Joe Biden: I am a Zionist

Hating Israel, Loving Obama

The Frozen Smile

Barak Obama has said, more than once, and in unmistakable language, that he supports Israel's right to exist and Israel's right to defend itself. But the funny thing is that (at least some of) those who hate Israel and who don't think that it has any right to defend itself nevertheless love and endorse Obama. Do they know something about Obama that perhaps Obama himself either doesn't know or doesn't want to say ?

First and perhaps foremost, there is Jimmy "Frozen-Smile" Carter, who thinks that Israel practices "apartheid" and is solely responsible for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It has been announced that Carter will be one of the main speakers at the Denver convention to endorse Obama, although, as of this writing, it appears that he has been told not to mention the word "Israel." The Soviets, before passing out of history, experienced a thaw. Can we hope as much from Carter and/or his smile ? Hope again.

[Update, Aug. 28: In the end, the Forward reports, the Dems decided to honor Carter by showing a video of him but not allow him to speak at the convention.]

The Nation magazine, something of a voice of twenty-first century American Communism, gives a little more hesitant endorsement of Obama, all the while blaming Israel for everything that is wrong in the world, or at least in the Middle East.

And then there is the poor little Communist Party of the USA. It has seen better days -- say those of Earl Browder and William Z. Foster. But it still soldiers on as a ghost of a ghost, somewhere halfway between being moribund and dead. It endorses Obama (with some hesitation), but never misses a beat in beating down on Israel.

But wait, there is hope for those who want to dismiss everything I say in this posting. There is at least one enemy of Israel (not counting Pat Buchanan) who will not support Obama. That is the estimable Cynthia McKinnon, who is running for President all on her own.

On Vanity and Pride and Bragging

All is Vanity
Painting by Charles Gilbert (1873-1929)

Praising oneself (or one's children) inordinately is something that is frequently practiced but never condoned. All the sacred sources that I could find, religious and secular, with the only possible exception of Ayn Rand, condemn the practice. "Pride cometh before the Fall," or words to that effect, expresses the professed attitudes. Our language generally implies a negative evaluation of "braggarts," of "vanity," "vainglory," and "boasting," with positive evaluations of the "unassuming" and the "modest." But practice, as I said, is often different.

The question is, in a world that depends so much on selling and buying (of goods and esteem), could we do entirely without just a bit of exaggeration, say just now and then ? When I want to sell, say, a new automobile, can I say that what I have to offer is just about as good, or maybe a little inferior, to the wares of my competitors ? American law allows "puffery" in advertising, defined as an exaggeration that no reasonable person will take literally, but it does not allow misrepresentation, which, presumably, may mislead. Some "exaggeration," when it does not mislead, is something we seem to have accepted and are willing to live with. (Of course outside the sphere of advertising legality, or even within it, the line between "puffery" and misrepresentation may often be far from clear.)

Granted that bragging is something we all do to some extent some of the time, at least three important questions present themselves. First there is the extent, insistence, and sheer volume of claims made at any one time. A second question is how customary or expected an incident may be, considering community standards. Finally, there is the question of the veracity of the claims. I am mostly interested in claims that are 1) insistent and shrill; 2) relatively rare, i.e. not customary in the given circumstances, and 3) essentially lacking in veracity. (Lawyers might see a three-prong test here for what is flagrant bragging.)

Disclaimer: My observations and conclusions are not based on systematic research. Nor have I been able to find such systematic research in the literature, pace Erving Goffman and his school of "ethnomethodology."

The Groves of Academe

To some extent, self-promotion by academics is as necessary as self-promotion in any other field. It's hard to imagine a scholar advancing in his own field -- receiving necessary research grants, obtaining good graduate students, achieving promotions in the academic ladder, etc. -- if he does not spend a certain amount of time informing others of his accomplishments. As long as the interactions take place among peers, who can be assumed to understand the difference between meaningful accomplishment and embroidery, there is little opportunity for vainglory. But when self-promotion is directed to people outside academia proper, the door opens to claims that are no longer veracious, or are, at least, borderline veracious.

Before the internet, it was difficult to see who does the unacceptable bragging. Information tended to remain local, or confined to small circles of insiders. But now, when so many professors have their own websites, the braggarts -- for better or worse -- can be observed far and wide. I will give just one case study to illustrate what can go wrong. Although I don't cite the name of the individual, the details are all based on the information given by the person's websites.

Professor X. is at a large denominational university. He is the chair of his department and he also holds other administrative posts at his university. He has at least three websites, which, in addition to the more customary material of such sites, also feature

a. "downloadable publicity shots of Dr.[X]"
b. the claim that he is frequently consulted by the media on matters of public interest
c. the claim that he has had "conversations" with a former president of the United States
d. his schedule of occasional lectures at other universities now and in the future. (One such appearance, claimed by X to have been a "Keynote Address" to a learned society was listed on the website of that society as no more than an address.)
e. the fact that one of his books had "forwards" (sic) by two well-known (but controversial) men
f. testimonials of his work by a number of well-known (but controversial) public figures
g. laudatory descriptions of these public figures
h. details of X's travels in various parts of the world
i. nomination for a prize that he did not ultimately receive
j. lavish self praise ("Professor X's work extends beyond the ... analysis usually offered by the media to encompass the essence of spiritual evolution...")

