"A Reason to Panic" From The Ryskind Sketchbook.Forgive me for being all Israel, all the time, but I'm eager to write the whole thing while it's fresh in memory and can be conveniently archived in February only. But I will take a moment to come up for air.
- By now it's looking as if the opposition over-reacted and the Administration will get its deal, but admit it, isn't this --Ryskind's cartoon-- what you thought when you first heard about the Dubai deal? And Jimmy Carter's defense? Incidentally, I have a friend who's kind of a hotshot lobbyist, and his firm happens to handle the Dubai account (though he doesn't, personally). According to this insider, Dubai doesn't care too much about the port deal; what it is very interested in is the trade agreement it's about to sign with us --and therefore it will do whatever we want, including scuttle the port deal if it comes to that-- in order to see the trade agreement through.
- Ninme's got a post with informative links about the MSM practically salivating for civil war in Iraq --but not getting it. And if you scroll down a bit, she's been following the Muslim-Christian fighting in Nigeria. About which let me add solely that we've had a Nigerian priest in residence in our parish for the past few years as he completes some work for the Nigerian bishops' council. He says that half his family is Christian, the other half Muslim, and that the two religions have always gotten along in Nigeria. . . .until a few years ago, when Wahabist provocateurs from Sudan started infiltrating and spreading their poison. So the coalition for Dafur might be saving the rest of Africa, too . . . .
- Meanwhile, the Catholic inside baseball crowd is stirred by B16's choices for his upcoming consistory (he's named his first Cardinals, boys & girls), reading in it the beginning of the hoped-for-by-Conservatives shake-up of the Roman Curia. I'm not insider enough to recognize many of the names, still less to read a portent in them, but I did have the thrill of seeing someone I actually "know" on the list. (Let's not exaggerate: have met on a couple of occasions.) Archbishop Carlo Caffarra of Bologna. I met him in connection with his work founding the John Paul II Institutes, before he was Archbishop. A lovely man, and if he's typical of the rest, I too am thrilled.
- I found the list at Zadok's, and he's got a post about a new forced-sterilization project in India. Yikes.
There. Just to prove I'm still reading stuff.
