baldilocks

Just Say No (UPDATED)

When Jennifer Wilbanks came up missing, I have to admit that I thought her fiancé, John Mason, had something to do with it, merely because he didn’t seem too upset about not to be able to find her. Perhaps he could sense what had happened. Who, after all, would know the machinations of a drama queen better that her consort?

Although Wilbanks initially told police in Albuquerque that she had been kidnapped, she admitted after further questioning with police and the FBI that she had fled her suburban Atlanta home voluntarily, because she "needed some time alone" before the wedding.

Saturday night she walked through the Albuquerque airport -- flanked by police -- her face hidden by a striped towel or small blanket.

The 32-year-old woman, missing since Tuesday, called fiance John Mason [in Georgia] from an Albuquerque 7-Eleven convenience store before dawn Saturday, and he kept her on the line long enough for police there to trace the call.

This woman is clearly insane. Who in their right mind would run away to Albuquerque? (Sorry, Mom and Dad.)

Take this as a sign, Mr. Mason. Run--don’t walk—away.

UPDATE: Link fixed. :-)

UPDATE: Linked to James Joyner's Beltway Traffic Jam.

UPDATE: If I were Wilbanks, I'd wear a burkha (sp) too after that little stunt. However, the shroud is probably meant to hide her impromptu haircut.

UPDATE: Some people have to beat their heads against brick walls to get a clue.

The jilted groom whose bride-to-be ran away four days before their wedding still wants to marry Jennifer Wilbanks, saying, "Haven't we all made mistakes?"

"Just because we haven't walked down the aisle, just because we haven't stood in front of 500 people and said our 'I Do's, my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I'm not backing down from that," John Mason said Monday in an interview with Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show.

Okay, pal; when you're miserable in a few years, don't say she didn't warn you.

Lots of people have been harping on Wilbanks' bug-eyed appearance; I say that John Mason looks a little creepy. Perhaps they're meant for each other.

Open Request to All Bloggers and Commenters

Even if you misspell everything else, please learn to spell these two words correctly: ‘hypocrite’ and ‘hypocrisy.’

Call it an "hypocracy" overload.

Rummy-ism

Saw this the other day and cracked up.

“I think the only people who could conceivably be talking about a draft are people who are speaking from pinnacles of near-perfect ignorance."

–-Donald Rumsfeld

Of course, Rumsfeld lines are best appreciated when heard. And here are more musings on the thinking and planning behind the amount of troops needed for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"The more troops you have, the more targets you have, and the more people you might get killed. The more troops you have, the more of an occupying power you are, the heavier footprint, the more force protection you need, the more logistics you need and the more intrusive you are on the people of that country” [said Mr. Rumsfeld].

The size of the U.S. military presence in Iraq has ranged from about 110,000 to 150,000 since May 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations were over.

Rumsfeld noted the Soviet Union had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan during the war there in the 1980s and that "they lost." He said the United States used a fraction of that force and quickly toppled the Taliban in a matter of months following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Old Posts on the (phantom) Draft :

Rangel Retreats
Drafty Story
Old Stuff
Just to Reiterate

(Thanks to John Hawkins)

Slap Happy

After tuning into the middle of a news report about this, I kept wondering why some of the victims didn’t retaliate. Soon enough I realized that this phenomenon was happening in the UK.

Welcome to the disturbing world of the "happy slappers" - a youth craze in which groups of teenagers armed with camera phones slap or mug unsuspecting children or passersby while capturing the attacks on 3g technology. According to police and anti-bullying organisations, the fad, which began as a craze on the UK garage music scene before catching on in school playgrounds across the capital last autumn, is now a nationwide phenomenon.

And as the craze has spread from London to the home counties to the north of England, so the attacks have become more menacing, with increasing numbers of violent assaults and adult victims. [SNIP]

Earlier this month James Silver, 34, a freelance journalist, was attacked while jogging on the South Bank in London. While one youth blocked his path, another hit him with a rolled-up magazine.

When he spun around another teenager - who had been hiding behind nearby scaffolding - leapt out and hit him hard in the head. When he staggered to his feet he noticed the rest of the gang were jeering and pointing their mobile phones at him.

Silver admits that while the attack left his "ego smarting" he did not think it worth reporting. "At the end of the day I was unharmed but it was pretty shocking at the time," he said. "The worry is that while the bulk of the attacks are trivial, some of these youths could be carrying knives."

Somehow I don’t think this fad will migrate over the Atlantic. There are too many people here carrying weapons more lethal than five fingers, a sweaty palm and/or a knife.

(Thanks to Marty Card)

The Latest Thing

You know, if it weren’t for certain events that occurred three and a half years ago, many of us might be lamenting the fact that this man isn’t president, merely for his entertainment value. Then again, maybe not.

"This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry is actually a throwback to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the first place," Gore said as many in the audience stood and applauded.

The former vice president made this remark before a MoveOn.org gathering in reference to the on-going senate stand-off regarding President Bush's nominees to the appellate courts. According to the article, former Vice President Gore believes that religious grops such as James Dobson's Focus on the Family are driving the president's efforts in some presumably unethical manner; presumably because VP Gore doesn't get into provable specifics. Just *saying* it is enough.

During the last two presidential campaigns the Democrat candidates campaigned openly in churches and no one turned a hair (well almost no one). Senator John Kerry and the former vice-president himself worked their nauseating black-preacher shtick a few times while black church parisioners clapped and smiled. (In all fairness, however, I did notice that some of those smiles looked forced.)

But religious “zealotry” is out; at least if it’s Christian and "rightwing."

Does anyone else find it odd that rightwing Christians are more feared in this country than are the extremist adherents of the Islam that ideologically fueled the 9/11 attacks and continue to fuel Al Quaeda in Iraq?

(Thanks to LGF)

Black Like Me

Thomas Sowell explores an old subject with a new perspective.

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both. [SNIP]

[E]ven if a racist somehow let his racism stop at the water's edge, how could he tell which student was the son or daughter of someone born in the West Indies or in Africa, especially since their American-born offspring probably do not even have a foreign accent? [SNIP]

Slavery also cannot explain the difference between American blacks and West Indian blacks living in the United States because the ancestors of both were enslaved. When race, racism, and slavery all fail the empirical test, what is left?

