Everybody talks about the USA and Canada, but this may just open the world's eyes to the fact that there are other teams out there. We're back on our heels right now. But if you can take something positive away from this, maybe that's it."
---
My heart is with ya, ladies. Great to hear Rooth played for UMD though, adds Olympic perspective to the competition. Good writing, here's more:

The United States outshot Sweden 39-18, but the players' faces reflected the anxiety created by frequent miscues and breakdowns -- and by (Goalie Kim)Martin's impenetrability. Former UMD forward Erika Holst stripped the puck from Gophers defenseman Lyndsay Wall behind the U.S. net and fired it to the charging Rooth for the tying shorthanded goal. The Swedes intercepted several passes deep in the American zone, and countless U.S. scoring chances sailed wide, struck the goal cage or banged off of sticks.

The United States also went 2-for-11 on power plays, including a two-player advantage that lasted more than 3 minutes in the second period.

"We had a lot of good opportunities on the power plays," forward Katie King said. "We didn't put them home, and that's what hurts. We were maybe too pretty on plays and lost it a few times, and they capitalized."

A distinctly Swedish vibe began to take over the arena as Rooth's goals, little more than 3 minutes apart, negated a 2-0 U.S. lead. ABBA played on the sound system. Fans with horns and Tre Kroner jerseys outblared their American counterparts. The tension swelled through the scoreless third period, the overtime and the shootout.
...
"It's a breakthrough for them and their program," said U.S. forward Natalie Darwitz of Eagan. "I wish it wasn't us, but it's great for women's hockey. It shows there's a lot more than the U.S. and Canada."

Sweden's coach, Peter Elander, said he took a cue from the late Herb Brooks in preparing his team. Like Brooks, who famously kept his players on the ice after a tie and made them skate to exhaustion, Elander drove his team relentlessly for the past three months.

Which goes to show that even American hockey movies have influenced the women's game abroad. Elander thanked the United States and Canada for playing the Swedes so often, allowing them to learn and develop. Many European players also are refining their games with U.S. college teams, including nine Olympians who have played for or been signed by Minnesota Duluth.

Sweden's victory resulted from its fearless and aggressive defense, a smart game plan, improved speed and conditioning and a new attitude. Years of losses to the North Americans have affected the psyches of some opponents; the Finns, after seizing a 3-1 lead on the United States in pool play, tightened up and lost. By getting over that hurdle, the Swedes have opened a window of possibility for others.

And here's another good picture.

Bizarre road sights

"...and I'm against cats in the house."

But I'm for love ... and I'm for happiness

And I'm for ... if you don't like it
Can't you just let it pass ...

Written/Recorded by Hank Williams, Jr.

I like this guy...

"Danish satirist, a Muslim, sees laughs ebbing away"
By Dan Bilefsky, International Herald Tribune

...
"It's getting hard to be a Muslim comic in this country," said the 32-year-old Dane (Omar Marzouk), who is as in demand at leftist cocktail parties in Copenhagen as he is at Middle Eastern weddings. He says the country's assimilation policies have failed because "the Danish government's idea of better integration is, 'Let's have a Turkish night and watch a belly dancer."'

Marzouk calls the Muhammad cartoons, which have spawned protests across the Islamic world, a cowardly provocation calculated to infuriate Muslims. But he says he supports the right of newspapers to publish them since the same free-speech rules that allowed their appearance in print also permit his hard-edged comedy.

"The cartoons have polarized Denmark so that both Muslims and non-Muslims are saying, 'You are either with us or against us,"' Marzouk says. "But surely a cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb-shaped hat is less damaging to the Muslim community than a photograph of a Muslim cutting off someone's head."

The son of Egyptian immigrants, Marzouk grew up in a working-class neighborhood outside Copenhagen and studied engineering before abandoning the computer company he founded in favor of comedy. He turned to laughs for solace after clients kept mistaking him for the pizza-delivery boy when he came to their homes to service their laptops.

"Now I have become the token Paki at office parties," he says, "and even some Muslims are proud of me."

Marzouk is one of a growing breed of young Muslim comics who are using humor, satire and self-deprecation to bridge the cultural gap between Islam and the West.

Alienated from their own communities for mocking Islam while heckled by anti-immigrant groups in their adopted countries, they are sending up the failure of Europe's assimilation policies in the post-Sept. 11 world.

...

When he appeared at Edinburgh's Fringe festival in August, he asked the audience not to murder him if the jokes weren't funny. "I don't want to die," he said. "I'm not that kind of Muslim."

At first, Marzouk said, he was wary of telling suicide-bomber jokes in his one-man show, "War, Terror and Other Fun Stuff," which ran in Edinburgh shortly after the July subway bombings in London. But the largely British audience welcomed his humor, he said.

Marzouk says terror humor has receptive audiences in unlikely places. He said he was greeted with hysterical cackles when, in recent shows in Israel and Britain, he suggested that the West recruit Muslims to prevent terrorist attacks by having them sit on buses, strapped with explosives, so when a real suicide bomber gets on, they can say, "Hey, man, it's O.K., I got this one covered."

If the audience doesn't laugh at his jokes, his resorts to a favorite riposte, "I don't care if my jokes bomb. They go straight to heaven where they get 72 virgin jokes" - a reference to the promise of 72 virgins for Muslim suicide bombers.

But his iconoclasm has its limits. During a recent television comedy special filmed near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, he said he had planned to scream, "Hey, you crybabies, stop all that wailing." But he said the site of solemn worshipers prompted him to skip the joke.

Marzouk says that the ascent in Denmark of the far right anti-immigrant Danish People's Party has made his life more difficult. "When the politicians are so extreme, that makes it hard for a comedian or satirist," he says, "because what can you say that can top them?"

...

Anticipating his critics, Marzouk has a special death threat section on his Web site where he invites readers to choose between killing him by beheading, by blowing up his car or by firing squad. At last count, he said, 500 people had responded, with beheading the leading choice of execution.

But he adds that he will emerge alive since he has no intention of staying on in Denmark. "I am moving to London because I'm tired," he said. "Things are too tense here, and it is no longer as fun to try and be funny."

"Schooling a new American Army"

Roger Cohen reports some advice on guerrilla warfare and nation-building:

Aylwin-Foster portrays a U.S. Army isolated from the local population by the reproduction of "mini-Americas" on its bases; too easily swayed into believing that superior technology rather than human intelligence can overcome an insurgency; imbued with a moral righteousness about its mission that sometimes leads to blindness or cultural insensitivity; slow to adapt, and so driven by a can-do optimism that frankness about problems is not widespread among junior officers.