This material, as I see it, adds up to the portrait of a flagrant academic braggart, using the three-prong test that I have suggested:

1. There is high "volume;" the claims are shrill, insistent, numerous
2. The claims, taken together, do not seem customary in academia
3. They lack veracity, at least by implication. Professor X. claims, by implication, that praise by the cited well-known personages is relevant to his own scholarly merit. Of course other scholars in his field cannot be misled by such claims, so to them the claims may be no more than "puffery," material that reasonable men will ignore. But Professor X. addresses himself, by his own insistence, to people outside the scholarly community. When addressing this larger audience, Professor X's claims lack veracity.

Professor X is a braggart, flagrantly so.

The Synagogue World

I know very little about Orthodox and Reform synagogues. I have been a member and guest at a number of Conservative groups over the years, and find, when it comes to a bar or bat mitsvah, that every one of these youngsters, to believe the rabbi, is always the brightest, the best, the most learned, the most selfless of all creatures. The volume of this praise is high and the veracity, obviously, is low. But here is the problem: this bragging seems customary in the Conservative community. Which community standards should be operative: that of the Conservative world, or that of the larger community ? In other words, is this synagogue practice an instance of flagrant bragging ?

I will end my little disquisition on boasting on this uncertain note, just to prove my own modesty: I don't have all the answers.

It is clear that flagrant bragging, as the Parsonian sociologists used to say, serves important "functions." The world would certainly be different without it. But I myself think that it is at least useful to identify bragging, especially flagrant bragging, because the practice impinges so importantly on the ethic of truth. Even if we do not wish to be "moralistic" and condemn bragging (God forbid !), we should at least know the difference between a braggart's account and that of someone more restrained by the truth.

The Volkswagen and I

We have had Volkswagens off and on since the 60's. They have been more or less OK as automobiles, although it's hard to forget the company's origins in the Nazi period. The very name "Volkswagen," after all, is a piece of Nazi-German.

Well, this is the end of my relationship with this company. We have just traded in our '99 New Beetle. During the nine years of misplaced pride of ownership, it was hard to see its inexcusable downsides. I did, and still do, love the looks of the car, but not enough to overlook its grave defaults:

1) It sits too low off the ground. This caused us at least two expensive repairs because the car could not avoid objects and curves on the ground.

2) The visibility from inside the car is worse than in any other car that I have ever driven. It's very difficult to see what's coming from behind, and even difficult to see what's on its sides.

3) The service, as exemplified by the local VW dealer, is poor. Service hours are scheduled to accommodate the dealer, not the customer.

4) The inside space is cramped, the space in the trunk is laughable.

5) Repair history, as reported by Consumer Union, is below average.

I am now driving a Honda Civic, and driving has become a pleasure once again.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Hunger

This picture by Käthe Kollwitz hung in my childhood home in Berlin when I grew up, and later in my mother's apartment in Washington Heights. My nephews and I donated it to the Israel Museum when my mother died some ten years ago.

The picture was part of a leftist Weimar-era teaching, which my parents conveyed to me, that we have an obligation to feed the poor of the world. Everyone I have ever known, or ever hope to know, agrees with this sentiment. But who has made it a priority ? A priority on the level, say, of war-time priorities to protect our freedoms ?

I think that this election year gives an opportunity to rethink priorities. I think that poverty in the Third World, particularly Africa, hangs over all of us as a terrible threat. How can we enjoy what we have when we know that, in Africa alone, there are some 300 million people without enough to eat ?

The problem of poverty is enormously complex, containing at the very least six interrelated components: under-development, governmental greed and corruption, chronic inter-ethnic violence, disease, western indifference and greed, and hunger itself. One expert, Alex de Waal, has done us the tremendous service of reviewing some recent scholarly work, and any thinking on the subject may well start with the study of such materials.

One of the things that I learned from de Waal is that the British government, beginning with Tony Blair, established a new, Cabinet-level Department for International Development
to administer and coordinate British concerns for feeding the hungry. This is more than we have done, it seems to me.

I think that, with due regard for the great complexity of the issue, and the great unlikelihood that fully satisfactory solutions can be found soon, we need more of a sense of urgency on the part of our top political leadership.

Whether you favorite presidential candidate's name starts with an O or an M, will you write to him and ask him to place world hunger somewhere on the top of his concerns ?

Father Pfleger speaks about Farrakhan and Wright

Father Michael Pfleger at Obama's church

Here is the Reverend Otis Moss III, the new pastor at Trinity United Church in Chicago, introducing Father Michael Pfleger. Fr. Pfleger here speaks in support of Senator Obama in the Senator's own church. Ed Lasky gives some background on Fr. Pfleger.