Culture is left.

My Jamerican friend whose father has owned a dry cleaning franchise since the sixties says: "Who cares who likes you? As long as they get out of your way."

Read more.

(Thanks to Laura Ingraham)

Not Another One

One of my favorite radio talkshow hosts, Laura Ingraham, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's in a couple of the risk categories: over forty and no children (yes, I know). My prayers go out for her.

Remember, ladies; do that monthly check.

What Did I Tell You?

Get a load of this:

The girl was to return to the classroom today, but her mother said that won't happen. "She's never going back to that school," Inda Akins said Thursday evening from her apartment on 39th Lane S. "They set my baby up."

(Emphasis mine.)

Ah, the legacy of Marion Berry.

The 31-year-old single mother of three said she is consulting an attorney.

(Emphasis mine.)

No I’m not clairvoyant. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to figure out that there is no father in the home in which this little girl grows up. As Dark Star alludes in the last post on this subject, a good Dad is the Regulator; the Maker and the Enforcer of the Rules. Mom can do this also, but something about Dad gives him a natural authority in a child’s eyes. Example: even as an infant, my little sister would immediately stop crying whenever my dad spoke, no matter how wet, how hungry or how PO’d she was.

But in the Akins home, not only is there no father, the “mother” can’t even make a decent show at trying to regulate her offspring.

As [Akins] spoke, her three children rambled through the apartment. The girl, the oldest child, rode a pink bicycle through the living room, one of the training wheels missing. Her brother got up on a table and swatted a light fixture, laughing.

Recall the video of the little girl climbing on the classroom table. Riding a bike in the living room? There is no discipline in that home!

And of course everything is that awful assistant principal’s fault.

Akins, whose last name is different from her daughter's, blamed the assistant principal, Nicole Ross Dibenedetto. She accused Dibenedetto of harping on the girl to the point where she "acted up" in class. "Ever since I told her to stay away from my daughter, there's [sic] been problems."

That’s right. No part of this incident is the mother’s fault. And this woman expected the assistant principal of her daughter’s school to stay away from one of her students. This gives us an idea of the mentality these school officials have to put up with.

I feel really sorry for all three of Akins’ offspring.

It’s still hard to accept seeing police officers put handcuffs a five-year-old and I still think that they went overboard. However, it becomes more evident that any method of resolving this situation would have come out badly.

Because only the symptom of the problem would have been treated.

I don't know if the girl has emotional problems or not. But I'm willing to wager that she will carry her problems to the next school that she attends. No kid can prosper without discipline.

In ten or fifteen years, I predict that Inda Akins will be saying the same sorts of things to the press after the Law hauls off one of her offspring for real.

Scratch School-Teaching Off the List

Question

How do the photos in this post appear to you ? I'm getting various appearance complaints--from their alleged size to some flatness--but they appear perfectly normal to me, both in size and in proportion; and they load just fine. I need some feedback.

An Arduous Task

Here's a multi-post Bear Flag League Roundup by Justene at CalBlog. Eighty-one blogs and counting!

Seeing the Sights

Spring is in the air, at least on this coast. I finally have a new camera and got to test it out this weekend.

Those are the faces of past Laker glory: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kurt Rambis and James Worthy. These buildings are at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street, across the street from the Staples Center. A few years back, the images were of Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher (IIRC for the last one). Also gracing these buildings in the past were the images of the great Laker centers: Wilt Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar and O’Neal. With last year’s departure of O’Neal and this dismal non-playoff year, I figure it will be a while before any current Lakers are immortalized here.
This is the sea of moonbattery humanity at the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books located at UCLA. I’ve been going there every year for the last four years, mainly as an excuse to check out UCLA’s book store and to climb the steps of Mount Sileah the main drag without dropping dead. In 2003, however, I happened to run into a college friend whom I hadn’t seen since 1980. He was hawking his novel. (Seeing him do that was part of what spurred me to blog.)The guy holding this sign was only too happy for me to take a photo of it. Nothing like free advertising. Hopefully, the author will write a follow-up about what to do when called in to court for back child-support payments. "Don't do the crime...."This line-up sat at the Libreria Martinez Books And Arts booth. I simply took their photo because they Looked Like Authors more than anyone else I saw there.This year, I had great reason to attend the festival. One of the highlights of the weekend was saying hello to and shaking hands with the fedora-less Roger L. Simon. Go check out his series on the UN Oil-For-Food Scandal.

UPDATE: Little Miss Attila attended the LAT Festival of Books panel discussions; one including Roger, the other including Hugh Hewitt. Both gentlemen came out of the closet, so to speak.

UPDATE: Better?

Scratch School-Teaching Off the List

What is happening down there in Florida?

While watching this incident on the tube a few hours ago, I remember thinking that, had I acted in this manner some thirty-nine years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week. (Remember that threat?)

The videotaped altercation with a 5-year-old girl who was hauled off in handcuffs following an extended tantrum at her St. Petersburg, Fla., school has led to questions about whether the police overreacted.[SNIP]

The footage starts in [teacher Christina] Ottersbach's classroom, where assistant principal Nicole Dibenedetto and teacher Patti Tsaousis were trying to calm the girl down and get her to clean up a mess that she had made.

Ottersbach is not in the room, having pulled her other students out of the classroom because of the girl's unseen outburst, leaving just the three.

"This is your mess to clean up. We need you to stop. You may not do this," Dibenedetto patiently but firmly told the girl, who stubbornly refused.

Eventually, the girl did start cleaning up the mess, but then she refused to leave the room. Only when Dibenedetto and Tsaousis asked her to make a choice before they counted to five did she finally leave with them.

Things evidently did not improve after that, however. The tape cuts to Dibenedetto's office, which has been trashed, apparently by the girl. She is seen ripping papers off the wall and refusing Dibenedetto's requests that she stay seated in a chair.

The girl even becomes violent at that point, taking numerous swings at Dibenedetto, who only puts her hands up to block the girl's punches.

The only other time the assistant principal touches the girl is when the child twice climbs onto a table, and the woman lifts her off and puts her back on the floor, on her feet.

Shortly after that, voices are heard saying that police have arrived. The girl sits down in the chair and remains there as three uniformed St. Petersburg police officers walk in.

"Do you remember me?" one of them asks the girl. "I'm the one who told your mom I'd put handcuffs on you."

When the little girl was handcuffed, she understandably began screaming and struggling with the officers. However, that last statement obviously suggests that the mother and the police have been called about this kid before.

(Was this a special education class? To my unlearned eye, this little girl is in need of special ed., in need of medication or both. Most normal five-year-olds don’t hit at the teacher and yell ‘no’ when the teacher asks her to clean up her own mess. This five-year-old sounded and acted like a toddler.)

One thing I find interesting is this next statement by the girl’s family attorney, John Trevena:

"I'm concerned that the educators shadowed and hovered around the young girl," he said. "It certainly gives credence to the argument that they may have been provoking her to act out more. To me, it didn't look like a de-escalation. It looked like an escalation, an attempt to get her to act out more. I just don't understand why they didn't distance themselves back further and allow things to cool off."

Attorneys. I suppose if the educators had backed off and let the girl injure herself, that it would have been just peachy keen and he would have never sued the school for negligence.

Yes, handcuffing a five-year-old is going overboard. But if that is certainly out of the question, what should the teacher do if the parent doesn't show up right away? They can’t spank the kids the way they could and did when I was a wee one. According to the attorney, the teachers can’t even “hover.” All of a sudden a kid is guaranteed her “space” when she disrupts the classroom so much that all of the other students have to be evacuated. Meanwhile, no one is learning.

And, as is evitable in stories like these, I find no mention of this little girl’s father.

Video

(Thanks to Wizbang)

Officials Warned About BTK Harassment

(Note to Senate Foreign Relations Committee: the following story is about real harassment and about how the harassed handle the grievance; right away, not ten years later.)

They say that there’s this thing called ‘woman’s intuition.’ However, a Kansas woman named Mary Capps didn’t need to employ it to know that something wasn’t right with her boss, a man named Dennis Rader, now thought to be the serial killer known as BTK. Before his arrest in February of this year, Dennis Rader, the accused BTK serial killer, had been accused by Capps of harassment and worse several times.

"Dennis was a very difficult person to get along with," said Capps, a 45-year-old single mother. [ed. note: BTK seems to have particular anger against single women and preyed upon them.] [SNIP]

She says he discriminated against her because she is a woman. With her lawyer, Tad Wagner, she is filing complaints with state and federal commissions alleging a hostile work environment.

Wagner said they also are investigating how she suffered a series of unexplained ailments while working for Rader in a two-person compliance office.

Wagner has requested records from Park City about purchases and use of tranquilizers in animal control, one of the duties of the compliance office.[SNIP]

In an interview with The Eagle this week, Capps said that starting in 2001, she began to suffer muscle spasms. She had trouble concentrating. She sometimes missed work.

It's possible some of her symptoms could be from work-related stress, Wagner said.

Capps said her ailments ceased Feb. 24.

Rader’s arrest was announced on February 26.

Ms. Capps had filed three complaints against Rader and was in the process of filing a fourth when Rader was arrested. She is also taking legal action against Park City, Kansas officials, whom she says did nothing about the situation between her and Rader.

Capps' lawyer, Ted Wagner, said Capps has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Park City "for their failure to respond to a hostile work environment." Another complaint is being prepared for the Kansas Human Rights Commission, he said.

Capps alleges that when she complained verbally about Rader to other city officials, she was derided as suffering from menstrual symptoms. Charming. This is the sort of stuff that keeps harassed women from coming forward.

Hopefully all you high government officials out there will check it out thoroughly when someone says her boss is a jerk. It might save your city/state/etc. some money, not to mention saving a few lives.

Language Deterioration

Speaking a second langauge is not like riding a bicycle. You still recognize words here and there, but active understanding and usage requires practice, practice, practice.

After hearing about her arrival in Moscow, I had wondered whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was going to use a translator, in spite of the fact that she speaks Russian. Looks as though she should have used one.

Condoleezza Rice tried out her rusty Russian in a Moscow radio interview Wednesday, only to get caught out by a question on whether she might run for president.

"Da (Yes)," Rice answered in Russian, before realizing her misunderstanding and hastily adding "Nyet" (No) -- seven times. [SNIP]

Apparently meaning to say that she would like to do her next interview in the language of her host, she chose a verb that sounded more like "to earn money" than the Russian for "to do."

"You understand it will be very difficult because I am out of practice, and in your language there are these awful cases!" she continued. "It's very difficult for us, and it is very difficult to talk without making mistakes."

Actually, this makes me feel better. I used to speak fairly decent Russian as well. (Cases! ARRGGHH!!!) Now I only remember enough to tell you how плохой my язык is. (I can still leave you pretty well cussed-out, however.)

Perhaps it’s time for a refresher course; for both of us, but for the SOS especially. A shot of vodka before class helps; believe me.

(Thanks to Boi from Troy)

Papal Hot News Flashes (UPDATED)

Pope Benedict XVI is German.

Germany used to be run by some guy named Adolph Hitler.

Adolph Hitler oversaw the deaths of millions of Jews (not to mention millions of others).

Pope Benedict XVI was born in 1927.

World War Two started in 1939.

Hitler started World War II.

Pope Benedict XVI (then Josef Ratzinger) was a member of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). Entrance was indeed voluntary; you either entered or you (and your family) went into a concentration camp. (For the impaired: that’s sarcasm.)

Pope Benedict XVI was drafted into the German Army in 1943. He deserted near the end of the war.

Pope Benedict XVI was eighteen years old when WWII ended. (One had to be eighteen years old to be a Nazi party regular.)

So why is all of this so important to those at the London Times?

[ed. note: publish before the vote] The wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

Even—or perhaps I should say especially--the people at the Jerusalem Post do not have a problem with the new Pope and the “accident” of his nationality and the time of his birth.

If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.

If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.

As for the Hitler Youth issue, not even Yad Vashem has considered it worthy of further investigation. Why should we?

One wonders whether The Times was attempting to take advantage of the general ignorance about the history of that era, which exists even on the continent where the principle events occurred.

This isn't so surprising, however, since it appears that the new pontiff is also catching additional...um...hell for being Catholic.

UPDATE: Lileks says,

At the risk of sounding sacreligious: it’s the Catholic Church, for Christ’s sake!

UPDATE: The Anchoress says,

[M]ost of this is just a temper tantrum against the church-that-won’t-go-away

UPDATE:One of Tim Blair's commenters says,

Too bad [Pope Benedict] wasn’t a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang: the moonbats would be lining up to kiss his Papal slippers.

Cross-posted at In Search of Utopia

And The Vatican Rolls On

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," [...]"Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. A dictatorship of relativism is established that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."

--Josef Cardinal Ratzinger

Faster than a speeding senate committee, the Catholic Church elects a successor to Pope John Paul II.

To all my Catholic friends: Congratulations on the election of your new leader, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, a German.

The new Pope even has a pre-existing fan club. Here’s a link to the fan club biography, but don’t try to get on the site today.

UPDATE: More on Benedict XVI; Wikipedia works quickly.

Even Obnoxious People Have to Work

A couple choses to protest the Iraq war by hanging an effigy of a soldier in front of their Sacramento, California home. Do I hate it? Sure. Did it have me fuming the first time I heard about it? Of course. However that’s not what this post is about. It isn’t about whether or not the effigy is offensive, is in poor taste or is an example of hate speech. It isn’t even about whether Stephen and Virginia Pearcy—the couple in question--are merely asserting their free speech rights.

The subject matter is this: contacting a subject’s employer when that subject says or does something you don’t like. This blogger didn’t actually contact the Pearcys’ employers himself, but encouraged encouraged his readers to do so.

Unless a person is jeopardizing life, limb, liberty and/or property, contacting his/her employer--while not illegal per se--is a juvenile, tacky ploy and, according to a few lawyers with which I’m acquainted, possibly actionable. As loathsome as I find the Pearcys’ method of free expression in this manner, contacting their employers about it has ‘cheap shot’ written all over it.

On the other hand, the Pearcys should be reminded that free speech doesn’t go hand-in-hand with freedom from the consequences of that speech. They may be able to take all kinds of legal action against those who have torn down the image or otherwise vandalized their home decor, but I can’t believe that they didn’t know that they would catch all manner of flak for the effigy, if only from their neighbors. The cynic in me says it was an attention-getting ploy. A blogger can’t get too mad at that.

And look! It’s working.

(Thanks to Digger’s Realm)

Cross-posted in edited form at In Search of Utopia

Phobia

My most recent one: an aversion to sitting in a chair in front of a computer (hey, spring is beautiful in Southern California). I'll be back Tuesday at the very latest (it's mandatory).

South Park Character

Never watched the show, but making this was fun.

The Queen of All I Survey...at least in my living room.

(Thanks to Dean)

A Big, Ugly Whoopsie

Guess what? A real-life version of a Captain Trips-type influenza virus really does exist and may be a threat.

WASHINGTON — A dangerous strain of the flu virus that caused a worldwide pandemic in 1957 was sent to thousands of laboratories in the United States and around the world, triggering a frantic effort to destroy the samples to prevent an outbreak, health officials revealed Tuesday.

Because the virus is easily transmitted from person to person and many people have no immunity to it, the discovery has raised alarm that it could cause another deadly pandemic if a laboratory worker became infected, officials said.

As a result, health authorities were working to make sure all samples are destroyed and to monitor anyone who may have come into contact with the virus for signs of illness, officials said.

“This virus could cause a pandemic,” said Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization’s top flu expert. “We are talking about a fully transmissible human influenza virus to which the majority of the population has no immunity. We are concerned.”[SNIP]

The virus, known as an H2N2 strain, killed 1 million to 4 million people worldwide in 1957 and 1958, including about 70,000 in the United States. Because the virus has not circulated in the wild since 1968, anyone born after then would have no natural immunity to it. Since then the virus has been kept only in high-security biological laboratories.

Of course, the danger has its genesis in human error.

The problem arose when Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati, a private company, sent a panel of virus samples to about 3,700 laboratories, some in doctors’ offices, to be tested as part of routine quality-control certification conducted by the College of American Pathologists.

An additional 2,750 laboratories, all in the United States, received the samples and were asked to destroy them, CDC spokesman Dan Rutz said.

The panel samples usually include only strains of the flu virus that are relatively benign, Stohr said. “We would consider this an unwise and unfortunate decision.”

The mistake came to light March 25 when the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, identified the virus.

Stephen King: prophet? Or merely an accurate predictor of Murphy’s Law(s)?

After hearing about this on the TV news, I toyed with the idea of not posting about it. No need in contributing to panic. But my nieces and nephews were born well after 1968--heck, their parents were born after that—and so were most of your kids, readers, so I figure that knowledge is power even if the only power to resolve the situation is received from prayer.

Serendipity

The kerfuffle regarding the Conservative Brotherhood at Wizbang has yielded a lot of comments and some interesting posts and outcomes at other blogs.

Here's proof that good things often come unexpectedly: David Anderson, a liberal/leftist blogger and Cobb--the Conservative Brotherhood was his brainchild--have cleared up a misunderstanding and buried the hatchet like the classy gentlemen they are.

Jeremy Pierce of Parablemania articulates the reasoning behind the existence of the CB quite well.

One reason we can pretty much know that this isn't some kind of separatist notion of gathering together to the exclusion of all others is just from observing an empirical fact. Most of the members of the Conservative Brotherhood have mostly white readers, and many of them belong to some of the blog alliances I've already mentioned that have nothing to do with race. Most of the links from CB blogs go to blogs by white people. I'm sure at least most of them spend lots of time reading and commenting on blogs by white people. This is not isolation. It's not exclusion. It's not separatism. It's a formation of an alliance from a shared background for a very particular purpose. That purpose requires that the people allying in this case be black.

Additionally, he points out that if CB’s aim was to separate itself from others, that at least one member has an odd way of demonstrating this alleged goal.

The fact that one of the members is married to a white man, is watering down what's left of African ancestry in her genes through reproduction that has led to kids whose skin tone looks like that of some Italians, and has mostly white friends, at least of those in town, just shows how silly these claims are.

And Jack at Random Fate doesn’t quite get it, but, unlike some others, is open to getting it, which is all one human being can ask of another.

I always am searching for my brothers and sisters of the heart. I don't give a damn what color their skin is or the shape of their eyes or noses or mouths are.

In this, as in most other things, it appears I have little if any company.

I, at least, am with you, Jack. You do acknowledge in your post, however, the complexity of race issues as they exist today. Today, the types of overt enemies against whom you battled are toothless. (I was going to say Senator Robert Byrd notwithstanding, but at his age, he’s probably literally toothless also; his political clout is another matter, however.) Closed-mindedness is the enemy that has teeth now.

Perhaps saying this will ease the complexity a bit: as is so for like nearly any other type of topic, race issues aren’t static. Sometimes the dimensions are interracial, sometimes intra-racial; sometimes social issues are at the forefront, other times political issues upstage all others. Sometimes there might be a combination of these forces at work or none of them.

Unlike in the Klan rally you disrupted (heh), one can’t run over a blind spot in the thinking (no matter how much one may wish it were so). And that enemy is what many of all hues and perspectives are facing. Conservatives who happen to be black merely get their own flavor of stereotype, often from people in their own families (see Jeremy's post). Other groups (for example, white southern males) have other kinds of stereotypes leveled at them. The stereotypers may be different, but one trait they likely share, I'll bet, is the inability to see past their own noses and past previously received "wisdom."

All of you: well done, gentlemen.

Administrative note: tomorrow is the last day of school and my school work is done, so I’ll probably get back to doing some original posting after I come back from my appointment to have my head examined eyes checked.

UPDATE: Speaking of heads in need of examination... ;-)

Associations

Some people get nervous when too many blacks gather in one place.

Jay Tea at Wizbang gives the Conservative Brotherhood its props (thanks, Jay Tea). Some of the commenters, however, think that people who associate with each other based on a shared culture (in this case black American) and interests are racist.

I wonder whether these same persons considers this group racist.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Are the above groups “shutting themselves off” from others? Is the Italian writers' group saying that, somehow, being Italian boosts the quality of their writing? (These were the things said about the Conservative Brotherhood's reason for being.) Or have the Italian-American writers merely gathered in one place because they have something unique to say about their experiences of being Italian-American?

Do black Americans get to acknowledge that the culture in which they have often been nurtured and in which they may find themselves in at the moment might be different from that of their countrymen in some respects?

Or have we become so politically correct—even on the right side of the political spectrum—that it’s not said in polite company?

Perhaps the reaction to the Conservative Brotherhood has a far simpler explanation; in the minds of some, anything that is all-black brings unconscious negative connotations. Hence the “cutting yourselves off” assumption and the totally ridiculous assertion that we were equating race with writing ability. No ethnically Hawaiian or Dutch-American association would ever have to contend with such negative stereotypes. (The Arab American group linked above, however, would, but of a different sort.)

I suppose I'm "cutting myself off" when I associate with Milbloggers or Bear Flag Leaguers also.

Consider this: the fact that the CB is conservative should be a clue that many of the other preconceived notions that people have about an all-black group might need to be thrown out of the window also.

But there are always those few who can't/won't get it. Oh well.

UPDATE:

More from Cosenvative Brotherhood members Cobb, Michael King and Samantha Pierce

And the CB has added three new members (see sidebar).

UPDATE:

Ambra and Molotov weigh in.

Hubris?

What are the Republicans smoking these days?

Now we have Rep. James Sensenbrenner III (WI) suggesting that broadcasters who are accused of violating FCC decency regulations be tried as criminals.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner III, R-Wis., told cable industry executives attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. conference here on Monday that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations.

“I’d prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process,” Sensenbrenner told the executives.

Hey guy, aren’t you taking that so-called Republican mandate thing a little too far? Even people who don’t subscribe to and have no plans on subscribing to the triple X channels--or even HBO--think it’s stupid and dangerous to criminalize displays of compartmentalized forms of indecency. It isn’t as though broadcasters are planning to flash breasts from the humongous public TV screens.

“People who are in flagrant disregard should face a criminal process rather than a regulator [sic] process,” Sensenbrenner said. “That is the way to go. Aim the cannon specifically at the people committing the offenses, rather than the blunderbuss approach that gets the good actors.

When a specific violator of an FCC decency standard is fined, how are “good actors” affected by that fine?

Yes, broadcast channels should be regulated for decency and violators should pay in some manner—up to having the license suspended/revoked even--but criminalizing offenses that do not deprive individuals or groups of life, limb, liberty and/or property is a place where we do not want to go..

And before someone comments that Rep. Sensenbrenner is only target broadcast stations, look who else was in attendance.

Although cable and satellite TV are not covered by the indecency statutes, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, have said they want to bring multichannel programmers into the legal mix.

Stevens attended the convention Sunday, when he met with top cable industry executives, sources said. The executives hoped to persuade Stevens to back off, the sources said.

Senator Stevens has been talking up fining cable and satellite companies for indecency for a few months now.

In this country, adults should have the freedom to pollute their minds in their own homes and whoever may want to sell them that pollution should not have to suffer monetarily for it, much less be criminalized. I may think that this sort of thing is distasteful and even sinful, but guess what? As long as no children are seeing graphic programs and as long as the programs are not up for free public consumption, it’s not my business, nor is it that of the government.

I don’t have Republican congressional representatives, but many of you do. Write to them and tell them to ease up on this sort of thing.

Didn’t congress waste enough time and money on the steroid hearings?

(Thanks to Jeff Goldstein)

UPDATE: Joel of No Pundit Intended says that Rep. Sensenbrenner's intent is to criminalize *individual* offenders rather than broadcast/cable/satellite licensees. If true, I'd call that almost worse. Can you see individuals earning a criminal record for purposefully dropping the F-bomb on TV, as Shaquille O'Neal infamously did in an impromtu interview last season?

Some observers, even Republicans, lamented that it was dangerous for one party to hold the executive branch and both houses of congress. This kind of thing demonstrates why.

Sunday Musings

So if I let my hair grow can I still call myself ‘Baldilocks?’ I’ve got a TWA* growing and I like it. (My Dad will be happy. He’s always hated my shaved pate.)

Drawback: there are a lot more grays up there than there were the last time I let my hair grow. Such is old bagdom.

Last August, I called up one of my sisters on her birthday. She had turned thirty-four. Though I’m the eldest, I greeted her with a hearty “Hey, ya old bag!”

Sis (laughs; then gently): “Well…you’re older…”

Me: “You mean I’m baggier.”

*****

Some years ago, after a breakfast outing with my mom and my great aunt, we were walking out of the restaurant as an old man and his wife were walking in. Suddenly I heard him say, “excuse me, excuse me!” It turned out that he was talking to me. He pointed his finger at me and said:

“I just want to tell you that what you’re doing to your hair is a sin. It’s in the Bible.”

Before I could reply, my mother and my aunt tried to get me to walk away and leave it alone. For some reason, they thought that I was going to flip out and swear at the man, though I had never acted that way before. Perhaps they thought that a good cussing-out was what he deserved. Perhaps the look on my face—probably pure fury--made them misread my intention. However, I finally got them both to be quiet so I could say what was on my mind.

I stepped to him and pointed my finger back at him:

“It’s people like you--who don’t know what they’re talking about—that drive others away from God, the Bible and the church. And I’m willing to bet that God will not forget.”

Perhaps I cursed him after all.

*TWA=Teeny Weeny Afro

The Old Man's Birthday

Happy birthday, Daddy and see you next week!

Berger's Slap on the Wrist

Okay, so maybe Sandy Berger’s booty didn’t have handwritten notes.

Some people won't let a bad conspiracy theory go. We're referring to those who loudly assert that former NSC adviser Sandy Berger was trying to protect the Clinton Administration when he illegally removed copies of sensitive documents from the National Archives in late 2003.

Okay, so maybe only copies were destroyed.

On Wednesday, we quoted Justice Department prosecutor Noel Hillman that no original documents were destroyed, and that the contents of all five at issue still exist and were made available to the 9/11 Commission.

One problem: we only have Mr. Berger’s word that all of the copies were destroyed. How many copies were there again?

Another problem: a copy of a classified document has the same information on it as does the original (obviously), so, guess what? It’s just as classified as the original; it’s essential considered the same as an original document, falls under the same rules and is handled in the same manner.

Yet another problem: it’s illegal to destroy classified material in an improper manner and without proper authorization. Cutting up classified material with scissors is definitely an improper manner. (Being a former national security adviser does not mean that one has proper authorization. One can’t merely do what one wants with items involving national security due to past office. One reason among many: a former NSA isn't all the way in the loop as to the current importance of all classified information.)

Now, I’m not saying that Sandy Berger sold the copies to Al Quaeda or Li’l Kim of North Korea. What I am saying is that he should have been handled in the same manner that the average soldier/sailor/airman/marine with a Top Secret security clearance would have been handled—whether the deed was "accidental" or not. He should have been jailed and/or stripped of his security clearance for much longer than three years; this is what would have happened to the lowly civilian analyst who had done the same thing.

Meanwhile, conservatives don't do themselves any credit when they are as impervious to facts as the loony left.

It may not be a leftwing (or rightwing) conspiracy, editors of the Wall Street Journal, but it stinks in much the same manner as former President Clinton's national security failures and oversights did. So, WSJ, while you're berating your readers for their tin-foil hatted theories, you might want to note that Berger's proposed sentence doesn't do much to make us normal folk believe in equal justice, especially those of us who have actually held security clearances.

Previous Berger Burglary Posts:

Berger Begs
Asking the Experts?
More on Berger

UPDATE: Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Servant-Leader Honored

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. [SNIP]

The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer , is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?”

--Robert Greenleaf, Servant as Leader

When I was more cynical, I used to wonder at the fact that when those who are considered heroes get their accolades, there are always people available to say what a great person they are/were. Then it dawned on me (duh) that the type of person that would do what the latest Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) recipient did, would often have other traits that would cause others to label him/her ‘great:’ the whole complement of virtues.

Here is part of the CMH citation for the late Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith. (President Bush presented the medal to SFC Smith's widow and his two children on April 4, 2005, the two-year anniversary of the sergeant's heroic sacrifice.)

As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60mm mortar round. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers.

This Has Potential (UPDATED)

Don’t forget. The bloggers of INDC Journal and Protein Wisdom have their weekly gabfest on RightTalk Radio today at 3PM EST.

Today’s guests: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, Rob Harrison of Our Hobbit Hole and Oliver Willis of Oliver Willis. Yawn.

Just kidding! Pop some popcorn.

UPDATE: BAM!!!! First we get to hear two dorks going back and forth in the New Energized Tone.

Oliver was a no-show, but we got to find out some of Charles' personal views on the WOT, the Bush Administration and the potential domestic Islamist threat. Additionally, we got to find out which set of roadies had the best pharmaceuticals between those of Stanley Clarke, George Duke and Al Jarreau (Charles is a Jazz guitarist).

And most importantly, we got to find out the intricacies of building a Hobbit hole for the veritcally-challenged hairy foot set. I'm sure the folks at It Comes in Pints enjoyed that segment.

The show is still finding its theme, but the charm of its hosts can keep it afloat for a while.

Next Week: Ace of Spades

Mrs. Smash Hurt

Mrs. Smash had an accident. She’s okay, but in the hospital, in some (medicated) pain and may have a hard road ahead of her.

THE VERTEBRAE are designed to protect the spinal column. When she fell off her horse, my wife's L1 vetebra compressed like a cardboard box -- but her spinal column remained intact.

Send the Smashes your prayers and your well-wishes.

Carter and Corzine (UPDATED)

Air Force One, which is carrying President Bush, Mrs. Bush, President Clinton, President Bush the elder and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has probably already landed in Rome; its occupants there to attend the Friday funeral of Pope John Paul II, of course.

From the moment the subject was broached concerning how many people would be in the presidential delegation to the funeral, it was reported that The Vatican deemed that only five could be in the delegation. Logically those members would be the sitting president, his wife and the three living former presidents who had received Pope John Paul II in the White House met with Pope John Paul II. When the fifth person turned out to be Condi Rice instead of President Carter, however, I knew it wouldn’t be long before a faux controversy got stirred up. Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) did not disappoint.

When asked about President Carter's absense from the delegation, The Carter Center said that the White House had “reached out” to President Carter, but when he found out how small the delegation would be, the former president declined.

"We would have been more than happy to have him," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We reached out to former President Bush, former President Clinton and former President Carter to be part of the delegation. It was his decision to make."

I suspect that he wished to take Mrs. Carter with him. If so, why? President Bush’s mother and Senator Clinton aren’t even on the plane. (I also suspect that this is also a plausible reason for Jimmy Carter to stay out of company among which he’d rather not be. That roundtrip DC-Rome jaunt is a long time to spend among one’s adversaries.)

All was well. That is, however, until Senator Corzine stirred the pot with his foot. Allegedly he said this (no link yet):

“[I am] livid over the petty way in which the White House has snubbed President Carter.”

Way to plant disinformation in the public mind, Senator. The White House says there was no snub, the Carter Center says there was no snub, but if you pretend that there was one, those who don’t look into dispensed information will believe it.

Meanwhile, Air Force One lands in Rome and up to three million will have viewed the pontiff's body by the end of Thursday.

UPDATE: The bit of propaganda is so insidious that even some of the righties have been hoodwinked about "poor" President Carter.

UPDATE: Factual error in main post about the presidential-pontifical meetings corrected.

UPDATE: Former President Carter:

"There has been no dissension between me and the White House concerning the pope's funeral..."

But some people simply refuse to believe that President Bush didn't simply tell the former president to swim to Rome:

Although the White House extended the invitation in a letter, they argue, the Republicans did not offer it in spirit.

"The White House is making a blunder by not having Jimmy Carter come with them," said Douglas Brinkley, author of the Carter biography, "The Unfinished Presidency." "Carter has taken a real tilt leftwards. He's the most credible antiwar, anti-Iraq critic globally, and I just don't think Bush and Rice really feel like being in his company." [SNIP]

The aide said the White House indeed called Carter asking if he'd like to join the U.S. delegation, and Carter replied that he would. But, according to the aide, the White House soon called back saying the small group did not include former presidents. So Carter backed out, figuring the seat was needed for someone else, the aide said.

The White House called once more, saying the first President Bush would, in fact, attend, the aide said. But the aide said Carter declined once more, thinking it was understandable that the president's father would go and assuming the guest list was essentially closed. The aide said that when Carter learned Clinton was going too, it was too late, and thus the former president became visibly absent from the group.

There are those who will take offense to the wind blowing and will even create offense out of their own mistaken assumptions. Don't forget this. (And, yes, Republicans do it too. See Schiavo memo outcome, an imperfect analogy. I may blog about this later.)

And Democracy Rolls On

Jim Hake of Spirit of America and blogger Michael Totten are in Beirut, Lebanon, doing good works.

From Jim:

I'm in Beirut, Lebanon to kick off a project to support the pro-democracy demonstrators at the "tent city" in Martyrs' Square.
Their goals are independence (i.e., Syria out of Lebanon) and free and fair elections. The tent city demonstrators are the center of gravity for Lebanon's pro-democracy movement. They are leading the charge. They put together the massive demonstrations 3 weeks ago.

As they go, so goes Lebanon's independence. And so goes a great opportunity for democratic transformation of the Middle East and Arab world.

They need our help to sustain their struggle. Our project is raising support for them (food, shelter, water, etc.) While I'm here we're looking into other things to help (e.g., Internet access at tent city)

From Michael:

Spirit of America Founder Jim Hake and I landed in Beirut, Lebanon in the middle of the night and spent all day Tuesday talking with leaders of the democratic opposition.

What we're doing here is raising money to help the opposition as they oust the Syrian military and intelligence personnel from the country, demand (and hopefully get) an international inquiry into the death of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, and hold truly free and fair elections in May without the interference of a foreign dictatorship.

We're focusing our efforts on the residents of the semi-permanent tent-city that has been built on Martyr's Square, a mere two blocks from Parliament, where the opposition leaders say they will continue to reside until their country is a sovereign liberal democracy. They need food. They need bottled water. They need blankets. And they need the eyes of the world.

To help them, please click here. Nothing like giving to a worthy cause.

Watch Out For Grandma

Or, perhaps in the future, in some states, Grandma needs to watch out for you.

There's also a slew of legislation around living wills and other end-of-life issues that wouldn't further the aims of this emerging group [disability rights groups joining forces with right-to-life advocates] - like a Nevada measure that would let a guardian end life-sustaining measures even if it's against a patient's known wishes, as long as it's in their best interests.

(Emphasis mine; note to self: do not move to Nevada in twenty years.)

Remind me, dude; which group is it again that wants to disregard living wills?

(Thanks to XRLQ)

The Common Ailment

I've never liked Peter Jennings, but only the lowest scum of the Earth (like child molesters) deserve lung cancer and I wouldn’t even wish that on them. Well, probably not.

Get well soon, Peter.

Well, That Didn't Take Long (UPDATED)

Sniping waits for no interment.

WARSAW, April 2 (Reuters) - The controversial spokesman for Poland's past communist rulers said on Saturday he will not regret the death of Pope John Paul -- a man credited with inspiring a peaceful revolution which ended Polish communism.

"I cannot say I will regret his passing. As a godless atheist I never cared much for the church or the papacy. I disliked the fact that the Papacy bore down so heavily on Poland.”

--Jerzy Urban, Polish Communist; Previously Warsaw Pact Poland's communist government spokesman. (Bet he’s popular in Krakow right about now.)

After JPII’s death was announced, someone on some blog wondered how long it would take for Christopher Hitchens to cut loose. It turns out that it happened before the pontiff breathed his last even. (To be fair, most people guessed over a year ago that John Paul II didn’t have long to live. Mr. Hitchens has probably had this one ready to go since the January hospital trip.)

If what he says about Bernard Law is true, Mr. Hitchens definitely has a point. However, couldn’t it have waited until after the funeral? Law will still be around and the Pope definitely isn’t going anywhere; the body he used to own, anyway.

Pope John Paul II’s soul has already been before the highest law that exists.

(Thanks to Instapundit and Babalu)

UPDATE: And I question your sense of proportion and ability to read effectively. If Hitchens had been on the Vatican hierarchy in general and JPII in particular like white on rice--writing op-ed after op-ed, trying to get the US Government to put pressure on the Vatican to extradite Law--was there ever a warrant for Law's arrest?--then there would be little reason to question Christopher Hitchen's timing. The writer, however, is building a reputation for tearing down widely well-regarded figures almost from the moment they breath their last, regardless of what they may or may not have done in this life. In JPII's case, Hitchens had a 48-hour head start.

People that allow others to harm the innocent and helpless are just as evil as the actual perpetrators and, I repeat, if John Paul II did this, he has already been judged justly. (Maybe that reference slipped by you as well, Timmer.) Those who actively work to bring such people to justice here on earth are the greatest of souls. But, unless he's hiding something, Christopher Hitchens isn't one of them. Though he's often a brilliant writer, here, he's just doing his vulture schtick, not to mention his "I-hate-religion" routine.

Next Phase

It’s over, thank God. I hope that John Paul II is enjoying his reward.

UPDATE: Condolences from Mesopotamia.

John Paul II (UPDATED)

What a week, but we knew this next was coming. I’m not Catholic, but you don’t have to be to admire the man, born Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II. It appears that the rest of his life can only be measured in hours. After a health spiral started by an assassination attempt in 1981 (possibly perpetrated by the old Stasi and the KGB it’s been lately revealed) and which included Parkinson’s disease and, ironically, a feeding tube through his nose, septic shock is finally doing him in.

Mentally and spiritually, however, he has always seemed tough and sharp, which appears to have added to his physical stamina, even in its decline. Surviving Nazi and Soviet occupation of one’s homeland will do that.

Here are a few interesting facts about John Paul II’s ascendance to the Papacy:

1.After being elected Pope on October 16, 1978, he named himself after his immediate predecessor, John Paul I, who died on September 28, 1978 of a heart attack only thirty-four days after succeeding Pope Paul VI. (1978 is known as the year of the three Popes for this reason.)

2. He was the first non-Italian pope in 456 years. The last one was Pope Adrian VI, a Dutchman, who was elected in 1522 and died in 1523.

3. The election of a non-Italian seems to have been a political compromise among the then Italian-dominated cardinals. Sounds to me as if none of them trusted each other.

The 26 Italian cardinals were too sharply divided to agree on an Italian candidate and their disunity led the way to the election of a non-Italian candidate, according to the October 19 [1978] Washington Post. Although church sources said there was no bloc voting, the inability of the Italians to agree on one candidate increased Wojtyla's strength. His name had been submitted from the beginning and he added a few more votes on each ballot.

Wojtyla's acceptability to the U.S. and West German cardinals, who knew him from his tours to those countries, was said to have been crucial to his election.

They picked the cool Polish guy that everybody liked and that the Soviets would come to hate and fear. That sunny disposition was apparently a front for a spine of steel.

Along with US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II turned out to be the late USSR’s undoing. If the KGB did have a hand in the attempt on his life, it would make perfect sense. His visit to then Soviet-controlled Poland in 1979 galvanized his countrymen.

Church bells throughout Poland began to ring at 10:05 a.m., as soon as Pope John Paul II set foot on Polish soil. Upon arrival, he kissed the ground and was greeted by President Henryk Jablonski, the ceremonial head of state, and Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, primate of Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Poles lined the road from the airport to Warsaw.[SNIP]

"Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe," {said John Paul II in] an indirect rebuttal to the official atheism of communist ideology.

If you’re old enough to remember that time, you remember what a powerhouse the Soviet bloc seemed to be in those days: the 'evil empire.' Pope John Paul II has shown that he is more than some nice man wearing a white frock and a little white cap again and again, but the revelation started there. Though I despise this phrase, it fits John Paul II more than most: he spoke ‘truth to power.’ As it turned out, the power he served was infinitely stronger than that of the Soviets.

More from the 1979 visit to Poland:

As archbishop of Krakow, John Paul had visited Auschwitz many times, and he was the first Pope to travel to a Nazi camp. He called it "a place built on hatred and on contempt for man in the name of a crazed ideology, a place built on cruelty." [SNIP]

At the main Auschwitz camp, the Pope visited the cell where Reverend Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan monk, was imprisoned in July 1941. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of a Polish prisoner who had been condemned to die of starvation as punishment for the escape of another prisoner. Kolbe was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1971.

The Pope then laid a wreath and said a prayer at the Wall of Death, where an estimated 20,000 people were shot during the five years the camp was in operation.

(Emphasis mine; no comment)

The Soviets recognized what a danger he was to their grip on power in Eastern Europe.

Soviet television broadcast its first report on the Pope's visit to Poland June 3, two days after the pontiff's arrival. A commentator observed that "some circles in the Polish church...are trying to use [the visit] for anti-state purposes." Cameras showed the Pope arriving at the Warsaw airport but did not show the large crowd that turned out to welcome him.

The Soviets are gone but the Pope is still here. For the moment.

Question: Will this Pope be missed by millions, Catholic and non-Catholic alike?

Answer (sort of): Is the Pope Polish?

(All quotes come from Facts.com)

UPDATE: The Anchoress has a great roundup of Pope-blogging.

UPDATE: Don Singleton has some excellent photos of the young Karol Wojtyla and a detailed description of what happens after a pontiff goes to his reward.